INTRODUCTION

Almost thirty years ago, Sills1 argued that "[w]ars have not arisen, as is sometimes said, from the struggle among peoples for the limited resources provided by nature. Even animals of the same species maintain their existence more by cooperation than by lethal struggle. Among men, with their greater capacity to relate means to ends, competition for economic resources, if not influenced by political loyalties and ambitions, ideological commitments, or psychological illusions, has led to cooperation in larger groups and larger areas."

Sills displayed an immense faith in human reason that capacity that would make people co-operate when confronted by common problems, instead of fight. Yet, even after the demise of the Cold War, many societies remain insecure and unstable. Post-apartheid South Africa is a good example of how non-military destabilising factors, such as poverty and inequality, manifest themselves in a high crime rate and the influx of illegal immigrants. Beyond these human factors, other natural factors with the potential to generate serious conflict are at work. One of these is water. In an age where resources are rapidly diminishing and competition for resources has never been greater, environmental conflict is becoming more and more salient. While environmental and resource-based problems, such as acute water shortages, can heighten the potential for conflict, water is also the one natural resource where co-operative solutions in the name of survival seem most logical. In this area humankind's track record appears to be remarkably inconsistent.

Perhaps Sills' statement also suggests that, even though the resource dimension of international politics may be as old as international relations itself, conflict is more complex (and multi-dimensional) than a crude struggle over resources.2

The purpose of this article is to outline how security thinking in the post-Cold War era has widened to include the so-called `soft' (non-military) sources of insecurity. Secondly, it aims to illustrate this broadening of the security agenda by focussing on resource-based conflict, with special reference to water security. The potency of water-based threats and reasons for co-operation and conflict will be highlighted. Thirdly, it reflects upon the implications of a new theoretical security framework for strategic studies as a discipline and for the role of the military in environmental conflict. Through highlighting resource conflicts in general and water threats specifically, the article presents a case for the redefinition of security in more holistic and non-military terms.

REDEFINING SECURITY: FROM STATE TO HUMAN SECURITY

In the new world order, the military concept of security is broadened horizontally to include political, social, economic and environmental aspects.3 Security now has to be treated as a holistic phenomenon.

In the 1970s, the concept of `national security' was broadened to include international economics, when it became evident that the US economy was no longer the giant it had once been.4 Another noteworthy example was the report of the Palme Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues (1982), arguing that unilateral military action was no longer adequate to protect a state and its people. Global interdependencies in the technological age and common problems which transcend national borders made the notion of `common security' imperative.5

Buzan, in a seminal work published in 1991 6, identified five `sectors' of security, namely military, political, economic, social and environmental. `Ecological security' particularly relevant to the context of this article is seen as the pursuit of human security through maintenance of the ecological support system. Buzan's typology serves as a useful analytical tool. His recognition of its interrelated nature, however, makes one aware of the mammoth task of implementing such a broad notion.

The days of classical-realist interpretations of (national) security as a politico-military struggle for power among states are over. The objects of security have evolved to include individuals, groups, regions and the global community.7 But notwithstanding the dramatic global changes, the state in practice still remains the primary referent in international politics. Given the fact that the state has often been (and still is) the root cause of insecurity among its people (as was the case in South Africa under apartheid), there is a real danger that regime or social élite security8 could remain the focal point of the dominant discourse. It is therefore imperative that the broadening of the security concept should challenge the status quo.9

External military threats to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state in the absence of Cold War tension have been replaced by non-military threats such as poverty, global inequality in the distribution of wealth between North and South, social injustice, human rights abuses10, oppression and ecological degradation. As long as states perpetuate social injustice, peace will remain a remote prospect and the state will remain vulnerable, because "[t]he true source of insecurity is the insecurity of people."11

With this in mind, the objectives of security should be to pursue peace, democracy, development, social justice and environmental protection. `Positive' peace, therefore, means more than just the absence of war (`negative' peace). A feminist reading of security takes it even further: discrimination and violence against women on a private level signify the absence of peace just as much as an undemocratic state system signifies a government at war against its own people.12

ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY, RESOURCE-BASED CONFLICT AND WATER

There exists a clear conceptual link between expanding the concept of security to include environmental security and the inclusion of resource-based conflict as one of the main threats to the survival of humankind.

