Where
we are right now? Are we living in safe, stable, advanced and developed world?
From the technology development and the widespread use of Internet, Facebook
and other mass media such as CNN, BBC, or Channel News Asia, one would feel
like we have living a better and well informed world. On the other hand, if one
looks at the news that are reporting every day big proportion of it are
violence, conflicts, environmental pollution, disaster, earthquake, draught,
flood, hunger and shortage of clean water etc. Between these two trends which
is developing faster? Which one draws more attention from young generation?
What should be done with these countless problems? How about other problems
such as transnational crime, extremist groups and too much nationalism??? These
are all problems that need be dealt with by young generation.
On
the other hand, global issues such as global terrorism, global warming, and global
climate change, HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and the proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction are permanent and very powerful crises. They have developed
and moved respect no national borders. For instance, the implication of the
spreading of HIV/AIDS into any angle of the world has drawn people’s anxiety
and attention from everywhere no matter they are the poor Africans or Asians. The
example of widespread of HIV/AIDS reminds many state-governments that a ‘go
alone policy’ would be compatible for only minor and local issues such as
education or land management but very incompatible for major global issues like
global warming, and it also suggests that states should join hand in hand if it
wants to make global issues be combatable. Global issues throughout the world are
making this into an increasingly borderless, or making a diverse and isolated become
a world united for some instances such as global warming, widespread of
HIV/AIDS and global terrorism. As a result of these issues, it has put most of
the sovereign states to reconfigure its position and role in the international
arena. Most of the sovereign states generally began admitting their inability
to get global issues solved because they are no longer the single, powerful
actor. The U.S, for a clear instance, had enjoyed the honey moon period for two
centuries by the protection of two great oceans, friendly neighbors and
progressive growth. However, it has changed today. The world’s only superpower
American’s home is vulnerable to various threats ranging from terrorist attacks
to pandemic influencza to financial crisis etc. America cannot unilaterally hold
them because these are not private problems but worldwide and it requires international
cooperation and shared responsibility for solutions to be found.
The
spread of global issues such as environmental deterioration, pandemics, and the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has constituted collective
dilemmas which no individual state can solve on its own but rather through cooperation.
That is why many states rather recognized the essential needs of mutual support
and cooperation from other concern, independent states and nonstate actors, civil
society, and transnational networks to tackle these unprecedented crises. It
thus would mean that powerful states are still very powerful and can go alone
to deal with local or regional issues like the U.S did for centuries but they could
not ignore the participation or at least the interests of the many poor nations
in Africa and Asia if they really want to win the fighting over any global
issues.