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The concept of sustainable development that "humanity has the ability to make development sustainable — to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987) brings together social, environmental, and economic considerations. In practice it means that societies need to look to the future and make investments now that will allow future generations to meet their needs consistent with those of present generations. Meeting the needs of future generations implies prediction — being able to foretell what will or might happen and how actions and decisions taken now result in differences in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key assumption of this book is that the fundamental global contextual change in the international order caused by the end of the Cold War in 1989 triggered a reconceptualization of security that was deeply influenced by two processes of globalization and global environmental change (GEC). The scientific security discourse also benefited from new approaches in the social sciences (e.g. constructivism, post modernism, complexity studies, learning social systems, risk society, solidarity society, altermundism, etc.). Both the contextual change and the scientific innovation did not result in a scientific revolution (Kuhn 1962). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a workshop on Climate Change and Security1 this chapter addresses the following scientific questions that are relevant for the planning of the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) until 2040: Does climate research allow the identification of highly affected regions due to specific impacts? Do other scientific disciplines offer indications for possible major regional impacts for population change, settlements, use of resources, food production, etc.? Can models and theories refer to possible implications for economic, social, and political developments? Do major interactions between the identified factors result in further findings on climate change? Can the risks involved be assessed, and what are the implications that may be concluded for global and regional security for Germany and Europe? Can the findings obtained be used for conceptual ideas for the preparation of the Strategic Future Analysis of the Study on Capabilities and Technology in the 21st Century (SFT 21) of the Bundeswehr? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In religious writings and prophecies, legends, oracles and more or less rational considerations, the desire to reckon the future and eventually to possess capabilities to influence the future course of events has always been a fundamental human need resulting from the survival imperative. History of science is the history of human efforts to learn from the past and to test whether that knowledge could help in creating plausible expectations towards the future. This approach is especially important in any action-oriented social science — economics, management and particularly, due to the stakes involved, in any security-oriented considerations. In all international or internal considerations on security and in the ‘securitization' approach two elements are crucial — prediction of threats (risk, dangers, disturbances) and designing of actions necessary to respond to those threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This book focuses on the reconceptualization of security in the 21stcentury that has gradually evolved since the end of the East-West conflict (1989-1991) and that has been significantly influenced by processes of globalization and global environmental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the conditions of, and possibilities for, global security in the 21st century? Have we learnt anything from the late 20th century peace and security studies? In the aftermath of the end of the Cold War, two main lessons suggest themselves.2 The first lesson is liberal democracies do not fight each other (Doyle 1986; Russett 1993a; MacMillan 2004). Perhaps the liberal democratic zone of peace could be further expanded? Perhaps democratization of states will eventually lead to planetary peace? On the other hand, the second lesson seems to be that security is not solely about the objective absence of threats of political violence and war, but also involves politics of securitization and desecuritization (WÆver 1989a, 1995, 1996a). Actors can bring about securitization by presenting something as an existential threat and by dramatizing an issue as being an absolute priority.3 By revealing the politics of security, the post-structuralist theory of securitization stresses the responsibility of actors for their speeches and actions. The moral seems to be that it is only by resisting the temptations of securitization that the political conditions for a security community can be created and maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UN Security Council had to set up a peace enforcement mission in Haiti to prevent a civil war, which might spill over into neighbouring countries. The death toll is rising daily in Mexico and Central America due to cross-border fighting between rival gangs or maras. To establish the rule of law, the Brazilian government decided to send troops into Rio de Janeiro to stem a tide of violence associated with drug trafficking, which is using the weapons of war. In Colombia, the authorities announced that they were going to implement the ‘Patriot Plan' to reclaim territories where the state lost jurisdiction decades ago from guerrilla forces. These decision-triggered fears in neighbouring countries, especially Ecuador, that conflict would spread across the border. Amid the sociopolitical polarization in Venezuela, the government arrested nearly a hundred Colombian paramilitaries accused of subverting national order. In Bolivia, against a backdrop of instability, the armed forces withdrew to barracks in protest against