The Policy Unit

We are guilty, notably in the developed world, of focusing our attention on issues we deem of immediate importance at the expense of long term intractable conflicts. However, what we continuously fail to recognise is how those issues we have never prioritised, and those we long ago forgot, continue to drastically shape our economic stability and security.

As potential contacts are monitored in places such as the United States and Spain, the sickness is very suddenly falling off the political radar. But West Africa still faces a multitude of challenges and infections, and the West must take this opportunity to be better prepared for future outbreaks.

The latter half of the 20th century, despite being mired in the depths of the Cold War, was a period in which human technological advancements dramatically increased the standard of living for countless individuals around the globe. The drastic acceleration of global industrialisation during this period has been fuelled by natural resource development, often occurring in some of the world’s poorest states. The pursuit of wealth generated from resource development essential for our modern conveniences has significantly contributed to conflict in many regions, several of which are ecologically sensitive areas.

In the light of the Ukrainian crisis and its implications for global political actors, Ukraine’s internal balance of political power has been increasingly topical for Western and Russian analysts. From the Western and Russian perspectives, the Ukrainian crisis is a foreign policy issue with serious, but yet controllable, consequences. For Ukraine, the mounting external involvement has an impact on its internal matters that is hard to measure or control.

On 3 October 2013 a boat carrying over 500 migrants from Eritrea and Somalia sunk off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa, leading to the deaths of over 350 people; a few days later, a second incident occurred adding at least another 34 lives to the death toll. Following the tragedy of Lampedusa, the EU and its member states pledged that an end must come to migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, with the EU Parliament calling the incidents a turning point towards a new policy guided by ‘solidarity and responsibility’.[1] One year on, the pledge echoes hollow as new reports of incidents across the Mediterranean surface weekly.

Since a 2006 crackdown by the Calderon government against drug cartels operating within Mexico, some estimates put the death toll as high as 120,000.[1] Despite staggering statistics such as these and multiple acts of public brutality, the conflict - and its severity - remains a relative unknown in the West.

Sanctions have become an increasingly popular method of discouraging groups, states and individuals from violating international law and norms. Blacklisting groups became particularly popular after 9/11, after which a number of anti-terrorist legislations were passed by the UN and its member states, including UN Security Council Resolution 1373, the US Patriot Act and the UK Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill.

The 2014 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit in Wales was billed as arguably the most important for the alliance following the Cold War. Against a backdrop of tension in Ukraine and unrelenting chaos in the Middle East, the stakes are both immediate and long-term.

When the most recent state in the world celebrated its third anniversary in July this year, it was amid renewed ethnic violence and a protracted refugee crisis influencing both the country and the wider region. Having fought for independence from Sudan for decades, the South Sudanese state established in 2011 exhibit all the signs of a weak, and possibly failing, state.

Hastings Ismay, the first Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), famously stated that NATO was meant to “keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”[1] Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it would be difficult to argue that NATO had been unsuccessful in attaining these goals. Russia no longer posed a substantial threat to NATO member states, substantial amounts of American political will and troops remain committed to Europe, and a resurgent and militaristic Germany is a laughable thought.