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

Scarred in recent years by questionable involvements in the likes of Afghanistan and Iraq – and by the casualties they wrought – risk-averse Western governments have begun to look to others to do the shedding of blood in their ‘wars of choice’. The risky boots-on-the-ground role that was once the proud preserve of NATO armies anxious to showcase their abilities is now politically unpalatable. Proxies appear to be the answer. Biddable local allies who are of a mind to work in collaboration with Western militaries are very much in demand: the former supply the troops, the latter the training and the technological support – if not, indeed, the weapons as well. A symbiosis based on the principle that my-enemy’s-enemy-is-my-friend is the goal. This simple formula, though, is one that is not always bound to produce positive results. Proxies should always carry a health warning; they tend not to be as biddable as hoped.

Take the Kurds. They are an ethnic group inhabiting a region – Iraq and Syria – where suitable proxies for Western powers are very much in demand for use against Islamic State (IS). The Kurds appear to be ideal candidates as proxy fighters: they are numerous; of a warrior-caste; are politically acceptable to Western audiences, and have a natural enemy in IS. As a militant group intent on territorial expansion, IS threatens Kurdish communities. The case for synergy is thus obvious: Western militaries and the Kurds can work together for mutual benefit. Not quite so obvious, however, are the various reasons why the relationship between Kurd and Western militaries is one that has the ready capacity to go awry. The chief driver of any breakdown is that Kurdish proxies can and will have their own priorities that clash with those of their sponsors.

Image of Peshmerga replacing the ISIS flag with  the Kurdish flag by Kurdishstruggle via Flickr.

The first point to note here is that the Kurds are a people divided. A fractiousness has historically long been evident between the various clans, tribes and families that make up this nation. These differences may have now mellowed but they have never completely dissipated. And then there are the differences created by linguistic schisms – Sorani and Kurmanji – and sectarianism – Sunni and Shia. Differences also developed due to the politics of whichever state the Kurds found themselves in after the demise of the Ottoman Empire. The Kurds within Syria developed under the tutelage firstly of French colonial rulers and then under a succession of socialist governments in Damascus. Both influences – or rather impositions – shaped a Kurdish community that was very much secular in make-up. It was the same in Turkey; Kemalist policies pushed secularism. In contrast, however, in Iraq, the laissez-faire approach of British colonial masters and then the inability of Iraqi governments to penetrate and shape attitudes in its northern Kurdish region left in place a largely tribal-based, conservative structure that is still today strong on religious (Sunni) influences.

Today, the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, known as the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), is riven by a split between a Western region dominated by the party of President Masoud Barzani – the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) – and an eastern region where the party of former Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani – the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) – holds sway. The KDP, dominated by the Barzani tribe and with strong links north to its political patron, Turkey, maintains the strings of power in the KRG. It is based in the ‘capital’ of Erbil. The PUK, more left-of-centre, modernist and leaning towards Iran, holds sway around Suleimaniyeh. These two parties, indeed, and using their peshmerga forces, fought a civil war in the 1990s. And while there is currently what might be seen as a national KRG peshmerga force, these two parties still maintain their own peshmerga units and there is thus always the possibility that tensions may lead to some renewed clashes. Moreover, with future independence in mind, one eye is constantly being kept on the need to prepare for a possible future conflict with the Iraqi army and its associated Shia militia. Here is one particular problem for the Kurds of Iraq – who is the real enemy? Is it IS; is it fellow Kurds, or is it Baghdad? This then also becomes a problem for any power that seeks to use these Iraqi Kurds as proxies against IS – as the United States and others do. Can they be made to keep their eyes focused on IS and not elsewhere? And will the training and weapons they might be supplied with be directed at IS, or could they be used against other US proxies – such as other groups of Kurds and/or the Iraqi army?

In Iraq, for instance, any future push on IS-held Mosul will, the US military hopes, involve the KRG’s peshmerga forces supported by US artillery and air power. Washington does not want the Shia-dominated Iraqi army to be seizing, on its own, the Sunni city of Mosul. Re-occupation of the city should be leavened, ideally from the US viewpoint, by the employment of Sunni Kurds. As things stand, however, there is a reluctance on the part of Erbil to push forward. The KRG has now, to a large degree, stabilised its own ‘borders’ (including the internal one within Iraq), which they see forming the basis of a future independent Kurdistan. Assaulting the Arab city of Mosul will doubtless involve a major loss of life and of treasure (in a cash-strapped KRG) that will produce little in the way of obvious gain for the Kurds while there is a bigger prize in mind.

