Category: Article

The consequences of climate change for human security are profound, but much of the last decade has been lost in avoiding those consequences. The implications for human security are serious. Today, with the consequences of climate change being increasingly recognised by military analysts, there is a risk of the “securitising” of the climate change agenda leading simply to military responses rather than a more preventative course of a rapid shift to a low-carbon society.

A World Blowing Cold and Hot

In 2009-10, the United Kingdom and much of the rest of north-west Europe experienced one of the coldest and most prolonged winters for several decades. In the minds of many people this seemed to confirm the view that the evidence for global warming was limited at best, and that the views of climate change sceptics were to be taken seriously. Furthermore, the winter’s experience came after the Copenhagen climate negotiations made little progress, and was also in the aftermath of a major controversy concerning climate change research at the University of East Anglia in the UK.

In this context- of suspicion over the reality of climate change – many people in Western Europe found it difficult to believe that the month of January 2010 was actually one of the warmest on record. This was the case when expressed in global rather than European terms – while the north-east Atlantic had been experiencing severe cold, parts of North America had warmer than average winters, and temperatures were high in many other parts of the world.

As 2010 progressed, two other weather events and one oceanic development added further to a sense of uncertainty. For much of the mid-summer period, Russia experienced exceptionally high temperatures which, in the case of the greater Moscow region, resulted in numerous forest fires leading to smog over the city. At the same time, further south in Central Europe, there was widespread flooding across 8 countries. In addition to this, there were appalling floods in Pakistan as the monsoon season was marked by some of the heaviest rainfall in decades. The full scale of the losses in Pakistan is still not clear.

Few climate scientists sought to claim that these weather events were direct indicators of climate change, but an indirect connection was certainly suggested. While it may be a common mistake to confuse “short-term weather” with “long-term climate”, it has been widely predicted that as the atmosphere of the entire planet slowly heats up, then weather systems should be expected to become more energetic, leading to extremes of weather events such as intense tropical storms, exceptional monsoons or continental heat waves. The experiences in Russia and Pakistan could be no more than equivalent to some of the extreme events that have been witnessed in the past, but their conjuncture at least reminded many people of other aspects of climate change.

The final element for 2010 was not a weather event as such, but a report that the Artic Ocean was experiencing one of the most substantial losses of mid-year sea ice on record. What seemed particularly surprising was that this should be happening within a matter of months of such a severe winter in the north-east Atlantic. In fact, the loss of sea ice was within the predictions that climate change models have produced in recent years. The overall impact of the loss of sea ice and the extreme weather experienced in Russia and Pakistan meant that by early September there was a widespread sense, once again, that climate change should be taken seriously.

Climate Change in Context

The possible impact of increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere was well recognised over 40 years ago, and by the end of the 1980s there was serious concern that there would be substantial changes in the planet’s climate if carbon emissions were not curbed. Although not directly related to climate change, the potential destruction of the ozone layer through the release of CFC pollutants was recognised in the mid-1980s as being the first clear example of human activity having an impact on the entire global ecosystem. The ozone problem was relatively easy to counter, since CFCs could be replaced, and phasing them out through the Montreal Convention was agreed in 1987. Partly because of the sudden and serious nature of the CFC issue, climate change research was attracting far more attention by 1990.

At the same time, there was one aspect that limited the extent of the concern. This was that studies of natural climate change in prehistoric times have indicated that most of the impact was in the north and south temperate latitudes. If this was repeated with human-induced climate change then at least the countries most likely to be affected would be wealthy enough to be able to adapt. With the tropics and sub-tropics buffered against excessive impacts, poorer people across the world might have less to contend with.

By the early 1990s, advances in climate change science showed that the pattern of natural climate change would not be repeated by human-induced change, and that those parts of the world least able to cope would be seriously affected. By the early part of the 2000s, further work was actually showing that there would be an asymmetric impact. In broad terms, large parts of Antarctica, the southern oceans and the southernmost parts of the continental land masses would experience the smallest increases in temperature, whereas the Arctic region and most northern, sub-tropical and tropical land masses would experience above-average increases. There were also indications that rainfall would tend to increase over the oceans and Polar Regions but decrease over the tropical and sub-tropical land masses.

The implications of this more recent understanding are profound, since those populations and societies least able to cope with the impact of climate change will have to contend with substantial changes. Decreases in crop yields and consequent food availability will be among the factors likely to make societies much more fragile and unstable, one effect being very substantial increases in migratory pressures, with these being strongly resisted by wealthier countries. When seen in combination with the persistent socio-economic divisions that already exist across the world, the potential for serious social unrest and political instability is considerable.

The Recent Politics of Climate Change

Among those resisting the implications of climate change have been large trans-national oil companies and oil-exporting countries. The former have funded policy institutes and others to promote critiques of climate change research and the latter have been deeply reluctant to support international protocols limiting carbon emissions. Beyond these forces, which may be powerful and well-funded, a much more serious issue in the first decade of the 21st century was that the world’s largest emitter of carbon, the United States, had an administration in power that was deeply suspicious of climate change. The United States withdrew from the Kyoto Climate Change Protocol within months of George W Bush assuming office in 2001, and throughout the next eight years, the United States played little part in climate change negotiations.

While this altered with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, by the middle of this year, part of the opposition to his administration was coming from the Tea Party Movement and other right-wing elements in the Republican Party, one feature of their outlook being a deep suspicion of climate change combined with strong opposition to any limits on carbon emissions. November’s mid-term elections to Congress may determine whether these views solidify in Congress, – a major risk, if the Democrats lose control of either house.

Climate Change and the Military

We are at a point where a combination of factors, including the attitude of the Obama administration, means that the risks emanating from climate change are being more generally recognised. This coincides with a significant change in attitude among military planners. In military planning units and security think tanks across the western world climate change is now seen as one of the key future drivers of insecurity. It is an outlook that stems partly from a tendency for military analysts to look long-term. Unlike most political and commercial institutions that tend to focus on 4-10 year time spans, military planning is frequently much longer term, to a certain extent because military forces depend partly on the development of systems involving development and procurement processes that stretch over decades.

