In the post-Cold War era, there have been qualitative shift in the perceptions about threats to  security.  Security almost has always been associated with military aspects. States both strong and the weak, sought to protect themselves from enemy invation. Capturing of power or overthrowing of government by armed rebellion results in civil wars. Innocent civilians have lost their lives in armed conflicts all over the world.  In African countries and South Asian countries, civil wars brought misery to millions of peoples and they either migrated to other countries or displaced in their own country.  Migration results influx of refugees in the neighboring countries and there problems rises. Ethnic cleansing, forcibly use of children as soldiers, gang rapes of women etc have become integral to the civil wars. Besides the separatism and ethnic nationalism, religious intolerance is gaining to de-stablishing potentials.  The religious extremism is fueled by the external players who support and supplied arms and ammunitions to these extremist groups.  Few states also support to the terrorist groups for their political and economical mileage and regional diplomatic balances.  Al Qaeda may be taken as example. Apart from the military threats, non-military threats are also emerging in financial and economic stability, energy supply, global warming and climate changes.  In digital era, security of intellectual property and corporate confidentiality is a challenge.  Hackers attack repeatedly to gain access the classified information from the enemy states.

Despite the emergence of new dimensions of security threat, several efforts are made to dilute them.  “An Agenda for Peace” was prepared by UN in 1990 to strength the role of UN in peacekeeping, peacemaking and preventive diplomatics. Bilateral treaties was accorded to reduce the weapon of mass destruction by mutual consents of signing parties.  All the members of UN have given their accent for unrestricted access to UN bodies for inspection of Weaponry.  UN lead peace-keepers are working well in war torn African and South Asian countries. 

Alongwith to it, efforts have been made by UN for the development in the war torn countries.  UN has also engaged in the post war economic and infrastructure reconstruction activities.  World Bank and UN are jointly working for waiver of debts of poor countries.   UN has convened several rounds of conferences to create awareness among the member countries to work in the area of health, education and civic amenities in the poor countries. Trade becomes an essential part of the global power  play. Functioning of WTO are influenced by the major trading powers, hence to remove discontent, transparency in WTO is required.