SECURITY IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD 

What is Security?

At its most basic, security implies freedom from threats. However, those things that threaten ‘core values’ should be regarded as security threats. Security relates only to extremely dangerous threats— threats that could so endanger core values that those values would be damaged beyond repair. Concepts of security also keep changing with time and societies.

Traditional Notions

External

In the traditional conception of security, the greatest danger to a country is from military threats from other countries. The military action endangers the core values of sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. In responding to the threat of war, a government has three basic choices: to surrender; to prevent the other side from attacking and to defend itself when war actually breaks out. Security policy concerned with preventing war is called deterrence, and with limiting or ending war is called defense. Another component of traditional security policy is balance of power which is to be prepared, in case another country chooses to be aggressive in the future. Countries work hard to maintain a favorable balance of power with other countries, especially those close by and those with whom they have differences. For example: Increasing one’s military power or technological power. Another component of traditional security policy is alliance building. Alliances are based on national interests and can change when national interests change. For example, the US backed the Islamic militants in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, but later attacked them when Al Qaeda launched terrorist strikes against America on 11 September 2001.

Internal

Traditional security must also 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 assured. For example, for USA, Soviet Union and western European countries the internal security was not an issue after the second world war and the US-led Western alliance and the Soviet-led Communist alliance feared a military attack from each other.  The security challenges facing the newly-independent countries of Asia and Africa were different from the challenges in Europe in two ways : The new countries faced the prospect of military conflict with neighboring countries. Many newly independent countries came to fear their neighbors even more than they feared the US or Soviet Union or the former colonial powers. They had to worry about internal military conflict. These countries faced threats not only from outside their borders, but also from within. For example: threats from separatist movements. Internal wars now make up more than 95 per cent of all armed conflicts fought anywhere in the world. Between 1946 and 1991, there was a twelve-fold rise in the number of civil wars. So, for the new states, external wars with neighbors 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. Countries should only go to war for the right reasons, primarily self-defenses or to protect other people from genocide. Other forms of cooperation as well are disarmament, arms control, and confidence building. 

(i). Disarmament requires all states 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.

(ii). Arms control regulates the acquisition or development of weapons. The Anti-ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 1972 stopped the United States and Soviet Union from large-scale production of those systems.

(iii). Confidence building is a process in which countries share ideas and information with their rivals. They tell each other about their military intentions and, up to a point, their military plans.

(iv). 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 the use, or threat of use, of military force.

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. Non-traditional views of security have been called ‘human security’ or ‘global security’. Human security is about the protection of people more than the protection of states. Protecting citizens from foreign attack may be a necessary condition for the security of individuals, but it is not a sufficient one. For example: more people have been killed by their own governments than by foreign armies. The ‘narrow’ concept of human security focus on violent threats to individual whereas ‘broad’ concept of human security include hunger, disease and natural disasters because these kill more people than war, genocide and terrorism combined. 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. Since these problems are global in nature, international cooperation is vital.

New Sources of Threat

Terrorism refers to political violence that targets civilians deliberately and indiscriminately. Civilian targets are usually chosen to terrorize the public and to use the unhappiness of the public as a weapon against national governments or other parties in conflict. Since 11 September 2001 when terrorists attacked the World Trade Centre in America, other governments and public have paid more attention to terrorism. Human rights have come to be classified into three types. These are: 

(i). Political rights such as freedom of speech and assembly.

(ii). Economic and social rights.

(iii). Rights of colonized people or ethnic and indigenous minorities.

Global poverty is another source of insecurity. For example, most of the world’s armed conflicts now take place in sub-Saharan Africa, which is also the poorest region of the world. Poverty has also led to large-scale migration to seek a better life, especially better economic opportunities. This has created international political friction. 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. In poor regions like Africa it has proved to be a major factor in driving the region backward into deeper poverty. Such epidemics demonstrate the growing interdependence of states making their borders less meaningful than in the past and emphasize the need for international cooperation.

Cooperative Security

Dealing with many of these nontraditional threats to security require cooperation rather than military confrontation. It is more effective to devise strategies that involve international cooperation, which may be bilateral, regional, continental, or global. Cooperative security may also involve a variety of other players such as international organizations', non governmental organizations', businesses and corporations, and great personalities. Cooperative security may involve the use of force as a last resort. The international community may have to sanction the use of force to deal with governments that kill their own people or ignore the misery of their populations. It may have to agree to the use of violence against international terrorists and those who harbor them.

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 : 

(i). The first is strengthening its military capabilities because India has been involved in conflicts with its neighbors. India’s decision to conduct nuclear tests in 1998 was justified in terms of safeguarding national security. 

(ii). The second component has been to strengthen international norms and international institutions to protect its security interests. 

(iii). For example: India supported the cause of Asian solidarity, decolonization, disarmament, UN as a forum to resolve conflicts, Non alignment movement and Kyoto protocol.

(iv). The third component is meeting security challenges within the country. For example: Several militant groups from areas such as the Nagaland, Mizoram, the Punjab, and Kashmir among others have, from time to time, sought to break away from India.

(v). India has tried to preserve national unity by adopting a democratic political system, which allows different communities and groups of people to freely articulate their grievances and share political power. 

(vi). The fourth component is to develop the economy in a way that the vast mass of citizens are lied out of poverty and misery.

Democratic politics allows spaces for articulating the voice of the poor and the deprived citizens. Thus democracy is not just a political ideal but also a way to provide greater security. 

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