Then there are the Kurds in Turkey. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê‎, PKK) is a left-wing Kurdish militant group that has long been fighting for more autonomy for the Kurdish-majority region of south-east Turkey. Ankara looks upon the PKK, not unnaturally, as a terrorist group. Recently, during the IS-generated chaos in northern Iraq, battle-hardened PKK units moved across the area and have proved to be some of the best fighters against IS; certainly better than the peshmerga. So here, logically, should be the ultimate proxy of choice for the US inside Iraq – the PKK. The idea, though, that US forces should assist the PKK in any way would bring paroxysms of protest from Turkey – a NATO ally. The KDP government in Erbil (with its own allies in Ankara in mind) is itself ardently agitating to prevent the PKK from setting up any zones within Iraq that it will come to control politically (such as around Sinjar). The PUK, on the other hand, has long supported the PKK, mostly because of the commonality of their left-wing politics.

There are also the Kurds in northern Syria to consider. There are dozens of bickering Kurdish political parties jockeying for control there. The only force there that is armed, though, is the militia – the People’s Protection Units (Kurdish: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG) – of the main party, the Democratic Union Party (Kurdish: Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat‎, PYD). The PYD – again, avowedly secular and actively left-wing – was formed mainly from PKK members who had fled from Turkey in the 1990s. The PYD is thus looked upon by Turkey as just an offshoot of the PKK and is, therefore, also a ‘terrorist’ group. But again, its YPG militia have proved very effective – certainly more effective than US-allied Arab groups in Syria – at confronting and besting IS. The YPG have also shown a penchant for actually taking the fight to IS by moving into Arab-majority areas of Syria (something the peshmerga in Iraq are reluctant to do). Here is another proxy that seems ideal. But how is the US to support the YPG effectively without incurring the wrath of Ankara? Moreover, there will probably come a time soon when Turkey will try and seize Kurdish areas of northern Syria in order to eliminate what it sees as the PYD’s terrorist threat. The PYD’s main enemy would then be Turkey, and not IS. What would the US do then?

And then there is the cross-border relationship between the Iraqi and Syrian Kurds. It would seem natural for the Kurds in Iraq to support their ‘compatriots’ in Syria. Beyond natural kinship would also be the fact that both are fighting IS. But the KDP in the KRG, having allied itself with Turkey and being more tribal and religiously conservative, wants no truck with the ‘communist’ PYD. Indeed, it has even tried to prevent any assistance reaching the PYD across the Euphrates. To this end, a large trench system has been built by KDP peshmerga to act as a physical barrier designed to prevent any help from the PUK – who do support the PYD (mostly, again, for ideological reasons) – being sent across the border into Syria. Thus the US military is providing assistance to two armed Kurdish groups – the YPG and the KDP’s peshmerga – who are highly likely to one day become engaged in combat with one another.

Thus when Western military organisations look to the Kurds to provide suitable proxies against IS, problems abound. The notion of a symbiosis created by a common enemy is tempered by the fact that the Kurds, of whatever ilk, tend to have more than just one enemy. This is not a good basis for the role of reliable proxy. But apart from the Kurds, who else is there?

Rod Thornton is a Senior Lecturer at King’s College London based in Qatar. He spent nine years in the British Army before moving into academia. His research interests focus on terrorism, low-intensity warfare and new forms of warfare – particularly, as a Russian-speaker, on Russian hybrid warfare.  He has lived in the Middle East for four years, including one year at the University of Hewler in Erbil, Kurdish region of Iraq. He is the author of many articles and a book, Asymmetric Warfare: Threat and Response in the 21^st Century (Polity Press 2007).

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

Brexit has called into question Britain’s relationship with Northern Ireland. Whilst the possibility of sporadic inter-communal violence in Northern Ireland is small, the Brexit vote has certainly placed a strain upon the hard-won stability of British-Irish relations.

