GeoJournal 34.

2 135-145 135
@ 1994 (Oct) by Kluwer Academic Pubrishers

Security: Old Dilemmas and New Challenges

in the Post-Cold War Environment
Camilleri, Joseph A., Professor, La Trobe University, School of Politics,
Bundoora, Victoria 3083, Australia

ABSTRACT: Security, widely regarded as the centrepiece of geopolitical discourse, has

been traditionally understood in terms of national military defence. More recently, theorists
and practitioners alike have argued for a more encompassing, less state-centric definition of
the concept, which takes into account non-military threats to security as well as non-military
responses to both military and non-military threats. The end of the Cold War provides an
opportune time to reconsider these arguments, to establish whether or not the related
concepts of common and comprehensive security have contemporatry relevance, and to
identify their far-reaching policy and institutional implications.

The post-1945 political and strategic order revolved for
the best part of four decades arround two competing alliance
systems which largely supplanted the United Nations (UN)
as symbols of collective defeuce, at least so far as their
members were concerned. Yet, the reassurances extended
by both superpowers to their respective allies served another
purpose, namely to entrench American and Soviet power
and influence. As Kratochwil (1989) points out, the Atlantic
alliance cannot be understood as a security arrangement
operating within the "well-established conventions" of the
classical balance of power. The argument applies with even
greater force to the Warsaw Pact. In each case, powerful
integrative tendencies, in their various ideological, economic
and military manifestations, were at odds with traditional
notions of statecraft, flexible diplomacy and shifting
alliances. Despite the outward appearances of stability and
quasi-permanence, the solution to the security dilemma
offered by Cold War alliances only partially obscured
unresolved ambiguities and was prone to periodic crises. The
end of the Cold War and, more specifically, the dissolution
of the Warsaw Pact and the on-going reorganization of
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) provide a
unique opportunity to rethink the theory and practice of
security in a post-hegemonic world.
Though official and academic pronouncements about the
end of the Cold War and the birth of a new world order are
proving somewhat premature, the last ten years have
nevertheless produced evidence of new attitudes and
policies, which have resulted in a number of disarmament
and arms control agreements, the partial resolution of
several regional conflicts, and the creation in Europe of an
embryonic security framework cutting across long-standing
ideological and geopolitical divisions. Other positive trends
include the rise of new centres of economic and diplomatic
influence, the improvement in Sino-Soviet relations and the
tentative first steps toward more effective regional co-
operation in Asia-Pacific generally and Southeast Asia in
particular. Encouraging though these trends may be, a
number of obstacles stand in the way of a more fundamental
reassessment of security relationships, notably the continuing
reluctance of policy-makers and their advisers to explore, let
alone implement, new approaches to security, the tendency
of military and political elites to cling to existing policy-
making processes, the lack of effective mechanisms for
subjecting security policy to probing public scrutiny, the
relatively underdeveloped character of regional co-operative
institutions, and the continuing emphasis on growth-oriented
economic competitiveness within an increasingly integrated
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world market, with all that this implies for military
technology and defence spending.
Conceptual Ambiguities and Complexities
The destructiveness of the Gulf War, not to mention
the more recent violence that has afflicted Somalia,
Angola, Haiti and much of the former Yugoslavia and
Soviet Union, are an apt reminder that security remains
for many at best a distant possibility. The insecurity which
continues to describe the lives of countless millions
suggests that the key question is not merely the adequacy
of existing institutional arrangements but the very
meaning of security.
For many theorists and practitioners national security
remains the key to describing, explaining or justifying
particular policies, yet the concept tends to obscure as
much as to clarify. Does the word national, for example,
refer to the state and its leading institutions (i e executive,
legislature, armed services, intelligence organizations), or
to the nation as a whole? If the first meaning is intended,
then national security becomes virtually synonymous with
the defence of sectional interests, or at least with interests
as defined and articulated by those in positions of power
and authority. If the second meaning is preferred,
difficult questions arise as who or what the nation is and
what kind of security is envisaged for those who are part
of it. Nations differ greatly not only in terms of size and
cohesion but also in terms of organizing principles and
institutions (Wiberg 1987). In some cases the boundaries
of state and nation may virtually coincide (eg Japan,
Denmark), but in others the state may comprise two or
more nations (e g Canada, Yugoslavia), and in others still
the nation may be divided into two or more states (e g
Kurdish nation), or the nation may have no state that
recognizes its existence (e g East Timor).
Equally problematic is security itself. Is it a condition
to be understood primarily in terms of objective
conditions, often equated with protection from physical
threat, or in terms of subjective perceptions which we
may loosely refer to as the nation's state of mind? It is
not possible to entertain security as a policy objective
without at least implicitly addressing a number of
complex questions: Who or what is to be defended? From
what? By whom? How? At what price? Those who find
national security a convenient short-hand answer to these
questions tend to equate security with the defence of
national territory, presumably on the assumption that the
preservation of territorial integrity, that is the exclusion
of others from the physical space delineated as one's own
(national) territory, holds the key to the defence of the
nation's well-being. But the link between defence of
territory and preservation of national well-being is often
assumed rather than demonstrated.
Precisely because it has acquired such widespread
currency, the notion of national security, or to be more
exact, national military defence, merits careful analysis.
