The world needs a better response to global crises

As the year comes to a close, the global community faces several daunting challenges beyond an unremitting pandemic now past its second anniversary.

North Africa roils from political turmoil and fracturing societies, with exasperated populations distraught at the intransigence of ruling elites but chastened by the fear of uprisings going awry, inviting entities less inclined to deliver on democratic aspirations. East of the Red Sea, a rocky resumption of nuclear talks with Iran in Vienna has left some Arab countries on tenterhooks.

Similarly, a lack of strategy in Syria and Iraq is making it evident that after the Biden administration’s first year in office, US disinterest is turning into actual policy, which does not bode well for a region rife with insecurities and ever-widening disparities.

In Central Asia, the dust may have settled after a relatively painless US exit from Afghanistan, but as always the short-sighted focus on temporary “wins” has wreaked, and will continue to wreak, long-term havoc. This time, however, there will be no rallying of like-minded states to rush to the aid of vulnerable Afghans exposed to the painful aftermath of the failed pursuit of nebulous foreign ideals.

As a result, more children are expected to die in Afghanistan this winter from starvation than all the civilians killed in the past 20 years of conflict. Unfortunately, the international community’s foremost concern is not finding solutions and directing aid to those in need, but rather the likelihood of another migratory surge north, or into neighboring countries already under strain.

In East Africa, such fears are already playing out in Ethiopia’s war with itself. A complex, multifaceted conflict has created yet another humanitarian disaster with close to a million people now living in near-famine conditions, not far from Yemen — location of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Beyond finger-wagging at both sides to cease hostilities, there is little mobilization by the global community to at least mitigate Ethiopia’s conflict-induced crises.

Tragically, the rest of the world is likely to remain preoccupied by resurgent pandemic waves, stagnant economies, and growing public distrust of governments to pay attention, let alone mobilize to prevent a merger of conflict zones spanning parts of North Africa, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

For instance, the situation in Ethiopia — already on a scale comparable to interstate war — could end up triggering a border scuffle with Sudan, creating a new hotspot for proxy conflicts. Should that occur, an unstable region upstream of the Nile presents a national security conundrum for Egypt, which is deeply frustrated by Addis Ababa stonewalling negotiations over its Grand Renaissance Dam project. However, an Ethiopia overran by militias, and crippled by civil war, with periodic interstate skirmishes, will be unable to reach a binding deal on the complex issues presented by the dam, prolonging what the Egyptian foreign ministry termed an “existential threat.”

For now, global crisis responses are tepid — forceful in rhetoric but dithering and hesitant when it comes to taking actual action.

Increasingly, across the world, as old embers reignite old wars, or new battles rage between competing hegemonies or ideologies, the global community’s toolbox has failed to adapt. In fact, with the Afghanistan debacle this summer, military incursions are an even less likely option for intervention in far-off arenas, especially for something as obscure as “peacekeeping,” or as open-ended as counterterrorism.

Granted, we are perhaps in the middle of what will be a crises-laden era, necessitating greater insularity and prioritization of domestic concerns over distant woes by overwhelmed governments. However, many of the world’s challenges are linked, which makes the failure to act unfurl consequences far more costly than concerted mitigation efforts.

In the West, for instance, aside from a laundry list of domestic woes, most governments have their hands full on the foreign policy front. Russia’s military buildup on its border with Ukraine is already causing sleepless nights in Europe, and triggering fears across the Atlantic of a repeat of events seven years ago.

For President Biden, a White House alumnus of the 2014 annexation of the Crimea, any further attack on Ukrainian sovereignty would probably be met with a heavy-handed US-led response — not quite an open war between Moscow and NATO, but a proxy war on an unprecedented scale.

For now, global crisis responses are tepid — forceful in rhetoric but dithering and hesitant when it comes to taking actual action. The case for sanctions, asset freezes, and the withdrawal of billions in foreign aid in Afghanistan may be strong, but the Taliban remains unmoved and the country teeters on the brink of collapse. In Ethiopia, sanctions have been applied on both sides of the spiraling conflict but there are doubts about how effective they will be in forcing the two sides to engage in dialogue.

In almost all the world’s hotspots, this same story is on repeat. Efforts at pre-empting instability metastasizing in volatile regions of the world find few supporters, even if it results in the creation of fertile ground for extremists emboldened by pandemic-imposed blind spots. Half-measures or misguided attempts have created,and will continue to create, conditions that eventually lead to extraterritorial conflicts among competing states and interests.

Surprisingly, global responses have so far stalled at the indiscriminate application of sanctions, withholding aid, and refusing diplomatic engagement. However, many experts doubt the efficacy of over-broad embargoes and other limitations in inducing behavioral changes among those penalized.

Where sanctions have worked, too often it came at significant cost borne by vulnerable populations that suffer disproportionate impacts before any gains can be realized, if they ever are. Study after study has delivered bleak conclusions on how sanctions have ravaged vulnerable populations from Liberia to Sudan, Libya to Zimbabwe, and the former Yugoslavia to North Korea.

Yet the playbook stays the same. It is high time the world adapted tools to better elicit meaningful policy change by governments, instead of relying on seemingly “cheap” tools like sanctions, which often cause more problems than they solve.

The writer is a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Institute at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies