IR3140_vle[1]

Security in international relationsJ. Jackson-PreeceIR3140, 2790140

2011

Undergraduate study in Economics, Management, Finance and the Social Sciences

This subject guide is for a 300 course offered as part of the University of London International Programmes in Economics, Management, Finance and the Social Sciences. This is equivalent to Level 6 within the Framework for Higher Education Qualifi cations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (FHEQ).

For more information about the University of London International Programmes undergraduate study in Economics, Management, Finance and the Social Sciences, see: www.londoninternational.ac.uk

This guide was prepared for the University of London International Programmes by:

Jennifer Jackson-Preece, Senior Lecturer in Nationalism in Europe, European Institute and Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science.

This is one of a series of subject guides published by the University. We regret that due to pressure of work the author is unable to enter into any correspondence relating to, or arising from, the guide. If you have any comments on this subject guide, favourable or unfavourable, please use the form at the back of this guide.

The University of London International Programmes

Publications OfficeStewart House32 Russell SquareLondon WC1B 5DNUnited Kingdom

Website: www.londoninternational.ac.uk

Published by: University of London

© University of London 2011

The University of London asserts copyright over all material in this subject guide except where otherwise indicated. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

We make every effort to contact copyright holders. If you think we have inadvertently used your copyright material, please let us know.

Contents

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Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1

Aims ............................................................................................................................. 1Learning outcomes ........................................................................................................ 1How to use this subject guide ........................................................................................ 2Structure of the guide .................................................................................................... 2Essential reading ........................................................................................................... 4Further reading .............................................................................................................. 4Additional resources ...................................................................................................... 7Online study resources ................................................................................................... 7Useful websites ............................................................................................................. 8Examination structure .................................................................................................. 10Examination advice...................................................................................................... 10Syllabus ....................................................................................................................... 12List of abbreviations used in this subject guide ............................................................. 12

Chapter 1: The idea of security ............................................................................. 13

Aims of the chapter ..................................................................................................... 13Learning outcomes ...................................................................................................... 13Essential reading ......................................................................................................... 13Further reading ............................................................................................................ 13Additional resources .................................................................................................... 13The value of security .................................................................................................... 14Key assumptions of security ......................................................................................... 15Security of the state and security of the person ............................................................. 17Three paradigms of security ........................................................................................ 19A reminder of your learning outcomes .......................................................................... 22Sample examination questions ..................................................................................... 22

Chapter 2: The state as a security arrangement .................................................. 23

Aims of the chapter ..................................................................................................... 23Learning outcomes ...................................................................................................... 23Essential reading ......................................................................................................... 23Further reading ............................................................................................................ 23Origins of the state as a security arrangement .............................................................. 24Security of the prince ................................................................................................... 24Security of the people .................................................................................................. 25Nation states and national security .............................................................................. 26A reminder of your learning outcomes .......................................................................... 27Sample examination questions ..................................................................................... 27

Chapter 3: National security: current issues and contemporary application ...... 29

Aims of the chapter ..................................................................................................... 29Learning outcomes ...................................................................................................... 29Essential reading ......................................................................................................... 29Further reading ............................................................................................................ 29National security as a reciprocal arrangement .............................................................. 30National security policies ............................................................................................. 30

140 Security in international relations

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iNational security and deterrence .................................................................................. 31National security and the war on terror ........................................................................ 31National security in authoritarian states ....................................................................... 32Security in weak, failed or quasi-states ......................................................................... 33A reminder of your learning outcomes .......................................................................... 34Sample examination questions ..................................................................................... 34

Chapter 4: International society as a security arrangement ................................ 35

Aims of the chapter ..................................................................................................... 35Learning outcomes ...................................................................................................... 35Essential reading ......................................................................................................... 35Further reading ............................................................................................................ 35International society and the problem of disorder ......................................................... 36International security ................................................................................................... 37The balance of power and the concert of great powers ................................................. 37A reminder of your learning outcomes .......................................................................... 38Sample examination questions ..................................................................................... 39

Chapter 5: International security: current issues and contemporary application 41

Aims of the chapter ..................................................................................................... 41Learning outcomes ...................................................................................................... 41Essential reading ......................................................................................................... 41Further reading ............................................................................................................ 41The international security paradigm in operation .......................................................... 42Military intervention .................................................................................................... 42Nuclear non-proliferation ............................................................................................. 45Climate change ........................................................................................................... 46Why international security is difficult to achieve ........................................................... 47The problem of hegemony ........................................................................................... 48Weak, failed and quasi-states ...................................................................................... 49A reminder of your learning outcomes .......................................................................... 50Sample examination questions ..................................................................................... 51

Chapter 6: Human security as an alternative to national andinternational security ........................................................................................... 53

Aims of the chapter ..................................................................................................... 53Learning outcomes ...................................................................................................... 53Essential reading ......................................................................................................... 53Further reading ............................................................................................................ 53State-centred approaches to security ............................................................................ 53A person-centred approach to security ......................................................................... 54Instruments of human security ..................................................................................... 55A reminder of your learning outcomes .......................................................................... 56Sample examination questions ..................................................................................... 56

Chapter 7: Human security: current issues and contemporary application.......... 57

Aims of the chapter ..................................................................................................... 57Learning outcomes ...................................................................................................... 57Essential reading ......................................................................................................... 57Further reading ............................................................................................................ 57Achievements of human security .................................................................................. 58Problems with human security ..................................................................................... 59Overcoming the problems of human security ................................................................ 60Responsibility to protect (R2P) ..................................................................................... 61

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A reminder of your learning outcomes .......................................................................... 62Sample examination questions ..................................................................................... 62

Chapter 8: Security paradigms in conflict: the problem of intervention ............. 63

Aims of the chapter ..................................................................................................... 63Learning outcomes ...................................................................................................... 63Essential reading ......................................................................................................... 63Further reading ............................................................................................................ 63Different paradigms, different priorities ........................................................................ 65Origins of the problem of military intervention ............................................................. 65Current justifications for military intervention ............................................................... 66Intervention for international peace and security: Iraq ................................................... 68Intervention for national security: Bosnia-Herzegovina and Afghanistan ....................... 69Intervention for human security: Kosovo ....................................................................... 72Intervention after R2P: Darfur ...................................................................................... 76A reminder of your learning outcomes .......................................................................... 78Sample examination questions ..................................................................................... 78

Appendix 1: Sample examination paper .............................................................. 79

Appendix 2: Sample Examiners’ commentary ...................................................... 81

Specific comments on questions ................................................................................... 81Key steps to success in the examination ....................................................................... 89

Notes


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Introduction

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Introduction

140 Security in international relations is a ‘300’ course offered on the Economics, Management, Finance and the Social Sciences (EMFSS) suite of programmes. It is a subject which provides insights and understanding of order and stability both within and between states. Many students when they approach this course think that security is only concerned with states and their armed forces. A common misunderstanding is to equate security with defence. But the security agenda is much broader than this and now includes questions of force and military preparedness problems and policies to do with human and minority rights, migration, poverty, the environment and other societal issues. Following on from this wider agenda, security in international relations is increasingly concerned not only with the safety of states but also of the peoples within them. What students take away from this course is an understanding of security as a core value of human life and an awareness that security policies will vary depending upon how one answers the key questions: security in (or of) what; security from what; and security by what means.

It is a particularly relevant course for those of you who want to go on to careers in law or public administration, politics, international and non-governmental organisations, or journalism as the way it looks at security addresses issues of immediate concern to those engaged in a range of advocacy, policy and media roles. A very similar course is offered at the LSE as a third-year course. My own research addresses problems and practices of ethnic diversity in a world of nation states including self-determination, boundaries, human and minority rights, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and humanitarian intervention. Questions of security and insecurity are integral to all of these issues, which yet again underscores the broad significance of security in international relations. I hope that you enjoy studying this course.

If taken as part of a BSc degree, you must have passed 11 Introduction to international relations before this course may be attempted.

AimsThis course aims to:

• introduce you to the central concepts in security studies

• develop your comparative skills of analysis of differing security policies in practice

• promote critical engagement with the security policy literature and enable you to display this engagement by developing your ability to present, substantiate and defend complex arguments.

Learning outcomesBy the end of this course, and having completed the Essential reading and activities, you should be able to demonstrate:

• a critical understanding of the issues involved in security policy decision making

• an understanding of the contexts, pressures and constraints with which security policymakers have to deal


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• an ability to engage in comparitive analysis of security policy without losing a sense of historical context.

How to use this subject guideThe aim of this subject guide is to help you to interpret the syllabus. It outlines what you are expected to know for each area of the syllabus and suggests relevant readings to help you to understand the material. As with many of the courses available on the International Programmes there are only four set textbooks which you must read for this course; much of the information you need to learn and understand is contained in examples and activities within the subject guide itself.

I would recommend that you work through the guide in chapter order, reading the essential texts when asked to do so in the syllabus and then when you have understood the material complete the relevant activity. You may also wish to supplement your studies by some of the Further reading, in which case you should refer to the additional readings listed for each chapter.

Having said this, it is important that you appreciate that different topics are not self-contained. There is a degree of overlap between them and you are guided in this respect by the cross-referencing between different chapters. In terms of studying this subject, the chapters of this guide are designed as self-contained units of study, but for examination purposes you need to have an understanding of the subject as a whole.

At the end of each chapter you will find a reminder of your learning outcomes, which is a list of the main points that you should understand once you have covered the material in the guide and the associated readings.

Structure of the guideChapter 1 identifies security as a core value of human life. To be secure is to be undisturbed by danger or fear. The desire for security is a defensive and self-protecting response to the fact or threat of harm from other human beings. If there were no threatening people, the need to guarantee security would disappear. The four key assumptions underlying the idea of security − security in (or of) what, from what, for what, and by what means – are each discussed and analysed. Normative and instrumental methodological approaches to security are compared and contrasted.

Chapters 2 and 3 examine security from the perspective of the state. As these chapters will reveal, the state was, in its origins, a security arrangement and it remains so today. A well-governed nation state is a formidable security organisation. It is for this reason that the nation state ultimately replaced clans, tribal societies, fiefdoms, free cities, medieval guilds, duchies, dynastic states and even empires, among others, to become the basic form of modern political organisation. The term ‘national security’ has thus come to refer to all those public policies through which the nation state ensures its survival as a separate and sovereign community and, in so doing, the safety and prosperity of its citizens. The reciprocal security obligation between the nation state and its citizens is the normative basis upon which the nation state’s claim to be a protector of the people is justified and this will be discussed in some detail. For the national security paradigm to hold true, however, the coercive power of the state should be used as a last resort and as rarely as possible. But that is not always the case. Even in liberal democracies, what Barry Buzan terms a ‘defence dilemma’ may arise as the examples of nuclear deterrence

Introduction

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and counter-terror measures make clear. The experience of totalitarian and weak, failed or quasi-states will also be recalled to demonstrate the limitations of the national security paradigm.

Chapters 4 and 5 examine security from the perspective of international society. The international security paradigm aspires towards a general condition of peace, order and lawfulness within the society of states. The history of international society will thus be presented as an ongoing struggle with the problem of disorder and its concomitant insecurity. In practice, primary responsibility for providing international security has come to rest on those states we refer to as great powers. Their role will be assessed in terms of the balance of power and the concert of great powers. A recurring problem of international security is that of ensuring that all of the great powers remain good international citizens who act to support and not to subvert international law and the balance of power. On those occasions when a great power begins to act as an international bully or outlaw, international security is put at risk and the potential for catastrophic war increases. These dilemmas will be interrogated as fundamental limitations of the international security paradigm in the context of military intervention, nuclear non-proliferation and climate change.

Chapters 6 and 7 examine security from the perspective of the individual. The search for a global human community, which would transcend international frontiers and trump the rights and interests of particular communities be these states or indeed the society of states, has a noble pedigree in international relations. This history will be summarised with a view to analysing its basic normative content. We see evidence of the human security paradigm at work post-1945 in the universal protection of human rights, humanitarian law, the idea of crimes against humanity, and in the doctrine of responsibility to protect (R2P). The significance of each of these key developments will be assessed. Finally, we will consider the unavoidable limitations of the human security paradigm which are a direct consequence of the fact that international relations up to and including the present time remain, for better or for worse, organised on the basis of state sovereignty and plural values.

Each of the three main security paradigms surveyed up to this point in the syllabus – national security, international security and human security – prioritises different security objectives. Ultimately, these paradigms represent what Isaiah Berlin has called a ‘collision of values’ to which there can be no permanent resolution; these paradigms may be equally compelling but nevertheless remain mutually incommensurate. At a certain point, the requirements of one paradigm will conflict with the requirements of another and we will be forced to choose between them. Should the national security of the state come first? Or are there instances where a general condition of peace and stability within the society of states may reasonably necessitate an infringement of the national security of one of its members? And what if human suffering of a serious kind persists irrespective of a general condition of peace and stability within the states system and national security among its members? In such circumstances, should human security trump these other considerations? Chapter 8 will explore these contradictions and dilemmas in the context of recent debate on the problem of intervention with reference to five cases: Iraq (1991); Bosnia (1995); Kosovo (1999); Afghanistan (2001); and Darfur (2008).


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Essential readingYou should purchase:

Bain, W. (ed.) The empire of security and the safety of the people. (London: Routledge, 2006) first edition [ISBN 9780415380195].

Buzan, B. People, states and fear: an agenda for international security studies in the post cold war era. (London: Pearson, 2004) second edition[ISBN 9781555872823].

Hough, P. Understanding global security. (London: Routledge, 2004) first edition [ISBN 9780415296663].

Economides, Spyros and Mats Berdal (eds) United Nations interventionism, 1991−2004. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) first edition [ISBN 9780521547673]. This text is essential only for Chapter 8.

Each chapter of the subject guide commences by identifying the appropriate chapters from these textbooks. In instances where these textbooks are inadequate or simply do not cover a particular topic, additional or supplementary readings will be listed as activities in the chapters. Finally, it should be noted that this subject builds on previous knowledge and understanding you will have gained in studying for the prerequisite units if you are studying this course as part of a BSc degree.

Detailed reading references in this subject guide refer to the editions of the set textbooks listed above. New editions of one or more of these textbooks may have been published by the time you study this course. You can use a more recent edition of any of the books; use the detailed chapter and section headings and the index to identify relevant readings. Also check the virtual learning environment (VLE) regularly for updated guidance on readings.

Further readingPlease note that as long as you read the Essential reading you are then free to read around the subject area in any text, paper or online resource. You will need to support your learning by reading as widely as possible and by thinking about how these principles apply in the real world. To help you read extensively, you have free access to the VLE and University of London Online Library (see below).

Other useful texts for this course include:

BooksBain, W. Between anarchy and society: trusteeship and the obligations of power.

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) first edition [ISBN 0199260265].Bull, H. The anarchical society. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003)

third edition [ISBN 0231127634].Buzan, B. The United States and the great powers. (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2004) first edition [ISBN 0745633757].Hoffman, S. The ethics and politics of humanitarian intervention. (New York:

University of Notre Dame Press, 1997) first edition [ISBN 0268009368].Jackson, R. The global covenant. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) new

edition [ISBN 0199262012].Jackson-Preece, J. Minority rights. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005) first edition

[ISBN 0745623956].Mayall, J. (ed.) The new interventionism. (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2003) first edition [ISBN 0521551978].Schelling, T. The strategy of conflict. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 2006) reprint edition [ISBN 0674840313].

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Vincent, R. Human rights and international relations. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) first edition [ISBN 0521327989].

Walzer, M. Just and unjust wars. (New York: Basic Books, 2000) fourth edition [ISBN 0465037070].

Wheeler, N. Saving strangers: humanitarian intervention in international society. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) new edition [ISBN 0199253102].

ArticlesAyoob, M. ‘The security problematique of the Third World’, World Politics 43(2)

1991 pp.257−83.Baldwin, D. ‘The concept of security’, Review of International Studies 23(1)

1997 pp.5−26.Booth, K. ‘Security and emancipation’, Review of International Studies 17(4)

1991 pp.313−26.Buzan, B. ‘Peace, power and security: contending concepts’, Journal of Peace

Research 21(2) 1984 pp.109−25.Dunne T. and N. Wheeler ‘“We the peoples”: contending discourses of security

in human rights theory and practice’, International Relations 18(1) 2004 pp.9−23.

Hendrickson, D. ‘The curious case of American hegemony: imperial aspirations and national decline’, World Policy Journal, Summer 2004, pp.1−22.

Herz, J. ‘The security dilemma in international relations: background and present problems’, International Relations 17(4) 2003 pp.411−16.

Kaldor, M. ‘American power: from “compellance” to cosmopolitanism’, International Affairs 79(1) 2003 pp.1–22.

Kennan, G. ‘Morality and foreign policy’, Foreign Affairs 64(2) 1985 pp.205−218.Mandelbaum, M. ‘A perfect failure: NATO’s war against Yugoslavia’, Foreign

Affairs 78(5) 1999 pp.2−8.Rothschild, E. ‘What is security?’ Dædalus 124(3) 1995 pp.53−98.Newman, E. ‘Humanitarian intervention, legality and legitimacy’, International

Journal of Human Rights 6(4) (2002) pp.102−120.Rudolph, C. ‘Globalization and security’, Security Studies 13(1) 2002 pp.1−32.Simpson, J. ‘The nuclear non-proliferation regime: back to the future?’ UNIDIR

Disarmament Forum 1 2004 pp.1−12.Sørensen, G. ‘Individual security and national security’, Security Dialogue 27(4)

1996 pp.371−86.Williams, M. ‘Identity and the politics of security’, European Journal of

International Relations 4(2) 1998 pp.204−25. United Kingdom, Terrorist Act, 2006, www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/

acts2006/20060011.htmUnited States Congress Uniting and strengthening America by providing

appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct Terrorism Act (US Patriot Act), 2001, http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/terrorism/hr3162.pdf

Works citedAssessing the new normal: liberty and security for the post-September 11

United States (Washington, D.C.: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 2003). www.humanrightsfirst.org/pubs/descriptions/Assessing/AssessingtheNewNormal.pdf

Bull, H. The anarchical society. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003) third edition [ISBN 0231127634].

Bailyn, J. The ideological origins of the American Revolution. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1992) first edition [ISBN 0674443020].

Bain, W. Between anarchy and society: trusteeship and the obligations of power. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) first edition [ISBN 0199260265].

Berki, R. Security and society. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1986) first edition [ISBN 031270920X].


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Berlin, I. The crooked timber of humanity. (London: John Murray, 1990) first edition [ISBN 071954789X].

Bull, H. ‘Society and anarchy in international relations’, in M. Wight and H. Butterfield (eds) Diplomatic investigations. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968) first edition [ISBN 0674210018] pp.35−50.

Bull, H. (2003) The anarchical society. New York: Columbia University Press, third edition [ISBN 0231127634].

Commission on Global Governance Our global neighbourhood: the report of the Commission on Global Governance. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)first edition [ISBN 0198279981].

Donnelly, J. Universal human rights in theory and practice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, first edition [ISBN 0801423163].

Gong, G. The standard of ‘civilization’ in international society. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984) first edition [ISBN 0198219482].

Hendrickson, D. ‘The curious case of American hegemony: imperial aspirations and national decline’, World Policy Journal 22(2) (2004) pp.1−22.

Hobbes, T. Leviathan. Edited by M. Oakeshott. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, (1946).Jackson, R. Quasi-states: sovereignty, international relations and the third world.

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) reprint edition [ISBN 0521447836].

Jackson, R. The global covenant. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) new edition [ISBN 0199262012].

Mayall, J. (ed.) The new interventionism. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) first edition [ISBN 0521551978].

Mayall, J. Nationalism and international society. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) first edition [ISBN 0521389615].

Mayer, A. Islam and human rights. (New York: Westview Press, 1995) fourth edition [ISBN 0813343356].

Musgrave, T. Self determination and national minorities. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002) first edition [ISBN 0198298986].

Parsons, A. From cold war to hot peace. (London: Penguin Books, 1995) first edition [ISBN 0718138287].

Pollis, A. and P. Schwab ‘Human rights: a western construct with limited applicability’, in A. Pollis and P. Schwab (eds) Human rights: cultural and ideological perspectives. (New York: Praeger, 1979) first edition.

Rohde, D. Endgame: the betrayal and fall of Srebrenica. (New York: Westview Press, 1998) first edition [ISBN 0813335337].

Roberts, A. ‘NATO’s “humanitarian war” over Kosovo’, Survival 41(3) 1999 pp.102–123.

Schelling, T. The strategy of conflict. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006) reprint edition [ISBN 0674840313].

Shrivastava, B.K. and M. Agarwal ‘Politics of intervention and the Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict’, International Studies 40(1) 2003 pp.69−84.

Simpson, J. ‘The nuclear non-proliferation regime: back to the future?’, UNIDIR Disarmament Forum 1 (2004) pp.1−12.

Southern, R. The making of the Middle Ages. (London: Hutchinson 1993) [ISBN 0300002300].

Sanctioned bias: racial profiling since 9/11 (New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 2004).

The Concise Oxford Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) eleventh edition [ISBN 9780198610472].

Vincent, J. ‘Grotius, human rights and intervention’, in H. Bull, B. Kingsbury and A. Roberts (eds) Hugo Grotius and international relations. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002) reprint edition [ISBN 0198277717] pp.241−256.

Wight, M. Power politics. (London: International Publishing, 1974) [ISBN 0826461743].

Wight, M. and H. Butterfield (eds) Diplomatic investigations. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968) first edition [ISBN 0674210018].

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Additional resources

Periodicals

The following are a list of recommended periodicals that are relevant to this course:

Adelphi Papers

American Political Science Review

Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

European Journal of International Relations

Global Society

Human Rights Quarterly

International Affairs

International Security

Journal of Peace Research

Millennium

Nations and Nationalism

Peace and Conflict Studies

Political Studies

Prospect Magazine

Review of International Studies

Security Dialogue

Survival: The IISS Quarterly

The Economist Magazine

World Politics

Online study resourcesIn addition to the subject guide and the Essential reading, it is crucial that you take advantage of the study resources that are available online for this course, including the VLE and the Online Library.

You can access the VLE, the Online Library and your University of London email account via the Student Portal at:http://my.londoninternational.ac.uk

You should have received your login details for the Student Portal with your official offer, which was emailed to the address that you gave on your application form. You have probably already logged in to the Student Portal in order to register! As soon as you registered, you will automatically have been granted access to the VLE, Online Library and your fully functional University of London email account.

If you forget your login details at any point, please email [email protected] quoting your student number.

The VLEThe VLE, which complements this subject guide, has been designed to enhance your learning experience, providing additional support and a sense of community. It forms an important part of your study experience with the University of London and you should access it regularly.


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The VLE provides a range of resources for EMFSS courses:

• Self-testing activities: Doing these allows you to test your own understanding of subject material.

• Electronic study materials: The printed materials that you receive from the University of London are available to download, including updated reading lists and references.

• Past examination papers and Examiners’ commentaries: These provide advice on how each examination question might best be answered.

• A student discussion forum: This is an open space for you to discuss interests and experiences, seek support from your peers, work collaboratively to solve problems and discuss subject material.

• Videos: There are recorded academic introductions to the subject, interviews and debates and, for some courses, audio-visual tutorials and conclusions.

• Recorded lectures: For some courses, where appropriate, the sessions from previous years’ Study Weekends have been recorded and made available.

• Study skills: Expert advice on preparing for examinations and developing your digital literacy skills.

• Feedback forms.

Some of these resources are available for certain courses only, but we are expanding our provision all the time and you should check the VLE regularly for updates.

Making use of the Online LibraryThe Online Library contains a huge array of journal articles and other resources to help you read widely and extensively.

To access the majority of resources via the Online Library you will either need to use your University of London Student Portal login details, or you will be required to register and use an Athens login: http://tinyurl.com/ollathens

The easiest way to locate relevant content and journal articles in the Online Library is to use the Summon search engine.

If you are having trouble finding an article listed in a reading list, try removing any punctuation from the title, such as single quotation marks, question marks and colons.

For further advice, please see the online help pages: www.external.shl.lon.ac.uk/summon/about.php

Useful websitesThe following are a list of websites which may be useful in essay preparation.

Unless otherwise stated, all websites in this subject guide were accessed in April 2011. We cannot guarantee, however, that they will stay current and you may need to perform an internet search to find the relevant pages.

International organisationsUnited Nations

www.un.org is the main homepage

www.un.org/Docs/sc/ is the site of the Security Council

Introduction

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North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

www.nato.int is the main homepage

www.kforonline.com is the site of the NATO operation in Kosovo

www.nato.int/issues/afghanistan/index.html is the site of the NATO operation in Afghanistan

www.nato.int/issues/sfor/index.html is the site of the NATO mission in Bosnia

Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe

www.osce.org is the main site of the OSCE

www.osce.org/kosovo is the site of the OSCE Mission to Kosovo

www.oscebih.org is the site of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia

Organisation of American States

www.oas.org

Organisation of African Unity

www.oau.org

Non-governmental organisationsEnd Genocide

www.endgenocide.org

Human Rights Watch

www.hrw.org

International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent

www.icrc.org

Independent International Commission on Kosovo

www.kosovocommision.org

International Crisis Group

www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm

Minority Rights Group

www.minorityrights.org

Prevent Genocide

www.preventgenocide.org

Research centres, projects and online documentationCarnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs

www.cceia.org/

Center for Defence and International Security Studies

www.cdiss.org/

Center for Peace and Human Security

www.peacecenter.sciences-po.fr/

Center for Military and Strategic Studies

www.cmss.ucalgary.ca/index.html

Human Security Center

www.humansecuritycentre.org/

International Institute for Strategic Studies

www.iiss.org/

International Relations and Security Network

www.isn.ethz.ch/net/prin/hsc.cfm


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Institute for War and Peace Reporting

www.iwpr.net/

Institute on Global Cooperation and Conflict

http://igcc.ucsd.edu/

Terrorism Research Center

www.terrorism.com/

Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

www.trudeaucentre.ca/

Web Genocide Documentation Centre

www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide.htm

Yale University Avalon Project (for international treaties from the sixteenth century to the present)

www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon

Wikipedia

Wikipedia can be useful as a freely accessible online encyclopedia. But you must always remember that the quality of entries varies enormously. Accordingly, you should not rely on Wikipedia as a sole source of information. Instead, Wikipedia must always be used in conjunction with other, more reliable sources (e.g., academic books and journal articles such as those listed in the subject guide). This cautionary note also applies more generally to other information available on the web.

Examination structureThe examination paper for this course is three hours in duration and you are expected to answer four questions, from a choice of twelve. The Examiner attempts to ensure that all of the topics covered in the syllabus and subject guide are examined. Some questions could cover more than one topic from the syllabus since the different topics are not self-contained. A Sample examination paper appears as an appendix to this guide, along with a sample Examiners’ commentary. The Examiners’ commentaries contain valuable information about how to approach the examination and so you are strongly advised to read them carefully. Past examination papers and the associated reports are valuable resources when preparing for the examination. You should ensure that all four questions are answered, allowing an approximately equal amount of time for each question, and attempting all parts or aspects of a question.

Examination adviceImportant: the information and advice given here are based on the examination structure used at the time this guide was written. Please note that subject guides may be used for several years. Because of this we strongly advise you to always check both the current Regulations for relevant information about the examination, and the VLE where you should be advised of any forthcoming changes. You should also carefully check the rubric/instructions on the paper you actually sit and follow those instructions.

Answer the question asked

Your answer needs to address the question asked and not another that you have seen on a past exam paper or that you would prefer to answer. To

Introduction

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avoid this mistake, it is useful to clearly identify the precise question you are answering from the outset. Similarly, you should also define the key terms relating to that question. It is helpful to the examiner if, in the first paragraph, you briefly indicate what your answer to the question will be, the main points you will put forward in support of this position and the order in which these will be discussed (this is often called ‘signposting’; for more on this tactic see also the answer structure below).

Develop your own ideas

Remember, you are asked to put forward your own ideas in answering the examination questions, so do not confuse analysis with description (i.e., the aim is not merely to identify what happened but to explain how it came about, why these particular events, decisions, policies, people were important, etc.). Similarly, you should not simply repeat what you have read in the course. The examiner wants to know what you think and why and so the aim is not to provide a summary of what various authors on the reading list have argued but to discuss your own perspective in relation to the issues surveyed. Finally, be sure to fully explain your ideas rather than simply identify them in passing. To avoid this pitfall, always ask yourself ‘why do I think this point is important’ and then make sure to say precisely that in your answer.

Support ideas with examples

Wherever possible, provide concrete examples and illustrations so that your answer is based upon solid, empirical evidence. This evidence can be provided by, among others: defining key terms and concepts; citing a particular event, decision, policy, etc., to back up a generalisation; providing dates whenever possible.

Structure

To the examiner, the structure and coherence of your argument are just as important as your knowledge and understanding of the syllabus. To help organise your thoughts quickly, it is always sensible to start with an essay plan before you begin the actual writing. That way you will know in advance what you are going to say and in what order, which will make the writing easier. Your answers should always include an introduction which identifies the question, defines key terms or concepts, and provides ‘signposts’ so that the examiner can follow your argument in the main body; a main body which develops your answer by discussing the key points on which it is based and supporting these with examples; and a conclusion which recaps your answer and offers final reflections (why the question is important, further implications of your answer, etc.)

Remember, it is important to check the VLE for:

• up-to-date information on examination and assessment arrangements for this course

• where available, past examination papers and Examiners’ commentaries for the course which give advice on how each question might best be answered.


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SyllabusThis course will interrogate the key concepts and dilemmas involved in security policy by a careful examination of the leading security paradigms – national security, international security and human security. In each case, we examine the historical circumstances out of which the paradigm originates, the political problems it seeks to address, the constraints it imposes upon policy makers, and its significance within contemporary international society.

The principal themes to be addressed are:

• What does it mean to be ‘secure’ and why does it matter?

• Does security for some automatically imply insecurity for others?

• How have changes in domestic and international society influenced the ways in which we respond to security dilemmas?

List of abbreviations used in this subject guideNATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

OAU Organisation of African Unity

UK United Kingdom

UN United Nations

US United States Of America

Chapter 1: The idea of security

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Aims of the chapterThe aim of this chapter is to introduce the idea of security as a core value of human life and the key assumptions which underlie it:

• security in (or of) what

• security from what

• security for what

• security by what means.

Learning outcomesBy the end of this chapter, and having completed the Essential readings and activities, you should be able to:

• explain where the desire for security comes from, and how this desire is reflected in everyday life

• describe the kind of human activities we associate with security

• discuss and compare the main international relations approaches to the problem of insecurity

• discuss the relationship between personal security and state security

• describe and evaluate security policies in response to the threat of international terrorism.

Essential readingBain, W. The empire of security and the safety of the people. Introduction and

Chapter 1.Buzan, B. People, states and fear. Introduction.Hough, P. Understanding global security. Chapter 1.‘Morality and foreign policy’, George F. Kennan Foreign Affairs Vol. 64 (2)

(1985), pp.205–18 (article consists of 14 pages)

Further readingBaldwin, D. ‘The concept of security’, Review of International Studies 23(1)

1997 pp.5−26.Berki, R. Security and society (1986) Chapters 1 and 2.Buzan, B. ‘Peace, power and security: contending concepts’, Journal of Peace

Research 21(2) 1984 pp.109−25. Jackson, R. The global covenant. (2000) Chapter 8. Huysmans, J. ‘Security! What do you mean? From concept to thick signifier’,

European Journal of International Relations, 4(2) 1998 pp.226−55.Rothschild, E. ‘What is security?’, Dædalus pp.124(3) 1995 pp.53−98.

Additional resourcesInternational Relations and Security Network www.isn.ethz.ch/ Center for

Security Studies, ETH, Zürich, Switzerland.


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The value of securitySecurity is a core value of human life. To be secure is to be untroubled by danger or fear.1 As Thomas Hobbes reminds us, without security ‘there is no place for industry… no arts, no letters, no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’.2

Citizens of developed Western states routinely take their security for granted until it is challenged by some extraordinary event like the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center or the July 7 bombings on the London Underground. Sadly, many people around the world do not live in such peaceful or prosperous circumstances. For them, insecurity is a fact of everyday life just as it was for Hobbes during the English Civil War of the seventeenth century. Such profoundly insecure conditions are particularly evident in circumstances of war where the fundamental preoccupation of everyday life becomes safety and survival.

Recall for a moment television images you have seen about life in states which have experienced violent conflict. Do you remember the image of a bombed street market in Sarajevo during the Yugoslav wars of secession? The daily routine of buying and selling is disrupted by shelling. Men, women and children run for shelter. Those who do not make it to safety lie injured or dying in the streets. Scenes like these have, at various times, also occurred in Baghdad, Beirut, Gaza, Mogadishu, Grozny, Belfast and many other cities around the world. Insecurity is associated with war and the threat of war; security is associated with peace and stability. Because security is a necessary precursor for human life it is a fundamental good in itself, both a personal good and a political good. Hobbes and others like him who have experienced first hand the tragedy of war remind those of us in more privileged circumstances, lest we forget, that security is the most basic of all human values. It is the foundation upon which we build our individual and collective lives.

Activity

Can you think of a moment when you felt threatened or insecure? What were the circumstances? What were you afraid of? How did you respond to these feelings of insecurity?

For example, I was afraid to walk to my car at the railway station. It was dark and raining and no other people were in sight. I was afraid of being mugged or worse. So I waited by the train platform until a group of people came along and walked into the car park with them on the assumption that there was ‘safety in numbers’.

The desire for security is a defensive and self-protecting response to the fact or threat of harm from other human beings. If there were no threatening people the need to guarantee security would disappear. Natural disasters like the hurricane and consequent flooding in New Orleans in 2005 would still occur and would require emergency planning and responses. But there would be no problem of looting, shooting, rape, murder or other forms of predatory and violent behaviour with which to contend. Disruption and loss of life would probably still occur but it would not be a result of violence or attack from other human beings. Unfortunately, human history to date powerfully supports the proposition that there will always be some people who will pose a threat to others. Consequently, the problem of security remains.

1 The Concise Oxford Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, eighth edition 1990), p.1093.

2 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. Edited by Michael Oakeshott (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946), esp. Chapter. 13.


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Activity

Read Buzan, introduction, Hough, Chapter 1, and Bain, Introduction, then answer the following questions.

1. How is the desire for security reflected in social life?

2. What sort of human activities are associated with security?

3. How does international relations approach the problem of insecurity?

Key assumptions of securityThere are four key assumptions underlying the idea of security: security in (or of) what, from what, for what, and by what means?3

Security in (or of) what? This assumption recognises the vulnerability of humans who live in social circumstances. An isolated individual is inviolable from attack by other people: Robinson Crusoe knew no fear of this kind until Man Friday arrived on the island. The idea of security is directed at the problem of harmful acts by other people, either fellow citizens or foreigners and not the forces of nature. The crux of security for our purposes is captured by Hedley Bull: ‘Security in international politics means no more than safety: either objective safety, meaning safety which actually exists, or subjective safety, meaning safety which is felt or experienced.’4 Safety is a condition of human relations. Safety is order and predictability in our relations with other people.

Security from what? In Hobbes’ ‘state of nature’ every human being is a potential threat because the struggle for survival in a world of limited resources is ‘war of all against all’. One human being may be stronger, another more cunning, but each in his or her own way is capable of inflicting harm upon another. Accordingly, there can never be complete trust and mutual security between human beings. The human condition is precarious even in the most hospitable of circumstances because we are all unavoidably exposed − at least to some degree − to others who are at best careless and unreliable and at worst mean and malevolent. It is precisely because human nature is flawed that perfect security cannot exist in any human society. Some measure of insecurity, however large or small, is always present or possible. People who live in stable and generally peaceful and prosperous societies nevertheless install burglar alarms to protect their homes. And they may also avoid certain areas at certain times of the day where they calculate that a reasonable risk of being mugged, raped or even murdered exists. For example, even though I live in a prosperous English market town with a low crime rate, I avoid going into the railway station car park late at night. On such occasions, if at all possible, I try to take a taxi rather than drive myself. Behaviour like this discloses prudence rather than paranoia. And it is a further reminder that each and every one of us is, to some extent at least, insecure.

Security by means of what?Our safety is protected by creating barriers, bulwarks, ramparts, police forces, armed forces, etc., to keep us out of harm’s reach. The opposite of safety is vulnerability − being exposed to danger, in peril, at risk, etc. Safety requires only that everybody respect everybody else’s freedom and leave them alone. Security is achieved wherever and whenever men and

3 Robert Jackson, The Global covenant: human conduct in a world of states (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp.190–92.

4 Hedley Bull, The anarchical society (second edition) (London: Macmillan, 1995), p.18.


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women do not threaten or harm one another. Unfortunately, not everyone is prepared to forgo their own desires or ambitions if these infringe the well being of others. We put locks on our doors and alarms on our houses to keep out those who would otherwise take our possessions or in other ways rob us of that which we hold dear (be this life, liberty, property or whatever). Insecurity arises when some people will not restrain themselves and cannot be restrained by others.

Security can be achieved in two ways: through deterrence on the part of the would-be protector or diffidence on the part of would-be attacker.5 Some theorists, like Thomas Schelling, prioritise the credibility of deterrence as the key component of security policy.6 Other theorists, like Thomas Hobbes, prioritise diffidence, which is a mental condition that disables people who otherwise would be a threat.7 Deterrence and diffidence are not unrelated ideas − far from it, diffidence is the desired consequence of deterrence. Providing security is thus all about instilling fear in the mind of a would-be attacker with a view to preventing an attack.

Security for what? The answer to this question should now be clear: so that people can enjoy the advantages of living in society with others while limiting the risks. Isolated individuals like Robinson Crusoe are in a perfectly secure condition with respect to attack from other human beings because there is nobody around to attack them. But few of us would find the life of a sole shipwreck survivor appealing. All alone, there can be no interaction, no communication and no cooperation. This is a life devoid of human kindness, compassion, companionship, love or family. And I think most people would agree, the loss of human society is too high a price to pay for complete freedom from harm by other people.

As a result, security is a core value of human relations. The necessity of security arises from the fact that people do want to live together and are thus vulnerable to each other. Security makes possible what otherwise probably could not be achieved: a flourishing society that is relatively safe from would-be attackers. Of course, within society, one can never be completely safe. That is precisely why we need security policies. Such policies usually involve creating and maintaining police and military forces that are prepared and equipped to carry out that essential job for the public good.

Normative vs instrumental approaches to securityThere are two very different approaches to security evident within international relations: one normative and the other instrumental.

A normative view of security is one predicated upon values, ideas and identities. The clear implication of this subject guide is that security should be regarded as fundamentally normative because without it human life is reduced to a basic struggle for survival. This normative view is also evident in the Buzan, Bain, Economides and Berdal and, to a lesser extent, Hough essential texts. When we approach security in this way, our analysis tends towards hard choices between competing values (e.g., as between security of the state and security of the person). These choices are concerned not only with the ends or goals of security policy but also with the means used to pursue them. Thus, security policy itself comes to be regarded as a series of moral dilemmas to which there can be no easy solutions.

But much of the wider literature on security (e.g., many of the leading journals cited at the end of the introduction to this subject guide) takes a rather different view, one constituted by instrumentalism or the belief

5 Global covenant,p.192.

6 See T. Schelling, The Strategy of confl ict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980).

7 Thomas Hobbes Leviathan p.81.


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that policies should be judged only by their outcomes. Neo-realism is a case in point. Neo-realism is a material approach informed by power capabilities and quantifiable risks (see the reference to Schelling above for an example). Moral dilemmas are not only absent from such analyses but tend to be regarded as deeply inappropriate because of their ability to distract us from the rational pursuit of our interests.

You should be aware that the ongoing debate between normative and instrumental approaches to security is part of a much larger methodological controversy within international relations, and indeed the social sciences more generally. Each approach has its advantages as well as its disadvantages. It is up to you to decide which view you find most convincing and on what basis.

Activity

Read the following article by George F. Kennan. Then consider whether and to what extent security policy should have a normative dimension. Write your points down under two separate headings: Advantages of a normative approach and Disadvantages of a normative approach. Now re-read your list and ask yourself which view you find most convincing and on what basis.

‘Morality and foreign policy’, George F. Kennan Foreign Affairs Vol. 64, No. 2 (Winter, 1985), pp.205–28 (article consists of 14 pages)

Published by: Council on Foreign Relationswww.jstor.org/stable/20042569

Security of the state and security of the personThe study of international relations is fundamentally concerned with relations between states. The state was, in its origins, a security arrangement and it remains so today. A huge amount of state resources is directed towards maintaining effective police and armed forces, implementing anti-terrorist measures, ensuring civil and emergency defences, using intelligence to detect and counter external attack and internal subversion, using diplomacy to strengthen alliances and isolate threats and using economic power to encourage cooperation and isolate or weaken political rivals.

Hobbes’ solution to the problem of personal security is the creation of a political order or sovereign which he terms ‘leviathan’ to protect the people. ‘Leviathan’ can only come about if individual men and women are prepared to exchange their personal freedom to individually protect themselves for protection by the sovereign. The state for Hobbes is essentially a collective security arrangement. But as he famously indicates, that statist solution to the problem of personal insecurity simultaneously gives rise to a new threat of insecurity between states:

kings, and persons of sovereign authority, because of their independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another… and continual spies upon their neighbors; which is a posture of war.8

So, paradoxically, at the very moment that ‘leviathan’ resolves the problem of personal security within the state, it creates a new problem of insecurity between states. That security dilemma between states is a defining feature of international relations up to and including the present time. It is the consequence of the existence of a plurality of independent sovereign states, which Hedley Bull describes as an ‘anarchical society’.

8 Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapter. 13, p.83.


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There is, however, an important distinction between security of the state and security of the person. Personal security is an essential precondition for human flourishing. It frees people to pursue their own interests, goals, ambitions etc. without the fear of harm by others provided they, in turn, do not violate the harm principle by causing deliberate injury to others. Personal security is our individual protection from harm by other people. In a nutshell, personal security means peace of mind.

It is of course impossible to remove all possibility harm by others. My house in England has a burglar alarm. Even the most sophisticated burglar alarm may be overcome by those determined to do so. But if a burglar alarm is installed many burglars will be deterred, others will be thwarted, and those that do manage to get through will be pursued by the local police force, and hopefully apprehended, charged and convicted. For this reason, I sleep soundly in my house at night even though I know my burglar alarm is not foolproof.

Security of the state refers to a state’s ability to protect itself from external dangers and menaces: for example, intervention, blockade, invasion, destruction, occupation, or some other harmful interference by a hostile foreign power or terrorist group. The methods of state security are analogous to the burglar alarm on my house. The goal of state security is to deter, prevent or defeat attacks against the state and its population.

The ideas of state and people are closely related. Indeed, a classic definition of sovereignty (which is the key attribute of a state) is effective control over territory and population. Nevertheless, it is crucial not to collapse the distinction between state security and personal security as some liberal political theorists try to do. In liberal political theory, the state not only belongs to the people but is in fact a creation of the people; it is the people’s government, the people’s law, the people’s army, the people’s police, the people’s courts and ultimately the people’s prisons and even the people’s gallows. Therefore, in theory at least, the state cannot pose a threat to its own citizens whose personal interests are synonymous with state interests. For that theory to hold true, however, the coercive power of the state should be used as a last resort and as rarely as possible. In other words, the state is legitimate only in so far as its coercive power ‘affects most people marginally, negligibly, and indirectly, while its full might is meted out to a relatively small (and in principle) indefinite group of ‘law-breakers’.9

In practice, however, security of the state does not always translate into security of the people in the way that liberal theory would like it to do. There are many states which are unable to provide personal security for their populations because they do not exercise effective control over all the territory within their jurisdiction – we often refer to these as ‘weak’ or ‘failed states’. There are also states which directly and purposefully threaten their own peoples in order to maintain control or fulfil ideological or economic goals – we often refer to these as ‘totalitarian’ or ‘police states’. If we collapse the distinction between security of the state and security of the people we will not be able to adequately analyse circumstances like these.

Activity

Consider a state of your own choosing, then answer the following questions.

1. Is the government answerable to the people (i.e., through free and fair elections)?

2. Does the government exercise effective control over all the territory of the state?

9 R.N. Berki Security and society. (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1986), p.53.


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3. Are the human rights of the entire population of the state generally respected?

4. Based on your answers to questions 1–3, does this state protect the security of the people?

Three paradigms of security There are three main paradigms of security within international relations: national security, international security and human security. The first two approaches give moral primacy to the state as a necessary precondition for human flourishing. In contrast with these two state-centred approaches, a third perspective on security gives moral primacy to human beings and the community of humankind over and above the interests of states or the international society to which they belong. These three security paradigms may be briefly summarised as follows.

National securityThe proponents of national security, who we often refer to as realists, generally assume that we live in a world where states are both the main sources of security and the main security threats. You will recall from 11 Introduction to international relations that realism envisions a world of mutual fear, suspicion and conflict in which states must constantly struggle for survival. The problem of national security arises out of this anarchical world view, that is, a world of independent and armed states which are capable of inflicting harm upon one another. National security policies are directed at creating and maintaining armed forces for national defence and deterrence. They also involve measures designed to deal with internal threats to security such as criminals, rebels, terrorists, etc. The national security paradigm is well equipped to address circumstances like those of the Cold War where two rival states are actively opposing one another. But it is less well placed to interrogate problems of ‘weak’, ‘failed’, or ‘totalitarian’ states because of a tendency to collapse the distinction between state security and personal security. Thus, for example, realists like Schelling produced convincing accounts of the arms race between the USA and the USSR during the Cold War but were largely silent on the security dilemmas confronting civil rights proponents in ‘Jim Crow’ states of the American South or political dissidents in communist states of Central and Eastern Europe.

Activity

Compare and contrast the security objectives of Canada: www.pco-bcp.gc.ca/default.asp?Language=E&Page=publications&Sub=natsecurnat&Doc=natsecurnat_e.htm and the United States: www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html.

1. What are the similarities?

2. What are the differences?

3. Can you think of any reasons which might explain these differences?

International securityThe proponents of international security, who we often refer to as pluralists or rationalists, see a world characterised by a mixture of conflict and cooperation. From this perspective, relations between states constitute an ‘anarchical society’. Thus although it is true that there is no single source of authority or government, international relations nevertheless are reasonably orderly and purposeful, and subject to mutual regulation and constraint stemming from a shared interest in survival and coexistence.


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Following on from this, pluralists differ from realists in their assumption that states are not the only actors responsible for providing security. Instead, pluralists believe the responsibility for providing security also extends to international society.

This way of conceptualising security became prominent during the twentieth century as the idea of a global and increasingly institutionalised international society gained ground. One of its earliest embodiments is in article 11 of the Covenant of the League of Nations which was intended to preserve the territorial settlement created at Paris in 1919 following the end of the First World War.

Any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting any of the Members of the League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations.

A similar endorsement of international security was embodied as Article 1 of the United Nations Charter in 1945:

To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace…

The international security paradigm operates somewhat differently than either the national or human security paradigms. Whereas both national and human security imagine insecurity as an external threat, there is no similar external dynamic within international security. Since international society is global, unless or until we encounter extraterrestrial beings capable of threatening human life, insecurity in this context must necessarily come from within and not from without; it is an internal dynamic arising out of the condition of anarchy. Usually insecurity is consequent on the action of other members of international society (i.e., states) but it can also be created by non-state actors like terrorist groups. It is this non-state dynamic which gives the so called American-led ‘War against terror’ which followed the September 11 attacks its global extent.

International security is thus an internal problem for international society as a whole. In this context, the use of armed force is directed at what may in essence be thought as the problem of internal subversion by those who would threaten the plural and cooperative character of international society. Secession, irredentism, aggressive war, conquest, illegal occupation, mass expulsion, genocide and other actions which violate international law all threaten to disrupt the general condition of peace, order and lawfulness within international society. International law and enforcement directed at such transgressions are akin to domestic law enforcement within state – that is, they are intended to preserve a general condition of peace and stability within society (in this case international society) so that the members of that society (principally states) can go about their daily lives.