Much of the analysis on climate change coming from military sources produces results that coincide with the ideas of radical environmental analysts, pointing to the social and political consequences, the risks of state failure and the rise of radical oppositional movements. However, when it comes to responses, the primary military focus is on maintaining the security of the state, either on its own or in alliance with others. This is to be expected and is legitimate from the perspective of a military organisation – its reason for being is to keep the state secure. Thus, the emphasis may be on increased border security and the patrolling of potential migratory routes, and the intervention capabilities necessary to stabilise failing states and ungoverned space that may be a consequence of the impact of climate change. What this almost never involves, is advocating the primary preventative measure that is required for responding to climate change – a rapid move towards an ultra-low carbon economy.

The Military Complication

Discussions with military analysts, including those who are engaging with Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security Programme, frequently focus on issues concerning climate change and security. There is sometimes recognition by some in the military that there should be a role for senior military officers in advocating a low carbon transition as part of a process of conflict prevention. The complication is that the loss of a decade at the start of the current century means that there will inevitably be numerous impacts of climate change, even if a low carbon transition can be achieved in the next two decades. From a military perspective it can therefore seem reasonable and legitimate to plan for security consequences. The problem is that this can have the negative effect of providing a political excuse to slow down the rate of transition. If “we”, in a rich country, can maintain our well-being by protecting ourselves from the security impacts of climate change, then engaging in the huge changes involved in a low carbon transition can assume a lesser political priority. This is an attractive proposition for most politicians given the likely electoral unpopularity of the transition.

The response to this “securitising” of climate change is that some adaptation is undoubtedly going to be required, but that little of this has to do with the military. There will need to be a far greater focus on issues such as improving water management across the tropics and sub-tropics, breeding more drought-tolerant crops, preparing for more severe storms and protecting low-lying regions, but these are not the ultimate answer to climate change. That involves addressing the problem at root – controlling and minimising carbon emissions.

A substantial element of Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security approach is the recognition that conflict prevention is at the root of society’s response to climate change, and that the next five years are crucial in moving towards a more emancipated and environmentally sustainable world. Where there is much work to do is in convincing those in the international security community that it is essential to prevent climate change and that responding to it by protecting elite societies is fundamentally inadequate. It is a huge task but it is at least aided by the manner in which military analysts do have the ability and willingness to think long-term. That is a welcome asset in difficult circumstances.

Author: Oxford Research Group’s Security Consultant Paul Rogers

Image Source: DVIDSHUB

In the UK, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government continues to pursue the renewal of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapon system amidst criticism of the opacity of the procurement process and concerns over the substantial and increasing costs of the project. Adding fuel to public anger over widespread government cuts, the Defence Secretary Liam Fox’s long overdue announcement in May 2011 that the Initial Gate for the project had been approved was accompanied by the revelation that when inflation is taken into account the price tag for just the new submarines (excluding missiles, warheads and running costs) is likely to be £25 billion, as opposed to the £11-14 billion announced in 2006. With the defence budget already curtailed by the October 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) and under strain on account of a projected deficit of £36 billion over the next 10 years, these latest figures have prompted further concerns that Trident is being replaced at the expense of conventional military capabilities. Moreover as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is now locked in yet another battle with the Treasury pressing questions are being asked about the costs, benefits, priority and opportunity costs of Trident replacement as compared with other areas of government expenditure. On 3 August, the Defence Select Committee – a cross-party committee of MPs -criticised the government over its “rushed” and “badly done” Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). Responding, Jim Murphy, the UK’s Shadow Defence Secretary said “events have exposed the mismatch between policy ambition and the resources provided by ministers”.

Originally scheduled for September 2009 the Initial Gate announcement, which gave the green light for the next stages of procurement to be undertaken (up to 15% of the budget), had been postponed numerous times whilst decisions were made regarding design, particularly over which type of nuclear reactor to use in the new submarines. The Defence Secretary’s Initial Gate statement in the Commons revealed that the new PWR3 reactor would be used, which will increase costs further. The decision to install the PWR3 instead of the currently used PWR2 reactor in the new subs was based on the results of a safety assessment which was accidentally made public by the MoD when anunredacted version of the report was posted on the internet. This led to criticisms of the MoD as well as of Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology, Peter Luff, who contradicted the report in Parliament. Anxieties over safety were amplified when an MoD report was published that assessed that government funding cuts are likely to jeopardise the safety of the UK’s nuclear weapons. Likewise, an official inquiry into the August 2010 fire at Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) contained strong criticism of the private management consortium (AWE plc, comprising US arms dealer Lockheed Martin, SERCO and Jacobs Engineering) that runs this publicly-funded nuclear weapons plant, particularly with regard to fire prevention and response. The report led the government’s Health and Safety Executive to investigate whether to take legal action against the AWE Management group. Nonetheless, despite a catalogue of problems associated with private sector management of AWE and other UK nuclear sites, in May the Scottish Herald revealed that the nuclear warhead storage base at Coulport is to be sold off to a consortium of private companies also led by, Lockheed Martin.

