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Non-traditional Security and World Politics

Chapter · January 2017

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-58900-2_4

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 <CN>Chapter

3 </CN>

<CTL>Non-traditional Security and World Politics</CTL>

<COPAU>Alistair D. B. Cook/COPAU>

<H1>Introduction</H1>

<UIP>Worldwide, people witness devastation caused by floods, earthquakes, storms,

heatwaves and drought that affected 107 million people across 94 countries in 2014

alone (IFRC, 2015). We see infectious disease outbreaks like Ebola in West Africa, which

claimed the lives of 8,600 people in 2014 (IFRC 2015); the Fukushima triple disaster that

claimed the lives of over 18,000 people in 2011 (McCurry 2015); the piracy attacks off

the Horn of Africa peaking in 2007–2008; the continuing reality of human trafficking; and

the impact of the food price crisis of 2007–2008. These crises create widespread political

and economic instability in both the developed and developing worlds.</UIP>

<IP>Crises like these continue to illustrate that security can no longer be limited to

traditional concerns of maintaining and protecting national borders against external

military intervention, but must also include non-traditional security (NTS) threats. These

NTS threats are defined as challenges to the survival and well-being of societies that arise

out of primarily non-military sources, such as climate change, resource scarcity,

infectious diseases, natural disasters, irregular migration, food shortages, trafficking in

persons, drug trafficking and transnational crime. These dangers are often transnational

in scope, defying unilateral remedies and requiring comprehensive – political, economic

and social – responses as well as the humanitarian use of military force (NTS-Asia, cited

1
in Caballero-Anthony et al., 2006: 6). Necessarily, the study of NTS concerns goes beyond

borders to focus on multiple levels of governance – local, non-state, state, regional and

global – as sites of cooperation and positions of responsibility.</IP>

<IP>NTS issues are not new but understanding them as a security threat emerged in the

post-Cold War era when global leaders acknowledged the multidimensional nature of

security. Most notably, in 1994, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

released its annual report which identified human security as a concern for human life

and dignity. This created new debates around the definition and limits of security and

the resulting approach came to define much of the 1990s with the United Nations and its

agencies coordinating a large number of initiatives to address human security challenges

the world over.</IP>

<IP>The 1994 UNDP Report identified four characteristics of human security: it is a

universal concern, the components are interdependent, it is easier to achieve through

early prevention, and it is people-centred. The report included seven categories which

formed the main list of threats to human security: economic, food, health, environmental,

personal, community and political security (UNDP, 1994). Emanating from the UNDP, the

Human Security framework involves a more holistic and longer-term approach to

security that focuses on the individual or societal level of analysis. Many scholars

question the human security approach, arguing instead that the state should be the

central unit of analysis in the international system and that the focus of security studies

should be on ‘deliberate threats (primarily, if not exclusively, of a military nature)’ to the

state, which allows, at most, only a limited broadening of the security concept (Alagappa,

1998: 11 and 28). The development of the non-traditional security concept bridges the

divide between these competing conceptions of security. The approaches taken by

2
scholars broadly fit within the paradigms of realism, liberalism and critical security

studies. These three approaches often appear as a geopolitical, geo-strategic or state-

centric approach; a human security approach; or a critical security approach.</IP>

<IP>This chapter is concerned with four selected non-traditional security issues:

infectious diseases, transnational crime, energy security, and food security. However, this

is not a comprehensive list of NTS issues, which also includes, for example, climate change

and irregular migration. These issues are covered independently as chapters in their own

right elsewhere in this volume. As this chapter will demonstrate, non-traditional security

issues are often linked to one another. For example, the use of arable farmland for biofuel

production instead of crop cultivation may increase energy security, but may also

negatively affect food security.</IP>

<IP>This chapter now turns to the four key NTS issues of infectious diseases,

transnational crime, energy security and food security. Each section will assess the

transformation of these issues into distinctive security threats and their impact on

contemporary world politics. In particular, the sections will answer four key questions:

