As the government raids conflict prevention budgets to help meet the costs of its peacekeeping commitments overseas, the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr)’s all party Commission on National Security issues a warning that short-term budget cuts are indefensible in strategic terms and pose risks for UK and international security.
The Commission’s co-chairs Lord George Robertson, former Secretary of State for Defence and former Secretary General of NATO, and Lord Paddy Ashdown, former High Representative to Bosnia, echo recent comments by the US Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, by issuing a warning to governments of the serious security consequences flowing from the global economic downturn. These are likely to include:
A deterioration of economic conditions in many weak and fragile states around the world;
A likely increase in violent conflict as a consequence, with politically destabilising effects for countries neighbouring those in most distress;
The possibility of large scale population displacement in affected areas, bringing further human suffering on a large scale;
A growth in the ungoverned spaces that can be exploited by terrorists and a swelling of the ranks of those willing to turn to transnational crime, principally through trading in drugs and weapons, as a form of economic survival; and
Additional costs and security consequences for the rest of the international community, flowing from all of the above, if wealthier states do not continue to meet their development and conflict prevention commitments.
Against this backdrop, Lord Ashdown, Co Chair of ippr’s Commission on National Security said: “This will be a large scale problem. Dozens of states are already weak and living on the edge and we know that a serious and sudden deterioration in economic circumstances is an important driver of conflict. Now is the time to strengthen our conflict prevention activities, not cut them. Post-conflict intervention always costs more than preventive action both in money spent and lives lost.”
Lord Robertson, Co Chair of ippr’s Commission on National Security said: “Despite the obvious and understandable budget difficulties we must not allow bureaucratic pressure to outweigh strategic judgement. Investment in conflict prevention represents money well spent, not only because it saves lives, but because it saves the international community and the UK money. Peaceful environments are economically more productive ones, especially for those most directly affected by conflict, which usually means the poor.”
In recent weeks, it has become clear that the collapse in the value of the pound against the dollar has resulted in many UK conflict prevention pool budgets being raided to allow peacekeeping costs (which are denominated in US dollars) to be met. Studies into the cost-effectiveness of conflict prevention show that prevention is far cheaper than post-conflict intervention.
Notes
The Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), one of the UK’s most influential think tanks, through its independent all party Commission on National Security, is conducting a detailed assessment of the changing global security environment and the specific challenges and opportunities this poses for Britain and will produce an independently developed national security strategy for the United Kingdom.
An interim report of its initial findings was published in November 2008 and a final report will be published in June 2009.
The Commission is co-chaired by Lord George Robertson (former Secretary of State for Defence and former Secretary General of NATO) and Lord Paddy Ashdown (former leader of the Liberal Democrats and former High Representative to Bosnia).
In its interim report, Shared Destinies: Security in a Globalised World, (published at the end of November 2008 and available at www.ippr.org/security) the ippr Commission on National Security in the 21st century used a matrix of 14 risk indicators to identify 27 countries at acute risk of state failure or conflict in the period ahead. Economic risk indicators such as high levels of unemployment and a sudden severe worsening of economic conditions were identified as important drivers of conflict, and many of the states on the Commission’s list from Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa, to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan in central Asia are already seeing conditions against these indicators worsen.
Conflict Prevention Pools are combined conflict prevention budgets in the Department for International Development, the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
As some of these situations go critical, there will rightly be pressure for the international community to act in defence of the defenceless and to try to contain the consequences of failure. As a relatively wealthy ‘do something’ country rather than one with a tradition of doing nothing in such circumstances, the UK will inevitably be drawn into response activities either through provision of people on the ground or through financial and logistical support to others, or both.
Studies into the cost-effectiveness of conflict prevention show that prevention is far cheaper than post-conflict intervention. One study by the University of Bradford, quoted on page 64 of the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit’s own paper on conflict prevention (Investing In Prevention, available at http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/work_areas/countries_at_risk.aspx ) estimated that a package of intervention measures adequate to the task of preventing conflict and genocide in Rwanda, would have cost under $1bn in 2004 prices rather than the subsequent $5bn spent by the international community trying to deal with the effects afterwards.
