Peace Institute of the Rockies Mission and Programs

by Carole Fotino

Related articles:
Strategic Decision Making Program
Institutionalized, Inclusive Grievance Pathways (IIGPs)
Costing Latent Conflict
Soldiers Against War

The Peace Institute of the Rockies works on the front end of peace.

We work to alter the way that nations interact, to generate sustainable development and to create grievance pathways at all levels because, those three things together equals peace. Few organizations work on the “front end” of peace, strengthening the social institutions that create alternatives to violence. It was killing me though, scenes like Darfur – each little hand, each little face. Helping one at a time was bailing a precious, sinking canoe with an eyedropper, it never stopped refilling. What we will need for our planet’s valuable cargo is stronger canoes because in the time it takes to build one school or help one orphan, a single foreign policy decision made from an erroneous premise can create 60,000 new orphans or refugees.

The Three Ingredients

So we need three things. We need to make foreign policy decisions differently, from a different premise and one that includes more of the actual costs, leading to an alteration in the way nations interact. We need sustainable development which, to be sustainable includes closing the wealth gap and increasing wealth spreading while decreasing the non-sustainable development result of wealth pooling. And we need to create pathways for grievances at all levels – institutionalized, inclusive grievance pathways – in order to have a peaceful, nonviolent way to hear and resolve grievances. After all, how can we hope for peace before we have a way to get it, to get nonviolent change?

A Different Premise

At The Peace Institute, we work with U.S. decision makers, increasing the accuracy of cost/benefit data used in foreign policy selection by including longterm “latent conflict” costs (please see attached.) The State Department is already a fan of this program that needs to be fully developed, saying it comes, importantly, from different assumptions outside the status quo, from a different premise about the way that nations interact which differs from the premise that has generated the less than maximally successful outcomes they have witnessed. We also are talking with them about altering the guidelines at the State Department that have self-interest defined erroneously in terms denying the realities of mutual self-interest.

Starting with a different premise, and including more of the costs, leads to decisions made differently and to an alteration in the way that nations interact.

Our work has been presented at The Hague as promising new work, has been nominated for the Breakthrough Award and is seen by a leading U.S. foreign policy academician as having “quite dramatic possibilities.”

If you are interested in supporting any of these programs that are enough different to make a difference, contact www.pirm.org for more information.

Sustainable Wealth Spreading & Grievance Pathways

In addition to the Costing Latent Conflict – Strategic Decision Making program mentioned above, The Peace Institute of the Rockies also does original work on the following front end subtopics of the three categories integral to peace.

Again, the three categories that must interweave to create peace are:

1. New foreign policy decision making premise and cost data
2. Sustainable development including wealth gap closures,
   (this could be called Sustainable Wealth Spreading,) and
3. Institutionalized, Inclusive Grievance Pathways at all levels

The subtopic programs under these headings are:

• Terrorism: Co-optability Reduction & Human Security,
• Grievance Pathways – Alternative to Autonomy?
  Sri Lanka, Basques, Palestinians, W. Sahara, Chechnya, E.Timor, Ogaden Nation
• Soldiers Against War - SAW
• International Law & Supranational Authority vs Regionalism or Hegemony,
• 192 + 1 The Project to Challenge Unilateralism
• Non-Violent Movements,
• Transitional Economies & Conflict, and Peace & the Extractive Sector,
• Post-Conflict Conditions as Predictive Indicator of Future Violence,
• Spoilers – Groups vested in the status quo
• Mindful Conflict – Ridding negotiations of Negative Attribution, Value Judgment, & Narrative Build Up

Read More...

Summary only...

S.A.W.: Soldiers Against War

by Carole Fotino

Previous related articles:
Strategic Decision Making Program
Institutionalized, Inclusive Grievance Pathways (IIGPs)
Costing Latent Conflict

This program, so named because their reason for seeking less costly means for conflict resolution stems from what they have seen, has expanded from its original vision to include a reintegration facility for U.S. military personnel recently returning from Iraq in addition to the campaign of last resort collection of signatures.

Reintegration

According to the vision of the reintegration portion of this program, returning military personnel will, with their immediate family members – spouses and children – be given a two year space in a large facility in a rural, Colorado setting. Organic work in raising food for the facility’s residents and the presence of professional support will aid these families in easing the transition of the first two years. Among the professionals present or visiting regularly will be an MD, a psychiatrist, physical and occupational therapists and massage therapists. The perspective change that accompanies international travel and occurs even in the absence of war but is exacerbated when intertwined with it, is another challenge these families face – the returning family member has been changed by this new perspective and new roles and often traditions, need to be found and adjusted. Additionally, it is believed that by removing the burdens of meeting house payments, relocations, job searches and isolation, the young families are given the support and environment to make a healthy, supported return to civilian life.

Campaign of Last Resort

In the signature gathering portion of this program defining war as a campaign of last resort only, it is inherent in the statement that diplomacy is not enough. We know that the presence of Grievance Pathways* increases the relative cost of violence decreasing the likelihood of its usage. Efforts in this direction therefore, are intended by the verbiage. Decreased consumption and enhancement of renewable energy sources also allow violence to be a true last resort campaign.

*please see Institutionalized, Inclusive Grievance Pathways (IIGPs), an interrelated program of PIRM.

Read More...

Summary only...

Costing Latent Conflict

by Carole Fotino

Previous related articles:
Strategic Decision Making Program
Institutionalized, Inclusive Grievance Pathways (IIGPs)

Putting a number, a cost, to latent conflict over 1,5,10, and 20 year time frames and then including those numbers in the cost/ benefit analyses of today's decision making will help us to be able to readily see the option choice that actually is most profitable — monetarily or in security — versus the options that only appear profitable because real costs are not accurately modeled and represented.

