General Assembly
Official Records
Fifty-fourth Session
Supplement No. 1 (A/54/1)

Chapter IV

Implications of globalization for security

252. Globalization has a number of implications for global and national security, some positive, some negative. Global market forces can generate wealth and spread prosperity, but where development is uneven the result can be increased political tensions and risks of instability -- as we have recently witnessed following the East Asian financial crisis. Ironically, the same crisis reduced defence spending in the region, checking what some had characterized as a regional arms race. In Western Europe, the logic of market forces has deepened European integration, giving all parties a clear vested interest in the peaceful resolution of inter-State disputes.

253. Many commentators see an important association between the spread of economic liberalism, which is one of the hallmarks of globalization, and the expansion of political liberalism. More than 60 per cent of the world's States now have some form of democratic government. Proponents of what has been called the "democratic peace thesis" point out that democracies almost never fight each other and have far lower levels of internal armed conflict than non-democracies. They argue that insofar as the expansion of market forces facilitates the emergence of democracy, globalization has a positive impact on global security.

254. Globalization also has a dark side. Global demand for particular commodities, such as timber, diamonds and drugs, has provided the funds that have allowed warring factions to sustain fighting over many years. The same Internet that has facilitated the spread of human rights and good governance norms has also been a conduit for propagating intolerance and has diffused information necessary for building weapons of terror.

255. Rising levels of industrial development also mean that more and more States have access to the basic technologies needed to make weapons of mass destruction, while the increasingly open global market makes controlling traffic in the precursors of weapons of mass destruction increasingly difficult.