The Challenge of National Security

Andrew M. Dorman and Joyce P. Kaufman

IN THE SECOND DECADE OF THE 21ST CENTURY, THE TREND CONTINUES for an increasing number of states to publish some form of national security strategy. Yet what comprises "national security" remains no less contentious today than when Arnold Wolfers identified the ambiguities within it in the 1950s or when Barry Buzan, borrowing W.B. Gallie's phrase, described national security as an "essentially contested concept" or when Peter Katzenstein brought together a number of scholars together to examine the role of culture on national security.

Those responsible for the provision of or engaged in teaching on national security are confronted by several basic questions:

• Who provides national security? Is it the sole preserve of the state or has some of that responsibility moved toward international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO, and the International Fund, or is responsibility increasingly passing to the private sector?

• Who is national security provided for? Is the ultimate role of the provider the protection of the provider and its instruments of provision or is it about the provision of security for those who the provider is responsible for? In the case of the state, is it the state itself, the organs of the state, or the people?

• How should it be provided? What are the most appropriate tools to employ? How are decisions to be made about relative prioritization?

While the questions might initially appear quite straightforward, there is a background of potential changes and challenges to the current international order that includes a considerable debate over the utility of force. In the aftermath of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the likelihood of such large-scale interventions, at least in the near term, seems remote. However, the prospect for the limited use of force, discrete military operations, or whatever nomenclature is chosen, still remains. The French deployment of forces to Mali in 2013 and the NATO-led operation in Libya in 2011 suggest that the impulse toward liberal interventionism may not be dead but that the will to affect the means to intervene is running behind both the stated aim and the political rhetoric. In both these examples, the United States, under President Obama, has taken a back seat, and rather than leading has allowed other countries to take the lead in addressing global security issues. This does not mean that the United States has not been willing to engage, for they did in both cases, but in a support role to the European allies. The question that rises out of this is, why? How does this link to traditional ideas of national security?

The rise of Brazil, India, and China and the reemergence of Russia pose a challenge to the established post–Cold War order, not just of the dominance of the West and in particular the United States, but Western rules, norms, and values on intervention, sovereignty, and the rules of war. Will a post-American world, post-Western world resemble the past in some way, such as the 19th century Concert of Europe, or in what ways will these new powers shift or set the terms of intervention and warfare in a totally different direction? Are we witnessing the inevitable decline of the United States and the emergence of Asia rather than Europe? Or, concomitantly, are we witnessing the rise of other hegemonic powers that will dominate their own regions, if not the international system as a whole? China's response to the reduction in the United States' credit rating, which involved a call for a new more stable currency to replace the U.S. dollar, seems to indicate that the global balance of power is changing to the detriment of the West. Added to this has been the so-called Arab Spring or Arab awakening, which has seen internal challenges to a number of North African and Middle Eastern states with some regimes falling and others engaged in the systematic suppression of internal opposition.

Fear of the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), either by terrorists or states, reentered the academic and political discourse. Despite its failure to find WMDs, the United States led a coalition of states into Iraq in 2003, at least in part motivated by the need to remove the perceived WMD threat through a preventive war. Subsequently, Israel attacked and destroyed a potential nuclear plant in Syria. Debate surrounds the possibility of an Israeli/American strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Moreover, throughout the Middle East, many states are considering acquiring their own nuclear arsenals in response to the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran, and as a result the discussion of the modalities of limited nuclear war has returned to policy debate. These events have played out against the backdrop of the revolutions sweeping the Middle East, with great uncertainty as to their outcomes, which makes security planning all the more challenging. Following a third North Korean nuclear test, the merits of tactical nuclear weapons are being discussed once again, while in Europe a new debate has developed over the utility and future of NATO's tactical nuclear weapons. These come at a time when President Obama has been pushing for nuclear arms control, if not total disarmament. As a result, there are questions being asked about the traditional cost-benefit assumptions and whether WMDs might again feature as weapons of war.

There are potentially significant changes in how wars might be fought. Are we seeing a so-called revolution in military affairs? If so, does this mean that the character of war is changing? What will that mean for national security? What impact will robotic use have on warfare? In the 1990s, precision-guided...