Southwest Asia

The Reliability of Global Undersea Communications Cable Infrastructure (ROGUCCI) Global Summit is convening leading scientists and engineers, the financial sector and other stakeholders to better understand the world's dependence on the connectivity between the continents. EWI Distinguished Fellow Karl Rauscher and Cybersecurity director Vartan Sarkissian are serving on the summit committee. EWI Chairman Francis Finlay and John Edwin Mroz will speak.

Nearly all international electronic communications traverse the sub-sea fiber optic web that crisscrosses the globe. The world has become highly reliant on this connectivity for daily operations of governments, businesses and individuals. "While technologists have made heroic advances in improving the performance of these systems, the relative pace of international cooperation has lagged in key areas," said Karl Rauscher, General Session Chair and EWI Distinguished Fellow.

The Summit, sponsored by the IEEE, the world's largest technical professional association, will include discussion of the international agreements needed to improve the stability of the submarine fabric that underpins cyberspace.

Click here to learn more about the IEEE ROGUCCI Summit

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, visited the EastWest Institute on Tuesday, September 22, for an off-the-record discussion on the OIC’s role in preventive diplomacy around the world.

Ihsanoglu discussed ways in which the OIC and the West can work together to resolve and prevent conflicts of common concern. Brewing conflicts in the Muslim world have a significant impact on the West. Western policies - both domestic and international - have an equally significant impact on the Muslim world. The secretary general discussed strategies that can help build trust, not only between the Muslim world and the West, but also between conflicting parties within the Muslim world. He also spoke about the roles governments, militaries, businesses and civil society can play in this process, as well as the role of international organizations such as the OIC, NATO and the U.N.

Among the topics of discussion:

The OIC

Ihsanoglu emphasized the importance of the new OIC charter, adopted in April 2008, and the changing role it envisages for the organization.  The OIC has set out to address conflicts between the Muslim world and the West, and also conflicts within the Muslim world.

Ihsanoglu stressed the importance of resolving conflicts within the Muslim world as a means to bridge divides between the Muslim world and the West. Any conflict in the Muslim world will always have an impact on the West, and vice versa.

He pointed to recent OIC successes resolving sectarian conflicts in Iraq. The OIC intervened during severe tensions in 2006 to bring Shiite and Sunni Muslims back together around a common set of agreed principles. This common agreement between the two communities helped start a process of rapprochement between the two and helped reduce sectarian violence in Iraq.

“Some Muslim conflicts can be solved locally, rather than at the global level,” he said, stressing the importance of organic, on-the-ground solutions.

The OIC is now engaged in a similar process in Somalia, where rival factions of Muslims are engaged in a bloody struggle for power.

Turning to Afghanistan, Ihsanoglu urged the creation of a new plan based on socio-economic development and cultural and political reconciliation. The OIC can play a constructive role in promoting such a solution, he suggested, as it is trusted and knowledgeable of local customs.

Socio-economic development

Ihsanoglu briefed participants on recent meetings of the OIC, including a summit in Saudi Arabia that “addressed the challenges faced by the Muslim world in a new, objective way.”

He stressed moderation and modernism as fundamental preconditions for lasting peace in the Muslim world. “We have to modernize to defeat radicalism,” he said.
Ihsanoglu pointed to OIC efforts to cooperate with the U.K. and other western governments to promote socio-economic development, but stressed that different levels of development in most Muslim countries pose unique sets of challenges. “When industrial society completes its development, the challenges change,” he said. “Rural and nomadic societies cannot be expected to behave the same way as in New York or Stockholm. The hotbeds of conflict in the Muslim world will take many years to solve.”

The changing meaning of East and West

Ihsanoglu pointed out that the meaning of East and West has evolved over time, from Goethe’s conception of the East as a source of romance, to Samuel Huntington’s idea of a clash of civilizations. “Why are we always trying to speak about them as different from each other?” asked Ihsanoglu. “Can we not speak also of their affinity?”

Ihsanoglu urged a new approach to East-West relations based on their “affinity and proximity.”

The U.S. and the Obama Administration

Ihsanoglu described the transition of power to the Obama Administration as an important new phase for U.S. relations with the Muslim world. “In Obama, we have a new strategy, new language, good intentions,” he said. “The question now is how to transform good intentions into policies.”

“Our common goal should be making our small fragile planet a haven of peace and prosperity for all,” he said. 

On July 28, 2009, EWI convened an off-the-record expert roundtable discussion of the U.S.-Russia Joint Threat Assessment on Iran’s Nuclear and Missile Potential in Moscow. The meeting, held in cooperation with the Russian Committee of Scientists for Global Security and Arms Control and the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, launched the Russian version of the joint threat assessment and brought together Russian specialists from scientific institutions, the Russian government and the media.

Among the organizations represented were the Earth Space Monitoring Scientific Center, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, the Moscow Aviation Institute, the Moscow Institute of International Relations, IMEMO, the International Scientific and Technological Center, the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Federation Council and the Independent Military Review.

EWI's Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security and the Jordan Institute of Diplomacy’s Regional Center on Conflict Prevention will convene parliamentarians and experts from water-stressed regions to build capacity and develop new strategies to enhance regional cooperation on water.

The meeting will focus on overcoming challenges posed by potential water conflicts and develop recommendations for parliamentarians to play a bigger role in strengthening trans-boundary cooperation. It is part of EWI’s preventive diplomacy work, aimed at reducing tensions and increasing trust and cooperation in potential zones of conflict.

