“Sustainable security – A briefing for Friends“, has been co-produced by peace and security think tank the Oxford Research Group (ORG), Northern Friends Peace Board (NFPB) and Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) in order to stimulate discussion, reflection and action among Quakers.

Sustainable security is a paradigm that recognises we must work to tackle the causes of insecurity, not respond to it with attempts to control, often by military means. It is about curing the disease, rather than fighting the symptoms. The briefing identifies the major trends likely to cause large scale loss of life and security over the coming decades as:

• marginalisation of the majority world (the global South);
• climate change;
• competition over resources;
• global militarisation.

With respect to environmental limits, the briefing says the following;

The earth, which is abundant in natural and material resources, has been used to fulfil
the desires (some essential, some not) of the population that lives on it. Many of the
resources which have been exploited, such as fossil fuels, cannot be replaced; the extraction of others places habitats and ecosystems in danger; others produce damaging pollutants when used.

The treatment of the natural world by humankind has contributed towards the two
related major trends that are likely to drive insecurity in the coming decades: climate
change and competition over natural resources.

Climate change is high on the international political agenda. The likely and actual physical effects of these processes are well documented; the earth will be changed. Climate change will also have dramatic social and economic impacts. For example: a loss of, or damage to, infrastructure, shifts in disease patterns (e.g. spread of diseases like malaria and dengue fever, as the mosquitoes that transmit the infection are able to inhabit new locations because of changing temperatures), human crises as a result of more frequent extreme weather events such floods, water scarcity, and the mass displacement of peoples as some regions become uninhabitable. These trends could produce serious security consequences.

A closely related driver of insecurity is competition over resources. The planet is more heavily populated than ever, and today some populations are already consuming far more than their share of the planet’s resources. As population growth continues, there will be greater scarcity of resources including food, water and energy, particularly if consumption patterns also increase. Once major demographic changes and the effects of climate change are factored in, greater competition for such resources should be expected. This will have local and global effects, as those nations rich in natural resources become subject to competition between local populations and international corporations who wish to buy their resources for sale in other parts of the world.

Resource-conflict is already an issue: many anti-war activists cited oil as a cause behind the invasion of Iraq (central to the Persian Gulf, an oil-rich region) in 2003; water access is an ongoing source of tension between Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories around the River Jordan basin; and in the same region, there are differences in how much water Israeli settlers and Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank are able to access. The final example will relate in future also to climate change, as the Middle East is highly likely to suffer increased occurrences of drought. Competition will make some existing conflicts worse, and produce new struggles.

These two related environmental crises will disproportionately affect the poor, and further entrench marginalisation. The Climate Justice movement has been prominent in describing the injustice of this situation: it is the poorest that have contributed least to the greenhouse gas emissions that are catalysing climate change, yet they will suffer most because of it.

Read the whole briefing here.

The above illustrates the normative underpinnings of QCEA’s sustainable energy security programme, and may help people understand why Quakers, with a strong tradition in working for peace, justice and equality, are working on issues related to sustainability, and indeed, energy security. It is precisely because the issues of climate change and increased competition over resources, including energy, have such strong implications for peace, justice and equality, that they cannot be ignored. The political importance of energy (and more broadly, resource) security, at European level, is a strong driver of traditional, militaristic security concepts – where “our” security increases the insecurity of others. It is this concept that the Quaker Council for European Affairs, by emphasising sustainable energy security – a sustainability that recognises both environmental and social sustainability not just within Europe, but in the wider world – urges against.

Article source: Quaker Council for European Affairs

Image source: kretyen

As Libya’s protesters-turned-rebels fight a series of hard battles with forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi, the United States — and the much of the world — struggles to find a meaningful response to the conflict. U.S. lawmakers have proposed such aggressive options as enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya or arming anti-Qaddafi rebels, both of which the White House has kept on the table. Critics of these plans argue that they risk involving the U.S. in another military engagement. But there’s another option that the U.S. could consider, one that might give anti-Qaddafi rebels crucial help while avoiding the messy complications of direct involvement: Send food.

Food shortages in eastern Libya, the largest rebel-controlled area, have reached dire levels. Fighting has left food stocks depleted and food supply chains in shambles. Around Benghazi, food prices have reportedly risen by 50 to 75 percent. Due to its poor suitability for agriculture, Libya imports the majority of its food, which has become largely impossible since fighting broke out. The United Nations-run World Food Program is attempting to alleviate the food shortage, but so far with little success. Last Thursday, a ship that the World Food Program had chartered to carry 1,000 tons of flour to Benghazi, the provisional capitol of the rebel leadership, abandoned the trip after reports of attacks by pro-Qaddafi aircraft in the area. As food runs out and the conflict drags on, eastern Libya’s food crisis will only get worse. Qaddafi appears willing to use the shortage as a weapon against the rebels, reportedly blocking food from reaching the besieged rebel-held town of Zawiya.