Latent Conflict as a phenomenon is currently overlooked in setting policy, and in studies of security and international relations. Latent conflict can be created by policy implementation, by corporations, and in other ways. Once created, it can also become mechanized by the overlay of a second set of actions. Another turn the latent conflict can take once created, is that it can then be too easily co-opted by those with their own agendas, in the enlistment of footsoldiers for their, often violent, purposes.

Once the latent conflict becomes mechanized through policy or through co-option, the responses that follow include both war and terrorism. The decrease in security and profitability however, does not wait for the response nor is it dependent upon the type of response. The decrease in security and profitability occurred at the time of the original latent conflict. If there is a second set of actions or co-option occurring, the insecurity grows and again, does so simultaneously with the action and not with the response to the action.

In the private sector, results occur similarly and from the same phenomenon, but private sector examples and costs are addressed in the separate paper carrying the subtitle, Corporate Diplomacy and Establishing Norms of International Behavior.

The term latent conflict is not new to conflict scholars. However a definition of such is absent form the literature. A solid perusal of the work available to date turns up in fact, only a single article. What is new then is its usage as applied herein by this work. What is latent conflict then? Is it, as some have suggested, sort of a social license or to be resolved with stakeholder engagement? Is latent conflict, as others suggest, more akin to the term "root causes" of conflict? How do decisions made from incomplete models and world views create it? And how does it cost us money? The best way to address these questions may be through example so we will offer our definition to be then followed with category sub-headings and examples.

Latent Conflict as discussed here is defined as the existence of divergences, either real or perceived, which have not yet reached a level of cost at which motivation to attempt to remove perceived divergences is triggered.

Among other things, this means that window dressing won't cut it. Where there are real losses from one's actions, latent conflict exists. Actions that appear to be in our self-interest despite the negative impact on others and their social groups, are, because of latent conflict, not as much in our self-interest as they would appear to be.

The three categories are:

1. Deprivations — absence of minimums

2. Dissatisfactions — procedural injustices

3. Perceptions — including escalation to aggression attribution

Historical & Current Examples: (Discussion to follow in later article)

• Lesser-of-two evils choices
• Colonial Baggage
• Infrastructure systems of the state that don't work well together — primarily in countries formerly colonized by 2 or more countries.
• Hasty Decolonization
• Premature Aid Withdrawal
• Inconsistent Aid Criteria
• Self-Interest defined narrowly — and in such a way that our most greatly self-interested options, those most profitable and most security enhancing — are unavailable to us.

Read More...

Summary only...

Institutionalized, Inclusive Grievance Pathways (IIGPs)

by Carole Fotino

Today’s violence is the result of those experiencing real and relative deprivations examining the costs and the benefits of each of their options toward resolving the situation and discovering that the least costly is violence – in the form of either war or terrorism determined by the size and reach of the “foe.” These decision makers are rational. They are weighing their costs and their benefits and they are making choices that make sense.

Relative Expense

They make sense because less costly alternative means for restoring balance are absent. When there are in place at all levels, non-violent and inclusive pathways for resolving grievances, accessible by those experiencing deprivations of all varieties, the cost of using these pathways will be less than the costs involved in the current, violent pathway – often the sole available pathway to change. By increasing the relative cost of violence, we decrease the likelihood of its usage.

Autonomy

The Peace Institute is making an extensive examination of autonomy movements around the world. Preliminary data suggests that what is really sought after in these situations is freedom from oppression, and voice – inclusive participation in representative systems. Interests that can be better gained without autonomy through IIGPs.

Initiatives

This program includes the dual components of institutional work. While doing the innovative, original and comprehensive research into the pathways, autonomy, and related subjects, we also move forward with active programming of initiatives to implement IIGPs around the world.

For more information, see the Peace Institute of the Rockies web site.

Read More...

Summary only...

Strategic Decision Making Program

by Carole Fotino

Carole Fotino is director of the Institute for Decision Making & The Peace Institute of the Rockies. She met with the US State Department in Washington DC in April, and as a result they are planning to include the Secretary's Policy Planning in the organization's forward movement in a way that is yet to be determined. Secretary's Policy Planning is the group working with US Secretary of State The Honorable Condoleezza Rice to create the foreign policy decisions of her office.

The Strategic Decision Making Program - a.k.a. "Costing Latent Conflict" - is a simple idea really. Events that appear unrelated through time or space (partitioning and future genocides are an example) are actually organically connected, that connection we label as Latent Conflict and the costs of the second event need to be included in the decision making process (through the cost/benefit analysis) prior to the first event. It's not unlike the beginning of the environmental movement in which the costs of later environmental status need to be included in the processes that created it. Though it is a simple idea, two simple and connected ideas really, it is often not perceived as so by those with whom I speak! To me it seems almost commonsensical and like something that should have occurred to us many decades ago but, is really rather cutting edge in the world instead.

By the way, Organizationally, I represent the Inst. for Strategic Decision Making when I'm in DC and with corporations (the two target audiences for this program) because that's more akin to the lingo they understand. It is however a Doing-Business-As name for the Peace Institute and it and the program that goes with it are only one of 8 programs with innovative approaches to the establishment of peace. What we say is that the Peace Institute develops and strengthens the social institutions that will allow for the non-violent resolution of conflicts internal to and between nations. Terrorism, IIGPs (Institutionalized, Inclusive, Grievance Pathways at all levels,) and S.A.W. (Soldiers Against War) are three of the other programs we have as well. Descriptions of the other related programs will be described in separate postings to this blog; they may help to clarify the situation further.

The ideas (Costing Latent Conflict) have been nominated for a Breakthrough award and, I'm told, a possible fellowship.

(Anyone interested in assisting with this effort should contact the web administrator who will inform Carole so that she may contact them.)

Read More...

Summary only...