How can the non-traditional security threat be distinguished from other features of world

politics? Why is it of particular salience? How has its history shaped its contemporary

form? And how can we make sense of the issue? Each section will conclude by examining

the issue’s dynamics and its future in world politics. Ultimately this investigation will

highlight the dominant framing of an NTS issue to demonstrate the actors involved, the

approaches taken to address it and the implications it has for how we rethink security in

contemporary world politics.</IP>

3
<H1>Infectious diseases</H1>

<UIP>The end of the Cold War saw the spread of neoliberal economic development and

the further advancement of technology, which increased awareness of current affairs

around the world and brought a diverse range of issues to the global stage, making them

appear closer in proximity and in real time. Advances in technology and the ease of travel

and trade increased the movement of people and goods across the world, which

heightened states’ and societies’ vulnerabilities to the spread of infectious diseases and

the emergence of bio-terrorism. These vulnerabilities were particularly acute in

developing countries where national sovereignty was closely guarded, state capacity was

weak and there was an existential threat to societal well-being and the stability of the

state. This falls within the developmental state approach that anchored national security

on development (Beeson 2004).</UIP>

<IP>The prominence of health security as a concept became particularly salient in the

2000s, but there are many other earlier cases of disease outbreaks affecting the security

of states and societies. From the devastation of the great Aztec and Inca civilizations by

smallpox introduced by the European settlers (Hopkins 1983 in Rushton 2016: 175) to

the global pandemic of HIV/AIDS in the 1990s and early 2000s, the vulnerability of

human society to disease seems to be a perennial experience. At its first meeting of the

new millennium, the UN Security Council met to discuss the impact of AIDS on peace and

security. Six months later, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1308, stressing that

the HIV/AIDS pandemic, if not monitored, ‘may pose a risk to stability and security’

(McInnes 2006: 315).</IP>

4
<IP>Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the threat of infectious diseases gained

prominence in security discourses in the West with many countries beginning to frame

the spread of infectious diseases in national security terms (Davies 2008: 298). However,

it was not until the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in Asia

that health security came to prominence in its own right in world politics. SARS

illustrated the weakness of the global health system and the vulnerability of increasingly

globalized societies, particularly in Asia. In the aftermath of the SARS epidemic, the

international regulatory response was to put a much greater emphasis on building the

capacity of national surveillance and verification systems.</IP>

<IP>This global prominence of health security in the early 2000s prompted a shift

towards a more cooperative approach among many states and organizations. Typical of

this was the World Health Organization’s decision to reorientate its strategy from ‘health

work’ to ‘global health security’ (Caballero-Anthony et al. 2013: 15). This shift saw a move

away from state-centric priorities to an international health security framework of

standardized core capacities to prevent, or at the very least, minimize, the severity of an

infectious disease epidemic (Churchill-Page 2007). Since the year 2000, several other

infectious disease outbreaks have had implications worldwide besides the 2003 SARS

epidemic.</IP>

<IP>In 2009, the A (H1N1) influenza virus epidemic affected almost all regions of the

world. This was followed by the Haiti cholera outbreak in 2010–2011, which reminded

the world of that disease's persistence and its very rapid transmission. More recently in

2013, the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa showed the dramatic impact such diseases

can have on the state. Ebola virus affected workforces so badly that it curtailed the ability

of government to carry out its core functions. It also showed how the response could

5
disrupt societal relations when particular social, political, religious or ethnic groups were

prioritized or discriminated against in receipt of treatment. In 2015, the Middle East

respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korea demonstrated the

interconnectivity between the Middle East and East Asia. With the increase in global

travel, it became apparent that a transnational approach to NTS was needed as all these

outbreaks were framed as potential or actual threats to global health security.</IP>

<IP>However, while infectious diseases are now firmly framed as global security threats,

the number of deaths due to infectious diseases, including parasitic diseases and

respiratory infections, fell from 12.1 million in 2000 to 9.5 million in 2012. Furthermore,

the proportion of deaths due to infectious diseases fell from 23% to 17% (WHO 2015).

Likewise, with HIV/AIDS, there were an estimated 35.3 million people living with HIV

worldwide in 2012. While this was an increase on previous years, it was due to more

people receiving antiretroviral therapy. The number of new HIV infections in 2012 was

2.3 million, showing a 33% decline since 2001 (UNAIDS, 2013). Linking the HIV/AIDS

pandemic to security is controversial because some scholars argue that securitization

allows states to prioritize funding for elites and militaries over vulnerable populations

and further discourage efforts to normalize social perceptions of HIV/AIDS (Elbe 2006:

119). Yet, infectious diseases remain a major global health security concern for several

reasons.</IP>

<IP>First, infectious diseases disproportionately affect younger people than do other

diseases – an estimated 26% worldwide of years of life lost. This is calculated by using an

average of the number of years someone would have lived had they not died prematurely

(WHO 2006). Second, infectious diseases weigh more heavily on certain regions than

others. In Africa they account for 50% of years of life lost compared to the Eastern

