These are my complete notes from the Global Security (GS) lectures taught in the second year of IRO. If there is anything about the exam, this is about the exam in March 2021.
Lecture 1 – What is Global Security?
Guiding questions
• What is (global) security?
• Whose security are we talking about?
• What counts as a security issue?
• How can security be achieved?
1) What is global security?
• “Security, in an objective sense, measures the absence of threats to acquired values, in
a subjective sense, the absence of fear that such values will be attacked.” – Arnold
Wolfers (1962)
The contested concept of security
• But…
o Which values need protection?
o What counts as a threat to these values?
o Is security absolute?
• “Security studies may be defined as the study of the threat, use, and control of military
force.” – Stephen M. Walt (1991)
o Very traditional view focuses on military security focused on states
o He is a realist
• “Security means the absence of threats. Emancipation is the freeing of people (…)
from those physical and human constraints which stop them from carrying out what
they would freely choose to do. (…)
Security and emancipation are two sides of the same coin. Emancipation, not power or
order produces true security.” – Kenneth Booth (1991).
o Approaches from a critical perspective
o More than just surviving, also living a good life
• “An essentially contested concept” (Barry Buzan) that creates “disputes about its
proper use” (Walter Gallie).
o “Survival” (freedom from life-determining threats) vs. “survival-plus”
(freedom to have life choices)?
o Who is talking, a general, a diplomat, an activist?
emphasize different things (activist also human security: security of
individuals, chance of having a good life)
o Political question creates political debate about values (which need
protection)
• Security is a “powerful political tool in claiming attention for priority items in the
competition for government attention.” – Barry Buzan (1991)
o If we call sth a security issue, we draw attention to it government has no
choice but to respond to it
2) Whose security are we talking about? - The referent object
• What is that needs to be made secure?
• State, national interest traditional
• Individual, ethnic group, society as a whole, the environment, the planet
• Not independent of each other if the state is not secure, then its citizens are also not
secure
1
,3) What counts as a security issue?
Issues and threats
• Global climate change
• Terrorism
• Cyberattacks from other countries
• The spread of nuclear weapons
• Spread of infectious diseases
• Depends on our own experiences
o History and structure of country (terrorism in France)
How issues and threats have changed
• Traditionally, preference given to external (intervention by other states, war between
states) rather than internal threats (state failure, civil war, poverty).
o But end of Cold War and globalization questioned the preference for external
threats more emphasis on internal threats
• Traditionally, focus on extreme threats and measures
o But diversity of approaches in security studies criticized realist approach to the
study of security
• Types of security threats (Buzan, 1991)
o Military offensive/defensive
o Political stability of states
o Economic resources and welfare
o Sustainability of societal traditions and customs
o Maintenance of the local and planetary biosphere
•
o Security can be divided among two dimensions two questions
4) How can security be achieved?
• “The search for perfect security… defeats its own ends. Playing for safety is the most
dangerous way to live.” – A.D. Lindsay, Introduction to Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
• Author book: you can’t achieve absolute security. Life is about living with risks and
threats.
• When you try to achieve security, you sacrifice other things
o Liberty, justice, freedom, equality
• You can't prevent everything
2
,Key points
• What is security?
o An “essentially contested concept” – it is political
• Whose security?
o State, the individual, the ethnic group, society as a whole, the environment, the
planet
• What counts as a security issue?
o Military, economic, political, societal, and environmental threats
• How to achieve security?
o More or less security, never complete security; marked by trade-offs
5) Security studies as a field of study
The “Golden Age”, 1950-1960
• Lot of development and debate about security
• The two world wars
o Civilian contributions to security strategy
o Long-term strategy to avoid war
• The national interest defined as
o Security rather than welfare of citizens
o Security includes welfare but keeping society secure from external threats
• The nuclear revolution spurred involvement of civilians
o Research on deterrence, containment, coercion, escalation, arms control
not risk ever using nuclear weapons in a war
o Belief in deductive, rational thinking
anticipating the other side’s responses and planning strategy in that way
• “In IR scholarship, a policy of deterrence generally refers to threats of military
retaliation directed by the leaders of one country to the leaders of another in an attempt
to prevent the other country from resorting to the threat or use of military force in
pursuit of its foreign policy goals.” – Huth (1999)
o Policy of deterrence required to calculate costs and benefits of certain actions
need to anticipate others’ actions (highly abstract way of thinking about
strategy)
• “Nuclear war spurred theorizing because it was inherently more theoretical than
empirical: none had ever occurred.” – Richard Betts (1997)
very hypothetical thinking
o Didn’t take into account realities of battlefield (Vietnam War)
o To prevent war between SU and US you had proxy wars like Vietnam that
escalated among people (critique)
The end of the Golden Age, 1960-1970
• Limits to traditional approaches
o Not applicable to peasant war in Vietnam
o Limited view of politics
o Assumes perfect information & constant ability to rationally calculate
• Public disinterest in ‘national security’
o Critique of Vietnam War: security studies become unfashionable accused of
being in favour of Vietnam war
• Focus on international political economy
3
, The renaissance of security studies, 1970-1990
• New data
o More systematic use of historical analysis; more access to archives
o You could do different things not only hypothetically theorize about future
but actually study the past and draw lessons from that
• New methods
o Structured-focused case comparisons; more diverse social scientific
approaches to explain historic events
o Not only behaviouralist approach dominant
• New realities
o End of cold war détente; Iranian and Nicaraguan revolution; Soviet
interventions in African states and Afghanistan
o Triggered new thinking about security also new: peace studies as a response
to security studies being dominated by realism (focus on nuclear deterrence as
the solution to military threats) (normative perspective: what needs to be
done?)
Key points
• Security studies: Focus on avoiding war, not fighting it
• Increase in civilian involvement in security studies
• Belief in science & rational thinking
• Vietnam war questioned the usefulness of this knowledge
• Renaissance: new data, methods & applications
• Today: many different approaches
6) Course Overview
1) State-based security threats
a) What is global security?
b) Anarchy, uncertainty and war
c) Alliances, coercion and diplomacy
d) Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation
e) Foreign military intervention
2) Non-state security threats
a) Counterterrorism and military technology
b) Civil wars
c) Insurgency and counterinsurgency
d) Peacebuilding and its critics
e) Gender dimensions of peace and security
3) “New” security threats
a) Migration
b) Climate change
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