Red lines and mushroom clouds

Instead of common security eastern Europe saw the expansion of the western alliance system and the extension of the most savage of neoliberal orders, which in essence amounted to little more than plunder.

Meaningful human survival ranked much, much lower as a priority relative to grand theft of property that theoretically, at least, was held in common through the auspices of the state.

In the nuclear age more than ever security is a common property or a common resource. This is because, despite all the efforts to achieve escalation control, the nuclear powers are locked into a condition of interdependency that technology and strategy cannot break.

To reignite an impetus for common security will require remobilising the peace movement; one of the benefits of the end of the cold war for elites was that it had the affect of demobilising the movement. Although it sprang up again in the context of Iraq and the "war on terror" it lacked an encompassing vision for common security, was largely reactive, and so as a consequence was easily dispersed.

We need to rearticulate a programme of common security and fight for it using the panoply of mobilisations and direct actions that the peace movement of the 1980s was noted for.

Meaningful human survival will depend upon an aroused global citizenry that dares once again to set red lines for the world's elites.