India’s No-First-Use Policy: A Reality Check

By Sanaa Alvira, WIIS Member

On the first anniversary of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s death in August 2019, India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh paid homage to the former Prime Minister in Pokhran, the site of India’s first nuclear detonation. Addressing the media, and subsequently reiterating his statements in a tweet, Singh said, “…India has strictly adhered to this doctrine [No-First-Use — NFU]. What happens in future depends on the circumstances.” While India’s commitment to NFU has a long history of debate and analysis, Singh’s statements caused quite a stir in academia and diplomatic circles alike, sparking a debate on whether India was reconsidering changing its long held support of NFU. After all, Rajnath Singh is only the second defence minister — following the late Manohar Parrikar, who openly questioned the relevance of India’s NFU (albeit only in a personal capacity) — to explicitly comment on this aspect of India’s nuclear doctrine. An article co-authored by Christopher Clary and Vipin Narang calls into question India’s commitment to NFU, analyzing whether New Delhi is now shifting its nuclear strategy to permit consideration of pre-emptive counterforce options, especially with regard to Pakistan. The authors’ substantive article presents an intriguing analysis of how India is acquiring nuclear capabilities that far exceed what is needed for credible minimum deterrence — indicating a shift in India’s overall nuclear posture and its policy of NFU.

The Agni- III Missile during the Republic Day parade, New Delhi, 2008.

In the present situation, such assertions on India’s revision of its NFU policy are not without merit. As Ankit Panda argues in his take on India’s NFU in The Diplomat,the Modi government has not shied away from bold decisions and surprise announcements: the February 2019 air strikes against Pakistan, the anti-satellite missile (ASAT) test the following month in March 2019, and more recently, the controversial abrogation of Article 370 on Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, which saw the state lose its special status in India and was reduced to two Union Territories. It is possible that Singh’s comments in Pokhran were carefully planned and worded as part of the Modi government’s broader strategy to signal a shift in India’s nuclear policy to meet current challenges, as is the view currently debated among scholars.  However, it cannot be ignored that a revision of the NFU policy would have multiple implications, the least of which would be a severe dent in India’s status as a responsible nuclear power — a successful strategy carefully nurtured by Indian diplomacy for over a decade. More imminently, a shift in this policy (or even a perception of shift) would confirm China and Pakistan’s suspicions over India’s actual commitment to NFU, potentially affecting their arsenal build-up.

So, could India really be gearing up towards an NFU policy revision? This seems unlikely. India’s NFU policy has always incorporated an element of ambiguity, with former National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon even interpreting India’s nuclear strategy to include pre-emption. Menon argued that India’s existing doctrine had a certain “grey area,” and a pre-emptive attack against an imminent threat was certainly in line with India’s NFU doctrine, given how this doctrine “was more flexible than widely believed.” If Singh’s statements are to be read as a signal to Pakistan, then following Menon’s interpretation, there is no actual shift in policy at all. Even otherwise, nullifying the NFU policy would only make sense if India faced a severe non-nuclear threat — for using nuclear weapons against a nuclear threat would most certainly result in retaliation hence, such weapons are only meant as a deterrent,and thus, NFU. Rajesh Rajagopalan explains brilliantly about how India’s NFU is uniquely suited to her circumstances, and “that if there’s a threat to India’s NFU policy, it comes from the more ideological opposition it faces, not from any careful reassessment of its strategic logic.”

