CHAPTER 9
THE GLOBAL SECURITY STRUCTURE
Overview:
In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, people greatly feared the atomic bomb. Realists argue that the bipolar
distribution of military power between the United States and Soviet Union deterred each country from launching a
pre-emptive strike on the other. Both powers learned to live under MAD—Mutually Assured Destruction, despite
nearly falling into war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
The case of the Cuban Missile Crisis highlights five important aspects of the global security structure that
correspond to the major topics covered in this chapter. First, since World War II, realism—akin to mercantilism—
has been the most popular outlook applied by academics and security policy makers who address war and peace.
Second, realism still influences how many international organizations and officials from the major powers view and
manage what Susan Strange referred to as the global security structure. Because of some monumental recent
changes in this structure, we have renamed it the global cyber security structure.
The global security structure connects nation-states, international organizations, nongovernmental
organizations, international businesses, and sub-national groups. They are connected through formal treaties,
conventions, rules, and informal norms meant to protect people from violent and nonviolent threats.
Third, U.S. administrations have pursued security policies unilaterally (without allied support) and
multilaterally (in cooperation with others). They have either benefited from or sought to construct bipolar,
multipolar, and unipolar configurations of power. Fourth, there has been a major transformation away from the
military-oriented Cold War (1947–1991) bipolar security structure to a more multipolar systemic order.
Fifth, recent U.S. administrations have increasingly incorporated into the security agenda nontraditional
security interests of weaker and poorer states, such as poverty, income inequality, environmental damage, climate
change, and immigration. A growing number of IOs, NGOs, and other actors now share the management of a much
more fragmented global configuration of wealth and power.
The major arguments made in this chapter are:
• Realism continues to have a good deal of explanatory power. However, other perspectives provide a
more complete understanding of many global security problems.
• Whereas during the Cold War the major threats to national (territorial) security were largely nuclear
and conventional weapons, today the major powers are increasingly focused on cyber-based weapons
like drones.
• An increasing number of nontraditional security questions such as immigration, the environment, and
illicit activities have seeped up from poorer nations to complicate security issues for major powers
more than ever before.
• On a day–to–day basis, people in developing nations cannot adjust to these security issues as easily as
can people in industrialized nations.
• The major powers will likely continue to intervene in developing countries to fight terrorism, develop
natural resources like oil and natural gas, and to protect TNC investments.
• However, many major powers are only willing to play a minor role in coordinating the global security
structure. They are also not likely to give more authority to other actors, leaving IOs, NGOs, and
others without the authority and resources necessary to manage the global security structure.
Learning Objectives:
• To define and discuss the basic features and significance of the international security structure today.
• To define and outline the recent debate between the Classical Realists and Neorealist and how these two
outlooks have shaped Cold War and post-Cold War security structure history.
• To explain the basic features of the security structure during the Cold War.
• To outline the role played by nuclear weapons in helping stabilize the relationship between the two
superpowers—the United States and Soviet Union—during the Cold War.
• To explain and discuss why during and after the Cold War a shift has occurred not only in the international
security structure itself, but also in the nature of security, i.e., what and who is to be protected, and from what.
• To explain and discuss some of the major changes in what is now the new cyber security structure including the
Obama administration’s “light footprint” strategy to deal with terrorists, his increasing use of unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs), the administration’s increased attention to a variety of cyberwar issues, and the U.S. domestic
cyber-surveillance program that had raised so much public controversy in the United States and parts of Europe
about individual rights and freedom of the press.
• The last part of the chapter explains and discusses the growing but also changing role of numerous IOs and
NGOs in the new global cyber security structure.
Chapter Outline:
REALISM LIVES ON: CLASSICAL REALISTS vs. NEOREALISTS
a) For nearly seventy years, realism has been the dominant paradigm of state and military officials, and
academics, who address national and international security issues. Realists tend to frame problems in terms
of a hierarchy of states based on military power that determines the likelihood of survival against external
threats.
b) During the bipolar phase of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States topped the hierarchy of
powerful states. Since then a variety of other major powers have shared power more evenly in a multipolar
distribution of power arrangement.
c) At the bottom of the hierarchy are weak developing nations burdened with problems such as poverty,
hunger, refugees, immigrants, epidemic diseases, and environmental damage. In these states, massive
poverty exacerbates tensions between ethnic and religious communities, which often result in human rights
violations and genocide, such as the conflict between the Tutsis and the Hutus in Rwanda.
d) One result is a global security structure that is very hard to manage.
e) Events like the Cuban Missile Crisis can be framed by two different versions of realism: classical realism
and neorealism.
f) Classical realists assume the following:
• State survival depends on the power to organize and control armed forces so as to defend institutions,
territory, skies, and people.
• No two states have the same national interests, which is the foundation of conflict in the global security
structure.
• The drive for security always trumps ideological principles and motives.
• Power is thought of primarily in terms of military capabilities and is used to get another state to do
something it would not do otherwise, especially in state defense.
• Military tools are the most powerful in the state’s arsenal. The economy, particularly industrial
capacity, is also important, but not as critical.
• The international security structure conditions, but does not always determine, state behavior as much
as the choices and decisions of security agencies and national leaders.
• State leaders think strategically and often make mistakes or misperceive a situation.
• War is often a choice of state leaders, made to readjust the balance of power or to establish a new
configuration of power.
• Peace can result from cooperative efforts by states and should not be imposed on other states by a
single hegemon. Imperial powers become the enemy of all others.
g) For classical realists, the first and second levels of analysis are more important than the international and
global levels of analysis (see Chapter 1).
h) Neorealists put more emphasis on the third– and fourth-level structural features of the security structure and
how they condition state and individual behavior. Neorealists generally assume the following:
• The global security structure lacks a single sovereign, which compels states to make security their
primary objective.
• Because sovereign states can use force whenever they want to, the absolute security of any state cannot
be guaranteed.
• Each of the 200-plus states in the international system today is a unitary and rational actor.
• Much of what happens inside a nation-state’s domestic black box is too difficult to theorize about
scientifically.
