{"id":2543,"date":"2017-06-23T12:51:29","date_gmt":"2017-06-23T16:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/?p=2543"},"modified":"2017-07-19T21:22:16","modified_gmt":"2017-07-20T01:22:16","slug":"a-russian-as-un-counter-terrorism-czar-bad-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/2017\/06\/23\/a-russian-as-un-counter-terrorism-czar-bad-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"A Russian as UN counter-terrorism czar? Bad idea."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Hugh Dugan<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Originally published by Fox News<\/a> in the Fox News Opinion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The placement of a Putin operative, Russian senior diplomat Vladimir Voronkov, to run the United Nations Counter-Terrorism offices is being touted as the first major reform of the United Nations Organization by its new Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The only reform is that Russia changed its mind against insisting on its Washington Ambassador Sergey Kislyak for this new command, probably due to his controversial meddling in DC, including the Michael Flynn matter.\u00a0 Nonetheless, Putin\u2019s choice looks to be one of the UN\u2019s most damaging setbacks in years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recently the General Assembly finalized the creation of a new, expensive Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism post tailored for a Russian incumbent.\u00a0 It was the UN spoils system at work.\u00a0 Voronkov had laid in wait in Vienna as head of UN offices there for several years where he helped puppeteer the \u201cIran Deal\u201d Obama bought. After the Soviet meltdown and Russia\u2019s twenty-five years of slow, geopolitical rehabilitation, Moscow\u2019s new senior insider can now approach the gates of Oz, UN Headquarters in New York.\u00a0 He will settle in like a low-grade headache and eventually show Secretary-General Guterres that the UN isn\u2019t big enough for the both.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, this is not a real reform, as heralded by Guterres.\u00a0 It is a game of musical chairs in reverse, where one adds<\/em> a chair when the music stops.\u00a0 Further, it includes taking a big chunk of bureaucratic birthday cake from the senior-most American in the UN Secretariat and giving it to its new senior-most Russian.\u00a0 It reminds of the Obama\u2019s uranium gift to Moscow – twenty percent of the US stockpile.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The UN General Assembly last week finalized creation of the Under-Secretary-General post for Counter-Terrorism specifically tailored for a Russian incumbent.\u00a0 It was the old UN spoils system at work, involving a retrograde, Cold War invader who will undo what remains of UN relevance today.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How did things come to this?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Obama Administration colluded with Russia to select Guterres for Secretary-General in late 2016.\u00a0 It was part of a trade-off intended to keep Obama\u2019s operative, Jeffrey Feltman, at the top of the UN Secretariat\u2019s powerful Department of Political Affairs no matter the US election.\u00a0 Likewise, France, Britain and China wanted to keep their senior-most operatives positioned in a Guterres administration.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Keeping Russia\u2019s hands off \u201ctheir\u201d senior posts required creating a new senior post for Russia which had outgrown it patience exiled in secondary UN posts.\u00a0 So, the General Assembly decided to greenlight a customized senior post for Secretary-General Guterres to fill as he wished, in exchange for a Russian promise not to veto Guterres\u2019 bid for Secretary-General.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s Voronkov will oversee nothing less than the UN\u2019s Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy programming and all its pertaining optics and authorities. In fact, Moscow engineered the office\u2019s creation for a Russian operative to regrow Moscow\u2019s brand throughout UN Headquarters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the rest of the world, this merely adds an expensive chair to the U.N. table without regard for the UN\u2019s hodgepodge counter-terrorism mandates, which have never amounted to much anyway.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If money speaks, then the UN\u2019s Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy is barely a whisper. To date, approximately 95% of its funding has come from only one source, Saudi Arabia ($110 million).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Russia, by the way, has never given a dime to the program it now plans to command.\u00a0 But its new Under-Secretary General for Counter-Terrorism will do fine personally. The General Assembly has authorized a $300,000-plus compensation package for the job from the UN\u2019s fixed budget.\u00a0\u00a0 (The U.S. pays 22 per cent of that budget.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Voronkov leaves his ambassadorial nestings in Vienna and Geneva after years of inflating and promoting Russia\u2019s capacities and significance on today’s geopolitical stage.\u00a0 The Russian appointment marks a return to that country\u2019s Soviet-era influence within UN Headquarters after decades of service in exile.\u00a0 Moreover, it will include offices purloined from the Department of Political Affairs.<\/p>\n

Meantime, Feltman will keep his Political Affairs post for at least another year or so, long enough to qualify for a second pension.\u00a0 More importantly, it will keep him, an Obama appointee, at the ear of the Secretary-General well into the Trump Administration.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is a \u201cparallel universe\u201d counter-terrorism bureaucracy untouched by this reform, and it exists in the Security Council.\u00a0 That Counter-Terrorism Committee, supported by an Executive Directorate, was created after 9\/11 to bolster the ability of countries to prevent terrorist acts both within their borders and across regions.<\/p>\n

As recently as April the Council\u2019s committee began work on a \u201ccomprehensive international framework\u201d to counter terrorist narratives.\u00a0 This is a doppelganger to the new czar\u2019s Global Counter Terrorism Strategy and its existence proves that there is no reform at hand to rationalize UN counter-terrorism resources.<\/p>\n

Meantime, be assured that Vladimir Putin\u2019s version of counter-terrorism strategy\u2014from the man abetting Bashar al-Assad\u2019s atrocities in Syria, will get a thorough and respectful airing at the United Nations Organization.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Hugh Dugan advised eleven US Ambassador to the UN while serving as a US Delegate there from 1989 to 2015.\u00a0 Currently he is Sharkey Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Seton Hall University\u2019s School of Diplomacy and International Relations.\u00a0 V<\/em>iews or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of <\/em>any other entity.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Hugh Dugan Originally published by Fox News in the Fox News Opinion. The placement of a Putin operative, Russian senior diplomat Vladimir Voronkov, to…<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingA Russian as UN counter-terrorism czar? Bad idea.<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2428,"featured_media":2545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[279,296,294],"class_list":["post-2543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogposts","tag-shu_un_studies","tag-unshu","tag-profhughdugan","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2543"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2547,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2543\/revisions\/2547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}