Global Security and Cooperation in the Post-Pandemic Period: From the Concert of Europe in the 19th Century to the Concert of Globe in the 21 st Century

The establishment of the 19th century “Concert of Europe” provided a relatively sustainable political stability and peace for almost 100 years, yet was unable to prevent from transformative powers and revolutionary dynamics rising from within. At the turn of the 20th century, European continent began to signal new quests for change, resulting from shifts in the political balance of power and especially due to the advancements in military technology. The international policy heritage to the 21 st century from the previous one that gave rise to two global wars, is not a “total sum of the relations among nation-states”, but a globalized world where “there is little space of manoeuvre left for the states to make changes in the system”. In this new setting, perceptions of global security go beyond the traditional military framework and are reshaped within the perceptions of the 21 st century security architecture with its new dimensions such as environmental threats, epidemics, economic crises and natural disasters. On the other hand, it was exactly a severe trauma that paves the way to an existential crisis for the global society, who have already faced with two major threats, as “global terrorism” and “global economic crisis” in the first twenty years of the new century to suffer a pandemic (COVID-19), while fighting against many uncertainties of being on the verge of a transition to a new civilizational mode, namely Industry 4.0. Despite a common enemy, “the pandemics”, that equally threatens all countries, they are unable to operate the UN, NATO or WHO as a common platform of cooperation but as a ground for competition between countries, which does not seem promising for the future. It is crucial to know that the future threats to peace and security in the upcoming period will not emerge from only non-state actors such as global terrorism, environmental problems or pandemics etc., and will not be limited to a particular part of the world, but also rise from interstate relations, like US-China rivalry. It is only possible to transform the 19th century “Concert of Europe” model, into a 21st century “Concert of Globe” system, with a multilateral and fair participation of the members of the global community.