International Security: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (11 page)

One of the consequences of this diagnosis, where problems of underdevelopment and poverty are seen as having spill-over effects for the developed world, is that it has also resulted in the merger of human security concerns with more traditional security agendas, most recently regarding the war on terror and concerns about networks of radicalized Islamic extremists. The result is that decisions about the provision of development aid in many Western countries are increasingly being subordinated to strategic calculations about how aid might be best deployed to fight terrorism. The underlying premise is that if poverty foments resentment and extremism, then development provides one means of eradicating the breeding grounds of terrorism. Illustrative is the 2010 UK Strategic Defence and Security Review which stipulated that spending to support fragile and conflict affected states was to increase from about one-fifth to about one-third of the total Overseas Development Aid (ODA) budget by 2014–15.

Critics, however, highlight several problems with this simple equation. First, the link between poverty, extremism, and terrorism is unclear, with many extremists, like the 9/11 bombers, having wealthy backgrounds. Second, the tying of humanitarian activities to Western strategic agendas has also resulted in the politicization and militarization of development strategies. Since 2001, for instance, UK development aid has increasingly been directed towards its strategic priorities in Afghanistan and Iraq, while on the back of the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review the Department for International Development (DFiD) announced
that the ODA budget for Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan would increase by 80 per cent, 208 per cent, and 107 per cent respectively. Meanwhile, other poor countries deemed less important in security terms have lost out—UK bilateral funding to Burundi, Cambodia, and Liberia will be cut completely. Moreover, such aid has increasingly been spent disproportionately on activities like police training and other governance projects, with comparatively less being spent on more traditional development activities, like addressing food, water, and housing needs.

One further result is that the neutrality traditionally accorded to humanitarian aid agencies has also been undermined as they are increasingly viewed as agents of Western governments, a perception not least reinforced when US Secretary of State Colin Powell declared in October 2001 that humanitarian aid agencies were ‘force multipliers’ and ‘an important part of our combat team’. As such humanitarian workers have increasingly become viewed as legitimate targets of attack, while the aid projects they administer are themselves turned into battle grounds, since accepting aid has increasingly become interpreted as indicating where one’s loyalties lie. In Afghanistan, for instance, schools and health clinics established by aid agencies have been targeted.

Much of the above discussion suggests that the solution to problems of human insecurity—problems of poverty, ill health, lack of education, violent conflict—stems from a lack of development and the tendency of developed world states to prioritize their own interests over those of global humanity. From this perspective what are needed are mechanisms to encourage states to prioritize collective over national interests, all combined with additional and better targeted development assistance. For more radical critics, however, this misses the point. For them development—or dominant understandings of it—is not the solution, but central to the problem. As they note, expectations
that most of the MDGs will be missed, and present day statistics documenting widespread global poverty and ill health, all exist despite decades of concerted development activities. While one response is to suggest that this only indicates more needs to be done, another is to argue that contemporary development practices and the broader neoliberal economic system within which they are embedded are fundamentally flawed.

Since the early 1980s the global economy has become increasingly dominated by neoliberal economic policies managed and promoted at a global level by several key institutions that are supported and largely directed by Western states. These include the World Trade Organization (WTO), tasked with managing the global trade regime, the World Bank, tasked with reducing global poverty and promoting development through the provision of technical assistance and the financing of investment projects, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which, in return for restructuring their economy in line with free market economic principles, provides loans to countries in danger of defaulting on their debts. Collectively these institutions, and the free market economic model they promote, are known as the Washington Consensus. According to the Washington Consensus development requires economic growth which is best achieved by producing goods for export on the global market. Whereas historically states have played important roles in regulating markets and engaging in production through nationalized industries, the Washington Consensus model advocates privatization, liberalization, and deregulation through the removal of tariff barriers and any legislation protecting local industries from global competition. From this perspective the solution to poverty lies in facilitating trade and the free flow of capital since this will stimulate and reward entrepreneurship and enhance overall wealth creation.

For its critics there are several problems with this approach to development. The model, for example, is premised on two key assumptions: first, that continued economic growth in the form of
enhanced production and consumption across the world is possible; second, that such growth will trickle down to benefit all. The first assumption is problematic as it is increasingly evident that in the context of a dramatically growing world population the supply of resources that would need to be exploited to meet global economic growth needs is fast dwindling, and is arguably environmentally unsustainable. However, the emphasis on economic growth and enhanced levels of trade works for the developed world as it reproduces a development model with few costs for them. In contrast, an alternative way of generating the resources needed to alleviate global poverty, and one that would be both more environmentally sustainable and liable to accord better with principles of social justice, would be to actively redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. Suggestions along these lines are obviously much less palatable within the developed world.

