Avishay Artsy talks with Kjetil Tronvoll - professor of peace and conflict studies at Oslo New University College

Kietil Tromvoll: Well, the perception of the prize has changed or shifted somehow, I would say. It is still considered generally as the most prestigious prize within its field, but recent controversial laureates have possibly undermined some of the prestige and honor of the prize, in the sense that the prize has become more contested. 

Avishay Artsy: Right. And one of those recipients is Abiy Ahmed. The prime minister of Ethiopia. He was awarded the prize in 2019 for helping to end his country’s long running war with Eritrea. And the prize committee cited his quote “efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular, for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.” Why was the prize committee hopeful for his reforms when they decided to award him the prize? 

KT: The committee based their decision on what Abiy did in terms of political reforms the day he took power in April 2018, until the end of December, that same year. So it was a rather narrow window of time they considered his actions against, and during that time period, Abiy Ahmed instigated radical reforms in Ethiopia. He started a political diplomatic dialogue with a neighboring country, Eritrea, and its president to settle the long simmering border conflict. And he also showed engagements in other regional affairs, like political transitions in both Somalia and Sudan.
So those are the three issues the committee used as legitimate reasons to grant him the award. First and foremost, the peace dialogue with Eritrea. Secondly, the domestic political reforms in Ethiopia. And thirdly, his regional role as a political broker, so to say. 

AA:And so what was then the reality of what was happening in Ethiopia, and what was Abiy doing during this time?

KT: I think, the controversy or the criticism raised against the Nobel committee is the fact that already from the fall of 2018, we saw that some of the reforms were actually stopping up and even backsliding. And certainly from early 2019, we saw that the peace process with Eritrea was kind of meeting severe obstacles.

So to say, and also the domestic political reform agenda were losing pace. He started to rearrest journalists and harassed opposition members and so on and so forth. So by October 2019, the time when the Nobel committee made the decision, we already knew that the two key reasons for granting him their award were not that positive.

That they were backsliding. That the momentum had stopped, both in the peace process and in domestic reforms. So in my regard and other observers as well, we say that the risk assessment undertaken by the committee were too weak, that the prize were premature. The processes on the ground should have been played out in a longer time span before the committee reached such an, uh, important decision.

AA:Can you speak generally about what Abiy has been doing in the Tigray region in Northern Ethiopia? 

KT: In December 2019, just after Abiy Ahmed returned from Oslo after receiving the peace prize, just a couple of days after that, he decided to dismantle the government party coalition, EPRDF. Replacing it with a new unitary party called Prosperity Party. The consequence of that was that the key member of the former government alliance, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, TPLF, they withdrew from the government.

They said that this goes against our policy and it goes against both constitution and election laws of Ethiopia, the way the new government party was formed. And from that day and onward, it was only a matter of time before an armed conflict should break out between the regional government of Tigray and the federal government of European. A conflict, which had several triggering factors until eventually the armed confrontation started in the beginning of November in 2020.

And since then, Ethiopia has experienced a devastating, bloody civil war, the biggest war fought in the world in 2021 took place in Ethiopia in terms of numbers of troops involved, in terms of battle death, in terms of IDPs, and casualties of the war. The war is still ongoing as we speak.  Although we have seen a shifting tide of the war over the last few months. 

AA: And is there a sense that the Nobel Peace Prize may have in fact exacerbated the situation in Tigray and that the international goodwill that came from the prize in some ways gave Abiy cover to plan the war there? 

KT: Yes, there are different interpretations to that question. It seems. that the Eritrean president, Isaias Afwerki, when he entered into the diplomatic peace dialogue with Abiy Ahmed, his intentions were not to create peace, so to say, but to push his own agenda, to pursue a conflict with Tigray and TPLF. But I don't think Abiy Ahmed at that time had the same idea. But it gradually evolved into an Alliance then between these two so-called peace makers, that this peace alliance turned into a war alliance to fight together against Tigray regional state and the TPLF regional government.  Both had the same agenda later on to marginalize and possibly even exterminate the TPLF as they themselves have claimed is the objective of the war… 

AA: You were in touch with Ethiopian officials around that time of the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Abiy. Were they in a sense, upset and frustrated with the prize going to him, given what was going on there?

