Seminar Briefings

2012 Seminar Briefings

Libya in the African Context

November 2012, 7 pgs.

Full text available as a pdf download.

In the flurry of assessments and debates about the 2011 war in Libya that overthrew the country’s longtime ruler, Muammar Gaddafi, there has been little scholarly or policy attention to Libya’s relationship with sub-Saharan Africa during and after the conflict. Convening area experts for a combination of public and closed-­door discussions over two days, the World Peace Foundation aimed to reverse this neglect.

Key areas of discussion of post-­‐conflict issues included:

  • How uncertainty on many issues within Libya’s new political dispensation impact internal and international matters; and
  • Libya’s current turn away from sub-­‐Saharan Africa.
  • Previously untold or under-­‐examined linkages during the armed conflict were also explored:
  • The African Union’s efforts to find a negotiated settlement to the armed conflict;
  • The scale and significance of Sudanese support for the National Transitional Council (NTC) in 2011; and
  • The roles of other key countries, Chad, Algeria and Qatar, specifically.

Participants also discussed the on-­going conflict in Mali, which is related to upheaval in Libya, but also fed by its particular national dynamics.

 

New War, New Peace: Security Perspectives

October 2012, 7 pgs.

Full text available as a pdf download.

Over recent decades, the intensity and incidence of war—and indeed the very nature of organized violence—have been changing. On the basis that Mary Kaldor’s New and Old War (first published in 1999) provided a seminal explication of these transformations, this seminar used the opportunity of the third edition of her book (2012) to explore important aspects of contemporary conflicts from a security perspective.

Central to the discussion was an expanded exploration of Kaldor’s concept of new wars.

Cases examined in light of this concept and security threats were: Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia. The seminar also examined the implications of drones and cyber warfare.

Several important themes emerged:

  • The limited utility of tactical innovation in counterinsurgency without attention to strategic-­‐level political dynamics;
  • The need to problematize the nature and role of the state, rather than present statebuilding as an unproblematic solution, and to examine the concept of “ungoverned spaces”;
  • Consequently, the standard policy approach whereby security is the first step, followed by governance and development can be counterproductive. The three tasks should instead be addressed in parallel;
  • The blurring of lines between political violence and crime, both in terms of non-­‐state actors and state responses;
  • The far-­reaching implications of the United States’ widening use of drones for targeted killings.