How safe is man on this planet? This is a question that continues to occupy the minds, given all these ongoing wars, continuous development of weapons, stockpiling of nuclear warheads, growing economic ambitions and the desire to control the world.

After World War II, the contest between the communist East and capitalist West amid growing nuclear capabilities of both blocs led to the emergence of nuclear deterrence. It was this deterrence that actually prevented a third world war. Both were convinced that if a war broke out there would be no winners and the result would be total annihilation.

It was thus under the “old world order” when two superpowers were contending for supremacy that the world enjoyed a period of relative safety. This, however, did not last long as a result of the collapse of the communist bloc and the emergence of the capitalist bloc as the new world leader.

The New World Order that followed forced a series of changes on the international scene compromising many of the principles that protected the independence of nations. The result is that the world policy is being directed according to the wishes of the sole dominant superpower and the other big countries orbiting it. The natural result is growing frustration and fear among other communities who now feel they are no longer safe.

Consequently, the world has, over a short period of time, witnessed no less than 50 ethnic conflicts, some 170 border conflicts and two major wars that called for the intervention of foreign forces.

This state of affairs was best described by a 2002 report by the Conflict Research Center of Sandhurst Military College when it said that the end of the Cold War had in fact led the world into a new era dominated by wars that would have been contained when the Soviet Union and the United States were capable of reigning in countries under their influence. The end of the Cold War era saw the world being gripped by hostility and chaos.

The lack of security now prevailing in the world is best illustrated by the bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan with cruise missiles, the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and the continuous threats of attacking Iran and invading and occupying Syria and Sudan with no legal justification.

The New World Order has failed to uphold and apply justice or the rule of law. A case in point is the policies of the racist state of Israel and its war of genocide against the defenseless Palestinians. Israel is the only country in the world that continues to treat with utmost contempt all international resolutions, maintain a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons and refuse to sign the nuclear non-proliferation pact. Yet, no one dares to ask why Iran and North Korea are being attacked for possessing nuclear programs. It is indeed a conviction based on fallacy for anyone to consider those two countries as the ones threatening the security and peace of the big powers.

As a result of such serious flaws in international policy, the Western liberal democracy that is to be imposed on other nations is being used as a cover for illegal actions to serve the interests of the big powers. It is here that world peace and security are being threatened. This prompted international institutions and research centers to focus on studying world security and peace, especially in the Middle East which poses the most serious thereat to world peace.

The conclusions reached by these researches are the following:

• The world is in need of more than one superpower. Otherwise, it would slide further into chaos.

• The world population will increase from six billion to nine billion over the next few decades. This means more unemployment and intensive movement of people from the South to the North, which may eventually trigger more conflicts thus threatening world security

• Intensified economic conflicts among nations and a growing desire to control world resources and markets. The result is an arms race, especially in weapons of mass destruction.

• Corrupt economic and media globalization drive dominating the world and eventually leading to bloody conflicts that breed more terrorism.

In reality, we now live under a “no-world order” situation which has been afflicted by so many diseases that any further complications could make the world flip further into chaos of levels never known before.

The world needs to reorganize this order in a manner that guarantees national interests and respects the rights of others. This requires morality and transparency in international relations, something that is unfortunately missing in today’s politics.