6
Mediterranean where they account for 27%. The three most affected World Health

Organization (WHO) regions account for 81% of all deaths and 89% of all years of life lost

due to infectious and parasitic diseases worldwide (WHO 2015).</IP>

<IP>Third, emerging infectious diseases – of which 60% are zoonotic, that is they have

origins in animals but are transmitted to humans – impose a significant burden on both

health systems and economies (WHO 2015). This is of particular concern now

interconnectivity between global economies means that there are increasing correlations

with other NTS factors, such as irregular migration, climate change, population growth,

and urbanization. Finally, the global health security threat of infectious diseases is

compounded by increased antimicrobial resistance further challenging efforts to control

them (WHO 2015). </IP>

<IP>The emergence of health as an NTS issue over the past 30 years was consolidated

when the direct causal link was made between infectious diseases and state and societal

instability. During this time, HIV/AIDS, SARS, H1N1, Cholera, MERS and Ebola outbreaks

have highlighted both the causal links to state and societal stability and the

transboundary nature of the threat, which raised the profile of health into an NTS issue

firmly in security discourse and on the global policy agenda as having a significant impact

in world politics today.</IP>

<IP>The emergence of health security has not generated a uniform approach but rather

two broad competing approaches. First, the geopolitical, geo-strategic or state-centric

approach, which can be characterized as a health sovereignty approach, sees health

security as a means to reassert national boundaries and to use the threat of infectious

disease to impose strict border controls, as well as to empower security and military

personnel to monitor and administer domestic control. Second, the global health security

7
approach, which contests the health sovereignty approach and instead argues for the

need for greater cooperation across and between different levels of global governance,

the need to empower an international agency to regulate health security (in this case the

WHO) and the need to build capacity at the national level for more effective infectious

disease surveillance measures. Overall, the global health security approach remains the

most salient in the security discourse on infectious diseases.</IP>

<IP>However, as an approach it fails to substantively address key challenges posed by

critical security scholars in that it does not empower people and communities but rather

allows for responsibility to be shirked by those in positions to administer better health

security (or health work). Furthermore, the creation of unaccountable global institutions

and the increase in technocratic approaches to real-world problems distances global

institutions and the debates in world politics away from those they affect. This

democratic deficit increases as outbreaks and responses become more complex. In sum,

while infectious diseases are identified as an NTS issue, addressing this insecurity

remains contested in world politics.</IP>

<H1>Transnational crime</H1>

<UIP>Transnational crime has emerged as a key issue in world politics and is now firmly

part of the global security dialogue as states and societies face irregular migration and

maritime security threats among other issues. In 1974, the then United Nations Crime

and Criminal Justice branch first used the term ‘transnational crime’ to refer to particular

illegal acts that cross international borders. However, it was not until the United Nations

Convention against Transnational Organised Crime was adopted in 2000 that an attempt

8
was made to offer a more precise definition. The United Nations Office on Drugs and

Crime (UNODC) notes in its definition that the Convention characterises ‘organised crime

groups’ most particularly by their profit-driven nature and the seriousness of the crime.

The transnational element is broadly defined as an offence committed in more than one

state, crimes in one state committed by groups that operate in more than one state, and

crimes committed in one state that has substantial effects in another state (UNODC 2016).

The convention mandated the UNODC to oversee the convention and its three protocols

on Trafficking in Persons, Smuggling of Migrants and Trafficking of Firearms and came

into force in 2003. Under this definition, the UN identified 18 crimes including: </UIP>

<EXT>money laundering, illicit drug trafficking, corruption and bribery of public

officials and of party official and elected representatives as defined in national

legislation, infiltration of legal business, fraudulent bankruptcy, insurance fraud,

computer crime, theft of intellectual property, illicit traffic in arms, terrorist

activities, aircraft hijacking, sea piracy, hijacking on land, trafficking in persons,

trade in human body parts, theft of art and cultural objects, environmental crime,

and other offences committed by organised criminal groups (Caballero-Anthony

and Hangzo 2010: 1). </EXT>

<IP>International conventions form part of the body of international law along with

treaty law that are regarded as ‘hard law’, which contractually binds state signatories.

