Monthly Archives: March 2012

An intelligence report released last week discussed a security threat that presents a frightening picture of the world, one in which clean, usable water is increasingly scarce. Water scarcity is in large part a result of increasing demand due to world population growth. U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said in a speech given at the World Bank that “by 2025, we believe that it could be as much as two-thirds of the world’s population, including in more areas within developed countries where people will be living under water stress.” She continued to explain that “water security for us is a matter of economic security, human security, and national security, because we see potential for increasing unrest, conflicts, and instability over water.”

The attack in France this past week at the hands of the terrorist Mohammed Merah is reawakening Europe to the realities of radicalization. This event should not be viewed as the beginning of a complex new terror campaign domestically but should be seen as an infrequent reality of war with terror groups. The majority of attempted domestic attacks have been unsuccessful for a number of reasons, and most people who are successfully recruited end up going to conflict areas in order to train and act out their new sense of ideology rather than stay in their country. A quick overview of some aspects of the radicalization process will reveal that there is no trend towards coordinated attacks or rampant radicalization in the West.

Recently there has been a deluge of calls for action to topple the Al-Assad regime in Syria in order to stop its bloody crackdown against the opposition movement. Many ideas have been thrown out into the open, the most prominent of which center around an air campaign, using a harsh set of sanctions against the regime, or arming the opposition with weapons capable of leveling the playing field. The loudest champions of these ideas by and large are generalizing the matter. Reducing the situation into black and white, election-friendly terms glosses over many of the grim realities in Syria. Looking at the main ideas listed above, we see that they are either unfeasible or the risks involved make them not only undesirable but also counterproductive.