Chapter: 5
Security in the Contemporary World
Overview:
Security seems to be something that is not the business of the ordinary
citizen. In a democracy, surely this cannot be the case. As citizens of a
democracy, we need to know more about the term security.
The about human security was reflected in the 1994 UNDP’s human
development report.
What is Security?
Security implies freedom from threats. Human existence and the life of a
country are full of threats.
Every time a person steps out his or her house, there is some degree of
threat to their existence and way of life. Our world would be full with
security issues if we took such a broad view of what is threatening.
Core values are personal values that guide you while making important
decisions and doing work.
Every time another country does something or fails to do something,
this damage the core values of one’s country.
Every time a person is robbed in the street, the security of ordinary
people as they live their daily lives is harmed.
Yet, we would be paralysed if we look such an extensive view of
security: everywhere we looked, the world would be full of dangers.
We must admit that security remains a slippery idea.
Traditional notions : External
In the traditional conception of security, the greatest danger to a
country is from military threats.
The source of this danger is another country which by threatening
military action endangers the core values of sovereignty, independence
and territorial integrity.
Military action also endangers the lives of ordinary citizens. It is unlikely
that in a war only soldiers will be hurt or killed. Quiet often, ordinary
men and women are made targets of war, to break their support of the
war .
In responding to the threat of war, a government has three basic choices
: to surrender ; to prevent the other side from attacking by promising to
raise the costs of war to an unacceptable level; and to defend itself
when a war actually breaks out so as to deny the attacking country its
objectives and to turn back or defeat the attacking forces altogether.
Governments may choose to surrender when actually confronted by
war, but they will not advertise this as the policy of the country.
Security policy is concerned with preventing war, which is called
deterrence and with limiting or ending war, which is called defence.
Traditional security policy has third component called balance of power.
When countries look around them, they see that some countries are
bigger and stronger. This is a clue to who might be a threat in future.
A fourth and related component of traditional security policy is alliance
building. An alliance is coalition of states that coordinate their actions to
deter or defend against military attack.
Most alliances are formalized in written treaties and are based on a
fairly clear identification of who constitutes the threat.
AI Qaeda- a group of Islamic militants led by Osama bin laden –
launched terrorist strikes against America.
In the traditional view of security, then, most threats to a country’s
security come from outside its borders.
In world politics, there is no acknowledged central authority that stands
above everyone else. It is tempting to think that the united nations is
such an authority or could become such an institution.
Traditional notions : Internal
Traditional security must also, therefore, concern itself with internal
security . The reason it is not given so much importance is that after the
second world war it seemed that, for the most powerful countries on
earth.
Internal security was more or less sure. Internal security was certainly a
part of the concerns of governments historically.
After 1945 , the US and the soviet union appeared to be united and
could expect peace within their borders while European countries
specially powerful western European faced no serious threats from
groups and communities living within those borders so, they focused on
threats from outside their borders.
Again, we draw attention to contexts and situations. We know that the
period after the second world war was the cold war in which the US– led
Western alliance faced the soviet-led communist alliance. The two
alliances feared a military attack from each other.
Some European powers continued to worry about violence in their
colonies, from colonized people who wanted independence.
As the colonies became free from late 1940s onwards, their security
concerns were often similar to that of the European powers.
The cold war between the two superpowers was responsible for
approximately one – third of all wars in the post – second world war
periods. Most of these wars were fought in the third world.
The security challenges facing the newly - independent countries of Asia
and Africa were different from the challenges in Europe in two ways.
For one thing, the new countries faced the prospect of military conflict
with neighbouring countries. For another, they had to worry about
internal military conflicts. These countries faced threats from outside
their boarder, from neighbours and from within.
Many newly-independent countries came to fear their neighbours even
more than they feared the US and Soviet Union or the former colonial
powers. They quarrelled over borders and territories or control of
people and populations.
Internally, the new states worried about threats from separatist
movements which wanted to form independent countries.
Between 1946and 1919, there was a twelve-fold rise in the number of
civil wars- the greater jump in 200 years. So , for the new states,
external wars with neighbours and internal wars posed a serious
challenge to their security.
Traditional Security and Cooperation
In traditional security, there is a recognition that cooperation in limiting
violence is possible. These limits relate both to the ends and the means
of war.
It is now an almost universally accepted view that countries should only
go to war for the right reason, primarily self-defence or to protect other
people from genocide.
War must also be limited in terms of the means that are used, armies
must avoid killing or hunting non- participating as well as unarmed and
surrendering warriors.
Traditional views of security do not rule out other forms of cooperation
as well. The most important of these are disarmament, arms control and
confidence building.
Disarmament requires all stated to give up certain kinds of weapons. For
example, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the 1992
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) banned the production and
possession of these weapons.
Both the superpowers-the US and Soviet Union- did not want to give up
the third type of weapons of mass destruction, namely, nuclear
weapons, so they pursued arms control.
The Anti-ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 1972 tried to stop the united
states and Soviet Union from using ballistic missiles as a defensive shield
to launch a nuclear attack.
While it did allow both countries to deploy a very limited number of
defensive systems, it stopped them from large-scale production of those
systems.
The US and Soviet Union signed a number of other arms control treaties
including the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty II or SALT II and the
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty ( START).
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) OF 1968 was an arms control
treaty in the sense that it regulated the acquisition of nuclear weapons:
those countries that had tested and manufactured nuclear weapons;
and those that had not done so were to give up the right to acquire to
them.
The NPT did not abolish nuclear weapons: rather, it limited the number
of countries that could have them.
Traditional security also accepts confidence building as a means of
avoiding violence. Confidence building is a process in which countries
share ideas and information with their rivals.