It is this conception that underpinned the report of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues (1980): "Our survival depends not only on military balance but on global co-operation to ensure a sustainable biological environment and sustainable prosperity based on equitably shared resources."13 The June 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro14 also made a significant contribution towards creating an awareness of the need for a reconceptualisation of security. However, the extent to which this consciousness has been translated into positive action remains questionable.

In the 1970s and 1980s, resource-based security problems revolved primarily around three issues, namely Middle Eastern oil, Soviet natural gas and Southern African strategic minerals.15 The 1990s were ushered in by a resource-based Gulf War (1990-91) an unequivocal demonstration of the US and the West's commitment to safeguard access to oil. The US Defence Department in a report in May 1995, outlined US "enduring strategic interests"16 in the Middle East and predicted that the world would become ever more dependent on Gulf oil. Other examples of resource-based security problems include conflicts over

• land the Libyan-Chadian conflict over the Ozou strip;
  
  

• raw materials the Sudanese-Egyptian conflict over the Halayeb area;
  
  

• food ethnic conflicts in Africa; and
  
  

• fresh water (examples to be discussed later).17

Rogers18 predicts that four resources will be sources of possible future conflict:

• energy oil reserves in the Middle East;
  
  

• strategic minerals for instance in Central and Southern Africa, the High Andes, Amazonia and Eastern Asia;
  
  

• food reserves US and European Union grain surpluses; and
  
  

• water resources .

Mathews19 points out that the conventional distinction between non-renewable and renewable resources is paradoxical in nature: "so-called nonrenewable resources such as coal, oil and minerals are in fact inexhaustible, while so-called renewable resources can be finite." When non-renewable resources become scarce and more expensive, demand falls and alternative sources and technologies are explored. In contrast, the so-called renewable resources, such as water, fisheries, forests, soil and air are not unlimited: "a fishery fished beyond a certain point will not recover, a species driven to extinction will not reappear, and eroded topsoil cannot be replaced (except over geological time)."20

The fundamental cause of resource depletion and degradation, namely that human beings consume resources faster than they can be replaced, emerges from this distinction. The ultimate effect of this is environmental scarcity. Three types can be identified:

• supply-induced scarcity which is caused by degradation and depletion of resources;
  
  

• demand-induced scarcity which could be the result of population growth or increased per capita consumption; and
  
  

• structural scarcity as a consequence of unequal distribution of resources within and between countries.

These three types of scarcity often occur simultaneously and interact.21 States are often guilty of not managing the natural resources in the best interest of their people, either by allowing exploitation by specific classes and a foreign élite and/or forcefully controlling access to resources by means of the military or bureaucracy.22 The situation can be exacerbated if scarcity impedes a state's ability to meet basic human needs. As a result the state may become repressive or more fragmented. Either way, the seeds of violent dissent are sown.

With regard to responses to such a situation of scarcity, two broad views emerge one optimistic (idealist) and the other pessimistic (realist).

The optimistic view has at its root the theory that common problems inevitably result in co-operation between states. It thus follows that the present environmental and related dangers can only be solved collectively.23 (This view is also expressed in the opening quotation by Sills.) Ekins24 summarises this perspective as follows: "This is no zero-sum security. The health of a shared resource enriches both communities and threatens neither. Its abuse damages both." Co-operation is therefore in everybody's interest. Water scarcity is the epitome of a common problem: rivers, watersheds and water pollution, for example, often transcend national boundaries. Consider the following: "Nearly 50 countries on four continents have more than three-quarters of their land in international river basins; 214 river basins are multinational, while 13 are shared by five or more countries; and almost 40 per cent of humanity lives in an international river basin."25 It therefore follows that co-operation is built upon a clear mutuality of interest. The best known example of water co-operation in Southern Africa is that between Lesotho and South Africa in the form of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project aimed at supplying water to South Africa's industrial heartland.26

The realist view is less optimistic. Solomon27 points out that common problems will not necessarily lead to global co-operation. In fact, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) has concluded that resource conflicts "are likely to increase as these resources become scarcer and competition over them increases."28 Competitive behaviour takes many forms and varies in intensity.

