Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Brown Urges Global Push to Solve Global Problems

The articles above seems to tie in with a lot of what we have been discussing in class concerning security communities, terrorism, occupations, and even environmental issues.

First, Brown calls for the U.S. and Europe to forge even stronger ties to combat issues of "terrorism, the environment, hunger and poverty." According to him, the only way to stop terrorism is to make it "isolated and abandoned" through means such as freezing assets. But he also says that both countries should make efforts to stabilize unstable nations, as "instability in one country will affect stability in all countries."

I personally don't see how the above could work out, as to some extent terrorism seems to be bred through unwanted western involvement in states. I agree with his statement about instability breeding further instability, but as Iraq shows, western powers should be very careful about how they proceed in "fixing" nations, as the results may prove more damaging than the initial situation. But the whole situation does suggest a strengthening of the security community, if that can be applied to two states, between the U.S. and Britain. That it has been founded on a whole number of factors (similarities in government, language, ideology, etc.) suggests that the stronger the collective identity between states, the more effective of a security community they form, and that the collective identity can lead to other factors--economic or what not--that only serve to further strengthen the relationship.

He also proposes the creation of a global peace corps with the goal of rebuilding nations. I'm not entirely certain if this idea will ever become reality. For one thing, unlike the U.S. peace corps, this organization would be subject to the whims conflicting international interests. What would be the difference between these peace corps and UN troops? History has proven that UN troops, while good in theory, tend not to be particularly effective.

Interestingly, Brown also calls for a global effort to combat climate change. As Professor Nexon mentioned in his lecture, the issue of climate change is an extremely difficult case to deal with. I'm not entirely certain if, of all institutions, the World Bank is most fit to deal with this issue, since the responsibility of dealing with the issues lies with states choosing to take actions themselves. And most states simply want nothing to do with it, especially since whether there will be consequences in the future or not remains too uncertain to risk a commitment.