L1 – WHAT IS GLOBAL SECURITY?
THE WORLD IN 2022
Current issues: war, covid (vaccines, infection rates), climate change
DEFINING 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 – Wolfers
Broad, designed to cover many areas: different states place more/less value on certain aspects
of security
A contested concept creates disputes about proper use
What values need protection?
What counts as a threat to these values?
Is security absolute?
Narrow meaning?
“Survival” = freedom from life determining threats
Or, “survival-plus” = freedom to have life choices
Meaning defined by whom? (generals, diplomats, activists, academics, policymakers?) can also
become politicised; it matters to know how people use the term
The referent object
What is it that needs to be made secure?
State, national interest (typically)
Individuals, ethnic groups, society as a whole, the environment, the planet
these all are not independent of one another; i.e. hard to think of a country preserving
national interest without safety for their society
Key dimensions of security (Buzan)
Military – offensive & defensive capabilities and consequences
Political – state stability, system of government
Econ – resources and welfare
Social sustainability – maintenance of traditions and customs
Environmental sustainability – maintenance of the local and planetary biosphere
Issues and threats
In perceptions of security, there is a way that we have our views of priorities, but they are socially
constructed phenomena that evolve with time and ongoing discussions.
As of 2021, 2022
Increasing perception of political polarisation within countries
Increasing perceptions of threats to democracy, within countries and internationally
,A matrix of security studies
Source of security
threat
Security for whom? Military Military,
nonmilitary, or both
States National security Redefined security
(conventional realist (e.g. environmental
approach to security and econ security)
studies)
Societies, groups and Intrastate security (e.g. Human security (e.g.
individuals civil war, ethnic environmental and
conflict and democide) econ threats to the
survival of societies)
HOW CAN SECURITY BE ACHIEVED?
“The search for perfect security defeats its own ends. Playing for safety is the most dangerous way to
live.” – Lindsay
KEY POINTS
What is security?
o An essentially contested concept
Whose security?
o State, individual, ethnic group, society, environment, the planet
What counts as a security issue?
o Military, economic, political, society, environmental threats
How to achieve security?
o More or less security, never complete security
SECURITY STUDIES AS A FIELD OF INQUIRY
The golden age (50-60s)
WW1 and 2
Civilian contributions to the study of strategy
Long-term strategy to avoid war
The national interest = security > welfare
Nuclear revolution
Seminal research on deterrence, containment, coercion, escalation, arms control
Belief in deductive, rational thinking
The end of the golden age (60-70s)
Limits to traditional approaches
Not applicable to peasant war in Vietnam
Limited view of politics (only military balances, not beliefs and perceptions)
Assumes perfect information and constant ability to rationally calculate
Public disinterest in ‘national security’
Critique of Vietnam war made security studies an unfashionable subject at universities
Focus on political econ
,The renaissance of security studies (70-90s)
New data: more systematic use of historical analysis, access to archives
New methods: structured-focused case comparisons, more diverse social scientific approaches to
explain historic events
New realities: end of cold war détente, Iranian and Nicaraguan revolution, Soviet intervention in
African countries and Afghanistan
Changes due to the end of the cold war?
In the character of warfare
For civil war, “new wars”
o Civilians as targets (as opposed to pre-ordered battles between men in uniform)
o Criminalisation of violence (as opposed to state building enterprises)
o Identity-based wars (as opposed to forward looking transformative ideological
agendas)
For intl wars, hybrid wars? Grey-zone warfare?
there are strong disagreements in the field about whether there have in fact been changes
Changes after 9/11
The global war on terror
Greater intl intervention
More complex, multi-layered conflicts
Growth in multiparty conflict
Possible challenges to the post-cold war unipolar balance of power
Approaches can shape what we pay attention to
Type of approach Focus
Traditional The state
Realism(s) Military security, deterrence
Liberalism(s) Institutions, intra-state war
Constructivism National interests, identities, culture
Critical security studies Borders, migration, surveillance
Feminism Gender in war and peace
Postcolonial studies Development, econ security, regional security
Problem-solving v critical theory
Problem solving theory: takes the world as it finds it, the prevailing social and power
relationships and the institutions in which they’re organised as the given framework for action
Critical theory: doesn’t take institutions and social and power relations for granted but calls
them into question. Critical theory is directed to the social and political complex as a whole
rather than to the separate parts
L2 – ANARCHY, UNCERTAINTY AND WAR
HOW DO SECURITY THREATS EMERGE?
Ungoverned spaces in the intl system e.g. Sudan transition deal backed by US
Technology (emerging and existing)
EXISTENTIAL FEATURES OF IR
The intl environment
, Important features?
membership in the intl community? Presence/absence of violence? Intl law? Others?
Consider from the perspective of an individual state
Anarchy
Uncertainty
Power distributions
Anarchy
Chaos? Disorder? Lack of rules? no, here we reference it as meaning the absence of government
over states (Waltz)
Whether interstate relations are violent or nonviolent is distinct from the presence of anarchy
states exist in a ‘self-help’ world
Uncertainty
Is a driving force in intl (in)security
Consider the mission of intelligence agencies: to supply country’s top political leaders with info on:
past events, current state of the world, actors’ intentions, likely future state of the world
Uncertainty (in intl politics) – the quality of not being known beyond doubt
An ‘existential condition’ inherent to ‘all human relations’
Can’t be avoided
How is it perceived, understood and its consequences can vary significantly
Types of uncertainty
Unresolvable uncertainty created by
o Material factors
Ambiguous symbolism of weapons and their deployment: can
offensive/defensive weapons be distinguished? (e.g. Russia and Ukraine)
o Psychological factors
The ‘other minds’ problem: limited understanding of the intentions, motives,
hopes, fears and emotions and feelings on the part of the decisionmakers of
one state about counterparts elsewhere
Future uncertainty (this is where intelligence agencies, investment in tech etc come in)
Power distributions
Categorising states by power (Buzan)
Superpowers: operate globally
Great powers: influential in multiple world regions
Regional powers: influential mostly within a single region
what about non-powers? How do they play into global affairs? Some states cannot be identified in
these analyses of the effects of certain power distributions (small states can be key in crisis generation
among greater powers)
Types of distribution Consequences for great power peace (neorealist)
Multipolarity Relatively unstable, risk of great power war
Bipolarity Relatively stable, but peripheral conflict, risk of devastating superpower
war
