Coping with Crisis Working Paper Series
EVOLVING CHALLENGES TO HUMAN AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
“In this ongoing series of Working Papers, IPI has asked leading experts to undertake a mapping exercise, presenting an assessment of critical challenges to human and international security. A first group of papers provides a horizontal perspective, examining the intersection of multiple challenges in specific regions of the world. A second group takes a vertical approach, providing in-depth analysis of global challenges relating to organized violence, poverty, population trends, public health, and climate change, among other topics. The Working Papers have three main objectives: to advance the understanding of these critical challenges and their interlinkages; to assess capacities to cope with these challenges and to draw scenarios for plausible future developments; and to offer a baseline for longer-term research and policy development.”
Terje Rød-Larsen, President, International Peace Institute
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Regional Perspectives: Africa – Middle East – Asia– Central Asia and the Caucasus– Europe– Latin America and the Caribbean
Coping with Organized Violence: Political Violence – Peacemaking – Peacekeeping – Peacebuilding – Small Arms and Light Weapons – Nuclear Proliferation – Transnational Organized Crime – Global Terrorism
Managing Global Systems: Energy Security – Climate Change, Migration and Conflict – Poverty, Inequality and Conflict – Food Security – Public Health and Biosecurity – Population Trends
The Coping with Crisis Working Paper series is edited by James Cockayne, Francesco Mancini, Naureen Chowdhury Fink and Adam Lupel.
Africa: Confronting Complex Threats
Kwesi Aning, Head, Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution Department (CPMRD) of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC)
February 2007
In this Working Paper, Kwesi Aning explains the African nexus between ‘old’ challenges such as armed conflict and food insecurity and ‘new’ challenges such as population trends, transnational organized crime, and terrorism. The ‘security complexes’ that emerge from the convergence of these old and new threats produce ungovernable spaces that feed further insecurity. While states and international organizations are beginning to find responses to these challenges, efforts are often poorly managed and coordinated, and the potentially positive influence of regional hegemons is often under-utilized.
The Middle East: Fragility and Crisis
Markus E. Bouillon, Senior Associate, International Peace Institute
February 2007
Markus E. Bouillon paints a chastening picture of four inter-linked epicenters of conflict in the Middle East: the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. Resolution of these interlinked conflicts is complicated by demographic, developmental and socioeconomic challenges which threaten instability within and between numerous states in the region. The region lacks effective mechanisms for coping with these challenges. With regional institutions such as the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) playing increasingly marginal roles in regional problem-solving, the Quartet (US, UN, EU, and Russia) may provide the basis for a ‘Quartet +’ mechanism combining external actors and regional players. Alongside the success of state-building projects in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, the development of a regional security architecture with space for Syria, Iraq and Iran, as well as Israel, alongside the Arab world, will be crucial to meeting the security challenges the region confronts in years to come.
Asia: Towards Security Cooperation
Michael Vatikiotis, Regional Representative, Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue
February 2007
Michael Vatikiotis analyzes a range of security challenges confronting Asian powers, large and small alike, today. While acknowledging deep-seated traditional political rivalries, Vatikiotis argues for a more effective multilateral framework to facilitate accommodation of changing regional power balances. These power balances will be affected by how the rising Asian powers cope with domestic and local security challenges – China with its human security challenge, India with its surrounding ring of unstable neighbors, and Southeast Asian powers with Islamic radicalism and lingering internal conflicts. Asian states confront a number of interlocking collective action problems, in the areas of natural disasters, the environment and public health, and constraining the private sector, which they will need to solve outside the traditional framework of the US security guarantee. In the absence of consensus on a collective security mechanism for the region, Vatikiotis argues for the creation of interlocking subregional bodies, buttressed by a more active UN presence.
Central Asia and the Caucasus: A Vulnerable Crescent
Thomas de Waal, Caucasus Editor, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, and Anna Matveeva, Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics
February 2007
Thomas de Waal and Anna Matveeva describe a ‘vulnerable crescent’ stretching from the Caucasus through Central Asia, where development is faltering and politics is increasingly corrupted. This leaves states vulnerable to shocks from succession crises, religious extremism, armed conflict, demographic shifts, and health threats. Natural resource wealth risks fuelling inter-group violence and generating a shadow economy and state criminalization. The authors point to a real possibility of reignited armed conflict in the South Caucasus and irreversible ‘de-modernization’ in some Central Asian states – the latter preventable only through a prompt and significant increase in development assistance. At the same time, De Waal and Matveeva note numerous opportunities for constructive external intervention, though this will require improved coordination between political and developmental activities. In particular, they call for the development of strategic visions for UN engagement with regional actors, with the UN taking the lead in setting agendas around which donor governments and other multilateral organizations can unite.
