Are traditional approaches to security correct to position the ‘state’ as the referent object of security?

The approach to Security as a key factor in state behaviour was a concept introduced into international relations studies by the neo-realist school of thought after the Second World War. The development of strategic studies into areas of transnational concerns such as environmental and economic issues and inter-border areas like international crime and more latterly ethnic tensions and terrorism has however, broadened the security idea into non-state threats requiring an inter-disciplinary remit. International Security Studies had been subjected to little reflection until the 1980’s when research on the subject created a problem of definition as outlined by Waever in his attempt to explain ‘Securitisation and De-securitisation’.[1]  Broadening the term into areas of Interdependence in an increasingly globalised international structure is a relevant way of overcoming ‘statist’ obstacles in the security debate. Recent developments ironically suggest however that the Security issue is becoming related again to the question of state power.  These are the themes to be examined in this paper, which suggests that the state as the key player in security issues has a long tradition in both theoretical and practical terms.      

Traditionally, ‘Security’ was seen as a ‘core’ value and the ultimate goal of state behaviour. This prescriptive element was a keynote of idealist or Liberal internationalist thinking and mirrored the ideals of the League of Nations, collective security and the UNO after 1945. Neo-realism created a new perspective for security, now a central concept. ‘In anarchy’, argues Waltz (1959, p. 126) ‘security is the highest goal’.[2] Baldwin (1979) on the other hand, restates the relativism of the realists in forwarding the idea of marginal utility.[3] Security as a tendency has been present in international political research for many years, but was understated and accepted as an unwritten fact rather than a coherent theory. The Neo-Realists have brought it to centre-stage. 

More recently, these theories have developed the idea  of economic-ecological security as a ‘supply side’ problem of International Relations, introducing a neo-mercantilist view of state security fearful of domination of economic factors by hostile actors and monopolistic trends damaging to economic security and ultimately national survival Keohane observes this phenomenon in the decline of hegemonic regimes.[4]  The only solution here is cooperative rather than confrontational policies in which states organise their mutual relations according to enlightened self-interest and possibly use the United Nations and other international bodies as forums of conciliation. Certainly, the post Cold War ear saw this as a way forward in breaking the grip of state interest. Non-traditional threats and aspirations became clear during the 1990’s, and the state as a central referent did seem increasingly obsolete in the wake of rapid globalisation and inter-state groupings like the European Union and North American Free Trade Association.      

Technically, we are moving away from inter-state formations and concentrating on security of peoples and their basic human rights. Does this nullify the state referent?  According to Waltz, a systems-theory approach ‘has to show how international politics can be conceived of as a domain distinct from the economic, social, and other international domains one may conceive of (p79). However, mutual dependence and linkage of economic, social environmental and political interests characterised by reciprocal effects among countries or among actors in different countries is the starting point of an alternative interpretation of international politics.

Taking the most ‘advanced’ view of Interdependence as a counterforce to anarchy, Rosenau (1990) propounds a post-international politics scenario by taking up the idea of ‘powerful people’, not powerful elites but worldwide changes in communication, technology and education, creating an empowerment of individuals through the dependency of the world economy on the advance of knowledge and understanding, making everybody an important resource. Consequently, their new insight will require their governments to change in the direction of the most appealing global standards,[5] thus moving away from crude state power-politics.

Attractive as this may appear, others like Morse (1976. p. 678) have pointed to the contradictory tendencies and latent conflict in the globalising forces and associated interdependence which create as much potential discord as harmonisation.[6] He argues that one of ‘the most significant features of world politics today has been the contrast between the integration of large sectors of the world economic and military systems and the fragmentation of decision-making in economic and military-security affairs by national preference’. He also claims that the higher the level of interdependence among political systems, the greater will be the ability of any one to manipulate the internal affairs of others. With powers such as Russia, China and India joining the ranks of the economic elite of world politics, this observations seems to be as valid today, if not more so, than in the 1970’s.    

The USA‘s economic hegemony was hugely significant in the last phase of the Cold War for example. Waever (p. 49) argues that the concept of Security has to be understood in a traditionalist sense if we are to make any meaningful analysis. He accepts that security is influenced by dynamics at the levels of individuals and the global system, but the term is incoherent if applied to individual and global security. ‘The concept of security refers to the state’ he firmly asserts. The referent of the realist viewpoint towards the state has remained valid despite a shift of focus away from state power. International order is not an abstraction but a reality (or Realpolitik) of competing forces trying to achieve security. Inevitably, the nation-state will strive to increase its own security which inadvertently or deliberately makes other states feel less secure as a result. It becomes a vicious circle or security-insecurity spiral as nations compete to improve or increase their armaments and military capacity.

