Showing posts from category conflict.
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U.S Defense Planners Must Consider Age Structure, Migration, Urbanization, Says Defense Consultant
›December 13, 2007 // By Miles BrundageThe latest issue of Joint Force Quarterly, a publication by the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, features an article by Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba entitled “The Defense Implications of Demographic Trends.” Sciubba, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Maryland and a consultant to the Office of Policy Planning at the Department of Defense, analyzes the ways in which understanding demographic trends can enhance our understanding of potential national security threats. She contends, “Demography is a useful lens for understanding national security because population is intimately linked to resources, and resources are related to both capabilities and conflict.” Her article peers into the future to hypothesize how three key demographic trends—the north-south divide in age structure; international migration; and urbanization—are likely to impact global security conditions.
Touching on issues that have been discussed at events sponsored by the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program, Sciubba first examines the contrast between the young, growing populations of the Global South and the aging, stagnant populations of the Global North. Ninety-nine percent of the additional three billion people projected to be living on Earth by 2050 will be born in developing countries. Meanwhile, developed countries’ populations are largely stable, and in some cases are declining. Europe’s elderly population will rely on a shrinking pool of working-age citizens to fund their health care and pension systems. In order to continue financing these programs, nations will be forced either to permit massively increased immigration (a possibly that Sciubba discounts because of increasingly prominent xenophobicattitudes in Europe) or to cut back on defense spending. This economic crunch could make European participation in humanitarian or combat operations abroad less likely.
Sciubba explains that “population can be a threat rather than an asset” if a state cannot provide educational and economic opportunities for its younger citizens. The Middle East and North Africa will face grave security risks if economic opportunities do not keep pace with population growth, she argues: “As many observers of international trends note, the sad prospects for these [young] individuals can make them susceptible to radical ideologies and even incite them to full-blown violence.” An examination of Iraq’s male youths helps illustrate this problem. The Iraqi military was the main source of employment for young men before its disbandment in 2003, and the disappearance of that crucial economic prospect makes young men more susceptible to insurgent recruitment.
A second key demographic trend is international migration. The causal link between mass migration and conflict can flow both ways, as Sciubba explains: “The ability of mass migration to change a country’s status quo means that it has the potential to instigate conflict, or at least create divisions. This conflict, in turn, drives migration.” The Middle East illustrates the complex relationships between migration and other demographic issues. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, there are approximately two million Iraqi refugees, and about 2,000 Iraqis a day seek refuge in Syria. As a result, there has been a substantial increase in competition for resources between Syrians and Iraqi refugees. Moreover, the virtual end of migration to Israel and the far lower fertility rate among Israeli Jews than Israeli Arabs has set the foundation for an Israel that could be majority-Arab in the future, which would likely fan the flames of conflict there.
Finally, Sciubba discusses urbanization as a key demographic trend that will “likely define the next 30 years.” Population growth will speed up urbanization as working-age young adults seek employment in urban areas. Developing states in the Global South undergoing rapid urbanization face security dangers because of their “proclivity for violence and rebellion [which] can be exacerbated by unmet expectations in overcrowded cities.” Sciubba warns of a potentially catastrophic increase in slums around mega-cities (cities with populations larger than 10 million people, of which there may be 22 by 2015). The squalor in these contemporary urban slums is staggering, she notes: Hygiene and sanitation problems cause 1.6 million deaths annually, which is five times the death toll of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Additionally, rural-urban tensions are likely to be highlighted in coming years. In China, the income of the average urban household is now three times as high as the income of its average rural counterpart, and this income gap is partly responsible for China’s internal unrest.
Sciubba encourages U.S. defense planners to use demographic tools for three main purposes. First, demography can identify security hotspots, such as those outlined above. Second, it can increase awareness of demographic trends in the United States in order to more effectively plan our security policies and strategies. Finally, foreign assistance should take these demographic trends into consideration in order to reduce the risk of related security threats. In only a few pages, Sciubba’s article illuminates several complex demographic trends that will affect future global security. -
Bangladesh’s Stability Threatened by Natural Disasters, Migration, Terrorism
›December 13, 2007 // By Thomas RenardLast month, Cyclone Sidr killed thousands of Bangladeshis and displaced thousands more. Yet natural disasters are not the only threats facing Bangladesh. Dhaka is struggling to control three interrelated challenges: natural disasters, conflict with India, and international terrorism.
- Bangladesh is among the countries most severely affected by natural disasters. UN statistics illustrate the extent of these almost-annual catastrophes. Two wind storms killed 300,000 and 140,000 in 1970 and 1971, while floods affected 38 million in 1974 and 78 million in 1987.
- Repeated environmental disasters have triggered migration within Bangladesh, but also into India, and these migrations have sometimes led to conflict. Rafael Reuveny found that past environmental migrations within Bangladesh and between Bangladesh and India have already triggered high-intensity conflict, mainly along ethnic lines. Generally, conflict arises as a result of competition for land, water, and jobs. But Indians are also concerned about the “Bangladeshization” of the states of Assam and Tripura. According to recent voting records, reports the Christian Science Monitor, 99 percent of the residents living on the Indian side of the India-Bangladesh border are Bangladeshi immigrants. In order to reduce and manage immigration, India has been building a 2,500-mile long, 12-foot high double fence packed with razor wire along its border.
