International River and Regional Security
Abstract
The impact of international rivers is a major factor in regional security. Because of the international and shared attributes, international rivers can become a fuse of regional crisis or become the bridge of general cooperation between nations and maintain stability of the watershed region effectively. Scholars at home and abroad mainly focused on the discussion of international rivers as a trigger of regional conflict. And the view point that international rivers may play a positive role in regional security is relative obscure. The author intends to study international rivers from a geopolitical perspective and argue the view that international rivers can be a positive role in regional security theoretically.This point of view is reinforced by the theoretical analysis combing with the two river case study.
Basing the concept of international rivers as logical starting point, the author discusses the relations of the international rivers and regional security at the beginning of this paper. The country's geographical significance is greatly influenced by its location in the same international river basins. It causes inequality of geo-political status. The geo-political status has a direct impact on the country's foreign policy. Then it affects the country’s role and the function in the basin region. All this could change the geo-political landscape in the interactions among the states and influence security by negative or positive impact. Although it is more convenient in theory to demonstrate the competitive usage among the basin states leading to turmoil in the region (often been quoted, Jordan River case) .It is not the case judging from the practice of international rivers in the whole world. Cooperation events of international rivers were much more than events of international river conflicts. International rivers is not just only a cause of conflicts, it is also a bridge leading to cooperation.
In order to demonstrate convincingly, this paper selects one of the three major river systems in the Middle East, the Tigris and Euphrates (Two Rivers as the text referred) as an example to illustrate the river’s positive role of regional security in the international river basins. The three river systems (Two River basin, Nile River basin, Jordan River basin) are often used by scholars to emphases that river triggering regional conflicts. Turkey, Syria and Iraq are the three major basin countries in Mesopotamia. Upstream state Turkey is a secular country. It is the strongest in the basin and is Israel's only ally in the Middle East. Syria and Iraq are the Arab countries in the middle and lower reaches of the basin. Syria is the protagonist and the Arab forefront of the fighting Israelit. But during or after the Cold War, once at the forefront of US-Soviet confrontation, remained relatively peaceful among themselves in the volatile situation in the Middle East region. The impact of Two Rivers may contribute to this.
To Turkey, Syria and Iraq, the Two Rivers is of great significance. It is the cradle of Iraq’s ancient civilization and mainstay of its economy. Syrian’s agricultural development depends much more on Two Rivers. Two Rivers is also an important source of energy in Turkey. The three countries in Mesopotamia form different geo-political status in the region. They adopt different policy over two rivers based on their national interest. In search for the development and utilization of Two Rivers, these three countries played a lengthy three -parts game and produced a large number of relevant interactions. It is these interactions between the three countries that helped overcome numerous contradictions, bucket but not broken, forming a delicate balance.
To seek practible international river cooperation is not limited to the Mesopotamia region. To cooperate on international rivers to promote the regional security among basin states has become a consensus. Countries’ cooperation in international river basin not help resolve the dispute, it could further promote the all-round cooperation. The cooperation on international rivers has become one of the platforms to achieve regional security. At present, the international river basins’ regional cooperation has become key areas of regional economic cooperation, cross-border environmental conservation and management. Though there are still some difficulties in international rivers’ cooperation such as the International Water Law has no binding effect, each river has its own unique system, and so on; we should take certain measures to solve it in the future. These measures include strengthening exchanges and dialogue between the countries, making bilateral or multilateral treaties, complying with international treaties in order to increase the mutual trust between the basin countries and the establishment of regional or sub-regional cooperation mechanisms.
In the field of theoretical discussion on relationship between international rivers and regional security, present works mainly focus on the view that international rivers leading to regional conflict. However, all the given cases (such as the Arab border river, the Jordan River) to demonstrate this theory has a unique historical background. This leads to certain deficiencies of theoretical conclusion. The analysis of the Two Rivers cases may help to have a brighter understanding of cooperative security after the cold war.The statistical data of international rivers which Professor Wolf and his team had list, also demonstrated that the basin countries have done their best to conduct cooperation in the basin region. All this shows that the international rivers could help create cooperation. It is a positive factor in promoting regional security especially after the cold war.
Keywords: International Rivers; Regional Security; Cooperation