There have been numerous explanations of this factor in International Relations. An early realist, Han Morgenthau in Politics Among Nations argued that man’s nature was innately aggressive and as a collective entity would seek security through conquest and war. Security for his school of thought would imply a kind of balance of terror to deter aggressors. But this would not create a natural system or permanent state of peace or order. Anarchy would be held in check by mutual arms build-up.  Hertz (1950) on the other hand dismissed the claim that man was innately anti-social and argued for a structuralist approach to international relations.[7] The dilemma of security, he argued, rested on the social nexus- and the idea of anarchy – within which men and groups operate. The problem was institutionalised rather than more crudely psychological. He used the evidence of the Cold War and the bipolar as opposed to the multipolar world of balances of power. Bi-polarity made the dilemma worse Hertz claimed in 1959, and gave ‘the security dilemma its utmost poignancy’. [8] This point was restated by Buzan (1983, p. 208) who saw the Cold War situation as at best the ‘mature anarchy’ whereby the constant action-reaction pattern was held in some form of  international structural rivalry.[9]

A more recent contribution to the security question comes from Robert Jervis in his World Politics article (1978) where he analyses the concept in terms of ‘game theory’ and particularly the ‘variable sum Prisoner’s Dilemma’ –which balances its players between conflict and cooperation strategies. Jervis posits self-interest and survival as key factors when considering the ‘costly war’ scenario in which cooperation is more beneficial to both sides than mutually assured destruction. Here the security issue might be overcome by policies designed to calm rather than aggravate relations between potential enemies. If military technology favours the defence, and if the opportunity costs of defence policy are high, incentives to manage the dilemma will be accordingly high. Moreover, if defence postures can easily be distinguished from offensive postures – so that the risks of misinterpretation are minimised-the dilemma will be reduced.  A status quo orientation will help the players in the management process.[10] 

Wendt (1992, p. 392) agrees that rationalism ‘offers a fundamentally behavioural conception of both process and institutions: they change behaviour but not identities and interests’. Neo-realists and Neo-liberals may differ as to the extent of state motivation according to ‘relative’ as opposed to ‘absolute’ gains but both interpretations recognise ‘self-interest’ as the ‘starting point’ for the theory (ibid).[11]

Traditional state theorists are committed to the principal existence of the security dilemma because they cannot accept the assumption of a prescriptive nature that idealists will use to justify collective security and international liberalism. For in essence their arguments at times converge. As early as the 1920’s, idealists like Norman Angell were using economic arguments to claim that war was so destructive of national interest that reality dictated methods of peace and cooperation. This was more realistic than utopian, but the problem was always the ‘assumption’ that self-interest always or ought to lead to peace rather than aggressive militarism.[12]

The assumption of Hertz, Bazun and Jervis that the status quo orientation helps the practical application process tells  us much about the issues of international relations, not least the situation so often existing of ‘satiated’ versus ‘revisionist’ powers. The German situation after 1918 is telling. So too is the immediate post Second World War world where Russia was prepared to test the resolve of the West in seeking a tidying up of the East German-Berlin problems. Revisionist powers will seek advantage by early arms production or seek opportunities to restore lost power etc. This will lead to the counter-reaction of the satiated powers seeking to preserve the status quo. This is what Wendt (1992, p. 408) refers to ‘predatation’ or ‘bad apples’, forcing other states to engage in competitive power politics to meet the challenge: ‘One predator will best a hundred pacifists because anarchy provides no guarantees’ . The rise of a revisionist or ‘predator’ state, it may well condition identity and interest formation according to relationship-specific conditions, i.e. whether it will be collective or not.  

The manifestation of Security may be alliances but the explanation of the behaviour that seeks cooperation rests on state power. For Morgenthau (1948) alliances are a necessary function of the balance of power operating within a multi-state system’.[13] But Claude’s critique of Morgenthau’s theories shows that the balance of power has ‘a poor record in terms of either the prevention of war or the safeguarding of the independence of weak states’.[14] Bull on the other hand, sees the balance of power in a different way, arguing that its function is not to preserve peace’ ‘but to preserve the system of states itself’.[15] In other words, recourse to war is sometimes necessary to maintain the balance of power in order to check a potentially dominant state. The elimination of smaller or weaker states may sometimes be considered as part of the process of preservation of major power interests, as in the Partition of Poland in the 18^th century. At the present time. A resurgent Russia in the Caucasus played out in relation to gas supplies and relations with smaller states such as the Ukraine might be seen in the context of this ideal. Georgia and The Ukraine seek NATO membership as security for their independence while Russia interprets it as a threat to its own security and creeping Western encirclement.[16]        

State security may exist however, where ‘built-in features making for their persistence’ may remove the motive to resort to preventative war. Support for the destruction of Iranian or South Korean nuclear capacity can be cited here. What this suggests is that the security question can be minimised but not eliminated in the absence of anything more tangible than the state. ‘So long as anarchy endures, states remain like units’ argues Waltz (op cit. p93) and that negates guaranteed security.

