GLOBAL SECURITY THREATS
Addressing global security threats will require dialogue between power holders and citizens through new hybrid state-citizen processes.
by Caty Clément
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In terms of global security threats, our focus remains on high powered geo-political competition. Three substantial shifts are underway. First, the current Covid-19 pandemic constitutes an existential- ecological challenge. It triggered a rise in isolationism and protectionism leading up to a global recession and compounds the next two threats. Second, conflicts are increasingly more entrenched, fragmented, with multiple parties, while proxy warfare is surging again. In addition, there is a distinct possibility that the moratorium on the nuclear arms race comes to an end. Third, there is a renewed focus on hard powered politics often at the expense of Low-powered local grievances. US international disengagement coupled with China and Russia’s rise reduces the space for dialogue. Hard power engulfs most of public spending. The skyrocketing military expenditure is therefore a moral choice because we know that a 1% rise in military expenditure leads to the 0.6 to 1% decrease in health spending. In 2019, a single day military spending was equivalent to the WHO’s annual budget. One month of military spending was roughly equivalent to 2019’s combined Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) spending.
These trends shed light on the increasing radicalization of large portions of the population not only in the Global South, but also in the Northern hemisphere. Some radicalized in political mode with the rise of the Alt Right, populist or political religious movements, all offering simple unilinear explanation to the low-powered everyday injustices pf a world perceived as too complex. Others radicalized in silent mode, retracting from social sphere altogether. Some radicalized intellectually from scientific progress, arts and education. Finally, some radicalized violently through low-powered warfare, terrorism and civil unrest.
There is a powerful alternative pathway available resting on the positive involvement of citizens and on the debunking of silos between security, development, ecology, health, education and social justice . Rather than speaking to the people there is a need for dialogue involving the people in decision-making processes. Continuing top-down increases the feeling of powerlessness.
Addressing global security threats will require restoring a dialogue between power-holders and citizens, through new hybrid state-citizen processes. Today liberalism is already being reinvented at a local level with citizen vigils, at city and national level with citizen assemblies, at international level with citizen universities. If it wants to survive the international liberal system needs to upgrade and integrate that trend.
Liberalism is already being reinvented at a local level
Dr. Caty Clément, Member of the Board of the Prize Henry Dunant Foundation, Interpeace’s International Advisory Team, and an Associate Fellow of the GCSP.
OUR SPEAKER
Caty Clément
Dr Caty Clément has worked extensively in Africa focusing on conflict and fragile states on RBM, peacebuilding and DDR/SSR. She is currently a member of the Board of the Prize Henry Dunant Foundation, Interpeace’s International Advisory Team, and an Associate Fellow of the GCSP. Dr Clement worked and lived in the Sahel, the Great Lakes, and East Africa working both as a practitioner and an academic.
As a practitioner, Dr Clément has been an expert at the UN Security Council Group of Experts on DRC Arms Embargo, lead multiple conflict sensitive processes in the Sahel for the Small Arms Survey, Interpeace, MINUSMA and the PBF, directed the Great Lakes Project for the International Crisis Group, and was team leader for the World Bank on DDR. As an academic, Dr Clement was a fellow at the Harvard University Kennedy School and taught both at the University of Geneva and Louvain.
Dr Clément also led the peacebuilding and mediation activities, was a Founding and Management Board member of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, and directed numerous courses such as the Masters in International Security or the Senior Leaders Peacebuilding Course at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP). Caty Clément holds a PhD International Relations and Comparative Politics. She has lectured, spoken and published extensively on peacebuilding, SSR, and fragile states.
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Individuals contributed with their image and content in a personal capacity, not as a part of their role in any institution or company listed on this website.
Resources and points of view
Contending with ISIS in the Time of Coronavirus, article in the International Crisis Group
Even as COVID-19’s toll mounts, the world should brace itself for attacks by ISIS, which believes it can exploit the disorder the contagion is causing. This continuing jihadist threat requires the sort of international cooperation that militants hope the virus will sap.
The Covid-19 Pandemic and Deadly Conflict, article in the International Crisis Group
While the COVID-19 pandemic presents a potentially era-defining challenge to public health and the global economy, its long- and short-term consequences for deadly conflict are less well understood. Much remains uncertain, but it is already clear that the pandemic could cause enormous damage in fragile states, trigger unrest and undermine international crisis management systems.
Civil Rights Has Always Been a Global Movement, article in Foreign Affairs
How Allies Abroad Help the Fight Against Racism at Home.
Security 2040 - How technology, people, & ideas are shaping the future of global security, article in RAND international
Security 2040 is a research initiative from RAND's Center for Global Risk and Security. Led by a team of young RAND researchers, this collection of work spans the globe and crosses different disciplines—from nuclear strategy, to economics, to anthropology. The ultimate goal is to provide guidance that helps decision makers plan for a safer, more secure future.
