In January 2016, the government of Honduras and the Organization of American States (OAS) formalized the creation of a new international organ to help fight corruption in this country. The Mission of Support Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH, in the Spanish acronym) is a welcome step. However, it is very early to estimate whether it will be able to make a positive contribution to solving the daunting challenges facing justice and security in this country.

Honduras experiences what can be called a “perfect storm” of interrelated problems: violence perpetrated by diverse actors (gangs, drug traffickers); human rights abuses, in the context of a steady militarization of public security; impunity; corruption at the highest institutional levels, and widespread poverty and inequality. For years, it has been the most violent country in the world, with an average rate of 90 homicides per 100,000 people according to estimates by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the World Bank, which is significantly higher than the international average intentional homicide rate of 6.2 per 100,000 people.

Gangs, Drugs, and Corruption

Honduras, like El Salvador and Guatemala, has a serious problem with gangs. These are territorial groups involved in extortion and other crimes, exerting social control and who are connected to other criminal actors. The prevailing narrative from politicians and the media puts the blame of violence on the gangs, whose members are highly stigmatized as a result. Different governments have adopted iron-first and militarized approaches to deal with them. Casa Alianza, a charity that works and campaigns for the rehabilitation and the defence of street children, has documented that even children become victims of extrajudicial executions, carried out by death squads sometimes linked to the security forces. In January 2016, Casa Alianza denounced a monthly average rate of 81 children victims of extrajudicial executions.

Image of Mara Salvatrucha gang member by markarinafotos.

However, the figures of homicides attributable to gangs are highly disputed, and national and international actors diverge in their interpretations about the share of responsibilities for violence. This is a strategic corridor for drug trafficking, and the local markets are growing. According to the OAS, around 70% of homicides are perpetrated by drug cartels involved in wars for the control of routes, sometimes using gang members and youth as sicarios (a Spanish term for hit men). By January 2014, estimates were that 87% of the drug planes heading from South America to North America passed through this country. Transnational groups, especially from Mexico, have established bases here. Then, there are local groups and transportistas (carriers), contracted by the cartels and connected to Honduran political and economic elites, including land owners and mayors.

In 2012, when the news about the gang truce in El Salvador spread throughout Central America, the Honduran gangs explored the possibility of starting a similar process. In May 2013, they delivered their first public statements from jail, announcing that they would stop violence in exchange for a series of demands. This was the first public event of a process accompanied by the Bishop of San Pedro Sula, Rómulo Emiliani, and the Secretary of Multidimensional Security of the OAS, Adam Blackwell.

Dialogue never advanced for many different reasons, including the decentralized nature of the Honduran gangs (that makes it difficult to enforce discipline among the ranks), the lack of political maturity of their leadership, and the weak legitimacy of a government that had emerged from the 2009 coup d’état,. But Bishop Emiliani had warned, from the beginning, that even a successful truce could never emulate the sudden drop of homicides of El Salvador, where the daily rate plummeted from 14 to 5. n Honduras, he warned, the range of actors involved in violence for different purposes is extensive, and the balances of power among them very distinct from those of the neighbour country.

It is worth remembering that in the 80s, amidst the wars that ravaged Central America, the Honduran territory was used for drug and arms trafficking with the aim of supporting the US allies in these wars, among them the Contras, who fought against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The illicit networks and connections created have survived well after these conflicts ended, including in sectors of the elite and security forces. Interpeace states that this is the country with more denounces of complicity between police members and illegal actors for the commission of crimes.

Militarization as a Response

President Juan Orlando Hernández, who took office in 2014, has followed others by trying to respond to these threats with an iron first strategy of crime suppression. But he has elevated the militarization of law enforcement to new levels. The military is now in charge of most aspects of public security.

The most prominent example is the creation of the Military Police of Public Order (PMOP), which currently has around 3,000 soldiers deployed throughout the country. A special law has been approved to prevent the Attorney General’s Office from investigating and prosecuting their potential abuses. It is the National Council on Defence and Security, under the control of the Armed Forces, who appoints judges and prosecutors for that role. The resources for the PMOP are collected through a security tax and allocated through a classified and ultra-secret budget.

Another emerging actor is FUSINA (Fuerza de Seguridad Interinstitucional), a task force composed of representatives of different security units. Led by the military, and with no formal status as an agency, FUSINA manages various bodies and organs, such as an anti-extortion unit that controls phone intercepts. Added to this is the US-backed Special Comprehensive Government Security Response Unit (TIGRES), a SWAT-style militarized police force.

Militarization takes place in the streets and also in the top-down institutional structures, with more military in charge of security positions, including the Security Ministry that has power over the armed forces and the police. The military also controls the penitentiary system, with soldiers guarding prisons. The trend is worrying in itself and for the lack of transparency and accountability implied. Civil society groups have denounced a trend that might be bringing the country back to the ‘80s, when the military had extended powers and human rights abuses were rampant, and reversing the efforts to advance civilian power during the 90s.

On the other hand, the national police experienced only limited reform in the past and are often accused of corruption and complicity in crime. Recently there have been limited purges of corrupt officers, but the situation could get even worse as they receive less equipment, salaries, and benefits than the PMOP. The priority given to the military threatens the feasibility and viability of a much-needed profound transformation of the police forces.

There have been some successes in the fight against drug trafficking, such as the dismantlement of the leadership of the crime organization Los Valle while Los Cachiros surrendered to US authorities. The head of operations of the Sinaloa Federation, who operated from San Pedro Sula, has also been captured. But efforts to cut the links of powerful elite sectors with narco-trafficking and crime have been far less evident despite the US efforts in this matter. The US Treasury Department has included some of them in their “kingpin list”, including the Rosenthal family, one of the most influential in the country. Jaime Rosenthal, former vice-president and head of an economic conglomerate, has been asked for extradition on charges of money laundering.

Corruption Shocking the Country

In 2015, a corruption scandal shook the country. Members of the President-related Liberal Party diverted more than 335 million dollars from the Institute of Social Security, at least in part to fund the party’s electoral campaign. Citizens protested for months in the streets of Tegucigalpa, the nation’s capital, and other cities against corruption, impunity, and human rights abuses. They claimed for the President resignation and asked for international support to fight corruption, through an initiative similar to the International Commission to Combat Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), which has achieved significant results including the case against President Otto Pérez Molina on corruption charges.

The Mission Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), tasked with “the prevention and fight against corruption and impunity in the country”, is now a reality and could be accompanied by a permanent UN human rights monitoring mission in Honduras. The MACCIH shares some similarities with the CICIG. Both are hybrid agencies, international and domestic, but composed by international civil officers accountable to international organs (the UN, and the OAS). Both are tasked with the fight against corruption and impunity with the hope of bringing justice where the national counterparts cannot for different reasons (pressures, corruption, lack of resources).

The MACCIH is expected to include independent judges and prosecutors to supervise and support their national counterparts, promote a review of the effectiveness of the public security system, create a civil society observatory to evaluate progress and a role for the Justice Studies Centre of the Americas in proposing legislation reform. But their powers will be more limited than those of the CICIG, which can initiate and conduct criminal proceedings against anyone without approval of the national authorities.

The MACCIH can promote transparency and reforms, but much will depend on the political will to follow and implement (instead of resisting) its recommendations and proposals. National and international voices have questioned whether it will have enough power to fight effectively institutional corruption. Honduran elites will probably resist any effort directed at reform and accountability. In April 2015, the investigator that uncovered the ISS corruption scandal received death threats and had to flee the country. And the former head of the National Commission for the Fight Against Drug Trafficking, Alfredo Landaverde, was shot dead days after condemning the links between police and organized crime.

With all those factors in mind, it becomes clear that repressive iron first policies and militarization cannot substitute the fight against illicit networks, corruption and impunity, nor the effort towards institution building, particularly in the rule of law and justice. They have been popular in electoral terms and have received substantial international backing, but are incapable of supressing crime connected to gangs or drug trafficking, and fail to guarantee human security. Furthermore, they do nothing to address corruption at all levels of the state and cut the links between elites and different forms of organized crime. Ivan Briscoe, of the Clingendael Institute, summarized the dynamic as follows: “Informal relationships, money and fear have initiated a vicious cycle of emergency responses, militarization and corruption that only virtuous policies with public backing can replace”. Of course, that will be a long-term endeavor.

Mabel González Bustelo is a Fellow of the Global South Unit for Mediation (BRICS Policy Centre, Brazil) and author of Mediation with non-conventional armed groups? Experiences from Latin America.

International Relations scholars, politicians, religious institutions and religious leaders can no longer debate whether religion is relevant to global or national governance issues and they can no longer afford to ignore the roles and functions of religious identity in many violent and nonviolent conflict areas in the world today. From European to South Asian societies, the headlines are related to the potentially destructive role that religion can play in everyday policy making. Those cases include, but are not limited to, the self-declared Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS); the civil war in the Central African Republic in which religious identity was thrown into the midst of the political conflict; and the ongoing conflict in Myanmar where religious identity is utilized to justify certain governmental policies.

The issue that practitioners (policy makers, religious institutions and religious leaders) are really struggling to effectively address is how to understand the interreligious dynamics of conflicts and constructively link this to future policies. The response of policy makers in Europe to the ongoing global refugee crisis represents an important case of the need for further linkages between religious leaders and policy makers. Given that the majority of the refugees are Muslims, how are secular European policy makers going to develop an approach to manage or mediate the inherent difference of cultural and religious Islamic ways of living and do so without stereotyping or inciting violence and exclusion towards refuges?  An even more challenging task is facing policy makers in the Muslim world, especially those in the Middle East where religious and sectarian identities have been systematically manipulated to justify political and even inter- and intra-communal violence with brutal effects. Unlike the European reality, in the Middle East, delinking religious identity and institutions from governmental policies and from justifying wars and certain governance frameworks is the primary needed change. In this context, politicians continuously enlist religious leaders in pursuing their own interests.

President Barack Obama meets with the Dalai Lama in the Map Room of the White House, Feb. 21, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Despite their problems grasping the issues, there is a growing agreement amongst policy makers and researchers that engaging religious leaders and institutions in peacebuilding on all levels is crucial to bringing the message of tolerance, pluralism and peaceful resolution of conflicts to communities. However, the research on such tools and techniques is still limited. Most studies continue to focus on the theological bases of peace and harmony in different faith groups (See Abu-Nimer’s 2007 book, Unity in Diversity). There are few studies on the mechanism and tools (design, processes, and evaluation of success) of interreligious peacebuilding which will allow policy makers to engage religious leaders and their institutions in a systematic process of mediation, negotiation, or problem solving to respond to a concrete social or political problem. As result of this shortage in experiences, many interreligious peacebuilding activities resort to the traditional and old models of symbolic and ceremonial representation of religious leaders in policy making circles. For example, a prime minster invites Abrahamic faith leaders to bless his/her new policy towards refugees in a certain area. In most cases such blessings take place outside of areas of worship and in the public secular space. The lack of systematic engagement of religious agencies in such peace processes and the instrumentalization of such agencies in a symbolic way only at the end of the process reduces the capacity of religious peacemakers in their own communities.

This approach of limited (time and resources) and symbolic engagement with religious identity (via leaders, symbols, rituals, etc.) has been around for centuries: a ceremonial role but not genuine engagement as a serious stakeholder in the conflict (using the cross or holy books as part of the ceremony to celebrate a peace agreement in a conflict situation like Northern Ireland, Palestine-Israel, Mindanao Philippines, etc.). In fact, a similar approach is taken by those who use religion to justify their war plans and violence in general (such as the use of religion for justification of violence in the wars in Bosnia in the 1990s, conflict in Northern Ireland, etc). The selective and partisan hijacking of certain religious values to explain the need to exclude, discriminate, dehumanize the “different other.” In both cases, there is an instrumentalization of the religious identity but not deep and nuanced engagement.

In current interreligious peacebuilding practices there are genuine efforts to move beyond this instrumentalization and bring a more holistic and integrative approach to engage religious leaders and institutions (See the recent 2015 report on CVE). Such trends can be vied in the most recent revisions of the American White House Summit responding to countering violent extremism (CVE) in which a strong call for a community based approach is an integral part of the CVE efforts; the KAICIID campaign, “United Against Violence in the Name of Religion”; Network of Religious and Traditional Peacemakers (launched by Finn Church Aid, Religions for Peace, KAICIID, USIP, OIC, etc.).

The Main Challenges Ahead

In spite of such efforts, there are still number of core challenges and potential pitfalls that face the field of interreligious peacebuilding in its development as a recognized field of researchers and practice, these include the following:

• First, there is the western post Industrial Revolution framework that endorses the cultural assumption (some argue myth) that religion and faith can and should be left outside of public spheres. Thus, bringing faith into academic institutions becomes a major struggle and threatens the foundation of its knowledge generating paradigm. This assumption that dealing with religion and faith is a private matter that ought to be compartmentalized to the Sociology of Religion or Theological Studies has obstructed many international relations and political scientists from systematically exploring the complex relations between religion and peace and war.
• Second is the assumption that conflicts and their causes reside primarily with material resources and not religion (identity or ideology). Such assumptions can lead many researchers and practitioners to dismiss or underestimate the role that religious identity and ideology can play in both triggering and sustaining conflict, as well as peace. There is no doubt that religion plays a complex and to some extent unique role in many conflict dynamics and outcomes. However, many aspects of this role are similar to other identity-based conflicts in which the stakeholder’s identity is deployed in the process of conflict escalation and de-escalation. Ethnicity, culture, race, gender, and sexual orientation are identities that have also been linked to conflict and violence, often through aggressive parties employing dehumanizing framing of an ‘other’, and there are many studies in both social science and the humanities that have explored the links between these identities and conflict and peace (see From Identity-Based Conflict to Identity-Based Cooperation, edited by Jay Rothman; and Ashmore, Jussim and Wilder of Rutgers University’s Department of Psychology’s publication: Social Identity, Intergroup Conflict, and Conflict Reduction).  The study of interreligious peacebuilding can draw on this wealth of research on conflict and identity and develop its own analytical frameworks and practices (R. Scott Appleby addresses religious identity and documents many of these the conflicts in his book, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion Violence and Reconciliation).
• Third, resources and support by professional organizations, donors, religious leaders and institutions are limited due to the above perceptions and biases. Thus many interreligious analysts and practitioners are rarely invited to the table as recognized and credible actor or agency who can contribute to the processes of peace or policy managements.
• The fourth challenge is understanding that religious peacebuilding is not the ultimate solution for all social and political problems in any given society, since religious identity and its manipulation is rarely the main cause of the violence in any conflict situation. In such cases, we should relate to interreligious peacebuilding agencies as serving a complementary role in a wider range of peacebuilding efforts carried out by many other peace agencies (such as media, educators, business sector, civil society, etc.) (See Abu-Nimer)

Conclusion

Despite the above challenges, the field of religious peacebuilding has been growing and gradually recognized by policy makers and donors as an important agency to engage with. Also, it is important to recognize that interreligious peacebuilders have been able to create significant progress in relief, development and aid. Faith based Organizations (FBOs) have illustrated that through interreligious cooperation they can significantly contribute to eradication of malaria in West Africa, provide relief to Tsunami victims in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, and fight hunger and poverty around the world in many local communities; and NIFA, a Nigerian interfaith organization that launched a campaign to eradicate malaria; also see the recent International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD), a network for linking development and religion, which was launched by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Nevertheless, the field of interreligious peacebuilding still has a long road ahead in terms of its research and study agenda, especially in producing empirical research that articulates the detailed processes, conditions and dynamics in every conflict and that lead certain communities to be easily mobilized through their religious identities (symbols, rituals, and institutions) to endorse violence or peace.

Mohammed Abu-Nimer is Senior Advisor Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue Center (KAICIID); and Prof. of Peace and Conflicts Resolution, American University, Washington DC.

by Elizabeth Minor, Researcher at Article 36

This article is part of the Remote Control Warfare series, a collaboration with Remote Control, a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group.

Later this month, governments will meet in Geneva to discuss lethal autonomous weapons systems. Previous talks – and growing pressure from civil society –  have not yet galvanised governments into action. Meanwhile the development of these so-called “killer robots” is already being considered in military roadmaps. Their prohibition is therefore an increasingly urgent task.

From 13-17 April, governments will meet at the United Nations in Geneva to discuss autonomous weapons – also referred to as killer robots. The week-long meeting will be the second round of multilateral expert discussions on “lethal autonomous weapons systems” to take place within the framework of the United Nations’ Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Urgent and coordinated international action is needed to prevent the development and use of fully autonomous weapons systems. Such systems would fundamentally challenge the relationship between human beings and the application of violent force, whether in armed conflict or in domestic law enforcement. Once activated and their mission defined, these systems would be able to select targets and carry out attacks on people or objects, without meaningful human control. As states with high-tech militaries such as China, Israel, Russia, South Korea, the UK, and the US continue to invest in aspects of increased autonomy in weapons systems technologies, consideration of this issue is increasingly urgent. Campaigners are calling on states to tackle this issue by developing a treaty that pre-emptively bans these weapons systems before they are put into operation, by which time it may be too late.

The issue

The UK’s Taranis stealth UAV. The Taranis exemplifies the move toward increased autonomy as it aims to strike distant targets “even on other continents”, although humans are currently expected to remain in the loop. Source: Flickr | QinetiQ

Weapons systems that do not permit the exercise of meaningful human control over individual attacks should be prohibited, due to the insurmountable ethical, humanitarian and legal concerns they raise. The governance of the use of force and the protection of individuals in conflict require control over the use of weapons and accountability and responsibility for their consequences. This principle, rather than any particular piece of technology or format of weapons delivery, is at the heart of the issue of autonomous weapons systems. Some have argued that fully autonomous weapons systems might reduce the risk of conflict or be able to better protect civilians. However, the focus must remain on these systems’ overall implications for the conduct of violence, rather than on a small range of hypothetical possibilities.

Tasks can be given to hardware and software systems. Responsibility for violence cannot. The process of rendering the world ‘machine-sensible’ reduces people to objects. This is an affront to human dignity. Computerised target-object matching such as shape detection, thermal imaging and radiation detection may enable the identification of objects such as military vehicles, though in complex and civilian-populated environments, not necessarily with accuracy. However, assessment of information about these objects and the surrounding environment, including the presence of protected persons such as civilians or wounded combatants, is also essential to uphold the principles that govern the launching of individual attacks under International Humanitarian Law. These are not quantitative rules, but considerations that require deliberative moral reasoning and contextual decision-making. As such, they could not be translated into software code. Based on the principle of humanity, they implicitly require human judgement and control over the process of decision-making in individual attacks.

Other concerns about the development of fully autonomous weapons systems include the dangers of proliferation among state and non-state actors, hacking, and the use of these systems in law enforcement or other situations outside of warfare.

Campaign to Stop Killer Robots first NGO conference in April 2013

A preemptive ban as a solution

Whilst the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is calling on states to move with urgency towards negotiations on a treaty to outlaw fully autonomous weapons systems, previous talks in Geneva have not yet galvanised governments into action.

Some states have suggested that existing law is sufficient to tackle this issue. Existing international law, which was developed prior to any consideration of autonomous weapons systems, implicitly assumes that the application of force is governed by humans. This body of international law is now inadequate as a reliable barrier to the development and use of fully autonomous weapons systems. A pre-emptive ban through an international instrument would not only halt any progress on these systems amongst states parties, but would help to stigmatise development by others.

Some states have argued that this issue can be dealt with by conducting individual reviews of their weapons technologies to ensure they continue to uphold current international law. States are already obligated to do this however, and whilst it is important, it will not be sufficient in preventing the development of these systems internationally. A clear legal standard and norm needs to be set, and this is best done through new international treaty law.

A ban based around prohibiting systems that operate without meaningful human control over individual attacks should be the starting point in international discussions among states, and so the elaboration and agreement of the elements of this principle are required as a next step.

International response so far

To date, autonomous weapons have been raised at the Human Rights Council in 2013 and considered by governments in dedicated discussions held at expert meetings of the CCW in 2014. The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, called in 2013 for national moratoria to be imposed by all states on the “testing, production, assembly, transfer, acquisition, deployment and use” of these systems, until an internationally agreed framework on their future has been established. The CCW could be a possible venue for developing this, having previously produced a pre-emptive ban on blinding laser weapons. One should note, though, that previous attempts within the CCW to deliver the responses needed to certain weapons systems have occasionally failed, often hampered by operating under the consensus rule and a tendency to defer to military considerations rather than focus on humanitarian or ethical imperatives.

Promisingly, the need to ensure meaningful human control has already been a prominent feature of the debate at the CCW, with several states recognising the importance of this approach. In upcoming discussions, governments should elaborate their policies for maintaining meaningful human control over existing weapons systems in individual attacks. Such an exchange would advance consideration of how human control can be ensured over future systems. This would in turn help clarify what practices and potential systems must be prohibited and the standards that states must demonstrate that they are meeting in their conduct. Elements to consider could include the need for adequate information to be available to commanders using any weapons system, positive action from a human being in launching individual attacks, and ensuring accountability.

Few states have elaborated any policy on human control over weapons systems. Current US policy on autonomous weapons systems stresses that there should be “appropriate levels of human judgement over the use of force”, but does not define what these should be. The policy leaves the door open for the development of fully autonomous weapons systems, whilst recognising the harm they could cause to civilians. The UK government has stated that it has no intention to develop fully autonomous weapons and that “human control” over any weapons system must be ensured. However, it has not given sufficient elaboration of what exactly this means and how it will be ensured.

States may see different types of operating, supervising or overseeing systems to constitute acceptable control. Agreement between states on the concept of meaningful human control is therefore an important element of international progress on the issue of fully autonomous weapons systems.

Work by states on an international framework should be supported by input from civil society and draw on the views of a range of experts. Ultimately, negotiation processes will determine the definitions of key concepts. If discussions do not advance towards a binding framework within the CCW, a freestanding treaty process may be required, as was the case previously in the processes to outlaw both anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions.

The upcoming meeting of experts at the CCW in April is unlikely to result in particular concrete actions due to the nature and format of the meeting. It could pave the way for a decision in November that states continue to discuss this issue in 2016 and put it on the agenda for the CCW’s 2016 Review Conference. At that point it could be flagged as a subject on which States Parties should develop a new binding protocol. No clear group to lead this process has yet emerged. So far Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, the Holy See, and Pakistan have endorsed a pre-emptive ban on autonomous weapons systems. France secured consensus for the CCW mandate in 2013 that established its work on lethal autonomous weapons systems, and Germany will be chairing the upcoming meeting, with the aim of seeking consensus on further consideration of the subject. However, the development of fully autonomous weapons systems is already being considered in military roadmaps. This makes their prohibition an urgent task.

Elizabeth Minor (@elizabethminor3) is a Researcher at Article 36, and was previously Senior Research Officer at Every Casualty, and a Researcher for Iraq Body Count (IBC). 

Featured image: The UK’s Taranis stealth UAV. The Taranis exemplifies the move toward increased autonomy as it aims to strike distant targets “even on other continents”, although humans are currently expected to remain in the loop. Source: Flickr | QinetiQ

by Shazad Ali and Chris Abbott

Strikes by unmanned combat air vehicles, or armed drones, have become the tactic of choice in US counterterrorism efforts in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. But lack of transparency, dubious effectiveness, civilian casualties and negative consequences for US national security means that Washington needs to re-evaluate its approach.

It is the controversy over drone strikes in northwest Pakistan that has bought the issue to public attention. Leaving aside the wider issue of the extrajudicial nature of these killings and the questions over the legality of repeatedly breaching Pakistani airspace, it is the level of civilian casualties that is prompting the most concern.

In a 23 May 2013 national security speech, President Barack Obama asserted that only terrorists are targeted by drones and that ‘there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured’ before any strike is taken. However, independent reports contradict his claims.

From 2004 to date, there have been 376 known US drone strikes in Pakistan. According to the UK-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), 407 to 926 civilians, including 168 to 200 children, have been killed in these strikes. According to a leaked Pakistani government report cited by the BIJ, at least 147 of 746 people killed in the 75 drone strikes in Pakistan between 2006 and 2009 were civilians. Of those killed, about 94 were children.

Controversial tactics

The high level of civilian casualties is attributable to two key elements of the US drone strike programme: double-tap strikes and signature strikes.

Double-tap strikes use follow up strikes to deliberately target rescuers and first responders who are coming to the aid of those injured in an initial strike. The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Christof Heyns, and the UN special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson, have described the use of double-tap strikes as a possible war crime. Ironically, terrorists in Pakistan are now using their own version of the double-tap strike to target law enforcement personnel in cities such as Karachi: an initial low-intensity blast is used to draw in the emergency services, who are then targeted in a second much larger explosion.

Signature strikes target individuals based on predetermined ‘signatures’ of behaviour that US intelligence links to militant activity. In other words, people are targeted merely on the basis of their behaviour patterns. This is different to personality strikes, which use intelligence to target specific terror suspects. In a June 2013 report that cited classified documents, NBC News revealed that one in four people killed in drone strikes in Pakistan between 3 September 2010 and 30 October 2011 were classified as ‘other militants’ by CIA. This means the CIA were unable to determine the affiliation, if any, of those killed.

Intelligence failures

However, even those strikes directed by intelligence are fallible. Such strikes rely on a mixture of signals intelligence and human intelligence from assets on the ground in Pakistan. The local CIA operatives are notoriously unreliable sources of intelligence.

The doubts over the accuracy of US intelligence have some credence, as there are several cases in which a militant was reported killed in a drone strike only to be declared dead again following a later strike.

For example, the alleged al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan, Ilyas Kashmiri, was reportedly killed in a drone strike in January 2009 and then again in September 2009, though he gave an interview to a Pakistani journalist the next month. Civilians are known to have been harmed in these unsuccessful attacks. In the January attack, 14-year-old Fahim Quershi lost an eye and suffered multiple injuries. In the September 2009 attack, 15-year-old Sadaullah Wazir lost his both legs and an eye. Three of his relatives died in the same attack. Kashmiri was again declared dead in July 2011, which is also contested.

The United States has indeed managed to kill many militants in drone strikes in Pakistan, but these have been mostly low-level targets. According to a September 2012 study by Stanford Law School and New York University’s School of Law, only 2% of militant casualties in drone strikes between 2004 and 2012 were high-value targets.

Justification

There is an important question over congressional oversight of US drone strikes. The Obama administration has refused to provide legal justification of drone strikes to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence despite several requests, according to committee chair Senator Dianne Feinstein. This has created an accountability vacuum and is a significant hurdle in congressional debate on the use of drones.

Following the 9/11 attacks, the US Congress gave the president sweeping powers through the Authorisation to Use Military Force (AUMF). It allows the president to:

‘use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organisations, or persons he determines planned, authorised, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harboured such organisations or persons.’

In that context, drone strikes against al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban are authorised under US law. But it is hard to justify under the AUMF attacks in Pakistan against organisations not involved in 9/11, such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and the Haqqani network – notwithstanding the transnational nature of and blurred boundaries between some of these groups.

It is also difficult to justify such attacks under the right to self-defence, which cannot be applied prospectively without limit. Nor does it warrant the repeated violations of Pakistan’s airspace, as Pakistan has not been shown to be responsible for any attacks against US interests. According to a leaked US diplomatic cable, Pakistan had, at one point, consented to drone strikes but it is not known whether Washington continues the strikes with Islamabad’s tacit agreement. Publicly, the Pakistani government has denounced the drone strikes, saying they are illegal and a violation of their country’s sovereignty. In September 2013, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told the UN General Assembly that US drone strikes violated his country’s borders and were detrimental to Pakistani counterterrorism efforts. But, in reality, Pakistan has at times been deliberately ambiguous on the issue and the complex nature of civil-military relations in Pakistan and the known links between the ISI and various militant networks make things more complicated.

Unintended consequences

Whatever the legal status of the US drone strike programme in Pakistan, it is clear that it risks several unintended consequences. The United States might have made a prudent military choice in using armed drones rather the special forces for counterterrorism strikes in Pakistan. But the use of drones has backfired in a strategic sense and resulted in serious ‘blowback’.

Chief among these is the radicalising impact US drone strikes are having in Pakistan. Repeated strikes are stoking anti-American sentiments and are a propaganda and recruitment gift to the extremist groups. Pakistan is being destabilised, as the strikes are undermining chances of peace talks between the state and Taliban groups. There are now increasing numbers of terrorist attacks against the Pakistani government by Taliban militants who believe Islamabad has failed to maintain the country’s sovereignty. Furthermore, the United States may be risking further attacks in its own backyard along the lines of the failed 2010 Times Square attack by Pakistani-born US citizen Faisal Shahzad.

Drone strikes in Pakistan may also be complicating the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, as they have resulted in attacks on US forces. The 2009 Camp Chapman attack is a case in point. The al-Qaeda and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan suicide attack used a double agent to target CIA personnel and contractors inside Forward Operating Base Chapman who were responsible for providing intelligence for drone strikes against targets in Pakistan. The attack on the base in Khost province was in revenge for the deaths of three al-Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban leaders who were killed in US drone strikes.

The use of drones by the US has increased the danger of proliferation. Seventy six countries are known to have unmanned aerial vehicles, with approximately 20 countries possessing armed drones (though estimates vary widely). The United States has lowered the threshold for the use of lethal force and pushed back the limits of counterterrorism efforts to include the targeted killing of its enemies abroad. In doing so, they have set a dangerous precedent – one that could easily be followed by other countries. In a September 2013 study, Open Briefing identified 29 different models of armed drone in use with China, India, Iran, Israel, Russia and Turkey – each of which have external security concerns that could justify drones strikes under doctrine modelled on the US approach.

Time for change

The use of double-tap and signature strikes must be ended, as they result in unjustifiably high numbers of civilian casualties. They are the most controversial elements within the already controversial US drone strike. Beyond that, it is time to begin winding in Washington’s unchecked ability to target individuals around the world without due process. Central to this is the revocation of the post-9/11 Authorisation to Use Military Force. For 12 years this has allowed the spread of US military and intelligence operations around the world without accountability and transparency. These operations are increasingly straying from targeting those who ‘planned, authorised, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001’ to simply targeting suspected militants, regardless of their links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

Washington can address the democratic deficit inherent in its drone programme by moving responsibility for it from the CIA to the usual chain of command within the US Department of Defense. There must also be proper congressional and judicial oversight of the drone programme, with monitoring by Congress’s intelligence and armed services select committees, in order to remove absolute executive power for the targeted killings.

For its part, Pakistan can retract any tacit approval of US drone strikes and be unequivocal in its opposition to further strikes. This will allow the United Nations and key US allies to use whatever influence they have to press the United States to enact the much needed changes to its drone programme.

Shazad Ali is a contributing analyst at Open Briefing. He is a journalist in Pakistan and pursuing a PhD in European Studies at the University of Karachi. He has been the assistant editor of the Vienna-based journal Perspectives on Terrorism and now serves as a member of its editorial board.

Chris Abbott is the founder and executive director of Open Briefing. He is an Honorary Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Social and International Studies at the University of Bradford and the former deputy director of Oxford Research Group. http://www.openbriefing.org

Featured image: MQ-1 Predator on patrol  Source: Air Force Reserve Command

Image: An MQ-9 Reaper takes off on a mission from Afghanistan. Source: Wikimedia

With nearly 870 million people chronically undernourished, and progress towards the Hunger Millennium Development Goal ebbing since 2008, feeding the world will continue to be a major global challenge. The limitations of arable land availability, water accessibility, and humanity’s increasing population trajectory further compound the problem. Addressing the challenges to global food security while ensuring the sustainability of the planet will require changes to the way we interact with agriculture and a clear understanding of the driving factors behind it.

Food and Energy Price Volatility

The industrialisation of agriculture over the last five decades has contributed to massive gains in productivity, but it has also made food increasingly susceptible to energy supply and price fluctuations. Energy in the form of oil and gas is needed to run industrial farm equipment and to ship food around the world. Fertilizers, the driving factor behind most yield increases, are intimately tied to energy and therefore price volatility. Nitrogen fertilizers are particularly significant and are created through a process that combines natural gas and inert nitrogen from the atmosphere in a high-energy reaction to create ammonia. Fertilizer production is estimated to account for more than 50 per cent of total energy use in commercial agriculture (Woods, et al 2010). While shale gas has had a significant impact on the US natural gas market, globally, energy prices are expected to rise in the long term and become increasingly volatile, as shown by the graph to the right. Fertilizer costs will follow a similar trend, leading to variability in cost and availability. This can be especially difficult for small farmers in developing countries, whose resilience to price fluctuations is low.

Locking Ourselves In to Volatility

Natural means of increasing agricultural yields are possible through recycling manures and planting crops that add nutrients to the soil. However, barring a radical change in agricultural practices, globally we are locked into chemical fertilizer use, especially nitrogen fertilizers in the short and medium term. Approximately 45 per cent of the world’s food supply is grown using chemical fertilizers, and that number is growing. Meat consumption, which requires large amounts of grain for animal feed, is on the rise. Consumption of animal protein in Europe and the United states together is double the world average (FAO 2006), and is expected to grow 10 per cent between 2005 and 2030. However, demand in developing countries for animal proteins is projected to increase 60 per cent in the same period (Reay 2011). Pressure from biofuel legislation in Europe and the United States puts further pressure on land and drives up global food prices.

Global land deals have increased dramatically in the last ten years, with an area of land eight times the size of the UK sold off globally in that time (Geary 2012). In addition to causing landlessness and poverty for local communities, the land is often used to grow large areas of single-species crops such as soy or eucalyptus, which use industrial agricultural methods requiring a high amount of chemical fertilizer, thus increasing dependence on global energy markets and locking new land into fertilizer dependence. Furthermore, nutrients and pesticides can make their way into local water supplies, degrading the environment upon which local communities depend. For example, water contamination from agricultural runoff can force communities to buy bottled or trucked water at higher prices, reducing their resilience to price fluctuations even further.

Fertilizer as a Means of Reducing Poverty

But fertilizers are not evil. Increasing yields (either through better access to fertilizers or implementing natural yield improvement practices) can greatly impact poverty and inequality. There are many regions of the world in which more nutrients are urgently needed in order to ensure the land is not degraded. When fertilizer is introduced to degraded soils, it can have enormous trickle down effects for poverty reduction, health, and education. In the early stages of development, when a country is primarily agrarian, the most consistently effective methods to reduce poverty and improve equality involve the agriculture sector, particularly through methods that raise small farm productivity (Berry 2010, Deininger and Byerlee 2011). For example, a recent review of coffee grower data from Mexico and Peru, published in the World Development journal, found that increasing yields are most important for growers (Barham and Weber 2011).

Nitrogen: The Missing Link

So where does that leave us? The very thing that reduces poverty and hunger through increasing yields can cause insecurity through energy price volatility. Add increasing pressure from consumption choices, land degradation, population pressure and climate change and we have a situation of increasing food insecurity globally.

There is no silver bullet answer to this conundrum. However, the solution will likely be a combination of improving the efficiency of chemical fertilizer use and increasing the productivity and adoption of natural methods. Cross-cutting all of these solutions is the main driver of yields: nitrogen. Phosphorous and potash are also important elements of fertilizer, but nitrogen is the nutrient needed in the largest quantities. Just as a basic knowledge of how CO₂ impacts climate change is important for developing solutions to the problem, so is knowledge of nitrogen important for developing solutions to food security.

Nitrogen is critical for all plants and animals to grow. Some plants build it naturally into the soil through a symbiotic process between bacteria and their roots called ‘biological nitrogen fixation’ (beans and clover, for example), but the majority comes from chemical fertilizers and as a by-product of burning fossil fuels.

For those that remember the nitrogen cycle from science class, we know that 78.1% of the atmosphere is inert nitrogen (N₂). In the 20^th century, we developed a way to convert this inert, atmospheric nitrogen into a form of nitrogen accessible to plants and animals (known as “reactive nitrogen”). This has enabled food production to roughly keep pace with the explosion of population growth over the last fifty years. Whether through fertilizers or biological fixation, nitrogen will play a key role in meeting the food needs of the future.

When there is not enough nitrogen in the soil, loss of soil productivity and degradation occur. Because it is small farmers that often lack access to nitrogen, their yields decline year over year, reducing their annual income and thus exacerbating inequality within the global food system. This pushes them further into poverty, and in many cases can force them to purchase food when they cannot grow enough. Degraded land forces them to go in search of new, more fertile land, breaking apart families and communities.

However, the solution is not as easy as simply adding more nitrogen in areas where there is not enough. Too much nitrogen can cause serious problems for human health and the environment. While nitrogen is required by plants in order to grow, there is a limit to how much any plant can use. Beyond this “critical load”, nutrients that cannot be absorbed by plants will leach into the water and air. Once in the environment, nitrogen can change forms over an extremely long life (average of 120 years) and detrimentally affect many different systems before finally becoming denitrified back into atmosphere. Nitrogen exacerbates climate change, depletes the ozone layer and drives biodiversity loss. It causes low-oxygen zones in water systems that weaken or kill fish and marine habitats (known as eutrophication or hypoxia). Reactive nitrogen can also be very detrimental to human health through air and water contamination. It is a major contributor to smog, which is estimated to take six months off the life expectancy of over half the population in Europe (Sutton et al 2011). It is even worse in areas like China, where the density of air particulates have registered at twice the level considered “dangerous” in metropolitan centres like Beijing. Ingesting high levels of water-borne nitrates has been associated with cancer, diabetes and adverse reproductive outcomes (Ward et al. 2005).

The graph below shows nitrogen fertilizer application globally. In the red areas of the graph, many of the main water bodies suffer the detrimental effects of too much nitrogen, and the people that live in those areas suffer as a result of nitrogen pollution. Many of the green areas could benefit from more nitrogen to increase soil productivity.

The key is balance. On the one hand, improving the efficiency of fertilizer use will maintain crop yields while protecting the ecosystems humans and animals depend upon. On the other hand, developing biological nitrogen fixation methods or pro-poor fertilizer programmes to increase yields for small farmers will improve their situation economically and strengthen their resilience to price shocks and weather events. In both cases, proper nitrogen management will be a crucial part of solving our global hunger crisis while ensuring sustainability for future generations.

Lisa Dittmar is the CEO and founder of NitrogenWise,  a website that brings together research and straightforward communication to explain the complexities of nitrogen in a meaningful and relevant way.

Citations

Barham, B. L., & Weber, J. G. (2011). The Economic Sustainability of Certified Coffee: Recent Evidence from Mexico and Peru. World Development, 1269-1279.

Berry, A. (2010). What type of global governance would best lower world poverty and inequality? In J. Clapp, & R. Wilkinson, Global Governance, Poverty and Inequality (pp. 46-68). London: Routledge.

Deininger, K., & Byerlee, D. (2011). Rising global interest in farmland. Washington DC: World Bank. Retrieved November 30, 2012, from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTARD/Resources/ESW_Sept7_final_final.pdf

FAO. (2006). Livestock Report 2006. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Geary, K. (2012). Our Land, Our Lives: Time out on the global land rush. Oxford: Oxfam. Retrieved November 2, 2012, from http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bn-land-lives-freeze-041012-en_1.pdf

Reay, D. S. (2011). Societal choice and communicating the European nitrogen challenge. In M. Sutton, The European Nitrogen Assessment (pp. 585-602). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sutton, M. (2011). Too much of a good thing. Nature, 472, 159-161

Ward, M. (2005). Workgroup report: Drinking-water nitrate and health-recent findings and research needs. Environmental Health Perspectives, 113, 1607-1614

Woods, J., Williams, A., Hughes, J. K., Black, M., & Murphy, R. (2010). Energy and the food system. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2991-3006

Front page image source: Organic Fertiliser for sugar cane – Shell

Today’s younger generations of Palestinians desperately need to become more engaged in community peacebuilding activities to end the division of Palestinian society.

The engagement of the younger generation in civil society work to promote peacebuilding concepts and practices at both grassroots and political levels is necessary for restoring order and security in societies divided by conflict and violence. This is particularly true of Gaza in Palestine where the inhabitants live in an environment where there is violence, extreme poverty and a lack of freedom.

Palestinian youth and civil society face many challenges related to the harsh circumstances imposed by a lack of peace, security and economic development since the failure of the so called ‘Peace Process’ in 2000 between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel. There have, however, been a variety of projects and programmes installed to raise youth awareness and the importance of civil society values and practices to achieve human rights, peacebuilding and good governance that help bring hope to a young generation, despite some of the local cynicism.

Cynicism towards youth

I always remember the cynical questions raised by many Palestinian citizens while engaging in civil society activities at different levels: “What kind of civil society under occupation are you talking about?” “How will civil society promote and advocate the values of peacebuilding under a territory experiencing foreign occupation?” There are still some Palestinian intellectuals, leaders and activists who do not believe in education for peacebuilding in a country under occupation, but they believe strongly in community peacebuilding to restore the order and security of their own society, after years of division and the failure of the ‘peace process’.

They also go beyond just cynicism and move into absolute pessimism and defeatism by asking: “How can empowering youth in peacebuilding be effective, while they still suffer from the violence under Israeli occupation and a lack of freedom?” “How will civil society organisations promote and persuade youth to become engaged in activities while an overwhelming majority are poor, jobless and losing hope in the future?”

An example is often raised that during the last five years, several young people committed suicide in the Gaza Strip, owing to the harsh economic and social circumstances. This society, however, has little experience of suicide, as it is known for its spirit of religious education and social solidarity, which have always prevailed and are considered to be the highest in the region.

Cynics believe that talking about the empowerment of youth involvement in peacebuilding activities in Gaza is a matter of ‘idealism’ and ‘luxury’, a waste of resources and time because they see such pursuits as being only achievable through  concurrently obtaining freedom and national independence in a viable Palestinian state. Cynics often point out that there were many peacebuilding activities implemented in the Green Line between 1995 and 2000.

Many Palestinian citizens from the various health, NGOs and environmental sector participated at capacity building development courses inside the Green Line. They enjoyed education, trips and nice food, but not sustained peace or security, as the main cause of the problems, the need to establish of a Palestinian state, had not yet been solved. These activities passed without any glimpse of hope or peace after the failure of the ‘peace process’ that led to the breakout of various cycles of violence including the latest war in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014 and changed both the context and style of life, after massive destruction.

Life Style

Image credit: UN Photo/Flickr.

The Palestinian people are used to the daily life style of suffering and the absence of human security; they lost their top priority of securing their own basic human, needs during the failure of the 2000 ‘peace process’ and the collective punishment policies exercised by the occupation. They have lost their own economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, political and human security. In 1994, the UNDP defined human security, which is achieved when people can exercise their choices safely and freely, and when they can be relatively confident that the opportunities they have today will not be entirely lost tomorrow.

The Gazan people cannot plan their own day without any interruption, owing to the circumstances imposed by a lack of electricity, pollution and a devastated economy. As Mohammed Srour, a field researcher at a human rights organisation in Gaza says

“The Palestinian people now busy with their own daily affairs, living without electricity and facing the entire closure on the strip and the invasion of pollution of their environment and beaches, owing to the lack of electricity. The citizens have no place to go in Gaza to escape the heat of the summer because of the lack of electricity. The sewage flows into the sea as the pumps and wasting stations do not work without electricity. The beaches are fully polluted and people cannot enjoy swimming in the sea to escape from the extreme heat any more in most coastal areas”.

Gaza’s economy has actually been virtually stagnant for the past ten years, with an average annual real GDP growth rate over the decade not exceeding 1.44%, while Gaza’s population has grown by 38.4% over the same period.

Today’s younger generations of Palestinians desperately need to become more engaged in community peacebuilding activities to end the division of Palestinian society. But the dire circumstances have deepened the wounds of Gazan society and made the life of the younger generation almost unbearable and impossible. Consequently, many young Palestinians have decided to leave rather than stay and help build peace.

The Brain Drain of Palestinian Youth

Many young minds have already left Palestine to find a new environment and hope. More than 21 young people who attempted to find their way to Europe lost their lives in the Mediterranean in 2014 when one of their boats was wrecked and their fate is still unknown to this day. However, the rest of the youth who could not leave after the full closure of the tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Egypt spend their time navigating social media and the internet.

They enjoy their chats which help them escape from the harsh politics and economic realities, attempting to watch any developments posted by other fellows or friends online. Facebook, in particular, is considered their own ideal ‘city’ of information and it is a way of ‘killing the time’, as many young people are always informing me when I have a conversation with them. They have lost hope in local politicians, political groups, the international community and civil society organisations in helping them to change their circumstances. There are many who accuse these actors of lying, trading off and using the suffering of the Gazans to increase their power, wealth and business. But not all have abandoned hope.

Resilience and Hope

Despite the seemingly dire straits of life, the youths of Palestine are still resilient enough to try change the de facto situation, by engaging in community initiatives. They have, for example, on different occasions, engaged in non-violent and peaceful protests to contribute to the ending of the circumstances in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. For example, the youth march movement in 2012 during ‘the Arab Spring’ to end the Palestinian division. After 2014 war in Gaza, they also participated actively, in non-violent activities to end the siege in the Gaza Strip by protesting close to the ‘buffer zone’ or in front of the ‘security fence’ with Israel in the Gaza Strip.

Now, in 2017, the Palestinian youth, across their homeland, have seized the initiative again to protest peacefully against the closure of Al Aqsa. They are still seeking a better future and attempting to find any opportunity for hope and change. They attempt to find out about the latest leaks of reconciliation between Hamas and a Fatah wing in the Gaza Strip to end the conflict between the two sides that has divided the Palestinian house. If reconciliation takes place between the two sides, it will contribute to changing the social and political circumstances of the entire society and of youth in particular.

