Introduction. Rethinking the contemporary security system

ADAM DANIEL ROTFELD

Extract

‘Although in 1998 there were fewer major armed conflicts than in 1989, world security has not made significant progress since the cold war ended. New concerns are generated by different factors both of an internal and of an international nature. On the one hand, some states, unable to provide basic governance and protection for their own populations, have brought about bloody domestic conflicts, and thus undermine security in different parts of the world; on the other hand, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the spread of dangerous technologies pose a great potential threat to global stability and security. . . . All this calls for an integrated approach by the international community in its search for both a new security system and a new agenda for future arms control and disarmament.’