Introduction:
The evolution and expansion of security ambition in the development objectives have roots older than the Cold War. It existed in the forms of humanitarian efforts and got impetus during the early phase of the Cold War. However, it was primarily focused on defined geography with the strategic geopolitical interest of the power players, mainly US and the Soviet Union. After the end of the Cold War in 1991, security and development nexus began influencing the policy discourses around the world. The 9/11 incident in the US intensified the discussion over security and development nexus, and it rapidly rolled out globally. The OECD, for instance, adopted a strategy of ‘whole-of-government’ to manage the interchanges between political, security and development priorities (OECD 2011). To further rationalise the nexus, the World Bank stressed the link between security and development in the World Development Report 2011 which served as a ‘blueprint’ substantiating the absence of violence as the prerequisite for development and also began influencing the subsequent policies in dealing with fragile states and conflict situations. The report concluded with a need of strengthening the institutions and governments to provide security and justice to their populations in addition to job opportunities in order to break the ‘cycle of violence’ (World Bank 2011). It warned the success of MGDs in conflict zones, and now we have one of the SDGs, Goal 16- Peace, Justice and Strong Institution, which will continue influencing the developmental policies and sectors in the world.
Although security and development are different policy areas, its presence is felt strongly in the conflict-prone areas, primarily in the global South. The debates whether development and security should be integrated or be treated separately are also surfacing. One part of the argument perceives this as an efficient approach to preventing and managing security and conflict risks. On the contrary, the risk factor of having security ambitions undermining real development needs is drawing wider attention.
The article will discuss the emergence, expansion and integration of security concerns and developmental efforts and their influence in the international policy making. We will begin with the politics of aid; before, during and after the Cold War. Theory and practices of globalisation and neoliberal peace will follow the transitioning nature of conflict types and constituencies. Finally, the I conclude with a review whether the security development nexus is robust, coherent and efficient as intended or there is a need to scrutinise the approach with more pragmatic and empirical strategies.
Discussion:
The dawn of the Cold War witnessed the surge in the politics of development aid, in particular in the Europe. The issue of European reconstruction divided the major power players into two factions: European Recovery Programme, led by the United States through Marshall Plan, in 1948; and the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance, led by the Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), in 1949 (Cromwell 1982). The US’s Plan was to contain the Soviet influence in Western European countries and to achieve that, for instance, the Plan spent $13 billion in 16 European countries, between 1948 and 1952. On the contrary, the Soviet’s Assistance was purposed at supporting the stronghold of communist leaderships in the Europe, preferably in the East, and minimise the effects of Marshall Plan in European and other countries, such as Vietnam and Mongolia (Gawdiak 1987). Economic growth, social reconstruction and cultural advancements, among others, were the key areas of focus under the broader security concerns. It was an emergence of conflict between free economy or capitalism and socialism. The development, eventually, became a vital part of foreign policies, heavily influenced by security threats, setting up the ground for bio-polar world order known as the Cold War.
There was a new incarnation of warfare after the end of Cold War, known as ‘new war’ (Newman 2004) which have two core distinctions (Gregory 2010); the technologically advanced state forces in the North and the insurgent and guerrilla actors in the South. Although the frequency of international and regional level conflicts declined, the number of organised violence, between 1989 and 2014, increased and have caused more human casualties (UCDP 2015). The rise of intrastate conflicts, especially in the fragile countries, global inequality and poverty after the Cold War drew the attention of global community regarding a more cohesive strategy to stabilise the law and order situation. While poverty itself cause tensions and conflict, it may foster exclusion and marginalisation which provides a breeding ground for frustration and radicalization that non-state conflict parties can utilise (Duffield 2007).
The issue of poverty and exclusion is not just limited to the fragile states, but it also has a global shape. The adoption of less extreme poverty lines have distorted the interpretation of world poverty and inequality and so have caused significant growth in the size of ‘global precariat’ (Edward & Sumner 2016). The neoliberal predominance of global power players in the globalisation do not benefit a large sum of world population and causes social and economic inequalities between and within the states (Polu & Therkelsen, 2013). For instance, a fifth of global population live in the highest income countries with 86 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP), and despite the fact that 25 million American have an income equal to that of almost 2 billion people in the world, the poverty rate increased to 15.1 percent in the US, in 2010 (ibid, 229-231). So, the question of poverty, inequality and conflict concerns are rather a global phenomenon.
Meanwhile, the idea of liberal peace emerges as the most efficient approach for harmonised transformation of the conflict zones that include, but not limited to, issues ranging from humanitarian assistance to conflict transformation, social and economic reconstruction and the rule of law (Duffield 2001). As the term ‘peace’ extends beyond the core humanitarian efforts and absence of just war, the term ‘security’ overtakes the concern of not just territorial sovereignty and militarised conflicts but rather the security of human and even globalised market interests. This upgraded concept of peace integration in developmental efforts and developmental objectives in the peace and security mainly influenced the international policy communities to find a new strategy. The approach that addresses the security concerns through the development and the development efforts that can prevent and manage the risks of conflicts.