In addition to these political developments, there have been a number of community activities to help keep youth hopeful for a better future. For example, the Gaza youth UNRWA Football team that won the Norway Cup last year continued preparation and already left the Strip for Denmark and Norway to participate in two different international football tournaments in the last week of July and the First week of August. This kind of participation always gives youth and the whole society hope that there is still a bright future coming soon where they can achieve justice, peace and freedom.

Dr Ibrahim Natil is a Fellow at the Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction, Dublin City University http://iicrr.ie/people/fellows/dr-ibrahim-natil/. He is an international human rights campaigner, nominee for the Tällberg Foundation Global Leadership Prize, 2016 and the founder of Society Voice Foundation http://www.mbialumniassociation.org/alumni-news/news-folder/year-of-publication/2016/qa-ibrahim-natil/

This post is based on Paul Rogers’ Monthly Global Security Briefings and was originally posted by Oxford Research Group on 29 April, 2014.

Free Syrian Army rebels fighting Assad militias on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Maraat al-Numan, Idlib – Syria Source: Freedom House (Flickr)

The Syrian War is now in its fourth year and the indications are that the regime will survive and consolidate its position in 2014. This is radically different from early last year when many analysts thought it was under serious pressure, and it should be recalled that in mid-2011, a few months into the war, the prevailing view was that the regime would not last to the end of that year. The costs have been huge, with around 140,000 killed, twice that number injured and more than a third of the population displaced, millions of them refugees in other countries.  This article seeks to put this appalling conflict in a longer term regional context as an aid to looking at possible policy options in attempting to bring the war to an end.

The Regional Context in 2011

At the start of 2011 the region was struck by remarkable political upheavals as people in a number of countries reacted against autocratic rule and demanded political change. It commenced with the rapid and unexpected fall of the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia on 14 January and was followed on 11 February by the quite startling collapse of the Mubarak regime in Egypt. Across the region there were public uprisings of varying intensities in Oman, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and Syria and political uncertainty in several countries including Kuwait, Jordan and Morocco.

In broad terms, those political authorities that did not immediately collapse reacted in different ways that may be summarised as concession or repression or a mixture of both. In Oman, demonstrations were repressed with force but concessions were also offered and the innate wealth of the authorities was available to “buy off” resentment. In Bahrain the royal house opted for repression, aided by army and police support from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.  Saudi Arabia treated Shi’a opponents harshly but distributed many billions of dollars of resources across most of the population.

In Morocco, King Mohammed sped up the pace of reform with some effect, and across the border in Algeria some economic concessions, including increased food subsidies, were made.  In Libya, Gaddafi used repression but western, and a few Gulf Arab, states intervened on the part of the rebels; a six-month war ended with regime collapse and Gaddafi’s lynching. This has been followed by huge insecurity, including rise of Islamist and local tribal militias.

The Syrian regime faced extensive nonviolent demonstrations, most commonly after Friday prayers, and faced an escalation in dissent at a time when two regimes in the region had already fallen and in the same week that Saudi and Emirati forces intervened in Bahrain and the UN approved foreign intervention in Libya. The fate of Mubarak was particular striking for the Assad regime given Syria’s long-term historical relationship with Egypt, and it is probable that this meant the regime believed its only course of action was vigorous repression. It became progressively more vigorous and determined in its pursuit of control.

Underlying Causes

Although most of the individual anti-government actions across the Arab World were responses to persistent and long-term autocracy, these were in the context of a number of other factors:

• Outside of a small cluster of oil-rich states, the wealth-poverty divide has become huge, often with the majority of populations marginalised.
• Even in countries of modest wealth, much of the economic power has been concentrated in the hands of small groups of elites, often less than a tenth of the population. The world economic downturn from 2007 onwards exacerbated these socio-economic divisions.
• The demographic transition is still in progress across much of the Middle East, meaning that a large proportion of the population is under the age of 30.
• Although educational standards are highly variable and there is a still a marked gender gap, in most countries most people now go through high school and there is an increasing proportion of graduates among people under 30. There is frequently a serious lack of job opportunities, not least for well-educated young people. At the time of the changes in Tunisia it was reported to have 140,000 unemployed or seriously underemployed graduates out of a population of 11 million.
• The surge in world grain prices in the late 2000s, not least following China’s harvest difficulties, added to the economic problems for many, not least in Egypt. Syria had a specific problem of drought stretching over many years, leading to an influx of the rural poor into urban areas.

As a whole, these factors mean that there are trends across the region that point to the risk of longer-term social upheavals. These will persist and must be factored into any policy formulation that might relate primarily to Syria. Instability is highly likely to be a feature of the region in the coming years.

Syria’s Perspective

In the light of the regional upheavals, the Assad regime used high levels of violent repression from the start, which led to a transition from nonviolent to violent protest. From the start the regime presented itself as the guardian of stability against opponents that were essentially terrorists. This may have been a travesty of reality at that time, but in the context of the extraordinary upheavals and uncertainties across the region – as well as a keen understanding of the shared sectarian and geopolitical rivalries that tore Lebanon apart within recent memory – the need for a strong regime was more widely accepted within Syria than most diplomats and external analysts appreciated.

The regime’s stance was aided by internal and external factors. Internally it had the strong support of the Alawi minority but most other Shi’a, Christians and Druze were also willing to accept the regime as guardian of the security of the state. In combination this represented close to a quarter of the population but there was also support from many in the Sunni business community who feared that regional upheavals would spread to Syria. By and large these elements persist, although the great majority of Syrians just want an end to the war.

Externally, the regime has had support from three quarters. One is the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon that has long been heavily dependent on Syria for weapons and other support.  Hezbollah militias have become a crucial part of the paramilitary support base of the regime.  Second has been the continuing support of Iran, including weapons, training and supplies, and an important sub-set of this has been the increase in paramilitaries from Iraqi Shi’a communities, backed by Iran. Finally there has been the long–term relationship with Russia, with the Putin government seeing Syria as the key centre for remaining Russian influence in the Middle East.  In the past year Russia has been particularly useful in its support for repairing and upgrading military equipment, especially aircraft and related weapons systems.

The Islamist Dimension

In the past year, radical Islamist paramilitary groups such as ISIS, the Islamic Front and al-Nusrah have come to the fore among the rebellion, offering the strongest opposition to the regime. There has thus been an element of self-fulfilling prophecy for the regime. In 2014, internal conflicts among the Islamists have weakened them. They may still offer the strongest resistance but their relative decline is one reason why the regime is likely to survive long-term.  Western states, whatever their public stance, would now prefer to see the regime survive than lose control to al-Qaida-linked Islamists. This is clearly the case for Putin, where fear of an Islamist spill-over to the Caucasus is now considered less likely following the safe conclusion of the Winter Olympics and the internal Islamist conflicts within Syria.

Policy Implications

In a very pessimistic environment, there are two more positive elements. One is that relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia are showing signs of improvement, including reports of unofficial Saudi/Iranian discussions on Syria. The second is that a number of local ceasefires have been developed, not least in some parts of Damascus.  There may be scope for these to develop further, especially in parts of the country where Islamist groups are not prominent.

The international community must seek to increase pressure on the UN to enhance multilateral processes, and specifically seek to engage Tehran and Riyadh. In addition, given that this war has many months and possibly years to run, states must commit to improve aid to refugees and to any initiatives that increase the possibility of gaining and embedding local ceasefires – not least by immediate aid for those districts where ceasefires take hold. Approaches to the region must now take a much longer-term view, based on the likely survival of the regime and the fact that the underlying elements behind changes in the region will persist.

Paul Rogers is Global Security Consultant to Oxford Research Group and Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford.

Since the 9/11 attacks, and the ensuing “war on terrorism,” the U.S. government has engaged in a series of controversial counterterrorism policies. One such policy has been targeted killings, which have been used to try and eliminate the senior leadership of the global jihadist movement. How effective has the practice been?

The recent high profile terrorist attacks perpetrated in the U.K. have generated a resurgence in the debate surrounding counterterrorism tactics. Targeted killings, defined by Alston as the “intentional, premeditated and deliberate use of lethal force, by States or their agents…against a specific individual who is not in the physical custody of the perpetrator,” are one such tactic; frequently employed, yet extremely controversial.  This practice most often takes two forms: kill/capture missions and unmanned aerial vehicle assaults (UAVs). Certainly the most well known of the former is that of the May 2nd, 2011 Navy SEAL raid on Usama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound. The use of UAVs has become much more common, with a recent Director of National Intelligence report indicating that 473 drone strikes had resulted in the deaths of around 2,500 terrorists and between 64-114 civilians.  Such civilian fatalities, criticized by independent organizations to be a low estimate, illustrate the largest criticism of the policy; that it can be, as it is even from China’s perspective, “a blank space in international law (that is) subject to abuse”.

These issues have kindled a spirited discussion among scholars, but have yet to influence the policy’s role as a favoured strategy amongst policymakers.  Former President Obama, whose administration was responsible for the program’s significant expansion, declared just last year that “none of ISIL’s leaders were safe” and they were “going to keep going after them”. President Trump has also indicated that he plans to continue with the program, recently noting that “the terrorists and extremists and those who give them aid and comfort must be driven out from our society forever”.

It would seem that the moral and legal consequences of targeted killings have been, at the very least, overlooked given the intense focus and leeway that has been granted to combating the global jihadist movement (GJM). However, this preference for the use of targeted killings as counterterrorism has become increasingly hard to rectify given the mounting lack of empirical evidence to support its effectiveness.  Indeed, a host of previous investigations into contexts both within and outside of the GJM has yielded a complex picture. This picture is one that does not necessarily indicate resounding ineffectiveness, but one that does not garner particularly strong support for the strategy either. Rather, conclusions regarding the capability of targeted killings vary by how the incident is perceived (discriminate vs. indiscriminate violence), what outcome is studied (group desistance; frequency versus severity), the type of leader killed (position in the group; presence of a tribal elder), and characteristics of the organization (size, structure, and ideology).

Evaluating effectiveness

Image credit: U.S. Air Force photo/Lt Col Leslie Pratt.

Taking into account these nuances, my own work demonstrates that this policy has largely failed to decrease GJM-related terrorism, utilizing the Global Terrorism Database’s definition of, “the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation.” Rather, such killings, in the form of both kill/capture and UAVs, have been unsuccessful at decreasing the especially noxious outcomes resulting from jihadi terrorism; namely, casualties, along with the more detrimental attacks involving high civilian deaths and suicide attackers. Perhaps even more disconcerting, the deaths of certain al Qa’ida leaders like that of al-Awlaki, the infamous cleric responsible for many a terrorist’s radicalization, have led to an increase in incidents, or a backlash effect.

Examining a slightly varied predictor in the form of monthly killings has yielded similar conclusions, again in the form of an increase in casualties. Still other al Qa’ida leaders’ deaths have produced decreases in terrorism incidents, while at the same time increasing other types of attacks. This displacement phenomenon is not new to studies of crime and terrorism, but adds to the general conclusion that targeted killings have yet to render consistent successes.

While I have also discovered support for the notion that targeted killings are an effective deterrent, these findings are largely outweighed by the above. It would appear that this tactic, as one of the leading scholars on leadership decapitation Jenna Jordan notes, “is not enough to effectively fight a strong and emboldened terrorist organization.” Nevertheless, it may be too early to designate targeted killings a complete failure.  As Brian Forst has argued, “a failure to find is not at all the same as a finding of failure.” Certainly, other research has noted the short-term benefits like those present in the work of Patrick Johnston and Anoop Sarbahi, the lack of attacks on the U.S. Homeland, and the possibility that there are other purposes to the policy like that of retribution.

Although not directly assessed in my work, the totality of countermeasure evaluations have become increasingly supporting of Laura Dugan and Erica Chenoweth’s contention that conciliatory, rather than punitive efforts, are the key to fighting terrorism. Actions like that of removing curfews, releasing prisoners, or even meeting to discuss issues have demonstrated their effectiveness in decreasing violence within the Israel-Palestine conflict. Even investigations outside the context of terrorism, like Matthew Dickenson’s study of Mexican drug-traffickers, are similarly reflective of the idea that incentives rather than punishments offer the most promise. Specifically, Dickensen has suggested that improving both the economic and law enforcement environments are better counter-narcos strategies than that of leadership removal. Jordan has also suggested that al Qa’ida’s organization, which tends to be bureaucratic, and its communal support, have been integral to its ability to rebound from killings. While such killings have the potential to affect the former, it is the opinion of this researcher that conciliatory efforts may have the best shot at addressing the latter.

Conclusion

All in all, and given the issues surrounding terrorist negotiation coupled with an ideology that is fraught with human rights’ violations, conciliatory actions are likely to remain unpopular. As the U.S. continues to fight a movement that has been responsible for a quarter of all deaths and injuries from terrorism, the policy of targeted killing is likely to remain.  Perhaps, at the very least, this strategy could be coupled with other efforts that address the larger causes and correlates of terrorism, like that of larger macro-level predictors.

Jennifer Varriale Carson is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice and the Coordinator of Undergraduate Research at the University of Central Missouri.  She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in Criminology and Criminal Justice.  Her work focuses on policy evaluation, particularly the use of quasi-experimental methods in assessing counterterrorism efforts, and can be found in a number of outlets including Criminology and Public Policy, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and Deviant Behavior.

Causes of the Exodus from Eritrea

In recent years, the world has witnessed an unprecedented flow of people from Eritrea. The exodus, which has picked up momentum is the outcome of several factors that have been accumulating over the years. Relative to its population size, Eritrea has produced the largest flow of refugees/migrants in the world. What is driving people to leave the country in such large numbers? There are multiple causes of the exodus.

• The no-war no-peace situation
• The implementation of indefinite national service
• A harsh political environment
• Major economic difficulties such as mass unemployment
• A lack of future opportunities and prospects for the country’s youth
• The imposition of sanctions
• A blanket asylum provision by host countries

The rejection of the International Court of Arbitration verdict on the border issue by Ethiopia generated a no-war no-peace situation. The peace agreement was supposed to lead to peaceful coexistence between the Eritrea and Ethiopia. This no-war no-peace situation created constant tensions, a fear of an outbreak of war, and occasional engagement between the armies of the two countries along their common border. This means Eritrea has had to put itself in a constant state of high alert. It also compelled the Eritrean governement to extend its national service indefinitely. The majority of capable labour forces in the country are therefore tied to the national service system. Consequently, the economy suffered immensely because of a lack of a sufficient labour force. The youth who are in the national service have to pay a high price. They do not get proper salary; and they are not able to pursue a normal social and working life which could include education, building and supporting family, accumulating wealth, etc.

The political environment has also hardened considerably. The country has been under an undeclared state of emergency since 2000. Gradually, the political climate became more authoritarian and less plural: political opposition was not tolerated; deviant views and political differences were perceived as dangers to national unity, stability and survival. Therefore, dissidence was harshly dealt with. Many ended up in prison accused of betraying or endangering the security of the nation. The economy, which was slowly recovering from the thirty years of independence war, suffered immensely from the two-year border war (1998-2000) between Eritrea and Ethiopia and the no-peace no-war situation. A major part of state budget now goes to military expenses and staggering unemployment overshadows the nation. What was primarily a subsistence economy spiralled down due to a shortage of an able workforce.

The UNSC imposed sanctions further exacerbated the economic difficulties because they discouraged external investment and other bilateral relations with the wider world, particularly the West. The international community’s policy is geared towards isolation in order to force the Eritrean government to change its policy; however it achieved the opposite effect. Eritrea has been described as “hell on earth” and this was used to justify the blanket asylum provided by European governments. This open asylum policy further attracted a greater number of asylum and refugee seekers, even children who are not affected by the national service appeared at the doors of European countries claiming that they were fleeing from national service.

Abdication of Responsibility

The international community, represented by the UN, AU, EU and USA, assumed the responsibility of implementating of the of the EEBC’s verdict which it helped broker. The two-year war between Eritrea and Ethiopia was ended through the signing of the Algiers Agreement in December 2000. The UN AU, EU and USA put down their signatures as witnesses to and guarantors of the agreement. The main provisions of the agreement were:

(i) The establishment of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Commission (EEBC). The EEBC consisting of eminent international judges was mandated to demarcate and delineate the border between the two countries. The EEBC was instructed, “The Commission shall not have the power to make decisions ex aequo et bono” (Article 4(2), Algiers Agreement 2000).

(ii) That the verdict be final and binding. With regards to guaranteeing the implementation, the Cessation of Hostility Agreement of June 2000 notes, “The OAU and the United Nations commit themselves to guarantee the respect for this commitment of the two Parties until the determination of the common border on the basis of pertinent colonial treaties and applicable international laws” (Article 14).

This guarantee shall be comprised of measures to be taken by the international community should one or both of the parties violate this commitment, including appropriate measures to be taken under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter by the UN Security Council (Article 14 (a).

The EEBC, per its mandate, issued its verdict on 13 April 2002 where it was stipulated to be implemented within a year, but to date it is still awaiting acceptance by Ethiopia. The verdict awarded the flashpoint of the conflict, the village of Badme, to Eritrea. Upon realising the decision, Ethiopia rejected it, calling it illegal, irresponsible and unjust. When the EEBC concluded its work in 2007 and announced that the border was virtually demarcated and the issue closed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia called it legal nonsense and requested a renegotiation. The witnesses and guarantors, instead of honouring their solemn commitment and invoking Chapter II of the United Nation Charter, opted for appeasement. Indeed, US officials actively and systematically engaged in devising ways of renegotiating the verdict, particularly, Jandyi Frazer, George Bush’s Assistant Secretary of African Affairs, and Suzan Rice, Obama’s ambassador to the UN, who both played an important role in undermining the EEBC verdict.

Eritrea is of the opinion that the border is delineated and demarcated, and therefore feels that Ethiopia should vacate from the Eritrean territories it illegally occupies. The juxtaposing Ethiopian stance is that the border issue can only be settled through bilateral dialogue, a position that declares the EEBC verdict null and void. Ethiopia has violated UNSC resolutions ordering it to implement the verdict without any consequence. This is because the USA tacitly sides with Ethiopia. Following the footsteps of the USA, the UN, AU and EU remain silent on the issue allowing the festering stalemate to continue with all the consequences effecting the people of the two countries and the region as a whole.

The International Community’s Double Standards

Image credit: Wellcome Images/Flickr.

After signing the agreement of cessation of hostility in Algiers, in December 2000, the parties directed their attention to conducting proxy wars. Both governments were actively involved in support of opposition to each other’s government in the hope of weakening or even deposing. In addition, they intervened in neighbouring countries. Somalia became the obvious victim of the proxy war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. While Eritrea ended up supporting Union of Islamic Court (UIC), Ethiopia sided with warlords and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Finally, Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 and vanquished the UIC. This contributed to the emergence of al-Shabaab , a radical Islamic extremist group operating in Southern Somalia.

Proxy war has become a rule rather than exception in the Horn of Africa. What has also become a rule is the international community (IC), mostly driven by geostrategic interest of the big powers, punishing and rewarding regional actors participating in wars highly selectively. Many scholars have purported that the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict is the epicentre of conflicts in the Horn of Africa. This means settling the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict would go a a long way in helping the larger endeavour to settle all the intricate conflicts in the region. In this respect, it will be in the interests, as well as part of the moral, political and legal obligation, of the IC to address the conflict. There is an obligation the IC to be even-handed, objective, neutral and balanced in treating its members. The reality is, however, that the IC practices double standards and its dealing with Ethiopia and Eritrea is a vivid testimony to this double standard.

Eritrea was accused of supporting al-Shabaab and destabilising the region. But most of the evidence for Eritrea’s involvement ironically originates from Ethiopia. For the last five years, the Somalia-Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG), established to check that the sanctions are not violated, has not found any evidence that Eritrea is supporting al-Shabaab, yet the sanctions have not been lifted. As stated, Eritrea supports Ethiopian opposition groups as Ethiopia supports Eritrean opposition groups. Eritrea supported UIC when Ethiopia invaded Somalia. Ethiopia frequently attacks targets inside Eritrea; it openly threatens to depose the Eritrean government, which is against international law. Eritrea violates human rights as does Ethiopia. However, it is only Eritrea that is under UNSC sanctions and being subjected to isolation from the international community. Ethiopia is considered an indispensable ally of the US global war on terror, therefore it is excused of whatever misdeeds. This is a double standard that damages the credibility and integrity of IC, particularly the UN.

Conclusion

The no-war no-peace situation created a serious sense of insecurity, tension and instability in Eritrea. This in turn necessitated the implementation of indefinite national service in order to not only to defend the country from Ethiopian invasion, but also to ensure the economic and social survival of the nation. Tying the able-bodied Eritreans to national service deprives the economy of vital labour force. This curtails development. The conflict with Ethiopia triggered a chain of causal factors affecting the refugee crisis: constant fear of war, indefinite national service, economic stagnation, political hardship, and hopelessness compelling people to flee the country. It is understandable that few would wish to live under such circumstances.

If the international community had honored its responsibility and upheld the implementation of the International Court of Arbitration per its commitment in 2002, the chain of causal factors producing the exodus might have been avoided. By now the relationship between the two countries could have been pacified. It would also meant that the actual international pressure on the Eritrean government would have also been effective, morally defensive and legitimate as opposed to hypocritical. The failure of the international community to put pressure on Ethiopia to implement and uphold the final and binding border verdict affects not only Eritrea, but also the region as a whole and, as the recent development demonstrate, Ethiopia. For Eritreans the current behaviour of the IC is déjà vu, and brings back the ghost they have been trying exoricse for the last seventy years.

Redie Bereketeab is Senior Researcher and Associate Professor at the Nordic Africa Institute.

Kristian Skrede Gleditsch is Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Essex, director of the Michael Nicholson Centre for Conflict and Cooperation, and a research associate at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). His research interests include conflict and cooperation, democratization, and spatial dimensions of social and political processes. He is the author of All International Politics is Local: The Diffusion of Conflict, Integration, and Democratization (University of Michigan Press, 2002), Spatial Regression Models (Sage, 2008, with Michael D. Ward), Inequality, Grievances, and Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2013, with Lars-Erik Cederman and Halvard Buhaug), and journal articles in the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Biological Reviews, Comparative Political Studies, Conflict and Cooperation, Defence and Peace Economics, Economic History Review, European Journal of International Relations, International Interactions, International Organization, Internasjonal Politikk, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Politics, PLOS One, Political Analysis, Political Psychology, R Journal, and World Politics.

In this interview, Professor Gleditsch discusses the global decline of violence since World War II and some of the challenges to this trend.

Recently, several authors have declared that there has been a decline in armed conflict since the end of World War II. From your research on this topic, what does the data say about the global patterns of violence and is war really waning?

On the question, yes, I think war is declining in most common data sources, although the causes remain contested. For civil wars there is at least some evidence that accommodation and conflict management has promoted a decline of war. Although Syria is a sever conflict, it is not by itself sufficient to say that we have a clear reversal. Perhaps the greatest current challenge is the alleged increase in terrorism. However, it is not obvious why we should see an increase in less severe and less organized conflict, and there is also some evidence that ethic terrorism has declined following accommodation in ways similar to civil war.

You mention that the causes of this decline in war remain contested. What are some of the main explanations offered by scholars for this development and what do you feel are the main areas of disagreement on this issue?

I think some of the key explanations include more democratization, less ethnic discrimination, globalization/increase in trade, and greater scope for conflict management by the UN and other regional organizations. All of these in my view are plausible and likely to be part of the explanation, but I think it is also fair to say that none of these alone provide a clear explanation for the decline in conflict.

There has been a great deal of skepticism about some of these factors, especially democratization, as many point to examples where conflict has followed after elections. However, some of this research takes a very binary approach to violence, where any conflict is regarded as a failure even if the level of conflict declines or fewer actors engage in violence. To use another example, although some dissident republicans in Norther Ireland continue to use terrorist tactics, it would be absurd to say that there has been no decline in the volume terrorism after the Good Friday agreement.

Do you feel that there has been a gradual shift in the attitudes of people towards war and, if so, that this might have also contributed to this decline of war?

I think there has been a dramatic shift in attitudes to war. At least a 100 years ago it was common to glorify war as heroic and character forming. Countries had ministries of war. Now war tends to be seen as a regrettable last resort, and we have ministries of defense, and literature on the horrors of war. All of this contributes to make war a much harder sell. That is not to say that aversion to war is universal or that people have never approve of conflict, and attitudes can influenced, in both directions. Moreover, attitudes are probably influenced by views on the costs of war and feasibility of alternatives.

I have been involved in some experiments on support for escalatory actions in territorial conflict with China among Japanese respondents, and there is some evidence that although people are generally quite hard line they become less belligerent when provided with information on the military or economic costs of conflict.

With regards to democratization, why do you feel that democracy reduces the risk of war?

For interstate war, then I think it is fairly well established that democracies rarely fight severe wars with each other. Of course, the risk of interstate conflict is low in general, at least for severe conflicts. Moreover, democracies may fight other states, and the democratic major superpowers are much more likely to be involved in conflict. However, I think there is also some evidence that the increased role of public opinion can constrain the use of force more generally, and that democratic states have supported a liberal order with emphasis on stronger international institutions and conflict management approaches that have helped reduce the risk of conflict more generally.

I also believe that transitions to democracy reduce the risk of civil war, despite widespread pessimism and fears of democracies increasing conflict. Democracies provide alternative political avenues for conflict, and decrease the motivation to use violence compared to autocracies. Transitions to democracy may not eradicate all domestic violence. Many democracies have inherited ethnic separatist conflicts that started before democratization, and established organizations may remain active after transitions (ETA in Spain and the IRA can be interpreted in this perspective). Moreover, we may see violence around elections, under a climate of mistrust. However, the overall magnitude of civil violence tends to be lower under democracies.

Whilst civil war is in decline, it became the principle form of armed conflict after the end of the Second World War. What were the main drivers for civil war becoming the main form of conflict?

Civil wars became particularly common with decolonialization. Some anti-colonial movements turned violent, and, in some cases, competing factions continued to fight each other after independence (e.g., Angola). Moreover, after independence, many colonial states were prone to violence for a host of reasons. One the one hand, state weakness can by itself encourage violence as the barriers for taking on the state are lower. Moreover, the post-colonial states often had various features that could encourage violence such as ethnic nepotism, poor governance, or lack of legitimacy. Finally, although the Cold War did not escalate to a direct confrontation between the superpowers, many civil wars escalated as the opposing sides could obtain support from the superpowers.

The end of the Cold War coincided with a spike in civil wars for somewhat similar reasons. Many weak states faced a loss of external support that weakened the central government (e.g., Somalia), and some larger federal units faced challenges form ethnic groups who sought independence and who might be willing to use violence (e.g., former USSR and Yugoslavia). However, other factors such as democratizations, decrease ethnic discrimination and powersharing, as well as more active UN conflict management efforts have likely all helped reduce the incidence of civil war from the immediate post cold war peak.

Some studies have discussed an apparent revolution in warfare in the post-Cold War world, described using terms such as ‘new wars’, ‘hybrid wars’, and ‘post-modern wars’. Some of the characteristics of these wars include blurred distinctions between public and private combatants, warlords, and criminals; regular targeting of civilians and other war atrocities; war economies sustained by illegal trade in drugs, weapons, resources such as oil or diamonds; and violence being driven more by identity than ideology. Do you feel that these so called ‘new wars’ represent a revolution in warfare and have they also marked a shift in the nature of warfare?

I am actually very skeptical of whether the concept of new wars is very helpful or whether the alleged trends exist at all. It is certainly not the case that targeting of civilians is a new feature – recall the shelling of cities during sieges in the 30 years war. The opium war was thus named for a reason. And the blurred lines between criminal gangs and warfare cannot be a new thing – the North African coast was known as the barbary coast due to the endemic piracy and the Mongol hordes probably picked up some things along the way too.

I suppose this raises the question of why some find this concept so compelling. I can only speculate on this since I do not share this myself, but I believe that the decline of a master narrative of conflict after the Cold War increases people’s sense of new wars as different from old war. However, all systematic research that I have seen raises serious question over this.

In addition to the alleged increase in terrorism, what do you see as the other greatest challenges to the decline in violence in the near and distant future?

 I actually think the long-term outlooks is relatively favorable, but I can imagine some cases that may contribute to long-term challenges

1. increasing tension between the major power is unlikely to lead to direct conflict, but it may increase support to opposing sides in civil war and decrease the prospects for the UN to become involved.
2. globalization has in all likelihood increased the costs of conflict and increased the value of peace, but there is a chance that globalization could be rolled back with increasing protectionism. This can make it more difficult to contain some territorial conflicts, such as the ones seen in Asia
3. global challenges such as refugees change require cooperation, and if states fail to cooperate on these then poorer relations may weaken the ties that prevent conflict
4. the consequences of climate change could increase the risk of conflict by undermining livelihoods and increasing competition between states. My own reading of the evidence says that there is little evidence of this happening so far, but skeptics would argue that dramatic consequences would move us into a new scenario.

These are serious concerns, but at best indicate risk, and none of them imply that the decline of violence must be reversed.

One year on from the French intervention in Mali, Saharan jihadist groups continue to threaten not only Mali but Algeria, Libya, Niger, Nigeria and Tunisia. Will French and US plans to expand their military presence in the Sahel combat, contain or exacerbate the threat from militants displaced from Mali?

Fragmentation, Displacement and Reconsolidation:  The AQIM Threat in 2014

French General Pillet, Chief of Staff of MINUSMA, Kidal, during the visit of the Joint Security Committee in charge of the observance of the cease-fire between the Malian army and armed groups from the north. Source: MINUSMA (Flickr)

Last January, the French military, supported by African troops and 10 non-African air forces, intervened militarily in Mali at the request of its transitional government. Over the following four weeks they recaptured all of the towns in the northern half of Mali. This vast desert region had been seized by Islamist and separatist militia in March-April 2012 and declared independent as the ‘State of Azawad’, the Tuareg name for their homeland in northeast Mali. Since then, French troops have continued to conduct security operations across northern Mali to locate and ‘neutralise’ militants associated with Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a jihadist group of Algerian origin, and its West African splinter groups. Reduced numbers of French forces now support Malian and African forces within the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             However, the final quarter of 2013 saw an increase in violence in northern Mali, including terrorist attacks, violent protests and inter-communal violence. Moreover, the French advance into northern Mali displaced rather than destroyed AQIM and its two local allies, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and Ansar Dine, a Tuareg Islamist group. Their impact has been particularly felt in Niger and Libya and may also have bolstered jihadist groups operating in northern Nigeria, Tunisia and Egypt’s Sinai. The lawless desert of southwest Libya is believed to be the new stronghold of AQIM.

A new group, al-Murabitun, combining MUJAO and the most active elements of AQIM’s Saharan front, now appears to pose more of a threat to western and West African interests than AQIM. This is because its strategic direction is towards the weak states of West Africa, including Niger, Mali and Mauritania, where critical infrastructure and individuals are more difficult to protect. It is also better connected to the kidnapping and trafficking enterprises that fund Saharan militancy, and more deadly. During 2013, its militants were behind frequent raids on Gao (northern Mali’s main town), on a prison, garrison and French-owned mine in Niger, and on the Algerian gas plant at In-Amenas. These audacious operations attest to its range, training, discipline and cosmopolitan membership. If it finds common purpose with the larger jihadist groups in northern Niger, as some analysts suggest, it could represent a severe threat to stability in the already shaky regional power.

French Repositioning in the Sahel

In recognition of the expansion of jihadist groups, France announced a major repositioning of its forces in Africa in January. The new French military posture will refocus from large coastal bases, designed to train, transport and supply African Union and regional rapid reaction forces, to smaller forward deployments in the Sahel and Sahara. 3,000 French troops will now be based indefinitely in Mali, Niger and Chad.

U.S. soldiers and French commandos marine conduct a reconnaissance patrol during a joint-combined exercise in Djibouti. Source: Wikipedia

The new posture is heavily influenced by US ‘War on Terror’ strategy in Africa, Yemen and south-west Asia, relying heavily on Special Forces, air strike capacities and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). French and US forces (including contractors) already share facilities in Djibouti, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania, and there is a small US liaison detachment with the French Combined Air Operations Centre in Chad. The French repositioning is explicit about confronting Islamist terrorist groups and the threat to regional security posed by the security vacuum in southern Libya. While the repositioning focuses on Mali, Niger and Chad, supplied via a coastal base in Côte d’Ivoire, it will actually include deployments to over a dozen small bases and elite detachments in the Sahel and Sahara, covering at least seven countries. In some cases it will mean French Special Forces reoccupying desert forts long abandoned by the Foreign Legion.

There will also be greater use of aerial reconnaissance and targeting. French Navy patrol aircraft already criss-cross the Sahara and two MQ-9 Reaper UAVs arrived with French forces at Niamey airport in December after the US fast-tracked French acquisition of and training on these ‘hunter-killer’ drones. These double the effective range of the Harfang target-acquisition UAVs formerly used by the French in the Sahel, bringing all of Mali, Niger, almost all of the rest of West Africa and much of Algeria, Chad and southwest Libya into range.

France also makes greater use of combat aircraft in the Sahel-Sahara, deploying fighter aircraft from its long-term base in N’Djamena, Chad to Bamako and Niamey airports. This brings northern Mali into range. Since October, French fighter-reconnaissance aircraft have deployed to Faya-Largeau in northern Chad, which brings southern Libya well within range. French Special Forces and armed helicopters have also operated from Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania in pursuit of AQIM.

US and China Extend Their Presence

French and US Reapers now operate from the same facility at Niamey airport, set up by the US in February 2013. While US UAVs in Niger are unarmed, it is unclear if French Reapers will be used for strike missions. US armed UAV bases in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Seychelles currently bring all of the Horn of Africa, East Africa and most of Arabia within range. US private military contractors have also flown unarmed, unmarked light aircraft on surveillance flights all across the Sahel belt since at least 2007. Using covert hubs in Burkina Faso and Uganda and smaller airfields in Mauritania, Niger and South Sudan, they have sought AQIM and the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Since 2011, US Special Forces have established small bases in the Central African Republic (CAR), South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to assist Ugandan forces seeking the LRA there. They also provide training to several African militaries countering the LRA. As with programmes in Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad, these programmes have focused on creating elite counter-terrorism units. Unfortunately, all of these countries plus the CAR and South Sudan have experienced coups d’état or major army mutinies since this assistance began.

In order to combat Boko Haram, a Nigerian Special Operations Command was announced on 14 January with the US military providing advice, training and equipment. Massive attacks by Boko Haram since December suggest that the Nigerian army’s use of indiscriminate force in the northeast has not weakened the insurgency. Rather, the state of emergency is likely to have strengthened the recruitment base of Boko Haram since May.

China and Japan are also increasingly active in the Sahel. Chinese parastatals are the dominant actors in the oil industries of Sudan/South Sudan, Chad/Cameroon and Niger. They also mine uranium in Niger, and China is the primary buyer of iron ore from Mauritania’s vast desert complexes. So far, China is the only non-African state to deploy more than a few dozen troops with MINUSMA.  Japan, which saw ten of its nationals killed in the January 2013 militant attack on Algeria’s In-Amenas gas plant, has pledged $1 billion to stabilise the Sahel, including training of counter-terrorism units.

Compromised Alliances

This expansion of deployments and offensive operations relies on the status of forces agreements between western powers and’ friendly’ states such as Algeria. France, for example, depends on an air corridor across the Algerian Sahara. Securing such access puts host governments in a position of greater power. The highly authoritarian regime in Algiers – the world’s fifth or sixth largest arms importer – no longer faces western pressure to improve its dismal human rights record. Indeed, it has received friendly visits from the leaders of France and the UK and the US Secretary of State since late 2012. Mauritania’s military-based government faced little criticism over its unfair elections in November.

Chad, Uganda and Ethiopia may be the biggest regional beneficiaries of the militarisation of the Sahel. Each has been governed for a quarter-century by a former armed movement. They face little censure of their authoritarian and undemocratic internal policies and have become more assertive as regional military powers. Ethiopia has forces in Somalia while Uganda now has combat troops in operation (by agreement) in Somalia (under AU command), South Sudan, the DRC and the CAR.

Boosted by expanding oil revenues, French alliance and the demise of Libya’s Gaddafi regime, Chad has greatly expanded its military reach into Mali, Niger and the CAR, where its troops and citizens now face a violent backlash. It is also a Security Council member for the next two years and will be expected to help guide decisions on UN peacekeeping operations in Mali, South Sudan and potentially the CAR and Libya.

Burkina Faso, long relied on by Paris to negotiate with armed groups in francophone West Africa, is also facing unaccustomed turbulence in 2014 as its president seeks to permit himself an additional term of office. Algeria, which is wary of France’s military deployments on its southern border, is set to take over from Burkina the mediation of talks between Mali’s government and secular Tuareg and Arab rebels.

Foundations in Sand

In some respects, the eviction of AQIM and its allies from northern Mali has made the wider Sahara a less safe place, without obviously impeding the capacity of jihadist groups to threaten Europe. In 2014, southwest Libya and parts of Niger are not necessarily less safe havens than northern Mali was in 2012. The insurgency has moved closer to the Mediterranean and closer to critical European energy infrastructure in Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Niger (uranium). Unlike heterodox Mali, controlling Libya’s chaotic state is likely to be of interest to Arab Salafist groups, including AQIM.

As elsewhere, the western military approach to countering Islamist insurgency in the Sahel rests on very unsteady foundations. This applies to the political legitimacy of allied regimes, the stability and security of locations hosting French and US bases, the traumatic historical legacy of France as the former colonial power, and the potential for counter-insurgency tactics to provoke wider alienation and radicalisation. However asymmetric its military technology, reinforcing a new line of castles in the Saharan sand may be as futile a gesture in France’s long retreat from empire as the UK’s last stand in Afghanistan.

Richard Reeve is the Director of the Sustainable Security Programme at Oxford Research Group. He has researched African peace and security issues since 2000, including work with ECOWAS and the AU. Richard’s most recent security briefing ‘Security in the Sahel (Part II): Militarisation of the Sahel is available here.

The European Union (EU) has recently emerged as an international peace meditator, but emerging challenges, including the potential exit of the UK from the EU, may prevent it from strengthening its ability to mediate conflicts.  

Mediation is an instrument of international conflict management through which third parties seek to contribute to a peaceful resolution of (violent) conflicts. While states are the dominant and most frequent providers of mediation, international organizations are not far behind. Recently, the European Union (EU) has emerged as a relatively new player in the field, acting both as a mediator itself and as a member of collective coordination mechanisms to support peace processes such as UN Contact Groups and Groups of Friends. Current initiatives such as the EU-facilitated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina have demonstrated the EU’s potential as peace mediator.

However, external and internal crises may prevent the EU from further strengthening its institutional capacities and resources for mediation. Externally, challenges to European security such as the civil war in Syria, the threat posed by the so-called Islamic State and the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine in the context of rising tensions between NATO and Russia could lead to a shift in the EU’s foreign and security policy back towards a more traditional, “hard security” approach that focuses on the development of military instruments and defence cooperation. Internally, the results of the UK referendum on 23 June 2016 and a potential exit of the UK would certainly open up a debate on the future of EU foreign and security policy without one of its most influential member states. The fact that the EU’s long-awaited Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy will be published a week or two after the UK referendum suggests that the EU is well prepared to take the potential effects of a ‘Leave’ vote on this policy field swiftly into account. However, it is nevertheless plausible to assume that a ‘Brexit’ would push the EU towards a decisive crossroads as regards to the future development of its foreign and security policy, also potentially affecting its engagement in the field of peace mediation.

 The EU’s track record in peace mediation

Image by Rock Cohen via Flickr.

Although the number of EU mediation efforts is still relatively marginal compared to UN mediation involvement, the EU has nevertheless established a considerable track record as mediator in the past ten to fifteen years. During High Representative (HR) Javier Solana’s terms of office, mediation became an increasingly important element of the EU’s foreign and security policy toolbox. For example, in August 2001 the EU together with the US managed to broker the Ohrid Framework Agreement settling the conflict between the Macedonian government and the Albanian minority in 2001. A few months later, the High Representative and his team became involved in a mediation process between Serbia and Montenegro, which led to the Belgrade Agreement on the formation of a state union in March 2002. While the Western Balkans certainly remained one of HR Solana’s key priorities, the EU also played an important role in the multilateral effort to mediate the political crisis in Ukraine in the context of the country’s ‘Orange Revolution’ in 2003 and was a key supporter of the efforts by the Finnish NGO Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) to broker a peace agreement to the conflict in Aceh, Indonesia in 2004-5.

While the EU had already been very active in the field of mediation when Javier Solana served as High Representative (1999-2009), it sustained its mediation activities during HR Catherine Ashton’s term of office (2009-2014) and continues to be involved in mediation processes since HR Federica Mogherini has taken over. In particular, the EU-facilitated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina stands out as the most prominent example of EU mediation. Less publicly recognized are the EU’s efforts as co-mediator in the Geneva International Discussions (GID) on Georgia’s Territorial Conflicts that were initiated in October 2008 following the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and Crisis in Georgia together with OSCE and UN Special Representatives/Envoys  serving as co-chair in the talks between representatives of Georgia, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Russia and the US. Apart from its direct involvement as mediator, EU actors have been engaged in a number of mediation support initiatives, often been less visible to a wider public. Examples include the EEAS Mediation Support Team’s efforts to assist Myanmar democratic transition and the EU Delegation’s organizational and financial support to the National Dialogue Conference in Yemen.

The EU’s institutional framework for mediation

The increase in EU mediation activities has been accompanied by the evolution of a more strategic and systematic EU approach to mediation, particularly in terms of policy development and capacity-building. A key development in this regard has been the adoption of the Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation and Dialogue Capacities. In this document, the EU formulated the plan to systematically enhance its existing mediation capacities and to strengthen its overall ability to engage in non-military conflict prevention and crisis management missions. It also spells out different roles and guiding principles of EU mediation, thereby addressing the need for greater internal coherence and closer cooperation with its international partners. A major role in mediation is ascribed to the EU Special Representatives, whose mandates often include mediation-related activities and which are often the key EU actors on the ground in the conflict region.

To implement the Concept and to promote a more systematic approach to mediation, the Mediation Support Team (MST) within the EEAS was established in 2011 and has become a key hub of mediation knowledge and expertise. However, the MST is not the only institutional innovation that followed-up on the 2009 Concept. The establishment of the European Parliament Mediation Support Service to assist mediation initiatives undertaken by Members of the European Parliament and the creation of the European Institute of Peace illustrate that mediation remains a vibrant field of EU foreign policy.

Is the EU an effective mediator?

To what extent the EU is effective in its mediation efforts is an issue which still has to be comprehensively addressed in peace and conflict studies research. The answer to the question of EU effectiveness also depends on how one conceptualizes effectiveness and success in international mediation. A brief comparison of the EU-facilitated dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia with the EU’s role as co-chair in the Geneva International Discussions on the conflicts over South Ossetia and Abkhazia may illustrate this. In terms of conflict settlement, the EU-facilitated dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia has been relatively effective, given that it has led to several agreements between the parties, including compromises on previously heavily contested issues such as Kosovo’s participation in regional fora, freedom of movement and trade, and the governance of Northern Kosovo. Most importantly, the EU brokered the First Agreement of Principles Governing the Normalization of Relations in April 2013 that has been widely applauded as ground-breaking and historic. Although the parties are lagging behind when it comes to the implementation of some agreements, the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue still is a success story which can, at least partly, be attributed to the EU’s leverage vis-à-vis with the conflict parties due to their aspirations for EU accession and its mediation strategy that draws on this leverage to move parties toward agreement through the use of positive incentives.

In case of the Geneva International Discussions, the EUSR and his team have been considerably less effective in brokering agreements between the parties compared to the Kosovo-Serbia case. Apart from the establishment of Incident Prevention and Response Mechanisms to facilitate exchange of information on security incidents at the administrative boundary line (ABL) between South Ossetia/Abkhazia and Georgia proper, the discussions have not resulted in any tangible results yet. However, a focus on conflict settlement alone would not be sufficient to make a comprehensive judgement on the EU’s effectiveness as a co-mediator in this case. The fact that the EU has managed to keep the parties at the negotiation table and stay committed to the mediation process is in itself an achievement, given the fact that the space for compromise between the parties seems to be very limited. In addition to the EU’s effort to stabilize the security situation on the ground through the EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM), the EU’s leading role in the GID has contributed to a stabilization of a conflict which was prone to escalation not that many years ago.

What can we learn from this comparison about EU effectiveness in mediation? There are at least two lessons that could be drawn here. First, the Kosovo-Serbia case illustrates the great potential of the EU as a mediator in contexts where EU memberships serves as a huge incentive for compromise solutions. Second, the EU’s involvement in the Geneva International Discussions demonstrates that in less favourable contexts – due to a lack of EU leverage or a limited willingness to compromise from the conflict parties – the EU may not be able to achieve more than preserving the status quo and committing the parties to confront one another peacefully in negotiations rather than through violent means. Thus, there may be certain limits to what the EU is able to achieve, but this does not mean automatically that the EU is ineffective. Rather, the main task for the EU will be to fully exploit the potential it has, given the specific circumstances and context of the conflict in which it decides to engage.

