Global militarisation
The current priority of the dominant security actors is maintaining international security through the vigorous use of military force combined with the development of both nuclear and conventional weapons systems. Post-Cold War nuclear developments involve the modernisation and proliferation of nuclear systems, with an increasing risk of limited nuclear-weapons use in warfare – breaking a threshold that has held for sixty years and seriously undermining multilateral attempts at disarmament. These dangerous trends will be exacerbated by developments in national missile defence, chemical and biological weapons and a race towards the weaponisation of space.
In a piece for the International Movement for a Just World, William Rees maps out a vision for what he calls ‘Survival 2100.’ The goal of such a strategy would be “to engineer the creation of a dynamic, more equitable steady-state economy that can satisfy at least the basic needs of the entire human family within the means of nature.” The alternative, Rees argues is to “succumb to more primitive emotions and survival instincts abetted by cognitive dissonance, collective denial, and global political inertia.”
Those concerned with the issue of militarisation as a driver of global insecurity are increasingly looking at the issue of cyberwarfare as the weapons of war become ever closely associated with the digital age. Waging war in the cyber domain raises some truly momentous questions about the nature of warfare, the laws of war and even what counts as self-defence. Nuclear expert, Scott Kemp has written an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists arguing that like the missed opportunity of the dawn of the nuclear age (in which possessing nuclear weapons was viewed as more important than the consequences of proliferation), policymakers today have an important opportunity to consider the implications - both intended and unintended - of cyberweapons.
