On Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution affirming its authority under the War Powers Resolution Act, and reminding the president, the American people and the world that when it comes to the use of military force, Congress must be taken into account. 

President Donald Trump replied by retweeting John Bolton, his former national security advisor, who tweeted that the War Powers Act was ‘unconstitutional’, effectively dismissing Congressional efforts to rein in the president.

This round of legal Twitter diplomacy came days after the president tweeted that ‘legal notice (to Congress) is not required, but it is given nevertheless’ and that ‘should Iran strike any US person or target, the United States will quickly and fully strike back, and perhaps in a disproportionate manner.’ 

President Trump’s overt attacks on Congressional authority and disregard for the law are not normal for a US president, but legal constraints over the president’s authority to use military force have been eroding for several years.

In 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Act, requiring the president to report to Congress and acquire Congressional approval for continued overseas troop deployments. But Congressional authority over the use of military force has continued to diminish, especially since the 9/11 attacks. 

Now, Congress is pushing back – a resolution similar to that passed by the House is likely to be voted on by the Senate soon. Given the intense frustration of some senators over the president’s handling of the current conflict, this resolution may pass, though the president is still likely to veto. 

The bigger problem, of which this is one part, is the expansion of executive authority, and it predates this presidency. Many argue that executive power is greatest on matters of foreign policy, and that in this domain the US president is unconstrained. As partisanship has increased and the demands on Congress have made it harder for its members to cultivate foreign policy expertise, the power of the president has grown.

So the fact that Congress is taking active steps to check the president’s power not only on the question of impeachment, but also on foreign policy, is significant, even if the law is not likely to restrain President Trump. But Congress is also playing a long game. And its growing determination to assert its authority matters not only for this presidency, but also for the future.

Political constraints

In the short term, other constraints matter more. Even if President Trump rejects legal restraints – and shuns diplomatic pressure that might have mattered to other presidents – he is not impervious to political restraint.

Already there are signs that Trump listens to his key Republican allies in Congress. When Senator Lindsay Graham pushed back against the president’s threat to attack cultural heritage sites in Iran, and the Pentagon failed to shore up the president’s threat, the president changed his position. The threats also provoked an overwhelming response in Europe, and across the Middle East, but the president has shown that he is willing to disregard international admonishment. Not so for domestic allies.

Nor is this the first time that Senator Graham’s views have mattered. When the president announced his decision to pull troops from northeast Syria, effectively abandoning the Kurds, a key partner to the US in its fight against ISIS, Senator Graham and Senator Mitch McConnell pushed back and it mattered. 

Public opinion also matters to the president, especially Republican public opinion, and this is likely to affect the president’s next steps. Recent polls suggest that Americans feel less safe as a result of the killing of General Qassem Soleimani by a considerable margin of 55% to 24%.

But the same survey also shows that a majority of Americans support the decision to kill Soleimani. Already Vice President Mike Pence has spoken at a rally in Ohio designed to bolster support for this Presidential action.  

So what might change public opinion and will this alter the president’s future steps?

Americans are very reluctant to support further deployments of troops overseas. President Trump knows this and he has consistently stated that he seeks to pull US troops out of the Middle East.

In fact, the opposite has happened. And once again, the decision to kill General Soleimani is pulling the US further into the Middle East and putting into stark light the inconsistency of Trump’s foreign policy ambitions. In recent days, the United States has committed to sending thousands of troops to the region.

Continued US troop deployments may not play well with Trump’s base, though they currently support his Iran policy. But absent an obvious justification, this could change, so it is not surprising that this has become a rallying point for Vice President Pence.

An even greater political risk, and one that will matter to the president, is the risk to US military personnel and civilians overseas. Public support for the killing of Soleimani and increased US presence in the region is bound to dissipate if Americans are killed.

But it isn’t clear how the president will respond, and already the death of one American in the militia attack on 27 December seems to have been a critical factor in Trump’s decision to authorize the assassination of General Soleimani.  

