NATIONAL, SOCIETAL AND HUMAN SECURITY
A General Discussion with a Case Study from the Balkans
by Bjørn Møller, former IPRA Secretary General (1997-2000)*
paper for the
First International Meeting of Directors of
Peace Research and Training Institutions on
What Agenda for Human Security in the Twenty-first Century?
UNESCO, Paris, 27-28 November 2000
Preliminary version
Not for quotation
Comments are welcome
* The author holds an MA in History and a Ph.D. in International Relations, both from the University of
Copenhagen. Since 1985, he has been (senior) research fellow, subsequently programme director and board member
at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (COPRI, formerly Centre for Peace and Conflict Research), where he is
also editor of the international research newsletter NOD and Conversion. He served as Secretary General of the
International Peace Research Association (IPRA) from 1997 to 2000, and has been External Lecturer at the Institute
of Political Studies, University of Copenhagen since 1992. In addition to being the author of numerous articles and
editor of six anthologies, he is the author of three books: Resolving the Security Dilemma in Europe. The German
Debate on Non-Offensive Defence (1991); Common Security and Nonoffensive Defense. A Neorealist Perspective
(1992); and Dictionary of Alternative Defense (1995).
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Contents
1. Preface ....................................................................................................................................... 3
2. From Positivism to Constructivism .......................................................................................... 4
2.1 International Relations and Peace Research Perspectives ................................................ 4
2.2 Social Constructivism ........................................................................................................ 7
3. Axes of Expansion .................................................................................................................... 9
4. State-Centric ("National") Security.........................................................................................
4.1 The Orthodox Version .....................................................................................................
4.2 Moderate Alternatives......................................................................................................
4.3 State Security: The Indirect Approach ............................................................................
4.4 The Limitations of State-Centric Security.......................................................................
11
11
14
18
19
5. From "National" to Societal Security...................................................................................... 21
5.1 Threats to Identity ............................................................................................................ 21
5.2 Religion and Gender ........................................................................................................ 25
6. Human Security ....................................................................................................................... 27
6.1 Human Security vs. State and Societal Security ............................................................. 27
6.2 Structural Violence and Human Security ........................................................................ 30
7. "Environmental Security"........................................................................................................ 31
8. Conclusion and Illustration ..................................................................................................... 33
8.1 The Need for a Comprehensive Approach ...................................................................... 33
8.2 Illustration: The Balkan Conflicts ................................................................................... 34
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1. PREFACE
"Human security" has become something of a catchword, used both by UN agencies, national
development aid agencies and international as well as national NGO. The UNDP has been in
the forefront of the this debate, as illustrated by the following quotations:
The concept of security must change-from an exclusive stress on national security to a much greater stress on
people's security, from security through armaments to security through human development, from territorial
security to food, employment and environmental security (Human Development Report 1993)1
For too long, the concept of security has been shaped by the potential for conflict between states. For too long,
security has been equated with the threats to a country's borders. For too long, nations have sought arms to
protect their security. For most people today, a feeling of insecurity arises more from worries about daily life than
from the dread of a cataclysmic world event. Job security, income security, health security, environmental
security, security from crime-these are the emerging concerns of human security all over the world. (..) Human
security is relevant to people everywhere, in rich nations and in poor. The threats to their security may differhunger and disease in poor nations and drugs and crime in rich nations-but these threats are real and growing. (...)
Most people instinctively understand what security means. It means safety from the constant threats of hunger,
disease, crime and repression. It also means protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the pattern of our
daily lives-whether in our homes, in our jobs, in our communities or in our environment (Human Development
Report 1994).2
The Commission on Global Governance in its 1995 report on Our Global Neighbourhood
likewise lent its support to a reorientation towards human security:
Although it is necessary to continue to uphold the right of states to security, so that they may be protected against
external threats, the international community needs to make the protection of people and their security an aim of
global security policy.3
However, the academic community has more reluctant to embrace the concept of human
security, perhaps out of fear that doing so might blunt the edge of an otherwise sharp analytical
tool.
There is certainly some justification for this reluctance. "Security" is such a positively valueladen term (in analogy with "peace") that it is virtually impossible to argue against security.
With the exception of Hecate, who in Shakespeare's Macbeth (Act 3, Scene 5) described
security as "mortals' chiefest enemy", everybody has to be in favour of "security", however
defined. Hence, it is tempting to subsume whatever is desirable ("motherhood and apple pie")
under it, which would surely do little to enhance its analytical utility.
In the following I shall provide an account and analysis of the development of the theoretical
use of the concept, from a rather narrow, state-centric and militarized one ("national security"),
via one focusing on national and other identities ("societal security"), to a much wider concept,
including concerns for human rights, development, gender issues, etc., labelled "human
security". In conclusion I shall provide an illustration of how the different forms of security are
interlinked, by looking at national, societal and human security problems in the Balkan
conflicts.
2. FROM POSITIVISM TO CONSTRUCTIVISM
1. Human Development Report 1993 at www.undp.org/hdro/e93over.htm.
2. Human Development Report 1994 at www.undp.org/hdro/e94over.htm.
3. Our Global Neighbourhood. The Report of the Commission on Global Governance (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995), p. 82.
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2.1 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND PEACE RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES
As an academic term, "security" was until fairly recently almost monopolized by the
International Relations discipline (IR). IR theorists employed the term in a rather narrow sense,
i.e. as almost synonymous with military power. According to this simplistic logic the more
military power, or the more favourable the military balance, the more security. Surprisingly little
was, however, written about the concept of security (as opposed to presumed strategies for
achieving it) by the IR theoreticians. In his seminal work on Realism, Hans Morgenthau thus
hardly bothered to define "security".4 Arnold Wolfers was thus almost alone in venturing a
definition, which has become "standard":
"Security, in an objective sense, measures the absence of threats to acquired values, in a subjective sense, the
5
absence of fear that such values will be attacked."
Even this definition leaves open a number of questions: Whose values might be threatened?
Which are these values? Who might attack them? By which means? Whose fears should count?
How might one distinguish between sincere (albeit perhaps unfounded) fears and faked ones?
And should the "absence" of threats and/or fear be understood in absolute or (as indicated by the
term "measure") relative terms? I shall return to most of these questions in due course.
In contrast to IR, peace researchers have for decades endeavoured to develop meaningful
conceptions of peace, security and violence6--a preoccupation that also reflects their
longstanding interest in development issues7 and desire to break those bonds of ethnocentrism
that have always characterized IR.8
4. The closest he came to a definition was: ‘National security must be defined as integrity of the national
territory and its institutions", in Morgenthau, Hans J.: Politics Among Nations. The Struggle for Power and Peace,
3rd edition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), p. 562. In another connection, he added ‘culture" to the list,
emphasizing that the ‘survival of a political unit in its identity" (i.e. ‘security") constitutes ‘the irreducible minimum,
the necessary element of its interests vis-à-vis other units". See ‘The Problem of the National Interest" (1952), in
idem: Politics in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), pp. 204-237 (quote from p.
219).
5. Wolfers, Arnold: ‘National Security as an Ambiguous Symbol", in idem: Discord and Collaboration.
Essays on International Politics (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1962), pp. 147-165 (quote from p.
150).
6. See also Krell, Gert: ‘The Development of the Concept of Security", in Egbert Jahn & Yoshikazu
Sakamoto (eds.): Elements of World Instability: Armaments, Communication, Food, International Division of
Labour, Proceedings of the International Peace Research Association Eighth General Conference (Frankfurt:
Campus Verlag, 1981), pp. 238-254; Jahn, Egbert: ‘From International Peace Research to National Security
Research", in Jaap Nobel (ed.): The Coming of Age of Peace Research. Studies in the Development of a Discipline
(Groningen: Styx, 1991), pp. 57-75; Frei, Daniel: ‘Was ist unter Frieden und Sicherheit zu verstehen?", in Wolfgang
Heisenberg & Dieter S. Lutz (eds.): Sicherheitspolitik kontrovers. Frieden und Sicherheit. Status quo in Westeuropa
und Wandel in Osteuropa (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1990), vol. 1, pp. 41-49; Stephenson,
Carolyn: ‘New Conceptions of Security and Their Implicatons for Means and Methods", in Katharine and Majid
Tehranian (eds.): Restructuring for World Peace. On the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century (Creskil, NJ:
Hampton Press, 1992), pp. 47-61; Fischer, Dietrich: Nonmilitary Aspects of Security. A Systems Approach
(Aldershot: Dartmouth and UNIDIR, 1993). See also Møller, Bjørn: ‘Security Concepts: New Challenges and
Risks", Working Papers, no. 18 (Copenhagen: Centre for Peace and Conflict Research, 1993).
7. See, for instance, Galtung, Johan: ‘A Structural Theory of Imperialism", Journal of Peace Research, vol.
6, no. 2 (1971), pp. 81-118; idem: ‘A Structural Theory of Imperialism--Ten Years Later", Millennium, vol. 9, no. 3
(1980), pp. 183-196; idem: The True Worlds. A Transnational Perspective (New York: The Free Press, 1980);
Lawler, Peter: A Question of Values. Johan Galtung's Peace Research (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995), pp.
70-79; Emmanuel, Arghiri: L'Échange Inégal (Paris: Maspero, 1969); Amin, Samir: Le développement inégal
(Paris: Editions du Minuit, 1973); idem: L'accumulation a l'échelle mondiale, vols. 1-2 (Paris: Editions Anthropos,
1976); Frank, Andre Gunter: Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review
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Both Johan Galtung's term "positive peace" and the late Kenneth Boulding's "stable peace"
could thus, in retrospect, be seen as precursors of the emerging, expanded security concept.9 For
"security" to be genuine and durable, it would have to be based on a positive or stable peace
structure. This would entail considerably more than a mere "negative peace", in its turn equated
with an absence of war, representing merely one particular form of "direct violence". Genuine
peace and security would thus presuppose an elimination (or at least a reduction) of what
Galtung called "structural violence", i.e. the relative deprivation of large parts of the world
population. Thus conceived, a "positive peace" was more or less synonymous with what is today
referred to as "human security" (vide infra).
Belatedly, members of the IR community have come to accept the challenge of developing
broader conceptions of security.10 Barry Buzan and his collaborators at the Copenhagen Peace
Research Institute, COPRI (but not including the present author) have belonged to the
theoretical vanguard in this endeavour by virtue of their analyses of national as well as
"societal" security (vide infra).11 However, while acknowledging the need for shifting the focus
Press, 1969); idem & Barry K. Gills (eds.): The World System. Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand? (London:
Routledge, 1996); Proceedings of the International Peace Research Association Second Conference, vol. I:
‘Studies in Conflicts", vol. II: ‘Poverty, Development and Peace". IPRA Studies in Peace Research (Assen: Von
Gorcum & Co., 1968).
8. Neuman, Stephanie (ed.): International Relations Theory and the Third World (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1998). On the US dominance of the discipline see also Wæver, Ole: ‘The Development of a Not So
International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations", in Peter J. Katzenstein,
Robert O. Keohane & Stephen D. Krasner (eds.): Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999). pp. 687-727.
9. Galtung, Johan: ‘Violence, Peace, and Peace Research", in idem: Peace: Research, Education, Action.
Essays in Peace Research. Volume I (Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers Forlag, 1975), pp. 109-134; idem: ‘Peace
Research", ibid., pp. 150-166; idem: ‘What is Meant by Peace and Security? Some Options for the 1990s", in idem:
Transarmament and the Cold War. Essays in Peace Research, Volume VI (Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers Forlag,
1988), pp. 61-71. On ‘stable peace", see Boulding, Kenneth: Stable Peace (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1978); or idem ‘Moving from Unstable to Stable Peace", in Anatoly Gromyko & Martin Hellman (eds.):
Breakthrough. Emerging New Thinking (New York: Walker & Co., 1988), pp. 157-167.
10. A good illustration of the development is the two consecutive versions of a textbook on security studies:
Shultz, Richard, Ray Godson & Ted Greenwood (eds.): Security Studies for the 1990s (Washington, D.C.:
Brassey's, US, 1993); and Shultz, Richard H., Jr., Roy Godson & George H. Quester (eds.): Security Studies for the
21st Century (Washington: Brassey's, 1997).A precursor of the present debate was Ullman, Richard: ‘Redefining
Security", International Security, vol. 8, no. 1 (Summer 1983), pp. 162-177. Good overviews are Nye, Joseph E. &
Sean M. Lynn-Jones: ‘International Security Studies: A Report of a Conference on the State of the Field",
International Security, vol. 12, no. 4 (Spring 1988), pp. 5-27; Lynn-Jones, Sean: ‘The Future of International
Security Studies", in Desmond Ball & David Horner (eds.): Strategic Studies in a Changing World: Global,
Regional and Australian Perspectives, Series ‘Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence", vol. 89, (Canberra:
Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, the Australian National University,
1992), pp. 71-107. See also Mangold, Peter: National Security and International Relations (London: Routledge,
1990); Booth, Ken: ‘Security in Anarchy: Utopian Realism in Theory and Practice", International Affairs, vol. 67,
no. 3 (1991), pp. 527-545; idem (ed.): New Thinking About Strategy and International Security (London: Harper
Collins, 1991); Klare, Michael & Daniel C. Thomas (eds.): World Security. Trends and Challenges at Century's
End (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991); Clarke, Michael (ed.): New Perspectives on Security (London: Brassey's,
UK and Centre for Defence Studies, 1993); Rees, G. Wyn (ed.): International Politics in Europe. The New Agenda
(London: Routledge, 1993); Terriff, Terry, Stuart Croft, Lucy James & Patrick M. Morgan: Security Studies Today
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999).
