Security in the Contemporary World
This chapter delves into the diverse and evolving nature of security in the modern world, shifting the focus from conventional military threats to a wider spectrum that includes risks to human welfare.
Understanding Security: Core Concepts
At its core, security refers to protection from potential dangers. However, not every risk is classified as a security threat. For an issue to be seen as a security concern, it must pose a serious danger to vital values—so severe that failing to respond could result in irreversible harm.
Important Questions When Defining Security:
● Whose Values Are at Stake? Are we concerned with the core values of a nation or those of individual citizens? Do state perspectives always reflect the priorities of the people?
● Threat Level: How intense must a danger be to count as a security issue? If the definition becomes too expansive, it may lead to inaction, as everything could be perceived as a threat.
Summary: Security is mainly about responding to highly dangerous challenges that could significantly harm essential values if ignored.
Changing Perspectives on Security
The concept of security is not fixed—it changes over time, shaped by global developments and cultural differences. In general, it can be divided into two broad categories: Traditional and Non-Traditional approaches.
UNDP’s 1994 Human Development Report on Human Security:
The 1994 UNDP’s Human Development Report highlighted a crucial concern regarding human security, stating: “the concept of security has for too long been interpreted narrowly… It has been more related to nation states than people… Forgotten were the legitimate concerns of ordinary people who sought security in their daily lives.” This report emphasized a shift towards a people-centric view of security.
Traditional Notions of Security
Traditional security is centered around protection from military threats, with the state being the key entity responsible for ensuring safety.
A. External Traditional Security Threats
Under this framework, the main threat to a nation is viewed as military aggression from other countries. Such threats can jeopardize a country’s essential principles:
● Sovereignty: The ultimate authority a state holds within its own territory.
● Independence: The ability to operate without foreign interference.
● Territorial Integrity: The protection of a nation’s established borders.
Armed conflicts not only target a country’s institutions but also endanger civilians, sometimes deliberately, to weaken public support for ongoing conflicts.
Options Available to a Nation Facing External Military Threats
- Surrender: Though theoretically an option, it is rarely pursued or promoted.
- Deterrence: Discouraging aggression by ensuring that any attack would lead to severe consequences for the aggressor.
- Defense: Engaging the enemy during conflict to protect territory and defeat hostile forces.
Key Elements of Traditional Security Strategies
● Deterrence: Aimed at avoiding war by projecting strength and threat of retaliation.
● Defense: Concentrated on containing or ending war after it starts.
Maintaining a Balance of Power
Countries regularly evaluate the military capabilities of other states—especially neighboring ones—to identify emerging risks. To ensure their own safety, governments often invest in building military strength, backed by strong economies and modern technologies.
Forming Alliances
Alliances involve formal agreements between countries to act together for mutual security, especially in deterring or responding to attacks. These alliances are:
● Usually documented in official treaties.
● Built around common perceptions of danger.
● Designed to increase the joint power of member nations when compared to their adversaries.
Alliances are driven by national interests, which can change over time. For example, in the 1980s, the U.S. supported Islamic fighters against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan but later took action against Al-Qaeda ( islamic militant led by Osama – Bin- Laden) following the 9/11 attacks in 2001 in America.
International Relations and Traditional Security
From a traditional perspective, the international arena lacks a central authority like a national government to enforce rules. Organizations such as the United Nations exist, but their power is limited by what member countries are willing to accept and comply with. Thus, every country is largely responsible for safeguarding its own security.
B. Internal Traditional Security
Although often given less attention after World War II, maintaining internal stability is a vital component of national security. A country cannot claim to be secure or defend itself effectively against external threats if it is plagued by internal unrest or violence.
Historical Perspective (Post-1945)
After 1945, powerful Western nations largely assumed internal peace was stable. Their focus shifted toward countering military threats from rival alliances during the Cold War—namely, the U.S.-led Western bloc versus the Soviet-led Communist bloc.
However, during the same period, European colonial powers were confronted with violent resistance from independence movements in their overseas territories. For example:
● France faced an uprising in Vietnam during the 1950s.
● Britain dealt with conflict in Kenya during the 1950s and early 1960s.
Security Concerns in Post-Colonial Nations
As many colonies gained independence from the late 1940s onward, the newly sovereign states inherited similar security challenges. Some of these nations aligned themselves with Cold War blocs, creating fears that they might become entangled in conflicts either with rival countries, their own alliance leaders (such as the U.S. or USSR), or other regional allies.
Roughly one-third of the armed conflicts following World War II were related to the Cold War, and a significant number occurred in what was known as the Third World.
Much like their former colonial rulers, newly independent countries were also concerned about potential aggression from the very powers that had once colonized them. The threat of a return to imperial warfare prompted these states to take precautionary security measures.
Unique Security Challenges for Post-Colonial States
Asian and African countries that emerged from colonial rule faced two distinct types of military threats compared to their European counterparts:
- Conflict with Neighboring States: Border disputes and territorial disagreements often led to tensions and even warfare.
- Internal Armed Conflict: Many of these nations dealt with unrest within their own borders. In some cases, the threat from within was greater than that from superpowers or former colonial rulers.
