The Indian Ocean Tsunami: The Global Response to a Natural Disaster

13: Transnational Geopolitical Competition and Natural Disasters

283 13 Transnational Geopolitical Competition and Natural Disasters Lessons from the Indian Ocean Tsunami Christopher Jasparro and Jonathan Taylor The shock and magnitude of the Indian Ocean Tsunami triggered the largest international relief operation in history (Tang 2007, 1). The massive outpouring of aid from countries, multilateral organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and individual donors produced a phenomenon that came to be described as “competitive compassion” (Bindra 2005, 181). In the days and weeks following the tsunami, all the major powers with geostrategic interests in Southeast Asia—China, India, Japan, and the United States—donated to the relief effort. Within two days of the tsunami strike, Japan announced a $30 million aid package,double the initial U.S.pledge.The United States then raised its offer to $350 million, while China pledged $63 million. Japan responded by increasing its offer to $500 million (Tamamoto 2005). Thailand and India, also hit by the tsunami, asserted their regional positions by giving aid to smaller neighbors while themselves rejecting most outside assistance (Greenhough, Jazeel, and Massey 2005, 370). A similar pattern of “competitive compassion” emerged in the aftermath of the massive 2005 Pakistan earthquake. The major state donors to the relief effort were the United States and the Arab countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (all of which had taken considerable criticism for their limited assistance to Indonesia following the tsunami). India also played a major role in the relief effort. 284 Jasparro and Taylor It is therefore not a stretch, or even novel, to argue that aid in the wake of mega-disasters is an arena for geopolitical competition. However, today’s “competitive compassion” is not merely an extension of interstate geopolitics as usual, but rather one dimension of a wider playing field where the international system’s “legitimate” actors—states, on one hand, and international civil society (e.g., multilateral organizations, NGOs, the private sector), on the other—are in competition with the denizens of globalization’s underside: such as transnational criminals and terrorist/extremist groups.1 According to Foreign Policy editor Moises Naim, through the dynamic of globalization, global criminal networks have amassed enormous profits and become powerful political forces while those fighting them have been correspondingly weakened (2005, 12–13). Transnational terrorist organizations and networks have also emerged as powerful challengers to the traditional international system. Not surprisingly, both sets of actors have become players in disaster geopolitics. Thechaoscreatedbynaturaldisastersincreasestheriskof moneylaundering and terrorist financing. With their well-established networks and sophisticated technology,criminalgroupsareflexible,ready,andabletoexploitanyopportunities to launder their illegal proceeds (McKenzie and Bryant 2006,198–99).In the aftermath of a disaster,trade,charities,and remittance services are vulnerable to exploitation by those wishing to finance terrorism (ibid., 200; Napoleoni 2003). Disasterrelief islikewiseafieldforideologicalcompetitionbetweentransnational terrorist groups and their opponents. For example, following the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, Ayman al-Zwahiri (Al-Qaeda’s second in command) appeared in a broadcast saying, “I am appealing to all Muslims in general, and the Islamic charity organizations in particular, to move to Pakistan to extend relief to their brothers in Pakistan,and to rush to do that,and to consider all the hardships and harm they face in that to be for the sake of God.We all are aware of the extent of the raging US war against Islamic charity work” (Al-Jazirah 2005). Samson (2003) describes this emerging geopolitical situation as a triangle between “states,” “project” society (e.g., civil society and other actors with resources and relief or development missions), and“mafia” (organized crime, warlords,etc.).The sides of the triangle may act antagonistically toward each as well as in concert, but the relationship is mediated by state-centered coalitions (ibid., 337–38). This geopolitics of compassion, as well as the relationship and motivations between different actors,is,according to Hyndman,driven by fear, which becomes securitized. Fear is employed to instigate “political demands for protection from ill-defined geographically diffuse threats: disease, asylum seekers, transnational crime, terrorism” (2007, 367). Consequently, humanitarian and development assistance is “increasingly being linked with issues of Transnational Geopolitical Competition and Natural Disasters 285 (in)security and (in)stability,”while states may cooperate in the face of shared fears (ibid.). Disaster relief thus has become (at least in part) an exercise in geopolitics and security. Events in the aftermath of theAsian tsunami vividly illustrate how disasters have become a new front for this type of geopolitical competition and...