Security Issues

The landscape of security studies is over the last years completely changed by the debate between traditional and non-traditional security issues. EU-GRASP takes stock of this and includes the in-depth study of six security issues: regional conflict, terrorism, WMD, energy security and climate change; human rights and migration.

Regional conflicts

Today’s conflicts are no longer inter-state but intra-state, directly connected to state failure, and government’s inability to maintain stability inside their borders. However, and because of the increasingly globalized world we are living in, where borders are less and less significant, an internal conflict seldom stays within its borders. Today’s conflicts spill over to the neighbouring states; followed by refugee flows, increase in cross-border crime, and economic instability throughout the whole region. In fact, today’s concept of security is highly influenced by this change in the nature of conflict – to such an extent that the concept of security itself changed into a new concept of ‘regional security’ – as in this globalized world it is impossible to conceive security uniquely from a national perspective - by transcending bilateral relations, polities cluster regionally to protect themselves against common threats. And these regional patterns cannot be replicated universally. The theoretical and empirical perception of security from a macro-regional perspective stems from the idea that regional security has a degree of autonomy from global collective security and from national security strategies. The two main characteristics of today’s conflict and peace are geographical diffusion (conflicts spillover borders) and the formation of zones of peace (regionally based, like was the case of the EU itself).

Terrorism

Because of the terrorist attacks in New York, London, Madrid etc., terrorism>is now perceived is one of the most important security issues of our time. Since 11 September many issues have been investigated: the war on terror and the role of the United States, transnational jihadism, religious sources of terrorism, suicide bombing, etc. The ESS pays much attention to the threat emanating from terrorist groups, which is seen as a growing strategic threat to the whole of Europe. Terrorist movements are well-resourced and connected by electronic networks. They aim at causing massive casualties by using unlimited violence. With regard to terrorism, the most relevant strategic objective of the EU is countering the threats. One can refer to a number of initiatives taken in recent years: the EU’s increasing engagement in conflict prevention and crisis management, the EU’s policy against proliferation; and finally, a number of concrete anti-terrorist measures, such as the adoption of the Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant and measures to disrupt terrorist funding

Weapons of Mass Destruction

The relationship between terror and weapons of mass destruction (biological, chemical and nuclear weapons) is quite an intimate one these days. Especially because there is the fear that so-called rogue-states are willing to cheat and dissimulate their legal commitments to the WMD order and can provide terrorists with WMD. The non-proliferation regime is under more pressure than ever and from different corners. It has to be adapted if it wants to stay alive, for instance for nuclear weapons. The current nuclear non-proliferation regime contains multilateral arms control agreements like the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), international organisations like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the UN Conference on Disarmament, export-control regimes like the Zangger Committee and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), positive and negative security guarantees, and other political statements and declarations. The cornerstone of the regime is the NPT. The E3/EU-Iran negotiations on nuclear issues have been ongoing since summer 2003 with the aim to find a balance between Iran’s desire to establish a peaceful nuclear enrichment programme and satisfying the safeguards of the international community against the possible development of a nuclear weapons programme. The EU is also involved in the six party talks on the Korean peninsula and pays special attention on the threat of the North Korean atomic programme by using diplomatic instruments, sanctions, etc.

Energy Security and Climate Change

Environmental issues are more and more perceived through the lens of human security. Climate change will have a significant effect on the weather, food production, spread of diseases, sea level and melting of the icecaps and is in this sense perceived by many strategic thinkers as of military interest. Bringing the environment back into security studies has the value of linking it back to earlier traditions like geopolitics. Central to this tradition is the struggle for natural resources, traditionally the literature devoted most attention to water and oil. The latter one brings in the contemporary discussion on energy security. Within energy security a lot of the attention goes to the important role of energy supplies on the one hand and the ones who are in need of energy. Most work discussing the role of the EU is devoted to the conservation of energy supplies and its strategic consequences, mainly by focussing on the geographical areas of Asia (with China and India and their role as big new energy consumers), the Middle East, Central Asia (including Russia), Sub-Sahara Africa (a new scramble of Africa) and Latin America (mainly the role of Brazil). All these research point out that the EU urgently has to define an external energy policy.

Severe human rights abuses

The issue of severe human rights abuses, to the extent that they risk  the stability of a state, is directly related to the ability of the state to hold the respect for and protect the human rights of its citizens, and therefore with democracy. The linkage between democracy, peace and the stability of the state and therefore security, have been thoroughly discussed in the literature. The so-called liberal peace theory has been principally academic in nature and dominated by Western scholars. Over the past two decades, academic research into the relationship between liberalism and peace has been very active, based the main assumption that democracies do not go to war with each other. The liberal peace theory is now promoted conceptually and in policy circles as a model for peace and development within states. In fact, the EU has been a strong promoter of democracy throughout the whole globe, both in discourse and in practice. However, the liberal peace, and the manner in which it is promoted in fragile and divided societies, is problematic. Democracy, human rights, market values, the integration of societies into globalisation, self determination, and the idea of the state are not necessarily universal values. Moreover, the liberal peace is not necessarily appropriate for conflictual or divided societies.

Migration

Migration is often cited as an important item on the security agenda but it is still an extremely controversial one. For long migration has been mainly assessed as an economic and social issue that was not part of the Security realm. However, with the expansion of the security agenda to non-traditional issues, migration has come to be also viewed under the prism of security. Such a turn has also been witnessed in the policy world were migration policies have started incorporating an increasing number of security considerations. This is mainly so because migration is often considered as having important consequences in terms of political stability.