Disputes with neighboring countries were frequently rooted in contested boundaries, territorial claims, or control over ethnic or cultural populations.
Additionally, internal threats were often linked to separatist movements demanding autonomy or independence. These movements sometimes received backing from neighboring states, combining external aggression with internal instability and escalating bilateral tensions.
Since 1946, internal armed conflicts—mainly civil wars—have become the dominant form of warfare globally. Between 1946 and 1991, the number of civil wars increased twelvefold, and today, over 95% of armed conflicts worldwide are internal. This underscores the fact that for many newly independent nations, both cross-border disputes and internal rebellions became major security concerns.
III. Traditional Security and Cooperation
While traditional security largely revolves around military threats, it also recognizes the importance of international cooperation to reduce the risk of violent conflict.
Limitations on the Conduct of War
● Purpose of War: Armed conflict should be undertaken only for justifiable reasons, such as national self-defense or the prevention of mass atrocities like genocide.
● Conduct During War: Military power must be exercised with caution. Attacks on civilians, the unarmed, and those who have surrendered are to be avoided. Force is intended to be used only when all other options have failed.
Forms of Collaborative Efforts
Disarmament
Disarmament refers to the process of countries agreeing to eliminate specific categories of weapons.
● Examples:
○ The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972 and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) of 1997 prohibited countries from producing or possessing biological and chemical weapons.
○ These treaties were widely adopted, including by major global powers.
Despite this, powerful states retained their nuclear arsenals, which prompted additional measures through arms control agreements.
Arms Control
Unlike disarmament, arms control involves setting limitations on the development and deployment of certain weapons systems.
● Key Treaties:
○ The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972 aimed to stop the U.S. and the Soviet Union from developing missile defense systems that could make a nuclear first strike more feasible. It permitted limited defenses but prohibited large-scale installations.
○ Other agreements like SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II) and START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) further regulated nuclear arsenals between the two superpowers.
○ The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 allowed nations that had developed and tested nuclear weapons before 1967 to retain them, while others pledged not to pursue such weapons. The treaty aimed to cap the number of nuclear-armed states rather than eliminate nuclear weapons altogether.
Confidence-Building Measures
These efforts involve rival nations exchanging details about their military strategies, intentions, and deployments. Such transparency is designed to prevent miscommunication and misjudgments that could lead to armed conflict.
Overall, traditional security remains centered on the use or threat of military force. It treats military power as both the greatest danger to national security and the primary instrument for safeguarding it. Nonetheless, traditional approaches also include mechanisms for cooperation to reduce the likelihood and destructiveness of warfare.
IV. Non-Traditional Notions of Security
Non-traditional security broadens the idea of security to cover a wide range of threats that go beyond military concerns. It questions the conventional focus on the state as the sole subject of security.
Changing the Focus of Security
● Traditional Focus: Security has typically been centered on the state, its borders, and institutions.
● Non-Traditional Focus: The scope has expanded to include individuals, communities, and the global population. This shift has given rise to ideas such as “human security” and “global security.”
A. Understanding Human Security
Human security shifts the emphasis from safeguarding states to protecting people. While a stable state may help ensure human safety, it does not always guarantee the well-being of its citizens. In fact, history shows that people have often suffered violence at the hands of their own governments more than from foreign invaders.
Objectives of Human Security
Main Aim: To safeguard the rights and lives of individuals.
Different Interpretations:
- Narrow View: Focuses on physical safety, emphasizing the protection of individuals and communities from internal violence and conflict—an approach echoed by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who described it as “the protection of communities and individuals from internal violence.”
- Broader View: Includes non-military threats such as famine, epidemics, and natural calamities, which collectively result in more deaths than warfare, genocide, or terrorism.
- Most Inclusive Approach: Extends to economic well-being and personal dignity, promoting the idea of ensuring both “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want.”
B. Global Security
The notion of global security gained prominence in the 1990s, driven by challenges that cross national boundaries and require collaborative global responses.
Examples of Global Security Threats
● Climate Change: Rising sea levels pose serious risks to low-elevation nations like the Maldives and Bangladesh.
● Terrorism on an International Scale: Acts of political violence aimed at civilians—often without distinction—can involve the citizens or territories of multiple nations. Such terrorist groups seek to enforce political agendas through fear and violence.
● Global Health Crises:
Infectious diseases such as HIV-AIDS, SARS, bird flu, Ebola, and drug-resistant variants of older illnesses like tuberculosis and malaria spread quickly across countries due to global movement through travel, tourism, and trade.
○ By 2003, approximately 40 million people were living with HIV-AIDS, with two-thirds in Africa and much of the remainder in South Asia.
○ Costly medical treatments available in wealthier countries are often out of reach in less developed regions, worsening poverty.
○ Animal-borne diseases such as mad cow disease and bird flu also lead to widespread economic disruptions.
These examples demonstrate how countries are increasingly interconnected, and emphasize the importance of international collaboration to address shared challenges.
Human Rights: A Global Concern
Human rights are generally divided into three categories:
- Political Freedoms: Including rights like freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
- Economic and Social Rights: These address matters of economic equality and social justice.