KT:  I think many observed that the prize emboldened Abiy Ahmed to pursue his political agenda internally in Ethiopia, meaning the establishment of a new unitary party and pushing an ideology of a more centralized Ethiopian state. This is the core reason for the outbreak of conflict, so to say. The ones advocating a decentralized devolved federal system versus the political block advocating a more centralized, strong Ethiopian government. So giving the award to Abiy Ahmed.... He interpreted that as recognition also of his new policy of political reforms in Ethiopia to centralize the Ethiopian state. And yes, there were very high-ranking members of his government party who told me that they placed the Nobel committee responsible, in a sense, that when he came back from Oslo after receiving the prize, he dismantled the old party and established a new Prosperity Party as a direct kind of having received an international go ahead and acknowledgement of his policies. Of course, that is in my view to blame the Nobel committee for north for something which is really not there and that responsibility directly. But. Obviously that I'll be off mid, have effectively used the prize in the early phase of his, of his premiership to position himself politically and to shove it off. so to say, as he has an international backing to pursue his domestic policy. 

AA: Now the Norwegian Nobel committee did hear this criticism and issued a rare rebuke of Abiy in January 2022.
What did they say? And in your opinion, do you think it went far enough? 

KT: Well, since the outbreak of the war in November 2020, The Nobel committee has received increasing criticism, both from internally in Ethiopia, obviously from the Tigray and other beleaguering parties, but also internationally. Initially also for granting the prize to Abiy, but also for staying quiet, not commenting upon the outbreak of the war.  And not commenting upon their massive war crimes being conducted by Ethiopian federal forces under the command of the prime minister or the widespread and systematic human rights abuses taking place in Ethiopia under the laureate’s watch, so to say. And this pressure to comment on the events in Ethiopia, has increased over the time span of the war.

So eventually, in January 2022, the chair of the Nobel committee, which is Berit Reiss-Andersen. She was forced to come out with a public statement, which is quite unprecedented in the history of the Nobel committee. This is only the second time the committee comments upon political affairs in the home country of the laureate, so to say.

AA: Who does make the decision of who gets a Nobel Peace Prize? I mean, there's a selection committee, but who's on it? And how do they get to be on it? And what is the criticism of that process? 

KT: Well, Alfred Nobel in his testament and will, he gave the responsibility to the Norwegian parliament to appoint the members to the committee. There are five members in the committee. Up until quite recently, more or less, all these members were ex-parliamentarians or even active parliamentarians and politicians of Norway. For instance, the former chair of the committee who recently stepped down. He was the ex-prime minister and ex-foreign minister of Norway. So it has been a very close political connection between the political elite in Norway and the Nobel committee. Although the Nobel committee has insisted upon their political neutrality. So to say, but that's the facade, to be rather blunt. Now, over the last few years we have members of the committee which have not a background from the parliament. There is about 50/50, I would say, in the current committee. So some of the political parties then, instead of nominating their own ex-members of the parliament, they have nominated experts in the field so to say both academics and practitioners to have a seat in the committee. The committee receives sometimes several hundred nominees every year. And they're having an initial screening in their secretariat, the Nobel Institute. And they have various short lists where they then invite in experts to evaluate and comment on the nominated individuals or organizations. And then finally the committee will have a very short list or maybe a handful of candidates. They are deliberating upon who should be granted then the prize for that year. All their discussions and deliberations and procedures in their Nobel committee are confidential and they are locked down for 50 years before the archives are made public for research. So we don't really know the concrete discussions and decisions behind a laureate being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize until 50 years after.

AA: And given that many of the selection committee members are former politicians and ex-parliamentarians.  Is there a sense that some of these decisions might be geopolitically motivated, that they might be in the interest of the Norwegian government, and that might be swaying the decision process? 

KT:  I won't say it is in an interest of the Norwegian government per se, because some of the prizes have been very controversial in the eyes of the government and has actually made the Norwegian foreign policy much more complicated and difficult because it has been granted to people who have a controversial standing in their home country.
But what we do know is that, you know, these are all Norwegians, basically from the same background, the same social elite, with the same upbringing and the same perceptions of life and of politics and foreign policy. So we do see a very strong bias towards, if I may say white European American male laureates.  A very high overrepresentation of American laureates, for instance, considering the potential candidates all around the world. So that is influencing, and of course, what they feel as relevant from a Nordic, Norwegian, social democratic worldview influences who should receive the prize.
 
AA: In a column in the Guardian, you called for all of the members to collectively resign in protest against the war in Ethiopia. Can you explain why you want that and what process should replace the one that we have now? 