Introduction

Whilst the full implications of so-called ‘Brexit’ for the future of the United Kingdom (UK)’s relationship (if any) with the European Union (EU) remain profoundly uncertain, it is also the case that the UK-wide vote to Leave has exacerbated the already existing sense of fluidity regarding the future constitutional relationships between the constituent parts of the multi-national UK state. Of course, the majority votes to Remain in Scotland and Northern Ireland do not, of themselves, create a new constitutional arrangement, but if the new Conservative administration of Theresa May were to decide to push on with a UK-wide ‘hard Brexit’, perhaps involving leaving the single market in a bid to establish control over the free movement of persons, then it is difficult to see how the stability of the UK’s constitutional status quo could be guaranteed. As Brendan O’Leary has argued, ‘those who insist that a 52-48 vote is good enough to take the entire UK out of the EU would trigger a serious legitimacy crisis.’  A key lesson that needs to be understood by Westminster in the coming months or years of negotiation (with Brussels and the EU member states, particularly the Republic of Ireland, but also within the divided UK) is that, as O’Leary puts it, multi-national states are not usually ‘destroyed by secessionists alone’ (Ibid.). It is the ‘unilateral adjustment of the terms of the union by the centre’ that can provoke such an outcome. This may be an unintended consequence of such unilateralism, even if some at the centre profess the view (as David Cameron did after the Scottish referendum on independence in 2014) that the multi-national union is ‘precious beyond words’.

Great Britain and Northern Ireland: A ‘Place Apart’

Image by Miss Copenhagen via Flickr

It is unsurprising that during the campaign neither the public nor the political class in Great Britain (GB) appeared to give much serious consideration to the effect of a Brexit vote upon three crucial interlocking relationships: the fragile state of communal relations within Northern Ireland in the post-Good Friday Agreement (GFA) era; the North-South relationships on the island of Ireland, and the questions Brexit was likely to raise concerning the 300-mile land border; the wider UK relationship with its closest neighbour. This ‘reflexive forgetfulness’ of the GB public with regard to the unloved province of Northern Ireland may have been unsurprising, but it was lamentable, and possibly destabilising, nonetheless. If there was engagement with the potential repercussions of a Leave vote on the internal, already fragile, relations between the constituent parts of the UK, the focus tended to be on Scotland, rather than Northern Ireland. This neglect, by no means benign, reflects a deep-rooted sense that Northern Ireland is, in Dervla Murphy’s phrase, a ‘place apart’.  In the short and medium-term the ‘peace process’ has not been jeopardised directly, and there is no immediate prospect of a return to widespread violent confrontation between Irish nationalists and British unionists in Northern Ireland. Aside from a number of weak and fragmented ‘dissident’ republican groups, there is no appetite for the resumption of an armed campaign among ‘mainstream’ republicans. There is always a possibility of sporadic inter-communal violence in Northern Ireland, but this looks remote at present. Nevertheless the Brexit vote has certainly placed a strain upon the hard-won stability of these relationships since 1998.

The Republic of Ireland and ‘Brexit’

For the Dublin government of Fine Gael (supported by several independent TDs), there was a fear that the critically important trading relationships with the UK would be damaged, and that any imposition of a ‘hard’ border (involving customs posts and possibly restrictions upon free movement) would further complicate and hamper economic activity. Allied to this hard-nosed economic concern, Dublin was also anxious that Northern Ireland’s fragile community relations and the institutional balance reflected in the GFA could be under threat, as ‘the border’ and potential constitutional change were placed, once again, on the agenda. Related to this anxiety was, perhaps, the unspoken fear of Taoiseach Enda Kenny that Dublin’s sense of being an equal partner with the UK in the lengthy years of the peace process might be compromised. The harmonious co-operation between the Dublin and London governments, built up over several decades stretching back to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, might begin to unravel, if London took the Brexit vote as a green light to marginalise the concerns of the Irish. Those concerns were three-fold: maintaining the open border between the Republic and Northern Ireland; keeping the ‘common travel area’ between Ireland and the UK (first agreed in the aftermath of partition in 1922); and, safeguarding the trading relationships (worth approximately £1 billion a week). As Pat Leahy argued in the Irish Times, ‘underpinning all these was the need above all else to protect the peace process.’