Deliberate resource capture may occur as a form of preventive action when powerful groups within society anticipate future shortages29, or resources may be captured for political or economic leverage.30

Examples of resource capture can be found in three parts of the world where there are acute water shortages, namely in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Water not oil is the main source of conflict in the Middle East: "long after oil runs out, water is likely to cause wars, cement peace, and make and break empires and alliances in the region, as it has for thousands of years."31 Jordan and Syria's attempts to divert the Jordan river were one of the reasons why Israel went to war in 1967.32 During the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Israel captured Syria's Baniyas river the last of the important Jordan headwaters not under Israelís control. They also succeeded in halting construction of a dam on the Yarmuk river.33 Approximately forty per cent of Israel's groundwater originates in occupied territory, yet Arabs are not allowed to drill for water. Jewish settlers consume four times per head the water than Arabs do.34 Relations between Turkey, Syria and Iraq are strained, since Turkey completed the Ataturk dam on the Euphrates river. The irrigation project has immense agricultural and hydro-electric benefits for Turkey35, while Syria and Iraq are threatened by fertilisers, pesticides and salts that are transported downstream.36 In Africa, the Nile water is a bone of contention between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.37 The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali, warned in the mid-1980s that "[t]he next war in our region will be over the waters of the Nile, not over politics ..."38 If the African Development Bank's predictions are correct, semi-arid Southern Africa has to prepare for intensified competition over water.39 In Asia, disputes over water-use rights and river-diversion have been the cause of conflict in the river basins of the Mekong, which is shared by Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.40

These examples of resource capture, either by diverting river flows, the construction of dams, large-scale irrigation projects or denying access to neighbours, clearly illustrate the link between politics and security. Upstream users yield formidable power over downstream users, who are vulnerable to a point where, in a cost-benefit analysis, violent forms of resolving the problem may seem justified. The examples also provide concrete proof of the `security dilemma': one state or actor's attempt to secure itself (eg. solving its own water problems) causing insecurity (here: water/food/economic insecurity) for its neighbours.

Resource capture could lead to ecological marginalisation. Weaker groups, denied access to resources, migrate to ecologically fragile regions that subsequently become ecologically degraded.41 Migrancy may also occur as a result of floods, droughts and rapid population growth that place a burden on already stretched resources. Ecological refugees may create room for further conflict over resources, that could lead to territorial disputes. Consider the case of India and Bangladesh and their dispute over the water of the Ganges river. Since 1975, India has been diverting most of the dry-season flow of the river to one of its internal rivers. This has had devastating effects on downstream Bangladeshi communities, who have had no alternative but to migrate to India. This, in turn, has led to highly politicised clashes between the local population and foreigners.42

Water insecurity, coupled with underdevelopment, is a recipe for conflict. Some of the contributing factors are lack of technological sophistication, unprofitable use of resources and a lack of formal agreements to regulate water rights and usage. Unlike the case of Israel, where a desert area has been turned into agricultural land due to the availability of technology, Africa lacks the scientific, technological and financial resources for ecological conservation.43 In India, "irrigation uses 360 times as much water as industry."44 Irrigation is not only the cause of immense wastage, but also contributes to the salinisation of farm land.45 Ethiopia has never joined Egypt and Sudan in a legal agreement to regulate water use and water rights of the Nile46, and has stubbornly refused to acknowledge that water is a shared resource.

Along with a broadening of the security agenda should come the recognition that resource use, as well as conflicts over resource use, involve a multiplicity of stakeholders inter- and intrastate (state and non-state) actors at local, national, regional, continental and global level.47

This article has so far argued for a widening of the security concept to include all aspects that affect human security. But the concept `environmental security' may in itself pose a threat, because the so-called `securitisation' of the environment can "restrict the range of means available for resolving environmental problems."48 Are we not putting security issues back into the hands of the militarists? Are we perhaps `softening' security at the risk of `hardening' environmental issues?