11. Buzan, Barry: People, States and Fear. An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold
War Era, Second Edition (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf and Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1991); idem, Morten
Kelstrup, Pierre Lemaitre, Ole Wæver & al.: The European Security Order Recast. Scenarios for the Post-Cold War
Era (London: Pinter, 1990); Wæver, Ole, Barry Buzan, Morten Kelstrup and Pierre Lemaitre: Identity, Migration
and the New Security Agenda in Europe (London: Pinter, 1993); Buzan, Barry, Ole Wæver & Jaap de Wilde:
Security. A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
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from the (now defunct) East-West conflict and military matters,12 most members of the
"strategic studies" (now often re-labelled "security studies") community have continued their
rearguard battle against what they regard as an inappropriate expansion of the concept of
"security".
Even though a consensus thus seems to be emerging on the need for a certain widening,
disagreement persists about where to draw the line. To expand the notion of security too far—say, to include the absence of all types of problems—would not be practical, since it would
merely create the need for an additional term for "traditional security", now relegated to being
merely one species of the genus "security". Not to widen the concept at all, on the other hand,
might relegate "security studies" to a very marginalized position, if (as seems likely) traditional
security problems will be perceived as having a sharply diminishing salience--at the very least
as far as the West (or North) is concerned.
2.2 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
The quest for a "correct" definition of an "essentially contested concept"13 such as "security" is
probably futile. Rather, this is a matter of definitions, which may be more or less useful or
relevant, and which may both reflect and impact on power relations, but which can be neither
right nor wrong. One may thus have to agree with Lewis Carroll's fictitious Humpty Dumpty in
his linguistic philosophy:
"When I use a word", Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less". "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many things." "The
question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all". (Through the Looking Glass)14
The "Humpty Dumpties" of Political Science and IR, usually labelled "constructivists" are
probably right in rejecting as futile the quest for concepts that are "correct" in the sense of
corresponding to reality, if only because this "reality" is itself socially constructed, inter alia by
means of concepts such as "peace" and "security". Mindful of being part of the game himself,
what the analyst can do is merely to analyse how concepts are used, and how the security
discourse is thus evolving.15 As argued by Ole Wæver and others the challenge is to analyse the
security discourse as a complex "speech act" (or Wittgensteinean "language game"), i.e. to
explore the evolving "securitization" and "desecuritization" of issues.16 Among other
12. Good examples of ‘expanded strategic studies" are Brown, Neville: The Strategic Revolution. Thoughts
for the Twenty-First Century (London: Brassey's Defence Publishers, 1992); Souchon, Lennart: Neue deutsche
Sicherheitspolitik (Herford: Mittler Verlag, 1990).
13. Gallie, W.B.: ‘Essentially Contested Concepts", in Max Black (ed.): The Importance of Language
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Praeger, 1962), pp. 121-146.
14. In Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books, 1962), p. 274.
15. A basic work on social constructivism is Berger, Peter L. & Thomas Luckman (1967): The Social
Construction of Reality (London: Allan Lane). On this and various ‘postmodern" approaches to IR theory see
George, Jim: Discourses of Global Politics: A Critical (Re)Introduction to International Relations (Boulder, CO:
Lynne Rienner, 1994); Vasquez, John A.: ‘The Post-positivist Debate: Reconstructing Scientific Enquiry and
International Relations Theory After Enlightenment's Fall", in Ken Booth & Steve Smith (eds.): International
Relations Theory Today (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), pp. 217-240: Ruggie, John Gerard: ‘What Makes the
World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge", in Katzenstein, Keohane &
Krasner (eds.): op. cit. (note 8), pp. 215-246. For a critique see Østerrud, Øyvind: ‘Antinomies of Postmodernism in
International Studies", Journal of Peace Research, vol. 33, no. 4 (November 1996), pp. 385-390.
16. Wæver, Ole: ‘Securitization and Desecuritization", in Ronnie D. Lipschutz (ed.): On Security (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp. 46-86; Buzan et al.: op. cit. (note 11). The notion of language games
comes from Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Philisophische Untersuchungen (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953). Recent works
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advantages, this approach induces caution with regard to elevating too many problems to the
status of "security problems", which inevitably has political implications, some of which may be
undesirable.
* First of all, in the political discourse to label something a "security problem" may be
(ab)used by the powers that be for a "tabooization" of issues and marginalization of
ideological opponents. A matter with alleged national security implications is arguably
"off limits", i.e. not a totally legitimate subject for political or academic debate, but one
where everybody has to show loyalty to "the common cause". In order to prevent such a
closure of important debates, a relevant political goal might be a "de-securitization" of
pertinent issues, which may allow for a more open and fruitful debate.
* Secondly, certain strata in society may benefit from securitization, e.g. because they are
traditionally viewed as responsible for "security", however defined. To securitize various
problems may thus provide the armed forces with a justification for their claim on
national resources, which may not be desirable. "Critical security studies" devote
themselves, inter alia, to uncovering the interests and power games underlying the
security discourse.17
On the other hand, to proclaim something a security problem may certainly be justifiable, as it
attaches a label of urgency to an issue. Hence the attraction of, for instance, securitizing
environmental problems, which is tantamount to elevating a problem to one of "existential"
importance. Unless solved without delay such a problem may destroy all other values, which
warrants giving it absolute first priority.18
Whether to expand the concept of security or not, and if so in which direction and to what
extent, is thus a matter both of political choice and analytical convenience. In the following I
shall analyse how it might be expanded whilst paying a certain attention to both the positive and
negative political implications thereof.
3. AXES OF EXPANSION
of a related constructivist or post-structuralist orientation include Campbell, David: Writing Security. United States
Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. Revised Edition (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998);
Dalby, Simon: ‘Rethinking Security: Ambiguities in Policy and Theory", International Studies (Burnaby, BC: Dep.
of Political Science, Simon Fraser University, 1991); Fierke, K.M.: Changing Games, Changing Strategies. Critical
Investigations in Security (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); Huysmans, Jef: ‘Security! What Do
You Mean? From Concept to Thick Signifier", European Journal of International Relations, vol. 4, no. 2 (June
1998), pp. 226-255; Hansen, Lene: ‘A Case for Seduction? Evaluating the Poststructuralist Conceptualization of
Security", Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 32, no. 4 (December 1997), pp. 369-397; Constantinou, Costas M.:
‘Poetics of Security", Alternatives, vol. 25, no. 3 (July-Sept. 2000), pp. 287-306. For a critique of the ‘Copenhagen
School" (Buzan, Wæver and others) for not being consistently constructivist is McSweeney, Bill: ‘Security and
Identity: Buzan and the Copenhagen School", Review of International Studies, vol. 22, no. 1 (1996), pp. 81-93;
idem: Security, Identity and Interests. A Sociology of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999).
17. See, e.g., Krause, Keith & Michael C. Williams (ed.): Critical Security Studies. Concepts and Cases
(London: UCL Press, 1997); Jones, Richard Wyn: Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 1999); Fierke, K.M.: Changing Games, Changing Strategies. Critical Investigations in Security
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998).
18. A good example of this is the recent writings of Gwyn Prins, who argues in favour of a reorientation of
security studies to the environment. See, e.g., idem: ‘Politics and the Environment", International Affairs, vol. 66,
no. 4 (1990), pp. 711-730; idem: ‘A New Focus for Security Studies", in Ball & Horner (eds.): op. cit. (note 18), pp.
178-222; idem: ‘Global Security and Military Intervention", Security Dialogue, vol. 27, no. 1 (March 1996), pp. 716; idem: ‘Security challenges for the 21st century", NATO Review, vol. 45, no. 1 (Jan. 1997), pp. 27-30; idem:
‘The Four-Stroke Cycle in Security Studies", International Affairs, vol. 74, no. 4 (October 1998), pp. 781-808.
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In principle, expansion can take place along different "axes", i.e. as answers to various
questions, which may be subdivided according to how radically they depart from the prevailing
orthodoxy.
* Security of whom? This is the question of focus, i.e. of the appropriate "referent object"
(in the terminology of Buzan & al., whereas Bill McSweeney prefers the term
"subject").19 Three types of entities immediately spring to mind which might be either
secure or insecure: the State, other human collectives or the individual, more about which
shortly.
* Security of what? Depending on whose security is at stake, security will be a matter of an
absence of threats to different values, i.e. it may have completely different connotations.
* Security from whom? This is the question of the source of threat. Different values may
obviously be placed in jeopardy by different actors, in addition to which there may be
numerous "structural" threats (global warming, for example) without any agents. These
might, in principle, also be securitized, but they rarely are.
Table 1:
Expanded concepts of "Security"
Mode of Expansion
Degree of expansion
Label
Security of whom
or what?
Focus
Security of what?
Value at risk
Security from whom
or what?
Source(s) of threat
No expansion:
National
Security
The State
Sovereignty
Territorial
integrity
Other states
(Substate actors)
Incremental
Societal
security
Nations
Societal groups
National unity
Identity
(States)
Nations
Migrants
Alien culture
Radical
Human
security
Individuals
Mankind
Survival
Quality of life
The State
Globalization
Nature
Ultra-radical
Environmental
security
Ecosystem
Sustainability
Mankind
I shall place the main emphasis on these three questions (see Table 1), and especially on that of
focus, as this is where "human security" represents the most radical departure from security
studies orthodoxy. However, I shall also briefly discuss two additional sets of questions.
* Security from what? Depending on which values are supposed to be threatened by whom
(or what), these threats may appear in different dimensions (or "sectors"), such as the
military domain, the environment, or the economy.
19. Wæver, Ole: ‘Self-referential Concepts of Security as an Instrument for Reconstruction of an Openended Realism in IR", in idem: Concepts of Security (Copenhagen: Institute of Political Science, University of
Copenhagen, 1997), pp. 347-373; Buzan & al. 1998: op. cit. (note 11), pp. 35-42. McSweeney: op. cit. (note 16), p.
87 (note 11).
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* Security by whom? This is a question of agency, as there will be different answers to the
question of who is supposed to "do security", depending on all of the above. Moreover,
this question of agency has both a macro (international) and a micro (sub-state)
dimension. The former refers to the level at which security is sought, e.g. by individual
states, dyads or larger groups of states, or the international system as such. The latter
refers to the above-mentioned division of labour within society between the "security
services" and the rest.
* Security by which means? This is a question of both strategies (or rather "grand
strategies") and of concrete plans, determining, e.g. the relative importance of military
and other means to the end of security.
4. STATE-CENTRIC ("NATIONAL") SECURITY
Most of the security discourse continues to revolve around the State, but even here it makes
sense to distinguish between orthodox security studies and "alternative security studies".
4.1 THE ORTHODOX VERSION
What characterized the traditional IR approach to "security", especially during the era of almost
unchallenged dominance of Realism and Neorealism,20 was a focus on the State as the referent
object of security, i.e. that entity which was allegedly insecure, but should be made secure. Even
though the preferred term was "national" security, this was a misnomer, because nations are not
the same as states, except in a score or so of genuine nation states (Japan, for instance) where
nation and state happen to be (almost) coterminous.21
Even in those instances, however, the State, is an entity sui generis, often portrayed as
endowed with almost metaphysical features or personified, i.e. treated as if it were an individual
"writ large". Neither the interests nor the will of the State are thus reducible to the sum of those
of its citizens, but they are likewise sui generis.22 State security is, in the final analysis, only
20. For a historical account of ‘Realism", see e.g. Smith, Michael Joseph: Realist Thought from Weber to
Kissinger (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986). The best example of classical Realism is
Morgenthau: op. cit. (note 4). Good examples of neorealism are Waltz, Kenneth N.: Theory of International Politics
(Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979); Gilpin, Robert G.: War and Change in World Politics, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1981); Keohane, Robert O. (ed.): Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1986); and Buzan: op. cit. (note 11). See also Frankel, Benjamin (ed.): Roots of Realism (London:
Frank Cass, 1996); idem (ed.): Realism: Restatements and Renewal (London: Frank Cass, 1996); Guzzini, Stefano:
Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy. The Continuing Story of a Death Foretold
(London: Routledge, 1998). For a critique see Vasquez, John: The Power of Power Politics. From Classical
Realism to Neotraditionalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
21. Buzan: op. cit. (note 11), pp. 69-82. On the concept of ‘nation" see, for instance, two excellent readers:
Hutchinson, John & Anthony D. Smith (eds.): Ethnicity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); and idem & idem
(eds.): Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). See also Gellner, Ernst: Nations and Nationalism
(London: Basil Blackwill, 1983); Periwal, Sukumar (ed.): Notions of Nationalism (Budapest: Central European
University Press, 1995); Anderson, Benedict: Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origins and Spread of
Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991); Brass, Paul: Nations and Nationalism. Theory and Comparison (London:
Sage, 1991); Kellas, James G.: The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity (Houndsmills: Macmillan, 1991);
Kupchan, Charles (ed.): Nationalism and Nationalities in the New Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995);
Brass, Paul R.: Ethnicity and Nationalism. Theory and Comparison (London: Sage, 1991).
22. On the notion of raison d'état, see e.g. Meinecke, Friedrich: Machiavellism. The Doctrine of Raison
d'Etat and Its Place in Modern History (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1984). Besides Machiavelli, other ancestors
of modern Realism come close to a personification of the State, e.g. Hobbes, Thomas: Leviathan (Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books, 1968), who e.g. describes the Common-Wealth as ‘the multitude so united in one person" (p. 227).
On the concept of ‘national interest" see Chafetz, Glenn, Michael Spirtas & Benjamin Frankel (eds.): Origins of
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definable in terms of sovereignty and territorial integrity.23 What Realists have really referred to
has thus been the security of the territorial (rather than nation-) state, which was indeed the
principal actor in their "Westphalian" universe. It was presumed (if only "for the sake of the
argument") to be both universal and perennial. In fact it was neither, but a historical product of
fairly recent vintage and, until the latter half of the 20th century a distinctly "northern"
phenomenon.24
The international system, in its turn, was supposed to be anarchic, i.e. lacking in
supranational authority and consisting of sovereign states, each pursuing its "national" interest
"defined in terms of power" or, somewhat more modestly, in terms of security in the sense of
state survival. Furthermore, this universe was characterized by perpetual strife, since national
interests inevitably collided, hence the pervasiveness of competition, conflict and war.25
Since states were thus inherently insecure, they were well advised to make sure their power
would suffice to parry threats from other states to their sovereignty and territorial integrity. As
far as the system as such was concerned, the best safeguard of peace would presumably be a
"balance of power".26 As pointed out by critics, such balance is inherently difficult to define,
and well nigh impossible to achieve or preserve. Hence, such an anarchical system had an
inherent propensity of for arms races and war.27
While most "Realists" have placed the main emphasis on military threats, hence also on
military strength as the most reliable safeguard of "national security", a few authors have held a
somewhat broader view of state security, e.g. by including the economic dimension of
security.28 Such "economic security", however, may mean (at least) two rather different things.29
National Interests (London: Frank Cass, 1999).