The statement on the Initial Gate was accompanied by the publication of areport describing work on the Trident renewal programme to date, the decisions taken at Initial Gate and around £3 billion of work scheduled to take place in advance of the Main Gate. Dr Fox also identified spending on long lead items that would cost a further £500 million. Alongside the announcement came the news that, in line with the Coalition Agreement under which it was agreed that the Liberal Democrats could continue to make the case for alternatives, an18-month study to review the “costs, feasibility and credibility of alternative systems and postures” would be undertaken. The study will be conducted by the Cabinet Office and overseen by Armed Forces Minister and Liberal Democrat Nick Harvey who is more open to exploring alternatives to Tridentthan his senior colleague, Conservative Defence Minister Liam Fox, who hasmade it clear that he is absolutely opposed to change. By way of compromise, the study will consider only nuclear weapons options for replacing the role assigned to Trident in the UK’s nuclear deterrence posture, with no consideration of non-nuclear options for deterrence and security. In Scotland meanwhile, following the May 2011 elections which gave the Scottish National Party (SNP) a strong working majority in the Scottish Parliament, a resolution is to be tabled calling for the removal of UK nuclear weapons from Scottish territory. If successful, such a resolution could have far-reaching implications for the storage of nuclear warheads at Coulport and the deployment of Trident, currently homeported at the MoD’s naval base at Faslane.

In spite of his unswerving commitment to replacing Trident, Liam Fox was keen to stress the UK’s disarmament credentials on the occasion of the ‘P5 follow-on meeting to the 2010 NPT Review Conference’, using the opportunity to confirm that part of the warhead reduction announced by the UK’s most recent Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) has been completed. Not long afterwards, former UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett reignited the debate over the policy of Continuous-at-sea-deterrence (CASD) when she raised the possibility of “not necessarily needing four boats”.

Article source: The Acronym Institute

Image source: UK Parliament

Water managers in the Indus Basin will have to overcome a host of overlapping socio-economic, environmental, and policy pressures as they strive to fulfill their society’s future water needs. The Indus sustains some 200 million people and nourishes the breadbaskets of both India and Pakistan, countries where the agricultural sector provides almost a fifth of national GDP and employs roughly half the labor force. But demands on the river have risen to the point that it no longer reaches the sea year round. Nearly 90 percent of the Indus’s resources are already allocated to supply the subcontinent’s growing populations and expanding economies, with little to no capacity to spare.

Even as they increasingly exploit the Indus, India and Pakistan also are draining their underground aquifers. Water tables have plummeted throughout the region as overdrafts exceed rates of recharge. Satellite data indicate the Indus Basin lost 10 billion cubic meters of groundwater annually between 2002 and 2008, a yearly depletion equivalent to half the available water storage in all the reservoirs of Pakistan.[1]

Consequently, numerous studies foresee increasing water scarcity there. The consulting firm McKinsey and the International Finance Corporation project supply deficits will top 50 percent on the Indian side of the Indus Basin by 2030. The situation is equally alarming across the border. The World Bank figures Pakistan already has hit the limit of its available resources, yet will require 30 percent more water by 2025 to meet rising agricultural, domestic, and industrial needs.

Climate change will exert additional, chronic pressures on freshwater supplies in the region. The Indus headwaters rise in the Himalayan range where snow and glacial melt contribute some 45-60 percent of the river’s annual flow. In recent decades, glaciers worldwide have retreated as global average temperatures have warmed. Initially, greater glacier melting will boost river runoff, increasing the danger of seasonal flooding. As de-glaciation continues, however, melt water flows will subsequently wane, diminishing downstream supplies. According to one study, receding glaciers could pare water supply in the upper Indus more than eight percent by 2065. Reverberating through irrigation demands and crop yields, this drop could ultimately reduce the number of people that basin resources could feed by 23 to 30 million.[2]

Left unaddressed, such strains could sow increasing competition over dwindling water supplies, potentially fueling destabilizing international tensions. Water has been a consistent flash point between India and Pakistan since their partition. The international boundary that set the two nations apart also set them at odds over water. As the downstream neighbor, Pakistan feared Indian withdrawals or diversions could deprive it of its water supply, throttling its agriculture and undermining its food security. Up-river, India worried that according all flows to Pakistan would curtail possibilities for developing the Indus for its own benefit.

Since 1960, the river has been governed by the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT). The IWT physically divided the Indus, allocating use of the three western tributaries that feed the main river entirely to Pakistan and the three eastern tributaries to India, while also controlling the type and features of projects that India can establish on its portion of the Indus. The IWT has stood through three wars and countless clashes. But the accord has no provisions for how the parties should respond to variations in water flow that climate change could engender. Nor does it address water pollution, though deteriorating quality cuts into available quantities as sources become too degraded for many uses. And while consumers across the basin rely on groundwater to supplement or substitute for surface water, there is no agreement for sharing supply or even sharing data on shared groundwater resources. Finally, though the Indus in fact begins in China and receives 10 percent of its discharge from Afghanistan’s Kabul River, the ITW includes neither of these other two riparians.

Indeed, the IWT may now hinder India and Pakistan’s abilities to face emerging realities. Both countries, for instance, lack adequate water storage capacity – a serious vulnerability as climate change threatens to disrupt future water availability. Both also suffer significant power shortages. New dam construction could potentially furnish them with reservoirs to buffer prospective shortfalls, flood control against the projected rise in extreme monsoon events, and hydropower to reduce their carbon emissions. Developing such projects, though, would heighten the need for enhanced cooperation as the ends of irrigation, electricity generation, flood protection, and ecosystem maintenance do not necessarily coincide. Multiple works on the same river cannot be effectively managed in isolation; the operations of those upstream also affect those downstream. But the IWT restricts the types of dams, and caps the amount of storage India can install on its tributaries, thereby limiting the type and amount of benefits – flood protection, hydropower – that more coordinated management of the river could offer.

In the wake of continuing controversies, voices in both countries have suggested revisiting the IWT terms – or even scrapping the accord and starting over. Ultimately, some mutually agreed alterations to the IWT might improve the scope for effective international cooperation and integrated resource management across the basin. Presently, though, moves to renegotiate the IWT would almost certainly prove more contentious than current confidence levels between the parties could bear. Before seeking to revise or reconstruct the accord, India and Pakistan could make better use of collaborative mechanisms it already offers. Article VII requires the countries to share hydrological data, but neither India nor Pakistan publish information on the Indus’s flows, making it that much more difficult for public interest groups, academic analysts, local stakeholders, or even decision-makers in other policy departments in either country to constructively participate or contribute to policy formation. Similarly, Article VII expressly envisages the two states could undertake cooperative engineering works, a possibility they have never pursued.

