Managing Global Insecurity

Event Title: Managing Global Insecurity
Sponsor: Brookings Institution
Location: Brookings Institution Falk Auditorium
Date: March 21^st, 2007
Time 2:00 pm- 3:30 pm
Approximate Number of Attendees: 150
Intern Attending: Evan Davies

Featured Speakers: Javier Solana, Strobe Talbott, Stephen Stedman

The Brookings Institution is currently publishing a recent project about effective ways to manage global security. There are many aspects to global security and they are becoming progressively more complex. The new report begs for a new approach to global security. The first speaker, Strobe Talbott, emphasized how times have changed since the Cold War, while the U.S. While the world is changing every day, it doesn’t seem that US policy is adjusting at the same pace. The US looks to the UN for a great deal of help which often times does not come through, leaving America insecure about places like Iran and North Korea. approach to global security has not.

The Keynote speaker, Javier Solana, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy for the European Union, first discussed how America is the strongest nation in the world yet is still dealing with the insecurities of Iraq and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Although the US might be the most powerful country in the world, it will not succeed in achieving any of its goals if it continues to invest itself into trying to solve conflicts with the same tactics used in the Cold War.

In the age of globalization, there needs to be a global government. Even when suspected answers are out there, a uniform decision will be the only way to solve international problems. One critically important example is Darfur: there are mass human rights violations and scarce resources. While the US has stopped purchasing from Sudan, China has taken over 60% of Sudan’s exports. The US alone cannot solve all of the world’s problems. If we want global security, we will have to revamp our plans and interact within the international system instead of trying to act above it. The UN plays a major role in this equation. We must establish a stronger relationship between the UN and US for change. There must be accountability on the international front for all nations. It is not good enough anymore to hold accountability to just inside states, there is too much interaction between nations for accurate accountability.

Solana then took another direction to discuss how others view America’s position, essentially undermining the international community by declaring that no nation can have nuclear weapons while holding onto their own. The US, as well as many other nations, do not share information with each other and if they started to it would create plenty of initiative for other countries to comply and consequently help their own country, which would is one easy way to promote peace. The last portion of Mr. Solana’s speech touched on the importance of the UN, and the fact that it will only be as powerful as its strongest member, namely the US. The US does not fully support the UN yet expects them to solve the world’s very complex peacekeeping operations. All countries must work together to strengthen the UN so that cooperation between nations, and then national security, will be a more feasible goal.