In practice, however, such enforcement is often highly controversial precisely because it would potentially sacrifice the national security of one state member of international society for the good of the whole society. The 2003 invasion of Iraq by US-led forces is a case in point. The military attack and consequent occupation of the independent and sovereign state of Iraq was not authorised by the United Nations Security Council and, for that and other reasons, many experts in international law consider these acts to be illegal. In contrast, the so-called Gulf War of 1990−91 is


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usually cited as one of the few examples of legitimate international law enforcement both because it was done with prior UN Security Council authorisation and because it received almost universal support by the members of international society.

Human security The proponents of human security, who we often refer to as solidarists or revolutionists, consider personal security to be a fundamental problem of international relations and not merely a matter for the domestic politics of the state concerned. Human security is often presented as a new perspective on security questions. To describe human security in this way is somewhat deceptive because there are historical precedents for assigning moral primacy to individuals. Immanuel Kant, for example, believed in universal duty towards other human beings without exception of place or jurisdiction. Kant describes a ‘universal right of mankind’ by which he means the legitimate claim of all men and women to recognition and protection by public authorities as individual human beings. Similarly, human rights law, the doctrine of crimes against humanity, the rights of non-combatants under international humanitarian law (the laws of war) and the prohibition of genocide, to name only a few issues, existed in order to protect personal security over and above the security of states long before the term ‘human security’ was coined.

The core idea embodied by human security is essentially that the security of the person, the security of the state and the security of the society of states are fundamentally interconnected – you cannot have one without the others. If any one man or woman or child in the world is unsafe, then nobody else can be safe either. To tolerate personal insecurity in one state risks spreading insecurity to other states, and by extension, international society itself. For example, human or minority rights violations in one state may spark refugee flows that cross frontiers, which in turn create a problem of asylum seekers in other states and a consequent matter of concern for international agencies like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. A similar chain effect might be seen with regard to terrorism, or civil war, or other threats which threaten to overrun international frontiers.

The criticism that human security proponents direct at contemporary security arrangements exactly follows on from this principle of human interconnectedness which continues to exist regardless of juridical boundaries. Torture, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, genocide and other gross human rights violations within states cannot be tolerated if the safety of all human beings is to be achieved. Something must be done to stop them, and states should not hide behind the international legal principles of equal sovereignty and non-intervention to evade this fundamental humanitarian obligation. The human security paradigm is becoming increasingly influential in international relations. Nevertheless, for the time being at least, with a few notable exceptions like Canada, it remains disproportionately a subject of non-governmental organisations rather than the foreign policies of states. And it is still far from universally accepted.


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Activity

Read Bain Chapter 1. Then consider each of the three security paradigms we have just summarised and answer the following questions.

1. Which of these three do you find most appealing and on what basis?

2. Are they equally important in international relations?

3. Or do you think one security paradigm dominates and, if so, why?

The subsequent chapters will more fully interrogate the core content and practical implications of these three security paradigms for our understanding of international relations.

A reminder of your learning outcomesHaving completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should be able to:

• explain where the desire for security comes from, and how this desire is reflected in everyday life

• describe the kind of human activities we associate with security

• discuss and compare the main international relations approaches to the problem of insecurity

• discuss the relationship between personal security and state security

• describe and evaluate security policies in response to the threat of international terrorism.

Sample examination questions1. ‘Security in international politics means no more than safety.’ Discuss.

2. What is deterrence and how has it featured in security policy?

3. Does security of the state always translate into security of the people?

Chapter 2: The state as a security arrangement

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Aims of the chapterThe aim of this chapter is to examine the origins of the state as a security arrangement. In so doing we will discuss:

• the security of the prince in dynastic states

• the rise of popular sovereignty and the security of the people

• nation states and national security.


• describe and examine why the state is viewed as a formidable security organisation

• describe and analyse the relationship between popular sovereignty and the security of the people

• explain what conditions must be satisfied for the ideal of national security to be achieved.

Essential readingBain The empire of security and the safety of the people. Chapters 5 and 9.Buzan People, states and fear. Chapters 1 and 2.

Further readingCohen, Y., B.R. Brown and A.F.K. Organski ‘The paradoxical nature of state-

making: the violent creation of order’, American Political Science Review 75(4) 1981.

Jackson-Preece, J. National minorities and the European nation states system. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) first edition [ISBN 0198294379] Chapter 2.

Jackson-Preece, J. Minority rights, (2005) Chapters 2 and 5.Krause, K. ‘Insecurity and state formation in the global military order: the

Middle Eastern case’, European Journal of International Relations 2(3) 1996 pp.319−54.

Mayall, J. (ed.) Nationalism and international society. (2003) pp.5–69 and pp.111−25.

Neocleous, M. ‘From social to national security’, Security Dialogue 37(3) 2006.Walker, R.J.B. ‘Security, sovereignty and the challenge of world politics’,

Alternatives 15(1) 1990: pp.3−27. Williams, Michael C. ‘Identity and the politics of security’, European Journal of

International Relations 42 1998 pp.204−25.

Works citedSouthern, R. The making of the Middle Ages. (2003).Bailyn, J. The ideological origins of the American Revolution. (1992).


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Origins of the state as a security arrangementThe modern state was, in its origins, an important security arrangement and despite the many other roles we now attribute to states (for instance, providers of welfare, justice, prosperity and so forth) security remains a primary consideration. The medieval Europe out of which the first states emerged was characterised by profound insecurity. The so-called pax romana of the Roman Empire (the long era of peace in Europe that characterised the first and second centuries AD) was long gone and in its wake existed a series of competing authorities, secular as well as ecclesiastical. Europe in the Middle Ages was thus more or less in a condition of deep disunity and political chaos. A variety of strong and weak rulers jostled for control over territory and population. Political jurisdictions were fluid and as a result usually too ineffectual to create much stability. As R.G. Southern notes:

Areas of authority shaded into each other and overlaid each other with little relation either to geography or history. No political boundaries survived in their entirety the death of a ruler; they were all subject to the chances of domestic change, marriage, dowry, partition, death and forfeiture.1

Even the law itself was uncertain. Instead of a unified legal order there existed a jumble of competing and frequently contradictory laws and customs − some of it based on the remnants of Roman law, some on ecclesiastical law, some on ancient barbaric codes. Justice was largely a do-it-yourself affair and therefore frequently arbitrary. For example, the ‘blood feud’ whereby the family of a murdered person could exact revenge on the family of the murderer persisted in penal law (albeit with increasing restrictions) until it was finally extinguished by royal prerogative in the twelfth century. Violence was commonplace and, as Thomas Hobbes so eloquently put it, the life of man ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. The state emerged as a way of imposing order and control on this hitherto chaotic social condition.

Security of the princeIn its earliest form, the state was a dynastic possession − quite literally the personal property of the prince. By claiming sovereignty or final and absolute authority in the political community, the princes of early modern Europe were able to impose a single, unified political will – namely their own. The idea of sovereignty thus gave legal authority and moral purpose to the state-building endeavours of these dynastic princes: rex est imperator in regno suo – ‘the king is emperor in his own realm’ became the motto of the age. At the beginning and throughout their history, the great dynastic families of Europe − Tudor, Valois, Bourbon, Hapsburg, Wittlesbach, Hohenzollern, Savoy, Romanov, and so forth. – were motivated by territory, wealth, prestige and power. Their political purpose was to consolidate and wherever possible extend their dynastic possessions. This objective they accomplished through war, conquest, purchase, inheritance, marriage, diplomacy, duplicity, and the legal and illegal confiscation of feudal vassals’ property.

In this world view, security of the state was synonymous with security of the prince. The state was the personal property of the prince, and the prince would use violence to defend and indeed extend that property. Accordingly, dynastic princes were prepared to act ruthlessly against those who challenged their new-found sovereign authority.

1 R.G. Southern, The making of the Middle Ages. (London: Pimlico 1993), p.18.


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The so-called ‘Catholic monarchs’ Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain (1479–1516) expelled 170,000 Jews who refused their order to be baptised. Henry VIII of England (1491–1547) imprisoned and executed those who would not sign his Act of Supremacy establishing the English monarch as head of the Church of England, including even his ‘good friend’ Thomas More. Louis XIV of France (1638−1715) repeatedly resorted to internal violence (repressive taxation, pillage, military subjugation, etc.) against those provinces that opposed his centralising policies. Thus security for the prince did not always translate into security for the people over whom he ruled and might in fact cause them profound insecurity.

Security of the peopleFor the security of the people to take precedence over security of the prince, a new understanding of political authority was required. The principle of popular sovereignty began to emerge in England in the late seventeenth century but was not fully formulated until the second half of the eighteenth century. At about this time, the medieval theory of authority and its concomitant political identities of sovereign and subject were increasingly questioned by political theorists and reformers. Initially, this challenge came from English parliamentarians and political philosophers in the context of the Civil War of the 1640s. This new way of conceptualising political authority led to the conclusion that such power could not safely be entrusted to just one man, or even to a few men, because the temptation to abuse it would be too great. Instead, it was argued that sovereignty should properly be vested in parliament which was ‘neither one nor few’.

It was this view of political authority which triumphed in England in what has become known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688−89. At that time, the English Parliament deposed the reigning Stuart monarch (James II) and replaced him with the Dutch Prince William of Orange and his wife Mary Stuart (daughter of James I), who jointly acceded to the English throne as William III and Mary II. The only justification which could convincingly be made for such a radical act was that ultimate sovereignty resided in the people not the prince and thus Parliament as representative of the people could transfer it from one prince to another when circumstances required. A century later, the American and French revolutionaries explained themselves in precisely these terms. As James Madison wrote in 1792:

In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example and France has followed it, of charters of power granted by liberty.2

It is at this point in the history of political ideas that the concept of the nation achieves political salience. Who are the people in whom sovereignty ultimately resides? The people are the nation and the state exists as an expression of the national will. ‘The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation. No body and no individual may exercise authority which does not emanate from the nation expressly’ (Article 3, 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen).

Activity

Read either the 1789 French Declaration on the Rights of Man and the Citizen, www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/rightsof.htm, or the 1776 American Declaration of Independence, www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/declare.htm, and then answer the following questions.

2 J. Bailyn, The ideological origins of the American Revolution. (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1992), p.55


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1. On what basis do these revolutionary declarations criticise the security of the prince?

2. How do they characterise the security of the people?

3. Is this characterisation still valid today?

The security implications of this new formulation of authority are immense. Henceforth, the state would belong to the people and not to the prince. Consequently, the people were no longer the object of security policy but instead its central subject. Nowhere is this transformation more apparent than in the idea of a popular right of rebellion against tyrannical government.

For a nation thus abused to arise unanimously and to resist their prince, even to the dethroning of him, is not criminal but a reasonable way of vindicating their liberties and just rights.3

It was just such a right which the American and French revolutionaries claimed as justification for their actions.

Activity

Read Bain Chapters 5 and 9, then answer the following questions.

1. What view of security is reflected in the doctrine of self-determination?

2. Have demands for self-determination supported or subverted the national security of existing states?

3. What kind of national security policies have been directed at problems of ethnic and cultural diversity within states?

4. Is the personal security of the majority compatible with the personal security of the minority? Why or why not?

Nation states and national securityAs a result, from the time of the American and French revolutions onwards, the dominant security paradigm has viewed the state, now styled the nation state, to reflect its popular basis, as the fundamental source of social belonging and ergo also personal well-being. The nation state in the Western liberal tradition is understood as an extension of the will of the individual citizens who comprise it and thus becomes the supreme moral association within society. Its raison d’être is to preserve and promote just relations among the citizenry, thereby ensuring that they remain free and equal.

A well-governed nation state is a formidable security organisation. It is for this reason that the nation state ultimately replaced clans, tribal societies, fiefdoms, free cities, medieval guilds, duchies, dynastic states and even empires, among others, to become the basic form of modern political organisation. The nation state performs this central task by acting as an effective and impartial arbiter within society.

In all of this, it is crucial to remember that according to liberal political theory the state not only belongs to the nation but is in fact a creation of the nation. In other words, the state is not meant to be a remote entity separate from and imposing itself upon the nation. Far from it, it is through the nation state that citizens guarantee their own security, individual as well as collective. Personal security thus becomes dependent upon and even analogous to national security. In contrast, insecurity is understood as an external threat located outside the state/citizen relationship: therefore in theory (if not in fact) the state cannot pose a threat to its own citizens whose personal interests are synonymous with

3 Jonathan Mayhew, 1750, as quoted in Bailyn, p.93.


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state interests. This ideal is captured by the Latin expression: ubi bene, ibi patria: ‘where it is well with me, there is my country’.

For the national security paradigm to hold true, the coercive power of the state should be used as a last resort and as rarely as possible. In other words, the state is legitimate only in so far as its coercive power ‘affects most people marginally, negligibly, and indirectly, while its full might is meted out to a relatively small (and in principle) indefinite group of ‘law-breakers’.4 That is the ideal, and in many states it closely corresponds to historical reality. We might even go so far as to say that the history of such countries in the period since 1945 bears out the liberal idea that a secure state is the ultimate foundation for the ‘good life’. Citizens of such states – examples include the member states of the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, among others – enjoy the highest standards of living in the history of humankind. These are of course highly internationalised nation states, whose populations benefit greatly from common security arrangements (NATO, etc.) as well as economic unions (like the European Union and the North American Free Trade Association) and internationally institutionalised free trade (GATT, WTO), etc. This enviable condition owes much to the state’s ability to create and maintain a secure society in which individual freedom is protected.

Activity

Read Buzan Chapters 1 and 2 and then answer the following questions.

1. What does the state exist to do?

2. What is the state’s relationship to the society which it contains?

3. How does the maximal state differ from the minimal state?

4. Is either kind of state more conducive to personal security and, if so, on what basis?


• describe and examine why the state is viewed as a formidable security organisation

• describe and analyse the relationship between popular sovereignty and the security of the people

• explain what conditions must be satisfied for the ideal of national security to be achieved.

Sample examination questions1. Should citizens have a right of rebellion against governments who do

not protect their personal security?

2. Under what circumstances does popular identity become a focus of security policies?

3. Do you agree with the suggestion that it is in practice impossible to distinguish between ‘national security’ and the security interests of political leaders?

4 Berkhi, p.53

Notes


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Chapter 3: National security: current issues and contemporary application

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Aims of the chapterThe aim of this chapter is to examine the paradigm of national security and current issues associated with its application. In so doing we will discuss:

• the reciprocal security obligation between the nation state and its citizens

• the kinds of policies associated with national security

• national security and deterrence

• national security and anti-terrorist measures

• national security in totalitarian states

• national security in weak, failed or quasi-states.


• describe the relationship between popular identity and national security

• identify what conditions must be satisfied for the ideal of national security to be achieved

• give examples of states that do not satisfy the ideal of national security and describe how they fall short of this ideal.

Essential readingHough Understanding global security. Chapters 2 and 3.Buzan People, states and fear. Chapters 3 and 6.

Further readingAyoob, M. ‘The security problematique of the Third World’, World Politics 43(2)

1991.Ayoob, M. ‘Subaltern realism: international relations theory meets the Third

World’, in Stephanie Neuman (ed.) International Relations Theory and the Third World. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005) first edition [ISBN 0312177062] pp.31−54.

California Senate Office of Research, The Patriot Act, Other Post 9/11 Enforcement Powers and the Impact on California’s Muslim Communities 2004, www.sen.ca.gov/publications/subject/IMMIG.txt

Enriquez, Juan ‘Too many flags?’ Foreign Policy 116 1999 pp.30−49. European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia: the impact of 7 July bomb

attacks on Muslim communities in the EU. (2005). http://eumc.europa.eu/eumc/material/pub/London/London-Bomb-attacks-EN.pdf

Human Rights Watch In the name of counter-terrorism: human rights abuses worldwide. http://hrw.org/un/chr59/counter-terrorism-bck.pdf (2003).

Sørensen, G. ‘War and state-making: why doesn’t it work in the Third World?’ Security Dialogue 32 (3) 2001 pp.341−54.


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Works citedAssessing the new normal: liberty and security for the post-September 11

United States (2003). www.humanrightsfirst.org/pubs/descriptions/AssessingAssessing theNewNormal.pdf

Sanctioned bias: racial profiling since 9/11 (New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 2004).

United States Congress Uniting and strengthening America by providing appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct Terrorism Act (US Patriot Act), 2001, http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/terrorism/hr3162.pdf

National security as a reciprocal arrangementThe nation state defines the standard of acceptable conduct within which citizens can pursue their own ends free from outside interference. This is often presented as a reciprocal arrangement. To understand national security in this way draws our attention to the fact that the nation state, and specifically its agents and representatives, is given a monopoly on the use of force only insofar as it is necessary to protect against harmful intervention and punish those who violate the common legal framework. In other words, the underlying rationale here is one of force used only for the public good and not for personal power or aggrandizement. Public officials are therefore responsible for providing both national security and personal security and they can be held to account for neglecting or failing to fulfil their security mandate. At the same time, citizens can be condemned for ignoring or violating any reasonable security demands placed upon them.

That reciprocal security obligation between the nation state and its citizens is the normative basis upon which the nation state’s claim to be a protector of the people is often justified. From this perspective, the nation state is the provider of peace, order and – by implication – good governance. The term ‘national security’ has thus come to refer to all those public policies through which the nation state ensures its survival as a separate and sovereign community and, in so doing, the safety and prosperity of its citizens.

National security policiesPolicies taken to ensure national security may be of an economic, political or military nature. And they may be either internally or externally directed. National security measures thus include, among others: maintaining effective armed forces; implementing anti-terrorist measures; ensuring civil and emergency defences; using intelligence to detect and counter external attack and internal subversion; using diplomacy to strengthen alliances and isolate threats; and using economic power to encourage cooperation and isolate or weaken political rivals. For example, the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America singles out ‘defending our [American] Nation against its enemies’ as the ‘the first and fundamental commitment of the [US] Federal Government’. To do that, the US government says it will ‘make use of every tool in our arsenal − military power, better homeland defences, law enforcement, intelligence, and vigorous efforts to cut off terrorist financing.’1 In a similar vein, the United Kingdom’s Home Office acknowledges that it is ‘responsible for keeping the UK safe from any threat to our national security. We work with the police and security agencies to ensure we do all we can to prevent any harm coming to our country or our people.’2 National security statements like these may be found in the public documentation of most Western states.

1 www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssintro.html

2 www.homeoffi ce.gov.uk/security/


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Activity

Read Buzan Chapters 3 and 6 and Hough Chapters 2 and 3, then answer the following questions.

1. Explain the distinction between domestic security and external security.

2. Why is this distinction crucial to an understanding of national security?

3. How does non-state violence differ from state violence?

4. What type of violence constitutes the gravest threat to national security today?

5. Does the same answer hold true for developed states and developing states? Why or why not?

National security and deterrenceAs we noted in Chapter 1, deterrence is one of the key means of achieving security. Policies of deterrence are commonly employed by states as part of their national security strategies. A deterrent is a threat of retaliation such that would-be aggressors are dissuaded from attacking in order to avoid subsequent damage to themselves. Economic sanctions, conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction or any combination of these may be used as deterrents. Such an approach to security is epitomised in Cold War policies like ‘mutually assured destruction’ whereby both the US and the USSR knew that a nuclear attack by one side would result in immediate retaliation and annihilation by the other.

However, deterrence theory also has its weaknesses. Deterrence assumes that would-be attackers are keen to avoid harm to themselves. But this rationale may not always apply. Some governments (e.g., of totalitarian states) may be less concerned than others (e.g., liberal democracies) with keeping their military personnel and civilian populations safe. Similarly, perceptions of threat may vary according to other influences unrelated to the deterrent (e.g., diplomatic misunderstandings and/or opposing political ideologies). Finally, policies of deterrence may lead to an arms race between rival states, which in turn may increase rather than decrease the risk of actual war. In this way, policies of deterrence may produce what Barry Buzan calls a ‘defence dilemma’ (see Chapter 6 of People, states and fear) wherein military power subverts rather than supports national security.

Activity

Read the 1967 ‘Mutual deterrence’ speech by then American Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara at www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/Deterrence.shtml and then abswer the following questions.

1. How does McNamara characterise the threat posed by the Soviet Union to the United States at that time?

2. Why does McNamara believe ‘mutual deterrence’ is an appropriate response to that threat? Do you find his reasons convincing. Why or why not?

National security and the war on terrorIn extreme circumstances (war or threat of war), even liberal democracies may restrict the civil liberties of resident aliens and sometimes also their own national citizens. We see evidence of such policies in the American response to the threat of international terrorism after 9/11. A 2003 report by the Washington-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights documents post-September 11 restrictions in several key policy areas,


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including government openness, personal privacy, immigration and security-related detention.3 Most notorious of these are perhaps the set of extra-legal institutions established by executive order to bypass the federal judiciary in cases relating to the ‘war on terror’. In such circumstances, the nation state may single out certain individuals for security-related reasons. For example, the American Civil Liberties Union claims that security screening of immigrants and refugees since 9/11 has disproportionately targeted males who fit a specific ‘racial or ethnic profile’ (i.e. of Arab origin).4

Activity

Read the US Patriot Act, 2001, http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/terrorism/hr3162.pdf and the California Senate Office report on its impact on California’s Muslims, 2004, www.sen.ca.gov/sor/reports/REPORTS_BY_SUBJ/PUBLIC_SAFETY_JUDICIARY/PATRIOTACT.PDF.

Then reflect on the following: Are anti-terrorist measures which disproportionately affect particular groups in society justifiable? Why or why not?

In other words, even where its function more or less corresponds with the liberal ideal, national security comes at a price. Citizens must pay for their security. They do that in their taxes, in their obligation to obey the law, in the requirement to perform military duty in times of war or threat of war, and in accepting certain incursions into their usual civil liberties when circumstances require it.

The price of security is not without its controversies. In a liberal democracy there will always be those who claim the price is too high because the perceived gain in national security does not justify the necessary infringement of individual freedom needed to sustain it. We see exactly this sort of argument at work in public criticism directed at post-9/11 anti-terrorist measures in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. For example, the United Kingdom’s 2006 Terrorism Act allows groups or organisations to be banned for glorifying terrorism or distributing publications that advocate it.5 Human rights campaigners argued the law was drawn far too widely and as a result it faced stiff opposition in the British House of Lords. Members of the House of Lords were worried that such restrictions constituted an unjustifiable infringement on the freedom of speech and rejected the proposal five times before finally voting it through in March 2006. Liberal Democrat and Conservative Members of Parliament also voted against the 2006 Terrorism Bill, arguing that existing legislation already covered the glorification offence.

National security in authoritarian statesOutside Western liberal democracies, the potential incompatibility of national security and personal security is arguably even greater. In authoritarian or police states like the German Democratic Republic (communist ‘East Germany’) or the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (communist North Korea), security for the rulers may translate into profound insecurity for the ruled. Communist rule in the German Democratic Republic was only sustained by the very real possibility of military intervention by the Red Army. The threat of such intervention effectively prevented any democratic opposition from arising. And it was only after the Brezhnev Doctrine

3 Assessing the new normal: liberty and security for the post-September 11 United States (Washington, D.C.: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 2003). www.humanrightsfi rst.org/pubs/descriptions/AssessingAssessing theNewNormal.pdf

4 Sanctioned bias: racial profi ling since 9/11 (New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 2004). www.aclu.org/Files/OpenFile.cfm?id=15101

5 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4905304.stm


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(which made it an obligation of communist countries to intervene in support of communist rule elsewhere) was publicly repudiated by the Soviet Union in 1989 in favour of the so-called ‘Sinatra Doctrine’ (they do it their way) that communist rule in Eastern Europe came to an end.

Activity

Read the 1968 speech by then Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1968brezhnev.html and then answer the following questions.

1. Is Brezhnev responding to a threat of state violence or non-state violence?

2. Is Soviet policy as described by Brezhnev representative of a maximal state or a minimal state?

3. On what basis did Brezhnev justify Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia?

4. Do you think this intervention was conducive to the national security of Czechoslovakia? Why or why not?

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is another authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party continues to rule by maintaining a tight grip on society. Chinese Communist Party members hold almost all top government, police and military positions. Continued rule of the Chinese Communist Party and its hierarchy relies on the control of public officials, the media and the security apparatus, and the continued improvement in the living standards of most of the country’s citizens. In theory, the constitution guarantees an independent judiciary; but , in practice, the ruling Chinese Communist Party frequently intervenes in the judicial process, and even direct verdicts in many high-profile political cases. The net result of all this is that the Chinese people lack the freedom to express political opposition and the right to change their political leaders or form of government. Nowhere is this fact more powerfully revealed than in the brutal suppression of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations of 1989.

