Regional Security

Leading figures from Afghanistan, including Dr. Zia Nezam, Afghan ambassador to the EU and NATO, General Atiqullah Baryalai, former Deputy Defense Minister for the Northern Alliance, and Mr. Hekmat Karzai, director of the Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies, suggested next steps to be taken to ensure more coordinated international and local operations and sustainable security in Afghanistan and the region.

 Key points discussed at this EWI Study Group were:

• goals and tactics of military operations (the need for a unified counter-insurgency strategy)
• command and control arrangements for ISAF military operations (the system is very weak)
• intelligence training of Afghan forces (almost non-existent)
• honest evaluations of the waste and low efficiency in development funding
• the serious imbalance between funding for development assistance and much higher levels of funding for military operations
• the serious imbalance between attention to Kabul and the poorer conflict-prone provinces.

A detailed, private report with recommendations will be presented to the study group, and security and stability in Afghanistan will be a key topic of a high level event (by invitation only) to be held in Brussels on 17 February.

The EastWest Institute will create a policy study group on “Alternative Futures for Afghanistan and the Stability of South West Asia”. The group will include specialists and officials with strong knowledge of the region, especially the current situation and the detail of the political power structures at local, regional and national levels.

The first activity will comprise from a series of three policy seminars Brussels based, from September to November 2008, with a view to issuing a strategy paper. The strategy paper will be presented to a high level seminar in Washington DC and be published in early 2009 based on subsequent consultations. 

Themes

• Political Power and Control: Local Politics in 2009/2010
• Selected Province Case Studies: State of the Insurgency in 2010
• Religious and Secular Society in Afghanistan
• Pakistan’s Border with Afghanistan in 2010? (Afghanistan’s neighborhood policy)
• After Karzai? Religious Conservatives in Power?
• Roles for China and Russia (the Shanghai Cooperation Organization), India and Iran

The EastWest Institute, in partnership with the Turkish/European Coordination Council, TUDEV (Turkish Speaking World Foundation), and AIMEE (Aider une Maman a l'Education de ses Enfants), convened a conference in Brussels on May 3rd on the “Sociography of the Turkish community living in Europe and the implications in the relations between the European Union and Turkey

The full day event, held at the Palais d’Egmond thanks to the support of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign affairs, covered the problems related to women, youth, education and school drop-off, integration, the extreme right, and social discrimination as well as the impact of migration in European countries and on EU-Turkey relations.

Speakers at the conference included Sait YAZICIOGLU, Turkey’s Minister of Immigration, Brigitte GROUWELS, Belgian Minister for Equal Opportunities, Dr. Yusuf Ziya İRBEÇ, AKP Deputy and member of the commission for Turkey's integration to the EU, and Fuat TANLAY, Turkish Ambassador to Belgium.

The outcomes of the event will soon be published in a report that will be distributed to European parliamentarians.

Media Coverage:

Turkish Press Review - Office of the Prime Minister

Belcikahaber

Gundem

Binfikir

Yenihaber

On April 11, 2008, the CVE, the Council for America's First Freedom and Virginia Commonwealth University will organize a session on violent extremism with Ambassador Randolph Bell. The Conference will take place in Richmond, VA.

The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the global phenomenon of violent extremism in the three Abrahamic faiths.

On January 11th, the EastWest Institute held a high-level meeting on “Asymmetries of Science and Power” in Brussels. Ambassadors from Africa, Asia, and Latin America gathered to share their views on the long-term impact of science and technology on global security. The importance of technology transfer, education, and the effects of health and poverty were among the key issues raised by the participants. This discussion, the first of a series of meetings in advance of EWI’s 5th Worldwide Security Conference (WSC5), underlined the correlation between scientific developments, power relations, and future security threats.

EWI conveened a meeting in Alabama that went extraordinary largely due to the excellent work of the participants. The participants consisted of 8 Methodist, Baptist, and Episcopalian faith and community leaders in the city of Birmingham.

The EastWest Institute (EWI) convened a roundtable of international policymakers and academic experts on April 17, 2008, to evaluate the need for a more consistent and permanent regional security apparatus in the Middle East. Seeking to address the critical deficiencies of past structures—which been largely ad hoc and excluded key actors—Mr. Sundeep Waslekar, president of the Strategic Foresight Group (SFG) made the case that as the region continues to fragment, it will become ever more difficult to arrive at universally amenable arrangements. It is therefore urgent and imperative that an inclusive, sustainable, and open-ended security mechanism be created if the further deterioration of the region’s security is to be stemmed.

The EastWest Institute (EWI) convened a roundtable of Middle East experts on April 16, 2008, to discuss the Arab Islamic Renaissance Initiative, a project led by the Strategic Foresight Group (SFG), to formulate a strategy to restore the intellectual and economic prominence of the Middle East on the world stage. The initiative highlights the necessity of finding a strategy rooted in the region’s own cultural and historical traditions and that addresses the threat of an emerging ‘dignity gap. Speakers were:

• John Edwin Mroz (chair), president and CEO of the EastWest Institute
• Sundeep Waslekar (presenting), president of the Strategic Foresight Group
• Shamil Idriss (respondent), acting director of the UN Office of the Alliance of Civilizations

The roundtable was held in conjunction with EWI’s Global Security Program, which partners with key thought leaders around the world to explore new solutions to pressing regional and international security dilemmas.

During his recent visit to Amman, Ambassador Ortwin Hennig met with political and business leaders to further the Institute's search for common ground between the Arab and Western worlds. Key global issues and possibilities for Jordan's active participation in EWI projects were explored.