Emerging Threats to International Security: Environment, Refugees, and Conflict

Abstract

This paper is to anticipate emerging issues that challenge the international community. Borrowing from the concept of bipolarity between communist and capitalist system during the Cold War, the interacting dynamics of environmental change, refugee flows, and conflicts were here labeled as tripolarity, a destructive set of interactions which increases global insecurity. The end of the Cold War seemed to promise peace, but countries soon fell prey to the violence of renewed ethnic rivalries, nationalism, and self-determination. These violent conflicts perhaps have caused more environmental destruction and human suffering (e.g. death or refugee flows) than the old, ideological conflicts. Moreover, such environmental change and refugee flows have come to the fore in global politics, not only as a consequence but also as an emerging source of violent conflicts.