The importance of this debate can be highlighted not only by the continued engagementof distinguished practitioners in their respective fields, but also by the potential security implications and other challenges this would have in the continually developing Asian geopolitical region. In all practicality, it seems unlikely that India would abandon its image as a ‘responsible nuclear power’ over a reassessment of its NFU doctrine, especially given that this policy has been a vital factor in the eventual implementation of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, 2005. Rajnath Singh’s statements could be read to indicate the government’s acceptance of including pre-emption against an imminent threat in line with the NFU doctrine. What exactly could count as an imminent threat (an attack on Indian territory, or on Indian forces elsewhere, the use of chemical and biological weapons, or simply, a massive military attack), and how the nature of these threats varies according to circumstances, is what is currently ambiguous. To gauge whether verbal statements by highly ranked officials in a state considered a potential adversary would qualify as an imminent threat depends upon the circumstances. The very fact that Singh’s important comments have not yet been followed up by an official government declaration adds a layer of ambiguity to India’s nuclear posture — but not to the extent that it would entirely reconsider its resolve to NFU. Nonetheless, such an argument is by no means set in stone, and it is entirely possible that India may abandon its commitment to NFU in the distant future. At present, India is far from that (despite recent border tensions with China), and it has continued to maintain its pledge to NFU and a limited number of nuclear warheads, despite being neighbours with two nuclear weapon states. This would highlight, as one hopes, India’s continued commitment to nuclear peace.

Sanaa Alvira has recently completed her postgraduate studies in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Previously, she studied at St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi. She is interested in arms control and disarmament studies, and her current research focuses on nuclear diplomacy in the Asian region.

By Roxana Allen

Although envisioned by many philosophers in the 18th and 19th century, only after the carnage of World War I did diplomats begin to create the structures of a united Europe. These first proposals on European unity, like those after them, were challenged by the idea of national sovereignty. In the interwar period, influential intellectuals and politicians – from Austro-Hungarian Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi in 1923 to French foreign minister Aristide Briand in 1929 – promoted the idea of Pan-Europa. Even while the countries of Europe were fighting in World War II, federalist Altiero Spinelli authored a manifesto in 1940 and 1941, and then, with members of resistance movements for European unity, initiated the Geneva “Draft Declaration of the European Resistance” that called for a “Federal Union among the European people.” More cautious than his federalist continental contemporaries, British unionist statesman Winston Churchill visualized a “United States of Europe” in 1946 and a “United Europe Movement” in 1947 that would preserve British sovereignty. Both federalists and unionists envisioned an international organization with a parliamentary assembly as a foundation for European unity, but the unionists wanted it to be only a consultative body for governments, while federalists were in favor of a constituent assembly to draft a European constitution. Even though, the federalist position was triumphant at the “Congress of Europe” – in The Hague in May 1948 -, the power of the newly established Council of Europe in Strasbourg – a symbol for Franco-German reconciliation – was limited de facto to defending human rights.

But this organization was not a sufficient vehicle to supersede national sovereignty and truly unite Europe. Only a political calculation by France to allow it to contain Germany and play a leading role in the emerging international order could do that. Jean Monnet, a French visionary – who based his beliefs in European integration on “People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize necessity when a crisis is upon them” – learned about the British skepticism toward European integration when he first proposed an Anglo-French union to Winston Churchill. Undeterred by this failure and supported by General Charles de Gaulle, Monnet developed a French Modernization Plan that would ensure French postwar economic recovery and defend French national interests while integrating Europe.

The Schuman Plan, named after the French foreign minister Robert Schuman, accommodated both recovery of German economy and French national security by placing Franco-German coal and steel industries – war’s major raw materials – under a supranational body, which was open to accession to other European countries. Announced on 9 May 1950, the plan was the foundation for postwar European unity and integration. Subsequently, the Paris Treaty on European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was signed in April 1951, and later, Treaties of Rome on European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and European Economic Community (EEC) in March 1957.

Created ostensibly to strengthen French sovereignty, with limited integration and strong US support (i.e. Marshall Plan for European reconstruction), these common European institutions evolved into a powerful intergovernmental body. These beginnings demonstrate why France and Germany lead Europe today. Most importantly, the irreversibility of European integration guards a “perpetual peace” and allows the states in Europe to search for “European solution” to “European problems” while evolving toward idea of a “United States of Europe,” as envisioned by its founding fathers.

