What are the effects of globalized communication, migration and trade on security demand?

In some respects, the needs of international security and global trade are clearly in tension. Modern shipping containers, while being highly efficient and indispensible to modern world commerce, can be used to smuggle drugs, contraband, illegal immigrants, nuclear bomb components, and well equipped terrorists, efficiently and securely (The Economist, 2002). At the moment only 2% of shipping containers get screened; in large part because screening all containers, with presently employed methods, would take a heavy toll on the supply chains of most industries, which require rapid and continuous flow of goods (The Economist, 2002).

On the other hand, when it comes to individual nations posing a threat to international security, global trade may have the exact opposite effect:

A nation’s security increases (decreases) as its interdependence with the rest of the world increases (decreases). Proponents of this view hypothesize that with greater interdependence, the opportunity costs (to all concerned nations) of a disruption in trade are greater. Higher opportunity costs in turn make it less likely that any single nation will undertake action – be it economic, diplomatic, or military – that disrupts trade and threatens the minimally acceptable level of economic welfare (Herander, 1993)

The Internet is one of the hallmarks of new means of global communication. And while having many positive effects on commerce, politics, education, and a host of other areas of human endeavour, it also has some negative effects on security, from the individual to the global level. “The presence of subversive groups and organizations on the internet has grown, and continues to grow at an alarming pace.” Such groups use the internet to plan and coordinate violent attacks in the real world, and/or engage in cyber attacks on targeted websites, computers, or electronic command systems (Nordeste & Carment, 2006). Profit-seeking criminals are also turning to the internet and other means of global communication, more and more.

Fraudsters can conduct schemes remotely using telemarketing techniques and Internet promotions in conjunction with virtual marketplaces, electronic trading systems and wire remittances. Technology enables perpetrators to undertake criminal activities anonymously, transfer funds quickly, and target victims over a broad geographic area. Many securities fraud schemes are national or transnational in scope, potentially targeting thousands of investors from multiple countries (CISC, 2010).

Increases in global migration have, not surprisingly, led to increases in many security threats. Aside from fueling such prominent illegal activities as terrorism and organized crime, increased global migration also led to increases in global health threats. Aside from contributing to the spread of local epidemics across the world, it also led to the emergence of new ones as “Travelers to and from previously isolated regions may distribute previously contained microorganisms into the global population, many of whom will be immunologically naïve to the emerging infectious agent” (Price-Smith, 2002, p. 41).

References

CISC (2010), “2010 Report on Organized Crime” http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2010/grc-rcmp/PS61-1-2010-eng.pdf

Herander, M. (1993), “International trade relations, trade policy, and national security: The role of economic analysis”, in Leitzel (1993), Economics and National Security.

Nordeste, B. & D. Carment (2006), “A framework for understanding terrorist use of the internet”, Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies 2006-2, The Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton Univ., http://www4.carleton.ca/cifp/app/serve.php/1121.pdf.

Price-Smith, A. T. (2002). The Health of Nations. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

The Economist (2002), “When trade and security clash”, April 6.