ADVANCING GLOBAL PEACE, WAGING WARS AND CONFLICT

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It’s official. Global instability is the new normal. Political and economic uncertainties, combined with climate change and the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, are all contributing to create unparalleled volatility. Diplomats and defence specialists have fretted over these interlocking threats at major conferences in Davos and Munich over the past two months.

The potential for catastrophic outbreaks of violence between the US, Russia, and China is more apparent now than at any time since the Cold War came to an end. Proxy conflicts in Syria and Yemen, Russian aggression over Ukraine and its neighbours, and tensions in the South China Sea are in some ways a “correction” after two decades of relative stability.

And the problems don’t end there. Many of the world’s 40-odd armed conflicts are becoming more vicious and fragmented. Civil wars and factional fighting in Syria, Libya and Yemen are generating record levels of population displacement. More people were killed as a result of “terrorist” acts in the past few years –especially in Africa and the Middle East – than ever before. These latest trends are in stark contrast to a half century decline in organized violence.

A UN system stretched to its limits

The strain of these transnational challenges on the UN system is stretching the organization to its breaking point. There are currently 16 peacekeeping operations deployed around the world – nine of them in Africa, three in the Middle East, two in Europe and one in the Americas. There are currently more blue helmets on the ground than at any time in history. The cost of keeping over 125,000 personnel in the field hovers at roughly $8 billion a year.

The mounting sense of disorder is shaping how the world’s political and military leaders are thinking about international peace and security. Some of them are calling for a return to isolationism: focus on humanitarian relief to global hot spots and little else. Others are clamouring for more muscular forms of intervention, especially to snuff out radical extremism in North Africa and the Middle East. The space for moderation and balance is shrinking.

Faced with this ominous state of affairs, what is the UN to do?

The organization started by doing what it knows best – commissioning reports. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon did not just ask for one report, but several. In 2014, he requested that the UN set up high-level panels to deliberate on the future of peace operations, the peacebuilding architecture, and the relationships between women, peace and security.

All of this soul searching is intended to have a real-world application. Everyone knows that the UN has to repurpose itself in order to better engage with a turbulent global system. After a few years of reflection and consultation, the results are in. Not surprisingly, the three panels concluded that a credible, legitimate and well-resourced UN is part of the solution.

At least six recommendations stand out from the three high-level reviews.

Reforming the UN

First, conflict prevention is the order of the day. The best way the UN can save lives and reduce spiralling costs is by preventing war from breaking out in the first place. This means the UN needs to adopt a culture of prevention across the organization. And the UN cannot go it alone. There needs to be more burden-sharing by member states, including both traditional donors and emerging powers.

Second, the form and function of peacekeeping should be shaped by the situation on the ground, not the (often competing) political interests at the UN headquarters in New York. The UN also has to abandon cookie-cutter approaches to peace support missions. To do this, the UN Security Council has to be more flexible about determining when troops should enter, how long to stay, and when to exit.

Third, strategic and inclusive partnerships are essential. UN agencies have to stop navel gazing and fighting petty turf wars and get better at reaching out to regional bodies, non-governmental organizations and civil society groups that have a stake in peace. Moreover, UN-resourced activities need to be people-oriented, field-focused and much better targeted at actual and potential hot spots.

Fourth, the focus cannot be limited to “building” peace, but rather making peace “sustainable”. This rhetorical shift is important. Rather than confining activities to post-conflict settings, the UN and its partners need to double down on peace before wars break out. This recommendation dovetails with the freshly minted Sustainable Development Goals, particularly goal 16, which calls for promoting just, peaceful and inclusive societies.

Fifth, national ownership of “peace”, while difficult, is fundamental. Ownership cannot be limited to national government institutions alone, but must be extended to political parties, labour unions, chambers of commerce, women’s organizations, veteran’s associations, minority groups and more. When key players are excluded from peace processes, wars are much more likely to restart.

Finally, and perhaps most important, there must be a much more proactive engagement with women’s participation in peace at all stages of the process. This includes involving women at multiple levels of the peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding process, together with support and protection services for women and girls. Investment in women peacebuilders and respecting gender rights can also help undermine extremism.

