Caitlin Howarth

Roosevelt Institute | Pipeline Fellow

Recent Posts by Caitlin Howarth

  • The New Guard

    The Unfinished Business After the End of the Iraq War

    Dec 13, 2011Caitlin Howarth

    As an era ends, Iraqis will grapple with their own security while veterans will adjust to the labor market back at home.

    As an era ends, Iraqis will grapple with their own security while veterans will adjust to the labor market back at home.

    Yesterday, President Obama gave a joint appearance with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to mark the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. In announcing the holiday homecoming, the president has made good on his promise to bring the war to an end. For thousands of families welcoming their loved ones home, it is a time for joy; for the country, it is a time for gratitude.

    Now is also a time for healing. Both the people of Iraq and U.S. veterans have wounds to heal and relationships to rebuild. The veterans come home to a still-struggling economy, limited jobs, and complex health issues. Iraqis are still picking up the pieces of an infrastructure shattered by war and complicated by sectarian tension; living in the midst of regional upheaval presents no easy road, either. Five years ago, when I studied the smaller pockets of Iraq's sectarian violence, the ugliness of what can happen in a power vacuum appeared overwhelming. The reality of what happens when some people have plenty of weapons and no accountability remains a major concern -- and not just among Iraqis.

    Alongside the president's statement today came the news that Academi, the latest version of Erik Prince's Blackwater, will be seeking more contracts in Iraq. As U.S. troops withdraw, let's hope that more of Prince's finest won't need to fill any gaps. If the White House is correct in its assertion that U.S. troops have properly trained and equipped the Iraqis to handle their own security (or if Blackwater is unable to shed its old reputation along with its name), then perhaps there's hope that the 5,000 contractors withdrawing this month won't be replaced in the year ahead.

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    Should Blackwater return, or should the Iraqis be unable to manage their own security, the state runs the risk of returning to a model where rule of force always supersedes the rule of law. A legitimate police force -- which Blackwater has no hope of being part of -- provides more than just peace of mind. It gives the strongest signal that Iraq will not become another Arab Spring cautionary tale. So often, the police have been the primary muscle (and most intimidating agents) of ruthless regimes in Syria and Egypt. If the Iraq war has truly ended responsibly and well, then the rule of law and a legitimate police force will be the best signals of American success.

    For veterans returning home, success is both simple and challenging. Troops trained in highly specific skills for the battlefield need skills for the boardroom; those broken in battle need fully funded health care and a proactive approach to helping them take the next step. Fortunately, new tools for building post-military careers seem promising. Last week, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced a slate of new online tools that help veterans access details about their service record and translate their skills for prospective employers.  Since channeling veterans into new careers is the single most proactive way to ensure their success -- personally and economically -- measures like this will need to grow as the administration carefully tracks veteran employment rates. To date, those rates have hardly been inspiring. But our veterans' future health and security depend on this success. (For more recommendations on improving veterans' employment, check out Iraq veteran Tim Embree's testimony before the House Veterans Affairs committee.)

    Ultimately, no single week will ever quite suffice as "the end" to this chapter of our history. For those who made the ultimate sacrifice, there is no homecoming. For those rebuilding Iraq, there is no immediate end. For veterans, there is the next challenge of another chapter of life.

    But for all of us, there is the recognition that today, we can turn a page in our history. And for that we can be grateful.

    Caitlin Howarth is a Roosevelt Institute | Pipeline Fellow focusing on human security at home and abroad.

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  • Millennial Pulse

    Believe in Bilin: Palestine's Future Rests in Hands of Youth

    Jun 27, 2011Caitlin Howarth

    bilin-fence

    Will Palestine's "Generation Oslo" be the game-changer in the West Bank?

    bilin-fence

    Will Palestine's "Generation Oslo" be the game-changer in the West Bank?

    Last Friday, Muhammad Khatib walked down a long country road toward a security fence. For the last six years, he and a cadre of nonviolent protesters have made their way down the road every Friday. And every Friday, they have been met with tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades. Some protesters threw stones in response. Most would retreat, burned by the gas or hit by the bullets.

    Last Friday, Khatib and his fellow protesters marched for the last time in Bilin.

    The campaign to reclaim land in the small Palestinian village of Bilin was marching in victory: the security wall deemed illegal in 2007 by the Israeli Supreme Court is being rolled back. While organizers debate the next phase of their campaign, this nonviolent movement's success marks yet another victory for the Arab Spring.

