The Challenges of Applied Conflict Prevention

Albrecht Schnabel

Through targeted social, economic and political activities, applied conflict prevention can reduce the extraordinarily high human, political, social and economic cost of violent conflict; it can preserve stability and peace where it does exist; it can advance human, regional and international security and thus secure the foundation for prosperous development and trade. These are respectable goals. A number of key challenges, however, make this a difficult task. Although the prevention of violent conflict is less costly than managing and resolving violence once it has erupted, preventive measures nevertheless require resources that could also be spent on more visible emergencies.[i]

It is not easy to convince decision-makers in politics and business of the great value of prevention: In the face of limited resources, creativity is thus called for to utilize and build on already ongoing work, practices, and programs, and to highlight the more self-evident, self-serving and positive results generated by preventive activities. The following pages discuss some of the opportunities and challenges in the process of moving conflict prevention from a political catchword to a political activity.

Conflict Prevention Rhetoric and Action

The Need for Long-term Preventive Agendas

Applied conflict prevention refers to actual efforts taken – individually or in cooperation with other actors – to prevent violent conflicts from arising, intensifying, spreading or recurring. The most effective approach to prevention is to resolve the root causes of violent conflict – a costly, long-term strategy that requires visionary thinking and commitment to providing the means for building sustainable, positive peace. Ongoing development, political, or humanitarian efforts by local, national or international, governmental and nongovernmental actors undoubtedly contribute to peace, justice and stability. Yet they tend to be tackled based on each actor’s assessment of their own comparative advantage, political mandate, geostrategic interest and pragmatic perception as to the success and political benefit of such contributions to peace and stability. Practiced conflict prevention focuses primarily on the de-escalation of crises and disasters in the making, those that have already unraveled, or those that have recently subsided. In the latter case, on the one hand, one can observe that second-generation (post-war) prevention is pursued more systematically and vigorously than at any stage prior to an outbreak of war. On the other hand, once post-war situations appear to stabilize, and once fragile states and societies carry less risk of deteriorating into open war, commitment to preventive action wanes. This is particularly the case when other, more urgent crises call for international actors’ attention.

Effectively applied preventive action must address the root causes of violence, and not their symptoms. This truism entails that the frustration of most basic human needs, resulting from prevalent fragile statehood, intersocietal frictions or an unfavorable position within the global marketplace, is at the root of most of today’s instability, crises, wars, and human suffering. If the frustration of basic human needs, most often caused by poor, failed or simply inadequate governance, is the root of much of today’s crises and wars, preventive measures must tackle these threats before they cause further degeneration of a society’s social, political, and economic environment. This is precisely what policy making, if committed to the provision of human security in all its dimensions, can accomplish.

Stabilization and management of sustainable peace – primarily by responsible governments – are crucial components of any long-term preventive approach. Peace and stability cannot be taken for granted. Constant investments are necessary to maintain and improve existing levels of stability, peace, and justice, while lack of such investment will ultimately lead to the breakdown of state and society. If tensions erupt, governments must act to prevent further escalation in partnership with internal authorities, civil society and intergovernmental organizations at regional and international levels, and, if needed, settle and resolve conflicts and prevent their recurrence. While it is not difficult to show policy makers that structural and direct violence in their own countries and elsewhere can in fact be prevented through long-term investments in human security and through good and fair governance, it is more difficult to convince them that such investments will be in their immediate interest.

The logic of long-term, structural prevention is compelling: Small and targeted investments in fair political, economic, and cultural governance, informed by and directed towards the needs of individual members of society, will ward off the much greater human, economic, and political costs of structural violence and, at worst, war and massive human suffering. It is important that, ultimately, a widely practiced culture of prevention, focused on the basic needs of individuals, will pervade politics to preserve enduring peace in intra- and interstate relations. A range of opportunities as well as obstacles influence the extent to which this culture of prevention will take hold.

