By IRNA,
London : Unless global responses are made to the current economic crisis, the most serious threat to international security will be the impoverishment of hundreds of millions of people, a British think-tank warned Thursday.
The Oxford Research Group (ORG) suggested it could lead to radical and violent social movements that will be met with force, resulting in still greater conflict.
According to the author, Professor Paul Rogers of Bradford University, all the indications are that the response to the crisis of the most powerful states will be to concentrate on the immediate problems affecting their economies.
“Instead, the opportunity should be taken to introduce fundamental economic reforms which reverse the wealth-poverty divisions that have got so much worse in the past three decades,” said the professor of peace studies.
The international security report pointed to trade reform needed to improve the economies of third world states, coupled with debt cancellation and substantial aid for sustainable development.
All are required “as a matter of urgency if we are to avoid a much more divided global system in which the majority of the world’s population is marginalized, and increasingly resentful and bitter,” it warned.
The intensifying Naxalite rebellion in India and the substantial problems of social unrest in China were listed as early indicators of the dangers faced by the global financial crisis.
ORG also considered the likely effects of climate change, especially on poorer communities, with the likelihood of exacerbating socio-economic divisions.
“We are facing the deepest economic crisis for two generations”, Rogers said. “We can either respond as a global community or as a narrow group of rich and powerful countries,” he said.
His belief was that the choices made in the next few months “will do much to decide whether the world becomes more or less peaceful over the next ten years.”
ORG is an independent non-governmental organisation which seeks to bring about positive change on issues of national and international security. Established in 1982, it is considered to be one of the UK’s leading global security think tanks.