In a similar vein, the communist government of North Korea has long used rationing as a means to control its population. By banning people from buying and selling grain, it has forced them to rely on the state for their most basic needs. This policy has proven very effective at ensuring the political survival of Kim Jong-il and the Korean Worker’s Party. But the price for their security has been a widespread famine and consequent suffering for the people of North Korea.

Security in weak, failed or quasi-statesAlternatively, in what are variously referred to as weak or failed or quasi-states, there is in effect no civil rule and instead circumstances closely approximate what Thomas Hobbes referred to as the ‘state of nature’ which is a ‘war of all against all’ in an unending struggle for survival. States are generally deemed ‘successful’ when they are able to maintain effective control over territory and population through a monopoly on the legitimate use of force – indeed, this was the classic, nineteenth-century definition of sovereignty. Conversely, when states cannot satisfy these basic criteria, their statehood becomes suspect. States may fail when rival actors such as warlords or popular militias usurp some of their governmental powers, in particular the monopoly of force. States are also said to fail in those circumstances where they are rendered ineffective because of high crime rates, extreme corruption, a powerful ‘black (unregulated) market’, judicial ineffectiveness, military interference in politics, or in cultural


34

situations where traditional leaders have more authority than the state in a certain area of competency or regional jurisdiction.

Domestic circumstances in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Sierra Leone and the Sudan have in recent years all been characterised by conditions of armed conflict, famine, disease and refugees. Consequently, these are widely acknowledged to be ‘failed states.’

Activity

Read the following article on the 2006 Failed States Index: www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/failed/2006/0502failedindex.htm and then answer the following questions.

1. What criterion was used by the Failed States Index to rank the relative success and failure of states?

2. What paradigm of security is reflected in this criterion?

3. Why was Sudan identified as the ‘most failed’ state?

Significantly, these four are far from being isolated cases: according to the 2005 Failed States Index compiled by Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace, ‘about 2 billion people live in insecure states, with varying degrees of vulnerability to widespread civil conflict.’6 In other words, for somewhere in the region of 2 billion men, women and children worldwide, national security has failed to guarantee personal security. This statistic is a very damning indictment of the national security paradigm. And it calls into question the very basis upon which security is understood in the liberal tradition – the nation state is a tremendous boon to personal security in some places, but in very many others it is tremendous liability.


• describe the relationship between popular identity and national security

• identify what conditions must be satisfied for the ideal of national security to be achieved

• give examples of states who do not satisfy the ideal of national security and describe how they fall short of this ideal.

Sample examination questions1. Are the security requirements of maximal states fundamentally

different from those of minimal states?

2. Does the current security focus on international terrorism reinforce or weaken personal security?

6 www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3098

Chapter 4: International society as a security arrangement

35


Aims of the chapterThe aim of this chapter is to examine the origins of international society as a security arrangement and describe how the paradigm of international security functions to preserve order within it. In so doing we will discuss:

• what constitutes an international society

• the problem of disorder within international society

• the main features of international security.


• explain how anarchy gives rise to problems of international security

• describe how international society operates as a security arrangement

• describe and evaluate the role of the great powers in maintaining international security

• critically discuss the application of the balance of power and concert of great powers.

Essential readingBain The empire of security and the safety of the people. Chapter 4.Buzan People, states and fear. Chapters 4 and 5.

Further readingBuzan, B. ‘International security and international society’, in Rick Fawn,

Jeremy Larkin and Robert Newman (eds), International society after the Cold War. (London: Macmillan, 1996) first edition [ISBN 0312161042].

Buzan, B. The United States and the great powers.Cerny, P. ‘The new security dilemma: divisibility, defection and disorder in the

global era’, Review of International Studies 26(4) (2000) pp.623−46. Jervis, R. ‘Security regimes’, International Organisation 36(2) 1982.Jervis, R. ‘From balance to concert: a study of international security

cooperation’, World Politics 38(1) 1985.Mayall, J. (ed.) The new interventionism. (2003).Sheehan, M. International security: an analytical survey. (Boulder Col.: Lynne

Rienner, 2005) first edition [ISBN 1588262731] Chapter 3.Wendt, A. ‘Why a world state is inevitable’, European Journal of International

Relations 9(4) (2003) pp.491−542.

Works citedBull, H. The anarchical society. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003)

third edition [ISBN 0231127634].Bull, H. ‘Society and anarchy in international relations’, in M. Wight and H.

Butterfield (eds) Diplomatic investigations. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968) first edition [ISBN 0674210018] pp.37.


36

International society and the problem of disorderAs you will recall from Introduction to international relations, ‘international society’ can be defined in different ways. What distinguishes this approach to international relations from others is the belief that relations between states are subject to mutual regulation. Thus, although proponents of this view readily acknowledge that there is no single, global source of authority analogous to a government within a domestic state, they nevertheless insist that international relations remain subject to rules which give rise to some degree of order and certainty. States which form an international society agree to conduct their sovereign affairs in accordance with specified normative standards; these include, for example, non-intervention, pacta sunt servanta, the procedures of international law, the customs and conventions of war and the practice of diplomacy. The common objective of these various rules is the preservation of international order defined as the continued existence of international society as a whole − although not necessarily the independence of particular states.1

Significantly, from the outset, international society has struggled with the problem of disorder and its concomitant insecurity – indeed, international society itself is seen as a response to the breakdown of order within early modern Europe. Accordingly, it is said to originate in the:

disintegration of a single community [the imperium of Pope and Emperor], the waning on the one hand of central authorities, and on the other hand of local authorities, within Western Christendom, and the exclusion of both from particular territories by the princely power.2

The Thirty Years War (1618−48) began as an internal dispute within the Holy Roman Empire with Protestant princes asserting the right to determine religious policy within their territories despite opposition from the Catholic Emperor. Rex est imperator in regno suo (‘the king is emperor in his own realm’) became the rallying cry of those who would assert the sovereign power of the princes. The demand for what we would today describe as sovereignty and non-intervention was a fundamental challenge to the previous political order of medieval Catholic Christendom and for this reason, the Thirty Years War quickly spread to become the first pan-European conflict. The war was essentially fought to ensure that Europe, and eventually the rest of the world, would henceforth be organised on an anti-hegemonial basis. Thus, it is at this time where we first see what has come to be know as the ‘balance of power’ in operation – Catholic France allied with Protestant Sweden and in opposition to Catholic Spain.

War on a continental scale unavoidably creates intolerable insecurity for mass numbers of people. Many lost their lives due to atrocities committed by mercenary soldiers. Many more perished because of the disease and famine which followed in the wake of the fighting. When it was finally over, as much as 15–20 per cent of the pre-war population of what is now Germany was dead. This, then, was exactly the ‘war of all against all’ which Thomas Hobbes had warned was unavoidable in the absence of sovereign power. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia restored order to Europe after the Thirty Years War. In so doing, it also gave final form to the international society that had been slowly developing over the previous century. The Peace of Westphalia enshrined the principle of cuius regio eius religio (‘like sovereign, like religion’) so as to prevent religious diversity being used as a pretext for war. Since then, ‘non-intervention’ has remained the basic norm of international society and the balance of power

1 Hedley Bull The anarchical society. (London: Macmillan, 1977), pp.16–17,

2 Bull, ‘Society and anarchy in international relations’, in Martin Wight and Herbert Butterfi eld, (eds), Diplomatic Investigations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968), p.37.


37

its basic political principle. From 1648 onwards, international society has sought to preserve an always precarious international security by ensuring that the foundation principles of international law are respected and the balance of power is maintained.

Activity

Read the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/westphal.htm and then answer the following questions.

1. What features, if any, of the international security paradigm are apparent in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia?

2. Why do you think the Peace of Westphalia is widely cited as the origin of contemporary international society?

3. Does it deserve this reputation? Why or why not?

International securityThe international security paradigm aspires towards a general condition of peace, order and lawfulness within the society of states. The preservation of international security is an obligation incumbent upon all states which are members of international society. Nevertheless, in practice primary responsibility for providing international security has come to rest on those states were refer to as ‘great powers’. It is precisely their disproportionate power which gives these states their unique position within international society. Disproportionate power can be used for good or ill. For example, only a great power has the potential to become a hegemony. But at the same time, only a great power will have the capability to take effective measures, including ultimately military intervention, against those states whose actions threaten international security. A recurring problem of international security is that of ensuring that all of the great powers remain good international citizens who act to support and not to subvert international law and the balance of power. On those occasions when a great power begins to act as an international bully or outlaw, international security is put at risk and the potential for catastrophic war increases. The great powers more or less acted in concert for most of the nineteenth century following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 − although not without a few notable exceptions such as the Crimean War between Britain, France and Russia (1853−56) and the Franco-Prussian war (1870−71). In contrast, for most of the twentieth century (roughly 1914−89), the great powers were divided. Some powers sought to preserve the status quo (United Kingdom, France and the United States) while others at various times wanted to revise the rules of international relations in their own favour (Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union). International security could not be maintained in the presence of this great-power rivalry, and so it degenerated into two world wars (1914−18 and 1939−45) and an armed stalemate that we refer to as the Cold War (1947−89).

The balance of power and the concert of great powersThere are two related political principles which are intended to preserve international security – the balance of power and the concert of the great powers.3 The balance of power is a political and not a mechanical idea, as the famous definition by Vattel makes clear: ‘a state of affairs such that no one power is in a position where it is preponderant and can lay down the law to others’.4 The balance of power is designed to protect the pluralist values of international society from the threat of would be hegemonies

3 Global covenant, pp.201–05.

4 Bull, The anarchical society, p.97.


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bent on creating a world empire or imposing their own view of global governance. The idea of a concert of great powers follows on from this: it envisions that the great powers will cooperate to preserve international peace and security.

Both the balance of power and the concert of the great powers have a long history in international relations: there are intimations of them as far back as the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and they are readily apparent in the so-called nineteenth-century Concert of Europe system that was created to preserve the post-Napoleonic peace. Both ideas were deliberately incorporated into Second World War proposals for a new international order to preserve the eventual peace. The subsequent United Nations Charter of 1945 was created by the victorious Allied powers under the leadership of the United States and with the support, or at least the tacit acceptance, of all sovereign states. The United Nations, like its predecessor the League of Nations, was an attempt to formally institutionalise the key tenets of international society. Great Power responsibilities are defined in Chapter 7 of the UN Charter: ‘The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall… decide what measures shall be taken… to maintain or restore international peace and security’. Here we see all the key elements of international security. The Security Council is effectively a permanently institutionalised concert of great powers. The five great victorious powers of 1945 are the permanent members of the Security Council and the intention is for them to act together in defence of international law and the balance of power. The pre-eminence accorded to the Security Council reflects the basic premise that international peace and security are a special responsibility of the great powers. The remit of the Security Council includes any actions which threaten or violate international peace and security. It is up to the Security Council to ‘restore international peace and security’ when it has been disrupted. Finally, Articles 41 and 42 give the Security Council the power to decide on international security policies, including the use of military force against another state.

Activity

Read Bain Chapter 4 and Buzan Chapters 4 and 5, then answer the following questions.

1. How does international anarchy define the basic framework of international security?

2. What is the difference between immature anarchy and mature anarchy?

3. Why do the great powers occupy a special position within international society? Is this justified?

4. Do you agree with the suggestion that the balance of power is no longer relevant? Why or why not?


• explain how anarchy gives rise to problems of international security

• describe how international society operates as a security arrangement

• describe and evaluate the role of the great powers in maintaining international security

• critically discuss the application of the balance of power and concert of great powers.


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Sample examination questions1. Is ‘international security’ simply the watchword of the status quo

powers?

2. Does international security require a balance of power? Or can it be maintained even in the presence of a hegemony?

Notes


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Chapter 5: International security: current issues and contemporary application

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Aims of the chapterThe aim of this chapter is to examine current issues associated with international security. In so doing we will discuss:

• evidence of success, failure and ambiguity in the application of international security

• various reasons why international security is difficult to achieve.


• outline the policies associated with international security

• distinguish between status quo and revisionist powers

• define hegemony and discuss its significance for international security

• explain how international security may be a proximate cause of personal insecurity in weak, failed or quasi-states.

Essential readingBain The empire of security and the safety of the people. Chapter 3.Buzan People, states and fear. Chapters 6 and 7.Hough Understanding global security. Chapter 6.‘The lessons of Somalia – not everything went wrong’ by Chester A. Crocker,

Foreign Affairs, Vol. 74, No.3 (1995) available online at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ambush/readings/lessons.html

‘The lessons of Somalia – not everything went wrong’ by Chester A. Crocker, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 74, No.3 (1995) available online atwww.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ambush/readings/lessons.html

Further readingBodansky, D. ‘The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference: a post-mortem’,

American Journal of International Law (2010), available online at http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:dwsH6D5JBzwJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=2001&as_ylo=2009&as_yhi=2010&as_subj=soc

Economides, S. and M. Berdal (eds) United Nations interventionism, 1991−2004. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) first edition [ISBN 9780521547673]. Chapter 3.

Giddens, A. Politics of climate change. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009) first edition, [ISBN 074564693X].

Hendrickson, D. ‘The curious case of American hegemony: imperial aspirations and national decline’, World Policy Journal, Summer 2004 pp.1−22.

Herz, J.H. ‘The security dilemma in international relations: background and present problems’, International Relations 17(4) 2003 pp.411−16.

Holsti, K.J. Peace and war. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) first edition [ISBN 0521390486] Chapter 6.

Ignatieff, M. ‘Empire lite’, Prospect 83 2003 pp.36−43.


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Ikenberry, G.J. (ed.) America unrivaled: the future of the balance of power. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002) first edition [ISBN 0801488028].

Jackson, R. Quasi-states: sovereignty, international relations and the Third World. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) first edition [ISBN 0521447836] pp.50−109.

Jackson, R. and Rosberg, C. (1982) ‘Why Africa’s weak states persist: the empirical and the juridical in statehood’, World Politics 35(1) pp.1−24.

Kaldor, M. ‘American power: from “compellance” to cosmopolitanism’, International Affairs 79(1) 2003 pp.1–22.

Mallaby, S. ‘The reluctant imperialist: terrorism, failed states and the case for American empire’, Foreign Affairs 81(2) 2002.

James Mayall, (ed.), The new interventionism 1991–94: United Nations experience in Cambodia, former Yugoslavia and Somalia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Morgan, P. International security: problems and solutions. (CQ Press, 2006) first edition [ISBN 1568025874].

Simpson, J. ‘The nuclear non-proliferation regime: back to the future? UNIDIR Disarmament Forum 1 2004 pp.1−12.

Simpson, J. Nuclear non-proliferation: an agenda for the 1990s. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) [ISBN 0521127106].

The international security paradigm in operationThere are several contemporary examples one can point to which demonstrate the basic features of the international security paradigm in operation. In some of these cases, the great powers acted in concert to maintain the balance of power and preserve international order. Other examples are less straightforward and instead reveal the potential limitations of the international security paradigm.

Military intervention

The (first) Gulf War: a success?The international response to the (first) Gulf War of 1990−91 is representative of the way in which international security was intended to operate.1 The first Security Council resolution on the crisis (Resolution 660) acknowledged ‘that there exists a breach of international peace and security as regards the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait’. Resolution 660 demanded that Iraq withdraw its forces ‘immediately and unconditionally’ from Kuwait, and urged Iraq and Kuwait to resolve their differences through negotiations. All subsequent actions by the UN followed on from resolution 660, including the authorisation of armed force (resolution 678. A coalition of states was formed under American military leadership to expel the Iraqi army from Kuwait. This military action to defend the sovereignty of Kuwait and punish Iraq for its unlawful aggression against Kuwait received widespread support from the members of international society. In sum, on this occasion the great powers acted in concert and according to the principles laid out in the United Nations Charter. As a result of the American-led military campaign (itself duly authorised by the United Nations and supported and assisted by the international coalition), Iraqi forces withdrew from Kuwait and the political and territorial status quo in the Middle East was restored.

1 For a more extended commentary on this example, see the discussion in The global covenant, pp.260–63.


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Somalia: a failure?In contrast, the international response to civil war in Somalia during the early 1990s discloses some of the pitfalls associated with international security.2 In this case, great-power involvement was rather more tentative and the outcome more limited. Whereas the First Gulf War is universally hailed as a success, international involvement in Somalia is generally considered to be a failure.

The downfall of President Siad Barre in January 1991 resulted in a power struggle and clan clashes in many parts of Somalia. The hostilities resulted in widespread death and destruction. As a result, almost one million Somalis sought refuge in neighbouring states. The political chaos, deteriorating security situation, widespread banditry and looting, and extent of physical destruction compounded the crisis and severely constrained the delivery of humanitarian aid. Moreover, the conflict threatened stability in the Horn of Africa region, and its continuation occasioned threats to international peace and security in the area.

In 1991, the UN Secretary-General dispatched an envoy to Somalia in the hope of brokering a peace agreement. The United Nations also became engaged in providing humanitarian aid in cooperation with relief organisations. In April 1992, the UN Security Council established the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM I). The relief effort was hampered by continued fighting and insecurity, so when in November 1992 the United States offered to organise and lead an operation to ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance, the UN Security Council accepted the offer and authorised the use of ‘all necessary means’ to establish a secure environment for the relief effort. The Unified Task Force (UNITAF), made up of contingents from 24 countries led by the United States, quickly secured all major relief centres, and by year’s end humanitarian aid had resumed. UNOSOM remained in Somalia to protect the delivery of humanitarian aid and to encourage political efforts to end the war. But in 1993, the security situation in Somalia began to deteriorate once more. Renewed efforts by the UN Secretary-General to broker a lasting cease-fire failed and so in March 1993 the Security Council revised the original peacekeeping mandate to include the use of force, if necessary, to ensure a stable environment for the delivery of humanitarian assistance (UNOSOM II). In June 1993, 24 UNOSOM II soldiers from Pakistan were killed in an attack in Mogadishu. Further clashes between UNOSOM and Somali militiamen in Mogadishu resulted in casualties among civilians and UNOSOM. In October, 18 United States soldiers of the Quick Reaction Force − deployed in support but not part of UNOSOM − lost their lives in Mogadishu. The United States immediately reinforced its military presence, but later announced that it would withdraw early the next year. Belgium, France and Sweden also decided to withdraw. In 1994, the Security Council revised UNOSOM II’s mandate, stressing assistance for reconciliation and reconstruction, and setting a March 1995 deadline for completion of the mission.

With faction leaders still not complying with the 1993 and 1994 agreements, the Security Council extended UNOSOM for a final period. It urged factions to enact a cease-fire and form a government of national unity. As no further progress was made, UNOSOM withdrew in March 1995. During the three-year effort (UNOSOM I and UNOSOM II), 157 United Nations peacekeeping personnel were killed. Yet even though international involvement in Somalia did not resolve the conflict, these efforts brought relief to millions facing starvation, helped to stop the large-scale killings, assisted in the return of refugees and provided massive

2 For more on Somalia, see James Mayall, (ed.), The new interventionism 1991–94: United Nations experience in Cambodia, former Yugoslavia and Somalia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).


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humanitarian aid. Thus although the requirements of international security may not have been fully satisfied, the human security of many individuals caught up in the conflict was nevertheless improved somewhat.

Activity

Read ‘The lessons of Somalia – not everything went wrong’ by Chester A. Crocker, Foreign Affairs, 74, (3) 1995 available online at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ambush/readings/lessons.html, then reflect on the following: Is ‘failure’ the right term to describe the US and UN military intervention in Somalia? If so, what is it that failed?

Former Yugoslavia: a mixed bag?A more ambiguous case – neither a complete success nor a complete failure of international security − is the international response to the 1992−1995 Bosnian War.3 International involvement here was apparent even before the war began, during which time the European Union-sponsored Badinter Arbitration Commission of international jurists set forth the criteria for recognition of successor states. The war itself was of course a subject of widespread international concern. In 1991, the UN Secretary-General appointed Cyrus Vance, a former United States Secretary of State, as his personal envoy for Yugoslavia. Thereafter, the Secretary-General and his personal envoy maintained constant contact with all the parties to the conflict and with other international actors involved in various diplomatic activities intended to bring about a peaceful settlement to the dispute, including the President of the European Union, and the Chairman of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Chairman of the European Union’s Conference on Yugoslavia. As the war dragged on, a United Nations peacekeeping operation was established by the Security Council (UNPROFOR I for Croatia and UNPROFOR II for Bosnia-Herzegovina) in the hope of creating conditions in which political negotiations for a peaceful settlement might occur. Ultimately, such a settlement was negotiated with the direct involvement of a concert of great powers under the leadership of the United States, but only as the outcome of more determined force by NATO under US leadership as well as by the Croatian and Bosnian armies that the US had helped to arm. The terms of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement between the warring parties − rump Yugoslavia (subsequently Serbia-Montenegro), Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina – were set forth and guaranteed by a group of major powers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Russia. Article I summarises the basic idea of international security:

The Parties shall conduct their relations in accordance with the principles set forth in the United Nations Charter, as well as the Helsinki Final Act and other documents of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. In particular, the Parties shall fully respect the sovereign equality of one another, shall settle disputes by peaceful means, and shall refrain from any action, by threat or use of force or otherwise, against the territorial integrity or political independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina or any other State.

Article X reiterates the principle of inviolability of borders and the territorial integrity of existing states which underscores the pluralist architecture of international society: ‘The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina recognize each other as sovereign independent States within their international borders.’ The agreement was enforced by NATO with Russian participation.

3 For a more detailed discussion, see Economides and Berdal United Nations Interventionism. Chapter 3.


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Activity

Read the Dayton Peace Agreement (1995) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/icty/dayton/daytonframework.html and then answer the following questions.

1. What features, if any, of the international security paradigm are apparent in the Dayton Agreement (1995)?

2. Do you think the Dayton Agreement was conducive to international peace and stability in the Balkans? Why or why not?

Nuclear non-proliferationFrom the beginning of the nuclear era, it was apparent that nuclear weapons technology was a fundamental threat to and thus appropriate subject of international security. The American nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 led to the unconditional surrender of Japan and, in so doing, ended the Second World War. Paradoxically, this nuclear attack simultaneously restored a condition of peace to international society while also opening up the possibility for future nuclear conflicts between states. Indeed, by the early 1950s a nuclear arms race was underway between the United States and the Soviet Union. ‘Nuclear proliferation’ refers to the acquisition and spread of nuclear technology and especially weapons among states. ‘Non-proliferation’ is an omnibus term used to describe all those policies intended to halt or prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

As early as 1946, efforts began to create an international monitoring system for nuclear technology. These efforts came to an abrupt end in 1949 when the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear bomb. In 1953, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower called for the United Nations to take the lead in safeguarding against the spread of nuclear weapons. In 1957, this proposal culminated in the establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was given the dual responsibility for promoting the peaceful use of nuclear technology while also controlling its application to weapons.

The idea of nuclear non-proliferation gained support in the 1960s and a Treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT) was agreed in 1968 and came into effect in 1970. The NPT has as its purpose the prevention of the spread of nuclear weapons beyond the five nuclear states recognised by the treaty (United States, United Kingdom, France, China and the Soviet Union), international cooperation for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and the goal of eventual nuclear disarmament. The NPT provides, in Article X, for a conference to be convened 25 years after its entry into force to decide whether it should continue in force indefinitely, or be extended for an additional fixed period or periods. Accordingly, at the NPT Review and Extension Conference in May 1995, signatory states unanimously agreed on its indefinite extension, and decided that review conferences should continue to be held every five years. The most recent review conference took place in May 2010.

The NPT, with 189 signatories, is the foundation of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime and, as such, a core instrument of international security. But the problem of proliferation persists not least because certain states known to have nuclear capabilities remain outside the NPT regime. North Korea famously withdrew from the NPT in 2003, and (as of 2010) had yet to rejoin. India, Israel and Pakistan are not currently signatories and show no willingness to sign in the foreseeable future. Those who argue that nuclear non-proliferation contributes to international security


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view the control of nuclear weapons as essential to prevent their tactical use by states. Critics counter that instruments of control and detection are mostly ineffective, and instead of acting to prevent the spread of nuclear technology and weapons manufacture they merely encourage states to be clandestine in their nuclear programmes.

