Peace Needs No Weapons: From Military Security to Human Security
Journal article by Inge Kaul; The Ecumenical Review, Vol. 47, 1995
Journal Article Excerpt
Peace needs no weapons: from military security to human security. by Inge Kaul Although the security risks facing us today are fundamentally different in character from those of past decades, security strategies remain unchanged, continuing, despite some reduction in military spending worldwide and agreements to end the arms race, to concentrate on the build-up of ever more sophisticated military power. Yet what is needed for security today are not weapons but development and social compassion. For what is at stake today is not so much territorial security - the security of the state - but human security, the security of people in their everyday lives.(1) Ask people what makes them feel secure or insecure nowadays, and very few will answer that they fear an attack by a neighbouring state. Far more will say they are worried about social unrest, political conflicts and civil-war-type struggles in their own countries. Of the more than eighty armed conflicts worldwide between 1989 and 1992, all but three were fought within one country. The battles today take place in the streets and the suburbs, and the victims are mainly unarmed civilians. Another major cause of insecurity is poverty: not having enough to eat and living with the threat of starvation; risking infection, disease or even death with every mouthful of water; having no access to medical care; being trapped in illiteracy and ignorance; enduring living conditions in which everything is lacking - capital, job, income and political power. More than a billion people around the world live with this kind of insecurity; and growing unemployment and underemployment mean that more and more people are threatened by it. Estimates are that about two billion jobs would have to be created by the year 2000 to provide employment for all the people now out of work, plus those who will be looking for a first job during those years. Simply speeding up economic growth - difficult enough in itself - will not be enough, because economic growth no longer goes hand in hand with job creation. Except in Southeast Asia, growth in production since 1970 has far outstripped growth in employment. In the industrialized countries production has grown twice as fast as the number of jobs. Unemployment rates everywhere have remained at the same high, often double-digit level. More and more people are employed on a temporary or part-time basis, including the many self-employed. In Latin America one-third of all jobs are in the informal sector; in Africa the figure is as high as 60 percent. In Belgium and the Netherlands the proportion of temporary employment in the overall employment figures is likewise 60 percent. Only a tiny proportion of the population of developing countries enjoys the protection of social security systems; anyone else who has no job has no income. Others work hard but cannot earn even the minimum needed to cover basic needs. Given economic growth which does not create jobs, lack of progress in land reform and the virtual absence of credit available to the poor, it is hardly surprising that the global distribution of income is becoming increasingly unfair. In 1960, the income of the richest 20 percent and the income of the poorest 20 percent were in a ratio of 30:1; today it is 60:1. Expectations, on the other hand, are becoming similar around the world, thanks largely to improved education, communication and transport. This in turn means that standards and values such as justice, equality and human rights - whether civil and political or economic and social rights - are increasingly accepted. More and more people recognize that the fact that some are disadvantaged and abandoned in need and deprivation by others is a state of affairs created by human beings and hence a matter of political decisions. The international community may have managed to avoid a global nuclear war, but the threat of nuclear disaster has certainly not disappeared. As the production and spread of nuclear weapons continues, conventional weapons penetrate to all corners of the earth. Conflicts like those in Afghanistan, Somalia or the Sudan would probably have cost fewer human lives if the parties involved had not been so munificently equipped with weapons. The physical integrity of humanity is also threatened by the destruction of the environment in the form of soil erosion, deforestation, chemical residues in foodstuffs, air and water pollution, thinning of the ozone layer and ever more frequent natural disasters such as flooding. Security is more than the absence of insecurityAfter five decades of ... |
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