KT:  Well, I made that call because the Nobel committee and its traditions. Says that it is impossible to revoke a prize once it has been granted. And they have also said that it is impossible for the committee after granting the prize to actively criticize or engage in the context if the laureate misbehaves. So since they kept quiet on the war in Ethiopia, since they kept quiet that their most recent laureate, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, were responsible as the head of government for massive widespread and systematic war crimes and human rights abuses, I felt it necessary to encourage the committee then, since they could not revoke the prize since they could not comment upon the situation in Ethiopia, to step down collectively and by doing so that would be interpreted worldwide as a direct protest against the actions of their Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

AA: Now Abiy was in his first year of office when he received the prize in 2019. And that recalled another controversial prize that was given to former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009 during his first year as president. Can you recount why that choice was controversial at the time and continued to be afterwards?

KT:  Yeah, because also Obama had only been in office for about one month before the nomination period was closed. And it was way too premature. And the prize to Obama again, reflects possibly the political positioning of the Nobel committee and its members.  The fact that we saw many in Norway looked upon Obama as countering, so to say, representing the U.S. we want to see. The Democratic, the social oriented, young, aspiring, even Black politician, countering some of the Republican sentiments, which doesn't really play well in Norwegian political discourse.  And, uh, it was premature in a way that, uh, Obama later on in his presidency undertook several controversial conflict engagements. He's a ramping up of the drone warfare for instance, which took place under Obama's presidency. So, it was later on a lot to criticize about his international peace engagement and wasn't that rosy and positive as the Nobel committee wanted it to be. 

AA: Can you recount some of the other prize recipients that were controversial either at the time that they were given the prize or afterwards when it came out that maybe they weren't working for peace, as much as the prize committee hoped they would.

KT: Well, the most controversial one which have been discussed also more recently was the prize to Aung San Suu Kyi from Myanmar. When the prize was given, it was not that much controversial, she had been in house arrest for years and years, representing the civil opposition to the military junta in Myanmar. But later on when she was released and became part of the government and head of the government, her government undertook or continued what has been termed then as a genocidal campaign against the Rohynga people of Myanmar, this small minority. And in that regard, that is the first time when that took place and again, when international criticism was directed towards the committee for keeping quiet on the atrocities undertaken by a former laureate. They were forced to come out and comment upon that in public.
But there have been a number of controversial prizes, for instance, the prize to the European Union which was given not that many years ago, in Norway that created a lot of negative reaction because Norway is the only country in Europe, which have voted twice, no, to join the European Union. But at the same time, the argument from the committee was that the establishment of the European Union has kept Europe at peace for several decades and hence the European Union should also be viewed as a peace enforcing community.

In the European context, there are also controversial prizes to middle Eastern politicians, the head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, PLO, for instance, in his endeavor together with the Israeli prime ministers to create the peace in Palestine-Israel. Laureates in, during the Vietnam War for instance were controversial.

So there are a number of the prizes which have created reactions given based on context of war and so-called peace processes. But there are different categories. What is interesting to see is that the committee over the last couple of decades has moved away from the more classic awarding of a peace process or engagement to broadening the definition of what the prize is about or what peace is about. Climate and environmental politics have been awarded. More general freedom of expression and human rights concerns have been awarded. So it is a watering out all the more stricter definition of a peace process or disarmament, as the testament of Nobel wanted the prize to be granted on.

AA: Right. Yeah. The 2021 recipients were both journalists and some critics said, well, yeah, certainly freedom of the press is important, but didn't Alfred Nobel create this prize to give to leaders who are working towards disarmament. And what does journalism have to do with that, right? That it's kind of expanded well beyond the initial scope of the prize.

Many of the picks are aspirational. These are people often handed the prize for what they hope to accomplish or what they've talked about, being able to accomplish, or having taken early steps towards peace. But isn't that a good thing? I mean, shouldn't we be trying to get people to work towards peace early on in the process and not only give it in retrospect, I mean, maybe that's one of the powerful things about the Nobel Peace Prize is that I can have a positive impact in the way.

KT: Certainly so, and the committee is very clear on that. That are kind of two different reasonings for granting the prize. One is for kind of accomplishes well done in the past or for an organization who all these do good work, like the 2020 prize to the world food program of the UN, for instance.  No one can dispute that they are in general doing good work and their objectives are well. And that's a safe kind of prize to give.

