Right after the end
of the decade of proxy wars which most often reflecting that military
confrontation between the two superpowers was over and that security issues are
not anymore about military but widely included other sensitive and disastrous
topics as well. As almost everybody believed or at least echoed by Francis
Fukuyama that the end of history will allow peace dividend to work out thereby a
big shift of development will go to not military spending but to social
development. At the end of the Cold War and from this fact, of course, it was
quite common to predict that non-military issues will be more essential and
everybody would go for it. Militaristic agenda is not useful anymore and that
states would use those extra resource for social development instead of
wastefully expending for military. From this stand point, there have been quite
many authors theorizing or expanding the coverage of security issue by not just
focusing on military but other emerging and pivotal issues such as energy that
may shock the world regardless they are superpower militarily or economically. Obviously,
for these 1990s periods it seems pretty convincing that peace dividend theory made
its voice heard. The changing of attention on military or state security has
put state-centric approach to national security in question. Is it still
tightly focused on nation-state security or should they widening it to include
societal, group or individual security.
From the text by Krause and Williams, they discussed
that from (neo)realists the security would be broadened in the light of the end
of the Cold War yet the subjectivity of security concern for realists is still
heavily the job and responsibility of the state. State is the main target of
threats from outsiders. Hence, even though the Cold War was over and no more
ideological competition the security studies remains greatly targeting states. From
this token, realists is trying to enlarge its area of coverage to not just
focus on building greater military but also to get some strategic resources
under controlled so that it could make sure that potential threats and harmful
acts of other states will not put in risk. However, from non-realist points of view, it
is not just state but non-state actors are also targets of threatening and harmfulness.
It is noteworthy to remember that an insecure group or society will lead to an
insecure state since group or society is components of the state. For liberals,
they do not just enlarge coverage to non-military issues such as environmental
degradation but also counting nonstate actor as well. Studying states’ security, therefore, must
include non-state actors. For liberal, for example, state-centric approach to
security is far obsolete since there is no state exist (or that state is just
an abstract entity) but groups or individuals who are going to be harmed or
threatened are real living entity.
Personally,
security concerns could come from various angles and not just top-down issues
but also bottom-up as well. It is no doubt to include, for example, energy
issue into the security studies since it owes tremendous impacts on states and
individual groups and societies. The scarcity of energy, such as petroleum,
could cause major powers to fall into conflicts or at least motivate groups of
people in a state to organize violent crime against the ruling government in
order to take control the use of those energy resources. This issue could
trigger conflicts into interstate war if they cannot suppress it or using
inappropriate resolution technique. Though the debates are going on whether to
broaden the security studies, the crisis is already there and very serious. If
one can’t or fail manage it there will be no time and no chance of getting rid
of it anymore. Consequently, the world will pay more lives in exchange for peace
which is completely hurtful for everybody to hear. Therefore, decision-makers
should use appropriate mean to study security so that states, people and the
whole can benefit from it. They should not just strictly follow a ‘too-narrow’ focusing
by (neo)realist neither do they ‘too-big’ include everything to deal with
security. Probably, security concerns of any kinds happen with time as well and
that this time energy is one the most important factors could shake security of
every kind of state and group.