23. Walker, R.B.J.: Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993); Hall, Rodney Bruce: ‘Territorial and National Sovereigns: Sovereign Identity and
Consequences for Security Policy", Security Studies, vol. 8, no. 2/3 (Winter 1998/Spring 1999), pp. 145-197.
24. On European state-building see Tilly, Charles: Coercion, Capital and European States, AD 990-1990
(Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1990); Giddens, Anthony: The Nation-State and Violence (Oxford: Polity Press,
1995); Porter, Bruce: War and the Rise of the State (New York: The Free Press, 1994); Spruyt, Hendrik: The
Sovereign State and Its Competitors (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). See also Fowler, Michael
Ross & Julie Marie Bunck: Law, Power, and the Sovereign State. The Evolution and Application of the Concept of
Sovereignty (University Part, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995); Krasner, Stephen D.: Sovereignty.
Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). On the ‘export" of the European state model to
the Third World see Ayoob, Mohammed: The Third World Security Predicament. State Making, Regional Conflict,
and the International System (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995); Clapham, Christopher: Africa and the
International System. The Politics of State Survival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Holsti, Kalevi
J.: The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
25. The best example is Waltz: op. cit. (note 20). For a critique see Wendt, Alexander: ‘Anarchy is What
States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics", International Organization, vol. 46, no. 2 (Spring
1992), pp. 391-425.
26. Gulick, Edward Vose: Europe's Classical Balance of Power (1955. Reprint: New York: W.W. Norton
& Co., 1967), passim; Wolfers, Arnold: ‘The Balance of Power in Theory and Practice", in idem: op. cit. (note 5),
pp. 117-131; Doyle, Michael W.: Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism (New York: W.W.
Norton & Co., 1997), pp. 161-194; Sheehan, Michael: The Balance of Power. History and Theory (London:
Routledge, 1996). For a critique see Vasquez: op. cit. (note 20), pp. 249-286.
27. Holsti, K.J.: ‘The Concept of Power in the Study of International Relations" (1964), in Robert L.
Pfalztgraff, Jr. (ed.): Politics and the International System, 2nd edition (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1972), pp.
181-195; Haas, Ernst B.: ‘Balance of Power: Prescription, Concept or Propaganda?" (1953), ibid., pp. 452-480;
Neild, Robert: An Essay on Strategy as it Affects the Achievement of Peace in a Nuclear Setting (London:
Macmillan, 1990), pp. 106-110; Møller, Bjørn: ‘From Arms to Disarmament Races: Disarmament Dynamics after
the Cold War", in Ho-Won Jeong (ed.): The New Agenda for Peace Research (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), pp. 83104.
28. An example of this is Gilpin, Robert G.: War and Change in World Politics, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981); idem: ‘The Economic Dimension of International Security", in Bienen (ed.): op. cit. (note
36), pp. 51-68. Kenneth Waltz also included economic factors in his ‘aggregate capabilities", e.g. in op. cit. (note
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Either it may be understood narrowly as referring to the economic foundations of military
power, or it may be seen as an aspect (or dimension) of security in its own right.
* Economic power is eminently "fungible" in the sense that it may be transformed into
almost anything, including military strength. Money can thus buy a state weapons from
abroad, and economic strength may increase productivity, thus allowing for a transfer of
labour from the civilian sphere into that of arms production or armed service. In the final
analysis, wealth is thus tantamount to military mobilization potential, if not in the short
term then at least in the medium to long run.30
* Economic strength may also be seen as a viable functional substitute for military power,
both for offensive and defensive purposes. Economic warfare may thus be employed to
cripple the economy of an adversarial state, thereby indirectly also its military potential,
as in the case of blockades or economic sanctions.31 Conversely, economic strength may
be a powerful contribution to national security, as it may render the state invulnerable to
such warfare. Certain peace researchers (Galtung and others) have therefore advocated
economic self-sufficiency as a means of "defence", i.e. of national security.32
4.2 MODERATE ALTERNATIVES
Proposals for a modification of this security strategy without any radical rejection of its
premises, and certainly without shifting the focus from state security, have been voiced (at least)
20), pp. 129-131. For a recent attempt at measuring such aggregate strength see Tellis, Ashley J., Janice Bially,
Christopher Layne & Melissa McPherson: Measuring National Power in the Postindustrial Age (Santa Monica,
CA: RAND, 2000).
29. See, for instance, Bienen, Henry (ed.): Power, Economics, and Security. The United States and Japan
in Focus (Boulder: Westview, 1992); cf. Buzan: op. cit. 1991 (note 11), pp. 230-269.
30. See e.g. Knorr, Klaus: ‘The Determinants of Military Power", in Bienen (ed.): op. cit. (note 29), pp. 69133; which is an update on idem: The War Potential of Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956). The
archetypal example of such a potential military giant with modest standing armed forces or military expenditures,
hence with an unexploited mobilization potential is, of course, Japan. See, for instance, Chinworth, Michael W.:
Inside Japan's Defense. Technology, Economics and Strategy (McLean, Virginia: Brassey's, US, 1992); Garby,
Craig C. & Mary Brown Bullock (eds.): Japan. A New Kind of Superpower (Baltimore: John Hopkins University
Press, 1994); Green, Michael J.: Arming Japan. Defense Production, Alliance Politics, and the Postwar Search for
Autonomy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); Hook, Glenn D.: Militarisation and Demilitarisation in
Contemporary Japan (London: Routledge, 1996); Huber, Thomas M.: Strategic Economy in Japan (Boulder:
Westview Press, 1994); Matthews, Ron & Keisuke Matsuyama (eds.): Japan's Military Renaissance? (New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1993); Renwick, Neil: Japan's Alliance Politics and Defence Production (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1995); Samuels, Richard J.: ‘Rich Nation, Strong Army". National Security and the Technological
Transformation of Japan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994).
31. On sanctions see, for instance, Boudreau, Donald G.: ‘Economic Sanctions and Military Force in the
Twenty-First Century", European Security, vol. 6, no. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 28-46; Rogers, Elizabeth S.: ‘Using
Economic Sanctions to Control Regional Conflicts", Security Studies, vol. 5, no. 4 (Summer 1996), pp. 43-72;
Elliott, Kimberly Ann: ‘The Sanctions Glass: Half Full or Completely Empty", International Security, vol. 23, no. 1
(Summer 1998), pp. 50-65; Pape, Robert A.: ‘Why Economic Sanctions Still Do Not Work", ibid., pp. 66-77;
Lavin, Franklin L.: ‘Asphyxiation or Oxygen? The Sanctions Dilemma", Foreign Policy, vol 104 (Fall 1996), pp.
139-153. Cortright, David & George A. Lopez (eds.): Economic Sanctions. Panacea or Peacebuilding in a PostCold War World? (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995); Preeg, Ernest H.: Feeling Good or Doing Good with
Sanctions. Unilateral Economic Sanctions and the U.S. National Interest (Washington, D.C.: CSIS Press, 1999);
Simons, Geoff: Imposing Economic Sanctions. Legal Remedy or Genocidal Tool? (London: Pluto Press, 1999).
32. Galtung, Johan: There Are Alternatives. Four Roads to Peace and Security (Nottingham: Spokesman,
1984), p. 13; Fischer, Dietrich: Preventing War in the Nuclear Age (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Allanheld, 1984), pp.
142-153; idem, Wilhelm Nolte & Jan Øberg: Frieden gewinnen. Mit autonomen Initiativen den Teufelskreis
durchbrechen (Freiburg: Dreisam Verlag, 1987), pp. 195-199.
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since the early 1980s, inter alia under the label "Common Security". The term was promulgated
in the Palme Commission's 1982 report Common Security. A Blueprint for Survival. Its main
message was that security under conditions of anarchy and high levels of armaments required
"mutual restraint and proper appreciation of the realities of the nuclear age", in the absence of
which "the pursuit of security can cause intensified competition and more tense political
relations and, at the end of the day, a reduction in security for all concerned". Furthermore, "the
security--even the existence--of the world [was acknowledged as] interdependent", hence the
admonition that "security can be attained only by common action".33 Common Security was
thus envisaged as a way of resolving (or perhaps better: circumventing or transcending) the
well-known "security dilemma", about which so much has been written by IR scholars, not least
by Realists.34
The growing number of references to Common Security (alternatively labelled "security
partnership", "mutual security", "reciprocal security" or "cooperative security") in political
statements as well as in the academic literature was, unfortunately, not matched by any rigorous
theoretical analysis of the implications of the concept.35 Some (including the present author)
advocated a rather austere, minimalistic and parsimonious concept of Common Security,
tantamount to little more than an admonition to mutual restraint. This presupposes neither any
abandonment of competition in favour of cooperation nor any far-reaching institutionalization-much less a rejection of the "Realist" premises.
Thus conceived, Common Security would be little more than an special instance of
"cooperation among adversaries", i.e. a form of "regime", entirely compatible with the teachings
of both "soft Realism", "liberal institutionalism",36 and the so-called "English School's" notions
33. Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues: Common Security. A Blueprint for
Survival (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), p. 138, 5, 7 and 9.
34. Herz, John M.: Political Realism and Political Idealism. A Study in Theories and Realities (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1951), passim; idem: ‘Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma", World
Politics, no. 2, 1950, pp. 157-180; Jervis, Robert: Perception and Misperception in International Politics
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 58-93; cf. idem: ‘Cooperation Under the Security
Dilemma", World Politics, vol. 30, no. 2 (1978), pp. 167-214; Buzan: op. cit. 1991 (note 11), pp. 294-327; Glaser,
Charles L.: ‘The Security Dilemma Revisited", World Politics, vol. 50, no. 1 (October 1997), pp. 171-201;
Schweller, Randall L.: ‘Neorealism's Status-Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma?", in Frankel (ed.): Realism (op. cit.,
note 20), pp. 90-121. The most elaborate study of the security dilemma is Collins, Alan: The Security Dilemma and
the End of the Cold War (Edinburg: Keele University Press, 1997).
35. Among the theoretical analyses, the following deserve mentioning: Väyrynen, Raimo (ed.): Policies for
Common Security (London: Taylor & Francis, 1985); Bahr, Egon & Dieter S. Lutz (eds.): Gemeinsame Sicherheit.
Idee und Konzept. Bd. 1: Zu den Ausgangsüberlegungen, Grundlagen und Strukturmerkmalen Gemeinsamer
Sicherheit (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1986); Smoke, Richard: ‘A Theory of Mutual Security", in
idem & Andrei Kortunov (eds.): Mutual Security. A New Approach to Soviet-American Relations (London:
Macmillan, 1991), pp. 59-111; Gottfried, Kurt et al.: Towards a Cooperative Security Regime in Europe (Ithaca:
Cornell University Peace Studies Program, 1989); Gottfried, Kurt & Paul Bracken (eds.): Reforging European
Security. From Confrontation to Cooperation (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990); Nolan, Janne (ed.): Global
Engagement. Cooperation and Security in the 21st Century (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1994).
36. On cooperation among adversaries see Milner, Helen: ‘Review Article: International Theories of
Cooperation Among Nations: Strengths and Weaknesses", World Politics, vol. 44, no. 3 (April 1992), pp. 466-496.
Good examples of this tradition include Jervis, Robert: ‘Security Regimes", International Organization, vol. 36, no.
2 (Spring 1982), pp. 357-378; Axelrod, Robert: The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984);
Stein, Arthur A.: Why Nations Cooperate. Circumstance and Choice in International Relations (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1990); Glaser, Charles L.: ‘Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help", in Frankel (ed.):
Realism (op. cit., note 20), pp. 122-163. On regimes see Krasner, Stephen D. (ed.): International Regimes (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press 1982); Müller, Harald: Die Chance der Kooperation. Regime in den internationalen
Beziehungen (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1993); Rittberger, Volker (ed.): Regime Theory and
International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Paperbacks, 1995); Hasenclever, Andreas, Peter Mayer & Volker
Rittberger: Theories of International Regimes. Cambridge Studies in International Relations, vol. 55 (Cambridge:
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of "international society".37 Moreover, it did not automatically entail any broader notion of
security, but signified little more than the same type of security, only to be achieved by other,
less confrontational means. The state remained the referent object of security and the focus
remained on threats from other states, including (or perhaps even primarily) military threats,
against which a military defence was still deemed indispensable. For which purpose Common
Security proponents tended to advocated "non-offensive defence" (NOD, also known as
"defensive defence" or "non-provocative defence").38
Other Common Security proponents went a bit further, seeking to subsume a very broad
panoply of security strategies under Common Security, and typically also emphasizing the need
for broader concepts of security, including development, ecological security, etc. Laudable
though such endeavours certainly were, only little was achieved in terms of rigorous theoretical
analysis.39
Another extention of the state-centric concept of security was that of "Collective Security",
which is both more and less radical than (some versions of) Common Security. Less radical in
the sense of being conceived of as a counter to the traditional state-versus-state military threats,
yet more radical by envisaging a transfer of powers from the state to supranational authorities,
i.e. a partial relinquishment of sovereignty. Whereas collective security was until recently
dismissed as irrelevant by most of the IR community (because of its poor achievement in the
inter-war years),40 was been taken increasingly seriously in the immediate aftermath of the Cold
War.41 So far, however, the 1991 war against Iraq for the liberation of Kuwait remains the only
Cambridge University Press, 1997); on liberal institutionalism see Keohane, Robert O.: ‘Neoliberal Institutionalism:
A Perspective on World Politics", in idem (ed.): International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International
Relations Theory (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), pp. 1-20; idem & Lisa L. Martin: ‘The Promise of
Institutionalist Theory", International Security, vol. 20, no. 1 (Summer 1995), pp. 39-51; Ruggie, John Gerard:
Constructing the World Polity. Essays on International Institutionalism (London: Routledge, 1998).
