EDITORS' FOREWORD.

The Journal of International Affairs celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2022. Unfortunately, there is little else to celebrate. The world is confronted with a host of crises threatening the very foundations of modern societies. The deadliest pandemic in over 100 years. The largest land war in Europe since World War II. The most widespread inflation in forty years. The greatest number of displaced people in modern history. The hottest planet since measurement began. Records have been shattered--and not the good kind. In short, we're struggling.

Yet how did we get here? How did we arrive at a moment when the systems of politics and economy and society that have arisen to coordinate and amplify human productivity and ingenuity are straining so obviously to rise to the challenges of the times? A lack of answers to these pressing questions fueled early discussion around conceptualizing this issue, eventually settling on the vague concept of "insecure systems and international affairs." Insecure systems: the intricate networks of institutions, policies, norms--and, importantly, the people that make everything function. However, it is not only the systems themselves which are showing age or inertia, but the individual components as well, in addition to more abstract feelings and senses--in contemporary parlance, "vibes."

We asked ourselves: to what extent are multilateral responses still fit for purpose? Are existing coordinating mechanisms still capable of marshalling resources for specific causes? Can climate change, vaccine development and distribution, sanctions against Russia and support for Ukraine--can any be achieved through existing means? And if not, is there a willingness to found new institutions, cultivate new norms, strive for better? An alliterative triumvirate of crisis--climate, COVID, and conflict--have exposed weaknesses and stressed these systems to the brink, threatening our very security

Consequently, amidst these challenges, the Journal arrived at an issue focused not on a topic or a state or a movement, but an idea. The idea of insecurity.

But not just one--many insecurities, for the insecurity a mother feels protecting and caring for her children in displacement is not the same as a great power recoiling at the rise of another. At the individual level, the United Nations Development Programme published in 2022 a report' suggesting that the vast majority of people on earth feel insecure, many for the reasons cited above: the seemingly-unprecedented onslaught of concurrent crises defining daily existence for so many. At the national and international levels, seemingly everyone feels insecure as well. The U.S. feels insecure against a rising China. China feels insecure against a constraining U.S. Russia feels insecure in its post-Cold War borders. The UK feels insecure in its post-Brexit reality. France feels insecure as its ambitions of...