Under the IWT, “East is East and West is West.” Contra the poem of Rudyard Kipling, however, the ‘twain must meet if they are to effectively manage their shared water resources.

 

[1] V.M. Tiwari, J. Wahr, and S. Swenson, “Dwindling groundwater resources in northern India, from satellite gravity observations,” Geophysical Research Letters 36, L18401 (2009).

[2] Walter W. Immerzeel, Ludovicus P.H. van Beek, and Marc P.F. Bierkens, “Climate Change Will Affect the Asian Water Towers,” Science 328, no.5984 (2010).

 

This article originally appeared on Stimson Center’s website. 

The UN climate change negotiations in Durban began under a cloud of low expectations, which have been partly dispelled by the last-minute agreement to extend the legally-binding Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions. And while Canada, a major emitter, has pulled out of the Protocol, a new environmental divide has emerged that contrasts with the traditional paradigm of developed versus developing countries: the new faultline pits the United States, Canada, China and India, who oppose legal limits for a variety of economic reasons, against the European Union, African, Latin American and island states who favour binding measures – often for reasons of national survival.

The following article from the Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development contrasts the dynamics that have driven both the climate talks in Durban and the debate on European financial regulation that ended with a British veto. While market forces guide the decision-making process in the world of finance, progressive decisions on the world climate have little to recommend them beyond moral appeal. While welcoming the achievements of the Durban talks, she stresses that governments are unwilling to take the steps necessary to curb carbon emissions that they are currently implementing in the name of austerity – but if we address the two problems together, then there is potential for optimism.

 

Camilla Toulmin | 13 December 2011

The media has been telling a tale of two crises: they are complex, interconnected and have much in common. The common threads include richer countries living beyond their means and racking up high levels of financial and ecological debt over several decades leading to an economic and financial crisis. In Europe, we are due for a substantial adjustment in living standards, to get back into balance. Analysts reckon that in the UK, families will only regain their 2002 incomes by 2016 – and that’s if all goes to plan.

On the finance side, it’s the “markets” which provide the heat that forces politicians to act. Bond buyers will only continue to purchase what the government offers if they feel confident in their commitment to public debt reduction and re-structuring of the economy to generate growth and productivity. These actions are often divisive; Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to veto a new EU treaty has led to fears that the UK will become isolated if we don’t fully engage with Europe.

If it’s the markets that force us onto the financial straight and narrow, there seems no such force at work to push international leaders to take prompt and effective action on climate change. Unlike the fear and respect of governments for brokers and credit rating agencies, there is no baleful higher power that forces a common approach to safeguarding the planet’s future. The climate vulnerable have no power to press for change, save the moral argument.

But, despite the earlier despondency about potential outcomes from the UN Climate change negotiations, there is some room for optimism. The crucial outcome from Durban is an extension of the Kyoto Protocol. Although only the European Union and a few countries will commit to it, and the time frame for the second commitment period has yet to be decided, it’s extension re-establishes the “principle that climate change should be tackled through a framework of international law.” The agreement also:

    * refers to the current emissions gap – the gap between commitments made and commitments needed to meet the 2 degrees Celcius target;
    * starts a process for a post 2020 climate treaty which will require emerging economies, such as China, to commit to targets as well;
    * establishes a Green Fund which could provide the financial and technical support necessary for the poorest countries to adapt to the effects of climate change, if properly financed.

The threat of bankruptcy has so focused the minds of politicians in Europe, that Greece and Italy have put in place technocratic governments to carry out the difficult and unpopular economic measures that most people recognise need to be taken, but for which no-one has the political courage to take responsibility. Would we be willing to do the same to get real cuts in greenhouse gases?

On both climate and finance, we need a credible plan for the next 10-20 years that people can buy into. This needs to be clearer about the shape of the economy we want. Crisis can be a spur to generate major structural change, as was seen in many countries like Argentina and Brazil in the 1990s. Greening the economy could provide a new narrative for growth. London could use its primacy as a global financial centre to generate the finance for new investments and green infrastructure.  Many companies are cash-rich. A firm commitment to a long-term credible plan to shift to a low carbon economy could generate sustainable growth, and create much-needed jobs.

Camilla Toulmin is the Director of IIED.

 

Article Source: International Institute for Environment and Development
Image Source: European Parliament

Dangerous pressures are pushing international warfare in the direction of the absolute, imperiling the future of mankind. Undoubtedly, the foremost of these pressures is the emergence, use, retention, and proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as the development of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction.

Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki there have been several close calls involving heightened dangers of nuclear war, especially during the 45 years of Cold War rivalry. None of these was more frightening than the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when it took Soviet willingness to reverse their decision to deploy missiles in Cuba to avert a slide into catastrophic nuclear war.

To entrust such weaponry to the vagaries of political leadership and the whims of governmental institutions seems like a Mount Everest of human folly. Yet there is little outcry against nuclear weapons today, despite the collapse of the deterrence rationale that seemed to make reliance on the weaponry somewhat plausible during the decades of confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. Even under Cold War conditions, deterrence was seen by peace activists as a form of geopolitical insanity widely known by the descriptive acronym “MAD”, short for “Mutually Assured Destruction”.

Underneath the tendency of powerful governments to develop whatever weapons and tactics technology can provide are the fragmented political identities of a world divided into sovereign political actors. The inhabitants of these states of greatly varying size, capabilities, vulnerabilities, cultural and political traditions have long been indoctrinated to approve blindly of the actions of their own state. The idolatrous eyes of nationalism treat the extermination of an enemy as an acceptable goal if necessary for national security, and even desirable, if it is seen as furthering national ambitions.

