Security Issues

3. Factors That Make Conflict Intractable

Security is a fundamental human need, which means that when people or groups feel insecure, they will usually do whatever they can to remedy that situation. Often, however, what they do attacks or threatens someone else, who then attacks back (because they feel insecure), and the security of everyone goes down instead of up. Though it is sometimes assumed that security is a zero-sum commodity, meaning the more secure I feel, the less secure my opposition will feel, that is not, actually the case. If I feel secure, then I won't feel a need to threaten the "other," who then won't feel threatened themselves and won't need to threaten me. So security is actually a positive sum commodity — the more one side has, the more their opponents often have as well.

Security is important at the individual level, group level, national level, and even global level. On the individual level, security is most often understood as safety. This safety includes freedom from harm, whether physical or psychological. It also includes the security of knowing that one has a decent job, or another way to make a living, has adequate health care, and can reasonably work for one's goals in life. Such factors are also important for groups, which need to feel accepted for who they are, and able to operate in society on a level playing field, rather than suffering prejudice and discrimination.

National security takes these concepts up a level. Countries must not only feel secure in their borders, but they must be secure in their relationships with other nation states and at times, non-state actors. Trade wars, information warfare (and other forms of what is now called "hybrid warfare") are serious threats to national security, and tend to cause countries to respond with threats to "the other." Just as happens in interpersonal and inter-group relationships, these tit-for-tat threats make everyone less secure. But mutual cooperation and respect for other nation states' legitimacy make everyone more secure. Hence, these are goals we should work for at all organizational levels.