• A change in the global security structure comes with a shift in state power capabilities.
i) For neorealists, the structural condition of bipolarity forces the superpowers to act out roles assigned to
them in the security order. The number of weapons and other hard power indicators are the best indicators
of state capabilities. It was the relatively equal power of the United States and U.S.S.R. that deterred them
from using nuclear weapons. They acted rationally to save both themselves and the state system.
j) Classical realists would respond that the neorealist perspective has two deficiencies. First, it overlooks the
role and choices of individual actors. Second, it does not question the security structure’s constraints or
permanency. Actors are assumed to perceive and interpret the significance of other states’ actions or
capabilities in predictable ways.
k) Today, neorealists and their neoconservative advisors might argue that President Bush did not have much
choice but to attack Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks. Classical realists wonder if the Bush
administration might have adopted other goals and means to accomplish the same objectives.
l) Many experts wonder today what polar order fits the world’s distribution of wealth and military power.
Does that order already exist, or must officials and their states choose to establish this order, even if it
means imposing it on states and their societies?
THE EARLY COLD WAR SECURITY STRUCTURE
a) Shortly after World War II, the two remaining hegemons (the U.S. and USSR) had sharply contrasting
ideologies (democracy vs. communism) and economic systems (capitalism vs. socialism). They soon
became engaged in a Cold War (intense conflict short of going to war).
b) Did the Cold War have to occur? Yes, according to many neorealists—there was no alternative; differences
between the two hegemons formed a stage upon which the actors knew all their lines.
c) No, argues Daniel Yergin in his Shattered Peace. The two hegemons could have prevented the Cold War.
Soon after 1945, the United States faced the choice of either negotiating with the Soviets to pull out of
Eastern Europe or going to war with the USSR, an unacceptable political choice for a war-weary nation.
Later, the Soviets retreated from Greece, Iran, and Austria without confrontation.
d) Thereafter, the two superpowers mirrored each other in ways that entrenched bipolarity and organized their
political, economic, and military alliances such as NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
e) In the tight bipolar security structure of the Eisenhower years, in zero-sum fashion each superpower also
tried to create political and ideological “spheres of influence” among independent developing nations that
detracted from the power and influence of the other hegemon.
f) The development of nuclear weapons did not deter the hegemons from intervening in one another’s sphere
of influence.
g) Until the mid-1960s, the primary U.S. strategic objective was to stay ahead of the Soviet Union in the
production of nuclear weapons and strategic (long range) platforms such as B-52 bombers, nuclear
submarines, and short- to long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
JFK, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Entrenchment of Bipolarity
a) The Soviets upset the balance of power in 1962 when they place medium range ballistic missiles in Cuba.
b) Kennedy chose not to invade Cuba and attack Soviet missile sites, but ordered a naval blockade of Soviet
ships moving missiles into Cuba, leaving the decision to go to war to the USSR.
c) The Cuban Missile Crisis impacted the international security structure and confirmed the absurdity of
MAD (mutually assured destruction). MAD helped stabilize U.S.-Soviet relations.
d) Bipolarity had helped lock the superpowers into an arms race; MAD made it clear that no rational leader on
either side would start a war if the costs of engagement outweighed the gains.
e) The superpowers agreed to limit defense expenditures and cooperate for the sake of enhancing deterrence
and co-managing the bipolar security structure.
The Vietnam War and the Road to Multipolarity
a) To stop the spread of communism in Vietnam and the rest of Indochina, President Lyndon Johnson sent
U.S. troops into South Vietnam in 1964, where they stayed until 1973.
b) A reliance on conventional forces and tactics and the high cost of the war in terms of dead servicemen and
defense expenditures, did would not produce a political victory in South Vietnam.
c) As in the case of Korea, political considerations such as North Vietnam’s close relations with the Soviet
Union and China prevented the United States from using nuclear weapons.
d) Classical realists Kennan and Morgenthau argued that fighting in Vietnam was not in the U.S. national
interest.
e) U.S. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger believed that the international security order had shifted
away from bipolarity to multipolarity. The new order included the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan,
Western Europe (as a bloc), and China.
f) For Kissinger, multipolarity required that a proactive and contemplative hegemon (the United States) lead
in the cooperative management of a variety of increasingly interrelated political, economic, and security
issues.
g) By 1973, arms control negotiations between the two superpowers became crucial to maintaining rough
parity in nuclear weapons and stability in U.S.–Soviet relations.
h) At Kissinger’s urging, Nixon accepted détente (peaceful coexistence) with the Soviet Union. The two sides
also informally agreed to not interfere in developing nations in the other’s sphere of influence.
i) In the early 1970s, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) triggered the oil crisis of
1973–1974, which destabilized the international security structure. The oil-rich developing countries had a
“weapon” against industrialized countries based on their dependency oil imports.
j) OPEC oil price hikes also caused a major international recession.
k) Resource dependency raised awareness of international economic interdependence, paving the way for
many developing nations to play a bigger role in the international political economy.
l) OPEC tightened the connections between international politics and economies during the 1970s and further
loosened bipolarity by weakening U.S. hegemony and contributing to the emergence of more centers of
power in the Third World.
Human Rights and “The Hell of Good Intentions”
a) In 1977 President Jimmy Carter explicitly tried to move away from a realist orientation in U.S. foreign
policy toward idealism by promoting human rights and improved relations with developing nations.
b) It proved difficult to make human rights work as a foreign policy tool without compromising U.S. security
interests. Political scientist Stanley Hoffmann called the new goal “the hell of good intentions.”
c) Four tough issues shaped the global security order during Carter’s administration:
• The increasing sophistication of nuclear weapons
• The second oil crisis of 1978–1979
• The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan
• The Iranian revolution
d) Meanwhile, the development of MIRV missiles complicated arms control talks and weakened MAD.
e) A second oil crisis in 1978 hurt U.S. efforts to decrease its dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
f) In 1979 the Soviets invaded Afghanistan to support their client regime, derailing U.S.-Soviet détente.
g) Carter again looked weak when Islamic revolutionaries drove the Shah of Iran from power in 1979
and took U.S. embassy officials hostage for 444 days.