Seventy years ago today, European unity became a reality. 9 May marks its birth and the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration. Not only the US has supported the European integration, but also Europe has unceasingly been its political, economic, and security partner from earliest formation.

It took Europe seventy years, twelve presidents, four generations, a Cold War, and numerous elections to appoint its first female President and the 13th President of the European CommissionUrsula von der Leyen – a German politician and the President of the European Commission since 1 December 2019 – leads in a world confronted with worst recession since the Great Depression, COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit, rising nationalism and authoritarianism, terrorism, cyber threats, climate change, and refugee crisis. Despite of a multi-crisis world, the European Union is strong. It’s the right time for European Union to use its strength and take the lead and responsibility in dealing with problems inside and outside the transatlantic space. What is the alternative? Just imagine a world today without the European Union, Council of Europe, multilateralism. Voltaire once said, History never repeats itself. Man always does.”

Happy Europe Day!

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Roxana Allen is a WIIS Member and a SAIS’05 Johns Hopkins Alumna – Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Johns Hopkins University.

By Sarah Kenny, Senior Program Assistant, WIIS Global

August 1, 2019

 

During the summer of 2017, violent activists associated with the “Proud Boys” twice terrorized the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia. This organization’s second visit to my college town took place in conjunction with neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and far-right activists from across the United States who assembled for the infamous “Unite the Right” rally. This past Independence Day weekend, the Proud Boys once again assembled— this time, in my present hometown of Washington, DC. While the Proud Boys were vastly outnumbered by counter-racist activists, their quest for political violence did not escape the news cycle.

To date, little research exists on women’s engagement with the Proud Boys. July’s demonstration led me to wonder just how this knowledge gap stands to exist when the organization’s very moniker— let alone activities— are so explicitly gendered? My research on women in the broader US alt-right movement informs my assessment that systematic ignorance of this demographic presents a significant blind spot in counter-extremism intelligence analysis and pursuant prosecutorial efforts. Women actors in the Proud Boys and its contemporaries— violent agents and online advocates alike— should not be underestimated.

Proud Boys Incidents 2016-2019

If you Google “The Proud Boys,” you will encounter a garish, elementary looking website welcoming you to “the world’s greatest fraternal organization.” Here, you can find Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes’ plan for “How to Save America,” including but not limited to the following objectives: end welfare, close the borders, and venerate the housewife. How can a prospective member find Proud Boys affiliates? Established chapters dot nations as diverse as Finland, Japan, Australia, and North America; new chapters are allegedly coming soon to the African and South American continents.

The Proud Boys website defend an ideological distinction from alt-right activists; unlike their white identarian counterparts, these “alt-lite” adherents do not explicitly advocate for a white ethnostate.[1] Titular distinctions aside, the Proud Boys present a serious international security threat. From New York City brawls to Charlottesville’s “Unite the Right” rallies, members routinely carry out violent extremist activities predicated on a dangerous cocktail of xenophobic, nationalist, and misogynist ideologies.

The Proud Boys’ strategic provocations and incendiary rhetoric have earned them a hate group designation from the Southern Poverty Law Center. In December 2018, the FBI classed the Proud Boys as an “extremist group with ties to white nationalism.” Yet shortly thereafter, the agency backtracked on this designation, shifting their classification from the organization at large to individual actors who are affiliated with the group.

Proud Boys members root their advocacy in an uncompromising gendered world order. The construct of gender dovetails with that of race in their theoretical construction of proper power hierarchies in a supreme, transnational, and threatened Western civilization. Although Proud Boys chapters claim to welcome—rather than discriminate against— members of all races, religions, and sexual preferences, they self-identify as “Western chauvinists” who lament that “being proud of Western culture today is like being a crippled, black, lesbian communist in 1953.” Here, support for the nation is positioned in direct contrast to the alleged plights of disability, ethnic heterogeneity, womanhood, sexual diversity, and broad governmental authority. For a more explicit explanation of who is and who isn’t Proud Boys material, keep scrolling through the group’s “About” page: “this group is and will always be MEN ONLY (born with a penis if that wasn’t clear enough for you leftists)!”

