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3341. The 'rhinofication' of South African security

Author:
Jasper Humphreys and M. L. R. Smith
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Counter-poaching operations in South Africa's so-called 'rhino wars' have seen increasing use of kinetic strategies and tactics. It can be argued that this follows the country's historical tendency to react to threats with confrontation in the first instance rather than negotiation, as leaders invoke images of 'backs-to-the-wall' isolation. During the apartheid period the National Party strongly promoted patriotism and self-sacrifice, portraying South Africa as facing 'total onslaught'; today, the rhetoric of 'rhino wars' is often framed in similar terms, not least because the person leading the rhinoceros counter-poaching campaign, Major General Johan Jooste (retired), was himself heavily involved in the 'apartheid wars' in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
South Africa

3342. Waging a war to save biodiversity: the rise of militarized conservation

Author:
Rosaleen Duffy
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Conserving biodiversity is a central environmental concern, and conservationists increasingly talk in terms of a 'war' to save species. International campaigns present a specific image: that parks agencies and conservation NGOs are engaged in a continual battle to protect wildlife from armies of highly organized criminal poachers who are financially motivated. The war to save biodiversity is presented as a legitimate war to save critically endangered species such as rhinos, tigers, gorillas and elephants. This is a significant shift in approach since the late 1990s, when community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) and participatory techniques were at their peak. Since the early 2000s there has been a re-evaluation of a renewed interest in fortress conservation models to protect wildlife, including by military means. Yet, as Lunstrum notes, there is a dearth of research on 'green militarization', a process by which military approaches and values are increasingly embedded in conservation practice.
Topic:
War

3343. Environmental insecurity and fortress mentality

Author:
Rob White
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Shortages of food, water and non-renewable energy sources can trigger nefarious activities involving organized criminal networks, transnational corporations and governments at varying political levels. Illegal and excessive fishing, sidestep - ping of regulations on disposal of hazardous waste, water and land theft, fraudulent manipulation of alternative energy subsidies and policies, and transference of toxicity and contaminated products across national borders are driven by a variety of motivations and involve a wide range of actors. The consequences of such activities contribute to even more ruthless exploitation of rapidly vanishing natural resources, as well as the further diminution of air, soil and water quality, thereby exacerbating the competition among individuals, groups and nations for what is left.
Topic:
Government, Politics, and International Security

3344. Human conflict and ecosystem services: finding the environmental price of warfare

Author:
Robert A. Francis and Krishna Krishnamurthy
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Warfare is a uniquely human endeavour, and has been central to human culture and civilization for many thousands of years. Early forms of intergroup conflict were conducted by our hominid ancestors over one million years ago, while the development of larger-scale, organized conflict is recorded by early civilizations in Mesopotamia and China almost 5,000 years ago. The impetuses for warfare, being a complex mix of genetics, psychology, culture, politics, technology and resource availability, are unlikely to disappear in the future, as long as our species survives. Though the nature of warfare is changing, from its most devastating twentieth- century form of industrial 'total' warfare to the geographically and politically complex 'everywhere war' that is beginning to define conflict in the twenty-first century, violent conflict is certain to remain a defining part of the human story.
Political Geography:
China and Mesopotamia

3345. The roots to peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo: conservation as a platform for green development

Author:
Richard Milburn
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is endowed with a wealth of natural resources, and the presence of high-value minerals such as coltan and diamonds is well known. The country is also endowed with a wealth of biodiversity, although the value of this is often overlooked. The DRC ranks fifth in terms of the most biodiverse countries in the world; it is home to a plethora of endemic species of both flora and fauna and contains the second largest rainforest in the world, smaller only than the Amazon. This range of flora and fauna has suffered enormously from the effects of armed conflict in the country over the past two decades, and many wildlife populations have been decimated. In spite of destruction through conflict, key populations and ecosystems still remain and they are crucial for the country's development and the world's fight against climate change.
Political Geography:
Democratic Republic of the Congo

3346. The UN and the African Union in Mali and beyond: a shotgun wedding?

Author:
Thomas G. Weiss and Martin Welz
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
After the initial post-Cold War euphoria about the potential for the United Nations (UN) to maintain international peace and security, as imagined in its Charter, from the 1990s onwards subcontracting from the world organization to regional organizations has become essentially the standard operating procedure for major military peace operations. While UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was bullish in his 1992 An agenda for peace, the UN has by and large withdrawn from the peace enforcement business following debacles in Somalia and Rwanda—as Boutros-Ghali's 1995 Supplement to 'An agenda for peace' and the 2000 Brahimi Report recommended.
Topic:
Security and Cold War
Political Geography:
United Nations, Rwanda, and Somalia

