In the realm of world politics, a “threat” would be defined as something that holds the potential of causing damage to a society. The difficulty in addressing this arises in identifying what is considered “damage to a society.” This could range from physical damage, such as casualties, to ideological damage, where an idea suffers. The former is simple enough, but a specific example of ideological damage would be the stigma now attached to Islam, that all Muslims are violent extremists. This is damage because people associated with Islam (an idea, faith) now suffer from discrimination and prejudice. Therefore, a threat in world politics can be any number of things. Seeking to answer what the greatest threat to global peace and security would be is difficult. However, I would claim that to be corruption.
Corruption is what drives leaders to put their needs and wants in front of their state and their citizens. This causes the marginalized to be taken advantage of, the rich to abuse their power, and injustice to reign free. Corruption tends to create leadership resembling tyranny, the enemy of free markets, democracies, and individual rights. As liberalism dictates, the further we stray from these, the further we are from global peace and security. In Jack Snyder’s “One World, Rival Theories,” he notes that “the belief that democracies never fight wars against each other is the closest thing we have to an iron law in social science.” Therefore, corruption brings states away from true democracy, which makes peace and security more difficult to achieve. One can only hope to attain these goals if corruption in leadership is eliminated.
The most prominent example in the world today would be that of Afghanistan. Currently, the United States is fully invested in reducing corruption within the Afghani government so that American withdrawal can begin. Once corruption is eliminated in the country, it will become self-sustainable and will finally be able to prosper. Corruption is hindering Afghanistan from a state of prosperity, stability, and peace.
In 1999, BP participated in a conference on corruption, in which they outlined all the ways in which corruption erodes society. If you are interested, here is the link on what they said:
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=98&contentId=2000415
I think that this is a really insightful response to the prompt. I hadn’t considered corruption as a response, but upon reading your blog, it makes perfect sense to call it one of the most threatening things to global peace and security. I mean let’s be real, if there were no corrupt leaders in this world I’m certain we’d all be safer. The link between corruption and violence is a clear one and by removing the corrupt officials - unless you’re just replacing them with other corrupt people - you cut down on violence. And because violence is definitely another massive threat to global peace and security, cutting down on corruption would be killing two birds with one stone.
ReplyDeleteI do take issue however, with the insinuation you make about the correlation between limiting corruption in Afghanistan and that leading to self-sustainability and prosperity. I agree that removing corrupt officials will help Afghanistan as a country, but I think that there are many other things at play that hinder Afghanistan from being totally self-sustaining and prosperous in the near future.
I agree that there are many other factors that are hindering Afghanistan's prosperity. However, corruption is one of the most prominent issues within the country. Why else would the United States be focusing so greatly on eliminating it?
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