| Description |
Defence and Security have always been conceived as essential dimensions of human existence. Despite of the end of the Cold War, armed conflicts have been globalized to a new scale, acquiring unknown forms in a permanently changing nature. Considering the present redefinition stage of security and defence roles in the Atlantic and European space, the need of a point for reflection and debate, from a wide, open and transdisciplinary perspective, seeking new models in which collective defence and security in our societies can be articulated following principles of solidarity and sustainability is latent. To reach this model, to which we will refer to as ‘Responsible Defence’, it is necessary to examine and analyse the past, present and future roles of civilian and military actors, from a critic and integrating optic, paying attention to new challenges (as emergency situations, humanitarian crisis, natural disasters, peace operations, ...) and realities (new security threats, changing institutional factors, scientific research and development, etc.).
KEY POINTS & OBJECTIVES
Create a meeting point for both civil and military agents, exposing to the wider public the complementary nature of relations established between them. Confronted by a complex global situation with centrifugal destabilizing forces as terrorism, rouge and fundamentalist states, both spheres tend towards necessary cooperation and understanding, from which to draw adequate response to the new threats of the 21st century. Because of this, a debate on how to work out the synthesizing of common synergies for a safer and just world is appropriate.
The need to abolish existing preconceptions and fictitious antagonisms in relation to security and defence issues, especially active defence, in many European societies is evident. Therefore, new strategies must be drawn to effectively communicate a vital sphere of our common existence, defence, to safeguard and guarantee a space of security not only in our own countries and those of our allies, but also in those regions subjugated to forces threatening this collective good.
The optic from which this conference, meeting, exchange of remarks, is that of multidisplinarity, a synergy of opinions, background, sensitivities, ways of understanding a single reality, but with the urgency and strictness imposed by the need to find solutions, involving different actors and tendencies in a process to reach feasible options to face today’s serious challenges.
Considering this situation, and in a region as Galicia, more dynamic and open to foreign affairs, the possibility of consolidating a defence research and analysis community, that may introduce security issues not only in academic circles but in the wider spectre of its social reality, raising concern and awareness for our position in the world, is hereby launched. Therefore, bridges with other regional and national institutions must be built, without neglecting the need to establish a broad research group among Galician university departments and NGOs that may make viable a permanent dialogue with other social, political, cultural and economic actors that as a whole, constitute our society, civil and military. The creation of such group, that will be proposed during the Conference, will also bring about the challenge of incorporating the younger and dynamic generations to this debate.
The fact of extending this conference to our citizenry is one of the main axes of this proposal, in cooperation with the private and public companies and institutions that, in one way or another, will take part in this event. Without their support and complicity, it would hardly be possible to achieve the fixed goals. To speak of defence, security and citizenship is not simply a question of formalities, as understood in some instances, but, above all, a pressing coalition if dialectic and academic proposals are to be transformed into actions, realities.
KEY POINTS & OBJECTIVES
-Create a meeting point for both civil and military agents, exposing to the wider public the complementary nature of relations established between them. Confronted by a complex global situation with centrifugal destabilizing forces as terrorism, rouge and fundamentalist states, both spheres tend towards necessary cooperation and understanding, from which to draw adequate response to the new threats of the 21st century. Because of this, a debate on how to work out the synthesizing of common synergies for a safer and just world is appropriate.
-The need to abolish existing preconceptions and fictitious antagonisms in relation to security and defence issues, especially active defence, in many European societies is evident. Therefore, new strategies must be drawn to effectively communicate a vital sphere of our common existence, defence, to safeguard and guarantee a space of security not only in our own countries and those of our allies, but also in those regions subjugated to forces threatening this collective good.
-The optic from which this conference, meeting, exchange of remarks, is that of multidisplinarity, a synergy of opinions, background, sensitivities, ways of understanding a single reality, but with the urgency and strictness imposed by the need to find solutions, involving different actors and tendencies in a process to reach feasible options to face today’s serious challenges.
-Considering this situation, and in a region as Galicia, more dynamic and open to foreign affairs, the possibility of consolidating a defence research and analysis community, that may introduce security issues not only in academic circles but in the wider spectre of its social reality, raising concern and awareness for our position in the world, is hereby launched. Therefore, bridges with other regional and national institutions must be built, without neglecting the need to establish a broad research group among Galician university departments and NGOs that may make viable a permanent dialogue with other social, political, cultural and economic actors that as a whole, constitute our society, civil and military. The creation of such group, that will be proposed during the Conference, will also bring about the challenge of incorporating the younger and dynamic generations to this debate.
-The fact of extending this conference to our citizenry is one of the main axes of this proposal, in cooperation with the private and public companies and institutions that, in one way or another, will take part in this event. Without their support and complicity, it would hardly be possible to achieve the fixed goals. To speak of defence, security and citizenship is not simply a question of formalities, as understood in some instances, but, above all, a pressing coalition if dialectic and academic proposals are to be transformed into actions, realities.
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