-Written by AJ Reibel, MIR program, New Zealand
Transnational security is an issue directly linked to human security. Although state-makers often identify external threats as imminent hazards to their respective state structure, at the most basic level state security is about the security of the state’s inhabitants. Although nuclear proliferation, transnational organised crime syndicates, drug trafficking cartels, human traffickers, terrorist organisations with cells embedded throughout the world’s capitals, environmental degradation, and the spread of infectious diseases are all major threats to both state structures and to the inhabitants of states, policy-makers often neglect to consider that the root causes of the threats that they prepare for are, in fact, the underlying threats that imperil human populations across the globe.
Tragically, trans-border threats that pose a menace to the greatest amount of human life within state borders are not seen as security concerns and instead as developmental issues. Economic marginalisation, the stark poverty that such marginalisation spurns, and the globe’s worsening problem of overpopulation all contribute to the creation of many of the transnational threats identified by policymakers – drug trafficking, human trafficking[1], the spread of organised crime and gang syndicates, environmental degradation, weapons proliferation, and infectious epidemics. The underlying factor that allows for the emergence of such transnational threats is the overriding pressure on human inhabitants (regardless of their home state).
The idea that the globe is rapidly reaching (or has already done so) a point where it cannot sustain the number of humans that inhabit its arable swathes and temperate zones has been proposed by numerous scientists and social scientists at a number of think-tanks and NGOs. The Corner House, a UK-based organisation that aims to work towards social and environmental justice programs, put out a study in which it referred to the earth’s “carrying capacity” and its relationship to humanitarian and social threats. The report stated that “…if ‘carrying capacity’ is exceeded… then population can be said to be "objectively" excessive relative to land, consumption and technology,”[2] thus resulting in incredible social pressure on humans living in resource poor or economically unsustainable regions.
The notion that the earth has a limited “carrying capacity” is problematic for economists and policymakers at leading neo-liberal institutions, such as the World Bank, and within the upper echelons of many Western states. If the theory that the earth has a limited “carrying capacity” gains acceptance, it will imperil the ‘modern’ economic model – built on the idea that production (and, thus development) can always expand and is, therefore, sustainable.
It is, perhaps, understandable that this theory has been dismissed by top-level policymakers despite evidence that shows that as the population keeps thundering along, poverty and world hunger also increase.
From 1950 to 1998 the world’s population doubled. It has grown a further 14 percent in the last ten years to 6.4 billion. The global population is on track to reach nine billion by 2050. This growth is coming disproportionately from the developing world.[3]
As the population increases, so too does the number of people living in conditions of extreme poverty – exacerbating the spread of communicable diseases, environmental degradation, and predation on vulnerable populations.
As rates of poverty increase in the developing world, human migratory flows threaten the stability of more economically successful states. The EU region has experienced an influx of illegal immigrants that is starting to alarm Italian, Spanish, German, and French policy makers as security strategists realise that they are losing control over destabilising forces within their borders. Police planners are asking themselves if, along with desperate people looking for jobs and a means to improve their livelihood, rogue elements such as terrorist cells, criminal and gang syndicates, and foreign espionage networks are infiltrating their societies.
In addition to the fact that overpopulation, poverty, and resulting uncontrollable migration may threaten the social fabric in developed countries, the multiplied effects of overpopulation and its resulting poverty also threaten fragile and dwindling ecosystems. Environmental degradation begins as a localised problem, however it has global effects as stocks of fish are depleted in the oceans, sea-levels rise and El Niño and other weather pattern shifts wreck havoc on states from South America, Oceania, South East Asia, to the Middle East.
Between young women and children being sold into slavery in Myanmar[4] and Nigeria[5], infants starving to death in Zimbabwe, communities facing the rocketing HIV infection rates across Russia and Central Asia, rising food prices, and the disappearance of fish stocks that once sustained the livelihoods of entire island populations, it becomes obvious that threats to human populations imperil more lives than the over-emphasised transnational threat of terrorism. States have more to fear from factors that undermine social stability and exacerbate human suffering, such as poverty (which fuelled ethnic conflict in Kenya in February, 2008 and in South Africa more recently in 2008), than from drug trafficking and terrorism. As such, transnational security is, first and foremost, a human security issue.