Shada Islam, Journalist and specialist in European Union and NATO policy
February 2007
Shada Islam points to two crises of identity – one internal and one external – confronting Europe today. Internally, a deep popular malaise has emerged regarding the political, economic and institutional consolidation of the European Union. With its population aging, Europe faces labor shortages and rising healthcare and pension costs, creating a need for ongoing immigration. At the same time, Europe is seeing a resurgence of racism and xenophobia, stoked by fears of terrorism. This mix feeds into Europe’s external identity crisis, as it struggles to capture the elusive goal of a genuine common foreign and security policy. The growing alienation of Europe’s Muslim communities complicates the EU’s attempts to surround itself with a ‘ring of friends’ particularly in the Middle East; and its relationship to NATO, Turkey and Russia all remain clouded with uncertainty. Nevertheless, the Working Paper envisions a path towards the resolution of Europe’s identity crises based on leadership by regional organizations, governments, politicians, and a responsible media.
Latin America and the Caribbean: Domestic and Transnational Insecurity
Arlene B. Tickner, Professor of International Relations, Universidad de los Andes
February 2007
In this analysis of the security challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean, Arlene Tickner examines two intersecting axes of insecurity: the domestic challenge of weak governance and citizen insecurity, and the transnational threat of organized crime and illicit flows. Combined, these axes of insecurity threaten the region with an increase in urban violence, organized crime, and unabated drug and human trafficking. Tickner highlights the danger that states will rely upon militaristic and ‘securitized’ responses to these transnational threats, which risk eroding democratic governance. Acknowledging the successes of some regional organizations and the overwhelming US influence in the region, Tickner argues that the UN plays only a secondary security role in the region. She advocates a focus, by international and national actors, on democratic institution-building, enhanced law enforcement and the effective administration of justice, as the most effective means of ensuring a regional best-case scenario in the future.
Global Political Violence: Explaining the Post-Cold War Decline
Andrew Mack, Director of the Human Security Centre, Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia
March 2007
Andrew Mack analyzes some surprising trends in political violence since the end of World War II, focusing on the decline in the number and deadliness of armed conflicts since the end of the Cold War. Mack argues that the decline in armed conflicts is best explained by the upsurge of peacemaking and peacebuilding activities since the early 1990s, spearheaded by the UN. Mack concludes that the incidence of genocides and ‘politicides’, in which governments attack their own civilians, has declined in recent years – but international terrorism has seen a dramatic resurgence in the Middle East and South Asia. Despite this apparent ‘good news,’ Mack warns, there is little room for complacency, given the intractability of many conflicts worldwide, and the possibility of reversion to armed conflict in many cases. The best case scenario would require the international community to adopt policies promoting rising incomes (a key correlate to peace), long-term normative change, and reducing incentives to go to war.
Peacemaking and Mediation: Dynamics of a Changing Field
Chester Crocker, James R. Schlesinger Chair in Strategic Studies, Georgetown University
March 2007
Chester Crocker’s overview of the field of peacemaking offers a thorough analysis of the main challenges facing those engaged in conflict resolution today, both normative and practical. These include the challenges of fragile states, normative change, and unpredictable engagement by leading powers, and a sometimes overcrowded field of would-be public and private peacemakers. Crocker’s analysis points to a growing danger of fragmentation and incoherence in the field, and suggests the need for rationalization through the development of professional standards, a gatekeeping mechanism, burden sharing, and improved training and knowledge management. The UN, he argues, has a significant role to play in many of these areas, and may do so if adequate support is provided by states, both through support for the new Mediation Support Unit, and through more nuanced allocation of peacemaking tasks to the Security Council, UN envoys, and non-UN peacemakers.
