USAID Conflict Prevention Workshop Notes

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"Environment and Conflict: Background and Analytical Framework"

Geoffrey D. Dabelko, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

June 7, 2000

Photo of John Strasma and Franklin Moore

With the demise of the Cold War clearing the way for a rise of attention to transnational issues, there has been a systematic attempt to redefine security, moving away from the exclusive focus on traditional notion of a state's ability to protect itself and maintain its borders. Instead, increasing interest centers on broadening the definition of security to include 'newer' and more non-traditional threats that can undermine political stability, undercut economic productivity, and/or erode levels of human well-being in countries.

One prominent proponent, Jessica Tuchman Matthews of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argued in 1989 for securing individuals as well as states, and therefore the need to utilize alternative tools for addressing conflict and a new security agenda. Non-traditional concepts of security became a hot topic of public debate with the publishing of Robert Kaplan's 1994 article "The Coming Anarchy" in the Atlantic Monthly. U.S. policy-makers became attentive to the arguments suggesting population growth and environmental degradation/depletion were drivers of political instability. The crises in Somalia and Liberia made these arguments very salient and topical. Yet when the environment did not, as Kaplan suggested, rise to the level of the national security issue of the 21st century, something of a policy backlash ensured. Environmental and demographic issues were unable to provide a comprehensive framework for addressing conflict and security in a post-Cold War world.

However the momentum for broadening the conception of security to include environmental, demographic, health and other issues has remained the object of policy-makers' attention in the United States, other national governments and international organizations. As it pertains specifically to violent conflict, these security debates commonly focus on renewable resources in developing countries where state capacity is low and ecological vulnerability is high.

This continued interest in the link between environmental concerns and security has yielded several important insights. While environmental degradation/depletion is not a necessary or sufficient cause of violent conflict, it can interact with other demographic and inequity factors to play a contributory role. Specifically, this interaction, referred to as "environmental scarcity" by Thomas Homer-Dixon of the University of Toronto, can contribute to migration, an undercutting of economic activity, domination of natural resources by elites, and the weakening of states. If a state or subnational locality is unable to adapt in an inclusive manner, environmental scarcity can exacerbate ethnic or income divisions, commonly more proximate causes of conflict and political instability.

The United States has a vested interest in preventing environmental degradation/depletion from affecting the stability of developing states for several reasons. First, political instability and the weakening of states, whether subnational or international, undermine traditional U.S. geopolitical security interests. Second, conflict and instability undercut U.S. foreign policy efforts to foster environmental sustainability nationally and internationally. Third, environmental degradation/depletion and violent conflict contribute to the migration of peoples and the spread of disease thereby hurting U.S. efforts to increase levels of human well-being. Fourth, violent conflict is bad for business and developing markets for trade. Fifth, taking steps to prevent or deter conflict is often less expensive than intervening to stop conflict and facilitate post-conflict reconstruction. Sixth, addressing potential conflicts before they reach a crisis stage may allow policy-makers to make decisions before the "CNN factor" dictates the scope and timing of the response.

What implications do these complex environment-population-conflict dynamics have for USAID? The Agency can utilize its extensive field experience and apply more sophisticated means to investigate the links among environment, population and conflict as well as state capacity and vulnerability. Better understanding of what factors helped states avoid violent conflict in the face of shared environmental stress will be the first step in designing interventions to facilitate environmental peace-building. The tools available to USAID better position it to treat the underlying causes of conflict, and not merely limit responses to those who address the symptoms of conflict, the violence itself.

Institutionally, the interconnections among these sectoral concerns and violent conflict necessitate internal USAID structures that facilitate collaborative and integrated development responses. Furthermore, this complexity with its explicit ties to conflict and security suggests broadening dialogue and collaboration with new partners within the U.S. government and with other governments, international organizations, NGOs, and academia. This dialogue, facilitating a more complex view of conflict and its prevention, may provide an additional rationale for assistance and new constituencies and partners supporting development assistance.

USAID Workshop on Conflict Prevention Management

"Environment and Conflict: Background and Analytical Framework"

USAID Workshop on
Conflict Prevention Management