- Group-Specific Rights: Rights claimed by indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, and formerly colonized populations.
Although this classification is widely used, there is no universal consensus on which rights qualify as fundamental human rights. Likewise, opinions differ on what steps the global community should take when such rights are violated.
Since the 1990s, situations like the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the genocide in Rwanda, and Indonesian military actions in East Timor have led to growing debate about the United Nations’ role in preventing human rights abuses. Some believe the UN Charter allows for intervention in such cases, while others argue that responses are often shaped more by the strategic interests of powerful nations than by a shared commitment to human rights.
Global Poverty: Poverty is now recognized as a critical factor contributing to global insecurity.
Population Trends
The global population is expected to approach 10 billion by the middle of the 21st century. A significant portion of this growth will be concentrated in just six nations: India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. While the world’s poorest countries are likely to triple their populations in the next 50 years, wealthier nations may actually see their populations decline.
Growing Economic Disparities
Developed countries typically enjoy high per capita incomes and low population growth, which boosts their prosperity. In contrast, developing nations struggle with low income levels and rapid population growth, making it harder to escape poverty. This growing divide has deepened the inequality between the Global North (developed nations) and the Global South (developing nations).
Conflict and Instability
Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the world’s poorest regions, has become a major hotspot for violent conflicts. At the beginning of the 21st century, the number of deaths from wars in this region exceeded those in the rest of the world combined.
Migration Driven by Poverty
Widespread poverty in the Global South has led to large-scale migration toward wealthier countries in search of better economic prospects, often causing political tensions internationally.
● Migrants: Individuals who choose to leave their home countries voluntarily for better opportunities.
● Refugees: People who flee due to war, persecution, or natural disasters. Unlike migrants, states are generally obligated to provide refuge to them.
● Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs): People who are forced to leave their homes but remain within the borders of their own country (e.g., Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s).
Armed conflicts, especially in the developing world, have produced millions of refugees over the years.
Reframing Security in the Non-Traditional Sense
For any issue to be recognized as a security threat, it must endanger the survival of its subject—whether that be a state, community, or group. In non-traditional contexts, the nature of the threat may differ but the stakes remain existential:
● Climate change poses a serious danger to low-lying island nations like the Maldives.
● HIV-AIDS has had devastating effects on regions in Southern Africa.
● The Rwandan genocide of 1994 was a direct existential threat to an entire ethnic community.
These examples illustrate that non-traditional security issues, much like traditional ones, are heavily shaped by their specific context.
V. Cooperative Security
Many non-traditional security challenges—such as poverty, migration, and epidemics—cannot be effectively tackled through military means. In fact, the use of force may worsen these problems. Addressing such issues requires collaborative international efforts rather than armed conflict.
Approach to Cooperative Security
Cooperative security emphasizes partnerships across borders, which may be organized at various levels—bilateral, regional, continental, or global—depending on the nature of the threat and the willingness of nations to participate.
Major Contributors to Cooperative Security
● International Institutions: Such as the United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank, and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
● Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs): Including groups like Amnesty International, the Red Cross, religious organizations, trade unions, and humanitarian charities.
● Private Sector: Corporations and global businesses also play an influential role.
● Notable Individuals: Prominent figures like Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela have made significant contributions to global human security.
Use of Military Force (As a Last Resort)
When governments harm their citizens, neglect widespread suffering, or provide shelter to international terrorists, the international community may support collective military action. In such cases, multilateral cooperation is preferred over unilateral intervention by a single country.
India’s Security Strategy
India’s approach to security addresses both traditional military threats and non-traditional challenges, arising from both external and internal sources. Its comprehensive security policy is built on four core pillars:
1. Enhancing Military Strength
India has faced several armed conflicts with neighboring countries:
● Pakistan (1947–48, 1965, 1971, 1999)
● China (1962)
India’s decision to conduct nuclear tests in 1998 was justified as necessary for national defense, especially given the nuclear capabilities of neighboring states. Its first nuclear test occurred in 1974.
2. Supporting Global Norms and Institutions
● India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, advocated for Asian solidarity, decolonization, disarmament, and the UN as a forum for conflict resolution.
● India has pushed for a universal, non-discriminatory non-proliferation regime for weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological, chemical).
● It supported an equitable New International Economic Order (NIEO).
● Non-alignment was used to create a zone of peace outside superpower bloc politics.
● India signed and ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to address global warming.
● Indian troops participate in UN peacekeeping missions, supporting cooperative security.
3. Managing Domestic Security Issues
India has had to address separatist movements in regions like Nagaland, Mizoram, Punjab, and Kashmir.
To maintain national unity, India relies on its democratic framework, which allows diverse groups to express their concerns, engage politically, and contribute to governance.
4. Promoting Economic Growth and Human Security
India aims to reduce poverty and bridge economic inequality across its large population.
Though challenges remain, India’s democratic system ensures that the marginalized have a voice, pushing governments to balance economic progress with human development.
In India’s context, democracy serves not only as a political principle but also as an important tool for achieving security and stability.
