International SecurityIntroduction to International Relations

Freedom from threats

Traditional concepts of (international) security

◦ Focus was on the security at the national level◦ Focus was on national security largely defined in military terms.

military capabilities that states need to deal with the threats coming from outside. Why?

◦Because of high frequency of interstate wars

Defining “security”

But many argue that wars between major industrialized countries are becoming a relic of the past…

Frequency of interstate wars has decreased dramatically…

Although domestic armed conflicts and civil wars continue to increase

◦Warfare is becoming increasingly “communalized”

◦ Individuals and groups are making wars. War-making entities are individuals and groups of individuals.

Some of these new threats are “asymmetric”

◦What are asymmetric threats?

Human security entered as new jargon…

◦ New security concept

The US, Japan, and Western Europe have formed “security community.”

◦What is “security community”?◦ “A group of people” believing “that they have come to agreement

on at least this one point: that common social problems must and can be resolved by processes of ‘peaceful change’

Absence of Wars Between Leading Powers

Major concern of IR: War and its possibility among great powers

◦ There is now “discontinuity”◦BUT, do you agree with this claim?

This does not mean that there won’t be any conflicts between these leading countries

◦Churchill: “People talked a lot of nonsense when they said nothing was ever settled by war. Nothing in history was ever settled except by war.”

Absence of Wars Between Leading Powers

Realist Explanations – some realists are skeptical of this claim; “temporary deviation”

1. Hegemonic stability theory Peace is due to American hegemony

2. Principle of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) Nuclear weapons

Explaining the Obsolescence of Wars among Major Powers

Liberalist Answers

1. Democracy2. Economic interdependence

Cobden: “Free Trade is God’s diplomacy and there is no other certain way of uniting people in bonds of peace.”

Frederick Bastiat: “If goods cannot cross borders, armies will.” MAED!

4. International organizations and international law

Explaining the Obsolescence of Wars among Major Powers

Growing obsolescence of interstate wars

Now people feel insecure because of other reasons

Impact of globalization◦ Increasing threats are not addressed through the traditional

framework of national security◦E.g., global warming, new forms of epidemics, refugee problems

Human Security

The process of Globalization brings in news risks and dangers

These threats to security are largely outside the control of nation-states

1. Focus has to be on the individual human beings, not on nation states

2. Human security has the characteristic of universality: it is applicable to individuals everywhere

3. The concept is not limited to human survival; it includes the right to exercise these choices safely and freely

Characteristics of human security