This ensures that the contents of the convention are enforceable in those states and that

those governments will bring their national legislation into line with the contents of the

convention. As a result, the establishment of an international convention is regarded as a

substantive measure to try to address an issue. The establishment of a UN Office signifies

a mechanism through which to monitor and assist compliance with the convention and

9
any protocols. Therefore, the presence of an international convention recognizes an issue

as of global importance and one for the UN to address as a potential threat to global peace

and security.</IP>

<IP>The UN Convention against Transnational Crime shows the severity of transnational

crime, the need for international cooperation and its clear identity as a global NTS threat.

Within the security and international relations discourse, there are two main approaches

to combat transnational crime. The first and most dominant approach focuses on ‘multi-

crime groups of professional criminals’, and the other focuses on the role of the ‘illegal

market’. The first approach is a more geopolitical or state-centric approach that focuses

on law and order through empowering national institutions to implement laws within

their own jurisdiction, and to cooperate with other national jurisdictions where

necessary. The second approach focuses on the flow of people and the role of the market

beyond the nation-state. It focuses on the movement of people and money around the

world, which often pays scant regard to national boundaries. This approach is holistic in

nature and looks at the root causes for the transnational criminal activity and attempts

to address them through focusing on vulnerable communities (Caballero-Anthony and

Hangzo 2010). While both approaches exist, just what it is that is being threatened by

transnational crime remains contested. Indeed, critical security scholarship argues

against further securitization or criminalization because it pushes people affected by the

crime further into the black market.</IP>

<IP>Whichever of these approaches is taken, it is now widely recognized that

transnational crime constitutes an NTS issue that affects human security and relations

between states and societies in world politics. Trafficking in persons is one of the high-

profile transnational crimes that has widespread public awareness. As the UNODC 2014

10
'Global Report on Trafficking in Persons' notes, the crime of people trafficking is a global

phenomenon which affects every region in the world as countries constitute a country of

origin, transit or destination for trafficked persons. However, the report notes that richer

countries attract trafficked persons from different regions, whereas poorer countries are

mainly affected by internal or intra-regional trafficking flows (UNODC 2014: 7).</IP>

<IP>The two most common forms of trafficking in persons are for sexual exploitation and

labour. In 2011, trafficking for sexual exploitation was estimated to be 53% and

trafficking for labour purposes was estimated to be 40% of the total (UNODC 2014: 9).

There is also an increasing trend in trafficking for other reasons such as the trafficking of

children for armed combat, for petty crime or forced begging. These emerging areas of

trafficking in persons vary from continent to continent around the world. Trafficking for

sexual exploitation is the main form identified in Europe and Central Asia, whereas forced

labour constitutes the main form in East Asia and the Pacific; in the Americas both forms

of exploitation are identified on a near-equal basis (UNODC 2014: 9).</IP>

<IP>Since the UN Protocol against Trafficking in Persons came into effect in 2003, more

than 90% of signatory countries have criminalized trafficking in persons. However,

challenges remain as many of the countries that enacted legislation to combat trafficking

in persons retain laws that are difficult to enforce through poor design or do not fund

their law enforcement agencies adequately. Around 10% of signatory states still lack the

necessary legislation to combat trafficking in persons, which leaves some two billion

people without the protection outlined in the UN Protocol (UNODC 2014: 12).</IP>

<IP>For those with national legislation, only four in 10 countries reported 10 or more

annual convictions, and 15% reported no convictions at all (UNODC 2014: 13). Over the

past decade three types of traffickers have begun to emerge: small local operators,

11
medium sub-regional operators and large transregional operators (UNODC 2014: 14).

These operations reflect the dynamics of trafficking in persons from the local to national,

sub-regional and global levels, which consequently identifies transnational crime as

multilevel in nature and as a significant challenge to national and international

institutions.</IP>

<IP>Sea piracy constitutes a second key transnational crime and NTS issue because the

threat is from a non-state actor outside a state’s territory. Sea piracy threatens maritime

security by jeopardizing the safety and well-being of seafarers, as well as the security of

commerce and navigation. The results of this threat include: loss of life, physical harm or

hostage-taking of seafarers, disruptions to commerce and navigation, financial losses to

ship owners, increased insurance premiums and security costs, increased costs to

consumers and producers, and damage to the marine environment (UN, 2012). The UN

Convention on Transnational Organized Crime further covers maritime crime that

includes ‘the use of the high seas to perpetrate transnational organised crimes such as

smuggling of persons or illicit substances’ (UNODC, 2015). As over 90% of global trade

is carried by sea, the economic effects are particularly significant. While the UN