Tragically, trans-border threats that pose a menace to the greatest amount of human life within state borders are not seen as security concerns and instead as developmental issues. Economic marginalisation, the stark poverty that such marginalisation spurns, and the globe’s worsening problem of overpopulation all contribute to the creation of many of the transnational threats identified by policymakers – drug trafficking, human trafficking[1], the spread of organised crime and gang syndicates, environmental degradation, weapons proliferation, and infectious epidemics. The underlying factor that allows for the emergence of such transnational threats is the overriding pressure on human inhabitants (regardless of their home state).
The idea that the globe is rapidly reaching (or has already done so) a point where it cannot sustain the number of humans that inhabit its arable swathes and temperate zones has been proposed by numerous scientists and social scientists at a number of think-tanks and NGOs. The Corner House, a UK-based organisation that aims to work towards social and environmental justice programs, put out a study in which it referred to the earth’s “carrying capacity” and its relationship to humanitarian and social threats. The report stated that “…if ‘carrying capacity’ is exceeded… then population can be said to be "objectively" excessive relative to land, consumption and technology,”[2] thus resulting in incredible social pressure on humans living in resource poor or economically unsustainable regions.
The notion that the earth has a limited “carrying capacity” is problematic for economists and policymakers at leading neo-liberal institutions, such as the World Bank, and within the upper echelons of many Western states. If the theory that the earth has a limited “carrying capacity” gains acceptance, it will imperil the ‘modern’ economic model – built on the idea that production (and, thus development) can always expand and is, therefore, sustainable.
It is, perhaps, understandable that this theory has been dismissed by top-level policymakers despite evidence that shows that as the population keeps thundering along, poverty and world hunger also increase.
From 1950 to 1998 the world’s population doubled. It has grown a further 14 percent in the last ten years to 6.4 billion. The global population is on track to reach nine billion by 2050. This growth is coming disproportionately from the developing world.[3]
As the population increases, so too does the number of people living in conditions of extreme poverty – exacerbating the spread of communicable diseases, environmental degradation, and predation on vulnerable populations.
As rates of poverty increase in the developing world, human migratory flows threaten the stability of more economically successful states. The EU region has experienced an influx of illegal immigrants that is starting to alarm Italian, Spanish, German, and French policy makers as security strategists realise that they are losing control over destabilising forces within their borders. Police planners are asking themselves if, along with desperate people looking for jobs and a means to improve their livelihood, rogue elements such as terrorist cells, criminal and gang syndicates, and foreign espionage networks are infiltrating their societies.
In addition to the fact that overpopulation, poverty, and resulting uncontrollable migration may threaten the social fabric in developed countries, the multiplied effects of overpopulation and its resulting poverty also threaten fragile and dwindling ecosystems. Environmental degradation begins as a localised problem, however it has global effects as stocks of fish are depleted in the oceans, sea-levels rise and El Niño and other weather pattern shifts wreck havoc on states from South America, Oceania, South East Asia, to the Middle East.
Between young women and children being sold into slavery in Myanmar[4] and Nigeria[5], infants starving to death in Zimbabwe, communities facing the rocketing HIV infection rates across Russia and Central Asia, rising food prices, and the disappearance of fish stocks that once sustained the livelihoods of entire island populations, it becomes obvious that threats to human populations imperil more lives than the over-emphasised transnational threat of terrorism. States have more to fear from factors that undermine social stability and exacerbate human suffering, such as poverty (which fuelled ethnic conflict in Kenya in February, 2008 and in South Africa more recently in 2008), than from drug trafficking and terrorism. As such, transnational security is, first and foremost, a human security issue.
____________
1 The trafficking of women and girls in Nigeria and other African states (for use as domestic workers, the global sex-industry, and for the harvesting of human organs), Russia and former Soviet-states (for the global sex-industry), and in East Asia (for industrial and commercial labour and for the global sex-industry) has often been overlooked by state development agencies.
2 Nicholas Hildyard, Sarah Sexton and Larry Lohmann, “‘Carrying Capacity’, ‘Overpopulation’ and Environmental Degradation,” The Corner House, 1993, http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/item.shtml?x=52014#index-01-00-00-00 [viewed 12/08/08].
3 Susan E. Rice, “The Threat of Global Poverty,” The National Interest (Spring, 2003): 80, Taken from: http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2006/spring_globaleconomics_rice.aspx [viewed 12/08/08].
4 Alex Perry, “Cover Story: The Shame,” Child Slavery, TIMEasia.com, 2006, http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/slavery/cover.html [viewed 12/08/08].
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