Beyond this, defending the security of one’s own state is viewed as an unconditional prerogative, vindicating even a suicidal reliance on nuclear weaponry. The ideology of nationalism, nurturing the values of unquestioning patriotism and militarism in the modern West, have led to an orientation that can be described as secular fundamentalism, embodying imperial worldviews, however dysfunctional, given the risks and limits associated with continuing to seek desired political ends by relying on military superiority. The crime of treason reinforces these absolutist claims of the secular state by disallowing citizens of democratic states any right to claim conscience, law, and belief in support of their deviant behaviour.

‘Militarist frustration’ since WWII

Any objective study of international history will show that the militarily superior side has rarely prevailed in an armed conflict since the end of World War II unless it has also been able to command moral and legal legitimacy. The political failure of the colonial powers despite their military dominance provide many bloody illustrations of this recent trend toward militarist frustration, starting in the middle of the 20th century.

Because of entrenched bureaucratic and economic interests (the “military-industrial-media complex”), the evidence of the decline of hard-power geopolitics has been ignored. As a result, dysfunctional military solutions for conflicts continue to be relied upon in the West, especially by the United States, and costly and futile recourses to war are repeated over and over without lessons of restraint being learned. Experience, which might provide a rational limit on militarism, has been neglected; instead, old habits persist.

Another check on the excesses of warfare is supposedly provided by the inhibiting role of conscience, the ethical component of the human sensibility, that is supposed to be a hallmark of citizenship in liberal democracies. This sentiment was vividly expressed in a Bertolt Brecht poem, “A German War Primer”:

General, your bomber is powerful
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.

A driver is both a human cost, and maybe a brake on excess, as Brecht suggests a few lines later:

General, man is very useful
He can fly and he can kill
But he has one defect:
He can think.

Of course, military training and discipline are dedicated to overcoming this defect, especially when complemented with nationalist ideologies. International humanitarian law has vainly been trying to impose limits on combat behaviour in wars, but almost always yields in practice to considerations of “military necessity”.

The Nuremberg Trials decided that “superior orders” were no excuse if war crimes were committed, a breakthrough in establishing responsibility for adhering to law in relation to war, but flawed by its character as “victors’ justice”. Although beset by double standards, this Nuremberg tradition of imposing individual accountability for political and military leaders has persisted, and has recently been revived through the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002.

In the nuclear age, this process of dehumanising the military machine went further because the stakes were so high. I recall visiting the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) at the height of the Cold War. SAC was responsible for the missile force that then targeted many cities in the Soviet Union. What struck me at the time was the seeming technocratic sensibility exhibited by those entrusted with operating the computers that would fire the missiles.

This amoral posture contrasted with the ideological zeal of the commanding generals who would give the orders to annihilate millions of civilians at distant locations. I was told at the time that the lower-ranked technical personnel had been tested to ensure that moral scruples would not interfere with their readiness to follow orders.

I found this mix of politically and morally driven commanders and amoral subordinates a most disturbing mix at the time, and still do, although I have not been invited back to SAC to see whether similar conditions now prevail. I suspect that they do, considering the differing requirements of the two roles. This view seems confirmed by the enthusiasm expressed for carrying on the “war on terror” in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Although my remarks here are confined to the United States, I would suppose they apply to other major governmental bureaucracies dealing with national security and war/peace issues.

Use of drones dehumanises war

Now, new technological innovations in warfare are underlining these concerns. American reliance on drone attacks in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) removes the human altogether from the war theater, except in the geographically remote roles of programmer and strategic planner. And even then, reliance on algorithms for targeting removes any shred of personal responsibility. When mistakes are made, and innocent civilians are killed, it is treated as an unfortunate anomaly.

The tragic event is deprived of its human quality by being labeled “collateral damage”, and a formal apology is usually made. But nevertheless, the practice goes on: the US is investing heavily in more and better drones for future wars. Eliminating the presence of human soldiers from the battlefield is a chilling development: historically, the fact that war put soldiers’ lives at risk forced citizens to think about whether a war was morally right, or worth fighting. The anti-war sentiments of American soldiers in Vietnam exerted a powerful influence that helped over time finally to bring the war to an end.

Ultimately, what is at stake is the human spirit, which at the moment is being squeezed to near-death by technological momentum, corporate greed, militarism, and secular fundamentalism. The ultra-sophistication of the new weaponry and the accompanying military tactics create a new divide in the military sphere, giving rise to an era of virtually “casualty-free” and one-sided wars where the devastation and victimisation are shifted almost totally to the technologically inferior side. Examples include The Gulf War of 1991, the Kosovo War of 1999, and the Gaza Attacks of 2008-09. In the background, however, is the persisting threat of a use of nuclear weapons either by a state or an extremist non-state actor that could in a flash change this ratio of comparative vulnerability.

This web of historical forces continues to entrap major political actors in the world, and dims hopes for a sustainable future, even without taking into account the growing threat of climate change. Scenarios of future cyber warfare are also part of this evolving capacity to destroy distant societies without any human interaction. The cumulative effect of these developments threatens to make irrelevant the moral compass that alone provides acceptable guidance for a sustainable political future. Because international institutions remain too weak to provide global governance, reason and prudence remain the best hope to guide human destiny.

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Research Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008) and Achieving Human Rights (Routledge 2009).

He is Chair of the Board, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Director, Global Climate Change Project, UCSB. He is currently serving the fourth year of a six year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

This article originally appeared on Al Jazeera’s English website. 

Summary

The issue of state fragility and the presence of radical religious movements in Yemen have occasioned misperceptions and confusions in recent debates about the country. This report argues that the language of “failed states” arises nearly exclusively in relation to countries deemed threatening to US security interests. Moreover, this language obscures rather than reveals how regime incentives to build state institutions can be incompatible with regime interests in survival. The result is that a seemingly neutral analytical category misrepresents local realities even while it is used as a warrant for policy initiatives that are likely to be counterproductive.