Convention on Transnational Organized Crime covers maritime crime, the UN

Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which was adopted in 1982 and came into

force in 1996, established a comprehensive legal regime covering all aspects of the seas

and oceans. This convention illustrates the transnational dynamic of the global security

architecture and the global commons of the high seas. As the high seas fall outside the

bounds of the international state system it is a notable example of where international

cooperation is needed in world politics.</IP>

12
<IP>The different approaches to maritime security reflect the varied threat levels that

sea piracy poses to international peace and security. The militarized or traditional

security approach faces notable obstacles in the lack of sufficient enforcement

mechanisms for intervening forces. The transnational dynamic is further illustrated

through the development of a regional piracy prosecution model in the Indian Ocean with

assistance from UNODC, in response to the high levels of piracy off the Horn of Africa in

2007–2008. For example, this model sees the development of national legislation

criminalizing sea piracy and allows prosecuting states to formalize transfer agreements

with naval forces who operate in the Indian Ocean such as Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius

and the Seychelles and are willing to prosecute sea piracy cases (UNODC, 2015). This has

seen sea piracy around the Horn of Africa drop significantly from 237 incidents in 2011

to 15 in 2013 (IMB, 2015). However, the multidimensional approach taken by interested

states saw an additional focus on capacity-building activities in regional states like

Somalia, which accounted for the drop in attacks. Thus a transnational approach that

focuses strategies at different levels of governance appears to be particularly effective at

managing this NTS issue.</IP>

<IP>The transnational approach recognized not only that traditional enforcement

measures needed to be put in place but also that sea piracy was a symptom of the

breakdown of Somalia’s political system and that there was a need to develop state

capacity (World Bank, 2013). The first six months of 2015 saw no reported sea piracy

incidents off the coast of Somalia, or the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea or Arabian Sea. However,

sea pirate attacks in South East Asia reached a 12-year high in the same period. Indonesia

accounted for 54 incidents but of a markedly different nature. Rather than the high profile

sea piracy seen in the Indian Ocean, Indonesian attacks accounted for low-scale piracy

13
where ships were boarded and the crew were held at knife point to gain access to money

or goods (Johnson 2015). The fluctuations in the number and scale of pirate attacks off

the Horn of Africa and in South East Asia illustrate the need to develop holistic responses

to maritime security, reinforcing the need for a cooperative and multi-layered approach

to find a sustainable solution.</IP>

<IP>Through the examples of trafficking in persons and sea piracy, it is evident that

transnational crime does pose a NTS threat to global peace and security. However, the

case of sea piracy also illustrated the role of the military in non-traditional security where

surge and enforcement capacity is utilized in the absence of political security in Somalia.

While the source of the security threat was non-military in nature, as a non-state armed

actor pirates pose a significant direct NTS threat to both seafarers and commercial

activity.</IP>

<H1>Energy security</H1>

<UIP>Nation states have long framed energy as a security issue. However, energy

understood from an NTS perspective broadens the understanding of energy security to

include the implications for society and people. Historically, many wars have been fought

between states over access to natural resources to fuel economic development. However,

the geopolitical or state-centric approach often overlooks the attempts to influence just

what it is that constitutes energy security. This raises the question: for whom has energy

been securitized? The securitization of energy has a long history of being framed solely

as a geo-political or statist security issue (Hashimoto and Bozhilova 2013). Yet

understanding energy as an NTS issue and applying a transnational approach is much

14
more recent. Indeed, in the 1994 UNDP Report on New Dimensions of Security, energy

security, like health security, is absent from the conceptualization of human security.

However, the construction of energy security as an NTS issue uncovers the implications

it has for both state and society. It offers an alternative approach to energy security to the

geopolitical, geo-strategic or state-centric approach.</UIP>

<IP>Given the location of the birth of human security in the UNDP, it is firmly linked to

the notion of sustainable development. As such this alternative understanding of energy

security seeks to address more fundamental questions over the longer-term challenges

to more equitable energy access. To better understand the emergence of energy security

as an NTS issue this section assesses two international institutions established to regulate

energy.</IP>

<IP>The International Energy Agency (IEA) was established in 1974 ‘to help countries

coordinate a collective response to major disruptions in the supply of oil such as the crisis

of 1973–1974’ (Scott 1994). This global institution falls outside of the UN system and is