If the EU is able to further strengthen its profile as an international mediator, it will depend on the political will of the Member States. Although EU mediators such as EU Special Representatives enjoy a certain degree of leeway, it is the EU member states who decide on their mandates and the EU’s approach towards a particular conflict more generally. Moreover, individual Member States may provide EU mediation efforts with additional weight. In the Kosovo-Serbia case, for example, the UK and Germany have played a key role in moving Belgrade to compromise in the dialogue with Pristina by making it a condition for further progress on its path towards EU accession. While Germany has been the key driver behind the efforts of putting more pressure on Serbia to move forward in the implementation of agreements reached in the context of the EU-facilitated dialogue at different levels, the UK has played a key role in backing this policy publicly and through diplomatic channels. Given that the UK has been a firm supporter of the EU’s further enlargement, one potential effect of a ‘Brexit’ could be that in cases where enlargement is the key ‘carrot’ the EU can offer to conflict parties, there might be more reluctance to draw on this leverage due to a change to the EU’s internal balance between enlargement supporters and skeptics among the Member States. Thus, although a potential ‘Brexit’ may not inevitably affect and change the EU’s approach to mediation, it may have a long-term negative impact on the EU’s ability to use both pressure and political/economic incentives to spur agreement between conflict parties.

Julian Bergmann is a research fellow with the Chair of International Politics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, working on a PhD thesis on the EU’s effectiveness as a peace mediator in secessionist conflicts. Together with Arne Niemann, he is also conducting a research project entitled “A Peacemaker in the Making? The European Union as an Actor in International Mediation”, funded by the German Foundation for Peace Research. Recent publications include Mediating International Conflicts: the European Union as an Effective Peacemaker? (Journal of Common Market Studies 2015, with Arne Niemann) and Reputation, Credibility and Manipulative Negotiation Style – Attributes of Successful Peacemakers? (Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung 2014; in German).

“As the price of oil goes down, the pace of freedom goes up… As the price of oil goes up, the pace of freedom goes down…” So says New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who argues that the first law of ‘petropolitics’ is that the price of oil and the pace of freedom are inversely correlated in countries “totally dependent on oil” for economic growth. Friedman’s attempt to link economic oil dependency and political freedom is an interesting one, which could go some way towards explaining why many of the world’s top oil-exporting countries are governed by heavy-handed authoritarian regimes. However, the correlation between recent oil price spikes and anti-authoritarian action – particularly in the Arab Spring – challenges Friedman’s assessment.

Rather than being driven by drops in oil revenues for authoritarian regimes, popular unrest and armed resistance  in countries such as Libya may in fact be correlated with the price of oil remaining high. Inward pressure caused by oil price spikes on petroleum-fuelled supply chains for basic commodities can exacerbate already harsh living conditions, galvanising rebel factions to form a unified anti-authoritarian front against a regime that can no longer ensure price stability for essential goods. This seems true of the 2011 uprising in Egypt (the world’s largest wheat importer), as bread prices rose drastically following the doubling of global wheat prices between June 2010 and February 2011. The impact of high oil prices on the production, shipping and distribution of staple commodities such as corn and wheat – both of which saw severe price escalations of near 40% in 2008 – can lead to social unrest and, in the case of Egypt, the toppling of an authoritarian regime.

High oil prices mean freedom on the rise?

Since December 2010, when mass protests began gathering steam in Tunisia, oil prices have remained consistently high, hovering at $82 per barrel. Is it a coincidence that in September 2011, when rebels overtook the coastal town of Bani Walid, one of Colonel Gaddafi’s last strongholds, oil was just above $82 per barrel and the FAO food price index had reached a ten-year high? While oil revenues may be a temporary source of political stability for some authoritarian regimes, the pressure of increasing price volatility on supply chains, due to scarcity in supply, can convert to instability downstream as oil prices have a compounding impact on food prices. Indeed, in December 2010 just a week before the self-immolation of Tunisian food vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, New England Complex Systems Institute a Cambridge-based organisation comprised of faculty from Harvard, MIT and Brandeis, warned the US government that global food prices were about to cross a socially dangerous threshold. If anti-authoritarian action is any indication of freedom ‘on the rise’ then high oil prices in oil-dependent states are at least one major factor.

Of those countries mentioned in the International Energy Agency’s 2011 list of top oil exporters, ten out of fifteen are classed by Freedom House as ‘Not Free’. Freedom House, ‘an independent watchdog organisation dedicated to the expansion of freedom around the world’, base their rankings on two broad categories: political rights and civil liberties. The former they define by a country’s electoral process, degree of political pluralism and level of participation/ functioning of government; the latter by degree of freedom of expression and belief, associational and organisational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights. The irony, according to Friedman, is that Western dependence on oil imports from countries which are ‘Not Free’ has channelled revenues to authoritarian regimes that oppose freedom. This paradox undermines Western credibility as champions of democracy. In a post-9/11 world, where militant extremists reportedly seek safe harbour in oil-exporting states like Saudi Arabia, the consequences of Western oil dependency undermine the West’s long-term security goals. But, when it comes to Friedman’s equation for ‘petropolitics’, the reverse may actually be true. Recent events such as the Arab Spring demonstrate that as the price of oil rises, impacting staple commodity prices, so too does the need for change – change that is blocked by Western dependence on remaining regimes.

Bottom-of-the-barrel security

Western countries reliant on fossil fuel imports from nations ruled by authoritarian regimes are suffering from a crisis of legitimacy – a crisis which could render us more insecure in the long term. In Algeria, where the Arab Spring has not resulted in full on revolution, violent extremists recently made their presence felt at the ‘In Amenas’ gas plant, brutally murdering 37 expatriate workers. The plant, which is jointly operated by BP, Norway’s Statoil and Algerian state oil and gas company Sonatrach, is a major supply source for Western markets. Algeria is responsible for roughly 12.2 billion barrels of crude oil reserves. 85% of Algeria’s oil exports are destined for European and North American markets. Under the leadership of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, whose five year executive terms are renewable indefinitely, Algeria certainly does not rate highly on the list of Freedom House ‘Freedom Ratings’. Military and intelligence services strictly monitor and interfere with open elections. But the Arab Spring may not ever reach Algeria precisely because of the stability brought to the country by a Western-funded heavy-handed regime, which goes to great lengths to protect the general population from militant Islamist extremists and pro-democracy activists alike. Saudi Arabia and UAE are governed by similarly oppressive regimes; regimes which subvert democracy in favour of ‘stability’. Both supply oil and gas to the West. Both benefit from revenues gained through Western dependence in spite of their heavy-handedness.

Interests versus values

The Arab Spring has been full of unfortunate surprises linking former and current administrations to corrupt leaders. Photos of a smiling Tony Blair, getting up close and personal with much maligned Colonel Gaddafi, were a hit in the mainstream press as well as online following the collapse of his regime. Not long before that, the Bush Family’s close ties to the Saudi royal family did little to lend credence to their Middle East pro-democracy campaigns in the early 90s and 2000s.

Germany is in a similarly awkward position as the the largest energy consumer in Europe, with oil making up 38% of Europe’s overall consumption in 2011. Germany is Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom’s biggest European customer with 34% of total sales volume of Russian ‘blue fuel’ destined for German markets last year. There was therefore more than a hint of hypocrisy in Angela Merkel’s recent remarks during a visit by Vladimir Putin to a trade fair in Hanover that Russia ‘needs more NGOs’. The statement was made in regards to a Russian law passed last year requiring all NGOs that receive overseas funding to register as  ‘foreign agents’. Topless Ukrainian activists from the pro women’s rights group ‘Femen’ made their presence felt at the trade fair, drawing attention to  Russia’s crackdown on civil society groups and independent media organisations. Russia’s authoritarianism is a key element of the Putin government, but the issue arguably receives little mainstream coverage in the West compared to the Middle East.

Germany and, by extension, Europe’s de facto dependence on Gazprom to meet their energy needs provides yet another example of why Western countries need to seek develop a more sustainable energy security strategy. It is difficult to legitimately champion broad concerns about upholding civil protections, when some of your largest business partners engage in the shadowy practice of denying basic freedoms to their own citizens.

Renewable energy… and freedom?

In light of the above we can welcome new approaches to energy security, which are aimed at reducing dependence on fossil fuel imports from authoritarian states. The Obama Administration’s ‘All of the Above’ energy strategy, as well as the pragmatism which the European Union, led by Germany, has shown in pushing forward a low carbon agenda are both steps in the right direction. Obama has pledged to double American energy efficiency by 2030, setting aside $2 billion over 10 years to support research into ‘a range of cost-effective technologies’, including electric vehicles, domestically-sourced biofuels, fuel cells, and domestically-produced natural gas. The plan also includes scope for reducing oil imports, while boosting renewable electricity generation from wind, solar and geothermal sources. Although Obama’s plan is far from low carbon, it shows promise. By comparison the UK Government, which at one time pledged to be the ‘greenest government ever’, has attempted to push forward its nationwide low carbon transition through the establishment of a Green Investment Bank. However, fairly recent public squabbles in the UK between Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Chancellor George Osborne the UK’s finance minister, have called that agenda into question.

Friedman’s claim of an inverse correlation between high oil prices and authoritarianism is flawed. But his point about ‘petropolitics’ is still crucial to security, not only because he tries to link oil price fluctuations to authoritarian politics, but also because he highlights how Western dependence on foreign oil provides significant revenue streams on which remaining authoritarian governments can rely. It is also important to point out that as the global price of oil becomes more volatile due to price instability (see: ‘peaky behaviour’) the economic stability of authoritarian regimes that have consolidated their power bases around fossil fuels will almost certainly erode. Moreover, as the impact of oil prices continue to destabilise staple commodity prices, authoritarian regimes will almost certainly come under increasing pressure from their own populations to step down. Western countries that have formed dubious partnerships with these regimes in order to meet their energy security needs will risk further embarrassment when these regimes are toppled by the inevitable anti-authoritarian movements. Western leaders might then stand by and wait to pick a winner – a dubious strategy at best – in order to ensure that supply shipments are not further destabilised. But is this sustainable?

Renewable energy is not the most obvious factor for bolstering the strength of nations. But it is fast becoming clear that Western dependency on fossil fuel imports from countries governed by heavy-handed regimes cannot go on. The International Energy Agency has recently announced that power generation from renewable sources worldwide will exceed that from gas and be twice that from nuclear by 2016. That’s a positive sign. As for oil, we will have to wait and see. But if the restoration of Western legitimacy as champions of the “free world” is a top priority for Western leaders, then more support for domestic renewable energy growth is essential.

Phillip Bruner is Founder of the Green Investment Forum and a guest lecturer in global political economy at the University of Edinburgh

Image source: United Nations Photo

Despite being strictly prohibited in international humanitarian law, child soldiering remains a serious global problem. How effective has the international community’s response to this phenomenon been?

Constituting one of the most egregious child rights violations, many children are currently actively involved in violent conflict as members of armed organizations, states and non-state actors. They can be found on every continent, but sub-Saharan Africa is the epicenter of the phenomenon. These recruited children perform a range of different tasks; they participate in combat, lay mines and explosives, are scouting, spying, and acting as decoys, couriers or guards. Others are used for logistics and supporting functions such as cooking and cleaning.

The 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions were the first international treaties to try and tackle the problem of child soldiering. They prohibit the recruitment and participation in hostilities of children under the age of 15. The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has achieved almost universal ratification, also included the 15 age limit. An optional protocol to this Convention, in May 2000, lifted the age to 18. It insisted that armed groups should not use children under 18 in any circumstances and called on states to criminalize such practices. However, although the use of children by armed groups is prohibited and defined as a war crime, child soldiering remains a pressing global issue.

A “time bomb”?

Child soldiers in Ethiopia. Image by Vittorio Bianchi via Flickr.

The most commonly cited figure for the number of children involved in conflicts is 300,000. This estimate is, however, not necessarily the most accurate one as information on child soldier usage is difficult to obtain. Children are often employed in remote conflict zones away from public view and the media, no record is kept of their number and ages, and those who employ them often deny their existence or claim that these were isolated cases. Besides, they often ‘vanish’ after the conflict ends; they are rarely as visible among the demobilised troops as they were among the combatants at the height of hostilities.

The number of children active in armed groups is clearly nominal when compared to the millions of children who do not participate directly as soldiers but are profoundly affected by war. Nonetheless, this group is a tangible, visible, and dramatic example of the deprivation of the human rights of children. It has been empirical proven that using children as active participants in armed conflict has severe consequences not only for the child and their family, but also for society in general. For instance, at a recent Paris conference on child soldiering, the keynote speaker, the former French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, warned that the use of child soldiers is “a time bomb that threatens stability and growth in Africa and beyond.” They are “lost children,” he argued, “lost for peace and lost for the development of their countries”. Also, a New York Times editorial stated: “They are walking ghosts, damaged, uneducated pariahs.” Ultimately, if subscribing to these statements, child soldiering may be thought to contribute to the well-known ‘conflict trap’, i.e. they might increase the likelihood that conflict recurs.

There are at least two avenues that link former child soldiers to conflict recurrence. First, it is argued that former child soldiers have often limited skills besides killing and being able to fieldstrip weapons after the conflict has ceased. This is primarily due to the fact that they experience little to no education while being in the bush. This lack of education impedes their labour market success: they earn less and are less likely to be engaged in skilled work in comparison to those that were not recruited by armed groups. This may significantly raise the willingness to rejoin armed groups again, which might assure them of at least the basic necessities, such as food and perhaps even a bit of money.

Second, although child soldiers are far from the only ones who are affected as a result of their experiences in war, they suffer the most and have the least capacity to recover. Typically former child soldiers have witnessed, experienced and/or perpetrated shocking and disturbing violent actions during their time with the armed group. This can create great difficulties both for the children and their interface with society. It can lead to both physical symptoms, such as headaches, stomach pains, sleep disorders, and mental symptoms, like depression, anxiety, and extreme levels of pessimism.

One of the most worrying symptoms connected to children’s war participation is a supposed increase in the child’s level of aggression. Due to the fact that they often do not have the capacities and experiences to disengage themselves from these violent and aggressive behavioral norms established during their time in the armed groups, difficulties arise when peace is restored. For instance, they often display on-going aggressiveness within their families and communities: they also often use physical violence to resolve conflicts, reflecting an absence of adequate social skills.

These skills are not easily acquired by former child soldiers since they often encounter broken families once they are back that could have provided a better regulation of the use of violence. Hence, some scholars have argued that the phenomenon of child soldiers feeds upon itself: each round of fighting creates a new cohort, traumatized by the war and bereft of economical skills, who then become a potential pool and catalyst for the next spate of violence. Or as Wessells describes it: “A society that mobilizes and trains its young for war weaves violence into the fabric of life, increasing the likelihood that violence and war will be its future. Children who have been robbed of education and taught to kill often contribute to further militarization, lawlessness, and violence”.

International response

The response of the international community to counter child recruitment falls usually in two categories: (1) punishing perpetrators by ‘naming and shaming’ practices and by prosecution; and (2) mitigating some of the damage done to children once they leave the armed group by implementing child-centred Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programs.

Concerning the ‘naming and shaming’ policies, the United Nations often publishes reports mentioning particular governments and non-state actors that use children. Some have argued that this has an effect, especially on governments, although there is little empirical evidence to back this up. The largest degree of child recruitment is, however, carried out by non-state actors and it seems that media exposure, public pressure, and pressure of international organizations and governments have little to no effect, with perhaps the exception of rebel groups who strive for secession.

Besides ‘naming and shaming’ campaigns, the international community has also started to shift its focus to the criminalization of child soldier recruitment. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a warlord from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who led the Union of Congolese Patriots, was the first rebel leader convicted by the International Criminal Court for the use of children in military operations. More recently, Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, was found guilty of conscripting and enlisting children. It is, however, unclear whether this criminalization has a deterrent effect on child soldier recruitment.

Once children are out of the armed groups, the international community attempts to mitigate the damage done to them and the potential consequences for society by implementing DDR programs. Initially children were often excluded from these programs, as it was argued that they did not pose a post-conflict threat. Moreover, since children cannot be legally recruited, child-centered DDR program elements were not viewed as a routine component of peacemaking. Fortunately, this has changed in recent times, and most DDR programs now have their own imperatives focused on rehabilitating former child soldiers. Usually these programs consist of three components.

First, former child soldiers are gathered at pick-up points, moved to disarmaments sites, and, whenever necessary, disarmed. During the demobilization part of the program, eligibility for the DDR program is determined through a screening process in which they receive identity and discharge documents. Reintegration is the third component of the DDR program, which starts at care centers – transit facilities which help prepare former child soldiers for going home and give non-governmental organizations time for the preparation of families and communities to receive the children. During their time at the center, emphasis is placed on educational activities, recreational activities, psychological support and counselling, and several different life skills trainings. Once the parents or extended family members are traced, the children will be taken home to their family and will join an appropriate educational program.

The effectiveness of these programs in reducing recidivism and establishing post-conflict stability is, however, not always affirmed. Some scholars conclude that these programs are generally inefficient at disarming ex-combatants, reducing the likelihood of recidivism, and addressing their economic and security concerns. This lack of supporting evidence might be due to conceptual and operational problems with defining the outcome of these programs (and how to measure this), and a lack of information on the existing DDR programs (money, personnel, mission statements, etc.). But it might also be due to the content of these programs and how they approach child soldiering. Many of these child-centered DDR programs, for instance, are put in place under enormous time pressure, are often disconnected from the perception of local communities, and are based on a one approach fits all children principle. Consequently, some scholars have called for more flexibility within these programs to enhance is effectiveness. Only then can efforts to promote social reconstruction bear its fruits.

Roos Haer (PhD, University of Konstanz, Germany) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz at the chair of International Relations and Conflict Management. Her current research interests include the role of children in conflict, child soldier recruitment by state and non-state actors, Disarmament Demobilisation and Reintegration programs, and survey methodology in less developed (conflict) countries. Her research is often based on quantitative field research conducted in Africa. She has published in (a.o) the European Journal of International Relations, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Third World Quarterly, and has published a book with Routledge publisher.

This article was originally published on openSecurity’s monthly Sustainable Security column on 15 August 2014. Every month, a rotating network of experts from Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security programme explore pertinent issues of global and regional insecurity.

Control of water, including navigation rights, resource extraction and the exploitation of shared watercourses is at the heart of today’s geopolitical tensions in Asia. China’s recent actions in the South China Sea and Himalayas have given rise to further—and at times violent—conflict over the region’s natural resources. So will water insecurity lead to greater partnership in Asia? Or will it lead to a revival of China’s traditional sense of regional dominance and undercut efforts to build a rules-based approach to growing resource conflicts?

Little by little

China National Petroleum Corporation’s Haiyang Shiyou-981 oil rig is situated close to the Paracel Islands, which Vietnam claims fall inside its exclusive economic zone. Source: East Asia Forum

On 15 July, a month earlier than scheduled, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) announced that it was removing its Haiyang Shiyou-981 oil rig—40 storeys high and worth an estimated $1 billion—from waters close to the Paracel Islands which Vietnam claims fall inside its exclusive economic zone.

There were four possible explanations. The first was the one the CNPC offered: the rig had completed its work early. The second was the approach of Typhoon Rammasun, signalling an early start to the region’s storm season. A third was that the US-China Strategic Dialogue the previous week had put pressure on China to lower the temperature in the South China Sea and China had taken the opportunity to demonstrate that it was a responsible international player.

The fourth interpretation was that the rig had accomplished its purpose—not prospecting for hydrocarbons but promoting a steady advance of Chinese claims on the South China Sea through a series of assertive steps, none so provocative as to bring in outside players. With each little step, this story goes, China is building its case for singular rights to navigation and resource extraction there.

The other players on the regional chessboard—the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia—have grown increasingly agitated. With the memory of violent clashes between Vietnam and China over the Paracel Islands in 1974 and 1988, the installation of the oil rig in May provoked outbreaks of violence in Vietnam against Chinese citizens and businesses. Vietnamese fishing boats and Chinese ships harassed each other throughout the drilling.

It is a dangerous ploy, but China calculates that the dangers are containable. If ethnic Chinese or Chinese citizens suffer harm in the backlash, the host country is to blame. If two ships collide in the course of the hazardous games of “chicken” that have become routine in this contest, Chinese citizens can be mobilised to shout their indignation against the “aggressor”.

Overlapping claims

A Fililipino protester holds a slogan beside a Philippine flag during a rally outside the Chinese Consulate in suburban Makati, south of Manila, Philippines on Tuesday June 11, 2013. Source: East Asia Forum

The waters to which China lays claim are divided under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) into exclusive economic zones for Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan, each of which argues it has been adversely affected by China’s oil rig and claims of sovereignty. The zones, running 200 nautical miles into the South China Sea, allow these states special rights of exploration and exploitation of marine resources in specific areas.

The sea is a major shipping route and fishing area, accounting for around one-tenth of the global fish catch and believed to have substantial untapped natural resources. Notably, China’s claims (outlined in a map in 1947) overlap a large portion of these zones. Malaysia also lays claim to a small number of islands in the Spratlys archipelago. With such a concentration of multifaceted and overlapping claims, China’s oil-rig foray heightened tensions and raised fears.

In an attempt to settle its resource conflict with China peacefully , the Philippines has filed a case before the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on its own exclusive economic zone. However, even if, , as Manila expects, the court rules in its favour, China will ignore this—preferring to use its superior weight in bilateral negotiations rather than submit to third-party or multilateral processes where it is the rules that count. Diplomatic efforts by the Philippines to co-ordinate other claimants to take a common position vis-à-vis China have so far met little success.

China’s behaviour has made its smaller neighbours, including Vietnam, reach out to the US for reassurance. But what can it really offer?

For the US, the fading Pacific power, the disputes in the South and East China Sea pose a particular dilemma. In the East China Sea, China and Japan have overlapping territorial claims, including to the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands which Japan controls and does not recognise as contested. The US has maintained neutrality on the islands but has a treaty commitment to defend Japan as the quid pro quo for its post-war pacifism.

China might be uncertain about the depth of US enthusiasm for that commitment today but limits its provocation, nevertheless, to such moves as the declaration in November 2013, without consultation, of an “air defence identification zone” which covers territory claimed by its neighbours. International flights are now required to report their identity and flight plans to China when crossing the zone, at risk of “defensive emergency measures”.

The strengths and limitations of the US position were clear in May, at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, the region’s annual multilateral “track two” security summit, where the US retains the power to mobilise a chorus of allies to uphold rules and laws and to criticise China’s behaviour. A series of speakers, including the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and the US defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, condemned the use of muscle to enforce claims to the China seas, calling instead for freedom of navigation and overflight and a system based on international rules.

General Wang Guanzhong, leader of the Chinese delegation, accused the US and Japan of ganging up on China. He was not sufficiently moved to answer pertinent questions on the rules of engagement for Chinese patrol vessels in the East China Sea, but he did make it clear that China saw no place for the US in 21st-century Asia.

China is by far the largest trading partner of all the ASEAN members, which are caught in the small-neighbour dilemma, somewhere between the fear that China will come to rule their lives and consume their resources and the fear of giving offence to the region’s most important economic power. For them, the game is to try to stay on good terms with both sides.

Himalayan watershed

The dilemma is also evident among a different set of China’s neighbours—those that depend on the rivers that rise in the mountains and on the high plateau of Tibet. China’s largest downstream neighbour is, of course, India. India-China relations are bedevilled by unsettled borders-status rivalries, the subject of relatively recent skirmishes, but their most intractable potential conflict is over the shared resource of the Himalayan watershed.

In its eagerness to promote new Asian alliances, Beijing dispatched the foreign minister, Wang Yi, to Delhi in June, to reach out early to the administration of the newly-elected Narendra Modi. Wang presented himself as the personal envoy of China’s president, Xi Jinping, and startled the Indian press by claiming that the two countries were ready to settle their long-running border dispute. The announcement was however short on detail—and, since the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh is claimed by China while China’s Aksai Chin is claimed by India, details matter.

There has been no further hint of an imminent deal but India, like all of China’s downstream neighbours, is more concerned by the impact Chinese activities are having on the quality and quantity of water that crosses its borders than the exact position of the borders themselves. The Himalayan cryosphere contains the largest store of fresh water outside the two polar regions and is a significant influence on the region’s climate, including its monsoons. As in the polar regions, rising temperatures are affecting the glaciers and snow fields that give birth to Asia’s rivers and future impacts on monsoons, though hard to predict, are highly likely.

In the shorter term, China’s expansion of development westward is affecting the Qinghai Tibet plateau and everything that flows from it. Increased mineral extraction in Tibet and a renewed frenzy of big-hydro construction on trans-boundary rivers are changing Asia’s water flows for ever. There is increasing awareness of the risk of the downstream disasters that could result from building mega-dams in one of the world’s most active earthquake zones.

There are no trans-boundary agreements between China and any lower riparian country on the shared use of Asia’s great rivers, even though 1.6 billion people depend on them and China is building dams on all their head waters. For India, dams and threatened water diversions on the Brahmaputra are a particular concern. For the countries of the Mekong, China’s dam-building upstream poses a series of potential dangers. Meanwhile, India and others are running to catch up in the dam race, fearful of allowing de facto rights to be created unchallenged.

There has been no source-to-sink assessment of the impact on river ecosystems of any single dam—let alone of the massive cascades planned or under construction—and there are no mechanisms for resolving disputes. China has refused to enter into discussions with lower riparian countries, beyond agreeing to share limited water-flow data with India.

Clear rules

But, as in the South China Sea, limited bilateral discussions are not enough to ensure that the ecosystems of the watershed are protected and the legitimate interests of all those whose livelihoods depend on the rivers are recognised. From the high Himalaya to the teeming deltas, life will be affected.

If ever there was a case for clear rules and co-operation, it can be found in the South China Sea and the Himalayan watershed. Both raise the essential question of whether the region’s resource conflicts will be settled by arbitration and law or by force. China’s challenge to US influence is also a challenge to an international order that values arbitration as a way of defending the weak against abuse by the strong.

Isabel Hilton is the editor of chinadialogue.net, and Advisor to Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security Programme. She is a journalist, broadcaster, writer and commentator

Author’s Note: This contribution is a shorter version of the article “Assessment of Transboundary River Basins for Potential Hydro-political Tensions” by De Stefano et al. 2017.

The impacts of new dams and diversions are felt across borders, and the development of new water infrastructure can increase political tensions in transboundary river basins. International water treaties and river basin organizations serve as a framework to potentially deescalate hydro-political tensions across borders.

The availability of freshwater in the right quantity and quality at the right times for dependent systems is required for human security, environmental security, and economic growth. As populations and economies have grown, water has become scarcer and more variable in certain locations, leading to concerns over how water may lead to conflict. Though violent conflicts over water occur more often at the local level, disputes over water are also possible at the international level, particularly as impacts of water use spill across international borders.

Dams and other water infrastructure help manage water variability—providing water in times of drought and dampening the effects of floods. With these benefits come ecological impacts as large-scale water infrastructure effects the hydrologic function of the basin in which they are built. This includes altering the timing and/or magnitude of flows, altering aquatic migratory patterns, and preventing sediments from moving downstream. Thus, the construction of large-scale water infrastructure such as dams and water diversions can become significant sources of tension between countries sharing a river basin.

The significance of new dams and water diversions is increasing across the world as many countries have begun construction on large infrastructure projects in internationally shared river basins. This is evident in places such as the Nile Basin, where the Ethiopian government’s construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has been occurring without an agreement with downstream Egypt, and the news of its construction has been met with violent protests and strong rhetoric from Egyptian politicians. Water diversions are not the only factor potentially creating tension between countries over shared waters. Other factors including high population growth, urbanization, increasing water pollution, over-abstraction of groundwater, climate change and water-related disasters can contribute to tensions.

Building institutional capacity (treaties and river basin organizations) is a crucial factor in decreasing the likelihood of conflict over shared waters – particularly if the agreements contain mechanisms that reduce uncertainty and increase flexibility in water management. Past research suggests that a basin will be more resilient to conflict if a basin has international mechanisms able to manage effects of rapid or extreme physical or institutional change. However, the mere presence of institutions does not necessarily indicate that a basin is resilient, nor does it indicate that water-related conflict will be absent.

Countries can exploit treaties since they are not easily enforceable. Treaties can also be structured in a way that exploits (or worsens) already-existing inequities between countries. Treaties can not only solidify power imbalances, but can also lock out public participation or even become a source of conflict themselves. This can lead to a lack of participating by some countries.

Previous studies in analyzing potential future conflict in river basins at a global scale have identified basins at future risk through predictive and forecasting methods, treaty analysis, and climate change. Our recent study aims to contribute to those types of analyses through examining multiple issues – stressors on political relationships due to the development of dams and water diversions, how treaties/river basin organizations can mitigate these stresses, and external socio-environmental factors that could exacerbate these tensions in the near future. We integrate these multi-faceted data to map the risk of potential tensions regarding water and politics in transboundary basins across the globe.

Findings

We found several basins to be vulnerable to tensions over water, particularly in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central America, the northern part of the South American continent, the southern Balkans as well as different parts of Africa (Table 1). New dams and diversions is ongoing or planned in at least 57 basins worldwide. The new dams are highly concentrated in very few geographic areas, including regions in Nepal, Brazil, and India. Most international river basins were found to have a moderate risk of tensions over water (see Figure 1). Twenty-two basins were classified as having a very high risk, and 14 basins were classified as having a high risk of tensions. Many basins of higher risk are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Central and Southeast Asia. These basins at higher risk are experiencing a combination of factors lending them vulnerable to conflict, including high rates of dam development, limited, weak, or nonexistent treaty coverage, high water variability, and low gross national income per capita.

Concluding remarks

The indicator-based analysis (Figure 1) uses a combination of environmental, political, and economic metrics, including high or increased climate-driven water variability, presence of armed conflicts, and low gross national income per capita, to identify vulnerability and resilience to tensions brought forth by water resources development in international watersheds at a global scale. The development of new dams and water diversions is very unevenly distributed.

Certain basins will be much more impacted than others. Most of the new water infrastructure is in upstream portions of river basins, with many dams being built in emerging or developing economies that require increased hydropower and water regulation to sustain their economic development. Many of these areas still lack well-developed instruments and institutions that would contribute towards transboundary cooperation.

The ability to understand when (and where) these variables combine to potentially create conflict is critical to managing and transforming future conflict in transboundary basins. Understanding where conflict might occur can contribute towards guiding policy interventions, focusing capacity-building efforts where needed, and actualizing worldwide initiatives of integrated water resources management. This includes achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal Target 6.5 (“By 2030, implement integrated water resources management at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation as appropriate.”).

Jacob D. Petersen-Perlman is a Research Analyst at the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center. His research areas of interest include transboundary water conflict and cooperation, water security, and water governance.

Lucia De Stefano is Deputy Director of the Water Observatory of the Botín Foundation and Associate Professor at Complutense University of Madrid (Spain). Her main fields of interest are multilevel water planning, drought management, groundwater governance, transboundary waters, and the assessment of good governance attributes from different disciplinary perspectives.

Eric Sproles is a hydrologist at the Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Zonas Áridas in La Serena, Chile and a Courtesy faculty member at Oregon State University. His research areas of interest include climate change impacts on hydrology, particularly on mountain snowpack and streamflow, and remote sensing of terrestrial water storage.

Aaron T. Wolf is a professor of geography in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University and directs the Program in Water Conflict Management and Transformation, through which he has offered workshops, facilitations, and mediation in basins throughout the world. His research focuses on issues relating transboundary water resources to political conflict and cooperation.

Acclaimed military historian Dr. Mark Moyar discusses the history and current use of US special operations forces, America’s most elite soldiers.

This interview was originally conducted for the Remote Control project.

Q. Your book Oppose Any Foe was recently published. The book examines the history of U.S. special operations forces. What are the origins of America’s special operations forces and why were they created?

Most of America’s special operations forces trace their roots to World War II. The Army Rangers were created in 1942 as a means of collaborating with the British Commandos, at a time when the Commandos were a central element of Winston Churchill’s raiding strategy. The Rangers were disbanded after World War II and again after the Korean War, but they were reincarnated in the 1970s and have been a part of the US Army ever since. President Franklin Roosevelt created the US Marine Corps Raiders in 1942 because his son, who was enamored with commando-type forces, convinced him to form Marine special operations forces despite objections from the head of the Marine Corps. Marine special operations forces were dissolved in 1944, not to be reconstituted until 2006, and eventually the new organization took on the Raider name.

The US Navy fielded Frogmen in WWII as a means of clearing channels for amphibious landings, and retained some of the units after the war. In 1961, some of the Frogmen were converted into members of Sea, Air, Land Teams (SEALs). The Office of Strategic Services, the primary US intelligence agency during World War II, created special operations forces such as the Jedburghs and Operational Groups, which in the 1950s became the model for the US Army Special Forces.

Q. In the early years, how strategically effective were US special operations forces?

During both World War II and the Korean War, the United States formed special operations forces for the purpose of raids on enemy “soft spots.” In both cases, the Americans soon discovered that opportunities for such missions were few and far between. Given the need for regular infantry in these wars of grinding attrition, the special operations units were routinely employed in conventional infantry missions. For the purposes of stealth and speed, these units carried less heavy equipment than other line units, which proved to be a major handicap in conventional combat.

The heavy losses sustained in battle led to the dissolution of most special operations units prior to the ends of both World War II and the Korean War. The special units of the Office of Strategic Services were somewhat more effective in their role of supporting resistance movements behind enemy lines, but for the most part they had little impact on the tide of battle, and they too were disbanded after the war. The US Navy Frogmen were a notable exception to the general trend, as their performance in clearing obstacles prior to amphibious landings was deemed so successful that they were retained after war’s end.

Q. In your book, you describe how the future of special operations forces at the end of the 1950s looked bleak, but that the Vietnam War seemed to mark a turning point. What roles were US special operations forces used for during the Vietnam campaign and how did this experience effect their organisational structure and future use?

President John F. Kennedy was more interested in special operations forces than any other US President, before or since. He enlarged the Army Special Forces and created new units in order to counter insurgencies in Vietnam and other third-world countries. The largest Special Forces program, the Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDGs), performed both guerrilla and counterguerrilla missions, as they shifted from defending their villages to attacking infiltrating North Vietnamese Army units.

In addition, the Special Forces attempted to insert intelligence collectors and saboteurs into North Vietnam, but most of the people they sent were compromised or killed. Special operations units also carried out reconnaissance missions in Laos and Cambodia, advised paramilitary forces, and conducted raids. After the war, conventional forces and special operations forces blamed each other for failures in Vietnam, based largely on inaccurate perceptions of the war, and those accusations would remain a source of friction for decades to come. Because conventional officers had greater clout, the special operations forces suffered the greater loss in resources after the war.

Q. In the post-Vietnam era, there was a rise in hostage taking by Islamic terrorists which created the need for soldiers who could take out terrorists quickly and effectively without harm coming to hostages. How did this demand change U.S. special operations forces?

In the post-Vietnam era, as in other post-conflict eras, special operations forces sought new missions to keep them occupied and demonstrate their worth. An upsurge in hostage taking by Islamic terrorists in the early 1970s led to the reconstitution of the US Army Rangers in 1974 and the formation of Delta Force in 1977 and SEAL Team Six in 1980. The Delta Force mission to rescue US hostages in Tehran in April 1980 failed spectacularly, but it led to a series of reforms with far-reaching implications for special operations forces.

In the aftermath of the abortive raid, the US government formed the Joint Special Operations Command to alleviate the command problems that arose during the operation, as well as the 160^th Special Operations Aviation Battalion to prevent recurrence of aviation mishaps. The Iran calamity also gave impetus to the reforms of 1986, which included creation of Special Operations Command, appointment of an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, and authorization of a separate funding line for special operations forces. The inception of Delta Force and SEAL Team Six gave special operations forces permanent raiding capabilities, which would be used for different ends in the early twenty-first century.

Q. Moving into the twenty-first century, the post-9/11 era has seen a significant increase in the use and numbers of US special operations forces. During the Afghanistan campaign, U.S. special operations forces played an important role in the overthrow of the Taliban. How much did the Afghanistan experience and its perceived successes influence the strategic thinking behind the U.S. military campaigns which would follow?    

The Northern Alliance militias defeated the much larger Taliban armed forces in 2001 thanks to US Special Forces advisers, whose chief task was the guiding of precision munitions onto Taliban targets. It was the first time that American SOF played a role that could be characterized as strategically decisive, and thus encouraged the view that SOF were a strategic instrument. That view in turn fueled decisions to enlarge SOF and employ them in isolation from conventional forces. Efforts to rely primarily or solely on SOF, however, did not yield the anticipated successes.

The use of SOF to support local actors failed twice in Afghanistan shortly after the fall of the Taliban- at Tora Bora at the end of 2001 and in Operation Anaconda in early 2002. SOF would also come up short when the Obama administration charged them with the task of building an army of Syrian rebels. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama attempted to achieve strategic success through SOF surgical strike operations against the leaders of insurgent and terrorist organizations, but the elimination of large numbers of leaders failed to destroy these organizations.

Q. What were some of the reasons for these failures you mention?

SOF did not achieve their objectives at Tora Bora because their Afghan partners were not as competent or reliable as the Northern Alliance had been. The Afghan militiamen at Tora Bora failed to pursue Bin Laden aggressively, ensuring that he would escape. In Operation Anaconda, the Afghan partners panicked at the first setback and abandoned the battlefield. In the case of Syria, American special operators were unable to recruit substantial numbers of rebels because the White House put unrealistic constraints on recruitment and because most of the moderate rebels had been wiped out by the time the United States was prepared to back them.

The many tactical achievements of surgical strike operations did not produce strategic success because the enemy was able to replace lost personnel with competent individuals, in part as the result of popular dissatisfaction with the surgical strikes.

Q. As you previously mentioned, US special operations forces have expanded much since 9/11. Do you think the US is over-reliant on special operations forces and, if so, why has the US become so dependent on them?

After 9/11, the Bush administration built up special operations forces for “manhunting” operations against extremist leaders, in the hope that extremist organizations could be destroyed through decapitation. Those organizations proved capable of withstanding the precision strikes, which led the United States to the use of special operations forces against lower levels of insurgent groups. Whereas the Bush administration sought to employ the special operators in concert with conventional forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama administration began seeking ways to use them as low-cost substitutes for large conventional forces.

The Obama administration also decided to send more special operations forces into failed and failing states such as Somalia, Yemen, and Iraq to support friendly governments or insurgents. There is now general recognition in the US SOF community that the operators have more work than they can handle with their existing manpower base, and hence some of their work must be shifted to other military forces or civilian agencies.

Since 9/11, the demands for SOF have exceeded the supply, which explains why the stresses on the forces have become unsustainable. Rectifying the problem will require reducing the deployment pace of special operations forces, which means that some tasks will either have to be performed by other forces, or not performed at all. US conventional forces have the capacity to perform some of those tasks, so the best solution is to shift duties to the conventional forces.

Q. How much transparency and accountability has there been regarding the use of special operations forces in the US? 

From their inception, US special operations forces have functioned under conditions of greater secrecy than other military forces. The primary reason has been the need to conceal their activities from the enemy–the more that was known about them, the better the enemy could combat them. Secrecy, though, has also shielded special operations forces from the scrutiny of the American public, media, and Congress

Lack of transparency has at times made it more difficult to hold special operations forces accountable. Congress, which for decades held special operations forces in high esteem, turned against Special Operations Command in the latter part of the Obama administration as a result of the command’s unwillingness to share information with Congress. Ultimately, Congress used its authority over funding to compel greater transparency.

Q. One of the many interesting things about your book is that it highlights how important certain presidents were in deciding the types of roles that special operations forces were used for. Thus far, has the use of special operations forces under Trump differed from their use under Obama? 

It is too early to tell how the use of special operations forces will differ under the Trump administration. The Defense Department is still fleshing out strategy, and has yet to fill key positions. Given the heavy involvement of special operations forces in a multitude of pressing tasks, a certain amount of continuity is inevitable.

About the interviewee

Mark Moyar is director of the Project on Military and Diplomatic History at CSIS. The author of six books and dozens of articles, he has worked in and out of government on national security affairs, international development, foreign aid, and capacity building. Dr. Moyar’s newest book is Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America’s Special Operations Forces (Basic Books, 2017), the first comprehensive history of U.S. special operations forces. He is currently writing the sequel to his book Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965. Moyar has served as a professor at the US Marine Corps University and a senior fellow at the Joint Special Operations University and has advised the senior leadership of several US military commands. He holds a BA summa cum laude from Harvard and a PhD from Cambridge.

The world is witnessing unprecedented forced displacement due to conflict, persecution, and human rights violations. The conflict in Syria has been a major source of this displacement, producing over 7.6 million internally displaced persons and over 4.8 million refugees. The escalation of armed conflict in Iraq since 2014 has also contributed to a dire humanitarian and displacement crisis, and recent data indicate that Iraq is one of the three main origin countries—along with Syria and Afghanistan—for asylum seekers and migrants arriving in Europe. The conflicts in Syria and Iraq have been characterized by mass atrocity crimes including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possible acts of genocide. As the death tolls and casualties associated with attempts to flee these conflicts continue to rise, the failure of the international community to adequately protect civilian populations targeted by violence underscores concerns regarding the international norm of Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Over ten years after its acceptance by all member states at the United Nations World Summit, the framework for collectively responding to mass atrocities when states have manifestly failed to protect their populations remains weakened by critiques of selective use and by its conflation with coercive humanitarian intervention in the aftermath of its application in Libya. R2P’s association with controversial coercive measures threatens to undermine its legitimacy and overlooks important non-coercive opportunities for implementing the human protection principles that are at its core. In particular, in the wake of mass atrocity situations, facilitating access to asylum and other forms of protection for refugees and displaced persons represents an essential step towards fulfilling R2P.

 Linking the Responsibility to Protect and Refugee Protection

Za’atari refugee camp, Jordan. Image by DFID via Flickr.

There are strong foundations for emphasizing R2P as refugee protection. First, the international norm is intended to apply to mass atrocity situations where there is evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, or genocide. The refugee crises associated with World War II, the Vietnam War, the Rwandan genocide, and the Balkans conflicts of the 1990s underscore the connection between mass displacement and mass atrocity crimes. International indifference or opposition to collective refugee burden-sharing in these cases frequently resulted in further victimization. In his study of mass killings, Benjamin Valentino argues that greater international response to refugees could have helped reduce the death toll of many of the 20^th century’s worst genocides.

An emphasis on R2P as refugee protection also bolsters the non-coercive and non-violent aspects of the human protection norm at a time when significant criticism surrounding the third pillar of the framework regarding forceful intervention threatens to erode its legitimacy and global consensus. Humanitarian interventions raise concerns about selectivity and often pose significant risks with regard to civilian harm. These risks are compounded by the power asymmetries and realpolitik dynamics that typically characterize coercive interventions. Further associations of R2P with forceful interventions will understandably trigger greater contestations of the norm and undermine the potential for its evolution into meaningful legal obligations. As an alternative to the use of force, states can respond to mass atrocity situations with mechanisms of refugee protection like facilitating access to asylum, granting temporary protection, and upholding the principle of non-refoulement, thus addressing R2P’s call for collective international response in a timely and decisive manner to protect civilian populations and prevent further victimization.

Allocating Responsibility for Refugees

While there are robust foundations for connecting the human protection norm to mass displacement and refugee response, the implementation of R2P as refugee protection faces significant impediments both in Europe and the United States. One major obstacle is refugee burden-sharing. The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol do not specify how, in the face of major refugee crises, states should equitably allocate legal, financial, or physical responsibilities for protection. While states are obligated by the principle of non-refoulement not to contribute to refugees’ harm by returning them to their place of persecution, international law grants states the right to retain control over their sovereign borders. As such, states are not compelled to grant asylum. A related problem is that the existing refugee protection regime relies on post-World War II assumptions that forced displacement is a temporary phenomenon and refugees will be able to return to their country of origin following the resolution of the conflict. Despite data indicating that displacement has become increasingly prolonged, the repatriation of refugees to their home countries remains more heavily promoted than their resettlement or local integration in host countries.

To date, neighboring states in the Middle East have absorbed the vast majority of refugees fleeing atrocities in Syria and Iraq. This disproportionate burden on states in the region is in line with global trends in the distribution of refugees. Because proximity to place of origin has been a key determinant of distribution, developing countries that can least afford to host refugees have assumed the overwhelming responsibility for them. This inequality in refugee burden-sharing emerges not only due to geographical proximity, but also reflects the increased ability of developed countries to prevent refugees from arriving on their territories. In the ongoing crisis, inequitable burden-sharing is also apparent on a regional level within the European Union (EU), as southern European states have continued to bear the primary responsibility for screening and processing asylum claims. While other EU members have partially shared the burden by committing financial resources to assist Greece and Italy and by hosting some refugees through relocation frameworks, as of November 2015 only three states—Germany, Austria, and Sweden—fulfilled their committed quotas for relocating refugees.   Debates over refugee burden-sharing in Europe have underscored tensions between EU principles and individual member states’ willingness to implement norms of equity in refugee protection.

