The United States and China are the primary nodes of the multinodal world order. Together they are the middle third of the global economy, with the world’s biggest military budgets. Their parity makes rivalry inevitable because they are one another’s greatest counterpart. But their parity is asymmetric. China’s power relies on its demographic scale and on its Pacific Asian integration, while the US remains the center of the familiar global system that it created and it is the avatar of the developed world. While a Cold War is unlikely, the dangers posed by global rivalry are profound, ranging from nuclear war to failure to cooperate on global problems. The primary nodes also face asymmetric challenges. The US faces the challenge of adjusting to a central but not hegemonic global role. China faces the challenge of domestic tolerance and a mutually beneficial integration of Greater China and, more generally, of Pacific Asia. Beyond the primary nodes, regional reduction of uncertainties can contribute to the stabilization of world order. Cooperation founded on mutual respect is the prerequisite of successful global governance in a post-hegemonic world.

This chapter situates the work of the German writer W. G. Sebald within Foucault’s paradigm of biopolitical war, which is torn between a concern with State racism and a concern with extinction. Sebald’s work is often considered in relation to World War II and the Holocaust, in other words, in relation to State racism. The chapter seeks to shift this frame of reference toward the Cold War and the reality of Mutually Assured Destruction, which are important concerns in Sebald’s oeuvre as well. This invites us to consider Sebald as an author engaged not only with State racism but also with what Foucault calls “the atomic situation.” Specifically, the chapter considers the use of lists in Sebald’s work not only as a memorial effort in response to the destruction of World War II but also as an effort to record all of life in anticipation of its disappearance. Finally, it shows that such a use of the list exceeds Sebald’s fiction and can be found in a range of related contemporary fiction and theory. Today, in the Anthropocene, the biopolitical war exceeds the issue of State racism and includes that of extinction, human and otherwise – including the extinction of literature itself.

As I indicated in the Introduction, I will begin my tour of four select security referents at the macro level and work my way down. I will do so for four reasons. The first is to help shake off any lingering anthropocentric biases that might skew the analysis were we to work in the opposite direction. Human security, of course, naturally invites an anthropocentric treatment; culture as I shall be discussing it is also largely a human concern; and the state is a human creation. Were we to get into the habit of putting people at the centre of our analysis, we might do so too readily precisely where it would be least appropriate. The second is that ecospheric security will be the least familiar concept of the four and for that reason might risk coming across as an afterthought if I were to treat it last. Third, and relatedly, given the unfamiliar style of analysis to which I aim to subject these referents, I see advantages in giving it its first rigorous test in a context in which it is least likely to grate, hoping thereby to cultivate a degree of comfort with it once I turn to referents that we are used to analyzing in less unconventional ways. Fourth, and most importantly, I will argue that the ecosphere must take priority as a security referent, and accordingly must condition our understanding of the others. This argument would be more difficult to make were I to put various carts before the horse.

In this chapter I apply the Augustinian Liberal just war framework to contemporary cases of war and conflict: Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, Syria, North Korea, and selected cases of cyberwar and autonomous weapons. I discuss Iraq because it is the largest recent war and has animated a huge amount of commentary from just war scholars. I contrast my approach with that of several other thinkers to show the original insights of my approach. Second, I discuss Afghanistan and the War on Terror because the wars illustrate some features of the moral reality of contemporary war that I hope shape our understanding of just war in the future. Third, I use Syria to discuss humanitarian crises, the use of weapons of mass destruction, and the costs of nonintervention. Fourth, I use North Korea to discuss nuclear war, nuclear deterrence, and preemptive and preventive war – issues that have been with us since the dawn of the Cold War and are still with us. Fifth, I discuss cyberwar and autonomous weapons as novel forms of conflict whose moral dimensions are still coming into focus.

The human existential emergency: describes the 10 intersecting threats to the human future and the role/impact of food in each. Calls for cross-cutting solutions for all ten issues. Learning to think as a species.Women ‘must lead’ in all spheres of human activity.

Survey of recent and ongoing food wars and drivers. List of hotspots for potential future conflicts in order of risk. Key role of water in conflict risk. Impact of nuclear conflict on global food security. Risk of > 1 billion migrants and refugees. Food, land and water as key global securioty issues.