So far, Iran’s response appears to be calibrated to avoid this kind of public backlash, and keep the door open to some sort of managed resolution of the current crisis.

But the considerable risk of miscalculation and mistakes has already been born out. A week after the killing of Soleimani, the world is tuning in to the tragic news that a civilian airliner departing Iran for Ukraine appears to have been accidentally shot down by an Iranian missile, resulting in the deaths of all 176 people on board, including 82 Iranians and 63 Canadians.

Whether the US president is constrained is a critical question for Americans, for US democracy and for the rest of the world. Trump is different, but he is not unconstrained. Steps taken by Congress along with diplomatic and political pressure mean he is still operating within boundaries. But it is clear that these boundaries are being redefined.

The Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean has garnered media attention recently after the UK failed to abide by a UN deadline to return the islands to Mauritius. The US has landed in the middle of the dispute as a 1965 agreement with the UK has allowed the US to establish a military base on one of the islands, Diego Garcia, which has since become instrumental in US missions in the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. 

In February 2019, an Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that the Chagos archipelago was unlawfully dismembered from Mauritius, in violation of the right to self-determination and that the United Kingdom is under an obligation to end its administration of the Chagos archipelago ‘as rapidly as possible’. The UN General Assembly subsequently voted overwhelmingly in favour of the UK leaving the islands by the end of November 2019 and the right of the former residents who were removed by the UK to return. The UK does not accept the ICJ and UN rulings and argues that the islands are needed to protect Britain from security threats while Mauritius has made clear the base can remain.

Professor Philippe Sands QC, professor of law at University College London and lead counsel for Mauritius on the ICJ case on Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos archipelago from Mauritius in 1965, will be joining Ambassador Richard Burt, US chief negotiator in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the former Soviet Union for a discussion on the fate of the archipelago including the future of the military base and the right of return of former residents.  

Attendance at this event is by invitation only. 

What does Britain’s departure from the EU mean for the country’s policy towards the South Caucasus, a small region on the periphery of Europe, fractured by conflict? Although Britain is not directly involved in any of the region’s peace processes (except in the case of the Geneva International Discussions on conflicts involving Georgia, as an EU member state), it has been a significant stakeholder in South Caucasian stability since the mid-1990s.

Most obviously, Britain has been the single largest foreign investor in Caspian oil and gas. Yet beyond pipelines, Britain also has been a significant investor in long-term civil society-led strategies to build peace in the South Caucasus.

Through what was then the Global Conflict Prevention Pool, in the early 2000s the Department for International Development (DfID) pioneered large-scale peacebuilding interventions, such as the Consortium Initiative, addressing Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, in 2003-09. These built civic networks in the South Caucasus and partnerships with British-based NGOs.

This experience left a strong intellectual legacy. British expertise on the South Caucasus, including specific expertise on its conflicts, is highly regarded in the region and across the world.

There is also a strong tradition of British scholarship on the Caucasus, and several British universities offer Caucasus-related courses. Through schemes such as the John Smith Fellowship Trust, the Robert Bosch Stiftung Academy Fellowship at Chatham House and Chevening Scholarships, significant numbers of young leaders from the South Caucasus have spent time in British institutions and built effective relationships within them.

Three challenges

This niche as a champion of long-term, strategic peacebuilding and repository of area-specific knowledge should not be lost as Britain’s relationship with the EU and regional actors evolves. This can be ensured through awareness of three challenges confronting a post-Brexit Caucasus policy.

The first challenge for London is to avoid framing a regional policy in the South Caucasus as an extension of a wider ‘Russia policy’. Deteriorating Russian-British relations in recent years strengthen a tendency to view policies in the European neighbourhood through the traditional prisms of Cold War and Russian-Western rivalries.