37. Wight, Martin: Systems of States (Leichester: Leichester University Press, 1977); Bull, Hedley: The
Anarchical Society. A Study of Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan, 1977); Alderson, Kai & Andrew
Hurrell (eds.): Hedley Bull on International Society (London: Macmillan, 2000); Watson, Adam: The Evolution of
International Society (London: Routledge, 1992; Dunne, Tim: Inventing International Society: A History of the
English School (London: Macmillans, 1998).
38. Møller, Bjørn: Common Security and Non-Offensive Defense. A Neorealist Perspective (Boulder, CO:
Lynne Rienner, 1992); idem: Resolving the Security Dilemma in Europe. The German Debate on Non-Offensive
Defence (London: Brassey's, 1991); and idem: The Dictionary of Alternative Defence (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 1995); or Bahr, Egon & Dieter S. Lutz (eds.): Gemeinsame Sicherheit. Konventionelle Stabilität. Bd. 3: Zu
den militärischen Aspekten Struktureller Nichtangriffsfähigkeit im Rahmen Gemeinsamer Sicherheit (Baden-Baden:
Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1988).
39. Bahr, Egon & Dieter S. Lutz (eds.): Gemeinsame Sicherheit. Dimensionen und Disziplinen. Bd. 2: Zu
rechtlichen, ökonomischen, psychologischen und militärischen Aspekten Gemeinsamer Sicherheit (Baden-Baden:
Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft 1987); Lutz, Dieter S. & Elmar Schmähling (eds.): Gemeinsame Sicherheit.
Internationale Diskussion. Bd. 5: Beiträge und Dokumente aus Ost und West (Baden-Baden: Nomos
Verlagsgesellschaft, 1990).
40. Cf. Carr, Edward Hallett: The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919-1939. An Introduction to the Study of
International Relations, second edition 1946 (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964); Claude, Inis L.: Swords into
Plowshares. The Problems and Progress of International Organization. 4th edition (New York: Random House,
1984), pp. 21-40; Downs, George W.: ‘Beyond the Debate on Collective Security", in idem (ed.): Collective
Security Beyond the Cold War (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1994), pp. 1-13; Lipson,
Charles: ‘Is the Future of Collective Security Like the Past?", ibid., pp. 105-131.
41. Lutz, Dieter S. (ed.): Kollektive Sicherheit in und für Europa: Eine Alternative? Beiträge zur Utopie
und Umsetzung einer neuen Friedens- und Sicherheitsprogrammatik. Pro und Contra (Baden-Baden: Nomos
Verlagsgesellschaft, 1985); idem: Sicherheit 2000. Gemeinsame Sicherheit im Übergang vom
Abschreckungsregime zu einem System Kollektiver Sicherheit in und für Europa (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1991); Senghaas, Dieter: Europa 2000. Ein Friedensplan (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1990);
Chalmers, Malcolm: ‘Beyond the Alliance System", World Policy Journal, vol. 7, no. 2 (Spring 1990), pp. 215-250;
Johansen, Robert C.: ‘Lessons for Collective Security", ibid., vol. 8, no. 3 (Summer 1991), pp. 561-574; Kupchan,
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real-life example of a collective security operation, and the victorious West's systematic
undermining of the UN's authority does not bode well for its future.42 Even if it should
miraculously be given another chance, however, even collective security would do little to
address other security problems. It does not fundamentally address the motives for aggression,
but merely seeks to dissuade attack by deterrence and/or defence; and it is does nothing to
change, but rather tends to perpetuate the "Westphalian" state system with all its detrimental
implications for other forms of security (vide infra).
4.3 STATE SECURITY: THE INDIRECT APPROACH
The latter critique does not really apply to the more radical alternative strategy for state security
that might be called "the indirect approach to state security", borrowing from the terminology of
Basil Liddell Hart.43
The furthering of interdependence, even to the point of integration, is such an indirect
approach to state security, addressing primarily the motivation for aggression and doing so
almost entirely by non-military means, thus representing a "soft security" strategy. This has, e.g.,
been the predominant approach to security taken by the EU countries ever since its infancy.44
The underlying understanding has been that a web of mutual interdependencies may serve as a
powerful inhibition against war, in perfect conformity with the tenets of "classical" liberalism,
as well as with the writings of Norman Angell, and modern analysts of "complex
interdependence" (Keohane and Nye, among others).45
Charles A. & Clifford A. Kupchan: ‘Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe", International
Security, vol. 16, no. 1 (Summer 1991), pp. 114-161; idem & idem: ‘The Promise of Collective Security", ibid., vol.
20, no. 1 (Summer 1995), pp. 52-61; Weiss, Thomas G. (ed.): Collective Security in a Changing World (Boulder,
CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993); Butfoy, Andrew: ‘Themes Within the Collective Security Idea", The Journal of
Strategic Studies, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1993), pp. 490-510; Cusack, Thomas R. & Richard J. Stoll: ‘Collective
Security and State Survival in the Interstate System", International Studies Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 1 (March 1994),
pp. 33-59; Møller, Bjørn: ‘Multinationality, Defensivity and Collective Security", in Jörg Calließ (ed.): Rüstung-Wieviel? Wozu? Wohin?, Loccumer Protokolle, no. 63/93 (Rehburg-Loccum: Evangelische Akademie Loccum,
1994), pp. 251-290; idem: ‘UN Military Demands and Non-Offensive Defence. Collective Security, Humanitarian
Intervention and Peace Operations", Peace and Conflict Studies, vol. 3, no. 2 (December 1996), pp. 1-20. For a
more sceptical view, see Betts, Richard K.: ‘Systems for Peace or Causes of War? Collective Security, Arms
Control, and the New Europe", International Security, vol. 17, no. 1 (Summer 1992), pp. 5-43; Clark, Mark T.:
‘The Trouble with Collective Security", Orbis, vol. 39, no. 2 (Spring 1995), pp. 237-258; Joffe, Josef: ‘Collective
Security and the Future of Europe: Failed Dreams and Dead Ends", Survival, vol. 34, no. 1 (Spring 1992), pp. 3650.
42. For an elaboration see Møller, Bjørn: ‘The Slippery Slope of Authority Eroded: A Rejoinder", Security
Dialogue, vol. 30, no. 1 (March 1999), pp. 87-90; idem: ‘The United States and ‘‘the New World Order""", Indian
Journal of Asian Affairs, vol. 11, no. 1-2 (June & December 1998), pp. 77-118.
43. Hart, Basil Liddell: Strategy. The Indirect Approach, 2nd revised edition (1967, reprint New York:
Signet Books, 1974).
44. Haas, Ernst: International Political Communities, (New York: Anchor Books, 1966), pp. 93-110;
Hansen, Roger: ‘Regional Integration: Reflections on a Decade of Theoretical Efforts", in Michael Hodges (ed.):
European Integration (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972), pp. 184-199; Tranholm-Mikkelsen, Jeppe: ‘Neofunctionalism: Obstinate or Obsolete? A Reappraisal in the Light of the New Dynamism of the EC", Millennium:
Journal of International Studies, vol. 20, no. 1, 1991, pp. 1-22.
45. On the ‘classics" see Goodwin, Crauford D.: ‘National Security in Classical Political Economy", in
idem (ed.): Economics and National Security. A History of Their Interaction (Durham: Duke University Press,
1991), pp. 23-35; Doyle: op. cit. (note 26), pp. 230-250. On the modern ‘liberal peace" theorem see, for instance,
Mansfield, Edward D.: Power, Trade and War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). On complex
interdependence, see Keohane, Robert O. & Joseph S. Nye: Power and Interdependence. World Politics in
Transition (Boston: Little Brown, 1977); and for a historical survey: Wilde, Jaap de: Saved From Oblivion:
Interdependence Theory in the First Half of the 20th Century. A Study on the Causality Between War and Complex
Interdependence (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1991). See also Tromp, Hylke: ‘Interdependence and Security: the
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From its modest start with the European Coal and Steel Community, via the Rome Treaty
and the EEC (European Economic Community) to the present European Union, the "European
project" has thus all along been motivated by the quest for peace, as was made explicit in the
1952 Schuman Declaration:
World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which
threaten it. (...) Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete
achievements which first create a de facto solidarity. The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the
elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany. (...) The pooling of coal and steel production
should immediately provide for the setting up of common foundations for economic development as a first step
in the federation of Europe (...). The solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war
46
between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible.
These considerations remain as valid today as they were then. The EU has already proceeded
way beyond the "Westphalian model", and is today more than a "pluralistic security community"
in the traditional sense. Whether its progressive amalgamation will eventually produce a new
"superstate", or a polity sui generis remains to be seen, but it is surely a solid security
community where traditional security concerns among the members have receded into near
oblivion,47 i.e. a zone of stable peace.48
4.4 THE LIMITATIONS OF STATE-CENTRIC SECURITY
The Realist worldview upon which all of the above strategies were premised was n not merely
bleak and probably incorrect. With the exception of the aforementioned "indirect approach" it
also invited the development of strategies that were counterproductive in the sense of sacrificing
other human values for those of the sovereignty and territorial inviolability of the State. Socalled "national security" was thus achieved at the expense of "human security".
National (i.e. state) security was, moreover, all too often equated with the security of the
regime in power. Contrary to the Hobbesian view of the State, if controlled by an unscrupulous
regime the State often ceases to be a protector of its citizens and becomes a security threat to
them, as in the case of various African "vampire states"49 or totalitarian regimes.50 However, the
Dilemma of the Peace Research Agenda", Bulletin of Peace Proposals, vol. 19, no. 2 (1988), pp. 151-158; Haas,
Ernst B.: ‘War, Interdependence and Functionalism", in Raimo Väyrynen (ed.): The Quest for Peace. Transcending
Collective Violence and War Among Societies, Cultures and States (London: Sage, 1987), pp. 108-127; Barbieri,
Katherine: ‘Economic Interdependence: A Path to Peace or a Source of Interstate Conflict", Journal of Peace
Research, vol. 33, no. 1 (February 1996), pp. 29-49; Oneal, John R,, Frances H. Oneal, Zeev Maoz & Bruce
Russett: ‘The Liberal Peace: Interdependence, Democracy, and International Conflict, 1950-85", ibid., pp. 11-28;
Oneal, John R. & Bruce Russett: ‘The Classical Liberals Were Rights: Democracy, Interdependence, and Conflict,
1950-1985", International Studies Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 2 (June 1997), pp. 267-294.
46. Schuman, Robert: ‘The Schuman Declaration", in Brent F. Nelsen & Alexander C-G. Stubb (eds.): The
European Union. Readings on the Theory and Practice of European Integration (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner,
1994), pp. 11-12. See also Mitrany, David: ‘A Working Peace System", ibid., pp. 77-97.
47. The classical work on security communities is Deutsch, Karl W. et al.: Political Community and the
North Atlantic Area. International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1957), pp. 3-9O. On the EU project see Wæver, Ole: ‘Insecurity, Security and Asecurity in the
West European Non-War Community", in Emmanuel Adler & Michael Barnett (eds.): Security Communities
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 69-118; idem: ‘Integration as Security: Constructing a Europe
at Peace", in Charles Kupchan (ed.): Atlantic Security: Contending Visions (New York: Council on Foreign
Relations Press, 1998), pp. 45-63.
48. On zones of peace see Singer, Max & Aaron Wildawsky: The Real World Order. Zones of Peace/Zones
of Turmoil (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers, 1993).
49. The term stems from Ayittey, George B.N.: Africa in Chaos (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998). See
also Reno, William: Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
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rules of the game of "Westphalia" privilege existing states, regardless of their nature, and
proscribe interference into "domestic affairs", i.e. everything taking place within the territorially
defined exclusive domain of the sovereign states comprising the system. Within this protected
domain numerous unspeakable atrocities have been committed, and human security thus
violated with impunity.
More recently, there has been some movement in this issue. To the extent that UN forces (or
those of other international organizations, say the OSCE) have not "merely" been employed for
restoring peace between states, but also within states, or for safeguarding human rights there,
they might be seen as harbingers of a modified international system with an amended set of
rules. In the 1992 Agenda for Peace, then UN Secretary General thus included the following
cautious formulation:
The foundation-stone of this work is and must remain the State. Respect for its fundamental sovereignty and
integrity are crucial to any common international progress. The time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty,
however, has passed; its theory was never matched by reality.51
A truly "new world order" would, however, no longer be based on sovereign states with
impermeable borders, but would be a truly global one in which "international politics" is
replaced by "domestic politics on a global scale" ("Weltinnenpolitik") where human security
(vide infra) might receive its due priority.52 However, it remains to be seen whether those
isolated instances of "humanitarian interventions" that the world has seen so far are in fact
harbingers of such a new order, or merely aberrations from "business as usual" attributable to
the confusion of the present transitional period--or old-fashioned power politics dressed up as
humanitarianism.53
50. A contemporary example is Iraq. See Makiya, Kanan: Republic of Fear. The Politics of Modern Iraq
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998). On the equation os Saddam's cause with that of the nation,
‘Arabism" and even Islam see Bengio, Ofra: Saddam's Word. The Political Discourse in Iraq (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998).
51. Boutros-Ghali, Boutros: ‘An Agenda for Peace. Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and PeaceKeeping. Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to the Statement Adopted by the Summit Meeting of the
Security Council on 31 January 1992", in Adam Roberts & Benedict Kingsbury (red.) 1993: United Nations,
Divided World. The UN's Role in International Relations, New Expanded Edition (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1993), pp. 468-498.
