During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the global security agenda has been dominated by the 9-11 attacks on the United States and the subsequent response by the world’s most powerful state and its close allies. As we move further into the second decade of this century, and with the ten year anniversary of the terrorist attacks this year, we are perhaps now presented with an opportunity to re-focus security policies on addressing some of the underlying trends that threaten human security around the world.

Opening a two-day conference on global and regional security in Quito, Ecuador, our Sustainable Security Programme Manager,  Ben Zala argued that one of the most important lessons of the last decade is that "reacting to the symptoms of global insecurity - once they are deeply manifested, and few options other than military force and containment remain - is a fundamentally flawed strategy for global security". 

The conference, organised by International IDEA and Ágora Democrática, used the concept of sustainable security to explore issues, such as emerging security threats, institutional challenges, the role of civil society and private security actors, risk mapping and other analysis tools in the Latin American region and beyond. Ben argued that the combination of the two 'mega trends' of the increasing marginalisation of the 'majority world' and a warmer global climate at roughly the same time creates a fundamentally unique circumstance in human history. He went on to say:

Deep social and economic divisions have long existed, but they have not previously interacted with environmental limits to growth on a global scale. Such challenges require both national and multilateral approaches to security policy, which are specifically designed for this new age.

The challenge of managing a much broader and more complex global security agenda, for policy-makers and analysts alike, loomed large in the discussions across the two days. In his address, Ben suggested that:

"What is perhaps the most difficult element of facing up to some of the new security challenges today is that, while areas that were traditionally outside of security policy, such as environmental change, resource scarcity and development, will increasingly need to be integrated into national and regional security strategies, this will not be at the expense of more traditional concerns. These include inter-state rivalry, arms races and non-state actors, such as terrorist groups and organised criminal gangs. To put it another way, the challenge we face is not simply one of a changed security agenda, but instead one of an expanded security agenda. The new landscape of global security is one characterised by interdependence and complexity and this means we need new ways of both thinking about security and ways of responding to insecurity."

The conference included presentations from Raúl Benítez of the North America Research Center at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, General (Ret.) Oswaldo Jarrín Román, a former Ecuadorean Minister of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, and Naohito Watanabe of the Japanese embassy in Quito. The participants were from a wide range of NGOs, government departments, academia, legal and military organisations, and they discussed problems and avenues for progress in opening up dialogue and building trust between actors working across competing concepts of security (eg. national vs. human security).

ORG's work on engaging with non-Western perspectives on global security issues will continue into 2012 with papers being published on marginalisation, climate change and militarisation.  

Photo credit: Andreas Nilsson.