Dear Delegates,

Welcome to Harvard National Model United Nations 2010 and the Futuristic Security Council. My name is Bob Hamlin, and I will serve as the director of this committee. I am a senior and could not be more thrilled to embark upon the final HNMUN of my career that has seen me staff two crisis committees and serve as the Under-Secretary-General of the Specialized Agencies one year ago.

I hail from Boston, Massachusetts but have always loved HNMUN due to the opportunity to interact with students from around the world. Beyond getting the most out of the simulation, I urge you to reach out at conference and meet people who might have different backgrounds from your own. In addition to growing more nostalgic about graduating, I am spending my time writing a thesis about financial market development and entrepreneurship in China and serving on the Secretariat of Harvard World Model United Nations 2010, a similar conference that travels to a different country each year.

The Futuristic Security Council, set in 2028, intends to give you crisis experience in the context of a world whose balance of power has shifted even as many international problems have not. This committee will require a high degree of creativity and flexibility in imagining a world that exists only in the committee room. It is always true that the study guide should constitute the beginning, rather than the end, of your research, but in this case, it is critical to react to the material presented in a way that enables you to reach an understanding of your country’s strengths, weaknesses, geopolitical significance, and priorities.

If you have any questions, please write to me at rhamlin@fas.harvard.edu. Even if you just want to introduce yourself, it would be great to start getting to know you before you reach Boston in February. Best of luck in your preparations!

Sincerely,

Robert Hamlin
Director, Futuristic Security Council, 2028
Harvard National Model United Nations 2010

Topic Area: Open Agenda

Virulent pandemics, spreading. Narco-trafficking and border violence, proliferating. Environmental agreements and climate stability, deteriorating. Nuclear technological capabilities, expanding. Terror, unyielding.

By every indication, we are now – in 2009-2010 – approaching the cusp of a cataclysmic collision of critical crises threatening the implosion of the global infrastructure and the meltdown of international security. What happens if the international frameworks for cooperation on the environment, terrorism and the enforcement of the rule of law fail to coalesce? Where will our world stand in the coming years if the maintenance of the status quo triumphs over substantive innovative solutions to these ever-advancing threats to the security of the global home?

The Future Security Council takes place in 2028, eighteen years in the future and in the wake of a global climate that embraced a static status quo in the face of these impending crises. Small innovations have been made – the Security Council has added three new permanent seats (albeit absent the veto power the Permanent Five still enjoy) and two additional rotating members, South America has embraced a European Union-style international political system, the International Courts have received near-global recognition and new economic climates have equaled the global field of power. As the year 2028 opens with its New Year’s celebrations, a malignant threat catapults the world into a state of international crisis with the potential to dissolve the very fabric of globalization and international dependency on which the world has grown so accustomed. The Security Council will meet in an emergency session at the beginning of the February month, its negotiations and deliberations potentially deciding whether this Valentine’s Day will be the last celebrated this century.

This is the Future Security Council.