The Proud Boys don’t just talk the talk of misogyny; they walk the walk, too. Look no farther than the Proud Boys who disrupted a 2019 Women’s March in Orlando, Florida, displaying “Feminism is Cancer” signs and brazen grins. Proud Boys confront individual critics in addition to collective foes, both online and in person. Caroline Orr, a reporter on the rise of hate, showcases the nature of the Proud Boys’ violent political threats in the following tweet.

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In addition to the threat made to her own physical safety, Carolines references threats made to white supremacy researcher and Twitter figure “Gwen Synder is uncivil.” Gwen documents the doxing efforts that Proud Boys activists undertook to harm her and her loved ones.[2] Furthermore, her Tweet illuminates her experience of empty promise of police protection from far-right violent extremists’ threats. Gwen’s account of law enforcement’s sympathy for right-wing activists is consistent with a controversial series of police/Proud Boy interactions during July’s rally in DC.

As Proud Boys were marching through the streets of Washington, a police officer was documented fist-bumping a Proud Boy; another joined in with a Proud Boy cheer of “I like beer!” Such displays of allyship between far-right activists and law enforcement officers send a signal to counter racist protestors and concerned community members: the Proud Boys mission is supported by the bearers of state-sanctioned force.

Women interested in white nationalist activism should not fear! The Proud Boys visionaries carved out a special place for them as agents, not just subordinates, within their sacred fraternal order: “If you are (and were born) a woman and you would like to be involved, there is a girls group. They call themselves Proud Boys’ Girls and they’re our second-biggest demographic.”

Proud Boys leaders recognize that the concept of women actors creates cognitive dissonance in the minds of many prospective members. Attempting to assure both women and men of the group’s gender-inclusivity, the Proud Boys site explains, “it may seem counterintuitive that a men-only group would have such a big female following, but nobody wants men to be men more than the women who depend on them… Wives, girlfriends and single girls are all welcome.” Proud Boys supporter Anne Coulter went so far as to defend the Proud Boys on a Fox News panel discussing the Women’s March, commending them for protecting “people like [her].” Indeed, a non-negligible segment of the world population supports a gendered world order that stands in stark contrast to the values of modern feminism.

We should not be fooled by the Proud Boys’ name; this organization is recruiting women foot soldiers as well as men to advance a gendered order for Western civilization. Such a worldview is gaining traction in the global political arena and threatens the core tenets of pluralism and equality upon which modern democracies aim to stand.

[1] According to Al Jazeera’s report on far-right political activism, “the alt-light promotes a hardline version of American nationalism and often eschews the openly racist and white supremacist politics advocated by the alt-right”

[2] Merriam Webster defines “dox” as follows: “to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge”

Written by: Hannah Lynch, Kayla McGill, Hannah Proctor

The United States Strategy on Women, Peace and Security (the Strategy) was released in June 2019 to replace the 2016 US National Action Plan (NAP) and is the mandated outcome of the 2017 Women, Peace and Security Act. The Strategy details four “Lines of Effort” outlining the US response to the adverse and disproportionate effects of armed conflict on women and girls, focused specifically on advocating for women’s participation, protection, and involvement. As a response, different governmental agencies are required to develop implementation plans within 120 days of the Strategy’s release. Below, we examine the strengths and limitations of the Strategy in relation to the overall Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda.

Positive Aspects

The Strategy includes some positive aspects that are well worth drawing attention to. First, the Strategy can be used as a starting point on the road to increased gendered national and international efforts. Second, the Strategy explicitly mentions the engagement, mobilization and inclusion of men and boys in support of meaningful participation of women’s equality in society. This type of allied inclusion is critical and it is encouraging to see it included. Unfortunately, the Strategy only mentions men and boys’ vital participation briefly, and does not address the fact that gender equality, while critical to national security, is often viewed as a woman-only issue, not a gendered issue.