It still appears unlikely that Qaddafi will step down on his own accord. If the rebels are to free Libya, it will probably mean taking Tripoli by force and toppling Qaddafi outright. Currently, rebels in eastern Libya are mustering an army — mostly raw recruits and seized weapons — which they may use to do just that. But Benghazi is just over 1,000 km, about 630 miles, from Tripoli. Defeating Gadaffi would require this irregular force to travel hundreds of miles across the Mediterranean coast, all the while supplying itself through what would likely be a series of battles along the Gulf of Sidra, Sirte, and then in Tripoli itself.

Warfare has changed much since Napoleon’s Grande Armée marched across Europe, but one of the Little Corporal’s maxims is just as true in Libya today as it was near Waterloo two centuries ago: armies march on their stomachs. The anti-Qaddafi rebels are no different. The push to Tripoli would require consistent access to — amongst other things — food supplies. While having adequate food alone would not be sufficient to take the capitol (they also need war materials, training, and transportation), it is an absolute necessity. And, right now, the rebels don’t have enough. But we do.

The United States has the capacity and infrastructure to supply rebel-controlled eastern Libya with substantial amounts of food aid. These shipments could be transported directly into the rebel center of Benghazi, a major seaport with more than adequate facilities. The food aid would not only alleviate the emerging humanitarian crisis in eastern Libya — an important effort in itself — it would help the rebel cause. The shipments would boost the morale of rebel fighters and, more important, provide the supplies necessary to feed the newly formed army during any push towards Tripoli.

The U.S. may be unable or unwilling to supply Libya’s rebels with everything they need to topple Qaddafi — since protests began in Libya and before that in Egypt, President Obama has made clear that the grassroots Arab uprisings must remain grassroots and Arab, rather than being co-opted by the U.S. But we can supply food. Supplying Benghazi with food aid is a viable and meaningful policy option short of risking the military entanglement Obama appears determined to avoid. Whether or not Libya’s revolution is ours to fight, it could well be ours to feed.

Image source: B.R.Q.

This article first appeared on The Atlantic.

Respected security analyst and author Michael Klare’s new book ‘The Race for What’s Left’ discusses the growing competition for resources across the globe driven by the depletion of fossil fuels, minerals, water and arable land. Klare argues that the full extent of the political, economic and security implications of this trend are yet to be fully understood in mainstream political circles. The alternative to this, Klare contends, is a coming race to adapt to a resource and climate-constrained world which can offer a way out of war, widespread starvation and environmental catastrophe.

The book argues that the current scramble for the world’s resources and the new “assault on resource frontiers” is qualitatively different to the historical exploitation of undeveloped territories in years gone by. The analysis presented shows that “never have we seen the same combination of factors that confronts us today: a lack of unexplored resource preserves beyond those now being used for development; the sudden emergence of rapacious new consumers; technical and environmental limitations on the exploitation of new deposits; and the devastating effects of climate change.”

One of the most interesting findings of the book is that “for all the importance and forthcoming scarcity of oil, gas, and vital minerals, perhaps the fiercest resource struggle in the coming decades will involve food and the land it is gown on.”  Klare describes the trend towards global ‘land grabs’ led by the governments of China, India, South Korea, and the Persian Gulf countries across parts of Africa, Central and Southeast Asia and even Russia. The relationship between this trend and the marginalisation of dispossessed and angry populations is likely to be a key driver of violence. The book states that “Land ownership has always been a source of conflict in the countryside, especially where notions of customary land rights collide with formal decrees handed down by distant, often suspect government bureaucracies; when the official new owners are foreigners who appear completely oblivious to the historic claims and customs of the people they are displacing, the hostility will be far greater still.”

Klare is explicit in the stakes here: “The race we are on today is the last of its kind that we are likely to undertake” and this book provides a devastating critique of ‘business as usual’ thinking in times of intense global insecurity.

More information on the book (including a sample chapter) is available here and a recent review on the Huffington Post is available here. An interesting video has also been released where the author explains a number of the issues raised in the book which can be seen here.   

Image source: thelGl