Critique of the Global Security ManifestoSecurity is the guarantee of one's perceived rights, whether it is the right of an individual to seek 'life, liberty and happiness' or a state's right to seek territorial sovereignty. For an individual, first and foremost must exist the right to be free from violence and to have his or her promises and contracts honored. To a large extent, in a functioning state with its judiciary and administration, these rights are honored unconditionally as the state posesses a legal monopology on the employment of violence and a symbiotic relationship with the laws of the land. But as soon as the field broadens to analyse international security, there exists no singular unifying authority to perform or to mediate over the rights of actors in the matter of security. In this 'international anarchy', certain states over history have sought to establish themselves as the singular arbiter of global order - from Rome and China (both of which had encompassed their respective 'known worlds') to the more recent attempts by America to establish and mantain its global superpower status. But by establishing oneself as the supernational arbiter, suddenly one becomes a combined threat to the rest of the world. By establishing security for oneself, one invariably impedes upon that same sense for another. And without an established, respected and legitimate supra-national governing body, there can never be established, effectively, a global concensus on what international security of what should and neccessarily consist of. The security that threatens us today as individuals, states, systems, networks and globally range in terms of scale, intensity and time. To an individual in a wartorn part of the world, a roadside bomb blast represents a very real and immediate threat, which to a superpower in a distant corner of the globe barely makes a news story on its information networks. The immediate threats of today are usually a product of the threats of yesteryear, where unresolved issues have suddenly become pressing exigencies. And a threat not countered today swiftly and deliberately will continue to live on and fester to burden us over again. Terrorism as we know it today from the branding of Al-Qaeda was barely monitored a decade ago. The concept of 'Islamic terrorism' or 'a clash of civilisations' was barely noted - academics like Fukuyama were instead celebrating the 'end of history'. But present events have taught us otherwise. Instead of 9/11 and the successor terror strikes around the world being singular catablysmic events, they have spawned instability, fear and have in many large and subtle ways, altered our way of life from California to New South Wales. The West's often ham-fisted attempts to quell and extinguish subsequent threats have done little to alleviate and address the key concerns of terrorism too. Homeland Security's threat level indicator has barely ever reached a sense of comfort ever since it was established. Terrorism, bluntly, can be classified as the failure of states and their monopolies on violence. Osama bin-Laden's terror network was a result of a conflict between himself and the House of Saud. With the myriad of intra-state conflicts boiling all over the globe, one has to wonder where the next bin-Laden will arise. When states fail their citizen members, when questions arise over their legitimacy, where their failings are laid bear and their inability to adequeately and legitimately govern becomes a source of constentation, that is where resentment and hatred is bred. States at risk are more than just safe havens for terrorism, they breed terrorists and the hate and fear they peddle. Hence, the most pressing concern we need to address is the threat that failing states will continue to pose to not only themselves, but the greater international community around them. More deaths are attributed to malnutrition and disease in at-risk states then by warfare, violence and terrorism. In modern Western states, the standard of living that many of us hold to be essential on a daily basis, exceeds the wildest dreams and the net economic wealth of the world's most disadvantaged. To them, living until the next week is hardly even certain. It is in states like this where volunteers and recruits to powerful demagogues are found - those most easily swayed are the most hungry and the least educated. They see the images of Western excess and see, not wealth or liberty, but deep and unfair inequity. They find in religion not peace and charity, but righteous vengeance and the personification of nemesis. Hate is bred from hunger. The international community must recognise this and understand that the world we live in is wracked by such choices on a daily basis - that either all men are free or none at all. We have to establish basic rights to freedom and understand the normative conditions which we have to place in all as self-evident. Without building for our future, we merely imperil it. Posted by Aaron Wee on September 30, 2006 05:59 PM | Permalink « Critique of Global Security Matrix as well as explanation of Rankings | Main | Critique of the Global Security Manifesto » |