52. Recent works about the possible modification, or even abandonment of the ‘Westphalian order" of
sovereign states include Camilleri, J.A. & Jim Falk: The End of Sovereignty? The Politics of a Shrinking and
Fragmenting World (London: Edward Elgar, 1992); Deng, Francis M., Sadikiel Kimaro, Terrence Lyons, Donald
Rothchild & I. William Zartman: Sovereignty as Responsibility. Conflict Management in Africa (Washington, D.C.:
The Brookings Institution, 1996); Fowler, Michael Ross & Julie Marie Bunck: Law, Power, and the Sovereign
State. The Evolution and Application of the Concept of Sovereignty (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State
University Press. 1995); Lugo, Luis E. (ed.): Sovereignty at the Crossroads. Morality and International Politics in
the Post-Cold War Era (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996); Lyons, Gene M. & Michael Mastanduno
(eds.): Beyond Westphalia? National Sovereignty and International Intervention (Baltimore: John Hopkins
University Press, 1995); Sellers, Mortimer (ed.): The New World Order. Sovereignty, Human Rights and the SelfDetermination of Peoples (Oxford: Berg, 1996).
53. On humanitarian intervention see, for instance, Rodley, Nigel (ed.): To Loose the Bands of Wickedness.
International Intervention in Defence of Human Rights (London: Brassey's, 1992); Connaughton, Richard: Military
Intervention in the 1990s. A New Logic of War (London: Routledge, 1992); Levite, Ariel E., Bruce W. Jentleson &
Larry Berman (eds.): Foreign Military Intervention. The Dynamics of Protracted Conflict (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1992); Mazarr, Michael J.: ‘The Military Dilemmas of Humanitarian Intervention", Security
Dialogue, vol. 24, no. 2 (June 1993), pp. 151-162; Roberts, Adam: ‘Humanitarian War: Military Intervention and
Human Rights", International Affairs, vol. 69, no. 3 (July 1993), pp. 429-450; Moore, Jonathan (ed.): Hard
Choices. Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998); Williams, John:
‘The Ethical Basis of Humanitarian Intervention, the Security Council and Yugoslavia", International
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5. FROM "NATIONAL" TO SOCIETAL SECURITY
Whereas most Realists and neorealists deny the importance of individual security, charging this
approach with "reductionism",54 some of them nevertheless acknowledge the inadequacy of the
state-centric approach.
5.1 THREATS TO IDENTITY
The so-called "Copenhagen School" thus advocates accepting human collectivities as possible
"referent objects" of security. The particular form of security appliccaple to such collective, yet
non-state, referent objects is labelled "societal security", which in the seminal work on the topic
was defined as
... the ability of a society to persist in its essential character under changing conditions and possible or actual
threats. More specifically, it is about the sustainability, within acceptable conditions for evolution, of traditional
patterns of language, culture, association, and religious and national identity and custom.55
"Societal security" is thus a matter of "identity", which has indeed become quite a fashionable
topic in IR theory.56 It resonates quite well with the re-discovery of the cultural aspects of
international relations (viz. the "clash of civilizations" debate),57 just as it corresponds to the
actual "securitization" of such phenomena as migration or "cultural imperialism" (viz. the
debate about "Franglais" as a threat to French culture).58 Unfortunately, it also holds to potential
of appealing to xenophobic political groupings on the extreme right with whom the authors
surely do not want to join ranks.
Peacekeeping, vol. 6, no. 2 (Summer 1999), pp. 1-23. On Kosovo see the concluding chapter.
54. See, e.g., Waltz: op. cit. (note 20),pp. 60-67; idem: Man, the State and War. A Theoretical Analysis
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1959).
55. Wæver, Ole: ‘Societal Security: the Concept", in idem et al.: op. cit. (note 11), pp. 17-40 (quote from p.
23). See also Buzan, Barry: ‘Societal Security, State Security and Internationalization", ibid., pp. 41-58.
56. Wæver, Ole: ‘Identities", in Judit Balázs & Håkan Wiberg (eds.): Peace Research for the 1990s
(Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1993), pp. 135-150; Lapid, Yosef & Friedrich Kratochwill: ‘Revisiting the
‘‘National"": Toward an Identity Agenda in Neorealism", in idem & idem (eds.): The Return of Culture and Identity
in IR Theory (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995), pp. 105-126; Smith, Anthony D.: ‘The Formation of National
Identity", in Henry Harris (ed.): Identity. Essays Based on Herbert Spencer Lectures Given in the University of
Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 129-153; Lindholm, Helena: ‘Introduction: A Conceptual
Discussion", in idem (ed.): Ethnicity and Nationalism. Formation of Identity and Dynamics of Conflict in the 1990s
(Göteborg: Nordnes, 1993), pp. 1-39; Keithly, David: ‘Security and Ersatz Identity", European Security, vol. 7, no.
1 (Spring 1998), pp. 80-96; Kowert, Paul A.: ‘National Identity: Inside and Out", Security Studies, vol. 8, no. 2/3
(Winter 1998/Spring 1999), pp. 1-34; Neumann, Iver B.: ‘Identity and the Outbreak of War", International Journal
of Peace Studies, vol. 3. no. 1 (January 1998), pp. 7-22; Williams, Michael E.: ‘Identity and the Politics of
Security", European Journal of International Relations, vol. 4, no. 2 (June 1998), pp. 204-225.
57. Huntington, Samuel P.: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1996). For a critique see Chan, Stephen: ‘Too Neat and Under-thought a World Order:
Huntington and Civilizations", Millennium, vol. 26, no. 1 (1997), pp. 137-140; Welch, David A.: ‘The ‘‘Clash of
Civilizations"" Thesis as an Argument and as a Phenomenon", Security Studies, vol. 6, no. 4 (Summer 1997), pp.
197-216; Russett, Bruce M., John R. Oneal & Michaelene Cox: ‘Clash of Civilizations, or Realism and Liberalism
Déjà Vu? Some Evidence", Journal of Peace Research, vol. 37, no. 5 (September 2000), pp. 583-608.
58. Étiemble, René: Parlez-vous Franglais? (Paris: Gallimard, 1973). See also Silverman, Maxim:
Deconstructing the Nation. Immigration, Racism and Citizenship in Modern France (London: Routledge, 1992);
Holm, Ulla: ‘Det franske nationsbegrebs betydning for franske indvandrerdiskurser", forthcoming in Peter Seeberg
(ed.): No Title (Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag, 2001).
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Combined with the aforementioned methodology of discourse analysis and the postmodern
rejection of "objectivist ethics",59 one might fear that the theory (however inadvertently) may
simply lead to "rubber-stamping" all assertions of threats to national (or ethnic) security as
equally valid. If there are no objective yardsticks against which to measure such allegations, the
analyst is confined to merely recording what is being securitized, perhaps by opportunistic
leaders seeking power by playing the "nationalist card" in a manipulatory fashion, as did such
figures as Slobodan Milosevich or Franko Tudjman.60 If "anything goes" then the analyst must
be prepared for this.
If total moral relativism, which is undeniably one of the options of postmodernity, gains the upper hand, even the
assessment of mass deportation and genocide becomes a matter of taste.61
This moral nihilism is part of the critique raised by Bill McSweeney against the Copenhagen
School. Another part of his critique is the continuing focus of the state, not as the sole referent
object, but as the mechanism through which all securitization attempts have to pass. Finally, the
"school" (if so it is) is criticized for privileging some possible identities over others, namely
national and ethnic ones. Rather than assuming a priori that these are always the most salient
identities, the analyst should adopt a scientific approach, requiring actual sociological
investigations into how people rank-order their various identities.62
With these caveats in mind, the theory of societal security seems to have some merits, as it
allows for a better understanding of certain recent phenomena than traditional security analysis.
Much of the recent discourse about "risks" as opposed to "threats" may, for instance, really
reflect societal security concerns for national unity, as do the (alleged) new types of threats such
as that from Islam (vide infra). Of course, the various societal developments referred to in this
discourse also impinge on the state level in various ways, yet to make this their "admission
ticket" into the field of "security problems" is often rather far-fetched.
Run-away population growth has, for instance, been singled out by some authors as perhaps
the most serious security problem for the decades ahead,63 if only because of the "Malthusian"
implications of a growing discrepancy between the available resources for consumption and the
much faster growing number of would-be consumers. This may certainly constitute a (human)
security problem in its own right, particularly of course for the losers in the competition for
scarce global resources, but also with implications for the winners.
It might, for instance, become a societal security problem for the North if resource depletion
in the South should lead to a tidal wave of migration to the North.64 Whereas it strains the
59. See, e.g., Featherston, Mike: ‘In Pursuit of the Postmodern: An Introduction", Theory, Culture &
Society, vol. 5, nos. 2-3 (June 1988), pp. 195-215; Heller, Agnes & Ferenc Fehér: The Postmodern Political
Condition (Oxford: Polity Press, 1988). On (the lack of) postmodern ethics see Saurette, Paul: ‘‘‘I Mistrust all
Systematizers and Avoid Them"": Nietzsche, Arendt and the Crisis of the Will to Order in International Relations
Theory", Millennium, vol. 25, no. 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 1-28. For an attempted rebuttal of the charges against
postmodernism see George, Jim: ‘Realist ‘‘Ethics"": International Relations and Post-modernism: Thinking Beyond
the Egoism-Anarchy Thematic", ibid., vol. 24, no. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 195-223.
60. Hall, John A.: ‘Nationalisms, Classified and Explained", in Sukumar Periwal (ed.): Notions of
Nationalism (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1995), pp. 8-33; Haas, Ernst B.: ‘Nationalism: An
Instrumental Social Construction", Millennium, vol. 22, no. 3 (1993), pp. 505-545; Pearton, Maurice: ‘Notions in
Nationalism", Nations and Nationalism, vol. 2, no. 1 (1996), pp. 1-15. On the Balkans see the concluding chapter.
61. Heller & Fehér: op. cit. (note 59), p. 9.
62. McSweeney: op. cit. (note 16), pp. 68-78.
63. E.g. Lellouche, Pierre: Le nouveau monde. De l'ordre de Yalta au désordre des nations (Paris: Grasset,
1992), pp. 257-305.
64. See e.g. Weiner, Myron: ‘Security, Stability and International Migration", International Security, vol.
17, no. 3 (Winter 1992/93), pp. 91-126.
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imagination to envision, say, countries such as Denmark being more than marginally affected by
this, countries in the borderland between North and South (such as the entire Mediterranean
region) might well be more seriously affected. Migration may also flow in the East-West
direction, not so much as a reflection of a population surplus, as because of a deficit of
resources, say if the economic transformation embarked upon since 1989 should fail completely.
One might, e.g. envisage migration from the former USSR to Poland, and/or from the latter or
the Czech Republic to Germany. If sufficiently massive, such migration flows might
conceivable place national identity in the receiving countries at risk.65
Another societal security problem is represented by the forces of nationalism that were
unleashed by the democratic revolutions of 1989 and 1991 in the former East and South-East of
Europe.66 To the extent that this leads to violent strife between ethnic and/or religious or
cultural groups (a phenomenon of which there have already been dozens of examples) it
certainly constitutes a serious societal security problem, where one group's security spells
insecurity for the others. This is a genuine "societal security dilemma", which may even have
such abhorrent manifestations as ethnic cleansing or even genocide.67 It also threatens to
become a political security problem affecting the already weak states in the countries in
question, if nationalism is manifested in a struggle for secession. This is often exacerbated by
the so-called "matrozka effect", which promises fragmentation down to very small, and often
not survivable, political units.68
Problems such as the above may also have repercussions for the relations between states, i.e.
develop into "traditional" (state-centric) security problems. Communal strife thus has an
inherent propensity for internationalization, especially in those (numerous) cases where a
suppressed, exploited or otherwise disadvantaged ethnic group can draw on the support of its
"paternal" state.69 Also, nationalism entails the risk that the numerous unresolved territorial
disputes may be reinvigorated. Were this to happen, especially during a period of political
weakness, "old-fashioned" war for territorial conquest may, once again, become conceivable.
This does mean that societal security is a mere derivative of national security but simply serves
to illustrate how all levels in the security game are interlinked (vide infra).
5.2 RELIGION AND GENDER
65. Heisler, Martin O. & Zig Layton-Henry: ‘Migration and the Links Between Social and Societal
Security", in Wæver et al.: op. cit. (note 11), pp. 148-166.
66. See e.g. Snyder, Jack: ‘Averting Anarchy in the New Europe", International Security, vol. 14, no. 4
(Spring 1990), pp. 5-41; Griffiths, Stephen Iwan: Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict. Threats to European Security
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Kupchan, Charles A. (ed.): Nationalism and Nationalities in the New
Europe. A Council of Foreign Relations Book (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995).
67. On the societal security dilemma see Posen, Barry R.: ‘The Security Dilemma of Ethnic Conflict",
Survival, vol. 35, no. 1 (Spring 1993), pp. 27-47; Walter, Barbara F. & Jack Snyder (eds.): Civil Wars, Insecurity,
and Intervention (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Roe, Paul: ‘The Intrastate Security Dilemma:
Ethnic Conflict as Tragedy", Journal of Peace Research, vol. 36, no. 2 (March 1999), pp. 183-202.
68. The image refers to the famous Russian wooden dolls: When you open the biggest one, a smaller
appears, inside which is an even smaller, etc. On secession see Mortimer (ed.): The New World Order. Sovereignty,
Human Rights and the Self-Determination of Peoples (Oxford: Berg, 1996); Cassese, Antonio: Self-Determination
of Peoples. A Legal Reappraisal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Freeman, Michael: ‘The Right to
Self-Determination in International Politics: Six Theories in Search of a Policy", Review of International Studies,
vol. 25, no. 3 (1999), pp. 355-370; Meadwell, Hudson: ‘Secession, States and International Society", ibid., pp. 371387; Bartkus, Viva Ona: The Dynamics of Secession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
69. Midlarsky, Manus I. (ed.): The Internationalization of Communal Strife (London: Routledge, 1992);
Brown, Michael E. (ed.): The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996);
Lake, David A. & Donald Rothchild (eds.): The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict. Fear, Diffusion and
Escalation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998).
