The imperative of Common Security in a competitive international security system

By Luis Tomé, PhD

After significant progress in the international security system and the concept of security that has occurred since the end of the "double Cold War” (United States vs. USSR and Soviet Union vs. PRChina), recent years have seen a return to an operationalization of security in an outdated conception and an eminently competitive system. It is therefore urgent and crucial to reaffirm the imperative of "common security" - that is, our security must be achieved with, and not against, the "other", in a common and shared commitment to ensure the security and survival of each and everyone.

Of the many and diverse characterizations of "international security system" - identifying the prominent pattern of behaviors, policies, strategies, discourses, and interactions in the security domain - we may identify four considered basic or "pure" ones:

• Competitive security system: rooted on the idea that "national security" is priority, States, starting with the "great powers", assume that self-defense and self-security is done by strengthening military capabilities and entering into alliances and collective defense organizations against hostile States and coalitions. Great powers are engaged in arms races, dispute allies and partners, and confront each other directly and indirectly, in multiple domains and in various forms, including in violent international and intra-state conflicts by proxy. Basically, the security of some is built at the expense of the security of others and against others;
• Cooperative security system: emphasizing cooperation on the premise that self-security is sometimes better served with others, including rivals; and that certain risks and challenges are better managed through cooperation with partners but also with rivals, seeking common minimum denominators for concrete problems that affect the security of both and/or the various parties;
• Collective security system: focuses on issues of war and peace, but also in a very broad notion of references, dimensions and instruments of security to be regulated through a set of institutions, formal rules and procedures of character and universal acceptance. “Collective security” is therefore distinct from "collective defense" (which is associated with competitive security systems) and it is, to some extent, the idea’s corollary of security of all, by all and on behalf of all, representing and mobilizing the "international society" and appealing to a broad representative and legitimate form of collective action;
• Security community: implying a deep degree of commitment, socialization and institutionalism, thus membership is more restricted and highly regulated. A security community requires an identity and communion of principles, values, and ideals among its members, as well as a shared perception of risks and threats and of solutions to address them, vital to achieving and sustaining mutual solidarity and reciprocity in the long run.

The international systems of collective security, cooperative security and security communities have inherently associated the idea of "common security”. However, the current international security system is prominently and increasingly competitive: tensions are mounting and confrontation guides the behaviors and interactions of major players today. Still, common security can and should also be cultivated and operationalized in a competitive security system. It is worth recalling that common security gained expression during the Cold War, favoring arms control and non-proliferation regimes, as well as security conferences between opponent superpowers/blocs and other measures of mutual trust and détente. The concept of common security would be developed by the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues, headed by Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, and translated into its report Common Security: A Program for Disarmament published in 1982. Faced with the threat of war, that report focused on nuclear disarmament and the European theater, with minimal attention to other issues and other regions. Since then, however, profound security transformations have occurred:

• The reference of security or what should be secure has evolved from the State almost exclusively to also intra-state and transnational communities/groups, human dignity, Humanity and the Planet;
• The importance and major security impact of non-state actors, whether as disruptors and as security providers;
• The expansion and diversification of risks and threats, with multiple interconnections and cascading effects;
• New security instruments;
• The erosion of the traditional dichotomy between the internal and external dimensions of security; and
• The interplay between security, development, human rights, technological advancement and the climate emergency.

As a result, the traditional concept of security of the State, by the State and on behalf of the State via the military instrument against threats from other States and essentially military in nature has given way to new approaches such as "human security", "world/global security" and "comprehensive security", all-encompassing other security references beyond the State and based on multi-dimensional and multi-instrument conceptions of security. On the other hand, these transformations imply that common security is extended far beyond the kind of core concerns that guided the “Palme Commission”.

Indeed, even in a competitive security system, actors must compete responsibly and realize that their own security is often best ensured with, rather than against, others, including rivals, in the face of a wide range of common threats, risks, and challenges: from certain crises, conflicts and hotspots to terrorism and transnational organized crime, underdevelopment and extreme poverty, massive human rights violations, disruptions in the supply chains for goods and energy, fragile and failed States, maritime piracy, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and means of delivery, malicious use of new technologies, shortages of vital resources, environmental degradation and climate change, epidemics and pandemics.... In trying to adequately address these and other common risks and challenges, security cannot be imposed or achieved by one against the other, or else it will worsen its own security rather than improve it.

Likewise, the reconstruction and/or development of new security instruments - from international treaties and agreements to development aid, other forms of multilateralism, international courts, mediation and arbitration mechanisms, crisis and conflict management, arms control regimes, international police cooperation, new rules to combat the financing of terrorism and criminal activities, information sharing systems or combating climate change and mitigating its effects -, as also a rules-based international order that everyone considers legitimate, can only be achieved on a common security basis.

In view of the current risk of global confrontation and threat of war, particularly in Asia/Indo-Pacific between the US and China and in Europe following the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the assumptions of the "Palme Report" remain fully valid. However, common security should also be applied to a multitude of other issues and other regions, in particular in the "Global South", where the priority risks, threats and challenges are of a different kind - such as organized crime, armed gangs or political-social polarization in Latin America, fragile states and jihadist terrorism in the Sahel region or global warming and rising sea levels threatening the existence of the Pacific Islands. This, incidentally, is reflected in the Common Security 2022report published 40 years after the "Palme Report".

Common security does not put an end to competition, but it not only mitigates its effects, it allows collective security and cooperative security to progress, favoring the security and survival of all peoples, communities, countries and regions of the world - including both the US/West and the China-Russia axis, both democracies and autocracies, and both the "developed world" and the “Global South”.

About the Author

Luis Tomé is a full Professor at Autónoma University of Lisbon (UAL) - Portugal, where he is Director of the International Relations Department and of its OBSERVARE - Observatory of Foreign Relations. He is also a researcher at the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI).

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