Sustaining Security: How Natural Resources Influence National Security
Issue:Competition over resources
In the 21st century, the security of nations will depend increasingly on the security of natural resources, or “natural security.” This report - authored by Christine Parthemore and Will Rogers - points to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Mexico and Yemen as examples of how natural security challenges are directly linked to internal stability, regional dynamics and U.S. security and foreign policy interests.
Image source: IRRI.
Read more »Posted on 30/06/10
Why START is only a beginning on the long road to nuclear disarmament
Issue:Global militarisation
The 'New START' agreement recently signed by the US and Russia is an important first step on the road to nuclear disarmament but much of the hard work in reducing and potentially eliminating the vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons held by nations across the globe is still to be done. Before any meaningful multilateral talks and possible agreements on abolition can seriously begin, the US and Russia will need to go much further in reducing their nuclear ordinance writes Andrew Futter, exclusively for sustainablesecurity.org
Image source: PhillipC
Read more »Posted on 23/06/10
Afghanistan, and the world’s resource war
Issue:Competition over resources
A new report that highlights Afghanistan’s extensive mineral deposits provides fuel for the United States’s military project. But it also signals the existence of a wider resource-competition that reflects the 21st-century’s emerging geopolitics.
Source: openDemocracy
Image source: isafmedia
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Posted on 17/06/10
Less Is More: Sensible Defense Cuts to Boost Sustainable Security
Issues:Climate change, Competition over resources, Global militarisation, Marginalisation
From the Center for American Progress:
“If we are to meet the myriad challenges around the world in the coming decades,” argues Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, then our “country must strengthen other important elements of national power both institutionally and financially, and create the capability to integrate and apply all of the elements of national power to problems and challenges abroad.” Gates’s experience leading our armed forces under two presidents underscores the importance of not relying solely on our unquestioned military might to protect our shores and national security interests around the globe. Instead, Gates maintains, we need to adopt the concept of sustainable security—a strategy that embraces the need to slim defense spending, bringing our own fiscal house in order while investing in nonmilitary economic and social development programs abroad to combat the conditions that breed poverty and political instability.
Article and image source: Center for American Progress
Read more »Posted on 17/06/10
Tackling the world water crisis: Reshaping the future of foreign policy
Issues:Climate change, Competition over resources
This new FPC publication is being launched to mark World Environment Day (5 June). The report aims to stimulate discussion and debate amongst a wide ranging audience in an effort to promote the centrality of water on today's foreign policy agenda, particularly in light of the increasing environmental shocks and stresses presented by climate change and global population growth. In an increasingly interconnected world, where cooperation is no longer an option but an imperative, how can foreign policy inform and provide a more effective response to improving the management of freshwater while ensuring reliable and sustainable access?
Download the report here
Order the report and find more information here
Article and image source: The Foreign Policy Centre - find out more here
Read more »Posted on 17/06/10
Boiling point
Issue:Competition over resources
Friction over shared – and shrinking – water resources is escalating in south Asia, where India and Pakistan are at loggerheads over river rights. Joydeep Gupta reports.
Water is rapidly overtaking the territorial dispute over Kashmir to become the biggest bone of contention between India and Pakistan. And the rhetoric in Pakistan is getting uglier by the day. One of the first questions this Indian reporter faced in Islamabad in late March was: “Why is India stealing our water?” The question came from a Pakistani journalist at the start of a workshop on precisely this topic, which brought together journalists from India and Pakistan as well as water experts. After two days of discussion, the Pakistani journalist said: “Now I know India is not stealing our water and that it is sticking to the treaty. But does it not realise we need more water? How can we survive without it?”
About the author: Joydeep Gupta is a director of the Earth Journalism Network at Internews and secretary of the Forum of Environmental Journalists of India.
Source: China Dialogue
Image Source: Sanju
Read more »Posted on 10/06/10