Lessons on Opportunities in Preventive Action

During the past decade a number of relatively innovative and prevention-friendly debates entered discussions, documents and political statements at national and international policy circles and institutions. These debates continue to offer windows of opportunity to further entrench prevention as a key policy principle guiding all foreign (as well as domestic) investments in a just, secure and prosperous future. The following are a number of those innovative debates that should serve as the foundations for prevention-focused peace and security policies:

·        Human security as a guide for preventive activity: Human security, i.e. the focus on the security needs of individuals and their communities, has been gaining acceptance as a complement and crucial component of national security concerns and strategies. Giving more attention to human security in foreign policy and, for instance, development cooperation programme planning, inevitably touches upon those threats that often are among the most critical root causes of conflict, such as poverty, poor governance or social injustice. If we assume that certain basic human security needs must be met to avert massive human suffering and maintain a minimum standard of stability and order, then we can respond to cases where such needs are neglected. Once such neglect is addressed, and needs are (again) met, chances for disintegration and conflict are significantly reduced. Thus, timely and effective reaction to observed neglect in the provision of basic security needs amounts to the prevention of eventual conflict, violence and, possibly, war. At the same time the foundation for long-term, positive peace can be laid.[ii]

·        Early warning as policy support: Individual states and regional organizations are increasingly appreciating the utility of early warning systems; i.e. the systematic monitoring and analysis of political, economic or social developments and their significance for conflictive and cooperative trends in a given country or region. Continuous monitoring of a country’s stability – and of the root causes responsible for instability – aids in defining the timing, nature and scope of involvement by national as well as external actors. Nevertheless, many countries that are the subjects of early warning activities are uncomfortable with the fact that particularly external actors are collecting and analyzing data on their internal stability and, thus, on the performance of the state to provide for the security of its population. The fact that the early warning debate is increasingly expected to consider as well early response options, mechanisms and strategies, makes this issue all the more delicate. While individual countries (particularly in the North) are utilizing open and closed source early warning systems as decision support tools for their own foreign and development policies and programming, the UN has repeatedly attempted to create its own early warning capacity.[iii] While so far impossible to implement at an UN-wide level, early warning systems have been put in place by individual UN programmes, as in the case of the various early warning systems established in the mid-1990s by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in several Southeast European countries. At the regional level, the African Union is attempting to create a Continental Early Warning System (CEWS), while several Regional Economic Communities on the continent have already created their own early warning systems (such as, among others, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development – IGAD, and the Economic Community of East African States – ECOWAS).[iv] If such systems produce information that is readily shared with the governments of the covered countries (as is the case with the above mentioned UNDP systems) host country cooperation is a realistic goal. Otherwise, mistrust in external meddling in the internal affairs of already vulnerable states prevails.

·        Prioritizing policy influence: Within early warning and preventive work, there has been increasing emphasis on strategies for policy influence and implementation of response mechanisms. Early warning, analysis and recommendations for action are not pursued entirely for their own sake, but in order to inform enlightened decision-makers at all levels to find the most appropriate, effective and efficient responses to evolving crises. The demand for such policy relevance (and the likelihood of positive impact) primarily comes from the donor community and those organizations providing early warning analysis.

·        Monitoring and strengthening capacities for peace and stability: There also seems to be increasing focus on the observation, analysis and strengthening of the conditions of and provisions for peace and stability; not only on the search for evidence of impending state collapse. While it is of course important to search for indications of instability and crisis escalation, it is at least as important to search for capacities for stability – i.e. entry points for internal and external actors to strengthen developments and actors that run counter to prevailing degenerative trends.