The full report  is available here.

The strategic nuclear-arms treaty agreed between the United States and Russia on 26 March 2010 entails substantial and welcome cuts in the two countries’ nuclear arsenals, and leaves the way open for further reductions before Barack Obama’s first term in office is tested in the presidential election of November 2012. This bilateral deal is a healthy prelude to the quinquennial review conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) in New York on 3-28 May 2010, of its nature a much broader intergovernmental endeavour (see “The nuclear-weapons moment”, 5 March 2010).

These two arms-related events reflect an important part of the way the present world-system operates: that is, via cooperation, competition and negotiation between states. These forms of interaction appear so powerful and ever-present that they can appear almost to define the political world as it exists and is “managed”. Yet stand back, look more widely and deeply, and other realities – even more fundamental and more potent – can come into view.

A future of growth

The perspective on nuclear-arms diplomacy outlined in the first paragraph exemplifies a worldview that has become the norm among most international-relations specialists; it can be found in relation to many other issues and case-studies. This identifies states and governments as the key global actors, and thus the essential explanatory variable for making sense of the contemporary world. The core argument that tends to follow is that an enormous global reassembly of state-centred wealth and power is occurring: China, India and Brazil are among those countries making a great leap forward while those in the north Atlantic are entering an era of retreat.

In this view, the world’s destiny is being and will be shaped by the interaction of states which depend on continuous economic growth for their survival and ability to secure consent. Globalisation is a fact; transnational corporations may wield great power; citizen groups may occasionally exert influence – but the root of world politics remains a globalised state-system, and this will endure.

Many analysts warm to this theme by examining the changing status of the European Union and the United States within the context of an evolving “multipolar” world. They see the EU as a huge economic entity which has however become unwieldy and over-extended, thus limiting its potential for security cooperation. The resort to Nato as guarantor of security for many European states follows, but the alliance too faces serious problems (not least in Afghanistan). The conclusion is that Europe’s pre-eminence – if not its prosperity – is a thing of the past; the continent is going to be overtaken by players now arriving into the global arena.

The United States, according to the same diagnosis, remains a superpower; but its experience of the 2000s – the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the enormous burden of debt, and the failure to match the dynamism of key Asian economies – presages its eventual decline. The “new American century” may have looked feasible a decade ago, but it cannot be sustained by fighting $3-trillion wars amid the financial sector’s implosion (see “The costs of America’s long war”, 8 March 2007).

The logic of this approach is to foresee in the 2010-40 period the relative decline of the north Atlantic community and the even further rise of Asia (and a few large states elsewhere). This will entail a degree of adjustment by the older powers, but the guarantee of economic growth will assuage the pain. The realities of inter-state domination and ever-further economic expansion, albeit with variable elements, will remain over the next three decades the only game in town.

A world of difference

There is however another way of looking at the world that is both radically different yet equally – and arguably more – grounded in underlying realities and trends. It holds that the implantation of the neo-liberal market model from the late 1970s onwards has nurtured the growth of a trans-global elite of around 1.5 billion people, and that this minority has been able successfully to entrench its wealth and power so as to leave the rest of humanity far behind. Most of this elite is concentrated in the countries of the north Atlantic (living amidst its own impoverished minorities), but with the spread of the economic model has come to include perhaps 300 million people in India and China and 100 million across Latin America (see Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century, Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010).

This “minority-world” elite has in little more than a generation secured an unparalleled ownership of the fruits of the world’s labour and resources: it commands around 85% of global income and an even greater share of household wealth. At the other end of the scale is a marginalised majority of 5 billion people, at least a billion of whom are malnourished (a figure that has doubled since 1975); around 830 million people live in slums, mostly on the edges of the world’s megacities; and 3 billion survive on the equivalent of less than $2 per day (see Göran Therborn, “The killing-fields of inequality”, 6 April 2009).

It is significant, however, that huge numbers among the excluded  “majority-world” are more educated and literate than in the 1970s, and thus far more conscious of their own marginalisation. The “revolution of rising expectations” beloved of market analysts in the 1960s-1970s is being replaced by a “revolution of frustrated expectations”. This liable to erupt break in high urban-crime rates that justify gated communities, but also in radical and insurgent movements such as the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Naxalites in India (see “India’s 21st-century war”, 5 November 2009).

This divided world is now facing the added issue of environmental constraints, especially resource conflict and climate change. These potential “limits to growth” were first discussed in 1972 in the book of that name, whose analysis was at the time widely scorned by economists (amongst others) for its supposed “doomwatch” approach. It is worth noting, then, that the team at MIT  (Dennis L Meadows, Donella H Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III) actually predicted that the major problems would arise from around 2015 onwards; forty-eight years on,  Limits to Growth appears uncomfortably close to target (see “Wanted: a new global paradigm”, 8 November 2007)

Those limits will affect everyone but will hit hardest the 75%-80% of the world’s population excluded from the fruits of wealth and enduring endemic human insecurity. The reactions among them will vary from the desperate to the violent; in turn, much security thinking among elites across the world will focus on how to maintain the status quo – and how best to cooperate in doing so (see “After war, security”, 10 December 2009).

A choice of futures

This overall elite response can be characterised as “keeping the lid on things” – or “liddism”. The strategy is both pervasive and accumulative, involving an intense effort to develop new tactics and technologies that can avert problems and suppress them should they arise (see “A tale of two paradigms”, 28 June 2009).

