International Security
This is the fourth in a series of essays I’m writing about International Relations and Foreign Policy. You can find the first three on
March 21 https://kamcpherson.substack.com/p/my-two-cents?r=9ajr,
March 28 https://kamcpherson.substack.com/p/an-introduction-to-international?r=9ajr, and
April 4 https://kamcpherson.substack.com/p/state-actors-and-national-interests?r=9ajr
Organizations like the National Defense University in Washington, DC (which was established in 1976 to consolidate intellectual resources and provide joint higher education for the nation’s defense community) are studying these issues closely. Here’s a sample of what you can find on their website.
With this set of ideas in our heads, this essay will drill down on a fundamental component of International Relations, the field of National Security. As I defined it last week, the word “security” is used to describe a nation’s defensive posture. The elements of International Security are all of those things that threaten global stability. I’ll be writing about three of these things this week: the variety of security threats, Arms control and Disarmament, and Terrorism and Asymmetric Warfare.
Traditional and Non-Traditional Security Threats
Traditional Security threats are the ones we know about from our Cold War and post-Cold War movies. Threats from another country’s military forces are an important part of these threats, as is espionage by foreign intelligence agencies. These kinds of threats do not always involve large-scale army-to-army conflicts. They can include subnational violence as we see among the drug cartels in South America or with the succession of military coups in central Africa.
These are the types of threats that most governments are most comfortable addressing. Most of a nation’s military hardware is focused on addressing these types of problems, and most historic analyses of military strategy focus on these traditional threats.
Non-traditional security threats embrace a broader range of challenges and often transcend national borders. Here are a few important non-traditional security threats:
Climate Change
Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, and environmental degradation weaken political, economic, and social systems. Climate disruption exacerbates instability and conflict. It can provide another security problem if a nation’s military bases are in regions threated by climate change – either the naval bases (which kind of have to be on the coast) or other bases facing a growing threat of wildfires or inland flooding due to rain runoff and snow melt. According to a 2018 Pentagon report, half of U.S. military facilities vulnerable to extreme weather and climate risks.
Pandemics
COVID-19 taught the world that infectious diseases can disrupt societies, economies, and relationships among nations. Generally, COVID hurt the economies in emerging markets (particularly in what is called the Global South), strained political systems whose instability threatened the global economic and political network, escalated conflict in global hotspots as supply chains broke down, and encouraged a resurgence of extremist groups that exploited these vulnerabilities. COVID-19 also revealed vulnerabilities in social services, healthcare, and governance that led some nations to turn inward to solve these problems rather than spend money addressing challenges from abroad.
Cybersecurity
As the world’s digital infrastructure grows and becomes more complicated, cyber attacks, data breaches, and cyber espionage pose risks to national security and individual privacy. This is particularly difficult for national governments to deal with, as many elected officials lack sufficient understanding of these new technologies and are thus woefully underequipped to deal with them. All you have to do is google “stupid things members of congress said about tiktok” to observe this in action.
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Resource Scarcity
Particularly in the Global South, water shortages, food insecurity, and depletion of natural resources can trigger conflicts in countries or regions dependent on the global market or aid from non-governmental organizations to help fill the gap.
Migration and Displacement
Forced migration due to conflict, climate change, or economic hardship strains host countries and can lead to tensions. We are seeing this play out, not only on the southern border of the United States but also throughout western Europe as migrants displaced from Africa or Asia flock to the relatively more stable countries in Europe. These migrations strain the resources of the nations receiving the migrants and thus can lead to subnational violence.
Arms Control and Disarmament
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the idealistic strain in international relations – the side that says nations that are on the brink of war can negotiate their way out of their crises by having all parties sign an agreement stipulating to the things they will and will not do to maintain the peace. It is indeed idealistic to believe that nations who could wreak devastation on one other will choose not to, but in some cases it appears to be the only way out.
The first result of entering into arms control treaties is the fostering of trust and cooperation between and among nations. They create a framework for dialogue and transparency rather than hostility and violence.
Arms control can reduce military spending, as nations can choose to spend their money on other projects – like infrastructure or health care – rather than developing and then purchasing new generations of weapons.
Arms Control treaties can also prevent escalation. The 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, for example, is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. A total of 191 States have joined the Treaty, including the five identified nuclear-weapon States – the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China. (At least five other countries also have nuclear weapons but we don’t talk about them. Shhhh.)
The challenges and risks of arms country are obvious. It is hard to ensure compliance with arms control agreements. Efforts by treaty partners to verify the actions of other partners run the risk of violating a nation’s sovereignty, which is the primary identifier of a state in the international system.
It is also hard to address technological advancements, as existing arms control agreements don’t cope well with new technologies (drones, cyber-attacks). In addition, since arms control primarily focuses on state actors, non-state actors like terrorist groups or international criminal networks that acquire and use weapons fall totally outside of this framework.
Terrorism and Asymmetric Warfare
I’ve referenced the topic of terrorism before in this essay, but it bears more scrutiny. First, we need a definition: Terrorism involves the use of violence or threats to intimidate, coerce, or create fear among civilians for political, ideological, or religious purposes. Terrorism is most effective when its targets appear random.
One type of terrorism that fits this definition is Stochastic terrorism, which refers to political or media figures publicly demonizing a person or group in such a way that it inspires supporters of the figures to commit a violent act against the target of the speech. This is accomplished by using indirect, vague, or coded language that allows the instigator to plausibly disclaim responsibility for the resulting violence. Global trends point to increasing violent rhetoric and political violence, including more evidence of stochastic terrorism. A key element is the use of social media and other distributed forms of communication where the person who carries out the violence has no direct connection to the users of violent rhetoric. (boldface added by me in case you aren’t paying attention to what MAGA is up to) (this is all from Wikipedia but it’s good enough for my purposes today).
Terrorism creates trauma even among people who are not directly harmed by any specific terrorist attack. These events cause economic disruption and exacerbate social divisions, all of which lead to tensions and instability. The psychological impacts of terrorism threaten mental health and societal resilience. Terrorism can strain diplomatic relations and radicalize individuals who are taken in the stochastic terrorist.
Asymmetric warfare refers to conflicts where opposing forces have disparate military capabilities, strategies, or tactics. The United States saw this in Vietnam; the US employed supposedly overwhelming conventional tactics and weapons against a weaker adversary, but was unable to prevail military because the war the US was fighting was not the same war its adversary was fighting. Asymmetric warfare can involve guerilla warfare, but it can also involve cyber attacks and non-state actors. The conventionally stronger nation in a situation of asymmetric warfare has to be wary of the appearance of unnecessary force that threatens civilians. We are seeing that in the Hamas/Israel War in Gaza. Israel has a stronger and more conventionally organized military, but Hamas will use unconventional tactics and control of the local terrain to slow down or even deny Israel’s victory. This war is also providing us with an example of another problem with asymmetric warfare; the stronger nation, in this case Israel, has to be aware of issues of human rights and international law while wielding outsize force. The continuing protests against the Biden administration’s support for Israel show us how this works.