Strategic Survey 2010
The Annual Review
of World Affairs
Press Statement
Arundel House, London
7 September 2010
remarks by Dr John Chipman
Director-General and Chief Executive
The International Institute for Strategic Studies, London
Introduction
Welcome to the launch of the IISS Strategic Survey for 2010.
Following this statement, we look forward to your questions
and among those providing IISS answers will be Alex Nicoll
(Editor of Strategic Survey), Adam Ward, Nigel Inkster, Dana
Allin, Oksana Antonenko, Rahul Roy Chaudhury and Toby
Dodge.
This year we have special essays on US Nuclear Policy, US
Defence Policy and Europe’s Evolving Security Architecture.
There is also an extensive examination of Latin America’s
growing global influence, an essay on the nature of domestic
Iranian politics and its impact on nuclear negotiations, an
analysis of the competing agendas within the South African
ANC, a survey of the competing interests that China seeks to
balance in its external relations, an appreciation of the current
situation in Russia and several other chapters on regional
politics and security. Our Strategic Geography section assesses
subjects as diverse as the extent of India’s Naxalite rebellion,
Thailand’s political turmoil, the effects of disasters such as the
Chilean and Haitian earthquakes, the position of the so-called
BASIC countries on climate change, and the diversity of the
territories from which al-Qaeda and its franchises operate.
The IISS 2010 Strategic Survey, like its predecessors,
is a comprehensive review of world affairs. This edition
is launched some two years into the financial crisis and
at a time when numerous countries outside the Western
world feel increasingly self-confident about their place in
international society. As many Western countries cope with
their sense of diminished financial power, others in the G20
and various powers in different regions have begun to strike
more independent foreign-policy stances. Strategic Survey
2010 argues that changes in economic and financial power
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are having geopolitical consequences and the current flux of
international affairs is not easily manageable through regional
or global institutions. Individual countries are inclined now
to make very precise calculations of their particular national
interests, and judge the virtues of international cooperation
very substantially in light of their national prospects. A sense
of financial self-reliance is melting into an appreciation of the
need for foreign policy individualism: strategic cooperation
is therefore now much more ad hoc than institutional. The
trends are clear.
The Economic and Political Context of
International Affairs Today
The post-2008 economic crisis at first inspired the near-
universal appreciation of a global challenge and the need for a
response shaped by intergovernmental coordination. By mid-
2010, Asians were referring to the recession as a ‘transatlantic’
financial failing and the G20 had to accept that each country
would judge for itself whether it would continue with fiscal
stimulus or embark on dramatic austerity budgeting. This
geoeconomic international trend also had its geostrategic
parallel. International cooperation on large strategic projects
began to stutter and a number of countries began to take
more national approaches to regional and global security
challenges. The international operation in Afghanistan was
subject to wide-ranging domestic debate on its sustainability,
and diplomacy with Iran fractured as Turkey and Brazil
developed their approaches that were ultimately ignored by
the UN P5. While the immediate risk of protectionism in the
economic realm has so far been averted, strategic protectionism
appears on the rise as more countries define their national
interests more precisely and act accordingly. This tendency

Strategic Survey 2010
The Annual Review of World Affairs
is pronounced in Asia, but also evident elsewhere, and rising
and what we call ‘super-middle powers’ are asserting their
independent interests more strongly.
The rise of strategic self-confidence in India and China
continues, though their diffidence about shaping the
international strategic agenda as opposed to just defending
their core interests slows that rise. Each, however, is more
conscious of the strategic ambitions and reach of the other.
They are sometimes brought into uncomfortable strategic
contact along their own border, in neighbouring countries
including Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, and over
competitive activities whether in cyberspace or in Africa. The
two nevertheless offer comfort to each other on the climate-
change agenda and on the need for differentiated international
approaches to developing economies. The political and
security architecture of Asia will be much shaped by how
these two powers act in the region, but also by how a group of
Asian middle powers defend their interests.
More generally, Australia, Indonesia and South Korea
appear to be interested in forms of middle-power consultation,
to ensure that their interest in a multi-polar Asia is preserved.
These three countries may in time become a diplomatic force
to be reckoned with inside Asian councils and as a protector
of a dynamic Asian polity, combining from time to time with
Japan and India. Australia, which like all countries in Asia
wants the best possible relations with China, conducts its
diplomacy in the ‘proximate region’ mindful that it cannot
rely only on the US connection to protect its interests and
defend its values. Indonesia, boosted by its G20 status and
its domestic successes, while faithful to the rigours and
protocols of ASEAN diplomacy, does not want to be uniquely
constrained by that structure in developing its wider bilateral
relations.
South Korea, in particular, seems to be developing a
brand of middle-power activism that extends beyond its own
region and mirrors the more individualistic and distinctive
approach of middle powers elsewhere. Indeed the successful
conclusion of a nuclear-power project with the United Arab
Emirates (UAE), where South Korea defeated competition
from the French nuclear industry, in essence makes South
Korea a strategic actor in the Middle East.