This is currently one of the defence-industry’s biggest growth-areas. A telling example is the “alternative weapons summit” to be held in Washington on 24-26 May 2010. The event, with a price-tag of $1,999 for industry representatives and $999 for military (the latter asked to come in uniform) has much to offer to current or potential “liddites”. Its presentations include:

• Beyond the Bullet: Adapting to 21st Century Warfighting
• After Rubber Bullets & Teargas: What Can Really Work in the Alternative Weapons World
• Chemical Immobilising Agents for Non-Lethal Applications
• Less-Than-Lethal Lessons Learnt in Corrections and Law Enforcement.

Perhaps most revealing of all is Managing Crowds in the Middle East. This session, led by a principal scientist from Applied Research Associates, has crystal-clear intentions:

“While assumptions can be made about the behaviour of Westerners in response to law enforcement actions, we cannot say it is the same for non-Western cultures. Tactics used for crowd control in the U.S. can be interpreted and responded to much differently in diverse cultures.”

The spreading tools of the trade are “non-lethal”, “less-than-lethal” and “I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-lethal” weapons, not least because these help replace the mess of killing with more clinical means of control. The fundamental purpose, however, is the same as in overtly brutal repression: to maintain control, if in a way that is more acceptable to the protected, massaged and (it is hoped) more contented classes (see Global Security and the War on Terror: Elite Power and the Illusion of Control, Routledge,  2007).

The first decade of the 21st century has been dominated by wars that have killed or injured close to half a million people, wars that arose after determined paramilitaries used parcel-knives to exploit the weaknesses of the world’s most advanced state. That incident might in principle have been a lesson in the impossibility of preserving the status quo – and that, as a consequence, “liddism” will not work. That indeed was the conclusion when the first edition of Losing Control was written and published in 2000, not long before 9/11. What has happened since has reinforced the argument. The search for a different, sustainable future is more urgent than ever.

Mineral resources have played a crucial role in fuelling protracted armed conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This Policy Paper examines the the prospects for and interactions between various trade- and security-related initiatives that are aimed at demilitarizing the supply chains of key minerals. It also describes the changing context in which such initiatives operate. Finally, it offers policy recommendations for how the Congolese Government and international actors can coordinate and strengthen their responses in order to break resource–conflict links in eastern DRC.

Read the report here: SIPRI

Image source: Tim Pearce, Los Gatos

On 17 May the World Future Council released its latest report entitled Climate Change, Nuclear Risks and Nuclear Disarmament: From Security Threats to Sustainable Peace. It is the outcome of groundbreaking research by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Scheffran of the University of Hamburg.

The report examines the linkages between nuclear and climate risks, noting that these two clear threats may interfere with each other in a mutually re-enforcing way. It also acknowledges that finding solutions to one problem area could lead to solutions in the other: “Preventing the dangers of climate change and nuclear war requires an integrated set of strategies that address the causes as well as the impacts on the natural and social environment.” Prof. Dr. Scheffran offers an approach to move away from these security threats to building sustainable peace.

The study brings to light the multidimensional interplay between climate change, nuclear risks and nuclear disarmament, and its critical implications for the strategic security environment. In addition, it explores prospects and openings to tackle these key challenges, stressing the role played by institutions to “strengthen common ecological and human security, build and reinforce conflict-resolution mechanisms and low-carbon energy alternatives, and create sustainable lifecycles that respect the capabilities of the living world.”

Read the full report here.

Image source: GreenDominee

Why START is only a beginning on the long road to nuclear disarmament

Andrew Futter

The ‘New START’ Treaty signed by Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in Prague on 8th April 2010 is an important first step in the renewed drive for nuclear disarmament, but its overall contribution towards the goal of a world free from nuclear weapons should not be overstated.  In many respects the treaty merely codifies the current status quo, and is arguably more about symbolism than it is about substance, and in this respect much of the hard work in reducing and potentially eliminating the vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons held by nations across the globe is still to be done.  Perhaps most importantly, before any meaningful multilateral talks and possible agreements on abolition can seriously begin, the US and Russia will need to go much further in reducing their nuclear ordinance.  Moreover, it will only be after US and Russian weapons stockpiles have been reduced to numbers in the low hundreds that the push for more widespread reductions, and possibly abolition, can seriously and credibly begin.  As such, and while many are aware of the problems of going from only a few nuclear weapons to zero, this article argues that many of the toughest problems are likely to come in the first phase of the disarmament process, a phase that will involve reducing US and Russian nuclear stockpiles down to numbers more in line with that of other nuclear weapons states.

The New START treaty is certainty important in a number of political, diplomatic and strategic ways.  First, it commits both the US and Russia to reduce their deployed strategic warheads to 1550 and deployed delivery vehicles to 700 within seven years – representing a 65% reduction from the numbers contained in the original 1991 START treaty negotiation signed by George HW Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, and a 30% cut in numbers from the Moscow Treaty negotiated by former President’s George W Bush and Vladimir Putin in 2002.  Of equal importance is the fact that the treaty ensures the continued verification of both nations nuclear stockpiles (that had expired with the first START treaty in December 2009), which in turn allows for transparency in measuring both governments compliance with the new agreement as well as ensuring the security of each nation’s nuclear sites. This is particularly important in Russia.  On top of this and perhaps in many ways the most important part of the agreement is its political symbolism and significance, and more broadly its importance for US-Russian strategic dialogue, international cooperation and a predictable relationship.  Politically, the treaty cements previous work by the Obama administration to ‘reset relations’ with Russia and from the administration’s perspective, should help enlist Russian support with other US foreign policy objectives.  Diplomatically it establishes a link between the two sides from which to push on and attempt to negotiate further arms control agreements.  For Russia it is also an important chance to be involved in international policy at the highest levels as the country tries to mitigate its declining strategic world role.