But then the committee also says that they want to use the prize as an encouragement to continue a peace process or to encourage the parties in the conflict to come together to create peace, which is a much more forward-looking and much more politicized motivation for a prize. On those occasions, we also see that those prizes have been most discussed. And have also faced the strongest criticism when the peace process has faltered and failed. So it is a dilemma obviously of the committee to constantly keep the prize relevant in today's context.

It's a very old prize. It has been given out for 120 years, so it has to renew itself and it has to make itself relevant in every year. So it is a dilemma then on how bold should the committee be and how contemporary, how current should the prize be in order to draw attention to a conflict context or to a particular topic they feel is relevant to the prize itself.

AA: We've talked about some of the controversial, uh, recipients are there, um, overwhelmingly positive recipients, people that have won the prize that you think there's no question that they should have received that prize?

KT:  In my view that are a lot of laureates which are not controversial, but that, you know, that’s because of my political standing. A laureate, I would say, deserved the prize who someone else might say wouldn't, you know, shouldn't get the prize. So I don't know, for instance, Jimmy Carter, your own former president in the U.S.  He received the prize in 2002.  In many Norwegians’ eyes, Jimmy Carter is a true genuine character who works for the betterment of all people, within many sectors of society and the Jimmy Carter Center does tremendous good work in various conflict contexts and peace centers. But in the U.S. for instance, the prize to Jimmy Carter will be more controversial than, as seen from Norway or from Europe. So I think this is, um, this that's a difficult thing to say that, that then that laureate is non contested or non-controversial because it all depends on your vantage point and only on your own political context.

AA: Finally, would you say the Nobel Peace Prize has had a mostly positive, negative or neutral impact in promoting peacemaking around the world? 

KT: I would certainly say it has a, I hope at least, it has had a positive impact. It is a very, very important prize as it puts focus on an important topic in general, and also on specific issues or areas of concern we all should be working two words to, to elevate, so to say, be that a conflict context or a freedom of expression or a human rights concern in general. It is a positive prize and I think the committee should be praised for continuously making it relevant.  Although I can disagree with some of its decisions, the overall work they do is diligent and thorough, and they are trying to balance many concerns in that whole process. The thing I wanted to see is, again, reflecting upon the very narrow representation in the committee, all being Norwegians, all coming from the same social strata, all having more or less the same educational background and the same worldview, I would have recommended a much more internationalized committee where you can bring in different perspectives from different cultural and political contexts into the committee, which might have balanced more some of the discussions and some of the laureates being awarded.

Avishay Artsy talks with Comfort Ero -  President and CEO of International Crisis Group

Comfort Ero: There's a lot of controversy around peace prizes, especially if they don't deliver peace. I think a number of people have become despondent, for example, with things like the Nobel Peace Prize, ones that are tied to specific political leaders. I mean, there's nothing inherently wrong with the idea.

I would argue that peace prizes, for me, are far more about the giver than the recipient, including the Nobel Peace Prize. And that's problematic for numerous reasons. I wouldn't necessarily focus on the Nobel Peace Prize.

It's one amongst many. It's the one right at the top of the podium, but these awards, these prizes, venerate people for what they've done or what they stand for, or what it is that the givers hope for these personalities will do, but that ends up giving recipients a platform that they may not be well equipped to use in the right way.  Especially if those prizes are given to politicians. Politicians, for example, are still politicians with all the compromise and the inconsistency that that entails. Icons may become politicians. People may have laudable principles on some issues, but not on others. Or those principles may turn out to have been instrumental rather than deeply held.  And some people who have contributed greatly to resolve in a specific conflict may have little to contribute on others. 

Avishay Artsy: We've seen well-documented examples of militaristic actions by such prize recipients as Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed and Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi. And I think it shows us also that peace may be achieved in the short term, but it's more difficult to maintain peace in the long-term. Why is that?

CE: I think we also have to understand the context with each of these particular awards… Perhaps the best way to answer this question is that these prizes can be dangerous to make icons of politicians. And also that they come in with a lot of high expectations and often struggle to balance the various imperatives and the various compromises, and also having to deal with the competing interests of others who may have a different worldview from them.

And certainly, that's the case in Ethiopia. Prime minister Ahmed, he came in on a great wind of hope to transform the country. You know, he came in on the assumption that he would bring about ethnic harmony, that he will bring out liberal reforms, freedom of expression.