GeoJournal 34.2/1994
We propose to begin by considering each of the three
components of this formulation: "national", "defence",
"military". We have already observed that national does
not necessarily refer to a clearly identifiable, monolithic
or even cohesive entity whose interests are capable of
objective definition. Indeed, the interests of the nation or
state and the means by which they are to be pursued are
often the subject of intense intellectual contestation and
political division. Even if we should focus our attention
on the conceptual, more manageable, less elusive
category of the state, there is no escaping the fact, as
Buzan is at pains to show, that "states are exceedingly
dissimilar as objects of security" (Buzan 1983). They are
vulnerable to different kinds of threat, as a result of
vastly different external and domestic environments.
States differ with respect to size, strength, structure and
political tradition. The security dilemma facing any state
can be given concrete shape only in the context of
particular circumstances. For some the main threat
originates from outside while for others internal security
is the primary focus, given fundamental disagreement
between sectional interests about the norms, rules and
procedures which should govern political institutions and
processes. Internal divisions may become so acute (eg
former Yugoslavia or even Bosnia) as to deprive the
notion of the national of any theoretical, let alone
operational utility. Beyond a certain point there is no
recognizable entity which is either the subject or object of
defence.
In any case, the security of the state or the nation,
assuming these remain relative coherent entities, cannot
be equated with individual security. Though it can be
argued that the preservation of the state is conducive to
the maintenance of social and political order, hence to
the security of the citizen, it is just as plausible that the
actions of the state, whether in waging or preparing for
war, will prejudice the security of the individual. The
same outcome may flow from actions taken to preserve
or restore internal security. Defending the state against
external or internal enemies may have profoundly
negative consequenses, indluding economic hardship,
social dislocation or even injury and death for large
numbers of people. National security, then, sheds but
little light on two distinct but closely related questions:
whose security? What kind of security? By making the
state central to the definition of security and to the
identification of that which is to be secured, it obscures
the nature of the ultimate objective and the identity of
the subjects who are at the heart of the security dilemma.
We can now examine a little more closely the concept
of defence implicit in national security discourse which,
notwithstanding the tensions and ambiguities inherent in
the concept, postulates the feasibility (and desirability) of
defence understood as the protection of state boundaries
from military incursion by other states. This formulation
is defective in several respects. First, it wrongly assumes
that state boundaries are vulnerable only to external
attack, whereas domestic upheaval of various kinds, even
GeoJournal 34.2/1994
when it falls short of outright civil war, may also
endanger the territorial integrity of states. The recent
disintegration of the Soviet, Yugoslav and Somali states
are a case in point. Secondly, it is deficient in that it
concentrates on the use of force as the only serious threat
to existing boundaries, whereas any number of economic,
political and ideological disturbances, be they internal or
external in origin, may have precisely the same effect.
Thirdly, it assumes, again mistakenly, that security is
synonymous with the protection of boundaries, whereas
boundaries may remain intact even as the society
undergoes traumatic disruption arising from racial or
religious conflict (e g Northern Ireland, South Africa) or
revolutionary political change (eg post-revolutionary
Russia or China). Fourthly, even if it could be established
that protection of boundaries is a necessary and sufficient
condition for the achievement of national security, it
would not follow that such "security" can be readily
translated into security either for the individual or for the
many and diverse groups that comprise the nation or the
state. Finally, the reference to defence, defence forces,
and defence departments blurs the elusive but important
distinction between defence and offence and obscures the
fact that decisions on military appropriations and
weapons systems made in the name of defence may have
offensive intentions or consequences.
The third distinguishing characteristic of national
security discourse is the closely related emphasis on the
military dimension, that is on military threats as the
primary source of insecurity and on military strategies
and capabilities as the most appropriate instrument of
security. Safety is associated almost exclusively with the
capacity of one state to balance the military power of
another. Military capabilities are deemed useful not only
for purposes of actual defence in the event of attack, but
for purposes of deterrence (by confronting any would-be
aggressor with superior military force), and perhaps most
importantly for purposes of diplomacy, by which is meant
the ability to turn military power into political influence
in times of peace. It is doubtful, however, whether the
contribution of military force to security is as uniformly
beneficial as this utilitarian calculus would suggest.
Quite apart from the unprecedented risks posed by
nuclear deterrence, let alone nuclear defence, military
force, despite the refinements made possible by
increasing technical sophistication, remains a remarkably
blunt instrument for the attainment of any number of
social of political objectives. As Barry Buzan notes,
modern military hardware is particularly well suited to
destructive purposes but "much less useful for the fine-
tuning of voluntaristic exchange relations where neither
conquest nor destruction is desired" (Buzan 1981).
During the height of the Cold War, the availability of
military means tempted both the United States and the
Soviet Union to seek military solutions to regional
conflicts whether in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan,
Vietnam, Lebanon or Panama. However, more often
than not these attempts either failed to produce the
137
desired result, or else led to unintended consequences
more troublesome than the problem they were initially
meant to resolve or ameliorate. The "Vietnam syndrome"
became a potent symbol, especially in American political
culture, of the counter-productive effects of military
power. The more recent application of force in the Gulf
War may have revived confidence in certain quarters in
the utility of military capabilities, but even here one must
be careful to distinguish between the achievement of
specific military objectives (e g the removal of Iraqi forces
from Kuwait) and a durable solution to the complex
challenge posed by Saddam Hussein's domestic and
external policies.
