DEVELOPMENTS

Speaking before a national Veterans of Foreign Wars convention Monday in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. President Barack Obama had sharp words for members of Congress. “If Congress sends me a defense bill loaded with a bunch of pork, I will veto it.” Obama’s warning comes after the House approved in late July by a vote of 400-30 a $636 billion Pentagon spending bill, as the Pentagon executes an obstacle-laden withdrawal from Iraq while shifting U.S. military might to Afghanistan.

Obama’s reasons for moderating the defense budget are many.  To name a few, record levels of government spending to combat the financial crisis and stimulate the recession economy has diminished the government’s stores of financial flexibility, stores which it must ration ever more scrupulously to achieve the Obama administration’s ambitious agenda – a public healthcare option, alternative energy entrepreneurship, and an expanded diplomatic corps. Most significantly for the Pentagon, a long-standing call for reforming defense spending, contracting and procurement, most recently espoused by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Foreign Affairs magazine, is also motivating Obama’s stern message.   The administration’s success or failure in achieving the defense spending reforms it seeks will profoundly affect not only the Iraq and Afghan wars, but also the future of U.S. military policy. 

DEVELOPMENTS

Western Sahara is never front-page news, but it deserves more attention.  Its political status is the subject of one of Africa’s longest territorial disputes, a puzzle of realpolitik and rule of law that has lasted 34 years.  Morocco contends that it should have sovereignty over Western Sahara while granting the region some measure of political and cultural autonomy.  The Polisario Front, the government-in-exile of Western Saharan ethnic groups, holds that the territory’s final status should be decided in a referendum, with the option of independence.  The protracted lack of a solution has fostered terrorism, and resulted in human rights abuses and lost economic opportunities. 

The U.N. quietly continues to take steps to break the political deadlock.  At the end of June, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, Christopher Ross, completed a visit to North Africa, with meetings in Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, and Spain.  Last week, Moroccan and Polisario officials met in Austria to restart a fifth round of formal peace negotiations.