Kenny was keen to confirm that this bilateralism, and the ‘special relationship’ between the two states would survive Brexit, and his meeting with Theresa May in late July assuaged these doubts somewhat. But, as with that other fabled ‘special relationship’ between London and Washington, this one is also fundamentally asymmetrical, intrinsically of more significance for one side than the other. When it comes to tackling the enormous fallout from the Brexit decision, neither the relationship with Dublin, nor indeed the impact upon Northern Ireland, are at the top of London’s to-do list. It may even be the case that these issues are closer to the bottom of that list. Having said this, the new Prime Minister’s willingness to meet with Kenny, and her declaration in Belfast that ‘no-one wants to return to the borders of the past’ have calmed these fears to at least some extent.

However, hard choices remain to be made, and there is no guarantee that May’s government will be able to square the circle between impatient Conservative back-benchers and pragmatists in Whitehall who are concerned about softening the impact of the decision, both economically and diplomatically. The former group, buoyed by the momentum of victory, believe that Brexit should be swift, complete and irrevocable; they are watching hawkishly for any signs of back-tracking. This is the context in which Enda Kenny made a speech at the MacGill summer school in Co. Donegal, which speculated on the prospect, at some time in the indeterminate future (perhaps ‘10, 15 or 20 years from now’), that Northern Ireland might vote to join with the Republic. Of course, this was ‘controversial’, but almost certainly was designed to ensure that others, in the UK and Europe, take seriously the concerns of the Dublin administration. More parochially, Kenny perhaps felt that he needed to respond to the pressure being applied by opposition parties Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin (SF).

Sinn Féin and ‘Brexit’

Having campaigned for a Remain vote, on the basis of its ‘critical engagement’ position with respect to the EU, SF’s first response to the referendum result was to demand a border poll in Northern Ireland, as provided for in the GFA, if there is a realistic prospect of a majority vote in favour of constitutional change. Gerry Adams, SF President, claimed that the result meant that the ‘British government had forfeited the claim to represent the North at an EU level. Its policy has been rejected by the people.’ When this demand was predictably dismissed by the outgoing Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers, SF quietly moved on, instead focusing its attention on a mooted ‘national forum’ (modelled on the New Ireland Forum of the early 1980s and the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation of the early years of the peace process) to discuss how ‘the vote of the clear majority of citizens in the North who want to remain in the EU can be respected and defended.’ Although this proposal was effectively adopted by the Dublin government, it was also immediately rejected by Arlene Foster, the Democratic Unionist First Minister of Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, SF senses that Brexit could present republicans with a real opportunity to break out of the sterile impasse that had threatened its ‘project of transformation’ in Northern Ireland. SF has always characterised the GFA as ‘transitional’ and the peace process as ‘dynamic’, reflecting the party’s teleological belief that the ‘natural’ end-point of the process will be a united Ireland. It remains to be seen whether or not Brexit helps to make this vision any more realistic, but for the moment it has certainly breathed new life into the notion that the ‘border’ continues to be a key issue for the peoples of the island.

Since June 23rd, there have been emollient words and symbolic gestures from Theresa May, but sooner or later some difficult and potentially painful choices will have to be taken. In a joint letter on August 10th to Theresa May, Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness, the First and Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Executive, argued that the UK government should take into full account four issues of particular significance for Northern Ireland: the border should not become an impediment to the movement of goods, people and services; both private and public sectors need to retain access to unskilled as well as skilled labour; the energy requirements of Northern Ireland should not be affected; the potential loss of EU funds (over 3.5 billion Euros during 2014-2020) needs to be addressed.  The Dublin government, and the parties in Northern Ireland, will be hoping to have a genuine input into this decision-making, but it looks highly improbable that all the political forces in play will, or can, be satisfied simultaneously. Despite the constructive initial discussions, the Foster/McGuinness letter recognises that ‘it cannot be guaranteed that outcomes that suit our common interests are ultimately deliverable.’ Will the centre hold, and if so, how?

Stephen Hopkins is Lecturer in Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester, UK. His book, The Politics of Memoir and the Northern Ireland Conflict, was published in 2013 by Liverpool University Press.

This article by Sustainable Security’s Richard Reeve was originally published on openDemocracy on 29 November, 2013.