- In his article “Al Qaeda Strikes Back” in Foreign Affairs earlier this year, Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, warned that Bangladesh could become an important base for al Qaeda. “The Jihad Movement in Bangladesh was one of the original signatories of bin Laden’s 1998 declaration of war on the West,” he said. In 2006, “as bitter feuding between the two main political parties was increasingly ripping the country apart, there were growing indications that Bangladeshi fundamentalist groups were becoming radicalized. The political meltdown now under way in the capital, Dhaka, is creating the type of fractious environment in which al Qaeda thrives.”
Now, climate change could make the above challenges even worse. “Climate change is a threat multiplier,” Environmental Change and Security Program Director Geoff Dabelko told the Christian Science Monitor. “It’s not that it creates a whole new set of problems, it’s that it will make things that are already a problem worse.” Climate change is likely to make natural disasters more frequent and more powerful; to increase the frequency and extent of environmental migrations; and to increase grievances and the likelihood of state failure, both of which could facilitate terrorism.
- Bangladesh is among the countries most severely affected by natural disasters. UN statistics illustrate the extent of these almost-annual catastrophes. Two wind storms killed 300,000 and 140,000 in 1970 and 1971, while floods affected 38 million in 1974 and 78 million in 1987.
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Agriculture as Key Post-Conflict Step
›December 12, 2007 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoMore evidence against treating natural resource management as a luxury item in post-conflict settings comes from the November edition of the New Agriculturalist. Seven short pieces on agriculture after conflict highlight the necessity of utilizing agriculture as part of a post-conflict recovery strategy.
Some of these pieces delve into “rehabilitating coffee in Angola,” livestock health initiatives as confidence-builders in Sudan, and land ownership reform in Guatemala. Articles on Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, and Uganda round out the special focus on agriculture as “an essential part of the rehabilitation process.” -
NYT Magazine Features “Climate Conflicts” as One of 2007’s Ideas
›December 12, 2007 // By Sean Peoples -
Water Causing Tension in Central Asia
›December 7, 2007 // By Rachel Weisshaar“The water crisis in Central Asia is due to the way water has been allocated and managed; it is not a crisis of quantity but of distribution,” asserts Jeremy Allouche, a visiting fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies, in “The governance of Central Asian waters: national interests versus regional cooperation,” available in the latest issue of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research’s Disarmament Forum.
The shrinking of the Aral Sea, which began in the 1960s, first drew international attention to the region’s water issues. The Aral Sea has been an ecological disaster, but Central Asia now has another, equally serious hydrological problem: how to divide the region’s limited water among competing countries that need it for irrigation, hydropower, and other uses. Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Krygystan have had largely hostile relations over water distribution since they achieved independence in 1992, and these tensions could boil over into violent conflict unless the countries can implement a functional regional water agreement.
Allouche offers a concise, lucid overview of the challenges of the region’s post-independence water governance system, including analyses of how the water policies of Central Asia’s major players (which also include Afghanistan, China, and Russia) affect regional tensions over water. -
Environmental Peacemaking in the Golan Heights?
›November 26, 2007 // By Rachel WeisshaarThe United States and Israel could garner more meaningful engagement from Syria in the Middle East peace process by proposing the creation of a peace park in the disputed Golan Heights area, say University of Vermont Associate Professor Saleem Ali, a recent speaker at the Wilson Center, and Rabbi Michael Cohen of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Israel in “Salvaging Peace with Syria,” available on the Carnegie Council’s “Policy Innovations” website. Noting that transboundary conservation areas have helped resolve past conflicts—as with the Cordillera del Cóndor Transboundary Protected Area, established between Peru and Ecuador in 1995—the authors argue that a Golan Heights peace park should be on the agenda at tomorrow’s Middle East peace conference in Annapolis. -
Green Helmets for Gorillas? Weighing the Case for Ecological Intervention
›November 25, 2007 // By Thomas RenardCan environmental destruction justify military intervention? Robyn Eckersley, a professor of environmental politics at the University of Melbourne, Australia, explores the morality, legality, and legitimacy of such involvement in “Ecological Intervention: Prospects and Limits,” which appears in the latest issue of Ethics and International Affairs.
Eckersley argues that the United Nations—particularly the Security Council—possesses the authority to assume a larger role in protecting the environment. This idea is not original, however: Klaus Töpfer, former head of the UN Environment Programme, and Mikhail Gorbachev have both called for the creation of a “green helmets” force to respond to environmental crises.
