Carnegie
Corporation
of New York
Vol. 1/No. 2
Summer 2003
IN THIS ISSUE:
Peace and Conflict 2003: A Surprising
Trend Emerges
A new report from the University of Maryland's Center for International
Development and Conflict Management
The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy Finding the overlap between military issues and human rights concerns
The Fund for Peace Regional responses to internal war
After assessing how political and diplomatic efforts, as well as military force, have affected ethnic conflicts and self-determination movements, the report recommends a three-step mix of: (1) containment to check war-making capacity; (2) low-key diplomatic and humanitarian engagement; and (3) assistance to neighboring states to help protect them from spillover effects.
The report also identifies some counter-trends that it says are cause for concern. One of the most important is the general deterioration of local and regional societal systems as a result of the high magnitude of warfare during most of the 20th century. Weakened and divided societies are both more vulnerable and more volatile, and as a result are more crisis prone, which means that negative change can occur quickly. One facet of that trend has been the extraordinary concentration of health, wealth and power in what the report calls “zones of peace” and the concentration of all that is bad in the “zones of disorder.” If what might be termed a vast “gap of instability” between the world’s haves and have-nots continues to grow, it could lead to increasing tensions and dangerous consequences for those at both ends of the spectrum.
Finally, the authors acknowledge that the world’s ongoing processes of economic and technological globalization are creating a complex and largely ad hoc open societal system, which seriously challenges the traditional state system of government. Globalization was one of the deadly complaints of the September 11th terrorists, and an anti-globalization trend is becoming evident even among citizens of the world’s most successful nations practicing global trade and economics.
This could be a sign of danger to come: according to the authors
of Peace and Conflict 2003, “The transformation of the
‘global war on terrorism’ to a ‘clash of civilizations’
would most certainly lead to a major reversal of established trends in
warfare, democratization, and prosperity,” says Marshall. “Initial
victories are often followed by costly obligations and long-term risks.”