The most obvious expression of the new security situation is the fact that two major wars are presently being fought: the Russian action against Ukraine, which began two and a half years ago; and Israel’s assault on Gaza, which started almost eleven months ago, both of which have resulted in a major loss of life. The US and the EU have played a crucial role in supplying arms to Ukraine, thereby greatly widening the latter’s reach and military capability. Israel’s war on Gaza has long been threatening to become a regional war but so far its regional ramifications have been relatively limited, though this could change at any moment. Finally, in neither case can we yet see the possible end of the war.
These two wars are the most dramatic examples of a much wider phenomenon that presently characterizes the global security situation, namely, growing instability and uncertainty. What are its causes? The underlying reason is the growing weakness of the United States and its willingness and capacity to underwrite the US-led global order. As a result, countries have increasingly been willing to act in ways that previously they would not have considered. Netanyahu feels free to bully and ignore Biden regarding the conduct of its war in Gaza. And it seems unlikely that Putin would have launched his war a decade or so earlier.
The decline of America has meant a weakening of the global order as we have known it. We can expect this climate of instability and unpredictability to continue for the foreseeable future and likely beyond. The most important expression of America’s weakness is its fear of China’s rise and its struggle to resist it, which is plainly visible to and felt by the rest of the world. It is worth recalling, in this context, that the last time a hegemon was in decline was in the interwar period when Britain could no longer sustain its hegemonic position, leading to a breakdown of its global order, a trade war, protectionism, the formation of currency blocs, mass unemployment and ultimately the Second World War, with disastrous consequences.
The current vogue for security has by no means runs its course. There are good reasons, indeed, to believe that it has much further to run. In America, the trend is towards thinking of seemingly anything and everything as a national security issue. As the rise of Chinese industry in general is increasingly regarded as a threat to America, then its exports can be seen as a national security issue that require higher tariffs or even being blocked altogether. To give an example, the Biden administration is about to introduce a 25% tariff on Chinese cranes not only on economic grounds but because they might be used for covert surveillance. The days of free trade are over. It is likely that economic measures to deal with security threats, real or imagined, is set become a major theme of US economic policy. In the process, it will further weaken America’s commitment to globalization.
The idea of dual use is another major factor in the securitization of economic policy. This is now regularly used by the United States as a reason to block the export of high-tech products to China, such as semi-conductors, drones, quantum computing, and self-driving technology. The growing importance of technology – we might call it technologization – of a growing range of products from the most sophisticated to relatively mundane household products open the possibility of a host of extremely diverse commodities being caught in the security trap and becoming ripe for bans and prohibitive. It encourages a climate of paranoia, suspicion, and fear.
We have been somewhere like this before in the Cold War and McCarthyism. Then the equivalent expression was ‘Reds under the Beds’. At least then you only needed to look under your bed. In the modern world, where virtually every household item probably contains a chip, or many indeed, the search for the evil chip would be endless and far beyond the capability of mere mortals. You may think I am joking but a so-called Chinese expert in the UK not too long ago wrote a paper for a serious defence institution arguing precisely this, that Chinese chips in your refrigerator or television might be spying on you and collecting information to send back to Beijing. This is where scare talk about security meets popular culture and seeks to to prey on the ignorance and irrational fears of ordinary people. We can expect a torrent of this kind of malign speculation with the growing presence on our roads of Chinese electric vehicles, loaded with the very latest technology and countless chips, no less than mobile entertainment centers, to say nothing of self-driving technology.
This is the moment when blind obsession with security turns into its opposite, when suspicion undermines and overwhelms mutual respect and the pursuit of friendly relations. Security cannot be allowed to devour basic humanity. Ultimately, humanity depends upon trust and good will. What is required is balance, a recognition of dangers and threats, while at the same time recognizing the need for human coexistence and respect for other peoples, wherever they live and whatever their traditions and cultures.
