First Mondays: Final Thoughts – December 2015 Policy Salon

Thank you to everyone who attended our first member-facilitated policy salon in December. Special thanks to our member-host, Dana Watters, for leading us in an expansive review of the regional history of the Balkans (seriously, the year 1389 was briefly mentioned) and taking us through comparisons with the current situation in Syria.

Below we’ve extracted some of the key distillations from the evening’s discussion and tacked on Dana’s book and movie recommendations for those interested in exploring the topic further.

Lessons for Syria: What We Can – and Can't – Learn From the Balkans

1) Geography. Syria is about four times the size of Bosnia, which presents obvious differing demands in terms of materiel, ground troops, etc. Bosnian topography is mountainous around Sarajevo, which kept the fighting somewhat concentrated, whereas Syria’s topography is flat and expansive, allowing for fighters to move about more freely. Enforcing a no-fly zone in Bosnia was feasible in part due to its geopolitical location; while in Syria, the risk of repercussions for violating sovereign airspace is high, as recently demonstrated by Russia and Turkey.

2) We don’t know who we want to “win” in Syria. The Balkans conflict was primarily among nation-states with recognized leaders, an existing model of multi-ethnic governance, and relative adherence (or deliberate non-adherence) to conventional rules of engagement. Those who violated these dictums were identifiable, prosecutable, and aligned with a defined territory. Syria involves a multitude of state and non-state actors, including militias with varying degrees of competence and legitimacy with complicating meddling from external backers. 

3) Unlike Syria, Bosnia was not an international proxy war. Bosnian factions had backers from the Yugoslav diaspora and some unhelpful bankrolling from other nations, but nothing on the scale of Syria, whose powerful proxies don’t fit neatly into any geometrical analogy. International conflict mediators discuss a period of “ripeness” when conditions are such that players think the benefits of negotiation outweigh the costs of continued conflict – in Syria, even a snowball’s chance in hell (hey, it’s still a chance!) is uncertain given the contradictory interests of the many players and their backers. This Foreign Policy article explains more about Syria’s proxy war.

4) There’s no good model for the “long game” win. One of our readings suggested recent U.S.-led interventions as potential models for Syria – Bosnia among them – but ultimately these are poor analogies. In Bosnia, leaders of the various warring groups had end-game objectives that stopped well short of world domination; ISIS declared its global caliphate goal long ago. Regardless of how the civil war in Syria is resolved, ISIS’ reign of terror reaches beyond its physical base in Syria and Northern Iraq with its multi-continental affiliates and lone-wolf actors that make it an amorphous and complex foe that can present itself anywhere at any time.  

5) The Bosnian war unfolded at a unique time in modern global politics. While policymakers still suffered from “Vietnam Syndrome” in the early 1990s and had witnessed disaster in Somalia, their reluctance cannot compare to the situation now, in which the U.S. and its allies have Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya fresh in their minds. The war in the Balkans coincided with two major global power shifts: (1) the collapse of the Soviet Union, which put Russia in a drastically different position than it is in today under Putin’s leadership, and (2) in the case of Bosnia, the future of NATO relied on decisive action. 

If you’re looking for a deeper dive on the Balkans conflict, these are from Dana’s recommended reading list:

Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, by Laura Silber and Allan Little
Bosnia: A Short History, by Noel Malcolm
To End a War, by Amb. Richard Holbrooke
This Was Not Our War, by Amb. Swanee Hunt

And if you’re looking for less time commitment and more Hollywood, Dana’s top picks are:
The Whistleblower (2011)
No Man’s Land (2001)
Welcome to Sarajevo (1997) 

Please feel free to share any additional thoughts or feedback by emailing us at ideas(at)franklinstreetpolicygrp(dot)nyc.

First Mondays: Final Thoughts – October 2015 Policy Salon

Thank you to everyone who attended October's policy salon and a special welcome to all our new participants.

Our discussion about migration and its effects on brain drain/gain for origin and destination countries’ economic development included perspectives from migration and humanitarian response and personal accounts of conflict-driven migration among many others. Below we’ve extracted some highlights from the evening’s discussion.

Brain Drain or Brain Gain? The Economic Development Cost of a 'Lost Generation' and the Impact on Destination Countries

• Immigrants are economic drivers in destination countries – they are more likely to open businesses than native-born residents and to contribute more in taxes than they draw in public benefits in the United States.
• Forced migration driven by conflict results in a “lost generation” of children and young people with missing or inadequate education as well as years of trauma that may compromise post-conflict reconstruction efforts in origin countries.
• Refugees fleeing from crisis have very different motivations from economic migrants, and often prefer to return to their home countries, if possible.
• U.S. companies argue to raise quotas of foreign nationals with science and technology skills in order to stay competitive in the global marketplace, but should recognize that current citizens need those opportunities as well.
• Policies in both Europe and the U.S. are needed to ensure that countries are building human capital to the benefit of their countries in addition to the global community.
• It will be useful to monitor how countries that take a more integrative approach to the current refugee crisis fare as compared to those that implement more isolationist policies.

Our discussion and final thoughts drew from both the outside expertise of our participants as well as the following readings that guided our talk:

1. Hope: The Greatest Weapon Against the Dogs of War in Syria. Addresses missed education years and fleeing populations of skilled workers/professionals.
2. Brain Drain and Fragile States. Includes practical policy options and discussion of "brain drain" versus "brain gain."
3. Reverse Brain Drain: Economic Shifts Lure Migrants Home. Discusses human capital flows from developed to developing markets. 

Please feel free to share any thoughts or feedback by emailing us at ideas(at)franklinstreetpolicygrp(dot)nyc.