Motley Magazine - Volume X Issue Four - December 2016

Letter to the Editor
PORTRAIT OF A NEW AMERICA
STAFF WRITER MÁIRÍN - RUA NÍ AODHA GUIDES US THROUGH TRUMP’S
POLITICAL RISE, VICTORY AND POSSIBLE FUTURE.
Operation Sophia: A Military
Solution to a Humanitarian
Problem
IN RESPONSE TO MOTLEY’S
NOVEMBER ISSUE, GARY
MOLONEY DISCUSSES
THE ONGOING MARITIME
SECURITY MISSION IN THE
MEDITERRANEAN.
Donald Trump shocked the world by securing victory as
president-elect on the 8th of November. He has not left
the headlines since his surprise win and is the subject of
endless discussion, not least because he continues the global trend
of unpredicted right wing victories. He leaves a nation divided,
supporters and sceptics alike are anxiously awaiting his first actions
as the 45th president of the USA. Unexpected victories such as his
have historically been captured on canvas by master painters.
The Background
Trump is the first president to be elected that does not have a
background in politics or military service. All previous presidents
have entered the office with an average of 13 years experience in
politics and 5.6 years military service. There have been 3 former
presidents to have come from a business background; Harding,
Truman and Bush. However all of these presidents had also held
positions in Federal and State offices.
Trump has had three campaign managers and originally his
campaign was chaired by Paul Manafort. After his resignation on
August 19th he was replaced by Breitbart news executive Steve
Bannon as chief executive and pollster Kellyanne Conway as
campaign manager. Paul Manafort has a background very similiar
to Trump’s own, as the head of a family-run construction empire he
dealt with clients all over the globe.
Manafort however, also has extensive political experience. He
achieved great stature in the 1990s by running successful preidential
campaigns for Reagen and Bush. Manafort, much like his boss,
has attracted his fair share of controversy and criticism. His choice
to advise the Ukranian president, Viktor Yanukovych, who is
considered “dangerously pro-Russian”, has beens openly criticised
by politicians for the last 10 years. Trump’s employment of such a
stategist was a risk and attracted much negative attention, but he
chose a manager with an undeniable track record of success.
The Centreground
In his first days after the results there was a significant shift in his
rhetoric from divisive hardline immigration policies to a campaign
of “unifying the country.” There has been little discussion on the
proposed border wall and arming Japan and North Korea, instead
Trump has chosen to focus on trade and job creation. In a video
released on the the 21st of November Trump outlined that his
“agenda is based on the core principle of putting America first.”
Trump’s focus is on ensuring that “The next generation of production
and innovation will occur right here in our great homeland.” He
hopes to achieve this by issuing a notification of intent to withdraw
from The Trans Pacific Partnership, condemning it as “a potential
disaster for our country.” He favours negotiating “Fair bilateral trade
deals which will bring jobs and industry back on American soil.”
Trump has been candid in his attitude towards the environment,
having dismissed climate change as a “hoax” he is planning to
“unleash an energy revolution”. He will abolish “job killing”
environmental protection restrictions and plans to restablish Shale
Energy and CleanCo, with the intention of creating “millions
of highly paid jobs”. His attitiude has not gone down well with
environmentalist, Gene Karpinkski, president of the Leauge of
Conservation Voters, who has pledged that “We are going to keep
in his face to make sure that he understands that the public knows
that climate change is real and needs solutions. We’ll be in the
Congress, in the courts, in the boardroom, in the streets organizing
the broad public that supports action on climate change.”
The Foreground
Bernie Sanders has promised the public that he’s not going anywhere
and will be on hand to oppose “any policies that promote racism,
bigotry and homophobia”. Sanders however is remaining resiliantly
optimistic, assuring the public that on certain issues he and Trump
share common ground. Sanders explains that: “Mr. Trump has
said he wants six weeks of paid maternity leave. Every other major
country on Earth, I think, has at least 12 weeks of paid family and
medical leave, but this is a start. We look forward to working with
him if he is honest about that.”
He is also hopeful that Trump’s construction background will
be employed to rennovate America’s infastructure. “Mr. Trump
says he wants to invest a trillion dollars in rebuilding our crumbling
infrastructure...that is exactly what we should be doing, and we can
create millions of good-paying jobs if we do that. Mr. Trump, that’s
what you said on the campaign trail, that’s what we look forward to
seeing from you.”
Not everyone is so buyoant; the Southern Law Poverty Centre
has recorded over 700 incidents of hate crimes since the election.
This spike has included racist graffiti and swastikas being painted on
New York Park benches as well as incidents of black freshman college
students attending University of Pennsylvania being sent pictures of
racial slurs and lynchings. The 31% increase in hate crimes in new
York has been primarily focused on African-Americans, Muslims
and Jews, sparking fury among social activists.