The preceding discussion of national military defence
has, at least implicitly, pointed to a number of
methodological and substantive difficulties which the
national security discourse tends to overlook, but which
must be recognized if we are to develop a more solidly
grounded theory (and praxis) of security. These may be
more concretely encapsulated in a number of seemingly
disparate yet closely connected propositions. The first
refers to the diminishing capacity of small and large states
alike to defend their borders, attributable in part to the
increasing destructiveness of military technology. The
decfine in military protective capability is itself a function
of the increasing ascendancy of offensive over defensive
weapons systems, but also of the complex web of
technological, economic and social processes which have
cumulatively made state boundaries both more porous
and more contested (Herz 1962). The fortress-type shells
of defence characteristic of the European state system of
the sixteenth to the eighteenth century have been
overtaken by numerous events, not least the advent of
total war and the conscription of national armies, the
potential for ideological-political penetration, the potency
of economic instruments of warfare, and the increasing
incidence of urban terrorism and aerial piracy, all of
which reflects the increasing vulnerability of highly
complex, industrial systems. To put it differently, in the
atomic age the power to hurt has vastly outdistanced the
power to defend (Schelling 1966).
Nowhere is this last observation more apposite than in
the case of modern weapons of mass destruction (ie
chemical, biological and especially nuclear weapons).
This brings us to the second proposition which highlights
the fundamental insecurity underpinning the nuclear
edifice. The balance of terror may be described as the
ultimate exercise in competitive risk taken. The resulting
nuclear policies of brinkmanship and bluff were an
integral part of the climate of hostility, suspicion and
tension which governed Soviet-American relations for
more than forty years. Some have sought to qualify this
assessment by arguing that the fear of nuclear war, and
the consequent delegitimization of war as an instrument
of policy, is a welcome development in that it compels
great powers to make sure that tensions among
themselves do not degenerate into armed hostilities
(Osgood and Tucker 1967); Hinsley 1982). There is,
138
however, no guarantee that the management of the
strategic relationship will always produce the desired
result if for no other reason than that successful
management depends on the permanent threat of
wholesale destruction, which must somehow never be
carried out (Camilleri 1976). Nuclear deterrence is
credible only so long as all-out war remains feasible. To
this must be added the possibility of the inadvertent,
unauthorized or accidental use of nuclear weapons. In
any case, the dynamic of deterrence cannot be confined
to a few great powers. To the extent that the nuclear
weapon remains a symbol of power and prestige, nuclear
capabilities are likely to spread to more and more
countries, with far-reaching implications for the reliability
of strategic calculations and the predictability of state
behaviour. The sustained but only partially successful
efforts on the part of successive US administrations and
a range of international institutions to construct a viable
non-proliferation regime are striking testimony of the
proliferation tendencies inherent in the deterrence
strategy.
Concerned to contain, it not eliminate, the obvious
dangers arising from the unilateral use of force, states
have continued to experiment with a number of collective
security arrangements. In the post-1945 period these fell
into two main categories: those which were embodied in
a universal organization (ie the UN) and those associated
with the creation of Cold War alliances (eg NATO,
Warsaw Pact). Central to both projects were two
propositions: firstly, that all members of a given
collective security system (be it regional or universal)
would make the prevention of aggression their overriding
security objective; and secondly, that these states would
be ready and able to oppose aggression with the measures
needed to preserve the peace.
However elegant, this abstract formulation was
surrounded by theoretical and practical difficulties which
soon exposed the limits of collective security (Camilleri
1976). Quite apart from the problem of defining
aggression and identifying aggressors in particular
conflicts, none of the collective security arrangements had
the power to enforce the peace if the aggressor was a
great power, let alone a superpower. Had NATO, the
Warsaw Pact or the UN taken military action to oppose
the interventionist policies of the Soviet Union in (East)-
Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia or Afghanistan, or
of the United States in Korea, Vietnam or the Dominican
Republic, a global confrontation would have been the
most likely outcome. In any case, the theory of collective
security is premissed on the dubious principle that
military conflicts are reducible to the designs and
capabilities of "aggressive" states and that the resolution
of such conflicts depends on the actions of peace-loving
states. Not only is this neat division seldom replicated in
the complex world of international politics, but the very
attempt to establish it may do no more than impede the
chances of mediation and conciliation, and may even lead
to the escalation of hostilities by transforming an
GeoJournal 34.2/1994
otherwise localized dispute into a major international
conflict.
The calculation of the costs and benefits of collective
security (whether of the universal or regional variety)
remains a sharply contested exercise. What is much less
in question is the profound impact which collective
security agreements and initiatives have had on the
theory and practice of sovereignty. The complex web of
alliance arrangements on the one hand and UN peace-
keeping and peace enforcement initiatives on the other
have "given rise to an elaborate set of expectations, rights
and obligations which have greatly modified the
fragmented system of sovereign states" (Camilleri 1992).
The establishment of military bases and stationing of
troops on foreign soil, the adoption of joint conventional
and nuclear strategies, and participation in combined
military exercises have substantially eroded or at least
obscured the territorial demarcation of national
sovereignties. The expanding intrusion of UN military
and civilian personnel in a range of local and regional
conflicts - a trend which has gained considerable
momentum since the end of the Cold War - points in
exactly the same direction.