    Whether it will be a game changer in the West Bank depends on whether Khatib and the rest of Palestine's "Generation Oslo" become the face of Palestinian leadership. Frustration over years of legal battles in Israel's courts and at the International Court of Justice leave many convinced that Tel Aviv's 'wait it out' policy may ultimately prevail, giving settlers enough time to establish communities that will be difficult to unroot. The youthful leaders like those at the center of events in Tunis and Tahrir Square have little access to power in the Palestinian Authority or political parties. And the longstanding dispute over whether Hamas can join in any legitimate Palestinian government, let alone in peace negotiations with Israel, is a constant source of tension that threatens to unravel any progress.

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    All the more reason, then, to believe in Bilin. Palestinians face a critical moment in the months ahead: namely, whether or not a third intifada (popular uprising) will take place in September, when Palestine approaches the UN to claim international recognition of its statehood. Whether that uprising will occur as it did it Tahrir -- and with as much call for fresh Palestinian leadership as for liberation from Israeli occupation -- depends largely on successful organizing among Palestine's well-educated, under-employed youth. Cut off from job opportunities, Generation Oslo spends its time studying; its literacy rate is estimated above 94%, more than 20 points higher than Egypt's. Brian drain from students leaving the territories in search of higher education and jobs has created a diaspora with precisely the kinds of diplomatic, financial, and organizational resources needed to help rebuild the West Bank and Gaza.

    But jobs alone will not be enough to create a stable, thriving Palestine; nor will the old, hard-line leaders in Ramallah, Gaza, or Tel Aviv accomplish a lasting peace. The next generation, some of whom I was lucky to meet during a recent trip to the West Bank, understands both the tough game of politics and the power of hope. They, like so many young leaders I worked with in the States, are both deeply pragmatic and fundamentally driven by basic values. They aspire to nothing more -- and nothing less -- than human dignity. All they need is the opportunity to break free of an old and limited political paradigm.

    For many, international recognition of Palestine could be a catalyst moment for the Oslo Generation to take charge. And despite all the complexities unique to Palestine and Israel, this next generation of leaders should hold one thing constant from the last year of revolution: a commitment to nonviolence. Leaders like Muhammah Khatib understand the uncompromising power that comes from walking toward walls with no protection other than their faith in each other. That is the power that makes everything else possible.

    Let's hope the Oslo Generation believes in Bilin.

    Caitlin Howarth is the former policy director of the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network. When not in class at the Harvard Kennedy School, she works on the human security documentation team at the Satellite Sentinel Project.

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  • Millennial Pulse

    What Eric Cantor Doesn’t Get About Social Security

    Mar 2, 2011Caitlin Howarth

    social-security-200Young people across the globe are worried about how their parents will retire and how they'll find jobs -- not reining in government.

    social-security-200Young people across the globe are worried about how their parents will retire and how they'll find jobs -- not reining in government.

    Last Thursday night I had the dubious privilege of seeing House Majority Leader Eric Cantor address students at the Harvard Kennedy School for a forum hosted by the Institute of Politics. In a fifteen minute speech focusing on the budget cuts and austerity measures working their way through Congress, Representative Cantor managed to demonstrate how thoroughly he didn't understand his young audience:

    "Not long ago, in streets of both Greece and France, we saw young people protesting against the government's decision to rein in retirement benefits -- even though they were years away from receiving them. Translation: very early in their lives, these individuals were conditioned to rely and depend on the government for their livelihood, for their future."

    Simply put, the gentleman from Virginia just doesn't get it. What the world saw in Greece and France -- and what we continue to see in Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria -- is not the socialist zombie apocalypse, but rather a well-organized, well-informed protest against gross economic injustice and systematic undermining of the middle class.

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    Young people the world over, including those in the US, know exactly why their parents and grandparents need the security of the pensions they spent lifetimes working for. Not so long ago, growing old meant growing poor -- and even today, Census data show that Social Security benefits are still insufficient to prevent 1 in 6 elderly persons from falling into poverty, particularly elderly women who disproportionately rely on Social Security and supplemental programs like Meals on Wheels to help them meet basic needs. (For comparison, Social Security used to reduce elderly poverty from 1 in 2 to 1 in 8, according to 1999 figures.) And in today's economy, with baby boomers pushing up against weakened 401(k)s and faltering home prices, these gloomy statistics are more personal than ever.

