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Introduction
OR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA at least, the events of 11 September 2001 marked themselves as pivotal in history. On that day, the
USA joined numerous other nations in the so-called developed world in
facing the recognition that non-state actors could seriously affect and degrade
the capacity of a powerful state; at the same time, there should have come a
recognition that US citizens, their way of life, and the specific liberties they
had been accustomed to were now vulnerable and at risk, yet were not under
direct threat from a specific, identifiable enemy that military forces could confront and decisively defeat in direct combat.
Equally significant was the emerging understanding that aspects of nontraditional security issues that have long plagued the so-called developing
world could also increasingly affect the policy decisions and future choices of
powerful states and world leaders. As disparate as these non-traditional issues
may be whether linked to climate change, resource scarcity, declining productivity, or transnational issues of criminality and terrorism the developed
world was now confronted with human-centered vulnerabilities that had often
been present previously only in the context of non-traditional challenges for
developing regions.
Security Dialogue 2002 PRIO.
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Inevitably, this article argues, the USA and other powerful developed states
may well witness a blurring of issues involving state security (where military
forces have traditionally proven the best form of protection) and issues involving human security (in which instruments and agencies other than the military may prove the primary means of protection). Increasingly in the future,
therefore, we may also see a blurring of foreign and domestic policy concerns.
These concerns will sometimes mesh seamlessly with each other, and sometimes clash.
In short, we may need to worry less about focusing on protecting the state
and more about protecting individual citizens, which means protection of individual rights and liberties as well as the way of life to which most have become accustomed in the developed world. The irony in this claim, of course, is
that many proponents of development in some of the poorest states have long
argued that the focus on the individual rather than on sustaining the powerbase of the state is the best guarantee for long-term stability, prosperity, and
security.
The implications of the changing security landscape for the analyst and policymaker are potentially tremendous. In essence, we may be witnessing a
boomerang effect in which we must focus on aspects of both national security, in which military forces may continue to play a pre-eminent role, and
human security, in which non-traditional security issues predominate. Thus,
we may well witness renewed focus on failed or failing states, epidemiology
(as, for example, in the case of AIDS), environmental stress, resource scarcity
and depletion, drugs, terrorism, small arms, inhumane weapons, cyber-war,
and narco-trafficking. As disparate as these non-traditional security aspects
indeed are, they will all in one form or another and in multiple geopolitical
contexts increasingly have an influence on future strategic relationships and
decisions. The issue truly is not one of hard traditional security (often based
on state-to-state power relationships) or soft non-traditional security (that
can involve multiple transnational aspects). The future will require decisionmakers in both the developing and the developed world to focus on broad
and broadened understandings of the meaning of security. Focusing on one
aspect of security at the expense or detriment of another, nevertheless, may
well cause us to be boomeranged by a poor balancing of ends and means in a
radically changed security environment. Before proceeding further, therefore,
we may need to ask and to answer what it is we mean when we say security.
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achieved through which means? In making assumptions about security, various grand strategies seek to focus on what levels of security matter, which
are less relevant, and what means and mechanisms are best suited to fulfill the
basic need to be secure (such as the size of a states military forces, compliance with international regimes and arms control agreements, and membership in specific international institutions).
The various concepts of security that are most prevalent today are, in a simplified format, shown in Table 1. In the overall scheme of security alternatives
shown, what may well be changing is the notion that of all the issues of security, issues of national (read, state-centric) security matter most. Security
whether or not one insists on a distinction between hard and soft security
is about more than protecting a country from external threats; security may
well include critical infrastructure protection, economic security, social security, environmental security, and human security.
Yet although the idea of security as a basic concept is frequently applied
in international relations and in analysis of policy decisions, its essential
meaning is often more widely disputed than agreed upon.1 As one result, we
frequently see the proliferation of descriptors added to the basic concept itself.
Table 1. Alternative security conceptsa
Tradition and
origin
Form of
security
Traditional,
realist-based
National
Traditional and
non-traditional,
realist- and
liberal-based
Specific emphases
Focus
What is at risk?
Threats to security
State
Sovereignty, territorial
integrity
Social
Nations, societal
groups, class and
economic focus, political action committees/interest groups
States themselves,
nations, migrants, alien
culture
Non-traditional,
liberal-based
Human
Individuals, mankind,
human rights, rule of
law
Non-traditional,
potentially
extreme
Environmental
Ecosystem
Global sustainability
a
This table is partly inspired by the presentation by Bjrn Mller of the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute
(COPRI) on Global, National, Societal, and Human Security: A General Discussion with a Case Study from the
Middle East at the Fourth Pan-European International Relations Conference, Canterbury, 810 December 2001.
