There Will Be Another Syria. It’s Just A Case Of Where And When’, Experts Warn

Climate change will inevitably help cause another major war, having already caused the brutal Syrian conflict, experts have warned.

 

A panel of national security and climate change specialists made the sombre warning at the One Young World summit in Tucson, Arizona, last weekend.   “At some point, the environmental stress of a given group of people becomes so great they have no choice but to change their way of life,” said Eric Holthaus, meteorologist and climate change journalist. “Wherever the next Syria is, it’s hard to know. But we know there will be one on the path.”   Chair of the panel Alexander Verbeek, global issues policy advisor for the Netherlands’ foreign affairs ministry, highlighted the effect climate change will have on the younger generations.    “We’re talking about a massive, worldwide, manmade climate change that is going to impact each and every one of us. And youths will really start to feel that impact.   “If you think about any conflicts you read about in the newspaper, you will see that droughts are in zones prone to conflict. If we look at the impact of climate change on war, there’s never a conflict that’s 100% attributable to climate change but it is always a factor.””   Verbeek pinpointed the Syrian civil war as an example of this, referencing research published by Colin Kelley, a climate scientist based in Santa Barbara.   In his 2015 publication, Kelley states: “There is evidence the 2007-2010 drought contributed to the conflict in Syria. It was the worst drought in the instrumental record, causing widespread crop failure and a mass migration of farming families to urban centres.. We conclude that human influences on the climate system are implicated in the current Syrian conflict.”   Speaking to young leaders at the One Young World summit, Verbeek explained: “In the past few decades in Syria, rainfall went down, temperature went up, and droughts increased in frequency and duration. The last drought began in 2007 and never really stopped.   “And that has been a factor in the uprising that ultimately resulted in the Syrian Civil War.” More      

Terrorism, Counterterrorism and Conflict Resolution - Building Bridges

Terrorism, Counterterrorism and Conflict Resolution: Building Bridges 

INTRODUCTION  For decades, conflicts involving terrorist violence were considered beyond the realm of conflict resolution practices such as conflict prevention, peacemaking through negotiations and dialogue, and peacebuilding and reconciliation. Terrorism was a form of violence that policymakers believed could only be countered through law and order or military responses.  Recently however there has been an increasing interest from governments and academics alike in the potential for conflict resolution practices in terrorist conflicts. Examining successful examples such as the peace process in Northern Ireland or in South Africa has become a key part of the study of contemporary terrorism. This research project aims to offer an analysis of how conflict prevention, peacemaking, and peacebuilding frameworks can be applied to conflicts marked by terrorist violence based on rare primary research undertaken by the author and an in depth analysis of the growing research on these ques- tions.  As will become evident throughout this report, examining the potential for a conflict resolution approach to terrorism does not only mean examining the potential of policy responses that have so far largely been ignored, but also means adopting an approach to terrorist violence grounded in conflict analysis and conflict resolution perspectives.  Prior to examining what this entails (in Section 3), it is important to first discuss what is meant by “conflict resolution.” This report understands conflict resolution as “formulating, applying and testing structures and practices for preventing, managing, ending and transforming violent and destructive conflict” (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall, 2011: 62). It thus includes three phases: conflict prevention, which aims to avoid violence; peacemaking, which is aimed at stopping the violence without entrenching the underlying causes of the violence; and peacebuilding which aims to “produce an environment that ensures security, justice, and well-being for all, and one in which conflict resolution can be self-sustaining” (Bercovitch and Jackson, 2009: 89).  

Harmonie Toros is lecturer in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent and mem- ber of the Conflict Analysis Research Group. Her research lies at the crossroad between conflict resolution and terrorism studies. She has published works developing a critical theory-based approach to terrorism and examining the transformation of conflicts marked by terrorist vio- lence. Following a BA in Contemporary History (Sussex) and a Maîtrise in History (Paris IV- Sorbonne), she worked as reporter and editor for major international news agencies (The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse) for eight years in Turkey, Italy, France, and the United States, before returning to academia in 2003. She completed her PhD at the Department of International Politics of Aberystwyth University in 2010. She has lectured at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and the University of Queensland, Australia. She is the author of Terrorism, Talking and Transformation: A Critical Approach (Routledge, 2012), editor of Researching Terrorism, Peace and Conflict Studies: Interaction, Synthesis and Opposition (Routledge, 2015), and is an editor of the journal Critical Studies on Terrorism.   Download PDF    

The Strategic Impasse over India’s Doctrinal Restructuring

Like other powers, over the last two decades India has reevaluated its military strategy, tactics, and doctrine. The doctrinal reassessment is regional- centric,  seemingly planned to gain regional influence with the intention of acquiring a great power status. The structural changes in the overall Indian military strategy involve its nuclear doctrine, which is quite worrisome for Islamabad.  Particularly disconcerting, Indian doctrinal restructuring, although like any other modern state, is shrouded in ambiguity. This is likely to intensify the “fog of war,” and would unfortunately create more uncertainty, especially during crises or conflicts. Generally, regional and global powers develop advanced R&D programs to build up state-of-the-art weapon systems. Advancements in technologies have made these weapons more accurate, lethal, and endowed with more capacity to handle diverse tasks and roles even at greater distance.  The main objective is to develop the lethal weapons necessary to secure its national security goals in this anarchic international system.  3 In the nuclear age, the mere existence of nuclear weapons induces rivals to particularly vigilant behavior due to their state of mutual vulnerability. 4 Essentially, nuclear doctrine here means the strategy of deployment and employment of nuclear forces for posing threats in response to a crisis situation that a country’s leadership may face at the hands of an opponent.  More (PDF) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Zulfqar Khan is a Professor and Head of the Department of Strategic Studies at the National Defence University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He can be reached at hodsns@ndu.edu.pk or zulfqarkhan8@gmail.com. Ahmad Khan is a Ph.D. Scholar at the Department. Contact him at ahmad_ishaq669@yahoo.com. The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and should not be taken to represent the views of NDU. THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY ▪ S PRING 2016