SINK OR SWIM: QUO VADIS STRATEGIC STUDIES?

Buzan argues that strategic studies should be a subfield of security studies. Since strategic studies scholars and strategists have "well-defined specialist expertise"49 in military matters, it automatically defines the parameters of their role in the overall scheme of things. To broaden the strategic agenda would imply an unnecessary duplication of existing expertise in the non-military spheres and it would also stunt and skew the development of strategic studies itself. Strategists would also be tempted to bias their work in favour of the military. They should therefore stick to what they are good at.

The author does not share this view. While it is agreed that strategic studies should form part of a broad discipline of security studies (perhaps on equal footing with peace studies), it is imperative that it is recast as a matter of survival. Strategic thinking in the words of Kuhn should make a paradigm shift, and be reshaped to accommodate the broader non-military security agenda.50 This would imply the adoption of a new body of knowledge and a radical and critical reshaping of its military tenets, thus discarding its preoccupation with power and state-centric goals and military means.51 The makeover need not be too painful, as the 1980s have already witnessed a convergence of idealist and realist agendas (as embodied by the principle of `common security') and a subsequent synergy between strategic studies and peace studies, both having had to broaden their scope.52 After all, the end of the Cold War has not convinced the world that deterrence (military security) has succeeded. In its aftermath practical/human security remains as elusive as ever. The military's appalling track record in Southern Africa is indicative of its failure to bring about `positive peace'.

The broadening of the security agenda, to some extent, was formalised in 1992, when the International Institute for Strategic Studies changed the focus of their mission statement from the military to a promotion of "the study and discussion of and the exchange of information upon any major security issues including without limitation those of a political, strategic, economic, social or ecological nature."53

Orthodox strategists' complaints about the unmanageability of a broad security agenda should be seen in the light of an attempt to keep strategic studies in the hands of the military. But how representative is this view? The fact that some of the basic assumptions of strategic studies are being questioned from within the strategic community itself many of the critics being former military staff members54 is proof that the pragmatic and common sense (`realistic', not `realist') nature of strategists in general will prevail. Exposing the security agenda would contribute towards making security less secretive55, which in turn would increase the probability of reaching consensus between state and non-state actors around common security issues.

What specific contribution can strategists make to the current security debate and praxis?

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

Many questions regarding the role of the military in environmental conflict still need to be fully explored. For instance, do national security policies adequately reflect the nature of non-military sources of insecurity? What are the implications of these policies for the role of the armed forces? Are the armed forces "properly trained for the demands of the new global security agenda?"56

Consider the case of South Africa. While recognising the rising saliency of non-military problems in the region, as well as their transnational nature57, the Draft White Paper on National Defence makes it clear that the primary mission of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is to defend the country against external military aggression.58 The size, design, structure and budget of the SANDF will therefore be determined mainly by its primary mission. Activities, such as "disaster relief, provision of emergency services; search and rescue; evacuation of South African citizens from high threat areas; efforts to curtail cross-border crime; protection of maritime and other natural resources; socio-economic upliftment; and regional defence co-operation"59 are secondary functions. They are motivated by the following: "Extensive use of a defence force in non-military activities is economically inefficient; it contributes to the militarisation of civil society; and it undermines the preparedness and capabilities of the force with respect to its primary mission ..."60 Training priorities for the SANDF are

• the preparation of the armed forces for defending the country against external aggression;
  
  

• the standardisation of procedures following the integration of the various statutory and non-statutory armed forces; and
  
  

• the development of the political and ethical dimensions of military professionalism in a democratic context.61

Whereas it is agreed that socio-political and economic solutions to the problems of instability, underdevelopment, rising crime rates, illegal immigrants and ecological degradation are more desirable than military ones, the above orientation does raise serious questions about the SANDF's preparedness if, for instance, competition over scarce water resources turns into armed conflict.

Strategists' talent to relate means to ends must be harnessed and given an application beyond purely military matters. It means that a change in `ends' (from absence of war and the protection of the status quo, to the pursuit of social change and justice) necessitates a change in `means' from military to non-military methods of conflict resolution and prevention. The military's function should therefore be to collaborate on (not control) the implementation of policies.

