Author Archives: Dr Helene Lavoix (MSc PhD Lond)

The Kurds and Rojava, State-Building in the Syrian War

During the Autumn 2013 and Winter 2014, we witnessed a major reconfiguration of forces in Syria, as seen previously, including with the rise of Salafi-Nationalists. This article looks at the evolution that took place in Western Kurdistan, notably the birth of novel political institutions, Rojava, and how and why the Kurds relate to the Geneva conference that took place in early 2014.Creating RojavaWe recall that on 10 July 2013, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) declared starting making plans to move towards some degree of autonomy for Rojava or the Syrian part of Kurdistan (see for detail 4 Nov 2013 update, 2.1.). News about Rojava and its “project” can be followed on its own website, created in August 2013 and maintained until 2017.The PYD moved forward on 11 November …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 6 February 2014 – The financial system… again

Editorial – The financial system… again – The 23 January Weekly selected the contraction of the Chinese PMI as one of the signals to notice. Impacts of the China PMI drop have been felt notably in Asia, but, at least so far, not so much happened in the rest of the world. Thus, which types of warning could we …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 30 January 2014 – Perceptions and Facts

Editorial – Perceptions and facts – Besides the acceleration of the regionalization and internationalization of the Syrian war and quagmire, besides the futurist use by Erdogan of “hologram to address party members” (imagine a world where such practice would be common), among others, this week presents us with two very interesting instances of the importance …

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Facing the Fog of War in Syria: the Rise of the Salafi-Nationalists?

Since October 2013, much has been going on in Syria. We shall first review major changes in the state of play for the Syrian actors, starting with the Salafi-Nationalist groups, before to re-evaluate our scenarios and their indicators in the light of recent events, notably Geneva 2.As was already underway during September, the various groups opposing the regime of Bashar al-Assad have pursued their reconfiguration, while the relationships and interactions among them have evolved.The Islamic FrontA logical evolutionIf the “Islamic framework” (see update 21 Oct), created on 24 September 2013, was short-lived, as expected by many experts, it was nevertheless an important indication of the changes taking place on the ground, while its very composition foretold the current configuration.To facilitate the …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 23 January 2014 – The power of biases

Editorial – The power of biases: This week strikingly underlines the power of biases and how much beliefs and wishful thinking may overtake our understanding and lead human actions, constraining among other the timeliness of ideas and policies.  First, we have the sudden realization by Davos participants that yes, war between China and Japan is …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 16 January 2014 – Rediscovering Politics?

Editorial – Rediscovering Politics? This week is particularly interesting, especially because of the emergence of new analyses, or rather of the rediscovery of fundamental political dynamics (and, of course, by political I do not mean politician) as fitting perfectly well current and future trends. First, religion on the one hand, science in its high-tech and geo-engineering …

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How to Analyze Future Security Threats (5): Scenarios and Crises

This article is the fifth of a series looking for a methodology that would fulfil the challenging criteria demanded by our time, notably in terms of speed and resources. The previous article focused on how to build scenarios for war.Here we look at scenarios for situations qualified as non-violent crises, taking mainly as example the crisis between China and Japan in the East China Sea over the Diaoyu (China)/Senkaku (Japan) Islands. War or crisis? It is important, first, to note that the words used in political discourses to qualify a situation may create an element of confusion when we think about an issue such as crisis, conflict and war. Actors may have many reasons for using euphemisms rather than factual, …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 9 January 2014 – Contrasts

Editorial – Contrasts – The year starts with interesting contrasts. On the one hand we have more than worrying trends. The Syrian conflict continues spreading as, notably, Iraq seems to be falling back into war – as could be expected from the continuously rising numbers of attacks and death over 2013 (if you have not seen …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 19 December 2013 – Pivot, center and epicenter

Editorial – Pivot, center and epicenter – First of all, let me wish you all a Merry Christmas, and send this wish especially to those who are prey to war and disaster, whatever their faith. This week, the epicenter or the pivot for the turmoil of change seems very much to be located around the …

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How to Analyze Future Security Threats (3): Scenarios as an Organic Living System

This article is the third of a series looking for a methodology that would fulfill the challenging criteria demanded by our time. We shall now focus on scenarios, which are a way to simulate how the actors we defined and described during the previous step interact, not only among themselves but also with their environment, up until the end of the chosen timeframe. Using the precedent post’s game of chess analogy, with scenarios we imagine the various ways the game may “end”.Towards an Operational Methodology to Analyse Future Security Threats and Political Risk (1)Methodology to Analyse Future Security Threats (2): a Game of ChessHow to Analyse Future Security Threats (3): Scenarios as an Organic Living SystemHow to Analyse Future Security Threats (4): Scenarios and …

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