In Europe, it is Turkey’s diplomatic activism and
individualism that has most caught the eye. Ankara has worked
hard to improve its relations with all of its neighbours. It has
also taken a more independent line in pursuing its interests
in the Middle East. It is regarded by many, especially in the
Gulf, as an important strategic partner. Relations with Europe
and the US have sometimes been strained as a consequence
of the occasionally strident attitude that Turkey has taken
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towards Middle East issues and its souring relations with
Israel. That has not much worried Ankara, whose leadership
perceive larger advantages in being seen as a sovereign actor
than as constrained diplomatically by alliance obligations.
Indeed, while Turkey remains very committed to its long-
term ambition of EU accession, its almost Gaullist approach
to foreign policy might not be quite so easy to blend in to a
common European foreign policy, were it ever in a position
to do so.
With so many pieces of the international strategic puzzle
moving simultaneously, countries small, medium and large
are all banking more on their own strategic initiative than on
formal alliance or institutional relationships to defend their
interests and advance their goals. No one is even pretending
to make a bet only on regional or global institutions to do this
for them.
The financial crisis has certainly energised national reflexes.
With economies and nerves frayed, and the nationalisation
of foreign policy all the rage, the appetite for very ambitious
collective long-term political-military goals is limited in the
West. Liberal interventionism is hardly much trumpeted, but
more significantly, security operations generally are going
to undergo a much stricter test of necessity if they are to be
pursued and if public support for them is to be garnered and
sustained.
Afghanistan
It is therefore to be expected that the mission in Afghanistan
will undergo more public scrutiny and re-examination. The
counter-insurgency (COIN) strategy approved by President
Obama was in sum a grand strategy for Afghanistan. The goal
was very little short of a secure and stable Afghanistan. As
the campaign passes the ten-year mark, public tolerance for
the generation-length commitment that political and military
leaders in the West have sometimes spoken about is waning.
The original strategic goal was to disrupt, dismantle and
defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and prevent its return. War
aims traditionally expand, but in Afghanistan they ballooned
into a comprehensive strategy to develop and modernise the
country and its government. Defeat of the Taliban insurgency
was seen as virtually synonymous with the defeat of al-
Qaeda, even though much of its organised capacities had been
displaced to Pakistan. Many worry that the large presence of
foreign troops is what sustains and fuels the Taliban fighters.
Reconciling the insurgents to a distant government in Kabul
whose legitimacy is questioned and authority weak will be
hard. Finding a constitutional dispensation that recognises
the very loosely federal reality of Afghan regional fealty and
governance structures would require an enormous political

Strategic Survey 2010
The Annual Review of World Affairs
effort that included not just all local actors but all regional
states. That in time might be necessary. In the interim, and
as the military surge reaches its peak and begins to wind
down, it is necessary and advisable for outside powers to
move to a containment and deterrence policy to deal with the
international terrorist threat from the Afghan/Pakistan border
regions. At present, the COIN strategy is too ambitious, too
removed from the core security goals that need to be met, and
too sapping of diplomatic and military energies needed both
in the region and elsewhere.
Let us recall what British Prime Minister David Cameron
said on 14 June in a statement to the House of Commons: ‘I
am advised that the threat from al-Qaeda from Afghanistan
and Pakistan has reduced, but I am also advised that if it were
not for the current presence of UK and international coalition
forces, al-Qaeda would return to Afghanistan and the threat to
the UK would rise.’ The first part of this statement is clearly a
fact as the specific international threat from Afghanistan itself is
insignificant while that from Pakistan is being dealt with partly
by the Pakistani military and partly by the decapitating drone
strikes against elements of the al-Qaeda leadership and other
‘high value targets’ in Pakistan that are being carried out by
international forces. The second part of this statement is more
of a judgement. It is not clear why it should be axiomatically
obvious that an Afghanistan freed of an international combat
presence in the south would be an automatic magnet for al-
Qaeda’s concentrated reconstruction. Al-Qaeda leadership,
such as it is, may be quite content to stay where it is, while
Taliban leaders who remained in Afghanistan might think
twice of the advantages to them of inviting al-Qaeda back
given the experience of the last decade. At least they could be
made to think twice. The problem with judging that al-Qaeda
would just return or that the Taliban would turn itself into an
international or global threat following a major withdrawal
of coalition forces is that this presumes that no other policies
would be implemented to contain the terrorist threat from the
Afghan/Pakistan border areas or to deter it.
