Introduction

Most analysts would agree that the world is experiencing new challenges that differ substantially from those it faced during the decades of East-West confrontation and ‘balance of terror’. Yet much of the military system remains rooted in that period. The main focus of security studies and policy makers is the complex relationship between multiple factors such as poverty, violent insurgencies, uncontrolled weaponry, and terrorism. Related topics include histories of domination and occupation, conflicts based on ethnicity and competition for natural resources, gender oppression, as well as war crimes and law enforcement. It is a complex bundle of challenges but few of them lend themselves to military solutions. Indeed the continuing failure of such ‘solutions’, especially in the years since 9-11, is the main reason why civil society movements have been urging a different kind of focus for public policy.