Security in the Twenty-first Century
by Robert F. Smylie
Security is an inherent value and quest, both for individuals and for all human communities. Human life itself is intrinsically insecure and vulnerable; historically, communal security has always been transient. Security is hard to define and difficult to achieve. Security's elusiveness reflects the constant processes of change in human affairs. In the contemporary world, state security is a socio-political value that is dependent on power. Yet insecurity is a hallmark of our time. As more stress is put on security as the dominant value, other values are skewed, for fear or circumstance. This article offers six reflections on the dynamics of security.
Reflection I The major paradigm for the security of the existing nation-state system has been military might, often accompanied by militarism (ideology) and militarization (practice), as it had been with earlier political and imperial forms.
The historic nation-state system, with its focus on security, fosters the practices of militarism and militarization. That system, with its doctrine of national sovereignty, evolved over four hundred years in the West, spread erratically around the world, and became the dominant political system of the twentieth century. Paradoxically, the system itself is a source of permanent insecurity. The aims of states generally have been national security, interest, and power. The ability to attain the three aims has always been relative, given constantly shifting circumstances, many of which are outside the capacity of nation-states to control. The more interdependent the world has become, the more sophisticated the reach of technology and communication, the more devastating the military capacities for destruction, and the greater the movements of population, the more difficult it is to provide for the state the security desired. Thus, the quest for national security and power and the protection of national interest are basic drives behind the arms race and its natural contributions to insecurity. The result is called by some the warfare state.
The greater the efforts to guarantee security, the greater the insecurity. Often, a false trust is cultivated when one takes military strength as the answer to insecurity. While arguments may occur on the degree of military strength a state may need for defensive purposes, grave risks exist for any state that pursues offensive military strength. Internationally, where conflict has been part of regional history, other states will perceive military activity as threatening and will respond in kind. Domestically, the existence of a strong military capacity is a temptation to political leaders to exploit that power for their own aggrandizement or that of the state. As long as the nation-state system remains dominant, arms control efforts will be the primary check on military growth, not disarmament.
British historian-philosopher Herbert Butterfield wrote after World War II about the "dominion of fear," linking state insecurity to its fear: "Fear and suspicion . . . give a certain quality to human life in general, condition the nature of politics, and imprint their character on diplomacy and foreign policy. . . . The demand for security, and the high consciousness that we now have of this problem of security, have increased the difficulty, and increased the operation of fear in the world. . . . This universe always was unsafe, and those who demand a watertight security are a terrible danger in any period of history."
Butterfield offered the formulation of a law stating "that no state can ever achieve the security it desires without so tipping the balance that it becomes a menace to its neighbors. . . . When a country achieves a position of predominance--a position which enables it to assert its will in many regions with impunity--it imagine[s] that its will is more righteous than it really is. . . . We must not imagine that all is well if our armaments make the enemy afraid; for it is possible that . . . it is fear more than anything else which is the cause of war."(1)
Butterfield gave two warning signs: when people begin to suggest that use of nuclear weapons may not be so bad after all, and when they begin to think that it is better to destroy civilization than to permit a reign of barbarism on the part of a current enemy.
Reflection II Since the present and the future are influenced by the past, it is helpful to understand the legacy of the twentieth century, its systems, wars, and patterns of imperialism and globalization.
The legacies of World Wars I and II and the Cold War, and myriad lesser wars, sometimes proxy, are still with us:
¥ In existential terms for some: broken bodies, devastated spirits, painful memories and suffering, unrequited grievances
¥ In specific regions of conflict, for example, the Middle East, between Israelis and Palestinians; North and South Korea; and the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China
¥ In all the political, economic, social, and religious consequences of forever-changed societies and institutions
The twentieth century also saw changes in the nature of war:
¥ An expansion from the practice of limited war to total war, with its compulsion for total victory and its genocidal effects
¥ The virtual elimination of any distinction between combatants and civilians
¥ The increased sophistication and lethality of weapons brought about by the revolutions in modern technology, communications, and energy, including the weapons now designated as weapons of mass fear--nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons (only the first of these by its nature is a weapon of mass destruction as experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki)
The century saw the fullest reach of colonialism and imperialism, as well as their decline following World War II. Many of the countries that emerged were driven by the dynamics of nationalism and the dominance of the nation-state system. Some of these countries still struggle for viability and survival.
The twentieth century also saw the creation of the League of Nations and the United Nations as international organizations to promote world order and peace. In the new century the UN serves as the only major international organization with any capacity for dealing with problems of global security and challenges that transcend national boundaries.
Reflection III The United Nations, a product of the twentieth century, is a new paradigm pointing away from the dynamics that produced past wars and insecurities.
Drafted during the final ravages of World War II and just weeks before the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki began the atomic age, the United Nations Charter reflected its time. The preamble set forth four mandates, with a vision that humanity had another chance. The mandates were to [1] end the scourge of war, [2] reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights for all, [3] establish the conditions for the international rule of law, and [4] promote social progress and human rights for all. The package was a security paradigm that was an alternative to militarism. Whether consciously intended or not, the mandates reflect four basic ethical and spiritual concerns of most every religious tradition regarding the nature and destiny of humanity.