While discussions of refugee burden-sharing have largely focused on capability—that is, states’ relative capacities to assist refugees based on factors like economic development, population, and territorial size—the criteria that ought to govern the allocation of refugee responsibility remain ambiguous. The EU plan for distributing asylum seekers approved in September of 2015 utilized economic strength, population, unemployment, and the number of asylum applications approved in the last five years as criteria; however, this resettlement plan has faced opposition from central and eastern European states, and Poland announced that it would not participate. Complicating the task of determining how refugee protection responsibilities should be allocated is the notion that a country’s culpability in the creation of the displacement might also shape its obligations to respond.

The Securitization of Refugees

Even if consensus can be reached at the international level regarding principles of equitable refugee burden-sharing, policymakers can increasingly expect resistance from their domestic publics rooted in logics that link refugees to fears of terrorism and perceptions of foreigners as threatening. The implementation of R2P as refugee protection thus faces significant hurdles related to the securitization of asylum seekers—particularly those from Muslim-majority countries—as threats to both national security and cultural values in the United States and Europe. Increased fears of terrorist infiltration via refugee flows have produced calls to round up Syrian refugees and resulted in the U.S. House of Representatives passing H.R. 4038, the American Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act. Opposition to refugees at the domestic level has also manifested in arson attacks against refugee shelters in Germany and violence against refugees in France. As refugees are increasingly conflated with migrants, and the current crisis emanates largely from the Middle East, perceptions of asylum seekers have become linked to broader debates about immigration and Islam. In this context, domestic political forces in Europe and the US have framed the refugee crisis in ways that undermine the potential for R2P to be successfully reoriented as refugee protection.

Navigating these obstacles requires grappling with representations of refugees in social and political discourse, as well as articulating how refugee burden-sharing can serve states’ national interests. Organized and predictable responses for allocating refugee responsibilities could, for example, support greater international stability and reinforce principles of cooperative security. In an increasingly interdependent global environment, fulfilling R2P through refugee protection could arguably compliment counterterrorism policies and contribute to an international protective infrastructure that facilitates better coping with transnational threats and humanitarian emergencies.

Alise Coen is currently Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Sheboygan, USA. Her article, ‘R2P, Global Governance, and the Syrian Refugee Crisis’ was recently published in the International Journal of Human Rights. She is on Twitter at @alise_coen

Author’s note: This contribution is partly based on an article published by Weeraratne and Recker in 2016 and provides an updated assessment of the security threat posed by the ADF in the Ugandan/Congolese borderland.

The Allied Democratic Forces—a militant Islamist group in the Ugandan-Congolese borderland—have been depicted as a serious threat to regional security with links to transnational Jihadist groups. But how accurate is this story and what threat does this group actually pose? 

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), commonly perceived as a “militant Islamist group,” is a violent non-state movement operating in the Ugandan-Congolese borderland. The group has increasingly been in the spotlight and stands accused of carrying out numerous attacks since late 2014, mostly in and around the city of Beni in the northeastern province of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  According to data from the Global Terrorism Database, the ADF carried out 80 separate attacks against civilians and government/military targets from October 2014 to December 2015, resulting in a cumulative total of 507 fatalities. Similarly, Human Rights Watch and a report published by the UN Group of Experts on the DRC  estimate well over 600 fatalities in attacks attributed to the group over the last two years.

The Ugandan regime and their Congolese counterparts have been quick to highlight the growing security menace presented by the ADF and often portray the group as a militant Jihadist movement with a litany of ties to transnational Jihadist groups like Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram. However, many analysts caution that the deteriorating security situation in Beni is not entirely due to the ADF and present mounting evidence of complicity of several other actors in the violence. Furthermore, the dogged portrayal of the ADF as a predominantly Islamist militant group with ties to transnational terrorists is a simplistic and overly opportunistic narrative that overplays the role of religion and mischaracterizes the varied objectives of the many disparate elements that increasingly constitute the ADF.

Origins and evolution of the ADF

The ideological roots of the ADF grew in the 1980s in central Uganda as a response to the Museveni government’s perceived discrimination towards its Muslim population. The precursor to the ADF was the Ugandan Mujahidin Freedom Fighters, an armed group instituted by The Islamic Salaf Foundation and composed mainly of members of the puritanical Tabliq sect. A controversial decision by the Ugandan Supreme Court in 1992 to rule in favor of a rival Muslim group further radicalized the Tabliq movement. They retaliated violently, fled to western Uganda and engaged the Ugandan military in sustained fighting. After a series of defeats, the Tabliq retreated to the DRC, from where they established the ADF in 1996, under the leadership of Jamil Mukulu.

Despite its central Ugandan origins, the ADF’s principal theatre of operations has long been the Rwenzori mountainous region straddling western Uganda and the eastern DRC. This choice of location as a base was influenced by the region’s celebrated history of contentious mobilization, weak central government control on either side of the border, similar cross-cultural traits and ample opportunities for collusion with numerous other militant groups embroiled in the larger Congolese war. One such group was the National Liberation Movement for Uganda (NALU), which fled to the DRC following military defeat by the Ugandan army. In 1996, NALU formed an association with the ADF in the city of Beni. Several common denominators united the two groups; distrust of the Museveni regime, their presence on Congolese soil and external support provided by the Sudanese and Congolese governments. The ADF-NALU partnership carried out numerous attacks in the 1990s; conservative estimates indicate that over 1,000 people were killed and over 100,000 displaced from 1996-2001. Prominent targets included police stations, administrative buildings and schools.

The Ugandan military deployed troops across the border in eastern Congo in 1998 to combat the ADF threat. Multiple leaders were killed or captured and the movement was largely destabilized by 2002. The rebels retreated deeper into the DRC and the departure of the Ugandan troops in 2003 allowed the ADF-NALU alliance to regroup through vigorous recruitment.  The next few years were punctuated by intermittent attacks by the ADF and military offensives launched by the Ugandan army, Congolese army and the UN Mission in the DRC. In 2007, the ADF lost its NALU component as the latter surrendered and acquiesced to a political settlement with the Ugandan government.

Recent escalation in violence

UN vehicle ambushed by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Image credit: UN Photo/Flickr.

After a period of relative dormancy from 2007 to 2013 that was interspersed with occasional bouts of violence, there has been a significant resurgence in ADF activity over the last two years. A series of devastating attacks on civilians in the eastern Congo since October 2014 has left over 600 dead, tens of thousands displaced and many of the attacks have been marked by high levels of brutality. Survivors and witnesses have spoken of kidnappings, rape, torture, abduction of children and rampant destruction of property. Furthermore, the ADF was accused of killing Muslim clergy members in Uganda in early 2015. Also contributing to the escalation in violence has been Operation Sukola I, launched against the ADF by the Congolese army and the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO), in January 2014. Continued military operations have seen the ADF suffer several battlefield defeats and the militants have been forced to flee into the forest.  It is reported that the ADF fragmented into smaller groups to improve their chances of avoiding detection from the advancing Congolese forces. Many senior commanders are still missing; however, after a protracted search, ADF’s leader, Mukulu, was arrested by the Tanzanian police in Dares Salaam in April 2015 and later extradited to Uganda where he was convicted on charges of treason.

There is little doubt that the ADF has been responsible for at least some of the attacks in and around Beni. While the ADF did carry out intermittent acts of violence against civilians, the arrangement between the ADF and the local community, at least until 2013, was one of “cooperative (if oftentimes) reluctant coexistence.” In general, the ADF respected the “traditional hierarchy of the host communities” and in 2011, was estimated to command “the popular support of nearly half of the population of Beni territory.”  The increasing focus on civilian targets since 2014 may partly be due to the fact that as the military offensive against the ADF intensified, the group carried out numerous reprisal attacks on civilian informants alleged to have collaborated with the UN and Congolese forces. As one scholar noted, “people are being punished and killed when they don’t want to collaborate” with the ADF.

While the Ugandan and Congolese governments have portrayed the ADF as the primary culprit (for a variety of instrumental motivations), it is increasingly apparent that other actors have been involved in the massacres in North Kivu, including members of the Congolese armed forces, other rebel groups and communal militia. Moreover, as the ADF fragmented into smaller units, the absence of a centralized chain of command resulted in different groups pursuing diverse agendas. Some ADF factions, accused of violence, formed ties with local militia and outside elements who were then also involved in some of the killings. Indeed, interviews with survivors and witnesses suggest that many attackers spoke languages not normally used in this part of the Congo.  Further, the breadth and the scope of violence as well as the nature of weapons used are suggestive of the involvement of multiple armed actors.  The UN Group also concluded that some Congolese army officers played an overt and covert role in support of certain incidents of violence. While the precise underlying triggers for the violence are not clear, there is evidence that localized conflicts over land and power struggles over leadership contributed to at least some of the attacks. The dominant narrative of blaming the ADF is widely entrenched and largely unquestioned and has hampered efforts to dig deeper into the causes of the violence.

The “Islamist” character of the ADF

The ADF are commonly depicted as  an Islamist terrorist organization with a complex array of ties to regional jihadist groups. Consequently, it is seen to pose an existential security threat to the region. The Ugandan government in particular has aggressively peddled this misleading narrative. It is true that ADF’s inception can be traced to a core group of puritanical Muslims from the Salaf Tabliq movement. ADF’s erstwhile leader, Jamil Mukulu, is a strong adherent of Salafi Islam and has indicated his desire to overthrow the government of Uganda and establish an Islamist state based on Sharia law. The ADF has distributed incendiary tape recordings of Mukulu that urge followers to wage a holy Jihad, carried out forcible conversions of non-Muslims, conducted Islamic instruction in training camps and meted punishments in accordance with Islamic law.

However, Scorgie-Porter argues forcefully that an exclusive focus on the religious aspect provides a limited account of the group’s motives and neglects other important strands to the development of the ADF. Some suggest that the group was mainly driven by a political agenda of removing the Museveni regime and used its Islamic identity instrumentally. A former ADF militant contended that “the agenda of the ADF was purely political…the ADF adapted the grievances of Islam in order to appeal to these people. Islam was a ticket, so the leaders disguised their political motives in religion.” Titeca and Vlassenroot resist reducing the role of Islam to instrumental usage, but suggest that the religious reference co-existed with other agendas such as regime change. They describe the ADF as a “rebellion without cause,” and contend that the movement’s agendas have changed over time.  For instance, during recent peace talks, the principal ADF demands revolved around socioeconomic issues such as reintegration of demobilized soldiers rather than effecting regime change or Islamic governance.

ADF is often described as a multi-layered entity comprising several different elements with varying agendas. While the Tabliq network served a vital role in recruitment and was largely responsible for securing funds from Islamic charities and foreign countries during the group’s formative stages, ADF is considerably less reliant on the Tabliq now.  Recruitment in the ADF has also been heavily contingent on non-religious factors such as the exploitation of deep-seated perceptions of marginalization, poverty and the lack of alternative opportunity in the Rwenzori borderland. ADF’s economic embeddedness in the local community provides the group with its primary avenues of funding and material support at present and the group’s financial contributions from Islamic sources have considerably dwindled over time. Due to the group’s tendency to seize resources from local populations, some have gone as far as to describe the group as little more than “bandits”.

Conclusion

The Ugandan government has consistently attempted to link the ADF to global Jihadi groups and, in turn, depict the group as a serious threat to regional security. Some sources do suggest that elements of Al-Qaeda had sporadic ties with the ADF in the 1990s and provided some financial assistance. Reportedly, Osama bin Laden even met Mukulu while they were both in Sudan in the early 1990s. Similarly, there has been occasional correspondence with Al-Shabaab operatives.  However, such ties have been infrequent and there is little concrete evidence that regional Jihadists have any meaningful ties with the ADF. Indeed, Weeraratne and Recker argue that ideological incongruence, lack of salience to the local community and the fear of attracting more attention from counter-terrorism operatives reduce the likelihood of the ADF forming significant connections with transnational Islamists. Moreover, given that less than 10% of the population is Muslim in ADF’s chief operating environment in eastern Congo (a region that has shown very few signs of radicalization), it is unclear how foreign Jihadists would benefit from a union with the ADF.

Museveni’s regime has a vested interest in embellishing real or perceived links between the ADF and foreign Jihadists. First, it allows the regime to deflect attention from its authoritarian tendencies and project itself as a key ally in the US led war on terror; in turn, making it easier to attract American military and diplomatic assistance. Second, exaggerating links also justifies the maintenance of high levels of military spending and gives the government a convenient alibi to continue raids on the eastern DRC where it has a range of interests.

In summation, the portrayal of the ADF as a mainly Jihadist group is incomplete at best and deceptive at worst. It is clear that the ADF is not a monolithic organization with a dominant preference for executing a puritanical Islamist agenda.  The group has moved away from its earlier stated ambition of overthrowing the Museveni regime and replacing it with Islamist governance. The present day ADF constitutes a motely array of disparate interests, many of which are linked to economic and local political issues.  To be clear, this is not to say that the ADF does not pose a security threat. As discussed earlier, the group was responsible for several of the attacks over the last two years. However, at least for the foreseeable future, ADF’s threat is likely to be confined to the rural areas in Beni. Hence, the group is unlikely to pose an existential security threat to either the Ugandan government or their Congolese counterparts.

Suranjan Weeraratne is a faculty member in the Department of Political Science, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. His research focuses on various aspects of terrorism, including examining linkages between transnational militant groups and studying patterns of terrorist funding.

In peacekeeping missions, peacekeepers live seperated and segregated from the local communities which they are mandated to protect. This wide gulf between the everyday lives of peacekeepers and locals has consequences for peace interventions’ effectiveness and outcomes.

A truism of international peace interventions is that peacekeepers – and international peacebuilding personnel writ large – live in the same place as local residents, but do not live in the same world. The peacekeeping world is air-conditioned, clean, and well-guarded; it consists of decent housing, generous pay, access to vehicles, domestic help, and, usually, a robust (if limited) social life that revolves around expensive restaurants, hotels, bars, and clubs. In other words, peacekeepers live, work, and socialize in what I call ‘blue helmet havens’, distinct from the spaces most locals inhabit. They are spatially, economically, culturally, and in many cases linguistically separated or segregated from the majority of the local population of the ‘peace-kept’ city. As a Goma-based source put it, peacekeepers are ‘living in Congo’ but not ‘living Congo’.

The security and safety of peacekeeping personnel and property is the dominant justification for the ‘bubble’ in which peacekeepers live. Notably, this separation is enacted not only by barriers, bunkers, and security guards, but also by various peacekeeping rules, regulations, and norms that mitigate – if not actively discourage – informal or social contact between peacekeepers and locals.

Thus, peacekeepers’ off-duty movements are circumscribed by the security perimeter zone that is established by the mission’s internal security service, which delineates where peacekeepers can live, shop, and socialize and, in capitals and other urban areas, excludes vast swathes of the host cities. Even within the zone, peacekeepers are advised never to move on foot. They are required to live in gated and guarded compounds; are given black-lists of proscribed social venues; and, besides being prohibited from buying sex while in the mission area, are also strongly discouraged from having any intimate or sexual relationships with locals. These formal rules and regulations are reinforced by informal norms and mission cultures, which are heavily oriented towards keeping the peacekeeping bubble intact and exclusive. Cumulatively, the extremely risk-averse approach that missions take towards peacekeepers’ interactions in and with their surroundings means that the contact between peacekeepers and locals is both sparse and essentially transactional. There exists a wide gulf between the everyday lives of peacekeepers and locals, and very few means to bridge it.

Peacekeeping-as-enterprise in the peacekeeping ‘bubble’

Image by UN Photo via Flickr.

But why is this important? Research shows that the gap in proximity and understanding between the international and the local matters for peace interventions’ effectiveness and outcomes. For example, in her book Peaceland, Séverine Autesserre argues that the shared everyday habits, practices, and narratives of international interveners simultaneously enable international peacebuilders to work in challenging environments, and degrade the effectiveness of peacebuilding interventions. In other words, she asserts a direct link between the peacebuilding bubble and peacebuilding outcomes.

My own research also deals with the distorting effects of the peacekeeping bubble. Using the analytical lens of the peacekeeping economy – which encompasses the services, establishments, and activities needed to allow peacekeeping and peacekeepers to function, and which to a large extent frames and contains the peacekeeping bubble – I have argued that in areas with robust peacekeeping economies, peacekeeping appears to locals more as an enterprise than protection or development. Where peacekeeping economies flourish, they are as visible and tangible to local citizens as anything else done by peacekeeping missions – maybe even more so. It is thus unsurprising that, when people look around them and see money flowing and where it flows, they conclude that, heroic narratives aside, peacekeeping is not that different after all: it is all about the money. This in turn fosters cynicism and resentment among local citizens towards the peacekeeping mission, from which it is plausible to draw a connection to subpar results. On the peacekeepers’ side, meanwhile, what is striking is the extent to which their arms-length relation to the local reveals a sense of vulnerability – a perception of themselves as potential victims of exploitation, crime, or violence, thus upending the normal framing of peacekeepers as powerful, dominant protectors. On both sides, the strict separation between the peacekeepers and the local encourages, if not fosters, a lack of understanding and trust.

Taken together, then, this paints a picture of peacekeeping and peacekeepers as purposefully disconnected from the local everyday, apart from the microeconomic transactions contained by, and constitutive of, the peacekeeping economy. When it comes to how peacekeeping really works, the peacekeeping bubble is as relevant and significant as the peacekeeping mandate. Problems associated with this bubble’s existence include local suspicion of missions’ activities and motives; and a dearth of knowledge of, and empathy towards, locals from peacekeepers – each of which could be reasonably conjectured to inhibit the effectiveness and transformative potential of peacekeeping.

Security, estrangement, and stasis in peacekeeping transformation

An obvious implication of this contention is that international peace interventions will work better and more empathetically if the prevailing separation and segregation is lessened, such that the international and local ‘everydays’ are more enmeshed and aligned. But how would this work? Is it even possible?

There are modest proposals that missions could immediately initiate in order to promote an environment of mutual trust and more substantive formal and informal contact between peacekeepers and locals, which could eventually make peacekeeping environments safer for both peacekeepers and locals alike. For example, to mitigate the negative effects of the peacekeeping economy on the local economy and labour market, missions could:

• implement better scrutiny and oversight of subcontractors employed by missions (with respect to labour standards and protections) and of landlords the mission rents from (to ensure that ill-gotten gains are not rewarded);
• give guidance to peacekeepers on how to relate to their employees, prioritizing the rights of the employee equal to those of the peacekeeper;
• make greater efforts to procure goods and supplies locally, working with and monitoring local suppliers to forestall potential negative side-effects on local markets;
• and use of training methods and materials that do not rely on scare stories and fear to coerce obedience, thus encouraging more receptive attitudes towards locals by peacekeepers.

The most significant obstacle to peacekeeping transformation lies in the area of security. The tendency in peacekeeping missions to take greater and greater precautions to obviate danger and avoid risk is not without reason: persuading member states to contribute troops and money to peacekeeping is significantly more challenging if the UN is perceived to be reckless, and recruiting civilian peacekeepers also becomes more difficult. But ‘security’ in peacekeeping increasingly seems to mean the elimination of risk – whether stemming from armed groups, organized or ordinary criminals, fraudsters and scam artists, or everyday activities like driving, eating out, having sex, or walking down the street. According to such a standard, peacekeeping missions will never be fully secure. Nor, for that matter, will anything else. Peacekeeping institutions (headquarters and missions) and peacekeepers surely recognize this reality, yet there is little evident willingness at any level to push back against ever-escalating security demands and regulations.

In this heavily securitised and risk-averse environment, where protection of peacekeepers is (and always has been) mandated equal to protection of civilians, separation is the path of least resistance. This implies that fundamental transformation in how peacekeeping missions situate themselves to local people and communities is unlikely. Missions’ estrangement and alienation from the local community and the local ‘everyday’ is a feature, not a bug; and thus that whatever losses may ensue – of legitimacy or effectiveness – is a price that the peacekeeping apparatus is willing to pay.

Kathleen Jennings is a senior researcher at the Fafo Research Foundation in Oslo. Her work focuses on UN peacekeeping, gender, and political economy in sub-Saharan Africa. Jennings recently defended her PhD thesis on gendered peacekeeping economies in Liberia and the DR Congo. She has previously worked at the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Following the vote to renew the Trident nuclear programme, a former nuclear-armed submarine commander discusses why the UK needs to seriously rethink its attitude to nuclear weapons. 

Editor’s Note: Commander Forsyth’s explanation as to why he has changed his view on the deterrence value of the now and future Trident weapon system was originally written for family members. It has been edited by the ORG with the full involvement and agreement of Commander Forsyth to be suitable for wider publication. Of particular interest is his alternative proposal for a smaller,  ‘for but not with’ and  more versatile submarine platform as a stepping stone to reducing the level of ready use weapons whilst preserving the ability to resurrect full CSD posture if required.

In 1972 I became Executive Officer of HMS Repulse, one of the four Polaris A3 missile-carrying submarines based on the Clyde. Based on this experience I can say, without any sentiment or exaggeration, that the use of nuclear weapons during the Cold War would have threatened the existence of humanity.

I believed that Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was at the centre of the UK’s deterrence policy, meaning that if the Soviets fired at us then we (as well as the USA and, latterly, France) would respond in such measure as to immediately annihilate several major cities in the Soviet Union.

The consequential radiation effects of any nuclear detonation would largely complete the destruction and this would almost certainly have caused a ‘nuclear winter’.

MAD and the Cold War

Commander Forsyth on HMS Sceptre.

The policy of MAD would, we were told, only have been used in retaliation to a Soviet nuclear first strike with missiles en route to Europe or the USA. We were constantly assured that under no circumstances would we fire our Polaris missiles first even if tanks were rolling across the German plain, unless the Soviets had already fired nuclear weapons at us.

As Paul Rogers notes, the UK’s other tactical nuclear weapons could have been used against such a Soviet offensive. Yet at the time we thought that this would not necessarily start a strategic exchange. Perhaps naively, we tended to consider Polaris in isolation from the tactical battlefield and on a whole different level.

The UK’s retaliatory only policy (assuring a second strike was possible) let us sleep easily at night during the years that we took 16 Polaris missiles to sea. As Nick Ritchie explains, each of these missiles carried two warheads with an estimated yield of 40kt. Thus, with 16 missiles per boat, just one patrolling submarine could have fired 32 40kt warheads, which would have given a potential explosive yield of 1.28 megatons—hence why we called what would happen if they were used Armageddon.

Understanding the power of the bomb

The US had many more submarines, aircraft and land-based missile silos. Our contribution was a gesture of togetherness against a common enemy whose declared policy was assumed to be ‘world domination by any means’.

Periscope pic of torpedo tracks approaching the target.

In comparison, the atomic bomb that physically destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima in WWII and killed 100,000 people in the process had just a 15 kiloton yield.  So when Prime Minister Theresa May stated in parliament last July that she was prepared to press the button and kill 100,000 people, we should recognise that the number of deaths she was referring to was significantly less than that which Polaris missiles were capable of inflicting—never mind the massive collateral structural and radiation casualties which would result.

Each Trident warhead has a yield of up to 100 kilotons, which, in terms of destructive power, is equivalent to six or seven Hiroshimas. The UK presently deploys 40 nuclear warheads and not more than eight missiles on its four submarines, meaning that the destructive power on board just one of these submarines, if used at the same time against a densely populated country, would kill considerably more than 100,000 people.

Justifying nuclear use

The ownership of this sort of power begs the question: what threat might justify the use of such destructive force? We also need to be clear under what circumstances and at what scale the Prime Minister might authorise a nuclear strike because she could be taking us all with her.

Two government statements are relevant to this discussion:

1. Then Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, stated in 2002, prior to the invasion of Iraq, that Saddam Hussein could ‘be absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons’.
2. A government policy paper of 8th May 2015 stated that ‘it will not rule in or out the first use of nuclear weapons’ to ‘deter and prevent nuclear blackmail and acts of aggression against our vital interests that cannot be countered by other means’. This leaves open the option for the Prime Minister to authorise Trident’s use to deter an aggressor who may be threatening to use nuclear weapons or is using massive conventional forces which we do not have sufficient conventional force to counter. But, importantly, the government deliberately maintains ‘some ambiguity precisely when, how and at what scale we would contemplate use of our nuclear deterrent’.

Keeping the option open of using nuclear weapons first against an adversary who you judge is threatening your ‘vital interests’ with non-nuclear force is quite different from MAD. This is what makes me question the whole basis of what we may or may not do with Trident. Formerly we would not have fired Polaris missiles until British cities had been totally destroyed by a megalomaniacal action by the Soviets. It would have been a futile gesture by us but the threat of doing so was considered to be a deterrent. Now it is ultimately a matter of the Prime Minister’s judgement as to whether we embark on a nuclear war. This raises the prospect of deliberately causing Armageddon as opposed to a reaction to one already started.

In which case, I would argue that we have the right seriously (a) to question whether the Government should have that power and (b) if so, to constrain the circumstances in which such power can be used. As Nick Ritchie points out, the UK ‘does not dispute that international humanitarian law applies to the use of nuclear weapons and has incorporated the notion of “extreme circumstances of self-defence” into its declaratory nuclear policy statements’. Yet will all future Prime Ministers follow such guidelines in practice?

The need to ask these questions, and decide if building a new generation of nuclear weapons is justified and will ‘keep us safe’, is particularly important given that no military case has been made for Trident’s use by its supporters—other than the vague statement that we don’t know what the future holds.

Reference to the prospective use of nuclear weapons is nearly always qualified by adding that they are a weapon of ‘last resort’. As part of the Prime Minister’s decision making process she has therefore, at the very least, to be satisfied that all other alternative avenues have been exhausted, starting with the political and economic ones, escalating up through the increasing use of conventional military power.

Rethinking what military capabilities the UK needs

Image of Trident missile via Wikimedia.

When I was at sea in the 1960s and 1970s the UK invested in both the Polaris force and significant conventional armed military forces in all three services. The country was able to send a Task Force as far afield as the Falklands and, more importantly, the armed forces were strong and large enough to withstand the quite considerable attrition—particularly in the Navy—in fighting a full-on war.

The services have gradually been whittled down to a level in which such a Task Force could not be assembled. By its own admission the Navy does not have enough ships and submarines to meet peacetime commitments—never mind war. The six Type 45 destroyers designed to protect the UK’s two new carriers were victims of over-design and under-funding (albeit costing £1billion each) such that they are now in harbour with major operational limitations which will take some years to be rectified.

Meanwhile, the next generation of frigates have been delayed. When they do come they will have outdated equipment and there will still not be enough of them to give anti-submarine warfare protection to the carriers—unless they forego other roles of which there are many. The Army and Air Force also have their own tales of woe—soldiers die for lack of body armour and the correct vehicles because the military budget has to cope with the costs of Trident.

Why is this? To some extent you can blame senior officers for lack of management ability and vision when challenged by the need to meet major commitments with a constantly reducing budget. They should perhaps have been stronger and said we are not well placed to play the role assigned in the Iraq war, be peace keepers afterwards and also embark on a new war in Afghanistan. The ‘can do’ spirit has been counter-productive.

However, the other budgetary factor is that the cost of building four Successor submarines alone is now set to cost at least £31 billion. You can buy quite a lot of aircraft carriers, frigates and hunter killer submarines for that.

The consequential reality is that we have very little conventional capability before the use of Trident becomes our last resort—a very dangerous situation for world peace. So who are we likely to need to use our last resort against having said that rogue states and dirty bombers are not likely targets? The answer is no one at the moment. Yes, Russia is acting aggressively, waving their nuclear weapons stick, but Russia has no grand plan for world domination. I must therefore conclude that the Royal Navy is being exploited to operate a political status symbol with no military value at the cost of other important capabilities.

There is no threat to the UK that justifies our nuclear force

During the Cold War the UK’s nuclear-armed submarines were at 15 minutes notice to fire. Since 1994 however, following an agreement with Russia, the UK’s nuclear weapons have been de-targeted—although this situation could be quickly reversed. The Trident submarines are lurking on standby ‘just in case’, so there is time to target and arm them if the situation escalates. Saying North Korea is a threat to the UK is not credible. Pyongyang may become a threat to US interests, but even that is unlikely and the US is more than capable of responding.

Some may argue that now is not the time to lay down our nuclear arms because it might further destabilise our position in Europe and be seen as a further ‘weakness’ post-Brexit. But what does this mean? That the Russians will see an opportunity and seize it? I believe they know, despite the Prime Minister’s words, that we would not fire our nuclear weapons except in retaliation to a major nuclear first strike by them—which they are unlikely to launch.  But I also believe it is possible that Putin could take advantage of our regular Force’s weakness, for example, through giving covert military support and overt political support to ‘popular’ pro-Moscow uprisings in Russia’s near abroad. The calculation here would be that NATO would likely find it difficult to find an effective response to such manoeuvres.

As for a developing intercontinental threat from elsewhere in the future, if it’s not on the drawing board now (and it’s not) then we have time to consider our options. Designing a submarine today to go to sea in 17 years’ time to counter a future undefined notional threat is really fighting yesterday’s war with yesterday’s technology. By making that decision now it becomes harder to change our posture as more and more money is poured into the Successor programme.

Is there an alternative? Yes there is. If, despite all the above, the UK decides it needs to have a nuclear weapon system for ‘insurance’ reasons then a submarine platform is probably the best vehicle to carry it because it is considerably less vulnerable (I would not use the word invulnerable now) to counter-detection than cruise missiles, aircraft or land based weapon platforms. However, the problem with the current and future Trident submarines is that they are a single purpose platform, very big—consequentially comparatively slow—and really only have a self-defence capability. They contribute nothing to peacetime surveillance or war-fighting capability in any other area than firing strategic missiles and cost the earth.

We have already reduced the number of missiles per boat so why not make a further reduction to say four per boat and fit a missile section into existing Astute class hunter-killer submarine hulls?[1] This option could save money, enable a dual role and, by building five, two or even three of them could be at sea at any time in either role and be a useful enhancement to the UK’s broader submarine needs.

Furthermore, if the Government wished to demonstrate its willingness to comply with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, then missiles and warheads could be placed in ready-use store. This is justifiable on the basis that there is no threat today that requires the cost of having a submarine at sea at all times employed solely on what is known as Continuous at Sea Deterrence (CASD). Apart from anything else, the maintenance of the ‘invisibility’ of the SSBN on patrol requires additional support from ships, submarines and maritime aircraft taken off other more real time operations. Should it ever begin to become necessary, a CASD posture could, of course, be re-introduced very quickly as a clear signal of the UK’s determination to deter and as a further step up the nuclear ladder.

Conclusion

I believe that it is highly unlikely that the UK will ever come under nuclear attack from an enemy remotely susceptible to a threat of nuclear retaliation. I also don’t think first strike nuclear attack should ever be an option for the UK—we should not duck saying that. But if, as some may argue, that now is not the time to scrap the nuclear option because there is a remote chance we need to retain a nuclear weapons capability, then there is an option which cuts the cost significantly, allows for the restoration of our three Services to something resembling useful and still maintains the nuclear deterrent as a capability to be deployed if events ever require. Yet, of course, even this option would not prevent the government of an independent Scotland from forcing the relocation of Trident south of the border at a massive extra cost.

[1] Trident submarines have 16 missile tubes and the Successor class is due to have 12. Each missile is capable of carrying 12 warheads. The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review, unilaterally downgraded the outload per submarine to a maximum of 8 missiles and 40 warheads. There are, therefore, redundant missile tubes in existing and planned submarines. Only 4 missiles are needed to carry 40 warheads.

Commander Forsyth joined the submarine service in 1961 (aged 22). He subsequently served in conventional and nuclear powered submarines until 1980. During his career he commanded HMS Alliance (diesel powered), was Executive Officer (2nd in command) of HMS Repulse (Starboard Crew) a nuclear powered, Polaris missile firing submarine, Commanding Officer (Teacher) of the Submarine Command Course (aka ‘Perisher’) and Commanded HMS Sceptre a nuclear powered Hunter Killer submarine deployed on Cold War patrols. He created the website www.whytrident.uk with the aim of providing the wider world with answers to the obvious questions not easily obtainable elsewhere.

Remote Warfare series intro – read other articles in the series.

This article is part of the Remote Control Warfare series, a collaboration with Remote Control, a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group.

Editor’s note: Remote Warfare and the War on Drugs mini-series: This series of articles explores how remote warfare is being used in the war on drugs. To date, much of the debate on remote warfare has focused on its use in the war on terror. However, the use of drones, private military and security companies (PMSCs), special forces and mass surveillance are all emerging trends found in the US’s other long standing war, the War on Drugs. The articles in this series seek to explore these methods in more depth, looking at what impact and long term consequences they may have on the theatre in which they’re being used.

US drug policy has become increasingly privatised in recent years as the US government contracts private military and security companies (PMSCs) to provide intelligence, logistical support and training to state security forces in drug-producing and –transit states. As the cases of Colombia and Mexico illustrate, this privatisation strategy is having a damaging impact on these already fragile environments.

Since the mid-1970s, the US government has invested billions of dollars in anti-drug assistance programmes. The main objective is to reduce the flow of Latin American-sourced illicit drugs to the US. At the beginning of this so-called War on Drugs, the US treated the fight against drugs as a police problem, providing equipment and supplies to civilian law enforcement for counter-narcotic efforts. Since the 1980s, however, US drug policy has been militarised and, more recently, privatised: the US government provides military-grade equipment and training to police forces and contracts private military and security companies (PMSCs) to provide intelligence, logistical support, and training to state security forces in drug-producing and -transit states, such as Colombia and Mexico.

The privatisation of the War on Drugs has had a significant impact in countries where it is waged, adding further complexity to these already complicated environments. As states often fail to properly control PMSCs’ activities, this tends to increase the risk of human rights violations and impunity in contexts where the application of the rule of law is already uneven. The use of PMSCs in the War on Drugs often weakens the rule of law and so is counterproductive. The cases of Colombia, where the use of PMSCs takes place largely under the guise of Plan Colombia, and Mexico, where PMSCs have been used since the implementation of the Merida Initiative, illustrate these issues well.

Colombia: Human rights violations and impunity

Colombia is experiencing an armed conflict where the Colombian government fights against several armed groups, such as Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—Ejército del Pueblo (FARC, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN, National Liberation Army) that are well-organized and heavily linked with drug trafficking. Since the 1960s, the US has collaborated militarily with Colombia in the fight against those armed groups, as well as drug traffickers. In 2000, Colombia and the US agreed on a new plan of cooperation called Plan Colombia: Plan for Peace, Prosperity, and the Strengthening of the State (usually referred to as Plan Colombia).

Image of Mexican Drug War-themed street art. Picture entitled: The Mexican Dead by Suslan Soosay via Flickr

Although Colombia and the US had long cooperated in fighting drug trafficking, Plan Colombia represented a shift. Since its implementation, the US State and Defense Departments have contracted PMSCs to carry out activities related to US military and police aid to Colombia. For example, the 2007 Reports to Congress On Certain Counternarcotics Activities in Colombia–partly reproduced here–mention that Telford Aviation provided logistical support for reconnaissance airplanes and ITT and ARINC were responsible for operating radar stations. Furthermore, in 2006, Chenega Federal Systems was in charge of maintaining an intelligence database, and Oakley Networks was responsible for Internet surveillance. Other sources reported that Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) helped restructure the Colombian armed forces to aid their fight against drugs; Northrop Grumman, under its contract, flew over the Colombian jungle with aircraft equipped with infrared cameras in order to track illegal activities related to drugs or guerrilla movements; and DynCorp has been in charge of the fumigation of coca plants since 2000.

The concern about human rights violations by PMSCs is particularly acute in Colombia because all US personnel, including PMSC employees, working in Colombia through Plan Colombia have been granted immunity from Colombian jurisdiction by bilateral treaty with the US.

The lack of control and supervision has been observed on many occasions, including by US authorities. A report on contracting oversight by the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs concluded that the “State Department, which has awarded over $1 billion in counternarcotics contracts in Latin America to one company, DynCorp, has conducted sporadic oversight of that company.”

There have been numerous allegations of human rights violations at the hands of PMSCs operating under Plan Colombia, but, so far, none of these violations have been brought to justice. For example, in 2004, a pornographic movie went public that included US contractors from the Colombian base Tolemaida sexually abusing minors. No investigation took place and no one was ever punished. DynCorp’s activities, particularly the fumigation of coca plants, have also caused concern. In 2008, Ecuador filed suit against Colombia at the International Court of Justice, arguing “Colombia has violated its obligations under international law by causing or allowing the deposit on the territory of Ecuador of toxic herbicides that have caused damage to human health, property and the environment.” In August 2013, the governments of Colombia and Ecuador announced an agreement ending the dispute, with Colombia paying reparations for the damage caused.

Mexico: Increasing violence and a lack of state control

The drug-related violence in Mexico that has captured so many headlines in recent years is not new to the country. Although drug traffickers have operated in Mexico for more than half a century, serious violence related to drug activity started around the 1990s, when the drug market became more lucrative and the centralized power of the Mexican government started to slip. Mexico is now a major supplier of all kind of illegal drugs—heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, and cocaine—to the US drug market: the drug market between US and Mexico is estimated by US government reports as ranging between US $18 and 39 billion in profits annually.

In 2007, following President Calderón’s lead to crack down on the drug cartels, the US and Mexico cemented a plan to cooperate in fighting drug trafficking and increasing security in the region. This plan, called the Merida Initiative: Expanding the US/Mexico Partnership (hereinafter the Merida Initiative), established full cooperation between the two countries, with the US providing an anti-crime and counter-drug assistance package to Mexico that included training and equipping Mexican forces. The provision of Merida Initiative assistance to Mexico has included contracting PMSCs to train local forces.

As in Colombia, the human rights situation in Mexico is complicated. Militarizing the War on Drugs in Mexico has been severely criticized due to the resulting human rights abuses. For instance, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported in 2011 “credible evidence of torture in more than 170 cases across the five states surveyed” and documented “39 ‘disappearances’ where evidence strongly suggests the participation of security forces.” HRW concluded that “rather than strengthening public security in Mexico, Calderón’s [and now Peña Nieto’s] ‘war’, has exacerbated a climate of violence, lawlessness, and fear in many parts of the country.”

In this scenario, the activities of PMSCs, which are hired by the US, raise additional concerns about the respect of human rights. In fact, contractors have been accused of training Mexican police in torture techniques. As is the case in Colombia, the use of PMSCs by the US government to perform security tasks in another country tends to adversely affect human rights, when the purpose should be the contrary.

A worrying (and growing) strategy

The privatization of the “war on drugs” is one more element endangering human rights in an already complex environment. Privatization is often resorted to as a strategy when the use of public resources is seen as risky. Indeed, in both Colombia and Mexico, public forces have been involved in massive human rights violations. Given their past history of human rights violations in Colombia and Mexico, the unrestrained use of PMSCs is not the best strategy for improving security and upholding the rule of law. Unfortunately, the trend of privatizing the War on Drugs is not diminishing: following the Plan Colombia and Merida Initiative, the US government implemented the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) to fight against drugs in Central America, and PMSCs are a key actor in its execution.

Antoine Perret is visiting research fellow at Columbia Law School. He holds an LLM and a PhD in Law from the European University Institute (Florence), an MA in International Affairs from the Universidad Externado de Colombia (Bogotá) in collaboration with Sciences Po (Paris) and Columbia University (New York), and a Licence in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva). He was a lecturer and researcher at Universidad Externado de Colombia (Bogotá) and research fellow at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University (Washington, DC). Through his work on PMSCs he has collaborated with the Geneva Center for Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), the UN Working Group on Mercenaries, and the UN Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development (UNLIREC).

Summary

The dramatic recent escalation of rhetoric and military posturing on the Korean peninsula has reawakened suggestions that the United States could use relatively low-yield nuclear weapons in a limited or tactical operation to neutralise North Korea. Indeed, both the idea of nuclear ‘first strike’ and their ‘flexible’ usage on and off the ‘battlefield’ are deeply rooted in historic and current NATO and UK doctrine on nuclear weapons. Given the extraordinarily militarised nature of the inter-Korean border and, increasingly, that between NATO and Russia, the potentially cataclysmic nature of any nuclear exchange must be urgently recalled and avoided at all costs.

Introduction

One of the most common misunderstandings about nuclear weapons in general and Britain’s nuclear weapons in particular is that nuclear strategy is solely about deterring an opponent from attacking you by threatening that opponent with all-out destruction in response. Given the growing risk of a nuclear confrontation over North Korea it is appropriate to point out that this has never been the case. Ever since the start of the nuclear age nuclear weapons have been seen as useable weapons and appropriate in certain circumstances for fighting limited nuclear wars.

As a member of NATO Britain retains the option of using nuclear weapons first and has the means to do so. This briefing is intended to serve as a reminder of this. It will do so by concentrating specifically on British policy, both within NATO and out-of-area, but this applies just as much to the other seven full nuclear powers and, no doubt, to North Korea as well. It applies very much to the United States in particular and its current president, Donal J Trump, who has made it clear that the United States will not allow North Korea to develop the ability to target the continental United States with nuclear weapons.

Early history

When Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed in August 1945 these weapons were seen in air force circles as direct descendants of the mass bombing of cities with conventional weapons using a thousand bombers or more. The raids on Hamburg and Dresden and especially the firestorm raid on Tokyo each killed tens of thousands of people so the perception after Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that the primary difference between conventional and nuclear weapons was one of cities being destroyed by one atom bomb from a single plane rather than five thousand tons of high explosive bombs from many planes. Indeed the US Army Air Corps and the nuclear weapon industry had already set in motion the industrial structures to destroy two Japanese cities every month until surrender.

By 1948 the United States had an arsenal of fifty atom bombs and was already starting to develop the far more powerful thermonuclear weapon or H-bomb. Britain came on the scene rather later. While it first tested a nuclear weapon in 1952, it was not until the late 1950s and early 1960s that it could start deploying its Valiant, Vulcan and Victor strategic bombers in large numbers. These, too, were seen in the context of the British involvement in the area bombing of German cities, but Britain was also an early adherent of the idea of fighting limited nuclear wars, an issue that was seen as particularly relevant in the Middle East and Eastern and South Eastern Asia.

Thus there were nuclear-capable Canberra bombers and nuclear weapons deployed to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus from 1961 to 1969 to support the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO), the South West Asian equivalent of NATO. These were replaced by Vulcans until 1975. From the mid-1960s there were regular detachments of V-bombers to RAF Tengah in Singapore and the Royal Navy had nuclear-capable Scimitar and Buccaneer strike aircraft on aircraft carriers such as Eagle, Ark Royal, Centaur and Victorious over a 16-year period from 1962 to 1978.

From the early days of the deployment of nuclear weapons  by states such as the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain there is ample evidence that both military and political leaders accepted the possibility of limited nuclear war. It was expressed in Britain, for example, by the then Minister of Defence, Harold Macmillan, speaking in the House of Commons in 1955:

“…the power of interdiction upon invading columns by nuclear weapons gives a new aspect altogether to strategy, both in the Middle East and the Far East. It affords a breathing space, an interval, a short but perhaps vital opportunity for the assembly, during the battle for air supremacy, of larger conventional forces than can normally be stationed in those areas.” (Hansard, volume 568, column 2182, 2 March 1955).

NATO and nuclear first use

As one of the founder members of NATO, and the second to develop nuclear weapons, Britain was involved in NATO nuclear planning from the very early years of the mid-1950s. In those early years and until the late 1960s, NATO nuclear policy was codified in document MC14/2 known as the “tripwire” policy which planned a massive nuclear response to the initiation of war by the Soviet bloc.

While the United States maintained massively greater nuclear forces, and a wide variety of weapon types, Britain also had a significant arsenal which eventually developed to include an array of strategic and tactical systems. These included the Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles, free-fall bombs of variable power and anti-submarine nuclear depth bombs as well as nuclear-capable 155mm and 203mm artillery and Lance short-range nuclear missiles, the last three utilising US nuclear warheads under a dual control system. Thus, for several decades, all three branches of the British Armed Forces focused their operational planning around use of forward-deployed tactical nuclear weapons.

By the latter part of the 1960s the Soviet Union had developed its own array of tactical systems and NATO responded by modifying “tripwire” and developing “flexible response”. This was encoded in MC14/3 of 16 January 1968 and envisaged the limited use of mostly low-yield warheads early in a conflict against Warsaw Pact troops and their immediate logistic support in the belief that they might be “stopped in their tracks”. If that failed, a more general nuclear response might ensue.

Britain was very much part of this move, its nuclear forces were normally committed to NATO and UK personnel played significant roles within the NATO Nuclear Planning Group. This move away from deterrence through massive assured destruction was rarely publicised by the British government, one exception being an exposition of the policy offered to the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs two decades after the transition to flexible response:

“The fundamental objective of maintaining the capability for selective sub-strategic use of theatre nuclear weapons is political – to demonstrate in advance that NATO has the capability and will to use nuclear weapons in a deliberate, politically-controlled way with the objective of inducing the aggressor to terminate the aggression and withdraw. The role of TNF [Theatre Nuclear Forces] is not to compensate for any imbalance in conventional forces. The achievement of conventional parity could have very positive consequences for the Alliance’s strategy of deterrence. But it would not, of itself, obviate the need for theatre nuclear forces.”    (Third Report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs 1987-88, p.35, para. 6.)