Finally, the Strategy recognizes the importance of the use of sex-disaggregated data. Sex-disaggregated data is important to successful analysis, decision-making, and measuring success as it enables analysts and key policy makers to examine and understand differences in men and women’s experiences. For example, Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy Handbook makes a point of including sex-disaggregated data in their foreign policy in order to fully address national and international security. While sex-disaggregated data is only mentioned briefly, the recognition of this is a step in the right direction.

While there were positive statements in the Strategy, there were also a number of questionable assumptions and statements in the Strategy. For us, four stand out.

Lack of engagement with the global WPS agenda

Since the adoption of UNSCR 1325 in 2000, there have been nine WPS United Nations Security Council Resolutions. The Strategy lacks any engagement with these resolutions. The reference to 1325, and the WPS agenda at large is in a vague and general context. Without this engagement with the global WPS agenda, the Strategy does not fully address and engage with many issues WPS is centered around. An effective strategy is one that acknowledges the global efforts on WPS–the U.S. Strategy does not engage with those efforts. 

Lack of Engagement with the Notion of Gender

 The Strategy very clearly defines itself as a Women, Peace and Security document, not a Gender, Peace and Security document. That distinction is an important one. Instead of taking a gendered perspective to complex international political issues, this Strategy leans heavily on stereotypical notions of gender and operates under the incorrect assumption that only women have a gender. Throughout the document, it repeatedly reinforces the (false) belief that women are inherently victims and inherently lacking in agency. The Strategy subsequently argues that “women cannot fully participate in the prevention or resolution of conflict or participate in recovery efforts if they themselves are victims of violence or intimidation” (p.9). This statement is made worse by the frequent assertion that women’s only role in conflict is that of victimhood. If women are only victims in conflict, then, by the Strategy’s own analysis, women cannot participate in recovery efforts. Put simply, the Strategy is only about women; it is only about women as victims; and it is only about women with no agency.

Opt-Outs

This Strategy is predominantly focused on US national interests. Most of the language throughout the Strategy promotes an outward focus and excuses US inaction through ‘selective’ engagement decisions or language that permits withdrawal or inaction. For example, the Strategy measures success by 2023 as showing an increase in women’s meaningful participation, as having a measurable impact on “one or all” of the objectives or phases of conflict/crisis prevention. By this vague measurement, the United States government could consider the Strategy successful in 2023 in almost any situation. The United States could simply support an obscure “partner government” in adopting a generalized “policy, plan, or capacity” to support female peacemakers at some time in the future (p. 15). By utilizing vague language, the Administration and the US Government are able to opt-out of any potential commitments or requirements.

Patronizing Tone 

The Strategy has a patronizing tone immediately. The overuse of the phrase “empower women” implies a lack of knowledge of the complex roles women are already playing in the conflict context. The document also calls for “[d]eveloping women’s technical and professional competencies” (p.13), the implication being that women lack the necessary competencies to participate. Not only is this assumption incorrect, it further dismisses the valuable work women are already doing. In so doing, the Strategy relegates women to the role of acted upon, not of actor. With repeated calls to train women, to empower women, and to incentivize women to participate, the Strategy infantilizes women, narrows the purview of the WPS Agenda, and blatantly ignores the work women already do on the ground. 

Conclusion

We look forward to seeing this Administration engage with Civil Society and using the vast number of sources written by scholars, experts and other individuals that are well-versed on the WPS agenda. Additionally, we are encouraged by the mention of sex-disaggregated data and its potential to be used as a core component of any implementation plans based on this Strategy that come from departments and agencies. That said, the Strategy backtracks and dilutes many key points of the 2016 National Action Plan. For example, the current four Lines of Effort in this Strategy were derived from the five high-level objectives laid out in the NAP. 