But what does this mean on a concrete level? What role can strategists play in the water- security dilemma? Dependence on water cannot be solved by shifting to other sources, increasing production, recycling resources and taxing people to reduce consumption. But there are ways to reduce vulnerability. Stock-piling (preventive measures), crisis management, diplomacy and the use of the military to secure access to resources are some of the options available.62 Even though the military instrument can never be entirely dismissed as an option, it undoubtedly represents the least favoured for the 21st century.

In order to address resource-based conflict, strategists and policy-makers alike first need to familiarise themselves with the broad range of accumulating problems and then develop a systematic understanding of the interrelationship between these problems (for example, environmental and resource-based security cannot be seen in isolation from non-environmental issues, such as drug and arms trafficking and refugees). On a practical level, such an insight must manifest itself in, for instance, a systematic way of predicting whether and when conflict will occur if resources continue to be depleted. Frameworks, in the form of early warning systems, need to be developed to determine these conditions. It is wrong to assume that conflict is inevitable, but considerable attention needs to be devoted to the development of non-violent methods of conflict resolution appropriate to the nature of the conflict, the resource involved and the local peculiarities. However, the complex interdependent character of non-military conflicts can impede the application of generalised solutions. Grassroots organisations should therefore play a vital role in informing other stakeholders about local conditions. Broad civil participation would reduce the chances of the military gaining control over the management of environmental conflicts.

CONCLUSION

This article has argued that positive peace becomes unattainable without an expanded understanding of security. Inclusion of the environmental debate on the security agenda is therefore imperative to prevent the already intense competition over scarce resources from spiralling out of control. The assumption that common problems necessarily lead to common solutions needs to be revisited in the light of the potency of conflict over water resources.

The purpose of the article was to examine the nature of resource-based problems as part of the global security agenda, rather than to offer definitive solutions. Yet, a number of issues that should be debated further has been raised. The role of strategic studies, and the position of strategists and the armed forces in a redefined security arena, have been explored. A case has been made for the retention of strategic expertise, provided that it is reshaped to meet the challenges of a redefined security agenda. Civilian control and participation could help to safeguard environmental concerns against being `securitised'.

As a fledgling democracy, South Africa will have to consider these issues seriously. Clarifying the role of the armed forces with regard to environmental security does not only have implications for its own people, but for the region as a whole.

ENDNOTES

D L Sills (ed), International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, 16, The Free Press, 1968, p. 463.



H W Maull, Energy and Resources: The Strategic Dimensions, Survival, November/December 1989, p. 500.



X Carim, Critical and Postmodern Reading of Strategic Culture and Southern African Security in the 1990s, Politikon, 22(2), December 1995, p. 60.



J T Mathews, Redefining Security, Foreign Affairs, 68(2), Spring 1989, p. 162.



P Ekins, A New World Order: Grassroots Movements for Global Change, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1993, pp. 16-23; L Nathan, Beyond Arms and Armed Forces: A New Approach to Security, South African Defence Review, 4, 1992, pp. 15 & 17.



B Buzan, People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, Harvester Wheatsheaf, New York, 1991, pp. 19-20.



Ibid., p. 187; in order to make the study of the security dynamic more manageable, Buzan expanded the concept vertically to include a hierarchy of analytical levels, namely individual, state, regional subsystem and international system.



K Booth & P Vale, Security in Southern Africa: After Apartheid, beyond Realism, International Affairs, 71(2), April 1995, p. 293; L Nathan, The Changing of the Guard, Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria, p. 13.



Carim, op. cit., p. 60.



P Nyinguro, Peace and Security in Post-Cold War Africa: Safeguarding the Future, African Journal of Political Economy, 1993, p. 121; S J Baynham, Regional Security in the Third World with Specific Reference to Southern Africa, Strategic Review for Southern Africa, 16(1), March 1994, p. 91.



G Tansey, K Tansey & P Rogers, A World Divided: Militarism and Development after the Cold War, Earthscan Publications, London, 1994, p. xvi.