‘an autonomous organisation that examines the full spectrum of energy issues and

advocates policies that will enhance reliability, affordability and sustainability of energy

in its 29 member countries and beyond’ (Scott 1994). Even more tellingly about the

origins of the geo-strategic approach to energy security, the membership of the

organization is limited to developed countries that can demonstrate they are net oil

importers that have reserves of 90 days of the previous year’s average net oil imports to

which the government has immediate access if needed.</IP>

<IP>Likewise, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), another international

institution created in 1957 ‘in response to the deep fears and expectations resulting from

the discovery of nuclear energy’. Again, while it has a larger membership than IEA with

15
81 member countries which approved the IAEA Statute in 1956, it falls outside of the UN

system and the realm of global governance as seen through the UN. Both these

institutions were created out of a sense of state insecurity, in the first instance felt by

developed countries that were dependent on oil imports to maintain their economy and

that faced economic collapse should access dry up. In the second instance, it was felt by

countries who were insecure about the dual use of the development of nuclear energy for

both civilian and military purposes, or, simply put, the development of nuclear power

plants and nuclear weapons.</IP>

<IP>However, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development

(WCED) published ‘Our Common Future’ in 1987, also known as the Brundtland Report,

in which the term ‘sustainable development’ was coined to mean development that meets

today’s needs without compromising future generations to meet their own needs (WCED,

1987). It was at this point that the understanding of energy security broadened and

actors began to offer a non-traditional approach by linking energy to other ‘new’ security

issues. Then five years later the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

(UNFCCC) committed signatories to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the

premise that global warming exists and man-made CO2 emissions caused it. It was

followed two years later with the 1994 UNDP Report that launched the concept of human

security. The UNDP Report identified the environmental security threat of nuclear

disasters like the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, which saw an explosion and fire at the

nuclear power plant release large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere

and spread over Europe and the Western USSR with 31 deaths during the accident and

longer-term effects still unclear.</IP>

16
<IP>While the security threat posed by nuclear energy was acute, the global movement

to address climate change identified a chronic energy security threat brought on by

states’ and societies’ dependence on fossil fuels. Throughout the 1990s the link between

energy security and environmental security became interdependent through sustainable

development. However, while the impact of the use of fossil fuels on environmental

security became clearer the sustainable development debate continued. There was

reluctance by developing states to forgo what they saw as their sovereign right to

economic development that the developed world had already achieved. Many developing

states saw the pursuit of alternative energy sources to fuel their economies as inadequate

to achieve their development goals. Indeed, the ongoing fractious negotiations within the

UNFCCC continue today (see Gordon and Paterson, Chapter 10). The most recent COP-

21 meeting held in Paris, 2015, reached agreement after long negotiations ‘to set a goal

to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the

temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels’

(UNFCCC 2015). This global agreement can only be achieved at the national level assisted

by multilateral arrangements, once again highlighting the need for a transnational

approach.</IP>

<IP>In South East Asia, electricity generation by source in 2011 was gas 44%, coal 32%,

renewables (hydro, geothermal, bioenergy and others) 14% and oil 10%. If the current

plans proceed, then by 2035 this regional energy mix will have altered to coal 48%, gas

28%, renewables (hydro, geothermal, bioenergy and others) 20%, oil 2% and nuclear 2%

(Caballero-Anthony et al. 2014: 1). Key questions now remain unanswered as to whether

plans such as these in the developing world will meet the obligations agreed at COP-21

in Paris.</IP>

17
<IP>As states and societies pursue energy security, its interdependence with other

security issues, most notably here with environmental security, and its transnational

dimension will shape the debate on energy security in world politics. In concurrence with

other NTS issues, the dominant approaches to energy security revolve around

geopolitical, geo-strategic or state-centric and transnational approaches. Realist

arguments are often articulated as energy independence in contrast to the more global

security or liberal internationalist approach, which promotes energy interdependence,

interdependence with other security issues and the need for international cooperation

(Luft and Korin 2009).</IP>

<IP>However, the critical approach to security unpacks these arguments to better

understand whose energy security is being pursued and at what cost to whom. It is with

this approach that the researcher uncovers the societal impact of energy security and

identifies who the main beneficiaries are of particular energy security practices. In the

coming months and years, the debates over the sustainability of energy security will

continue but it is clear from the current global climate of world politics that energy

security has emerged into the discourse as a NTS issue. Energy security has garnered

particular salience in contemporary world politics with its association with sustainable

development and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.</IP>

<H1>Food security</H1>

<UIP>Food emerged as a NTS issue in the aftermath of the Cold War and was identified

as one of the seven pillars of human security by the 1994 UNDP Report New Dimensions

in Security. In the 1994 Report, Mahbub ul Haq defined food security as ‘the means for all

18
people at all times to have both physical and economic access to basic food’ and that food

security is an entitlement (UNDP 1994: 27). Within the human security definition, food

security is an intrinsic but not sufficient condition of security because of its universal and

interdependent nature. Ul Haq further pointed out in the 1994 report that the overall

availability of food in the world is not the problem; rather the problem is often poor

distribution and lack of purchasing power by people and communities (UNDP 1994: 27).