A new UN for a new global order

All of these recommendations are eminently sensible. UN member states would do well to act on them immediately. It is worth recalling that we’ve seen some of them before. Back in 2000, the Brahimi Report on peace operations made some of the same points, not least the importance of political solutions over military ones, matching peacekeeping needs with resources, increased coherence in UN responses to emergencies, and stronger partnerships to deliver results.

So why do these new proposals matter?

Well, for one, they reflect a world that has qualitatively transformed. As the global scenario continues changing, so too must the UN. The three reviews – together with a new plan of action to counter extremism – acknowledge the evolving interconnected threats facing the international system, including transnational organized crime, cybercrime and terrorism. They also note how the UN is a target in ways it never was before.

On a more positive note, there are also many new regional organizations with which the UN can partner. These groups are distributed (unevenly) across the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Some of them – including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) – are assuming a more proactive role in brokering peace deals and supporting recovery. While still too state-centric, regional organizations have a key role to play when it comes to preventive diplomacy, conflict prevention and supporting peace more generally.

Finally, the UN is building a peace architecture that – while needing more robust financing from member states – should help implement the recommendations set out by the three panels. Today, the peace architecture consists of a more proactive and multi-mandate UN Department of Peacekeeping, a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Peacebuilding Commission and a Peacebuilding Fund. A stronger Department of Political Affairs and Office for South-South Cooperation is also advisable.

The UN is finally starting to get its act together to confront the most intractable threats to international peace and security. While silent on the UN’s most systemic problems – not least the unrepresentative nature of its Security Council and the veto powers of its permanent members – the panels offer some hope. Many of their recommendations deserve financial backing, including a meaningful expansion in the UN’s assessed budgets for peacekeeping and peacebuilding institutions. The big question is whether these proposals are sufficient to make the world safer.

Robert Muggah, Research Director, Igarapé Institute

SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) – Russia will respond immediately and symmetrically if the United States quits the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

Moscow is ready to develop new weapons systems, both nuclear and non-nuclear, in response to other countries doing the same, Putin said at a forum with scholars.

From Reuter:
reporting by Polina Nikolskaya; Writing by Denis Pinchuk; Editing by Christian Lowe

For much of the past year, I’ve lived a double life. I’ve embedded within Iraq’s Special Operations forces throughout the battle of Mosul, witnessing first-hand a truly remarkable struggle against the Islamic State. But I’ve also continued my four-year field research into the Islamic State, interviewing the group’s fighters and supporters to understand the conflict through their eyes.

This double life has led me to a singular perspective: As encouraging as it has been for coalition forces to make so much headway, winning conflicts and taking back land won’t stop the Islamic State for long. Only widespread change in governmental policies can do that. Local policies dealing with Islamic State militants, ex-fighters and potential recruits lag behind the curve not only in Iraq, but also in almost every country from Southeast Asia to Western Europe.

In countries such as Libya, Yemen, the Philippines, Nigeria and Somalia, governments have little physical control over parts of their territories, which makes them easy territorial targets for the Islamic State. But countries with too much control — the Caucasus, Central Asian republics and some African nations — also contribute to the crisis by making life so unbearable for citizens that they leave to find a better life in the group’s caliphate.

It should come as no surprise then that one of the biggest groups of Islamic State foreign fighters (and their families) are Uzbeks. Uzbekistan has a freedom-ranking similar to North Korea and, according to human rights organizations, “wide-scale violation of virtually all basic human rights.”

In the places where governments cannot fulfill their duties to provide for and protect civilians, not only can a relatively well armed group easily take control, the local population, tired of bad government, will not resist a takeover. Often, people even welcome it. In a 2016 survey of post-Islamic State territory in Iraq that I conducted, 30 percent of civilian respondents said security and policing actually improved under the Islamic State, compared with only 5 percent who said that it had become worse. The extremist group was not only strong enough to take the territory, it was also capable of governing it — and in some places, still is.

While recent military successes have given governments a chance to address issues such as rampant corruption, there are few signs of improvement. There was so much corruption among Iraq’s security forces that al-Qaeda used it to its advantage. If it wanted to target a civilian for recruitment, it would report that person to Iraq’s internal security as an al-Qaeda member. The civilian would then be arrested, thrown in prison, beaten and tortured. He would likely only be released after his family paid money through extortion. After such an experience, civilians are often more than ready to volunteer for any anti-government movement.