What was very little understood at the time in the public domain was that NATO’s flexible response approach was not just the preparedness to use nuclear weapons first in response to a conventional military attack from the Soviet bloc but to do so at an early stage in such a conflict. This was made clear by SACEUR (the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe), General Bernard Rogers, in an interview published in early 1986:

“Before you lose the cohesiveness of the alliance – that is, before you are subject to (conventional Soviet military) penetration on a fairly broad scale – you will request, not you may, but you will request the use of nuclear weapons”. (International Defence Review, February 1986)

NATO’s flexible response policy remains broadly in place to the present day and nuclear planning allows for many different targeting options. This also applies to the United States where such options are constantly updated to allow for changing political situations. In an interesting reflection on relative economic and political strength, Russia also sees nuclear weapons as intrinsically of greater relevance given the low capabilities of its conventional military forces compared with those of the Warsaw Pact at the height of the Cold War.

Britain’s out-of-area operations and nuclear weapons

Since the end of the Second World War the United Kingdom has been one of the most active countries to be involved in overseas wars. The majority of these were wars of the late colonial period, but many others have been more broadly based, from Korea through to former Yugoslavia as well as the more recent and intensive post-9/11 conflicts across the Middle East and North Africa. Throughout all this period the UK has maintained its wide-ranging tactical and strategic nuclear options, even though the size of the arsenals is smaller than thirty years ago.

Two of the most controversial conflicts, the Falklands/Malvinas War of 1982 and the first Gulf War of 1991 have both had a nuclear connection. After Argentina occupied the Falkland Islands in early 1982 the UK government under Margaret Thatcher despatched a substantial naval task force and six days after it left Britain The Observer reported that

“It is almost certainly carrying tactical nuclear naval weapons – atomic depth charges carried by Sea King helicopters and free-fall bombs carried by Harrier jump jets – as part of NATO equipment.” (11 April 1982)

Later reports indicated that many of the weapons from the smaller warships were transferred en route to an auxiliary supply ship, the RFA Resource which proceeded to the South Atlantic with the rest of the fleet but was deployed away from the most intense areas of action during the subsequent war. It is not clear whether this also applied to the nuclear weapons that may have been deployed on the two aircraft carriers, HMS Invincible and Hermes and there were also multiple if unconfirmed reports that the Thatcher government was prepared to deploy a Polaris missile submarine to the mid-Atlantic to bring it within range of Argentina. (Paul Rogers, “Sub-Strategic Trident: A Slow Burning Fuse”, London Defence Papers 34, Brasseys, 1996)

Nine years after that war the UK government committed substantial forces to a US-led multinational military coalition to evict the Iraqi forces that had invaded and occupied Kuwait in August 1990. At the time there was considerable concern that Iraq had a useable arsenal of chemical weapons and a clear indication of UK willingness to use nuclear weapons in response came in an interview with a senior army office attached to the 7^th Armoured Brigade which was leaving for the Gulf. He confirmed that an Iraqi chemical attack on UK forces would be met with a tactical nuclear response. (Observer, 30 September 1990).

Deliberate ambiguity

During the 1990s, after the end of the Cold War, the UK government, under the leadership of the Conservative Prime Minister John Major, scaled down Britain’s nuclear arsenals in a series of unilateral moves, ceasing to deploy dual-control US nuclear artillery and missiles and withdrawing the WE.177 tactical nuclear bombs and depth bombs between 1992 and 1998. US-owned B61 tactical nuclear bombs continued to be deployed at RAF Lakenheath for another decade and still are based in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey under enduring nuclear sharing arrangements with those host countries.

In order to preserve a British “sub-strategic” capability, a low-yield variant of the standard high-yield Trident thermonuclear warhead has since been deployed, although terms such as “tactical Trident” or “Sub-Strategic Trident” are no longer used in government publications. Neither is there any specific reference in official publications to the UK maintaining a policy of potential first-use of nuclear weapons.

Instead a generic description of the UK nuclear posture appears in successive defence white papers, the 2015 statement being an example:

Only the Prime Minister can authorise the launch of nuclear weapons, which ensures

that political control is maintained at all times. We would use our nuclear weapons only in extreme circumstances of self-defence, including the defence of our NATO Allies. While our resolve and capability to do so if necessary is beyond doubt, we will remain deliberately ambiguous about precisely when, how and at what scale we would contemplate their use, in order not to simplify the calculations of any potential aggressor. (National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015, para 4.68, page 34, November 2015)

It should be borne in mind that, while British ambiguity on nuclear first use is echoed by its NATO allies in Washington and Paris, as well as its assumed adversary in Moscow, there is nothing intrinsic about such a posture. China has consistently maintained a policy of no first use and normally stores its warheads separately from its delivery systems to prevent any accidental or malicious usage. India and Pakistan are also formally committed to no first use.

Conclusion

This brief summary of elements of the UK nuclear posture is intended as a reminder that such a posture is far more complex than simply providing a last-ditch deterrence against nuclear attack. Moreover, this applies very much for the United States which has a far wider array of nuclear weapon types and has been at the forefront of NATO nuclear planning, including the first use posture.

Should a conflict arise between the United States and North Korea it is by no means certain that Britain would be involved, given public attitudes within the UK, although a joint RAF/US Air Force/Korean Air Force exercise was held in South Korea late last year for the first time in several decades. Even so, at a time of heightened tensions over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions the concern should be that a crisis could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons, especially with an unpredictable incumbent in the White House.

Given Britain’s propensity for considering the idea of out-of-area nuclear first use and limited nuclear war, one would hope that there is also a full understanding of the considerable dangers of such a posture. If so, what should follow is a determination to do everything possible to advise President Trump against even considering this option in the case of North Korea.

Image credit: Neil Hinchley. 

About the Author

Paul Rogers is Global Security Consultant to Oxford Research Group and Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. His ‘Monthly Global Security Briefings’ are available from our website. His new book Irregular War: ISIS and the New Threats from the Margins will be published by I B Tauris in June 2016. These briefings are circulated free of charge for non-profit use, but please consider making a donation to ORG, if you are able to do so.

In recent years, the Mexican government has been struggling to deal with a dramatic rise in crime and violence, with state responses largely failing to effectively resolve these problems. But there are some grounds for optimism.  

Over the course of too many years of elevated crime and violence, the Mexican government has been visibly struggling to identify the best possible course to improve public security and a more effective administration of justice. This article examines the magnitude of Mexico’s still ongoing security crisis, as well as the measures that the Mexican government has employed to try to resolve it. Drawing from an ample body of academic and policy research, there are some clear indications of what has not worked, as well as some bright spots for Mexico moving forward.

The State of Play in Mexico

For the past decade, the Justice in Mexico program based at the University of San Diego has studied the proliferation of crime and violence in Mexico, the country that has seen the greatest increase in homicides among all Latin American countries. Notably, following a marked decline in violent crime from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, Mexico experienced a dramatic increase in homicides during the five year period from 2007 to 2011, when homicide rates rose threefold nationally, from 8.1 to 24 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to official homicide statistics. (Based on the author’s own elaboration from Mexico’s national statistical clearinghouse, the National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and Information; see here also). The net result during that period alone was a total of nearly 100,000 homicides, and the subsequent four years through 2015 added roughly 90,000 more. Many of these homicides—an estimated 30-40%—bear characteristics frequently associated with the country’s powerful drug cartels and other organized crime groups: use of high caliber weapons, mutilation and dismemberment, execution style killings, publicly displayed bodies, and chilling messages and threats authored by the perpetrators.

While casual observers might assume that Mexico’s violence was widespread and pervasive throughout the country, the phenomenon was highly concentrated in certain regions and localities, primarily in the northern border region and in the country’s Pacific coastal states. In 2007, a Mexican city with more than 100 homicides could easily make it onto the country’s “top ten” list for total homicides; in fact, that same year, only Tijuana—the quintessential Mexican border city—reported more than 200 homicides (206 to be exact). Yet, just two years later, no city among the top ten most violent cities in Mexico had fewer than 200 homicides, and the top five had at least 400 homicides (as illustrated in Figure 1). Indeed, by 2010, arguably the peak of the violence, there were 18 Mexican cities with more than 200 homicides: now Mexico had many “Tijuanas.” Indeed, some of Mexico’s most violent cities—such as Acapulco, Ciudad Juárez, and Nuevo Laredo—saw rates more than triple the national homicide rate.

Figure 1: Number of Homicides in Mexico’s Top Ten Most Violent Municipalities by Year. Source INEGI.

In a country unaccustomed to the civil wars and brutal dictatorships that plagued other parts of Latin America in the 20^th century, such an explosion of violence was unexpected and previously unfathomable. The Mexican government’s apparent inability to resolve the problem triggered an international debate on the problems and limits of the Mexican state. A 2008 worst-case assessment by the U.S. Joint Forces Command named Mexico as one of two countries—along with Pakistan—that could suffer a sudden collapse into a “failed state.” Specifically, the report asserted, “In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico…”. Pronouncements by U.S. officials—including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2010—asserted that Mexico’s woes were comparable to Colombia’s long-standing problems of domestic insurgency, or even on par with a civil war. Others sensationalized Mexico’s recent violence as a new hybrid threat of “criminal insurgency” or suggested that the power and infiltration of such groups had turned Mexico into a “narcostate” overrun by violence, corruption, and “narco- terrorism.”

The merits of such assertions were quite debatable then and have proved false with time, as they tended to exaggerate and misconstrue Mexico’s current security situation. The methods and organizational forms of Mexican organized crime groups are arguably terrifying and sometimes truly mimic those of terrorists and insurgents. Yet, Mexico’s organized crime groups have shown no ambition to govern or supplant the state. They have no record or evident intention of disrupting the state’s capacity to deliver basic services. Moreover, the Mexican state maintains substantial democratic legitimacy, and has successfully deterred would-be insurgents in recent decades. Lastly, by the various measures used by the Fund for Peace to compile the Fragile States Index (formerly known as the Failed State Index), the health of the Mexican state ranks about average for Latin American countries, and its capacity is far greater than in war-torn countries like Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, or Yemen.

The Mexican State Response

Image by Presidencia de la República Mexicana via Flickr.

There is no doubt that Mexico’s recent security crisis presented—and continues to present—a major challenge for the Mexican state, and raises serious questions about its limits and failings. It is true that, like any other individuals who violate the law, the goal of organized crime groups is to minimize the state’s ability to detect, prevent, and/or punish their illicit activities. Yet, unlike other criminal actors, organized crime groups—and particularly drug trafficking organizations—in Mexico have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to secure protection from the state to support and sustain their criminal activities, with corrupt officials on their payrolls at all levels of government. Also, to varying degrees, such groups have at least temporarily attained a stronger presence and degree of control than the government in some limited geographic areas. Moreover, in some places, organized crime groups have capitalized on anti-government sentiments to achieve a degree of popularity or even legitimacy that seriously undermines state capacity. What, then are the sources of Mexico’s recent violence, and why have state responses failed to resolve the problem in a timely manner?

The rise of Mexico’s most powerful organized crime groups—commonly referred to as drug trafficking organizations, or “cartels”—came amid a severe economic crisis in the 1980s. While other industries faltered, illicit drug production and trafficking enjoyed a major boom and substantial impunity, thanks in part to the complicity of government and law enforcement personnel. By the late 1990s, growing problems of crime and violence contributed to a crisis of “public insecurity,” characterized also by a feeling of widespread fear and frustration on the part of the general public due to the inability of the Mexican government to maintain order. Following a major political transition in 2000—the ouster of the PRI, Mexico’s long-time ruling party, from the presidency—the administration of Vicente Fox (2000-06) disrupted the leadership of two of the country’s four main organized crime groups.

This tactic of arresting, extraditing, or otherwise eliminating the top leaders of major criminal organizations has been commonly referred to as the “kingpin” strategy. Fox’s successor, President Felipe Calderón (2006-12), deployed the kingpin strategy vigorously. Calderón and other proponents of the kingpin strategy argued that taking out the top leadership would help to disrupt their operations and convert a national security threat into a more localized public security problem. In some cases, at least, the government succeeded in reducing the functional capacity of some of the country’s major criminal organizations, but the unintended result was the creation of internal power vacuums and incentives for regionally based drug trafficking organizations to clash over turf and expand into rival territories. The subsequent conflicts within and among these groups were responsible for tens of thousands of organized crime-style killings that made up nearly the entire increase in homicides noted above, especially in major drug trafficking production and transit zones.

In December 2012, a new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, took office and restored the PRI to power. His government continued to deploy the kingpin strategy, arresting high-ranking members of the Zeta and Sinaloa cartels. Remarkably, these arrests did not produce the same kind of violent aftershock that occurred under previous administrations, perhaps because of a new equilibrium among organized crime groups (there were few large cartels left standing) or perhaps more effective accommodation strategies (such as negotiations with the leaders next in line to take control of criminal operations). Whatever the reason, during 2013 and 2014, Peña Nieto’s first two full years in office, levels of homicide actually declined by around 8 and 12%, respectively (author’s own calculations from INEGI data. http://www.inegi.org.mx). However, statistics on homicide investigations for 2015 suggest that there was slight increase—about 10%—in the number of homicides nationwide, reversing the modest downward trend and provoking concerns that Mexico’s violence would ramp up again in the coming years. Final figures for 2015 likely to be released by Mexico’s national statistics agency sometime in late summer 2016, but as of mid-2016 there are troubling signs that violence is on the rise. (As this article went to press, INEGI statistics were unavailable for 2015, so the figures referenced here are Mexican law enforcement investigations into homicides tabulated by the Mexican National Public Security System – Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública, SNSP).

Conclusion

Looking toward the future, Mexico’s security situation will likely be affected by a number of important international and domestic factors. International factors could also significantly shape Mexico’s prospects. As a growing number of leaders and civic organizations push for the legally regulated production, distribution, and consumption of drugs (including the legalization of marijuana in two U.S. states in November 2012), this shift in discourse and policy could have major implications for Mexican organized crime groups. A loss of illicit revenues will likely reduce the capacity of these organizations to challenge the state, but it will also result in a painful restructuring of black market industries, pushing drug traffickers to increase exports of other drugs (like heroin) and further diversify into other violent criminal activities (e.g., kidnapping, extortion, robbery, etc.). This has already caused an abrupt increase in violence in some states, like Guerrero. In terms of drug policy, there are no quick and easy fixes to the problem of organized crime and violence in Mexico.

However, there are some reasons for optimism in Mexico. Changing demographic trends (including a declining population of under-educated, underpaid, and underemployed young males) and an improvement of the country’s overall economic situation could facilitate a reduction of various societal ills, including both violent crime and large-scale external migration. At the same time, with the right mix of fiscal and political reforms, Mexico’s rising economic fortunes could also bolster the state’s capacity to respond more effectively to these problems, thanks to investments and reforms in the criminal justice system, as well as public education and social programs to strengthen the social fabric. Fortunately, in recent years, the Mexican government has begun to implement major economic, social and judicial sector reforms that could greatly strengthen both state and societal capacity to reduce the power of violent organized crime groups. The main question is whether these reforms will be rapid and adequate enough to substantially reduce the number of violent deaths in Mexico over the next decade.

Dr. David A. Shirk is graduate director of the Master of Arts in International Relations program at the University of San Diego, director of Justice in Mexico, and a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is the co-author of Contemporary Mexican Politics, with Emily Edmonds-Poli.

South Sudan, the world’s newest country, currently risks slipping into a violent malaise. The crisis in South Sudan highlights very clearly some of the key problems surrounding the practical implementation of the Responsibility to Protect. 

Five years after seceding from Sudan, South Sudan is about to collapse into its second civil war since 2013. Marauding bands of informally constituted ethnic groups contribute to a climate of vigilantism.  UN diplomats debate the utility of an arms embargo in a state awash in arms.  The threat is meant to leverage Juba’s permission to allow a four thousand peacekeeper regional protection force into the country.  But Juba’s complaint about its exclusion from negotiations, contributes to a climate of distrust about the international community and its intentions. The crisis represents a serious challenge for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine and the international community to forestall a humanitarian disaster that is well underway.

The Responsibility to Protect

A 2001 report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty introduced the idea of R2P, creating a new international norm that made the formerly autonomous allowances of absolute sovereignty contingent on each state’s responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.  Its controversial pillar two seized the international community with subject matter jurisdiction to intervene as the residual stop-gap agency to prevent internal abuse when states were incapable or unwilling to do the same.  Two other pillars addressed a responsibility to prevent (addressing root causes of catastrophe) and a responsibility to rebuild (to assist with reconstruction and reconciliation).

The development of the norm has been controversial and it has been reworked, principally along lines of nurturing states to live up to their internal responsibilities and tethering it to actions of the UN Security Council.  But its proactive charge of intervention has also been embraced by scholars and norm entrepreneurs as a progressive development. In its 2007 judgment in the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide Case, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) supported the duty of states to prevent atrocity beyond their borders if they have the capacity to influence persons likely to commit such acts; the ICJ acknowledged that this obligation extended beyond the competent organs of the UN.  The International Law Commission’s 2001 Draft Articles on State Responsibility provided that states cooperate to end through lawful means serious and systematic breaches of peremptory norms.  R2P’s normative development indicates that the idea of a collective responsibility to protect now informs the legalect of international courts and tribunals, suggesting a growing receptivity to and maturation of the doctrine.

R2P, Africa and South Sudan

Image of peacekeepers in Juba by UN Photo via Flickr.

Africa was the first region where the R2P was meant to be applied.  It grew out of the idea of responsible sovereignty, first articulated by Francis Deng and others in 1996.  Responsible sovereignty suggested benefits to cooperation among states.  These benefits went beyond the avoidance of international conflict or the mere ‘tending to’ of sovereign fences.  Responsible sovereignty suggested sovereignty could imply joint action and joint benefits.  It grew into the idea of R2P.

Nowhere has R2Ps reception been stronger than in Africa, having been well received by the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and a litany of African elites, including South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, Tanzania’s Salim Ahmed Salim, South Sudan’s Francis Deng, Ghana’s former UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan, and Algeria’s Mohamed Sahnoun.  Cases within the African context indicated its time had come: The UN Security Council validated ECOWAS’ interventions in Liberia (1990/92) and Sierra Leone (1997), offering praise in the face of its own inaction to these humanitarian crises.  R2P received the unanimous support of one hundred and seventy Heads of State in two provisions of the 2005 UN World Summit final document, presaging the incorporation of the doctrine by the African Union in its 2005 Ezulwini Consensus report.

But nowhere has its implementation been more problematic than in the world’s newest country, South Sudan.  Sudan, and now South Sudan, have been beset by internecine violence over the last sixty years.  South Sudan teetered on implosion almost immediately after achieving statehood in July 2011.  South Sudan devolved into civil war in December 2013, when its President Salva Kiir Mayardit accused former Vice President Riek Machar of plotting against the regime.  An improbable rapprochement, fortified by an internationally mediated agreement, was signed in August 2015, resulting in Machar’s much delayed return to the capital, Juba in April 2016, and the formation of a most tenuous unity government, which collapsed in July in a wave of bloodshed and atrocity in Juba.  Kiir has now rejected a US proposal to insert the four thousand peacekeepers, claiming it is an attempt to turn South Sudan into a UN protectorate.

Kiir and Machar’s mutual distrust until the most recent violence in July was outweighed only by a common need for more money to support their factions and a mutual interest in avoiding a personal accounting of atrocities allegedly committed by their respective factions.  Interpreted alternatively as an explanation or a threat to the international community, the two allegedly wrote on the Op Ed page of the New York Times in June 2016 that any disciplinary justice meted out “even under international law” would destabilize unity efforts.  Translation:  If you try to bring us to justice, we will bring back war.  They invoked the name of the international community, calling on it to back their non-punitive plan for a mediated reconciliation.   Four days after publication, the New York Times appended an Editor’s Note to the South Sudan leaders’ world-wide call for reconciliation; Machar had disavowed the Op Ed piece, claiming his views had been fabricated. But not completely.  One month later, he and Kiir brought back bloodshed.

The episode highlights the complexities facing South Sudan.  If the international community is to facilitate a solution to the ongoing crisis, only cosmetically concealed by an unravelling claim of unity, the fundamental normative problem of R2P must be addressed:  where in the international community does R2P reside?

Transmuting the international community’s abstract but coercive cause of action to prevent domestic abuse into something other than high-minded rhetoric requires either a fully functioning UN Security Council or another agency with the legitimacy and authority to pierce sovereignty’s veil.  The UN Charter system created a jus ad bellum regime that placed monopoly power over all uses and threats of force (except in cases of self-defense) in the hands of the Security Council.  But that authority is often addled by inaction due to the veto-wielding interests of the big powers, exposing the fundamental weakness of the UN system and provoking the elusive international legal and political pursuit for a better or supplementary normative solution.

Internationalists have wrestled with the poor choice between supporting the legality of the Charter system, which often stood silent in the face of atrocity, or supporting the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention, which only problematized consideration of hidden agendas pertaining to regime change, remedial secession, and self-determination.  Establishing the international community as the ex ante entity vested with such a remedial power came as something of a surprise, and, after fifteen years of ontological development, remains in dispute.  In theoretical terms, R2P marked a return to and modern expression of Christian Wolff’s eighteenth century Republican idea of the civitas maxima (a ‘grand republic’ of nations), the meta-expression of community virtue that upholds the common good, secures the pluralistic interests of the state, and protects the solidarist interests of humanity by presenting a means to prevent internal atrocity.  But even Wolff, who had no understanding of the modern state system as we know it, thought it could not function without a rector.

Kiir and Machar embrace this much of Wolff’s eighteenth century mindset; they view the international community as a rhetorical trope that lacks a headmaster; they invoke its name to lend a fictive air of moral authority to their pieties on reconciliation, when they do not employ it as blackmail.  Much of the doctrinal disarray surrounding R2P’s non-appearance in South Sudan conforms to an uncertainty about the international community itself:  Is it an unwitting continuation of the mission civilisatrice – the persistently failed and resented attempt to make sub-Saharan Africa more European; does it embrace or dismiss African notions of community, which present a humanistic understanding different than contractarian models of liberal institutionalism (Ubuntu); is it an updated form of colonialism?  Perhaps it is an expression of Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology (1922), allowing its claimants the power to decide on the exceptions to legal rules.  Schmitt was wary of the keepers of humanity’s interests.  Paraphrasing Proudhon, he wrote:  whoever invokes humanity’s name wants to cheat.  Kiir and Machar would doubtless agree.

Equally problematic has been locating the international community’s headmaster amid South Sudan’s turmoil.  Does the international community fundamentally reduce to a sanctions policy orchestrated by the US and its allies?  Should it claim a regional identity in the form of mediations sponsored by the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) or IGAD-Plus (an amalgam of states associated with the African Union Peace and Security Council), or non-African agencies of the EU, the so-called Troika (US, UK, and Norway), or perhaps China?

An Emergent Dark Side

South Sudan’s misery teaches us something about the emergent dark side of R2P.  It reveals a heteronomous will of a fragmented international community, which, in South Sudan’s case finds expression in a variety of cross-cutting alliances.  Tensions exist within IGAD, certainly between Uganda and Sudan and possibly due to reports of Eritrean and Sudanese military support of South Sudanese opposition forces.  These tensions diminish IGAD’s mediation efforts and reputation as an honest broker.  Key sectors of South Sudan’s limited civil society (specifically Church leaders) are overlooked; an array of venues and sponsors compete for influence, contributing to complaints of forum-shopping, which allow Kiir and Machar to play components of the international community against each other.  The center of this unity government in South Sudan has not held; war is around the corner and famine is spreading.

Conclusion

Locating R2P within the international community would be daunting enough were questions of its authorization or operationalization in South Sudan settled matters of fact; but its non-appearance in the continuing misery of the country suggests the doctrine, fifteen years in the making, is neither thickly representative of historical process nor thinly embodied as an aspiration.  R2P, in the context of South Sudan, turns the international community into an ethical referent, a conceptual archetype that satisfies saints and sinners alike.

Christopher Rossi has a Ph.D. in international relations from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and an LL.M in public international law from the University of London.  He lectures on international law and relations at the University of Iowa College of Law.

Africa is often presented as a war-ridden continent, but this depiction is becoming outdated. In the 21^st century, the amount of warfare in Africa has declined dramatically, and today most Africans are more secure than ever.

“Africa” and “conflict” are words all too often linked in Western minds. From Cold War proxy wars, to what Robert Kaplan saw as “the coming anarchy”  in the 1990s, to Boko Haram massacres today, news from Africa may seem dominated by never-ending conflict. That image is out of date. In 2002 Tony Blair was justified in describing the state of Africa as a “scar on the conscience of humanity”, but in the years since there has been an underappreciated success story in Africa. The amount of warfare in Africa has declined dramatically, and today most Africans are more secure than ever. Troubled areas remain, unfortunately, but the larger picture of receding conflict has implications for how we think about African security needs. Outside actors can help reinforce positive external and internal trends that mitigate conflict, can avoid creating new conflict zones like Libya or South Sudan, and should recognize emerging human security needs that are becoming relatively more important as armed conflict declines.

Africa’s waning wars

Quietly over the last 15 years, many African wars did end, to paraphrase Scott Strauss. Lingering Cold War struggles like the Angolan civil war burned out. West African nations including Liberia and Sierra Leone ceased being playgrounds for warlords and regained their status as functional, if weak, states. Eastern Congo is still violent, but far less so than during the 1990s “African World War”. Overall, 21^st century Africa has seen more wars end or abate than ignite.

The trend towards peace in Africa can be seen by using various datasets on armed conflict (for more on data sources, tabulation, and trend analysis, see Burbach and Fettweis 2014). The Center for Systemic Peace (CSP), for example, tracks conflicts from 1946 to the present, scoring each for the intensity of its societal impact. Figure 1 shows the yearly sum of conflict intensity assessed by CSP, for both Africa and the rest of the world. The end of the Cold War brought peace to much of the world, but African conflicts increased in the 1990s. States like Somalia and Sierra Leone collapsed into warlordism, for example. Central Africa was hit by the Rwanda genocide and bloody chaos in Eastern Congo, killing one to five million people.  At least three-fourths of the world’s total war deaths in the late 1990s took place in Africa (Burbach and Fettweis 2014, Figure 4).

After the year 2000, the tide of war receded. Africa’s total conflict intensity as measured by CSP fell by approximately half. A similar pattern is shown by the Uppsala Conflict Data Project. Using somewhat different definitions, the Uppsala data shows that the number of conflicts in Africa resulting in 1,000 or more “battle deaths” per year declined from an average of 12 in the late 1990s to an average of 3.5 from 2010-2013. Some decades-long wars ended with formal peace accords, as with Angola in 2002; elsewhere, states gradually gained the upper hand on armed disorder. Given the unfortunate rise of warfare in the Middle East, Africa is no longer the most violent region of the world.

The decline of warfare in Africa is even more dramatic in terms of individual risks. Africa’s population is growing rapidly, up 150% since 1980. Declining conflict despite a much larger population means the mortality risk from war has fallen substantially. An average of 32 people per 100,000 population were killed per year in the 1980s and 45 per 100,000 in the 1990s. In 2013, though the rate was only 8 per 100,000 (Burbach & Fettweis 2014, Figure 5). World Health Organization data shows an astonishing 95% decline in African conflict deaths from 2000 to 2012. In the 1980s, warfare killed more Africans than vehicle accidents. Today, perhaps three to six times as many Africans die in road crashes than from conflict. Many more Africans are harmed by crime or domestic violence than by warfare. Africa is still afflicted by more conflict than most ofthe world and the suffering of those involved is very real. Nevertheless, a greater proportion of Africans live free of war today than ever in the post-independence period.

Celebrating African peace may seem premature given the civil war in South Sudan or the ravages of Boko Haram. Conflict has increased since 2011, but the level of armed conflict still remains lower than any time from 1970 – 2000. The most tragic development is the civil war in South Sudan, which the U.N. estimated had killed 50,000 as of spring 2016. Fortunately, South Sudan’s case is nearly unique: a newly created nation, devoid of physical or administrative infrastructure, with ethnically divided, soon-to-be-unemployed armed factions eyeing the lucrative oil revenues awaiting whomever could seize power. As academic panelists noted in 2011 – two years before the civil war –  predictors of conflict were flashing red in South Sudan. Few African countries contain such a combustible mix of problems anymore.

Accounting for the decline

Image by UN Photo via Flickr.

There are several factors behind the ebbing of conflict in Africa. One important change is the geopolitical environment. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviets armed and funded rival factions in civil wars, allowing bloody wars to fester for decades in countries like Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia. Then, 1990s Africa fell into turmoil as superpower-sponsored regimes collapsed. A disinterested world mostly left Africa to its fate, but continued trade in weapons and resources with warlords. In the last decade, however, the U.S., Europe, and China have all become more active in diplomacy, security assistance, and peacekeeping. The US and China are together pressing the South Sudanese factions to stop fighting, rather than choosing sides. The world has become somewhat less willing to sell arms or purchase minerals that directly fuel conflicts, admittedly with a long way to go.

Africans themselves deserve great credit for ending the wars that plagued their continent.  Economic growth, improvements in governance, and greater space for peaceful political participation have all made state failure and internal conflict less likely. As Paul Collier among others has noted, civil wars tend to create vicious cycles that spread insecurity to whole regions. Many regions of Africa have climbed out of the conflict trap; political, security, and economic improvements are reinforcing each other. The nations of Africa increasingly work together through the institutions of the African Union to head off or resolve conflict, and to deploy peacekeepers to conflict zones. Needs still outpace available resources, but that cooperation is a marked change from 20^th century Africa.

A peaceful future?

Whether the trend towards peace continues depends foremost on Africa’s leaders, but external actors can encourage positive trends in African security. Most directly, partners can help the AU and its member nations improve peacekeeping and conflict resolution capabilities. Likewise, the world should continue arms embargoes against combatants and regulating trade in valuable resources where exploitation appears to be a key ingredient of protracted conflict. Ongoing encouragement and incentives for democratization and governmental reform are helpful. Western countries should consider, however, that broad efforts like anticorruption programs are probably more helpful than International Criminal Court indictments of individual leaders, which can generate nationalist backlash.

The world should especially try not to create new ground for conflict. Libya and South Sudan are Africa’s worst conflict zones today. Both were birthed through Western action – the removal by force of the Qaddafi regime, and diplomatically sponsoring South Sudan’s independence from Khartoum. While the moral cases were sound, both countries were left with non-existent governments, antagonistic armed factions, and grossly inadequate provision for disarming, demobilizing, and re-integrating fighters. American and European governments focused more on freeing people from hated regimes than on answering – let alone resourcing – the “what next?” question. Chaos followed, just as many African governments had warned at the time.

From a humanitarian perspective, advocates should consider whether other challenges in Africa deserve relatively more attention. For example, Fearon and Hoeffler suggest that domestic violence against women and children now imposes larger human costs than warfare, and also that domestic violence can be reduced more cost-effectively than armed conflict. The ballooning toll of vehicle accident deaths in Africa may represent an opportunity for international technical or educational assistance to pay off with many saved lives. Beyond road safety, Africa is rapidly urbanizing.  Western visions of menacing rebels waving AK-47s in the bush privilege the exotic, but most Africans confront more prosaic threats to health and safety. The human security challenges Africans confront are increasingly those of city-dwellers:  crime, sanitation and utilities, safe and reliable transport, etc. Better policing, regularized urban housing, and expansion of infrastructure in megacities like Lagos and Kinshasa ought to be top priorities.

Conclusion

Sixteen years ago The Economist magazine suggested Africa was a “hopeless continent”. Lately The Economist has been bullish on Africa, citing the decline in warfare as a key reason for the continent’s improving business prospects. With remarkable speed, in the 21^st century African conflict declined and safety improved, a hugely positive change in the welfare of Africans. Africa’s international friends should ensure their priorities respond to contemporary human security challenges, not ghosts of the past – and certainly they should avoid making things worse. Recognition of Africa’s progress itself would be a boon:  the continent’s increasingly out-of-date image as an undifferentiated war-torn anarchy retards investment and engagement from overseas. The tragedies of the moment deserve action, but we should not overlook that there is also much good news out of Africa.

David T. Burbach is an Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, RI.   Dr. Burbach received a Ph.D in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has expertise in African security, defense planning, and U.S. foreign policy.   The views expressed in this article are personal and do not represent official positions of the U.S. Navy.

The French Front National is now one of the most successful political protest forces in Western Europe. The party is preparing to participate in the April 2017 Presidential election where the migrant crisis and the capacity of the government to provide security from terrorist attacks will be pressing issues.

According to some scholars, such as Cas Mudde, the French Front National (FN) now appears to be one of the most successful populist radical right parties in Western Europe. Since the mid-1980s, the FN has established itself as a permanent force in French politics. Nowadays, the party appears to offer strength in a climate where European security appears weak and vulnerable. Flourishing in a France characterized by strong concerns about the migrant/refuges crisis and recent terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists, the party is currently placed in a European ideological space of extreme right protest, often dominated by racism and xenophobia. The FN supports a concept of “Europe of Nations” and protectionism. These ideas have been encouraged by the recent winning of the “leave” campaign in the UK referendum and the Donald Trump’s rise in the USA. What are the origins of the FN, its current strategies and its role in the contemporary political landscape (at national and supranational level)?

From Jean-Marie to Marine: a family party

Image credit: Blandine Le Cain/Wikimedia Commons.

Since Marine Le Pen took over party leadership from her father in 2011, the FN has entered a new stage of its political development, which demonstrates its adaptability and an ability to survive its founding leader: Jean-Marie Le Pen. However, the party has an even longer history in French politics. It was founded in 1972 from a small neo-fascist organization, Ordre Nouveau, as an electoral umbrella for nationalist groups to run in the 1973 legislative elections. The FN remained electorally irrelevant during the first decade of its starting phase. Its turning point was the 1984 European elections where it obtained about 11% of the vote. From the mid-1980s, the party maintained a sort of electoral stability (between 11 and 15% of electoral support). Since 1984, the FN has also fielded candidates in all local and regional elections, winning representation in regional, departmental and municipal councils, as well as in the European Parliament.

The change of leader in 2011 reinforced the party’s electoral appeal: the FN under Marine Le Pen has enlarged its base of support, reaching new heights in the 2012 Presidential election with about 18% of the vote. The FN also topped the 2014 European election winning a quarter of the national vote and 24 seats, which allowed Marine Le Pen to establish leadership over the pan-European nationalist right. Success at the national level has been corroborated locally. In the 2014 municipal election, the party won 11 municipal councils and 1,544 councillors, outperforming its previous record (1995). The departmental elections of March 2015 showed another surge in FN support at 25% of the vote, with 62 local councillors. In 2015 again (December) the party participated in the regional elections and it obtained a new record. In particular in two regions (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie) the FN arrived at 40% of the vote during the first round of elections.

Under Marine Le Pen’s leadership, party change has been embedded in the concept of “de-demonization” (dédiabolisation). As Gilles Ivaldi suggests, de-demonization is primarily characterized by the attempt to detoxify the party’s extremist reputation, while simultaneously preserving its populist radical right potential for voter mobilization. The current FN seeks to improve its credibility through party modernization and professionalization. Whilst the 2011 leadership election represented a first notable step towards greater intra party democracy, there is little evidence of a more substantial move towards a party “normalization”, neither ideologically nor organizationally. Instead, the party has taken a process of “Marinization” (personalization) whereby Marine Le Pen has successfully replaced her father as charismatic leader, both inside and outside the party.

The 2011 congress represented probably the most important change in the French Front National organizational path, with Marine Le Pen taking over the party. Following Jean-Marie Le Pen’s decision to step down, the party had initiated an internal leadership campaign. During the same campaign against Bruno Gollnisch, Marine Le Pen had indicated that she would turn the party into a professionalized and more effective party organization: “I want to create a renewed, opened and well-functioning party”, she said. In 2011, the FN had experienced its first change of leader since 1972, together with a new executive team and a new logo. The “new” FN has pushed an agenda, which aims primarily to shed its extreme right profile and to achieve agency credibility.

A “Europe of Nations”

The FN articulates a strong populist anti-establishment agenda. It opposes European integration, exemplifying the “hard Euro-scepticism” defined by Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart as “a principled opposition to the EU and European integration”. Its opposition to Europe concerns a wide range of institutional, economic and national identity issues. The FN’s concept of a “Europe of Nations”, argues that institutional cooperation should only take place between sovereign nation-states, opposes the EU as a supranational entity, and criticizes the EU as elitist and bureaucratic. A pledge for a return of competences and powers to the national level has been central to the FN electoral platforms since the early 1990s. The 2014 FN ’s programme featured primarily the promise to shed the Euro which was portrayed as “ a jail” serving the “sole interests of bankers and the wealthy”, and from which the French people “should free themselves”.

The FN’s distrust of European integration revolves around immigration and issues of national identity, and it is often linked with welfare-chauvinist positions. The FN’s hostility towards the EU is underpinned by the party’s traditional ethno-nationalist policies. As Mudde suggests, the FN’s anti-EU positions are incorporated into a typical populist radical right agenda, which combines nativism, authoritarianism and anti-establishment populism.

The party is notorious for its politicization of immigration issues. During the 1980s, Jean Marie Le Pen laid out the basis for a potent ethno-nationalist and welfare-chauvinist “master frame”, which later diffused throughout Europe. In 2014, the European campaign by the FN was marked by the continuation of xenophobia and welfare-chauvinism, showing no significant departure from the party’s traditional ethno-nationalist ideology.

The FN committed to “defending, in all circumstances, France’s values, identity, traditions and way of life” against what would be stigmatized as a “sieve Europe”. The party’s 2014 platform lashed out at the Schengen agreement, campaigning on withdrawal, and claiming that the FN would close France’s borders to “stop uncontrolled immigration and put an end to the free movement of Roma and delinquents across Europe”. In line with its 2012 manifesto, the FN proposedpolicies, which would remove the possibility within French law to regularize illegal migrants. The party’s 2012 presidential platform featured a range of nativist policies, including the FN’s traditional “national preference” scheme, which seeks to give priority to the French people over foreigners in welfare, jobs and housing.

A product of France’s political system and climate?

French political parties are characterized by their instability, organizational weakness and fragmentation. As one of the oldest parties in France, FN has shown greater signs of stability over time. Since 1972, it has experienced only one change at the top and it has retained its name. The Parti Socialiste (PS – Socialist Party), currently the most important centre-left party in France, underwent important organizational changes since 1971 as it opened itself to other political forces. Parties of the right exhibit an even greater degree of volatility over time. In 2002, the loose electoral alliances of the 1980s and the 1990s between the Gaullists and the Centre-Right gave way to organizational merger with the creation of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP – Union for a Popular Rally), which was an attempt by the centre-right to consolidate its identity.

In 2007, the new president of the UMP, Nicolas Sarkozy, was elected in the presidential election. In 2011, however, disgruntled liberals and Christian Democrats left the UMP to form an independent party, the Union des démocrates et indépendants (UDI). Following Sarkozy’s defeat in 2012, the UMP entered a period of high ideological, leadership and strategic factionalism. In November 2014, Sarkozy returned to the UMP and won the leadership election with a large internal consensus. He pushed important changes to the party statutes, including a renaming of the party to Les Républicains (The Republicans). Recently, the party reorganized itself around a new right-wing leader, François Fillon, who became the Presidential candidate in view of 2017 appointment and after a victory during an open primary election.

The same event has generated a new political and social weakness in France, also fuelled by the election of Donald Trump as US president in November 2016. In current context, France is faced with another crucial battle between populist radical right and establishment (right again) forces. The unexpected victory of Fillon in the Republican primary, Socialist President François Hollande’s decision not to run again, may be complicating Le Pen’s efforts to turn her political success into an electoral victory in the two rounds of voting scheduled for April 23 and May 7, 2017. In fact, there are themes, such as Islam, insecurity and immigration, with which the FN is able to rule the debate in general and worry public opinion.

The FN has been able to aquire a new agenda, a sort of “cultural hegemony”, a “vocabulary” even more used also by other traditional party from the centre-right area. France remains, therefore, pervaded by a strong wave of right-wing extremism. In this changed and menacing context, the FN maintains a high appeal and it is ready to prepare its battle in the 2017 Presidential election and probably it is going to reinforce its campaign and its strategies. In any case, it has become (and  remained) a constant presence in the French political system.

Maria Elisabetta Lanzone, PhD, is Research Fellow and Teaching Assistant at University of Genoa (Italy). She is expert in comparative populism, Euro-scepticism and migration policies. She is the author, with Gilles Ivaldi, of the book chapter From Jean-Marie to Marine Le Pen: Organizational Change and Adaptation in the French Front National (2016, Palgrave Macmillan). From April 2015 she is also member of the ERMES Laboratory at University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis (France).

Authors’ Note: The opinions expressed by the writers are theirs alone and not necessarily those of the United States government or any of its departments.

As a response to the attacks by violent extremists around the world, policymakers have invested considerable effort into comprehending terrorists’ use of the Internet and initiating counter-measures.

The internet is undeniably an important factor in understanding the radicalization trajectories of many violent extremists. A senior official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently observed that extremists’ “deft use of Internet propaganda, together with that content’s wide availability, has broadened the population of potentially vulnerable individuals, and shortened the timespan of their recruitment.” Supporting this statement, terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp lists social media as one of nine factors that may exacerbate causes of an individual’s radicalization, including individual and social factors as well as cultural and ideological motivators.

Research has also shown that the internet facilitates both early engagement with violent ideologies and opportunities for learning and sharing criminal information. For instance, a study by the University of Maryland’s START terrorism consortium found that “the internet played a primary or contributing role in the radicalization of 86%” in the cases of over 200 U.S.-based foreign fighters. These individuals used the internet to “view extremist materials, research conflicts, groups and attack methods, and participated in online communities of like-minded individuals.” Moreover, results from the same dataset show that the internet “may be speeding up the radicalization timeframe” as compared to radicalization before the advent of the internet. Similar findings from a study of over 200 terrorist offenders in the United Kingdom found that 54% of the perpetrators used the internet to learn about their intended criminal activities and, in 44% of the cases, extremist media (e.g., videos, audio lectures and photographs) were found, viewed, or downloaded by the perpetrators.

The authors of the UK study, however, recognize that terrorists’ use of the internet “is perhaps unsurprising given the ubiquity of Internet usage in the most benevolent activities across wider society.” Indeed, a good deal of research has examined terrorists’ expansive use of the internet, such as the terrorist organization known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to build a network of ideological conformity through social media platforms like Twitter. A report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue has shown not only how life under the Islamic State is romanticized through social media postings, but also how important digital connectivity can be to those in the field, describing young women in ISIS controlled territory who resort to “climbing pine trees to gain Internet reception.”

Countering extremism online

Image credit: Andres Eldh/Flickr.

These studies shed light on the particular ways that terrorists use the internet and underscore the importance of law enforcement intervention into online criminal activities. However, an ongoing challenge for researchers and policymakers engaged in preventing and countering violent extremism (CVE) is how to proactively address the role of the internet and social media in the context of violent extremism before criminal activity has occurred. To respond to that challenge, two broad policy approaches have emerged.

One approach advocates for online content removal and account suspension in order to reduce the supply of non-criminal but potentially extremist content. The European Commission recently instituted content-flagging mechanisms modelled after an initiative by the British government’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit. Outside of government, technology companies also have taken steps to remove terrorist content. In December 2016, social media companies announced their own cooperative efforts to use hashing techniques to quickly identify and take down extremist images and content that violate terms of service agreements. In their latest annual transparency report, Twitter suspended around 636,000 accounts between August 2015 and December 2016 for promoting extremist content.

Research studies that have assessed whether content removal and account suspension efforts work to curb the propagation of violent extremist messages suggest promising outcomes. For instance, a report from the George Washington’s Program on Extremism found that “over time, individual users who repeatedly created new accounts after being suspended suffered devastating reductions in their followers.” While ISIS users quickly learn how to overcome account suspensions and restore some followers, the study suggests these actions to reestablish followers have only “limited benefits” once a suspension has occurred.

Yet, as technology companies like Twitter, Microsoft, and Facebook become more effective at detecting extremist content with tools that recognize unique “fingerprints” of extremist content, terror groups have also become more agile in how they use the internet to facilitate their work. Terrorism researcher Audrey Alexander describes how attempts to limit terrorist content online have pushed extremists away from public platforms and to encrypted tools like WhatsApp, Telegram, and ProtonMail. Indeed, Telegram now “appears to be the top choice among both individual jihadists and official jihadist groups.” The covert nature of these platforms poses significant barriers to researchers and authorities seeking to understand, track, and measure the terrorist threat.

Another method for combatting online violent extremist content suggests creating counter narratives to refute terrorist claims. The idea is to craft messages that will appeal to vulnerable individuals to persuade them that violence is not the answer.  To explore this approach, the U.S. government has sponsored an initiative along with support from Facebook that known as the Peer to Peer: Challenging Violent Extremism program to engage young people, who may be most vulnerable to violent extremist messages, to create credible counter message for their own peers. Since the program launched in 2015, over 5,000 students have taken part. The 2016 winning team from Rochester Institute of Technology developed an awareness campaign called “Ex-Out Extremism” to “open people’s eyes” to violent extremism and to encourage them to take a stand against it. While initiatives like Peer to Peer typically reach broad audiences, foster educational engagement and increase public awareness, researchers have pointed out that continued work is needed to understand what can inoculate or prevent radical ideologies from taking root in the first place.

