This essay outlines a version of 2040, wherein advanced globalization, privatization, climate change and nationalism lead to a global and permanent condition of insecurity. Greater entanglement has not been seized as an opportunity to make a better world but has rather led to heightened and pervasive vulnerability. States as well as private companies with private armed forces are in constant, often violent, competition with each other. Key features of this future are the weaponization of all aspects of interdependence as well as, technological developments, unchecked in their military applications and the resulting democratization of violence. By outlining a variety of morbid symptoms, we highlight the impact of the crisis on the international liberal order, states and societies. Tracking back the origins of such ‘crisis’, the authors argue that forsaking the fundamental principle of universality and taking regionalization of international governance to another step may serve as a solution for the approaching 720-degree security dilemma.
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