Humans and International security
The desire for security reflected in social life
The desire for security is a natural human response towards fear and threat, when a human being is in misery it runs for help. This natural human instinct is the core value of the security. That’s why people living in the same society, region, or area come together to help each other from the outer world threats. The idea is if there is a threat there is a need for security and the world we living in is full of threats. If you want to prosper you need to ensure your security because no industry, a business can flourish in a violent society. Take the example of Afghanistan it’s been at war for decades there is uncertainty in the security of Afghan society that’s why it is not being flourished, while if we see in the west there is a certainty of security in their society which makes them the development and most powerful nations of the world. The concept is that everything we do has an impact on our social structure on us. Hence to protect ourselves we need to protect our society first, if our neighbors are safe, that means we are safe too.
Human activities associated with security
There are many ways humans interact with each other, social life is basically a sort of interconnectivity with each other. As human beings we cannot cut off entirely, we are in a constant need for social interaction. Recently in COVID-19 lockdown, we saw that how the cutoff from society affected us, and everywhere over social media people were talking about when lockdown will be over and we will meet again. Though people were living with their families in their homes, they were missing their friends or work colleagues. The world economy was affected most, hence one thing that started from a city in china shook the whole world. This coronavirus showed us that in society to survive we do not only need military security but there are many other ways we need to ensure our security. Like to ensure health security for each person living in this world was the main priority, so we need to invest more in our health services too. Hence the concept that we need only military power to be secured seems old. Now in this modern era, you have to ensure both your economic and military security. Because due to capitalism the one way the world is connected is money and business. So if an incident happens in the north of the world, it will affect the business of people in the south too, we can take examples such as 9/11, the Wall Street crash, the coronavirus, and many more. The world economy was affected badly due to these events in the past, which shows us that human security is associated not only through military but also through economical ways.
Concept of insecurity through international relations perspective
In international relations, the concept of security has been approached through two different ideas one is the Realistic approach that suggests that security is related to power and war. Its opposing concept is an idealistic frame of thought that approaches the concept of security through a peace perspective. The debate on these two ideas had been in circulation in international relations for many decades. They both are true that for security we needed to be a part of the war and then after the war, we need to provide peace for security. But these two concepts had been failed because through wars like WWI, WWII, and the Cold War we saw that only wars cannot ensure the security of the world and the failures of the League of Nations and United Nations in providing a peaceful environment in the world shows that through the idealistic approach we again failed in bringing peace in society. Hence as Buzan suggested in his book the concept of security has been underdeveloped and needs to habilitate, this creates a situation of security dilemma (a concept by John Herz) or what we call insecurity. The situations after the cold war changed and countries tend to move towards their own security maximization rather than to leave themselves at the hand of superpowers. Hence states try to improve their security, by all means, to compete with their surrounding uprising states due to the insecure nature of human behavior. A simple example of this concept can be taken from the longtime rivals Pakistan and India, when India announced itself as a nuclear power, Pakistan felt insecure, and though lack of resources, Pakistan was ready to become a nuclear power through any means. Hence through IR’s perspective as far as there is anarchy in the world each state competes with each other, which gives rise to a sense of insecurity between states.