None of this is to suggest that the cumulative
influence of collective security arrangements has been
entirely or even largely beneficial, but rather to
emphasize that the quest for security during the greater
part of this century - and increasingly over the last fifty
years - has given rise to multiple and diverse institutional
responses, all of which have to a greater or lesser extent
contributed to the internationalization of security, which
may be attributed at least in part to the globalizaiton of
the military order. Reference has already been made to
the corrosive impact of advanced military technologies on
the exercise of sovereignty. Equally significant has been
the mounting financial burden of military budgets which
have obliged large and small states alike to develop joint
military production and procurement policies and "to
share each other's markets, financial resources and
technical knowledge" (Taylor 1990). Licensed
production, co-production and offsets, joint research and
development and various forms of subcontracting are just
a few of the collaboration arrangements which have
resulted in the transnationalization of defence. The
intricate network of interlocking public-private
arrangements means that the development of military
technology, arms transfers and even strategic doctrines
are increasingly shaped by industrial, financial and
political institutions and processes whose locus of action
and modus operandi are essentially transnational. For
some the motivation is simply that of "keeping up", for
others it is the desire to maintain a sophisticated
technological base, and for others still increasing
dependence on revenues derived from military sales.
Regardless of motivation, the net effect of increased
military spending is the development of a global military
order (Kaldor and Eide 1979; Vfiyrynen 1987; Johnson
and Thompson 1985) which puts an entirely new
GeoJournal 34.2/1994
complexion on the traditional security dilemma: new in
that it compels us to connect national security with local,
regional, supranational, international and transnational
agencies and processes; new also in that it highlights the
complex linkages which tie military policy to economic,
cultural and political institutions and relationships.
A Multi-Dimensional Framework of Security Analysis
Barry Buzan's People, States and Fear has made a
useful contribution to our understanding of security
because it identifies three levels of analysis (ie
individuals, states and the international system), but
more importantly because it seeks to integrate the three
levels, viewing each not as a distinct, separable category
but as one vantage point from which to observe the
sources, effects and dynamics of the "systemic security
problem" (Buzan 1983). Buzan makes it clear that the
security of the individual cannot be reduced to the
security of the state, and that the pursuit of security at
one level may be prejudicial to the achievement of
security at the other level. Similarly, he interprets the
underlying anarchy of the international system as
constituting an arena of conflict and rivalry but also as
providing a field of opportunity which can help to sustain
diversity with security, or what he calls "the promulgation
and observance of mature anarchic norms based on the
mutual respect of units". He takes the analysis even
further by positing complex linkages between security and
the international economic environment. He contrasts,
for example, the mercantilist system with a liberal
international economy, but cautions against facile
interpretations which associate mercantilism with zero-
sum competition and war, and economic liberalism with
harmonious interdependence. Each economic framework,
he argues, offers both advantages and disadvantages in
security terms. They need not in any case be seen as
opposed extremes but as points on a spectrum, suggestive
of a middle ground which enhances the security
advantages of both doctrines, while minimizing their
costs.
Buzan's systemic approach to security offers a richer
analysis which lends itself to more balanced policies likely
to restrain, if not eliminate, "the pendulum swings
between excessive vulnerability and excessive
provocation", which he associates with the idealist and
realist positions respectively. A systemic approach has the
added advantage of placing the military dimension of
security within a wider framework, thereby encouraging a
long-term outlook which is concerned more with the
causes than the symptoms of conflict. It offers remedies
that are not confined to the use of military power, and
envisages security responses that allow for the initiatives
not only of states but of larger formal and informal
security communities. It alludes to the role which
regional and international institutions can perform in
139
generating international law and promoting mechanisms
for negotiation, conciliation and the peaceful settlement
of disputes.
Helpful though it is, Buzan's analytical framework
must nevertheless be extended and qualified in several
respects if we are to develop a holistic conception of
security, which is sensitive to current trends and future
possibilities. While giving due regard to his three levels of
analysis (individual, state, international), such a
conception must also embrace the interacting processes of
regionalization and globalization and the ever widening
network of identities, relationships and institutions which
cut across national boundaries. As Dalby points out,
Buzan's analysis is deficient in its lack of historical
contextualization (Dalby 1992). The modern state is
treated as a given, as if it had no origins, was not
susceptible to change, and was the exclusive provider of
security. In what is still essentially a state-centric
formulation insufficient attention is given to the role of
international institutions, nongovernmental organizations,
social movements, and cultural identities and traditions.
Though economic and, to a lesser extent, environmental
factors are considered, they are not rigorously integrated
into the analysis in ways which illuminate either the
quality or pace of historical change. A radical
reformulation of the security dilemma would need to
reconsider the nature and function of the state, place it
within the context of global integration and national
fragmentation and distance security from the zero-sum
preceptions which accompany the exercise of sovereignty
and project states and nations as symbols of exclusive
loyalty.
Two clearly discernible trends would seem especially
relevant to our analysis; the growing interconnectedness
of the international system and the emergence of a
macropolitical agenda (Camilleri and Falk 1992).
