An Analysis of Grand Strategy through the Lens of Neo-Security Complex Theory
Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde attempt to structure a fundamentally new approach to the study of security issues by attempting to incorporate traditional notions of security analysis into a broader understanding of international security that incorporates non-military threats. Their neo-security complex theory does provide substantive insight into how the process of securitizing issues occurs and how one can address non-military existential threats within a security studies framework; however, there are some substantive problems that require greater theoretical precision in order to prevent making the securitizing process they describe nothing more than a residual category. Ultimately, Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde need to incorporate both temporal elements as well as and probability into their approach in order to disaggregate existential threats. Without such modifications, the existential threat posed by an incoming nuclear or chemical warhead is equivalent to increased levels of radon in the home.
In order to show the virtues, flaws, and possible improvements that would allow neo-security complex theory to become a more powerful analytic tool in security studies it is first necessary to briefly explicate the core elements of the approach and show how it diverges from the traditional understanding of security studies. Then one must show how its application would provide substantive insight into particular security practices found in the literature, such as grand strategy. After doing so, we must address substantive problems generated from the application of the theory and then show how various improvements would strengthen the neo-security project.
The neo-security complex theory revolves around an attempt to expand the possibilities of what constitutes a security threat by conceptualizing it as meaning solely a threat to one’s physical existence. While recognizing that there are many threats and vulnerabilities that arise both within and outside military issues, Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde argue that including all such events would ultimately prove the traditionalists’ critique that expanding security beyond military issues inevitably leads to a lack of coherence. The way out of this conceptual morass is to distinguish between political issues and construct security as pertaining to “existential threats to a referent object by a securitizing actor who thereby generates endorsement of emergency measures beyond rules that would otherwise bind.”
Like neorealism, neo-security complex theory relies upon levels of analysis as a means to situate actors, issues that pose existential threats, and the interactions between them that constitute security.
Even though African Americans were now free and considered citizens thanks to the 13th and 14th amendments, they were still severely oppressed. While technically they had more rights and opportunities in the United Sates government than females, they did not truly receive them. As Frederick Douglass said over and over again in support of the 15th amendment, the abolishment of slavery did not eradicate racism. It was still a huge problem in America. Abolishment had been achieved in name and name only, because they were economically just as tyrannized as before. In the eyes of the feminists who supported the 15th amendment, they saw it as an opportunity for African American males to be able to make a bigger influence in American politics and hopefully lessen the iron fist they were under. With the ability to vote, the hope was that the rather large population of African American males would have the chance to make a real impact in
It felt like something retro but with better special effects. This was surprisingly satisfying, because as technology progresses, even though a movie classic’s storyline may be phenomenal and the characters iconic, there is still is that craving for better visual effects. This movie kind of breathed a new life into that same feeling that movies like E.T. or the Goonies, give the audience by providing advanced CGI graphics. The provided the audience with some of the nostalgia, but the fact that the main characters were children is really what did it. It helped tremendously that the writer made sure his protagonists didn 't appear to be overly contrived. Many films with child stars tend to have the characters perform actions that would realistically be above the scope of ability for someone in their age group. But J.J. Abrams did a great job of fully developing each of their personalities. He let them show more of the emotions that would be expected from real life children. They shed tears, they were afraid. One of Joe’s friends, Preston (Zach Mills), even refused to go. Not a single one was unrealistically heroic or did ridiculous stunts, they were courageous but not so much so that they audience couldn’t suspend disbelief. And another refreshing aspect of the film, was the ‘romance’ between Alice and Joe. Abrams kept it on the more platonic side as it should be. Six graders should never be sexualized in film which unfortunately
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” (Elizabeth, 1815). The 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gave women a right to vote as well as men. The movement to give the right to vote for women through the 19th Amendment was a Suffrage movement. The Suffrage movement had continued since the Civil War, but the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment (it is related to the right to citizen) did not cover the right to vote for women. The 19th Amendment and the Suffrage movement have changed the lives of women in society.