The WIIS team is conducting a more thorough content analysis of the Strategy. We welcome comments at [email protected]

Written by Roxana Allen

It took thirty years, two generations, fifteen prime ministers, and numerous elections to appoint the first woman Prime Minister in Romania.  With the introduction of the Membership Action Plan twenty years ago, NATO requested that Romania implement a 25 percent quota for women in Parliament and public service.  Consequently, there are many women in leadership today.  Prime Minister Viorica Dancila leads in a world confronted with violent extremism, terrorism, cyber security, and hybrid threats.  While strategists have continually resigned NATO to the dustbin of history, with its original rationale of defending Europe from the Soviet Union, NATO’s membership policies have been a symbol of hope but also despair since the 1989 Revolution in Eastern Europe.  NATO’s commitment to inclusion launched an enlargement process that empowered women, changed societies, and expanded peace and stability.  While the “carrot” of NATO membership spurred liberal reforms, it also produced complacency and a nationalist backlash.

After its 1989 Revolution, Romania found itself without the strong cosmopolitan leadership ready to take power or embrace the West that blessed other Eastern European states—cosmopolitanism meaning those who support civil society, tolerance, human rights, rule of law, and democracy.  The Czechs had Václav Havel.  The Poles had Adam Michnik.  The Hungarians had Miklos Haraszti.  The success of these cosmopolitans and their revolutions seemed to prove Francis Fukuyama’s argument that with the end of the Cold War, liberal democracy, civil society, free markets, and the rule of law would eventually prevail in all states.  As a consequence of the Stalinist nature of the Ceausescu regime, Romania did not have any outspoken cosmopolitan leadership.  The West’s seemingly disorganized engagement, which did not embrace the Romanian intellectuals, allowed for the growth of nationalism in Romania á la Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations.” In his vision of competing civilizations, “the fundamental source of conflict…in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic…its center-piece becomes the interaction between the West and non-Western civilizations and among non-Western civilizations.”  This interaction was best demonstrated in Romania in 1991 when coal miners smashed their way into Bucharest, attacking students, intellectuals, and Westerners. Raised in the Stalinism of Ceausescu, then fed by nationalism, the lumpenproletariat continually tried to destroy Western norms.

The cosmopolitans of Bucharest, Cluj, and Timisoara needed help to establish Western norms in all of Romania, as Dr. Adrian Nastase stated: “The Balkans zone needs not only financial support, but also an outspoken desire from the part of the developed states to offer the former room for integration in their community…Establishment of democracy in the former communist countries needs an economic support and a political one as well.”   After the creation of the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, the Western desire to support democracy and integration was affirmed.  Enforcing the Dayton Agreement and peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in 1995, NATO became the primary Western means of implementing cosmopolitan intervention.  Cosmopolitans, as Mary Kaldor describes in New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, are buttressed by Western armed forces.  The perceived NATO commitment to Romania’s and the Balkan’s efforts to establish Western norms led to the election of new democratic leadership under President Emil Constantinescu in 1996.

The successful NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina had emboldened NATO’s leadership to redefine the Alliance’s mission and attempt to provide a “carpet of stability” in Europe through enlargement.  This carpet, intended to support those cosmopolitans who led their nations to freedom in 1989 and faced growing domestic intolerance, soon developed holes.  Referring to the enlargement of NATO in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, Charles Gati explains that “the post-communist success stories that most people expected to write themselves after 1989 have turned into tales with rather mixed plot lines.”  As NATO stumbled, so did the establishment of Western norms in Romania. Constantinescu’s corrupt and divisive government was not that different from the previous one.   By 1998, during NATO’s war in Kosovo, Western norms were openly challenged in Romania.  Once again, the dangers to democracy began to reveal themselves in Romania.

