“Walls don’t work,” James Stavridis declared at TEDGlobal 2012. A highly accomplished Navy Admiral, Stavridis recalls 20th-century phenomena like trench warfare and the Berlin Wall. “Instead of building walls for security, we need to build bridges.”

James Stavridis: A Navy Admiral's thoughts on global securityIn his brass-tacks talk, Stavridis lays down a vision of “open-source security,” which he defines as “connecting the international, the inter-agency, the private/public, and lashing it together with strategic communication.” The basic point: that to combat 21st-century threats like cybercrime, terrorism, trafficking and piracy, the military cannot work alone. Stavridis invokes the example of Wikipedia to make his point.

“Wikipedia is not created by 12 brilliant people locked in a room writing articles. Wikipedia every day is tens of thousands of people inputting information,” Stavridis says. “It’s the perfect image for the fundamental point that no one of us is as smart as all of us thinking together.”

Stavridis’ thoughts on security are surprising. Below, listen to 8 other TEDTalks that challenge you to think of war, peace and military life in new ways.

PW Singer on military robots and the future of war
Does having robots and drones in the field change the parameters of war? Absolutely, says military analyst P.W. Singer in this powerful talk. Singer argues that robotic warfare lowers the bar for going to war, and points out that terrorists can easily harness the same technology. While Singer rung the warning bell on the perils of drone warfare back at TED2009, the topic is still being hotly debated, including in the piece “The Moral Hazard of Drones” on The New York Times’ Opinionator blog today.

Keith Nolan: Deaf in the military
Keith Nolan grew up fascinated by military history, but heard “no, no, no” every time he tried to enlist. Why? Because being deaf is an automatic disqualification. In this talk, given in sign language, Nolan recounts his long-term fight to fight for his country, making the case for why citizens with disabilities should be a part of the military.

Inge Missmahl brings peace to the minds of Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, a country of 30 million that has been through intense warfare and unrest, there are only two dozen psychiatrists. Jungian analyst Inge Missmahi explains her work in the country, helping to address their trauma and depression and promote national healing.

Stanley McChrystal: Listen, learn … then lead
Four-star general Stanley McChrystal shares the thoughts running through his head during a parachute jump, from “Why didn’t I go into banking?” to “What does it mean to be a leader?” The former commander of U.S. and International forces in Afghanistan explains at TED2011 that, over his decades in the military, he’s come to realize that good leaders let you fail, without letting you be a failure.

Thomas Barnett: Rethinking America’s military strategy
In a classic talk from TED2005, military strategist Thomas Barnett makes the bold statement that to win a war, we need to win the peace. He advocates splitting the US military into a two-tiered power capable not only of winning battles, but of preserving international calm.

Paul Collier’s new rules for rebuilding a broken nation
Economist Paul Collier explains that 40% of countries recovering from war fall back into conflict within 10 years. He lays out a three-part plan for post-conflict aid, which doesn’t focus on the political quick fix.

Samantha Power on a complicated hero
Journalist Samantha Power looks at why we as a culture do not pay attention to genocide. She tells the gripping story of Sergio Vieira de Mello, a UN diplomat who traveled to the world’s most broken countries and navigated the “lesser-evil terrain” of negotiating with dictators to help their people survive.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Admiral James Stavridis is the Supreme Commander of NATO. He is a proponent of what he calls open-source security. He is looking at 21st century security in a very different way than we’ve looked at security before.

From walls to bridges

Looking back to the security paradigm of the recent past, he shows an image of Verdun, a battlefield in France in World War I, where over 300 days, 700,000 people were killed — about 2,000 per day. Later, in World War II, at the battle of Stalingrad, 2 million were killed over 300 days. We keep building walls: The Maginot Line, The Berlin Wall, the Iron Curtain. But “Walls don’t work.”