·        Understanding the challenges of and engaging with fragile states: In academic and policy discussions increasing attention has been given to fragile, failing, precarious or failed states, as well as to the international community’s responsibility to protect populations threatened by the inevitable lack of state presence in such contexts.[v]

·        Responsibility – and self-serving necessity – to stabilize post-conflict situations: The post-Cold War experience with post-conflict situations, particularly following high-profile “investment” and involvement in the form of peace support missions, has raised expectations among host societies and the donor community’s populations that initial involvement should also lead to sustainable stability. In several cases, heavy-handed protectorates (Kosovo, East Timor) and nation-building projects ( Afghanistan , Iraq ) have put international actors in charge of reorganizing and rebuilding post-conflict societies. In these cases expectations run high that the resurgence of conflict must be avoided, while, in the absence of legitimate and functioning post-war governments, external involvement is required. The UN’s recent World Summit in August 2005 has, if not much else, confirmed the necessity to institutionalize peace-building more prominently within the work and mandate of the United Nations.[vi]

Overall, the work and commitment of many organizations (including the global community of nongovernmental organizations[vii]) dedicated to peace support and violence prevention points to a positive development. As Michael Lund so aptly notes, conflict prevention is in fact happening, although we may not be aware of the positive results that mainstreaming a culture of prevention has had so far.[viii] This trend can be observed across the board of local and international actors, including regional organizations, NGOs, business, states, or the UN. What is still missing, however, is for conflict prevention to become a state of mind, not only a means towards an end. The following section will discuss some of the frustrating obstacles towards more extensive and sustainable commitment to preventive policy and action.

Lessons on Challenges in Applied Early Warning and Early Response

Several dynamics appear to strangle the momentum that had been created during the past decade in strengthening the momentum towards building a worldwide culture of prevention:     

·        Purpose and identity of prevention: Currently, the focus of early warning and prevention tends to be on violent conflict. This could be considered a remnant of Cold War thinking, combined with the initial shock of the outbursts of ethnic and other intergroup conflicts after the end of the Cold War. However, most people do not suffer and perish as a consequence of violent conflicts, but from, among others, hunger or disease. Structural violence should thus be a key focus of early warning, in addition to direct violence.[ix] As well, too much early warning focuses on the escalation to conflict, at the expense of monitoring and highlighting opportunities for cooperation and peace-building.

·        Prevention as “cottage industry”: As a result of the “cottage industry” that emerged from the prevention frenzy of the early to mid-1990s, too many institutions claim to do early warning, yet many are producing little of note-worthy quality. Too many institutions claim to conduct early warning analysis for policy prescription – yet with weak analysis their policy descriptions are equally poor and ad hoc. There is little willingness for such institutions to cooperate and pool their expertise – funding is rare and competition is high.

·        Unconvincing data collection and analysis: Related to this latter point, existing mechanisms are based on unreliable and insufficient data collection methods. Too many institutions cover too many countries poorly, in unsystematic ways, with very little attention to detail and long-term analysis. Nobody covers all or most conflict regions (let along countries) in the world. The latter would be required to justify an early warning and prevention programme at the UN level. There are too few serious, rigorous, systematic, unbiased attempts to gather, systematically collect and analyze information.[x]

·        Persisting warning-response gap: There is still a large gap between dedicated analysis, warning and response. The results of rigorous conflict analysis and warning are still poorly transferred into the hands, thought processes and actions of political decision-makers and their operational and policy analysis staff.

·        Declining interest in early warning? Declining interest in implementing, mainstreaming and promoting a culture of prevention at the UN, regional organizations and national governments may be a sign of prevention-fatigue, or a consequence of the appearance of other, more urgent matters that divert resources and attention away from preventive agendas (such as the war on terrorism or international responses to larger-than-usual-scale natural catastrophes, including the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, the October 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, and the particularly destructive 2005 hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico). This is happening despite repeated and continuing calls in major international reports and policy statements for strengthening, not weakening, of preventive capacities of state and intergovernmental actors.

·        Legacy of US/UK Iraq rhetoric on preemption: The US/UK discussion on “preventive military action” surrounding their 2005 intervention in Iraq has damaged and undermined the global preventive agenda. At least partly as a consequence, early warning and prevention did not feature high on the agenda of both the High-level Panel Report A More Secure World[xi] nor the 2005 World Summit at the UN General Assembly. Particularly given the Summit ’s failure of reforming the UN Security Council, the UN runs the risk of losing its image as an objective, representative and legitimate “conscience of humankind.”

