The independent resource on global security

Essays

China at 60: Still a daunting challenge

The future looked bleak for the Chinese people on 1 October 1989 at the 40th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Organized crime: a growing threat to security

On 24 February the UN Security Council will debate the issue of organized crime as a threat to international peace. The issue has also been hot in the G8 and regional organizations like the OSCE and ECOWAS. It is also getting a lot of attention in the media.

Climate change, land and security

As world leaders gather at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this week, the effects of climate change have already created serious security threats in many parts of the developing world.

Jan. 10: Is South America on the brink of an arms race?

On 15 September 2009 US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that Venezuela’s recent arms acquisitions outpaced those of any other country in South America and raised questions about whether an arms race was looming in the region.

Taking stock of international security

Although there have been some hopeful signs, overall the world continues to face continuing and growing challenges to security, stability and peace. Contradictions seem to abound.

Oct. 09: The NPT Review Conference 2010–looking good but there’s still time to fail

In 2005 it seemed impossible that within four years there would be real, substantive discussions in the framework of the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on nuclear issues, including nuclear disarmament; that the UN Security Council would hold a special meeting to discuss nuclear non-prolifera

Oct. 10: Europe’s history offers lessons for today’s security challenges

Twentieth-century Europe was at several times the most horrific place on earth. Perhaps as many as 100 000 000 people were killed by war and oppression. Two world wars started here. Concentration camps and gulags were used as instruments of utter repression.

The mining ban in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: will soldiers give up the habit?

On 11 September, during a tour of Nord-Kivu province, Congolese President Joseph Kabila announced that all artisanal mineral exploitation in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was suspended.

The European security architecture two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall: can Russia be integrated?

Twenty years after the end of the cold war, the need for a sincere and critical effort to review the European security architecture is increasingly recognized on both sides of the Atlantic.

Playing both sides: how air transport firms profit by shipping arms and aid

Incredible as it may seem, traffickers in commodities that help fuel some of the world’s nastiest conflicts—transporting such things as arms, ‘blood diamonds’ and cocaine—also continue to profit from humanitarian aid and UN peacekeeping contracts.