Non-traditional Security: A Risk-Centric View

Abstract

As described in Saha and Chakrabarti (South Asian Survey 28(1):111–132, 2021:112), “COVID-19 has firmly established itself as the single largest security disrupter of this century in the non-traditional sense. It has necessitated a recalibration of securitisation framework….” The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic certainly illustrates the transnational nature of today’s security landscape. Similarly, events such as the WannaCry cyber-attack, global terrorism, serious and organized crime, disease vectors, and natural disasters create challenges that affect both global and national security interests. Such events are shaping the security calculus across dimensions such as health security, economic security, food security, and energy security emerging as interrelated concepts that characterize the security landscape as complex. The increased transnational flow of people, goods, money, and information as products of “globalization” has also changed the security landscape in terms of the “globalization” of risks. This transnational/transborder nature of security challenges our traditional views of national security characterized by state-based, military dimensions. The non-traditional security calculus thereby emerges as part of the security landscape that can often have significant national security impacts through the implications associated with systemic risks. Outstanding scholarly work has been presented on the topic of non-traditional security through the lens of International Relations and Contemporary Security Studies (e.g., see Collins, Contemporary security studies. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013). This chapter presents non-traditional security through a risk-centric lens and explores the notion of systemic risk as part of the security calculus. COVID-19 will be used as an illustrative example of a shock to societal systems that reveals systemic risks, vulnerabilities, and impacts across the non-traditional security domains.