International conflict can no longer be understood simply
as the collision of rival nationalisms. Even the First
World War is best characterized as the culmination of a
protracted and multifaceted competition for markets,
resources and power which had long since overspilled
national boundaries. The contest between competing
ideologies in the Second World War and the equally
polarized conflict between capitalism and communsim
after 1945 provide further evidence of the
internationalization of conflict. The Cold War period
witnessed a global contest for spheres of influence,
marked by a succession of military interventions and the
forward projection of power, which transformed regional
rivalries and domestic upheavals into "surrogates of
systemic war" (Bloomfield 1989). Even when separated
by long distances, regional conflicts became closely
interconnected by virtue of their close relationship to the
central balance.
Far from reversing the trend, the end of the Cold War
provided an added stimulus to the internationalization of
conflict. The Gulf War provided the most striking
illustration of this trend. Saddam Hussein's invasion of
140
Kuwait provoked a concerted international response, and
a punishing aerial onslaught by the US-led coalition
against Iraq, which was all the more remarkable in that
it was legitimized by a number of UN Security Council
resolutions. A complex web of economic, political and
strategic interests, not least the West's continued
dependence on access to cheap and abundant supplies of
Middle East oil, helped to sustain the otherwise
precarious anti-Saddam coalition. A simiarly intricate
pattern of global interdependence unterpinned the uneasy
but co-operative Soviet-American relationship both
during and after the war.
The end of the Cold War had a second but closely
related effect. The UN, and in particular the Security
Council, which had been virtually paralyzed by the East-
West confrontation was now given a new lease of life. In
a dramatic expansion of its security function, it embarked
on numerous peacekeeping and peace enforcement
operations (e g Iraq-Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia,
Cambodia), justifying its intervention on humanitarian
grounds or citing the potential threat to international
peace and security. Perhaps the most succinct and
authoritative assessment of this trend was given by UN
Secretary-General, Boutros-Ghali, who argued that "the
time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty (had) passed".
Conscious of the fluidity and permeability of national
boundaries he advocated a new balance "between the
needs of good internal governance and the requirements
of an ever more interdependent world" (Boutros-Ghali
1992).
The interconnectedness of the international system
was not, however, purely a function of technological and
geopolitical change. It was also linked to other facets of
international life, not least the globalization of the
market arising from the transnationalization of trade,
production and finance. The phenomenon was reflected
in the mounting pressure for the liberalization of trade,
the increasing interdependence of most economies, the
growing vulnerability of national financial policy to
overseas money markets, the consequent decline in the
ability of national governments to regulate their own
economies, and the rapidly expanding role of
international institutions. The diminished salience of
territorial and policy boundaries was compounded by a
multi-faceted process of environmental degradation which
included changing climate patterns, ozone depletion and
loss of species diversity, not to mention the more
localized but still dispersed effects of soil erosion, acid
precipitation and radioactive contamination.
Numerous problems, notably international debt, trade
rivalries, destabilizing financial flows, transborder
pollution, human rights abuses, nuclear proliferation,
drug trafficking, and massive migrations of people, are
now both sources and consequences of conflict. These
constitute a "macropolitical agenda" (Camilleri and Falk
1992) not merely because they have assumed global
proportions, but in the more profound sense that they
represent closely interwoven threads of global disorder
GeoJournal 34.2/1994
which exceed the problem-solving capacity of existing
institutions. The internationalization of information and
communication and the increased consciousness of the
scale and multi-faceted character of global disorder are
important factors shaping and sustaining the new
macropolitical agenda. Its function is to call into question
the theoretical and practical utility of territorial
demarcation as the overriding principle of political
organization, and to draw attention to the requirements
of "global governance" (Senghaas 1993).
Implications for Security
The interacting and often contradictory processes of
integration and fragmentation, which have become one of
the distinguishing features of globalization in the late
twentieth century, have far-reaching consequences for the
way we understand and handle the security dilemma. For
purposes of analytical convenience we may consider these
consequences under three main headings: the conceptual
framework (which endows security with its meaning and
content); the strategic response (which governs the way
resources are mobilized and deployed); and the
institutional arrangements (which structure relations
among states).
Over the last fifteen to twenty years a substantial
transformation has occurred in both popular and
academic perceptions of the security objective, which is
not to say that such change has been uniform or universal
or that it has manifested itself with equal force or clarity
within the civilian or military wings of national security
establishments. There has nevertheless been a modest but
discernible drift away from highly militarized, zero-sum,
deterrence-oriented definitions of security towards more
inclusivist conceptions which privilege or at least give
added emphasis to notions of reassurance, co-operation
and interdependence (Mack 1991). The destructiveness of
nuclear capabilities coupled with the intensity of nuclear
brinkmanship during the Second Cold War generated a
heightened sense of danger, which in turn provided the
impetus for a "new d6tente" (Kaldor, Holden and Falk
1989). The decline of Cold War tensions, and, especially,
the attempts to overcome the division of Europe were
premissed on notions of common destiny and common
security, which Gorbachev's appealing slogan of a
"European home" sought to harness and institutionalize
(Bialer 1988; Yazov 1988; Camilleri 1992).