This presentation will form part of Mllers chapter in Hans Gnter Brauch, Antonio Marquina, Mohammed
Selim, Peter H. Liotta & Paul Rogers, eds, Security and the Environment in the Euro-Mediterranean in the 20th
Century (Berlin: Springer, 2003).
476
477
global security from the threat of nuclear holocaust. It has been related to nation-states
more than people.... Forgotten were the legitimate concerns of ordinary people who
sought security in their daily lives. For many of them, security symbolized protection
from the threat of disease, hunger, unemployment, crime [or terrorism], social conflict,
political repression and environmental hazards. With the dark shadows of the Cold War
receding, one can see that many conflicts are within nations rather than between nations.3
In the classical sense, security from the Latin securitas refers to tranquility
and freedom from care, or what Cicero termed the absence of anxiety upon
which the fulfilled life depends. In the once most accepted realist understanding, therefore, security extends downwards from nations to individuals; conversely, the stable state extends upwards in its relations to influence the security of the international system. In contrast, individual security, stemming
from the liberal thought of the Enlightenment, has always been treated as both
a unique and a collective good. Therefore, within this approach, it is often unclear where responsibility for the guarantee of the individual good lies.
These perhaps artificially dissimilar distinctions have helped fuel the division between so-called traditional and non-traditional understandings of security. But such distinctions are not discrete, and suggestions that terms such as
environmental or human security are new concepts are not entirely accurate.
Equally, it seems a bit of a distortion to claim that security only implies the absence of fear. At the height of the Cold War, the maintenance of both stability
and parity between the USA and the USSR was based on what was in fact a
balance of terror stemming from the threat implied by nuclear weapons. As
such, this basic state of insecurity drove the international system toward, rather
than away from, stability. This insecurity also influenced the recognition that
risk was as much a driving force in the guarantees of basic security as the absence of fear or the desire to be free to make choices on behalf of the collective
good.4
Arthur Westing widened the notion of security beyond state-centric identities by focusing on comprehensive security in 1989.5 Comprehensive security
demands a multifaceted recognition of multiple levels of interaction. Military
and political security are therefore not the only, or perhaps even the best,
means of enhancing the security of individuals, states, and regions.
Table 2 illustrates the complexity that occurs when various security aspects
and levels interact. In practice, then, we must distinguish between where interests and effects both overlap and where they conflict with each other. While
some of these categorizations are certainly open to debate, Table 2 demonstrates that there are levels of interdependence and interaction that go beyond
a more traditional state-centered security. Comprehensive security, in addressing the concerns of levels of interaction of various security aspects, seeks
to resolve the traditional security dilemma that was a common subject of focus in the 20th century.
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Table 2. Vertical and horizontal dimensions of security: aspects and levels of interaction
Level of
interaction
Human
Societal/
community
National
International/
regional
Global/planetary
z An influence
Security aspects
Military
Political
Economic
Environmental
Societal/
human
~
~
~
~
z
z
z
z
z
z
z
~
z
z
z
z
~
z
{
~
~ Partial influence
{ No influence
There is, however, a further crucial distinction between national and human security issues that appears to be frequently overlooked. Specifically, national security based on a state-centric identity meant to protect physical
sovereignty and territory is mostly intended to address largely specific
threats; disparate human security issues, by contrast, are more often tenuously
related to issues of vulnerability and only involve direct threat in the most extreme circumstances. Thus, aside from a broad discussion of the meaning and
general understandings of security, it might also prove useful to appreciate,
both conceptually and in application, the difference between threat and vulnerability when considering how future national and human security issues
will overlap and potentially converge in some instances.
479
480
In essence, we have moved from the dynamic of the old security dilemma to encompass issues that will include a new survival dilemma in specific geographic
locations that require sustainable development strategies. These issues take
into account:
different levels of population growth in various regions, particularly between the developed and the developing world;
the impact of climate change due to increased temperatures, decline in
precipitation, and rising sea levels;
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the scarcity of water in specific regions (such as the Middle East) for drinking and irrigation;
the decline in food production and the need to increase imported goods;
progressing soil erosion and desertification; and
increased urbanization and pollution in megacities around the globe, in
particular taking into account the probability that most people in the
CairoKarachiJakarta arc will migrate over the next two decades to urban
environments that lack the infrastructure to support rapid, concentrated
population growth.13
Compounding the problem is the reality that, in the wake of the Cold War, aspects of the security dilemma have not disappeared. In numerous regions in
which US interests are involved, we will see the continued reality of a (threatbased) security dilemma along with the rise of various (vulnerability-based)
survival dilemmas.