Activity

Read John Simpson (2004), ‘The nuclear non-proliferation regime: back to the future? UNIDIR Disarmament Forum 1, available online at www.unidir.org/pdf/articles/pdf-art2015.pdf . Then go to the BBC news page on nuclear non-proliferation for an overview of current controversies, available online at www.bbc.co.uk/search/nuclear_non-proliferation_treaty.

Based on what you have just read, is the NPT a source of or a threat to international security?

Climate changeClimate change, also commonly known as global warming, is now widely recognised as a fundamental threat to humanity and therefore also an important subject of international security. Scientists believe that climate change is already causing more frequent occurrences of drought, flooding and rises in malaria. Other phenomena attributed to climate change are increased incidents of hurricanes and forest fires. Among the potential long-term consequences of climate change are rising sea levels and damage to crops, which could precipitate widespread famine. Some of the most serious effects of climate change are occurring in states least prepared to counter them. For example, African states are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. These environmental concerns may threaten peace and stability between states by, among other things, precipitating mass population movements across frontiers, creating circumstances that facilitate the global spread of disease (pandemics) and engendering conflict between states over access to and control of ever dwindling resources (food, clean water, etc.).

In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted as the basis for an international response to the problem. With 192 signatory states, the convention enjoys near-universal membership. The ultimate objective of the UNFCCC is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.

The UNFCC is augmented by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which has 184 signatories. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted at the Third Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 3) in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997. The Kyoto Protocol has the same goals and mechanisms of the UNFCC. The main distinction between the two, however, is that whereas the convention encouraged industrialised countries to stabilise carbon emissions, the protocol requires them to do so. As part of their Kyoto undertakings, 37 industrialised countries and the member states of the European Union have committed to reducing their carbon emissions by an average of 5 per cent by 2012 against 1990 levels. The UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol are also designed to assist developing countries in adapting to the inevitable effects of climate change. They facilitate the implementation of technologies that can protect against the adverse consequences of climate change – for example, the creation of salt-resistant crops – and encourage the exchange of best practices with regard to adaptation measures.


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The Kyoto Protocol is widely regarded as an important first step towards an international carbon emission reduction regime that will stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations. As a result of the protocol, governments are enacting and implementing legislation to meet their commitments. At the same time, an international carbon market to trade emissions quotas has been created. In sum, the protocol provides much of the essential architecture for any new international agreement or set of agreements on climate change.

Unfortunately, the way forward from Kyoto has not been easy due to conflicting state interests. According to the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, a new international framework on climate change must be negotiated and ratified by 2012. It was hoped that such an agreement would be reached at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as the Copenhagen Conference.After much controversy and recrimination between industrialised and developing states, an accord reached between the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa (now referred to as the Copenhagen Accord) was ‘recognised’ but not formally ‘approved’ by the 193 states represented at the Copenhagen Conference.4 It was also agreed by European and other industrialised countries. The Copenhagen Accord is noteworthy as the first international recognition of climate change as one of the ‘greatest challenges’ confronting the members of international society. It calls upon states to take actions necessary to keep any temperature increases to below 2 degrees Celsius. But due to opposition from China and other countries such as the United States and India this figure is not a formal target. As a result, the final accord states that ‘mitigation actions taken by non-Annex 1 Parties will be subject to their domestic measurement, reporting and verification’ and guidelines ‘will ensure that national sovereignty is respected’.5 The Copenhagen Accord is a declaratory statement and not a binding international document. Consequently, it does not contain any enforceable provisions. States will therefore need to continue to try to put more substance on the outlines of the Copenhagen Accord.

Activity

Read ‘Q&A: The Copenhagen Climate Summit’, available online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8278973.stm and ‘Why did Copenhagen fail to deliver a climate deal’, available online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8422133.stm.

Then reflect on the following:

1. Is there a fundamental contradiction between national interest and the requirements of international security with respect to climate change?

2. Did the great powers (e.g., the United States, China, the European Union) support or subvert international security at the Copenhagen Conference?

3. In your opinion, was the 2009 Copenhagen Conference a ‘success’ or a ‘failure’ and on what basis?

Why international security is difficult to achieveInternational peace and security are a basic value of international society. It is the responsibility of all states, great and small, to respect that fundamental value. But it is the special collective responsibility of the great powers to ensure that the requirements of international peace and security are enforced. The United Nations Security Council exists to give legal form and practical effect to the idea of a concert of great powers acting to preserve international law and the balance of power for the common good

4 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8422307.stm

5 www.iiea.com/blogosphere/copenhagen--a-new-framework-for-climate-chaos


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of international society as a whole. But there are a number of problems associated with the international security paradigm.

Great-power rivalryFor starters, the great powers do not always act in concert. Far from it, they are frequently divided to such a degree that cooperative efforts to protect and promote international security do not occur. This limitation was especially apparent during the Cold War when the permanent members of the Security Council abused their veto power to prevent any action proposed by their Cold War adversaries. Following the end of the Cold War, this deadlock was overcome and the early 1990s saw a number of international security measures sanctioned by the Security Council; several of these were discussed previously. Unfortunately, this new-found willingness to act in concert appears to have been short-lived, and so by the end of the 1990s we once again saw evidence of great-power disunity and obstructionism. In 1999, for example, NATO acted without explicit UN Security Council authorisation to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Unilateral action was taken because of a threat of veto in the Security Council by Russia and China. Paradoxically, NATO later claimed it was acting in support of the Security Council – and by extension international security – even though its actions were not specifically endorsed by the Council.

The priority of national securitySimilarly, the great powers often allow their own national interests to take priority over their international responsibilities. For example, Russia and China’s opposition to intervention in Kosovo resulted from an unwillingness to establish an international precedent that might one day apply to them. Russia’s policy in Chechnya and China’s policy in Tibet could be open to similar international condemnation and reprisal. Perhaps even more controversially, the United States and the United Kingdom intervened in Iraq in 2003 even after attempts to get a UN Security Council resolution authorising military action failed. Such action was ostensibly to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction, which contravened international law. But it soon became apparent that the Bush administration saw the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as a key component of its post-9/11 ‘war on terror’.

The problem of hegemonyMoreover, the (re)emergence or renewal of a single, global superpower – the United States – could put an end to the balance of power. Under the presidency of George W. Bush, American military pre-eminence combined with a new strategy of pre-emption and unilateral action. In stark contrast with the principle of non-intervention, the Bush administration claimed a right, and perhaps even a duty, to impose democracy by force against tyrants.6 Such a duty would of course be a direct challenge to the basic norm of non-intervention and the basic tenets of international law which follow on from it – all of which the international security paradigm is intended to protect. As John Bolton, whom George W. Bush nominated as US Permanent Representative to the United Nations, once remarked:

it is a big mistake… to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so – because, over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States.7

6 David Hendrickson, ‘The curious case of American hegemony: imperial aspirations and national decline’, World Policy Journal, Summer 2004, p.3.

7 As quoted in Hendrickson, p.4.


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And the key threat associated with a hegemony is precisely that – the overthrow of the pluralist international order and the establishment of a solidarist empire in its place. The extent to which we are now witnessing the emergence of an American hegemony is, of course, the subject of much debate among international relations scholars.

Activity

Read David Hendrickson, ‘The curious case of American hegemony: imperial aspirations and national decline’, World Policy Journal, Summer 2004, available online at http://personalwebs.coloradocollege.edu/~dhendrickson/Essays/WPJ_Curious_Case_of_Amer_Hegemony.pdf, then reflect upon the following.

1. What is the Bush Doctrine?

2. Does it represent a rejection of international security, and if so how?

3. In your opinion, will the United States continue to act as a hegemony for the foreseeable future? Or will American foreign policy return to the constraints of international law and multilateralism? Why or why not?

Weak, failed and quasi-statesFinally, in certain circumstances, international security may be a proximate cause of personal insecurity. Since the end of colonialism international society has reinforced the external security and survival of many weak and failed states. Under the United Nations Charter, all states possess a virtual guarantee of non-aggression and non-intervention regardless of their ability to carry out the responsibilities of sovereignty, among which is the provision for peace, order and good government for the peoples within their jurisdictions. The possibility that states might exist as fictions of international law (juridical statehood) in the absence of substantive governing capabilities (empirical statehood) became a noteworthy feature of international society in the second half of the twentieth century. As Robert Jackson has pointed out, that unusual condition is a direct consequence of changes in norms of state recognition connected with the right of self-determination and the abolition of colonialism. It is unprecedented and has no clear parallel with any previous period of modern international history.8

Weak, failed and quasi-states rely upon the general prohibition against aggression and armed intervention underwritten by the UN Charter and reaffirmed by regional organisations like the Organisation for African Unity (OAU). In many of these states the military is more concerned with protecting the political leadership from the people than in protecting the people from external attack. This perverse situation largely results from the universal guarantee of state security underwritten by the United Nations.

Before 1945, the understanding was that states would have to take care of their own security needs. Small or weak states could try to enter into alliances with great powers, but there was no automatic guarantee of their sovereignty or territorial integrity. As a result, many states lost territory and eventually their political independence to great powers with revisionist intentions towards the post-First World War territorial settlement. Examples of such losses include the Japanese occupation of Manchuria (1931), the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (1935) and the German and Hungarian partition of Czechoslovakia (1938/39). As Robert Jackson notes, the security dilemmas experienced by small or weak states during the pre-1939 era is in stark contrast to circumstances post-1945.

8 For an extended analysis of this development, see R. Jackson Quasi-states: sovereignty, international relations and the third world (Cambridge: CUP, 1990).


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The equal state sovereignty of small and weak states was by and large upheld after 1945. The underlying ethos of international security was directly repudiated by many great powers during the inter-war period, and for this more than any other reason, the League of Nations was unable to function as it had originally been intended. No such direct repudiation has occurred after 1945 – neither of the Cold War superpowers nor the would-be post-Cold War American hegemony has clearly or categorically broken with the international security paradigm. And, for all its various shortcomings, the United Nations has not received the same degree of contempt that was heaped upon the League of Nations.

The result of these developments has generally been to maintain the integrity and survival of quasi-states and failed states that otherwise may have ceased to exist. On the surface this might seem to be a good thing – weak states are protected from international predators – but it has also been the proximate cause of much human suffering. Weak, quasi- and failed states are fundamentally flawed in two key respects: there is no effective, central government control over the jurisdiction – instead, the territory is usually ruled by various and often competing regional warlords and, on many occasions, this rivalry degenerates into civil war; governments are generally corrupt and therefore concerned first and foremost with their own personal interests and aspirations. The people in power who possess the guns and in so doing control the wealth and resources are thus relatively secure. But the rest of the population over whom they (mis)rule are fundamentally insecure. This perverse, albeit unintended, consequence of the international security paradigm post-1945 has prompted solidarists to argue that both national and international security are fundamentally flawed because of their inability to protect millions of men, women and children in places like Sudan or Sierra Leone or the Congo, to name only a few examples.

Activity

Read Bain Chapter 3 and Buzan Chapters 6 and 7 and then answer the following questions.

1. Do you agree with the suggestion that force is essential to order in a situation of anarchy?

2. How does collective security differ from national security?

3. Is there a fundamental contradiction between the idea of defence and the idea of security?

4. Does a struggle between status quo and revisionist powers continue to dominate the issue of international security?


• outline the policies associated with international security

• distinguish between status quo and revisionist powers

• define hegemony and discuss its significance for international security

• explain how international security may be a proximate cause of personal insecurity in weak, failed or quasi-states.


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Sample examination questions1. Is war becoming a less important threat to international security?

2. Can international security be achieved in the absence of great power cooperation?

3. Under what circumstances does international security create personal insecurity?

Notes


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Chapter 6: Human security as an alternative to national and international security

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Aims of the chapterThe aim of this chapter is to introduce human security as an alternative to national and international security. In so doing we will:

• compare and contrast state-centred and person-centred approaches to security

• identify and analyse the main instruments of human security.


• distinguish between state-centred and person-centred approaches to security

• identify the main characteristics of human security

• provide examples of human security policies

• discuss the relationship between human security and globalisation.

Essential readingBain The empire of security and the safety of the people. Chapter 8.Buzan People, states and fear. Chapter 9.

Further readingBooth, Ken ‘Security and emancipation’, Review of International Studies 17(4)

1991.Sørensen, Georg ‘Individual security and national security’, Security Dialogue

27(4) 1996 pp.371−86.Suhrke, Astri ‘Human security and the interests of states’, Security Dialogue

30(3) 1999 pp.265−76.

Works citedOur global neighbourhood: the report of the Commission on Global Governance

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p.84.

State-centred approaches to securityBoth the national security and international security paradigms reflect the classic liberal assumption that the state, properly understood, is protector rather than oppressor of its own citizens (although, as previously indicated, the same reasoning does not necessarily apply to non-members including those on the territory of the state who should otherwise be eligible for the rights and protection consequent upon citizenship). For example, in Hobbes’ vision of Leviathan, once the state is coopted by particular, private interests – as in civil war – the social order can no longer be said to exist. In such circumstances, the individual is, once again,


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in the state of nature and therefore subject only to the laws of nature and not to those of the pre-existing social order. Thus, what today is termed a failed state (e.g., Sudan, Somalia, Sierra Leone, etc.) is – in Hobbes’ rendering – not a state at all but a reversion to the (violent) natural order. The insecurity of those individuals who find themselves in such places is simply the natural circumstances of humankind without the social artifice. Their plight may be worthy of sympathy from those more fortunately placed within a social order, but it does not present any serious moral challenge to the idea of Leviathan (or the state) as such. Nor does it pose any immediate dilemmas for those who espouse a national or international security perspective unless it threatens the political order existing elsewhere.

A person-centred approach to securityIt has recently been suggested that a human security paradigm offers a better way of conceptualising the problems that arise in circumstances like those noted above than the more traditional approaches already discussed. From this perspective:

security extends beyond the protection of borders, ruling elites, and exclusive state interests to include the protection of people. To confine the concept of security exclusively to the protection of states is to ignore the interests of people who form the citizens of a state and in whose name sovereignty is exercised. It can produce situations in which those in power feel they have the unfettered freedom to abuse the right to security of their people… All people, no less than states, have a right to a secure existence, and all states have an obligation to protect those rights.1

Our global neighbourhood, the Report of the Commission on Global Governance

The search for a global human community, which would transcend international frontiers and ‘trump’ the rights and interests of particular communities be these states or indeed the society of states, has a noble pedigree in the historic search for an alternative to international anarchy. Suggestions of this kind, which one can trace back to Kant, accept the description of international society while nevertheless insisting that such circumstances can, and should, be overcome. Kant argues that national security and international security in the fullest sense cannot be realised unless or until human security is also protected. In so doing, Kant effectively repudiates the basic premise of non-intervention in favour of an overriding duty of all states and of international society as a whole to defend human security. Contemporary advocates of human security like the Commission on Global Governance do much the same thing.

Activity

Read the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Report 1994, Chapter 2, ‘New dimensions of human security’, available online at http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr_1994_en_chap2.pdf and then answer the following questions.

1. What are the main characteristics of human security?

2. What is the relationship between human rights and human security?

3. What is the relationship between human development and human security?

4. Do you agree that there are two major components of human security: freedom from fear and freedom from want? Why or why not?

1 Our global neighbourhood: the report of the Commission on Global Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p.84.


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Instruments of human securityWe see evidence of the human security paradigm at work post-1945 in the universal protection of human rights, humanitarian law and the idea of crimes against humanity. All three of these concepts accord moral primacy to the well-being of men, women and children over and above the rights and interests of states or of international society.

Human rights are embedded in every individual human being by virtue of their humanity and thus are not contingent upon political membership within any particular community; they attach to us as humans and go with us wherever we go. The idea assumes that there are certain core requirements which every human needs in order to survive and flourish as an individual and that these requirements are universally valid. Human rights are prior to rights of citizenship and indeed may be considered to ‘trump’ domestic legislation which is contrary to the human rights idea. In this way, neither time nor place can alter or diminish the validity of human rights.

In large part, the international codification of human rights after 1945 was a reaction against the widespread human rights abuses evident in Nazi-occupied Europe. Human rights thus became a key component of efforts to create a new world order post-1945 in which it was hoped such atrocities would never happen again. The first key human rights texts including both the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) and the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) (1950) were drafted with precisely this aim in mind. Many other human rights documents followed in the years since 1945 such that now every international regional organisation includes some endorsement of human rights, albeit with somewhat different formulations.

The 1948 Convention on the Elimination and Punishment of Genocide follows on from the same ‘never again’ ethos. This convention is intended to prevent and to punish ‘acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’. Signatories to the convention are thus required to take preventive measures, including even the use of force, in circumstances where a genocide is officially recognised as under way by the United Nations Security Council.

Humanitarian law refers to that body of international law which is concerned with protecting individuals in times of war. For centuries, war was the classic method for settling disputes between states. Once war was over the motto was vae victis or ‘woe to the conquered’ because the victors could treat them as they saw fit. There were no universally agreed limits to the rights of victors to punish those who had fought against them and no definition of war crimes (although there was of course a discourse of the ‘laws and customs of war’). Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the originally Christian ideas of the natural ‘laws and customs of war’ began to be codified as positive international law (e.g., the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 setting out the laws of waging war and the Geneva Conventions of 1864 and 1924 outlining the treatment of prisoners). After 1945, these provisions were extended and reinforced by the Geneva Convention IV relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in time of War (1949) and its Additional Protocols I and II (1977) to better protect non-combatants.

The idea of ‘crimes against humanity’ differs from that of ‘war crimes’ in that crimes against humanity may be committed in peace as well as in war and against a state’s own citizens (as for instance when the majority


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ethnic group in a state targets its minority citizens). Moreover, the fact that a particular action was sanctioned in domestic law prevailing at the time it was committed or was authorised in military orders is not a defence where crimes against humanity are concerned. This concept, then, extends the human security paradigm to domestic, peacetime circumstances such as those pertaining in Germany during the Nazi period and removes the legitimacy of domestic laws sanctioning gross human rights violations. Article 6 of the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT Charter) − adopted to assist in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals − defined crimes against humanity as ‘murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts committed against any civilian population before or during the war’. The IMT Charter was acceded to by nineteen states in addition to the original signatories − Great Britain, the United States, France and the Soviet Union. Moreover, both the United Nations General Assembly and the Convention on the Nonapplicability of Statutory Limitation to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity (1968) ultimately affirmed the principles of international law recognised in the IMT Charter and the judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal − thus further confirming crimes against humanity and the inclusion of mass deportation under this rubric as customary law. Most recently, the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal court also recognised crimes against humanity as falling within its area of competency.

Activity

Read Bain Chapter 8 and Buzan Chapter 9 and then answer the following questions.

1. To what extent is the human security agenda a product of globalisation?

2. Is human security an example of what Buzan terms a ‘holistic concept of security’, and, if so, on what basis?


• distinguish between state-centred and person-centred approaches to security

• identify the main characteristics of human security

• provide examples of human security policies

• discuss the relationship between human security and globalisation.

Sample examination questions1. Are human security and human rights distinct concepts?

2. Should security policies focus on the safety of states or the safety of persons?

Chapter 7: Human security: current issues and contemporary application

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Aims of the chapterThe aim of this chapter is to examine current issues associated with human security. In so doing we will discuss:

• evidence of success, failure and ambiguity in the application of human security

• various reasons why human security is difficult to implement.


• evaluate the success and failure of the human security paradigm

• describe how human security is constrained by state sovereignty

• discuss the relationship between human security and environmental policy

• discuss the relationship between human security and international political economy

• discuss the potential contradiction between human security and plural values.

Essential readingBain The empire of security and the safety of the people. Chapter 6.Hough Understanding global security. Chapters 4, 5, 7 and 11.

Further readingBellamy, A. ‘Whither the responsibility to protect? Humanitarian intervention

and the 2005 World Summit’. Ethics and International Affairs, 20(2) (2006) pp.143−70.

Bellamy, A. Responsibility to protect. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008) first edition [ISBN 0745643485].

Bellamy, A. and M. McDonald ‘The utility of human security: which humans? What security? A reply to Thomas and Tow’, Security Dialogue 33(3) (2002) pp.373−77.

Crawford, B. ‘The new security dilemma under international economic interdependence’, Millennium 23(1) 1994.

Dunne, T. and N. Wheeler ‘“We the peoples”: Contending discourses of security in human rights theory and practice’, International Relations 18(1) 2004 pp.9−23.

McInnes, C. ‘HIV/AIDS and security’, International Affairs 82(3) 2006 pp.315−26.

Rudolph, C. ‘Globalization and security’, Security Studies 13(1) 2003 pp.1−32.Thomas, N. and W.Tow ‘The utility of human security: sovereignty and

humanitarian intervention’, Security Dialogue 33(2) 2002 pp.177−92.


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Works citedJ. Vincent, ‘Grotius, human rights and intervention,’ in H. Bull, B. Kingsbury

and A. Roberts (eds), Hugo Grotius and International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p.255.

A. Pollis and P. Schwab, ‘Human rights: a western construct with limited applicability’, in Pollis and Schwab (eds) Human rights: cultural and ideological perspectives (New York: Praeger, 1979, p.14.

J. Donnelly, Universal human rights in theory and practice (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), p.114.

A. E. Mayer, Islam and human rights (London: Pinter, 1995), pp.98−100.Garret Gong, The standard of civilization in international society (Oxford:

Clarendon 1984), p.55.

Achievements of human securityThe great achievement of the human security paradigm − as embodied since 1945 in humanitarian law, crimes against humanity and human rights – is that it has created a normative discourse in which those who abuse their power, regardless of who or where they are, may be condemned. The rapidly expanding body of international norms post-1945 that reflect this human security perspective is certainly dramatic, and perhaps even revolutionary.

Take, for example, the various provisions outlining the rights of combatants which can be found in the Geneva Convention III Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1949), Geneva Protocol I Relating to the Victims of International Armed Conflicts (1979) as well as the Convention Against Torture (1984) and the UN Resolution on the Body of Principles for the Protection of all Persons under any form of Imprisonment or Detention (1988). The widespread international condemnation of American practices towards detainees held at Camp X-Ray in Guantánamo Bay and at Abu Ghraib in Iraq underscores the normative authority of these provisions even if the fact of abuse itself points to the ongoing problem of enforcement.

Another example is the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), which authorises contracting parties to call upon the UN to take ‘appropriate’ actions ‘for the prevention and suppression’ of ‘acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’. The term ‘appropriate’ recognises that any such actions are a matter of judgment for the state signatories, which allows for a wide latitude of discretion in implementation of the provisions. As a result, not a single act of genocide has ever been recognised under the terms of the convention. So the convention on genocide is not the radical humanitarian charter that it might seem to be at first glance. Nevertheless, it is significant. International condemnation of the killing fields of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge (1975−1979), of the massacre of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, and the Janjaweed attacks against the non-Arab population of Darfur between 2003 and 2006 are tangible evidence that the idea of genocide as a ‘crime of crimes’ is now widely accepted.

According to John Vincent, developments like these are testimony to the spread of a ‘global cosmopolitan culture’. As the number of declarations and conventions in the area of human rights, humanitarian law and crimes against humanity increases, the distinction between domestic and international politics continues to erode.1 Since 1975, non-governmental organisations − Helsinki Watch, Human Rights Watch, Minority Rights

1 John Vincent ‘Grotius, human rights and intervention’ in H. Bull, B. Kingsbury and A. Roberts (eds), Hugo Grotius and international relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p.255.


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Group, Amnesty, etc. − have emerged as moral custodians or guardians of the human security paradigm and their main function is to scrutinise the conduct of states. As a result of all of these developments, the moral approbation of public opinion is now directed as much towards the international as to the domestic.

Activity

Read the overview of the 2005 Report on Human Security available online at www.humansecurityreport.info/HSR2005_PDF/Overview.pdf and then reflect on the following.

Do you agree with the report’s findings that the dramatic decline in armed conflict worldwide is due to the increasing significance of the human security paradigm? Why or why not?

Can you think of any other factors that might account for this change?

Problems with human securityDespite its many laudable achievements in championing the rights of oppressed individuals wherever they might be, the human security paradigm nevertheless remains highly problematic with an international system that, for better or for worse, continues to be organised on the basis of state sovereignty and plural values.