a military trial being transferred to a civil court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although security1 — as a basic concept — is frequently considered in the study and analysis of policy decisions, its essential meaning ought to be more widely disagreed than agreed on.2 Commonly considered a basic concept in policy and academic debates, security is in stark reality a quantity that is not basic at any register. By couching emerging "non-traditional" concepts such as ‘environmental security' and ‘human security' solely on their relationship to potential or real threats, most often within a topology of power — and by using language that is inadequate to the often nuanced and almost always complex dynamics of such emerging identities — makes such concepts hostage to ‘traditional' state-centred, national security paradigms. Most often such decision-makers only conceive of security concepts in power-dominant, state-centric mindset. The consequence has been that human and environmental issues tend to be ignored, relative to national security, even when it is clear that some of the issues we ignore today will contribute to the national security issues we will face tomorrow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Cold War, Pacific security issues were focused on the external security concerns of the larger nations that border the Pacific Ocean rather than on the small island states and territories themselves. The island populations have been characterized more often as passive victims of external international relations1 than as the main actors in securing their region. There is, however, a growing literature focusing on security issues within the Pacific states and territories themselves.2 This literature addresses regional concerns from political, economic, environmental, health, and social to military and law and order issues (Henderson 2005: 9; Lawson 2003: 7). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Cold War era, security issues in East Asia were relatively straightforward as a result of the East-West confrontation. However, with the end of bipolarity, security issues in the East Asian region have become more diverse and complex.1 Political order in East Asia is not just a matter of China, Japan, and Korea. Their bilateral relations with the United States, and Washington's East Asian policies exercise a strong, if not predominant influence in the region (Howe 2005: 761-792). Russia continues to be an important player in the region. Thus, the geopolitical and strategic situation of East Asia is unique and, for instance, quite different from Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1989, two scholars from the People's Republic of China (PRC) described China as: "a regional power with global strategic significance and political influence" (Hao/Huan 1989: xxix). A contention in this article is that the PRC should now be understood as a global power in its own right, at least in economic terms, marking an extremely significant power-shift. However, this statement does not mean that China is a military threat to the U.S.; on the contrary, it is still very far behind the U.S. in military expenditure, technology, and power-projection. Our second argument is that Chinese leaders have publicly committed to making this power-transition a peaceful one. Such commitments may be a smokescreen for an underlying orientation towards violent conflict, but we argue that the PRC leadership would much prefer to maintain regional and global peace. We also suggest that there are significant challenges to China's security aims of transiting to a global power status while preserving peace. First, relations between the PRC, Taiwan, and Japan remain tense in the early years of the millennium, a triangular relationship that is a major flashpoint and one that could embroil the U.S. Second, China's economic expansion has led to environmental damage at home and competition for resources internationally. All the above issues should be understood within the context of Beijing's non-negotiable commitment to a ‘One China' policy, discussed below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional security in Southern Africa has been of enormous significance since the onset of the modern state on the African continent in general and the subregion in particular. In Southern African, with the geographical boundaries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the overall challenges facing Africa will to a significant extent apply to SADC. With the demise of the Cold War and in 1994 the onset of a more democratic regime in South Africa, regional politics and development are no longer largely dependent on the ideological divide of the East or the West but rather a function of more nuanced dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international security system is structured along ideological as well as regional and zonal foundations whose authority resides in institutions supported by states, as defined in the 1945 United Nations Charter. In this global structure, states constitute the first layer of responsibility, followed by regions. In regions there is a recognized centre whose mandate seeks to harmonize and give political direction to sub-regional and state security organizations. In Africa, attention towards creating a continental security structure have been spurred after the failure of the 1993 peacekeeping mission in Somalia with the hasty withdrawal of Western forces from the continent. However, since the 1990's Africa has hosted about 50,000 United Nations peacekeeping troops and, given the cost and frequent renewals of mandates, retaining this force on the continent was not only unsustainable but subject to external decisions if not interests. Thus, assured future African security lies in the creation of capacity from within the continent, amongst the sub-regions and nation states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The