Reagan and the Cold War Redux
a) When Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president in 1980, Iran released the U.S. hostages. Reagan “rode
high in the saddle” to “make America proud once again.”
b) His administration labeled the Soviet Union the “evil empire and intended to reclaim U.S. military,
economic, and political supremacy over the U. S.S.R.
c) He and his anti-communist advisers also intentionally sought to reimpose a bipolar framework on the
international security structure.
d) When the Soviets modernized many of their nuclear and submarines, the United States modernized its own
nuclear arsenal of submarines and ICBM MX “peacekeepers.”
e) NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations both modernized their medium– and short-range nuclear weapons in
Europe.
f) By 1984, all arms control talks with the Soviet Union ceased.
g) In his second term Reagan did an about-face and developed a personal friendship with Premier Mikhail
Gorbachev that resulted in a series of new arms control agreements.
h) Reagan personally hated the idea of MAD and intended to replace it with a Star Wars program to knock out
long-range strategic weapons before they could reach orbit. He also offered the Soviets a system of their
own.
i) Another goal for Reagan was to overcome the Vietnam Syndrome of not winning frontier wars in small
developing nations or regions. He intervened in Grenada, supported the pro-Western authoritarian regimes
in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, and shipped weapons to anti–communist forces in Afghanistan
and Angola.
j) Reagan also increased defense spending to record levels, which benefited defense industries and their
lobbyists.
k) Economic liberals praised Reagan for supporting capitalism and democracy in developing nations, laying
the groundwork for globalization.
l) The administration advanced neoliberal development and aid policies in the IMF, the WTO, and the World
Bank.
m) These policies also served as instruments to achieve various U.S. economic and political objectives.
n) Internationally, the Reagan administration was committed to open borders, free trade, floating exchange
rates, capital mobility, and the magic of the market’s invisible hand to help grow the economies of many
LDCs—and as a side benefit, to enhance U.S. security.
o) Some of the most successful economies were several East and Southeast Asian economies, which opened
up trade and investment opportunities for U.S. businesses.
p) Most structuralists despised the Reagan administration and argued that his neo imperialist policies
generated much poverty, labor exploitation, and environmental damage. Reagan’s policies were directly
responsible for nonconventional wars and conflicts in the developing world.
q) His actions were also seen as concentrating power in the White House by undermining the same democratic
principles that his administration claimed to support.
THE POST-COLD WAR CONFIGURATION OF POWER
a) The end of the Cold War opened up channels for economics to play a greater role in security issues.
b) Neorealist John Mearsheimer predicted that we would “soon miss the Cold War” because it had helped the
superpowers maintain a reasonably stable and relatively peaceful international security structure.
c) Reagan’s successor President George H. W Bush adopted a multilateral approach to the U.S.’ role in the
world. He sent U.S. troops into Somalia as part of a UN peacekeeping mission to deal with starvation and
hunger.
d) The senior Bush also envisioned a bigger role for UN peacekeeping forces as part of a “new world order.”
e) Some realists argued that the end of the Cold War gave the United States the opportunity to decreased
defense spending promote more multilateralism, if not multipolarity. Other realists argued that the United
States should have should capitalized on the opportunity to act unilaterally as a benevolent global hegemon,
promoting capitalism and democracy everywhere.
f) After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, a U.S.-led multilateral force liberated Kuwait during the
Gulf War.
g) On other issues, Bush was not a multilateralist; for example, he did not support the 1992 Rio Summit that
linked economic development to environmental damage.
h) The Clinton administration viewed the international distribution of power as multipolar and emphasized
cooperation with allies and the use of nonmilitary instruments to deal with “competitors” such as China and
Russia.
i) Clinton feared the Vietnam Syndrome and withdrew U.S. forces from Somalia but supported the
deployment of UN peacekeepers in Bosnia and Haiti.
j) In the Balkans crisis, the United States played a back seat role to European efforts to deal with the situation.
Only in Kosovo in 1999 did U.S. forces become directly involved in confronting the Serbian military.
k) After terrorist strikes on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Sudan, Clinton launched cruise missiles against
suspected terrorist sites in Sudan and Afghanistan.
l) Clinton strongly supported international organizations such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the new
World Trade Organization. He worked hard to gain Senate ratification of the NAFTA and WTO
agreements. The United States benefited from a relatively open and minimally regulated global economy,
which complemented limited objectives in an emerging global security structure.
m) However, many structuralists suggested that neoimperialism and neocolonialism were masquerading as
globalization—causing violent conflicts in developing regions of the world.
n) By the early 2000s, integrated financial markets and neoliberal policies had precipitated a major
redistribution of global wealth that weakened U.S. (hegemonic) power.
o) Globalization enhanced the competitiveness of emerging countries that capitalized on increased access to
U.S. and European markets.
p) Reductions in U.S. foreign aid and increased use of sanctions often engendered hostility toward the United
States and its allies.
q) The United States continued to accumulate debt that was financed by investments from trade-surplus
countries, thereby over-stretching the U.S. economy and severely weakening its “empire.”
George W. Bush: Unipolarity and the Neorealist Nightmare
a) Events surrounding terrorist attacks on September 11 propelled the Bush administration to pursue a
unipolar global security structure.
b) Muslim extremism replaced communism as the archenemy of the United States. The new Bush Doctrine
proclaimed that the United States would preemptively attack countries that harbored terrorists or that
looked “as if” they might attempt to harm the United States.
c) Many factors account for the adoption of unilateralism. Neoconservatives argued that terrorism must be
fought proactively, that pre-emptive strikes could be launched against rogue states, and that international
organizations were both ineffective and at odds with U.S. interests.
d) In late 2001, the United States and some of its NATO allies invaded Afghanistan, driving much of the
Taliban, who were protecting Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, into Eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan.
e) The administration received approval from both the U.S. Congress and the UN Security Council to use
force against Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
f) Much like in Vietnam, militarily the U.S. and its allies remained mired in a guerrilla war in Iraq. Failure to
pacify Iraq was often blamed on failure to identify the nature of the threat, failure to adopt an appropriate
strategy to “win the war,” poor tactics, and lack of a coherent nation-building plan for Iraq.