See J Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization, Sage Publications, London, 1996, chapters 3 & 4; B Reardon, Feminist Concepts of Peace and Security, in P Smoker et. al. (eds.), A Reader in Peace Studies, Pergamon Press, New York, 1990, pp. 138-141.



N Brown, Climate, Ecology and International Security, Survival, November/December 1989, p. 521.



J G Speth, A post-Rio Compact, Foreign Policy, 88, Fall 1992, pp. 145-161.



Maull, op. cit., pp. 503-4.



W Khadduri, Oil and Politics in the Middle East, Security Dialogue, 27(2), June 1996, p. 157.



N A L Mohammed, The Development Trap: Militarism, Environmental Degradation and Poverty in the South, in Tansey et. al., op. cit., p. 59.



P Rogers, A Jungle Full of Snakes? Power, Poverty and International Security, in Tansey et. al., Ibid., p. 5.



Mathews, op. cit., p. 164.



Ibid., p. 164.



T Homer-Dixon, Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict: Evidence from Cases, International Security, 19(1), Summer 1994, pp. 10-11.



L T Ghee & M J Valencia, Conflict over Natural Resources in South-East Asia and the Pacific, Oxford University Press, New York, 1990, p. 7.



H Solomon, Towards the 21st Century: A New Global Security Agenda?, IDP Papers, 6, Institute for Defence Policy, Halfway House, June 1996, p. 3.



Ekins, op. cit., p.20.



F Cairncross, Environmental Pragmatism, Foreign Policy, 95, Summer 1994, p. 43.



L A Swatuk, Environmental Issues and Prospects for Southern African Regional Co-operation, in H Solomon & J Cilliers (eds.), People, Poverty and Peace: Human Security in Southern Africa, IDP Monograph Series, 4, Institute for Defence Policy, Halfway House, May 1996, p. 39.



Solomon, op. cit., p. 3.



Mohammed, op. cit., p. 59.



Homer-Dixon, op. cit., pp. 10-11.



Maull, op. cit., p. 502.



J K Cooley, The War over Water, Foreign Policy, 54, Spring 1984, p. 3.



Ibid., p. 3; N Myers, Environment and Security, Foreign Policy, 74, Spring 1989, p. 28.



Cooley, op. cit., pp. 3-4.



B Jackson, Promoting Real Security Implications for Policy in the North, in Tansey et. al., op. cit., p. 94.



Solomon, op. cit., p. 3.



Mohammed, op. cit., p. 60; Myers, op. cit., p. 29.



Mohammed, Ibid.; Solomon, op. cit., p. 3.



Mohammed, Ibid.



Solomon, op. cit., p. 3; Swatuk, op. cit., p. 30.



Myers, op. cit., p. 29.



Homer-Dixon, op. cit., pp. 10-11.



A Swain, Displacing the Conflict: Environmental Destruction in Bangladesh and Ethnic Conflict in India, Journal of Peace Research, 33(2), 1996, pp. 189-204.



Nyinguro, op. cit., p. 126.



Cairncross, op. cit., p. 42.



Ibid., p. 42.



Myers, op. cit., p. 32.



Swatuk, op. cit., p. 39.



N Graeger, Environmental Security?, Journal of Peace Research, 33(1), 1996, pp. 109-116.



Buzan, op. cit., p. 24.



Maull, op. cit., p. 513; Brown, op. cit., p. 531.



For a detailed critique of strategic studies, see B S Klein, Strategic Studies and World Order, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994.



D J Dunn, Peace Research versus Strategic Studies, in K Booth (ed.), New Thinking About Strategy and International Security, Harper Collins Academic, London, 1991, pp. 56-71.



Solomon, op. cit., p. 7.



Dunn, op. cit., p. 57.



Booth & Vale, op. cit., p. 296.



Solomon, op. cit., p. 7.



Ministry of Defence, Draft White Paper on National Defence for the Republic of South Africa, 21 June 1995, pp. 17-18.



Ibid., pp. 6 & 23.



Ibid., p. 27.



Ibid.



Ibid., p. 14.



Maull, op. cit., p. 512.