NIC Chairman Gregory Treverton, the keynote speaker at UNM’s “Security Trends in the Next Two Decades” symposium, addressed topics related to future security trends such as the global population increase, water scarcity and “six game-changers” in global security.
The major talking points in his speech were adapted from a NIC security trends document titled “Global Trends 2030: Alternate Worlds.”
“I sometimes think that when you talk about international order in the future, you’re looking at what seems to be international disorder,” Treverton said. “We remember international order in the past, that it looked good and we got through it. Now we face a future that may be much more disorderly.”
The symposium, which ran Wednesday through Friday, covered topics ranging from Guantanamo Bay to the Ukrainian crisis, and other security issues.
The six game-changers Treverton spoke of were events that could have a powerful effect on the globe depending on how they play out, such as social media and how governments and international institutions will adapt to its speed in organizing protests and revolutions.
While his speech was in good humor, Treverton expressed concern in relation to global stability, specifically during his explanation of his “volatility” game-changer. He described a modern world with security issues that don’t offer a clear strategy on how to deal with them.
“A world without a theme is a very volatile world — maybe not an existentially dangerous one, but one with lots of volatility,” he said.
The result of such a world, he said, would either be a global security breakdown, or an emergence of “resilient growth areas” that maintain security.
“These themes are strategic in nature, and I thought that was the value of the speech,” said Emile Nakhleh, UNM’s National Security Programs coordinator. “For example, international disorder — how can the United States deal with international disorder regionally, internally in different countries, and across the globe? The assumption there is that nothing happens in one country that stays in one country.”
The final game-changer Treverton referred to was the United States’ role in the future of international security. The NIC Global Trends document discussing this concept expresses mild uncertainty in the United States’ role in future security, but asserts that it will “remain ‘first among equals’” because of its wide range of influence.
But the document does not deny that global policy shifts are occurring.
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“Right now we’re living through a third ‘flexpoint’ in international politics in the last 25 years,” Treverton said. “The first was the fall of communism; the second was 9/11; the third is now.”
Treverton said the previous flexpoints had “owner’s manuals,” or lessons that characterized the movements, but he explained the current point lacks a lesson and the main concern for the United States is to construct “some sort of mental framework” to assist its allies in forming policy.
While the future of international security policy is uncertain, the NIC hopes to provide ideas to help form the policy of the future, he said.
Fin Martinez is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @FinMartinez