Trump will officially take up office on the 27th of January, 2017
when his real campaign will begin. His course of radical actions are
set to begin on day one, as he promises to “bring back our country”.
Americans have named Trump as anywhere between “The
First President with balls”, to “A self indulged maniac”, to simply
“terrifying”. Will he make America great again? Time will tell.
On the 3rd of September 2015, the world awoke
to an image that would change how it perceived
the migrant crisis in Europe. The lifeless body
of a young Syrian child adorned the front pages
of newspapers and magazines across the globe. His name was
Aylan Kurdi and he was among the 3,771 migrants estimated to
have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean in 2015.
Europe had, in the most tragic of fashions, seen the human cost
of its migration policy.
Much has been discussed at an academic and political level
concerning the durability of the EU’s asylum system and its
capacity to respond to the so-called crisis. Yet, an oft-forgotten,
and woefully under-examined, element of the EU’s response is
the maritime security mission; EUNAVFOR Med, or Operation
Sophia as it is better known. Through this mission, the EU
engages in the search, seizure and disposal of vessels being used
by migrant smugglers in an attempt to stem the flow of migrants
using the Central Mediterranean route to reach Europe.
Rather than a traditional search and rescue mission, Operation
Sophia instead opts to tackle the business model of migrant
smuggling, through the interdiction of vessels on the high-seas.
Indeed, although the EU recognises the need to prevent the
loss of life as an immediate priority, it gave no explicit search
and rescue mandate to the mission. Under the Law of the Sea,
shipmasters have an obligation to render assistance to vessels in
distress, but the lack of an explicit mandate is telling as to the
lens with which the EU views the crisis as a whole.
It is ironic then that Operation Sophia has engaged extensively
in rescue missions during its life-time due to the unseaworthy
nature of many vessels being used by migrant smugglers. This
situation has been exacerbated by the increasingly riskier methods
being used by smugglers. In many respects, Operation Sophia
has become a search and rescue mission in everything but name.
Perhaps, that was the EU’s intention all-along, knowing that the
scepticism demonstrated towards its few pro-refugee policies by
countries such as Hungary, Bulgaria and the UK. It may be a
stretch to suggest the EU was engaged in a clever political game
when it devised the parameters of Operation Sophia, even if it
would be re-assuring to think so.
The mandate of the mission itself may be questionable, but
it has produced some positives in terms of search and rescue.
However, that very success has prevented it from cracking the
business model of smugglers. Following the destruction of many
of their more expensive wooden vessels, smugglers switched to
cheaper, less-seaworthy rubber models. The reasons for this are
two-fold. Firstly, the destruction of these cheaper models doesn’t
overly impact their bottom-line. Secondly, they engage in a
form of “lawfare” where they manufacture search and rescue
situations in order to trigger the legal and moral obligations of
others. In doing so, they are only required to get migrants onto
the high seas and in a position to raise a distress signal via a
satellite phone. The duty to render assistance then compels other
vessels, regardless of their status, to come to their aid.
Another question worthy of consideration is the territorial
limitations of the mission. While Operation Sophia is backed
by a UN Security Council mandate, its actions are restricted to
the high seas off the coast of Libya. It does not have a mandate
to go into Libyan territorial waters and consequently, migrant
smugglers can evade EU forces by remaining safely out of their
reach. The end-goal of Operation Sophia requires that it have
access to Libyan territorial waters, to be able to apprehend
suspected smugglers earlier in the process, preferably before they
launch. The internal squabbles of the Security Council, bolstered
by Russia, still feeling the sting of the last Libyan intervention,
make it unlikely that a mandate will manifest without the express
consent of the fragile Libyan government.
In recent months, Operation Sophia has begun to engage in
an EU-led capacity building programme aimed at ensuring the
Libyan navy is capable of effectively monitoring its own borders.
It is hoped that this diplomatic partnership will form the basis
for an invitation to work within Libyan territorial waters in the
future. The success of this strategy will require a delicate balance
that enables Libya to save face in the eyes of its critics and shakeoff
the critique that it is overly reliant on the West.
Operation Sophia is to a large extent a contradiction in terms.
A military mission, aimed at enforcing a security mandate,
but has primarily engaged in search and rescue. As noted by
Commander Patrick Burke of the Irish Navy: “Soldiers are not
built to be peacekeepers, but who else is going to do it?”
Whatever its flaws and the questionable logic of its actions,
it has saved many lives which may have otherwise been lost.
If nothing else, it has highlighted that interdiction alone is
not enough to adequately address the refugee crisis. A truly
comprehensive approach is required which uses not only the hard
power of security instruments, but the soft power of political,
social, economic, and legal measures.
Email editor@motley.ie if you’d like to get
in touch with us about anything we cover
in our magazine.
22 ISSUE N o 4 DECEMBER 2016
ISSUE N o 4 DECEMBER 2016 23