A more targeted approach for reaching at-risk individuals online has been piloted at Jigsaw, Alphabet’s technology incubator focusing on geopolitical challenges, to redirect users from ISIS propaganda to curated YouTube videos that credibly debunk ISIS recruiting themes. Similarly, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue conducted a pilot study to direct individualized online intervention services to those demonstrating affinity to violent extremist groups through their online activities. The results found that intervention messages that reached at-risk individuals were “highly likely” to cause behavior change, either by prompting radicalizing individuals to change their privacy settings or to send direct messages to the intervenors for more engagement.  While these results are based on a very small sample, directed intervention programs may offer options for providing “off ramps” to individuals at critical points.

The value of partnerships

Whether intervening online to remove content and suspend accounts or developing credible counter messages or intervention options, effectively addressing violent extremism will require innovative partnerships inside and outside government.  To this end, in 2016 the United States government launched an interagency task force to address countering violent extremism with representation from both security and non-security agencies along with engagement from civil society groups.  While these multidisciplinary partnerships are challenging bureaucratically, they underscore the need for developing networked approaches to emerging security challenges. Similar cooperative agreements might span across national boundaries, not only for the purposes of information sharing between law enforcement officials, but also to include cooperation, such as the recent announcement by the Netherlands and Kenya to build a comprehensive partnership around a range of security related issues including deradicalization efforts.

Although some have suggested that there is little evidence that terrorism prevention works, there is a small but growing literature providing support for the application of prevention science to the problem of violent extremism. Without question, more attention is needed for rigorous assessment of these programs, especially with regard to evaluating the effectiveness of online campaigns. To fill this gap, the RAND Corporation recently released an evaluation toolkit for countering violent extremism, which includes guidelines for assessing programs’ social media metrics. The London-based Royal United Services Institute has published a guide to CVE program design and evaluation, which provides guidance for articulating relevant impact measures. Ultimately, these resources, coupled with innovative public and private sector partnerships, will contribute to preventing radicalization to violence both online and offline.

Tackling online radicalization will undoubtedly be a major security priority for policymakers in the future. Following the deadly May 22, 2017 bomb explosion in Manchester, leaders of the G7 convened in Taormina, Italy to reaffirm their efforts to counter terrorism and violent extremism.  In a statement, members underscored several areas for continued engagement, not only through traditional counterterrorism measures like “knowledge-sharing” and cutting off “sources and channels of terrorist financing,” but also through technology sector engagement “to substantially increase their efforts to address terrorist content” and well as civil society engagement to promote “alternative and positive narratives rooted in our common values.” The future war against online extremism may prove to be a long and difficult one, but it is a fight that must be won.   

Dr. Susan Szmania has served in government and academic positions addressing violent extremism.  She is currently a senior research analyst at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the Office for Community Partnerships.  In this capacity, she leads the research and analysis line of effort on the U.S. government’s interagency Countering Violent Extremism Task Force.  Prior to this work, Dr. Szmania was a senior researcher at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, and she served in government positions at U.S. Embassies in Sweden and Spain to implement programs to counter violent extremism. She received her Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004.

Matthew Conway has served in various research capacities focusing on conflict and extremism, both independently and with two London-based think-tanks. He is currently a research adviser for the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Community Partnerships, where he focuses on Countering Violent Extremism research. He received his Master’s in Conflict, Security and Development from King’s College London in 2015 and his Bachelor’s in Political Science and International Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013.

Closing Europe’s borders and politicizing the attempt to admit refugees at a time when the growing humanitarian crisis poses mounting human rights challenges to the international community is fundamentally wrongheaded. These approaches only strengthen the hand of Islamic State.

While violent extremism, terrorism, and civil wars have drawn the most attention, coming to grips with the refugee crisis—emanating mainly from Syria’s civil war, but also more generally from the Middle East and North Africa’s political environment (MENA) in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings—has never been more essential. The Syrian crisis has propelled a wave of migrants to the neighboring countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey. The Syrian refugee population stands at approximately 4.7 million, of whom 1.7 million live in Lebanon and Jordan and even more in Turkey. It is estimated that Turkey now hosts the world’s largest community of displaced Syrians.

Defeating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also known as ISIL and by its Arabic acronym as Da’esh), while at the same time fulfilling the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in the Syrian situation, has presented a complex challenge to the international community. The growing threat of ISIS as shown in attacks in Paris (2015) and Brussels (2016), magnified by the increased threat of individual terrorists—the so-called “lone wolves” in San Bernardino, the United States—has stemmed a wave of nationalist, right-wing alarm, reinforcing a general concern about the influx of immigrants and asylum seekers, while underlining the shift from a regional to the international nature of both threat and risk. These security issues have also illustrated the willingness of great powers to support military reactions to ISIS in order to stem the atrocities perpetrated by this group, while putting the departure of the Assad regime on the back burner—at least for now. For all intents and purposes, ISIS poses a much greater threat to Europe than does the current regime in Damascus.

An Unavoidable Tradeoff

Image by Freedom House via Flickr.

Confronting and dismantling ISIS need not be achieved by stigmatizing refugees and subjecting them to religious litmus tests. Closing Europe’s porous borders and politicizing the admission of refugees at a time when the growing humanitarian crisis poses mounting human rights challenges to the international community is fundamentally misguided. After all, fortifying European borders, while effective in the short term, strengthens the hands of ISIS and other terrorist groups that portray such policies and practices largely in terms of apocalyptic visions and arcane Islamic prophecies of great battles against Western imperialists.

Defeating ISIS requires strategic endurance and long-term prudent political decision-making involving internal and external actors in the MENA region. While doing so, it is important to avoid the enemy’s repressive, atavistic, and brutal methods, eschewing certain tactics that could potentially play into ISIS’s hands. It is important to bear in mind that the tactics that terrorist groups like ISIS employ pose mostly political and ideological challenges to the West and that the real fight will be in defeating and destroying the claims and values that these groups assert.  In the end, defeating ISIS requires that its demonic ideology and tactics be confronted and exposed.

Preventing further refugee crises in the future requires that fighting ISIS be at least temporarily prioritized over the overthrow of the Assad regime.  Seeking a political solution in conjunction with harnessing a multipronged strategy may in fact be among the most effective tools and processes of dealing with current humanitarian crises that the world faces. The possibility of working with the Russians and the Iranians in order to seek a political solution in Syria also raises questions about whether this tradeoff is justified. If the intent is to defeat ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Levant Conquest Front (formerly known as al-Nusra Front), then this tradeoff is inevitable even as it buttresses the Assad regime in Syria for the foreseeable future. This solution is not problem-free or without significant challenges, however.

Competing Views

While the military actions against ISIS are warranted and can be coordinated by both inside and outside actors, the nature of such military missions and their consequences are also subject to further debate and negotiations. The inclusion of Russia and Iran, allies of Assad, in the fight against ISIS raises concerns that their stated goal of curbing ISIS is merely a pretext to prolonging Assad’s rule. Likewise, Turkish participation in air strikes in northern Syria in the war against ISIS has raised the possibility that Ankara will target the Kurds, who have successfully fought against ISIS since the beginning of the conflagration. Turkey’s interest in settling political scores with the Kurds, an interest that it believes is vital to its security, imperils whatever impartiality one might have hoped for in a fight solely against ISIS.

The massive movement of migrants and refugees to Europe, coupled with the ISIS-led attacks on soft targets in Europe, has created a new urgency among Western leaders to fully confront this new global threat and seriously contemplate the possibility of cooperating with Russia in a coordinated effort. Compromises must at times be made when a multifaceted campaign that includes both countering ISIS and precipitating the removal of the Assad regime is waged. The collapse of the Assad regime would create a significant security void that ISIS and other terrorist groups could easily exploit.

There is no denying the fact that the Paris, Brussels, and San Bernardino terrorist attacks have heightened the securitization of the refugee threats, as the Islamic State has been using the wave of the migrant influx to infiltrate Europe and North America. The number of terrorists hiding among the refugees is small. ISIS has exploited the flood of refugees to smuggle jihadis into Europe by distributing fake passports in Greek refugee camps to allow its terrorists to travel within Europe. On April 22, 2016, The Washington Post reported that more than three dozen suspected militants who had posed as migrants have been arrested or died while planning or carrying out acts of terrorism.  They included at least seven individuals who were directly linked to the bloody attacks in Paris and Brussels.

But even a few of these will be highlighted by conservative circles in all Western countries to call for the repatriation or active policing of refugee communities.  Donald Trump Jr.’s notorious analogy between refugees and poisoned Skittles is a case in point. Conservatives rank the issue of terrorism much higher than do liberals in the West, the latter agreeing that one cannot stop all terrorism and that the chances of being caught in a terrorist attack are still quite small. Vigilance and the exclusion of possible threats by governments, however, is prioritized over the compassionate acceptance of refugees.

The Flaws of the Current Refugee Regime

The issue remains to be discussed within the core conception of the mandate of the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Remaining at the center of the global refugee regime, UNHCR faces new challenges. Today, for example, most refugees tend to flee from violence and flagrant human rights violations—not necessarily from the threat of persecution, which is a key requirement according to the 1951 Refugee Convention.

This has resulted in confusion and lack of clarity regarding who qualifies for refugee status and what are the rights to which all refugees are entitled— issues left up entirely to states to interpret. To compound matters further, in the case of Syrian refugee crisis, the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq have never ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention. Now, more than ever, a robust and comprehensive discussion about the future of refugees, whose numbers will only increase with the worsening effects of climate change, is not only timely but necessary, given the tumultuous nature of international politics.

It is important to bear in mind that refugees can be a destabilizing factor, especially when displaced, alienated, and bitter persons among them are recruited into armed extremist factions. Many studies have shown that the absence of a protective and enabling environment is likely to render more young people vulnerable to racist ideologies and movements and ease the process of their recruitment into the ranks of radical groups like the Islamic State or al-Qaeda. The traditional method of relying on purely humanitarian remedies has proven counterproductive in the face of new influxes of refugees. There is a need for a new thinking that envisions relief and humanitarian aid as fundamentally linked to the granting of work permits to the refugees. To dwell solely on the conventional method of humanitarian aid, and to ignore the importance of wage-earning employment for the refugees, is to wear blinders.

Shifting Focus from Protection to Empowerment

The focus of the 1951 refugee protection regime should shift to new ways of dealing with displaced persons that take into account the self-interested reasoning of host countries and the concerns of their citizens regarding competition over jobs. This shift will help to eliminate risks to refugees’ personal security by reducing human smuggling and trafficking by land and sea. Some experts, such as Alexander Betts and Paul Collier, have offered solutions along the line of creating “spaces of opportunity” for the refugees through “special economic zones” that provide jobs, training, and education.

Helping refugees, I would argue, should begin with technical education and vocational training, coupled with a strategy focused on creating jobs immediately in economic zones from which both host societies and displaced Syrians can benefit. The need to work is inseparable from human security and thus crucial to preserving human dignity. The refugees’ right to legal employment makes good ethical and logical sense. Designing, for example, a vocational skills training program tailored to the needs of women refugees can significantly reduce the incidence of sexual trafficking and abuse. These projects offer a more plausible solution in the long term, not only because they will develop transferable skills that refugees can use in their countries of origin upon return, but also because they create monetary disincentives for refugees to emigrate to Europe in the first place.

Dr. Mahmood Monshipouri is a professor of international relations at San Francisco State University and he is also a visiting professor at UC-Berkeley, teaching Middle Eastern Politics, and editor, most recently, of Information Politics, Protests, and Human Rights in the Digital Age (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016).  For more on the perspectives provided here, see Mahmood Monshipouri, Claude Welch Jr., and Khashayar Nikazmrad, “Protecting Human Rights in the Era of Uncertainty: How Not to Lose the War against ISIS,” Journal of Human Rights Online version, July 28, 2016, available at <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14754835.2016.1205477>.

Whether the UN Security Council should address climate change is a highly politicized issue. But a more fundamental question has been lost in this debate—what exactly could the Council do about climate change?

Given growing concerns about the links between climate change, instability and conflict, it is no surprise that the issue has spilled over into the UN Security Council. Since 2007, the Council has conducted two formal and several informal (“Arria-formula”) sessions on the topic. Bringing the climate issue into the Council has been contentious: proponents, including several European member-states, small island developing states, and other vulnerable developing countries, have sought to use the Council’s agenda-setting power and inject a sense of urgency into global climate politics, particularly at moments when global progress on climate action seems stalled.

Opponents have raised a range of concerns, including longstanding objections to the Council’s composition and procedures; fears of stretching the Council’s mandate beyond recognition, such that anything could be regarded as a security issue; and concerns about negatively impacting the “legitimate” forum for climate discussions, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. These objections almost blocked a 2011 thematic debate on the issue, leading the Obama administration to rebuke reluctant Council members for “dereliction of duty”. Only informal sessions have been held since then. At the most recent, in May of this year, several member-states urged that the Council revisit the issue in formal session.

Too often lost in such political maneuvering is a fundamental question: what might the Council actually do on climate, peace and global security? Surveying the record, one finds a range of different ideas that have been floated by academics, advocates, and some individual member-states. These include relatively modest add-ons, such as keeping the Council apprised of how climate change affects current peacekeeping operations or developing better early-warning capabilities. Bolder roles have also been floated: engaging the Council in proactive, preventive diplomacy on emergent challenges such as competition for Arctic resources or water in international river basins, or even creating a climate analogue to the Responsibility to Protect. There have also been calls to inject the Council into complex political challenges for which no obvious institutional home exists within the UN system, such as the existential plight facing several small-island states and the challenge of climate-driven displacement and refugees.

There are real questions about whether the Council, as currently constituted, can play such roles productively. One basic challenge is how the Council manages information. Conceptually, early warning fits well with current Council efforts around issues such as famine and human rights emergencies. But in practice, past efforts to extend the gaze of early warning into new issue areas, such as conflict-related sexual violence, have met with opposition, narrow framing, and poor follow-through. There are also many practical challenges yet to be resolved, including how to effectively incorporate environmental variables into conflict-assessment tools, or even deciding which variables matter and by what mechanisms they operate. For an early-warning mechanism to have foreseen the role of drought in the Syrian conflict (a causal role about which there remains no consensus among scholars), it would have had to be able to see not just rainfall or run-off data, but also the water-policy choices of the Syrian regime and the impacts of declining rural subsidies on smallholder farmers.

Challenges facing the Security Council on climate change

Image credit: The White House/Wikimedia.

Even the seemingly straightforward exercise of informing the Council about aspects of climate change directly relevant to its ongoing activities around peacekeeping and fragile states has been challenging. The contentious 2011 session yielded a compromise that called on the Secretary-General to use his reporting function to keep the Council apprised about relevant “contextual information” on climate-conflict links. A review my colleagues and I conducted of 446 subsequent Secretary-General reports to the Council (through January 2016) found only 12 references linking climate change to some aspect of conflict or security (with 11 focused on Africa). Most of the content was highly generalized, noting general contextual trends such as urbanization, land tenure conflicts, or farmer-pastoralist tensions that might bear a climate signature. Even the handful of instances of specific reporting lacked the fine-grained subnational and temporal detail necessary for it to be of any operational or decision-making use. Climate-related references were also highly sporadic, with only one in 2012 and none in 2013.

A second challenge resides in the Council’s largely reactive nature (when it can agree to react at all). Conflict prevention falls squarely within the Council’s mandate, and the high monetary cost of peacekeeping operations creates a strong incentive for prevention. The concept notes circulated by Council chairs for the 2007 and 2011 thematic debates (the UK and Germany, respectively) stressed conflict prevention as a key rationale for conflict engagement on climate. But for interstate preventive diplomacy, such as might be needed in shared river basins, the Secretary-General’s office has generally been a more effective tool than the Council. And on intrastate conflict, the Council has historically been reluctant to take preventive action. Efforts beginning in 2016 to implement a ‘horizon scan’ briefing from the Secretariat, focused on instability and emergent conflict, revealed the great reluctance of many member-states to appear on the Council agenda as ‘fragile’.

A third problem is the tricky challenge of managing the political division of labor with the UNFCCC. Proponents of Council climate action have used past debates to try to jump-start sluggish climate diplomacy, even as opponents have warned about encroachment on or perturbation of the institutionalized process of global climate negotiations. Initial optimism around the Paris Agreement cooled such polarization, but was blunted by the Trump administration’s recent withdrawal from the accord. The deeper problem is that the Paris process seems to be half-heartedly engaging some of the critical challenges that would most resonate within the Council: blocking space for the Council while failing to really address the issues. On the looming problem of sea-level rise and the existential threat to small-island nations, the Paris Agreement’s provisions on loss and damage explicitly created an opening to address several relevant challenges, including early warning, emergency preparedness, slow-onset events, risk management, and the resilience of communities, livelihoods, and ecosystems (Article 8.4). This may limit political space for the Council on the issue of small-island statelessness, even as the weakness of the UNFCCC process on “liability and compensation” makes it a poor vehicle for serious movement on the problem. A similar dynamic of blunting political momentum through half-hearted response may be shaping up on climate-induced displacement; the UNFCCC’s 21^st Conference of the Parties authorized a task force to develop recommendations on how to address the issue, scheduled to make a preliminary report in 2018.

What can be done?

Given such challenges, it may be that the relevant question is not “What climate role for the Council?” but rather “How can climate be part of the process of transforming the Council into a more effective body for sustainable security?” A first step in that direction would be to improve the Secretary-General’s reporting function, as agreed to during the 2011 debate. The most useful information for the Council is probably neither localized crisis briefings nor long-range climate-change scenarios, but rather regional-scale, medium-term assessments. Working on those spatial and temporal scales is most likely to yield forward-looking initiatives that can be supported by those member-states that find themselves most directly affected or vulnerable, as in the case of the Integrated Strategy for the Sahel. The strategy stressed building long-term resilience as one of its three pillars, along with inclusive governance and managing cross-border threats. A Security Council briefing in this context, on links among climate trends, migration, and conflict across the region, was well-received for both its specificity and the backing it had from member states in the region.

A second step would be to challenge countries seeking a seat on the Council to articulate a specific vision of how the Council should move forward on the issue. Several aspirants for an elected seat have raised the issue in recent campaigns, but the question is also pertinent for those countries aspiring to a permanent seat on an expanded, reformed Council—notably, Japan, Germany, Brazil, and India. How, precisely, do they see the climate issue in relation to the Council’s mandate, with particular reference to preventive diplomacy, disaster vulnerability and displacement?

Finally, while it may seem challenging in the current political moment, a symbolic gesture from the five permanent members (P5) would acknowledge member-states’ multiple roles across the UN system. Done properly, this could help legitimize an active (but not overreaching) Council role as part of a system-wide response. During the 2011 debate, Nigeria noted the P5’s dual role: “Seated around the table are those who could encourage developed countries to implement their commitments to reducing emissions and supporting developing countries with the requisite technological and financial assistance to address climate change effectively.” Imagine the legitimizing value that would have resulted if the US-China climate deal of 2014 had identified conflict prevention as part of its rationale for cutting emissions. Going forward, such commitments could be incorporated into the Nationally Determined Contributions that states offer under the Paris Agreement, and as action on the Sustainable Development Goals.

The purpose of such measures is to begin to use climate engagements as a vehicle to transform the Council—into a body that is more capable of legitimate action, more proactive in peacebuilding and conflict prevention, and better able to take the long view of risks and responses.

Ken Conca is a Professor of International Relations at American University in Washington, DC. His most recent book is An Unfinished Foundation: The United Nations and Global Environmental Governance (Oxford University Press). A more detailed version of the arguments here may be found there, and also in Ken Conca, Joe Thwaites, and Goueun Lee, “Climate Change and the UN Security Council: Bully Pulpit or Bull in a China Shop?” Global Environmental Politics 17/2: 1-20. Conca has been a member of the Scientific Steering Committee on Global Environmental Change and Human Security (GECHS) and is a founding member of the UN Environment Programme’s Expert Advisory Group on Conflict and Peacebuilding. He is, with collaborator Geoffrey Dabelko, the 2017 recipient of the Al-Moumin Environmental Peacebuilding Award.

This article is part of the Remote Control Warfare series, a collaboration with Remote Control, a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group.

The use of security forces to protect merchant vessels from piracy has led to a rise in ‘floating armouries’: vessels that are used for weapons storage, often moored in international waters. This growing trend raises a number of concerns over security, oversight and transparency. 

From 2005 onwards, cargo ships traversing the seas off the coast of Somalia into the Gulf of Aden have become targets of maritime piracy.  One of the responses has been to station armed guards on the ships, or on support vessels travelling with the ships to protect them. On commercial ships these guards have generally been provided by Private Maritime Security Companies (PMSCs) with weapons owned by the PMSCs themselves or leased from governments or other PMSCs in the region.

PMSCs need to have storage for the weapons when not in use. One option is to store them in land-based armouries, the other is to store them in ‘floating armouries’. A new report by the Omega Research Foundation commissioned by the Remote Control project examines the issue of floating armouries and offers recommendations for how they could be regulated.

What are floating armouries and why are they used?

Floating armouries are ships that store weapons, ammunition and other equipment such as night vision goggles and body armour for use by PMSCs engaged in vessel protection. They also provide other logistics support including accommodation, food and medical supplies storage. They are typically commercially owned vessels, and are often anchored in international waters. These vessels are not purpose built, but ships that have been converted and retrofitted.

Due to the tightening of state regulation over the use of land based armouries, restrictions on weapons in some territorial waters, as well as the fees levied at PMSCs to move weapons through ports, PMSCs have increasingly turned towards floating armouries.

What are the issues?

Whilst PMSCs have dramatically reduced piracy off the coast of Somalia, the Omega Research Foundation’s report sheds light on an underexplored issue: the lack of regulation, oversight and security of floating armouries. It is not known how many floating armouries there are in operation – due to the lack of information on these vessels it is hard to verify their numbers. In 2012 a UN report detailed 18 floating armouries; other reports put the number at between 12 and 20 (See an industry newsletter and a Guardian article quoting the EU Naval Force). In September 2014 the UK Government published a list of floating armouries that UK PMSCs were licensed to use, stipulating 31 armouries. As this number only represents floating armouries licensed for use by UK companies, there may well be other armouries in operation.

In 2012 the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea highlighted concerns over the safety and security of floating armouries, citing the lack of national and international regulations. The Group stated:

This new and highly profitable business for PMSCs is uncontrolled and almost entirely unregulated, posing additional legal and security challenges for all parties involved.

Two years on there is still no international regulation and only limited national regulation. As the floating armouries are often moored in international waters, they operate in a ‘legal grey area’ with, in some cases, the only regulation coming from the states that register the vessels (the flag states). There are at least 3 states (Djibouti, Mongolia, and St Kitts and Grenadine) that give explicit approval for vessels to operate as floating armouries. Other states do have some regulation regarding the carrying of weapons on board ships but it mainly relates to PMSCs rather than floating armouries specifically.

Some of the vessels operating as floating armouries are flagged to countries that are on the Paris MoU or Tokyo MoU ‘black lists’. These black lists are derived from the Port State Control authority’s inspection of ships for compliance with international conventions and international law. Port State Control publishes an annual list evaluating the performance of flag states and assigning each a white, grey or black classification. The Omega Research Foundation has raised concerns that some floating armouries are flagged to states where there are serious concerns over the regulation of ships that fly under their flags.

There are also concerns over the construction and physical security standards of the floating armouries. None of the vessels currently used as floating armouries have been purpose built for that function. Existing vessels have been adapted, which means they may not have acceptable storage facilities for arms and ammunition. As a minimum, floating armouries should have an armoury contained within the structure of the ship and should have a secure entrance. Arms and ammunition should be stored separately, and should be kept in a weatherproof, ventilated and shelved environment.

What are the solutions?

Whilst states can introduce legislation to regulate floating armouries operating within their jurisdiction, the most effective regulation needs to be at an international level. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) as well as international trade bodies, such as the Security Association for the Maritime Industry (SAMI), should review current regulation and implement the necessary changes.

As a first step there should be an international in-depth study into the number of floating armouries currently in operation and the establishment of a central registry that contains information on the vessels used as floating armouries and the companies that operate them. The IMO or another international body should also review any existing national regulations and examples of best practice. Subsequent work should focus on establishing an international regulatory framework for floating armouries and an effective monitoring and compliance mechanism.

The Omega Research Foundation (@Omega_RF) is an independent UK-based research organisation dedicated to providing rigorous, objective, evidence-based research on the manufacture, trade in, and use of, military, security and police (MSP) technologies. Their report, ‘Floating Armouries: Implications and Risks’ is available here.

The Remote Control project is a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group that looks at the current developments in military technology and the re-thinking of military approaches to future threats.

Featured image: Offshore tug, the same kind of vessel used for floating armouries. Source: Flickr | Luc Van Braekel

Introduction

The international community is currently underperforming when it comes to integrating the environment into matters of peace and security. Climate change and contemporary armed conflicts are forcing a re-evaluation of this at times complex relationship but in general, the environment remains under-prioritised – as evidenced by its absence from Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But could the process towards the SDGs as a whole finally encourage greater consideration of the environment throughout the conflict cycle – as both a question of state security, and human security?

Goal 16 of the SDGs seeks to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. Like many other investigations before and since, a 2011 study by the World Bank clearly showed that conflict and insecurity hamper sustainable development. It would, therefore, have been unusual for peace and security not to be included in the SDGs. Russia nevertheless objected to their inclusion on the grounds that it would introduce an “artificial politicization” and that “…peace-building, rule of law and human rights have their own well-established intergovernmental processes”. For their part, NGOs were adamant that the SDGs, like peace itself, required the attainment and assurance of fundamental human rights. They would receive a major endorsement when Ban Ki-moon’s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons made “peace and effective, open and accountable institutions for all” one of their five key objectives for the SDGs.

Whither the environment?

The environment may be absent from SDG 16 but the path towards the SDGs should encourage governments and civil society to more fully consider the role that the environment plays throughout the conflict cycle. Image by Doug Weir.

Interpreted loosely, the targets comprising SDG 16 could relate reasonably well to some of the environmental dimensions of armed conflicts. However, the performance indicators currently being developed by a UN committee will introduce a level of specificity that could preclude this. A proposal that governments must record all conflict-related deaths is welcome, but what of ill health or lost livelihoods caused by conflict pollution or wartime environmental degradation? Similarly, the environment is absent from any indicator for the promotion of the rule of law and access to justice – for example, on land rights or resource management. For natural resources in conflict settings, the only directly relevant draft indicator is the requirement on governments to improve the recording of illicit financial flows.

On participatory rights, which are crucial elements of environmental human rights, the indicators simply require States to record the diversity of individuals in public institutions, rather than empowering communities to participate in environmental decision-making. Meanwhile, the goal of ensuring access to information – be it environmental or otherwise, will only be tested by measuring the rates of detention and arbitrary killings of media representatives and human rights defenders. Of environmental rights defenders, there is no mention.

Does this matter?

Naturally, some may argue that the environment is dealt with by the other SDGs, such as those dealing with terrestrial and marine ecosystems, chemicals or health. Yet here again, few of the proposed indicators under these SDGs relate specifically to armed conflict. But it is the environment’s absence from SDG 16 which is perhaps most symptomatic of the low priority afforded to the environment in matters of peace and security. This is a troubling oversight as UNEP has found that at least 40 per cent of all violent conflicts in the last 60 years have been linked to natural resources, resources that are set to be further degraded by climate change and increasingly intense natural disasters. During the development of the SDGs, this led UNEP to argue that the sound stewardship of “…resources, including access to information, inclusive decision-making, equitable benefit sharing, and rule of law are essential to mitigate these risks and help create resilient and peaceful societies.”

Is there a reason for the environment’s apparent exclusion from SDG 16? Reviewing the recommendations from many of the leading human rights and development NGOs that advocated for the inclusion of a strong SDG on peace and security, it’s clear that its environmental dimensions were low on their agendas; whereas for the environmental NGOs, attention was largely focused elsewhere – on marine life, forests or conservation. This siloing was unfortunate because current crises continue to highlight the importance of integrating the environment more fully into our thinking about the causes and consequences of conflicts.

Lessons from Syria on the environment and security

The Syrian crisis is a clear demonstration of why we must better integrate the environment into peace and security policy-making and practice. When researchers argued that climate change and an ensuing drought had played a role in creating the instability that led to the conflict in the run up to the Paris COP21 climate talks last year, the world’s media took note. For some, Syria was merely the latest stage in a process to securitise climate change, and in so doing help create a compelling state-centric narrative for global action. This was a process initiated by military think-tanks and which has now seen climate change defined as a “threat multiplier” – rather than a direct cause of conflict in and of itself. Meanwhile those opposed to the securitisation of climate change argue that this framing risks overwhelming humanitarian priorities such as adaptation, mitigation, resilience and justice for affected communities.

The attempt to link climate change with the Syrian conflict, as earlier with the conflict in Darfur, elicited a backlash from some climate scientists, particularly when public figures like Al Gore and Prince Charles promoted the idea. Opponents argued that the studies were speculative, that the data were incomplete and that the political context of the urgency behind the Paris deal was skewing interpretations. The scientific jury remains out, with some arguing that the link between climate and conflict is clear, others that it is yet to be conclusively proven based on the historical record. Studies have shown that the region has suffered a drought more intense than could be expected by natural variation alone but the data linking this to the outbreak of the conflict are less clear. Beyond the specifics of the Syrian conflict, it is inescapable that climate change is happening and that the effects that are predicted have the potential to negatively influence the socio-political conditions in affected countries. Therefore in all likelihood, climate change will interfere with the objectives set out in SDG 16.

Human displacement and migration allow the consequences of environmental problems associated with conflicts, climatic change and variability to be transmitted locally and regionally. This can translate into environmental consequences for neighbouring countries, as well as political instability for governments far removed conflict-affected areas. This is a pattern of connectivity that seems likely to become ever more apparent as climate change intensifies; as UNEP’s Disasters and Conflict Coordinator Oli Brown recently observed: “When you look to the root causes of migration, more often than not environmental change or mismanagement is in there somewhere.”

For Jordan and Lebanon, rapid urbanisation, fragile and resource-scarce ecosystems and huge refugee populations are combining to create environmental risks that threaten stability. As its population has surged in the wake of the Syrian conflict, Jordan has seen rapid increases in illegal timber collection, overgrazing and wildlife poaching. Levels of air pollution from vehicle and industrial emissions have risen and its waste management sector has been stretched by growing levels of hazardous waste. The government has made tackling these issues a priority so as to minimise threats to public health and environmental quality and defuse community grievances.

Within Syria, the precise extent of the damage to the resources upon which the civilian population depends for life and livelihoods is yet to be fully assessed, although early indications show that the environmental degradation caused by the conflict has been significant. When coupled with the pollution caused by the widespread destruction of urban and industrial areas, the collapse of environmental management and services and the future health and economic inequalities this will create, it seems inevitable that environmental quality and access to resources will strongly influence Syria’s chances of recovery and its eventual transition into a peaceful and inclusive society.

The jury may still be out on the precise role that climate change played in Syria but it seems impossible to exclude it as a risk factor for future conflicts. Climate aside, it’s clear that displacement and the direct environmental damage caused by the conflict within Syria will have repercussions for the goals and spirit of SDG 16. These are not problems unique to the Syrian conflict and serve to underscore the importance of the environmental dimensions not only of peace and security but also of sustainable development itself.

Sustainable development: not just a set of targets

That the proposed SDG 16 indicators risk failing to specifically address many of the environmental dimensions of armed conflicts and insecurity, be they on resource management, migration, human rights or environmental degradation, is unfortunate. All the more so because for many countries it will be conflicts that invariably present the greatest challenge to them achieving the SDGs.

But the true value of the SDGs is unlikely to be found in their rigid targets or indicators. Their greatest strength could instead be as a framework through which to understand and communicate the interconnectedness of all these themes. The path towards the SDGs should therefore encourage governments and civil society to more fully consider the role that the environment plays throughout the conflict cycle – from trigger to victim – and how the consequences of environmental change care little for national borders.

In this respect, while the SDG indicators may lack the precision necessary to fully articulate the environmental dimensions of peace and security, as a process the SDGs should serve to encourage the long-overdue mainstreaming of the environment in this field. However, because of the low prioritisation afforded to the environment across many sectors, but particularly in peace and security, there will inevitably be a temptation to present the environment as part of a traditional state-centric security threat, rather than a question of human security. While this could help increase visibility and engagement in the short-term, as with the securitisation of climate change, it could also risk ignoring the needs of the communities and individuals who bear the brunt of the environmental causes and consequences of conflicts.

Doug Weir manages the Toxic Remnants of War Project, part of a global coalition of NGOs advocating for a greater standard of environmental and civilian protection before, during and after armed conflict. The project is on Twitter: @detoxconflict

The Islamic State’s loss of the territory does not mean that has been defeated. Rather, it presents several new challenges to those trying to contain the threat of the Islamic State.

After months of a sustained, international military campaign against the organization, the Islamic State is now in retreat, relinquishing towns, territories and populations once under its control across Iraq and Syria. At its height, the organization was estimated to control or influence a territorial space between 12,000 to 35,000 square miles, areas approximating the size of Belgium or Jordan, respectively.

Though the crumbling of a self-proclaimed caliphate represents a victory in many ways to many different actors—the Assad Regime, the Iraqi government, the Russian government and the United States—IS’ significant loss of the territory and populations does not mean that the Islamic State has been defeated. Instead, the loss of territorial control presents several new challenges to those seeking to contain the IS threat.

The importance of territory in conflict

Today, as in previous civil wars, control of territory has fundamentally shaped the nature of conflict. Not only is territorial control a preliminary objective and launch pad for many rebel groups globally and historically, it also influences insurgent behavior in several significant ways. From shaping how rebels deploy violence, the targets of said violence, whether rebels provide some sorts of services or develop governing institutions, and the beneficiaries of these services, territorial control, or the lack thereof, is a profound shaper of conflict dynamics. As the Islamic State shifts from being in control of significant swathes of land and peoples, to a landless network of raiders, the organization’s behavior seems increasingly likely to change, and in some ways, has changed already.

In a recent paper published in the Journal of Politics, my co-author, Yu-Ming Liou, and I argue that the reason for this is that territorial control in and of itself is a military resource. Beyond simply influencing the politics and people in a region or town, the control of territory means the ability to defend and hold a place from counterinsurgent attack. The absence of the state is critical for rebels. With a space for themselves, free of enemy interference, insurgents can train and move around freely. They can begin unhindered propaganda campaigns that may have local or global reach. They can initiate contacts with supportive foreigners or foreign governments abroad. They can stash equipment and materiel for later use. They can recoup and recover in relative safety after a raid or ambush. Territorial control on its own serves to boost the military strength of an insurgent organization.

But territorial control is not simply about the acquisition of space: it frequently includes the acquisition of people, under control of the rebel group, but not a part of the insurgency. The relationship between rebels and civilians living within the territory rebels control are inherently intertwined, and as Mao famously quipped, civilians are the sea in which the insurgent fish should swim. Where territory is itself a military resource, civilians can also provide intelligence and information, medicine, technical expertise, weapons or financial aid, compliance, and importantly, recruits.

The resources civilians offer, however, are not always so easily won. Rebels may use coercion or violence to get what they wish from civilians, generating resentment and shrinking the pool of potential recruits and resources providers. On the other hand, insurgents can incentivize cooperation by limiting violence and predation of civilians, as well as providing goods or services, quasi-state institutions, education, health care, security and justice. When rebels control territory and civilians, they move from being roving bandits to stationary bandits, incentivized to provide some form of governance.

Thus, when rebels capture territory and control civilians, it generally affects their behavior in two key ways: rebel predation of civilians, and rebel governance to civilians. Strong rebels and rebels that control territory are less likely to rely on indiscriminate violence. They also tend to avoid terrorism. Similarly, given that most rebels want to eventually rule over the civilians they control as a legitimate sovereign, many insurgent groups are more likely to provide social services and develop governing institutions once they capture territory and populations. In fact, according to an original dataset on rebel education and health care provision, about one-third of all insurgencies provide some form of governance.

Among rebel groups that control territory, however, this figure almost doubles. Though not all rebel groups want to rule over all civilians living in the territory they capture (for instance, IS engaged in mass killing and genocide against the Yazidis, and allegedly offered Christians a chance to pay taxes or flee), for those civilians who rebels view as being future citizens of the state its creating or leading, the foundations of governance are frequently established in the roots of war. As an example, those who lived within IS territory claimed they were living in a “golden era,” better than the governance that had preceded the Islamic State’s control. These services ranged from running utilities and hospitals, to building schools and developing a curriculum that comports with the Islamic State’s ideological precepts.

The Islamic State and territory

Image credit: Dying Regime/Flickr.

Over the past several months, the Islamic State has consistently lost territory across both Iraq and Syria. Facing incursions from the Iraqi military as well as the Syrian government and its allies, the Islamic State’s grasp on space and domination over people has diminished. As a result of this change, several IS behaviors may also begin to shift, and the lack of territory does not correspond to a lack of threat.

The governance IS provides will likely dissipate. It is challenging to provide governance without some form of territorial control, and with the Islamic State on the run from military forces bearing down, IS will increasingly face challenges to providing services within the remaining spaces it controls. Though the lack of services for civilians may not seem particularly consequential, clean water and electricity are essential for healthful and hygienic living and the practice of more advanced medical treatment, like surgeries.

The rise of the Islamic State and its initial popularity was also tied to the lack of sufficient goods and services—a lack of governance by the Iraqi government. Without the Islamic State’s organization and provision of goods, people’s needs might not only go underserved, triggering a humanitarian crisis, but the governance vacuum could be filled by equally ruthless and dangerous actors, and terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman has suggested that a blow to the Islamic State could be a boon to Al-Qaeda operatives in the region. Foreign governments and domestic actors ought to be acutely aware of making the day-to-day living of civilians as normal as possible, as quickly as possible.

Second, civilians may increasingly find themselves as the targets of violence, rather than state military or security forces. The underground, clandestine nature frequently associated with a lack of territorial control makes IS movements harder and harder to track, and has been linked to terrorist violence. As an example, the Islamic State, which does not territorial control in Europe, typically relies on attacks on civilian targets by affiliates as a means of attack there. Just last week, the Islamic State killed over a dozen people in Barcelona by using a car to mow down a busy street of pedestrians (a style of attack replicated by white supremacist terrorists in the United States).

On the other hand, in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State has been able to rely on conventional or guerrilla tactics to achieve its goals. Consequently, the lack of territorial control and potential increase in the use of terrorism by the Islamic State, civilians may increasingly find themselves in the crossfire of IS attacks. Already, Though the Islamic State endeavors to survive and endure, and can do so by moving its operations online and underground despite territorial losses, it nevertheless keeps the image of the caliphate alive by repurposing videos and media that “depict the ­Islamist state it sought to establish as an idyllic realm destined to be restored.”

The Islamic State might also create or be given some form of Just like controlling territory in the country a rebel group seeks to one day rule, a sanctuary or foreign base is also a safe space that confers military benefits to the insurgency. However, when rebels have foreign sanctuary, they are removed from the civilians they might some day hope to govern, and incentives to moderate their behavior declines. Ultimately, then, when rebels control territory separated from those they wish to govern, it has all the benefits of acquiring territory, without any of the costs (or benefits) of also acquiring civilians. In our paper, we find that when civilians have access to a sanctuary in a foreign territory, they are more likely to engage in violence against civilians, killing over twice as many civilians than the average rebel group.

Conclusion

In sum, as IS transitions from controlling territory to a more clandestine network, civilians’ lives and livelihoods remain in the crosshairs. Weak rebel organizations and rebel organizations that lack territorial control are more likely to engage in terrorism and indiscriminate violence.

Civilians could lose access to critical goods and infrastructure services, thereby putting them at risk for a humanitarian crisis. Unbound by territorial space, IS could prioritize deadly terrorist attacks outside the realm of Syria and Iraq, focusing instead on Europe and North America, in addition to the Middle East and North Africa. Military forces may have wrested the Islamic State from its self-proclaimed caliphate, but the battle may be far from over.

Megan A. Stewart, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Transnational and International Security at American University’s School of International Service. Her research lies at the nexus of two distinct areas: civil war processes and state formation. Megan is currently completing her book manuscript, Governing for Revolution, which explains variation in rebel governance and incorporates both quantitative and qualitative methods, including the creation and analysis of an original dataset, elite interviews held in Lebanon, and archival research and fieldwork conducted in East Timor, Australia and the United Kingdom. In 2016, her paper “Civil War as State-Building” received honorable mention for the Best Paper Award by APSA Conflict Processes Section and is forthcoming at International Organization. Her research has been published at Conflict Management and Peace Science and the Journal of Politics, and has also been featured in the Washington Post, Political Violence at a Glance, and the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS).

by Amira Armenta

In Colombia there are many regions where poverty and the absence, or weak presence, of the state has facilitated the emergence of violence by armed groups. Among these are the Afro-Colombian communities of the Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó in the Urabá region

The Urabá is located in the Northwest of Colombia, near the border with Panama. It is a region of great biodiversity, rich in minerals, oil, water, and timber, amongst other natural resources. Urabá is also one of the regions with the highest poverty rates, and lowest rates of schooling in the country. The region is inhabited by many indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians, who are the traditional owners of hundreds of thousands of hectares of land. Collective ownership of these territories is supported by Colombian Law 70 of 1993.

With the rise of drug trafficking in the country in the 80s, the region became a point of export of illegal narcotic drugs. At the same time, the illegal import of weapons soared to meet the growing demand of Colombian armed groups. Various increasingly powerful criminal groups (known as ‘paramilitaries’) began to invest money earned from their illegal activities in profitable lawful sectors such as the agribusiness – palm oil, bananas and cattle. In a few years Urabá went from being a marginal and sparsely populated region to a place where settlers converged, and multinational corporations and armed groups of all stripes were vying for control of territory and a stake in the business.

In this context, poor rural communities such as bold”>Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó were sucked into the violence unleashed between the different armed groups. As the collective ownership of land was an obstacle to the economic interests of the new sectors (farmers and landowners whose funds often had an illicit origin), these groups used threats and harassment to banish the native people and appropriate their land. This violence and banishment was possible given the state of marginalization of the population, totally unprotected by the central government. Large palm oil plantations installed since then in the area have been financed largely with the laundered drug money. They use land violently obtained by the forced displacement.

Since the 1990s, the Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó communities have specifically been the target of violence and subsequent displacement. They have lost their few belongings and have helplessly seen the powerful economic groups systematically seize their land.

The Colombian government has recently begun a process of returning land to the inhabitants of the river basins of Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó and reparation for victims of violence. The move is encouraging, but it might not be enough to solve the problems. The history of violence can repeat itself any moment, as long as the causes that led to the banishment and violence are not addressed and those responsible are not punished. Standards of justice must apply, not just to those still operating outside the law, but also to those who now operate legally but whose past is murky.

Whilst the Colombian government fails to fully develop social development programs (including education, health and infrastructure) and sustainable economic development policies to assist marginalised communities, the people of Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó will remain poor, uneducated, vulnerable, and at risk of lose their territories once again.

Amira Armenta is a Researcher with the Drugs & Democracy Programme of the Transnational Institute (TNI), with a particular focus on Colombia.

Image source: Yuliam Gutierrez

Some Useful References

Murder in Curvaradó: http://www.cipcol.org/?p=682  Bajo Atrato

UNHCR on the situation of Colombian Afro Descendants: http://www.acnur.org/t3/fileadmin/scripts/doc.php?file=t3/fileadmin/Documentos/RefugiadosAmericas/Colombia/EN/Colombia_Situation_-_2011_International_Year_of_Afrodescendants

Alternative Developments, Economic Interests and Paramilitaries in Uraba : http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/brief27fin.pdf

El caso de Jiguamiandó y Curvaradó: http://www.lasillavacia.com/historia-invitado/22660/yamile-salinas-abdala/el-caso-de-jiguamiando-y-curvarado-estrategia-criminal

Coca y violencia en el Chocó BiogeográficoL: http://www.tni.org/es/archives/archives_armenta_cocachoco

Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz – Jiguamiandó y Curvaradó: http://justiciaypazcolombia.com/-Consejo-comunitario-de-Jiguamiando-

Las tierra de Curvaradó de nuevo invadidas – Verdad Abierta : http://www.verdadabierta.com/paraeconomia/tierras/2944-las-tierras-de-curvarado-de-nuevo-invadidas

Bajo Atrato se resiste a la violencia y a la pobreza: http://www.elcolombiano.com/BancoConocimiento/B/bajo_atrato_se_resiste_a_la_violencia_y_a_la_pobreza/bajo_atrato_se_resiste_a_la_violencia_y_a_la_pobreza.asp

As activists around the world participate in a Global Day of Action against criminalisation of drug use, evidence from the multi-billion dollar War on Drugs in Colombia suggests that militarized suppression of production and supply has displaced millions of people as well as the problem, not least to Mexico. The wrong lessons are being exported to Central America and beyond, but a groundswell of expert and popular opinion internationally is calling for alternative approaches to regulating the use and trade in drugs.

The arrest of the Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman on 22 February was cheered by US and Mexican officials as the most important success against narco-trafficking since the killing of Pablo Escobar two decades earlier. Designated in 2013 by the Chicago Crime Commission as the ‘public enemy number one’ and featured among the ‘most powerful’ by Forbes, he was the leader of the Sinaloa Federation. This is considered the most powerful drug trafficking group worldwide, responsible for around 25% of the cocaine that enters the US market and enjoying connections in various continents.