In sharp contrast to the idea of collective defence
which seeks to establish a sharp divide between
aggressive and law-abiding states, common security
(Independent Commission on Defence and Security 1982;
SIPRI 1985; Wiseman 1989; Boserup and Nield 1990)
rests on the proposition that any durable peace must
incorporate the legitimate interests of all parties. It seeks
to manage the problem of aggression not so much by
punishing or coercing the aggressor as by influencing his
GeoJournal 34.2/1994
moviatation, by offering a mix of incentives and
disincentives which predispose him to act within the
constraints set by agreed norms and procedures. The
minimalist approach to common security (sometimes
referred to as "cooperative security") seeks to reconcile
the competing interests of states by institutionalizing co-
operative behaviour whether through confidence- and
security-building measures (CSBMs) or more ambitious
arms control and disarmament agreements. In its
maximalist version it provides political space congenial to
the resolution of conflicts and ensures that the security
interests of weaker, less privileged or revisionist societies
are not marginalized by the priorities of stronger, more
privileged, status quo societies.
Equally important in the changing conception of
security has been the attempt to move beyond its purely
military manifestations, to include not only the defence of
territory but the preservation of social, political and
ecological values which are critical to material and
psychological well-being. Set in this wider context, the
defence of territory may still prove crucial to the
preservation of the society's values, liberties and
traditions. In many instances, however, territorial
defence, either because of the particular terrain or the
means by which it is defended (e g use of nuclear or other
weapons of mass destruction), may do little to advance
the nation's security and may even seriously jeopardize it.
As noted earlier, the use of force may be even less
relevant to the achievement of security when it is applied
a long way from home territory in pursuit of economic,
diplomatic or strategic interests, which have more to do
with the enhancement of the state's power and prestige
than with a society's territorial integrity or social
cohesion.
As an antidote to the emphasis on military forms of
defence and deterrence has emerged the notion of
comprehensive security 1) which has come to encompass
such notions as cultural survival (e g of ethnic minorities
and indigenous peoples), environmental protection, and
defence of human rights. These concerns have also been
subsumed under other labels, including "unconventional
security" (Bedeski 1992) "human security" (Dewitt and
Evans 1993), "democratic security" (Johansen 1991), or
"alternative security" (Galtung 1984). For some the use
of such labels is an expression of scepticism about the
analytic value of the concept. These labels, it is argued,
point to various forms of insecurity, which are grounded
primarily in the experience of individuals and
communities, are necessarily elastic in their definitional
content and, as a consequence, lack the empirical rigour
and analytical sharpness associated whith the more
conventional notion of national security. The fact
remains, however, that economic and environmental
threats to societal stability and well-being loom
increasingly large on the domestic and international
political agenda. Damage to the local or global ecology
(eg desertification or global warming) or the harsh
consequences of rising foreign debt can have a direct
141
bearing on the quality of life and even physical integrity
of small states. These conditions can in turn provoke
social and political instability of a kind which can unleash
the use of force either within or between states.
The notion of "comprehensive security" is
theoretically useful if for no other reason than that it
suggests connections between different types of threat
and calls into question the sharp dividing line between
domestic and international politics. The economic and
political arrangements within a country (eg the pattern
and intensity of social conflict) are closely connected to
regional and global decision-making processes and
institutions (eg distribution of resources, environmental
regimes, refugee flows). Comprehensive security, lacking
the analytical focus of national security, does, it is true,
have to grapple with a much larger field of investigation
and a far more complex set of variables. The distinct
advantage is that it subjects to critical a range of
boundaries (between states, between insiders and
outsiders, between governmental and non-governmental
institutions, between the state and civil society, and
between internal and external security), and as a
consequence offers much richer insights not only into the
causes of insecurity but into the structures, relationships
and agencies needed to sustain a viable security system
(Camilleri 1992).
The shift in conceptual orientation, which we have
briefly described, has prompted a good deal of policy
innovation both in terms of academic prescription and
governmental action. Reference has already been made
to the numerous initiatives which brought to an end the
Cold War division in Europe and set in train the far-
reaching Soviet-American dialogue for both conventional
and nuclear disarmament. Within the span of ten years
we have seen the conclusion of the Intermediate Nuclear
Forces (INF) Treaty, a unilateral offer by the US to
eliminate its land-based tactial nuclear weapons and
withdraw its sea-based ones, followed by a comparable
Soviet offer. Other unilateral steps have included
Moscow's force reductions, its withdrawal of offensive
forces from Germany, its advocacy of a strictly defensive
posture and its renunciation of the use of force,
culminating in the dismantling of the Warsaw Pact. All of
this, coupled with the Conventional Forces in Europe
agreement and Soviet acceptance of a reunified
Germany, has radically transformed the psychological as
much as the geopolitical map of Europe (Morgan 1993).
Behing these striking and largely unforeseen
developments and the new security descourse was a
combination of factors, many of which were inextricably
linked to powerful political, economic and cultural
undercurrents operating with the American and Soviet
societies, as well as those of Eastern and Western
Europe. Though these security initiatives had their most
conspicuous impact on the European theatre, they were
not altogether absent from Africa or Asia, where similar
but more modest attempts at military disengagement
coincided with renewed efforts for the resolution of
142
regional conflicts (eg Angola, Nambia, Afghanistan,
Cambodia). None of this is to suggest that older security
doctrines and practices had been discarded, that the use
of force had been abandoned as a primary instrument of
policy, or that all states were uniformly committed to new
notions of common and comprehensive security. It is
nevertheless apparent that a great many states, large and
small alike, the United Nations itself and a number of
regional organizations were prepared to explore a range
of security measures and mechanisms which had been
previously dismissed or simply put in the too-hard basket.