The internal security environment within the USA has now changed from
one of being vulnerable to one of being under direct threat. As a result, the argument that the US military is best sized for away games and not best suited
for the home game of internal vulnerabilities may be flawed. The USA is thus
driven to a reality in which the shifting balance of threats and vulnerabilities
and the focus on how best to solve these shifts will fundamentally determine
the future force structure, missions, and budgets of the armed forces.
Further, because internal vulnerabilities will likely dominate the security environment for the indefinable future, there is also the possibility that the distinctions between national and human security will increasingly blur. In short,
the protection of individual citizens (human security) will matter as least as much
as the more traditional defense role of protecting the state (national security),
and domestic policy concerns will drive external, foreign policy decisions.
Thus, the new reality dictates that interagency cooperation demanding
better integration, responsiveness, transparency, and almost seamless coordination between vastly different organizations will determine future functions, budgets, and structures for both the internal and external environments. If the armed forces cannot adjust to this changed environment, then
an external actor specifically, Congress will determine the necessary
choices to be made.
How long will internal vulnerabilities dominate the security template on a
level equal to, or perhaps exceeding, external threats? No one knows. The war
on terror could last only a few years, or could take the form of an ideological
struggle matching the Cold War in scale, commitment, and cost. Yet now is the
time to develop key strategic responses to these sets of emerging problems and
challenges. Even as policymakers find it difficult to think out of the box, there
are any number of key issues that need to be addressed in this environment.
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Key Issues
In the wake of 11 September 2001, the USA, Canada, Europe, and Japan understandably felt compelled to devote resources to their mutual struggle
against global terrorism. Yet whether one subscribes to liberal, realist, constructivist, Marxist, behavioralist, or interdependence theoretical perspectives,
there is a danger that the nature of the threats and vulnerabilities in this new
environment will be established too quickly and too myopically and the
strategic agenda and action will be determined on the basis of too rapid an assessment, and without taking due account of the arguments and logic of alternative perspectives.
In the decade after the Cold War, for example, one could argue that strategic
choices tended to be made as part of a balancing act that was set against a
backdrop of competing tensions and forces. Policy actions tended to flow from
efforts either to hedge against worst-outcome scenarios or to prioritize specific
issues and regions, often at the complete expense of others. However, it would
be dangerous to assume that similar fixes or approaches can be used in the
case of both national and human security problems. For policymakers, it
would be relatively easy to simply regard various human security issues as
threat-based realities rather than emerging vulnerabilities that require new
measures and methods of creative, adaptive thinking. Moreover, in numerous
past examples, decisionmakers have tended to think largely in terms of conflicts
and crises, targeting the problem, and using the military element as a viable
means in a conflict prevention strategy. Of course, there is an attractive aspect
to this. Geoffrey Dabelko notes that there is something appealing about taking aim at the root causes of conflict, [and taking] reactive steps aimed at the
symptoms (seal off the borders, and if that doesnt work, send in the troops).14
This seems to be the pattern both in foreign policy practice and in spending patterns: the USA, for example, spends 20 times more on military forces and intelligence agencies than it does on foreign aid which includes military assistance.
Yet there is a true need to allow alternative perspectives to corrupt ones
own thinking. Those who emphasize military security at the expense of other
security issues, especially US analysts and policymakers, may fundamentally
be walking into a self-fulfilling paradox: the more one seeks to avoid military
intervention, the more one is driven to intervene militarily because of the failure to recognize contrary security issues and deal with them in a pre-emptive
or preventive manner. The old clich that describes this trap provides an apt
reminder: If all you have is a hammer, then every problem begins to look like a nail.
Surely, as the interventions in Somalia and in the Balkans illustrate, traditional
applications of military security may not be the best, and are certainly not the
only viable strategic instruments.
483
Yet one fact is so obvious that it seems almost always to be overlooked: military security, most especially intervention, can and often does aggravate
human security issues and can be more the cause of rather than the solution to
human security dilemmas. (The continuing debate over the Kosovo intervention
best demonstrates this paradox.) Furthermore, military security instruments
can be peripheral rather than always primary instruments for addressing
and perhaps solving human security issues. Thus, of the four alternative perspectives considered above, emphasis on the social welfare/developmentalist focus
in most regions in which US interests and actions will be affected whether in
the Balkans or in Afghanistan will offer the best strategic choice. While this
is admittedly a contentious claim, many would argue that the cost to the
West of not investing in the Balkans in the right way and early enough is likely
to be at least 50 years of political and military engagement and economic assistance.
