Threats to Global Security Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Threats to Global Security - Essay Example The nation-states drafted or enlisted vast segments of the population base to build huge armies, navies, air forces, and nuclear weaponry, and the military command of each nation used this force with unrestrained power, even against civilian populations. The â€Å"old† war pattern led to hundreds of millions of individual deaths across the world during the course of the 20th Century. In a different interpretation focusing on media, Heidi Schaefer writes in â€Å"Old Wars New Wars†: â€Å"The famous photograph of a man being executed by a shot to the head by South Vietnam Lt. Colonel Ngyen Ngoc Loan, Saigon Chief of Police... taken by Eddie Adams, in 1968, on a side street in Saigon and later won him... a Pulitzer prize. In Adams’ obituary, the Washington Post wrote on this defining image of the violence of war in the latter half of the 20th century: ‘It was war in its purest, most personal form.’† (Schaefer, 2009) Thus, in evaluating the defin ition of â€Å"old† wars, it can be stated that on the global or international level, â€Å"old† wars operate on the Clausewitzian model of â€Å"total war† and mass-mobilization of societies that cause immense amounts of social and economic destruction. On the local level, â€Å"old† wars operate as in the Eddie Adam’s photo, the brutality of a man shot in the head, the passion of the scene, the emotions, and desperation are all caught on camera and recorded as a â€Å"total history†. In using this understanding to build a conception of â€Å"new† wars, these can be seen as â€Å"conflicts† that operate on a limited or isolated basis globally, generally in failed States or in surgical military operations led by the hegemonic powers. Where â€Å"total war† characterized the old paradigm, â€Å"contained war† is symbolic of the new. This may also include increased systematization, de-personalization, and abstractio n of violence so as to understand that State violence becomes more â€Å"stylized† in the operation of â€Å"new† war, as in a â€Å"cosmopolitan† police action. Additionally, there is a greater tendency to covert action, marginalized conflicts, lack of media coverage of non-central States, and disappearance of history that suggest in the local operation of â€Å"new† war, there is an inherent secrecy or hidden aspect that relates to containment, and can be seen as contrary to the Eddie Adams model. This means the media may not be centrally present in the â€Å"new† wars; the violence may not be recorded and broadcast in graphic imagery, but rather masked and stylized by the State in Hollywood manner in order to continue status quo operations with violence contained to the destruction of media-driven stereotypes of â€Å"foreign enemies† and â€Å"terror†. In reviewing the academic literature on the definition of â€Å"old† war and â€Å"new† war, there is a consistent theme of scholars writing on the subject to identify the 9/11 attacks as ushering in a new paradigm in the conduct of war. In "Old Laws, New Wars: Jus ad Bellum in an Age of Terrorism," William K. Lietzau writes: "At 8:46 on the morning of 11 September 2001, a handful of terrorists propelled the globe into an era of profound change... Whether or not recognized, acknowledged, or asserted, 9/11 and the response thereto brought forth a nascent legal regime that will alter the way nation states apply the rule of