g) Some realists criticized the administration’s global hegemonic outlook and belief that the United States was
“chosen by God” to lead a moral crusade to save the world from terrorists.
i) In an effort to reduce the number of coalition soldiers killed or wounded, the Pentagon began using the
Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) for “targeted killings” of suspected terrorists along drones for
surveillance and airstrikes.
j) Despite the withdrawal of U.S. troops, Iraq’s different religious and other groups remain in conflict.
k) Structuralist critics charge that U.S. imperialism was motivated by the need of the military-industrial
complex to sell arms and sustain massive U.S. defense spending. Also that the continued moral crusade
against Islamic neo-fascism reflects a desire for U.S. hegemony in the Middle East.
l) Challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan were exacerbated by other unilateral security policies undertaken by
Bush including withdrawal of support from multilateral treaties such as Kyoto and the ABM.
Obama and the Light Footprint
a) In his first four years in office, Barack Obama pursued foreign policies that reflected a mixture of his three
predecessors: Carter’s idealism, Clinton’s multilateralism, and Bush’s militaristic unilateralism to achieve a
variety of security objectives.
b) Obama worked with Russia to cut the number of strategic nuclear weapons and halt the proliferation of
WMD. He also negotiated with Iran and North Korea to allow the IAEA to inspect their nuclear-processing
facilities.
c) The Nobel Committee awarded Obama the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his “extraordinary efforts to
strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
d) When it came to tracking down terrorists, Obama acted as George Bush had. He ordered his own surge of
30,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan to “finish the job.” His strategy de-emphasized conventional
counterinsurgency operations and focused on winning the “hearts and minds” of the Afghan people.
e) The U.S. military plans to cease leading operations before 2015.
f) David Sanger argues that the Obama doctrine has dealt with pressure to square the need for cuts in defense
spending with the desire to keep the United States in a global leadership position by relying on a “light
footprint” that mixes unilateral and multilateral approaches and uses a more selective range of weapons
such as drones, special operations forces, and cyber tools.
Drones and Joint Strike Forces
a) Drones—small aircraft also called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)—have been increasingly used for
aerial reconnaissance, taking out suspected terrorists with guided missiles, patrolling U.S. borders, and
domestic law enforcement.
b) In 2011, the CIA and the U.S. military carried out hundreds of covert drone strikes in at least six countries
in the Middle-East, South Asia, and Africa, often resulting in those states asking the United States to end
the flights.
c) Between 2005 and September 2012, roughly 2,700 people were killed by drone strikes in Pakistan alone.
d) Drones helped gather intelligence for the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.
e) A number of factors have contributed to the increasing popularity of drones:
1. Nine years in Afghanistan and Iraq wore out U.S. and allied troops.
2. Repeated tours, brain injuries, high suicide rates, and sexual violence have taken a toll on military
personnel.
3. The use of drones decreases the number of troops needed on the ground and limits collateral damage.
4. In the face of the financial crisis, drones have helped reduce military expenditures.
5. Third, many leaders and some in the public view them as the perfect weapon for taking out “evildoers
lurking in the global badlands.”
f) Working with intelligence agencies, Special Ops and private contractors deployed small contingents in the
Middle-East, Central Asia, and Africa on missions to “snatch, grab, and assassinate” operations in Pakistan
and elsewhere.
Box: The Ethics of a Joystick Warrior
a) This box discusses the recent controversy about the ethics of using drones.
b) Young people who played a lot of computer games when they were young are qualifying to serve as a
soldiers or private contractors in some forty-five countries now training people to operate their drones.
c) Many drone pilots “fly” small robotic unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) thousands of miles away in the
Middle East or Africa.
d) In the United States their office is likely to be in a deep bunker in one of 18 sites.
e) Desk screens receive information from global satellites or from human intelligence sources on the ground.
f) Many supporters argue that because of their precision, drones have helped decrease the loss of life in
conventional military personnel who would otherwise engage targeted terrorists.
g) Many ethicists and structuralists would argue that that just like any other soldier or civilian contractor,
drone operators are not free from the duty of making ethical choices, even if they are thousands of miles
away from their work.
h) Drones gather intelligence by looking “into” developments on the ground through high-powered telescopes.
i) They hunt down and “take out” (kill) terrorists with guided high-power missiles.
j) Many drone pilots are susceptible to post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), depending on how disturbing
their job is to them.
k) The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that between 474 and 884 civilians have been killed by
drones in Pakistan since 2004—176 of whom were children.
l) Because drones lower the political and psychological barriers to their use, drone operators have an ethical
duty to try to separate combatants from noncombatants.
m) Just as in the case of other weapons, drone pilots must also attempt to determine if the war is just in the first
place.
n) To the extent that drone strikes constitute intervention in a country such as Pakistan where a state of war
does not exit, drone pilots may be complicit in violating international law, if not committing war crimes.
o) To justify the use of drones and other weapons, the Obama administration dropped the use of the phrase
“war on terror” in 2009 and now uses “as a matter of international law” and the right to “use force
consistent with our inherent right of national self-defense” in response to 9/11.
p) Finally, some claim that Congress (intentionally?) plays a limited role in oversight of drones, leaving the
president a free hand to use them indiscriminately. This blurs the line between the roles of civilians and the
military in war and also circumvents the Constitution’s mandate that Congress provide oversight of their
use.
