Overview

Modern international relations were conceived, at the dawn of the Westphalian time, around the concept of national security. According to a founding Hobbesian tradition, nation-states were competing for optimizing their own security and maintaining a minimal balance of power. Power, territory, sovereignty, foreign policy, war and peace were then evolving from such a postulate. Furthermore, the well- known “security studies” have grown in this perspective, while security was considered as the main attribute of the modern State.

This time is now partly over: as a result of globalization, security is moving from a national to a global construction. The main threats are no more bound to an enemy, a strategist or an aggressive intention, but to the dynamics of a global system, including climate catastrophes, economic crisis or virus. In the meantime, new conflicts are much more springing from a weakness or a failure of the local societies or the states than from a power competition… It is clearly impossible to handle with this new threat as it was previously done: that is why this new context implies a huge transformation of the international arena, revisiting the main traditional concepts and practices.