For international security, the year 2017 was marked – among others – by signs of a continued erosion of the so-called liberal international order and an increasingly unpredictable US foreign policy. Tensions in many parts of the world have been growing: the rhetoric between the US and North Korea has escalated, the rift in the Gulf has become deeper, not only between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and major arms control treaties are at stake.
In the last year, the world got closer – much too close! – to the brink of significant conflict, and we must do whatever we can to move away from the brink. So said Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of this month’s Munich Security Conference, in the foreword to the Munich Security Report 2018.
Titled “To the Brink – and Back?”, the report provides an overview of major security policy issues and features data, analyses, maps and infographics; released for the 54th Munich Security Conference. Among speakers was UK PM Theresa May.
Besides the European Union, China, and Russia, eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the report covers ‘environmental security’, namely the national security aspects of climate change; cyber; and nuclear security and arms control, where the report warned that landmark treaties are at risk of unraveling.
On cyber the report said that cybercrime reached ‘unprecedented levels of activity and scale in 2017, in particular with ransomware attacks such as WannaCry, which in May 2017 eclipsed all previous attacks and infected an estimated 300,000 victims in 150 countries’. The report pointed to how international law applied to cyberspace remains highly contentious; including disagreements over how international humanitarian law applies, the right to self-defense, and what counter-measures are lawful. States are starting to explore more specific agreements, such as protecting the core of the internet or financial stability. There remains uncertainty and disagreement about which forum and format is best suited to further advance the discussions about ‘rules of the road’ for cyberspace.
To download the 88-page document, visit https://www.securityconference.de/en/discussion/munich-security-report/. It includes a reading list of two dozen books and other reports.
Image courtesy of Munich Security Conference.
