Conventional security versus human security

Human security places stress on protecting civilians

We live in a world plagued by conflicts, and the continued reliance on the use of conventional force to prevent violence has not proven effective.

Besides the brutal onslaught against Palestinians in Israel-occupied territories in retaliation to a Hamas attack, the situation in many other Muslim majority countries is also tenuous. While US-backed interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have ended, the ground realities confronted by the populace in both these countries are far from ideal. Libya remains in a state of disarray as well, exacerbated by the NATO-enabled removal of the Gaddafi regime. People Yemen are still suffering due to a prolonged civil war fueled by the Saudi-Iran tussle. The despotic Assad regime in Syria has also managed to entrench itself despite years of bloody rebellion.

Much of Europe is also on tenterhooks due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The fear of great power rivalry sparking an actual confrontation between China and the US remains another looming threat within the Far East. Meanwhile, extremist elements and insurgencies plague Darfur, western Sahel and Lake Chad basin in Africa.

While the orthodox notion of security continues to focus on contending with domestic and external threats to a sovereign state, it is possible to take a very different view of ensuring security. The notion of human security provides an alternative paradigm to addressing varied forms of insecurity evident across the globe today. Focusing on human security implies far more than preventing violent conflict. It instead necessitates focusing on the protection and wellbeing of ordinary citizens, their communities, and even the natural environments on which the lives and livelihoods of people depend.

Adopting a human security lens can enable identification of varied vulnerabilities and threats which adversely impact human lives, and it can help highlight more effective means to avert or mitigate these risks. Human security places stress on empowering civilians and addressing structural forms of vulnerability ranging from ultranationalism, populism, or patriarchy, besides emphasizing the need for more responsive forms of governance. The ‘human security’ concept thus calls for a people-centric approach to understanding the range of interlinked challenges which evidently undermine the quality of life of ordinary citizens across the world.

A human security framework can potentially infuse normative and preventive actions to tackle complex challenges ranging from extreme poverty, environmental and health threats, authoritarian repression, internal conflict and conflict-induced displacements. However, adherence to the notion of human security necessitates addressing thorny underlying causes of insecurity, in turn linked to broader forces such as uneven globalisation, growth of a military-industrial complex and varied forms of exploitation based on ethnicity, gender and religion.

Focusing on human security does not have to replace focusing on traditional security imperatives. Instead, it can help ensure that state security does not come at the cost of the rights of ordinary people.

The UN system has done a lot of work on defining and promoting the idea of human security over the past three or so decades. Yet, human security principles are readily ignored or manipulated to justify interventionism.

Implementing human security will not be possible if states remain preoccupied by realpolitik considerations. Yet, ongoing global integration is making it increasingly difficult to maximise national interests without understanding the linkages between global and local problems. A virus which erupts in one part of the world can soon become a pandemic. Conflict or climate-induced displacements in the global South can trigger refugee crises not only within the surrounding region, but also for the global North.

It is thus high time that the prevalent notion of security turned on its head. Addressing human vulnerabilities must become the issue of foremost concern, instead of trying to protect nation-states, which have no intrinsic value if they remain unwilling or unable to address the needs of ordinary citizens.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 10^th, 2023.

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