Militarily however, the treaty really changes very little.  It is likely that regardless of the new agreement the US would have made further (possibly unilateral) reductions in its nuclear weapons stockpile – and indeed may continue to do so even if the Senate does not ratify the treaty in the coming months.  Moreover, it is likely that the US – through NATO – may choose to withdraw its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, and possibly from other regions across the globe – especially in areas where ballistic missile defences are beginning to play a larger role in strategic deterrence.  On the Russian side the treaty essentially codifies the current state of the Russian nuclear arsenal, which after years of underfunding and neglect is now essentially in a state of disrepair.  It is therefore likely that despite the vast stockpiles of nuclear related material still in Russia, only a percentage of this nuclear ordinance is actually serviceable and usable.  When economic pressures in both countries – but particularly Russia – are added to this, much suggests that a renewed drive to service or embark on a large-scale plan to build new nuclear weapons by either nation is highly unlikely.

However, and whilst the provisions contained in START are important, and indeed mark a notable diplomatic achievement, far deeper cuts in US and Russian nuclear stockpiles will need to be made before any serious multilateral nuclear reductions can be contemplated.  However, because both strategic and political pressures will make further significant reductions in US and Russian stockpiles far harder to agree, it is arguably in this pre-nuclear abolition stage that most of the short-term problems with the disarmament agenda reside.  Fundamentally, without significant further US and Russian reductions – perhaps reducing warhead numbers to the low hundreds – it will be very difficult to multilateralise the push for disarmament and consequently begin making meaningful strides towards possible nuclear abolition.  Making things more completed is the fact that nothing in the recent START agreement prevents the modernization and testing of US or Russian warheads or delivery vehicles, or provides any official constraints on ballistic missiles defences.  Additionally the treaty does not include any reductions of the several thousand tactical nuclear weapons still deployed by both the US and Russia.  Moreover, and although President Obama has suggested that negotiating a tactical nuclear weapons treaty with Russia is a key priority, and despite rumours that US tactical weapons may be removed from Europe, continued and indeed increasing Russian reliance on these types of weapons will make the pursuit of such an agreement an arduous task.  What is more, because dismantling and destroying nuclear weapons takes a long time, and because both countries already have huge stocks of weapons awaiting destruction, the number of operationally inactive US and Russian stockpiled warheads will remain in the high thousands for many years to come.

The first big hurdle to further reductions is going to be the increasing political and strategic reliance by Russia its nuclear weapons complex.  Politically Russian leaders feel that the countries substantial nuclear weapons ordinance is one of the few things that allows it to retain ‘great power status’ and thus enables it to pursue a role at the forefront of global politics, whilst militarily, Russian nuclear weapons are gaining increased importance because of the declining size, capability and professionalism of Russian conventional forces.  As such, nuclear weapons are becoming more, not less, important components of Russian security thinking, and this suggests that further Russian agreements on nuclear reductions will be far harder than has been the case with START.  The second big hurdle will be overcoming the political and bureaucratic pressures in the US, where one of the biggest problems facing any administration will be how to gain acquiescence from hawkish members of Congress and the Joint Chiefs of Staff about where the cuts should be made, and how low stockpiles can go before the concept of a three part nuclear deterrence posture becomes unfeasible.  What is more, the continued spread of nuclear weapons and their proliferation and acquisition by so-called ‘rogue states’, added to Russian intransigence and general disinclination to disarm beyond a certain point, is also likely to make it far harder politically for any US President to push ahead with unilateral nuclear disarmament measures.  Strong criticism from many conservatives in Congress concerned about America’s ability to protect itself are equally likely to make reductions in nuclear weapons capabilities politically challenging, especially if – as in the current case – they are pursued by a Democrat President.  More broadly the rising price of energy is likely to see both nations expand their domestic civilian nuclear infrastructures, further entrenching a reliance on nuclear power, and providing both with a substantial ‘virtual’ weaponization capability.

Lastly, there is the issue of the offense-defence balance that has surrounded the nuclear arms race almost from its inception, and which since George W Bush’s abrogation of the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, has become an even more important component of international stability.  Under the Bush administration, and now under Obama, the US ballistic missile defence programme has grown substantially and seems well on its way to becoming a ‘normalised’ component of security policy.  Moreover, and although questions remain over the technology being deployed, and regardless of the fact that the stated goal of the system is protection against a limited rogue state attack or accidental missile launch from an established nuclear power, and not in defeating a strategic strike by Russia, the expansion of the system has caused concern in Moscow.  Indeed, missile defence – particularly in Europe – was one of the main stumbling blocks that prevented the START agreement from being concluded far sooner.  Consequently, strategic logic suggests that the more the US and Russia reduce their nuclear arsenals the more important, and potentially destabilising, missile defences may become, thus creating something of a ‘disarmament paradox’.  Both nations, but particularly Russia (and subsequently China) will want to ensure they maintain a credible nuclear deterrent that can overcome any US (or NATO) missile defence system.  Moreover, the opposition to US missile defence plans remains a key way to garner domestic support and score rhetorical points for Russian leaders.

 
The New START agreement is an important first step on the road to nuclear disarmament but its actual relevance and importance in the larger quest for nuclear abolition should not be overstated.  This is because the US and Russia will need to go far further than the agreements reached in the current treaty before they can credibly begin calling on other smaller nuclear powers to eliminate their own nuclear stockpiles.  Although there will be pressures making further disarmament difficult in the United States, particularly for a Democrat President, it will be in Russia that the greatest stumbling blocks to this process will be found.  Growing Russian reliance on nuclear weapons, not just for security but also for political and diplomatic reasons, will make further substantial reductions in the Russia nuclear arsenal very difficult to achieve.  Moreover, such Russian intransigence, coupled with a potential growth in the number of states – many of them unstable or hostile – seeking to acquire nuclear weapons will make any unilateral disarmament moves by the US equally difficult to achieve.  Consequently, and while much attention is paid to the latter stages of the problem of how nuclear weapons can finally be abolished or how to deal with securing fissile material, we may in fact need to concentrate far more on the significant problems of US-Russian nuclear reductions that must necessarily precede this.

Andrew Futter is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham.

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