Since the late 1980s a good deal of energy has been
invested in endowing the UN with an enhanced security
function, most graphically illustrated by the quantitative
and qualitative expansion of its peacekeeping role.
Thirteen UN peacekeeping operations were established
between 1945 and 1987; thirteen others between 1987 and
1992 (Evans 1993).The aggregate cost of these operations
till 1992 was estimated at $ 8.2 billion, but the
peacekeeping bill for 1992 alone came close to $ 3 billion.
Over the last few years these operations have been
designed not simply to monitor ceasefires and place a
buffer between warring parties but to facilitate the
withdrawal of forces, restore order, mediate and
conciIiate between opposing factions, wind up a
protracted domestic conflict and oversee the temporary
administration of a country.
Indicative of the new thinking was Bourtros-Ghali's
An Agenda for Peace (Boutros-Ghali 1992) which set out
a series of far-reaching recommendations and proposals
for peacemaking (eg more extensive use of the
arbitration and other dispute-settlement mechanisms
available to the International Court of Justice (ICJ); a
more equitable framework for the imposition of
sanctions; and in extreme circumstances the actual use of
force, including the establishment of peace enforcement
units) and preventive diplomacy (e g confidence-building
measures, formal fact-finding missions mandated by the
Security Council or the General Assembly; establishment
of early warning systems with respect to nuclear
accidents, natural disasters, famines, environmental
threats, and mass movements of populations; preventive
deployment of UN forces; and creation of demilitarized
zones). These ideas, which had hitherto circulated within
primarily academic circles, now became respectable and
the subject of considerable debate at the UN and
elsewhere. With the notable exception of the proposal for
UN peace-enforcement units, where reactions were less
than enthusiastic, An Agenda for Peace provoked a great
many responses and refinements, most of which have
emphasized the relevance of non-military solutions to
miltary threats and especially the part which diplomatic
processes can play in the prevention as well as resolution
of conflict. One important intitiative in this context was
the study released by Australian Foreign Minsiter,
Gareth Evans, which constructed a typology of threats to
peace and a corresponding mix of military and non-
military responses, with the emphasis firmly placed on
GeoJournal 34.2/1994
preventive diplomacy and early intervention in conflicts
(Evans 1993).
Beyond concepts of international security, which
almost inevitably revolve around existing or enhanced
UN functions and activities, numerous other proposals
have since gained wide currency in official almost as
much as in academic discourse. So far as military security
is concerned, considerable attention has been given,
especially in the European context, to the concept of
non-provocative defence (Canby 1980; Mack 1984). Put
simply, advocacy of this strategy was premissed on two
distinct but closely related propositions: the need to
devise a system of defence that was as inoffensive as
possible and whose success depended largely on
conditions of relative self-reliance and invulnerability. It
stressed the need for mobile, small units with limited
range, but well dispersed over the national territory.
Over time, ideas of non-provocative defence assumed
increasing importance in Soviet doctrinal
pronouncements, particularly after Gorbachev assumed
office, and percolated through to NATO's defence
planning and its deployment of conventional forces in
Europe. Although tailored specifically to European
geostrategic conditions, nonprovocative defence was seen
to have much wider application, even to countries like
Australia with a predominantly maritime environment
(Dibb 1986; Camilleri 1987).
Even notions of civilian or social defence attracted
renewed interest, although these were still largely
confined, at least at the official level, to Scandinavia and
a handful of other countries (Wiberg 1987). Perhaps the
most significant development in policy-making terms
since the early 1980s has been the greater stress placed on
notions of economic, environmental and political
security, partly because of the perceived connections
between economy, environment and political stability on
the one hand and military capabilities on the other. Yet
this is far from the whole story, for "unconventional"
security concerns have steadily acquired an importance of
their own, reflecting in part the diminished utility of
military force in the achievement of other than strictly
military objectives. Equally salient has been the corollary
of this proposition, namely the expectation that greater
national reliance on the acquisition, deployment and use
of military capabilities will so tax the society's economic,
ecological and political resources as to compromise the
realization of key security values.
The Institutional Context
That scholarly ideas and even policy formulation may
be in a state of flux is one thing, that institutions are
evolving in ways which are conducive to the application
of these ideas or policies quite another. The end of the
Cold War and, in particular, the resultant transformation
of the European political landscape have once again
focused attention on the feasibility and desirability of
GeoJournal 34.2/1994
institutional change. Two key questions are at issue here.
First, to what extent does the state or, to be more
precise, the system of states remain the defining
framework for analysing and constructing security
r6gimes? Secondly, to what extent does the shift in the
global distribution of power, of which the end of the Cold
War is but one manifestation, point to new security
options and arrangements?
As regards the first question, we have already
observed that the state remains a central actor and that
the interstate system confers on the security dilemma
many of its distinguishing characteristics. Yet the state
must contend more and more with a multiplicity of
agencies and structures which it can influence but does
not control, and which to varying degrees shape the
definition of its own objectives and the means by which
they may be pursued. It is not only that the state can no
longer be conceptualized as a self-contained, territorially
bound decisional unit, but that security decisions are
increasingly the by-product of an intricate network of
subnational, supranational and transnational interests
(Camilleri 1992). Ethnonationalist sentiment, whether in
Bosnia, the Ukraine, or Northern Ireland, may at first
sight appear as the engine of conflict, but the origins and
consequences of such nationalist fervour have as much to
do with the process of globatization and the disintegration
of the state as with the assertion of the sovereignty
principle. Like so many other facets of international life,
the search for security reflects not just national identity
and state interests but a mosaic of local, regional,
national, supranational and transnational spaces, loyalties
and institutions.
