Nonproliferation after Tucidide

The paradigms of international relations and religion are a relation which could be very profitable for new theoretical building or not. The Huntington vision on religion is not confirmed up to now, but the rise of religious terrorism is a reality. The fact that the European Union is officially secular is not a reason to study the impact of religion on international relation; the enlargement of European Union in orthodox territory (Greece, Romania and sooner Serbia) is an interesting evolution of Huntington’ Clash of Civilization.

But the situation in Islamic countries raises the question of religious fanatics and international relations paradigms. Is there any compatibility between democracy and Islam? Could the answer to this question be interesting for international relations?

The current strategic documents use a metamorphosed vocabulary, because of the political-military strategic thinking adapted to the changing realities. First, there is a widening of the national security aim to combine external and internal security strategies, with the prerequisite reality that traditional barriers between external and internal security have been changed. In the new strategic vocabulary terms such as “September 11, 2001”, “crisis”, “global war on terror”, “proactive”, “resilience”, and “generalized interpretation” have been introduced.

During the Cold War, most strategic concepts were classified documents; today’s strategic documents are considered more valuable as they educate the public opinion with respect to current and future threats to national security and present developments for governments and international organizations in terms of managing future challenges.

The security environment has been constantly analyzed, defined and characterized, seminars and conferences largely dealing with the topic, at all levels (international, regional, national, and strategic, operational and tactical), most of which completed in articles or thematic books, nicely arranged and with logical conclusions, possibly with suggestions for approach of the current security environment features. But what lacks when dealing with current security environment is the practical result of the attempts of influencing it in a positive way, and that is something that I consider to be nothing more than the result of a superficial analysis of the development trends of the international security environment or the lack of sufficient motivation to avoid crisis whose victims are, generally, the poor populations – that have no military involvement – of some socially and economically underdeveloped societies.

Strategic security environment paradigm seems to have acquired features and content that two decades ago were at least minimized if not ignored in building strategic visions. This study intends to signal major changes that can influence theories/ paradigms that will be built on the foundation of democratic internationalism.
Such phenomena as multipolarism, the struggle for resources and political ambitions of some leaders are engines generating total reorientation of traditional policies of some countries that will trigger dramatic changes in the strategic security environment.

In recent decades, there have been significant changes in the prospects for understanding and approaching security threats and for the needs of crisis and conflict management. The traditional view of security referred to threats outside the state, promoting national strategies for maximizing the state’s power and its military capabilities to deal with external aggression. After the Cold War, the international community’s attention shifted from superpower rivalries that erupted into civil war in almost every continent, outside the borders, becoming regional problems. As a result, the security paradigm approach has changed.