Bab Amro, Homs
Source: Freedom House (Flickr)

All wars end, sooner or later. With an interim deal signed on Iran’s nuclear programme, the great powers, Middle Eastern diplomats and the mediators of Geneva are returning their attention to ending the war in Syria. As figures released by Oxford Research Group on 24 November reveal, at least 113,735 Syrians had been killed by August, one-in-ten of them children. No conflict is currently deadlier. The 25 November announcement that the so-called Geneva II conference would finally convene on 22 January is thus overdue but good news. But what are the chances of it bringing peace?

Securing Syrian participation

If the responsibility for making peace rests with the Syrian actors to the crisis, the Geneva process has not yet secured domestic participation, let alone commitment. Convened in June 2012, the original Geneva conference was a meeting of the Action Group for Syria, an initiative co-sponsored by the UN and League of Arab States and including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (‘P5’), the EU, Turkey and, as office-holders within the Arab League, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar. The ensuing Geneva Communiqué set out a six-step plan to peaceful transition. But this was a commitment of the Action Group, not the Syrian parties to the conflict.

Geneva II, by contrast, is all about brokering agreement between Syrians. This has become very much more difficult since mid-2012, when up to 25,000 Syrians had died in the conflict. Based on data up to end of August 2013 analysed by ORG and ongoing casualties recorded by Syrian civil society, this casualty figure is now around five times higher. Levels of destruction, displacement and brutality have similarly multiplied.

The Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque south of Damascus is a major pilgrimage site for Shia Muslims from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and beyond. Attacks on the shrine in 2013 have reportedly motivated many regional Shia to fight in Syria.
Source: Wikimedia

The character of the war has also changed since 2012. It has increasingly become sectarian and internationalised. Sunni militants from across the Arab world and beyond have transformed the nature of the armed resistance. Shi’a militia from Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Syria’s Alawite community have played a decisive role in recent regime offensives. Secular Kurdish militia control the northeast.

Healing these divisions may take generations. Peace or a cessation of violence is an immediate imperative. Securing a deal in Geneva is likely to be a case of a ‘good enough’ compromise from an ‘inclusive enough’ coalition of interests. This is likely to have at least three dimensions.

First is the problem of securing meaningful participation in even initial talks. The largest and most widely recognised opposition political force, the National Coalition insists that President Bashar al-Assad must leave power. The regime insists it will neither ‘talk to terrorists’ nor negotiate surrendering power. The National Coalition faces greater internal resistance to negotiating, while the Assad regime is reassured by negotiating from a position of increasing strength on the battlefield.

Second is the problem of linking political settlement with battlefield realities: without the buy-in of combatants, no peace deal will be ‘good enough’ to hold. The National Coalition and its Free Syrian Army (FSA) have never coalesced the myriad of armed local resistance units into a capable force. Pulverised by regime armour, artillery and air power, opposition forces have increasingly rallied from secular to Islamist command to access more effective leadership and resources. The Islamic Front merger of the largest such groups on 22 November hugely undermines the National Coalition’s credibility. Conversely, association with the main armed Kurdish party has boosted the National Coordination Body, a moderate coalition of otherwise unarmed opposition parties still operating within Syria. The question of how civil society groups or minorities opposed to armed struggle can be involved in Geneva II remains unresolved. These should not be considered niche perspectives.

Third, ‘inclusive enough’ probably means side-lining some Jihadist groups that in 2013 have become dominant in the east and major players on the northern (Idlib and Aleppo) and southern (Daraa) fronts. Funded, organised and to a significant extent manned from abroad, the extent to which these groups represent Syrian interests is debatable. Affiliation with al-Qaida suggests these groups’ leaders are opposed to political compromise. As with AQ affiliates in Somalia and Mali, their radicalism may not be shared entirely by the Syrians who fight with them. The consolidation of the Islamic Front could serve to divert resources from al-Qaida affiliates.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on September 12, at beginning of Syrian chemical weapons talks.
Source: Wikipedia

Securing international commitment

If the responsibility for making peace rests with the international actors who have waged a war through armed Syrian proxies, the Geneva process so far looks equally constrained. Global rivals Russia and the United States play a leading role in the Action Group, but this leaves unrepresented the far more heavily committed (in military and financial terms) rivals for influence in the Persian/Arabian Gulf region: Iran and Saudi Arabia. Turkey and Qatar are also key supporters (and hosts) of the armed opposition but their presence adds to the sense that the Action Group is weighted against the Assad regime, which may count only Russia, Iraq and, more loosely, China as allies in Geneva.