The Nobel Peace Prize that he was given was for a peace still in reconciliation, between Ethiopia and Eritrea who had both been involved in a very dangerous war. But the, the irony of that was that one of the bigger forces in the country, The Tigrayans people's liberation front and the Tigray itself.

They saw this peace prize suspiciously, and they viewed it less as a peace prize, but more as a war pact between Asayas who was seeking to hem them in. They were the ruling party. There's a national sense in which to sideline the TPLF for their legacy in the country.

And then you had on the other side the Eritreans, who were also seen as the enemy against the TPLF. And so the Tigrayans themselves viewed the Nobel Peace Prize as the first step for awarding a peace still that they felt, or they view suspiciously, as being the architect of the war that we are seeing today in the country. They also felt that it emboldened Prime Minister Asayas in a way that led to sort of increased tensions in the country.  That led to a dangerous destabilization in the country and they felt that it gave recognition or conferred legitimacy on what they thought was a sort of a slow bent towards authoritarianism. 

AA: So do you think in that case, the Nobel Peace Prize in fact did more harm than good in the situation in Ethiopia?

CE: The slow train towards war would have happened regardless of the peace prize. One may want to argue that there may have been international naivety on those who conferred the peace prize on him, assuming that it would change Prime Minister Abiy's character and rule.

He climbed very quickly. He showed great ambition. He learnt the skills that we see of him today within the context of the political structure that he was born into and that he worked in, which was a very authoritarian coalition. And he learned his skills there. He also came within the context of violence, breakdown of the system, of the political system. And if he was a Democrat, he at the same time formed close relationships with one of the world's most autocratic leaders, Assayas of Eritrea.

So there are question marks as to whether it was appropriate to give him the peace prize, because all the ingredients that things were not going in the right direction were there. But we also know that peace prizes are awarded in an aspirational way, that you will be able to project a more peaceful compromise, reconciliatory, forward-looking approach. And at the time we already saw indications that that would not be the case with Prime Minister Abiy.

AA: I'm looking at the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 and its recipients were both journalists, Maria Ressa and Dimitri Marotta, from the Philippines and Russia, respectively. Can you talk about how you view freedom of the press as a precondition for democracy and lasting peace? 

CE: Of the key indicators that one looks for to see that the country's moving towards instability, repression, or that it's moving towards authoritarian trend, it is that issue about the freedom of the press, the freedom of expression and the closing of the political space.

This for me already raises the alarm bells as well when a country seeks to control the narrative as well. It already sends a dangerous signal. Also, how far can you control the narrative? There are still other ways in which societies can get their message out.  And the fact that the Nobel Peace Prize was given to two journalists who fought in the name of the freedom of expression, um, who fought in defense of journalistic freedom. For me, that already sends out an important message to all leaders that seek to repress, that seek to curtail and often time, um, arrests people for freedom of expression.

This for me sends out an important signal, that you can attempt to squash, you can attempt to silence, but we will still be able to get the truth out, still be able to get the facts out and still be able to do our work in different ways…

AA:  Dr. Ero, I've seen calls for the Ukrainians to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize or Volodymyr Zelensky. Is there someone that you wish would receive the Nobel Peace Prize? 

CE: Oh, I mean, if you can award civilians, women, children, these are people who are caught in a crossfire of geopolitical artillery. If you can award them then for me, that would speak volumes. These are the people who are caught in the dangers of very high, intense, violence. You know, how do you support them in the pursuit of peace.  Many innocent people die as a result. And, the peace prize needs to highlight the human cost and the sacrifice, you know, for countless people and not just in Ukraine, it's global. It's many civilians finding ways in which to supply food and medicine, finding ways in which to harbor people fleeing from the front lines.  Those are the people that we need to recognize. I don't know that the peace prize is enough to do that. I think finding a way in which to end wars is going to be the key to helping us doing that.

AA: The international crisis group, which you now lead, um, has a mission of preventing wars and ending deadly conflict by offering analysis recommendations and advocacy. And the mission statement includes that the crisis group sounds the alarm to prevent deadly conflict.  But does the world listen when that alarm sounded?  The ICG warned that the Tigray war was coming, but diplomats and the media doubted it. So even when you can see the likelihood of war coming, how do you convince people of something that they're not willing to see? 

