Need help for my Honor sociology class final assignment

SOC300 Honors Case Profile (400 points)

Humanitarian Intervention in South Sudan

1. Overview

Rival South Sudanese factions have fought a civil war since the end of 2013, causing mass displacements, tens of thousands of deaths and widespread hunger. Negotiations between the leaders of these factions are stalled, and as South Sudan’s dry season approaches, it signals intensified fighting and a humanitarian crisis of potentially historic proportions. The president has asked you, as a principal member of the National Security Council (NSC), for options on whether and how the United States should pursue a humanitarian intervention in South Sudan. You will be appointed by your instructor to one of five roles in the NSC as described below.

1. Case Assessment

In your assessment, after reading the case material, you should consider:

1. What is the current situation in South Sudan and what contributed to its emergence? What kind of threat to the country, its people and the overall region does this situation pose? 

2. What are the U.S. policy options in this case, and what are their advantages and disadvantages?

3. What U.S. interests are at stake in this case? As a policymaker, how would you prioritize these various interests, and why?

4. Who are Salva Kiir and Riek Machar and what is the basis of their disagreement?

5. What is the "responsibility to protect" and how might it be applied in this case?

6. What is the significance of oil to South Sudan and to this conflict specifically?

7. What are the economic, security, political and other challenges that South Sudan faces internally? How do these difficulties affect the crisis and any international response to it?

1. Main Concepts in the Case

• Humanitarian intervention

• Responsibility to protect (R2P)

• Weak or failed states

• Peacekeeping

• Civil war

1. Your Assignment

The instructor will appoint you to be one of a group of five members of the National Security Council (NSC) which advises the president about security developments on a global level, and it is your job to decide whether American interests are involved and/or threatened as situations arise around the world. In this case, regardless of the role assigned to you, you are to write a three-page paper assessing the economic, military and humanitarian situations in South Sudan. Your paper will be divided into three sections in which you decide:

(1) If any national interests of the U.S. are involved, then what are they? If no interests are involved, then why not?

(2) Does the U.S. have a responsibility to protect (R2P) the people of South Sudan?

(3) If so, what form should that intervention take? If no action is recommended, why not?

This is a group project in which you are at liberty to discuss with the members of your team what course of action your group would recommend that the president take regarding intervention in South Sudan.

• If you are appointed the vice president, you serve as an all-purpose presidential advisor as well as the individual who makes diplomatic trips abroad.

• If you are appointed the secretary of state, you are to concentrate on America’s bilateral relationships, the relationships between foreign countries and the U.S. and analyze the behavior and interests of foreign governments toward the United States.

• If you are appointed the secretary of defense, you are to assess the likely implications of U.S. military involvement, both for the immediate crisis and for the United States’ overall strategic position in the region under review.

• If you are appointed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), you are to determine the likely implications of U.S. military involvement, both for the immediate crisis and for the United States’ overall strategic position in the region under review.

• If you are appointed the national security advisor (NSA), you are to make certain a full range of viable policy options has been articulated, coordinate those options and make certain that the prospects for success and failure have been identified for the president.

• Regardless of your role, in your summary you must include factors such as: (1) should the U.S. intervene or not, and if so, what form of intervention do you recommend? and (2) In addition, if you do recommend intervention, then should it be unilateral or multilateral?

• I will hold two conference calls in the early weeks of the course to discuss this assignment and answer questions, so it is imperative that you try to attend these. If you absolutely cannot do so, I will record the calls so you can refer to them for any clarification.

1. About the Case

Rival South Sudanese factions have fought a civil war since the end of 2013, causing mass displacements, tens of thousands of deaths and widespread hunger. Negotiations between the leaders of these factions — President Salva Kiir and rebel commander and former Vice President Riek Machar — are stalled, and as South Sudan’s dry season approaches, it signals intensified fighting and a humanitarian crisis of potentially historic proportions. Already, about two million South Sudanese have been driven from their homes and food shortages and health needs have grown acute. Although a United Nations peacekeeping mission is present in South Sudan, other countries, including the United States, have begun to consider additional action to protect civilians.

The president has asked the NSC for options on whether and how the United States could pursue a humanitarian intervention in or around South Sudan. NSC officials will need to consider the pressure on the United States to act, including the “responsibility to protect” (R2P), as well as the significant costs, benefits and risks of unilateral or multilateral intervention.

1. Roles

• Vice President of the United States

• Secretary of State

• Secretary of Defense

• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

• National Security Advisor

Role-play

• There is no right or wrong way to participate in a role-play, but the better prepared you are, the more likely you will be able to advance a position effectively, and the more you and your classmates will get out of the experience.

• Be patient during the role-play. Do not hold back from sharing your perspective, but be sure to give others a chance to do the same.

• Ensure that the consequences of various decisions are carefully weighed.

• Where appropriate, find common ground with other members of the NSC during the role-play. With whom might you work in advocating your proposed policies? You may find that combining several policy ideas into a new proposal with broader support is an effective strategy if the debate is at an impasse.

• You cannot win or lose the role-play. Instead, you should aim to offer a well-reasoned articulation of your position while making concessions and adjustments where you believe they are warranted.

• Your individual grade on this assignment will depend exclusively on the three pages you write about your assessment of the situation and the quality of your recommendations to the president about whether or not to take action.

1. Interagency Process (The National Security Council)

Whether it aims to meet an acute national security threat or to advance a long-term objective, a successful foreign policy–making process starts with the clear articulation of U.S. interests and goals. Leaders often face a menu on which every option is imperfect.

The NSC plays a critical role in this effort. The council exists to serve as the “president’s principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials.” Its mission is to help the president effectively use a variety of instruments, whether military, diplomatic or otherwise, to forge policies that advance U.S. national security objectives. The NSC and its staff are also to even-handedly manage the policymaking process so that the president can receive a full spectrum of advice and opinion from the agencies involved in national security.

