Industrial-age military force is not sufficient to counter asymmetrical warfare. Engagement of the disenfranchised by the more powerful is essential to reducing terrorism and ethnic conflicts. Since chemical, biological, low-level nuclear ("dirty") bombs, and information warfare weapons of mass destruction and disruption may be available to individuals over the next 25 years, we have to learn how to connect education and security systems in a healthy way and to deal with a global environment in which the boundaries between war, civil unrest, terrorism, and crime are increasingly blurred. The clandestine transmission of nuclear capacities by a Pakistani scientist raised new concerns about proliferation. Since hospitals, food storage, water supply, and other support systems of civilization depend on the Internet, cyber weapons can now also be considered WMD.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute cites 19 major armed conflicts in 2003 that each had 1,000 or more deaths (down from 21 conflicts in 2002)-4 in Africa, 8 Asia, 3 the Americas, 3 Middle East, and 1 Europe (Afghanistan/Al Qaeda was classified as in the United States.) Ten of these conflicts were over the question of government and the remaining 9 over disputed territory. The vast majority of conflicts are intra-state, and civilian fatalities in these climbed from 5% in 1900 to more than 90% in the 1990s. Conflicts in the Middle East and the unsettled conditions in Afghanistan continue to be worrisome elements in the quest for a peaceful world. The University of Maryland Minorities at Risk Project lists 285 minority groups that could be in future conflict due to different forms of injustice. Over 53,000 UN peacekeepers (military personnel and civilian police) from 96 countries are deployed in 15 missions on three continents.

Yet the vast majority of the world is living in peace, transcultural ethics are being studied, dialogues among differing worldviews are increasing, formal EU and informal East Asia regional groupings of powers are adding to stability, and intra-state conflicts are increasingly being settled by international interventions. The growth of democracy and international trade, the global visibility provided by news media, by the Internet, and by satellite surveillance, and increased world travel and better living standards are all increasing acceptance of the idea that secure conditions for a more peaceful evolution of humanity are possible. Human rights standards are increasing in importance relative to national sovereignty, and the International Criminal Court has begun operations. Once slavery was widely accepted as a "natural" institution; now it has almost vanished because humans changed their minds and institutions. If so for slavery, why not for terrorism and war?

 

Backcasted peace scenarios should be created through participatory processes, as was done in Chapter 5 on the Middle East. UN early warning systems could be strengthened by involving NGOs and the media to generate the political will to act when local violence and global threats warrant international intervention; advanced intelligence sensors and transceivers could be made available to local citizens so that local realities could be broadcast to the world. More precise sanctions consistently enforced should target elite criminals rather than innocent populations and should create all-party mediation on neutral territory. Strengthen UN and multilateral systems of collective security; identify troops who have been trained together for more rapid UN peacekeeping deployment, with compatible equipment to be marshaled to prevent the escalation of violence. We should study and implement best practices for reducing corruption and collective violence. News media and Internet Web sites could be encouraged to give more balanced coverage that shows positive mediation rather than just scenes of violence. Governments should destroy existing stockpiles of biological weapons, create tracking systems for potential bioweapons assets, and increase the use of nonlethal weapons to reduce future revenge cycles.

The "new security threats" should be integrated into a comprehensive, standardized, and quantitatively based global security index. A world network of CDC-like centers will be needed to counter impacts of bioterrorism. The root causes of the nexus of terrorism-WMD proliferation has to be understood-not just the consequences; public education programs should be created to promote respect for diversity, equal rights, and the value of the individual and each religion. We need to share research on conflict resolution and consensus building that focuses on the common ethical values and oneness that underlies human diversity. Over the long term, education for a more enlightened public and leadership is the answer.

 

Africa: The African Union has created a Peace and Security Council to strengthen multilateral collective security. As many AIDS orphans grow up in crime and teenage population grows, the continent could become more violent. Although some conflicts may have been triggered by environmental degradation, they surfaced as ethnic disagreements or as religious and border clashes. 

 

Asia and Oceania: Political, religious, and ethnic conflicts and locally based terrorism continue across much of the region. Where is the Afghan heroin money going now? To bypass frozen assets, Al Qaeda and its associates are using alternative remittance systems known as hawala and diversifying into gold and diamonds. Middle East water negotiations are the most likely way to build confidence that peace is possible.

 

Europe: Eliminate international small-arms trade or create an international audit system for each weapon. Being party to the ICC should not be optional-in a globalizing world, all world citizens should be accountable to the international community for their acts. People of different nationalities are getting along well, but political and ideological extremists instigate discord. Coalitions based on national politics cannot address global organized crime and terrorism. A global response is necessary. Shared values alone will not do it; a new culture is necessary.

 

Latin America: Colombia continues to be the focus of conflict in the region, while ethnic conflict is minimal in most other places. There is the potential for increasing conflicts between governments and indigenous peoples in the region, as well as cells of Islamic extremists in the tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. 

 

North America: Intelligence technology and military power will not provide security in asymmetrical warfare without genuine cross-cultural understandings and better multilateral cooperation. The knowledge of how to bring about mass destruction through genetic engineering, nano-technology, and artificial intelligence could have more potential to destroy civilization than nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.