Category: Issues

The International Peace & Security Institute (IPSI), in collaboration with The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Conflict Management Program, hosted a high-level panel discussion and networking reception on Wednesday, August 17.  The event, “Why Here, Not There? Investigating emerging nonviolent movements,” examined the dynamics that enable nonviolent movements to occur in some regions and not others at specific moments in time.  The event was broadcast live nationwide and on the internet by C-SPAN.

Watch the video here: IPSI

Image source: Al Jazeera English

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While the public debate about resource conflicts focuses on the risk of supply disruptions for developed countries, the potentially more risky types of resource conflict are usually ignored. As part of a two-year research project on behalf of the German Federal Environment Agency, adelphi and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Energy, and Environment have analyzed the risks of international conflict linked to natural resources in a series of reports titled Beyond Supply Risks – The Conflict Potential of Natural Resources.

Article source: The New Security Beat

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The tragic events of September 11th 2001 propelled the western security agenda down a reactive, narrow, and self-defeating path defined by the ‘War on Terror.’ The eighth anniversary of 9/11 is marked by a groundswell of voices from policymakers and analysts acknowledging that the greatest threats to global security require moving beyond a limited focus on terrorism. This groundswell is partly a response to the multiple failings of the current approach, but has been given new energy by the global financial crisis and the increased prominence of issues such as climate change.

However, the specific policy recommendations arising from these new assessments still tend to be framed predominantly in terms of national self interest and preservation of the status-quo, rather than in terms of a more fundamental transformation of global relations in the direction of collective human security. Yet such a transformation is viewed by many as the only sure means of securing lasting security for the people of any individual nation. An emerging approach, which focuses on addressing the root causes of conflict, systemically, and collaboratively, to achieve long term change, has come to be known as; ‘sustainable security’. SustainableSecurity.org is a new platform for developing this approach, coming to understand its implications for policy, and promoting these implications to those who can act on them.

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The World Development 2010 climate Change Report published in September outlines how a 2 degree centigrade rise in global temperature would likely cost Africa 4% of GDP whilst the impact on India would be %5 of GDP. Read more »

Ian Shields writes exclusively for sustainablesecurity.org:

“The impact of the civil airline industry on the environment is well documented, but what is less well considered is the impact of the military sector. This article will identify three key areas where military aviation has a major impact on the environment, and suggest mitigation policies for each: hydro-carbon use, ground contamination and noise.”

About the author: Ian Shields is a retired, senior Air Force Officer and now a respected commentator on Defence and security matters, particularly with relation to Air and Space Power. He holds an MA from KCL, and MPhil from Cambridge and is presently undertaking a PhD in International Studies, also at Cambridge. He can be contacted via his web-site, www.ian-shields.co.uk

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Roger Howard writes, exclusively for sustainablesecurity.org, that:

‘The presence of valuable natural resources in the Arctic region, or even the mere possibility of finding them, poses a subtly different challenge to international peace than usually supposed. For instead of fighting over resources, governments could instead feel threatened by the heightened foreign presence that the search, or exploitation, of these resources will bring to places that are important for other, quite independent, reasons. This is potentially a recipe for international mistrust that could conceivably spill over’.

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This paper examines the context of the decision to go to war after 9/11 and the anticipated results. It goes on to analyse the actual  consequences and seeks to explain why they have been so radically different to original expectations by the United States and its closest coalition partners such as the UK. The paper then updates the analysis of the major global challenges that Oxford Research Group has previously discussed and the need for a new paradigm focused on sustainable security. It concludes by assessing how the experience of the eight years that have followed the 9/11 atrocities might make a change of paradigm more likely.

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Writing for SustainableSsecurity.org, Elizabeth Wilke argues that a new conceptualization of insecurity and instability is needed in a world with greater and freer movement of goods, services and people – both legal and illicit – greater demands on weakening governments and the internationalization of local conflicts. The new insecurity is fundamentally derived from the responses of people and groups to greater uncertainty in an increasingly volatile world. Governments, and increasingly other actors need to recognize this in order to promote sustained stability in the long-term, locally and internationally.

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Writing for the New Security Beat, Schuyler Null discusses a recent event on creating a new national security narrative for the US held at the Woodrow Wilson Center. The event was based on a white paper by two active military officers writing under the pseudonym “Mr. Y” (echoing George Kennan’s famous “X” article). In “A National Strategic Narrative,” Captain Wayne Porter (USN) and Colonel Mark Mykleby (USMC) argue that the United States needs to move away from an outmoded 20th century model of containment, deterrence, and control towards a “strategy of sustainability.”

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Poor people want to feel safe just like anyone else. Security and access to justice for poor people are development goals in their own right whether in the midst of endemic violence, such as in parts of Somalia or Afghanistan, or in more stable countries where the police and judicial services may still be inadequate, unfair or abusive. Basic security and the rule of law are also necessary for other areas of development to take root and flourish.

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