To summarize, then, there are a number of key national and human security
issues that have tremendous policy implications. Some of these are listed below:
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A navigable Northwest Passage could increase crime, smuggling, and atsea environmental incidents while also positively increasing trade, investment, communications, and jobs and decreasing oceanic transit times.
While Canadian forces will likely retain their core missions of war-fighting
and homeland defense, it seems likely that Canadas maritime forces alone
could not handle the challenge of a free and open waterway. Given Canadas position as the USAs largest trading partner and closest permanent
ally, Arctic warming writ large will carry significant implications for all
circumpolar nations, including the United States.
The rapid spread of disease, particularly HIV/AIDS, will compound the
negative effects of rapid urbanization and destabilizing migrations.
Shifts in the balance of threats and vulnerabilities will require changes in
military force structures, missions, and budgets. Yet the notion of shifting
to a counter-value military, which some may call for in the immediate future, and shifting away from a counter-force military (which is how
forces are sized and structured today) could induce a catastrophic organizational shift that would equally involve perhaps unacceptably high levels of risk during the transition.
The role of alliances and coalition partnerships will be more critical than
ever for the USA in the future. Consequently, the notion of security communities and cooperative security principles will present opportunities
for resolving common/comprehensive security challenges.
The need for preventive action which in the past has often been referred to as preventive diplomacy or conflict prevention will become
imperative. Investing early may well prevent a number of future longterm multiple contingencies.
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threats. If the world is splitting apart and becoming more violent, the US will have to become more security-oriented and more focused on its limited vital interests, with or without allies. If the world is reacting unevenly to globalization, then the US will need to remain globally engaged on more or less the same scale as it is now, but with somewhat
different priorities and missions.... US policymakers should forge a strategy based on
cross-disciplinary analysis informed by all aspects of globalization, including not only
commercial, financial, technological, military, political, environmental, and social aspects,
but also cultural, religious, psychological, educational, and historical perspectives. Holistic
thinking has become a national security imperative.19
Such emphasis on holistic thinking, of course, points directly to the emerging dynamic. Perhaps inevitably, then as various regions and environments
become increasingly interconnected, netted, or linked the distinction between national and human security will be blurred, at best. In particular, this
necessary perspective may prove critical in the area below the 30th parallel
that will come to be known the CairoKarachiJakarta arc of upheaval; this
region will likely enter a period of dangerous transition during the next two
decades and may well be where national and human security issues meet their
greatest point of convergence.
There are, of course, real dangers that will emerge during this convergence.
In particular, the danger that military forces will shift from being sized and
structured against traditional threats to suddenly becoming the foremost
means of protecting citizens and states from new vulnerabilities (whether
these be environmental change or critical infrastructure degradation) may, in
fact, lead to reduced levels of security.
Is there, then, a danger of a boomerang effect during this process and period of convergence? The answer is probably yes. However, just as the skilled
practitioner throws a boomerang in a trajectory that sweeps upwards in a
graceful arc and then returns to the thrower along the same trajectory, it is
balance and precision that will guarantee the outcome. The unskilled practitioner (perhaps like the unthoughtful strategist) will rely on the impulse to
act purely on gut instinct ... [and fail to] recognize what variables, indicators,
and analogies from past examples might best inform the basis of action.20 As a
result, the latter will stand just as good a chance of being clobbered by the
boomerang that is returning back along its wobbly, unpredictable trajectory as
of losing the throwing stick all together.
The implications for the analyst and policymaker are tremendous. If we are
witnessing a boomerang effect in which we must focus on aspects of both national and human security, we must realize that excessive focus on one aspect
of security at the expense or detriment of the other may well cause us to be
boomeranged by a poor balancing of ends and means in a changing security
environment. Just as the horrific attacks of 11 September 2001 pushed the recognition of new security relationships for the USA and the world, there remains
a pressing need to recognize both the continuing security dilemma of states and
the emerging survival dilemmas of regions. Equally, we must recognize and
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employ specific strategies that deal not only with the discrete problems of
threats and vulnerabilities, but also with the convergence of various aspects and
levels of security. While the focus in the short term may shift to foreground emphasis on state security, the backdrop importance of issues such as the rapid
spread of disease, population shifts, destabilizing migration, resource scarcity
and depletion, technological change and influence, proliferation, criminality and
terrorism, identity and governance, and economic geography will continue. We
must not run the risk of ignoring the challenges that lie ahead.
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