The UK Department for International Development (DFID) is preparing a White Paper. It will be its fourth one since the department was founded in 1997 in the early days of New Labour government. On Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th it held a conference in London as part of the work on the White Paper.
Conflict & peace
Obama in power (3): Iraq – not as clear as it first seems
Speaking last Friday at the US Marine Corps Camp Lejeune base in North Carolina President Obama announced a big reduction in US troop numbers in Iraq from 142,000 down to 50,000 by August next year, with all US forces out by the end of 2011. So he has made his intentions clear. Or has he?
Overstretch in UN peace operations
“In 2008 global peacekeeping was pushed to the brink,” says a new briefing paper from the Center on International Cooperation in New York announcing the Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2009. The authors chart out the basic peacekeeping figures – who contributes what peacekeeping forces where – but their main focus is on the serious degree of overstretch and the risk of operations breaking down. Continue reading
Stern, climate change and “extended world war”
First the Huffington Post and then Fox News have both published a story containing some garish remarks by Nicholas Stern about “extended world war” as a consequence of climate change. The report feels as though, even if accurate, the remarks were taken sharply out of context because alarmism is not Stern’s usual currency. But the real concern is that it’s not helpful to depict the link between climate change and conflict in that way.
The special significance of the Israel-Palestine conflict
Why is it that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians generates such intense feelings among so many people? It goes deeper and spreads more widely than virtually any other current political issue. People who have no personal stake – no relatives in any part of Israel and Palestine, for example – express themselves on this conflict with genuine feelings of grief and anger, where other conflicts provoke only a more general humanitarian response or concern for the unjustly treated. What’s special about Israel-Palestine? Continue reading
Gaza, criticising Israel and Howard Jacobson
The three-week offensive Israel launched on Gaza on 27 December has predictably led to a re-airing of the argument about whether and to what degree it is possible to criticise Israel without being anti-Semitic. This is the conflict that receives more coverage and more passion than any other in today’s world and how the arguments about it are handled is important in the evolution of our political culture. This post goes into this treacherous subject at some length.
Continue reading
Israel’s motives in Gaza
Why did Israel launch its offensive on Gaza on 27 December? Little is clear and as always there are competing accounts and interpretations, with even more confusion and argument over its degree of success or failure. Continue reading
The food fulcrum
A billion are underfed and a billion are overweight. People, that is. Publication of an excellent report on food security by Alex Evans, The Feeding of the Nine Billion, offers an occasion for reflecting on how food sits at the fulcrum of many of the outstanding concerns of today – climate change and conflict, poverty and wealth, deprivation and privilege, power and exclusion. Continue reading
How a conflict could lead to a perfect storm
The world is in parlous condition. A violent conflict could quickly escalate out of control into a perfect storm, in which a local conflict becomes a major regional explosion. The risk is of low probability but high impact. The likelihood can be made even lower if the international system and its major actors remain watchful and ready to respond quickly. For that readiness to be real, we need to think the risk through. Continue reading
Water shortages feed risk of conflict
A new report from the Pacific Institute in California is featured in a Times (London) story this morning, which links humanity’s expanding “water footprint” to increasing risks of armed conflict. The conflict and peace implications of climate change are explored in an International Alert report, A Climate of Conflict, from late 2007.
Dan Smith's blog 