By Rachel Miller-Sprafke

The modern security environment presents an unprecedented challenge. Throughout history security requirements and the defence policies initiated therein have been subject to change, yet never before have the concepts themselves been so completely revolutionized. An unprecedented level of risk has compelled people of every stratum in society, from members of the public to those responsible for their defence, to do the impossible: to prepare for threats that have not yet materialized.

Previous changes in security and defence have not been conceptual, but practical. Technological developments and budget increases altered the potential of defensive policies. Political, economic, and social changes affected state relations, and therefore who and what was to be perceived as a security threat. What society faces now, however, is a complete revolution in the concept of security. It is an expansion necessitated by the increasing number of potential risks, which are no longer limited to traditional military notions of security. Threats are emerging from fields that were never previously included in the remit of defence, covering a spectrum from energy shortages to economic recession to climate change to global disease pandemic. The security sector is growing to include these new types of risks, but its expansion does not stop at these borders. Beyond these risks that are quantifiable lies the vast realm of the unknown. Here belong the dangers that have no name, where threats that do not yet exist lie in wait. The definition of security is evolving to include protection from the unpredictable, and thus defence policy must now do the seemingly impossible: to account for dangers that do not exist, to think the unthinkable.

Globalisation tells us that the world is 'shrinking' and interdependence is increasing. I will deal with that claim in greater detail below, but for now the point must be made that all of this is based upon an assumption that there is, in the first place, a 'world' or a 'global' system that can be studied politically. In fact, that is a very big claim indeed. World politics is regional politics. The globe is divided into regions (North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, South Asia and East Asia) and sub-regions, and states pay minimal attention to things that happen elsewhere. Only the US is genuinely 'global' because of its military and economic presence. But how many educated Europeans know the name of the Japanese prime minister, or pay attention to Columbian politics? Who would invest Japan with greater significance than France, despite Japan being a much more important country? Very few. And who can really blame them? The problems of those areas remain remote.

David Miliband, when Foreign Secretary, announced that 'power is moving to a global level'. In truth, the idea that there even is a 'global level' is a fallacy. International institutions lack real power, and only have it when the states they consist of can agree to do something; more often than not they are paralysed by those states. The rulings of the United Nations Security Council are mostly gesture, lacking in bite. Anyway, the most effective international bodies – like NATO, the EU or the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation – are regional, not global. Rhetoric aside, regional politics are what matters. Since the Cold War, the major states have continued to negotiate with one another directly and solve problems between themselves, with the most powerful having the most influence. The collapse of the bi-polar framework saw more states become increasingly relevant. What that means, far from offering any support to globalisation, is that the traditional bases of international relations have been reinforced, not weakened.