Category: Issues

The publication of the Strategic Defence and Security Review and the Coalition’s first National Security Strategy provided ample opportunity for the government to deliberate on the strategic implications of climate change for the UK.  Yet while claims that we continue to live in a post-Cold War ‘age of uncertainty’ lay at the heart of both documents, on  closer reading there is very little to suggest that uncertainty about climate change was a concern for those who conducted the review.  

Article source: RUSI

Image source: U.S. Geological Survey

Read more »

In a piece for the International Movement for a Just World, William Rees maps out a vision for what he calls ‘Survival 2100.’ The goal of such a strategy would be “to engineer the creation of a dynamic, more equitable steady-state economy that can satisfy at least the basic needs of the entire human family within the means of nature.” The alternative, Rees argues is to “succumb to more primitive emotions and survival instincts abetted by cognitive dissonance, collective denial, and global political inertia.”

Image source: hundrednorth.

Read more »

As reported by Agence France Presse, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has produced a draft summary of a report that warns of a predicted increase in the number and intensity of extreme weather events.  The 800-page report goes some way to addressing a subject largely untouched by their landmark 2007 report on climate change, and adds to the growing body of evidence outlining the potential security implications of a warmer planet.

Article Source: AFP

Image Source: Nasa

Read more »

An IPI policy forum launched a new joint study by a UN office and a prominent Norwegian group showing that 36 million people were displaced in 2008 by sudden onset natural disasters — 20 million of them by climate-related disasters such as storms and floods.

Read more »

Accelerating climate change and competition for limited supplies of water, food and energy are poised to ignite long-simmering conflicts in fragile states, monopolising the world’s military resources and hampering development efforts, security experts say. Defusing these new 21st century conflicts – or at least preparing governments and citizens to cope with them – will require a broad range of innovative interventions, a gathering at Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) heard earlier this month.

Image source: Images.Defence.Gov.au

Read more »

International Crisis Group has released a briefing paper illustrating the Islamist radicalisation of ethnic Somalis in Kenya, and the causes behind the trend. Decades of economic marginalisation of the Somali-dominated North Eastern Province border region has combined with government and public suspicion of ethnic Somalis to produce an unpleasant climate where either Somali loyalty is questioned, or Somalis are accused of ‘taking over’ when they move into the cities or succeed in business and politics. On the other hand, this has been compounded by the shift of East African Muslims in general away from Sufism and towards the conservative strand of Wahhabi Islam that posits the Muslim umma against the secular state, thereby enabling Somalia-based Al-Shabaab to capitalise on grievances in Kenya and encourage oppositional and even irredentist tendencies. The response of the government has overwhelmingly been one of force.

Article Source: International Crisis Group

Image Source: tik_tok

Read more »

The global distribution of intrastate conflicts is not what it used to be. During the latter half of the 20th century, the states with the most youthful populations – a median age of 25.0 years or less – were consistently the most at risk of being engaged in a civil war or in an internal conflict, where either ethnic or religious factors, or both, came into play (an ethnoreligious conflict). However, the tight relationship between demography and intrastate conflict has loosened over the past decade. Ethnoreligious conflicts have gradually, though noticeably, increased among a group of states with a median age greater than 25.0 years, including Thailand, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Russia.  The salient feature of these intrastate conflicts has been an armed struggle featuring a minority group that is age-structurally more youthful than the majority populace. The difference in age-structural maturity reflects a gap in fertility between the minority and majority, either in the present or in the recent past. 

Article Source: The Stimson Center

Image Source: CharlesFred

Read more »

Good news does not sell newspapers. Nor, it seems, does the idea of respect for human dignity. In West Asia, where the majority of people have known little other than outright war or simmering conflict, it should come as little surprise that people have lost their faith in the possibility of real peace. Real peace can be a frightening prospect; it means burying the hatchet and beating swords into the proverbial ploughshares. No easy task when we are all burdened by historical and psychological baggage.

Source: www.gulfnews.com

Image source: Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News

Read more »