security problematique in South Asia is undergoing a metamorphosis. Old paradigms are yielding way to new conceptualizations. The fundamental questions of who is being secured? — state or people — from what threats? — external powers, forces of globalization, sub-national actors or the oppressive authority of the state itself — and, through what means? yield radically different answers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From an institutional perspective, the major post-Cold War development for European security is the emergence of the European Union (EU) as a security actor in its own right. This was prompted by the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet threat, which allowed for the development of autonomous European policies, distinct from the US, and by the confrontation with Europe's own grave limitations when forced to deal with the civil war in former Yugoslavia. Starting with the creation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) by the Maastricht Treaty, which entered into force in 1993, the EU has set an increasingly clear, ambitious and, arguably, distinctive security agenda. This culminated in the adoption of the European Security Strategy (ESS) (European Council 2003). The first ever strategic document guiding the full range of EU external policies, it unambiguously sets forth the global vocation of the EU, including in the field of security (Bailes 2005). The ESS outlines a holistic approach, integrating security and the other dimensions of foreign policy, from aid and trade to diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa is the continent that harbours the largest share of the world's conflicts and wars. West Africa is the sub-region with the greatest share of these problems. Since the beginning of the 1990's conflicts and violence have resulted in the death, injury, and mutilation of several hundred, and the displacement of millions of people across the sub-region. The death and injury tolls have made West Africa and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) synonymous with insecurity, violence, and destruction rather than cooperation and development as designed in the core objectives of ECOWAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent exhaustive review of the historical evolution of the concept of security and the emergence of the concept of human security (HS) concluded: "After ten years of debates in the social sciences the conceptual debate on human security remains inconclusive and the human security definition depends on the approach, preferences, and agenda of the respective author" (Brauch 2005a: 24). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘No development without security' is proving more and more to be a development-policy paradigm, one that calls for new approaches in the field of development policy. The discernible distance between development and military actors and their tasks of the past, has in recent years rapidly diminished. This applies to Germany, but also to most other bilateral donors and multilateral institutions, including the United Nations (Tschirgi 2004, 2006; Griffin 2003). Thus far, however, too little reflection and discussion has been devoted to its consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The end of the Cold War and the 11 September 2001 (9/11) attacks had profound effects on international relations. Despite the interpretation of 9/11 by some as manifestation of the growing importance of globalization at the expense of regionalization and that the following unilateral American actions have been detrimental to regional efforts, in practice there is an expansion in regionalization, particularly in the security field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NATO is developing closer security partnerships with countries in the Mediterranean and the broader Middle East. This marks a shift in Alliance priorities towards greater involvement in these strategically important regions of the world whose security and stability is closely linked to Euro-Atlantic security. The current drive towards increasing dialogue and cooperation with countries in these regions builds on two key decisions taken at NATO's summit meeting in Istanbul in June 2004 (see document 61.1). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In May 2004, the Cabinet of the Federal Government of Germany approved the Action Plan Civilian Crisis Prevention, Conflict Resolution and Post-Conflict Peace-Building (Bundesregierung 2004)2. The basis for crisis prevention,3 conflict resolution4 and peacebuilding5 is a broad security concept that embraces political, economic, ecological, and social stability6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) integration can be characterized with reference to a number of interrelated phenomena, none of which is peculiar to the EU but all of which are defined by its unusual structure and policy-making framework. ‘Securitization' describes the way in which security concerns have been privileged in policy-making, often to the detriment of competing social, economic and foreign policy goals. ‘Europeanization' describes the progressive treatment of JHA issues at a European level. ‘Externalization' is the process of the blurring of distinctions between policy areas which might formerly have been classified as almost exclusively ‘internal' or 'external' to the state. A fourth trend concerns the way in which democracy and human rights have been both subverted and promoted in efforts to safeguard the EU's security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusion of' security' as a major policy vector for development is a relatively recent phenomenon even though security concerns were fundamental to the European integration project in the 1970's and 1980's, and, indeed, to the very foundation of the European communities. What, however, ‘security' means is of deep significance to the direction of