Any ethic that seeks to apply universal values to all circumstance irrespective of differences in time, place, culture or circumstance is potentially open to the charge of chauvinism. This tendency is apparent in the recent criticism of human rights by representatives of non-Western states and cultures who have alleged that these provisions disproportionately reflect a Western, Judeo-Christian morality. According to this perspective, to impose on non-Western societies norms taken from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights involves ‘moral chauvinism and ethnocentric bias’.2 Often, such criticisms are made by non-Western states in the deliberate attempt to deflect criticism away from domestic human rights violations and can therefore be dismissed as rhetorical political posturing. However, those cases where the controversy involves practices that are internally defensible within the cultural system but unacceptable by external standards ought properly to be taken seriously as hard choices between competing values.3 For example, the legal requirement within many Islamic countries for women to wear the veil in public as stipulated in the shari’a may be in that context a legitimate restriction of the universal right to gender equality guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.4 Thus, the potential for controversy regarding cultural diversity remains within the context of the human security paradigm. Indeed, to the extent that human security is inherently solidarist whereas the existence of cultural diversity is an undeniable reminder that the human condition is, in this respect at least, fundamentally pluralist, the two are logically at odds.

The idea of a moral duty to militarily intervene in foreign countries to protect civilians raises fundamental normative issues which the proponents of human security tend to ignore. Throughout its history, international society has endeavoured to abolish holy wars and limit the justifications for going to war. The original version of the norm of non-intervention, cuius regio, eius religio (‘like sovereign, like religion’) was intended to prevent military intervention on religious grounds. The modern, secular version of this norm can be found in Article 2 of the UN Charter, which forbids intervention in a sovereign state on any grounds except those of national self-defence and international peace and security.

2 Admantia Pollis and Peter Schwab ‘Human rights: a western construct with limited applicability’ in Pollis and Schwab (eds) Human rights: cultural and ideological perspectives (New York: Praeger, 1979, p.14.

3 Jack Donnelly, Universal human rights in theory and practice (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), p.114.

4 Ann Elizabeth Mayer Islam and human rights (London: Pinter, 1995), pp.98−100.


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There are good reasons for restricting military intervention. Prior experience has shown that military intervention in the name of purportedly universal values can be abused by great powers whose real motivations are fundamentally self-interested. During the nineteenth century, for example, the so called ‘standard of civilisation’ was used as a purportedly objective and universal yardstick against which the ‘progress’ of humanity could be assessed. Peoples were hierarchically classified as ‘civilised’, ‘barbarous’, or ‘savage’ depending upon their degree of conformity with European practices and values.5 This classification scheme provided a basis on which to accord differential rights and entitlements within international relations. Such arrangements preserved the original principle of equality among European states while at the same time responding to those differences Europeans postulated between themselves and the rest of humanity. The ‘sacred trust of civilisation’ was intended to limit the potential for European hegemony over non-European peoples to degenerate into blatant abuse and brutality. In practice, however, such international undertakings did little to constrain those European powers bent on the exploitation of non-European peoples and their territories. As E.D. Morel remarked of the Congo Free State,

‘from the ashes of an international conference… has sprung a traffic in African misery more devilish than the old, more destructive, more permanently ruinous in cumulative effect’.

Setting aside the wisdom of armed intervention for humanity, the proponents of the human security paradigm tend to ignore or at least downplay those political realities which are likely to complicate, forestall and potentially preclude any attempt to institute it as a new basic norm of international society. Such a change would be construed by many Asian and African leaders as merely another form of Western imperialism. Their ancestors rebelled against Western imperialism and for very good reasons. To be a member of what were variously termed ‘backward peoples’ or ‘dependent nations’ was to be denied the right to self-determination on the basis of purportedly objective criteria extrapolated from European history and civilisation. Today we readily condemn such criteria as fundamentally flawed and biased. Why should any future criteria for intervention and subsequent protectorate status be any different? And how could such intervention be reconciled with the norms of self-determination, equal sovereignty, the doctrine of non-intervention, the prohibition of colonialism, the crime of apartheid, etc.? Any attempt to impose human rights would constitute a fundamental violation of the value pluralism which is an essential prerequisite of international society.

Overcoming the problems of human securityThe Commission on Global Governance has tried to overcome this problem by acknowledging that only the most egregious threats to human security should warrant international action − as indicated, for example, by the number of people affected. At the same time, they are quick to point out that there is a spectrum of potential options which could be used to enforce human security. These possibilities include voluntary rapporteur missions, voluntary mediation, international review of a state’s performance, public criticism, mandatory rapporteur or mediation missions, judicial review, withdrawal of membership of international organisations, trade sanctions, and, as a last resort, military intervention.

Following the rationale found in the Genocide Convention, they suggest that it is reasonable to militarily intervene only in ‘cases that constitute

5 Garret Gong The standard of civilization in international society. (Oxford: Clarendon 1984), p.55.


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a violation of the security of people so gross and extreme that it requires an international response on humanitarian grounds’. And their recommendation is that Article 2 of the UN Charter should be revised accordingly. Doing this, however, make human rights a pre-emptive principle of international law and once again the value pluralism essential for the preservation of international society would be compromised.

There are also a number of important practical difficulties that would need to be overcome before such a radical revision of Article 2 could be effected. Would the great powers, and in particular the United States and its allies, be prepared to accept a universal duty to militarily intervene even when their national interests where not directly involved? The United States may appear to be more inclined towards intervention in defence of democratic values post-9/11. But George W. Bush’s fondness for regime change was never intended to create a universal duty to intervene. Far from it, this is an old-fashioned discourse of national security designed to secure American interests.

Activity

Read Bain Chapter 6 and Hough Chapters 4, 5, 7 and 11 and then answer the following questions.

1. Is the environment best thought of as a subject of national security, international security or human security?

2. To what extent is the human security paradigm a consequence of the operation of a worldwide market economy?

3. Are human security and societal security the same thing?

Responsibility to protect (R2P)The most compelling attempt yet to overcome the serious practical obstacles to implementing human security is the doctrine of responsibility to protect (R2P). In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and the failure to intervene there, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan provocatively asked the question ‘when does the international community have the right to intervene for the sake of protecting populations?’

The Canadian government responded to this challenge by establishing the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). In 2001, the ICISS issued its report The responsibility to protect. This report recognised that although ‘the primary responsibility for its people lies with the state itself’, nevertheless ‘where a population is suffering serious harm’ and the state concerned is ‘unwilling or unable to halt or avert it’ then ‘the principle of non-intervention yields to the responsibility to protect.’ R2P is thus directed at four of the most egregious crimes under international criminal law – genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. According to the ICISS, the responsibility to protect applies to all members of international society and includes obligations to prevent the causes of internal conflicts and other man-made crisis, to react to situations of compelling human need with appropriate measures, and to rebuild post-conflict or emergency. A reference to R2P was included in the outcome document of the 2005 World Summit of United Nations member states. That same year, R2P was endorsed by the Founding Charter of the African Union. In Resolution 1674 (2006) the United Nations Security Council reiterated the R2P principles recognised by the World Summit, and in 2009 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon released his report on Implementing the responsibility to protect.


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Following on from these various developments, R2P is now widely recognised as an international norm. The great achievement of R2P is that it affords a framework for action which brings together already existing but otherwise disparate international instruments such as mediation, early-warning mechanisms, economic sanctioning and Chapter 6 powers. However, the authority to militarily intervene for human security remains a preserve of the United Nations Security Council and thus the problem of great-power selectivity, bias and rivalry persist notwithstanding R2P.

In sum, the post-Cold War experience on human security is both complex and contradictory. But one thing at least is clear: there has, to date, been no consistent application of human security around the world. That is because the great powers lack both the political will and probably also the military capability to intervene in all states where personal insecurity exists.

Activity

Read the ICISS report, The responsibility to protect (2001), available online at www.iciss.ca/report2-en.asp and then answer the following questions.

1. What is the ‘intervention dilemma’?

2. How did the ‘intervention dilemma’ manifest itself in Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo?

3. Does R2P offer a convincing way out of the ‘intervention dilemma’?

You may wish to revisit these questions after you have completed the readings and activities in Chapter 8: are your initial views still the same or have they changed in certain respects?


• evaluate the success and failure of the human security paradigm

• describe how human security is constrained by state sovereignty

• discuss the relationship between human security and environmental policy

• discuss the relationship between human security and international political economy

• discuss the potential contradiction between human security and plural values.

Sample examination questions1. ‘Human security will never be achieved in a world of states.’ Discuss.

2. Do you agree with the suggestion that human security is just another form of Western imperialism?

3. Is the environment a human security issue?

Chapter 8: Security paradigms in conflict: the problem of intervention

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Aims of the chapterThe aim of this chapter is to explore the contradictions which arise when one tries to apply the national, international and human security paradigms to the problem of military intervention. In so doing we will discuss:

• the different priorities of national, international and human security

• the origins of the problem of intervention

• current justification for intervention

• intervention for international peace and security: the case of Iraq (1991)

• intervention for national security: the cases of Bosnia (1995) and Afghanistan (2001)

• intervention for human security: the case of Kosovo (1995)

• intervention after R2P: the case of Darfur (2008).


• define intervention

• identify and assess the justification for intervention within contemporary international society

• discuss the current controversies associated with intervention using evidence from the five case studies surveyed here

• compare and contrast the divergent priorities and practices which follow on from the national, international and human security approaches to the problem of intervention.

Essential readingBain The empire of security and the safety of the people. Chapters 7 and 10.Economides, Spyros and Berdal, United Nations interventionism.

Chapters 1, 3 and 8.Tait, A. ‘The legar war: a justification of military action in Iraq’, Gonzaga

Journal of International Law 9(1) 2005.

Further readingBellamy, A. ‘A responsibility to protect or a Trojan horse? The crisis in Darfur

and humanitarian intervention after Iraq’ Ethics and International Affairs 19(2) (2005) pp.31−54.

Chomsky, N. The new military humanism: lessons from Kosovo. (Monroe, Me.: Common Courage Press, 1999) first edition [ISBN 1567511767].

Crilly, R. Saving Darfur: everyone’s favourite war. (London: Reportage Press, 2010) first edition [ISBN 1906702195].

Damrosch, L. and Scheffer, D. Law and force in the new international order. (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1992) first edition [ISBN-10: 0813313570].


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De Waal, A. ‘Darfur and the failure of the responsibility to protect’, International Affairs 83(6) 2007 pp.1039−1054.

Dorma, A. and T. Otte (eds) Military intervention: from gunboat diplomacy to humanitarian intervention. (New York: Dartmouth Publishing Group, 1995) first edition [ISBN 1855215799].

Falk, R. ‘The complexities of humanitarian intervention: a new world order challenge’, Michigan Journal of International Law 17 (1996).

Flint, J. and A. de Waal Darfur: a new history of long war. (London: Zed Books, 2008) second edition [ISBN 1842779508].

Hoffman, S. The ethics and politics of humanitarian intervention. (New York: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997) first edition [ISBN 0268009368].

Hoffman, S. ‘Humanitarian intervention after Kosovo: emergent norm, moral duty or the coming anarchy?’ International Affairs 77(1) 2001 pp.113−128.

Jackson, R. The global covenant. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) new edition [ISBN 0199262012] Chapters 9, 10, 11, 14, and 15.

Mayall, J. (ed.) The new interventionism. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) first edition [ISBN 0521551978].

Mandelbaum, M. ‘A perfect failure: NATO’s war against Yugoslavia’, Foreign Affairs 78(5) 1999 pp.2−8.

Murphy, S. ‘Humanitarian intervention: the United Nations in an evolving world order,’ Procedural Aspects of International Law Series 21. (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996).

Newman, E. ‘Humanitarian intervention, legality and legitimacy’, The International Journal of Human Rights 6(4) 2002 pp.102−120.

Verwey, W. ‘Humanitarian intervention under international law’, Netherlands International Law Review 32 1985.

Vincent, R.J. Non-intervention and international order. (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974) first edition [ISBN 0691056528].

Walzer, M. Just and unjust wars. (New York: Basic Books, 2000) fourth edition [ISBN 0465037070].

Walzer, M. Thick and thin: moral argument at home and abroad. (University of Notre Dame Press, 2006) reprint edition [ISBN 0268018979].

Wheeler, N. Saving strangers: humanitarian intervention in international society. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) new edition [ISBN 0199253102].

Williams, P. and Bellamy, A. ‘The responsibility to protect and the crisis in Darfur’, Security Dialogue 36(1) 2005 pp.27−47.

Works citedBerlin, I. The crooked timber of humanity. (London: John Murray, 1990), p.13.Bull and Vincent (eds) Intervention in world politics (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984)Wight, M. Power politics (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974), p.191.Parsons, A. From cold war to hot peace (London: Penguin Books, 1995),

pp.68−69.Shrivastava and Agarwal , ‘Politics of intervention and the Bosnia-Herzegovina

conflict’, International Studies 2003; 40: 69−84Rohde, D. Endgame: the betrayal and fall of Srebrenica (New York: Farrar, Straus

and Giroux, 1997).A. Roberts, ‘NATO’s “humanitarian war” over Kosovo’, Survival 41 (Autumn

1999), p.106.Mayall, J. Nationalism and international society (Cambridge, 1990) Musgrave, T. Self determination and national minorities (Oxford, 1997).Human Rights Watch report (2004), Darfur Destroyed, available at

www.hrw.org/en/node/12133/section/1


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Different paradigms, different prioritiesEach of the three main security paradigms surveyed thus far – national security, international security, and human security – prioritises different security objectives. National security gives moral primacy to the nation state as guarantor of the safety and well-being of its citizens. International security gives moral primacy to peace and stability within the society of states. And human security gives moral primacy to the personal safety of individual human beings wherever they might be, irrespective of jurisdiction. Ultimately, these paradigms represent what Isaiah Berlin has called a ‘collision of values’ to which there can be no permanent resolution;1 these paradigms may be equally compelling but nevertheless remain mutually incommensurate. At a certain point, the requirements of one paradigm will conflict with the requirements of another and we will be forced to choose between them. Should the national security of the state come first? Or are there instances where a general condition of peace and stability within the society of states may reasonably necessitate an infringement of the national security of one of its members? And what if human suffering of a serious kind persists irrespective of a general condition of peace and stability within the society of states and national security among its members? In such circumstances, should human security trump these other considerations?

The prospect of intervention by a sovereign state, group of states or international organisation involving the threat or use of force or some other means of duress, in the domestic jurisdiction of an independent state against the will or wishes of its government clearly discloses precisely this collision of values.2 Admittedly, this is the hardest test one can apply to these arrangements – but as a result it arguably most clearly discloses the priorities, ambiguities and tensions implicit within each security formulation. As Martin Wight observes, the problem of military intervention ‘raises questions of the utmost moral complexity: adherents of every political belief [and security paradigm] will regard such intervention as justified under certain circumstances’.3 But equally, one may add, each will also vehemently and passionately condemn military intervention whether as crime or misadventure when the circumstance do not satisfy their own political and moral beliefs. In such situations, the key question is whether one state or group of states ought to forcibly transgress the sovereignty of another, assuming they are practically equipped to do so. Questions of military preparedness and logistical capability obviously feature prominently in such debates. But the central focus is not on such practicalities but the deeper moral choice of whether or not and on what basis an act of intervention may be justified.

Origins of the problem of military intervention The existence of a plurality of equal sovereign states that together form an international society creates the circumstances out of which the problem of military intervention emerges. If there were only one sovereign political community for all humankind, the question of intervention per se would not arise for there would be single authority with a global remit for action. In the absence of such a single authority, each nation state is free to decide how to run its own affairs. This is what is meant by the term ‘equal sovereignty’; states may be profoundly unequal in wealth or military power but they possess the same sovereign rights irrespective of these differences. International society is based upon on a sovereign state’s fundamental right of non-intervention; it is this right of non-intervention

1 Isaiah Berlin The crooked timber of humanity. (London: John Murray, 1990), p.13.

2 Similar defi nitions are employed in Hedley Bull and John Vincent (eds) Intervention in world politics (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), p.1., R. Jackson, The global covenant: human conduct in a world of states (Oxford: OUP, 2000), p.250., and R.J. Vincent Non-intervention and international order (Princeton, N.J.: PUP, 1974), p.13.

3 Martin Wight Power politics (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974), p.191.


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which ensures the continued existence of a plurality of states and, by extension, an international society. If the reverse held true and there was instead a generally recognised right of intervention, states would no longer be equal under international law and would not enjoy any pre-emptory right of non-intervention apart from the limitations placed on that right by the UN Charter.4 In such circumstances, the most powerful states are likely to become so dominant that a global international society would cease to exist in favour of some type of hegemonic or imperial system.

The principle of non-intervention was enshrined as Article 2 of the United Nations Charter with a view to preventing precisely this type of scenario. You will recall that at the time the Charter was created in 1945, much of humankind lived as what was variously termed ‘subject peoples’ or ‘dependant nations’ within European overseas empires. ‘Subject peoples’ and ‘dependent nations’ were not sovereign and therefore were not free to determine their collective political existence. In the period since 1945, international society has expanded rapidly to include approximately 200 states, the majority of which were formerly ‘subject peoples’. These developments are a consequence of decolonisation in Africa and Asia, which is, in turn, representative of a fundamental rejection of imperialism and consequent affirmation of equality. Indeed, the explicit purpose of the United Nations (as stated in Article 1 of the UN Charter) is to ensure ‘friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples’. Article 2 goes on to affirm quite categorically that: ‘All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state… Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.’ Non-intervention is the norm and any actions which deviate from this are a deviation from the norm and must therefore be justified.

Current justifications for military interventionThe current justifications for overriding the norm of intervention are threefold: (1) international peace and security; (2) at the request of the recognised government of the target state who considers this external involvement necessary to preserve its national security; and (3) to protect the population of the target state (or segments of it) from gross human rights abuses.5 The first two justifications are, for all intents and purposes, universally accepted among states. We can find these criteria enshrined as Chapter 7 and Article 51 of the UN Charter as the only legitimate grounds for overriding the Article 2 guarantee of non-intervention. Chapter 7 authorises the Security Council to identify ‘any threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression’ (Article 39) and, if such a threat is determined by the Council, ‘it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security’ (Article 42). Article 51 adds that ‘Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence.’ But the third criterion for military intervention – human security − remains highly controversial and accordingly there is no clear international legal provision one can cite in justification of it.

The human security justification for military intervention is controversial because it not only violates the principle of consent by the target state but also seems to call for a degree of action which goes beyond the pluralist rules of international society. The UN Charter clearly endorses human rights as a primary objective of the United Nations but at no point does

4 Global covenant, p.251.



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it identify gross human rights violations as a valid reason for military intervention in state sovereignty. The proponents of human security, including armed intervention for humanity, point out that the UN Charter enshrined human rights and the responsibility of the Security Council for international peace and stability as well as the more traditional guarantees in favour of sovereignty and non-intervention. And they frequently cite the Genocide Convention as a legally binding obligation to ‘prevent and punish’ the destruction of peoples even while they acknowledge that the exact meaning of this obligation remains unclear.

Controversy of this kind arises because armed intervention for humanity seems to conflict with the idea of sovereignty. For this reason, humanitarian intervention is especially controversial among authoritarian, weak, failed or quasi-states that are the most likely targets of such action. Their opposition may seem opportunistic – and indeed such states are clearly self-motivated in their vociferous endorsement of sovereign rights – but the idea of sovereignty and the many benefits it has secured for millions of men and women around the globe is not something which can or should be easily dismissed. People listen when someone like Robert Mugabe or Slobodan Milošević or Saddam Hussein defends the principle of sovereignty despite rather than because of the political record of the person invoking it – and that fact, in and of it self, speaks volumes about the continued significance of the sovereign ideal and the national and international security paradigms which follow on from it.

Finally, it should be stressed that there are moral and practical difficulties associated with each of these three justifications for military intervention. Regardless of whether we are debating an international security concern for international peace and stability, a national security concern for state consent or a human security concern for personal safety, ambiguities and contradictions will remain such that we are still confronted with a very difficult policy decision. That is true even in circumstances where an intervention is requested by the government of a sovereign state. For example, valid consent must come from the legal government of a sovereign state and it must be freely given. Thus very serious questions may still arise about whether and to what extent the government in question has a legitimate popular mandate or is acting of its own accord rather than as a result of coercion from another interested party, such as a local strong man or another, more powerful state. Similar questions will also arise in connection with self-defence. Is the national security threat to the state real or contrived? And who should decide? The state or the intervening powers? Even with regard to human security, questions of judgment remain. How much human suffering is required to warrant action? And who shall decide? Neighbouring states who are on the receiving end of mass migrations? Aid agencies responsible for sheltering the sick and the homeless? Or the great powers without whose operational support such action is unlikely to be forthcoming?

Activity

Read Bain Chapter 7 and Economides and Berdal Chapter 1 and then answer the following questions.

1. What do international relations scholars mean when they refer to intervention as the ‘grundnorm of international society’?

2. Why is the human security justification for intervention more controversial than the national or international security justifications?

3. Who do you think should be responsible for the uncivil and unsafe conditions in war-torn or failed states, and on what basis?


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Intervention for international peace and security: IraqOne of the clearest examples of military intervention for international peace and security is the United Nations Security Council’s response to the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Under the Ottoman Empire, Kuwait was administered as a constituent unit of Iraq, albeit one with autonomous provisions. After the First World War, the United Kingdom assumed responsibility for both Iraq and Kuwait as part of the League of Nations Mandates system applied to the colonial territories of the defeated Axis powers. Crucially, the United Kingdom governed Iraq and Kuwait as separate emirates and, as a result, the subsequent process of decolonisation eventually created two states, a sovereign Iraq and a sovereign Kuwait, instead of one. Iraq, however, never recognised the independence of Kuwait and maintained irredentist claims over its territory. Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990 following a dispute over Iraqi debts to Kuwait and allegations that Kuwait was illegally slant-drilling oil across the border between the two countries.

Within hours of the Iraqi invasion, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 660 condemning Iraqi actions and calling for an immediate withdrawal. Very quickly thereafter (on 6 August) the UN Security Council applied economic sanctions to Iraq (Resolution 661). Then in November 1990 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 678 demanding that Iraq withdraw from Kuwait by 15 January 1991 and authorising ‘all necessary means’ (which in the language of diplomacy means military force) to ensure compliance. With this end in mind, a coalition of military forces from 35 UN member states (Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Honduras, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, the Netherlands, Niger, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States) was assembled. A day after the withdrawal deadline had passed, Operation Desert Storm was launched against Iraq. By the end of February, Iraqi forces were retreating from Kuwait and on 27 February 1991 then American President George Bush declared that Kuwait had been liberated and announced a cease-fire.

The 1991 intervention in Iraq was a classic example of action taken in the interest of international peace and security. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was an act of aggression and as such violated a fundamental norm of the United Nations Charter. Through this act of aggression, Iraq became an international outlaw and could therefore legally be subject to punitive measures by the UN Security Council. Coalition action against Iraq, including both the air campaign and the ground attack which followed, were entirely in keeping with international law. Moreover, such action was carried out in order to defend the sovereignty of Kuwait and not, in the first instance, to subvert the sovereignty of Iraq. The coalition was not assembled with the purpose of invading Iraq and not only stopped short of doing that by only temporarily entering Iraqi territory but also made no attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Admittedly, after Iraq had been defeated, the UN broke new ground by requiring the destruction of all biological, chemical and nuclear weapons or facilities in Iraq. Resolution 687 created an instrument of international inspection to enforce Iraq’s obligations under the Geneva Protocol for the prohibition of poisonous gases, the convention on the prohibition of biological weapons, and the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Resolution 687 has


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been characterised as one of ‘the most intrusive and wide-ranging array of demands made on a sovereign state since the creation of the UN in October 1945.’6 But here it is important to recall that all five permanent members of the Council supported Resolution 687 – indeed it could not have been passed without their express agreement. In other words, Resolution 687, although innovative in substance, was nevertheless within the procedural remit of the UN Security Council.

