Critique of the Global Security Manifesto

I think that the manifesto captures in a precise and well thought out way the essence of international society at the beginning of the 21st century.

The manifesto clearly shows how the current globalization expanded the numbers of actors in international society. The world can certainly no longer be understood only in terms of states. New players came on stage and complicated our perception of the threats to international security. Today, the states have to deal with private organizations such as NGOs, or economic actors (like transnational firms) for example. Those actors are quite new on the international level and clearly derive from the current globalization..
But I agree with the manifesto when it claims that the state is not going to disappear. I think that it is important to put the "decline of the state" into perspective. If it is true that the state is more and more in a situation of competition with other actors, it seems to me that it still remains the main actor on the international sphere. For example, it is argued that in Europe, with the development of the European Union, the states are losing their sovereignty. I think that this point of view is wrong because the European states chose to transfer some of their competence to the European Union. The states keep their sovereignty because they still own the "competence of the competence" meaning that if they want to leave the EU, they formally can. Moreover, I think that nationality is still the base of identity. For example, when I introduce myself, I always say that I am French and not European, although I formally have both the French and the European citizenships. Therefore, I think that it is very interesting and accurate for the matrix to provide different levels of actors but I would still consider the state as the main actor of international relations.

I think that the threats presented in the manifesto describe the international society nowadays in a good way. The matrix includes threats that are considered modern such as failed states or infowar. Those two threats would have probably not even been mentioned a couple of decades ago. Infowar is a very interesting threat because not only does it constitute a threat in itself but it also modifies our perception of the other threats as well. Moreover, even the threats that are more traditional such as warfare or pandemics are explained in the manifesto in terms of their impact today. In particular, it is interesting to see how the definition of 'war' has evolved over time. Today, on the one hand, war has a more general meaning than before: while warfare used to describe an organized conflict between two or more states, today it encompasses a wider definition dealing with multiple actors, goals and strategies. On the other hand, the term ‘war’ itself is more and more avoided and international leaders as well as scholars often prefer to talk about ‘conflicts’ or ‘intervention’.
Eventually, I think that the manifesto manages to give a good account of the relations that exist between the different threats presented. Indeed, in sorting out the international threats into eight different categories, the manifesto could have easily been drawn into the trap of dealing with each one of the threats without drawing links between them. But it was interesting to read in the manifesto how the threats reinforce one another. For example, terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are particularly interesting to study together given that the prospect of a terrorist group acquiring WMDs is considered one of the biggest international threats nowadays.

In conclusion, I found the manifesto, as well as the idea of creating a matrix of international threats very interesting and intellectually challenging. I think that, by allowing everyone of us to reflect about the current international threats as well as our own perception of those threats, the matrix can help us acquire a more lucid vision of the world.

Posted by Emeline Lemoine on September 30, 2006 04:38 PM | Permalink

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