For Immediate Release
Contact: Meg Pierannunzi, 202-429-4736
              Allison Sturma, 202-429-4725

(Washington) –The United States Institute of Peace releases “Rewiring Regional Security in a Fragmented World,” edited by Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall, a new volume that explores how regions define and address challenges to their security and how regional approaches to security increasingly fill gaps that global security institutions cannot.

Understanding regional perspectives is especially important at a time when the United States and others are reappraising their capacity to provide global security and the world faces new transnational challenges along with traditional threats to peace and stability. “With this complexity, nobody wants exclusive ownership of today’s security problems,” said editor Chester Crocker.

The authors contend that a conflict management approach that depends on only one institution, country, or region is a thing of the past. The case studies in this volume reflect that security challenges cannot be dealt with solely through military means and that a firm grasp on regional security matters is critical to understanding the big picture of global security.

In its analysis, Rewiring Regional Security goes straight to the source – to voices from the regions themselves. “This book takes the less-traveled approach of asking experts from a wide range of regions—Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Russia and Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Latin America, Central America, and the trans-Atlantic community—to engage in a comparative study across regions,” the editors note. “Based on their analyses and the project’s global scope, we present a fresh review of regional threats, perceived threats, and policies, as well as new perspectives on how institutions intend to counteract them. Only when we understand the security challenges and local capabilities to meet those challenges will we start to be able to assess who can do what in global conflict management.”

The book goes beyond the critical role that regional institutions play in managing conflict, and also examines political, cultural, and economic factors that affect regional propensity for resolving disputes and preventing violence. It provides a window on why some regions have enjoyed relative stability while others are plagued by wars and turbulence. It also weighs the balance between regional/local security initiatives and global initiatives. The editors build upon the concept of collective conflict management (CCM) and identify new patterns of cooperative international behavior that combine conflict management capabilities at both the regional and global levels, highlighting concrete CCM examples. Recent examples of CCM include the cooperative regional and international responses to piracy off the Horn of Africa, the Dubai Process dealing with the Durand Line border dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and peace operations in the Sudan, among others.

“We anticipate that conflict management arrangements will increasingly be task- and situation-determined, improvised within less formal mandates or rules, and developed spontaneously in response to the needs and interests of those who participate,” state the editors. “In a sense, regions will be the test beds from which new patterns of collective action may emerge.”