22 May 2021, NIICE Commentary 7028
Dr. Devika Sharma
The end of the cold war coupled with globalization has added another dimension to the discourse on security, that of non-traditional security threats. The spectrum of such threats is very wide, ranging from climate change, environmental degradation, resource depletion, infectious diseases, natural disasters, irregular migration, food insecurity, human and drug trafficking, international terrorism etc. Non-traditional security threats are of a ‘non-military’ nature, arising mainly from economic and social factors, they are ‘stateless’ and are ‘transnational’ in character, wherein they can have ‘spillover effects’, even if their causes are local. Globalization and the communications revolution aid the faster spread of such conflicts. The non-traditional security threats indicate that there is an intricate relationship between development, peace and security. Also, the threats to people’s wellbeing can have security implications for communities and states alike.
COVID-19 marks the further rise of the non-traditional security threats, which will act as a ‘threat-multiplier’ and aggravate the security dilemma. It has ushered in one of the world’s worst economic crisis since the great depression. The COVID-19 pandemic is thus, a sign of things to come. The 21st century security agenda must capture these novel, unstructured security threats. Such threats mark a break from the traditional security threats which aimed at changing the balance of power between states by exercising their military might.
To address the challenges emanating out of the changed security landscape, and to ensure sustainable security, a holistic approach making human wellbeing as the nucleus of security analysis through collaboration between development and security experts, global and sub-state level cooperation, the latter relying on community knowhow is the need of the hour.
The 21st century has offered new paradigms to security. Thus, there is a need to re-conceptualize security in terms of ‘human security’, in order to pay adequate attention to this emerging phenomenon of non-traditional security threats. In 1994, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in its annual report, identified ‘human security’ as a concern for human life and dignity. The 1994 UNDP Report highlighted four characteristics of ‘human security’: it is a universal concern, its components are interdependent, it is easier to achieve through early prevention and it is people-centered.
Onslaught of the COVID-19: An Outcome of Unhealthy Governance?
Globalization resulted in technological advancement and the ease of cross-border movement of people and goods across the world making states and communities more vulnerable to the spread of infectious diseases. Interestingly, the identification of health issues as threats to national security has been attributed to non-medical reasons.
In the 1990s and the 2000s, AIDS became widespread all over the world and the UN Security Council at its maiden meeting of the new millennium discussed the aftermath of HIV AIDS on peace and security. Later, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1308 highlighting that the HIV/AIDS pandemic if not monitored, ‘may pose a risk to stability and security.’ During this period, infectious diseases began to be included in the national security agendas of the Western countries which began to realize the significance of infectious diseases to the discourse on security. In 2003, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) brought to light the vulnerability of the global health system and the susceptibility of globalized countries to such infectious diseases. This was an appropriate example of how pandemics could have adverse effects on the economies, health and wellbeing of the community and have repercussions for regional security as well.
In 2009, the A (H1N1) influenza virus epidemic plagued almost the entire globe. After that, the Haiti Cholera outbreak in 2010-11 shook the world with its swift transmission. In 2013, the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa had a very detrimental effect on the functioning of the state. It adversely affected the health of the working population, thereby dramatically reducing the capacity of the state to perform its vital functions. In 2015, the outbreak of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in South Korea was an outcome of the interconnectedness between Middle East and East Asia. The universal spread of pandemics in the 21st century has called for multilateral regional and even global cooperation, thereby altering the nature of regional security cooperation, defying unilateral responses by individual states. Capturing the importance of health security to the 21st century security agenda, the World Health Organization redefined its priorities from ‘health work’ to ‘global health security’.
The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, commonly known as COVID-19 has been a development that has had disastrous consequences for countries all over the world bringing even the most powerful ones to their knees in grappling with the pandemic. It exposed the unpreparedness of global health systems in countering the onslaught of the Corona virus. Earlier it was believed that the developing countries were at a greater risk of health security threats due to weak state capacity and political instability. The novel Corona virus outbreak proved that logic wrong with developed countries like the USA being the worst affected, at least during the first wave. The artificial demarcation between developing and developed nations has been blurred with the unfolding of the global pandemic. By March 2020, the Corona virus outbreak in Wuhan had metamorphosed into a global health security threat. It was as if “when Wuhan sneezed, the whole world caught a cold.”
The pandemic has potential to increase political instability in countries all over the world due to economic ramifications of the lockdown and also due to unfavorable public reactions to government policies aimed at eradicating the disease. Another fallout of the novel corona virus pandemic has been an increased reliance on cyber space, making the use of software applications such as Google Meet, Skype, Zoom etc. frequent, necessitated by the requirement of working from home and physical class room teaching being replaced by virtual learning. This scenario has drawn our attention to the need for heightened cyber security that facilitates easy access on the one hand and protection of the private data of the users on the other, bringing to the fore another non-traditional security threat.
The pandemic has also led to misinformation and the spread of fake news and propaganda about the Corona virus outbreak resulting in public hysteria. Governments too in the garb of public security have at times withheld information pertaining to the mortality rate caused by the virus and other effects of the pandemic. Fraudsters have been enticing people into buying products such as hand sanitizers, cheap medicines and vaccines to prevent or cure COVID-19. All these consequences are likely to complicate the ‘security dilemma’ confronting nation states due to the unprecedented pace of the spread of the disease across the world.
The time is ripe for science and policy to work hand in hand with each other as a strategy to address the issues arising out of the pandemic. The need of the hour is self-reliance coupled with regional and international cooperation. Thus, a holistic response to non-traditional security threats, one rooted in a marriage between developmental and security policies seems to be the panacea to the challenges posed by non-traditional security threats.