3347. After Westgate: opportunities and challenges in the war against Al-Shabaab

Author:
Paul D. Williams
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
On 21 September 2013, fighters from the Harakat Al-Shabaab Mujahideen (Movement of the Warrior Youth) attacked the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 67 people and wounding over 200 others. According to Kenya's parliamentary inquiry into the attack, it was conducted by four gunmen (three Somali nationals and a Norwegian citizen of Somali origin), all of whom died in the subsequent four-day siege. The inquiry, by the Joint Committee on Administration and National Security and Defence and Foreign Relations, listed Westgate as the 28th terrorist attack in the country since Kenyan forces intervened in Somalia in October 2011. It concluded that a confluence of factors had left Kenya particularly vulnerable to such attacks: its porous border with Somalia; endemic corruption and poor levels of preparedness among its security officials; youth radicalization (with over 500 Kenyan youths recruited into Al-Shabaab), the proliferation of small arms and light weapons; and the influx of more than 600,000 Somali refugees into Kenya. Overall, the inquiry lamented that despite relevant general information about an impending terror attack on such a target, there had been a 'nationwide systemic failure' on the part of numerous government departments, confusion among government agencies in responding to the attack, and disgraceful looting of premises within the mall by some Kenyan soldiers and police.
Political Geography:
Kenya, Norway, Somalia, and Nairobi

3348. International development in transition

Author:
Sophie Harman and David Williams
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The project of international development is in a period of transition. The various dimensions of this transition are relatively clear, the outcome much less so. The first aim of this article is to outline and suggest some explanations for what we take to be the main dimensions of this transition. These are changes in development thinking, particularly with regard to the role of the state; changing donor priorities around 'big' and 'small' development; the changing donor landscape and a new age of choice for developing countries; and changing aid relationships that create greater autonomy for developing countries. We suggest that such changes are linked together in ways that are leading to some quite substantial shifts in the policies and practices of international development. The second aim of this article is to signal some of the important questions and debates that arise when we take notice of these shifts. First, there are explanatory questions related to how we capture the dynamics involved in these areas of change and their relations with one another. Second, there are questions about what the new demands will be for developing country governments and aid donors in this new environment. Third, and related, there are questions about what lessons we might draw from past experiences, in the sense that for some of the ideas and practices we see assuming a new significance in the contemporary period, there are at least parallels in the past. Finally, there are questions about the future trajectory of this transition, where it is taking us, and whether it will be sustained and amplified in the future.
Topic:
Development and Government

3349. A call for a new Japanese foreign policy: the dilemmas of a stakeholder state

Author:
Takashi Inoguchi
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The world was different in 2002 when Henry Kissinger published a book entitled Does America need a foreign policy?, and Le Monde came out in support of the United States after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 by proclaiming: 'We are all American.' In many ways, this was the high point of the American global era—the era of unipolar American power. In 2014 the world has moved on. The United States is still the leading global power with unique capabilities and responsibilities for global leadership. But other states—particularly in Asia and the non-western developing world—are on the rise. The world is more fragmented and decentralized. States are rising and falling. The terms of global governance are more contested and uncertain. This article addresses the foreign policy of Japan and the choices that Japan faces in this shifting global context.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, America, Asia, and North America

3350. Book Reviews

Author:
Chris Brown
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The vulnerable in international society is the latest in a series of books by Ian Clark exploring different aspects of international society, following Legitimacy in international society (OUP, 2005) and Hegemony in international society (OUP, 2011). The two earlier books—along with his co-authored Special responsibilities: global problems and American power (with Mlada Bukovansky, Robyn Eckersley, Christian Reus-Smit and Nicholas Wheeler; CUP, 2012)—are largely concerned with the ways in which international society reproduces itself and manages Great Power relations; The vulnerable in international society shifts the focus towards the other end of the food chain, towards those who are without power. The thesis is that the vulnerable are not simply ill served by international society, by definition insufficiently protected by it, but in a wider sense actually created by international society—the risks they face may sometimes be 'natural', but equally they may actually be a by-product of the way in which international society works. Just as international society confers legitimacy on its members, so it may also create vulnerability. The vulnerable are a socially crafted category and international society is involved in that crafting process, as well as being involved in measures taken to cope with the consequences of this process.
Political Geography:
America