Security & Conflicts

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GLOBAL INVESTOR FOCUS Security & Conflicts — 36 Finland Sweden Norway Belgium Estonia Netherlands Latvia Denmark Lithuania Mexico United Germany Poland Kingdom Czech Belarus Austria Republic Ukraine Nicaragua Colombia Peru Chile Slovakia Switzerland Romania France Hungary Moldova Spain Bulgaria Brazil Source: Dan Smith, “State of the World Atlas”. Egypt Morocco Sudan Nigeria Canada US Cuba Guatemala Honduras El Salvador Colombia Ecuador Ethiopia Bolivia Argentina Ireland Dominican Republic Venezuela Uruguay Rwanda Paraguay Under arms Regular and reserve government forces 2001 =1% =0.1% =0.01% Russia Kazakhstan Azerbaijan Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan Afghanistan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Armenia Iraq Iran Pakistan Syria Saudi Arabia Kuwait UAE Bahrain Qatar India Yemen Tanzania Malawi Kenya South Mozambique Zambia Africa Zimbabwe Oman Italy Yugoslavia Georgia Slovenia Greece Croatia Albania Turkey Bosnia and Herzegovina Macedonia Cyprus Israel Sri Lanka Jordan North Korea Lebanon South Korea Mongolia Nepal China Japan Burma Thailand Bangladesh Malaysia Laos Cambodia Vietnam Cyprus North Taiwan Singapore Brunei Indonesia Philippines Australia Fiji New Zealand Libya Tunisia Algeria Burkina Faso Chad Niger Mali Mauritania Senegal Guinea Bissau Togo Ghana Guinea Sierra Leone Liberia Uganda Côte d’Ivoire Cameroon Burundi Portugal Botswana Angola Namibia Eritrea Dem. Rep. Congo Djibouti Congo Brothers in arms The Far East dominates the global picture in terms of the numbers of regular and reserve government forces, the legacy of conflict dating back to the start of the Cold War. North Korea and South Korea – both countries that remain on a war footing – have the largest percentages of their populations in active military service.
GLOBAL INVESTOR FOCUS Security & Conflicts — 37 as ethnicity and religion in understanding the origins of the prevailing conflicts. Second, the potential for power and destruction arising from stateless players and networks grows in parallel to the course of globalization. Further proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range weapons systems, organized crime as well as global terrorism, all play a multifarious, interactive part in the downfall of nations in destabilized regions. Regional conflict zones: local origins of violent conflicts Even in this age of globalization, violent political conflicts continue to be predominantly attributable to regional and local factors. A breakdown of the number of armed conflicts in the 1990s reveals two different patterns: first, national conflicts accounted for more than 90% of these violent clashes. And second, the flashpoints were concentrated geographically in regional conflict zones. Parallel to the fall of the communist multinational states, there were outbreaks of ethnic conflict in the Balkans, in central Asia, and in the Caucasus region. These new, virulent national conflicts had their origins in the transformation of the old-world order and the accentuation of regional imbalances resulting from the process of globalization. The economic gap between and within the regions widened during the 1990s. In Africa, the marginalization process accelerated and erupted into humanitarian catastrophes in Rwanda, Somalia, and Sudan. Furthermore, in the Middle East, globalization is often perceived as a form of Western hegemony. The regional conflict zones show a high degree of overlap with zones of badly governed regimes and zones with merely very limited regional trading integration. This indicates that the origins of civil wars are connected to the buildup of alternative systems of profit and power as well as to the context of ethnopolitical nationalism. Political economists point out that countries whose populations are growing at an unimpeded rate, nations that are in a state of economic decline and dependent on export of resources, are the most prone to the risk of civil war. 2 Today, roughly 1 billion people live in countries where the risk of outbreak of civil war is 15 to 20 times greater than in the OECD countries. Water shortages, subsistence economies, poverty, and famines provide an ideal breeding ground for future processes of political destabilization. Political scientists repeatedly emphasize that the outbreak and prevalence of civil wars can be traced to the role of corrupt leaders and weak political institutions. These conflicts revolve around ethnicity and identity, which is why they are usually marked by a high level of violence, emotion, and irrationality. 3 Global risks: the denationalization of war A few years ago, there was still widespread hope that growing economic interrelationships among nations would lead to a reduction of violent conflicts. However, globalization has brought with it not just the riches of the earth, but also the dangers of the world right to our doorsteps. The new porousness of national borders opens up more room for maneuver for organized crime networks and international terrorism. Dual-use technologies currently circulate more easily against a worldwide backdrop. The (theoretical) potential for destruction arising from stateless players will likely continue to grow in tandem with technological developments in the fields of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology. The complex risks that emerge from such a scenario are no longer particularly directed toward the territory of an individual nation, but instead increasingly aimed at the social fabric of an entire region. Serious threats to international stability and security will arise primarily from the concurrence of the downfall of nations and civil wars with global security risks. Terrorist networks, such as Al Qaeda, benefit from weak nations and lawless regions; they try to legitimize terrorism as a means of pitting the weak against the strong in the context of the widening economic gap between rich and poor, as well as the military dominance of the US. Through exploiting the vulnerability of the infrastructures of modern nations and global markets, the battle is waged in regions that are geographically distant. Similar downsizing of the geographical structure in terms of its function as a protective shield is also apparent in the realm of organized crime as well as the trafficking of both people and drugs. In many countries, active migration and integration policies are gaining significance in terms of strategic security, and the challenges to the instruments of homeland security are mounting against the backdrop of an aging population and overburdened social welfare system. Focus on the Middle East: region of instability For the countries trying to pinpoint the territorial origins of these global risks, the focal point shifts from the Balkans, to central Asia and across the Caucasus region toward Asia, and for the foreseeable future focuses on the greater Middle East. There is no other region of the world in which the newly emerging risks interchange, from the downfall of nations, proliferation of NBC (nuclear, biological, and chemical) weapons, global terrorism, and political Islam, to a comparable potential for instability. Three trends underscore the ongoing relevance of this zone in terms of security policy. First, the political, economic, and social problems in the region are
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