Overly controlling countries have also not changed — and in some cases have even gotten worse. Many governments have further cracked down on religion and personal freedoms in response to the Islamic State. By doing so, they have not only increased grievances among those most likely to fight but also pushed those people underground.

Although successful military operations have pushed back the Islamic State’s territorial conquest and won time for government reform, that time window is short. The Islamic State is exploring areas with weak security all over the world (even as far away as the Philippines) and is even trying to regain territory in recently-liberated areas of Iraq. Members are either waging insurgency war in remote rural areas or hiding in towns to prepare for future attacks.

The Islamic State isn’t currently gaining new ground, but the potential for gaining new fighters waits in the wings. Enter the next generation of extremists: local Sunni civilians who lost everything in the war and are already afraid for their safety, and a new enlistment of young, smart sympathizers who can use their expertise in engineering, science and the military to serve the goals of an armed group.

The next Islamic State, commanded by experienced fighters thirsty for revenge, would be more deadly and more widespread. The anti-Islamic State coalition in Iraq and Syria is dominating the region through air power, but extremists have already begun developing their own drones. Today, these drones are made of recycled plastic and duct tape; next time, they could well be more dangerous.

Looking at ongoing operations, both a former Islamic State foreign fighter and I have reason to be optimistic. I am optimistic that the Iraqi government will regain control of the territory. And he is optimistic that his former brothers-in-arms will finally go to heaven — and that new fighters will come to take their place.

By Vera Mironova

ISIS fighters can no longer escape Syria to carry out attacks in Europe such as those that took place in Paris and Brussels, according to a chief in the US-led coalition against the terror group.

“Terrorist combat units” intent on wreaking havoc in Europe can no longer leave Isil’s de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa via Turkey, said Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the global coalition against Isil.

“Not too long ago, what they [ISIS] would do is plan a terrorist attack in Raqqa, they would train a unit – kind of a terrorist combat unit – they would then infiltrate out… and go conduct an attack such as in Paris or in the Brussels airport” he said. “That’s what they used to do, and they were developing that capacity. They cannot do that anymore.”

But the claims came as an Isil militant captured by Kurdish troops in northern Syria gave details of the units trained to carry out attacks on European soil, and warned of future suicide bombings.

The fighter said that every European who crossed into Syria was given the opportunity to join the al-Kharsa Brigade, which offered a seven-month training programme including bomb construction and endurance.

The unnamed ISIS member said the al-Kharsa Brigade was still active as of February this year, and further attacks could be expected. “They will make more suicide attacks in Europe because the coalition is bombing them a lot,” he claimed.

Our security services have foiled seven attempted attacks since the beginning of the year,” he added. “The ‘returnees’ are automatically placed under surveillance by the Paris prosecutor and a number of them are currently in detention.”

The threat is not only from returnees from war zones in the Middle East, but from radical Islamists in France directed remotely by Isil members, Collomb said. That threat would remain even if no Isil members could leave Syria.

France’s Interior Minister confirmed on Sunday that 271 people – 217 adults and 54 minors – had returned home from Iraq and Syria in the past 18 months after joining Isil.

Some twenty per cent are women, adding to fears that more radicalized females may return from Isil territory.

The risk of another terror attack in France remained “very high”, said minister Gerard Collomb, in an interview with Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.

“Our security services have foiled seven attempted attacks since the beginning of the year,” he added. “The ‘returnees’ are automatically placed under surveillance by the Paris prosecutor and a number of them are currently in detention.”

The threat is not only from returnees from war zones in the Middle East, but from radical Islamists in France directed remotely by Isil members, Collomb said. That threat would remain even if no Isil members could leave Syria.

As they retake ground from Isil, the US-led coalition is gathering intelligence to try to track down returnees. It has built a database of 19,000 names of suspected members of the terrorist organisation.

The information, gathered from mobile phones and address books, has been passed to Interpol in the hope of pinning down former fighters and sympathizers.

“If there’s somebody that fought in Syria and happened to have gotten out and in a routine border stop or routine search, routine traffic stop, they can actually be identified,” the US special envoy Brett McGurk said.

Some 40,000 individuals from 110 countries are thought to have traveled to Syria, mostly via Turkey, to join Isil.

Lizzie Porter, Beirut, The Telegraph

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