convergence

Chapter 2
Lawlessness and Disorder: An Emerging
Paradigm for the 21 st Century
Phil Williams
T he 20 th century will probably go down in history as the exemplar of geopolitical interstate
conflict with two World Wars centered in Europe followed by over four decades of the
Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union. The 21 st century, in contrast, could
well become a period of lawlessness and disorder—a century in which states are in long-term
decline; new violent actors challenge states and one another; resources such as food, water,
and energy become a central focus of violent competition and of large illicit markets; demographic
and environmental trends pose challenges to sustainability, security, and stability; and
the severity of problems is significantly increased by the interconnections and often perverse
interactions among them, or what Thomas Homer-Dixon termed “negative synergies.” 1
This agenda of challenges is highly diverse and complex, and these qualities alone could
overload the management capacity of both individual states and the international community.
Individual states, for the most part, are entering an era of retrenchment characterized by
reduced budgets on everything from welfare to national security. While this might result in
enhanced efficiencies and greater creativity, it could also reduce capacity and resilience at the
national level. And even though there is broad agreement that many threats and challenges
cannot be dealt with unilaterally, multilateral responses might prove equally problematic.
Indeed, multilateral governance structures and strategies, while the darlings of liberal institutionalists,
have inherent and fundamental weaknesses such as buck-passing, lowest-common
denominator responses, and free riding. The search for international consensus often becomes
no more than a cloak or a rationale for procrastination and inaction. Many states engage in
cosmetic conformity with international norms and standards but tacitly defect from these
regimes, violating agreements and ignoring obligations while continuing to pay lip service to
the collective. In other words, both unilateral and multilateral approaches to emerging security
challenges are likely to prove fundamentally inadequate.
15