Human cost of conflict: Book on security aims to change perceptions
British professor’s book emphasises on sources of insecurity, other than violence.
LONDON:
A new book by a professor at the London School of Economics (LSE) aims to try to get the American administration to rethink issues related to security.
“Our starting point was the security gap in the world today,” author Mary Kaldor said. “Millions of people in the world feel very insecure, whether they live in Pakistan, Afghanistan or even in the cities of Europe and America. There are different sources of insecurity such as poverty, floods, famine as well as violence and yet our security capability, mainly consisting of military forces, is completely unsuitable for addressing these security concerns.”
The book is titled The Ultimate Weapon is no Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace and Kaldor has co-authored the book with a serving US military officer Shannon Beebe.
Explaining the term “human security”, Kaldor said it refers to the security of individuals and communities rather than the state. “It’s about security that is based on law like that in well-ordered societies, rather than based on fighting,” she said.
In the book, the authors argue that a mixture of military and civilian capabilities is required to achieve human security. “You do need the military but they would operate in quite different ways, more like police than soldiers,” Kaldor explained, adding that the urgent change is required by a range of private actors such as NGOs, as mafia, warlords and mullahs are beginning to fill the void.
When asked if the “military industrial complex” allow such a fundamental change, she said that huge divisions were already opening up in the Pentagon in the US. “Progressives in the Pentagon see things need to be done differently from the old Cold War thinking. Ironically, the Republicans are more likely to bring about the changes as Democrats fear appearing soft,” she said.
Kaldor proposes that instead of traditional military forces, what is needed is something like global emergency services to help people in dire situations caused by war, massive violation of human rights, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, oil spills or famines. “These services might include military forces trained and equipped to undertake law enforcement rather than war-fighting and protect people rather than defeat enemies,” she said.
Speaking about the concept’s relevance to Afghanistan, she said: “the first shift in approach would entail that the lives of Afghans and Pakistanis are equal to the lives of Europeans and Americans. You can’t use techniques there that would be unacceptable in New York. The second shift is the emphasis on militarily defeating al Qaeda and Taliban. The Americans have learned a lot from the war in Iraq and they now talk about population security and about winning hearts and minds, but their focus on military victory is completely contradictory.”
She said that the human security approach is to try to dampen down the violence and focus on strengthening the rule of law rather than trying to defeat one side or the other or reach agreements between them. “For example,” she said, “many of the corrupt Afghan warlords are American citizens and could be arrested under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.”
According to Kaldor, a key aspect of human security is that it has to be done by people themselves and one of the key principles is legitimate political authority. “At the moment huge amounts of American aid is going into the hands of warlords and various corrupt private contractors.
The Human Development Index for Afghanistan has actually declined in the last couple of years despite all this aid. Bringing warlords to account, much more justice and much greater accountability to citizens is a crucial part of [providing] human security,” she says.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 29th, 2011.
A new book by a professor at the London School of Economics (LSE) aims to try to get the American administration to rethink issues related to security.
“Our starting point was the security gap in the world today,” author Mary Kaldor said. “Millions of people in the world feel very insecure, whether they live in Pakistan, Afghanistan or even in the cities of Europe and America. There are different sources of insecurity such as poverty, floods, famine as well as violence and yet our security capability, mainly consisting of military forces, is completely unsuitable for addressing these security concerns.”
The book is titled The Ultimate Weapon is no Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace and Kaldor has co-authored the book with a serving US military officer Shannon Beebe.
Explaining the term “human security”, Kaldor said it refers to the security of individuals and communities rather than the state. “It’s about security that is based on law like that in well-ordered societies, rather than based on fighting,” she said.
In the book, the authors argue that a mixture of military and civilian capabilities is required to achieve human security. “You do need the military but they would operate in quite different ways, more like police than soldiers,” Kaldor explained, adding that the urgent change is required by a range of private actors such as NGOs, as mafia, warlords and mullahs are beginning to fill the void.
When asked if the “military industrial complex” allow such a fundamental change, she said that huge divisions were already opening up in the Pentagon in the US. “Progressives in the Pentagon see things need to be done differently from the old Cold War thinking. Ironically, the Republicans are more likely to bring about the changes as Democrats fear appearing soft,” she said.
Kaldor proposes that instead of traditional military forces, what is needed is something like global emergency services to help people in dire situations caused by war, massive violation of human rights, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, oil spills or famines. “These services might include military forces trained and equipped to undertake law enforcement rather than war-fighting and protect people rather than defeat enemies,” she said.
Speaking about the concept’s relevance to Afghanistan, she said: “the first shift in approach would entail that the lives of Afghans and Pakistanis are equal to the lives of Europeans and Americans. You can’t use techniques there that would be unacceptable in New York. The second shift is the emphasis on militarily defeating al Qaeda and Taliban. The Americans have learned a lot from the war in Iraq and they now talk about population security and about winning hearts and minds, but their focus on military victory is completely contradictory.”
She said that the human security approach is to try to dampen down the violence and focus on strengthening the rule of law rather than trying to defeat one side or the other or reach agreements between them. “For example,” she said, “many of the corrupt Afghan warlords are American citizens and could be arrested under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.”
According to Kaldor, a key aspect of human security is that it has to be done by people themselves and one of the key principles is legitimate political authority. “At the moment huge amounts of American aid is going into the hands of warlords and various corrupt private contractors.
The Human Development Index for Afghanistan has actually declined in the last couple of years despite all this aid. Bringing warlords to account, much more justice and much greater accountability to citizens is a crucial part of [providing] human security,” she says.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 29th, 2011.