The institutional structure that was created reflected the world's power structure and the disorders of the day, thus clouding the vision. The Charter, enfranchising sovereign states with equality of membership, gave the General Assembly no legislative capacity, no capacity to tax, no separate intelligence capacity, and no judicial mechanisms to hold member states or their leaders to accountability. Cold War realities prevented the creation of the intended military capacity to keep the peace. Furthermore, the concept of the democratic equality of states was thwarted when the five major wartime allies were given permanent seats with veto power on the Security Council.
The Charter was based on the premise that members shall settle their disputes by peaceful means, refraining from the threat or use of force. This can be seen as a utopian longing or as a realistic perception that the future of the world was dependent on somehow being able to arrive at this as the norm, not the exception. Failure to achieve these norms means that wars and rumors of wars continue, as does the continued motivation and demand for arms as deadly and accurate as can be produced. Notwithstanding this, the Charter recognized the importance of arms control and disarmament by vesting the General Assembly with responsibility for establishing principles to govern those processes, and the Security Council with the responsibility for creating a system for the regulation of armaments in order to maintain peace and security "with the least diversion for armaments of the world's human and economic resources." The failure to achieve that is evident in that the Permanent Five of the Security Council, all nuclear, are the world's most powerful countries and include the largest armaments producers. Unwilling to regulate themselves, their energies seem to focus on limiting the capacities of other states.(2)
Reflection IV At the end of the twentieth century, a broader, more positive and inclusive paradigm of security emerged: security must be shared, human-centered, holistic, and sustainable.
As has been seen, security issues have historically focused on the stability and survival of the political order in whatever form it took and wherever sovereignty was vested, even in the persona of a king or emperor. Since World War II, that view has been challenged by the following alternative perspectives.
First, genuine security must provide not only security of the state but also human security, that is, security for the individual living within the civil order. Human security must enable the possibility of human development and recognize the possession of rights, guarantees, and protections. Implicitly, the security of the state can neither morally, ethically, nor pragmatically be achieved at the expense of its own citizens or those of other states.
Second, security should be held in "common" among states; the benefits of security must be possessed by all states, not by some at the expense of others.
Third, security must be expressed and realized in a holistic manner, recognizing the full and complex range of shared human and community needs and the right to peace in the context of political order and safety.
The concept of common security gained attention in a 1982 report of that title by the Commission on Disarmament and Security, chaired by then-Swedish prime minister Olaf Palme. The 1983 Brandt Report, Common Crisis, expanded the concept to include economic and social development and justice; and the 1987 report Our Common Future, linked economic and social development to environmental sustainability.(3) The UN Millennium Declaration (2000) reaffirmed the purposes of the UN "to create a shared future, based upon our common humanity." It identified the UN as the "common house of the entire human family," representing universal aspirations for peace, cooperation, and development, and it expressed determination to achieve these common objectives.(4)
Reflection V Numerous forces are vying for dominance in the twenty-first century: a new world order, a clash of civilizations, globalization, and world governance. Each has implications for global security.
With the alleged ending of the Cold War, a call for a new world order elicited hope and cynicism: hope based on the possibility that the UN, freed from superpower rivalry, might rise to its mandates; cynicism reflecting that all the old patterns of state behavior remained in place: the system; massive reliance on military force; new roles for NATO; selective responses to global tragedies; double standards; and continuing economic imperialism. In fact, the bipolar world had disappeared, but one power filled the vacuum without countervailing force or the constraints of international law. That power possesses the largest nuclear arsenal; it dominates the field of conventional arms, including their sales and transfers; and its hegemonic power is reinforced by a sense of global destiny and exceptionalism.
A second option suggested that a clash of civilizations would replace the Cold War, since the dominant power needed a new enemy. Made popular by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington, the prevailing interpretation identifies a clash between the essentially Western democratic-based coalition representing a secularized Christianity and the Islamic world represented by fundamentalist Arab-Muslim countries. Behavior in both camps raises the likelihood of a self-fulfilling idea. Huntington did not rule out a clash with an emergent, aggressive Chinese civilization, a resurgent Russia, or some combination of mutually interested parties seeking global hegemony.
Globalization, with all of its positive and negative dynamics, also vies to shape the future, even as its meaning is not clear. Some argue that globalization represents a major opportunity to overcome global poverty, with its human and environmental insecurities. Others view it as new imperialism and thus a source of insecurity. Still others suggest that globalization will gradually weaken if not end the state system. It seems to be clear, however, that if globalized ghettoization continues and a third of the world's population remains in abject poverty, then a more amorphous clash may engage the haves and have-nots, with constant eruptions of violence, failed states, massive population movements, and environmental degradation.
