Monthly Archives: August 2013

Arctic Insecurity

Environmental security in the Arctic: the ‘Great Game’ vs. sustainable security

by

Arctic security remains wedded to traditional, state-centric military threats despite the fact that the threat of outright conflict is as remote as the farthest reaches of the Arctic region itself. These approaches are predictable, but they will contribute little to alleviating the complex, interrelated, and underlying drivers of insecurity in the Arctic region. Cameron Harrington argues that if our understanding of both Arctic security and the Arctic environment continues to be reduced to the international scramble for untapped resources and for newly opened “shipping lanes”, it is unlikely that the hugely alarming and damaging environmental effects of climate change will ever be truly overcome.

Read Article →
Bay of bengal Climate Insecurity

Bay of Bengal: a hotspot for climate insecurity

by

The Bay of Bengal is uniquely vulnerable to a changing climate because of a combination of rising sea levels, changing weather patterns, and uncertain transboundary river flows. These problems combine with already existing social problems like religious strife, poverty, political uncertainty, high population density, and rapid urbanization to create a very dangerous cocktail of already security threats. Andrew Holland argues that foresight about its impacts can help the region’s leaders work together to solve a problem that knows no boundaries.

Read Article →
A crowd of demonstrators participating in a protest against the ongoing use of weapons by rebel militias inside Tripoli and accompanying atmosphere of lawlessness wave banners demanding disarmament and the creation of a national army. The newly-formed Libyan government is struggling to assert itself over the disparate power actors who emerged over the past year.

‘Petropolitics’ and the price of freedom

by

“As the price of oil goes down, the pace of freedom goes up… As the price of oil goes up, the pace of freedom goes down…” So says New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who argues that the first law of ‘petropolitics’ is that the price of oil and the pace of freedom are inversely correlated in countries “totally dependent on oil” for economic growth. However, the correlation between recent oil price spikes and anti-authoritarian action – particularly in the Arab Spring – challenges this assessment. But if this pattern of change is to continue, Western states must curb their hypocritical dependence on authoritarian oil-exporting governments by developing more sustainable sources of energy.

Read Article →