1. Members of the National Security Council

Vice President

This is second-highest-ranking official of the U.S. government and first in line to assume the presidency if the president dies, resigns or becomes unable to serve. Though given only one responsibility in the Constitution — to serve as president of the U.S. Senate, with the power to break ties — the vice presidency has become a visible part of the modern White House. Today’s vice presidents undertake a variety of functions, from serving as an all-purpose presidential advisor to carrying out diplomatic trips abroad.

Secretary of State

The Department of State maintains the U.S. diplomatic presence around the world, conducting foreign relations and using an on-the-ground perspective to generate country-specific knowledge. As head of the department, the secretary draws on this knowledge to present an authoritative view of the United States’ bilateral relationships, the relationships between foreign countries and the behavior and interests of foreign governments.

Secretary of Defense

The secretary of defense is the principal defense policy advisor to the president, under whose direction he or she exercises authority over the Department of Defense. In NSC meetings, the secretary analyzes the security situation in the relevant region and explains the likely implications of U.S. military involvement, both for the immediate crisis and for the United States’ overall strategic position.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) is the highest-ranking member of the U.S. military and the principal military advisor to the president, the secretary of defense, the NSC and the Homeland Security Council. The CJCS does not exercise command authority over U.S. troops. Instead, he or she works with the heads of the U.S. military services to provide advice to the president and other senior leaders.

National Security Advisor

The national security advisor (NSA) has a special role in crisis management, serving as the “honest broker” for the national security policy process. Although the president makes final decisions, the NSA is responsible for ensuring that he or she has all the necessary information, that a full range of viable policy options has been articulated, that the prospects for success and failure have been identified, that any legal issues have been addressed, and that all members of the NSC have had the opportunity to contribute.

South Sudan is in crisis. Since winning independence from Sudan in 2011 after decades of bloodshed, the country has faced a troubled existence. Despite oil wealth, it suffers from one of the world’s lowest levels of development. Government institutions are dysfunctional. Political rivalries between President Salva Kiir (from the Dinka ethnic group) and former Vice President Riek Machar (a Nuer) caused the effective collapse of the government in late 2013, plunging the country into a civil war marked by ethnically targeted attacks.

This conflict has helped precipitate a severe humanitarian crisis. Roughly two million South Sudanese, out of a population of 11.6 million, have been driven from their homes, causing major disruptions to agricultural production and access to local markets. Food shortages and health needs have grown acute. The death toll from starvation and disease is mounting and is estimated at 50,000, although it could be as high as 300,000.

The primary external diplomatic actor is the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a bloc of eight East African countries. Several times, IGAD has threatened both South Sudanese parties with sanctions for not abiding by the terms of past peace agreements. Despite the parties’ consistent disregard for these agreements, however, IGAD has never enforced sanctions.

Although a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission has been present in South Sudan since the country’s independence, this new crisis has led other countries, including the United States, to consider their own humanitarian interventions. The “responsibility to protect” (R2P) doctrine, adopted by the world’s governments in 2005, established a norm for international intervention in cases of crimes against humanity or genocide that the national government cannot or will not stop — a possible development should the conflict in South Sudan intensify. However, this norm is nonbinding and its application in individual cases has proved controversial.

Decision Point

South Sudan’s dry season, which runs from November to April and allows troops and vehicles to move more easily, is looming, and negotiations between Kiir’s government forces and Machar’s rebels have created cease-fire agreements that exist only on paper. It seems likely that fighting will continue or even escalate, subjecting civilians to violence, reprisals and possibly even genocide. At the same time, drought, destruction and the loss of the agricultural workforce will further reduce South Sudan’s scarce food supplies. The result is predicted to be a humanitarian crisis of historic proportions.

In this context, the United States faces significant pressure to act. Various interventions are possible to try to affect the political dynamics underlying the humanitarian crisis. They include diplomatic steps, such as increasing U.S. involvement in existing peace talks or convening fresh negotiations; economic measures, such as placing sanctions on South Sudan’s leaders or working to interdict funding to the warring parties; and indirect military interventions, such as offering intelligence support, training or arms to one side or the other. These can be pursued unilaterally or in cooperation with other countries or multilateral organizations.

National Security Council members are thus tasked with debating a more limited and immediate question: should the United States pursue a direct humanitarian intervention in South Sudan? Advocates are sure to invoke the R2P doctrine, arguing that conditions in South Sudan resemble those in Rwanda at the onset of that country’s 1994 genocide, which claimed as many as one million lives. Yet NSC members must balance the possible good that a direct intervention could accomplish against the significant dangers and costs that it would entail. This requires carefully defining the goals of an intervention and the means capable of meeting them. Integral to this deliberation is the reality that the ultimate determinants of South Sudan’s trajectory are the South Sudanese leaders and people themselves, not the capabilities of the United States.

Although South Sudan possesses rich oil deposits, this has not translated into economic gains for the new country’s people. South Sudan’s oil fields have fallen under mismanagement and the threat of violence. Furthermore, South Sudan can export its oil only through pipelines traversing Sudan to the north, with which it has a troubled relationship. South Sudanese leaders have halted their country’s oil production in times of bilateral discord, driving the country deep into debt. By mid-2014, South Sudan’s oil production had fallen to half the level at the time of its 2011 independence.  Amid ongoing violence, foreign companies have delayed or canceled oil exploration agreements that might have increased South Sudan’s total capacity for oil production. South Sudanese currency has lost 90 percent of its value, and inflation continues to rise.

South Sudan’s oil reserves have also burdened it with the “resource curse,” a phenomenon that can limit the growth of competitive industries and breed government corruption. According to the World Bank, “South Sudan is the most oil-dependent country in the world, with oil accounting for almost the totality of exports, and for around 60 percent of its gross domestic product.” A small portion of South Sudan’s population does profit from oil revenues, but about half of its people live on less than one dollar a day. Given a dearth of other opportunities, some three-quarters of South Sudanese rely on subsistence agriculture for their livelihood.

