Broadening the Security Agenda
The era of modern geopolitical extremist radicalism has revealed the grave dangers to United States national and international security. After the end of World War II, international superpowers focused on the military threat from other superpowers and nation states. Since the fall of the former Soviet Union shortly before the turn of the 21st century, the threat landscape has changed tremendously. Today, national and international security concerns must focus on the threats associated with asymmetric warfare from terrorist groups without any state or national sponsorship.
On the other hand, critics of the broadest approach to national and international human security suggest that the pendulum may have swung too far in the direction of listing too many specific threats. According to that view, specific concerns about (1) societal changes and human migration patterns, (2) environmental issues and energy, and (3) organized crime and various crimes such as human and arms trafficking and narcotics are all redundant concerns. However, a closer review would reveal that threats arising from human migration patterns are sufficiently different from those associated with numerous other aspects of societal change to be considered a single issue.
The appropriate response to mitigating the risks of natural disaster, climate changes, and energy needs are very different from those that are appropriate to address the risks from terrorism targeting energy production facilities and infrastructure. Similarly, while organized crime does encompass many individual crimes, some of those crimes (such as international human and drug trafficking) must be addressed in completely different ways from the perspective of human security and not crime control. Ultimately, the broadening of the threat landscape is necessary to address all of the contemporary risks to human security apart from other closely linked crimes from a criminal justice perspective.
References
Burgess, J. Peter. Non-Military Security Challenges in Contemporary Security and Strategy 2nd edition, Craig A. Snyder (ed.) Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke,
2008, pp. 60-78.
