Political Science: Class 12 (Book 1) — Chapter 5: Security in the Contemporary World

• Military Aggression: The greatest danger to a country's security comes from another nation-state threatening military action.
• Core Values at Risk: External military threats directly endanger a state's sovereignty , independence , and territorial integrity .
• Targeting Civilians: Modern warfare does not spare ordinary citizens; military actions often deliberately target civilians to break their domestic support for the war.

When confronted with the threat of war, a government has three basic choices:

1. Surrender: To yield to the attacking country's demands (though governments rarely advertise this as an active policy).
2. Deterrence : To prevent the other side from attacking by promising to raise the costs of war to an unacceptable, prohibitive level.
3. Defence : To defend itself when war actually breaks out, denying the attacking country its objectives and defeating the invading forces.

• Balance of Power : A critical component of traditional security policy. Countries closely monitor the relative strength of neighboring states. To maintain a favorable balance, states build up their own military, economic, and technological capabilities.
• Alliance Building : A coalition of states that coordinate their actions to deter or defend against military attack. Most alliances are formalized in written treaties and are based on shared national interests.
• Dynamic Alliances: Alliances change when national interests change. For example, the US backed Islamic militants in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, but later launched military campaigns against them after the Al Qaeda terrorist strikes on 11 September 2001.
• Anarchy in World Politics: Unlike domestic systems where a central authority (the government) regulates violence, the international system lacks a central governing body. The United Nations is a creature of its member states and possesses authority only to the extent allowed by its members.

• Western Security Focus: After 1945, the most powerful countries (the US and the Soviet Union) faced relatively stable internal conditions. Consequently, they focused almost exclusively on external threats arising from the Cold War.
• Colonial Wars: European powers continued to face violent resistance in their colonies from people seeking independence (e.g., the French in Vietnam, the British in Kenya).

The newly independent countries of Asia and Africa faced security challenges fundamentally different from those of Europe in two major ways:

1. External Border Disputes: New states faced immediate military conflicts with neighbors over borders, territories, and populations. Many feared their neighbors more than the former colonial powers.
2. Internal Secessionist Movements: These states faced severe threats from internal separatist movements wanting to form independent countries.
3. Merged Threats: External and internal threats frequently merged, as hostile neighbors often instigated or supported internal separatist rebellions.
4. Civil War Statistics: Between 1946 and 1991, there was a twelve-fold rise in the number of civil wars. Internal wars now make up more than 95% of all armed conflicts fought globally.

• Just War Theory: Traditional security recognizes that cooperation is possible to limit the ends and means of war. Countries should only go to war for legitimate reasons, such as self-defence or protection against genocide.
• Proportionality and Discrimination: Armies must avoid killing or hurting non-combatants, as well as unarmed or surrendering soldiers. Force must be used only as a last resort after all diplomatic alternatives have failed.

• Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) : A process where rival countries share ideas, military information, and plans on a regular basis. This demonstrates that they are not planning surprise attacks, reducing the risk of war through misperception.

• From State to Individual: Non-traditional security questions the traditional referent of security. Instead of asking "Security for whom?" and answering "the state," it expands the referent to include individuals, communities, and all of humankind.
• Human Security vs. State Security: Secure states do not automatically guarantee secure peoples. Historically, during the last 100 years, more people have been killed by their own governments than by foreign invading armies.
• Narrow vs. Broad Human Security: Proponents of the narrow view focus on protecting individuals from violent threats (e.g., civil war, state violence). Proponents of the broad view argue that the security agenda must include hunger, disease, and natural disasters ("freedom from want" and "freedom from fear").

The concept of global security emerged in the 1990s to address threats that are transnational in nature and cannot be resolved by any single country acting alone:

• Global Warming: A projected sea-level rise of 1.5 to 2.0 meters would submerge 20% of Bangladesh, flood most of the Maldives, and threaten half the population of Thailand.
• International Terrorism: Political violence targeting civilians deliberately and indiscriminately across multiple national borders.
• Health Epidemics: Rapidly spreading diseases like HIV-AIDS, bird flu, SARS, and Corona, which travel via global migration, trade, and tourism.

• Definition: Political violence that targets civilians deliberately and indiscriminately to terrorize the public and use their fear as a weapon against governments.
• Classic Tactics: Hijacking planes, planting bombs in trains, cafes, markets, and other crowded public spaces.
• Global Shift: Since the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US World Trade Centre, global attention on terrorism has intensified, though the phenomenon has long affected regions like the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, and South Asia.

Human rights are broadly classified into three distinct categories:

1. First Type: Political rights, such as freedom of speech, expression, and assembly.
2. Second Type: Economic and social rights, ensuring basic survival and dignity.
3. Third Type: Rights of colonized peoples, ethnic minorities, and indigenous populations.

• UN Intervention Debate: Since the 1990s, atrocities in Kuwait, Rwanda, and East Timor have sparked intense debate over whether the UN Charter authorizes military intervention to stop human rights abuses, or if such actions are driven by the national interests of powerful states.

• Demographic Disparities: World population is projected to reach nearly 1000 crore by the mid-21st century. Currently, half of this growth occurs in just six countries: India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Indonesia.
• North-South Divide: High per capita incomes and low population growth make rich Northern states richer, while low incomes and high population growth make poor Southern states poorer.
• Migrants vs. Refugees: Migrants voluntarily leave their home countries for better economic opportunities, and states are not legally bound to accept them. Refugees flee war, natural disasters, or political persecution, and international law generally obligates states to accept them.
• Internally Displaced People : Individuals who have fled their homes due to violence or conflict but remain within their national borders (e.g., Kashmiri Pandits who fled the Kashmir Valley in the early 1990s).

• Inadequacy of Force: Military force is ineffective against non-traditional threats like poverty, migration, epidemics, and environmental degradation. In most cases, using military force to address these issues only worsens the situation.
• Multilateral Cooperation: Effective strategies require international cooperation, which can be bilateral, regional, continental, or global.
• Diverse Global Actors: Cooperative security involves not just states, but international organizations (UN, WHO, World Bank, IMF), non-governmental organizations (Amnesty International, Red Cross), private charities, trade unions, and prominent global figures.
• Force as a Last Resort: Cooperative security may involve the collective, internationally sanctioned use of force to deal with governments that commit genocide or to combat international terrorist networks.