Compounding these difficulties, allegations of corruption are widespread. Current and former government officials have been accused of stealing billions of dollars of public money, and much of the national budget is spent on salaries, particularly for military officials.  Transparency International ranked South Sudan 164th of 168 countries on its 2015 Corruption Perception Index. Because of these circumstances, South Sudan is extraordinarily underdeveloped. A bit smaller than Texas, it has fewer than 250 miles of paved roads, and according to the World Bank’s latest figures, only 5.1 percent of the population has access to electricity. The maternal mortality rate is reported to be one of the world’s highest. More than 80 percent of the population lacks access to improved toilet facilities, and just 27 percent of South Sudanese (and 16 percent of women) are literate.

The United States has played a significant diplomatic role in Sudan since the early 2000s. It helped broker the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), the leading southern rebel group. The country seceded from Sudan in a 2011 referendum supported by 98.8 percent of the electorate.  Despite a minimal economic relationship with South Sudan, the United States has made substantial investments in the country’s development; over fiscal years 2014 through 2016, the United States gave South Sudan nearly $1.6 billion in humanitarian assistance.  Over the years, the United States has also voted to authorize — and has funded — a series of UN peacekeeping missions in the region.

South Sudan’s simmering humanitarian crisis has three principal root causes, which stem from both underlying conditions and the civil war that began in December 2013.

1. General Underdevelopment

South Sudan faces grave development challenges. As noted above, infrastructure is scarce, mortality astronomical, and literacy low. A person born in South Sudan today could expect, on average, to live only to age fifty-five, almost a quarter century less than someone born in the United States.

Basic functions of government are also in short supply. This stems in part from the nation’s political history. As a young state, and as the recipient of large infusions of foreign aid and the target of efforts by numerous UN missions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), South Sudan has little experience building or managing government institutions on its own.

2. Political and Ethnic Conflict

The most conspicuous cause of South Sudan’s current humanitarian crisis is the politico-military conflict between Kiir and Machar, which erupted in December 2013 after years of mounting resentment and rivalry. Kiir has attempted to consolidate his executive power and has proven consistently reluctant to distribute power among other officials. Meanwhile, as vice president, Machar sought to weaken the central government in favor of South Sudan’s ten state governments — particularly the state of Unity, where he wields significant influence. As the principal rebel leader, Machar now calls for government reform and a loosening of Kiir’s grip on power. The political conflict has also exploited ethnic affiliations. Kiir’s status as a Dinka and Machar’s status as a Nuer have frequently driven loyalties in the civil war along sectarian lines. Atrocities committed by both sides have been overwhelmingly sectarian. Government forces targeted Nuers in Juba, killing thousands; Nuers responded with reprisal attacks against Dinkas. Such clashes show little sign of abating.

3. Struggle for Resources

Two resources have fueled the civil conflict in South Sudan: oil and agricultural assets. The rich oil fields in the northern part of South Sudan have proved crucial targets for both Kiir and Machar. Before 2012, South Sudan’s oil accounted for 98 percent of the country’s exports. These deposits attracted the interest of some of the world’s largest oil companies, driving billions of dollars in foreign investment. Although oil did not precipitate the civil war, control of oil fields has become a major focus of subsequent fighting. Each side is afraid that the other party will use oil revenues to finance weapons.

As a consequence of South Sudan’s civil war and underdevelopment, agricultural resources have also become objects of conflict. Competition over food, clean water supplies, and cattle — long a mainstay of the agricultural economy whose value has driven clashes since before the civil war — has led to significant violence. Both individual and systematic attack patterns can be attributed to the desire for sustenance and control over these supplies.

NSC members will need to weigh political pressures to do something about the rapidly unfolding humanitarian crisis in South Sudan against the reality that humanitarian intervention is never without costs and risk. Aid workers need adequate security and crowd-control capabilities. When violent conflict is the primary driver of a humanitarian crisis — and especially when the intervention occurs in an area of ongoing hostilities — the risk to peacekeeping and civilian personnel increases greatly. If American personnel are sent into South Sudan, they are going to become intimately involved in peacekeeping efforts and their lives may be at risk in the ongoing civil war. The question for the NSC is to decide whether this threat is worth the possibility of their stopping the current humanitarian crisis from taking the lives of thousands more South Sudanese.

Policy Options

NSC members have three main policy options to consider:

1. No direct military intervention

Refraining from direct military intervention is always an option. Indeed, given the costs, risks and complications of the other options described, restraint deserves as much consideration as direct action. It would save taxpayer dollars and keep American aid workers and troops out of harm’s way, not to mention that a poorly executed U.S. military intervention could exacerbate tensions, sparking more fighting and loss of life.

2. Intervention to provide humanitarian aid in neighboring countries

Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese refugees have made it to bordering countries, including Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Sudan. It is likely that these governments and UN agencies would welcome additional assistance from the United States and any partners in providing food, shelter, security, and medical care to the ballooning number of refugees.

3. Intervention in South Sudan itself

Bringing aid to the displaced persons within South Sudan would require a major humanitarian and military intervention. Given the poor condition of the roads and other infrastructure in South Sudan, the United States and any partners would need helicopters to assist in the delivery of aid, as well as generators, communications equipment, and prefabricated shelters to facilitate and sustain the operation. The military would also establish no-fly zones to provide troops and aid workers on the ground more freedom of movement. 

    a. Exclusively humanitarian intervention

In this option, the United States and any partners would conduct a humanitarian intervention to distribute aid inside South Sudan but would not seek to affect the conflict itself. The only goal would be to relieve human suffering. Personnel would negotiate but not use force if local actors resisted their efforts to distribute assistance. American troops would be authorized to fire only in case of imminent danger to themselves, civilian aid workers, U.S. military equipment, or aid installations or supplies. An intervention under these rules would be possible only as a consensual intervention in which Kiir — and ideally other leaders — allowed the United States and any partners in. 

    b. Humanitarian intervention with peace enforcement

This is the most ambitious option available: a humanitarian and peace enforcement or peacemaking mission. Its goal would be to address a leading cause of the humanitarian tragedy — the conflict itself — while simultaneously alleviating human suffering. This option requires the same logistical elements as option 3a to enter South Sudan, set up aid delivery stations, and protect aid workers, but it adds another military “line of operation” directed at the warring parties.

