Rethinking and revamping global security architecture
It is of the utmost importance that democratic nations be the front-runners in rethinking and revamping the global security architecture. This will ensure a continuous ethos within and outside national boundaries and laws that governs us all.
By Divya Singh Rathore, Suryapratap Babar: The notions of security and the need for warfare have been debated since the time of the great Indian epics. Security and warfare were supposed to safeguard the sovereign’s divine right to rule. Major treaties were written by Kautilya, Sun Tzu and Machiavelli on how the sovereign should establish relations with other states, defend himself, and use aggression within and outside his jurisdiction to preserve his legitimate interests.
In the Westphalian world, nations defended their land borders even more aggressively as territorial sovereignty became sacrosanct. The destruction and deaths caused by the World Wars of the 20th century bear a testament to this fact. Nations came together after the Second World War to create the United Nations to ensure a balance between national and global interests. But when the security apparatus of the United Nations is viewed from the prism of proportionate participation and dimensions of warfare in contemporary times, its lacunas become visible.
Blank Spaces in Security Architecture
The United Nations Security Council, formed in the aftermath of the Second World War, is responsible for maintaining international peace. However, certain structural features like the categorisation of nations as permanent and non-permanent and the privileged veto power of permanent members made the functioning of the UNSC biased.
In 2023, the UNSC is still not reflective of global reality. Countries like India, representing 16% of the global population, a resilient economy and a proven track record of being a responsible power, are not included as permanent members of the UNSC. Japan and Germany, countries that have actively participated in upholding global peace, also find themselves in a similar predicament. UNSC today has become a clique representing powers of a time gone by.
As we take a bird’s eye view of the global security architecture, it becomes clear that participatory restructuring of security institutions is just one reform factor. It is even more important for humanity to realize that the notion of security has expanded beyond safeguarding land borders. Notions of security are directly related to the theatres of warfare. Land, air and water have traditionally been these theatres. And during the Cold War and the 21st century, outer space and cyberspace were added to this list.
Member nations of the UN quickly adopted the Outer Space Treaty (OST) in 1967, but with advancements in technology and new entrants into the space race, this treaty is nearing obsolescence. Despite more than 50 years of inception, the OST has still not demarcated where the atmosphere ends, and outer space begins. This leads to issues of responsibility fixation and regime confusion, whether air or space laws will govern an incident. The OST and corresponding regulations have still not created a global space law enforcement body.
The importance of such a body can be understood when nations start making demands of sovereign rights over space orbits lying just above their land territory. Also, as private commercial space tourism is picking up through Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, it is vital for OST to address the liability of private companies and nation-states in case of damage caused to other nations’ space assets.
With the widespread penetration of the mobile and the internet in the 21st century, humans are believed to have become cyber-physical beings. Additionally, cyberspace as a theatre of warfare is much different compared to land, air, water and space in three ways.
Firstly, non-state actors can possess similar or more immense destructive power than state actors. Secondly, large budgets and human capital are unnecessary for high offensive or defensive capabilities. Thirdly, cyberspace opens the channel to control information and hence the mind. The evolution of frontier technologies risks the accelerated dispersion of misinformation, morphed images, and deep fakes, creating panic, fear, and dissent, leading to political instability. The importance of the global cybersecurity regime accentuates in this context.
Unfortunately, the regime pertaining to issues of cybersecurity is very limited. The Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, 2001, is one of the only legally binding international frameworks. However, the Budapest Convention addresses only a particular set of issues, including unauthorized access, data interference, illicit cyber forgery, equipment misuse, network system interference, child porn offences, violations of adjacent border rights, and copyright violations.
Also, major countries like India and Brazil are not members as they did not partake in the convention’s framing. India and Russia also oppose the convention as it asks for cross-border access to data, which impinges on national sovereignty.
Apart from the above theatres of warfare, security aspects have also become paramount in non-conventional domains. Countries have begun to weaponize trade and matters of healthcare. This was evident in select countries withholding critical semiconductor components and covid-19 vaccines in times of emergency. And the most evident threat to human civilisation, climate change and global warming, still remains contested on questions of which group of countries should lead the charge against it.
New Outlook for Global Security Architecture
It is of the utmost importance that democratic nations be the front-runners in rethinking and revamping the global security architecture. This will ensure a continuous ethos within and outside national boundaries and laws that governs us all.
Recently, China announced the Global Security Initiative (GSI). The GSI aims to fill the gaps outlined in the current global security architecture, and many powerful countries are endorsing this initiative.
A global security architecture propounded by an authoritarian China will create a philosophical dissonance for the democratic world, increasing the polarity of geopolitics. Hence, we propose a new outlook for the global security architecture.
It is observed that a common aspect of inconvenience in designing and implementing the global security architecture is the tussle between national security and global security concerns. It is a matter of how much control a sovereign state is willing to compromise for the benefit of the global good. So, it is necessary to first place security aspects on a continuum.
The global security architecture should be indicative and guiding in nature where national security and sovereignty concerns are serious, like land, water and air. And it should be governed by a legally binding and empowered institutional framework in aspects where global security concerns are serious, like space, cyberspace and climate change.
There are also aspects of security where national and global security concerns need to be finely balanced, like economy & trade, political affairs and health issues. In the governance of such aspects, the global security architecture must have an indicative framework but a legally binding dispute resolution mechanism.
As European security issues distract the West from these matters, the onus is upon India and the global south to drive the discussion on rethinking and revamping global security architecture.
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