Escaping the Insecurity Trap

Name: Escaping the Insecurity Trap
Start: 2024-10-23T19:00:00+01:00
Location: 16–18 Queen Square, Bath BA1 2HN

Schedule

Wed Oct 23 2024 at 07:00 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

16–18 Queen Square, Bath BA1 2HN | Bath, EN

Militarism in the name of ‘security’ only makes us less secure. So do growing inequality and global heating. Is there a better way to go?
In the decade that lies ahead, a bitterly divided world faces a combination of limits to growth, escalating wars and climate breakdown. Yet national governments prioritise an approach of relentless militarism in the name of ‘security’, to enforce stability and protect the wealthy. There is a growing sense that things are falling apart, given the failure to negotiate or mediate effectively in desperate wars (Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza) and the shame of social injustice and rising poverty.
Paul Rogers argues that in responding to the prospect of ‘a crowded, glowering world’, there are three questions we must answer:
• Can we come to terms with the environmental limits to growth in time?
• Can we transform the world economy to ensure that there is far better sharing of what we have?
• Can we change our understanding and practice of international security to focus on a human security approach that works for all, not just an elite?
Paul Rogers is Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University and an honorary fellow of the Joint Service Command and Staff College (JSCSC). He has a long-term research interest in what drives international conflict, and especially the connection between socio-economic divisions and global heating. He trained originally as a biologist, working as a plant pathologist in East Africa before returning to the UK to lecture in environmental science, and later environmental security and then peace research.
His many books (which have been translated into Chinese, Farsi, Japanese and Russian among other languages) include ‘Losing Control: Global security in the twenty-first century’ (4th edn 2021) and ‘Irregular War: The new threat from the margins’ (2017). His latest book, ‘The Insecurity Trap: A short guide to transformation’, which is the basis for this talk, will be published by Hawthorn Press in November.
This talk is sponsored by Bath & District UNA, Bath Stop War and Rethinking Security B&NES.