The introduction of the Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Washington NATO Summit in 1999 provided guidelines for NATO membership and strengthened Western norms in Romania. NATO membership was the main plank of Adrian Nastase’s election bid in 2000.  With the new elections and with MAP as a guide, Prime Minister Nastase instituted the National Action Plan for NATO. Aside from military issues, this plan led to more progress in the reform of laws, regional cooperation, disarmament, protection of the national minorities and human rights, a 25 percent quota of women in Parliament and public service, combating organized crime and international terrorism, and fighting and eradicating corruption.  Although NATO and EU memberships were obvious benchmarks for the Action Plan, the real goals were to reinforce Western norms in Romania – in effect, to change Romanian society.

NATO enlargement as a defender of cosmopolitan values became internalized, changing domestic politics.  As NATO enlargement became more dynamic, so did the entrenchment of democracy in Romania. As enlargement waned, so did freedom in Romania.  NATO became the force maintaining and expanding political stability from the Atlantic to Urals.  NATO membership became more than a destination; it was the only tool the leaders could use to instill Western norms in their country. Their real goals, like those of the early Western European cosmopolitan leaders, were to create and reinforce Western norms in Europe, in effect, to make their countries “normal.” Fifteen years ago in 2004, Romania joined NATO  after the Prague Summit in November 2002.  NATO enlargement converted a totalitarian Romania into a free democracy and made Romania a better place.  Better, however, does not mean perfect or even just.

NATO could use lessons learned to expand peace and stability to other regions beyond Europe, though as the example of states that emerged from totalitarianism show—Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Georgia—the process will be painful.  Paul Wolfowitz stated, “If you think where Romania started from at the end of the Ceausescu era, it has come a terrifically long way.  If you think about some of the problems that remain, then obviously the transition still has some work to do. What I think is impressive is, considering how embedded old totalitarian system was here, Romanians are an inspiring example to people in Iraq and elsewhere in the world in what you can achieve with freedom.”  Under continued Western engagement, Iraq and other countries could be like Romania and most of Eastern Europe today, an imperfect but progressing democracy.

In a paradigm shift, Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg and Deputy Secretary General of NATO Rose Gottemoeller placed women’s empowerment at the center of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda by recognizing the impact conflict has on women and girls:  “Empowering women is not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do:  it makes countries safer and more stable. NATO is determined to make a difference, including through our training and operations – for example, by deploying gender advisers to local communities in Afghanistan.  We also aim to raise the profile of women at all levels within the Alliance. We still need to do more, but for NATO, peace and security are not just a man’s world.” In January 2018, to support full and equal participation of women at all levels of conflict prevention to post-war reconstruction, and protection of women and girls from sexual violence in conflict, Mr. Stoltenberg appointed a NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative.   Clare Hutchinson is the high-level focal point for the NATO Women, Peace and Security Agenda.  As a provider of peace and security assistance and capacity building, NATO is reforming itself into a human-centric organization by empowering women as agents of change, implementing innovative programs in collective defense, crisis management, and security cooperation to contribute to a modern, ready and responsive NATO in a changing world. Gender becomes the driving force and advances NATO’s cooperation with other international organizations such as the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the United Nations (UN) and grass-roots civil society.  Moreover, the newly created NATO’s Civil Society Advisory Panel provides a safe space for all women to engage with NATO on security cooperation and defense. Addressing women’s empowerment from all dimensions, including equal participation of women at all levels of conflict prevention, post-war reconstruction of governments and implementation of the 25 percent quota of women in Parliament and public service will lead to more changes from the inside.  More women in leadership will expand peace and stability beyond Romania and Europe in a rapidly globalized world.

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Roxana Allen is the Deputy Vice President at IIA NOVA, SAIS Johns Hopkins Alumna and a WIIS member. Ms. Allen was a Personal Adviser to the Prime Minister of Romania during Romania’s accession to NATO and the Head of Field Office Trebinje with OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina during NATO’s intervention in Kosovo.