The United Nations' Perspective on The
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Review of the Air Force Academy No 1 (28) 2015 THE UNITED NATIONS’ PERSPECTIVE ON THE INTERNATIONAL SECURITY SYSTEM AND THE GLOBAL WORLD’S ASYMMETRIES Oana-Andreea PÎRNUŢĂ Transilvania University of Braşov, Romania Abstract: The present study analyzes the geopolitical and geostrategic background of the international security environment as the world has registered a very important shift from bipolarity to a fragmented universe where all sorts of antagonisms come into being. The present-day international security context requires a unitary action initiated by the international society against the new asymmetric security threats. Today globalization plays an important part being perceived as the process through which the global connections are expanded and life is organized at a global scale. Thus, the global conscience is generated. It aims at creating and strengthening a global society. The security systems have reconfigured their dynamics due to the relations between the member states, organizations and international organisms. The United Nations’ reform should be based upon a political system of liberal globalization. The United Nations’ perspective stipulates that the essential features regarding the strengthening of security promote the human rights as well as the social and economic development. The impact of globalization on the states’ security can be understood only if the actors’ perspective on the international relations is repatterned and the political integration instruments of the present and future relations are redimensioned. Key words: globalization, international security, global system, United Nations, asymmetries. 1. INTRODUCTION When the communist regimes collapsed, the European security environment has been The geopolitical and geostrategic features influenced by powerful seisms. have changed in the recent years. The political and administrative European Regarding the global geopolitical and map has suffered changes in certain regions. geostrategic framework, it can be said that there This particular European remapping had is a great range of political actors, involved in major implications in the past and it also has at the international geopolitical pattern. They are present. responsible for the peace or the insecurity of the When referring to security, wealth and entire world. political traditions, we can consider Europe as It is very important for the strong and a continent divided into three distinct areas: powerful to know how to interweave the Western Europe standing for a stable security interests of each state with those of the political region, consisting of countries with old whole world in order to prevent the situation political traditions and representing economic in which one of the actors, irrespective of the and cultural powers; power possessed, could be affected when it Central Europe where the countries have comes to the issue of interests. more easily overcome the transition period, being economically assisted by the Western 2. THE INTERNATIONAL SECURITY countries; FRAMEWORK Eastern Europe, considered to be one of the most dynamic security environments. The international system needs an NATO and the EU require several strategic institutional architecture able to control the objectives, which are to be implemented in rhythm of global instability through efficient order to assure the regional and areal security. strategies. 31 The United Nations’ Perspective on the International Security System and the Global World’s Asymmetries In this context, the main goal of Romania’s human rights violations, inefficient multilateral and Bulgaria’s integration in NATO (2004) institutions, ecological problems. and the European Union (2007) was the Nowadays, it is more difficult to identify strengthening of both NATO and the European these factors than it was to identify the political Union’s south-eastern flank together with and military threats, which existed throughout the inclusion of these two countries in the the Cold War. That is why, the states and the American anti-missile defense system as international security organizations have Octavian Manea considers in his article on repatterned their security strategies in order to the constitutionalization of the international fight against the new types of risks and threats political system published in the Romanian to security (Sarcinschi, 2007:63). revue Sfera politicii (Sphere of Politics), no. In the early 21st century, the main objective 116-117 (2005). Under such circumstances, the of the European security environment is United States of America and a strong Europe the reduction of the conventional risks and should combine their resources in order to the elimination of the situations in which a handle the new global, continental and regional continental or regional armed conflict could challenges. A common security design is highly emerge. recommended. This common pattern is the only The amplification of the asymmetric risks one being able to incorporate NATO and the EU and threats has caused the dramatic revival of in order to create a global management of the ethnic and religious nationalism as well as the post 9/11 security environment. In other words, widening of the economic and social gaps with we deal with a rethinking of co-operation negative effects on security (Petrescu, 2008:29). according to common interests: international The present-day risks and threats have terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, failed acquired an international status, without taking states etc. Concerning the present-day security into consideration the countries’ borders. environment, it is worth to mention several Therefore, there are not anymore major gaps specific features, such as: the dissolution of between the internal security and the external bipolarity, the emergence of a new era within one. This has led, in the field of defense and the framework of which the United States of security, to the tendency, shared by the majority America is considered to be the only credible of actors, to act within the framework of and viable political, economic, military and regional or global organizations. financial superpower (Petrescu, 2005:45- The main objective is to develop a common 48), the European Union as a generator of security and common defense strategies, which stability and progress, the powerful economic can be implemented in a regional or/and global and military development of China as well context. as the diplomatic offensive of Russia. All the The enlargement of NATO and EU eastwards previously mentioned major features prove that had a strategic impact on the international the future international security environment relations system, with a major influence on the will be based on a multipolar structure. Among international security environment. the main features of the security environment, Regarding the geopolitical context, in we can also mention the emergence of several the present-day Europe, there are two major new tendencies regarding the functioning dimensions. of institutions as well as political, economic The two dimensions are the Euro-Atlantic and security organizations, which aim at dimension and the Euro-Asian dimension. The repatterning and redimensioning the operative Euro-Atlantic dimension has been strengthened structures and strategies. by the enlargement of NATO eastwards. This enlargement has also generated several 3. THE GEOPOLITICAL DIMENSIONS difficulties regarding the management of the OF THE EUROPEAN SECURITY other dimensions. ENVIRONMENT On the one hand, there are no weaknesses in the geostrategic field and on the other hand, Several dramatic changes have occurred in there are several disagreements within the the security environment once the bipolarity Euro-Atlantic dimension. period was over. It is important to mention some Therefore, the so-called “New Europe” of these changes: the conflicts emerged within emerged. and between the states located near the border of This New Europe incorporates states, such the European Union, international terrorism, the as: Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, organized crime, illegal immigration, failed Poland. All these countries have been recently states, economic and social underdevelopment, integrated into the North-Atlantic Alliance. 32 Review of the Air Force Academy No 1 (28) 2015 All these facts could lead to a repatterning of Subsequently, it was thought that the issues the Euro-Atlantic relations, but not necessarily to on security lost in their intensity. Nowadays, a strengthening of these relations. According to analysts focus their attention, again, on the certain specialists, these previously-mentioned military dimension of security, through the states, through the process of integration, have initiation and intensification of thewar on terror turned into supporters of the American unilateral and the multidimensional character of risks and strategy. This could be underlined by the fact threats has acquired recognition (Frunzeti & that these states can have the role of a gateway Zodian, 2009:33). towards the former-Soviet space, especially Recently, security, at a global level, has through Poland and the Baltic countries, but experienced a dramatic change. The former also towards the Caspian space and the Middle risks and threats have been replaced by new East, through the Black Sea, with the support ones, modern ones, which are more terrifying, of Romania and Bulgaria. In this context, the being generated by international