Weapons Proliferation, International Security and the Future of the Global System

Abstract

Today, the world faces countless difficulties, but none of them is more threatening than the unfiltered and unguarded spread of illicit weapons across the international system. While among threats to international security one can mention poverty, terror, xenophobia, food insecurity, war, and climate change, a far more lethal challenge, which has the destructive capacity to erase the history of all the peoples from the surface of the planet, is currently unfolding. With tens of thousands of people being killed or wounded daily, it has become imperative to interrogate the politics behind the endless abuse, misuse, and illicit proliferation of lethal weapons in the global system and its implications for global security given the scant academic at-tention it has received in recent time. Relying on archival and other non-quantitative data, this study examines the implications of the continued illicit proliferation of weapons for international peace and security. The re-sults reveal that the failures of state actors to address the problem of illicit weapons proliferation have grave implications not only for global peace and security but also for the future. State actors must assume a critical role in minimizing the illicit proliferation of weapons if the future of the global system is to be secure.