National Security

9 Key excerpts on "National Security"

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  Seeing The Invisible: National Security Intelligence In An Uncertain Age

  National Security Intelligence in an Uncertain Age

  • Thomas A Quiggin(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • WSPC

    (Publisher)

  What is National Security? On the surface, this appears to be a fairly simple question. It is the measures taken by the state to ensure the security of itself, and its citizens or subjects. On a deeper Jevel, however, a much more complex question exists that involves ur~derstanding the role of the state and how far the state must go to define and protect its interests.This requires knowing what the interests of the state are in political, military, economic, social and er~vironmental terms. The state has both a right and duty to protect it citizens. However, the state must also deal with the idea of a necessary balance between needs and resources and also rights and duties. Perhaps the most d i ~ c ~ l t of all is the need to provide equilibrium between the peace and order needed for a functioning society and the tolerance required for the citizens to be able to function. IdentiQing the critical elements of National Security is a much more ~ i ~ ~ u l t question than it seerns. It is both critical and necessary, however, to understand the changing role of the state and the envi~onment in which the state operates. At the same time, this operating environment is increasingly complex and uncertairi with a series of traditional and emerging threats. In the following sections a number of issues will be addressed. These include the changing role of the state, the international role of the state, chapter2 Underststanding National sercurity E AND globalization, non-state actors, organized crime, global and local identities, e the complex security e environment, asymmetric responses, and the future role of National Security. Tied to all of this, of course, will be the intelligence requirements that fall out of this assessment. The state as we currently understand it is a relatively new invention of history. Opinions vary amongst historians and political scientists, but the state as we now know it in legal terms evolved out of Eurorse from the 13th to the 19th Centuries.

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  National Security In The Third World

  • Abdul-Monem M. Al-Mashat(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Scholars have not agreed on a definition of National Security. As several investigations into the National Security concept have indicated, the phenomenon of security is hardly precise. Lack of agreement on the nature of the phenomenon under investigation adds more complexity to an already ambiguous and complex subject; it is one of the reasons why National Security theory is less advanced and less coherent than other areas of the theory of international relations. The definitions of National Security vary greatly between abstract values and conceptions of realpolitik. Two general trends of definitions will be illustrated here. They are the strategic definition and the economic nonstrategic definition. The first conceives security in terms of abstract values and is concerned mainly with the preservation of independence and sovereignty of nation-states; the second is concerned with both the maintenance of the flow of vital economic resources and the nonmilitary aspects of nation-state functions.

  Strategic Definition

  The bipolarity in the international system in the post-World War II era is coupled with the ideological dichotomy between capitalism and communism. The advocates of each ideology perceive the cause of insecurity as the other (Barnet, 1977:56). For this reason, National Security experts have had to define National Security in ambiguous and abstract terms. According to the Encyclopedia of Socia l Sciences , National Security is "the ability of a nation to protect its internal values from external threats." Efforts to inquire into a definition of "internal values" meet vagueness. For instance, Walter Lippmann conceives a nation to be secure to the extent to which "it is not in danger of having to sacrifice 'core values' if it wishes to avoid war, and is able, if challenged, to maintain them by victory in such a war" (Lippmann, 1943). Along this line, Arnold Wolfers, a prominent figure in National Security theory, defines security as the "protection of values previously acquired.

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  Military Economics

  The Interaction of Power and Money

  • Ron Smith(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  National Security may be narrowly defined in terms of the defence of the realm from attack, though how this defence may be implemented may not be clear for amorphous threats like terrorism. However, it is often broadened from the safety of the nation from attack to the safety of national interests, which in a globalised world are inevitably global. The global interests of a nation include its foreign investment, sources of essential inputs such as natural resources like oil, protection of trade routes, nationals abroad and export markets. Thus National Security interests can easily be extended beyond protection of the nation from attack. At the global level, there is the issue of how international public goods, like security, are provided. International or global security might be regarded as the security of most people in the world, though national leaders might see it as the security of most nations in the world, which is how the UN Security Council usually sees it. During the Cold War the major threat to the security of a large proportion of the world’s pop- ulation was the danger of a nuclear war. Now the major threats are probably environmental including global warming and pandemic dis- eases, against which military responses are ineffective. We now consider individual, national and global security in more detail. Individual security Imagine a world without a state to enforce laws. People consume what they produce themselves or gain by exchanging their products for the products of others; but they can also consume what they steal from oth- ers. They then have a choice about how much time and other resources they allocate to fighting (either to steal from others or to stop others stealing from them) as against how much they allocate to production. There are returns to specialisation and the division of labour, so it will pay some to invest in becoming specialists in violence, acquiring weapons and skill in using them.