Cyberwarfare
a) In September 2012, hackers in the Middle-East severely disrupted the online banking operations of three
major U.S. banks, sending another warning of cyber threats from states, cybercriminals, and terrorist
groups.
b) Information and communications technology plays an increasingly critical role in the command and control
both conventional weapons and WMD but also drones and Special Ops Forces.
c) For many national security experts today, the threat of cyberattacks and cyberwarfare is one of the most
important domestic and international security issues for businesses and militaries in the major powers.
d) To confront the threat, both defensive and offensive policies involving cooperation between public and
private institutions are needed.
e) Business experts claim that the biggest threats to U.S. security come from China, Russia, and organized
crime.
f) According to journalists Michael Riley and John Walcott, since 2001 the Chinese have gained access to
760 U.S. companies, universities, Internet services providers, and state agencies to steal information about
clean energy, biotechnology, advanced semiconductors, aerospace and telecommunications equipment,
pharmaceuticals, and medical devices.
g) China has hacked into an array of corporations in Asia, the United States, and Germany, “using a vacuum
cleaner to suck data out in terabytes and petabytes.”
h) In 2010, attacks hit Google, Intel, and Adobe—things corporations don’t like to admit for fear of negative
investor and consumer reaction.
i) Congress still struggles to agree on a national policy that meets the pro–free market objectives of businesses
that are also afraid to share information with state intelligence agencies.
j) Richard Clarke feels that cyber threats are too important to be held hostage to business interests.
k) The Obama administration has quietly developed more defensive and offensive cyber operations. Most
notably, the 2010 computer virus named Stuxnet targeted Iranian nuclear centrifuges.
l) In Afghanistan, the Marines used cyber tools to get inside al-Qaeda command and control operations.
Domestic Cyber-Surveillance and Individual Rights
a) Most realists have come to accept that globalization has blurred the virtual and real boundaries between
domestic and international policies.
b) Additionally, since 9/11, many Americans have a better understanding of how issues such as the global
financial crisis, environmental degradation, and cyber surveillance directly affect their security.
c) Structuralists have been particularly vocal about four interrelated surveillance issues. They charge that the
NSA, CIA, and other intelligence agencies have been spying on U.S. citizens, with the president and
Congress playing major roles in the practice.
d) NSA veteran and whistleblower William Binney maintains that domestic surveillance has become more
expansive under President Obama than under President George W. Bush. The NSA compiles trillions of
phone calls, emails, and other forms of data that Americans send and receive.
e) Many legal experts charge that intelligence agencies operate without clear authority or even NSA has also
collaborated with police to gather intelligence. New technologies—such as biometric equipment from the
Afghanistan and Iraq wars—has been used against Occupy Wall Street movement participants,
environmental activists, and Tea Party members.
f) Many structuralists think Americans should consider this a critical issue.
g) Jonathan Turley wonders why Americans consider themselves “free” when there is growing evidence to
suggest the contrary.
h) Guardian newspaper columnist Glenn Greenwald argues that since 9/11, U.S. civil liberties have been
jeopardized in the name of national security—making the United States a more authoritarian nation.
i) His evidence includes some of the measures the PATRIOT Act and the new National Defense
Authorization Act that have allowed: monitoring, assassination, and indefinite detention of U.S. citizens;
arbitrary trials and warrantless searches; use of secret evidence and secret courts; and extraordinary
rendition
j) These policies have become the new norm in the American political economy.
k) Structuralists criticize the continued expansion of the military-industrial complex under President Obama.
l) More than 300 legal cases involving alleged civil and criminal fraud by contractors have totaled only $1
million dollars in judgments.
m) Priest and Arkin argue that the inefficiency, redundancy, and secrecy that have become routine features of
the national security state.
n) Tom Englehardt suggests that this trend serves the wider political-economic objective of providing a bigger
role for civilian security contractors and weapons manufacturers in military operations.
o) Finally, structuralists claim that the new national security state is highly capable of blocking efforts to cut
defense program budgets leading to “overcapacity” in ineffective or redundant weapons systems.
p) Ultimately, these policies may undermine the safety of U.S. troops abroad along with the country’s military
and economic influence.
q) Many critics on the left accuse Obama of selling out America’s soul to prevent the country from
relinquishing its global position.
r) Neocons and the political right usually claim that these counterterrorism developments are necessary and
are critical of the left’s implicit rejection of the United States as the world’s hegemon. Much like the
Japanese internment during World War II, efforts to weaken the Constitution and Bill of Rights undermines
the foundation of U.S. values and institutions, making the United States more like an authoritarian regime.
The Future Security Agenda
a) The Obama administration has grappled with other problems that are reshaping the global security
structure.
b) Neorealists highlight tensions with Russia to transform the Middle East, bring religion and class to the
foreground, and destabilize countries that the United States cannot ignore.
c) A host of non–traditional security problems loom in the background, affecting citizens’ sense of personal
security and demanding multilateral cooperation.
d) Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cooperation with other states has been unpredictable. On the one hand,
Russia has shared an interest in fighting terrorism and preventing nuclear proliferation. However, tensions
remain over what Russia perceives as Western meddling in Central Asia and ex-Soviet republics with
substantial Russian-speaking minorities and Russian economic interests.
e) Moreover, Putin resents U.S. and EU pressure over Russia’s domestic policies regarding corruption, state
control of energy resources, and political opposition for fear that it would destabilize the nation.
f) China’s role in the security structure has also preoccupied officials, especially in Japan, the United States,
and Australia. Many realists fear that China is bent on confronting the United States or U.S. allies militarily
in the Pacific region.
g) Economic liberals believe globalization will diffuse China’s militaristic nationalism and strengthen political
cooperation.
h) In 2011, the Obama administration began a strategic and economic “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region in
anticipation of winding down the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, in part to assure Asian allies and guarantee
freedom of navigation in vital commercial sea lanes.
i) China perceived the pivot as directed against it, and resented Washington’s pressure on currency and trade
issue.
j) China alarmed Asian neighbors and the United States with its rapid military modernization and provocative
claims to most of the islands in the South China Sea—where vast offshore energy sources may exist.
k) Globalization and neoliberal policies have fostered a shift in the distribution of wealth and power in the
global security structure. The United States may no longer be able to sustain its hegemonic military and
economic power as it did in the past.
l) China may or may not continue to finance U.S. debt.
m) The Arab Spring confronted the United States with potential security challenges that will not be easy to
manage militarily.
n) Although European members of NATO took the lead in ousting the Qaddafi regime in 2011, the United
States has been wary of putting troops in Syria or any other Arab country as the danger is that Syria’s civil
war will drag on spilling over into Lebanon and Jordan.
