The study presents current challenges in security policy from an ethical and theological perspective. This study was written in 2000 by a working group in the Commission on International Affairs in the Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical and International Relations, and was presented in January 2001. The study raised a certain amount of interest in Norway. Many people confirmed that it managed to highlight the need for a new approach to security policy based on the basic phenomenon of human vulnerability.
It was, however, only after the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York on 11th September that the themes of «vulnerability and security» seriously came under the spotlight. This study seemed to provide a language that made people articulate the paradox that the world’s power centre proved to be very vulnerable, and reflect upon its implications.
One of its goals is to help us think innovatively about how we can build collective security.