Security in the Contemporary World

About this unit

This unit asks what "security" means. The traditional idea focuses on protecting a state from military threats, through defence, deterrence, alliances and arms control. A broader, non-traditional idea focuses on the security of people: protection from poverty, disease, environmental harm, terrorism, abuses of human rights and forced migration. The unit also discusses cooperation as a means to security and the components of India's security strategy.

Key ideas

• Traditional security: external threats, internal threats, deterrence, defence, balance of power and alliances.
• Arms control and disarmament treaties.
• Non-traditional security and human security.
• New sources of threat: terrorism, global poverty, epidemics, migration.
• Cooperative security among states and with NGOs.
• India's security strategy and its position on nuclear weapons.

How to prepare

Learn the difference between deterrence and defence, and between arms control and disarmament. Memorise the main treaties (NPT, Biological Weapons Convention, Chemical Weapons Convention, ABM Treaty, SALT, START). Know the narrow and broad concepts of human security and the distinction between refugees and internally displaced persons.