Providing for National Security

A Comparative Analysis

Andrew M. Dorman, Joyce P. Kaufman, Andrew M. Dorman, Joyce P. Kaufman

• Publisher: Stanford Security Studies
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780804791571
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: National Security
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Providing for National Security: A Comparative Analysis argues that the provision of national security has changed in the 21st century as a result of a variety of different pressures and threats. In this timely volume experts from both the academic and policy worlds present 13 different country case studies drawn from across the globe—including established and newer states, large and smaller states, those on the rise and those in apparent decline—to identify what these key players consider to be their national security priorities, how they go about providing national security, how they manage national security, and what role they see for their armed forces now and in the future. The book concludes that relative standing and the balance of power remains important to each state, and that all see an important role for armed forces in the future.

PART I

INTRODUCTION

1

The Challenge of National Security

Andrew M. Dorman and Joyce P. Kaufman

IN THE SECOND DECADE OF THE 21ST CENTURY, THE TREND CONTINUES for an increasing number of states to publish some form of national security strategy.¹ Yet what comprises “national security” remains no less contentious today than when Arnold Wolfers identified the ambiguities within it in the 1950s or when Barry Buzan, borrowing W.B. Gallie’s phrase, described national security as an “essentially contested concept” or when Peter Katzenstein brought together a number of scholars together to examine the role of culture on national security.²

Those responsible for the provision of or engaged in teaching on national security are confronted by several basic questions:

• Who provides national security? Is it the sole preserve of the state or has some of that responsibility moved toward international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO, and the International Fund, or is responsibility increasingly passing to the private sector?

• Who is national security provided for? Is the ultimate role of the provider the protection of the provider and its instruments of provision or is it about the provision of security for those who the provider is responsible for? In the case of the state, is it the state itself, the organs of the state, or the people?

• How should it be provided? What are the most appropriate tools to employ? How are decisions to be made about relative prioritization?

While the questions might initially appear quite straightforward, there is a background of potential changes and challenges to the current international order that includes a considerable debate over the utility of force. In the aftermath of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the likelihood of such large-scale interventions, at least in the near term, seems remote. However, the prospect for the limited use of force, discrete military operations, or whatever nomenclature is chosen, still remains.³ The French deployment of forces to Mali in 2013 and the NATO-led operation in Libya in 2011 suggest that the impulse toward liberal interventionism may not be dead but that the will to affect the means to intervene is running behind both the stated aim and the political rhetoric.⁴ In both these examples, the United States, under President Obama, has taken a back seat, and rather than leading has allowed other countries to take the lead in addressing global security issues. This does not mean that the United States has not been willing to engage, for they did in both cases, but in a support role to the European allies. The question that rises out of this is, why? How does this link to traditional ideas of national security?

The rise of Brazil, India, and China and the reemergence of Russia pose a challenge to the established post–Cold War order, not just of the dominance of the West and in particular the United States, but Western rules, norms, and values on intervention, sovereignty, and the rules of war.⁵ Will a post-American world, post-Western world resemble the past in some way, such as the 19th century Concert of Europe, or in what ways will these new powers shift or set the terms of intervention and warfare in a totally different direction? Are we witnessing the inevitable decline of the United States and the emergence of Asia rather than Europe?⁶ Or, concomitantly, are we witnessing the rise of other hegemonic powers that will dominate their own regions, if not the international system as a whole?⁷ China’s response to the reduction in the United States’ credit rating, which involved a call for a new more stable currency to replace the U.S. dollar, seems to indicate that the global balance of power is changing to the detriment of the West.⁸ Added to this has been the so-called Arab Spring or Arab awakening, which has seen internal challenges to a number of North African and Middle Eastern states with some regimes falling and others engaged in the systematic suppression of internal opposition.

Fear of the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), either by terrorists or states, reentered the academic and political discourse. Despite its failure to find WMDs, the United States led a coalition of states into Iraq in 2003, at least in part motivated by the need to remove the perceived WMD threat through a preventive war.⁹ Subsequently, Israel attacked and destroyed a potential nuclear plant in Syria.¹⁰ Debate surrounds the possibility of an Israeli/American strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.¹¹ Moreover, throughout the Middle East, many states are considering acquiring their own nuclear arsenals in response to the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran, and as a result the discussion of the modalities of limited nuclear war has returned to policy debate. These events have played out against the backdrop of the revolutions sweeping the Middle East, with great uncertainty as to their outcomes, which makes security planning all the more challenging. Following a third North Korean nuclear test, the merits of tactical nuclear weapons are being discussed once again, while in Europe a new debate has developed over the utility and future of NATO’s tactical nuclear weapons. These come at a time when President Obama has been pushing for nuclear arms control, if not total disarmament. As a result, there are questions being asked about the traditional cost-benefit assumptions and whether WMDs might again feature as weapons of war.

