Edited by Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan
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THE FUTURE OF GLOBALIZED SECURITY
NAYEF R.F. AL-RODHAN
Dr. Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan is Senior Scholar in Geostrategy and Director of the Program on the Geopolitical Implications of Globalization and Transnational Security at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, Geneva, Switzerland
I. Introduction
Since the end of the Cold War, the field of international relations has redefined itself along lines that are no longer dependent on bipolarity. National and transnational security threats have moved the world toward a system that is much more complex and focused on multilateralism. Progress has been made in trying to deal with the impact that a globalizing world has on security, the nation-state, and the individuals within the global system. As Philippe Legrain reminds us, “security is everyone’s priority: without it we can survive, but we cannot flourish. So the right question is not whether national security must be paramount but whether it is compatible with people, goods, and money zipping around the globe with ease. The answer, in general, I think is yes. Although a heightened risk of global terror may require some changes to our way of life, it does not imply that we have to barricade ourselves behind national borders.”1
This book presented a new security concept that challenges the belief presented by Herz in 1950. Notably, no country can claim or achieve security through its own efforts alone. All countries need one another to achieve global security. We proposed an alternative to the Herz belief that suggests that security be attained through justice for all cultures and nations. The principle that we proposed is called the “justice-based penta-security principle,” which states: “In a globalized world, security can no longer be thought of as a zerosum game involving states alone. Global security is a pentagon of human, environmental, national, transnational, and transcultural security, and global security and the security of any one state or
culture cannot, therefore, be achieved without good governance (domestic and global) that guarantees security through justice for all individuals, states, and cultures.”
This publication has briefly illustrated the economic, environmental, societal, political, and military aspects of globalization by showing the impact of this concept in each discipline. It allowed for a cohesive look at the process of globalization in the areas where the impact can largely be collectively assessed. None of these sectors exist independently from the others, nor are the decisions made in any one of these sectors independent of the others. While the divisions of these topics might appear arbitrary, they are important delineations that identify trends and trajectories in each sector in order to predict the stability and security levels of states in the future, in both the short and long term.
II. The Future Dimensions of Globalized Security: Lessons Learned
The purpose of this conclusion is to identify trends and trajectories within the international system that could serve as a way to drive policy toward a more comprehensive and effective strategy when dealing with threats. All of our authors offered a different piece of understanding when looking at the impact of globalization on national and international security strategies. Globalization has made security a transnational phenomenon, and national security has become transnational primarily because of the impact of globalization on the world. But what do these trends tell us about the future of globalization and the way in which it can be assessed? What impact will it continue to have in the future, and how will it shape the national and transnational agendas of states? This section will revisit the main conclusions of each chapter and will provide some identifying themes in the future trajectories of each dimension as a way of looking forward.