For a peace enforcement mission, U.S. and any partner forces would be tasked with enforcing the most recent cease-fire agreement by physically keeping the warring parties apart. This intervention could be — or become — an imposed one depending on how the parties react. Should the cease-fire agreement prove untenable, troops would need to engage in peacemaking, which entails creating the conditions to make a durable peace deal possible. Either way, the military tactics and procedures required for this operation are robust. U.S. forces would be allowed to open fire on any party to the conflict if necessary to prevent it from breaching the cease-fire (e.g., by seeking to gain territory or attack other parties). U.S. troops would also be allowed to use force to defend civilians as well as themselves, their equipment and aid personnel or supplies.

XIII. Glossary

African Union (AU)

a regional organization with fifty-four members representing every African country except Morocco. Established in 2002 as an outgrowth of the Organization of African Unity, the AU aims to promote democratic governance, economic development, and intergovernmental cooperation among African countries while protecting national sovereignty and peacefully resolving disputes

Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)

a 2005 accord ending the Sudanese civil war that began in 1983. Among other provisions, the agreement, signed by Sudan’s government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), created a semiautonomous Southern Sudan region and called for the region’s people to vote in a 2011 referendum on independence.

Decentralize

to redistribute power in an organization such that it is exercised by several subgroups rather than concentrated in one central body. In government, this typically means diluting the power of national authorities in favor of regional or local ones.

Desertification

the transformation of land into desert resulting from man-made or natural phenomena. This means the land becomes less suitable for agriculture.

Salva Kiir

the president of South Sudan. An ethnic Dinka and longtime southern rebel, Kiir became vice president of Sudan, president of Southern Sudan, and head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) after John Garang’s 2005 death. Kiir was elected president of the new South Sudan at the country’s independence in 2011.

Riek Machar

the head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO). An ethnic Nuer and a longtime member of the mainstream SPLM/A, Machar formed his own splinter rebel group in the 1990s and then served in the Sudanese government before reconciling with the SPLM/A in 2002. Machar served as vice president of Southern and then South Sudan from 2005 to 2013, when Kiir fired him. 

Multilateral

undertaken among three or more entities, usually countries. The term frequently describes organizations such as the UN.

No-fly zone

an area where aircraft are prohibited from flying, sometimes imposed in conflict zones and enforced with the threat of armed retaliation. A recent international example is the no-fly zone over Libya approved by the UN Security Council (UNSC) in 2011.

Norm

a broadly accepted principle of behavior that may not be formally written but is generally followed by members of a group, such as countries in the international system. 

Referendum

a vote, typically organized by a government, in which participants approve or reject a certain policy proposal. This is a form of direct democracy, in which citizens themselves (as opposed to elected representatives) make a policy decision. 

Resource curse

the notion — disputed by some scholars — that an abundance of natural resources in a country might not produce widespread prosperity but instead inspire endemic corruption and limit the development of a broad-based economy.

Responsibility to protect (R2P)

a nonbinding norm holding that outside powers have a responsibility to intervene in response to a government’s failure to protect its population from mass atrocities such as genocide, even though this violates the government’s sovereignty. The world’s governments adopted the R2P doctrine in 2005, but it remains controversial and unevenly applied.

Sanctions

a tool of statecraft, frequently involving economic measures such as asset freezes and trade restrictions, used to exact a certain behavior or outcome from another party. The U.S. and EU sanctions against Russian companies and individuals that aim to encourage Russia to end its interference in Ukraine are an example. 

Secession

the act of breaking away from a territory or leaving an organization, usually for the purposes of establishing a new one. The secession of eleven southern, slaveholding states from the United States and their subsequent establishment of the Confederate States of America led to the American Civil War.

Sectarian

characterized by differences among religious or political subgroups or sects, such as Sunni and Shi’a Muslims.

Southern Sudan

a semiautonomous region of Sudan in existence from 2005 to 2011. It became defunct with the secession and independence of the sovereign country of South Sudan.

Subsistence agriculture

a type of farming in which nearly all products are consumed by the farmer’s family and not sold for profit, leaving the farmer with little if any income. 

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A)

South Sudan’s ruling political party and armed forces, led by President Salva Kiir. The SPLM/A began under John Garang’s leadership as a rebel group against the Sudanese government and has long represented a broad constituency with sometimes divergent goals.

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO)

the South Sudanese rebel group led by former Vice President Riek Machar. Mostly Nuer and often supported by smaller militias, the SPLM/A-IO is a splinter group from South Sudan’s ruling party and armed forces. It has not expressed a consistent agenda.

Sudanese civil war

an armed conflict between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), sparked by the 1983 creation of the SPLM/A. The war, which also involved various smaller militias, is considered to be a continuation of earlier hostilities between Khartoum and southern rebels that occurred from 1955 to 1972. It ended with the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). 

Unilateral

an act undertaken by only one entity, generally a country.

The Issue

Peter Dörrie, “No One Is Winning South Sudan’s Civil War,” War Is Boring, April 28, 2015, https://medium.com/war-is-boring/no-one-is-winning-south-sudan-s-civil-war-3d95e9f12af0.

Andrew Green, “South Sudan Food Crisis Deepens Amid Tanking Economy,” IRIN, June 1, 2015, http://www.irinnews.org/report/101565/south-sudan-food-crisis-deepens-amid-tanking-economy. 

Context

Simona Foltyn, “Independent South Sudan’s Economic Woes,” Al Jazeera, July 8, 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/07/independent-south-sudans-economic-woes-150705112843046.html.

Rebecca Hamilton, “Seize This Crisis to Push South Sudan Reform,” Reuters, January 9, 2014, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/01/09/seize-this-crisis-to-push-south-sudan-reform/.

Root Causes

Pamela Dockins, “What Triggered the Kiir-Machar Rift in South Sudan?” Voice of America, January 9, 2014, http://www.voanews.com/content/what-triggered-the-kir-machar-rift-in-south-sudan/1826903.html.

Further Reading

Jon Lee Anderson, “A History of Violence,” The New Yorker, July 23, 2012, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/23/a-history-of-violence-4.