Peace studies are closely associated with security. 18^thcentury Enlightenment thinkers compared the morals of civil society to relations between states. Kant argued that states in the world are like individuals in the state of nature. They are neither perfectly good nor are they controlled by law. Rousseau’s federation idea is an interesting concept in that it perceives war as a result of international anarchy.[17] This is the idealistic strand derided by advocates of anarchic states. In trying to ascertain the reasons why the era of Cold War was one of the most ‘peaceful’ in history, Gaddis (1986), refining the power-politics theme, suggests that an international order can maintain peace if it rests on some kind of natural balance or reflection of  ‘where military power resided’ especially after 1945. In other words the bi-polar world was as good an indication of the reality of power politics as any system, and far more practical in application than the internationalism of the League of Nations after 1919 which represented a normative  prescription that never existed other than in the realms of idealism .[18] As these contrasting points demonstrate Peace remains a stereotype of the divide between the Neo-Realists and Neo-Liberals; the security question is no closer to an answer.

Post 9/11 developments tend to reinforce the state referent in security terms.  The US decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was a unilateral state decision in defiance of UN opinion The issue of nuclear weapons, support of Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Palestine respectively, and support fro Shi’a militias in Iraq, has made Iran a ‘rogue state’ in the eyes of the USA, a ‘problem’ that might only be solved by military solutions by a superpower capable of the task.  The link between state formation, religion and domestic and foreign policy has become clearer than ever in the War on Terror atmosphere.

And in terms of power politics, the invasion and subsequent collapse of Iraq as a ‘power’ in the Gulf Region has given Iran a freer hand as the champion of Islam, the crusader against Israel and of American influence in the region (Hiro, 2006, pp233-5). Solutions thus seem to be as state-centred as ever they were. The success of the War on Terror depends on how far the government in Islamabad is able and prepared to crack down on Madrassa schools and terrorist cells along the Pakistani-Afghan border, or the extent of the compliance of Saudi authorities in blocking financial aid to Al-Qaeda networks. Internal pressures define so many aspects of security and the extent of the success of international initiatives in dealing with all the issues mentioned above.   

A security study invites us to seek an answer to the Neo-Realist quandary regarding state politics and relativism in the development of power structures. It also raises issues about the feasibility of balance of power strategies and the prospects for cooperation and peace. We also need to develop alternative angles partly resurrected from the older Neo-Liberal and idealist traditions but also from the globalist and interdependence linkage scenarios to have a fuller understanding of this facet of international relations. In defining and re-evaluating the concept, it is possible to shed light on contemporary international politics in the areas outlined above. There are no easy solutions or syntheses as yet, but the debate raises interesting points about the future of international politics and its outcomes.    

Bibliography                  

Baldwin, D. A. (1979) ‘Power Analysis and World Politics: New Trends versus Old Tendencies’ in World Politics, 31, January, pp161-95 

Bull, H (1977) The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, London: Macmillan

Buzan, B. (1983) People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations in Waever (1995) Securitization and Desecuritization

Claude, I. (1962) Power and International Relations, NY: Random House

Gaddis, J.L. (1986) ‘The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System’, in International  Security, 10 (4)  pp215-221

Hertz, J.H. (1950) ‘Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma’ in World Politics, 2, January (2), pp 157-180.

Hertz, J. H. (1959) International Politics in the Atomic Age, New York: Columbia University Press 

Hiro, D. (2006) Iran Today, UK: Politico’s

Jervis, R. (1978) ‘Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma’ in World Politics, 30, January (2), pp167-214

Keohane, R. (1984) After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy, New Jersey: Princeton University Press pt 3, ch 9, pp182-216

Morgenthau, H. (1948) Politics Among Nations, NY: Alfred Knopf, 1955 edition

Morse, E. L. (1976) Interdependence in World Affairs, in Rosenau, J.N., Thompson & Boyd eds. World Politics, London; Collier Macmillan

Nobel, Jaap de (1989) ‘The Paradgim of Debate in International Relations’ in Rosenau, J.N. &  H.Tromp, eds. Interdependence and Conflict in World Politics, London: Gower Publishing, ch13

Rosenau, J.N. (1990) Turbulence in World Politics, NJ: Princeton University Press

Sunday Times (2007) ‘Putin: How worried should the West Be’, 10/06/07 p12-13

Waever, O. (1995) ‘Securitisation and Desecuritisation’ in ‘On Security’, ch 3, pp46-86.

 Waltz, K. (1959) Man, The State and War: A Theoretical Analysis, New York: Columbia University Press

Waltz, K. N. (1990) '‘Realist Thought and Realist Theory'’in the Journal of International Affairs, 44, (1).

 Wendt, A. (1992) ‘Anarchy is what States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics’ in International Organisation, Vol. 46, 2, Spring, pp391-425