CE: So two things. Prime Minister Abiy arrived at a time where the horn had gone through tremendous turbulence and here was a young dynamic leader from a pivotal important country in the most strategically important parts of Africa who was speaking a tremendous language of change and transformation. He was brought in on a wave of youthful, sort of revolutionary, bloodless, it was a bloodless transformation, and his predecessor stood down himself.

So I think we should also recognize Haile Merriam's role in this. So, and what a company that was just a long honeymoon period. Um, and because he represented you know, everything in a sense that the international community was looking for, or was hoping for, in trying to bring stability to the region. You had Sudan and Omar al-Bashir. You also had South Sudan, the newest country on the continent that was facing its own turbulence after years of civil war. So that's one issue. Now on the other issue that you raised, which I think is a personal one, one of the big challenges for Crisis Group, and that we've noticed and we continue to raise is that gap between early warning and then early action as well.

We've always said that we've got to find a way in which to seize the moment, that wars can be prevented. They can be mitigated early. Now if there's a clearly crafted political and diplomatic engagement as well. And oftentimes that has become more difficult, because we live in an increasingly polarized international community where regional geo-political rivalries have weakened diplomacy. We're seeing it today, for example, in relation to Ukraine. We saw it in the past, in relation to Syria. And we see it ongoing today in relation to the South China Sea.

So we do need to find, and we still need to find a way in which to carefully weave a framework of diplomacy and create, continue to create, that political space for crisis management, to avert or mitigate looming conflicts as well. But the challenge really is between that the early warning and the significant early warning, and then getting the appropriate early action to avoid the Ukraines, to avoid the Syrias, to avoid what we're seeing right now, playing out in the international arena.

It's true that it's a struggle to focus on conflict prevention. It's true that there's a lot of focus instead on the symptoms, as opposed to the cause. But it's also true that there are good examples when conflict prevention or preventive diplomacy is given a chance, that you can get the right results as well.

AA: You just spoke of the importance of preventive diplomacy. Anne Applebaum recently wrote in the Atlantic that “the new breed of autocrats, whether in Russia, China, Venezuela, or Iran, aren't interested in treaties and documents. They only respect hard power.” So in such cases, are the old rules of diplomacy still useful, or do you need to focus on economic tools like freezing bank accounts or cutting off gas exports, things like that?

CE: Well, I mean, right now we're talking in the context where we've seen the most maximalist of sanction has been imposed, for example, on Russia, on Putin specifically, in relation to Ukraine. So, this is war by other means in a sense as well. This is a rare moment in international relations in terms of interstate conflicts as well.

I agree with Anne Applebaum’s own assertions. In a sense this isn't the age of autocracy, but it's not new, right. We've dealt with previous authoritarian leaders. What is often interesting is that those authoritarian leaders also want to engage in these international platforms. So while they may criticize multilateralism.

While they may criticize all these processes. They also continue to engage in these processes and use them to assert their own position, to justify their own position, or to put their case forward. We saw it, for example, with the Russian permanent representative in the UN, in the Security Council, how they use that chamber to articulate the position, but also to find allies in their company as well.

So… I think one of the significant developments also that has emerged out of Ukraine. It's just the rapid unity that we're seeing… So there've been some developments in a sense that the world or large parts of the world have become unified because of the horror and of the brazenness in which, you know, Moscow, um, has rolled his tanks, um, to the borders and, and into parts of Ukraine that itself has generated, um, a level of, of defiance in reaction to that as well. And who knows what's going to happen next, but I don't think we should ignore. Um, this important moment that we've also managed to, to achieve some degree of sort of unity or, or consensus about what this means. 

AA: As we speak, the world's attention is focused on Ukraine, but we all know that some words get more attention than others. You know, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has captured the West’s attention in a way that other recent wars like those in Yemen or Ethiopia simply haven't. So why is that in your view? And is there a way to change that? 

CE: I mean you're right. I mean, exactly. And this is one of the reasons I think you also had some countries who abstained instead, or struck a more neutral tune, instead in relation to Ukraine, because there was that concern of double standards. There was that concern also that, because this is, this was, a European conflict that it somehow mattered more. I mean, I think Crisis Group has been very clear that the reason why Crisis Group exists is to continue to throw the spotlight on those forgotten.