Yet an overwhelming focus on Russia fails to capture other important aspects of political developments in South Caucasus conflicts. Although often referred to as ‘breakaway’ or ‘occupied’ territories, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorny Karabakh are not ungoverned spaces. They have evolved into examples of what scholars call ‘de facto states’ that, to differing degrees, control territory, provide governance and exercise internal sovereignty.

Few disagree that these entities would not survive without external patronage. But neither does that patronage explain their sustainability on its own. Russia-centricity diminishes Britain’s latitude to engage on the full range of local drivers sustaining these entities, contributing instead to less effective policies predicated on competition and containment.

A second and related challenge is to maintain and develop Britain’s position on the issue of engaging populations in these entities. De facto states appear to stand outside of the international rules-based system. Yet in many cases, their civil societies are peopled by skilled and motivated activists who want their leaders to be held accountable according to international rules.

Strategies of isolation ignore these voices and contribute instead to fearful and demoralized communities less likely to engage in a transformation of adversarial relationships. Making this case with the wider international community, and facilitating the funding of local civil societies in contested territories, would be important steps in sustaining an effective British policy on the resolution of conflicts.    

The third challenge for Britain is to maintain a long-term approach to the conflicts of the South Caucasus alongside potential short-term imperatives in other policy fields, as relationships shift post-Brexit.

In this fluid international environment, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has a role to play both as an internal champion of a long-term peacebuilding strategy and a coordinator of British efforts with those of multilateral actors engaged in the South Caucasus. These include the United Nations, the EU’s Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia and OSCE’s Special Representative for the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the South Caucasus, all of which have built relationships with relevant actors on the ground.

Recommendations

Britain’s niche as a champion and advocate of a strategic approach to peaceful change can be secured post-Brexit in the following ways.  

First, in-house expertise is crucial to effective peacebuilding programming. The Foreign Office’s research analysts play a vital role in generating independent internal advice and liaising with academic and NGO communities. Their role could be supplemented by the reinstatement of a regional conflict adviser post, based in Tbilisi, tasked with strengthening Britain’s regional presence on conflict issues and coordinating policy at a regional level.

This post, with a remit to cover conflicts and build up area knowledge and relationships can contribute significantly to working closely with local civil societies, where so much expertise and knowledge resides, as well as other stakeholders.

Second, programming should build in conflict sensitivity by dissociating eligibility from contested political status. This can encourage local populations to take advantage of opportunities for funding, study, comparative learning and professional development irrespective of the status of the entity where they reside.

The Chevening Scholarships are an excellent example, whereby applicants can select ‘South Caucasus’ as their affiliated identity from a drop-down menu. This enables citizens from across the region to apply irrespective of the status of the territory in which they live.   

Finally, a holistic understanding of peace is crucial. Programming in unrecognized or partially-recognized entities should acknowledge that effective peacebuilding needs to embrace political dynamics and processes beyond cross-conflict contact and confidence building. Local actors in such entities may find peacebuilding funding streams defined exclusively in terms of cross-conflict contact more politically risky and ineffective in addressing domestic blockages to peace.

While cross-conflict dynamics remain critical, ‘single-community’ programming framed in terms of civic participation, inclusion, civil society capacity-building, minority and human rights in contested territories, and building the confidence from within to engage in constructive dialogue, are no less important.

The ’global Britain’ promised by Brexit remains a fanciful idea. Quiet, painstaking work to build on the legacies of a long-term British investment in a peace strategy for the South Caucasus, on the other hand, is a realistic and attainable goal.

The Liberal Party likes to think of itself as ‘Canada’s natural governing party’. Though they have been out of power for 10 years, and newly elected prime minister Justin Trudeau is relatively inexperienced, the party has deep and old networks across the country. The backroom is full of experienced old hands, including former prime ministers who have known Trudeau since he was a toddler. With a number of bold shifts promised in Canadian foreign policy, and a willingness to be fiscally expansive (Trudeau has said he is willing to run deficits for three years to implement their policies), the change is likely to be dramatic, fast and unrelenting.