o) The Syria conflict is creating a deeper Shia-Sunni split in the region, with Sunni-majority countries Turkey
and Saudi Arabia aiding the rebels and Shia majority Iraq and Iran trying to prop up Assad.
p) Hundreds of thousands of Syrian, Iraqi, and Palestinian refugees in the Levant put pressure on host
countries.
q) President Obama has failed to pressure Israel to end its settlements expansion and seriously negotiate a
two-state solution with the Palestinians.
r) The Middle East peace process is moribund, with a dangerous combination of a right-leaning Israeli
society, devastated Palestinian economy, and well-armed Hamas in Gaza.
s) These factors are a recipe for more regional conflict which will force the United States to choose sides.
t) The prognosis for better U.S.-Iranian relations is also poor.
u) Instead of pursuing a grand political bargain with Iran, Washington has orchestrated draconian sanctions
that have hurt ordinary Iranians and emboldened the clerical regime.
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
a) Today’s global security structure is marked by a growing number of both traditional and nontraditional
security issues that threaten not only nation-states in the realist sense of security threats, but different
economic, ethnic, religious, and gender groups of people with violence and death.
b) NATO, UN Peacekeeping Forces, aid and development agencies, the International Criminal Court (ICC),
NGOs such as Amnesty International and thousands of other agencies, all play an increasingly important
role in directing security issues in this increasingly fragmented global security structure.
NATO Peacekeeping
a) Because security is so sacrosanct to the major powers in particular, they have always been reluctant to give
IOs much authority to manage, let alone solve, such problems. Most arms control talks, for instance,
involved only the two superpowers (and their allies in the CSE talks) in efforts to increase confidence and
reinforce stability throughout Europe.
b) Today, NATO has a total of twenty-eight members. After 9/11, NATO members invaded Afghanistan to
drive out the Taliban. The invasion of Iraq in 2002 was conducted by newer NATO members that
supported the U.S.-led invasion.
c) Since the end of the Cold War, many critics of NATO have argued that the United States should decouple
itself from the costs and political burdens of defending and extending nuclear deterrence over an
increasingly larger Europe.
d) Others have criticized NATO for not having a clear military strategy or political objectives in a changing
security atmosphere.
e) While public opinion has at times favored the use of NATO to deal with alleged atrocities, the recent cases
of Yemen, Libya, and Syria demonstrate that many allied national leaders have been reluctant to send
ground forces into these and other countries for fear that direct intervention or military and economic
support for revolutionary forces could worsen the security outlook of their civilian populations.
f) Many questions linger about NATO’s military role and funding.
g) NATO also faces issues of nationalism and ethnic and religious rivalry in member states such as Turkey
and other nations in line to become members on its eastern borders.
h) Whether NATO can deal adequately with drugs, terrorism, weapons proliferation, immigration, and other
pressing security threats remains to be seen. Clearly, some issues like immigration and terrorism get more
attention than others in NATO
The United Nations and UN Peacekeeping
a) The UN Security Council is authorized under the UN Charter to deal with any issue that threatens peace
and security. However, in cases involving major security issues between the United States and Soviet
Union such as the content and size of their nuclear arsenals, strategic doctrines, or involvement in
developing nations, the UN played little to no role—by design.
b) Security issues between the five permanent members of Security Council always involved the possibility of
a veto. In effect, this limited the role of the major powers in many conflicts helped keep the permanent
members in the Council from leaving it, at the expense of inaction by it.
c) Only twice since World War II has the Security Council authorized the use of force: in 1950 in Korea, and
in 1990 when a coalition of forces drove Iraq out of Kuwait.
d) However, the UN’s role in promoting security treaties between the United States and Soviet Union picked
up near the end of the Vietnam War in the mid-1970s.
e) After that the superpowers reached an agreement in the ABM and SALT talks and also cooperated with the
UN to establish a number of conventions, treaties, and protocols to address the proliferation of nuclear and
other WMD.
f) The United Nations also served as a forum for negotiations that resulted in several security treaties dealing
with acquisition of weapons (mostly conventional) through commercial and noncommercial channels.
g) Some realists and structuralists note that the objective of nonproliferation often conflicts with two political
and economic objectives: to market missiles and other weapons–producing technologies and the right of
self-defense.
h) In certain circumstances the Security Council and General Assembly are both authorized to deploy
peacekeeping operations (PKOs) to help reduce tensions between conflicting parties.
i) UN peacekeeping is an integral part of the global security structure. It serves as a mechanism for dealing
with aggression and conflict in situations that would not directly involve the superpowers or other
permanent members of the Security Council.
j) Traditionally, UN peacekeepers were to serve as a neutral force between warring states, policing cease–
fires, enforcing borders, and maintaining order when states requested their presence. Of some sixty-three
PKOs, early ones consisted of specially trained soldiers from “neutral” countries such as Canada, Ireland,
and Sweden.
k) Since the end of the Cold War, the biggest contributors to PKOs have been developing countries such as
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Nigeria. These states have tended to look more positively to
international and regional organizations rather than to the United States and other major powers to generate
norms, rules, or security standards that reflect interests other than those of the major powers.
l) As U.S. and Soviet relations improved, both superpowers looked to the UN to help establish a number of
conventions, treaties, and protocols related especially to problems of nuclear weapons proliferation and
control over the arms race.
m) In 1992, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali tried to break new ground by suggesting that blue-
helmeted peacekeeping forces should play a more assertive and proactive role in peacemaking to deal with
the growing number of nationalistic, ethnic, and religious conflicts that intensified after the Cold War.