Conclusions and recommendations

Frustrating problems in preventive action

A steadily growing number of international actors appear to be aware of the necessity to practice early monitoring and analysis of peace, stability and conflict dynamics; and to respond quickly to destabilizing forces and situations. While some work has been done in this direction (see discussion above), little is done systematically – neither in the collection and analysis of data, nor in the transfer of recommendations to relevant actors, nor in the implementation of relevant recommendations.

The dynamics of the American war on terrorism has not strengthened the case for more preventive involvement in fragile states by the international community. Moreover, the lack of progress towards a more representative UN shows little effort on behalf of the powerful to advance the legitimacy and democratic nature of the UN and regional institutions. Without such legitimacy, those institutions cannot be trusted to represent the best interests of all member states and their populations.

Few actors are willing to go beyond symbolic commitments and contributions to pay the cost of preventive monitoring, analysis and action in a systematic way with region- or worldwide coverage. The question remains open as to who should “do” or provide early warning and response. Is that the task of NGOs, of states and/or of international organizations? If the task should be shared, how should such a division of labor look like?

A key problem is the possibility that we might be facing considerable conflict prevention fatigue. This would be a disastrous development. If the recently published Human Security Report is correct, then “reactive prevention” (primarily in the context of resurgence of war) has been successful.[xii] However, now is the time to engage in real first and second-generation prevention to stabilize and address structural violence and those much talked-about root causes.

Recommendations

Based on the above discussion of the experience with applied conflict prevention, a number of issues should be addressed by organizations that are directly involved in preventive activities:

·        Mainstreaming successes and best and worst lessons must be collected, discussed and analyzed.

·        The momentum of mainstreaming conflict prevention at international, regional and national levels of governance has to be maintained.

·        The focus of the prevention of violent conflict should be shifted to include the prevention of both direct and structural violence.

·        Conflict prevention and early warning activities must not stop when a war or open conflict are over. Moving beyond the stabilization of negative peace to consolidate and develop positive peace is a difficult task; yet it is the only approach in securing sustainable solutions to violence, injustice and instability.

·        Cases of fragile statehood need to be monitored. To be politically acceptable, regional early warning systems must strive to monitor as many, if not all, countries included in the regional scope of their coverage.

·        There should be more cooperation between existing early warning mechanisms, and more emphasis on early warning strategies and their implementation. Applied prevention requires that monitoring should be expanded to cover the implementation of response mechanisms and efforts undertaken to address root causes of instability.

New preventive activities should aim to develop comprehensive approaches that combine monitoring, analysis, early warning and early response: Applied prevention should cover both structural and direct violence and monitor both conflict/cooperative trends and the implementation of selected response measures. Applied prevention should take the form of integrated, systematic and long-term commitments. Existing efforts should be evaluated and revised along these lines.

About the author

Albrecht Schnabel is a Senior Research Fellow at SwissPeace, Bern , Switzerland , where he is responsible for the research programme on human security (HUSEC) and for the Bern-based team of Swisspeace’s early warning programme FAST International. He also teaches at the Institute of Political Science , University of Bern . He received his PhD in Political Studies from Queen’s University , Canada (1995) and subsequently held academic appointments at the American University in Bulgaria (1995-96), the Central European University (1996-98), and the United Nations University (1998-2003). He participated in OSCE election monitoring missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1997), served as trainer for the UN System Staff College course on Early Warning and Early Response (since 1999), and as President of the International Association of Peacekeeping Training Centers (2001-02). His publications focus on ethnic conflict, conflict prevention and management, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, human security, refugees and humanitarian intervention.

For quotation, refer to this article as follows:

Albrecht Schnabel, The Challenges of Applied Conflict Prevention, in An Early Warning System for Sudan, edited by Dominique Wisler and Eltayeb Haj Ateya, Khartoum, Coginta, 2007

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