Nicholas Bariyo, “South Sudan’s Economy Dragged Down by War, Report Says,” The Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/south-sudan-conflict-could-cost-28-billion-over-five-years-report-says-1421244475.

Lauren Ploch Blanchard, “Sudan and South Sudan: Current Issues for Congress and U.S. Policy,” Report no. R42774, Congressional Research Service, October 5, 2012, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42774.pdf.  

Alex de Waal, “Sizzling South Sudan: Why Oil Is Not the Whole Story,” Foreign Affairs, February 7, 2013, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sudan/2013-02-07/sizzling-south-sudan.

Alex de Waal and Abdul Mohammed, “Breakdown in South Sudan: What Went Wrong — and How to Fix It,” Foreign Affairs, January 1, 2014, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sudan/2014-01-01/breakdown-south-sudan.

Charlton Doki and Adam Mohamed Ahmad, “‘Africa’s Arms Dump’: Following the Trail of Bullets in the Sudans,” The Guardian, October 2, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/02/-sp-africa-arms-dump-south-sudan.  

Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, “The Responsibility to Protect,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2002, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2002-11-01/responsibility-protect.

Lee Feinstein and Anne-Marie Slaughter, “A Duty to Prevent,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2004, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2004-01-01/duty-prevent.

Peter Greste, “Thinking Outside the Ethnic Box in South Sudan,” Al Jazeera, December 28, 2013, http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/africa/thinking-outside-ethnic-box-s-sudan.

Zlatica Hoke, “South Sudan Conflict Fuels Humanitarian Crisis,” Voice of America, March 7, 2015,http://www.voanews.com/content/south-sudan-conflict-fuels-humanitarian-crisis/2671353.html. 

Princeton Lyman and Kate Almquist Knopf, “To Save South Sudan, Put it on Life Support,” The Financial Times, July 20, 2016, http://next.ft.com/content/c4f24d75-b2d7-3667-bcb2-6d25be5f3f75.

Colum Lynch, “Inside the White House Fight Over the Slaughter in South Sudan,” Foreign Policy, January 26, 2015, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/26/exclusive-inside-the-white-house-fight-southsudan-obama-conflict-susanrice-unitednations/.

Justin Lynch, “Is There Any Hope Left for South Sudan?” The New Yorker, July 14, 2016, http://newyorker.com/news/news-desk/is-there-any-hope-left-for-south-sudan?intcid=mod-latest?reload.

Jason Patinkin, “Four Years On, a Harrowing Sense of Déjà Vu in South Sudan,” The Christian Science Monitor, July 8, 2015, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2015/0708/Four-years-on-a-harrowing-sense-of-deja-vu-in-South-Sudan.

Stewart Patrick, “A New Lease on Life for Humanitarianism,” Foreign Affairs, March 24, 2011, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/2011-03-24/new-lease-life-humanitarianism.  

Philip Roessler, “Why South Sudan Has Exploded in Violence,” The Washington Post, December 24, 2013,http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/12/24/why-south-sudan-has-exploded-in-violence/.

Marc Santora, “As South Sudan Crisis Worsens, There Is No More Country,” The New York Times, June 22, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/23/world/africa/as-south-sudan-crisis-worsens-there-is-no-more-country.html.

“Soaked in Oil: The Cost of War in South Sudan,” Al Jazeera, March 4, 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/soaked-oil-cost-war-south-sudan-150302102747401.html.

Jérôme Tubiana, “An Elusive Peace in South Sudan,” Foreign Affairs, February 3, 2015, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2015-02-03/elusive-peace-south-sudan?cid=nlc-foreign_affairs_today-020415-an_elusive_peace_in_south_suda_5-020415&sp_mid=47954946&sp_rid=c21hbGNvbXNvbkBnbWFpbC5jb20S1.

Lesley Anne Warner, “As Talks Stall, South Sudan Conflict Grinds to Stalemate,” World Politics Review, July 22, 2014, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13943/as-talks-stall-south-sudan-conflict-grinds-to-stalemate.

XV. Background Articles

Seize This Crisis to Push South Sudan Reform

By Rebecca Hamilton, January 2014

Three years ago this week, outside a makeshift polling station in Bentiu, South Sudan, I interviewed Riek Machar, vice president of the then semi-autonomous region. Machar had just cast his vote for South Sudan’s independence; I asked him what he would say to those who doubted that South Sudan, desperately underdeveloped and with experience of ethnic strife, could be a viable nation. “We will show them” he said, with a confident gap-toothed smile.

Today, doubters must feel vindicated. A power struggle between Machar and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir became public when Kiir fired Machar from the vice presidency in July. That political dispute has since metastasized into a bloody conflict with ethnic overtones. In a land where unchecked weaponry is ubiquitous, youth unemployment overwhelming, and military discipline fractured, this crisis has the potential to tear the fledgling nation apart.

Machar denies Kiir’s allegation of an attempted coup on 15 December, but acknowledges leading rebels opposed to the government. The United Nations now estimates that at least 1,000 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced. The prospect of South Sudan descending into civil war has sent supporters of its succession scrambling. The U.N. authorized a significant increase in peacekeeping troops, the U.S. dispatched its envoy, Donald Booth, and the East African IGAD bloc is sponsoring negotiations in Ethiopia this week.

These initiatives seek to stop the violence — a crucial first step. And if the international community is satisfied with merely enabling diplomats to move on to the next crisis, this approach may be sufficient. But if the goal is to prevent this crisis from recurring in another six or twelve months, those with leverage over South Sudan, including both China and longtime U.S. supporters, such as Susan Rice, face a much larger challenge. They must convince South Sudan’s leaders to reform their entire structure of governance, and take seriously the task of ethnic reconciliation.

The ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, chaired by Kiir, has had to grapple with a curse common to successful liberation causes. Dictatorial leadership strategies that helped the S.P.L.M. appear united in its fight for independence are ill-suited to democratic governance. The result is that South Sudan is a multi-party state in name only, with all meaningful positions of power held by members of the S.P.L.M. Within the S.P.L.M, Kiir has stifled dissent, and the line between the S.P.L.M.’s military and political authority is blurry. As recent events show, this is a source of systemic risk, leaving the military all too available in disputes that should be channeled into political dialogue.

