The actual security risks of the economic crisis are overblown in that the nature of the current situation affects developed nations more than less interdependent counterparts. The actual security risk lies on the margins of society: those poor nations facing large-scale conflict will likely only witness decreased foreign involvement in their crises. Because Somalia does not have a strong credit derivative or mortgage-backed security market that has collapsed as a result of the sheer amount of homes being constructed in the giant crater that is that nation, it has little to fear from the situation. Its current situation will likely remain constant in the face of its status as a thoroughly detached, largely autarkic economy. The same stands for the vast majority of the third world in which most conflicts exist.
The third world is nowhere near as interconnected in the global market as are nations that have recently faced economic disaster. This disaster has spread from nation to nation largely due to the various investment strategies used by stockholders in each nation. These stockholders are people who have money to spend beyond basic needs. Random Congolese farmer #3,407 won't be worried about his heavily divested stock portfolio. Rather, his concern will be whether or not he can eat regularly. As a result, these conflict zones are not hurting from the global crisis.
Though larger nations are suffering a relative decline compared to many second-world nations, these do not pose an inherent security risk, especially considering their dependence on first world success. Chinese industrial output is now slowing as a direct result of declining consumer demand for Chinese goods, which were already cheap as is. Additionally, the second-world nations (a la Brazil, China, India, etc.) were already achieving rates of growth far greater than those of industrialized nations. As a result, they can not be viewed as a serious security risk.
There are certain situations which may in fact benefit: look at Russia, Venezuela, and Iran, three countries that had become increasingly belligerent as a result of rising commodity prices are now in decline due to falling demand. Russia no longer has the leverage it has over European countries and Venezuela does not wield large influence over Latin American politics in the same way it once did.
The actual national economic decline cannot be viewed as a giant security risk.
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I understand your point about the crisis not directly affecting third-world nations, but I wonder if the falling demand trend in Russia, Venezuela, and Iran could be applied to other third-world nations, including our allies and trading partners. I would predict less investment on our part, too, which turns off the flow of capital to friendly governments, gving them a smaller budget with which to maintain security and, in turn, ceding an advantage to their enemies. Divestment from countries such as Colombia, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Mongolia, etc. could put their existing governments at risk of subversion or overthrow, which chips away at our security apparatus throughout the world.
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