Those unknown conflicts, those countries that may appear to lack the same strategic importance as the Ukraine. So for example, you're right to mention Yemen, no Yemen's war faded from the headlines, for example, in 2021, but you know, it remains devastating and it could get worse this year. The same with Ethiopia. But the reality also is that there's a limit to what diplomats can absorb. There are so many files, for example, on the desk of the United Nations security council. And what we've seen is that oftentimes there's a limited capacity to what a lot of the world leaders kind of absorb.

And our job is to continue to throw a spotlight, to warn, and to make sure that we don't lose sight of these crises… 

AA: If I could ask maybe a more personal question about your interest in this topic. Dr. Ero, you were born in London and raised in post-civil war Nigeria, and you've been working in the field of conflict resolution your whole career. Uh, you were appointed crisis group’s president and CEO in December 2021.   So you believe that peace is possible, that conflicts can be resolved. Are you still as certain of that as you were when you began your career and what keeps you working towards that goal? 

CE: Oh, I absolutely believe that. That's why I came to Crisis Group, because I do see opportunities for peace.  I mean, our mission, our byline, “preventing war shaping piece,” I fundamentally believe that. It's always about finding the right moment, um, in which to, you know, not only just sound the alarm, uh, but to knit together very carefully policy messages.
Um, that aims to sort of nudge international opinion… It takes time, it requires you to be patient, it requires you to be very strategic. It requires you to talk to all sorts of people. Some people that you do not want to talk to, it requires you to mobilize various actors. Political, media, other activists, to not only warn early but to take action.

And even once crisis has broken out as well is continuing to look for ways in which to keep the door to diplomacy open. And I fundamentally believe in that. If we didn't, Crisis Group wouldn’t exist and despite the horrors of today, and despite what we see in the headlines, for example, in relation to Ukraine, we can point to other places.

I mean, look at Columbia and the peace deal that we struck there in 2016 with the FARC. Look at Liberia, where I had my very first peacekeeping mission, in Liberia. Look at Sierra Leone. These are countries that at the time were knee deep in civil war and crisis.

So there are opportunities, and we exist to find those opportunities. And I think it's an important mission that we've got at Crisis Group… 

AA: I'd like to ask you a question about climate change, because as we look around the world and we see these wars raging across the globe, there's this looming threat of a climate crisis that is threatening an extinction level event.  Can you fight against war and climate change at the same time? Do you need peace in order to unite global powers against a threat? 

CE: Yeah, for me, of all the, of all the crises that we face, of all the terrible human toll, the displacement, the bleakness of the world, I think the most significant one for me is the climate change.

I see that as the mega trend alongside with, uh, with a pandemic as well… I mean, it's still hard to say what the direct link is between, for example, climate change and conflict, but we do see the immediate impact. So the most destabilizing impact, for example, will be the impact of population movement over the next five to 10 years… And the reason why Crisis Group now has inserted climate change into its own conflicts to watch is because we see the relationship between water scarcity, resource competition, and political instability, how climate change is impacting that.

And they are also impacting climate change as well. So we've taken on this work because it's an existential crisis…

AA: In addition to the traditional risks that ICG looks at there are also these emerging risks, like cyber or remote warfare, food insecurity or public health, as they relate to conflict dynamics. What are the risks that we're not thinking enough about?

CE: When I first started at Crisis Group and I look at the things that I needed to think about, today we don't have the luxury of not paying attention to these issues, you know, you've talked about climate change.

The other issue that I think that we need to look at is digital technology, you know, seeing the role of Facebook, of Twitter, of WhatsApp, these are already sort of defining and redefining the conflict landscape. We've seen the net effect of how new technologies or new technological advancement in warfare is enhancing or changing or impacting battlefield dynamics.
So we saw how the use of drones when they were inserted into Nagorno-Karabakh for example, or Ethiopia, or even in Libya, how that altered battlefield dynamics. So we've seen how these various new innovations can sort of enable or foment unrest.

They can be used increasingly, and we do see them used by leaders to suppress dissent, to wage war, and we've also seen how they're creating new security challenges. We have to pay attention to these because they alter the dynamics of conflict.
And they also further polarize already polarized societies as well, especially in terms of social media. I mean, we have the traditional use of radio. For example, we saw how that was misused in the context of the Rwandan genocide, for example, or even in the post-election violence in Kenya, how hate speech, and how the radio became the oracle.

For spouting out some very polarizing language. So it's not that it's new, but in terms of the future of conflict, we really have to be paying more and more attention increasingly to how these new weapons contribute to waging war and suppressing dissent and causing and fueling more instability.