Theoretical Lenses on Security & Alliances beyond Neo-realism

Tiago Ferreira Lopes, PhD

Senior Analyst at Wikistrat (Washington, USA)Assistant Professor at Kirikkale University (Kirikkale, Turkey)

Researcher of the Observatory for Human Security (Lisbon, Portugal)Higher training for North Atlantic Treaty Association (NATO) and other International

Security Organization Studies, 6th December 2014

Looking for a conception of Security

• Security in a subtractive perspective: absence of fear and physical and/or psychosocial threats. Security emanates when there are no foreseeable dangers that might coerce individual and social willingness. In a subtractive perspective Security comes also from the inexistence of uncertainty, that is the basic reason for human drive to social grouping (communities, ethnic groups, national and state communities)

• Security in a additive perspective: existence of countermeasures to curb any threats and to reduce or extinguish uncertainty. On an additive perspective security might also mean resilience since both concepts point out a certain degree of resistance to and from harm. Security emanates from a combination of institutional devices (ex:. Armed Forces, NATO), political tools (ex:. laws on public surveillance, counterterrorist legislation) and psychosocial shared believes.

Security and Uncertainty

• Humans are social animals first and foremost because humans seek the reduction of uncertainty. The extraordinary tendency of mankind towards gregarious behavior stems out from a need to find collective answers towards personal fears and insecurities. Security it’s not an antonym for uncertainty, but both ideas are indeed antithetical. The existence of a secure environment leads automatically to the reduction of uncertainty; and uncertainty will always sprung out more easily on less secure sociopolitical spaces.

• It is this drive for uncertainty-reduction that is explored, since early times, by terrorist groups and lone wolf terrorists. The basic idea is simple, terror is nothing more than enhanced fear (in other words, the dominium of uncertainty); if human groups were built to prevent manifestations of terror, it’s monopolization by a certain group will give to that group leverage over the remaining elements that will be able to negotiate in order to reduce, or extinguished, the sense of fear induced by that same group.

Security and the State (I)

• There are two essential pillars that justify the emergence of States: security and justice. The equilibrium between both dimensions is the reason why we have States with such diverse natures. In States in which Security is of the highest importance justice tends to be secondary leading to forms of authoritarianism, autocracy or sultanism.

• On the other hand, States that focus solely on Justice and disregard security tend to evolve to hybrid regimes prone to cyclical crises (either on a domestic or foreign levels). Democracy is, at a certain level, a regime that tries to balance both dimensions, although even democracies are prone to disequilibrium.

• Several legal measures that are set in place, in democratic regimes, to give us an enhanced sense of security, or at least to reduce uncertainty, are responsible for a reduction of our personal and civil liberties. The question here is to know how much justice can be “consumed” to enhance security, without destroying the fundamentals of democracy.

Security and the State (II)

• There is a conception of security that equates security when there is the so-called monopoly of fear. In fact this is an erroneous vision of security. There is no security from controlling fear, but only from reducing it. One of the biggest challenges for contemporary States is to correct the mismanagements done after the Second World War due to this management like perspective of security.

• Another wrong commonplace is the idea that nowadays Security requires a concerted effort of several States while in the past every State was able to ensure it’s own security. In fact, any close reading of History shows that Security was always a collaborative effort of different sociopolitical spaces.

• The biggest difference is that nowadays alliances tend to be less fluid and the financial burden of Security has increased. The other change is not so much the idea of an internationalization of fear (International Terrorism) but the opening of communication that allow us to know everything faster, reducing our time to analyze and prepare.

From Classic to Human Security

• The concept of Classic Security refers to a vision of security that is solely focused on military threats. Classic Security was the central reason behind the emerge of Modern States across Europe, as a mean to self-defense against the continuous intromissions of the neighbors.

• Human Security is an evolution of Classic Security conception. Instead of focusing on the threats the idea is to ultimately alter the environment, through a multilateral approach, that eventually will lead to a state of permanent Security or permanent reduction of uncertainties.

• There are two approaches towards human security: some experts have been focused on understanding how many dimensions (and which dimensions) are critical to the accomplishment of Human Security; on the other hand, other analysts have focused on the double axis: freedom from want (resilience) and freedom from fear (vulnerability). Both visions are not antithetical but instead they are complementary.

UN’s concept of Human Security

Neo-realism and Alliance-building

• Key idea: power is understood as the main structural factor organizing International Relations

• Concepts: security dilemma & balance of power• Assumption: there is greater equilibrium on a bipolar than a

multipolar world order• Relevance to NATO: emphasis of the need of NATO to exist if

there is a perceivable “Other” that maintains a bipolar order. Disregards multipolar and apolar world orders because they introduce to much unpredictability and uncertainty in the world system

• Applicability: neo-realism applicability in contemporary International Affairs is limited at best since the bipolar world does not exist anymore. The predication is that international affairs will always evolve on a manichaeist competition that results on a strict: Us ≠ Them

Neo-liberalism and Alliance-building

• Key idea: power is also understood as the main structural factor organizing International Relations but the exercise of power could be done on an joint institutionalized manner

