David Kennedy's Rankings

I thought it was extremely interessting to hear Professor Kennedy's justifications for his threat rankings in the Global Security Matrix. As we were going through the exercise again, I realized that I did not have a terribley good understanding on who the actors in the global system were and what their specific functions were when I made my initial rankings. I thought it was clever of him to average the rankings that he proposed for each actor and individual threat in the Matrix, depending upon the circumstances of the actor involved. For instance, when he ranked States at Risk he first looked at individuals in the United States, giving them a low ranking of a 6 or 7, and then individuals in a failed state to which he gave a ranking of a 1 or 2. By averaging these two values together, he was able to come up with a more appropriate threat ranking somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. When I did my rankings I was not anywhere near as objective as Professor Kennedy, and basically concluded threats based on my own personal experiences. If I had looked at the world as a whole, not just at the United States and my life as a New Yorker, I think my threat rankings would have been much less severe.
As Professor Kennedy went through the exercise he explained thoroughly why he chose each particular numerical ranking. For individuals his accessment of threats was particularly low, except in the instance of Resource Conflict. He insisted that Resource Conflict is ever present on the minds of individuals in the system and that it fuels many interactions throughout the system. I also thought it was particularly funny when he refused to acknowledge that there really was a system of states, although I do not agree with him. I also do not agree with his position on terrorism which is quite clear from my rankings. Although, after realizing the correct process for ranking threats in class, I realized I may have ranked this threat too high, Professor Kennedy gave it a ranking of a 7 or 8, implying that terrorism is not on anyone's mind. Terrorism in the sense of being blown up at any moment might not be a reality for every individual in the international system, but due to the large extent to which the media floods its outlets with footage on terrorist activities around the world, I find it hard to believe that people never think about terrorism and consider it a threat. It was also very interessting that Professor Kennedy did not seem to acknowledge the possibility of Info War being a threat to anyone in the International Sytem. I disagree with this strongly and think that the media is an important force in determining policy, distributing propoganda and in raising fear throughout the international community for both individuals and states.
It was clear from Professor Kennedy's assessment of threats in the matrix that he understands the different actors in the system better than I am able to. From the matrix, we can conclude that he believes warfare, the environment, and resource conflict pose the greatest threat to actors in the international system. He argued that Networks were hardly affected by any of these threats to the system. In fact, for most he exclaimed that Networks would be able to thrive off of the chaos produced by these threats, making them better off and inspiring them to hope for future problems with the environment, info war, states at risk, and pandemics. He insisted that these threats provide Networks with a purpose in the international system. He also said that WMD Proliferation did not pose a threat to the global system, but I disagree with this simply because if all WMD states exploded their weapons most of the natural resources and the makeup of the globe would be altered dramatically. I was also suprised by his assessment of warfare as a threat in relation to the system as a whole. Initially, I ranked warfare as very threatening to the system, but Professor Kennedy pointed out that the system depends on warfare to continue. States are constantly fighting and interacting with each other through warfare so therefore warfare is not a threat to the system as a whole. After thinking about warfare under this microscope I would have to change my individual threat ranking to reflect one that is more similar to Professor Kennedy's.
All in all, I thought it was very valuable to hear Professor Kennedy's level-headed approach to ranking threats in the international system. I am obviously a very paranoid person (haha) but Professor Kennedy provided me with a new perspective on international relations that has helped me reassess many of my initial positions on threats to the international system. Thanks Professor Kennedy!

Posted by Allison Wright on October 16, 2006 04:14 PM | Permalink

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