New Challenges for Peacekeeping: Protection, Peacebuilding and the “War on Terror”
Richard Gowan, Research Associate, Center on International Cooperation and Ian Johnstone, Senior Fellow, Center on International Cooperation
March 2007
Gowan and Johnstone argue that peacekeeping is a strategic tool, rather than a strategy per se – so its future will be shaped by broader concepts of international security. They highlight three emerging trends: the concept of civilian ‘protection,’ which has prompted the development of robust, rapidly deployable military and policing peacekeeping forces; the concept of ‘peacebuilding,’ which has seen peace operations engage in an increasingly broad array of security, humanitarian, political and economic tasks aimed at building effectively functioning states; and the increasing importance of doctrines of counter-insurgency, in the context of the war on terrorism. Despite an increasing involvement by regional organizations (especially EU, AU, and NATO) and national actors in peacekeeping, Gowan and Johnstone argue that the UN has reemerged as the single most significant actor in peacekeeping on a global scale, even as it explores better ways to coordinate operations with these emerging peacekeeping actors.
Ending Wars and Building Peace
Charles Call, Assistant Professor, American University and Elizabeth Cousens, Vice President, International Peace Institute
March 2007
Charles Call and Elizabeth Cousens argue that neither a maximalist conception of peacebuilding (resolving the ‘root causes’ of conflict), nor a minimalist conception (no renewed warfare) provides an analytically clear, measurable or achievable standard. Instead, they advocate a middle ground: no renewed warfare plus a modicum of participatory politics. They argue that evidence suggests the UN is quite successful at peacebuilding if so measured. But they also point to numerous causes for concern: expectations of multilateral organizations outstrip their capacity, given persistent shortfalls in resources, coordination, contextual knowledge, and political will – especially in the three to seven years after the cessation of conflict, when new state institutions are starting to gain traction. The complex relationship between peacebuilding and state-building needs to be better understood, and the new UN Peacebuilding Commission cannot solve these problems alone. Despite increasing involvement by regional organizations, we appear far from ready to handle multiple peacebuilding crises in geostrategically sensitive locations.
Small Arms and Light Weapons: Towards Global Public Policy
Keith Krause, Director of the Program in Strategic and International Security Studies, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva
March 2007
In this analysis of the challenges of the proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons, Keith Krause makes a compelling case for multi-level national and international regulatory mechanisms. Acknowledging that the availability of weapons is not a direct cause of increased conflict, Krause likens their availability to the presence of a ‘dry forest’ or a permissive environment which enables the escalation of conflict sparked by other causes. Examining the issue from the point of view of multilateral diplomacy as well as a ‘global public policy’ perspective, Krause concludes that universal regulatory arrangements are far off; effective action will depend on how key states and institutions – or perhaps even key individuals – choose to address small arms proliferation and misuse. Ultimately, Krause argues, durable reductions in the risk of armed violence require supporting accountable state institutions providing security as a public good.
Energy Security: Investment or Insecurity
Fatih Birol, Chief Economist, International Energy Agency
May 2007
Fatih Birol evaluates world energy prospects through two detailed scenarios: a Reference Scenario (the most likely path of energy consumption to 2030), and an Alternative Policy Scenario (envisaging the effects of policies curbing energy use and carbon emissions, slowing growth in fossil-fuel demand, imports and emissions). Drawing on the findings of the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2006, Birol shows that developing countries’ demand for energy will grow fastest, raising concerns about supply-side shocks, whether arising from natural disasters or geopolitical circumstances. Birol advocates diversification of fuels, more efficient energy use (including nuclear power), improved market transparency and investment by industrialized countries to allow developing countries to leapfrog to advanced technologies. Significantly, the Working Paper indicates that the economic benefits modeled in the Alternative Policy Scenario outstrip its costs. Perhaps most innovatively, Birol calls for an international effort to increase global access to energy services akin to that aimed at achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
Climate Change and Conflict: The Migration Link
Nils Petter Gleditsch, Research Professor, International Peace Research Institute, Idean Salehyan, Department of Political Science, University of North Texas, and Ragnhild Nordås, Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
May 2007
Eschewing the anecdote and speculation that characterizes much existing analysis of the security impacts of climate change, Gleditsch, Salehyan and Nordås provide a detailed empirical argument that the population migrations which may result from climate change are the most likely causal path to conflict. They note that reforms such as population relocation, energy conservation, and technological change may be politically costly in the short-term – even if they provide long-term benefits. This time-inconsistency problem may require institutional changes that facilitate long-term planning and coordination at the international level. Accordingly, the issue should be made a priority for the United Nations, since the potential consequences may involve threats to human security at a level comparable to that of a major war. They conclude the paper by offering some policy recommendations specifically designed to counteract the conflict-inducing effects of environmental migration by boosting local and national capacitates to deal with natural disasters and migration and improving immigration policy.
