The Insecurity Trap: A Short Guide to Transformation

People ask what is going wrong with the world, given the new wars, extreme populist movements, climate breakdown, poverty, inequality, and exclusion. There is a sense of unease that “things are falling apart,” which is reflected both in global insecurity―a seeming failure to negotiate or mediate effectively in desperate wars―Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza―and dismay at rampant social injustice and rising poverty. This book meets such concerns head-on, analyzing the worsening insecurity trap we are in and how to get out of it.

In the troubled decade that lies ahead, we face the combination of a bitterly divided world, limits to growth, and climate breakdown. However, this is in a pervasive culture where national governments prioritize a security approach of hard militarism to enforce stability and protect the wealthy.

Paul Rogers makes the case that, in responding to the prospect of a “crowded glowering world,” three questions need to be answered: Can we come to terms with the environmental limits to growth in time? Can we transform the world economy to ensure that there is far better sharing of what we have? And can we change our understanding and practice of international security and focus on an approach to human security that works for all and not just the small elite?