The weapons inspection programme persisted for several years after the end of the Second Gulf War and was intended to last until the destruction of all offending military capabilities had been carried out to the satisfaction of the United Nations weapons inspectors. But in the end, this process was cut short by another American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The 2003 military intervention was also ostensibly carried out in the interest of international peace and security. But in this case, no explicit United Nations authorisation was forthcoming. Instead, the Security Council remained deeply divided on the issue. The American and British-led coalition of 2003 claimed that military action at this time followed on from earlier Security Council Resolutions, including not only Resolution 687 (1991) but also Resolution 1441 (2002), which offered Iraq a ‘final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations’. Critics, however, condemned the 2003 invasion as an unprovoked attack on a sovereign state and a breach of international law. The salient point here being that regime change as such is not a legitimate basis for intervention.

Activity

Read Adam Tait, ‘The legal war: a justification for military action in Iraq’, Gonzaga Journal of International Law 9 (1) (2005), available online at www.gonzagajil.org/pdf/volume9/Tait/Tait%20-%20Iraq%20Paper.pdf, and then reflect on the following.

1. Was the American-led coalition justified in its 2003 invasion of Iraq on the basis of a collective right to self-defence?

2. Should Article 51 of the UN Charter be redefined to include pre-emptive self-defence?

Intervention for national security: Bosnia-Herzegovina and Afghanistan

Examples of military intervention for national security are less clear-cut. Because intervention involves the use of force by external agents, international security considerations always play a part in such decisions. This is especially true at the start of any such mission, when the question of whether or not and in what way external agents should become involved is paramount. Intervention is a costly affair – not only in time and money but potentially also in human lives. Thus any state or group of states contemplating intervention would need to provide convincing justification for it both in terms of international law and military preparedness. Not surprisingly, therefore, intervention in both Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992−1995) and Afghanistan (2001 – ongoing at time of writing, December 2010) began in response to international security considerations.

In July 1991 the EU imposed a freeze on arms and aid for the former Yugoslavia, including Bosnia-Herzegovina. In September the UN Security Council passed Resolution 713, which proclaimed a complete arms embargo and called for an immediate end to hostilities and a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the conflict. In the same month an EU peace conference declared that the borders of the successor states cannot be

6 Anthony Parsons From cold war to hot peace (London: Penguin Books, 1995), pp.68−69.


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changed by force and that the rights of minorities must be guaranteed. In June 1992, the United Nations Protection Force which was originally deployed in Croatia (UNPROFOR I) had its mandate extended into Bosnia-Herzegovina (UNPROFOR II), initially to protect Sarajevo airport. In September 1992, the role of UNPROFOR II was expanded in order to protect the delivery of humanitarian relief. As a result, a UN humanitarian force was on the ground in war zones throughout Bosnia and NATO provided fighter aircraft to patrol air exclusion zones. The Security Council responded to the humanitarian crisis by enacting various resolutions including Resolution 824, which created ‘safe areas’ for civilians in designated towns and cities, and Resolution 827, which established the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with a mandate to prosecute those responsible for serious violations of humanitarian law and crimes against humanity.

Up to this point, intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina was very much in keeping with the principles of international security.7 Indeed, so much so that the requirements of international security trumped those of national security to such an extent that the right of self-defence of the breakaway Yugoslav republics was fundamentally compromised by the arms embargo.

Activity

Read Paul R. Williams, ‘Why the Bosnian arms embargo is illegal’, Wall Street Journal-Europe, 1995, available online at www.publicinternationallaw.org/publications/editorials/Bosnian%20Arms%20Embargo.htm and then reflect on the following.

1. Did the arms embargo violate Bosnia’s right to self-defence?

2. Did it contribute to a balance of power in the Balkans?

3. Was this policy a success or a failure, and on what basis?

In 1995, however, international involvement began to change and was increasingly determined by the national security requirements of the fledgling state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Crucial to this development was international repugnance towards the growing evidence of mostly Serbian atrocities. Most notorious of these was the so-called Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 when several thousand Bosniak men and boys were murdered after what had hitherto been a UN ‘safe haven’ in the Yugoslav wars of secession fell to Serbian forces under the command of general Ratko Mladic.8 In August 1995 a transformation from UN peacekeeping to NATO peace enforcement took place following a request for assistance by the Bosnian government. So began Operation Deliberate Force, a NATO air campaign to undermine Serbian military capability within Bosnia territory. Following on from this, NATO made it clear that there would be no partition of the Bosnian state. NATO, and especially American, involvement altered the military situation by changing the strategic calculations of the warring factions. As a result, the governments of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia along with the various militias involved in the actual fighting were persuaded to commit themselves to an American-brokered settlement: the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Dayton agreement) was signed in December 1995 by the presidents of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia).9

The so-called Dayton agreement stipulated that in future the signatories would ‘conduct their relations in accordance with the principles set forth in the United Nations Charter, as well as the Helsinki Final Act and other documents of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

7 Shrivastava and Agarwal ‘Politics of intervention and the Bosnia-Herzegovina confl ict’, International Studies 40, 2003 pp.69−84

8 David Rohde, Endgame: the betrayal and fall of Srebrenica (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997).

9 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/icty/dayton/daytonframework.html


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They were required to ‘fully respect the sovereign equality’ of each other, to ‘settle disputes by peaceful means’, and to ‘refrain from any action, by threat or use of force or otherwise, against the territorial integrity or political independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina or any other State’. It also committed them to ‘comply fully’ with provisions concerning human rights and particularly ‘the protection of refugees and displaced persons’. As a result of Dayton, the rump Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro) and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina ‘recognize[d] each other as sovereign independent States within their international borders’. This agreement provided a novel framework for the maintenance of a unified and independent Bosnian state consisting of two distinct ‘entities’: the Moslem-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina with 51 per cent of the territory, and the Republika Srpska with 49 per cent.10 The Dayton agreement was backed by an international Implementation Force (IFOR) initially composed of some 60,000 troops under a US commander, including an all-important US contingent of some 20,000 troops and also Russian troops. Thus the final outcome of international and specifically NATO intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina was to guarantee the national security of this Yugoslav successor state.

Events in Afghanistan, albeit still ongoing at the time of writing, show a similar progression from international security to national security considerations.11 The Taliban government was the subject of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1333 (2000) which followed on from the terrorist attacks on two American embassies in Africa in 1998. This resolution called upon the Taliban to give Osama bin Laden to the United States or a third country so that he could stand trial for his part in these atrocities. The Taliban government was threatened with trade sanctions and the freezing of all its assets abroad if it failed to comply. Resolution 1333 (2000) did not authorise the use of force against the country but it nevertheless discloses a prior history of international security concern with regard to the Taliban’s role in aiding and abetting terrorist activity. The initial American-led intervention in Afghanistan followed on from the September 2001 terrorist attack on the United States. Officially, the purpose of the invasion was to target al-Qaeda members, and to punish the Taliban government of Afghanistan which had provided support and protection to al-Qaeda.

Very quickly, a national security dimension began to emerge. Already by the end of September 2001, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia had withdrawn their recognition of the Taliban government, which left Pakistan the only state that still recognised Taliban rule in Afghanistan as legitimate. This development was significant because if the Taliban are not the legitimate government of Afghanistan, then Afghani national security is not subverted and may even be supported by overthrowing the Taliban. This rationale explains why local Afghan forces opposed to the Taliban such as the Afghan Northern Alliance played a vital role in the American–led effort to overthrow the Taliban and replace it with a new Afghan government. In anticipation of this political change, Afghan political leaders met in Bonn, Germany, in December 2001 to agree new leadership structures. Under the so-called Bonn agreement they formed an interim Transitional Administration and named Hamid Karzai chairman of an Afghani governing committee. A meeting of local Afghani leaders (the Loya Jirga of 19 June 2002) appointed Karzai interim president of the Afghan Transitional Administration. Karzai was subsequently re-elected President of Afghanistan in both the 2004 and 2009 presidential elections.12


11 For an overview of the sequence of events in Afghanistan since 2001, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001-present_war_in_Afghanistan

12 For more information on Karzai, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamid_Karzai


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Just as in Bosnia-Herzegovina, ultimately the officially recognised government of Afghanistan requested international assistance in defence of national security. In September 2006 Karzai told the United Nations General Assembly that Afghanistan had become the ‘worst victim’ of terrorism.13 He demanded international assistance to destroy terrorist sanctuaries inside Afghanistan. Thus NATO’s continued presence in Afghanistan is a key part of the Afghanistan Compact, a ‘five-year plan between the government of Afghanistan and the international community, which sets goals relating to the security, governance and economic development of the country.’14

Activity

Read the International Crisis Group 2006 report ‘Countering Afghanistan’s insurgency: no quick fixes’ available online at www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/asia/south_asia/123_countering_afghanistans_insurgency.pdf and then reflect on the following.

1. How does the report define the threat of counter-insurgency?

2. How does the report describe the process of nation-building?

3. Do you agree with the report’s conclusion that Afghani national security requires both counter-insurgency and nation-building?

4. In your opinion, did intervention strengthen or undermine Afghanistan’s national security?

Intervention for human security: KosovoNATO’s military intervention in Kosovo was a direct response to ‘overwhelming humanitarian necessity.’15 Not surprisingly, therefore, the Kosovo case is fundamentally distinct from the sort of circumstances one can discern at play with regard to the Iraq, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Afghanistan examples. Intervention in Iraq in 1990 was a direct response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and carried out with express security council authorisation. Intervention in Bosnia (1995) and Afghanistan (2001) ultimately had the consent of the recognised governments of the target states whose national security was being threatened by armed insurgents. In contrast, NATO intervention in Kosovo took place against the wishes of the sovereign government of rump Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro) even though the Yugoslav government was similarly challenged by insurgents.16 Similarly, whereas intervention in Iraq (1990), Bosnia (1995) and Afghanistan (2001) was intended to preserve the territorial status quo and restore sovereign control to legitimate governments (in Kuwait, Sarajevo and Kabul), intervention in Kosovo (1999) was intended to protect the Kosovar (Albanian) minority even at the risk of partitioning the (rump) federal Yugoslav state (Serbia-Montenegro). These facts not only make the Kosovo case unique but arguably also one of the rare instances of military intervention for predominantly humanitarian reasons (the Indian intervention in Bangladesh in 1971, the Tanzanian intervention in Uganda in 1978, and the Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia in 1979 are often cited as other examples)17.

Unlike Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo was never a self-governing republic within the Yugoslav Federation. For this reason, it could not claim independence on the basis of uti posseditis juris , a key principle of international law which says that on those rare occasions when empires or federations break up, only the highest-level constituent units will acquire sovereignty. However, under the terms of the 1974 Yugoslav Federal

13 www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/09/9d5c90e1-de6e-4def-a053-9ba2f0aa4747.html/

14 www.nato.int/issues/afghanistan/index.html

15 A. Roberts, ‘NATO’s “humanitarian war” over Kosovo’, Survival 41 (Autumn 1999), p.106.

16 Global covenant p.279.

17 See, among others, J. Mayall Nationalism and international society (Cambridge, 1990) and T. Musgrave Self determination and national minorities (Oxford, 1997).


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Constitution Kosovo was recognised as an autonomous region within Serbia. This limited self-government was revoked by Slobodan Milošević in 1989 and direct rule from Belgrade was imposed. Kosovo’s regional assembly was disbanded and a repressive Serbian-dominated regime was imposed. Albanian was no longer recognised as an official language. The only Albanian-language newspaper, Rilindja, was shut down and TV and radio broadcasts in Albanian prohibited. Kosovar Albanians were denied jobs in the public sector at a time when most industry was state-owned, as a result poverty and unemployment reached catastrophic levels.18

Not surprisingly given these circumstances, Kosovar nationalism, and in particular a desire for secession from rump Federal Yugoslavia, increased significantly during the 1990s. The Democratic League for Kosovo led by Ibrahim Rugova began a policy of peaceful resistance to Serbian rule.19 Rugova took the very practical line that armed resistance would be futile given Serbia’s military strength and would lead only to a bloodbath in Kosovo. He called on the Albanian populace to boycott the Yugoslav and Serbian states by not participating in any elections, by ignoring military drafts and by not paying any taxes. He also called for the creation of parallel Albanian schools, clinics and hospitals. In September 1991, the shadow Kosovo Assembly organised a referendum on independence for Kosovo. Despite widespread harassment and violence by Serbian security forces, the referendum achieved a reported 90 per cent turnout and a 98 per cent vote — nearly a million votes in all — which approved the creation of an independent ‘Republic of Kosovo’. In May 1992, a second referendum elected Rugova president of Kosovo. Predictably given the obvious threat to the territorial integrity of rump Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro), the Serbian government declared that both referendums were illegal and their results null and void.

In 1998, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began an offensive against the Yugoslav federal army and police. The KLA took control of an increasingly wide area of Kosovo – including Pec, Djakovica, Malisevo, Orahovac, Suva Reka and even the Belacevec coal pits (which threatened to disrupt energy supplies in the region). These territorial gains provoked harsh reprisals by the Serbian authorities. Albanians suspected of supporting the KLA were rounded up, and Serbian paramilitaries ostensibly formed to defend ethnic Serb villages from the KLA began to terrorise Kosovo Albanian villagers instead. KLA attacks and Serbian reprisals continued throughout the winter of 1998–1999, culminating in the so-called Racak incident of January 1999 in which 45 Albanian villagers were killed. This incident later became part of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia indictment against Milošević and his top officials. The details of what happened at Racak are still controversial.20

The UN Security Council passed several resolutions on the Kosovo conflict acting under Chapter 7 of the UN charter. Resolution 760 (1998) condemned ‘all terrorist action’ and called upon Yugoslavia to ‘achieve a political solution to the issue of Kosovo through dialogue’. Resolution 1199 (1998) expressed concern about ‘the flow of refugees’ into Albanian and Macedonia and called upon both Yugoslav and Kosovar authorities ‘to improve the humanitarian situation and to avert the impending humanitarian catastrophe’. Once again, it called for a negotiated settlement while at the same time condemning both Yugoslav repression and Kosovar insurrection and prompted both sides to facilitate the safe return of refugees. Finally, Resolution 1203 (1998) demanded that the government of Yugoslavia ‘comply fully and swiftly’ with the above Security Council resolutions.

18 For a description of the situation in Kosovo prior to and during the NATO intervention, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War.

19 For a description of Ibrahim Rugova’s role in Kosovo, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Rugova.

20 For more information on the Racak incident, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racak_incident and www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/kosovo/Kosovo-Massacres2.htm


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These UN demands upon the government of Yugoslavia and the Kosovo Albanian leadership proved futile. Instead of improving, the political situation in Kosovo steadily deteriorated throughout the winter of 1998/99. The civil war not only continued but accelerated. By early 1999 there was a massive forced expulsion and flight of Kosovo Albanians into neighbouring Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro (a separately governed part of Yugoslavia).

NATO’s member states became deeply concerned about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Kosovo. In January the Yugoslav government and the Kosovo Albanian leadership were issued with a ‘summons’ by NATO to attend the Rambouillet peace conference, which involved Russia as well as the leading NATO powers. In February 1999 a basis for a settlement of the conflict was laid down at Rambouillet: (1) Kosovo should enjoy ‘substantial autonomy’ without violating the ‘national sovereignty and territorial integrity’ of Yugoslavia; (2) it should be based on democratic institutions and guarantee human and minority rights; (3) all Yugoslav forces would withdraw from Kosovo; (4) security would be guaranteed by 30,000 international troops, including a core component of NATO forces; and, finally (5) an international conference would be convened within three years of the agreement to negotiate a final settlement of the conflict which would reflect ‘the will of the people’ of Kosovo (as distinct from the people of Yugoslavia). These terms were non-negotiable and so NATO declared itself ready to take military action to ensure compliance.21

In the event, the so-called Rambouillet agreement was accepted by the Kosovar Albanian leaders but categorically rejected by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević. Milošević rightly pointed out that reference only to the ‘people of Kosovo’ in determining the final political status of Kosovo was a flagrant violation of the principle of territorial integrity of existing states and the presence of an international monitoring body would compromise Yugoslavia’s sovereignty. In other words, Milošević rejected Rambouillet because he considered it to be fundamentally antithetical to Yugoslav national security. The day after Belgrade rejected the Rambouillet terms, NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia began. On the ground, the ethnic cleansing campaign by the Serbians accelerated and by the end of the first week of bombardment somewhere in the region of 300,000 Kosovo Albanians had fled into Albania and Macedonia, with many thousands more internally displaced within Kosovo. By April, the United Nations estimated that that 850,000 people — the vast majority of them Albanians — had fled their homes.

The proclaimed goal of the NATO operation was summed up by its spokesman as ‘Serbs out, peacekeepers in, refugees back’. That is, Serbian troops would have to leave Kosovo and be replaced by international peacekeepers in order to ensure that the Albanian refugees could return to their homes. The NATO political and military leadership believed that by ‘weakening’ Yugoslavia’s armed forces and infrastructure President Milošević would be obliged to accept NATO’s terms. They clearly expected the Yugoslav dictator to capitulate quickly in the face of NATO bombing. But instead Milošević held out for over two months. Moreover, once the bombardment concluded, it was discovered that over 200,000 Serbs and other non-Albanian minorities fled or were expelled from the province. So although NATO intervention was ostensibly carried out to protect a vulnerable minority (the Kosovar Albanians) it inadvertently also made another minority group equally vulnerable.22

21 Global covenant p.279.

22 For an overview of the security situation confronting minorities 9that is non-Albanians) in Kosovo, see www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8116643


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Activity

Read the executive summary of the Independent Commission on Kosovo: The Kosovo Report (2000) available online at www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/thekosovoreport.htm and then answer the following questions.

1. Why does the Independent Commission on Kosovo conclude that NATO military intervention in Kosovo was illegal but legitimate?

2. Do you agree with this conclusion?

3. If the Independent Commission on Kosovo is correct, then what are the implications for human security?

The eventual peace terms were based on principles agreed by members of the G7 leading industrial nations plus Russia. The agreement was confirmed and sanctioned by UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999). These conditions were basically the same as those of Rambouillet: an immediate end of hostilities and repression in Kosovo, verified withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from the province, demilitarisation of the KLA, the presence of an international security force in Kosovo with Chapter 7 authorisation, return of all refugees and displaced persons, and the creation of an interim UN civil administration that would re-create an autonomous regime in Kosovo.

The NATO member states, and especially the United States and the United Kingdom who led the initiative, evidently considered this outcome as a vindication of their intervention. As then British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, put it: ‘we have tried repeatedly − right up to the last minute − to find a way to halt the repression of Kosovo Albanians through negotiation… We were left with no other way of preventing the present humanitarian crisis from becoming a catastrophe, than by taking military action to limit the capacity of Milošević’s army to repress the Kosovo Albanians.’23 Other states took a rather different view. As then Russian President Boris Yeltsin remarked: ‘Russia is deeply upset by NATO’s military action against sovereign Yugoslavia, which is nothing less than open aggression.’24 In a similar vein, Russia’s ambassador to London at the time pointed out ‘that breaking international law leads to catastrophes… Nothing in the UN charter or the North Atlantic treaty can justify taking military action against the sovereign state of Yugoslavia.’25

NATO involvement in Kosovo is controversial because the UN Charter does not formally recognise gross human rights violations per se as a criterion for intervention. To recall, the only grounds for intervention in Chapter 7 of the UN Charter are self-defence (Article 59) and international peace and security (Article 42). Although the Security Council characterised the crisis in Kosovo as a threat to international peace and security in Resolutions 760 (1998) and 1199 (1998), it stopped short of authorising ‘all necessary means’ (i.e. force) to compel Yugoslav compliance. Moreover, the final outcome of NATO intervention in Kosovo was the creation of a de facto international protectorate. This development contradicts the main thrust of international society since 1945, which has been characterised by the repudiation of all forms of colonialism and trusteeship in favour of the self-determination of peoples. The question thus arises whether and to what extent NATO’s intervention in Kosovo heralds a return to earlier practices of ‘gun boat diplomacy’ and ‘neo-colonialism’ in which the rights of sovereignty and self-determination can be revoked by the great powers in those circumstances where the government in question fails to satisfy agreed ‘standards of civilisation’. The subsequent American strategy of pre-emption and unilateral action associated with the presidency of George W.

23 As quoted in R. Jackson The global covenant: human conduct in a world of states (OUP, 2000), p.282.

24 Ibid, p.282

25 Ibid, p.282


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Bush would appear to confirm this development. That at least has been the claim put forward by critics of the 2003 American-led intervention in Iraq and the subsequent American policy of regime change.

Activity

Read Bain Chapter 10 and Economides and Berdal Chapters 3 and 8 and then answer the following questions.

1. Does the necessity of safeguarding national security justify pre-emptive intervention of the sort that occurred in Iraq in 2003?

2. If intervention occurs with the consent of the target state as it did in Bosnia, is it really intervention?

3. Should international society intervene to stop gross human rights violations like the ethnic cleansing which took place in Kosovo during 1999?

4. If a sovereign state is incapable of providing security for its people, should it be replaced by an international trusteeship or protectorate as arguably happened with respect to Kosovo?

Intervention after R2P: DarfurThe new doctrine of responsibility to protect or R2P was a direct response to the perceived failings and inadequacies of the military interventions just discussed. The express aim of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in advocating this new approach to humanitarian crises was to ensure that future such conflicts would not fall victim to the same international wranglings and power political calculations that had complicated (Bosnia, Kosovo and Somalia) or forestalled (Rwanda) international action. The crisis in Darfur (a region comprising three states in western Sudan) is often cited as a ‘test case’ for R2P because it was the first major humanitarian emergency to be addressed by the United Nations after recognition of R2P by the World Summit (2005) and the UN Security Council in Resolution 1674 (2006).

The civil war in Darfur began in 2003 when the non-Arab Muslim Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit ethnic groups accused the mostly Arab Sudanese government in Khartoum of oppressing black Africans and neglecting the interests of Darfur.26 Since this time, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) have been involved in a protracted struggle with the Sudanese military and police forces, and the Janjaweed militia recruited mostly from the Arab Abbala tribes of Northern Sudan.27 Although the Sudanese government publicly denies that it supports the Janjaweed, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has charged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with war crimes (2009), crimes against humanity (2009) and genocide (2010) for his role in organising the counter-insurgency in Darfur.28

Estimates regarding the number of casualties from the Darfur conflict vary widely. The UN says as many as 300,000 have died whereas Khartoum puts the figure at nearer 10,000.29 But it is widely accepted that mass killings, rape and other forms of sexual violence, and the deliberate destruction of villages and food supplies have occurred.30 The violence has also forced some 2.5 million people − mostly farmers and villagers from non-Arab groups - to flee their homes.31 The majority of the displaced are living in camps in Darfur, but thousands have also fled across the border into neighbouring Chad.

In May 2006, the Darfur Peace Agreement was signed by the SLM/A and the Sudanese government.32 It provides for the disarmament of the

26 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3496731.stm


28 www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/07/13/sudan-icc-warrant-al-bashir-genocide

29 http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/04/22/darfur.holmes/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

30 Human Rights Watch report (2004), Darfur Destroyed, available at www.hrw.org/en/node/12133/section/1

31 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4978668.stm32 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4978668.stm


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pro-Khartoum Janjaweed militia, the disbandment of the rebel forces and the integration of some of their members into Sudanese military and police forces, as well as the establishment of a Transitional Darfur Regional Authority under the control of the SLM/A to monitor the treaty’s implementation. The smaller JEM did not accept the terms of this deal and so remained in conflict with Khartoum. The Sudanese government and the JEM did not sign a cease-fire agreement until February 2010.33 In May 2010, peace talks between the Sudanese government and the JEM broke down following allegations of Sudanese army raids and air strikes in Darfur.34 In the summer months of 2010, fighting between the JEM and the Sudanese army in Darfur became more frequent.35 In May 2010, approximately 600 people died as a direct result of armed conflict in Darfur, the highest monthly number of violent fatalities since the beginning of 2008.36

The international response to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur was mostly ad hoc rather than the systematic approach envisioned in R2P.37 In August 2006, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1706 calling upon the Sudanese government to accept a UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur to replace a smaller and less well-organised African Union mission.38 But a combined United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) did not reach its destination until January 2008. It was delayed by protracted bickering between the UN, the AU and the Sudanese government in Khartoum over whether final authority for the force would rest with the UN or the AU, the size and resources of the mission, whether its mandate would be under Chapter 6 (peaceful settlement of disputes) or Chapter 7 (restore international peace and security) of the UN Charter, and its financing.

A Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) for UNAMID was eventually signed in February 2009.39 The SOFA set forth provisions for UNAMID funds, property and communications facilities, as well as the safety and security of mission personnel, their privileges and immunities, and their ability to enter and exit Sudan. Yet, irrespective of these formal arrangements, the UN-AU Mission in Darfur has been repeatedly hampered in its monitoring activities by the actions of both government and rebel forces.40 For example, UN sources reported at the end of May 2010 that 18 out of 24 attempts to reach locations in Jebel Mara (where fighting between government and rebel forces was reportedly taking place) had failed to reach their intended destination.41 Banditry and attacks on the peacekeepers and on humanitarian groups have also limited their movement. In June 2010 alone, three peacekeepers were killed and two international humanitarian workers were kidnapped.42 Sudanese authorities routinely fail to prosecute those responsible for such attacks in Darfur. It is likely that insecurity in Darfur will worsen during the remainder of 2010 as international attention shifts towards the South Sudan and the independence referendum scheduled to take place there in January 2011.

What do events in Darfur tell us about the norm of intervention post-R2P? Are international actors and especially the great powers fulfilling their ‘responsibility to protect’? Sadly, the evidence would suggest that the same power-political calculations which complicated international intervention before R2P continue to hamper the path towards human security after R2P. Military intervention for human security is only likely in those circumstances where a great power (e.g., United States) or group of states (NATO, EU, etc.) are prepared to accept the significant political and military risks involved. Insofar as Darfur is concerned, the United States



35 www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article35667

36 www.ushmm.org/genocide/take_action/atrisk/region/sudan

37 Alex de Waal, ‘Darfur and the failure of the responsibility to protect’, International Affairs 83: 6 (2007), p.1041.

38 De Waal, op.cit., p.1042.

39 www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25619&Cr=darfur&Cr1=

40 www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/07/19/un-strengthen-civilian-protection-darfur




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was hesitant about becoming involved for fear that such actions might jeopardise the support of the Sudanese government in the ‘war on terror’.43 Meanwhile, the EU was already overstretched in Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo and therefore did not have sufficient resources to commit to Darfur.44 Russia and China remain ill-disposed towards intervention in general because of the potential implications for Chechnya and Tibet respectively. Finally, a prior concern for the conflict of longer duration in South Sudan has unavoidably directed international action away from Darfur. It remains to be seen whether the outcome of the South Sudanese independence referendum in January 2011 will improve or undermine human security in Darfur.

Activity

Read De Waal, A. (2007) ‘Darfur and the failure of the responsibility to Protect’, International Affairs, 83 (6): 1039−1054, and Enough (2010) report ‘Neglecting Darfur’, available online at www.enoughproject.org/publications/neglecting-darfur. Then consider the following.

1. Is the pursuit of R2P in Darfur a serious international goal?

2. Is it an obtainable ideal? Why or why not?


• define intervention

• identify and assess the justification for intervention within contemporary international society

• discuss the current controversies associated with intervention using evidence from the five case studies surveyed here

• compare and contrast the divergent priorities and practices which follow on from the national, international and human security approaches to the problem of intervention.

Sample examination questions1. To what extent are changes in the balance of power responsible for the

increasing post-Cold War incidence of intervention?

2. Do you agree with the suggestion that intervention often exacerbates insecurity in the target state?

3. Does intervention make the world a safer place?

43 Williams, P. and Bellamy, A. (2005) ‘The responsibility to protect and the crisis in Darfur’, Security Dialogue 36 (1), pp.37−38.

44 Williams and Bellamy, op.cit., p.34.

Appendix 1: Sample examination paper

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Appendix 1: Sample examination paper

Important note: This Sample examination paper reflects the examination and assessment arrangements for this course in the academic year 2010−2011. The format and structure of the examination may have changed since the publication of this subject guide. You can find the most recent examination papers on the VLE where all changes to the format of the examination are posted.

Time allowed: three hours

Candidate should answer FOUR of the following TWELVE questions. All questions carry equal marks.

1. Assess the case for the normative view of security studies.

2. ‘From here on, there will no longer be much difficulty in achieving successful securitisation in the environmental sector.’ Discuss

3. How useful is the idea of human security in sub-Saharan Africa?

4. Compare the justification for intervention in any two of the following: the First Gulf War, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Darfur.

5. Can China reasonably be described as a ‘would-be hegemon’?

6. What is the relationship between military threat and securitisation in the ‘global war on terror’?

7. Are Serbian security and Kosovar security necessarily antithetical?

8. Should international security be a special responsibility of the great powers? Discuss in relation to the UN Security Council.

9. Does security of the state necessarily translate into security of the person?

10. Do you agree with Barry Buzan’s analysis of nuclear deterrence as a ‘defence dilemma’?

11. Will the global financial crisis accelerate securitisation in the economic sector?

12. Should identity be a referent object for security studies?

END OF PAPER

Notes


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Appendix 2: Sample Examiners’ commentary


This course interrogates the key concepts and dilemmas involved in security policy by examining the leading security paradigms – national security, international security and human security. In each case, we look at the historical circumstances out of which the paradigm originates, the political problems it seeks to address, the constraints it imposes upon policymakers, and its significance within contemporary international society. The principal themes addressed are: what does it mean to be ‘secure’ and why does it matter?; does security for some automatically imply insecurity for others?; and how have changes in domestic and international society influenced the ways in which we respond to security dilemmas? The examination paper is a list of 12 questions from which the candidate answers any four. In answering questions, candidates should pay careful attention to what precisely is being asked and relate empirical examples to the relevant concepts and theories. The most common shortcoming found in examination answers is the tendency to summarise a particular theory or event without critically assessing it or to write down everything known about a general issue without actually answering the particular question.

Specific comments on questions1. Assess the case for the normative view of international

security studies.

Reading for this question

A discussion of the meaning attributed to security may be found in Chapter 1 of the subject guide and in Bain (introduction) and Buzan (introduction). Students interested in a normative approach to security will find the Jackson chapter (1) in the Bain essential text a useful point of reference alongside the further readings by Baldwin and Rothschild (see p.13 of the subject guide). Those who prefer to take a more instrumental view of security should refer to Thomas Schelling or the ‘Mutual deterrence’ speech by Robert McNamara (see p.16 of the subject guide).

Approaching this question

Students should begin by defining what ‘normative’ means in the context of security. A normative view of security is one predicated upon values, ideas and identities. The clear implication of the subject guide is that security should be regarded as fundamentally normative because without it human life is reduced to a basic struggle for survival. This normative view is also evident in the essential texts. When we approach security in this way, our analysis tends towards hard choices between competing values, e.g. as between security of the state and security of the person. Thus security policy itself comes to be regarded as a series of moral dilemmas to which there can be no easy solutions.

But much of the wider literature on security (e.g., many of the leading journals cited on p.8 of the subject guide) takes a rather different view, one constituted by instrumentalism or the belief that policies should be judged only by their outcomes. Neo-realism is a case in point. Neo-realism is a material approach informed by power capabilities and quantifiable


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risks (see the reference to Schelling above for an example). Moral dilemmas are not only absent from such analyses but tend to be regarded as deeply inappropriate because of their ability to distract us from the rational pursuit of our interests.

Which view of security is to be preferred, and on what basis? In answering this question, you will need to offer an assessment of each approach, and a clear indication of which you find most persuasive, and on what basis. The best answers to this question will identify the debate between normative and realist approaches to security as part of a much larger methodological controversy within international relations and indeed the social sciences more generally.

2. ‘From here on, there will no longer be much difficulty achieving successful securitisation in the environmental sector.’ Discuss.


This question draws on Chapter 5 of the subject guide as well as Chapters 1 and 6 of the Hough required text, and the ‘introduction’ and ‘conclusion’ of the Buzan required text.


You will need to begin by explaining what is meant by ‘securitisation’. The term ‘securitisation’ originates from the so-called Copenhagen school of security studies (of which Barry Buzan is a founding member) and has now become commonplace within the discipline of international relations. Securitisation is a process through which a given policy area is politicised to such an extent that it is considered essential for survival. In this way, security policy expands to include topics not traditionally associated with it. Buzan describes this process in the introduction and conclusion of Peoples, states and fear.

Examiners will expect more than an overview of environmental threats. The best answers will interrogate the process of securitisation itself, outlining what has been achieved by those who believe environmental problems are essential for survival and want security policymakers to adopt a similar view. For example, you might discuss the increasing characterisation of global warming and those foreign policies directed at it in security terms. The question implies that environmental issues are now widely regarded as bona fide security concerns. In your opinion, do recent developments like the 2009 Copenhagen Conference support or contradict this view? Your answer will benefit enormously from reading current articles in the Financial Times, the Economist and the academic journals cited in the subject guide.

3. How useful is the idea of human security in sub-Saharan Africa?


This question draws on the material and required readings discussed in Chapter 6 of the subject guide.


You will need to begin by defining the ‘idea of human security’. From this perspective, human security extends beyond the protection of states to include the protection of people. Human security is a direct response to the perceived inadequacies of state-centred approaches to security. In

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liberal theory, the state cannot pose a threat to the people because it is a creation of the people. In practice, however, security of the state does not always translate into security of the people. There are many states which do not have the capacity to protect their people while others directly and purposefully threaten their people for political, economic or ideological reasons.

You should then go on to assess whether or not such a view of security may reasonably be applied to circumstances in sub-Saharan Africa. Crucially, of course, the states of sub-Saharan Africa are among the poorest and worse governed in the world – hence the use of terms such as ‘weak’, ‘failed’ or even ‘quasi’ states. State institutions here are often corrupt, weak or non-existent (read the failed states index report cited in Chapter 3 of the subject guide) and as a result the state is not capable of providing security for its people and may even threaten them. Thus, M. Ayoob in his seminal 1991 article listed under the further readings for Chapter 3 of the subject guide concludes that the security problem of the Third World cannot be understood from the classic liberal perspective. Human security aims to fill precisely this gap identified by Ayoob.

There are many different ways to answer this question. You may agree with Ayoob’s conclusions (in which case you should explain why) and argue that human security is a useful alternative to state-centred approaches in sub-Saharan Africa. Or you may agree with Ayoob but remain sceptical of human security as a convincing alternative and propose another security reference (e.g., societal security, economic security, environmental security or some combination thereof). You might even argue that liberal state-centred approaches nevertheless remain the most efficacious as a basis for criticism and reform of weak or corrupt regimes. The best answers will disclose a good knowledge of both the required and the relevant further readings, and on this basis be able to combine conceptual with empirical analysis.

4. Compare the justification for intervention in any two of the following: the First Gulf War, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Darfur.


This question draws upon the material discussed in Chapters 5 and 8 of the subject guide and in Chapters 1, 3 and 8 of the required Economides and Berdal text. It asks you to consider the justification for intervention and thus the focus of your answer should be on evaluating the political purpose and legality of these actions rather than summarising what happened per se. Remember, the Examiners are looking for analysis here, and not historical description.


Within the literature on intervention, the first Gulf War is generally portrayed as intervention for international peace and security consistent with the United Nations Charter. In contrast, intervention in Kosovo is usually described as an ‘overwhelming humanitarian necessity’ in the face of widespread ethnic cleansing of the Albanian population by Serbian forces. Similarly, intervention in Darfur is frequently referenced to the doctrine of the responsibility to protect. The Afghan intervention is less clear cut – it began as a subject of international security under UN Security Council Resolution 1333 (2000) but ultimately the officially recognised post-Taliban government of Afghanistan requested international assistance (2006) in defence of its sovereignty.


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The best answers will establish clear criteria for justification; for example, what constitutes international peace and security, national security and human security in this context, and explain how it applies to two of the cases listed in the question. This evaluation may or may not agree with the dominant view of the literature.

5. Can China reasonably be described as a ‘would-be hegemon’?


This question draws on the material and required readings discussed in Chapter 5 of the subject guide, Buzan Chapter 5 and, to a lesser extent, also Hough Chapter 2. You may also find it useful to refer to the David Hendrickson article listed in the activity on p.46 of the subject guide. The salient facts with respect to China are not specifically addressed in either the subject guide or the required readings, but they should be familiar to you provided that you have remained abreast of current developments in international relations (i.e., by reading some of the periodicals cited as additional resources in the subject guide).


You should begin by explaining the term ‘hegemon’ in the context of current Chinese power. A hegemon is a state with such a preponderance of power that it is able to ‘lay down the law’ to all other members of international society. In the post-Cold War period, China has often been described as a potential hegemon because of its geographic size, population, geostrategic location, and growing economic strength. Describing China in these terms, however, is only part of what is required. Examiners will also be looking for an evaluation of whether or not such a description is justifiable and on what basis.

The best answers will acknowledge that such an evaluation can only be made in terms of a specific balance of power context. It may, for instance, be reasonable to conclude that China is already a regional hegemon in South East Asia but is not likely to become a global hegemon anytime soon due to the continued preponderance of the United States on the world stage. Irrespective of the specific argument provided, first-class answers should demonstrate a nuanced understanding and application of the concepts ‘hegemony’, ‘balance of power’ and ‘international society’, as well as national and international security, and an ability to relate these to empirical examples.

6. What is the relationship between military threat and securitisation in the ‘global war on terror’?


This question draws upon the material discussed in Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the subject guide and in Buzan Chapter 7 and Hough Chapters 2 and 3.


This question asks you to characterise the relationship between military threat and securitisation drawing upon evidence related to the ‘global war on terror’. To begin, you will need to explain what is meant by the ‘global war on terror’. The global war on terror is a term coined by former President George W. Bush both to justify and to characterise United States foreign policy following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The ‘global war on terror’ has thus come to be associated with a range of policies including

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intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, intrusive new policies of homeland security (e.g., the Patriot Act) and the internment of foreign nationals in Guantánamo Bay.

You should reflect on what these policies indicate with respect to military threat and securitisation. For example, you could argue that global terrorism associated with non-state actors like al-Qaeda constitutes a new kind of threat that differs in fundamental respects from that associated with more traditional military threats emanating from other states. Accordingly, the security response to this new threat has been equally novel, taking into consideration societal and economic factors, and involving national, international and human security. To make such an argument, you will find the Hough Chapter 3 particularly helpful. Alternatively, you might instead claim that the war on terror has fundamentally served American military interests, including those of the military-industrial complex, and thus embodies the power−security dilemma outlined by Buzan in Chapter 7 of his text.

7. Are Serbian security and Kosovar security necessarily antithetical?


This question draws on the material and required readings discussed in Chapters 2, 7 and 8 of the subject guide. Students will find Chapters 6 and 7 of the Buzan required text and the Jackson-Preece chapter (8) of the Bain required text particularly useful in answering this question.


You should begin by summarising the relationship between Serbia and Kosovo. Here you may wish to recall some or all of the following salient points: (1) that Serbia was a constituent unit within federal Yugoslavia during which time Kosovo was itself a sub-unit within Serbia; (2) according to the principle of uti possedits juris (respect for highest-level constituent units within empires or federal states in the process of dissolution), Serbia became an independent state but Kosovo did not; (3) continued rule of Kosovo by Belgrade was oppressive and ultimately provoked NATO intervention in defence of the human and minority rights of the Kosovar Albanians in 1999; (4) Kosovo was under a United Nations administration until 2008, when the Kosovo government in Prishtina unilaterally declared independence following the breakdown of internationally led negotiations with Belgrade to resolve the final status of the province; (5) a significant Serbian minority continues to exist within Kosovo, whose independence has not been recognised by Belgrade and many other states including Russia.

You will then need to evaluate whether or not Serbian and Kosovar security are mutually exclusive. If arguing in favour of exclusivity, you may find it useful to describe the relationship between Serbia and Kosovo in terms of that between a revisionist and a status quo state as outlined in Buzan Chapters 6 and 7 useful. Alternatively, you could argue that a minority rights and democracy framework applied to both Serbia and Kosovo would overcome this zero-sum dynamic, as outlined in the Jackson-Preece chapter.


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8. Should international security be a special responsibility of the great powers? Discuss in relation to the UN Security Council.


This question draws on the material and required readings discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 of the subject guide.


You should begin by explaining the relationship between international security and great-power responsibility. International security is directed at the preservation of international order defined in terms of the continued existence of international society. The gravest threat to international society is hegemony because it contradicts those pluralist principles of equal sovereignty and non-intervention on which this society is based. The so-called balance of power is designed to protect international society from precisely this threat – it assumes that the great powers will act together to preserve international peace and security from those states that would otherwise violate its principles. This description of great power responsibility is only part of what is required of you. The Examiners will also expect a normative evaluation of great-power responsibility towards international security (i.e., do you consider such responsibility ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and on what basis?)

The best answers will demonstrate an understanding of the antimonies or contradictions implicit within great-power responsibility towards international security. For example, you could point out that great powers are at one and the same time both potential hegemons and the only states capable of preventing the emergence of hegemony; as a result, they are effectively required to police themselves. More than that, you might suggest that the idea of great-power responsibility itself sits uneasily with the crucial pluralist principle of equal sovereignty since it not only recognises exceptional power but also accords special status to those states which possess such power.

9. Does security of the state necessarily translate into security of the person?


This question draws on the material and essential readings discussed in Chapters 2, 3, 6 and 7 of the subject guide.


You will need to begin by defining security of the state and security of the person. Security of the state is first and foremost concerned with protecting the state from external threats by foreign powers and from internal threats by criminals, rebels and terrorists. In contrast, security of the person is first and foremost concerned with protecting individuals from harm by other actors, state and non-state alike, including even their own governments. But an answer which stops here would be incomplete. The suggestion that state and personal security are necessarily linked assumes these paradigms share a common purpose, and so the Examiners will expect you to explain why you agree or disagree with this claim.

If you argue in favour of a linkage, you may wish to point out that state security is only morally justified so long as it translates into the personal security of the state’s own citizens. According to liberal theory, the state cannot pose a threat to its own people because it is a creation of that

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people. Thus the interests of a state and its population should coincide. You may even go so far as to suggest that the circumstances pertaining in liberal democracies such as the member states of the European Union, Canada, Australia, the United States and Japan, among others, proves the validity of these theoretical claims.

If you argue against such linkage, then you may wish to focus more on circumstances elsewhere. There are many other states around the world which either do not have the capacity to protect their people (e.g., failed states such as Sierra Leone) or directly and purposefully threaten their people (e.g., totalitarian states like North Korea) for political, economic or ideological reasons. These states demonstrate that the assumptions of liberal theory should not be assumed to apply everywhere. It is precisely this reality which underscores the new ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine and explains the support it has received from states.

Irrespective of the view taken, a first-class essay answer will locate these debates in the context of larger developments in international relations. This question thus underscores the importance of your reading beyond the required syllabus and making an effort to engage with current international developments (by reading the various academic journals listed in the subject guide as well as news publications like the Economist or the International Herald Tribune).

10. Do you agree with Barry Buzan’s analysis of nuclearn deterrence as a ‘defence dilemma’?


This question draws on the material and required readings discussed in Chapter 3 of the subject guide. The so-called ‘defence dilemma’ was proposed by Barry Buzan in Chapter 6 of People, states and fear.


You will need to begin by explaining the ‘defence dilemma’. As defined by Buzan, the defence dilemma refers to a potential problem in the relationship between national security and military power. National security includes all those policies and practices directed both within and beyond the state which have as their purpose the continued survival of the state and, by extension, the well-being of its population. Military power is the use of armed force (land, naval and air) to protect the state from external threats and as such is one aspect of national security. It is usually assumed that military power positively correlates with national security. Buzan challenges this idea by pointing out various ways in which the two may fail to coincide. Nuclear deterrence appears an obvious choice here due to the irony of ‘mutually assured destruction’.

The best answers will do more than simply recapitulate some or all of Buzan’s argument. The Examiners will be looking for an assessment of Buzan. For example, you might argue that although nuclear deterrence itself is a convincing example of a defence dilemma, its exceptional nature calls into question the more general applicability of the concept. Such an answer reveals not only an understanding of Buzan but also that ability for independent, critical analysis which is most prized by the Examiners. This is an important reminder that you should always incorporate your own opinions and ideas into your exam answers. As I tell my internal LSE students, if I wanted to know what Buzan or any other academic thinks on a given topic I can easily read their books and articles. I read your essays and exam answers because I want to know about your own informed ideas.


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11. Will the global financial crisis accelerate securitisation in the economic sector?


This question draws on Chapter 4 of the Hough required text, as well as the introduction, conclusion and Chapter 5 of the Buzan required text.


You will need to begin by explaining what is meant by securitisation. The term ‘securitisation’ originates from the so-called Copenhagen School of security studies (of which Barry Buzan is a founding member) and has now become commonplace within the discipline of international relations. Securitisation is a process through which a given policy area is politicised to such an extent that it is considered essential for survival. In this way, security policy expands to include topics not traditionally associated with it. Buzan describes this process in the introduction and conclusion of People, states and fear.

Examiners will expect you to interrogate the process of securitisation in the context of the global financial crisis. The best answers will therefore relate the key features of the global financial crisis to the problems and possibilities associated with economic securitisation. To do that, you will benefit enormously from reading current articles in the Financial Times, the Economist and the academic journals cited in the subject guide. Only then will you be able to take a view as to whether or not the global financial crisis is helping or hindering the process of economic securitisation. For example, you might argue that the financial crisis is further proof, should any be needed, that economic interests are increasingly globalised and thus beyond the control of any one state and its policymakers. Here you might cite the international banking ramifications of the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market or the Madoff investment scandal. To this extent, then, the global financial crisis proves the case for economic securitisation. Conversely, you might instead argue that the response to the global financial crisis in fact signals a return to economic nationalism wherein the interests of corporations or classes are identified with those states to which they are most closely associated. Here you might cite the widespread nationalisation of banks to protect national banking structures.

12. Should identity be a referent object for security studies?


This question draws on the material and required readings discussed in Chapters 2 and 7 of the subject guide. You will find Chapters 2 and 9 of the Buzan required text, Chapter 5 of the Hough required text and Chapter 8 of the Bain required text particularly useful in answering this question. These points are also discussed at greater length in my 2005 book Minority rights (listed in the subject guide as further reading).


This question asks you to consider the purported link between identity and security. Both Barry Buzan and I, taking a constructivist approach, argue that security is all about the interaction of collectivities defined by a shared identity. What matters is not the content of that identity but its ability to sustain group cohesiveness. When group cohesiveness falters, the survival of that community is jeopardised. For this reason, we argue that security is fundamentally about the preservation and promotion of

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identity. You will need to explain whether or not, and on what basis, you agree with this perspective.

If you agree with the view that identity should be a referent object of security, you might reflect on the role of identity politics as a source of or threat to security. As I argue in my 2005 book, identity is constitutive of political community and thus both security and insecurity. Minorities are political outsiders precisely because their identities do not fit the criteria defining membership within the political community on whose territory they reside. As a result, the institutions of the state are not directed at preserving and promoting minority identity and may even be hostile towards it. Indeed, in circumstances of hostility, it is often claimed that the existence of alternative identities will be perceived as a threat to the continued survival of the shared (majority) identity and policies of discrimination, assimilation, persecution, ghettoisation, forced expulsion and even genocide towards minorities may follow on from it. You would then need to consider an empirical example or two in support of this claim.

If you disagree with this view, you might instead argue that identity only becomes significant in those circumstances where the material interests of the dominant (majority) group are threatened, for example when resources are scarce or when the state is under threat from an external aggressor. You would then need to consider an empirical example or two in support of this claim. On this basis you might conclude that identity per se is not directly relevant to security analyses.

Key steps to success in the examination1. Try to develop the skill of using your knowledge more to answer the

question directly rather than merely putting down what you know without reference to the question. Many candidates who clearly have a good knowledge of the subject nevertheless fail to make use of it.

2. When you are asked to comment on a particular concept or argument, do not be frightened of using your own critical judgment. You need to demonstrate that you read and understood the required texts but you do not need to agree with them. The examiner is much more interested in your own views as distinct from the authors surveyed in the subject guide.

3. Although questions are not marked on length, it is difficult to get high marks from very short answers. But long answers are no guarantee of high marks. The best answers are always those directed at the particular question, which define key concepts and provide good examples to back up the candidate’s own argument.

Notes


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