In short, confidence building is a process designed to ensure that rivals
do not go to war through misunderstanding or misperception.
Overall, traditional conceptions of security are principally concerned
with use, or threat of use, of military force.
In traditional security, force is both the principal threat to security and
the principal means of achieving security.
Non- Traditional Notions
Non – traditional notions of security go beyond military threats to
include a wide range of threats and dangers affecting the conditions of
human existence.
In the traditional security conception, the referent is the state with its
territory and governing institutions. In the non- traditional conceptions,
the referent is expanded.
‘Not just the state but also individuals or communities or indeed all of
humankind’. Non – traditional views of security have been called
‘human security’ or ‘global security’.
Human security is about the protection of state. Human security and
state security should be – and often are – the same thing.
But secure states do not automatically mean secure peoples. Protecting
citizens from foreign attack may be necessary condition for the security
of individuals, but it is certainly not a sufficient one.
All proponents of human security agree that its primary goal is the
protection of individuals.
Proponents of the ‘ narrow ’ concept of human security focus on
violence threats to individuals.
Proponents of the ‘broad’ concept of human security argue that the
threat agenda should include hunger, disease and natural disasters
because these kill far more people than war, genocide and terrorism
combined.
Human security policy, they argue, should protect people from these
threats as well as from violence. The human security agenda also
encompasses economic security and ‘threats to human dignity’.
The idea of global security emerged in the 1990s in response to the
global nature of threats such as global warming, international terrorism,
and health epidemics like AIDS and bird flu.
No country can resolve these problems alone. And in some situations,
one country may be disproportionately bear the brunt of a global
problem such as environment degradation.
For example, due to global warming , a sea level rise of 1.5-2.0 meters
would flood 20 percent of Bangladesh, inundate most of the Maldives
and threaten nearly half of the population of Thailand.
Since these problems are global in nature. International cooperation is
vital, even though it is difficult to achieve.
New Sources of Threats
Terrorism refers to political violence that targets civilians deliberately and
indiscriminately. International terrorism involves the citizens or territory of
more than one country.
Terrorist groups seek to change a political context or condition that they do
not like by force or threat of force.
Civilians targets are usually chosen to terrorise the public and to use the
unhappiness of the public as a weapon against national governments or
other parties in conflict.
The classic cases of terrorism involves hijacking planes or planting bombs in
trains, cafes, markets and other crowded places.
Since 11 September 2001 when terrorists attacked the world trade centre
in America, other governments and public have paid more attention to
terrorism, though terrorism itself is not new.
Human rights have come to be classified into three types. The first type is
political rights such as freedom of speech and assembly. The second type is
economic and social rights. The third type is the rights of colonized people
or ethnic and indigenous minorities.
While there is broad agreement on this classification, there is no agreement
on which set of rights should be considered as universal human rights, nor
what the international community should do when rights are being
violated.
Global poverty is another source of insecurity. World population- now at
760 crore -will grow to nearly 1000 crore by the middle of the 21 st century.
Currently, half the world’s population growth occurs in just six countries-
India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Indonesia.
Poverty in the south has also led to large – scale migration to seek a better
life, especially better economic opportunities, in the north.
International law and norms make a distinction between migrants ( those
who voluntarily leave their home countries) and refugees ( those who flee
from war, natural disaster or political persecution).
The world refugee map tallies almost perfectly with the world conflicts map
because wars and armed conflicts in the south have generated millions of
refugees seeking safe haven.
Health epidemics such as HIV-AIDS, bird flu and severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS) have rapidly spread across countries through migration,
business, tourism and military operations.
One country’s success or failure in limiting the spread of these diseases
affects infections in other countries.
By 2003, an estimated 4 crore people were infected with HIV-AIDS
worldwide, two-thirds of them in Africa and half of the rest in south asia.
Expansion of the concept of security does not mean that we can include
any kind of disease or distress in the ambit of security. If we do that, the
concept of security stands to lose its coherence.
To qualify as a security problem, therefore, an issue must share a minimum
common criterion, say, of threatening the very existence of the referent ( a
state or group of people) though the precise nature of this threat may be
different.
Cooperative Security
We can see that dealing with many of these non- traditional threats to
security require cooperation rather than military confrontation.
Far more effective is to devise strategies that involve international
cooperation. Cooperation may be bilateral ( i.e. between any two
countries), regional, continental, or global.
Cooperative security may involve the use of force as a last resort.
India’s Security Strategy
India has faced traditional (military) and non – traditional threats to its security
that have emerged from within as well as outside its borders. Its security
strategy has four broad components, which have been used in a varying
combination from time to time.
The first component was strengthening its military capabilities because India
has been involved in conflicts with its neighbours – Pakistan in 1947-48, 1965,
1971 and 1999; and china in 1962. Since it is surrounded by nuclear – armed
countries in the south asia region, India’s decision to conduct nuclear tests in
1998 was justified by the Indian government in terms of safeguarding national
security. India first tested a nuclear device in 1974.
The second component of India’s security strategy has been to strengthen
international norms and international institutions to protect its security
interests. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, supported the cause of
Asian solidarity, decolonization, disarmament, and the UN as a forum in which
international conflicts could be settled.
The third component of Indian security strategy is geared towards meeting
security challenges within the country. Several militant groups from areas such
as the Nagaland, Mizoram, Punjab, and Kashmir among others have, from time
to time, sought to break away from India.
Finally, there has been an attempt in India to develop its economy in a way
that the vast mass of citizens are lifted out of poverty and misery and huge
economic inequalities are not allowed to exist.
