Development's security: a new perspective on international security.

For the past several decades, the need for international security has developed alongside the global economic order that characterizes international relations today. Since the early 1970s, with the New International Economic Order and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, countries have been banding together to face security and development challenges, growing global threats, and military antagonism. Despite these initial efforts, however, cooperation must be further strengthened. Given the increasingly interconnected nature of countries' political, economic, and social spheres, such coordination is growing ever more significant.

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International security must be based on mutual trust among the countries involved. When nations view themselves as individuals as they work to counter security threats, they ignore the dangers of leaving developing countries to fend for themselves. As a result, there must be an element of trust to allow countries to act as a unified front against global security issues. Trust-based strategies would give the international community powerful leverage over weak global regulations and would also help to reduce disagreement on collective security and development issues. Subsequent attempts to tackle economic development and security would take into account the capacity of individual countries to participate in global regulations and discussions. There has always been a divide between developed and developing nations because of institutional capability, but if international policies are to be based on trust, these institutions must be fluid. Trust-based systems would allow developing countries to participate in responses to security challenges, but would not push them beyond their economic capacities.

We must recognize that global security is undeniably entwined with national development. This reality presents challenges for developing countries, and a new security system will have to address such issues. In addition to overcoming individual differences in order to create a unified front, a new security system should also bolster the development of participating states in the interest of security. This system must reflect a set of shared normative values, which will be defined and promoted through dialogue and support from the international civil society. International consensus on issues such as the fight against transnational terrorism, combined with a more comprehensive framework for a new collective security system, must be discussed and founded in a setting that nurtures a culture of peace through economic development. Instituting such a plan necessitates constant assessment and adjustment to account for differing nations' capacities. But it is only by taking such an approach that the international system will be able to effectively face the emerging security challenges of a globalized world.

Security Weaknesses of Developing Countries

In a traditional sense, a country defines security as the absence of military threat. Previously, security imperatives required that nations build, individually or within the framework of alliances, security apparatuses that were adapted to well-defined threats. While menaces of such character remain important, we are now exposed to an additional array of areas in which risks manifest themselves. This profusion has increased the difficulties of determining threats, not to mention those of responding to them. In order to surmount these risks, new international initiatives must help developing countries adapt to the changing nature of security breaches.

Lesser-developed countries are not equipped to combat the multidimensional security problems that are evolving today. Security policies develop in a fluid and evolving environment. States, therefore, must also constantly adapt their means of protection. A tangible example of the changing character of security challenges is the end of the traditional war-peace pattern. In contrast to earlier decades, the world now faces a notion of "crisis," especially in regards to terrorism. The challenges of this transformation are numerous. It is difficult for nations to ascertain the level of a crisis beforehand, and there are a multitude of problems that arise in attempting to respond quickly to it. If these problems are emerging in developed countries in Europe and North America, they are even more acute in developing ones. Low levels of intelligence infrastructure and slow mobilization processes make every step more arduous and less likely to succeed in such countries.

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Developing countries' vulnerabilities are further exacerbated by conditions of poverty, environmental deterioration, and economic uncertainty. Destabilization takes root within zones of lawlessness characterized by weak regulations and loose social ties. Terrorism, drug trafficking, and environmental, migratory, pandemic, and sociopolitical problems require solutions that span many facets of society. As a result, achieving a state of security requires simultaneous action in many different dimensions--military, diplomatic, political, social, economic, and environmental.

The problem we face today is that many countries do not have the means for the extensive policing required to cover all such facets. They are therefore much more prone to these multidimensional security risks. Any system of efficient risk management must be established with the acknowledgment that vulnerabilities of international scale are especially severe in developing nations.

Development and Security

Progress in security or development will require a profound awareness of increasing global interdependence as well as a gradual transformation of the international community through normative values of trust. The outcome of such a process will be a reduction of the economic vulnerabilities that burden developing countries. These countries will be able to tackle global security challenges only after implementing reforms that meet their objectives for security, good governance, respect for human rights, democracy, and stable legislative and economic frameworks. Success also depends on strengthening countries' relative autonomy in the face of the uncertain evolution of the international playing field. In this respect, alleviating the burden of external constraints--namely indebtedness, terms of trade deterioration, technological dependence, and obstacles to market accessibility--allows developing countries to establish their own creative strategies for mobilization and action.

Most developing countries were swept into globalization without being prepared for it. As a result, their dependence on more developed nations has expanded. Economic transformation and uncontrolled urbanization have weakened developing countries' ancestral identities and deep internal solidarities. Drawn into a global flow that increases their security requirements as well as their vulnerabilities, these countries have been forced to expend resources on regional and international problems. With a simultaneous need to restore their own political and economic stability, developing nations' response capacities are insufficient or ill-suited. Only by strengthening state institutions and regulating capacities can states face the shifting challenges of globalization and security. In this context, both soft and hard security capacities are connected, with a country's economic development advancing with the enhancement of its national security.

The settlement of conflicts and the elimination of hotspots in the developing world are therefore increasingly linked to economic recovery and integration into a global framework. In this respect, the innovative programs initiated by African countries through the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) demonstrate the importance of supporting the continent's recovery efforts. Founded on the principles of shared responsibility and partnership, NEPAD creates a framework that fosters dialogue with developed countries on Africa's development prospects. Past attempts in the North-South Dialogue, namely the momentum created between 1974 and 1979, the launching of the European-Arab Dialogue, the implementation of the Mediterranean Chapter of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols on environmental protection and climate change, could be considered good examples of cooperation.

During the past few years, contributions by members of the G8 proved that cooperation between developing and developed countries is the most efficient way to fight poverty. Such a partnership can also facilitate efforts to check extremism and monitor situations that are likely to generate serious crises. These examples illustrate that developing countries are willing to adjust their relationships with developed countries. Globalization provides developing countries with the opportunity to set the terms of a constructive dialogue with developed states in areas of security and development. The stability and progress of humankind depends on our ability to resolve these major issues together.

Algeria's Example