Mexican UH-60 Black Hawk lands in the Zocalo, Mexico City’s main square, 15 September 2009. (Source: Wikipedia)

If the ‘War on Drugs’ logic is followed, the event should mark the beginning of the end of drug-related violence in Mexico. But the lessons from the elimination of Pablo Escobar and the defeat of the Medellín (and later Cali) cartels in Colombia suggest otherwise. Whether El Chapo continues to run operations from jail, full leadership is assumed by the remaining commander, or the group breaks into smaller factions, the drug business is likely to survive.

What could be reinforced is the trend to fragmentation already in place, which does not necessarily means less violence, at least in the short and medium term, and could give birth to a decentralized and networked drug business. In this sense, Mexico could well be now where Colombia was 15-20 years ago.

Colombia’s success narrative

Despite their different insertion into the global political economy of drugs, both countries are remarkable examples of militarized approaches to the drug war promoted by the US in Latin America (and beyond). The focus is almost entirely on the supply side: criminalization, eradication and aggressive enforcement with the aim to put a halt to the global supply of illegal drugs. The burden is mostly assumed by countries of production and transit that are evaluated on an annual basis against compliance with those prescriptions.

The terms of the debate about this issue have until recently been limited and based on partial evidence in at least two aspects. Success is measured by the figures of crops eradication, detentions and seizures of drugs, not by net impact on the trade (drug availability and market prices). And the consequences in violence, violations of human rights, marginalization, corruption and institutional failure, have been exclusively attributed to illegal drugs and organized crime and not to the war on drugs itself. Fortunately, those terms are changing and a range of new voices, including at highest political levels, are joining a necessary and urgent discussion.

Colombia has undertaken an amazing journey in this regard. Once criminalized in the international arena through its identification with the drug trade, in recent years it has been promoted as the brightest example of success in the drug war. The narrative of success is based on two main elements: the defeat of the big cartels in the 1990s and Plan Colombia in the 2000s.

However, the story has critical under-reported angles. What followed the demise of Medellin and Cali was not elimination of the drug trade but the decentralization and fragmentation of the market into around 300 smaller, flatter and networked groups. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – and, to a lesser extent, National Liberation Army (ELN) insurgents and United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitaries – furthered their involvement in the drug business and provided the armed ‘muscle’ in order to finance their nation-wide expansions.

Moreover, the biggest cocaine profits shifted from Colombia to Mexico, contributing to the financial and armed power of its drug trafficking groups as the smaller rings and armed actors in Colombia lacked the power, contacts and/or will to control international logistics and operations, not to mention distribution in the US. The vacuum was filled by the Mexican cartels that established a direct buying presence in Colombia (and later Peru), logistic bases in the Caribbean and Central America for transportation, and distribution networks in the US market.

Plan Colombia

The largest counter-drugs programme ever launched, Plan Colombia was funded by the US with more than $7 billion to conduct massive aerial spraying of illicit crops and provide equipment and training to the Colombian armed forces.

The focus of Plan Colombia was counter-insurgency against the FARC, particularly after the US Congress unblocked in 2002 the use of counter-drug funds for counter-terrorism. The group was weakened by increased state military power and mobility, and is currently involved in peace talks with the government. But it retains 8,000 combatants and has increasingly relied on urban militias. More importantly, despite the propaganda, the FARC was never the only (nor main) group involved in drug trafficking.

The AUC paramilitaries had a mixed criminal-political character from their beginnings. Born out of an array of self-defence groups and narco-trafficking interests, these two ‘souls’ coexisted for years but the drug trade eventually prevailed. The demobilization of more than 31,000 AUC combatants in 2006 was immediately followed by the emergence of 30 new criminal groups that drew membership from former AUC members and mid-level commanders and sought (and eventually won) control of cultivation and trade in areas and routes formerly under paramilitary control.

With an estimated initial membership of 4,000 members, these new criminal groups later expanded throughout the territory and are now present in 17 out of 32 departments. Those groups have never been a unified project but an array of decentralized criminal networks. Infighting and shifting alliances are the norm among them and with sectors of the FARC and the ELN also involved in drug trafficking. According to the Colombian police, they were responsible for half the total murders committed in 2010.

Uncounted costs

The Colombian success in the war on drugs has been partial at best and come at a high price. Taking the accumulated figures of the US International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, around 2 million hectares have been fumigated to eradicate crops since 2000. Massive herbicide spraying destroyed coca, but also livelihoods and protected natural areas, and impacted food security, health and the environment. The complex marginalization problems of rural communities that resort to coca as a livelihood strategy were addressed through securitization and criminalization (coca farmers have often been identified with the FARC). The result, for many, was forced displacement and further vulnerability. Cultivation expanded to new areas and departments, and fragmented as a result.

The levels of violence have decreased slightly nowadays, but the homicide rate stayed at 32 for 100,000 in 2013, well above Mexico in its worst year of violence (2011, with 24 for 100,000). Also in 2013, between 140,000 and 219,000 persons (depending on the sources) were forcibly displaced in Colombia. Those figures are lower than in the past but nonetheless immense and add to a total of 6 million people forcibly displaced since 1985. The specialized agency Insight Crime interprets the current high incidence of this phenomenon in the Pacific regions and intra-urban settings as an indicator of displacement by criminal –not political- violence.

Mexico’s War on Drugs

Regardless of the real situation on the ground, those policies (and apparently, the high levels of popular support enjoyed by then Colombian president Alvaro Uribe) inspired President Felipe Calderón to launch an all-out war against drugs in Mexico in 2007. Around 100,000 soldiers and thousands of marines were deployed to fight the cartels in an effort to overcome the problems of corruption and ineffectiveness of the police forces, a policy later backed by the US under the Merida Initiative. The strategy got results, with relevant high and mid-level commanders of drug trafficking groups captured or killed, and seizures of illegal drugs soaring amidst the crackdown.

Mexican Special Forces with Barrett M82 sniper rifles. (Source: Wikipedia)

But the destabilization of the drug market triggered an escalation of violence. Violent competition for power erupted within the groups and coalitions as leaders were eliminated, coupled with fierce battles for territorial control among groups. The response against the state scaled up with the cartels creating militarized wings and using sophisticated military weaponry and tactics to fight the military and the police. The process of fragmentation and decentralization accelerated and the six big cartels of 2006 have split into around 15 today, coupled with a diversification of transnational criminal activities and soaring incidences of kidnapping and extortion. The Sinaloa Federation and the Zetas remain the most powerful cartels but have also suffered splits and setbacks.

More than 60,000 people have died and 26,000 ‘disappeared’ in just six years. The formerly respected military have been accused of grave human rights violations including extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances. More than 4,000 complaints for human rights violations by military personnel were filed in 2006-2010 This was more than the total figure for the previous 15 years.

Mexico has come under close scrutiny by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights and other international institutions. On June 12, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions warned about unacceptable levels of violations to the right to life and impunity. Although recognizing some positive steps by the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, he warned that “a heavy-handed military approach is unlikely to improve the situation” and what is needed is “systematic, holistic and comprehensive strengthening of the rule of law”.

As in Colombia, the Mexican victims of violence face further victimization as the government and sectors of the media dismiss them as criminals. Families and civil society groups claiming for justice may become targeted themselves. Unabated violence and institutional failure are the factors behind the emergence of armed self-defence groups, first in Michoacán and Guerrero and currently in around 10 states, as civilians take up arms to face lawlessness and fight the cartels (and sometimes corrupt authorities). This adds a new layer of armed actors whose evolution may not be easily put under control.

Challenging the Colombian success narrative

In Colombia, and later in Mexico, the militarized drug wars have proved ineffective in halting the drug trade but their impact is hugely negative on security and human rights, development and governance. While marginalization feeds the illegal economy, the securitized responses criminalize communities and add abuses and institutional failure to the problem of exclusion. The focus on the military also delays the hugely needed efforts to establish functioning justice systems and effective rule of law. Meanwhile, the drug business learns and adapts, moving from strict hierarchies to networked configurations.

Despite those evidences, growing international debates about drug policies and a shifting internal public opinion, the US continues to promote a securitized approach to drugs that is most evident now in Central America. The use of Colombia as a symbol of success for Mexico and others, and as an actual ‘proxy’ to provide support in counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency to third parties including West Africa, should raise some basic questions about the premises, effectiveness and potential consequences of those policies.

This month, the West African Commission on Drugs – an expert panel convened by Kofi Annan and chaired by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo – has called for decriminalization of drug use and to “avoid militarisation of drug policy and related counter-trafficking measures, of the kind that some Latin American countries have applied at great cost without reducing supply.”

This potentially brings West Africa into line with the Organisation of American States, which in a report of May 2013 proposed “alternative legal and regulatory regimes” for tackling drugs, starting with cannabis”. Uruguay has already decriminalized cannabis and Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos, re-elected this month, has at times advocated drug policy reform. Enrique Peña Nieto has recently called on the US to start an open debate and a revision of ‘failed’ hemispheric policies whose outcome has been the rise of drug production and consumption.

There are growing calls internationally to open a global debate over drug use and the policies needed to address it, including addressing demand in consumer countries. No less a figure than Sir William Patey, British Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2010 to 2012, has called for legalization of the heroin trade as the war on drugs in Afghanistan fails to address the complex problems at the roots of opium cultivation. Dozens of high profile British individuals and organisations, including the Prison Governors Association, have also called for decriminalization of drug use.

The debate seems to be reaching a tipping point as the numbers and diversity of the sceptical and critical voices grow worldwide. Now it is the turn of policy makers to listen and act.

Mabel González Bustelo is a journalist, researcher and international consultant specialized in international peace and security, with a focus on non-state actors in world politics, organized violence, conflict and peacebuilding. You can follow her at her blog The Making of War and Peace, her webpage, and Twitter (@MabelBustelo).

Following the 1998 peace agreement, Northern Ireland has been promoted as a model for peacemaking. Human rights discourse played a role as a cause and cure of the conflict.

Since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the Northern Irish conflict has captivated imaginations far beyond the island. Following the 1998 peace agreement, the region has been internationally promoted as a model for peace-making. Politicians from the region have shared wisdom of the Northern Ireland peace process in far-flung countries in conflict, including the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Some of the lessons exported from Northern Ireland’s peace process are general prescriptions, such as the necessity of engaging with enemies or the need for multi-party talks to include even the smallest parties. Broader lessons promoted about Northern Ireland’s peace process are claims about the role of human rights in conflict resolution. During the peace process, a popular history emerged with rights—political, economic, and human— occupying a central role as a cause and cure of the conflict.

Human Rights as Political Narrative

The broad outlines of this narrative are: after partition in 1921, the new state in Northern Ireland systematically denied civil and economic rights to Catholics and maintained Protestant dominance. In the late 1960s, when peaceful civil rights demands were met with both loyalist and state violence and state reforms failed, the republican movement was forced into armed struggle. During the conflict, the British state engaged in human rights violations, further compromising the legitimacy of UK governance. In the late 1990s, republicans, unionists, and the British state settled the conflict by agreeing to new political institutions that ensured equal rights for all.

However, human rights lessons from Northern Ireland’s peace process are not quite as tidy as this narrative suggests. My longstanding ethnographic and historical research in the region suggests caution about the comforting certainties of this causal account. In the 1960s, grassroots advocates protested that nationalists’ civil rights were systematically undermined since partition, and throughout the conflict, “first generation” rights to speech and association, or freedom from torture, were violated and remain deeply contentious. At the same time, human rights were absorbed into the conflict, and became another arena for ethnopolitical contest. In the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), an explicit commitment to human rights was envisioned for the new political arrangements. Yet as the agreement was implemented, rights politics have often been vehicles for the claims of nationalists and unionists, rather than universal human subjects.

Ethnopolitics and Human Rights

“Time for Peace” mural, Whiterock Road, Belfast. Image available under the GNU Free Documentation License via Wikimedia Commons.

Since the GFA, the tendency to argue ethnopolitical conflicts in terms of human rights has intensified, to the detriment of both wronged parties and broader understandings of human rights. A compelling example of how human rights were an incomplete solution to the conflict emerged early in the post-GFA era, in 2001, when a dispute in Ardoyne, north Belfast, resulted in shocking, violent loyalist protests at the Holy Cross Primary school (a Catholic girls’school). In June 2001, loyalists from the Glenbryn estate began picketing Holy Cross Primary School in nationalist Ardoyne, north Belfast. The school entrance was located just on the Glenbryn side of a famous “peace line.” Police in riot gear were deployed to protect small girls as they walked to school past lines of enraged adults. The dispute continued for four months, with violent conflicts during the summer break and a resumption of the pickets when the new term began in the autumn. Riots spread throughout north Belfast that autumn and winter, along with attacks on children travelling to other schools.

Families of the distressed children eventually backed an unsuccessful challenge of police conduct under the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000, and under Articles 3, 8, 13, and 14 of the European Convention. That case, P.F. and E.F. v. the United Kingdom (Application no. 28326/09), was eventually ruled inadmissible by the European Court of Human Rights. Its long legal journey ended in 2010, when the European declared that, horrific as the protests were, there was no evidence of European convention breach.

The dispute and legal proceedings very nearly derailed the new Human Rights Commission formed under the GFA.  In 2002-3, six members resigned or withdrew from the commission, citing multiple reasons related to the commission’s lack of authority and resources, its approach to drafting a Bill of Rights, and, most notably, its approach to handling the Holy Cross protests. Although the commission as a whole voted not to become involved, its casework committee committed the commission to supporting the families’ lawsuit. Individual commissioners took contradictory public positions and became increasingly divided. Meanwhile, the commission was perceived as part of an ethnopolitical conflict rather than as public advocates for either the protection of vulnerable people or fundamental rights.

The Holy Cross protest was not resolved by human rights institutions or advocacy; some might argue that it has never been resolved. The situation revealed several problematic dimensions of treating human rights as a cure for conflict. One difficulty is that human rights laws concern the conduct of state actors. Paramilitary organizations, neighborhood associations, and transnational corporations do not sign human rights treaties.

Human Rights in the Good Friday Agreement

Another issue making it difficult for human rights law or advocacy to provide a resolution to conflict was how the GFA itself situates human rights principles in relation to power-sharing as a means to manage conflict. One innovation of the GFA is that it makes human rights central to the settlement, with the entirety of section 6 devoted to “Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity.” However, the GFA is more strongly oriented by political scientist Arend Lijphart’s consociational model. This model prescribes the management of conflict through power sharing among parties defined in ethnic or communal terms. Thus, the GFA situates human rights within a broader logic that privileges collective political rights. This conceptual maneuver mirrors the way political rhetoric and everyday life absorb human rights claims into regional ethnopolitics, rather than creating a transformative alternative to ethnopolitics.

In the Holy Cross conflict, protagonists framed the dispute in terms of collective rights and alleged that these rights were being differentially allocated by the state. Families of the girls argued that the protests subjected them to inhuman and degrading treatment—violations of their human rights. Furthermore, they said, police did not use force to stop the protests because the girls were Catholic, but they would have ended any such protest by nationalists. Loyalists claimed that free assembly was an unconditional right, irrespective of sectarian content or whether violence might be a consequence.

Unfortunately, the kinds of conflicts and challenges for human rights politics raised in the Holy Cross conflict are neither unusual nor uncommon in Northern Ireland. For example, in Donaldson v. the United Kingdom (Application no. 56975/09) the European Court of Human Rights refused to hear the complaint of a republican prisoner that his human rights were violated when the prison service did not allow him to wear a lily (a symbol of the republican struggle for a unified Ireland) outside his cell. Disputes over rights to display emblems may appear frivolous outside the region, but they are part of a broader process, in which human rights laws and institutions have been insufficient to resolve the disputes that emerge from Northern Ireland’s longstanding political conflict.

Enduring Lessons and the Everyday Life of Rights

In my 2014 monograph, I explore at length how rights politics have often functioned war by other means over time, rather than providing a comprehensive resolution to conflict. I conclude that advocacy such as the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality movement have been more transformative in human rights terms than attempts to balance ethnopolitical rights. This cautionary point about how human rights politics have been received, reinterpreted, and transformed in the Northern Ireland context is not intended to dismiss the peace process’ significant achievements, including the profound diminution of political violence, paramilitary demobilizations, and decommissioning.

Nevertheless, the successes of the process also require recognition that throughout the fitful implementation of the GFA, political polarization intensified, past violence and political symbols have been repeatedly contested, and riots surrounding parades and symbolic matters like flags have become dangerous and costly recurrent events, intimating, for some, a return to conflict. Violence casts a long shadow across the present peace; prosecutions and re-investigations of past murders and atrocities continue, recent killings like the murder of Kevin McQuigan last summer destabilize power-sharing institutions, and ministers continue to warn of resurgent paramilitary activity – such as a recent upsurge in bomb attacks.

Understanding the role of human rights in everyday politics in both the past and present is necessary for making nuanced claims for human rights advocacy and law in conflict resolution. Northern Ireland’s tremendous reduction in violence must not be dismissed, but it is important to recognize that the settlement also sustains a form of ethnopolitics that is not always congruent with the goals of human rights advocacy. As the politics of the conflict continue to structure the settlement, it is fair to ask how transformative human rights politics have been. Such an approach can make us conscious of perilous conditions that constrain the present fragile peace, and highlight achievements that are durable and transferrable for the future.

Dr. Jennifer Curtis is Honorary Fellow in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author of Human Rights As War By Other Means:  Peace Politics in Northern Ireland, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Her work focuses on how grassroots social movements appropriate and alter rights advocacy and law. She has conducted long-term ethnographic research in Belfast, Northern Ireland and in the United States.  She is currently completing an ethnographic monograph on race, sexuality, and civil rights in red state America, based on fieldwork in Missouri. The book explores the local and national significance of #BlackLivesMatter, movements for LGBT equality, and anti-equality movements, within the broader historical context of racialized violence, slavery, and inequality in the American South.

Historically, permanent members of the UN Security Council have variously rejected the idea that it was the proper venue to address international cooperation on climate change. The notable cooperation between China and the United States to secure the Paris Agreement, however, may signal a greater openness to UNSC climate securitization, including the creation of a UNSC-enforced Climate Court.

Paris and Binding-Voluntary Climate Obligations

The UNFCCC was finalized at the 1992 Rio Summit amidst significant North/South contestation. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol codified this arrangement with legally binding obligations for the global North, and no clear schedule for obligations for the global South. The US Senate made it clear, however, that it would not agree to treaty obligations that exempted the emerging economies. This, coupled with the continued refusal by the developing world to accept legal obligations, produced an entrenched diplomatic gridlock.

Initiated by the voluntary 2009 Copenhagen Accord, the 2011 Durban Platform saw agreement on the need for obligations “applicable to all,” which framed the 2015 negotiations that culminated in Paris this past December.

Image of closing ceremony of the twenty-first session of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, December 2015. Image by UN Photos.

Agreed by a consensus of 196 nations at the 21^st Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, the Paris Agreement (COP 21) provides no legally binding emissions reduction obligations. However, it did produce a hybrid agreement (with a mix of voluntary and binding obligations) that is applicable to all parties (breaking the firewall between developed and developing states) for the post-Paris climate regime.

The architecture is remarkably simple; all states are asked to volunteer the emissions targets they are able to meet, and then agree to be bound by transparency obligations and to take stock of their commitments at regular intervals. These legal responsibilities provide a ratchet mechanism for states to increase ambition in the knowledge their competitors’ commitments will also be monitored.

The Paris Agreement creates a solid foundation upon which to build a strong climate regime because it assumes that all states finally share an interest in participating in the reduction of global carbon emissions.

Frustration, Securitization, and the Judicial Route to Climate Obligations

In response to the frustration of many years of gridlock, norm entrepreneurs have argued that the security threat from climate change is sufficiently large that we should impose obligations on uncooperative polluters. The international community should, in other words, set aside traditional notions of sovereignty (not unlike the Responsibility to Protect) and impose international obligations on the domestic regulatory policies of nation states.

With multilateral negotiations unable to allocate a suitable distribution of climate rights and responsibilities, numerous proposals have argued that we should delegate that legislative authority to international courts.

Bolivia, for example, proposes a Climate Justice Tribunal that punishes climate criminals for their historic carbon emissions. It would strenuously enforce the “common but differentiated responsibilities” approach of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. As such, China and the other high-emitting emerging economies would remain exempt from prosecution.

There are a number of groups calling for the crime of Ecocide to be included in the Rome Statute of the ICC. This mechanism would seek to prosecute individual corporations, and potentially states, for environmental damage and presumably excessive carbon emissions. Jurisdiction over corporations garners support for this initiative from many in the environmental movement, but as it would apply equally to state-owned enterprises in the developing world this amendment is unlikely to be ratified by two thirds of the ICC membership. Crucially, of course, the largest carbon emitters (the United States and China) are not parties to the ICC.

As an alternative to contentious cases, the ICJ may be called upon to provide advisory opinions at the request of the UN General Assembly. In theory, this route may offer valuable clarification of general principles of international law, but advisory opinions are not considered binding, perhaps especially on great powers.

The geopolitical reality ignored by these proposals is that, unless states consent to be bound, the only existing international institution with the power to impose binding obligations on all states and enforce them in a credible manner is the UNSC.

Climate Securitization and UNSC Legislation

While unable to force states to ratify entire treaties, the UNSC is able to impose binding obligations on the global community as a response to threats to international peace and security. This ability to act as a climate legislator offers a solution to the horizontal nature of the international legal order, if the P-5 can agree to securitize climate obligations.

Much of the gridlock of climate diplomacy has been a result of the US and China disagreeing on an equitable distribution of responsibility for addressing climate mitigation. As such, the Paris Agreement represents considerable diplomatic efforts to overcome calcified negotiating positions between these major powers.

It is worth noting that Russia remains a UNSC wild card on climate change. Kyoto offered Russia an allocation far in excess of its post-Soviet needs and the recent Russian INDC voluntary pledge is to reduce carbon emission 30% below a 1990 baseline. A conservative assessment that they are currently at 35% below baseline suggests a weak commitment to mitigation.

However, Russian leadership in reducing the production of oil within the G-20 may become a necessary condition for similar coordination among OPEC states. Credible coordination of global production quotas is increasingly a high priority of Russian foreign policy, as it is for the future of the climate regime.

If the P-5 could agree on a suitable regulatory standard, obstacles to G-7 and NATO members accepting binding obligations would be greatly reduced. If the G-20 could be persuaded to voluntarily accept this proposed agreement, this would represent 76 percent of global carbon emissions and the combined market power of 85 percent of global GDP.

Forced to respond to an unanticipated climatic disaster the interests of the P-5 could align even further to initiate an institutional response to the crisis. Although doing so may stretch its delegatory powers, to increase the legitimacy of any UNSC climate legislation, it could, and perhaps should, create a Climate Court to address non-compliance within the post-Paris climate regime.

A UNSC-enforced Climate Court

Created by the UNSC, a legitimate and effective Climate Court would benefit from (1) compulsory jurisdiction; (2) a specialized judiciary able to digest complex scientific evidence and supported by issue-area expert advisors; and (3) legal standing for both state and non-state actors to challenge the non-compliance of state obligations.

• Compulsory jurisdiction is rare in international law but in theory as the cost of legal obligations grow, so do incentives to shirk responsibility. States making good faith sacrifices to comply with specific obligations will only support strong enforcement mechanisms as long they see standards enforced on everyone. The UNSC has more tools than any other international institution to credibly ensure the enforcement of international legal obligations.
• When environmental disputes arise, a scientifically literate judiciary is better able to weigh the importance of scientific evidence among competing factors: economic, human rights, security, etc… In the same way that complex biotechnology litigation requires very specific judicial expertise, so will transboundary climate disputes.
• Regarding standing, the potential fallout from a weaker state pursuing litigation against a great power is significant. Allowing non-state actors standing to bring cases before an international court begins to address this problem, as long as there are minimum thresholds to prevent spurious litigation. Moreover, this “access to justice” approach supports the concept of erga omnes obligations (“owed to all”). If all states have clear, specific, and actionable climate obligations, litigation needn’t be bilateral. Each state’s responsibility is owed to the international community.

Judicial determinations of willful non-compliance would be enforced by the UNSC acting in the interests of the international community to address a collective threat to international peace and security.

Conclusion

Historically, mirroring the firewall between developed and developing states in the UNFCCC negotiations, there has been considerable resistance within the P-5 to using the power of the UNSC to securitize the climate regime. However, with increasing recognition of climate change as a significant human and systemic security threat multiplier, the likelihood of UNSC intervention in the enforcement of the climate regime may now be moving from impossibility to inevitability. The increased alignment within the P-5, as reflected in the Paris Agreement, may represent a clearer path to the UNSC acting as a climate legislator and creating a corresponding Climate Court.

The Paris Agreement, in other words, may have broken the UNSC climate firewall.

Murray Carroll is a co-founder and director of the International Court for the Environment Coalition. He has a law degree from the London School of Economics, and is a graduate student of international relations at Harvard University and international law at the University of London. Responsibility for the views expressed in this commentary rest exclusively with the author. An expanded version of this commentary is available in the latest issue of the Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law.

In the Arctic, Indigenous peoples are increasingly seeing their own survival as threatened by environmental change. In this respect, the small Inuit community of Clyde River, Nunavut in Canada represents an interesting case.

On November 30, 2016 the Supreme Court of Canada heard a highly anticipated legal appeal on behalf of residents of the small Inuit community of Clyde River, Nunavut. The town of 1,100 – supported by interventions from groups like Greenpeace and three organizations representing Inuit people across Canada – argues that the federal government, specifically the National Energy Board (NEB), failed to adequately consult them before granting a license for a Norwegian-based business consortium to conduct seismic testing in nearby coastal waters. The license was granted in 2014 even though consultations with nearby communities exposed significant local concern over the project’s potential impacts on marine mammals such as seals, whales, and other aquatic species, which local residents rely upon for food and cultural practices. The NEB’s initial decision was upheld by a Federal Court in August 2015, but in October of that year Clyde River was granted leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, which offers the last judicial option to stop the seismic testing and protect the marine ecosystem from possible irreparable harm.

The case of Clyde River has attracted national and international media interest because it reflects a familiar and sympathetic narrative: a small Indigenous community, with support of environmental activities and high profile celebrities, fights for its survival against a corporation abetted by a neo-colonial state committed to extracting hydrocarbon resources for sale on the global market. But the struggle over seismic testing in a tiny community located higher than 70°N latitude represents the intersection of three powerful issues within Canadian and global environmental politics: Indigenous peoples identifying non-renewable resource extraction as a fundamental threat to their survival and well-being; the growing legal and constitutional recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples to make decisions over resource extraction and other industrial projects within their traditional territories; and emerging alliances between Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous environmental groups to stop such projects. Together, these issues form the latest chapter in the interrelated struggles for human and environmental security, self-determination for Indigenous peoples, and steps towards decarbonizing the global economy.

Indigenous Peoples’ Insecurity and Climate Change

Image (cropped) by Emmanuel Milou/Flickr.

Indigenous peoples in Canada and elsewhere have, for decades, resisted various non-renewable resource extraction projects on the grounds that these often proceed without adequate consultation with local communities or the Indigenous governments on whose lands they occur. Local environmental impacts have worsened as these projects have grown in size, but greater public awareness of the dangers of human-caused climate change have added a new dimension to these struggles. In the Arctic – where climate change is occurring twice as fast as in more southerly regions, causing a range of negative consequences for humans and other animal populations – activities enabling hydrocarbon extraction that will directly contribute to climate change have been met with particular scepticism. In recent years, dozens of Northern organizations, including some representing Indigenous peoples, have signed a Joint Statement of Indigenous Solidarity for Arctic Protection calling for a moratorium on oil drilling in the Arctic. In 2011, the Inuit Circumpolar Council, which represents Inuit in Canada, the United States, Greenland, and Russia, released the Circumpolar Inuit Declaration on Resource Development Principles. The declaration reserves the right of Inuit to benefit from resource development on their traditional territories, but stipulates that “Inuit and others – through their institutions and international instruments – have a shared responsibility to evaluate the risks and benefits of their actions through the prism of global environmental security” (s. 5.1).

In fact, Inuit have increasingly framed their arguments around climate change and hydrocarbon extraction in explicitly security terms. Survey data indicate that large majorities of Northern Canadians consider the environment to be the most important issue for Arctic security, followed closely by maintenance of Indigenous cultures. For people who rely on traditional country foods for sustenance, and whose culture and identity are premised on reciprocal connections between humans, non-human animals, and the land itself, climate change and local environmental damage are not merely worrisome issues. They are existential threats to the survival of Inuit as Inuit: an Indigenous people defined by their unique environment and the methods of survival and subsistence they have developed over thousands of years of continuous habitation in their Arctic homeland.

Inuit leaders have articulated the clear and present threats they currently face as a result of environmental changes. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work raising awareness of Arctic climate change and pursuing legal remedies on behalf of Inuit under international law, has stated in no uncertain terms that “climate change is threatening the lives, health, culture and livelihoods of the Inuit.” Terry Audla, who until 2015 was president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), the national organization representing all Inuit in Canada, has written that “climate change at a rate and of an intensity that appears unprecedented, and well outside Inuit cultural memory, creates insecurities of an entirely new nature, generating concerns about the sustainability of large aspects of our inherited and acquired patterns of life … Our very sense of who and what we are as Inuit.” Mary Simon, another former president of ITK, echoes the threat of Arctic climate change: “The urgency surrounding mitigating the impact of climate change grows with the almost daily news of unprecedented developments in our Arctic environment … Arctic ice is melting three times faster than models had earlier predicted – and the earlier predictions were alarming.  The Arctic is melting, with dramatic consequences for all of us.” In articles, books, speeches, interviews, policy statements, and testimonies before Parliament, the message from Inuit leaders in Canada is clear: climate change is the gravest threat confronting Inuit and all peoples living in the Arctic and beyond, and proposed industrial activities that contribute to climate change should be viewed with the highest concern.

New Laws and New Allies in Indigenous Environmental Struggles

These examples of Inuit security claims are recent, but as a phenomenon they are not new: Indigenous peoples have long argued that their wellbeing was undermined by the actions of settler-colonial governments which served to perpetuated their poverty and disenfranchisement. For decades, little changed as politicians and the courts consistently declined to respect or enforce the rights of Indigenous peoples; despite Aboriginal rights being enshrined in Section 35 of the Canada’s Constitution Act 1982, environmental damage affecting nearby communities was considered a cost of doing business and a routine part of Canada’s political economy. In recent years, however, several developments in law and politics have altered the landscape, such that the rights of Indigenous peoples to be consulted about, and possibly consent to, industrial activities on their territories have been established, if not yet fully implemented. Most notable among these is the ruling in the 2014 Tsilhqot’in case, in which the Supreme Court first recognized Aboriginal title over their traditional territories, and the federal government’s 2016 decision to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which codifies international standards for the individual and collective rights of Indigenous peoples, including the rights to land (though the Liberal government’s position on UNDRIP has wavered, with different Cabinet members expressing different views of how, or even whether, UNDRIP can be incorporated into Canadian law). As the case of Clyde River demonstrates, these developments are in the process of being interpreted by policymakers and tested before the courts to establish the new distribution of authority and governance over land use on Indigenous territories.

The judicial empowerment of Indigenous legal claims in Canada and elsewhere has led to a recognition by many non-Indigenous environmental groups that cooperation and engagement with Indigenous peoples offers the best route to stop extractive projects which they believe will harm local environments, contribute to global climate change, or both. These partnerships have been described as “the native rights-based strategic framework”, an advocacy and campaigning strategy that links the legal and constitutional rights of Indigenous peoples with their normative claims to sovereignty and justice and the fundraising and operational resources of non-Indigenous advocacy groups. Major environmental NGOs have worked to repair relationships with Indigenous peoples that have been harmed by environmentalists’ campaigns targeting certain Indigenous cultural practices, such as Greenpeace indicating its desire to “make amends” for its past opposition to the Inuit seal hunt. Long opponents over their differing views on environmental stewardship and land use, NGOs and Indigenous peoples have increasingly made common cause through their shared view that, with respect to hydrocarbon extraction in particular, “these fights were all life and death situations, not just for local communities, but for the biosphere.”

Conclusion

The case of Clyde River is one example of how the threats posed by climate change, now and in the future, are front and centre in the political and legal engagements of Indigenous peoples and environmental organizations. It reflects the fact that many communities are increasingly seeing their own survival as threatened by environmental change, and thus articulate conceptions of what security means to them which highlights the human-caused environmental dangers they face. Such local and Indigenous security claims – statements of what should be protected against certain, identifiable threats – are now part of a global political context where the meaning of security is deeply contested. Longstanding security practices and discourses that privilege states and their national interests are today in direct contradiction with a complex series of security claims made by groups that have been historically and remain adversely affected by the state and its actions. Moreover, in the context of a rapidly changing global environment due to human-caused climate change, struggles to define what security means have deep implications for the future. Environmentalists and others concerned for the prospects of human survival and wellbeing on a warming planet are increasingly prepared to use all available tools at their disposal to secure a stable and sustainable future for themselves and their children. As reflected in recent and ongoing cases of Indigenous peoples and their environmentalist allies resisting the expansion of hydrocarbon extraction and infrastructure – such as the Keystone XL and Dakota Access crude oil pipelines – that struggle continues. In the case of the Arctic, it is currently focused on the small hamlet of Clyde River, and the legal battle over who gets to make decisions over how much environmental damage will be borne to facilitate resource extraction, and what powers Indigenous peoples possess under the law to defend themselves and define the conditions necessary for their own survival.

Wilfrid Greaves, PhD, is Lecturer at the University of Toronto. His doctoral research examined how in/security and environmental change have been conceptualized by states and Indigenous peoples in the circumpolar Arctic region. An Ontario Graduate Scholar, SSHRC Doctoral Scholar and DFAIT Graduate Student Fellow, he is author of multiple peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and working papers. He has also taught undergraduate courses in International Relations, global security, peace and conflict studies, and Canadian foreign policy at Ryerson University and the University of Toronto. A graduate of the University of Calgary and Bishop’s University, his research interests include security theory, human and environmental security, natural resource extraction and climate change, Arctic and Indigenous politics, Canadian foreign policy, and complex peacebuilding operations.

There is no region of the world that faces more threats from climate change than South Asia. Of particular concern is the littoral surrounding the Bay of Bengal, including the Eastern Indian states of West Bengal and Odisha, Bangladesh, and coastal Burma. This region is uniquely vulnerable to a changing climate because of a combination of rising sea levels, changing weather patterns, and uncertain transboundary river flows. Away from the seashore, China holds the high ground in the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas, and complicates the geopolitical picture further by acting as the source of the region’s fresh water.

On the Bay of Bengal’s coast these problems of a changing climate combine with already existing social problems like religious strife, poverty, political uncertainty, high population density, and rapid urbanization to create a very dangerous cocktail of already security threats. Climate change has been called a “threat multiplier” or “an accelerant of instability” by military and intelligence communities because of how it will impact these already existing threats. With a population of more than 300 million people (91 million in West Bengal, 42 million in Odisha, 142 million in Bangladesh, 52 million in Burma), tense militarized borders, overlapping ethnic and religious communities, and uncertainty about the future, there is no region in the world that faces a more dangerous combination of threatsfrom climate change than here.

Rising Sea Levels

One of the key tenets of national security is the ability of a country to ensure the integrity of its sovereign territory. Yet, as glaciers far from South Asia melt, the sea rises and encroaches upon its farms, villages, and cities. As Hemingway wrote about going bankrupt, sea level rise happens “gradually, then suddenly.” Slowly, a rising ocean brings increasing intrusion of brackish water into groundwater, harming costal agriculture. Moreover, gradual ocean encroachment harms the coast’s natural protections, whether dunes, reefs, barrier islands, or mangrove forests. Then, suddenly, when a major cyclone blows in a storm surge will overcome previously unsurmountable barriers.

The shorelines of the Bay of Bengal stand to lose swaths of territory from sea level rise. Bangladesh, as a country predominantly composed of river delta, is most at risk. It stands to lose 11% of its territory – home to 15 million people – from a sea level rise of only 1 meter, a level that is not a particularly extreme prediction over the next 4 decades. Few invading armies could do worse damage.

Oddly enough, the world’s oceans do not rise at the same rate. With rising global sea levels, in some areas the sea level could actually fall while it rises in others. A recent study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) found that sea level rise will be particularly high along the Bay of Bengal, due to changes in currents caused by rapid surface warming of the Indian Ocean.

In the region, the cities of Dhaka, Kolkata, and Yangon all lie in major river deltas and are vulnerable to storm surges. In its 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) specifically listed cities in Asian mega deltas as “hotspots for vulnerability” because of sea level rise and changing patterns of river flow. Already straining at their infrastructure limits, these densely packed cities are becoming more vulnerable in a warming world.

Changing Transboundary Water Flow

Water does not stay within lines on a map. Instead, gravity draws it inexorably from the mountains to the sea. China, through its control of Tibet, controls the headwaters of almost all of the major rivers of Asia – only the Ganges lies outside of China’s control, originating in India. Of the major rivers that empty into the Bay of Bengal, all cross borders. Water is only plentiful during the monsoon season, so these rivers provide much-needed sustenance to agriculture, people, and ecosystems throughout their trip to the sea during the dry season – when they are fed by glacier and snow melt. Competition and tension over that flow is evident around the world when water crosses borders.

This is true of Bangladesh and India, for which the flow of the Ganges are a source of tension. The Farakka Barrage on the Ganges River, just 10 miles upriver from the Bangladesh border, allows India a measure of control over the river. The dam allows India to divert the flow of the Ganges down a canal to the Hooghly River and into the port of Kolkata. Since the dam was built in 1975, there have been allegations from Bangladesh that India diverts water in the dry season and releases too much in the monsoon season. In 1996, the two countries agreed to a 30 year treaty to share the Ganges’ flow, but tensions still remain.

The Brahmaputra River, meanwhile, provides a source of tension between the two regional powers, India and China. China recently announced that they are building a series of hydroelectric dams along the Brahmaputra’s upper reaches in Tibet, but they have forsworn any attempt to divert or hold back the great river’s flow. However, these assurances have not quieted all voices in India, who point to plans in China’s South-North Water Diversion Project to divert water from the Brahmaputra in order to ensure water for industry and the cities of China’s parched north. China’s leaders have denied these extravagant plans, but their engineers have lobbied for such a project. It would complete a dream of Chairman Mao’s, who said: “Southern water is plentiful, northern water scarce. If at all possible, borrowing some water would be good.”

Climate change exacerbates these concerns about transboundary water management in the region. Climate change is threatening both the glaciers that sit at the top of these mighty rivers, feeding them during the dry season, and the very viability and predictability of the Indian Monsoon rains. Temperatures in the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas have risen 1.5 degrees Celsius since 1982, a rate more than three times as fast as the global average. Meanwhile, changes in weather patterns due to climate change could cause repeated failures in the monsoon. While there is little likelihood of an immediate and total melting of the glaciers, uncertainty about their future flows is enough to stoke tension in the region.

The Potential for Conflict

Climate change is altering the environment of the region; the glaciers are retreating, the rivers’ flows are becoming more unpredictable, and the seas are rising. However, whether those changes manifest themselves into either civil or interstate conflict will depend upon how both the populations and the governments in the region react to those changes. How long governments have to adapt depends upon unpredictable weather and climate patterns – but as the Stern Review bore out, earlier action is almost always cheaper and more effective than waiting. How governments adapt is important as whether; some adaptations, like capturing water that would otherwise flow across borders in new reservoirs could actually make the threat of conflict worse. If countries do not work cooperatively, they could stoke conflict.

Throughout history, one of the most effective ways to deal with climate change has been migration – from a climate that is no longer hospitable to one where living is easier. However, modern borders do not reflect the historical ties between the regions. Migration is a natural response. However, in areas with already high population density and an overlapping patchwork of ethnic and religious communities, new immigrant communities often come into direct conflict with established communities. Last year saw ethnic strife in the Indian state of Assam between indigenous Bodos and immigrant Muslims, many of whom hailed from over the nearby border in Bangladesh. Over 75 people died, and over 400,000 people were temporarily displaced. In this region, it is impossible to say whether a group of migrants are “climate refugees” or simply moving to a place with better economic opportunity, but this is what we should expect in the future.

It is difficult to find examples of any interstate wars fought directly over water; to the contrary, water has been a catalyzer of cooperation. However, as countries realize that they can control and shape water flow through mega dams and water diversion projects, there is a danger that the claims of downstream countries could be ignored. Along the Mekong River, for example, China has proceeded to dam and control the river’s flow through its territory – leading downstream neighbors to complain that China is causing droughts. Yet because of the power imbalance between China and smaller countries like Laos and Cambodia, the Chinese have little to fear. Similar thinking by Chinese leadership over dam building along the Brahmaputra, their shared river with India, could lead both countries to stumble into a conflict that neither of them want.

In the age of climate change, conflict is more likely as threats are multiplied. Nowhere is this truer than around the Bay of Bengal. However, war is never pre-ordained. Instead, the threat of conflict is determined by how countries react. Good international governance can encourage countries to not simply pull up the drawbridge and think only of themselves, but will encourage them to see what their actions will mean for regional neighbors. Climate change is increasing the threat of wars and unrest around the Bay of Bengal; but foresight about its impacts can help the region’s leaders work together to solve a problem that knows no boundaries.

Andrew Holland is Senior Fellow for Energy and Climate at American Security Project, a Washington D.C based think tank. He is an expert on energy, climate change, and infrastructure policy. He has over seven years of experience working at the center of debates about how to achieve sustainable energy security and how to effectively address climate change.

Image source: amioascension

As established by UN General Assembly resolution 64/35 of 2009, the 29^th of August marked the International Day Against Nuclear Tests. This date serves to enhance public awareness about the harmful effects of nuclear weapon test explosions (of which at least 2,046 were conducted between 1945 and 1996: an average of one every nine days) on people and the environment, and reminds the international community about the importance of banning nuclear tests through the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

CTBT: Verification outpaces Ratification

Opened for signature in September 1996, the CTBT has yet to enter into force, pending the final eight ratifications by all of the Annex II states. These are the 44 states which participated in the negotiations on the CTBT and possessed nuclear power or research reactors at the time. Although five – China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, the US – of these final eight states have signed the Treaty, three have not: North Korea (DPRK), India and Pakistan.

While some argue that CTBT ratification by the US would be a “game changer” and trigger a cascade of ratifications, it may rest on President Obama’s successor to invest domestic political capital and concerted engagement to shepherd through a successful ratification. With recent studies such as the 2012 National Research Council’s updated assessment of technical issues related to the CTBT serving to inform and allay previously voiced national security and verification concerns, strategic efforts to educate Congress, media and the US public could assist in highlighting the benefits of ratifying the CTBT.

Performing maintenance at CTBTO infrasound station IS55, Windless Bight, Antarctica. (Source: CBTBO via Wikipedia)

Pending those eight ratifications for the CTBT entry into force, the Preparatory Commission for the CTBT Organization (CTBTO) is building up an extensive and sophisticated global International Monitoring System (IMS) which will serve to monitor and verify compliance with the Treaty. With over 85% of the IMS’ facilities in operation, the CTBT is already providing ‘a firm barrier against a qualitative and quantitative development of nuclear weapons for both nuclear weapon-capable states and then would-be possessors‘.

Proof of the partially complete verification regime’s detection capability has been showcased by the three nuclear tests conducted since 2006 by the DPRK, the only remaining state defying the established international anti-testing norm. Since the international community unanimously condemned the 1998 round of tests by India and Pakistan, defying the non-testing norm and global de facto moratorium established by the CTBT, the two states in South Asia have implemented and observed unilateral moratoria on nuclear testing.

Concerns about a DPRK fourth test

The urgency of reaffirming the importance of the CTBT and re-energizing efforts to bring the Treaty into force, should be ever present with concerns about a possible fourth nuclear test as threatened by the DPRK earlier this year. The DPRK is the only state that has disregarded the testing moratorium and non-testing norm since 1998 with its three successively larger nuclear tests (in 2006, 2009 and 2013). South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se warned earlier this year that a fourth test by North Korean would be a “game changer” for the region.

Even with the DPRK remaining a wildcard on prospects for ratification, not least given the shaky political conditions for regional resumption of dialogue on the nuclear issue while Kim Jong Un consolidates his regime, the other seven Annex II states can lead in responsibly committing to shore up their legal commitment to the non-testing norm.

Improving regime atmospherics for the 2015 NPT Review Conference

The CTBT and the NPT are interlinked and thus progress on the CTBT would serve to garner positive atmospherics for the NPT review process, in 2015 and beyond. The 1995 NPT Review Conference (RevCon) indefinite extension of the NPT and the 2000 NPT RevCon’s ‘13 steps’ (steps 1 and 2) called on states for action and commitment to a CTBT. More recently, five of the 64 action points in the 2010 NPT RevCon’s Action Plan stress bringing the Treaty into force. Given the growing discontent within the NPT review process due to the perceived lack of progress on disarmament commitments, a renewed and reinvigorated commitment to the CTBT by NPT states parties could ameliorate the atmosphere and help to build confidence and momentum.

Two initiatives within the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime—the Helsinki Conference for discussing the establishment of a Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone (WMDFZ) in the Middle East, and the humanitarian consequences initiative concerning the impact of nuclear weapons—could provide an impetus for renewed focus to the importance of legally committing to the CTBT. Both of these initiatives, which continue to enjoy a broad divergence of views, could serve to channel attention on ratification of the CTBT as a key trust- and confidence-building measure and a foundational first-step for progress on the aims of the two initiatives.