• Concepts: non-zero-sum game; mature anarchy; cooperation• Assumption: States or Organizations should only be concerned

with absolute gains and not with relative gains• Relevance to NATO: Neo-liberalism is responsible for the

notion of Washington Consensus that defines a triple path of Liberalism, Democratization and State-Building to sociopolitical spaces emerging out of the Soviet order

• Applicability: Neo-liberalism appears as a response to Neo-realism incapacity to understand the current state of International Relations that are in a state of mature anarchy. Neo-liberalism, curiously, although acknowledging the idea of an anarchic multipolar world order devalues the idea of broad cooperation between unequal players: [Us = You] ≠ Them

Neo-functionalism and Alliance-building

• Key idea: integration and interdependence• Concepts: interdependence; regionalism; blocs policy;

technocracy• Assumption: Growing interdependence on several

International Affairs will force States to build strong security alliances on a regional level

• Relevance to NATO: Interdependence has been the key of NATO since it’s birth. Neo-functionalism only emphasizes the need to reinforce regional security alliances able to respond to regional issues with global impact. The central idea is that alliances like NATO will act on a glocal manner: act locally with a global impact.

• Applicability: Neo-functionalism was supposedly the theory allowing for NATO to survive after the implosion of the Soviet Union, with the inclusion of former Warsaw Pact member-states. In this regard NATO acts internally as a regulator of an highly complex space and externally as a protector of the core values that the alliance defines as quintessential

Critical Geopolitics and Alliance-building

• Key idea: the leitmotiv of International Relations is less power and more the ideas generated by the power-holders and media houses

• Concepts: popular geopolitics; structural geopolitics; formal geopolitics; structural geopolitics;

• Assumption: contemporary International Affairs are not unbiased facts that are decided by players according to their philosophical-intellectual positioning; instead the facts are in themselves already biased by the way they are portrayed and explained

• Relevance to NATO: Critical geopolitics explains the interventions of NATO on non-Atlantic scenarios like Iraq and Afghanistan since the events post-9/11 portrayed these regions as the key-holders for a safer world order.

• Applicability: Critical geopolitics applicability was reinforced by NATO with the approval of the Lisbon Strategic Concept in 2010. Interestingly, although NATO seems to be more and more a critical geopolitics players it still sees itself as a neo-realist organization

Human Security and Alliance-building

• Key idea: paradigm that emphasizes the multidimensionality of International Relations security affairs

• Concepts: freedom from want & freedom from fear• Assumption: Security is not a consequence of having more or

less power, but instead it’s a combination of several interconnected dimensions of human life several of them not contemplated by classic security studies

• Relevance to NATO: NATO is a Human Security through it’s Partnership for Peace Program. Human Security might be the key for NATO’s survival in the nearby future by pointing out to a need to move our from Classic Security threats to a broader vision of Security focused on vulnerabilities

• Applicability: Human Security is usually pointed out as antagonistic to Classic Security (under which NATO was born), however it can also be seen as an evolution of Classic Security. By assuming that Security is a multilevel affair that needs to be addressed with a multilevel response, NATO can reinforce its position as the global biggest security-provider

Postcolonialism and Alliance-building

• Key idea: Western states use Economy and Security on a neo-colonial manner, in order to further advance their dominium

• Concepts: neocolonialism & neo-imperialism • Assumption: NATO was a security provider during the Cold

War but became a tool of Neo-Imperial domination with the implosion of the Soviet Union.

• Relevance to NATO: Under this paradigm NATO as outlived it’s utility and should disappear. The majority of critics of NATO point out that the last interventions were not “Atlantic” at all, but instead were made with an intent of imposing a model of world order centered on Western values

• Applicability: Postcolonialism argues that organizations like NATO are de facto Imperialist and should be suppressed from the world order by empowering organizations like OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe). Post-colonialists also deemed as necessary the extinction of the United Nations Security Council

Challenges to Alliance-building

• Economic challenges: Security is getting more and more expansive making it impossible for small and medium-sized states to ensure a certain degree of security on an autonomous level

• Cultural challenges: the expansion of any alliance will eventually lead to the “incorporation” of member-states with different, sometimes almost antagonistic, visions of contemporary affairs

• Political challenges: the dispersion of political power, following the implosion of the Soviet Union and the events of 9/11, and the emergence of new ways to achieve and maintain power endanger the already fragile State Sovereignty paradigm

• Regional challenges: the dissolution of State Sovereignty (mezzo-level) as lead to the emergence of regional blocs (macro-level) that seem more prone to competition (mainly due to resource scarcity) than to cooperation

• International terrorism challenges: postmodern international terrorism posits a series of new unknown threats to either State security and regional security

Theoretical Lenses on Security & Alliances beyond Neo-realism

Tiago Ferreira Lopes, PhD

Senior Analyst at Wikistrat (Washington, USA)Assistant Professor at Kirikkale University (Kirikkale, Turkey)

Researcher of the Observatory for Human Security (Lisbon, Portugal)Higher training for North Atlantic Treaty Association (NATO) and other International

Security Organization Studies, 6th December 2014