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Even though "societal security" as a concept supposedly applies to any human collective, it has
almost exclusively focused on national and ethnic collectives (viz. McSweeney's abovementioned critique). Important though these certainly are, one might also envision cleavages
among other societal groupings which might eventually come to be securitized. A first step in
this direction would surely be political organization. Because of the absence of this, it still
strains the imagination to envision a securitization of, e.g., the virulent smokers versus nonsmokers dispute, but in principle it could not be ruled out. More likely is a possible (societal)
securitization of religion or gender.
Religion has already been extensively politicized, if only because of its close links to some
forms of nationalism.70 A few nations (Jews and Bosnian Muslims, for instance) are thus
defined in religious terms, which is also the case of a states such as Pakistan and Iran (both with
the prefix "Islamic Republic of"). In such cases, "alien" religions risk being viewed as threats to
national cohesion, hence securitized. To the extent that nations or states are not defined in
religious terms, but as secular, the politization of any religion (even the "national" one) may
likewise come to be seen as threat, as in modern-day Turkey or India, or in certain Arab states
where radical Islamic fundamentalism threatens already islamic states.71 Even in the case of
stable and cohesive states such as those of the West we see this phenomenon, as in the growing
securitization of Islam by the West, not merely in the shape of allegations to the effect that
Islamic states constitute a threat to peace, but also with a societal security twist, arguing that
Islam (personified by migrants) is a threat to Western civilization.72
Gender might, in principle also be securitized, as indicated by various strains of "feminist IR
studies", the gist of which seems to be that the traditional focus on the State reflects male
domination, and that the concurrent emphasis on military means corresponds to innate male
aggression, hence that an empowerment of women would produce more genuine and lasting
security.73
70. Gellner, Ernest: Postmodermism, Reason and Religion (London: Routledge, 1992); Reychler, Luc:
‘Religion and Conflict", International Journal of Peace Studies, vol. 2, no. 1 (January 1997), pp. 19-38; Peter Janke
(ed.): Ethnic and Religious Conflicts. Europe and Asia (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1994).
71. On Turkey see Heper, Metin, Öncü, Ayshe & Heinz Kramer (eds.): Turkey and the West. Changing
Political and Cultural Identities (London: I.B. Tauris, 1993); Kramer, Heinz: A Changing Turkey. The Challenge to
Europe and the United States (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000); Mastiny, Vojzech & R. Craig
Nation (eds.): Turkey Between East and West: New Challenges for a Rising Regional Power (Boulder: Westview
Press, 1996). On India see Chatterjee, Partha: ‘History and the Nationalization of Hinduism", in Vashuda Dalmia &
Heinrich von Stietencron (eds.): Representing Hinduism. The Construction of Religious Traditions and National
Identity (New Delhi: Sage, 1995), pp. 103-128. On the Islamist threat to the Arab states see Guazzone, Laura (ed.):
The Islamist Dilemma. The Political Role of Islamist Movements in the Contemporary Arab World (Reading: Ithaca
Press, 1995).
72. Rich, Paul: ‘European Identity and the Myth of Islam", Review of International Studies, vol. 25, no. 3
(July 1999), pp. 435-452. See also Fuller, Graham E. & Ian O. Lessler: A Sense of Siege. The Geopolitics of Islam
and the West (Boulder: Westview, 1995); Halliday, Fred: Islam and the Myth of Confrontation (London: I.B.
Tauris, 1996); Khan, Mohammed A. Muqtedar: ‘US Foreign Policy and Political Islam: Interests, Ideas, and
Ideology", Security Dialogue, vol. 29, no. 4 (December 1998), pp. 449-462; Jawad, Haifaa A.: ‘Islam and the
Threat: How Fundamental Is the Threat?", The RUSI Journal, vol. 140, no. 4 (August 1995), pp. 34-38; Hunter,
Shireen T.: The Future of Islam and the West. Clash of Civilizations or Peaceful Coexistence (Westport: Praeger
Press, 1998); Huband, Mark: Warriors of the Prophet. The Struggle for Islam (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999);
Hoveyda, Fereydoun: The Broken Crescent. The ‘Threat" of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism (Westport, Ct.:
Praeger Press, 1998); Hibbard, Scott W. & David Little: Islamic Activism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Washington,
DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1997).
73. Hansen, Lene: ‘The Little Mermaid's Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the
Copenhagen School", Millennium, vol. 29, no. 2 (2000), pp. 285-306. In feminist circles the notion of male
aggression seems to be fairly widespread. See, for instance, Gould, Benina Berger: ‘Gender Psychology and Issues
of War and Peace", in Knud S. Larsen (ed.): The Social Psychology of Conflict (London: Sage, 1992), pp. 241-249;
Jabri, Vivienne: Discourses on Violence: Conflict Analysis Reconsidered (Manchester: Manchester University
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Both these topics also have obvious human security aspects, if only because are regulated in
several human rights conventions. Article 2 of the 1948 convention thus makes clear that
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind,
such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or
other status.
Article 18 of the same convention would also seem to proscribe any securitization of religion
with the following unequivocal stipulation:
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his
religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his
religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Regardless of whether, say, the influx of Muslims might arguably constitute a threat to some
nations' identity, i.e. a societal security threat (a very big if) it would thus constitute a violation
of human rights to prevent these people from practising their religion, hence a threat to human
security, to which I shall now, at long last, turn.
6. HUMAN SECURITY
Just as societal security may thus endanger individual security, the state-centred approach to
security has been charged with neglecting the people, i.e. of jeopardizing human security. This
is basically a matter of human well-being and, in the last analysis, survival of people, regardless
of their national or other affiliations.74
6.1 HUMAN SECURITY VS. STATE AND SOCIETAL SECURITY
Press, 1996); Galtung, Johan: Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization
(London: Sage, 1997), pp. 40-48. On genderized security studies in general see also Terriff & al.: op. cit. (note 10),
pp. 82-98; Elshtain, Jean Bethke: ‘Feminist Inquiry and International Relations", in Michael W. Doyle & G. John
Ikenberry (eds.): New Thinking in International Relations Theory (Boulder: Westview, 1997), pp. 77-91; Tickner, J.
Ann: ‘Feminist Perspectives on Security in a Global Environment", in Caroline Thomas & Peter Wilkin (eds.):
Globalization, Insecurity, and the African Experience (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999), pp. 41-58. For a male
perspective on the particular woman's view of the world see Booth, Ken: ‘Security and Self: Reflections of a Fallen
Realist", in Krause & Williams: op. cit. (note 17), pp. 83-120, especially pp. 99-101.
74. On human security as a concept see Suhrke, Astri: ‘Human Security and the Interests of States",
Security Dialogue, vol. 30. no. 3 (September 1999), pp. 265-276; MacLean, George: ‘The Changing Perception of
Human Security: Coordinating National and Multilateral Responses. The United Nations and the New Security
Agenda", at www.unac.org/canada/security/maclean.html; Tow, William T. & Russell Trood: ‘Linkages between
Traditional Security and Human Security", in William T. Tow, Ramesh Thakur & In-Taek Hyun (eds.): Asia's
Emerging Regional Order. Reconciling Traditional and Human Security (Tokyo: United Nations University Press,
2000), pp. 13-32; Kim, Woosang & In-Taek Hyum: ‘Toward a News Concept of Security: Human Security in
World Politics", ibid., pp. 33-46; Wilkin, Peter: ‘Human Security and Class in a Global Economy", in Thomas &
idem (eds.): op. cit. (note 73), pp. 23-40; Thomas, Caroline: ‘Furthering the Debate on Human Security", ibid., pp.
179-183; Zacarias, Agostinho: Security and the State in Southern Africa (London: I.B. Tauris, 1999), pp. 139-160;
McSweeney: op. cit. (note 16), pp. 152-172; Renner, Michael: Fighting for Survival. Environmental Decline, Social
Conflict and the New Age of Insecurity (London: Earthscan, 1997), pp. 135-153 & passim; Booth, Ken: ‘Security
and Emancipation", Review of International Studies, vol. 17, no. 4 (1991), pp. 313-326; idem: ‘Human Wrongs and
International Relations", International Affairs, vol. 71, no. 1 (January 1995), pp. 103-126.
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Thus conceived human security may indeed be placed in jeopardy by an unrestrained quest for
state security, say if the latter should involve war. Hence, for instance, the uncomfortable "Red
or dead" dilemma which haunted NATO (and especially Germany) for decades: Should one
place the survival of the population at risk for the sake of such intangible values as
sovereignty?75 Or should a developing state invest heavily in the implements of state security
(i.e. armed forces) at the inevitable expense of economic development?76
According to a "cosmopolitan" ethics,77 what really matters is the survival and well-being of
the individuals, or as the utilitarians formulated it, "the greatest happiness principle".78 Such
happiness is, of course, compatible with, but only rarely presupposes, the sovereignty of one's
state, or for that matter the cohesion of one's societal group. Moreover, for principled
proponents of this view, state security can merely be a relevant goal to the extent that the State
derives its powers from la volonté generale. If and when the State ceases to represent the
interests of its citizens, say when state security places individual security in jeopardy, the latter
must take precedence.79
Even though the state was presumably "created" for the sake of its citizens' security, it can
also constitute a threat to their security, as mentioned above. The life of man (and woman) in
Hitler's Germany or Pol Pot's Kampuchea, for instance, was surely at least as "solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish and short" as it was in the proverbial "state of nature", i.e. before the
establishment of the State as an institution.80 Too strong and oppressive "Leviathans" may thus
constitute security threats in their own right, as acknowledged by at least some IR writers, even
by some of the Realist or neo-realist persuasion.81
The main security problem in today's developing world may, however, not be an excess but
rather a deficit of state power. Most states in the Third World are thus "weak states" in which
there is a "dissonance between the loci of authority and power" (Mohammed Ayoob), where
society and state boundaries are far from coterminous, inter alia as a reflection of the colonial
legacy, and where the state's administrative capacity is quite inadequate, making the State little
more than a hollow shell, i.e. a "quasi-state". Hence the lack of state as well as regime
75. See, for instance, Weizsäcker, Carl Friedrich von (ed.): Kriegsfolgen und Kriegsverhütung, 2nd edition
(München: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1971); Afheldt, Horst: Atomkrieg. Das Verhängnis einer Politik mit militärischen
Mitteln, 2nd edition (München: dtv, 1987); Bredthauer, Karl D. & Klaus Mannhardt (eds.): Es geht ums Überleben.
Warum wir die Atomraketen ablehnen (Köln: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1981); Kendall, Henry: ‘The Effects of a Nuclear
War", in Hylke Tromp (ed.): War in Europe. Nuclear and Conventional Perspectives (Aldershot: Gower Publishing
Group, 1989), pp. 35-44; Clarke, Robin (rapporteur): London Under Attack. The Report of the Greater London
Area War Risk Study Commission (London: Basil Blackwell, 1986).
76. Cheatham, Marcus: ‘War, Military Spending, and Food Security in Africa", in Norman A. Graham
(ed.): Seeking Security and Development. The Impact of Military Spending and Arms Transfers (Boulder, CO:
Lynne Rienner, 1994), pp. 229-253; Gyimah-Brempong, Kwabena: ‘Do African Governments Favor Defense in
Budgeting?", Journal of Peace Research, vol. 29, no. 2 (May 1992), pp. 191-206; Dunne, J. Paul & Nadir A.L.
Mohammed: ‘Military Spending in Sub-Saharan Africa: Some Evidence for 1967-85", ibid., vol. 32, no. 3 (August
1995), pp. 331-343; Muepu, K.: ‘Defence Expenditures Reduction and the Re-Allocation of Resources in Southern
Africa with Specific Reference to South Africa", Strategic Review for Southern Africa, vol. 20, no. 1 (May 1998),
pp. 58-90. On the general relationship between military spending and development see Ball, Nicole: Security and
Economy in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).
77. For an analysis of the communitarian/cosmopolitan dichotomy, see Brown, Chris: International
Relations Theory. New Normative Approaches (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992).
78. Mill, John Stuart: ‘Utilitarianism", in Max Lerner (ed.): Essential Works of John Stuart Mill (New
York: Bantam Books, 1963), pp. 189-248. See also Ellis, Anthony: ‘Utilitarianism and International Ethics", in
Terry Nardin & David R. Mapel (eds.): Traditions in International Ethics (Series: Cambridge Studies in
International Relations) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 158-179.
79. Cf. Rosseau, Jean-Jacques: Du contrat social (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1966).
80. Quotation from Hobbes: op. cit. (note 22), p. 186.
81. E.g. Buzan: op. cit. 1991 (note 11), pp. 35-56.
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legitimacy and a perpetual struggle for control of the state apparatus and for autonomy or
cessation—a struggle which all too often assumes violent forms, and which sometimes leads to
complete state collapse.82 The resultant armed conflicts may already be the most prevalent form
of war (say, measured in terms of numbers of violent deaths) and will most likely become so in
the coming years, where "Hobbesian Warre" ("bellum omnium contra omnes") may almost
supersede the "Clausewitzian war" among states as the most widespread form of violent
conflict.83
Not only may "war" thus be getting smaller, but more widespread, but other forms of violent
conflict also seem to proliferate. In weak states, ordinary crime and intercommunal strife may
become so prevalent that security simply becomes "privatized". When and where the State
cannot ensure law and order, people tend to take matters into their own hands. In order to
protect themselves, their families and their property, they will resort to self-help, e.g. by arming
themselves, or by enlisting the services of private security companies--as we have seen in a
country such as South Africa.84 This gradually leads to an erosion of the State's Weberian
"monopoly on the legitimate use of force", producing a vicious circle where violence spurs a
proliferation of small arms, in its turn producing more violence, etc.85
6.2 STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE AND HUMAN SECURITY
Direct violence (in the terminology of Johan Galtung) is not, however, the only threat to human
security, as various forms of "structural violence" (vide supra) may produce even larger
numbers of casualties and even greater human suffering. In order to make any analytical sense
of this rather "fuzzy" and vague term, however, we have to break it down into sub-categories.