There are potentially significant changes in how wars might be fought.¹² Are we seeing a so-called revolution in military affairs? If so, does this mean that the character of war is changing? What will that mean for national security? What impact will robotic use have on warfare? In the 1990s, precision-guided munitions usage made the use of force less costly domestically and facilitated an expansion in their use. Since the events of 9/11, the development and use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, more commonly referred to as drones) has expanded. What impact will such technological developments have on our conception of war and the use of force? For the Obama administration, the use of UAVs rather than manned aircraft over Libya meant that the administration did not need to go to Congress for approval under the War Powers Act.

There is also the question about the actual meaning of “conflict.” The STUXNET cyber attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities killed nobody but significantly affected the Iranian nuclear program.¹³ It raised the prospect of similar style cyber attacks having a major impact on individual societies without necessarily killing anyone. Without casualties, does such an attack constitute an act of war? If so, are we moving towards potentially bloodless conflicts? Within NATO, there is a debate about whether such an attack would invoke Article V. Clearly, attacks of this nature raise broader questions about what types of response are appropriate, and do the responses need to be of a similar kind? Or can a state respond with military force to such attacks, even when no casualties have been directly inflicted?

The 2008 financial crisis continues to have an impact on different parts of the world. For much of Europe and to a degree in North America, austerity appears to be a phenomenon that is unlikely to disappear quickly. Conversely, other parts of the world have been less affected. Will the ongoing effects of the economic meltdown exacerbate the already changing power dynamics within the world? In some respects, 2008 represents an “East of Suez” moment—a point where a government or collection of governments accepts a change in their relative standing within the world.

Finally, the previous state monopoly of providing national security is increasingly being challenged. The credit crisis, particularly in Europe and the United States, has reinforced the position of nonstate actors such as the International Monetary Fund and the European Union in the financial markets. Moreover, the recent wave of riots in the United Kingdom has raised basic questions about the social contract between the citizen and the state.¹⁴ This was reinforced by the tragic shooting in Norway 2011, in which a lone gunman wrought devastation amongst a future generation of political leaders. Are we likely to see the privatization of security as the state fails to provide for the needs of its citizens?

The goal of this book, therefore, is to undertake a comparative analysis of how states are approaching the formulation and implementation of national security. It adopts the premise that although states may no longer monopolize the articulation or provision of national security, they are, in general, still the main protagonists in the formulation and implementation of these policies, and it is through them that the majority of key international organizations, such as the United Nations, NATO, and the EU, work. For example, within the European Union a considerable number of sovereign powers have been handed to the European Union by its members, and those same members have retained responsibility for the provision of national defense and security. This does not mean that we exclude such organizations; rather, we will consider how they are utilized by and engage with states as part of national security. We also recognize that states are not single monolithic entities. One of the goals of this book is to compare how the state security apparatus works, and what factors influence the development and implementation of policy. The use of national security as the focus of analysis allows us to consider how states see their relative position within the international system. Thus we can examine what the drivers of these views are and what influence elements such as history, geography, and political culture play. It also allows us to consider how states are defining their national interest, to consider the extent to which this is changing, and what factors are driving these changes. We can also analyze how states are organizing themselves to provide national security, how is this being articulated in the public domain, and how much this is changing and why?

To keep this program within manageable bounds, we have identified that, apart from the United States (which is analyzed separately), there are effectively five typologies for states in terms of the national security agenda. We recognize that dividing states into these groupings is a subjective process and that there are other criteria that might be adopted for selection of groups, such as regional representation. A regional approach has strong merits in terms of global coverage, but it tends to imply that geography is the principle determinant of national security. From our review of the existing literature and discussions with potential contributors we were convinced that factors such as history, culture, and relative standing within the international system play a greater part, and we have therefore chosen to select case studies from the following groups. To try and capture the role of regional dynamics and geography, we have asked each of the contributors to consider these as some of the factors that influence the formulation and development national security. Four groups will be examined as outlined. The fifth group comprises those states that have yet to reach a position in which they can articulate national security in some form, and we have therefore chosen not to select any case studies from this group. This does not mean that they are unimportant but merely that given the constraints of time and space we believe their exclusion allows us to undertake a more balanced comparative study of the other groups. In each group, three case studies have been chosen, a number that we think reflects a balance between breadth and depth. This has given us thirteen case studies in total, not a high percentage of the world’s states but one that fits within the logistical limitations of a book. The four groups are as follows.

The first group, which we have called the old world, analyzes Europe, a continent that some scholars have argued is becoming increasingly a backwater as power shifts toward the Pacific and Asia. This emphasis on relative decline within the international system essentially follows the Paul Kennedy line of the rise and fall of empires and assumes that there is little that the European countries can do, especially given the impact of austerity and the preservation of the welfare state that dominates their thinking. One would therefore assume that their individual and collective response to what is clearly a major threat to their individual interests should form a major part of their thinking on national security and that the measures taken to respond to this would also presumably be similar. Three case studies have been selected of the continent’s major powers: France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. It could be argued that their selection is unrepresentative of Europe as a whole, and that would be correct, but in many respects they are the leaders of Europe and therefore they provide a good basis for comparison. All three states have significant histories that influence their current policies, all three have advanced economies that have suffer...