When instability becomes method in international politics: Ukraine, Gaza, Venezuela, and Greenland in the reconfiguration of security governance
- Paula Lazzari
- Jan 20
- 6 min read
Note: The views expressed in this text are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of this website.
Contemporary international politics is undergoing significant changes in the way global security is governed. Armed conflicts, humanitarian crises, and strategic disputes have ceased to be treated as exceptional episodes and have instead become part of a recurring pattern of prolonged instability. The capacity of the international system to produce predictability, impose clear limits on the use of force, and create political conditions for the resolution of crises has progressively diminished. In its place, a logic of continuous management of instability is taking hold, marked by fragmented, selective responses that are strongly conditioned by power asymmetries.
Speaking of a reconfiguration of security governance does not imply the complete replacement of existing multilateral institutions nor the emergence of a consolidated new normative architecture. What is observed is a gradual, yet consistent, shift in the practices through which security crises are managed. Universal institutions remain formally active but lose decision-making centrality, while ad hoc arrangements, restricted coalitions, and unilateral instruments assume central roles in conflict containment, cost imposition, and risk management. This is an operational and political change, rather than an institutional or legal one.
Data systematized by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project indicate persistently high levels of political violence globally, with strong concentration in long-duration conflicts characterized by high civilian lethality, multiple armed actors, and lasting transnational impacts. These conflicts tend to be prolonged over time and operate through recurring cycles of escalation and containment, without effective mechanisms for termination. In parallel, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute records successive records in global military spending, which has already surpassed two trillion dollars annually, with widespread increases among major powers and middle states. The contrast between persistent violence and expanding military investment indicates that the predominant response of the international system has been the expansion of coercive capacities, rather than the strengthening of collective instruments for conflict prevention and resolution.
This shift has direct implications for security governance. International action prioritizes the containment of immediate risks and the management of negative externalities, to the detriment of building lasting political solutions. Conflicts cease to be conceived as problems to be solved and come to be treated as conditions to be managed. The temporal horizon of decisions shortens, and the normative ambition of multilateral institutions is reduced.
The war in Ukraine clearly illustrates this pattern. From its early months, the conflict came to be treated as a long-duration condition, whose governance is organized around sustained military support, the containment of direct escalation among major powers, and the management of systemic risks associated with the conflict, including energy, economic, and nuclear impacts. The predominant objective has been to maintain an unstable equilibrium capable of avoiding outcomes deemed unacceptable by the main actors involved, rather than to build a comprehensive political settlement.
Within this arrangement, the United Nations Security Council occupies a secondary role. Cross-vetoes and rigid alignments among its permanent members limit its capacity for substantive action. Relevant political coordination takes place outside the universal multilateral framework, in restricted coalitions, informal forums, and bilateral agreements, characterized by low institutionalization and limited transparency. The governance of war shifts to parallel arenas, where legitimacy derives from material capacity and strategic alignment, rather than from universally agreed norms.
This pattern contributes to the normalization of prolonged wars, managed to avoid systemic collapse but lacking effective instruments for termination. Security comes to be defined by contingent political balances, and multilateralism assumes complementary functions, such as humanitarian management, limited monitoring, and the production of partial legitimacy.
The conflict in Gaza highlights another dimension of this reconfiguration. Information systematized by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs indicates extreme levels of civilian destruction, large-scale forced displacement, and the collapse of essential services. At the same time, international diplomatic efforts focus on negotiating temporary and limited ceasefires, often conditioned by strategic calculations external to the conflict itself and disconnected from a sustainable political horizon.
Security governance in this context operates through predictable cycles of escalation, international pressure, negotiated pauses, and resumption of hostilities. The absence of mechanisms capable of imposing effective political costs for repeated violations of norms contributes to the reproduction of this pattern. Power asymmetries among the actors involved and the fragmentation of international positions reduce the capacity of the multilateral system to act as a central decision-making body. The crisis becomes incorporated as a structural element of regional dynamics.
Venezuela completes this picture through a different, yet convergent, logic. Although not embedded in an interstate armed conflict, the Venezuelan case illustrates the consolidation of unilateral instruments of political coercion in the treatment of internal crises with international repercussions. Records from the United States Department of the Treasury document the expansion and increasing complexity of economic sanctions regimes, combined with strategies of selective recognition of authorities and diplomatic pressure exercised outside robust multilateral frameworks.
From the perspective of global governance, the central issue is not only the Venezuelan situation, but the precedent that is established when normative exceptions are applied recurrently and selectively. Principles such as sovereignty, non-intervention, and collective dispute resolution become conditional and dependent on political alignments, reducing normative predictability and institutional credibility.
Greenland, as a focal point of the growing strategic centrality of the Arctic, reinforces this same logic in a different context. Although it is a specific territorial case, it is embedded in a broader regional dynamic of preventive securitization, associated with environmental transformations, the opening of new maritime routes, and the intensification of competition among major powers. This process occurs largely outside situations of open armed conflict, but promotes the anticipatory reconfiguration of defense strategies and security alignments.
In this context, the weakening of the Arctic Council as an effective space for political coordination is evident, especially following the suspension of regular cooperation mechanisms. In contrast, arrangements associated with NATO and national security strategies gain centrality in defining regional security governance. Greenland acquires strategic relevance as a territorial and operational link in this process, without implying the formal replacement of existing multilateral norms.
What connects these different cases is the consolidation of an international politics oriented by urgency. Decisions are justified by the need to act quickly and by the difficulty of building broad consensus in a fragmented international system. Exceptional practices become recurrent and predictable. Multilateral governance remains formally in place, but performs secondary functions in relation to the arenas where central decisions are effectively made.
This pattern is reinforced by domestic factors. Electoral processes, internal political polarization, and institutional disputes influence foreign and security policy choices. International action frequently becomes an extension of internal political conflicts, reducing the space for durable multilateral compromises. Coercive instruments gain centrality by offering visible short-term responses, even when they generate high medium- and long-term costs.
The implications of this scenario for global security governance are profound. Predictability declines, norms are applied selectively, and universal institutions lose political centrality and normative capacity. The possibility of effectively ending conflicts is replaced by strategies of indefinite containment. For countries outside the decision-making core of major powers, this translates into greater vulnerability, reduced influence, and limited access to effective mediation mechanisms.
The international system thus comes to operate in a mode of maintenance rather than construction. Global security is organized around the continuous management of risks, with short time horizons and low transformative ambition. The central challenge is not merely responding to the next crisis, but rebuilding minimal conditions for a security governance capable of moving beyond the permanent administration of instability.
References
Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). ACLED Conflict
Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). Conflict Index &
2026 Watchlist. https://acleddata.com/conflict-index-2026-watchlist
Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). What’s Driving Conflict Today? Global Trends Review. https://acleddata.com/report/whats-driving-conflict-today-review-global-trends
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Unprecedented Rise in Global Military Expenditure (Press Release, 28 abr. 2025). https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2025/unprecedented-rise-global-military-expenditure-european-and-middle-east-spending-surges
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Trends in World Military Expenditure 2024 (Fact Sheet, 2025).
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).Occupied Palestinian Territory – Situation Reports (2025). https://www.unocha.org/occupied-palestinian-territory
U.S. Department of the Treasury – Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Venezuela Sanctions Program.
Arctic Council. Official Website and Statements on Cooperation Status. https://arctic-council.org
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