Given the active civil society engagement of the humanitarian initiative, some of these agents could focus efforts on promoting the entry into force of the CTBT, channelling campaigns to lobby and engage their elected parliamentarians on the importance of the CTBT.

If any of the three remaining Annex II states from the Middle East region – Egypt, Iran and Israel – were to legally commit to refrain from nuclear testing, it would be a hugely significant political and confidence-building gesture for the high-profile efforts to convene a conference which was mandated by the 2010 NPT Review Conference to take place in 2012. Given the ongoing P5+1 talks with Iran, such a step by Iran would further serve to reassure the international community about the intent and peaceful nature of its nuclear programme.

Multilateral initiatives

UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Angela Kane encouraged states to seize the high-profile opportunity to sign or deposit their instruments of ratification at an event held on the margins of the UN General Assembly this month. As an interim step, short of signing or ratifying the CTBT, other proposals to further consolidate the anti-testing norm and moratorium include a suggested UN Security Council resolution condemning nuclear tests as a threat to international peace and security, and regional pledges committing member states to refrain from nuclear tests or even sub-critical experiments not prohibited by the CTBT.

Notably, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) endorsed such a regional commitment in its declaration on nuclear disarmament at a meeting in Buenos Aires in August 2013. Such effort could be replicated by other regions or via multilateral negotiating groupings operating in the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Regional and other groupings could pledge to highlight this issue at every nuclear-relevant forum and opportunity in efforts to cross-germinate this message.

Annex II states particularly, as well as other states and groupings, should welcome, engage and promote the efforts of the CTBTO’s Group of Eminent Persons (GEM), comprised of high-profile experts and former officials aiming to promote the CTBT’s entry into force. Through the support of such initiatives, awareness can be raised. Further to raising awareness and educating civil society, efforts such as the CTBTO’s public training courses and NGOs’ public information and awareness efforts should be supported, promoted and even replicated regionally as force multipliers.

J. Robert Oppenheimer recounted of those witnessing the Manhattan Project’s first atom bomb test (the 1945 Trinity test), “we knew the world would not be the same; a few people laughed; a few people cried; most people were silent.” Indeed, the world has not been the same and the proverbial nuclear genie cannot be put back in the bottle. But states can make the legal commitment to ban all nuclear tests, anywhere. 18 years after the CTBT opened for signatures, responsible states should commit efforts to facilitate the ratification of this Treaty.

Jenny Nielsen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. Previously, she was a Research Analyst with the Non-proliferation and Disarmament Programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a Programme Manager for the Defence & Security Programme at Wilton Park, and a Research Assistant for the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies (MCIS) at the University of Southampton, where she co-edited the 2004-2012 editions of the NPT Briefing Book.

Author’s note: For further analysis on this topic, see the following publications: Kai Michael Kenkel and Cristina Stefan, “Brazil and the ‘responsibility while protecting’ initiative: norms and the timing of diplomatic support”. Global Governance, Vol 22, No. 1 (2016); pp. 41-78; and Kai Michael Kenkel and Felippe De Rosa). “Localization and Subsidiarity in Brazil’s Engagement with the Responsibility to Protect.” Global Responsibility to Protect. Vol. 7, No. 3/4 (2015); pp. 325-349.

Since Libya, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has been a hotly debated concept. Previously a nation exhibiting strict non-interventionist principles, Brazil has recently contributed to the R2P debate with its Responsibility while Protecting initiative.

Introduction

Inspired by what it saw as the excesses of NATO’s intervention in Libya and their potentially disastrous effects on the credibility of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) norm, in November 2011 Brazil launched the corollary concept of a “Responsibility while Protecting” (RwP) at the United Nations. While essentially reiterating its endorsement of key principles of R2P, Brazil admonished R2P implementing states to avoid discrediting the norm by exercising restraint while operationalizing R2P. Brazil, itself at that time a rising power seeking more global influence—and particularly participation in shaping the rules of the international system—saw the divisions created by the Libyan intervention as an opportunity to act as a norm entrepreneur. Meant to bridge the gap between R2P supporters in the North and sceptics in the South, RwP was initially criticized by both. Over time, however, certain R2P supporters began to see the concept’s value as a means of reviving R2P after Libya and as a means of attaining crucial Global South buy-in. By this time, however, Brazil—lacking experience in the role of norm entrepreneur—had backed away from its initiative. Though the specific initiative has not been taken forward, RwP has had a clear effect in structuring the contours of subsequent R2P debates at the UN.

Rising Brazil: between beliefs and expectations     

Image by Ben Tavener via Flickr.

Under the Lula da Silva administration, Brazil began to actively seek a larger profile in international politics, ostensibly with a view to a permanent, veto-endowed seat on an eventually reformed UN Security Council. This presented the country with a conundrum: in UN praxis, particularly among established powers, there is a clear connection between global relevance, military capacity, and the willingness to use force remedially, beyond self-interest, to help those in need—as foreseen by R2P as implemented by the UN. Brazil’s historical normative commitments, however, are rooted in a combination of a highly traditional regional security culture—which equates sovereignty exclusively with non-intervention—and a healthy postcolonial scepticism of multilateral initiatives born in the North. Arguably, the most strongly held of these commitments is a profound aversion to the use of force. Faced with a choice between staying true to its original traditions and fulfilling the expectations placed on global players—as exemplified for example in R2P’s acceptance of the use of force in defence of human life—Brazil launched RwP as an attempt to reconcile these factors, remain active on the international stage, and render R2P both more relevant and less prone to misuse.

The Libya effect

NATO’s 2011 Libyan intervention created a trust deficit between its leaders and the BRICS countries, who had been excluded as non-permanent UNSC members from the elaboration process for its enabling Resolution 1973. These states emerged from the experience highly doubtful of Western motives, and they took as a lesson from the Libya intervention that the use of force could have an opposite effect from that intended, effectively distancing a crisis situation from a lasting solution.

Beyond the immediate concerns related to the intervention’s mandate, the debate over the Libyan case took on contours that resonated with the larger tension between the established powers and emerging players such as the other BRICS countries and Brazil. Substantial divergences remain over R2P’s implementation and particularly its third pillar, which can be used to authorize military force. R2P’s shift in emphasis between understandings of sovereignty has become symbolic of some emerging powers’ resistance to the normative dominance of established powers, making the principle a key rallying point in the ideational skirmishes resulting from a changing global distribution of power. This expands the debate over the RwP initiative beyond its immediate link to the Libyan case and links it firmly to broader issues of global governance. The R2P debate has become a not only a key element of some emerging powers’ challenge to the established distribution of power, but a key locus for increased targeted consultation and cooperation in mounting that challenge. In addition, the intervention debates have become an important stage for emerging powers constructively to give normative content to their challenge to the established order, allowing them to move beyond what some have termed an obstructionist stance.

The “Responsibility while Protecting” concept

The RwP concept was launched on 9 November 2011 and floated explicitly as a touchstone for further debate within the United Nations. This targeting would become important later on, as it meant that in characterizing R2P and mobilizing its history, the note limited itself to the concept’s course within the United Nations system, referring for example to its inclusion in paragraphs 138-139 of the World Summit Outcome Document but not to the principle’s original formulation by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). As such the RwP note was intended less as a normative innovation than as an attempt to shape the norm in terms acceptable to the Global South.

The primary contribution of the note was its establishment of a set of guidelines to orient the Security Council in contemplating an R2P-based intervention. These guidelines focused on two main topics: limiting the use of force, and the strict chronological sequencing of R2P’s three pillars. The RwP note posits that force should only be used as a last resort (an item already included in the 2011 ICISS Report that launched R2P), and subject to a limited and well-defined mandate implemented under conditions of complete accountability in the field. Brazilian diplomats attempted to appropriate the “do no harm” principle, known from the Hippocratic oath, even arguing that one death from an intervention is too many. These reservations were read correctly by many Western states as a reaction to the perceived excesses of NATO’s foray into Libya, and an attempt to put strict limits on the level and type of force authorizeable under R2P.

The document’s real element of innovation, and the eventual centre of the debate it created, is its call for the strict political and chronological sequencing of R2P’s three pillars. This was viewed by Western states as too limiting, both in the field, and of the flexible diplomatic responses required of the Council in dealing with a crisis. The threat of force, it was argued, is often subjacent in making diplomatic initiatives work, and taking this option off the table could tie the international community’s hands. Indeed, the note’s Brazilian authors later replaced strict chronological sequencing with the toned-down notion of “prudential sequencing”.

The reception of RwP

Initially received coolly by both Western and Southern states, the RwP note nonetheless played a crucial part in both moving R2P forward normatively and in stimulating the inclusion of Southern states into the intervention debate. Despite initial strong criticism, the initiative did shape how established and rising powers interacted in the ensuing UN debates on R2P and intervention more broadly. There are four main criticisms:

1. that the concept bears little value added, merely repeating provisions already present in the 2001 ICISS Report;
2. that the initiative was a Trojan horse, designed to limit Western powers’ autonomy and to prevent the further institutionalization of R2P;
3. specific elements regarding feasibility of RwP’s concrete suggestions, such as sequencing, proactive monitoring, and further limitations on the use of force;
4. the contention that RwP’s confuses jus ad bellum (R2P’s main focus) and jus in bello (rules for conduct once war has broken out);

Despite these criticisms and Brazil’s abandonment of its role as a norm entrepreneur, the RwP note has continued to structure global diplomatic debates on intervention, with a focus on reigning in Western action through stricter guidelines in the wake of R2P’s crisis of legitimacy after Libya. It has done so in three main areas:  advancing the importance of some form of relational sequencing of R2P’s pillars; increased restrictions on the use of force; and more proactive monitoring by the Security Council of the following of guidelines by ongoing missions.

Brazil’s role as a norm entrepreneur on intervention issues remains tied to the RwP concept. The initiative was withdrawn after it did not elicit the desired level of support, and by the time its potential had been realized, internal changes in Brazil and its Foreign Ministry had made continued advocacy politically unviable. Despite attempts to revive a strong role for Brazil in the R2P conversation through efforts in the General Assembly in 2015-2016, crippling fiscal austerity and the paralyzing political crisis which began in April 2016 have temporarily but severely limited Brazil’s ability to proactively advance normative initiatives. Nevertheless, the desire remains to fulfill the country’s natural function as a bridge-builder between North and South on intervention issues, and Brazil is sure not to remain absent for long from the ranks of those crafting R2P’s future contours.

Kai Michael Kenkel is Associate Professor in the Institute of International Relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and Associate Researcher at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies. He has published extensively on R2P, with a focus on Brazilian policy, including three edited volumes and articles in Global Governance, Global Responsibility to Protect and  International Peacekeeping.

Following President Rouhani’s success in last August’s election, relations between the United States and Tehran have improved substantially, partly because of the election result but also because the Obama administration has a more positive view of Iran. There is no guarantee that the US election in 2016 will result in an administration sympathetic to further progress. This element of uncertainty will be factored into the policy-making process of the Rouhani administration. Even so, prospects for a negotiated settlement to the nuclear issue are the best they have been for a decade and it follows that if an agreement is concluded, this is likely to have a pronounced effect on Iranian foreign policy as it finds itself in a more positive international environment.

The Ahmadinejad Legacy

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is greeted by the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Source: Wikipedia

The flamboyance and the sometimes inflammatory rhetoric of the Ahmadinejad administration (2005-13) disguised a pragmatic foreign policy that combined a degree of confrontation on the nuclear issue with the enhancing of contacts with many countries across the global south, including left-leaning states in Latin America and numerous states in sub-Saharan Africa. It also sought to maintain reasonable links with Russia and China while limiting links with the West. While acceptable to much of the “Iranian street”, it was at odds with the liking of elements of western culture by young Iranians and the nuclear issue was deeply problematic in terms of the impact of sanctions.

While much is made of their role in bringing Rouhani to power and then to the negotiating table, the reality is rather different. Sanctions were effective, in part, because of the parallel impact of internal economic mismanagement by the Ahmadinejad government. Thus, if the Rouhani government improves the management of the economy then even the modest sanctions relief already promised will combine to enable the government to benefit through early respite from recent economic woes.

One other key factor is that Iran’s standing in the region, including the Arab world, has been damaged by its support for the Assad regime in Syria. Under Ahmadinejad, Iran saw the Assad regime as a strong and necessary ally, especially in combination with the Maliki government in Iraq. But as the war in Syria has worsened, and as the violence in Iraq degenerates towards a civil war, many states blame Iran. Regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt hold Iran partly responsible for the violent suppression of the Sunni majority in Syria, and states beyond the region believe Iran bears some responsibility not just for that but also for the possible spread of the war to Lebanon.

Conservative Strategy

Hassan Rouhani speaks in Mashhad during his presidential campaign Source: Wikimedia

Rouhani’s victory was singularly impressive in that he gained an absolute majority on the first ballot against four relatively conservative opponents on a 72% poll turnout. While this has given him considerable authority, most power still lies with the Supreme Leader. However, Ayatollah Khamenei has to be aware of the popularity of Rouhani, a matter made more difficult for him by Rouhani’s preference for avoiding a personality cult. While the election gave Rouhani a clear mandate for negotiating with the US, conservative elements are regrouping.

For these elements a particular concern is the election of the Assembly of Experts – the parliamentary upper house, which selects the Supreme Leader – that are due in September this year. Their fear is of a buoyant Rouhani government that will damage conservative prospects still further following last year’s reversals. It appears to be for this reason that they have sought to persuade the Supreme Leader to expand the negotiating team at the Syria peace talks in Geneva to include more hard-line elements and to have a Majlis (parliamentary) oversight body for the whole process. This would be dominated by conservatives. Rouhani’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Seyed Abbas Araqchi, has stated officially that the negotiating group remains accountable to the Supreme National Security Council, not a Majlis body, but there are reports of more members recently being appointed to the group.

What this means is that the Rouhani government will have a strong interest in developing policies that are attractive to the domestic constituency as soon as possible. The emphasis will undoubtedly be on the nuclear issue and getting further sanctions relief which, in combination with better economic management, could ensure palpable improvements in the economy and consequent political popularity. This, though, is not enough and liberalising economic reforms such as removal of subsidies may even exacerbate short-term economic difficulties. It follows that the Rouhani government will be looking closely at ways of increasing Iran’s standing in the region and beyond.

Developing Foreign Policy: Iran in the world

A key aspect of the Iranian outlook is a belief in Persia’s very proud history, one that extends over thousands rather than hundreds of years, and the consequent belief that Iran has not been realising its potential as one of the world’s potential great powers. This view of historic greatness transcends religion, even if Iran sees itself also as the centre of the Shi’a Muslim world. Iran has a population of 80 million, a little less than Egypt at 85 million and Turkey at 81 million. Egypt has formidable internal problems and a weak non-oil-based economy; Turkey is far stronger in terms of economy, even if it, too, lacks significant fossil fuel reserves. Since its 2013 counter-revolution, Egypt is also increasingly reliant on Saudi Arabia, Iran’s greatest rival for influence in the Gulf and wider Middle East.

Iran has all the problems of a near-moribund economy but has remarkable potential for development given that it has close to 10% of world oil reserves and 15% of gas reserves. The latter is largely shared with Qatar because of the huge reserves under the Gulf. There have so far been few problems of delineating boundaries – indeed relations with Qatar remain quite good despite major differences on other issues such as Syria, where Qatar, with Turkey, strongly backs the anti-Assad rebellion.

Asia or Europe?

Iran Foreign Minister Javad Zarif walks with EU High Representative Catherine Ashton at the EU +3 and Iran talks, November 2013. Source: EEAS (Flickr)

The issue for Iran relates largely to where it seeks to develop its economic and political alliances. To the immediate east the borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan are hugely significant, especially in the case of Afghanistan where opium and refined heroin smuggling across the border has cost the lives of hundreds of Iranian border guards. Iran has close links with the north-west parts of Afghanistan and has no liking for the Taliban. It is suspicious of Pakistan because of radical Sunni Islamist elements within the state, its long-term support for the Taliban, close security ties to Saudi Arabia and the precarious security predicament of the Pakistani Shi’a community, but still seeks to improve relations, not least through exporting gas. The originally planned Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline is going ahead as far as Pakistan. Iran will further increase its links with Afghanistan, where it has greatly increased aid in recent years, especially to projects in the north-west of the country.

India and China are both significant importers of Iranian oil and gas and China has been particularly useful to Iran in two respects. One has been long-term investment in the development of new oil and gas fields, and it remains much appreciated that China persisted with this when relations with the US were at their lowest. The other has been China’s supply of carefully selected weapons, especially shore-based anti-ship cruise missiles. Iran will maintain close links with China, but will not eschew improved relations with India, seeing it as a useful counter-balance to Pakistan.

The links with southern and eastern Asia will remain highly significant in terms of Iranian foreign policy but it is already clear that a priority will be to improve relations with neighbouring Turkey, already demonstrated by the meeting between Foreign Ministers Mohammad Javad Zarif and Ahmet Davutoglu in Tehran last November. In spite of considerable differences over Syria, the countries have good relations in other respects, and Turkey’s past role in trying to defuse the nuclear issue remains appreciated. Trade relations between Iran and Turkey have expanded greatly in the past decade.

It is highly likely that Iran will seek a much closer relationship with Turkey, seeing the two countries together comprising an axis of influence linking Europe and Asia. The Turkish attitude to this is likely to be very positive, seeing it as a useful factor in increasing Turkey’s significance for the European Union. This does mean that the Rouhani government has an added interest in seeing a scaling down of the Syrian War. It is probable that a Turkey/Iran connection is more important to Tehran than the much vaunted Lebanon/Syria/Iraq/Iran “Shi’a crescent”.

The rivalry with Saudi Arabia remains pervasive and is a crucial proxy element in the Syrian conflict but Rouhani’s personal links with Saudi diplomats in the past, combined with Iran’s need to see the war scaled down, means that even here there may be potential for progress. Further improving relations with the US will be a priority but the Rouhani government recognises the risk of sudden changes in US leadership in less than three years time. This means that European links remain useful but Iran does not look to the west to ensure its standing in the world. Turkey, China and India are more significant and this will remain as long as Rouhani is in power. Of these, Turkey is probably the most important.

Implications

Rouhani has barely a year all told to build on the considerable support he gathered last year, and this is against a background of entrenched conservative and theocratic elements that will work hard to limit his capacity. While he will give ground on nuclear issues and may work towards a Syrian settlement, if Iran is allowed to participate in Geneva ll, there is a risk that this can be presented by his opponents as a sign of weakness. Economic progress might blunt this but an additional way forward is to engage in a much more active foreign policy. One consequence of such a shift to the north and east is that Iran may not see Europe as important to its interests to the extent that Europe sees Iran. This is a reflection of more general global changes, bringing its own challenges.

Paul Rogers is Global Security Consultant to Oxford Research Group, for which he writes monthly security briefings.  He is Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford and author of numerous books including ‘Beyond Terror’. Paul writes a weekly column for openDemocracy  and tweets regularly at @ProfPRogers.

Featured image: President Rouhani delivers remarks at the Hilton Hotel in New York City, September 2013. Source: Asia Society (Flickr)

A crowd of demonstrators participating in a protest against the ongoing use of weapons by rebel militias inside Tripoli and accompanying atmosphere of lawlessness wave banners demanding disarmament and the creation of a national army. The newly-formed Libyan government is struggling to assert itself over the disparate power actors who emerged over the past year.

As the price of oil goes down, the pace of freedom goes up… As the price of oil goes up, the pace of freedom goes down…” So says New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who argues that the first law of ‘petropolitics’ is that the price of oil and the pace of freedom are inversely correlated in countries “totally dependent on oil” for economic growth. Friedman’s attempt to link economic oil dependency and political freedom is an interesting one, which could go some way towards explaining why many of the world’s top oil-exporting countries are governed by heavy-handed authoritarian regimes. However, the correlation between recent oil price spikes and anti-authoritarian action – particularly in the Arab Spring – challenges Friedman’s assessment.

Rather than being driven by drops in oil revenues for authoritarian regimes, popular unrest and armed resistance  in countries such as Libya may in fact be correlated with the price of oil remaining high. Inward pressure caused by oil price spikes on petroleum-fuelled supply chains for basic commodities can exacerbate already harsh living conditions, galvanising rebel factions to form a unified anti-authoritarian front against a regime that can no longer ensure price stability for essential goods. This seems true of the 2011 uprising in Egypt (the world’s largest wheat importer), as bread prices rose drastically following the doubling of global wheat prices between June 2010 and February 2011. The impact of high oil prices on the production, shipping and distribution of staple commodities such as corn and wheat – both of which saw severe price escalations of near 40% in 2008 – can lead to social unrest and, in the case of Egypt, the toppling of an authoritarian regime.

High oil prices mean freedom on the rise?

Since December 2010, when mass protests began gathering steam in Tunisia, oil prices have remained consistently high, hovering at $82 per barrel. Is it a coincidence that in September 2011, when rebels overtook the coastal town of Bani Walid, one of Colonel Gaddafi’s last strongholds, oil was just above $82 per barrel and the FAO food price index had reached a ten-year high? While oil revenues may be a temporary source of political stability for some authoritarian regimes, the pressure of increasing price volatility on supply chains, due to scarcity in supply, can convert to instability downstream as oil prices have a compounding impact on food prices. Indeed, in December 2010 just a week before the self-immolation of Tunisian food vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, New England Complex Systems Institute a Cambridge-based organisation comprised of faculty from Harvard, MIT and Brandeis, warned the US government that global food prices were about to cross a socially dangerous threshold. If anti-authoritarian action is any indication of freedom ‘on the rise’ then high oil prices in oil-dependent states are at least one major factor.

Of those countries mentioned in the International Energy Agency’s 2011 list of top oil exporters, ten out of fifteen are classed by Freedom House as ‘Not Free’. Freedom House, ‘an independent watchdog organisation dedicated to the expansion of freedom around the world’, base their rankings on two broad categories: political rights and civil liberties. The former they define by a country’s electoral process, degree of political pluralism and level of participation/ functioning of government; the latter by degree of freedom of expression and belief, associational and organisational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights. The irony, according to Friedman, is that Western dependence on oil imports from countries which are ‘Not Free’ has channelled revenues to authoritarian regimes that oppose freedom. This paradox undermines Western credibility as champions of democracy. In a post-9/11 world, where militant extremists reportedly seek safe harbour in oil-exporting states like Saudi Arabia, the consequences of Western oil dependency undermine the West’s long-term security goals. But, when it comes to Friedman’s equation for ‘petropolitics’, the reverse may actually be true. Recent events such as the Arab Spring demonstrate that as the price of oil rises, impacting staple commodity prices, so too does the need for change – change that is blocked by Western dependence on remaining regimes.

Bottom-of-the-barrel security

Western countries reliant on fossil fuel imports from nations ruled by authoritarian regimes are suffering from a crisis of legitimacy – a crisis which could render us more insecure in the long term. In Algeria, where the Arab Spring has not resulted in full on revolution, violent extremists recently made their presence felt at the ‘In Amenas’ gas plant, brutally murdering 37 expatriate workers. The plant, which is jointly operated by BP, Norway’s Statoil and Algerian state oil and gas company Sonatrach, is a major supply source for Western markets. Algeria is responsible for roughly 12.2 billion barrels of crude oil reserves. 85% of Algeria’s oil exports are destined for European and North American markets. Under the leadership of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, whose five year executive terms are renewable indefinitely, Algeria certainly does not rate highly on the list of Freedom House ‘Freedom Ratings’. Military and intelligence services strictly monitor and interfere with open elections. But the Arab Spring may not ever reach Algeria precisely because of the stability brought to the country by a Western-funded heavy-handed regime, which goes to great lengths to protect the general population from militant Islamist extremists and pro-democracy activists alike. Saudi Arabia and UAE are governed by similarly oppressive regimes; regimes which subvert democracy in favour of ‘stability’. Both supply oil and gas to the West. Both benefit from revenues gained through Western dependence in spite of their heavy-handedness.

Interests versus values

The Arab Spring has been full of unfortunate surprises linking former and current administrations to corrupt leaders. Photos of a smiling Tony Blair, getting up close and personal with much maligned Colonel Gaddafi, were a hit in the mainstream press as well as online following the collapse of his regime. Not long before that, the Bush Family’s close ties to the Saudi royal family did little to lend credence to their Middle East pro-democracy campaigns in the early 90s and 2000s.

Germany is in a similarly awkward position as the the largest energy consumer in Europe, with oil making up 38% of Europe’s overall consumption in 2011. Germany is Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom’s biggest European customer with 34% of total sales volume of Russian ‘blue fuel’ destined for German markets last year. There was therefore more than a hint of hypocrisy in Angela Merkel’s recent remarks during a visit by Vladimir Putin to a trade fair in Hanover that Russia ‘needs more NGOs’. The statement was made in regards to a Russian law passed last year requiring all NGOs that receive overseas funding to register as  ‘foreign agents’. Topless Ukrainian activists from the pro women’s rights group ‘Femen’ made their presence felt at the trade fair, drawing attention to  Russia’s crackdown on civil society groups and independent media organisations. Russia’s authoritarianism is a key element of the Putin government, but the issue arguably receives little mainstream coverage in the West compared to the Middle East.

Germany and, by extension, Europe’s de facto dependence on Gazprom to meet their energy needs provides yet another example of why Western countries need to seek develop a more sustainable energy security strategy. It is difficult to legitimately champion broad concerns about upholding civil protections, when some of your largest business partners engage in the shadowy practice of denying basic freedoms to their own citizens.

Renewable energy… and freedom?

In light of the above we can welcome new approaches to energy security, which are aimed at reducing dependence on fossil fuel imports from authoritarian states. The Obama Administration’s ‘All of the Above’ energy strategy, as well as the pragmatism which the European Union, led by Germany, has shown in pushing forward a low carbon agenda are both steps in the right direction. Obama has pledged to double American energy efficiency by 2030, setting aside $2 billion over 10 years to support research into ‘a range of cost-effective technologies’, including electric vehicles, domestically-sourced biofuels, fuel cells, and domestically-produced natural gas. The plan also includes scope for reducing oil imports, while boosting renewable electricity generation from wind, solar and geothermal sources. Although Obama’s plan is far from low carbon, it shows promise. By comparison the UK Government, which at one time pledged to be the ‘greenest government ever’, has attempted to push forward its nationwide low carbon transition through the establishment of a Green Investment Bank. However, fairly recent public squabbles in the UK between Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Chancellor George Osborne the UK’s finance minister, have called that agenda into question.

Friedman’s claim of an inverse correlation between high oil prices and authoritarianism is flawed. But his point about ‘petropolitics’ is still crucial to security, not only because he tries to link oil price fluctuations to authoritarian politics, but also because he highlights how Western dependence on foreign oil provides significant revenue streams on which remaining authoritarian governments can rely. It is also important to point out that as the global price of oil becomes more volatile due to price instability (see: ‘peaky behaviour’) the economic stability of authoritarian regimes that have consolidated their power bases around fossil fuels will almost certainly erode. Moreover, as the impact of oil prices continue to destabilise staple commodity prices, authoritarian regimes will almost certainly come under increasing pressure from their own populations to step down. Western countries that have formed dubious partnerships with these regimes in order to meet their energy security needs will risk further embarrassment when these regimes are toppled by the inevitable anti-authoritarian movements. Western leaders might then stand by and wait to pick a winner – a dubious strategy at best – in order to ensure that supply shipments are not further destabilised. But is this sustainable?

Renewable energy is not the most obvious factor for bolstering the strength of nations. But it is fast becoming clear that Western dependency on fossil fuel imports from countries governed by heavy-handed regimes cannot go on. The International Energy Agency has recently announced that power generation from renewable sources worldwide will exceed that from gas and be twice that from nuclear by 2016. That’s a positive sign. As for oil, we will have to wait and see. But if the restoration of Western legitimacy as champions of the “free world” is a top priority for Western leaders, then more support for domestic renewable energy growth is essential.

Phillip Bruner is Founder of the Green Investment Forum and a guest lecturer in global political economy at the University of Edinburgh

Image source: United Nations Photo

Western states are growing increasingly reliant on private military and security companies. Fully understanding the privatization of security and its effects on sustainable security requires the inclusion of a critical gender lens.

Introduction

In 1999, the American private military contractor Dyncorp hired Kathryn Bolkovac as UN International Police Task Force monitor in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the course of her work Bolkovac raised allegations that private contractors and UN employees were trafficking and sexually exploiting young girls. In 2002, a UK court acknowledged that Bolkovac was wrongfully dismissed for bringing the story to light, but nobody was ever prosecuted for the alleged sex trafficking.

Bolkovac’s story — dramatized in the movie The Whistleblower  — captures perfectly some of the challenges to accountability when security functions are outsourced to the private sector and performed by transnational security forces. Security privatization reduces transparency and accountability in ways that exacerbate and make less visible the gender inequalities and gender-based violence that pervade militarized security contexts. Moreover, security privatization increases the profitability of insecurities, making it more difficult to tackle the causes, including gendered causes, of insecurity. Understanding the privatization of security and its effects on sustainable security requires the inclusion of a critical gender lens.

PMSCs and gender: an emerging challenge

Image by chuck holton via Flickr.

Over the past three decades a new challenge to sustainable security has emerged: the growing reliance on private military and security companies (PMSCs) by Western states, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and transnational corporations. PMSCs offer a wide range of services from logistical support, intelligence, training, armed and unarmed guarding and protection, to reconstruction and more. The US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown that today waging war is contingent on heavy involvement from the private sector. Private contractor numbers have trailed and at times outpaced US troop levels in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In February 2010, the US DoD employed more than 100,000 private contractors each in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A number of high-profile cases have highlighted the problems associated with the use of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Private contractors were involved in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the 2007 shooting and killing of Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square. Allegations of war crimes, poor working conditions, sexual harassment and human trafficking, and disregard for local populations have come to shape the public image of the private security industry over the past two decades.

In this context, gender has become part of the industry’s attempts to improve its reputation. Gender considerations have made it into the voluntary International Code of Conduct for Private Security Providers that came into effect in November 2010. The International Code of Conduct explicitly addresses gender in three paragraphs on gender-based violence, selection of personnel, and harassment-free work environments. Gender has also been declared ‘good for business‘ by the private security industry. Female employees of PMSCs are seen as useful to conduct security checks on women or to foster positive interactions with local populations, and thus seen as instrumental to operational effectiveness. This attention to gender, while positive on the surface, has mostly served the purpose of creating greater legitimacy for the industry. It has not addressed the larger impacts that outsourcing have on women’s claims to greater and equal participation in the military sphere and the gendered impacts of the use of private forces in local contexts.

A critical gender lens on private security

Gender is not just a ‘problem to be solved’ for private contractors, but is fundamental to the reorganization of force through privatization, to the functioning of the private security industry, and to how the industry legitimizes itself. The greater use of private force is part of the broader neoliberal transformation of militarized citizenship that has also entailed a shift from conscription to all-volunteer forces in many Western states. This reorganization of public force has meant an end to the male citizen-soldier model and the greater integration of women into all-volunteer forces. The greater reliance on private security has occurred alongside to the greater integration of women into Western public militaries. While some decry the feminization of public militaries, others have shown how PMSCs actively rely on hyper-masculinity in portraying themselves as more effective security forces vis-a-vis the public sector.

PMSCs that provide security services primarily recruit from the army and special forces. In doing so, they replicate and even reinforce the gendered division of labour present in the public military sphere. However, PMSCs have also made a concerted effort to distance themselves from the hyper-masculine images of trigger-happy burly ‘cowboys’ and shift towards a softer and more legitimate image of masculinity, shedding the hyper-masculine militarized image for one emphasizing humanitarianism, protection, professionalism, and expertise. At the same time, privatization sidelines and depoliticizes questions of gender equality in the military sphere. There is neither publicly available data on women in the private security industry nor public debate on their marginalization within the industry. By its very logic, profitability drives the private security sector and not questions of citizenship and equal participation.

Gender also intersects with race and citizenship to shape the division of labour in the globally operating private security sector. A large segment of the workers hired or subcontracted by PMSCs comes from the Global South. The globally operating private security industry can be thought of as a hierarchy of masculinities. Western contractors are at the top of this hierarchy, and so-called third-country nationals (TCNs) from the Global South sit at the bottom. Profitability is in part achieved through the exploitation of this vulnerable migrant labour force.

The outsourcing of military security functions to private companies has allowed a global rescaling of labour recruitment in support of Western military operations. As data from the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan show, a majority of contractor labour is made up by ‘third-country’ and host-country nationals and not by US citizens. For example, of the more than 200,000 DoD contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan in February 2010 (mentioned above), less than 40,000 were US citizens. The racialized hierarchy among contractors of different citizenship is evident not only in pay and working conditions, but also in the kind of work performed. While local and migrant workers perform much of the logistical support work, their proportion is particularly high when it comes to the more dangerous armed security work.

Conclusion

Simply bringing consideration of gender into the private security industry is not a sufficient enough means of addressing the problems that security privatization poses for sustainable security. Conflict is often justified and waged by appealing to gendered notions of security: masculinized protectors and defenders, and feminized and vulnerable populations in need of protection. Private actors feed into this gendered discourse, portray themselves as masculinized protectors, and benefit from continuing insecurities and global inequalities. As insecurities create new market opportunities for the private security industry, gendered discourses of protection and gendered divisions of labour are being reinforced while sustainable security becomes more elusive. We need to be mindful of security privatization and the fundamental ways in which it is gendered as we work towards remaking security in more sustainable ways.

Maya Eichler is Canada Research Chair in Social Innovation and Community Engagement and Assistant Professor of Political Studies and Women’s Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University.

President John F. Kennedy once said:

“You cannot negotiate with people who say what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable.”

However a small group of states (including the state of which Kennedy was President) have done just this in relation to the possession of nuclear weapons for decades. Five of them (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) have held the position of being the privileged few allowed to possess nuclear weapons under the terms of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)  while all others agree to forego developing the ‘ultimate weapon’ in return for access to civilian nuclear technology. Three others have refused to sign the treaty (India, Israel and Pakistan) and instead developed their own nuclear weapons (overtly in the cases of India and Pakistan after 1998 and covertly in the case of Israel from the late 1960s) happy to free-ride on the lack of global proliferation ensured by the treaty. To paraphrase Kennedy, the decision of these eight states (nine if you include North Korea from 2003 onwards) to inflict mass destruction on an adversary is theirs, but everyone else’s decision to acquire the same capability can be negotiated away.

What is perhaps most extraordinary about the NPT ‘grand bargain’, as it is often called (although given that the five nuclear weapon states have exactly the same access to civil nuclear technology as the rest of the signatories, ‘bargain’ here really is a polite term for ‘scam’), is that it has remained largely intact for so long. For something built on such a seemingly unsustainable basis as an institutionalised double standard (particularly one that relates to the ultimate survival of nation states), the fact that its indefinite extension was negotiated in 1995 and that the treaty is still with us defies most conventional wisdoms about the ‘dog-eat-dog’ nature of self-help politics in an anarchical international system. Yes, the treaty may have been abused by some states and used as a cover to develop covert weapons programmes (Iraq, Libya, North Korea and possibly Iran) and one state has even withdrawn from the treaty under Article X (North Korea in 2003), but these are four cases in a treaty that boasts 189 signatories.

Challenging sustainable security

In many ways the success of the treaty regime provides one of the most robust challenges to the whole concept of sustainable security. Why bother addressing the root causes and underlying drivers of nuclear proliferation if you can effectively stem the flow of nukes by maintaining a treaty which promotes a ‘norm’ of non-proliferation as good international behaviour, and allows you to deflect charges of hypocrisy as long as you make encouraging noises about ‘eventual’ nuclear disarmament at some unspecified point in the future?

However, like a building with rotten foundations, it may be that what has appeared to be a relatively sustainable global non-proliferation regime is far less stable than many believe it to be. Recently, Egyptian negotiators walked out of the UN talks that are held in the lead-up to each five yearly review conference of the NPT. This dramatic move from Egypt was a public expression of the long-held private frustrations of its diplomats who, after being effectively promised serious negotiations towards a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone (WMDFZ), in return for their support for the indefinite extension of the Treaty in 1995 (and re-affirmed explicitly at the review conference in 2010), face the continued postponement of such talks. The problem is, Israel has no interest at all in such a zone – why would it? A combination of the NPT and Western action against would-be proliferators such as Iraq, Libya and Iran have meant that the construction of a WMDFZ in the Middle East would mean that Israel would either have to join and give up its position as the only state in the region with nuclear weapons, or be the one state in the region that refuses to join. Either way, it would also mean attracting global attention to its nuclear weapons arsenal, something Israel has managed to successfully avoid of late in all the focus on the weaponisation concerns over Iran’s civil programme.

Calling it like it is

Before leaving the NPT preparatory talks, Egypt’s Ambassador Hisham Badr explicitly referred to the resolution passed in 1995 that called for negotiations on a Middle Eastern WMDFZ, and called out those that thought they could get away with Egypt sticking to its side of the bargain and getting little in return. His comments challenged the idea that the double standard could be maintained indefinitely when he stated clearly that “we cannot wait forever for this resolution to be implemented.”

Perhaps the most worrying signs here are the responses to Egypt’s move. Israeli diplomats have effectively said that with the security situation in Syria, in Egypt itself and elsewhere in the region, a WMDFZ is the least of its concerns. The United States has referred to the episode as “theatrics” and in the meantime has pushed on with negotiating a nuclear trade pact with Saudi Arabia. These trade deal talks are taking place at a time when experts are tracking an increase in the acquisition of strategic ballistic and cruise missiles by the Kingdom. The other nuclear weapons states have been conspicuously quiet throughout.

So rather than seeing this as a sign of the potential unravelling of an unsustainable regime based on a double standard, those who have most to gain from the NPT arrangement (both inside and outside the regime), are betting on this being just another ‘NPT in crisis’ – a moment they assume will pass. Whether this storm will blow over (like a mushroom cloud over the Pacific Ocean…no, sorry that bad pun is stopping right there!) is now THE big question for those concerned about nuclear threats. If the regime falls apart and 189 states are no longer happy to give up nuclear weapons, the simple days of dealing with Iranian and North Korean nuclear ‘crises’ will be looked back upon with great fondness.

Time for regime change?

While the NPT regime story is one of a continuing death foretold, it is difficult to see how the all-important 2015 review conference can outrun the double standard that sits at the heart of the regime without all signatories applying some degree of what could be called a ‘sustainable security’ approach. As Egypt’s actions make clear, anything less than a regime specifically geared towards addressing the reasons why some states seek nuclear weapons  – including regional insecurity, conventional weapons imbalances and the prestige attached to nuclear arsenals by their possessors – is a regime existing on borrowed time.

Ben Zala is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester.

Image source: Wikimedia

This article is part of the Remote Control Warfare series, a collaboration with Remote Control, a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group.

States’ ability to move forward on the issue of lethal autonomous weapons will depend on not only finding consensus on key concepts but also having the will to find concrete outcomes.

UN Meeting of Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons in April 2015. Source: Flickr | UN Geneva

April’s meeting of experts at the UN on lethal autonomous weapons systems (often shortened to LAWS or AWS) set out to consider questions relating to this emerging military technology, a continuation of UN talks begun in May 2014. These meetings took place under the aegis of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), and brought together state representatives, NGOs and academics. The CCW meetings have demonstrated a divergence of views on the ethical and legal concepts that should be employed, and a complex debate that at times felt detached from reality; moreover, without a negotiating mandate there is a fear that the meetings could simply mire the issue in abstract debate, leaving states free to continue developing the technology in the meantime.

The UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons

For a long time the CCW was a neglected treaty; regarded by states and NGOs as an overambitious and failed attempt to combine elements of international humanitarian law with arms control. By the end of the 1980’s, the CCW appeared to be floundering with only 29 state parties. Yet in recent years, participation has increased and there are now 121 state parties to the convention. A total of 87 countries sent representatives to the first meeting on autonomous weapons, marking a record high level of participation for the CCW. Eighty-eight countries were present at April’s meeting.

The purpose of the CCW is explicitly “to ban or restrict the use of specific types of weapons that are considered to cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants or to affect civilians indiscriminately.” The CCW is an evolving body of international humanitarian law, with a framework that is dynamically structured to be responsive to the concerns raised by the international community. The recognition that the law is not static is therefore a particular strength, indeed a cornerstone of the CCW.

The CCW’s talks in May 2014 and April 2015 were undertaken with a mandate “to discuss the questions related to emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapons systems, in the context of the objectives and purposes of the convention.” A ban on autonomous weapons would join five other CCW protocols on non-detectable fragments, landmines, incendiary weapons, laser weapons and explosive remnants of war. The uptake of the issue of lethal autonomous weapons by the CCW has been unprecedented in its speed, and could indicate a move towards prohibition. However, because there is no negotiating mandate, it could also be a strategic move to engage in these discussions on the part of states keen to engage in the debate of abstract principles, while at the same time continuing to develop the technology. The annual meeting of the CCW in November 2015 will decide formally whether to continue the talks, based largely on the content of the April meeting.

Autonomy

The most contentious issue discussed so far is the issue autonomous weapons pose with regard to human control. This issue was discussed through reference to the contested concepts of ‘autonomy’ and ‘meaningful human control’. The United States, the UK, France and Germany are all in favor of the notion of autonomy as a guiding principle. The US was one of the first states to advocate for this concept when its Department of Defense issued the first policy announcement by any country on autonomous weapons systems in November 2012, just three days after Human Rights Watch had brought the issue into the global spotlight.  Interestingly, the directive refers not to ‘fully autonomous’, but to ‘autonomous weapon systems’ that include human supervision. This supports the view advocated by the US at April’s CCW meeting: as long as humans are ‘in the loop’, weapons systems are not fully autonomous and therefore compliant with international humanitarian law. The UK, France and Germany attach human involvement to autonomous weapons systems as well. In a general exchange of views the UK representative assured, “there will be human oversight in this new territory where lethal autonomous weapons systems can go […] Autonomous systems do not exist, and will never exist” (author’s own transcription).

However, some objected that this was a ‘knockdown’ argument intended to rhetorically shut down the controversy about the lack of human control. The International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) is an international association of experts that was sat up with the specific goal of getting governments to talk to each other about the continuous automation of warfare, and was present at both the 2014 and 2015 meetings. ICRAC’s interpretation of the DoD policy was that it was designed to “green-light” weapon systems able to select and engage human targets. Together with 272 experts in computer science, engineering, artificial intelligence, robotics, and related disciplines from 37 countries, ICRAC issued ‘The Scientists’ Call’,  stating: “[G]iven the limitations and unknown future risks of autonomous robot weapons technology, we call for a prohibition on their development and deployment. Decisions about the application of violent force must not be delegated to machines”. Their message was clear, that within such systems, human control would not be ‘meaningful’.

Meaningful human control

India and Pakistan expressed confusion over this idea of meaningful human control, observing that the presence of meaningful human control would mean the weapons systems would not then be ‘autonomous’. In their opinion the question should be whether or not independent weapon systems can comply with international humanitarian law: whether they can distinguish between civilians and combatants, make proportionality assessments, and comply with other time-tested legal principles. A counter-argument was raised by Richard Moyes from Article 36 that if discussion is too focused on undefined hypothetical systems’ ability to comply with international humanitarian law, then legal arguments could become separated from reality. In particular, he argued that the law is a human framework applied to humans. A state representative from Greece agreed, saying that autonomous weapons should be addressed ethically rather than legally or technically, as the question is whether or not humans should delegate life and death decisions to a machine. The debate around autonomous weapons’ ability to comply with international humanitarian law is a misguided one if it fails to grapple with the bigger, underlying issues that would be raised. Banning such systems, in fact, is about maintaining something unique in the decision-making process: a human with intent behind the act of killing. Cuba, Ecuador, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Palestine agreed with this argument and called for a prohibition.

Potential for convergence

Consensus was reached on the undesirability of fully autonomous weapons systems. Ambassador Michael Biontino of Germany, who chaired the April meeting, wrote in his report that the following area of common understanding had emerged: “machines or systems tasked with making fully autonomous decisions on life and death without any human intervention, were they to be developed, would be in breach of international humanitarian law, unethical and to possibly even pose a risk to humanity itself.” However, because parties largely disagree about what constitutes human intervention, this statement is of limited value. The contradictory definitions used at the CCW meetings have created a lack of clarity for policymakers; it remains largely undecided what the world would look like if autonomous weapons came into existence.

The April talks not only give some idea of the shape of the debate going forward, but also of the potential limitations of the CCW talks themselves, as a forum for discussion, but without a negotiating mandate. One significant milestone would be the establishment of a broad, representative and universal Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) next year that would move the discussion from an informal to a formal setting. It has been suggested that the current lack of common language makes this discussion challenging, and that it is critical to avoid rushing into formal discussions. However, it does not seem premature for prohibition to be on the agenda in a body that has been designed to create prohibitions. A GGE seems a necessary next step to keep states focused on a practical outcome.

Lene Grimstad served as an observer at the 2014 and 2015 Geneva Meetings of Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, and holds a MA in Society, Science and Technology in Europe from the University of Oslo and ESST (European Inter-University Association on Society, Science & Technology) .

Featured Image: Meeting of Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems in April 2015. Source: Flickr | UN Geneva