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 Insecurity
in Context
Over the past decade a number of destabilising developments
have occurred which pose serious practical and conceptual challenges to
conventional policy frameworks and responses. These security challenges
have all been of a complex and unconventional nature—they do not accord
with conventional models of state-based military threats from the deployment
or use of conventional military force. Rather they involve non-state or
multiple actors, or complex processes such as social, environmental and
economic feedbacks. They have required the involvement of both old and
new security actors such as international agencies, police forces, citizens,
NGOs, media and civil society groups. At the same time, they challenge
the relevance and efficacy of conventional militarised, state-based security
responses conducted as stand-alone actions.
Developments in the recent past that challenge social sustainability in our region
range from the local to the global:
- the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, Kuta and Riyadh, and international
policy responses including wars in Afghanistan and Iraq;
- the erosion of civil liberties, democratic governance and international human
rights law in the course of coalition-building and counter-terrorist responses
following the attacks of September 11, 2001;
- a global health crisis, ranging from global diseases such as AIDS, SARS and
tuberculosis to the medical consequences of regional zones of global conflict;
- threats to natural eco-systems, human communities and economic patterns posed
by environmental degradation;
- the Asian political and financial crisis of 1997-98 with its accompanying
effect local and regional communities;
- the global refugee crisis, growth in people smuggling, increasing numbers
of internally displaced people;
- the fraying of liberal security norms based on international law, co-operative
institution-building and dialogue, through developments such as the Korean crisis,
the slowing of progress in the ASEAN Regional Forum, the fraying of international
arms control and non-proliferation agreements, and the destabilising impact of
pre-emptive security doctrine;
- the untenable stresses being placed on the United Nations system through
opposing developments and demands—on the one hand discord in the Security Council,
the disregard of international law and the creation of security or peace-building
crises by member states, and on the other hand increasing demands for UN involvement
in peacekeeping, humanitarian relief, crisis governance and nation-building.
- the exacerbation of regional settings of violence and tension including the
East Timor crisis and international humanitarian intervention; the Kosovo war;
the internal conflict in Indonesia, including religious violence in Maluku, tensions
in Papua and intensified military operations in Aceh, with consequent human rights
abuses and potential for ongoing instability; the second Palestinian Intifada,
suicide attacks and Israeli responses such as Operation Defensive Shield and
the reoccupation of Palestinian Authority areas; the ongoing instability in Fiji
and the Solomon Islands; the reconstruction, security and nation-building challenges
in Bougainville, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq, with associated problems such
as political instability, drug cultivation, humanitarian crisis, weapons proliferation
and economic stagnation; the intensified security dilemma in North-East Asia,
particularly involving North Korean efforts to develop nuclear weapons; the renewed
nuclear tensions between India and Pakistan, and conflict in Kashmir, coincident
with the war in Afghanistan and the fall of the Taliban regime.
The common thread linking all these developments is how, in various ways, they
constitute serious threats to the human security and welfare of communities and
individuals. These threats have arisen from complex
interactions between economic turmoil, crises in governance, identity politics,
human rights abuses, ethnic tension, religious and political violence, state
policy and individual beliefs. Such developments in turn often threaten human
security at a range of levels, from the local to the national, regional and global.
While the use of conventional policy responses has sometimes been appropriate,
on other occasions the application of conventional policies (economic, diplomatic
and military) has worsened such crises. The common reflex to attempt to read
non-conventional security challenges through the lens of conventional state-based
analysis has gravely distorted policy and imposed significant additional costs
in human and financial terms. In particular, there is a danger that an over-reliance
on conventional military responses to unique new forms of terrorism—combining
networked small-scale groups acting on the basis of controversial religious doctrines
and perceptions of injustice, wounded dignity and cultural threat—runs the risk
of prolonging rather than reducing such threats.
Overall then we have three related substantive aims. (See
also our Key Questions)-
Sources of insecurity.
We intend to go beyond the question of identifying the immediate threats—these
are by now readily apparent, even if their interconnections need fundamental
research—to examining the deeper sources of insecurity: political, military,
cultural, economic, environmental and health insecurity. This, we argue, will provide a stronger basis
for understanding the ground of conflict, violence and other forms of insecurity
in the world today, and thus for orienting policy-decisions in relation to national
and regional security.
- Conditions of human security.
Thus, we intend to develop the interpretative bases for more adequately debating
how in practical terms the conditions of human security might best be sustained
under different circumstances.
- Practices of sustainable security.
We intend to interrogate the framework of security, including the concept of ‘human
security’ itself, to develop the principles upon which sustainable practices
can be built.
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2004 |
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