It is the outlines of a containment and deterrence strategy
that need now to be more firmly drawn. This is a strategy
that at some point will need to be implemented. It will be
needed as combat forces withdraw, and is one towards which
the international community could move quickly if it was
judged that there was sufficient local and regional support
for a containment and deterrence approach. Containing the
international threat from the Afghan/Pakistan border and
deterring the reconstitution of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan would,
like all such strategies, have political, diplomatic, economic
and military elements. It would require political deals in
Afghanistan and among key regional powers including
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India, Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian states. It would
entail promises of economic and development support to its
supporters as well as the threat of military strikes against
any re-concentration of international terrorist forces. It too
would be a grand strategy of sorts, but unlike the counter-
insurgency grand strategy, would not be so dependent on
orchestrating near-ideal internal political and developmental
outcomes in Afghanistan. Nor would it necessarily require
the degradation of Taliban capacities to the point of near
surrender, a prospect that is by no means immediate. A
containment and deterrence approach would be a strategy that
was limited to dealing with the threat as originally defined by
the coalition forces that intervened in Afghanistan. Outlining
such an approach earlier rather than later would demonstrate
that the long-term strategy need not depend on winning an
ever-lengthening succession of tactical local battles against an
enemy incentivised by the presence of foreign forces. It would
replace the impression that an eventual drawdown of combat
forces from Afghanistan would constitute victory for the
enemy, with the reality of a strategy that could be maintained
for a longer period while meeting the principal security goal.
The strategic debate on how to progress in Afghanistan
must be focused on:
First, structuring combat forces in Afghanistan to deter
and prevent the reconstitution of an organised terrorist threat
from within Afghanistan. This would mean their organised
redeployment to the north and the arrangement of a status
of forces agreement that would allow their intervention
in the south against any reconstitution of al-Qaeda jihadist
capacities that could pose an international threat. That may
include continued precise operations, for example, against
elements of the Haqqani network, but would not include
attacks on Taliban forces that posed no extra-provincial
threat and were open to compromises on the reach of their
power and ambitions. The military effort will have to be
concentrated on developing within Afghanistan the rapid-
reaction capacity to prevent the Taliban cooperating with al-
Qaeda in areas that they control, defend against any Taliban
effort to extend control to non-Pashtun provinces or Kabul,
and to frustrate any efforts by Taliban in Afghanistan from
effectively supporting anti-government forces in Pakistan.
The direct combat role in Afghanistan is out of proportion to
the threat that the Afghan Taliban pose outside Afghanistan.
Second, orchestrating a more con-federal Afghanistan,
where the provinces accept that formal rule and external
authority resides in the capital and the capital cedes
practical sovereignty on most issues to the provinces. A
more balanced power-sharing system would invite a less
contested political-security space. However paradoxical it

Strategic Survey 2010
The Annual Review of World Affairs
may sound, a balance of weakness between the capital and
the provinces may be more conducive to Afghan stability. It
would allow all the international cooperation in Afghanistan
that remains necessary, without investing more power in a
central government that cannot deliver. Ultimately, formal
constitutional change to acknowledge this reality, and create
a structure that simultaneously reflects Afghan provincial
primacy while supporting the strong sense of Afghan
nationhood, is vitally necessary. The political dispensation
must in effect move to a situation where the provinces have
control of their destiny but pretend to be ruled by the centre,
and the centre retains power over broad international and
financial policy but does not seek to interfere in most areas of
provincial government.
Third, the new strategy should accept that the Afghan
National Army will itself need to have a con-federal character
to it. Local forces with genuine local roots willing and able to
provide security could be badged ANA and have a stronger
chance of being successful. General Petreus has discussed
with President Karzai the creation of uniformed local security
forces already. Giving national recognition to them is a way of
demonstrating that the central government respects localism
and contributes to the respect for regional variations by a
distant central authority that is necessary.
Fourth, the US and others will have to further deepen
the engagement with Pakistan and convince Islamabad
that contact with a wide variety of actors in Afghanistan
is necessary to create a more sustainable national order.
Managing Indian and Pakistani strategic goals in the country
needs to be an important priority. A tripartite dialogue
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between Afghanistan, India and Pakistan is desirable; not
least to diminish risks that enduring conflict could escalate
to civil-war proportions. Central Asian states, Russia and
Iran will have competing concerns in Afghanistan that
will have to be reconciled, but a less ambitious coalition
military posture in Afghanistan should be used to make this
possible.
Conclusion
Strategic Survey 2010 does not seek to lay out a new
comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan. It does however
argue that for Western states to be pinned down militarily
and psychologically in Afghanistan will not be in the service
of their wider political and security interests. The challenge
of Afghanistan must be viewed and addressed in proportion
to the other threats to international security and the other
requirements for foreign-policy investment. With economic,
financial and diplomatic activity moving at such a pace
and with such varied outcomes internationally, military
operations in general have to be all the more carefully
considered. Precision and adaptability will be essential
watchwords. For heavy, large, military deployment, the
longue durée will be seen as an attitude for other times, other
centuries.
The Afghan campaign has involved not just mission creep
but mission multiplication; narrowing the political-military
engagement to core goals as described will allow for proper
attention to be paid to other areas posing international terrorist
risks, and indeed to other matters affecting international
security.