On July 15, 2009, the EastWest Institute’s Moscow Center, in cooperation with the Swiss Embassy in Russia, briefed the diplomatic community in Moscow on key conclusions and implications of EWI’s groundbreaking U.S.-Russia Joint Threat Assessment Study on Iran’s Nuclear and Missile Potential. The briefing brought together senior diplomatic officials and experts from the U.S., Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Russian Foreign Ministry, as well as the Russian authors of the joint threat assessment and select regional security experts.

Photo: "IAEA - Iran Meeting (01910458)" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by IAEA Imagebank

On Thursday, June 25, EWI’s Preventive Diplomacy Initiatives hosted the fourth installment of the policy dialogue series, Alternative Futures for Afghanistan and the Stability of Southwest Asia: Improving Regional Cooperation on Water in Brussels. The session focused on the Helmand River Basin, shared between Afghanistan and Iran, and the Harirud and Murghab River Basins, which are also shared with Turkmenistan. Participants considered challenges to cooperative management of these water sources and proposed strategies to overcome these challenges.

This was the final session in a four-part dialogue series convened with the support of Gerda Henkel Stiftung and EWI’s Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security.

On June 4, the Swiss Mission in New York hosted a briefing for members of the U.N. Security Council and other select member states on EWI’s U.S.-Russia Joint Threat Assessment on Iran’s nuclear and missile potential.

Ambassador Peter Maurer, Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations and member of EWI’s Board of Directors, moderated the briefing. Other participants included Leonid Ryabikhin of the Committee of Scientists for Global Security and Arms Control who represented the Russian team, Ted Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who represented the American team, and Professor Gary Sick of Columbia University.

Key findings of the J.T.A. described in the briefing and discussed in the question-and-answer period were:

• The time it would take for Iran to develop a roughly 2,000 km range ballistic missile armed with a nuclear warhead is determined by the time it takes Iran to build a nuclear warhead that is sufficiently light and compact to fly on a ballistic missile.
• Unless Iran receives substantial external assistance, it would take Iran years to produce with indigenous technology missiles of substantially longer range without major new innovations in missile technology.
• In the event that Iran builds such long-range missiles, with or without external assistance, these missiles would be very large and cumbersome and would have to be launched from well-known, specialized launch locations. Such missiles would be highly vulnerable to preemption.
• If Iran takes the political decision to manufacture nuclear devices, it will have to remove IAEA control and monitoring—thus alerting the international community to its intentions. It would take Iran about six years to build nuclear weapons compact and light enough to be used on a ballistic missile. This conclusion assumes that Iran does not have clandestine enrichment capabilities.

On Thursday, 28 May, EWI’s Preventive Diplomacy Initiative hosted the third installment of its policy dialogue series on Alternative Futures for Afghanistan and the Stability of Southwest Asia: Improving Regional Cooperation on Water. This session focused on the water resources of the Kabul River basin and the related challenges and opportunities for cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbors, especially Pakistan.

Speakers included Rakhshan Roohi, Principal Scientific Officer of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, and Seyyedali Hussaini of the Department of Geology at the University of Kabul and co-author of Water Resource Management in Kabul River Basin, Eastern Afghanistan.

The series, part of EWI’s initiative to promote alternative futures for Afghanistan and Southwest Asia, is designed not only to foster better management of water—the most critical of natural resources—but also to create ties between local and regional authorities that can build trust and prevent conflicts in this volatile area. It was launched on Thursday 2 April with the endorsement of the EWI’s Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security and is made possible with the support of the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

Photo by Keith Stanski

On Thursday, 30 April, EWI’s Preventive Diplomacy Initiative hosted the second installment in a policy dialogue to improve cooperation on water in Afghanistan and Southwest Asia. The dialogue, part of EWI’s initiative to promote alternative futures for Afghanistan and Southwest Asia, is designed not only to foster better management of water—the most critical of natural resources—but also to create ties between local and regional authorities that can build trust and prevent conflicts in this volatile area.

Speakers at this installment of the dialogue included Ambassador Miroslav Jenča, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Central Asia and Head of the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) and Angelika Beer, Member of the European Parliament and Co-Chair of the Executive Council of EWI’s Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security.

Key issues discussed at the meeting were:

• A change in focus from water shortage to inefficiencies in water usage;
• The importance of tangible benefits for all stakeholders;
• Shared management and shared training as peacebuilding tools;
• The political importance of the history of water use and management;
• The role of regional organizations;
• China and Russia’s potential role in enhancing regional cooperation on water.

This was the second in a series of five policy dialogues, which will produce an action-oriented policy paper and build towards an international conference on regional cooperation over water in December 2009. Following are the remaining sessions in the series:

• Thursday, 28 May, 2009: Management of the Kabul river and Afghanistan’s relations with Pakistan; 
• Thursday, 25 June, 2009: Management of the Helmand river and Afghanistan’s relations with Iran;
• July 2009 (date to be confirmed): Management of the Harirud and Murghab rivers and Afghanistan’s relations with Iran and Turkmenistan. *

*Please note: The topics for the third and fourth sessions have now been reversed, and discussion of the Helmand River basin and Afghanistan’s relations with Iran will now take place on Thursday, 25 June 2009.