Global inequity and climate change are the real threat, not rogue states
Special report: George Bush's America
Paul Rogers Thursday June 14, 2001 The Guardian
President Bush's vigorous pursuit of missile defence is part of a wider view that global security is entering a volatile and dangerous phase in which it is essential for the US and its allies to keep control. This means maintaining the status quo of a globalised free market led by the US yet seemingly threatened by states and groups that do not accept this imposed order. In Britain, domestic politics may be where elections are won or lost, but in the longer term they are much less important than what is happening in this wider world.
There are three important issues facing us. They are all deeply uncomfortable for a rich state that is part of the global elite. They need radical action yet they all represent an opportunity for this incoming government that should transcend its domestic ambitions.
First, and most vital, the world economy is going deeply wrong. The globalised free market results in patchy economic growth but is failing to deliver economic justice. A worldwide economic apartheid is developing in which around a billion people are doing exceptionally well; close to three billion are in poverty; and the rest are struggling as best they can.
Basic education, literacy and communications have meanwhile improved, people are far more aware of their position on the margins, and the end results already include social unrest, insurgencies and migratory pressures. Yet these are early days, and as the divisions widen, far greater instability is likely.
Secondly, we face environmental constraints as we come up against the limit of the ability of the world to handle human pressures. The core problem is climate change, with the anticipated changes in tropical rainfall patterns expected to make current problems of the poor-rich divide far worse. Put bluntly, as the tropics progressively "dry out", the majority of the world's people will not be able to cope.
Finally, while we therefore face a divided and constrained world becoming progressively more unstable, the US-led response is one of keeping the lid on any threats to western security, not facing up to the core issues. Support local elites, project military force where necessary, forget about arms control and other treaties, rubbish Kyoto, ignore the rich-poor divide and hope we can maintain control - "liddism" rules OK.
Here is where the next four years really could see a contrast - an innovative UK government linking national policies to a programme of international agenda-setting for common security.
Specifically, the proposed aid increases should be at least doubled, aiming to exceed the UN 0.7% of GNP with a sustained programme of high quality gendered support for self-reliant development in the poorest communities. Support for debt relief needs to be much greater - increasing UK commitments while using fiscal and other means to "encourage" the private sector to be more forthcoming.
International trade barriers are at the root of global inequality: the WTO is rightly subject to severe criticism and most multinational corporations have no interest whatsoever in trade reform linked to development. This has to be taken on by the government, linking national trade policies far more closely to development.
On climate change, Britain has to prioritise renewable energy resources and conservation, both by direct government funding and by sustained fiscal encouragement of the private sector. As with development, domestic initiatives will enable us to play a far stronger role in international agenda-setting, working to force other elite states to face up to their responsibilities. We will not be alone in this - EU expan sion, for example, has brought in states with which we can find common cause.
All of these initiatives are possible. Even so, the real problems arise when we look at western attitudes to security, with their "close the castle gates" ethos, embodied in Bush's current visit, and representing some of the dangerous thinking now coming out of Washington.
National missile defence is a nonsense, abandoning arms control treaties is stupid and seeing any opponent as a rogue state or terrorist is a form of arrogance that is as dangerous as it is misconceived. Some sense has to be talked into the Bush administration, and it could at least be helped by the recent Senate change and aided by some like-minded EU states.
In short, Britain should embark on a course of action on global poverty, the environment and security that could combine with aggressive and effective international agenda-setting. There could be a real impact within as little as two to three years and a far greater impact by the end of the decade. It means extending our ambitions, but now is the time to do it, and we are unlikely to get as good an opportunity again.
. Paul Rogers is author of Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century, Pluto Press, London