Stavridis thinks we need a different model: “Instead of building walls to create security, we need to build bridges.” He shows the Drina River, which forms the border between Bosnia, Herzegovina and Serbia. It’s a symbol of how we must move forward to create connections and a strong image of his sweeping model. “Open-source security is about connecting the international, the interagency, the private and public — and lashing it together with strategic communication largely in social networks.”

Threats to the global commons

What are the threats that we will face in the 21st century? He shows a slide of ship draped in barbed wire. As a Navy man himself, he knows, “This is not what a ship should look like.” The concertina wire is there because shipping is under attack from pirates, in the Strait of Malacca, the Gulf of Guinea, and all across the world. Last year 20 ships and 500 people were held hostage.

There are, of course, also threats from the cyber-sea. Stavridis shows two men who committed credit-card fraud worth $10 billion. There is a giant industry in fraud, with over $2 trillion in profit. Just about the GDP of the United Kingdom.

Another threat he worries about is illegal trafficking: the movement of narcotics, the movement of weapons — potentially weapons of mass destruction — and, above all, human trafficking. All this is occuring in the global commons. “Trafficking moves largely at sea, but also in all other parts of the global economies.”

He shows a photo of a submarine under way and says: “I wish I could tell you this is a very high-tech piece of US Navy gear we’re using to stop drug trafficking.” It’s not. In fact, it’s a drug-running submarine built in the jungle of Columbia carrying six tons of cocaine, sophisticated equipment and a crew of four.

Finally, pulling it all together, he shows a photo of poppy fields in Afghanistan, the nexus of opium and heroin. He points out that Al Qaeda is a global network, and terrorism is a part of the global commons.

What are the solutions?

“We will not deliver security solely from the barrel of a gun,” says the Supreme Commander of NATO. He does believe we will need military force, and that when it’s needed, force must be applied well and competently. But security in the 21st century is a far more complex idea.

A few examples: He shows a photo of Afghan soldiers holding books. It’s a population that is largely illiterate — 85%. NATO, as part of their military training, is teaching them to read and write — so far they’ve taught over 200,000. When you become a literate person in Afghanistan, you carry a pen in your pocket. He’s been at those ceremonies and seen the recruits put the pen in their pocket with great pride: “This is 21st-century security.” They are also teaching to fight, but more is required. “Open-source security is about connecting in ways that create longer lasting effect.”

A different example is a hospital ship, the Comfort. It is a military ship, but it has a crew of 500, from the military, civilians from government, physicians and volunteers from many organizations. This multi-connected crew goes to sea for 4-5 months doing 400,000 treatments on a voyage. On that ship, “You begin to see the power of creating security in a very different way.”

There are also contributions in wide-ranging areas, from promoting physical fitness to disaster relief.

Connections

Stavridis puts up a picture of the world, covered with lines connecting different points of the map. These are not sea lanes or any other map one might expect a military officer to be thinking about, but the world according to Twitter. That map, he says, shows how connected we are. There are growing connections between the largest nations in the world, in order: “China, India, the United States, Twitter, Facebook and Indonesia.”

Recently, after giving a talk he asked people to friend him on Facebook. A story ran on the wires with the headline, “NATO Admiral Needs Friends.” And from the countries where it was printed, he got a multitude of friend requests, saying hello, and asking, “What is NATO?” It’s an interconnected world, and even the Commander of NATO is a part of it.

Stavridis believes, ”Life is not an on-and-off switch; you don’t have to have a military that’s in hard combat or in the barracks.” Though it needs to be ready for combat when necessary, there are also many ways that it can contribute. It should, he says, be thought of not as a switch, but as a rheostat that one can dial in.

He concludes with a comment about Wikipedia — he’s always looking up facts. And it’s important to remember that Wikipedia is not created by 12 geniuses in a room. It is, every day, tens of thousands of people inputting information and tens of thousands of others taking information from it. It is a perfect example of the axiom: “No one of us is as smart as all of us thinking together.” Sharing and connecting is what makes 21st-century security possible.

His final thesis is that by by combining everyone together, ”We can create the sum of all security.”