New UK Study Looks At World Threats

The BBC reports on fresh studies from the influential think-tank, the Oxford Research Group, and charity Oxfam. On the same day that Oxfam said the Iraq invasion had "seriously undermined" Britain's reputation, the ORG's latest report said that British and US policy towards Iraq has "spawned new terror in the region" and identified the major threats to world instablity:

Climate change, competition for increasingly scarce resources, marginalisation of the majority of the world's population as socio-economic divisions widen, and the increasing use of military force and the further spread of military technologies were all threats.

[The report] added that the ongoing war on terror and the war in Iraq were increasing the risk of future terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11.

"Treating Iraq as part of the war on terror... created a combat training zone for jihadists," it says.

Lead study author Chris Abbott said: "There is a clear and present danger - an increasingly marginalised majority living in an environmentally constrained world, where military force is more likely to be used to control the consequences of these dangerous divisions.

"Add to this the disastrous effects of climate change, and we are looking at a highly unstable global system by the middle years of the century unless urgent action is taken now."

The report, Beyond Terror: The Truth About the Real Threats to Our World, said any military intervention in Iran would be "disastrous". However, it warned that Iran should not be allowed to develop civil nuclear power.

"This would involve the development of facilities that are potential terrorist targets, as well as encourage the spread of technology and materials that could be used in the development of nuclear weapons," the report said.

It also added that the British government's decision to replace its nuclear submarine system Trident could "substantially encourage" other states to develop nuclear weapons.

The study itself has been published in book form and if the publisher's extract from the introduction is anything to go by is going on my to-do list of reading.