    What does this mean for young people in Greece, besides not wanting to see their parents' last years be their worst ones? What does it mean for 20-somethings in France who move back home to help parents pay the bills? What does it mean for college graduates in America who, after incurring their loans and earning their degrees, scramble for the chance at a mere unpaid internship?

    What Eric Cantor doesn't get is that we are all in this together. What Congress doesn't get is that when the older generation cannot retire, the younger generation gets shut out of the labor market. What austerity fans toasting to government hiring freezes don't get is that those jobs were supposed to receive the biggest wave of civically engaged, community-committed young workers since the end of World War II.

    Maybe it was easy to mistake his audience that night -- after all, this is the campus that spawned Facebook and its 20-something billionaires. But the students packed into the Kennedy School that night weren't the ones who will build the next great social network. They were the students who will boldly experiment with education and science, fixing health care and strengthening our national security. They view their task not as a game, but as a duty owed to one another.

    They are a generation that depends not on government, but asks government to depend on them. Rep. Cantor should follow their example.

    Caitlin Howarth is a former national policy director at the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network. She is currently pursuing a masters in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

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  • Johnson & Johnson at AFN2010

    Jun 8, 2010Caitlin Howarth

    too-big-to-fail-license-plate-banker-new-yorkIn a conversation at the America's Future Now!

    too-big-to-fail-license-plate-banker-new-yorkIn a conversation at the America's Future Now! conference that was considerably more lively than the 7:30am crowd expected, Roosevelt's Rob Johnson and Simon Johnson, a participant in our Make Markets be Markets conference, exchanged views on the current financial reform legislation, broke down the fundamentals of too big to fail, and illustrated just how many people are completely furious with the current banking system. (Hint: It's most people, whether they work on Wall Street or not.)

    A few moments stood out this morning:

    On populism -- Rob Johnson noted that even among the New York elite of financiers and MBAs, a second glass of wine elicits more populist rage than you might ever expect. Simon Johnson then mentioned a new friend of his -- Eugene Fama, a prominent free market economist who recently said that what we have in the banking system is not a market -- it's a distortion, a perversion of a market.  The simple fact is that a very small elite is preventing the kind of change that people across the financial industry and across the nation are calling for -- the question is, will this rage quiet down now that the government has "done something" by passing a financial reform bill. As Rob put it, "This bill is supposed to end Too Big to Fail." Simon countered, "It won't." The key, as Rob stated in a panel the day before, is to "stay agitated" and stay on top of the issue. Whether the progressive advocacy community gathered at America's Future Now will do that remains to be seen.

    On Too Big to Fail -- On this question, there was no doubt -- the current and future state of the financial sector is still Too Big to Fail. Here's where the Teddy Roosevelt trust-busting references enter, as the core of the solution is to make the banks smaller. "If you're too big to fail, you're too big to exist," said Rob; "This country wasn't built on mega-banks," added Simon, "and we don't need them to build prosperity." Moreover, the day may be rapidly approaching when banks are not only too big to fail - they may be getting too big to save. At its peak, the Royal Bank of Scotland (Britain's largest bank, which collapsed heavily during the 2008-2009 crisis) was one and a half times larger than the British economy. Mega-banks operating out of Switzerland have long surpassed that nation's GDP. And with six banks holding increasingly massive shares of the US financial market, the next crisis may not be comparable to the 2008 crisis. If anything, it will be bigger -- and there may not be a bailout big enough to stem the crisis.

    During the Q&A, one audience member probed the speakers on the issue of the deficit. Rob Johnson replied that "If you're going to be a deficit hawk, you have to be a financial reform advocate, because you can't get the necessary reduction without it." Simon Johnson then suggested that financial reform is actually the easiest place to start deficit reductions, as it is far less complex and ethically fraught than Medicare changes would be.

    What to Watch: The Basel Committee recommendations are well worth watching as the G20 convenes this year in Canada. Some predict that we'll see an increase in capital requirements as Basel pushes the financial sector from debt toward equity; whether an increase to pre-crisis levels (around 10-12%) will be enough is in doubt, however.

    Caitlin Howarth is Special Assistant to Andrew Rich, President of the Roosevelt Institute.

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