Bringing the Iranians and Saudis into the process is thus crucial to the success of Geneva II. Iran’s opening to the west since the election of President Hassan Rouhani is partly driven by the draining of Iranian resources in Syria. With the Assad regime advancing on the battlefield, and Russia and the western powers sharing its concern over the rapid rise of Sunni extremists on the Syria/Iraq border, Iran is more likely to back peace in Syria. Its interests include a veto on Sunni dominance and continuance of its access to Hezbollah in Lebanon. However, with Shi’as and Alawites representing under 15% of Syria’s population, it is unclear how it can secure these interests without the Assads in charge.

Saudi Arabia looks a harder sell, not least because it feels its privileged status as US regional ally slipping as Iran pursues rapprochement. Recent Saudi tensions with Turkey and Qatar over influence in Egypt further undermine the unity of foreign pressure on the opposition. Yet reshuffles within the National Coalition and Islamic Front since July suggest that pro-Saudi elements have gained prominence in both. Riyadh may have the influence to bring these rivals together, but only if the Coalition assumes a more overtly Islamist identity. Reconciling Syria’s Sunni Arab majority and an Islamist agenda with either the Assad regime or western expectations is an enormous challenge, although the Geneva Process foresees a National Dialogue followed by constitutional and legal reforms to determine just such issues.

What way forward, then? It seems axiomatic that the rivalry between Iran and its Gulf Arab neighbours needs to be addressed directly through talks and confidence-building rather than through proxies over Syria. This is of particular urgency as talk re-emerges of a Saudi nuclear weapons programme to counter Iran. It could also be that the National Coalition is overly constrained by its disparate backers’ demands for opposition unity. The divisions that have hampered it in making war may also hamper it in making peace. Representation in Geneva that allows disparate Salafist, Muslim Brotherhood, secularist and pacifist currents to express themselves may be beneficial.

Judicial pressure

While the parties and their regional backers remain far apart in their expectations, international judicial mechanisms have potential importance as leverage towards peace, in restraining the behaviour of combatant parties, and eventually pursuing post-conflict justice. Although Syria has not signed the Rome Statute, international war crimes prosecutions could be brought if the UN Security Council refers Syria formally to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Due legal process and systematic gathering of evidence, including data on casualties, is crucial if the threat of prosecutions is to be realistic. The UN Commission of Enquiry has been investigating a wide range of alleged crimes committed by both sides, with a view to future prosecutions. Growing P5 consensus on the need for conflict settlement could make referral to the ICC possible in the case of Syria, as it did over Sudan in 2005.

As with the now dissipated threat of military intervention, at least the threat of prosecutions could increase pressure on Syrian combatants to curb the most egregious atrocities and negotiate peace. With both Iran and Russia appalled at the use of chemical weapons in Syria, pressure of prosecution could even be used to unstick the question of whether Bashar al-Assad presides over any transition government.

Richard Reeve is the Director of Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security programme. He works across a wide range of defence and security issues and is responsible for the strategic direction of the programme. Richard has particular expertise in global security, Sub-Saharan Africa, peace and conflict analysis, and the security role of regional organisations.

Increasingly, non-traditional threats to maritime security are linked to resource scarcity and conflict. An overriding challenge for policymakers is how to address these threats.

The relatively new concept of ‘maritime security’ has received increasingly greater attention both within the marine resource management and national security communities, particularly since the early 2000s.  While definitions of maritime security vary, there is broad agreement that maritime security generally encompasses the policies, regulations, and operations designed to secure the governance and management of a nation’s maritime jurisdiction (e.g., exclusive economic zones or territorial waters). This definition is broad enough to attract the relevant interest of and contributions from several fields of study, including: global policy; defense and security; natural resource economics; criminal justice; international development; and environmental management.

During the last two decades, a number of investigations have been conducted into the threats facing maritime security, particularly within the transnational waters of three regions: the Gulf of Aden and Horn of Africa in East Africa (see Sumaila and Bawumia 2014; Bueger 2013; Hansen 2011; Gilmer 2017); the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa (see Jacobsen 2017); and the South China Sea and Sulu-Sulawesi Seas of Southeast Asia (see Pomeroy et al. 2016; Chapsos and Malcolm 2017; Pomeroy et al. 2007).