Boutros-Ghali sought to end the practice of absolute and exclusive sovereignty in order to protect innocent
victims from human rights and other conflict related abuses.
n) He also asked for an international force that could be deployed at his discretion.
o) Minor powers and developing nations tend to look favorably on the UN, realizing that they cannot address
all of their security issues by themselves.
p) Under his leadership, the UN increased its peacemaking operations in many poorer states, but apart from
sanctioning NATO’s efforts, the UN played only minor roles in conflicts in places such as Rwanda,
Kosovo, East Timor, and recently in Iraq, Libya, and Syria.
q) Increasingly, critics have questioned the UN’s ability to produce peace in a civil-war environment. They
argue that some UN operations were too late to resolve internal conflicts.
r) Furthermore, costs often exceeded estimates, and member states used UN forces instead of their own for
expensive campaigns. These and other limitations stymied UN peacekeepers’ ability to find political or
military solutions to regional conflicts, which diminished the UN’s reputation.
s) The UN has often been criticized for its ineffectiveness in combating terrorism.
t) So-called state-sponsored terrorists are often financed or supported by governments seeking to influence
another nation. Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria, among others, earned reputations as state sponsors of
terrorism.
u) Recently, many states, IOs, and NGOs have committed to cooperating in dealing with terrorism, largely
because the weapons readily available to terrorists are so lethal and sophisticated.
v) Many NGOs provide emergency relief, demobilize former fighters, clear landmines, organize and conduct
elections, and promote sustainable development practices.
w) UN bodies have passed resolutions urging states to deny financial support and safe havens for terrorists,
share information with other states about terrorists, and become party to terrorism conventions and
protocols. Specifically, they encourage states to
• criminalize the financing of terrorism;
• freeze without delay any funds related to persons involved in acts of terrorism;
• deny all forms of financial support for terrorist groups;
• suppress the provision of safe haven, sustenance or support for terrorists;
• cooperate with other governments in the investigation, detection, arrest, extradition and prosecution of
those involved in such acts; and
• criminalize active and passive assistance for terrorism in domestic law and bring violators to justice.
x) Since the late 1990s, PKOs have been limited to multidimensional problems that involve military, civilian
police, and other civilian personnel working alongside local governments and groups.
Human Rights and the ICC
a) Many UN members have gradually felt more willing, even compelled, to transfer some authority to the UN
to manage a variety of human rights violations, especially “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity.”
b) In 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was created to hear cases on genocide, war crimes, and
crimes against humanity from anywhere in the world. However, critics charge that the ICC lacks the
authority to compel compliance with international laws and conventions that deal with the conduct of war,
given that they have no real power to punish nations or groups within them for violating these laws.
c) Establishment of the tribunals signifies that the issues of conduct during war, and also justice, have moved
up on the agenda of states and shifted some authority beyond nation-states to IOs that deal with a relatively
new security issue—the rights and treatment of individuals.
Box: Working for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
a) The ICTY was created in 1993, nine years before the International Criminal Court was established, to
prosecute perpetrators of the most serious crimes committed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia.
b) It has indicted 161 individuals, from those at the bottom of the chain of command right up to former prime
ministers and presidents.
c) Like the ICC, it prosecutes crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.
d) To work for one of the special international courts, one must be able to keep a long–term perspective as the
Karadzic trial has been going on for four years and is expected to last another two.
e) In the ten years since the formation of the ICC, only one individual has been sentenced by that court.
f) Working for the court is made difficult by the pressure from supporters and critics of the accused, doubts
about the benefits of the court, and an array of questions related to limited resources and inefficiencies.
g) But the goal of bringing war criminals to justice is important related to securing the organization’s vision of
its role in both international security and promoting human rights.
h) The question remains as to whether it has had any sort of impact on peace and security in the Balkans given
that many in the region distrust the Tribunal and accuse it of bias.
i) To be successful the court must be recognized as beyond the ideals of international justice and global
security, while it provides a fair trial.
NGOs: POOR AND FAILED STATES COME UNDONE
a) Scholars have used the term “securitization” to describe how problems like climate change, poverty, and
resource shortages have in recent years become recognized as threats to national and global security.
b) NGOs like the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Doctors Without Borders,
and Worldvision—motivated by humanitarian, ideological, and practical concerns—are gaining greater
influence in the global security structure.
c) The International Campaign to Ban Land Mines (see the “Landmines” box in Chapter 5) is a good example
of how coalitions of NGOs can change security practices.
d) Many studies attribute conflict and a host of unconventional security issues to the lack of development.
e) Some blame TNCs, natural resources extraction, and the search for markets and cheap labor in developing
regions for causing exploitation, poverty, and repressive forms of neocolonialism.
f) Many terrorism experts contend that favelas in cities like these and in failed states such as Afghanistan,
Somalia, and Nigeria are hotbeds for ethnic and religious conflict.
g) At the same time, industrial agriculture and monocropping are undermining biodiversity and leaving food
production vulnerable to the spread of plant diseases in developing countries.
h) Shortages of arable land, water, and energy may spark future “resource wars” with Darwinian
consequences or what Peruvian scholar Oswaldo de Rivero warns will be physical-social imbalances that
lead to “the cataclysm of national disintegration” in many poorer parts of the world.
i) The global security structure today lacks strong institutions to coordinate responses to these problems. And
few electorates want to be told they must limit consumption or pay higher taxes to solve the world’s ills.
j) However, the proliferation of unconventional security problems around the world can only be halted
through multilateral cooperation and political risk-taking. U.S. budget constraints, weak U.S. international
credibility, and the global financial crisis are all factors that will stand in the way of concerted problem–
solving. If Great Powers try to solve these problems militarily or unilaterally, they will fail.
k) Solutions requiring shared sacrifice are sometimes politically untenable, as they are perceived as
infringements on state sovereignty.
l) The result may be that the world muddles through problems or keeps discounting their importance until
they turn into full-blown crises.
CONCLUSION: AN EVEN DARKER FUTURE?
a) Some U.S. administrations after World War II liked the Cold War bipolar balance of power between the
United States and the Soviet Union because of its defined structural arrangement.
b) Others preferred a multipolar security structure because it reflected the distribution of wealth and power
away from the two superpowers toward emerging countries. Regardless of each administration’s orientation
toward the distribution of power, the following lessons seem to apply:
• Realism still has a good deal of explanatory power, but policy makers should supplement
• it with other political-economic perspectives, including structuralism and constructivism in
particular.
• Under the right circumstances, small nations can overcome larger nations—or at least
• Weaken their resolve to fight wars in places like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
• The U.S. public is increasingly unwilling to bear the economic and political costs associated with
being the world’s strongest military power.