This understanding of food security focuses on the security of households and social

groups using the individual as the principal level of analysis.</UIP>

<IP>However, the substantive meaning of food security emerged after the Second World

War with the establishment of the UN system. The Food and Agriculture Organization of

the United Nations (FAO) was established in 1945 as a permanent organization for food

and agricultural development. Subsequently, in 1960 US President Dwight Eisenhower

proposed to the UN General Assembly that the UN establish a mechanism to provide food

aid. As a result, in 1963 the World Food Programme (WFP) was also established as part

of the UN system.</IP>

<IP>Initially established for three years, the WFP began operations immediately with

three significant missions. It began work in the aftermath of the 1962 Buin Zahra

earthquake in Iran, which killed over 12,000 people, injured over 2,500 people and made

over 21,000 houses uninhabitable (USGS 2009). This was followed by Tropical Storm

Harriet in October 1962 that caused a landfall in Thailand, killed over 800 people and

displaced over 10,000 people (Vongvisessomjai 2009: 216). Concurrently, the WFP was

also tasked with assisting a newly independent Algeria which was resettling five million

refugees (WFP 2016). All three mirrored the acute strand of food security, while chronic

issues of food security were overseen by the FAO.</IP>

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<IP>However, it was not until 1994 that the WFP executive board agreed a mission

statement that reflected its role to provide food aid as one of the many instruments ‘to

promote food security’. Subsequently in 1999 the executive board resolved to support

development as well as emergency activities, which operationalized the two human

security foundational components of ‘freedom from fear’ and ‘freedom from want’ for the

organization.</IP>

<IP>Alongside the WFP, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was

established by the UN in 1977 as a major outcome of the 1974 World Food Conference to

finance agricultural development projects primarily for food production in developing

countries. The conference also recognized that famine was not solely created by

inadequate food production but was rather a consequence of structural problems relating

to poverty and recommended adoption of an international undertaking on food security

in the Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition (UN

1974).</IP>

<IP>While the ground was laid for the global governance of food security at the UN, food

security per se was not fully defined until the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome, Italy,

which resolved that food security was a condition ‘when all people, at all times, have

physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their

dietary needs and food preferences for an active and health life’ (FAO 2006). The FAO

definition therefore may be interpreted to mean that food security can only be achieved

if the three basic dimensions of (1) food availability; (2) physical and economic access to

food; and (3) food utilization (diversity or nutritional value) are simultaneously met in

an effort to provide stability, a term often used independently as a unifying dimension by

20
the FAO (Teng and Lassa, 2016: 116). While this approach dominates the food security

discourse in world politics, it is by no means alone.</IP>

<IP>A geopolitical, geo-strategic or state-centric approach to food security focuses on the

‘strategies of powerful interests, including states, to secure and maximise their control

over food supplies and food producing resources’ (Sheppard 2012: 195). It is in this sense

that many actors utilize the language of food security to ensure their continued benefit at

the expense of others. In the case of countries, a government may take control over arable

land from the local owners or tenant farmers in a nation-wide effort to become food

independent or in the pursuit of sovereignty over national food security. Government

intervention in the use of farmland is not limited to a focus on particular foods but also

other products like biofuel as part of an effort to alter its national energy mix.</IP>

<IP>This may take the form of nationalization of farmlands or establishment of particular

economic zones reserved for specialist producers in the name of attaining food security.

Likewise, multinational corporations also use the language of food security which range

from corporatization and amalgamation of farmlands to the pursuit of revenues from

patented inputs (Shepherd 2012: 198). One response was the food sovereignty approach

that came from civil society groups like La Via Campesina, which argues for people to take

control over their own food and its provenance, with a focus on localization and

democratic empowerment (Shepherd 2012: 198; Lassa, 2014). However, like food

security before it, this approach’s terms can be appropriated and articulated by

governments or other powerful actors for their own interest. This has taken place in the

Middle East and South East Asia, where most recently the newly elected Indonesian

President Joko Widowo hailed Indonesia’s food sovereignty which would guarantee it

produces enough rice of its own to ensure it is not dependent on rice imports (Lassa and

21
Shrestha 2014), no matter how impractical, after the 2007–2008 Food Price Crisis

experience. </IP>

<IP>In the 2007–2008 Food Price Crisis, food prices increased by 1.5% a month and saw

the number of people with chronic hunger in the world rise by an estimated 75 million.