* First of all, there are those non-violent, but nevertheless "intentional" threats to human
security, for which the State is to blame, i.e. the broad category of human rights
82. Ayoob: op. cit. (note 24); idem: ‘The Security Predicament of the Third World State: Reflections on
State Making in a Comparative Perspective", in Brian J. Job (ed.): The Insecurity Dilemma. National Security of
Third World States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992), pp. 63-80 (quotation from p. 66); Job, Brian L.: ‘The
Insecurity Dilemma: National, Regime, and State Securities in the Third World", ibid., pp. 11-35; Jackson, Robert
H.: Quasi-States. Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990); Weiss, Thomas G. & Maryl A. Kessler (eds.): Third World Security in the Post-Cold War Era
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991); Holsti: op. cit. (note 24); Clapham: op. cit. (note 24); Zartmann, William I.
(ed.): Collapsed States. The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner,
1995); Mazrui, Ali A.: ‘The Failed State and Political Collapse in Africa", in Olara A. Otunnu & Michael W. Doyle
(eds.): Peacemaking and Peacekeeping for the New Century (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), pp. 233-244.
83. Seybolt, Taylor B.: ‘Major Armed Conflicts", SIPRI Yearbook 2000, pp. 15-58; Wallensteen, Peter &
Margareta Sollenberg: ‘Armed Conflict, 1989-99", Journal of Peace Research, vol. 37, no. 5 (September 2000), pp.
635-650. See also Holsti, Kalevi J.: ‘International Theory and War in the Third World", in Job (ed.): op. cit. (note
82), pp. 37-60; Van Creveld, Martin: The Transformation of War (New York: The Free Press, 1991); Snow, Donald
M.: UnCivil Wars: International Security and the New Pattern of Internal War (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner,
1996); Reno: op. cit. (note 49); Kaldor, Mary: New and Old Wars. Organized Violence in a Global Era (Oxford:
Polity Press, 1999); Møller, Bjørn: ‘The Faces of War", in Christian P. Scherrer & Håkan Wiberg (eds.): Ethnicity
and Intra-State Conflict: Types, Causes and Peace Strategies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), pp. 15-34.
84. Cock, Jacklyn: ‘The Cultural and Social Challenge of Demilitarization", in Gavin Cawthra & Bjørn
Møller (eds.): Defensive Restructuring of the Armed Forces in Southern Africa (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), pp.
117-144; Chetty, Robert (ed.): Firearm Use and Distribution in South Africa (Pretoria: National Crime Prevention
Centre, 2000); Cilliers, Jakkie & Peggy Mason (eds.): Peace, Profit or Plunder? The Privatisation of Security in
War-Torn African Societies (Halfway House: Institute for Security Studies, 1999); Mills, Greg & John Stremlau
(eds.): The Privatisation of Security in Africa (Braamfontein: South African Institute of International Affairs, 1999).
85. Weber, Max: ‘Politics as Vocation" (1918), in H.H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills (eds.): From Max Weber:
Essays in Sociology (New York: Galaxy Books, 1958), pp. 77-128, quote from p. 78.
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violations, documented inter alia in the annual Human Development Reports of the
UNDP, or in the reports of NGOs such as Human Right Watch or Amnesty International.
* Secondly, we have structural violence perpetrated by one societal group against another,
as by the white minority against the black and coloured majority in South Africa under
apartheid, or by Jews against the Palestinians in the occupied territories until the present
day.86 The general oppression of women by men would fall into the same category, even
though it is, alas, all too often also combined with direct physical violence, including
rape.87
* Third comes the kind of structural violence which the global order, according to some
analyses, represents, either in the general shape of "imperialism", "centre-periphery
relations" or globalization, producing a relative deprivation of the peoples of the Third
World.88
* Fourthly, we have threats from "nature", some of which may surely be exacerbated, but
which are not caused by, societal and/or political factors, as is the case of HIV/AIDS (viz.
South African president Mbeki's unfortunate and highly controversial formulations).89
Whether any of these forms of structural violence should be securitized, i.e. treated as human
security issues is, as argued above, a matter of political choice. It probably does little to enhance
the analytical rigour of security studies to include the fourth type, which is basically a matter of
man's struggle with nature.
7. "ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY"
The man/nature relationship is also at the heart of the debate about "environmental security".
That the environment is degrading was discovered several years ago. However, the
awareness of ecological challenges was especially boosted by the publication in 1987 of the
report of the Brundtland Commission on Our Common Future, which inspired a flood of books
86. On the ‘apartheid system" in Gaza see Roy, Sara: The Gaza Strip. The Political Economy of DeDevelopment (Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies and London: I. B. Tauris, 1995).
87. Bunch, Charlotte & Roxanne Carrillo: ‘Global Violence against Women: The Challenge to Human
Rights and Development", in Michael T. Klare & Yogesh Chandrani (eds.): World Security. Challenges for a New
Century. 3rd Edition (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), pp. 229-248. On rape as a means of war see Tétreault,
Mary Ann: ‘Justice for All: Wartime Rape and Women's Rights", Global Governance, vol. 3, no. 2 (May-August
1997), pp. 197-212. See also the figures for rape in the Human Development Report 2000, pp. 247-251.
88. On centre-periphery relations see the works cited in note 7. On globalization see Renner, Michael: ‘The
Global Divide: Socioeconomic Disparities and International Security", in Klare & Chandrani (eds.): op. cit. (note
87), pp. 273-293; Hirst, Paul & Grahame Thompson: Globalization in Question. The International Economy and
the Possibilities of Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997); Waters, Malcolm: Globalization (London:
Routledge, 1995); Scholte, Jaan Art: Globalisation: A Critical Introduction (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999);
Robertson, Roland: Globalization. Social Theory and Global Culture (London: Sage, 1992); Clark, Ian:
Globalization and Fragmentation. International Relations in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1997); Keith, Nelson W.: Reframing International Development. Globalism, Postmodernity, and Difference
(London: Sage, 1997); Mittelman, James H. (ed.): Globalization. Critical Reflections (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner,
1996); McGrew, Anthony G., Paul G. Lewis & al.: Global Politics. Globalization and the Nation State (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 1992); Kofman, Eleonore & Gillian Youngs (eds.): Globalization. Theory and Practice (London:
Pinter, 1996); Falk, Richard: Predatory Globalization. A Critique (Oxford: Polity Press, 1999).
89. What he said, in an interview with Time was, among other things: ‘If the scientists . . . say that the virus
is part of the variety of things from which people acquire immune deficiency, I have no problem with that. But to
say that this is the sole cause and therefore the only response to it is anti-retroviral drugs, [then] we'll never be able
to solve the AIDS problem. (...) If you accept that there can be a variety of reasons, including poverty and the many
diseases that afflict Africans, then you can have a more comprehensive treatment response". Quoted from the
statement issued by the President's office, 10 September 2000, available at www.gov.za/president/index.html.
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on "environmental" or "ecologic security".90 However, to recognize environmental decay as a
problem was, of course, one thing, to elevate it to the status of a security problem something
else which remains disputed. There are, at least, three different senses in which the environment
might become subsumed under an expanded notions of security:
* First of all, environmental problems could be caused by war, or preparations for war, of
such severity as to count among the most serious indirect war effects.91 A precursor of the
current environmental awareness in "peace circles" was, for instance, the debate in the early
1980s on the "nuclear winter" hypothesis, according to which even a "small-scale" nuclear
war could have caused a climatic and ecological disaster, the casualties of which would not
"only" be the warring states, but the entire globe.92
* Secondly, wars might accrue from environmental problems, e.g. in the form of resource
wars. An obvious example might be wars over scarce water supplies, say between states
sharing the same river.93
* Thirdly, environmental problems might, according to some analysts, constitute a security
threat directly, i.e. whether or not weapons and physical force ever enter into the picture. In
extreme cases, the physical basis of a state could be placed in jeopardy by nature. For
instance, countries such as Bangladesh or the Netherlands would almost disappear in the
case of severe global flooding.
90. World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1987); Brundtland, Gro Harlem: ‘The Environment, Security and Development", SIPRI Yearbook
1993, pp. 15-26; Moss, Richard H.: ‘Resource Scarcity and Environmental Security", ibid., pp. 27-36. See also the
articles by Gwyn Prins cited in note 18; Renner, Michael G.: ‘National Security: The Economic and Environmental
Dimensions", Worldwatch Paper, no. 89 (Washington D.C.: Worldwatch Institute, 1989); Thomas, Caroline: The
Environment in International Relations (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1992), pp. 115-151 et
passim; Weizsäcker, Ernst U. von: Erdpolitik. Ökologische Realpolitik an der Schwelle zum Jahrhundert der
Umwelt, third, updated edition (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992); Boulding, Elise: ‘States,
Boundaries and Environmental Security", in Dennis J.D. Sandole & Hugo van der Merwe (eds.): Conflict
Resolution Theory and Practice. Integration and Application (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), pp.
194-208; Dalby, Simon: ‘Security, Modernity, Ecology: The Dilemmas of Post-Cold War Security Discourse",
Alternatives, vol. 17, no. 1 (Winter 1992), pp. 95-134; Brock, Lothar: ‘Security Through Defending the
Environment: An Illusion?", in Elise Boulding (ed.): New Agendas for Peace Research. Conflict and Security
Reexamined (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992), pp. 79-102; Mische, Patricia: ‘Security Through Defending the
Environment: Citizens Say Yes!", ibid. pp. 103-120; Oswald, Ursula: ‘Ecodevelopment: What Security for the
Third World", pp. 121-126. A good overview is Græger, Nina: ‘Review Essay: Environmental Security", Journal of
Peace Research, vol. 33, no. 1 (February 1996), pp. 109-116.
91. A good overview is Gleditsch, Nils Petter: ‘Armed Conflict and the Environment: A Critique of the
Literature", Journal of Peace Research, vol. 35, no. 3 (May 1998), pp. 381-400.
92. See e.g. Sagan, Carl: ‘Nuclear War and Climatic Catastrophe" (Foreign Affairs, Winter 1983-84), in
William P. Bundy (ed.): The Nuclear Controversy. A Foreign Affairs Reader (New York: New American Library,
1985), pp. 117-152; Ehrlich, Paul, Carl Sagan, Donald Kennedy & Walter Orr Roberts: The Cold and the Dark. The
World After Nuclear War (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1984).
93. Gleick, Peter H.: ‘Water and Conflict: Fresh Water Resources and International Security", International
Security, vol. 18, no. 1 (Summer 1993), pp. 79-112; Lowi, Miriam R.: ‘Bridging the Divide: Transboundary
Resource Disputes and the Case of Westbank Water", ibid., pp. 113-138; Beschomer, Natasha: ‘Water and
Instability in the Middle East", Adelphi Papers, no. 273 (London: IISS, 1992); Morris, Mary E.: ‘Water Scarcity
and Security Concerns in the Middle East", The Emirates Occasional Papers, no. 14 (1998); Homer-Dixon,
Thomas F.: Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Hauge, Wenche
& Tanja Ellingsen: ‘Beyond Environmental Scarcity: Causal Pathways to Conflict", Journal of Peace Research, vol.
35, no. 3 (May 1998), pp. 299-317; Elhance, Arun P.: Hydropolitics in the 3rd World. Conflict and Cooperation in
International River Basins (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1999); Suliman, Mohamed
(ed.): Ecology, Politics and Violent Conflict (London: Zed Books, 1998).
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While state security might thus, in principle, be endangered by the environment, in most cases it
would be human being who would be the victims. Hence, "environmental security" as usually
conceived is really a species of the genus human security.
An even more radical position is, however, possible. All of the above might be criticized as
hopelessly "anthropocentric", whereas the appropriate referent object might be the environment
itself, i.e. the global ecosystem, as argued by Robyn Eckersley.94 One implication of this view
might be that true environmental security might require an extermination of the main threat to
the environment, namely the species of homo sapiens. This would obviously be utterly
incompatible with human security. Belonging to the species in question myself, however, I shall
disregard this ultra-radical approach to security, its immaculate logic notwithstanding.
8. CONCLUSION AND ILLUSTRATION
8.1 THE NEED FOR A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH
We have thus seen that there are different forms of security, with "national" (i.e. state) security,
societal and human security constituting the main categories, defined by the different referent
objects (state, societal group, individual). As threats to the different values of the various
referent objects (sovereignty, identity and survival) may appear in many different shapes, all
three categories have different "dimensions" or "sectors" such as the military, economic, and
environmental ones.
While this may make for a neat analytical framework, the real world is less orderly, if only
because the different forms of security impinge upon each other, and strategies to achieve one
may damage the others--as shown in the case study of the Balkans below. Hence the need for a
comprehensive approach to security, as acknowledged by several states.95 Only be being
mindful of the implications for other forms of security can strategies intended to solve security
problems stay clear of the well-known "fallacies of the last step" and even of doing more harm
than good. While this surely call for a concept of security that goes well beyond the traditional
one, one should also guard against excessive "securitization", as this may entail risks such as
* A danger of militarization, as the security services (mainly the army and the police) tend
to assume that "security is their business". In times of impending cut-backs in military
expenditures, the military tend to be quite eager to embrace expanded notions of security
in the hope that this will protect them against further reductions.
* A danger that a subsequent desecuritization of issues may lead to a neglect of them. If
security concerns, for instance, are accepted as the primary rationale for development
assistance, development aid may decline once it is realized that countries of the South
constitute no real danger to the North.