The population, too, doubts the political process. Under both British colonialism and the Khartoum regime, ethnic affiliation was the only sure guarantor of protection. Southerners have never experienced rule by a government committed to serving its constituents. In advance of independence, citizens’ expectations of their new government were unrealistically high. Southerners in rural areas consistently told me that they expected nationhood to bring electricity and schools in a matter of months. This in a country that has just 35 miles of paved roads. Still, in the two-and-a-half years since independence, many southern politicians have let down their constituents. As petro-dollars came in, corruption grew, as did allegations of ethnic favoritism.

Khartoum’s divide-and-rule approach throughout the war years means South Sudan’s major ethnic groups spent decades pitted against each other. And the task of reconciliation, begun by civil society and religious leaders, and carried forward by many ordinary southerners, has never been fully embraced by the political elite. President Kiir was chosen by the S.P.L.M. from South Sudan’s largest ethnic group, the Dinka, and Machar, from the second-largest Nuer group — a choice meant to reassure South Sudanese that their leaders’ vision transcended ethnic loyalty. Yet the claim was always fragile; when Kiir fired Machar the illusion of ethnic harmony at the country’s helm was finally destroyed.

Against this backdrop, it would be easy to write off the entire enterprise of South Sudanese nationhood as a naive misadventure. But this would be a disservice to ordinary southerners who demonstrate daily their capacity to rise above their leaders’ failings. Edmund Yakani, executive director of a local community empowerment organization, reports that many locally refer to the current crisis as the “South Sudanese foolish moment.” Even as rumors of ethnically-based killings spread across the capital, a survey by Yakani’s organization showed many Nuer youth refusing to label all Dinka perpetrators. Anecdotes, such as Dinka soldiers sheparding Nuer students from Juba University to refuge at a U.N. compound, suggest that ethnic warfare is not inevitable. It is, however, an ever-present risk — one compounded by a political system that cannot handle dissent.

IGAD is right to insist that Kiir, the democratically-elected leader of South Sudan, cannot be overthrown by violence. But the opportunity for unscrupulous elites to instigate violence by casting political disputes in ethnic terms will remain until the long process of reconciliation is complete. Until then, the best way to mitigate these risks is to tackle the country’s governance flaws. The S.P.L.M. needs reform; it also needs to create space for true multi-party democracy. In addition, officials with military roles should not be allowed to hold political positions. Those at the Ethiopian negotiations may be able to cross South Sudan off their emergency list without any commitment made to these reforms. But if they do so, they will leave South Sudan back at square one

No One Is Winning South Sudan’s Civil War: Which Means That Neither Side Has a Reason to Call It Quits

By Peter Dorrie, February 2016

A great storm is coming to South Sudan, quite literally. Sometime during the next month, the rainy season will start in earnest and render much of the country inaccessible. The rains will bring a reprieve for the country’s 16-month-old civil war — no roads mean no troop movements. Neither the government nor the rebels have an air force to speak of, nor the airborne capacity to follow up on bombings with ground troops. But Pres. Salva Kiir’s army  —  and rebels loyal to his former deputy Riek Machar — are ratcheting up the fighting to put themselves in the best position before the rains.

This makes it harder for humanitarian organizations to prepare. Just like last year, many of the country’s thousands of refugees will suffer and die in overcrowded and inundated camps, even though active fighting will subside. When the rain clears in November, the war will likely continue. In the meantime, a new round of peace talks will start. Like during previous attempts, mediators and negotiating teams will hole up in luxurious hotels in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.

Both rebels and government representatives will receive per diems of about $250 per head and have all their expenses, including room prices of $300 per night covered. That probably includes the mini bar. The talks are unlikely to result in a peace deal worth the paper it’s written on. Neither the government, nor the rebels want to compromise. Kiir has said previously that he will not enter into any kind of power sharing deal with Machar, and Machar’s faction won’t stop fighting without one.

Similarly, neither faction has any reason to fear a drawn-out conflict. Both sides lack the ability to effectively control the vast and inaccessible expanse that is South Sudan by either military or political means. That makes a clear military victory by the government or the rebels unlikely. In the meantime, warlords and politicians on both sides can profit from the war economy and enjoy the amenities of Addis Ababa’s nicest hotels when its time for the next round of “negotiations.”

This kind of war profiteering is a tradition in South Sudan. The country never managed to leave its decades of civil war with the Republic of Sudan, from which it seceded in 2011, behind. South Sudan’s dominant political party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, is in fact a mixture of political and armed groups that never got completely untangled from each other. During the run-up to independence, the SPLM rapidly integrated dozens of militias and independent rebel groups — and gave hundreds of essentially illiterate “generals” generous monthly allowances.

Before the outbreak of the current civil war in 2013, during which large parts of the army defected, only Russia had more officers of general rank than South Sudan. For a precious two years, the SPLA was able to hold up a facade of stability by pulling out the checkbook whenever one of the “generals” went back into the bush to air his grievances by pillaging, warring and killing. The current conflict follows the same dynamic, although on a larger scale and with even more suffering. This isn’t to say the situation couldn’t get worse. On the contrary, it almost certainly will if the factions don’t have a dramatic change of heart.

So far, the conflict has only touched a few parts of South Sudan, with much of the current fighting concentrated in Upper Nile and Unity states. Both factions have only limited support, and Machar and Kiir are not indisputable leaders of their respective groups. Should the conflict spread to other parts of the country, human suffering could multiply. Already, the South Sudanese government is allegedly targeting influential politicians from the Equatoria region bordering Uganda. The local politicians in Equatoria have stayed on the sidelines.

The longer the civil war goes on, the higher is the probability that South Sudan sees some form of “Balkanization” of the conflict with a proliferating number of independent and quasi-independent militias and warlords — making any attempt at ending the conflict ever more unlikely. To make matters worse, the civil war has already become internationalized. The Ugandan government was very quick to throw its weight behind Kiir, sending its army over the border to hold the regime in power. Kiir has reportedly also employed fighters of various Sudanese rebel groups as proxies against Machar’s troops. This isn’t going to go over well with Sudan’s government. Khartoum has a long history of using its own proxies to further its interest in South Sudan. Both countries almost went to war with each other over control of the Heglig oil fields in 2012.

