Collective Security – Civilizational pium desiderium

Abstract

The author’s intention is to signal the evolution of collective security – as an emanation of expectations - of civilization in the past century, emphasizing the experience of the League of Nations and the interwar period, as well as contemporary processes in the context of the UN’s activities in this field. This view seems pessimistic and in some important respects the current decade seems to resemble the international reshuffles that led to the armed confrontation in 1939. The most serious element of the current international decomposition is the prospect of another Munich (1938), most visible in relation to Ukraine. The emphasis on demands from NATO members for a 5% share in military spending (it goes without saying that this is only about defense!), heralds a crowd on the arms trade market, which will feed all military equipment from possible overproduction on a global scale and the necessary emptying of warehouses from older models. Its sale – even distribution – is always more profitable than its disposal on site... This is also a very bad prospect. There is solemn silence in matters of disarmament or limitation of armaments, while commotion accompanies the universal rearming of all those affected by the balance of fear. At the cost of obvious social sacrifices, the world agrees to the formula: Si vis pacem, para bellum…