Net-Centricity & Global Shocks

The threats and challenges facing the world today are real and complex.

Too often the focus is on single-point threats or risks — transnational crime, cyber attacks, corruption, terrorism, radicalization and violent extremism, climate change, migration, poverty, conflict, violence, an exploding population and unsustainable ecological footprint — while the true threat lies in their convergence.

When security vectors collide, each is individually dangerous but whose sum represents a far greater threat.

In 2016, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2016 mapped various inter-connections of global risks, shocks, threats:

In a turbulent world, multi-dimensional shocks, and active cascading risks and threats, are fueling greater insecurity and instability.

For example, in the dark side of globalization, transnational crime, terrorism, blood money, and corruption converge to create rogue states, ungoverned spaces, permissive sanctuaries, safe havens, and illicit financial hubs that enable kleptocrats, criminal thugs, and terrorists to thrive and export their terror campaigns and criminality abroad. 

If we factor in issues like pandemics, climate change, and other global shocks, and the fact that we are consuming natural resources at alarming levels, poaching endangered wildlife, destroying vital ecosystems, and extracting critical resources at a rate of consumption that is not sustainable, our global security remains uncertain.

The Global Footprint Network estimates that the world’s population currently consumes the equivalent of 1.6 planets. This figure should rise to two planets by 2030 based on current trends; 3 planets by 2050. Turning resources into waste faster than waste can be turned back into resources puts us in global ecological overshoot, depleting the very resources on which human life and biodiversity depend. The result is collapsing fisheries, diminishing forest cover, depletion of fresh water systems, and the build up of carbon dioxide emissions, which creates problems like global climate change.

On national security and climate change, Director James Clapper, Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), has stressed in recent years how our global security can be further complicated through natural catastropes/ disasters, and issues of competition and scarcity involving natural resources—food, water, minerals, and energy—and other interconnected security threats:

More and more countries are becoming vulnerable to natural resource shocks that degrade economic development, frustrate attempts to democratize, raise the risk of regime-threatening instability, and aggravate regional tensions. Extreme weather events (floods, droughts, heat waves) will increasingly disrupt food and energy markets, exacerbating state weakness, forcing human migrations, and triggering riots, civil disobedience, and vandalism. Criminal or terrorist elements can exploit any of these weaknesses to conduct illicit activity and/or recruitment and training.

Make no mistake, climate change is very real. It is here now and is a threat to our global security, and will continue to contribute to greater insecurity and instability due to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic food and water.

Insecurity and destabilization can have a devastating ripple effect across borders that threaten our shared agenda for enduring peace, prosperity, and market stability. 

"The awareness of risk management in government and the private sector has risen dramatically in recent years. Large-scale disasters have been recognised as challenges to public policy, usually at the national or regional level. The concept of “global shocks” takes account of a different pattern of risk: cascading risks that become active threats as they spread across global systems, whether these arise in health, climate, social or financial systems." [OECD Future Global Shocks] 

As the OECD High Level Risk Forum and OECD Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade have emphasized: "Not every risk can be prevented or avoided; governments and companies need to evaluate risks and distinguish those that are acceptable from those that should be mitigated or in some cases transferred. In a more interconnected world where disruptive events can have global implications, some of these decisions require international cooperation to formulate optimal strategies."

To mitigate global risks, shocks, and threats, public and private sector decision makers also need a firmer understanding of the magnitude and nature of the converging harms and impacts to communities. 

As security harms converge, the solution for governments and communities is to better understand and anticipate such convergence of global risks, shocks and threats through national risk assessements, predictive analytics and warning systems; synchronize efforts across borders; develop collaborative networks to effectively respond to today's risks, shocks, and threats; and anchor sustainable partnerships vital for resiliency, shared prosperity and security across economies and markets.

In an interconnected world, there are no global problems that can be solved by any one partner working alone. 

No one of us alone is as smart as all of us together.

The United States continues to join forces with partners around the world across sectors to address today’s global risks, shocks, and threats; map and build awareness of their inter-connectedness; and jointly develop full spectrum approaches, holistic responses and multi-disciplinary mitigation capabilities and strategic crisis management tools; and foster enhanced cooperation and collaborations with governments, businesses and civil society groups through public-private partnerships to promote a shared security and prosperity agenda, defend our common humanity, and protect our planet. 

Through our unity of effort and collective strengths, we can build a safer, better world and help secure an enduring peace. 

David M. Luna is a globally-recognized strategic leader. A disruptive innovator for social good, he is a visionary, thought leader, and a leading voice internationally on the full spectrum application of convergence strategies and net-centric approaches across today's global threat landscapes and markets. Mr. Luna, CEO & President, Luna Global Networks & Convergence Strategies LLC, is the Chair (Departing) of the OECD Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade. He is the former Senior Director for National Security and Diplomacy, Anti-Crime Programs, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) Affairs, U.S. Department of State. He actively partners with inter-governmental, international organizations, and civil society groups on combating transnational threats and security risks. Follow Luna Global Networks & Convergence Strategies LLC at: https://lunaglobalnetworks.com/ .

Luna Global Networks & Convergence Strategies LLC shares a commitment to social responsibility and ethical governance approaches across diverse communities that have a positive, lasting impact in the world by doing business with the highest level of integrity, promoting sustainable development strategies that benefit our global community, protect our people and planet, and for all future generations. 

[Photos: from publicly available sources and searches on open Internet; World Economic Forum (WEF), OECD, Global Footprint Network.]