The Global Security Environment

Featured Image

Why is it important?

This chapter investigates global trends from 1991 to 2008. In particular, it inquires whether the macro-level propositions identified in Chapter 1 have been borne out. Therefore, it considers whether the level of interstate conflict has declined, whether global defense spending has decreased, whether the threat of global terrorism has begun to supplant interstate warfare on the global security agenda, and whether regional and global multilateral security institutions have begun to supplant states as the primary security providers, as many globalization scholars have predicted. It is shown that global trends are not very consistent with the globalization-kills-the-national-security-state hypothesis. Moreover, to the extent that certain features of the contemporary international system are consistent with the globalization school's predictions, it remains unclear whether globalization is the sole cause (or even the primary cause), or whether something potentially less enduring — such as American hegemony, the defense/deterrence dominance of contemporary military technology, or a lull after the all-encompassing global clash that was the Cold War — may have been more instrumental.