Such research has encouraged careful analysis by the international community to identify relationships between relevant political, socioeconomic, and environmental factors with regional stability and maritime security.  Such investigations are of increasing interest to those addressing national security, international policy, and sustainable development concerns.

Linking Marine Resource Scarcity and Maritime Security

Maritime security can be viewed as a non-traditional security threat, defined by Caballero-Anthony as “challenges to the survival and well-being of peoples and states that arise primarily out of nonmilitary sources, such as climate change, environmental degradation and resource depletion, infectious diseases, natural disasters, irregular migration, food shortages, people smuggling, drug trafficking, and other forms of transnational crime”. Increasingly, non-traditional security threats are linked to natural resource scarcity. Whether considering energy, food, or freshwater shortages, such resource scarcities exhibit common attributes.

• First, they share common drivers, or factors that influence and cause or exacerbate scarcity, such as poverty, food insecurity, ecological degradation, human population growth, and ineffective governance and enforcement.
• Second, they are linked to each other through feedback loops, which create a major risk of unintended consequences when one scarcity issue is tackled without reference to other scarcity issues.
• Third, they have common impacts. That is, they disproportionately impact poor and fragile states, cause economic stress, and result in the potential for increased and strategically-targeted resource competition and conflict.

Bueger identifies four, interrelated concepts as an analytical foundation of maritime security: national security; human security; economic development; and the marine environment.  Building from this economic-environment-security framework, other research has investigated the relationship between the relative abundance (or scarcity) of available marine resources, the type and degree of extractive effort for such marine resources, and the level of resource competition and conflict (see Pomeroy et al. 2016; Bueger 2015b; Pomeroy et al. 2007).  These studies highlight how various political, socioeconomic, institutional, and cultural factors are linked to and cumulatively influence maritime security.  This research also illustrates how maritime insecurity can influence broader trends related to civil unrest (nationally or locally) and regional peace and order.

In this work, there is growing recognition of how increasing fisheries scarcity, competition, and conflict exacerbates rates of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in central Indonesia, Liberia, eastern Malaysia (Sabah), the southern Philippines, and Somalia.  In turn, IUU fishing further increases scarcity, competition, and conflict over remaining resources, eroding peace and order and decreasing maritime security.  Declining marine resource availability and decreasing maritime security also threaten the conservation and sustainable management of in situ marine biodiversity within these regions.

The Role of Non-State Actors and Transnational Crime

Image credit: U.S. Coast Guard. Photo by Chief Petty Officer Sara Mooers.

Investigations into marine resource scarcity, competition, and conflict have also highlighted how non-state actors and non-traditional threats are influencing maritime security.  Transnational crime has a notable influence on both marine resource scarcity and maritime security.  For example, illicit maritime commerce (such as human trafficking and the smuggling of narcotics or small arms via ocean vessels in Southeast Asia and West Africa) and piracy (including armed robbery at-sea, kidnapping for ransom, and oil bunkering off Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Somalia, and Yemen) committed by non-state (and in some cases, stateless) actors are linked both to marine resource scarcity (via both illegal fishing and piracy of post-harvest fishing vessels) and increased armed conflict and civil unrest (via increased rates of armed conflict/violence at sea and logistical and supply support for insurgencies and acts of terrorism).

As highlighted recently by an INTERPOL study (2016), 80% of the world’s nations today recognize environmental crime as one of their nation’s highest national security priorities (INTERPOL and UN 2016).  INTERPOL investigations reveal how environmental crimes are linked to both transnational criminal networks and terrorism.  Such crimes include the illegal exploitation of high-value natural resources from conflict areas (and in some cases, to fuel or sustain conflict in such areas).

Criminal supply chains trafficking in high-value natural resources (e.g., timber, oil, fisheries, diamonds, and gold) are documented as often converging under broader, networked operations of organized transnational crime.  Such transnational crime networks include actors operating within high-value fishery supply chains, including those for tuna, shark fins, and live reef fish.  Such criminal supply chains illustrate how closely linked marine resource scarcity and maritime security are.

Moving from Investigation to Prediction and Intervention

Building upon the recommendations outlined by INTERPOL and the UN, we propose that the international community move beyond investigating the relationships between political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors with maritime security (now documented), and move toward supporting three, focused interventions to bolster maritime security, particularly in sensitive or destabilized regions of transnational waters.

