Programme Updates
Moving Towards Sustainable Security
SPECIAL FEATURE: The Future of Nuclear Weapons and Missile Defence
2010 will be a critical year for decisions on the future of nuclear weapons. In mid-March the United States announced that it was postponing the unveiling of its Nuclear Posture Review – the third such announcement since December 2009. Key issues, such as the stance on no first-use of nuclear weapons and a new generation of warheads, have emerged as points of contention delaying the final document. This suggests that, in contrast to the previous review under the Bush administration, a genuine debate is now taking place within the Obama administration on the role of nuclear weapons in the US defence posture.
This announcement precedes the five-yearly review conference of the Non Proliferation Treaty in May 2010 and the review of NATO’s Strategic Concept document, due in November 2010. It comes at a time of intense policy discussions around North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme and Iran’s growing uranium enrichment and missile capabilities.
In the UK, it is likely that the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system will also come under increasing public scrutiny in the months ahead, in the context of a blown-out defence budget, given its high estimated cost. This is despite the fact that both major parties in the UK have decided not to include it in the post-election Strategic Defence Review.
Responding to the threat posed by nuclear weapons was what prompted Scilla Elworthy to found ORG in the early 1980s. Over the years, we have engaged with senior decision-makers and analysts, and we have published a great number of research papers and books on nuclear proliferation and disarmament. We continue to engage; the Sustainable Security programme has identified global militarisation - of which nuclear weapons proliferation and modernisation is a central part - as one of the main drivers of global insecurity. As long as the ability to inflict indiscriminate destruction on a massive scale is maintained by states around the world, global security will remain fundamentally unsustainable.
Recent developments in non-nuclear or ‘conventional’ weapons are also cause for concern. Announcements last year by the Obama Administration to scrap plans for missile defence sites in Central Europe, and the recently released Ballistic Missile Defence Review, appeared to signal the scaling-back of this system.
However, an article specially commissioned by ORG for sustainablesecurity.org argues that the Obama administration’s new approach, far from stepping back from such a highly militarised approach to missile proliferation, may in fact prove to a be a much larger and more comprehensive system that is almost certain to become operational more quickly than the Bush plan. This has not gone unnoticed by Russian negotiators involved in the new strategic arms reductions talks with the US, who recently stated that the continued commitment to a European site was an impediment to finalising the much delayed treaty.
The Sustainable Security programme is developing and seeking funding for a new programme of work that specifically addresses the nuclear question, and in particular the increasing importance of the conventional nuclear weapons link. For more information, please contact Ben Zala: ben.zala@oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk
New Book - Transforming Violent Conflict: Radical Disagreement, Dialogue and Survival (Routledge)
ORG’s work with the Palestinian Strategy Group is discussed by ORG Chairman and Middle East Programme Advisor, Professor Oliver Ramsbotham, in his new book Transforming Violent Conflict: Radical Disagreement, Dialogue and Survival.
The book investigates destructive conflicts and their main verbal manifestation - radical disagreement. These are the intractable conflicts, which have so far resisted all attempts at settlement and transformation and often persist for decades, causing untold human suffering.
Oliver Ramsbotham explores what can be done when conflict resolution fails. The book identifies agonistic dialogue - dialogue between enemies - as the key to linguistic intractability. It suggests how agonistic dialogue can best be understood, managed, transformed and overcome, even in the most severe political conflicts.
Oliver Ramsbotham uses as a case study ORG’s work in helping to facilitate internal Israeli-Israeli and Palestinian-Palestinian inclusive strategy groups, as an example and explores an alternative approach, which leads to maximising the possibilities of communication when other alternatives close down.
Guardian article by Gabrielle Rifkind A Route to Resolution for Syria and Israel
Prospects for reactivating the dialogue between Syria and Israel were widely reported in the media, following Middle East Programme Director Gabrielle Rifkind’s article in the Guardian newspaper A Route to Resolution for Syria and Israel.
The piece was picked up by the Israeli daily Haaretz in a front page report and interview with Gabrielle Rifkind, with the title Syria willing to consider phased Golan pullout.
Middle East Team Activities
The Middle East Programme received a grant from the Network for Social Change to do research and to produce a paper on the Israeli settler movement, entitled “From Pariah Status to Pioneers: How Can the Settler Movement Be Incentivised to Return to 1967 Borders”. The report includes a wide range of interviews with the leadership of the settler movement and attempts to foster a new way of thinking in this troubled debate.
The Palestinian Strategy Group team will hold their first workshop mid-April in the West Bank. The team is working closely with our local partner Badael to bring together a group of experts to discuss issues around inclusive Palestinian-Palestinian strategic thinking and building a consensual Palestinian agenda. The workshop’s agenda will be shaped in close collaboration with the participants and will address questions of what a Palestinian common ground would look like, and how to attract international support. Two more workshops will follow and will focus on the perspective from Gaza and the wider national, regional and international dynamics.
Israeli Strategic Forum work continues with our Israeli colleagues on setting up a series of four meetings with senior advisors to the Israeli government. The purpose of the meetings is to encourage long-term systemic thinking around ‘end of conflict’ that addresses both Israel’s security and the security of other countries in the region.
The planned meetings are predicated on the idea that Israeli policy makers often take decisions – whether by deploying military force or engaging in diplomacy – based on short-term considerations only, often failing to take into account more nuanced, as well as mid- and long-term implications of policy.
To explore these issues, a prominent group of Israeli public professionals will be invited to engage in serious, structured strategic discussions among Israelis on the implications of short-term thinking and political expediency on long-term policies. While the process is Israeli-focused, some international experts will be invited to join the process so as to enrich it with their unique perspectives.
Liddite Conversation
A Liddite Conversation was held on the question of long-term prospects for peace in Afghanistan. The discussion brought together journalists, Afghanistan specialists and regional experts. Contributions included the BBC’s David Loyn on the cycles of corruption in Afghanistan, drawing attention to the presence of international NGOs on the ground; a discussion on ways forward while potentially facing an unending Afghan civil war from Professor Anatol Lieven of King’s College; and Michael Semple, former deputy to the EU special representative on Afghanistan, who addressed the implications of engaging with a limited number of local Taliban figures vs. a grand compromise with the Taliban as a whole.
The ‘Liddite’ is a regular roundtable dinner conversation, now in its tenth year, which serves as a platform to explore the key causes of conflict and political violence around the world. Invited are senior journalists, specialists in conflict resolution, and other experts, analysts and civil society representatives. The name ‘Liddite’ is dubbed after ‘Liddism’, a term coined by Professor Paul Rogers and used to describe the ‘pressure cooker effect’, which results from ‘keeping a lid’ on global security problems, instead of addressing the root causes of conflict and political violence.
Recording Casualties of Armed Conflict
The RCAC team has begun work on ‘Developing a Regulatory Framework’ - a two-year project to undertake research and develop a proposal for a new international legal instrument, which would require, and regulate, the recording of conflict casualties. The project is being led by Dr Susan Breau, international lawyer at the University of Surrey, and is supported by an advisory group of further leading international lawyers. The project is made possible by a £24,000 grant from The Funding Network.
The RCAC team is now recruiting a new intern for this project. Full details can be found here.
If you would like to receive more information or contribute to ORG’s work on casualty recording, please email us at rcac@oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk.
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