The Limitations of Defining Security in Terms of ‘The
National Interest’
There are many limitations of defining
security in the term of ‘the national interest’. Because it does not address
many kinds of security such as human security, group (ethnic, minority,
interest) security, regional security, global security (include environmental
security and so on). If we think about only ‘the national interest’ we will be
trapped by the concept of the national security.
Wichai Chucherd
National interest
Wolfers
(1962: 147) stated in his work that politician, academic and other realist
people tend to accept that relationship policies among nations are based on
their national interests especially in the term of national security. This
statement was affirmed again by Wendt (1992: 392), both dominant schools of
thinking, neorealists and neoliberals, excepted the
self-interest state and self-help system to be hypotheses of their theory.
Furthermore, neorealists believe in self-help system, and ignore collective
security and world regime. From these, we can not ignore that the world we live
right now is anarchy, which the ways states act each other based on national
interest policies.
National
interest is based on geography, history, strategy, economy and value of each
country. It shows on: quality of life of the people, which concern economy of
the state; physical security, which lack of threats form external and internal
state; psychological security, which lack of fear form any treats; and the
value of the people and the nations in the relation with other states.
National
interest concentrates on the commitments of its people and its government in
that state. It based on the concept of self-help and anarchy, which state is
the primary actor. However, if we look around ourselves we will find that a
state is not the only one actor of our world. People as an
individual, group of the people who belong to a common interest, a group of
state in the region, and our world as a whole, are the importance actors too.
Therefore, what about the individual interest, group interest, region interest
and global interest, we should have to think about their interest or not.
To answer
the question ‘What are the limitations of defining security in terms of ‘the
national interest’?’, I will try to argue that there
are limitations on individual interest, group interest, regional interest, and
global interest. I will start by discussing the national interest. After that,
I will point out its limits on the other actors’ interests.
National security
Wolfers
(1962: 150) defines security as a value which based on psychological, sometime
we secure, but we think we insecure, then we want to gain more. Sometime we are
unsafe, but we think we are safe. Therefore, we are unaware of danger. Furthermore,
he argues that the value of national security count from the complete
insecurity to the complete security.
We can see
that the concept itself can cause the problems of how
many secure for a nation should gain. What is a measure of counting value of
security? How do we know we are safe or not? As we fear a threat, it is real or
our emotion. These questions asking about national security are the limitations
of the concept.
National security does not address the issue of individual interests
The coming
of globalization and the rise of Human Right and democracy could illustrate us
to understand individual interest, especially individual security so-called
human security. Wolfers (1962: 147-48) argues that directed by national
interest, national security policy is inclined to limit its aims for the
interests of the nation. It only aims for the interests of elite classes in
society. Individual and minority groups interests have
very few respects in this case.
Furthermore,
in some countries especially in
National security does not address the issue of sub-national group
interests
In the case
of sub-national groups or minority groups, Wolfers (1962: 148-58) stated that
minority groups were seemed to be an oblation, their interests surrender for
the majority. Moreover, when their government want to
gain an improvement of security, the nation has to pay some sacrifices. These
payments normally cause the values of insecurity onto the minority groups.
We have
witnessed many phenomena happened in the world, some minority groups lost their
lives, their land, their property and their rights. Internal conflicts around
the world caused by the conflicts of minority rights and state rights so-called
national interest. If a nation insists in its interest, does not respect in
sub-national group interests, the conflicts in this state can not be solved.
National security can conflict with regional security
Nations
link together by geography, history, cultures and ideologies to be a region. A
region as
The main
reason, why the other regions can not get together, is states too much
concentrate on their own national interest and their national security. They
tend to ignore regional interests and regional security. Moreover, they always
get into a conflict such as border disputes, natural resource conflicts, which
causes regional insecurity.
National security and global interest
States
behavior in the international relations is always based on national security,
because the concepts of national security and national interest dominated the
world society and influenced policy makers. Policy makers believe that national
resilience is based on their national power, not based on cooperation with each
other among their countries (Wolfers 1962: 149). Consequently, foreign policies
of almost every country around the world always point to the aims of their
interests. The world interests will be only their reason if it match with their aims. In contrast, if the world interests
are against their purpose, they will ignore to support the world society by
using a beautiful reason to refuse it.
As I
mentioned that security is a value, it can count from complete insecurity to
absolute security. Therefore, some nations tend to overestimate on their
threats while some nations do not realize about their challenges. However,
normally nations try to gain more and more security by using all means (Wolfers
1962: 151). Consequently, states will create a situation so-called security
dilemma, which the states compete their security with each other.
Competitive
security system was explained by the realist, they identify situations among
states by supposing that a state has a negative perspective on security with
each other. There are losses and gains between their relations, it is a ‘Zero Sum
Game’ (Wendt 1992: 400). Nations try to seek more power by armed building,
economy power competition, alliances and other means. At first they may want to
seek only a power for protect themselves, so-called
power of resistance, but when they got it they will try increase it, then their
power tend to be a power of aggressive.
The situations of security dilemma damage
peace, security and world community. As we witness in WWII, when Hitler tried
to seek a high security, he created an aggressive power and attacked their
neighbors (Wolfers 1962: 153).
The limitations of security based on national interest
In
conclusion, I argue that the concept of national security based on national
interest, which dominate the world society nowadays, is too narrow. It pays
attention to only one actor. It does not respect individual right. It does not
respect sub-national people in any particular countries. It ignores the
cooperation among nations in the region. Most importantly, it is the root
problem of the conflicts between nations.
To maintain
peace and security, it seems to me that the concept of collective security and
cooperative security, which based on the security of the world as a whole, may
be the solution to the problem of conflicts and war.
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