Poverty and Conflict: The Inequality Link
Ravi Kanbur, Professor of Economics, Cornell University
June 2007
In this succinct study of poverty and inequality, Ravi Kanbur focuses on the relationship between poverty, inequality, and conflict within states, drawing out the links demonstrated through recent empirical analysis. Kanbur argues that while inequality is a natural concomitant of economic processes, particularly those driven by the market, its implications for security emerge when unequal outcomes align with socio-political cleavages. Such an alignment can turn a benign outcome, in which increasing inequality might even help economic efficiency, into one conducive to conflict. Inter-communal inequality can worsen the climate for investment even before, in the extreme, a collapse of the social order. Accordingly, Kanbur advocates a careful assessment of the intersection between economic outcomes and social divisions (and not only effects on individual and household income and national inequality), when international policymakers design policies and interventions for growth and poverty reduction.
Global Public Health and Biosecurity: Managing Twenty-First Century Risks
Margaret Kruk, Lecturer, Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan School of Public Health
July 2007
In this overview of global public health and biosecurity, Margaret Kruk argues that global risk management systems are only as strong as their weakest link. Only multilateral cooperation can offer the common protection that political borders do not. Kruk offers a sharp critique of excessive privatization in developing and distributing health care tools, highlighting the gaps in supply that frequently confront developing countries, but which also increasingly affect developed countries confronted by global pandemics. At the same time, the private sector, including both industry and local communities, will play indispensable roles in forging solutions to these global challenges. National governments must also do more: health expenditures must more than double to meet the health-related Millennium Development Goals. The UN, too – especially the World Health Organization – has a key role to play in controlling disease and strengthening national health service capacities, which will necessitate streamlining its agenda, improving in-country coordination, and advocating the interests of the most disadvantaged.
Food Security: Vulnerability Despite Abundance
Marc Cohen, Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute
July 2007
Reviewing the state of global food security, Marc Cohen calls for significant shifts in international and national policies. He reveals numerous facets of an ever-threatening and complex challenge, from ‘hidden hunger’ to the ‘double burden’ of malnutrition and obesity among developing countries. After examining attempts to meet global goals to abolish food insecurity, Cohen highlights the potential of the private sector, especially private philanthropy, as well as civil society, in securing food supplies. He calls for a move away from charity-based food relief towards insurance-based risk management mechanisms. He also suggests the development of a multistakeholder forum at the international level to encourage peer review of food security policies and improved donor commitments to food security. Finally, he makes a powerful case for greater multilateral engagement in post-conflict agricultural development, the integration of conflict-sensitive development into food security related programs, and a higher prioritization of food insecurity by a range of multilateral and national actors.
Population Trends: Humanity in Transition
Joseph Chamie, Research Director, Center for Migration Studies
June 2007
Joseph Chamie illuminates the staggering scope of present demographic changes, which will soon affect every area of human and international security. Within 50 years, 2 to 3 billion people will be added to the global population, producing stunning shifts in the population distribution: Pakistan’s population will nearly triple Russia’s, while India will overtake China as the most populous state. By 2008, most people will live in cities; by 2030, urban areas in developing countries will double, placing enormous stress on local and global health, political and security systems. As populations in some developed countries age and decline, international migration will continue to challenge community identities. Chamie argues that what is lacking to deal with these coming demographic challenges are not policies, but the political will to realize them. International organizations such as the UN have indispensable roles to play both in mobilizing this political will, and in providing technical assistance to governments to deal with the various crises that will emerge.
Nuclear Weapons: The Politics of Non-Proliferation
Christine Wing, Senior Research Fellow, Center on International Cooperation
April 2007
Describing the seeming impasse in multilateral non-proliferation and disarmament efforts, Christine Wing argues that the underlying challenges are essentially political, reflecting profound differences in state interests and power. She provides an overview of the major points of contention in the contemporary nuclear debate – including proliferation to states, proliferation to non-state actors, disarmament, use, indigenous fuel cycles and international inspections – arguing that state perceptions of the ‘nuclear threat’ depend upon whether expanded possession of nuclear weapons serves their interest. While highlighting the danger that we may be reaching a ‘point of no-return’ with multiple nuclear powers in volatile regions, and the corrosive impact of the nuclear weapons debate on multilateralism, Wing reminds us that the fundamental danger against which we must guard is the detonation of a nuclear weapon. Only prompt leadership from states and multilateral organizations will ensure we avoid this catastrophic outcome.
