In 1848 British newspaper Saturday Review explained some social problems via mentioning the word of security (“we do not know exactly when we should be alarmed about the social problems and when they – the social problems – are caused by security”). The word was used but the meaning of it was ans still is vague, ambiguous and confusing.
Security has been a term in international relations and diplomacy for some time by now. At the same time, it has not been a term that has been in usage for hundreds of years. Some hectic examples nevertheless exist. E.g. William Shakespeare has written about security as well as many other authors of the time. The term and concepts came into practice of politics and became on object of consistent analytical studies only in the 20th century. And then it was more connected with the events, processes and their analysis in the international politics, in diplomacy.
In the first half of the 20th century the politicians and analysts dealt mainly with the problems of war and peace. If you look at the international agreements then you find predominantly the treaties on peace, disarmament etc. The WWI is one of the main reasons of such an approach to the whole group of problems which in current days – we identify as security problems.
During the Cold War period the security studies became well known. In many cases, however, the security studies were labeled as strategic studies and the name was not wrong as the Cold War security was a military security first of all. Not all the 40 years of Cold War, security was identified through military factors, within the framework of strategic studies. In 1970s the new line of reasoning was introduced. During that decade people started to pay more attention to the environment, economy etc. These aspects were now also included into the security studies. Nevertheless, the bipolar political and military confrontation in the world left the military-defence, strategic aspect of security as a dominant.
With the breakup of the USSR in 1991 and the collapse of the Communist system, with the disappearance of the East-West confrontation and what is the most important – with the vanishing of the enemy, as real and as a symbol – many politicians and academics now saw the advent of the new angle of security practices and security studies. There was no political enemy any more and the people could now concentrate on the non-military aspects of security – that is on the soft-security issues. Various articles, monographs etc. were written on the topic of environmental security, economic and financial security. The demographic and social problems were raised in connection with security.
But these aspects were analyzed mostly on the level of statehood and here we come to another understanding of security – security on various levels as presented by Barry Buzan and it is also called a Copenhagen School in security studies (as he had more followers, his ideas were widely shared). Barry Buzan analyzed in his famous book “People, States and Fear” (that has been several times reprinted) security through the following levels: individual and individual security for the state and national security, regional security, world and international security.
Such an analysis (level-analysis) makes it really easier to understand security and also the possible division international and domestic security. The latter is even in English difficult to mark as we can say it in many different ways – intrastate security, internal security domestic security, homeland security. Nevertheless, how we call it on fact is clear – in the world of regionalization and globalization – all the versions of security are interrelated and interdependent, whether we talk about domestic/intrastate security or international security, individual, national and international security.
At the same time in 1990s with the already mentioned rapid process of regionalization and globalization another process emerged – an attempt of the states to unite their activities in various fields, like politics, economy, finances etc. In some cases the process has been more active and centrally ruled in some cases less.
The European Union is just the example of rather arranged development. It is rapidly moving in the direction of federation, centralization and security in this perspective is going to have another meaning, at least there are such attempts. One has to admit, of course, that the foreign and security policy of EU is one of the most complicated areas as the states do not want to give away their own interests in these fields/areas. Anyway, with the development of the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy) there will be change in comprehension of security as inside EU thus regarding the outside of EU world.
That is – the security as a concept and as a practice are constantly changing realms; comprehension and practices.
With the globalization and opening up of the world another concept has been introduced in 1990s led by Dutch scholar Ole Wæver. In case we have globalization, we are going to have a global society and societal security that is also global societal security (people connected without borders – directly or indirectly via new technologies)
Not going into details of those studies (as they are not our today’s topic) we have to mention, however, that security has been an object of academic research and political decisions in 1990s, regardless the fact that the previous international political enemy had disappeared.
In 1999, at the 50th Anniversary of NATO, in Washington D.C. the new concept of security on international level was proposed. The new concept was called as comprehensive (or expanded) security concept and it included both – the soft-security and hard security aspects. It also stressed the necessity of strengthening the democratic values and market economy principles in the world. The historical statistics have showed that democratic countries participate less in wars, however, the wars between the democratic countries are not excluded. They still might happen and sometimes happen.
In 2019, at the 70th Anniversary of NATO, the Alliance is busy with different challenges – fighting with terrorism, dealing with technological innovations, climate change, cyber and hybrid threats. Various military treaties between the USA and the USSR/Russia are also central at this period of time.