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  Philippine Security in the Age of Terror

  National, Regional, and Global Challenges in the Post-9/11 World

  • Rommel Banlaoi(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Auerbach Publications

    (Publisher)

  4 The state is the primary political com-munity and player and therefore the main referent of security. 5 This limited defini-tion of security is apparently anchored on the realist school, which views the state as the principal player in domestic and international politics. 6 From this perspec-tive, the security of the state rests on its ability to develop a strong external defense defined in terms of military power, which, on the other hand, is measured in terms of possession of a huge arsenal of weapons as well as recruitment and training of troops for war-fighting missions. In short, some scholars traditionally define secu-rity in geopolitical terms, encompassing issues of nuclear deterrence, balance of power, and military strategy. 7 Scholars adhering to the narrow definition of security are those interested in military statecraft and strategic studies. Other scholars, however, have challenged this limited definition of security, arguing that security is a broad concept that goes beyond its military dimension. 8 Security also means the security of the environment (environmental security), the security of the people (human security), and security from hunger (economic secu-rity), among other definitions. Southeast Asian academics call this concept “com-prehensive security.” 9 The concept of comprehensive security regards the traditional definition of security as an insufficient conceptual tool to describe the security pre-dicaments of developing countries. The limited definition can only best describe the Identity Politics and Philippine National Security ◾ 5 security predicaments of developed countries where the concept of statehood has already been settled. Because statehood is not a source of domestic political contes-tation, developed countries can, therefore, pay attention to external defense. In many developing countries, however, the role of the state is highly contested and is not even seen as an effective provider of external defense.

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  Security

  A Philosophical Investigation

  • David A. Welch(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  4 | State Security We move now to more familiar terrain. Throughout the history of International Relations as a field, the state has been the primary security referent of concern. In this chapter – as in the previous one and the next two – I will start by clarifying the referent conceptually, then proceed to assess the kind and degree of value it has (if any), identify prominent threats to it, and discuss which of those threats are worthy of what level of investment in security. I should begin by noting that I will eschew the language of ‘national’ security, which is by far the more common term, and perhaps also the more natural one linguistically. 1 I will do so because I am keen to distinguish ‘state’ and ‘nation.’ The former is a political category; the latter, an anthropological one. I will use standard textbook definitions of each: a state is a ‘sovereign, terri- torial political unit,’ and a nation ‘a group of individuals who have some combination of common language, culture, religion, history, mythology, identity, or sense of destiny, as well as strong ties to a particular territory and, usually, aspirations for political auton- omy.’ 2 Maintaining the distinction is important for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that I will treat key elements of nationhood in the next chapter. But most importantly: states can be ethnically (nearly) homogeneous (the proverbial ‘nation-state’) or, as is much more often the case, multinational (see Figure 4.1). In addition, most recognized ‘nations’ – e.g., Roma, Kurds, Basques, and every indigenous or ‘first’ nation on the planet – lack states of their own. It is unfortunate that common usage often treats the two terms as synonyms. The members of the United Nations, after all, are states, not nations. Its founders may be forgiven for not 1 At the time of writing, ‘National Security’ yielded 17.5 times as many hits on Google as ‘state security.’ 2 Nye & Welch 2016, pp. 398, 396. 91

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  Transnational Security

  • Marie-Helen Maras(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  ‡ Richard H. Ullman, “Redefining Security,” InterNational Security 8:1 (Summer 1983), 129–153; Myron Weiner, “Security, Stability, and International Migration,” InterNational Security 17:3 (1992/1993), 91–126; Theodore H. Moran, “International Economics and National Security,” Foreign Affairs 69 (1990/1991), 74–90; Brad Roberts, “Human Rights and InterNational Security,” Washington Quarterly 13:2 (1990), 65–75. § Ole Weaver, Barry Buzan, Morton Klestrup, and Pierre Lemaitre, Identity, Migration, and the New Security Agenda in Europe (London: Pinter, 1993). ¶ Iver B. Neumann, “Collective Identify Formation: Self and Other in International Relations,” European Journal of International Relations 2 (1996), 139–174; Alexander Wendt, “Collective Identify Formation and the International State,” American Political Science Review , 88 (1994), 384–396; cited in Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams, “Broadening the Agenda of Security Studies: Politics and Methods,” Mershon International Studies Review , 40:2 (1996), 243. 15 TransNational Security of political status, [and] not merely to [ensure] the physical survival of individuals within national boundaries.” * TransNational Security issues encompass military and nonmilitary threats that traverse borders around the globe, threaten the social, politi-cal, and legal order of nations, and adversely impact the quality of life of the population of nations. The impact of transNational Security threats are felt beyond a single nation’s borders and affect the international com-munity as a whole. Examples of transNational Security threats include (but are not limited to): the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, transnational terrorism, transnational organized crime, cybercrime, nat-ural disasters, human-made disasters, infectious diseases, conflict and post-conflict societies, food shortages, water shortages, and the energy dependence and interdependence of countries.