Transnational Organized Crime: Multilateral Responses to a Rising Threat
James Cockayne, Associate, International Peace Institute
April 2007
James Cockayne identifies a growing short-fall in capacities to control the threat posed by transnational organized crime (TOC). TOC exploits the ‘sovereign-free’ areas of the international system – such as war zones, the internet and private bank accounts – slowly corrupting state, social and global systems of governance. Depending on the nature of the weaknesses in governance it encounters, and on its own strategy (symbiotic, parasitic or predatory), TOC fuels and spreads various public harms, from corruption to armed conflict to disease. Multilateral response capacity remains highly fragmented, as states jealously guard their crime control competences, a central component of their sovereign power. Cockayne argues that this risks ceding increasing control of global markets, population and territory to TOC. But he also suggests that effective multilateral crime control is achievable through the development of harmonized norms and coordination frameworks, complementary international enforcement capacity, and peer review and sanctions mechanisms designed to improve the integration of state and private sector crime control capacity worldwide.
Global Terrorism: Multilateral Institutional Responses to an Extraordinary Threat
Eric Rosand, Senior Fellow, Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation
April 2007
Eric Rosand argues that while we confront a diverse set of terrorist threats, the central driver of policy at the multilateral level has been the threat posed by Islamist terror groups operating internationally, most notably al Qaeda. Rosand argues that international responses to terrorism since September 2001 are best understood as a product of many different states’ threat perceptions – with some even seeing the counterterrorism agenda itself as a threat. Multilateral institutions, he argues, have a significant role to play in reconciling these different perceptions, and in developing and implementing strategies and programs at the global, regional, and local levels. In particular, they should: 1) improve coordination and cooperation among the 70 different international bodies involved in counterterrorism; 2) to depoliticize and enhance technical capacity-building, prioritizing the regions with the weakest capacity; and 3) develop a more holistic approach to countering the threat, including addressing terrorism’s underlying conditions, winning the ‘battle of ideas’ and combating terrorist use of the Internet. In the end, only a more representative and technically-focused UN body with broad support from the global north and south is likely to be up to the task.
Photo credits
Regional Perspectives: Africa – “World Food Programme and Partners March Against Hunger in Burundi,” UN Photo/Mario Rizzo. Middle East – “A man walking outside the Sayyidna Al-Hussein Mosque in Cairo,” © James Cockayne, 2002. Asia – “Meeting prior to UNFPA-assisted census. Honhot, China, Summer 1982,” UN Photo. Central Asia and the Caucasus – “Market Scene in Turkmenistan,” © Barnett Rubin. Europe – “Armed police officers patrol London’s transport system one month after the terrorist attack on the city on July 7, 2005,” Aubrey Wade/Panos Photos. Latin America and the Caribbean – “Cathedral in Bogota, Colombia” MedioImages/Corbis.
Coping with Organized Violence: Political Violence – “Army Figurines,” Thinkstock/Corbis. Peacemaking – “Handshake with a Central and South America Map,” Mark Karass/Corbis. Peacekeeping – “Blue helmets in Bubanza, Burundi.” UN Photos. Peacebuilding – “Finger printing after voting assures one vote per person.” UN Photos/DPI. Small Arms and Light Weapons – “Ammunition collected from militias in Côte d’Ivoire,” Ky Chung/UN Photos. Nuclear Proliferation – “Nuclear plant,” David Wasserman/Brand X/Corbis. Transnational Organized Crime – “Prisoner holding cigarette between bars,” Mark Karrass/Corbis.
Managing Global Systems: Energy Security – “Oil pump jack in canola field,” Carson Ganci/Design Pics/Corbis. Climate Change – “Drought: Cracked earth from lack of water and baked from the heat of the sun forms a pattern in the Nature Reserve of Popenguine, Senegal.” Evan Schneider/UN Photos. Poverty and Inequality – “Women and children near chemical plant: poor women and their daughters stand on a riverbank near a chemical plant in Bombay,” Rob Lettieri/Corbis. Public Health and Biosecurity – “Shelves full of medicines,” ER Productions/Corbis. Food Security – “Children with gourds wait for permission to gather the spilled grain from air-drops by the World Food Programme (WFP) aircraft near Thiekthou.” UN/DPI Photo. Population Trends – “New Delhi commuters”, April 2001. ©Manish Swarup/Associated Press.