The military will play essential roles in providing security in any imposed new world order and in any violent clash of civilizations. In the third scenario, globalization, given the asymmetries of existing power, the power of the haves may wind up simply suppressing and containing the demonstrations of the powerless.
A fourth, more positive paradigm exists, namely the emergence of instruments of world governance. Global interdependence of the world is evident in every sector of human endeavor: political, economic, cultural, health, transportation, communication, migration, and so forth. Functioning regulatory regimes are operative in most of these sectors, born of necessity and expressed in treaties and agreements. The essential ingredient in every case is the recognition by all parties that self-interest and security are at stake. (Tragically, the arms control security regime that developed during the Cold War seems to have been undermined since the Cold War ended.)
An optimistic worldview hopes that such forces of global governance may evolve into minimal forms of world government while preserving the values of pluralism. Yet the concept of world government also conjures fear that such a government means an authoritarian power imposing its will on all. That scenario is more likely to be the result of an imposed new world order, top down, or a response to anarchy, than the result of the incremental development of norms, standards, and regulations emerging from the bottom up in response to recognizable needs and to the benefit of all. The Commission on Global Governance (1995) portrayed a common humanity sharing a global neighborhood, bound together by a set of core values and a global ethic of common rights in a system of global governance, to the end that all people could have a secure life.(5)
Reflection VI The quest for security poses challenges for a world community that is religiously pluralistic and diverse. How religious individuals and communities respond to the challenges of security may reflect whether they are driven by the dominion of fear or are acting on the basis of the values, tenets, beliefs, and faith that they espouse.
Religious communities relate to the political order in different ways. They often have competing value systems and worldviews (including interpretations of theodicy and eschatology). Often there is tension between the individual-personal aspects of a religious tradition and its organizational interests. They are subject to the same dynamics that create general societal fear, caught up in the same group dynamics that can be manipulated for political purposes, and perverted to support violence in the name of religion. Either drive will be influenced by "interests" that come with institutional involvement in society, sometimes as powerful as those of states, particularly if partnered with the state: privilege, prestige, access to power. All may wish that this were not so.
The quest for political security can become a danger to religious communities if their values are subordinated or manipulated by the state for its own purposes and if the process results in the absolutizing of a state or system, which may then give rise to a false religion.
Religious traditions seem not to devote much time to questions of public security unless societies are in crisis and the tradition itself is impacted. Most major traditions address matters related to the fragility and vulnerability of the human condition: the total dependency on other humans for survival, the transient finiteness of human life, the ultimate encounter with death with anticipations of what may follow. The efforts are to provide support, comfort, and meaning, even if individuals cannot be shielded. However, much religious thought has been given to the study of the sources and meaning of suffering and evil, and sometimes the conclusions may become part of the problem.
Some religious traditions suggest that no human security can exist without personal peace. While it may be assumed that creating the spiritual disciplines of life can bring inner peace, it cannot be assumed that that in itself is sufficient for social justice, international harmony, and world peace.
Others suggest that human security will be achieved only through the conquest of evil, however defined. But is it a contradiction if the conquest is by evil means?
Some stress that ultimate personal security is to be found only in eschatological terms, that is, in some future contingent existence. However, such anticipations may result in an abdication of responsibility and a lack of accountability for the affairs of this world.
Some may argue that ultimately security and peace depend on the perfectibility of human society, that is, the creation of utopias. Yet history has shown that human efforts to create utopias end in tragedy, because fallible humans normally create fallible institutions. Deciding against utopian answers does not absolve individuals and communities from seeking proximate justice and ordered, compassionate societies.
Religious traditions do seem to agree that human security can exist in the social arena, but only if there is peace. Peace is not the product of security; rather, security is the product of peace. The emphasis shifts then to the positive: "How do we promote and achieve peace?" rather than "How do we guarantee security?" Among the most common answers are mercy, humility, sacrifice, openness to new truth, understanding, acceptance, forgiveness, and love.
Notes
(1) Herbert Butterfield, "Human Nature and the Dominion of Fear," chap. 5 in International Conflict in the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), pp. 85, 87, and 89.
(2) UN Charter, preamble, Articles 1, 2, 3, 11, and 26. The full text in English is available on the UN Web site. The reference to the mandates is found in the preamble. Articles 2 and 3 state the nature and status of member states. Article 2 covers the settlement of disputes by peaceful means among states. Article 11 states the role of the General Assembly, and Article 26 sets the responsibility of the Security Council.
(3) The works referred to in Reflection IV are The Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues, Common Security: A Blueprint for Survival (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982); The Brandt Commission, Common Crisis (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983); The World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
(4) The passage from the Millennium Declaration is available from the UN Web site. My sentences are a composite drawn from words in paragraphs 5 and 32.
(5) The Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighborhood: The Report of the Commission on Global Governance (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 43, 46, 48, 56, and 65; information was gleaned and assembled in a composite in much the same way as described in note 4.
|
|
Home
Copyright (C) 1997-2008 by Kosei Publishing
Co.
All rights reserved.