The complexity of this rapidly evolving multi-centric
world provides us with an important clue for answering
the second question. If the Cold War and the collective
defence arrangements to which it gave rise did not
provide a durable solution to the security dilemma, it was
in large measure because of the diffusion of power -
within, between and across states. In the post-Cold War
period, contradictory pressures and powerful
disintegrative tendencies have continued to erode the
stability of the major alliance systems. The decline of
these security structures, though most dramatic in the
case of the former Soviet bloc (e g dissolution of Warsaw
Pact, almost complete disrepair of Russia's security ties
with North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba), is also at an
advanced stage in the case of the Western alliance system
(eg steady transformation of NATO's objectives,
functions and even memberphip; withdrawal of US bases
from the Philippines; uncertainty regarding the legal and
political status of the Australian, New Zealand and
United States Treaty (ANZUS).
To make sense of the changing configuration of
interests, power, norms and institutions, most analysts
have sought to identify the organizational principle or
principles underlying the emerging security system by
reference to one of four models: unipotar security,
balance of power, concert of powers, collective or
143
universal security (Camilleri 1993). It is doubtful,
however, whether any one model does justice to the
intricate but rapidly changing framework of security
policies and institutions. The end of the Cold War may
have left the United States as the pre-eminent military
power in the world and the only one capable of
projecting force on a global scale, but it is no longer able
to perform the coordinating or policing role it assumed
after 1945. The rise of new centres of power, notably
Western Europe and Japan, coupled with Russia's
continuing aspirations for great power status, points to a
more traditional multipolar system characterized by
multiple, diverse and shifting alliances or coalitions, and
perhaps competing regional blocs. Yet such divisions are
in part offset by America's residual primacy, new
patterns of global economic and technological
integration, and increasing sensitivity to notions of
common and comprehensive security. The growth of
consultative and co-operative mechanism in international
diplomacy, especially but not exclusively in Europe, in
both the economic and security fields, may enhance the
opportunities for adjusting and reconciling competing
geopolitical interests and priorities. There exists
nevertheless no single forum which effectively
institutionalizes a concert of powers. Nor is there an
agreed set of norms and expectations which can guide its
future agenda. As already indicated, the UN has since
the last 1980s acquired renewed impetus, intervening in a
great many regional conflicts, raising expectations and
setting normative standards across a wide range of policy
issues. But any system of collective security has still to
contend with the mistrust and jealousies of states, with
inadequate resources and the absence of a great power
consensus.
All of this is not argue that these models are without
theoretical or practical validity, but that they each
capture only one slice of contemporary geopolitical
reality, which we have elsewhere described as "a mosaic
of relatively fluid arrangements, a transitional
architecture of competing yet overlapping global and
regional designs", e) It ist nevertheless possible to discern
several trends which will have a considerable bearing on
the prospects for common and comprehensive security.
Despite the primacy of US military capabilities, all the
indications are that we are moving towards a multipolar
international system (Buzan 1991), in which Europe,
Japan, China, Russia, and in due course India and
perhaps an Islamic coalition will play a part in defining
and executing preferred security outcomes, and in which
co-operative and competitive tendencies co-exist and
interact. Without the restraining influence of the Cold-
War great power conflicts, particularly in the economic
arena, may become particularly acute, not least among
former allies. To this must be added the unresolved
North-South conflict, which, though dormant in recent
years partly because of the South's reduced leverage, will
sooner or later re-emerge with the aid of a new or
revamped anti-Western ideology. The resurgence of
144
Islamic fundamentalism is best understood in this context.
A third set of conflicts will revolve around the renewed
tensions between states and people, as violations of
human rights and a variety of repressive strategies
provoke responses which cut across national boundaries
(Hoffmann 1990-1991).
There is more, however, to the emerging security
architecture than the rise of a polycentric power
structure. Also in evidence is an unmistakable trend
towards multilateralism nurtured by the intractability of
the conflicts we have just described and more importantly
by the growing realization on the part of states that
"complex interdependence" is here to stay (Cox 1992).
The argument is most succinctly expressed by Stanley
Hoffmann:
The very dynamism of the world economy and its reckless
reallocation of wealth and power require the same kind of
political control at the global level that the "pofitical realm"
of authority, the state, provides at the country level; and
that control, too, can come, so far, only from a pooling of
state efforts.3)
The result is the expansion of global institutionalization,
that is the creation of co-operative frameworks and
mechanisms designed to enhance policy coordination
across a wide range of policy areas, from health care to
environmental protection and from agricultural
production to human rights. The steady enhancement of
the UN's peacekeeping and peace enforcement activities
suggests that the same trend is at work in the security
field where the state has traditionally prided itself on
being the only salient actor and on exercising a monopoly
on the legitimate use of force.
Notes
Comprehensive security was officially used to describe Japan's
security policy during the 1970s. See R. W. Barnett: Beyond
War: Japan's Concept of Comprehensive National Security.
Pergamon Brassey's, Washington 1986.
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