There are also rational grounds for considering the integration of security with the development. Armed conflict directly reduces the production and a gradual loss of capital stock, and even post-war setting do not always reproduce the preconditions for rapid economic growth as there exists the financial burden of military expenditure and a much potential risk of returning to war (Collier 1999). A study covering 22 conflicts in low and middle countries suggest that violent conflict negatively impacts economic growth by higher inflation, lower tax revenues, lower capital investment and a significant cut in the social benefits (Gupta et al. 2004). Similarly, Blomberg et al. (2004) conducted a study covering 130 countries from 1968 and 1991 of terrorist and economic variables and found that there is a direct link between reduced economic activity and increase in the terrorist activities. The adversaries of the armed conflict are not limited to a country’s territory; they also cross the border. The neighbouring country can suffer from about 17.6 percent of per capita if there is an increase of 1 in the average annual number of armed conflict in neighbouring countries per decade (Ades & Chua 1997). To further illustrate the negative impact of war and violent struggle, Lebanon’s GDP, for instance, declined by more than 70 percent during the civil war (1975-1990) and Kuwait saw a decrease of about 55 percent in the GDP within one year of war 1991 (Sab 2014). The effect is not just limited during the conflict period; it also influences the post-war recovery and reconstruction efforts. The post-conflict growth is slower than expected mainly because of the loss of human capital and the institution’s loss competitiveness even after five years after the end of the conflict (Collier & Duponchel 2013). These and other such experiences necessitated that development cannot happen without peace and security.
The security development framework should be directed at addressing the root causes of conflict such as poverty, and exclusion that perpetuates the war rather than on the consequences of armed violence such as building the military base, and deployment of international ‘experts’ to teach peace. The cases, for example, from post-conflict countries such as Sudan, Somalia, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka, demonstrated a negative relationship, of security and development rather than making it assertive and real guide for international policy making (Frances 2004). And the experiences are still not adequate to improve the security-development policies. Despite the genuine intention, global expertise, and unwavering international aid, the security-development nexus does not always produce the results and strengthen the national capacity of the recipient countries. For instance, report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction shows that the US alone spent over $117 billion for the reconstruction of Afghanistan since 2002 that includes improving governance, providing health and education, reviving the economy, training Afghan security forces in addition to increasing the women participation in cricket (SIGAR 2017). The report further reveals that the reconstruction efforts are still ‘tenuous and incomplete’ and that the Afghan government must need international support to survive. Domestic revenues are just able to cover 46.4 percent of the total public expenditures, and 1.2 percent of GDP growth in 2016 is far below than what is needed to increase employment and improve the living standards. The primary focus on the immediate priorities during and after the conflict may help stabilise the situation but the social, economic and political transformation require more comprehensive and inter-agency efforts, and that only can prevent the future conflict and help the country recover from bloody past.
Moreover, there are many criticisms of this nexus. The politics of development has been radicalised and reflects a new security framework that considers underdevelopment a danger which is a contrary to the post-Cold War conflict environment where inter-state conflict had dominated the agenda (Duffield 2001). Duffield further explains that the new paradigm shifts from inter-state conflict to intra-state conflicts, where underdevelopment and exclusion play a vital role, sustains the concept that development is impossible without stability and security is not sustainable without development. He concludes that liberal peace and new wars have faded away from the differences between development and security and so, due to the increasing number of privatised and regionally developed strategies complicating the elements of liberal governance, the new patterns of security-development integration reflect the characteristics of Cold War era. Moore (2000) analyses the development and security relationships in Africa in his article, Levelling the Playing Fields & Embedding-Illusions: ‘Post-Conflict’ Discourse & Neo-liberal ‘Development’ in War-Torn Africa. He examines the development of a continent, which is torn up by conflicts and chronicle cycle of poverty. The article illustrates that the countries, like Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Congo and Angola, were covered in bloodshed because of the increase in conflict incidents and war zones. Despite such miseries in Africa, the world leaders focus on security issues rather than dealing with the quandary of underdevelopment and cause of conflict. To further substantiate the claim, Thomas (2001) argues that the neoliberal world order has two distinctive features; persistent poverty and deepening inequality, and the global power players are realising these mistakes as the potential threats to the current world order that largely undercuts the equity of countries in the South.
All the policies and the policy-making process should pay appropriate consideration to security, relief and developmental issues. They should be efficiently interconnected and should ensure that their efforts should maximise the developmental results and do not worsen the existing conflicts such as the Palestine or Kurdish conflicts (Gasper & Gomez 2015). The nexus, which is ambiguous and lacks coherence, also confuses the non-governmental organisations (NGOS). For many of them, it is hard to differentiate and keep aside the traditional development focus and practices (Trachsler 2008). Uneven mixing of security with relief and development efforts can endanger the opening of long-term development, and standalone development efforts can further reignite the stress factors in a multi-ethnic society with different power structures and weak institutions.
Conclusions:
The empirical experiences eventually back up the increasing discontent and disappointment with the international policy-making trends regarding disenfranchised integration of development and security. The link, when security concern and needs are superior to the development intention, lacks a clear understanding of conflict prevention, in the long run, increases the adverse consequences of the nexus and the weakens the accountability aspect of such unintended implications. The link also lacks the wider discussion of the policy making process, interests, actors and epistemic communities. It also needs non-Western perspective to ensure the appropriate mechanism or instrument in understanding and sharing the responsibility for the implications of security development nexus in fragile societies. The connection between development and security should not be less than a policy which merely explores the security risk.
Despite the fact that the lack of clarity, coherence, and broader agreement on the policy framework of the security-development nexus, the international policymaking continues to be influenced by the nexus. International actors and institutions have developed policies which will continue dominating the international arena favouring the nexus. However, the learning from the foreign interventions in the South, notably in Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other war-torn countries, can substantiate the logical importance of putting the development back at the core of the nexus and letting the security concerns of the South be a part of global security governance. More focus on development than security is utmost important to expand the acceptability and effectiveness of the international policy-making hugely influenced by the security-development nexus.
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Rakesh Karna 