System Perturbation: Conflict in the Age of Globalisation

Abstract : Aperiodically, the international system reorders itself normally in the aftermath of a major conflict. This reordering is accompanied by the implementation of new rule sets in an attempt to firewall states from the causes of the conflict. Policy makers have openly enquired whether the end of the Cold War and the birth of the information age requires a new firebreak and the implementation of a new set of rules. Because "great power war" has been the proximate cause of past restructuring, great power war has been the ordering principle for international (and national) rules and institutions. Recent events indicate that a new ordering principle is required (one in which great power war is but one possible outcome). In helping America's Defense Department think through the future of international security, the authors have proposed that "system perturbation" be examined as the new ordering principle. The best way to describe this ordering principle is to examine what happened on and after September 11th. The attacks of 9/11 were not acts perpetrated by a nation-state using traditional methods of warfare. Yet their effect was momentous, like a giant stone dropped in a calm pond. The initial vertical shock was spectacular, but the resulting horizontal ripples had longer-lasting effects that went well beyond the security field. This paper examines the underlying precepts of system perturbation and potential triggers that could lead to great power conflict. It argues that these triggers will likely foment in places where globalization is actively resisted and by individuals who will use information age tools to oppose globalization's spread and content. They argue that great powers are less likely to confront one another than they are to cooperate to eliminate super-empowered individuals (or groups) trying to disrupt the global economy. This paper examines the effects of the 9/11 perturbation on security, environment, technology, culture, health, and economics.