Eckersley identifies three categories of environmental harm that could justify an ecological intervention—which she defines as “the threat or use of force by a state or coalition of states within the territory of another state and without the consent of that state in order to prevent grave environmental damage”—or the launch of an ecological defense—which she defines as “the preventive use of force in response to the threat of serious and immediate environmental harm flowing into the territory of a ‘victim’ state.”- A major environmental emergency with transboundary spillover effects. As an illustration, Eckersley hypothesizes a Chernobyl-like nuclear accident in a country that lacks the capacity to cope with the catastrophe but refuses foreign assistance. She argues that the notion of “territorial integrity” inscribed in the UN Charter can readily be interpreted to include “ecosystem integrity”—and therefore justify an intervention by an affected state. Currently, a country affected by another country’s nuclear accident can only hope for monetary reparations.
- An ecocide—the result of intentional, systematic acts that cause widespread, long-term, and severe damage to the environment—involving serious human rights violations. Saddam Hussein’s decimation of the marsh region that was home to the Madan, or Marsh Arabs, is a case in point. Eckersley’s legal argument here relies on an expansive interpretation of the UN Charter’s notion of “threat to the peace.”
- An ecocide involving no serious harm to human beings. An illustration of this situation would be the deployment of troops in the Great Lakes to protect the mountain gorillas. Contending that biodiversity is a “common concern of humankind,” Eckersley argues that states have a responsibility to other states to protect their environment, as the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development suggests.
Eckersley’s proposition, though interesting, suffers from a number of pitfalls. One major problem is that her argument could open the door to an extremely wide range of military interventions. For instance, her call for interventions to protect endangered species is extremely impractical—if not impossible—given the prediction that climate change will threaten the existences of millions of species will be at risk by 2050. One option—though not without serious problems of its own—would be to establish a list of “indispensable” species.
Another weakness of Eckersley’s article is that it neglects the role of incentives, focusing instead on the use of force, even though governments are often more receptive to the former. The army is probably not the organization best-suited to protecting coral or chimpanzees. Troop deployments are both financially and morally costly: Developing countries might view an increasing number of interventions by the Security Council as a violation of their sovereignty or a new form of colonization. Furthermore, it will take far more than military interventions to ensure the health of the environment.
Additional flaws in Eckersley’s argument include her attempt to build the case for ecological interventions on that of still-controversial humanitarian interventions, and her wish to saddle the United Nations with additional responsibilities.
Ecological intervention and ecological defense are interesting concepts, anticipating the future importance of the environment in foreign policy. However, Eckersley’s argument goes too far. Few countries would send troops into hostile territory solely to protect the local environment or wildlife. The necessary intermediate step is to continue studying the links between conflict and the environment, biodiversity, and climate change. That research will make possible the development of pragmatic, environment-centered conflict-prevention and conflict-resolution strategies. -
Discovery of Oil Destabilizing Great Lakes Region
›November 16, 2007 // By Rachel WeisshaarThe unearthing of significant oil reserves in 100-mile long Lake Albert—shared by Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)—has already led to violence, and the conflict could easily escalate further. Tullow Oil and Heritage Oil Corporation, which have drilled wells in the lake, recently estimated that it contains at least 1 billion barrels of oil. Uganda and the DRC both want the lion’s share of this treasure, and their competing ambitions have ignited violence in parts of the disputed Uganda-DRC border.
Uganda and the DRC deployed troops in the area once the discovery of oil was reported, and on August 3, 2007, Congolese soldiers attacked one of Heritage Oil’s exploratory oil barges, killing a British contractor working for the company. The Ugandan army retaliated, killing a Congolese soldier. Following the incident, Congolese President Joseph Kabila and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni met in Tanzania and agreed to pull back their troops. But later in September, an incident between the two sides resulted in the deaths of six civilians.
The discovery of oil is causing outright violence in the region, but it is also harming local communities’ health and livelihoods. Rukwanzi Island, located in Lake Albert and claimed by both countries, was partially evacuated earlier this week by DRC authorities due to a cholera outbreak. Oil-related security concerns prevented health workers from treating patients effectively, so DRC police evacuated children and the elderly—two particularly vulnerable populations.
Congolese and Ugandan fishermen who depend on Lake Albert for their livelihoods have been caught up in the hostilities. A Ugandan fisherman told Reuters, “Congolese soldiers have started arresting us, saying we are in their waters. It’s not safe to fish anymore.” Congolese soldiers arrest Ugandan fishermen, and Ugandan police retaliate by arresting Congolese fishermen, making fishing a dangerous and less-profitable enterprise.
The discovery of oil—and the destabilization it can bring—could also involve other Great Lakes countries. Vangold Resources Ltd. recently signed an agreement with the Rwandan government to conduct an extensive geophysical study of a portion of Rwanda’s East Kivu Graben basin, which, structurally, is the southern extension of the Albertine basin. The survey will be completed—and its results released—within 18 months.
Africa’s Great Lakes region—particularly the DRC—has a history of natural resource-driven conflict. Trade out of the DRC in gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt, coltan (used in cell phones), and timber has contributed to devastating internal violence, corruption, and poverty, as well as conflict with other countries. We can only hope that the discovery of oil in Lake Albert does not follow the same path.