International engagement

The Liberals’ proposed new Canada has a hint of nostalgia for a time when Canadians thought of themselves as a force for good in the world. There is likely to be a large-scale reengagement with the international community, especially the United Nations, not only on climate policy, but also peacekeeping and disaster response. Canada’s French-speaking experts make it well placed to engage in crisis-hit French-speaking countries while carrying somewhat less colonial baggage. Meanwhile, the Liberals have promised to withdraw Canadian forces from the combat mission against ISIS in Iraq, pledging instead to reorient their focus towards aid.

Science-based policies

Trudeau has the backing of a very deep bench of experienced parliamentarians, some of whom have been waiting a long time to get back in the governing game. They include Stéphane Dion, the former environment minister who gained respect for his chairing of the 2005 UN climate change conference in Montreal, and Marc Garneau, former astronaut and president of the Canadian Space Agency. This will be a government that understands and values (and has promised to restore funding for) scientific research.

This means more investment in climate resilience, renewables and other forward planning policies, but also a reexamination of some of Canada’s long-standing strengths, including Canada’s fisheries. Under the previous government, over half-a-dozen critical fisheries research libraries were shut down, in some cases with large-scale loss of data. A more science-based fisheries policy, combined with the promised funding to the Royal Canadian Navy, may result in a reinvigorated and coordinated Canadian fisheries policy. This would become particularly important in a time of global food constraints.

‘Nation-to-nation’

Trudeau’s stated goal of establishing ‘nation-to-nation’ relations with Canada’s indigenous peoples has potentially global implications.

Through treaties, Canada’s First Nations can stake a claim to about a third of Canada’s landmass, including resource rich areas. They own or control access to land that contains oil, gas, uranium, gold, diamonds and much more. China, for one, realized the potential power of First Nations as far back as 2008, when Beijing invited over two dozen indigenous leaders to China to talk business. During that trip, Peguis Chief Glenn Hudson explained that the trip was ‘an important step for us in moving forward. Our future is not only in Canada, but partnering with other countries.’

Trudeau’s ‘nation-to-nation’ statement acknowledges the strengthening role of First Nations in Canada’s resource policy. Indigenous communities have been among the most adversely affected by oil sands development and, in other parts of Canada, have successfully blocked resources extraction or transit. For example, in May, the Lax Kw'alaams Band refused to allow a proposed multi-million dollar Petronas LNG project to be developed on their land over concerns it would affect their economically and culturally important salmon runs.

Real First Nations engagement with resource management has the potential substantially change Canada’s energy, environment and resources profile. First Nations in eastern Canada have already blocked hydro development that could power much of the northeastern United States and, in a time of pipeline expansion, First Nations might become instrumental in deciding if more pipelines will run north-to-south, towards the border with the United States, or east-to-west, towards the Pacific and the markets in Asia.

Energy sector

At the same time, while Trudeau said he was against the Northern Gateway pipeline, in large part because of how it would affect the people of the Pacific coast, he backed Keystone XL. However, he is unlikely to push for it in the face of a veto by President Obama. Also, low fossil fuel prices contributed to the election in May of a left-leaning provincial government in the badly hit oil heartland of Alberta. If prices stay low, that could very well combine with Liberal campaign promises to put a coordinated national price on carbon and to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, additionally reshaping Canada’s energy landscape..

Agriculture and the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The Liberals also have a stated goal of investing in a more innovative and safe agricultural sector, while defending the interests of Canadian farmers. This dovetails with their promise to openly examine and discuss the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) before ratification. Canadian dairy farmers in particular were concerned about some of the TPP provisions but, without access to the details of the text, it was difficult to estimate how the sector would be affected.

One proposed agricultural policy that may have widespread economic implications is the legalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana. As some states in the United States have found, this has the potential to be economically beneficial and, for Canada, a possible major boon to cross-border tourism.

In a myriad of small ways, and a few big ones, the new Liberal government plans to change Canada’s international role and domestic landscape. This is one to watch.

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