Shifting Conflict Landscape: Implications for Intel Community

1. Evaluate what David Welch calls "the shifting landscape of conflict management" and its implications for the Intel Community.

The “shifting landscape” that Welch speaks of refers to a global political shift where power has moved from the central institutions to smaller, intrastate actors. Interstate wars have declined sharply in number since the end of World War II. The rise of nongovernmental and international organizations, the establishment of cooperation agreements and confidence-building measures, and the increasing presence of the news media, are all elements that have relegated traditional wars to a thing of the past.

These non-state actors can be terrorist groups, guerrillas, organized crime networks or even a combination of state

Growing scarcity of water may provoke conflict.15 This hypothesis contradicts the view that people fight to secure control over environmental riches. Here the evidence is contradictory. It seems that both environmental poverty and resource riches can be associated with conflict.13,16,25 Environmental stress tends to make people prone to violence as they seek alternatives to desperate situations (as in Rwanda), while resource riches give strong motivation to particular groups to gain control over such resources (as in Sierra

Reducing large horizontal inequalities is essential to eliminate a major source of conflict. Policies that diminish private incentives to fight, especially once conflict is under way, are also needed. Above all, there is a need to secure inclusive government—from political, economic, and social perspectives—and a flourishing economy so that all major groups and most individuals gain from participation in the normal economy.

From a political perspective, inclusive government is not simply a matter of democracy; majority based democracy can lead to oppression of minorities. Conflict is greatest in semi-democracies or governments in transition and least among established democracies and authoritarian regimes.26 Democratic institutions must be inclusive at all levels—for example, voting systems should ensure that all major groups are represented in government. The recent constitution adopted for government in Northern Ireland and the proposals for Afghanistan and Burundi are examples of