This, however, leads to problems with the second assumption that the operation of the market will sort out problems of global poverty as capital seeks out new investment opportunities. The idea is that the opening up of new markets, the creation of local economic entrepreneurs and investments from multinational corporations, will generate wealth at a local level which will trickle down to local populations through the provision of new employment opportunities. For critics this presents an overly benign picture of how neoliberal free market economics works in practice. The point is that wealth creation in capitalist markets is rarely evenly spread and often requires ruthlessly cutting jobs and driving down wages. It is therefore notable that since the rise to dominance of the Washington Consensus model of development global economic inequalities have actually widened significantly. For example, according to the UNDP’s 2005
Human Development Report
, while the richest 20 per cent of the world’s population hold three-quarters of world income, the poorest 40 per cent (corresponding to those living on less than $2 a day) hold only 5 per cent. Meanwhile, its 2011 report shows that such income
disparities are increasing both within and between countries. From a neoliberal perspective such inequalities would not matter if the poorest also benefited to some degree. The above figures, though, suggest any trickle-down effect is marginal at best. Moreover, there is also growing evidence that the likelihood of violent conflict within societies increases as income disparities widen, with this indicating that neoliberal development models might not simply be failing in easing the plight of the global poor, but might actually be a broader cause of instability.

Part of the issue here is that ideological presumptions in favour of trade, free markets, and privatization often seem to trump the needs of those trapped by poverty. A good example is provided by the WTO, which through its TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property) agreement has prioritized the intellectual property rights and profits of pharmaceutical companies over the needs of the global poor, by restricting the right of developing countries to develop cheaper generic versions of drugs that might significantly benefit the health of millions. The privatization agenda has had similar consequences. For example, in its desire to expand capitalist markets the World Bank has actively promoted the privatization of water utilities in many countries, one result being the systematic denial of clean water to many poor people unable to pay for the newly created commodity.

Compounding these problems, however, is the fact that the global development regime is plagued by double standards. For example, in return for providing loans the IMF and World Bank require recipient states to remove barriers protecting local producers; this then opens these markets up to global competition from the developed world. In agriculture, for example, this has resulted in local producers being put out of business by cheaper imports, with this making these countries less self-sufficient and increasingly dependent upon global markets and fluctuations in global food prices. Double standards are evident in that the reason why developed world producers can undercut local producers is
because they are themselves often recipients of significant subsidies, such as through the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.

While the developing world has obvious material needs, for more radical critics the evidence suggests that the neoliberal emphasis on privatization, free markets, and trade to achieve them is not working. Indeed, it rather seems to be reproducing neo-colonial structures of exploitation. Beyond this, though, from this perspective capitalist market-oriented conceptions of wealth and development premised on enhanced levels of consumption and resource exploitation raise further questions about whether it is possible to conceive of development in more sustainable terms, a question which leads us into
Chapter 7
.

One way of gaining an insight into debates about International Security is to keep an eye on key themes within popular culture. Over the last 10–15 years imminent threats posed by climate change have proved particularly popular, as manifest in movies like
The Day After Tomorrow
and
WALL-E
, but also in documentary films like
An Inconvenient Truth
. The message of these films is that rising global temperatures present the global community with potentially apocalyptic scenarios of environmental, social, and economic breakdown and warn that if we fail to act now the future looks grim indeed. Another popular theme, however, is that of renewed geostrategic and ethnic conflicts played out in the competition for resources. Films like
Blood Diamond
and
Syriana
, for example, tie the competition for resources over things like water, oil, minerals, and land to state national interests and the activities of big business and depict a world where limited resources almost inevitably foster conflict.

At one level these themes appear disconnected. The former concerns the overall relationship between humanity and the planetary biosphere and raises questions about the possibilities for preserving biodiversity and even for maintaining the conditions necessary for life itself. The second is mainly about issues of distribution and access, of who gets what, when, and how
or whether the distribution of the earth’s resources should be dictated purely by considerations of power, or perhaps by the functioning of the market, or even out of considerations of justice. However, these issues also often feed off each other. Deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, for example, contribute to climate change, while the effects of climate change may put an extra stress on resources or create new sites of potential conflict. The melting of the Arctic ice cap, for example, has raised questions about mineral mining rights on the Arctic seabed and provoked competing claims for sovereignty in the region (
Figure 7
). Meanwhile, rising sea levels pose existential threats for low lying island states in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, some of which may disappear completely.

In different ways, therefore, the environment presents us with a range of security challenges that are often grouped together under the catch-all term ‘environmental security’. It is, however, important to understand that in debates about environmental security people often refer to and prioritize different things. For example, from a traditional perspective environmental security is generally translated into a concern with what environmental issues mean for state security. From a human security perspective the concern shifts to how problems of environmental degradation and resource depletion impact on people’s lives. Meanwhile, ecologists prioritize the environment itself, emphasizing the damaging effects of human activities on global and local ecosystems. The perspective we adopt matters since it shapes the nature of the security challenges that are perceived, the sorts of options that might be available to us, as well as framing the likelihood of their success (and even of what constitutes success on environmental issues in the first place).