Rethinking European Security [antikvár]

ForewordThe Forum on the Problems of Peace and War was founded in 1984 by a group of scholars of the University of Florence. This group belongs to a wide rangé of scientific disciplines and cultural and political backgrounds. It is a priváté, nonprofit association that is not linked to any political party or movement and is aimed at promoting research on the problems of peace and war from different (but relatively interconnected) standpoints, such as the philosophical, economic, technological, psychological, historical, and political points of view.The Forum has attained the support of the administrative authorities of Florence and Tuscany, of the University of Florence, and of somé govern-ment agencies and ministeries, as well as the United Nations, which ac-knowledges the Forum, awarded with "Peace Messenger," as a nongovern-mental organization. Since 1985 research groups have been created on specific topics (such as alternative security policies for Italy; fear and security in psychology and politics; chemical weapons; military industry and conversion problems in Italy). In seminars and public lectures as well as international conferences held in Florence (chemical weapons, 1985; global security, 1986, together with the Disarmament Agency of the United Nations), our research has come into contact with contributions by other Italian and international scholars. Including this text, fi ve books and a collection or working papers ("Quaderni Forum") have been produced in these years.The conference "Rethinking European Security" has been organized with the same spirit and within the same framework. We are convinced that a more thorough and possibly new investigation on the concept of security is one of the most relevant aspects of the debate on the relationships among nations. International policy in the perspective of the twenty-first century should be based on the idea of security with others, and not of security against others. Moreover, security cannot be based on purely technological and military grounds, but rather on political criteria. And, finally, security at a régiónál or local scale can hardly exist without security at global or planetary scale.