First, we propose the development of a predictive model of observed versus forecasted changes to the relative level of maritime security within a specific nation or region.  To do this, an empirical approach must be taken to build a predictive, multivariate model of national and regional maritime security trends (as the dependent or outcome variable), based on observable, real-time data related to political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors that are known to be correlated (independent variables).

By periodically monitoring such multivariate models at the national and regional levels, ‘tipping points’ in maritime security and regional stability can be identified prior to being reached, thus allowing opportunities for timely and focused interventions.  Such a model would require identification and measurement of an adequate, sensitive, reliable, and practical set of maritime security indicators across relevant dimensions; for example, Germond identifies geopolitical indicators of maritime security.

Next, we argue that current and future maritime security operations be redesigned from being largely specialized, narrowly-defined efforts to becoming broader, multidisciplinary efforts that account for the correlation and interdependence of relevant political, socioeconomic, institutional, and cultural factors present.  This will require the deliberate and focused recruitment, consultation, and active participation of non-traditional actors (e.g., fisheries managers; resource economists; rural development experts) into national security operations and defense policy.

By redesigning such maritime security activities, they can interfere with the ability of such factors to converge and cumulatively exacerbate civil and environmental insecurity.  Such maritime security activities include: coastal defense and security operations or missions; national marine resource management policies and actions; ‘good’ governance programs relating to nautical jurisdictions; economic development programs for coastal and marine industries; international foreign aid and development programs.

To be effective, redesigned security activities must address a broad suite of relevant factors rather than narrowly focus in on a specific aspect of maritime security; e.g., redesigning counterterrorism activities within coastal areas of unrest to include targeted marine resource livelihood and community-supported enforcement projects.  Case studies of successful models of broader, multidisciplinary maritime security operations can be documented and shared across nations and regions.

Finally, we propose that maritime security operations move away from being largely single country-specific efforts that are driven by national security agendas to that of collaborative, multinational efforts that are driven by a mutual, regional maritime security strategy.  Addressing transnational maritime threats and regional criminal networks in the seafood supply chain requires a collaborative approach that relies on coalition building and shared (negotiated) tactical objectives.

In some cases, such regional processes and multinational policy fora already exist, and can serve as a platform for targeted, collaborative, multinational maritime security operations; e.g., transnational security forces patrolling regional seas under the Regional Plan of Action to Combat IUU Fishing by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).  Such collaborative, multinational efforts to reduce marine resource conflicts and improve maritime security would be a logical, strategic, and high-value approach commensurate with addressing the multiple operating conditions.

Conclusion

Maritime security is an important but often overlooked dimension of the broader “sustainable security” framework.  A complex web of multivariate drivers influencing maritime security are increasingly documented and recognized as being interconnected with the emerging security challenges of the 21^st century, including by non-state actors through non-traditional threats.  Addressing the contributions of marine resource scarcity, competition, and conflict in eroding maritime security is an important step that must be taken to uphold the rule of law, strengthen national security, and promote regional peace and order.

Robert Pomeroy is currently a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Connecticut Sea Grant College Fisheries Extension Specialist at the University of Connecticut – Avery Point in Groton, Connecticut USA. Dr. Pomeroy has his PhD in Resource Economics from Cornell University. His areas of professional interest are marine resource economics and policy, specifically small-scale fisheries management and development, coastal zone management, aquaculture economics, international development, policy analysis, and seafood marketing. Dr. Pomeroy has worked on research and development projects in over 70 countries in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.

John Parks has worked, for more than twenty years, with local communities, indigenous leaders, resource users, government agencies, non-governmental groups, and donors to design and implement marine resource management solutions that strengthen both environmental and civil security within coastal communities around the world. He has served in a number of non-government and government organizations, including as a federal officer with the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and as senior staff with the Nature Conservancy, the World Resources Institute, and World Wildlife Fund. John assists government and non-government clients around the world design and implement marine management solutions, including for fisheries management, marine protected area design and management, citizen-supported maritime enforcement, and climate change adaptation in coastal communities. John earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, with a dual focus on behavioral science and tropical coastal ecology. He is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, and has been a contributing or lead author on numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and other publications.