Revisiting Security Essay

Revisiting Security

Having taken the Global Security Studies course now, I uphold my original views on security. First of all, I argued that national security is the most important form of security. More importantly, though, I argued that the definition of security is fixed, and that security issues are objectively so even when it has not yet been classified as such. This idea plays into my everlasting skepticism with anything labeled a "social construction." Safe to say, I continue to reject the notion of "emancipation security" because one cannot emancipate themselves from threats permanently, as the argument from Ken Booth would suggest. Such is the example of several of our case studies, such as those in Syria or Tuvalu.

What each of these case studies have in common is the West's attempt at emancipating the host nation, and as a result contributing to other security issues, almost like playing a game of whack-a-mole. Syria's case remains similar to the cases in other parts of the Middle East, such as Iraq. Under the pretense of democracy, the United States has supported the rebels in Syria. Ostensibly, it appears as a noble goal that the United States would emancipate the Syrian people from a maniacal dictator. However, closer inspection shows that that was not the case, and in many ways, U.S. intervention contributed to other security problems both in America and Syria. In America, national security is now compromised, as evidenced by the issues surrounding the vetting of migrants and ensuring that they are not terrorists or potential terrorists. Immigration from this region of the world has also contributed to ontological security problems, as Americans question whether or not migrants are actually capable of assimilating into American culture, leading to a reevaluation of what it means to be "American." For the migrants themselves, human security is an issue as they dangerously cross the seas on makeshift rafts that could potentially drown them, among other perilous methods of migration. As for Syrians, they face the human uncertainty of issues such as getting the power lines cut, their homes destroyed or occupied, or their dependency on humanitarian food and medical aid. Ethnic and religious minorities face the ontological uncertainty of a power vacuum potentially leading to Sharia law, which does not currently exist under Bashar al-Assad. Christians, Druze, Ahmaddiyas, Shiites, and Yazidis all have ontological reason to fear the collapse of the Assad regime, that something worse may take his place. That is to say nothing of the obvious state security implications of toppling a regime and leaving a power vacuum, potentially leading to a failed state marked by prolonged conflict, an accusation already made against the country in some quarters. Therefore, what attempt was made by the West at emancipating Syrians did not take the perspective of Syrians into account, nor the complex political history of the Middle East, and as a result the U.S.'s efforts opened up a can of worms pertaining to global security issues, both in Syria, America, and abroad.

Tuvalu is another country that could make an excellent Cinderella story. It is a small archipelago country of about 10,000 people. It covers only 10 square miles of land, one of the smallest of any independent nation. The entire atoll rests at a height of about 2-4m above sea level. Yet it remains in the midst of a political battle fought by powers far greater than itself. Western scholars predict that the atoll could soon disappear due to rising sea levels, and that the great powers must reduce their carbon footprint if they are to save a nation from being wiped out by nature through no fault of its own. Alas, Cinderella is a fairy tale, and so is the above narrative of Tuvalu. That is not to say that all the claims made by the alarmists, for lack of a better term, are false, or that there is no cause for concern. However, the great powers concerned about climate change are bringing their ideological battles over the issue onto an island that never asked to be part of the debate, nor were asked about what side they would take. The base understanding of Tuvalu's environmental problems is that it is a nation that finds its own existence threatened due to a problem that it had negligible contribution towards exacerbating, if it had any at all. The issue is that when looking at Tuvalu's environmental problems, the West neglected the perspective of Tuvaluans, who mostly brushed off Western concerns of the environment (insofar as a miniscule sample size could capture), with some leaving for employment or other non-environmental reasons (human/state), and others willing to die on the island (ontological). The large powers, by imposing these environmental concerns on Tuvaluans, are leaving them in the same predicament that they had originally been in when ignored on the world stage while quietly being affected by it. Therefore, what the great powers envisioned as emancipating Tuvaluans from their uncontrollable situation in fact enslaved them to another one. Meanwhile, Tuvaluans are concerned about more political security issues such as economics, showing that their main security priorities are still stately in character.

Given the circumstances surrounding the First World's dealings with the Tuvalu and Syria cases, emancipation security cannot work because an entity becomes shackled to a security issue no sooner than it frees itself from another, making security a temporary phenomenon limited to a particular set of issues at any given moment in time. It cannot be a viable alternative to the traditional understanding of security as an issue connected to the state, for the state is the channel that other security issues flow through. To turn security issues into a social construction is to turn the state itself into a social construction, meaning that emancipation security theory lends itself to the necessity of destroying the state. This has the result of entirely debasing society back to its animalistic functions. Of course, human security issues still remain even without the state, as many of them are found in nature, such as hunger. These base security concerns will simply compel us to repeat history back from square one. Given that, I maintain my view that the state remains the foundation of security, for if that foundation falls, so will society itself.