8.2 ILLUSTRATION: THE BALKAN CONFLICTS
94. Eckersley, Robyn: Environmentalism and Political Theory (London: UCL Press, 1992).
95. See, for instance, Barnett, Robert W.: Beyond War. Japan's Concept of Comprehensive National
Security (Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 1984); Spillmann, Kurt R. 1989: ‘Beyond Soldiers and Arms: the Swiss
Model of Comprehensive Security Policy", in Joseph Kruzel & Michael H. Haltzel (eds.): Between the Blocs.
Problems and Prospects for Europe's Neutrals and Non-Aligned States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989), pp. 161-174. See also Alagappa, Muthiah (ed.): Asian Security Practice. Material and Ideational Influences
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998).
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The Balkan conflict(s) of the 1990s and (so far) the first year of the new millennium provide
ample illustration of the complexities of the quest for security as well as of the linkages between
state, societal and human security. The following, however, is merely intended as a very
tentative and preliminary analysis, serving mainly as an illustration.
The initial break-up of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) was the result of societal
security problems, in casu of the quest for nation- and statehood on the part of the constituent
parts.96 However, it is difficult to judge to which extent the nations of Tito's Yugoslavia were
primordial (i.e. "natural", hence enduring) or socially constructed,97 maybe even
instrumentalized by unscrupulous leaders such as Milosevic and Tujman for their private ends.98
While there had certainly been ethnic and nationalistic strife before,99 there is no doubt that the
nationalist leaders benefited from the economic hardships (i.e a human security problem)
afflicting the FRY from the mid-1980s.100
The attempted, and eventually successful, secessions of Slovenia, Croatia, BosniaHerzegovina and Macedonia from the FRY101 could initially be seen as a problem of national
security for the latter, and societal security for the former. Upon secession, however--or rather:
upon the international recognition of the new states102--what began as an intra-state conflict
became transformed, literally by the stroke of a pen, into an international conflict between
rump-Yugoslavia (comprising Serbia and Montenegro) and the others, i.e. a problem of national
security. In legal terms, however, the struggle in Bosnia between the Serbs, Croats and Muslims
(later renamed "Bosniacs") was an internal conflict (i.e. a societal security problem for all
three), albeit heavily internationalized through the support by Serbia and Croatia for their ethnic
kin.103
It was further internationalized by the involvement of the United Nations, subsequently also
NATO, the former in the form of peacekeeping forces and "safe havens", the latter in the form
of air strikes and subsequent leadership of IFOR (Implementation Force) and SFOR
96. Wiberg, Håkan: ‘Societal Security and the Explosion of Yugoslavia", in Wæver & al.: op. cit. (note 11),
pp. 93-109; Mojzes, Paul: Yugoslav Inferno. Ethnoreligious Warfare in the Balkans (New York: Continuum Press,
1994), passim.
97. For the distinction see Hutchinson, John & Anthony D. Smith (eds.): Ethnicity (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996), pp. 32-56.
98. Ramet, Sabrina P.: Balkan Babel. The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the Death of Tito to Ethnic
War. Second Edition (Boulder: Westview, 1996), pp. 21-59.
99. On the historical background see, for instance, The Other Balkan Wars. A 1913 Carnegie Endownment
Inquiry in Retrospect with a New Introduction and Reflections by George F. Kennan (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 1993). On the more recent background see Ramet, Sabrina P.: Nationalism and
Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962-1991, 2nd edition (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1992), pp. 176-213.
100. See, for instance, Ramet: op. cit. 1992 (note 99), pp. 136-175; Meier, Viktor: Yugoslavia. A History of
Its Demise (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 10-23; Dimitijevic, Vojin: ‘Disparity and Disintegration: The Economic
Dimension of Yugoslavia's Demise", in Payam Akhavan & Robert Howse (eds.): Yugoslavia, the Former and
Future. Reflections by Scholars from the Region (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution and The United
Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva, 1995), pp. 75-111.
101. A good overview is Cohen, Lenard J.: Broken Bonds. Yugoslavia's Disintegration and Balkan Politics
in Transition. 2nd Edition (Boulder: Westview, 1995); and Woodward, Susan L.: Balkan Tragedy. Chaos and
Dissolution after the Cold War (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1995).
102. The EU played a special role in this connection, spearheaded by Germany. See Zucconi, Mario: ‘The
European Union in the Former Yugoslavia", in Abram Chayes & Antonia Handler Chayes (eds.): Preventing
Conflicts in the Post-Communist World (Washington, D.C: The Brookings Institution, 1996), pp. 237-278;
Anderson, Stephanie: ‘EU, NATO and CSCE Responses to the Yugoslav Crisis: Testing Europe's New Security
Architecture", European Security, vol. 4, no. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 328-353; Woodward: op. cit. (note 101), pp.
183-189.
103. Burg, Steven L. & Paul S. Shoup: The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Ethnic Conflict and International
Intervention (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), passim.
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(Stabilization Force) established to implement the 1995 Dayton Agreement.104 All of this
amounted to a serious national security problem, especially for Serbia. Not only did the air
strikes, the more or less conventional war between the three sides, and the genocidal atrocities
committed by the Serbs and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Croats and Muslims constitute a
human security problem for the civilian population. So did the sanctions regime imposed on
Serbia, which turned it into the poorest country in Europe.
It all culminated when the conflict reached Kosovo where a liberation movement, long
suppressed by Serbia, rebelled. The societal security problem of the Albanian Kosovars
constituted an obvious national security problem for Serbia.105 Whereas the initial Kosovar
rebellion had been largely non-violent, under the leadership of Ibrahim Rugova,106 by 1998 it
had come to bear all the imprints of a guerilla war. Even though some of the allegations against
the Serbs should probably be taken cum grano salis,107 there is little doubt that the Serb regime
acted with extreme brutality in its attempted counter-insurgency, thereby exacerbating the
societal security problems of the Kosovars.108 At the same time, repression in Serbia became
more severe, thereby aggravating the human security problems for the civilian population of
Serbia itself.109 Something had to be done.
As both developments in Serbia proper and in Kosovo (internationally recognized as being a
province of Serbia) took place within the protected sovereign domain, however, there was no
legal way of intervening militarily without a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use
of force. Hence, NATO acted unilaterally, in blatant violation of international law, albeit
probably out of (mainly) humanitarian motives, i.e. for the sake of the human security of the
Kosovar civilians.110 However, it is also possible to argue that NATO was partly motivated by
societal security concerns of its own, i.e. by the (rather far-fetched, but nevertheless perhaps
104. Bierman, Wolfgang & Martin Vadset (eds.): UN Peacekeeping in Trouble: Lessons Learned from the
Former Yugoslavia (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998); Corvin, Phillip: Dubious Mandate. A Memoir of the UN in Bosnia,
Summer 1995 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999); Sloan, Elinor C.: Bosnia and the New Collective Security
(Westport, Ct.: Praeger Press, 1998). On Dayton and the aftermath see Neville-Jones, Pauline: ‘Dayton, IFOR and
Alliance Relations in Bosnia", Survival, vol. 38, no. 4 (Winter 1996-97), pp. 45-65; Chandler, David: Bosnia.
Faking Democracy After Dayton. 2nd Edition (London: Pluto Press, 2000); Oudraat, Chantal de Jonge: ‘Bosnia", in
Donald C.F. Daniel, Brad Hayes & Chantall de Jonge Ouddraat: Coercive Inducement and the Containment of
International Crises (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1999), pp. 41-78; Hippel, Karin von:
Democracy by Force. US Military Intervention in the Post-Cold War World (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000), pp. 127-167; Economides, Spyros & Paul Taylor: ‘Former Yugoslavia", in James Mayall (ed.): The
New Interventionism 1991-1994. United Nations Experience in Cambodia, former Yugoslavia and Somalia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 59-93; Woodward, Susan: ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina: How Not
to End a Civil War", in Walter & Snyder (eds.): op. cit. (note 67), pp. 73-145.
105. On the background see Malcolm, Noel: Kosovo. A Short History (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998);
Campbell, Greg: The Road to Kosovo. A Balkan Diary (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999). Contrasting Serb and
Albanian views are presented in Veremis, Thanos & Evangeloss Kofos (eds.): Kosovo: Avoiding Another Balkan
War (Athens: Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, 1998).
106. Clark, Howard: Civil Resistance in Kosovo (London: Pluto Press, 2000).
107. Mertus, Julie A.: Kosovo. How Myths and Truths Started a War (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1999). On the role of the media see Hammond, Philip & Edward S. Herman (eds.): Degraded Capability. The
Media and the Kosovo Crisis (London: Pluto Press, 2000).
108. Tretter, Hannes, Stephan Müller & Violeta Demaj: ‘Die Verfolgung der albanischen Volksgruppe im
Kosovo", in Joseph Marko (ed.): Gordischer Knoten Kosvo/a: Durchschlagen oder entwirren? (Baden-Baden:
Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1999), pp. 127-155.
109. Thomas, Robert: Serbia under Milosevic. Politics in the 1990s (London: Hurst, 1999); Gordy, Eric D.:
The Culture of Power in Serbia. Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives (University Park: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1999); Biserko, Sonja: ‘Serbia: Dictatorship, Implosion or Recovery", Security Dialogue,
vol. 30, no. 3 (September 1999), pp. 289-290.
110. For an unconvincing contrary opinion see Chomsky, Noam: The New Military Humanism. Lessons
from Kosovo (London: Pluto Press, 1999).
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earnest) fear that a flood of refugees might upset the ethnic balance in European states. At the
very least, all NATO countries went out of their way to ensure that the refugees remained in the
Balkans, most of them in Macedonia, where they did in fact cause societal security problems.111
The resultant 78-days war went disastrously wrong.112 Far from stopping the killings or the
ethnic cleaning, Serbia accelerated both once NATO started its war, as shown by the following
figures from UNHCR. At least temporarily, the human security problems were thus
exacerbated.
Table 2: Refugees from Kosovo
23 March
4 April
23 April
14 May
in Albania
18,500
170,000
362,000
431,500
in Macedonia
16,000
115,000
133,000
233,300
in Bosnia
10,000
0
32,600
18,500
in Montenegro
25,000
32,000
66,500
64,300
Other
0
0
17,929
44,525
Total
69,500
317,000
612,029
792,125
After the war, the returning Kosovars created an acute societal security problem for the Serb
minority in Kosovo, most of whom chose to flee, seeking refuge in Serbia proper. This, of
course, "solved" the societal security problem of the Albanian population, but in a rather brutal
manner, which also led to the expulsion of the (completely innocent) Roma segment of the
population.113
As the above account has, hopefully, shown, the linkages between the three forms of security
is closely linked, illustrating the need for a comprehensive approach to security. To its credit,
the EU took the lead in this respect. On its initiative a summit meeting was called in Sarajevo,
where a "Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe" was launched.114 Somewhat ironically the
very same countries that had launched the attack against the FRY on 24 March by adopting the
Pact reaffirmed their "shared responsibility to build a Europe that is at long last undivided,
democratic and at peace".
1. (...) We affirm our collective and individual readiness to give concrete meaning to the Pact by promoting
political and economic reforms, development and enhanced security in the region. (...)
2. (...) we affirm our determination to work together towards the full achievement of the objectives of democracy,
respect for human rights, economic and social development and enhanced security to which we have subscribed
by adopting the Stability Pact. We reaffirm our shared responsibility to build a Europe that is at long last
undivided, democratic and at peace. We will work together to promote the integration of South Eastern Europe
111. Pichl, Elmar F.: ‘Die ‘‘albanische Frage"" in Mazedonien", in Marko: op. cit. (note 108), pp. 57-73.
112. Mandelbaum, Michael: ‘A Perfect Failure. NATO's War Against Yugoslavia", Foreign Affairs, vol.
78, no. 5 (Sept-Oct. 1999), pp. 2-8; Møller, Bjørn: ‘The UN, the USA and NATO. Humanitarian Intervention in the
Light of Kosovo", Working Papers, no. 23/1999 (Copenhagen: Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, 1999). For a
more positive assessment see Daalder, Ivo H. & Michael E. O'Hanlon: Winning Ugly. NATO's War to Save Kosovo
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000); Rieks, Ansgar & Dieter Weigold: ‘Der Kosovo-Konflikt eine militärpolitische Auswertung", in Joachim Krause (ed.): Kosovo. Humanitäre Intervention und Kooperative
Sicherheit in Europa (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2000), pp. 13-54; Pfoh, Bernhard: ‘Eine Bilanz des Luftkrieges
der NATO gegen Jugoslawien", ibid., pp. 55-88; Byman, Daniel A. & Matthew C. Waxman: ‘Kosovo and the Great
Air Power Debate", International Security, vol. 24, no. 4 (Spring 2000), pp. 5-38.
113. Witte, Eric A.: ‘Der Wideraufbau des Kosovo: die ethnische Dimension", in Krause (ed.): op. cit.
(note 112), pp. 169-184.
114. Varwick, Johannes: ‘Die EU nach dem Kosovo-Krieg: Ein überforderter Stabilitätsanker?", in Krause:
op. cit. (note 112), pp. 185-200.
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into a continent where borders remain inviolable but no longer denote division and offer the opportunity of
contact and cooperation. (...)
7. We will work together to accelerate the transition in the region to stable democracies, prosperous market
economies and open and pluralistic societies in which human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the
rights of persons belonging to national minorities, are respected, as an important step in their integration into
euro-atlantic and global institutions. (...) Our shared objective is the development of peaceful and good
neighbourly relations. (...)
8. The Stability Pact process will concentrate on the areas of democracy and human rights, economic
development and cooperation as well as security.
9. (...) Established ethnic, cultural and linguistic identities and rights should be consistently protected in
accordance with relevant international mechanisms and conventions. We welcome the initiative by countries of
the region to develop a dialogue and consultations on human rights issues.
11. (...) We pledge to work towards ending tensions and creating peaceful and good neighbourly relations in
order to strengthen a climate of security throughout the region.
This was as clear a commitment to "comprehensive security" as one could reasonably expect,
including both national, societal and human security concerns.