Sudan could also feel threatened by Uganda’s increasing influence in South Sudan, and decide to prop up Machar’s rebels as a counterweight. Mediation attempts by South Sudan’s neighbors have so far proven to be useless. It’s no different for the international community. The United States and the European Union have little to show for their efforts, especially since it was during their stewardship of the independence process that many of the current problems arose. The European Union has already leveled sanctions against some of the protagonists of the conflict and the United Nations has threatened to do the same.

The sanctions are unlikely to hurt, as South Sudan doesn’t have a developed economy. Given that South Sudan’s elite is very proficient at profiting from conflict, it’s questionable that anything but the most severe sanctions can convince the warring parties to settle the conflict with peaceful means. But there’s a sliver of hope that time will take care of things. Most of the leaders of both sides in the conflict are old, having been among the nation’s leadership since the days of the independence war. A new generation of leaders could bring a different dynamic to politics in South Sudan, ideally one in which war is a very last resort.

World Order 2.0: The Case for Sovereign Obligation

Richard Haass January – February 2017

For nearly four centuries, since the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War, the concept of sovereignty—the right of nations to an independent existence and autonomy — has occupied the core of what international order there has been. This made sense, for as every century including the current one has witnessed, a world in which borders are forcibly violated is a world of instability and conflict. But an approach to international order premised solely on respect for sovereignty, together with the maintenance of the balance of power necessary to secure it, is no longer sufficient. The globe’s traditional operating system — call it World Order 1.0—has been built around the protection and prerogatives of states. It is increasingly inadequate in today’s globalized world. Little now stays local; just about anyone and anything, from tourists, terrorists, and refugees to e-mails, diseases, dollars, and greenhouse gases, can reach almost anywhere. The result is that what goes on inside a country can no longer be considered the concern of that country alone. Today’s circumstances call for an updated operating system — call it World Order 2.0 — that includes not only the rights of sovereign states but also those states’ obligations to others.

From the late 1990s onward, a new liberal idea gained ground: that governments that mistreat their populations and foment instability in their neighborhoods forfeit their sovereign right to rule. The International Criminal Court, which encroaches on sovereignty in the name of justice, was established in 1998. One year later, British Prime Minister Tony Blair laid out his doctrine of liberal interventionism in Chicago, declaring that, in a world of growing interdependence, “the principle of non-interference must be qualified in some important respects.” In 2005, the UN General Assembly endorsed the “responsibility to protect,” the concept that when a state fails to prevent atrocities, foreign governments can intervene to do so. Such a concept of “sovereign obligation,” it is worth pointing out, differs from the notion of “sovereignty as responsibility,” which lies at the heart of the legal doctrine known as “the responsibility to protect,” or R2P. R2P refers to the obligations a government has to protect its own citizens — commitments that, if ignored, are supposedly enforceable by other states through measures up to and including military intervention. It clearly represents a potential infringement on classic Westphalian sovereignty, and it has supporters and opponents for that very reason.

By contrast, sovereign obligation is about what a country owes to other countries. It stems from a need to expand and adapt the traditional principles of international order for a highly-interconnected world. Sovereign obligation thus retains a respect for borders and an opposition to their being changed through coercion or force. It supports actions to enforce the norm against aggression, whether the incident involves Iraq invading Kuwait or Russia invading Crimea. And it retains a respect for governments’ rights to act generally as they wish within their borders, subject to the constraints of broadly accepted provisions of international law, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention. Sovereign obligation does not reject or replace the traditional approach to order—one that remains necessary but is no longer sufficient—so much as it builds on it.

A further discussion holds that the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a global political commitment which was endorsed by all member states of the United Nations at the 2005 World Summit to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The principle of the R2P is based on the underlying premise that sovereignty entails a responsibility to protect all populations from mass atrocity crimes and human rights violations. The principle is based on a respect for the norms and principles of international law, especially the underlying principles of law relating to sovereignty, peace and security, human rights, and armed conflict.

The R2P provides a framework for employing measures that already exist (i.e., mediation, early warning mechanisms and economic sanctions) to prevent atrocity crimes and to protect civilians from their occurrence. The authority to employ the use of force under the framework of the Responsibility to Protect rests solely with United Nations Security Council and is considered a measure of last resort. The United Nations Secretary-General has published annual reports on the Responsibility to Protect since 2009 that expand on the measures available to governments, intergovernmental organizations, and civil society, as well as the private sector, to prevent atrocity crimes. The Responsibility to Protect is a political commitment unanimously adopted by all members of the United Nations General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit:

Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it. The international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and support the United Nations in establishing an early warning capability.

The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. We stress the need for the General Assembly to continue consideration of the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and its implications, bearing in mind the principles of the Charter and international law. We also intend to commit ourselves, as necessary and appropriate, to helping States build capacity to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and to assisting those which are under stress before crises and conflicts break out.

South Sudan’s Man-made Famine Demands a Response

By the Editorial Board February 22, 2017

FOR VICTIMS of hunger in South Sudan, the world has been tilted into a bleak tableau of want. By international standards, 42 percent of the population is now classified as “severely food insecure,” an unprecedented level, and many are enduring the most severe trial of all, famine. By the peak of the lean season in July, nearly 5.5 million people could be in crisis.

South Sudan was already vulnerable to climate-related shocks to agriculture, but this crisis is largely man-made, as the humanitarian group Oxfam and the State Department both pointed out this week. Newly independent in 2011, South Sudan was split by a senseless and destructive civil war in 2013, and now the country is fragmenting into violence-racked shards that are impeding humanitarian aid, collapsing markets, disrupting traditional agriculture and consigning millions to hunger and malnutrition. The United States, its allies and the United Nations could have done more, and done it earlier, to stop the fighting, curtail the flow of weapons and bring about better conditions for humanitarian aid. Last year’s effort to impose an arms embargo failed in the U.N. Security Council for a variety of reasons, including lack of willpower. Will the Trump administration care at all about a nation the United States helped found after years of war and that now seems to be falling ever deeper into the abyss?