This brought the number of undernourished people to a staggering 923 million mostly in

the developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific (FAO in Teng and

Lassa 2016). As a result, a series of food riots broke out in over 40 countries which

demonstrated the acute impacts that chronic food insecurity can create for states and

societies (Kuntjoro et al. 2013). The Food Price Crisis of 2007–2008 also highlighted the

high levels of interdependence of world food trade and the absence of substantive

cooperative arrangements to ensure food access and supply. It also demonstrated the

impact of other non-traditional security issues on food security such as the impact of

biofuels on food production in the developing world. In the Asia-Pacific, these challenges

are found in the perpetuation of agrarian mythologies, the push back against economic

integration of rice markets, and regulatory barriers to adopting GM crops (Ewing 2013).

Like other non-traditional security issues, food security is appropriated by various actors

for its own ends. While this contestation continues, it is roundly accepted that food

security is an important NTS issue for states and societies and is now an important part

of world politics.</IP>

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<H1>Conclusion</H1>

<UIP>Over the past 50 years, NTS issues have emerged to stake out an important part of

the broader policy and scholarly debate about security. NTS is a key concept to

understand where climate change, resource scarcity, infectious diseases, natural

disasters, irregular migration, food shortages, trafficking in persons, drug trafficking and

transnational crime impact the security of states and societies. This chapter has identified

key bids and influences on the development and priority given to NTS in global debates

on security, and the importance of assessing security at multiple levels of analysis (local,

non-state, state, regional and global).</UIP>

<IP>While there are different motivations for particular issues to become NTS threats,

this chapter has focused on identifying the three broad approaches that broadly fit within

the paradigms of realism, liberalism and critical security studies. These three often take

a geopolitical or state-centric approach; a human security approach; or a critical security

approach. Within each particular debate there are emerging frames that signify particular

leanings, such as food sovereignty or food security, distinguishing the realists from the

liberals.<IP>

<IP>However, it is not always clear-cut. In this particular case, for example, food

sovereignty emerged as a response to global neoliberal policies as a means to empower

farmers and others who lost out to multinational corporations. The term has

subsequently been appropriated by governments in developing countries to justify

nationalistic policies to ‘rally around the flag’ rather than empower their farmers. It is

therefore important to reflect on who is using what term and for what ends, if we are to

better understand why and how particular issues emerge on to the security agenda. As

we approach the 2020s we will undoubtedly see the appropriation of more security terms

23
for different ends. It is therefore incumbent upon us to question and investigate the

motivations and debates between different actors if we are to gain a better grasp of NTS

issues in world politics.</IP>

<H1>Guide to further reading</H1>

<UIP>Since the beginning of the new millennium, non-traditional security (NTS) studies

has emerged as an area of scholarship. In 2006, Mely Caballero-Anthony, Amitav Acharya

and Ralf Emmers edited a volume titled Non-Traditional Security in Asia: Dilemmas in

Securitisation published by Ashgate (London), which provides a comprehensive analysis

of the security environment in Asia but importantly focuses on the development of non-

traditional security challenges. As the field developed, a network of think tanks and

scholars in Asia came together to form the Consortium of Non-Traditional Security (NTS-

Asia) with funding from the Ford Foundation. Its website http://rsis-ntsasia.org/

provides a useful database of research articles and policy think pieces on NTS issues. For

more recent critical scholarship on NTS, Shahar Hameiri and Lee Jones wrote Governing

Borderless Threats: Non-Traditional Security and the Politics of State Transformation

published by Cambridge University Press in 2015. For more current affairs on particular

NTS issues, there is a wealth of reports and articles on IRIN http://www.irinnews.org/

which provides coverage of emergency events in development. Other useful resources

include official government documents like the Findings from Select Federal Reports: The

National Security Implications of a Changing Climate published by the US White House in

May 2015. Given the cross-cutting nature of NTS studies, many of the leading

International Relations and Security Studies journals cover the subject area but in

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 particular Asian Survey, Cooperation and Conflict, International Studies Quarterly, Pacific

Review, and Security Dialogue have published notable articles on NTS.<UIP>

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