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  Security

  A Critical Introduction

  • Lee Jarvis, Jack Holland(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  At the time of this theoretical narrowing, the answer to the question, ‘what is security?’, appeared readily apparent: security was the continued survival of the United States, through the avoidance of nuclear apocalypse. Key Points • Although originally focused on the individual human, the term secu- rity has become increasingly associated with the survival of states. • Central to this change of meaning was realism’s dominance of IR and Security Studies in the Cold War era. • The increasing proximity between realism and liberalism from the 1970s onwards both followed and made possible general agreement on the fundamental tenets of Security Studies. Security: a narrow or broad phenomenon? We contend that to pursue security is to do more than avoid nuclear annihilation, prevent war, and/or protect the state through military 26 Security: A Critical Introduction strength. In making this argument, we align ourselves with critical approaches to the study of security, which tend to adopt a more expan- sive understanding of the concept and its possibilities. In this section, we explore narrow and broad accounts of security, tracing justifica- tions for each, and what they mean for the study of international poli- tics more broadly. Here, we contrast conceptions of security as a synonym, simply, for survival, on the one hand, and, on the other, more expansive theorizations associated with Peace Studies literature and debates around human security and Critical Security Studies (CSS). In so doing, we ask whether the continuation of life is sufficient for security, and, if not, what conditions – or basic needs – must be met for security to be achieved. These are fundamental ontological ques- tions, which must be considered alongside the epistemological concerns of Chapter 2 which focus not on what security is, but rather on what we can know about security. Perhaps the simplest way to define security is as a condition where the survival of someone or something is not at risk.

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  State, Society And National Security: Challenges And Opportunities In The 21st Century

  Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century

  • Shashi Jayakumar(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • World Scientific

    (Publisher)

  The common theme in the develop-ment of the ‘protecting state’ has been the move beyond strategy designed to protect the territorial integrity and institutions of the State, to strategy that has the direct security and safety of the public as its citizen-centric purpose. Notable in that regard has been the way that many countries have now recognised the importance of security planning against impersonal haz-ards, such as extreme weather events and communicable disease, which are seen as a comparable risk to public security and safety as malign threats, especially when the long-term effects of climate change are taken into account. That train of thinking has been influential in the priority many nations have given to strengthening crisis management capabilities during the last decade, both nationally and in cooperation with other states, and to investing to gain the advantages of building greater national resilience to disruptive events. Another strategic feature has been the rise in priority given to so-called “non-state actors”, such as the members of proliferation networks and ter-rorist groups, and global criminal gangs capable of corrupting weak gov-ernments in many parts of the world. The concept of countries at risk of instability or collapse, and thus potentially able to provide safe havens for international terrorists groups, has also entered our strategic lexicon. Finally, in the last few years cyber threats have emerged as a whole new category of risk, which represent a priority in National Security strategies. The risks from malign actors exploiting cyberspace is now close to the top of most nations’ risk register. The rapid rise in cyber crime, both by using new techniques of malware and simply the ability on the internet to con-duct traditional crime at scale, is outpacing law enforcement’s capability to bring those responsible to justice, leaving little alternative but to try Thinking about National Security 25 to disrupt the criminal activity itself.

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  Environment and Security

  Discourses and Practices

  • M. Lowi, B. Shaw, M. Lowi, B. Shaw(Authors)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Defining 'human security' Initially, human security was interpreted as meaning threats to the physical security of the person. For example, the Universal Declar- ation of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948, states that 'everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person ... '. However, the concept now encompasses economic, health, and environmental concerns as well. It is, as the UNDP (1994) notes, an 'integrative' as opposed to merely a 'defensive' concept. Their definition of human security includes seven categories of threats: • Economic security (assured basic income) • Food security (physical and economic access to food) • Health security • Environmental security (access to sanitary water supply, clean air and a non-degraded land system) • Personal security (security from physical violence and threats) • Community security (security from ethnic cleansing) • Political security (protection of basic human rights and freedoms) This concept of human security has a spatial component as well. The UNDP recognizes global challenges to human security, which arise because the threats are international in nature. Included in threats to global human security are: • Unchecked population growth • Disparities in economic opportunities 70 Environment and Security: Discourses and Practices • Excessive international migration • Environmental degradation • Drug protection and trafficking • International terrorism The appeal of the term 'human security' is that it recognizes the interlinkages of environment and society, and acknowledges that our perceptions of the environment, and the way we use the environ- ment, are historically, socially and politically constructed.

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