European policy and its influence on the international environment in which it is applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hardly any other topic of international security can be approached from so many angles as the North Atlantic Alliance. NATO has been a central player of European and Euro-Atlantic relations since 1949. It will continue to retain its importance for many years to come. One could qualify this statement and draw the preliminary conclusion: NATO will exist amidst debates as long as it lasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1950's, European integration and security have become two sides of the same coin. From its very beginning, the West European integration process has been a structurally designed peace project. After two world wars, and following the logic of (neo)functional integration concepts (Mitrany 1943; Haas 1958,1964), the aim was to eliminate the chance of further wars between West European states. Thus, the process of supranational integration was intended to transform the anarchic structure of the West European state system into a "working peace system" (Mitrany 1943). As a consequence, a security community has emerged in Western Europe that has durably excluded force as a means of conflict resolution (Adler/Barnett 1998; Deutsch/Burrel/Kann/Lee/Lichterman/ Lindgren/Loewenheim/Van Wagenen 1957). In this sense, the process of West European integration has been a process of "desecuritization" characterized by a "progressive marginalization of mutual security concerns in favour of other issues" (WÆver 1998a: 69). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new dynamics in global security in recent years have had a significant impact on European security (Duke 2000; Missiroli 2002a; Van Ham/Medvedev 2002; Carlsnaes/Sjursen/White 2004). New and broader transnational threats, such as terrorism, together with the creation of new tools to meet these, have created a fundamentally new security landscape (Kirchner 2003). At the same time the European Union has established a European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) including military and civil crisis management capacities, internal safety and emergency preparedness measures, rapid alert systems, a solidarity clause for the protection against terrorism,and a security strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is significant to note that the concept of security used by the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), since the mid-1990's Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), has from the inception of the process in the 1970's been a broad one. The security concept has undergone transformations along with the political changes and realities in the CSCE/OSCE region, but these have been by far more subtle than in other organizations. One major change over time has been that the concept has been turned into an operational approach following the end of the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chapter addresses the key elements of the European Security Strategy (Council of the EU 2003) and its follow-up implementation, including its impact on the crucial area of capability development. It is not a rigorous and exhaustive coverage of official decisions, but rather an illustrative description of the innovative approach the European Union (EU) has taken on security and defence in the early 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UN Security Council (UNSC) is the principal organ under the UN Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security. Since 1945 the UNSC has taken up inter-state items in fulfilment of its mandated task. During the cold war only the UNSC rarely turned to matters focusing on the well-being of individuals rather than on political communities. Between 1945 and 1990 this practice was fully in line with the predominant orientation of international politics as practised by the principal foes and their allies. Since 1990 multilateralism experienced a sea change. The increase in internal conflicts resulted in a shift in the agendas of global and regional organs, primarily of the UNSC, but also of the UN General Assembly (UNGA).1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decades, the concept of' security' has evolved significantly in academic and policy discourse Traditionally, discussion of national, international, and collective security focused primarily on military threats to the integrity of states. Since the end of the Cold War, the concept of security has broadened to include non-military threats to states as well as nonmilitary and military threats to groups and individuals. The latter came to be known as ‘human security', a concept with little analytic precision but nevertheless discernible impact on advocacy and policy formulation (see chapter by Dedring in this volume). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has made it a key objective to reform the United Nations (UN) from a "culture of reaction to a culture of prevention" (Annan 1997). Annan's reform-initiative is based upon the idea that there is an inherent relationship between development and security, and that investment in development efforts is the most effective way for the UN to fulfil its goal, as stated in the Charter, of "saving coming generations from the scourge of war" (Annan 2001). The question of the prospects for conflict prevention and on the more general relationship between development and security currently receives intense scholarly and political attention.1 Indeed, an international consensus has emerged on an inherent relationship between development and security, as has been mentioned in the final document of the 2005 World Summit in September 2005, which states that "we recognize that development, peace and security and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing" (UN 2005).2 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic logic of the environmental security discourse is that humankind is living beyond the carrying capacity of the earth's local, regional, and global ecosystems. Essence is how to evaluate environmental stress in relation to political stability: is this a matter of ordinary politics or a matter of exceptional politics, i.e. security politics? The debate is dominated by an intriguing paradox: in order to preserve the political-economic and social-cultural structures of local, national, and world societies it is necessary to change them fundamentally, given their un-sustainability. The warning reads that either the structures are changed voluntarily and in a controlled manner, or structural change will be enforced violently and randomly by environmental crises. Much of the debate boils down to the question ‘who is to pay a price today to avoid that others have to pay a higher price tomorrow?' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absence of political security as a key concept in social science encyclopaedias makes a (re)conceptualization of the term not easy. 2 Although the concept is widely used in the rhetoric of decision-makers or in compilations of a variety of subjects on security problems, political security is not an unequivocal label.3 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perception of security dangers — of multiple threats, challenges, vulnerabilities, and risks (Brauch 2005a, 2007) — and thus the security concerns of nation states and their people has significantly changed in many but not all parts of the world with the end of the East-West conflict. The security concept has widened, deepened and sectorialized, and the classic linkage between ‘peace and security' — both in the Covenant (1919) and in the UN Charter (1945) — has turned to a conceptual quartet of peace, security, development, and environment (chap. 1 and 3 by Brauch, chap. 4 by WÆver; chap. 10 by Oswald, chap 35 by Bothe). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broadening and deepening interpretations of the concept of security has brought about theoretical implications, which in many instances also translate into policy-making. Fuzzy or simplified interpretations, sometimes without any logical rigour, frequently lead to situations when scholars and policy-makers use the utterances of ‘adjective security', but their interpretations are of very limited theoretical and practical applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the demise of the Cold War, policy-makers claimed to recognize a plethora of new security threats - a veritable ‘dysplasia' of the global body politic (Manning 2000: 195). In the face of rogue states, loose nukes, international organized crime and global terrorism, among other menaces, government and non-government organizations devoted considerable time and resources to addressing new insecurities. Academics too have tried to rework the concept of security. As David Baldwin wrote in 1997, in the fields of International Relations (IR) and Security Studies, "[r]edefining ‘security' has recently become something of a cottage industry" (Baldwin 1997: 5), although the difficulty in defining ‘security' had already exercized the minds of scholars over several decades.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter looks at the changing agenda of military security through the analytical lens of securitization theory (Buzan/WÆver/de Wilde 1998: WÆver/Buzan/de Wilde 2008). Its concern is not to construct some objective assessment of what military threats actually were during a given period, but to survey what was successfully socially constructed as a threat, and how the main patterns of this construction in the military sector have changed. Securitization is when something is successfully constructed as an existential threat to a valued referent object, and that construction is then used to support exceptional measures in response. Attempts at securitization may have widespread success and be quite durable (e.g. the communist/Soviet threat in the West after 1947), or they may have limited success (the recent U.S. attempt to construct Iraq as a threat), or even fail (the erosion of support for the Vietnam War in the U.S.). Desecuritization is when something previously accepted as a threat is no longer constructed as one (e.g. the ending of the Cold War). Looked at in this theoretical perspective, what is surprising is just how sharply and frequently the main patterns of securitization in the military sector have changed in recent decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his classic study of Man, the State and War, Kenneth Waltz (1954) charts the disagreements between classical philosophers about the causes of war. Some see it resulting from imperfections in human nature. Others regard the structure of the state as being a crucial determinant of war. And yet other writers focus their attention on the anarchical nature of the international system in which individuals and states have to operate. In this ongoing debate throughout history, Waltz points out that there is a fundamental difference between political philosophers over whether conflict can be transcended or mitigated. This reflects a fundamental difference between ‘Realist' and ‘Idealist' thinkers, who have been respectively pessimistic and optimistic in their response to the central question of whether war is an inevitable part of human existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Covenant of the League of Nations (1919) and in the United Nations Charter (1945), ‘international peace and security' have been used together as the key purposes of both international organizations to be achieved by global (chap. VI and VII of UN Charter) and regional systems (chap. VIII of UN Charter) of collective security, as well as by collective and national self defence (Art. 51 UN Charter; chap. 4 by Wæver; chap. 35 by Bothe). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]