United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is the organ of the United Nations that was established in 1946 with an aim of maintaining international peace and security. The UNSC is made up of nations within the United Nations that are for the security council. The UNSC is made up of two groups of members; permanent and non-permanent members. There are five permanent members of UNSC; France, Russia Federation, the United Kingdom, China and the United States. The non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly for a term of two years. The current non-permanent members are; Brazil, India, Mexico, Norway, Albania, Ireland, United Arab Emirates, Ghana, Gabon and Kenya ( United Nations, n.d.).
The UNSC resolutions are formal expressions of will adopted by the 15 members of the UNSC (both permanent and non-permanent members). The UNSC resolutions binds all member states. In a situation that threatens or disrupts international peace and security the UNSC advises the concerned parties to reach an agreement via peaceful avenues. If the parties fail to agree the UNSC can issue directives such as deployment of peace keeping troops, economic sanctions and trade embargos (Cornell Law School, n.d.). Nations that are members of the United Nations but are not for the security council are only invited in the UNSC discussions that they have interests with but are not given an opportunity to vote. If the members of the UNSC are involved in disputes that are a threat to international peace and security, the nations are invited to councils’ discussions but they are not given voting powers.
Resolution 2341 of the United Nations Security Council was adopted with a goal of protecting critical infrastructure as from 2017. The 2341 resolution clearly shows how important critical infrastructures are in supporting government and private sector activities. Disruption or destruction of critical infrastructure can cause knock-on effects that can be costly than infrastructure itself. This s because of critical infrastructure interdependency between countries and among critical infrastructure sectors. The 2341 resolution recommends collaboration between nations and partnership among all the critical infrastructure stakeholders (United Nations Security Council, 2017).
The UNSC addresses the Iran nuclear program using the council resolution 2231, which was adopted in 2015. The resolution contains the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that were reached by Iran and the five permanent members of the UNSC and German (P5+1). The central point of the resolution was Iran to suspend its Uranium enrichment program, put measures in place to restrict its nuclear activities and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor compliance with the agreement. Iran was able to meet resolution 2231 requirements in 2016 and therefore out of 7 resolutions that handled Iran nuclear program only one is binding as others timeline have elapsed (Davenport, 2022).
Container Security Initiative
Container Security Initiative (CSI) is a security information sharing system that was started in 2002 with an aim of securing American Coast. The main elements of CSI are; identifying high risk containers, pre-screening and evaluating maritime containers before they are shipped and use of technology like X-rays, gamma rays and radiation devices in pre-screening without slowing down trade (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 2019).
The system requires all containers destined to the United States to be screened at the foreign port. This enhances the security at the U.S. Coast according to the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as the American borders become the last line of defense and not the first. The system also allows foreign nations to have officers at the American ports who screen containers destined to their nations. CSI goal apart from ensuring the coasts are safe, also, plays a great part in ensuring containers are transported safely in waterways and thus facilitates a continuous trade (Smita, 2019).
Terrorists can use containerized cargo to ship weapons. Another risk with containers is that if they are exploded they can disrupt economic prosperity of the Americans. With the increase with maritime terrorism containers have become a target of terrorists. Around the world containers in transit are being captured by terrorists and goods are stolen and sold in black markets. If containers are not screened properly they can make the American manufacturing sector to be short of inputs and as a result affect the way of life of the American people (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2021).
Recent manmade disaster
In 2020 federal agencies were hit by a cyber-threat. The attacker was able to compromise federal agencies information systems, majorly SolarWinds Orion products. According to the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) the attackers had been collecting information especially emails from attacked systems for a long period of time. To curb the spread of the attack all SolarWinds Orion products that were attacked had to be disconnected from the federal agencies network (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, 2021). The SolarWinds attack was aimed at disrupting government and private entities operation.
