Security Is Not Only Survival, But Living Without Fear

Realists’ belief that, “war is unavoidable and natural part of world affairs.” According to Bova, there are over 200 sovereign states, and they all interest to gain power to defend themselves. As a result, state’s feeling of insecurity causes it to take any means to feel secure whether it is through the formation of ally with another powerful state or accumulation of military and economic power. Such action threatens other states provoke them take similar actions. This cycle applies to all states, and the feeling of threat and desire to survive is innate in humans In understanding International Relations, McNamara’s lesson is useful in the regards that actions that state takes to protect itself causes the complexity and conflicts of foreign policies that human beings are incapable of

Leonard Beaton similarly argued for the need to expand conceptions of security outward from the limits of parochial national security to include a range of systemic considerations. Likewise, Stanley Hoffman argued for the need to begin ‘turning national security into an aspect of world order policy’. Hedley Bull argued against excessive self-interest in approaches to national security, and for a broader view in which common interest and linkage among securities receive greater attention. More generally, Krause and Nye observed that ‘neither economists nor political scientists have paid enough attention to the complexity of the concept of security, including its instrumental role in the enhancement of different values’. The Brandt Commission called for a new concept of security that would transcend the narrow notions of military defence and look more towards the logic of a broader interdependence. The common theme underlying these voices was that a notion of security bound to the level of individual states and military issues is inherently inadequate.

Security can be a tool to rationalize, legitimize, marginalize violence (keeping minority groups in their place) which could in turn reinforce systemic inequalities present in society by turning a blind eye to context. This dichotomy serves as a platform for other invalidation ideologies that works on the continuum of fear that can divide into categories of “us” and “them”, which are then used to send us messages about who is a threat, and leads to constructions of what individuals who are not able to stand up for themselves. The death of Ashley Smith illustrates how the range of oppressive structures were responsible for the persistent and severe denials of her fundamental rights. In this context, we can see that the state has both the means to violate and protect human rights.

Our world today is filled with unnecessary oppression. Slavery is one common form of human oppression, but there are numerous other forms as well. War, death, hunger, and sadness caused the elders in the society of The Giver to force each citizen to live extremely structured, controlled lives. That structure and control effected each person’s ability to live unique, private, and free lives. The elders in The Giver wanted all the citizens in the community to be undifferentiated for their own safety, so they greatly censored all citizens. Lack of freedom to pursue individual happiness is, indeed, a form of oppression not only faced by fictional book characters, but also by twenty-first century Americans. American society is changing so rapidly that we as independent Americans must decide whether safety, or freedom, is more important.

“Humanity will not enjoy security without development, it will not enjoy development without security and it will not enjoy either without respect for human rights.” - UN World Summit, Outcome Document 2005. There have been many conflicts in the world that have affected

The great concern lately though has been the issue about national security and threats from terrorist attacks. The spatial relationship is no longer limited to the sovereign state’s geographical location. Farmer clearly presents his argument by using the example of how criminal law now extends to cyber attackers that can be across national borders, as was the case with the hackers that attacked Sony recently.

For realists the international system is anarchical, war is an ever present threat and the survival of a state is never guaranteed. This is why security is the main focus of most realists. States are forever seeking greater amounts of security, in a never ending search.

In a realist world, states have “supreme power” over its territory and population, there is an absence of a higher authority. The fact that there is no higher authority has its consequences. States become self-interested, they compete for power and security. It can lead states to continuously struggle for power “where the strong dominate the weak (Kegley, 28).” This ultimately creates a system in which each state is responsible for its own survival, making them cautious towards their neighboring states. In addition, a realist world is a self-help system; “political leaders seek to enhance national security” by building armies and forming alliances (Kegley, 28). Economic and military power are key components to a state sovereignty and to national security.

Security can be defined as the “freedom from danger, risk, etc. with the absence of threats to assimilated principles” or a “low chance of damage to assimilated principles.” However, the word security originates from the Latin Securus, which means “carefree”. Notice that the very definition of the word clues to the term “freedom”. The aforementioned definition of security is very general. It does not stipulate the individual whose security is at issue or the types of values pliable to being secured. The security of people (“human security”) is understood to extend beyond national security, also comprising of economic welfare, the health of the environment, cultural identity, and political rights. Security began to take on a diverse set of restrictions with the Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790s. We would see a drastic change after September 11, 2011.

However, it can be argued that the motives behind intervention are not as important as the interventions themselves – the moral function of humanitarian intervention is to save lives and this can be achieved with or without altruistic motives. To this a possible reply is that seemingly unjust intervention may aggravate the receiving state, more so perhaps in military interventions than economic, political or social. A threatened state is arguably more likely to initiate a backlash. However, such an argument cannot be made against a UN-sanctioned intervention, where it can be agreed that the intervention is legitimate and in the interests of the global community. The issue of marginalising state sovereignty completely ignores the fact that sovereignty is granted by the international community , . The arguments that states such as China may put forward, that state sovereignty is absolute and deserving of unadulterated respect, rests on the idea that states grant themselves sovereignty, which upon reflection, one finds to be untrue. State sovereignty can only be realised if it is acknowledged by the global society of states. To this a realist might argue that theoretical sovereignty is separate from actual sovereignty, and that states will defend their sovereignty regardless of its

All these important questions about terror and insecurity are a considerable part of the subject of international politics. In this regard, scholars have dedicated decades for understanding the relations between states in political, economic, social, and other

concepts. Many people have argued that it is not possible to attain human security without traditional

The traditional security paradigm is focused on physical and external security threats to states. It promotes that security should be state centred and national security is primary over other securities, such as human security. States must defend their territory and authority from external, foreign threats, by physical means, such as increasing the military or

For the latter half of the Twentieth Century, the dominant school of thought related to security was neo-realism. Stemming from works produced by Hobbes, Thucydides, and Machiavelli, followers of the neo-realists paradigm sought to see the world for what it was, rather than what they wished (Crawford 1991; Terrif et al., 1991). Established in 1979

The security dilemma is a fundamental concept in IR originate in John Herz’s writing provided the definition of security dilemma back in 1951 “a structural notion in which the self-help attempts of states to look after their security needs tend, regardless of intention, to lead to rising insecurity to others as each interprets its own measures as defensive and measures of others as potentially threatening” (Herz, 1950: 157) which is a classic definition heavily associates with realism. In international system, where there are no world governments or police to provide security for states as a result state exist in an anarchy and the only way to ensure their own security is through self-help. In short, security dilemmas caused by anarchy, however, in this essay,