Opposition leader Riek Machar, who battled President Salva Kiir over the past few years, has fled the country but left behind forces that are still fighting. Mr. Kiir’s troops are also engaged in a campaign of violence and coercion that has forced hundreds of thousands to flee into camps and across South Sudan’s borders. Separately, fighting has intensified in the southern Equatorias, where disaffected tribes have taken up arms. The violence has terrible spillover effects: roadblocks, suspicion and other obstacles that make it very difficult for humanitarian aid to be delivered. Mr. Kiir’s government has waged a particularly nasty crackdown on civil society, too, that has put aid workers in the crosshairs.

The latest food-shortage projections are particularly worrisome because they show the food crisis is enveloping areas in the south that were once considered a reliable breadbasket. We’re told this kind of food insecurity hasn’t been seen in three or four decades. In the north-central part of the country, two counties are classified as being in “famine” from February to July, and a third is likely to experience it.

The United States has provided more than $2 billion in humanitarian relief from 2014 until now. More will be necessary, but just as important is stopping the violence that is driving more people into displacement and desperation and making it more difficult to help those who need it. The impetus rests on Mr. Kiir first of all. He has rebuffed many appeals from Washington and elsewhere in recent years, but the United States must not abandon efforts to curb the fighting that is the man-made core of this expanding misery.

War Crimes Shouldn’t Pay in South Sudan

By George Clooney and John Prendergast March 10, 2017

South Sudan’s leaders are perfecting the art of the diplomatic bait-and-switch while fighting over the spoils of a resource-rich state, destroying the world’s newest country in the process. The leaders agreed to a peace deal, but have implemented few of its provisions. They have agreed to a new judicial mechanism to try war crimes, but have delayed its creation. They have agreed to allow peacekeepers in, but they restrict their movement and whip up resentment against the United Nations. They have agreed to international humanitarian aid, but their forces obstruct the aid agencies at every turn and even attack, rob and rape aid workers. Meanwhile, more than 5 million people are suffering from hunger and require food aid.

All of this obstruction and obfuscation buys time for the leaders to continue to use extreme violence to loot the state treasury and the country’s natural resources. And we have the evidence. For the past two years, The Sentry, our new investigative initiative focusing on East and Central Africa, has compiled information from thousands of court filings, legal documents and financial records. Many of our sources had to be kept confidential due to safety concerns. Our new comprehensive report, titled “War Crimes Shouldn’t Pay: Stopping the Looting and Destruction of South Sudan,” shows that South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, the main opposition leader and several top army generals have been involved in a range of murky transactions, insider deals and questionable activities that suggest outright fraud. A number of these officials have command authority over military operations that resulted in mass atrocities in South Sudan.

While South Sudan’s brutal civil war rages on, the families of the country’s warmongering leaders live in multimillion-dollar mansions outside the country, stay in five-star hotels and drive luxury cars. The Sentry found that a number of Kiir’s relatives are involved in a wide range of business ventures. His wife, children and several powerful in-laws have held interests in almost two dozen companies operating in oil, mining, construction, gambling, banking, foreign exchange, telecommunications, aviation, and government and military procurement. The Sentry found that even Kiir’s 12-year-old son held a 25 percent stake in a holding company formed just a few months ago. Several of his children have held stakes in banks, some while they were teenagers. Meanwhile, one of the president’s in-laws — a general in the military responsible for protecting one of the country’s oil fields — controls a company that received contracts to supply fuel to the military, in which he served. That same general and that same company were doing business with a major multinational oil company with a stake in the oil block he was charged to protect.

The intersection of culture and politics

South Sudan’s leaders are content with draining the country’s resources in order to purchase deadly weapons from arms dealers and fund armed groups used to attack the civilian population bases of their rivals. Deposed vice president Riek Machar heads his own faction, which vies for power with Kiir’s supporters. Machar (before his removal from his position by Kiir) tried to engineer a murky deal that would have traded future oil reserves for weapons from a Russian arms dealer, according to the Sentry’s research. Indeed, an estimated two-thirds of South Sudan’s budget goes to military and defense spending, dwarfing government expenditures for basic health care and education for citizens.

What’s missing is international leverage. South Sudan’s leaders no longer take seriously the threats made by the United States and others to impose consequences. They have learned that rape as a war weapon, child-soldier recruitment and mass killings aren’t enough to trigger more impactful international pressures. South Sudan’s top leaders’ principal vulnerabilities lie in their need to move stolen assets out of the country and park that money in accounts, properties or businesses. After consulting widely with banking, finance and policy experts, we would propose a new approach to creating immediate and unprecedented leverage to counter mass atrocities in South Sudan. This approach would creatively use the precision-guided policy tools of financial pressure normally reserved for countering terrorism, organized crime and nuclear proliferation, this time in the service of peace, human rights and good governance.

The essence of a new strategy would combine readily available anti-money-laundering measures with targeted sanctions focused on top regime officials and their international facilitators, while encouraging banks to help provide essential services to innocent South Sudanese. Robust enforcement of this policy cocktail — especially focused on properties and banking activities — would effectively freeze the targets and their networks out of the formal international financial system. It would put banks and other commercial actors on notice that the same fate would befall them if they kept processing transactions or laundering money for those on sanctions lists. Designated top officials would be denied access to banks because of the centrality of the dollar in the international financial system and the importance of the U.S. banking system and capital markets. This combination of government and private-sector action could be a powerful and unique manifestation of 21st-century leverage, and it is cheaper, less risky and more effective than other policy options.

We founded the Sentry in response to some sobering questions. How do you influence the calculations of those willing to commit mass atrocities to retain or gain power? How can the incentive structure be altered so that war can be made costlier than peace? In South Sudan, we’d start by making sure that war crimes don’t pay.

George Clooney and John Prendergast are co-founders of The Sentry.

END OF CASE STUDY

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