Pulling together a list of the wars most in need of international attention and support in 2016 is challenging for all the wrong reasons. For 20 years after the end of the Cold War, deadly conflict was in decline. Fewer wars were killing fewer people the world over. Five years ago, however, that positive trend went into reverse, and each year since has seen more conflict, more victims, and more people displaced. 2016 is unlikely to bring an improvement from the woes of 2015: It is war — not peace — that has momentum.
That said, there are conflicts whose urgency and importance rise above. This year’s list of 10 is weighted toward wars with the worst humanitarian consequences: Syria and Iraq, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and the Lake Chad basin. It includes those in influential and functioning states, like Turkey, as well as those that have collapsed, like Libya. It features conflicts that are already bad but are poised to get much worse without intelligent intervention, such as Burundi, as well as tensions, such as those in the South China Sea, that are simmering but have yet to boil over. The list also considers the hopeful example presented by Colombia, where considerable progress is being made toward ending a 51-year insurgency.
Half of the conflicts on this year’s list involve extremist groups whose goals and ideologies are difficult to accommodate through negotiated settlement, complicating efforts to plot a path to peace. Looking ahead to 2016, it’s time to dispense with the notion that fighting against violent extremism suffices as a plan for world order — or even the basis of a solution for a single country like Syria. To be sure, stopping the abominations of the Islamic State and other jihadis is vital, but it also exposes policy dilemmas: The fear of what follows the demise of authoritarians (Iraq and Libya being prime exhibits) creates a strong incentive to back repressive regimes, but order based solely on state coercion is not sustainable. The dramatic increase in the reach and influence of jihadis over the past few years is a symptom of deeper trends in the Middle East: mounting sectarianism, a crisis of legitimacy of existing states, and escalating geopolitical competition, particularly between Saudi Arabia and Iran. When the enemy comes from within a given region, military action directed from abroad is more likely to aggravate than assuage.
There is an alternative to this approach: States could work pragmatically at managing differences rather than overcoming them while leaving political space open for local actors to speak up. This will require courage, patience, and creative diplomacy, but the two most important diplomatic successes of 2015 — the Iran nuclear deal and the agreement on climate change — give reason to believe an international approach based on finding common interests could work. There are other glimmers of hope, too: major strides forward in Colombia’s peace talks, a cease-fire in Ukraine bolstered by the Minsk process, progress in Myanmar’s democratic transition, and a welcome, if long overdue, resolution from the U.N. Security Council on Syria.
Most of the conflicts listed here require action at several levels — between major powers, regionally and locally — and none are amenable to a quick fix. Given the challenges of ending conflicts amid the upheaval of a revolutionary era, it is all the more urgent to provide humanitarian aid and to mitigate the human toll of violence — evidenced starkly in the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled toward Europe in the past year. States must also redouble efforts to forge political agreements, taking advantage of even the narrowest openings to find opportunities for compromise. The fluidity of the present moment can and must be used to shape a new, better-balanced order.
Syria and Iraq
At the close of the year, the war in Syria is the world’s gravest, with its effects stretching across the region and sucking in major powers. More than a quarter of a million Syrians have been killed and almost 11 million — about half the country’s population — displaced in or outside the country. The rise of the Islamic State, which now controls a large swath of eastern Syria and northwest Iraq, has drawn in firepower from countries including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Russia. As yet, however, none of these countries has articulated a coherent strategy to defeat the Islamic State.
Worse still, Moscow and Western powers have been working at cross-purposes, with Russian jets bombing anti-Islamic State rebels that Washington considers partners against the jihadi group. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime continues to use indiscriminate aerial bombardment and other methods of collective punishment, inflicting civilian casualties in Sunni-majority areas that dwarf the numbers of victims claimed by the Islamic State’s violence. Assad’s tactics fuel continued cycles of radicalization, in Syria in particular, but also across the region, by fanning sectarian flames and feeding the sense of Sunni victimization from which the Islamic State profits.
The pace of diplomatic action has quickened, spurred in part by Russia’s military intervention in Syria in September and the Islamic State-sponsored terrorist attacks in Paris in November. While the growing internationalization of the conflict presents many dangers, it may also open possibilities for diplomacy. In December, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a cease-fire and political solution in Syria. The resolution sets forth an ambitious timetable, with talks between the government and the opposition to start in January; a Syrian-led political process to establish “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance” within six months; and elections within a year-and-a-half. Questions about Assad’s future — which provoke the most vehement disagreement between major powers on the Security Council, rival regional powers, and Syrian factions — remain unaddressed.
Despite many reasons to be skeptical, it is worth hoping that this latest initiative marks the beginning of a meaningful effort to resolve the conflict. A conference in Riyadh in December exceeded expectations by bringing together an unprecedented range of the opposition’s armed and political factions to agree on a negotiating team. Participants pledged their commitment to a pluralistic Syrian future and conditional willingness to engage in the peace process. For a national cease-fire to work, however, there must be a strategy for dealing with spoilers — especially al Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front, which is geographically, and often operationally, integrated into the non-jihadi opposition in much of western Syria.
In Iraq, meanwhile, the Western strategy to defeat the Islamic State relies largely on military offensives by Iraqi Kurds, a mostly Shiite Iraqi army, and Iran-backed Shiite militias. This risks feeding the resentment of Sunni Arabs in areas currently under Islamic State control. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s government is under pressure from rival Shiite factions for a host of reasons — including anger over corruption, the state’s failure to provide basic services and security, resistance to his reform agenda, and intramural jockeying for power. Shiite militias are not only fighting the Islamic State, but have organized to fill the security vacuum and defend Baghdad and Shiite holy sites. The militias’ partial success resonates with many unemployed youth, who have been at the forefront of street protests. The Islamic State rules partly through brutal coercion but also by exploiting fear of the Shiite-dominated government and by empowering formerly marginalized segments within the Sunni community. Iraqi forces have spent months trying to retake Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, after a humiliating withdrawal last May, and in the last week of the year managed to finally gain control of the city. The next priority will be to oust the Islamic State from Mosul, the northern city where it is perhaps best entrenched.
Turkey
Long but worth the read:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/01/03/10-conflicts-to-watch-in-2016/The conflicts are
1/ Syria/Iraq
2/ Turkey
3/ Yemen
4/ Libya
5/ Lake Chad Basin
6/ South Sudan
7/ Burundi
8/ Afghanistan
9/ South China Sea
10/ Columbia
