Manama: Mahmood Rafique, Editor: The tremendous work done by the Kingdom of Bahrain in managing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has helped the country coming back to ‘business as usual’.
These views were expressed Dr John Chipman in his remarks during the opening of the 17th IISS Manama Dialogue 2021 kicked off on Friday with 300 international and regional delegates from 40 countries in attendance.
He extended his thanks to His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman al Khalifa, His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, and the Government and people of Bahrain, for their support to the IISS in organising this splendid annual international security and regional diplomatic summit.
“We are able safely to host such a large in-person inter-governmental meeting here in the Kingdom of Bahrain with over 300 in-person delegates here from over 40 countries, with several dozen government ministers, national security advisers and intelligence chiefs in attendance. It was excellent that last December we were able to have a limited but vital in-person Manama Dialogue.
“The fact that this year we are back almost to full strength, thanks to a really well-managed COVID crisis, with excellent testing and vaccination rates. No one can fail to be impressed by the professionalism with which the Government of Bahrain has executed this strategy.”
“The IISS has also had another extraordinary year, providing the data and analysis that governments and the private sector need on an ever-wider range of geopolitical and geo-economic issues. The Institute has grown substantially. We are proud to have opened a new IISS–Europe office in Berlin, which will help to animate the foreign policy and security debate in Europe. There too, our international personality is re-affirmed – 18 staff, but 12 nationalities are represented. Crucially, we aim to bring our specialist expertise on the Indo-Pacific and the wider Middle East, strengthened by the international offices that we have in Singapore, Washington and here in Manama, to support European policy discussions. “We look forward to ever-closer links between our offices in London, Berlin, Washington, Singapore and Bahrain,” Dr Chipman said.
Three trends of relevance to this conference have marked the last year in international relations. First, is intervention fatigue; second is the rise of minilateral security arrangements; and third is the growing priority of the Indo-Pacific in the strategic calculations of most countries around the world.
First, from the US, to Europe, to the Gulf, states have tired of military intervention. In some cases, exit strategies have been more focused on exit than on strategy. In others, the reliance on local forces to contain the effects of internal conflict has not paid security dividends. In most, the peace processes that would underpin a lowering of military engagement are fragile and intermittent.
As Afghanistan, Mali and Yemen see a reduction in external military engagement, with no commensurate increase in the quality of national governance, the risks of renewed or intensified terrorist activity, locally, regionally, and internationally potentially increase. Intervention fatigue and strategic impatience are two sides of the same coin. Neither attitude of mind can prevent threats from developing, and the co-existence of both may inspire malign transnational actors to try their luck. Leaders in North America, the Middle East, Europe and Asia, perhaps to their strategic irritation, will need to find ways to cooperate on counter-terrorism instruments in these new conditions. The lethal disruption of emerging threats may become more necessary in these circumstances, though more difficult given the loss of intelligence that is a result of serial disengagement from key theatres.