• Given these two factors, there are major impediments and costs to U.S. military intervention in Iran
and Syria.
c) Globalization brought an emphasis on open markets and economic competition, but also the hope that
economic liberal policies would produce democracy and peace in developing nations.
d) However, globalization helped weaken bipolarity and transform the international security structure into a
less orderly configuration with more flexible rules and norms.
e) By the mid-1990s, technological innovation had made conventional weapons more lethal and nuclear,
biological, and chemical weapons more powerful.
f) At the same time, globalization contributed to the proliferation of these weapons to public and private
forces that have helped destabilize many developing nations.
g) After 9/11 the Bush administration attempted to reorder the security structure along unipolar lines with the
United States as the lone global hegemon. With terrorism replacing communism as the main external
enemy, U.S. efforts to bring democracy and stability to countries like Iraq and Afghanistan backfired,
resulting in the (planned) withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces.
h) The Obama administration has pursued a more nuanced strategy that relies less on conventional forces and
more on unilateral strikes that employ drones and Special Operations forces.
i) The other side of this Janus-faced strategy is a multilateralism that tries to get NATO allies to share the
burden of fighting terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of Africa. Obama also prefers to use soft–
power instruments such as improved information and communication systems, cultural globalization, and
diplomatic cooperation with a variety of states.
j) Realists tend not to be surprised by many of these developments, given their belief that conflict is a
foundational element of any group or security order. IOs and NGOs are only as effective as the major
powers allow them to be. And states to decide if or when UN- and IO-sponsored treaties are to be adhered
to. The powerful countries in today’s increasingly fragmented security structure are preoccupied with
global terrorism and recovery from the financial crisis.
k) But a weakness of realism is that it tends to insulate the major powers from a growing list of problems in
weaker and poorer states. Issues such as poverty, immigration, drug trafficking, and environmental
degradation are increasingly impinging on the security of the Western powers.
l) In this view, regardless of whether or not the United States remains a global hegemon, if global security is
to be achieved in any meaningful sense of the term, the current global security structure can no longer be
managed by one power alone. Realists would be the first to point out that unipolarity tends to be unstable.
m) To protect against global threats, the United States and other powers will need to consciously share security
management functions with IOs, regional organizations, and NGOs that reflect the interests of a global civil
society. Decision makers should focus more on widening the scope of their options and choices rather than
conforming to standard practices and ideas.
Key Terms:
• bipolarity
• Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)
• realism
• global cyber security structure
• multipolarity
• unipolarity
• Cold War
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
• classical realism
• neorealism
• balance of power
• neoconservatives
• weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
• bunker buster
• Obama Doctrine
• unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
• Joint Special Operations Command
• International Criminal Court (ICC)
• peacekeeping Operations (PKOs)
Teaching Tips:
• This is another chapter that contains a good deal of factual material. Many students lack a firm foundation of
knowledge about the twentieth century, let alone recent events. It is therefore important to use this history to
support the main themes of the chapter, and not to get bogged down in too many details, interesting as they are.
To help them, have your students consult the timeline that has been put back into this chapter. Discuss with
them why these events are so important.
• With this in mind, ask your students to identify the six main arguments about security made in this chapter. Use
small discussion groups with 3–4 students in each group to link these points to one of more of the three IPE
perspectives.
• After reading the chapter ask students them to think about how and why things change, in this case—in the
structural or foundational features of the international security structure. List somewhere the factors that led to a
shift in the international security agenda from one before the end of the Cold War that focused primarily on
territorial (national) security to one where more attention has been given to the economy and to threats to
individuals via terrorism. Other threats include psychological damage to people (apart from their nationality),
the spread of diseases, and environmental damage on a global scale.
• There are a myriad of war or otherwise security oriented movies and documentaries that might correspond to a
period or issue that students might not be aware of. Show a film on one of these topics, and then discuss it with
students in a single group.
Sample Essay-Discussion Questions:
1. How has the definition of national security changed over the past 50 years and what specific factors and events
have contributed to this change?
2. Outline the major features of the global security structure and the changes it has gone through since World War
II. What makes this structure now more global in nature, as opposed to international? Do you agree or disagree
with the author’s assertion that it is global? Why, why not?
3. Outline and explain the impact of economic factors on the security structure? In what ways have they
contributed to a transformation of that structure?
4. Outline and explain the impact of the environment on the security structure. Likewise, in what ways have they
contributed to a transformation of that structure?
Sample Examination Questions:
1. All the following mark the Cold War after World War II is except:
a) realism dominated security debates, as security issues were understood primarily in terms of national
2. Many realists argue that nuclear weapons were the greatest threat to world peace during the Cold War. Today
d) debt generated by defense spending .
3. Which of these associations is incorrect?
a) realism: Henry Kissinger
4. Which of the following institutions has the authority to try cases of war in a specific region of the world,
d) CTBT
5. Which of the following about the Cuban Missile Crisis is incorrect?
a) the Soviets placed medium-range ballistic missiles in Cuba
6. Which of the following statements about Henry Kissinger is wrong?
d) he was famous for shuttle diplomacy
7. This peanut farmer became president of the United States and supported more idealism and human rights when
it came to international security policies.
a) LBJ
8. Which of the following is not associated with President Reagan?
a) labeling the USSR the “evil empire.”
9. One of the major criticisms of UN peacekeeping missions is that:
a) armed soldiers act too hastily in opening fire.
10. The George W. Bush administration’s desire for U.S. hegemony was reflected chiefly in:
a) its use of PMCs in the Iraq war.
11. According to Chalmers Johnson (and many others) the source of U.S. imperial behavior is
a) President Obama’s roots in Africa.
12. According to David Sanger, the practical effect of the Obama administration’s outlook about global security
structure management is marked by
13. Which of the following about drones is untrue?
a) they save the lives of many military personnel
14. Which of the following is not authorized by the PATRIOT Act or the new National Defense Authorization Act?
15. Which of the following is not an NGO that in some way deals with global security issues?