This concept was later expanded upon in the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson and became the motto of American democracy: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. However, the founding fathers and their influential Enlightenment Era philosophers often referred to blacks as “savages” and “inferior humans”, denying them these “inalienable” rights. It is through this manipulation of language and human understanding that African Americans were denied the most basic elements of freedom. The Constitution itself is highly influenced by Enlightenment thought and meant to serve as the mark of an egalitarian republic. However, it includes no mention of the word “slave”, yet directly condones the foreign importation of slaves for at least 20 years after its ratification. This is evidence that African Americans were marginalized in their aspirations for freedom, strictly because their subjugated position in society benefited
Their argument was that the 13th and 14th amendment had already given African American males the same amount of authority that women had. Therefore, in their opinion, giving black males the right to vote would make them superior over females and only further their oppression. Feminists also brought up the argument that giving females the right to vote would bring a new element into American politics. Males had always had the right to vote, therefore adding the black males’ vote wouldn’t bring in any new or beneficial
Up north all blacks were free. The population of blacks in the north was about 1% in 1860 after the American Revolution. The blacks up north had minimal rights. The blacks could not vote, because of stipulations or they were just told that they could not vote by laws of their area. The New York Convention created one stipulation that was created to exclude blacks from voting in 1821; the law stated that blacks could not vote if they did not own property. Most blacks were having a tough time getting jobs in the south. So if a black person could not generate income how were they supposed to buy a home?
... the need of government to act whenever an issue threatens national security. Mechanisms should be put in place to ascertain the extent of the threat, and the acceptable measures of dealing with it.
On the other hand, in The Slippery Slope to Preventive War, Neta Crawford questions the arguments put forward by the Bush administration and the National Security Strategy in regard to preemptive action and war. Crawford also criticizes the Bush administration as they have failed to define rogue states and terrorists as they have “blurred the distinction” between “the terrorists and those states in which they reside”. In Crawford’s point of view, taking the battle to the terrorists as self-defence of a preemptive nature along with the failure to distinguish between terrorist and rogue states is dangerous as “preventive war
Barnet, Richard J. “The Ideology of the National Security State”. The Massachusetts Review, Vol. 26, No. 4. 1985, pp. 483-500
Considered by Aristotle as the perfect example of tragedy, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King is an Athenian play that follows the undoing of a Theban king by the name of Oedipus. The play presents a question Oedipus himself cannot answer: is it the man’s actions or is it the gods’ decisions that control the man’s destiny? Perhaps the answer is both man and god, but it is the man’s imperfections that determine what fate the gods will give him. While there is no direct proof that gods control everything in a man, from his dreams to his choices, Oedipus still proves that no matter how renowned a man is, that man’s weaknesses will determine his success or his failure. Oedipus fits the convention of a tragic hero as he is a man of high estate who suffers
Oedipus seeks the truth about who his real parents were. To do this went to visit with the oracle at Delphi, though instead of getting the truth, he was told unpleasant things that would happen to him, such as lying with his own mother, breeding children from her womb, and killing his own father. After finding this out, Oedipus leaves
Wendt, Alexander. “Constructing International Politics.” International Security. Cambridge: President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995. 71-81. Print.
By the end of the Cold War the literature focusing on strategic studies has highlighted transformational changes within international system that affected and altered the very nature of war. As a result many security studies scholars have renounced traditional theories of strategic thought. Clausewitzian theory, in particular, has taken a lot of criticism, regarding its relevance to modern warfare. (Gray, How Has War Changed Since the End of the Cold War?, 2005)
National security undeniably has a preponderant place in the political, economical and military agenda of each state. Therefore, the state has a paramount responsibility in the contexts of its own domestic and transnational security. Whatever may be the way the state adopts in order to protect itself and its citizens, it needs to be accord with an international system. In this sense the state tends to follow a specific model in terms of international relations. Focuses in the case of western societies in general, and more specifically the United States as the iconic model of the western world, states tend to favour a realist perspective in terms of national security. Albeit, what is exactly the realism theory in the national security field? According to Glaser the realist view proposes the achievement of most high standard quality of national security focused on the acquisition of superior grades of power among the relative states sparking the idea of the presence of an anarchical international system .
Tragic hero is a character of noble stature and has greatness but is triggered by some error and causes the hero’s downfall. Oedipus is the tragic hero of “Oedipus the king”. Oedipus has a noble stature and has greatness. From the beginning of the story Oedipus is shown as a noble caring man. He is greatly worried about the plague in Thebes “but my spirit grieves for the city, for myself and all of you” (75-76) he tell the priest and his people of Thebes. If Oedipus didn’t care for his kingdom, he wouldn’t have tried to seek out who was Laius murderer. Oedipus solves the riddle of the sphinx. By solving the riddle the people of Thebes respected Oedipus because he had saved the city from the sphinx. The priest prays to Oedipus rating him “first of men” (41). Solving the riddle of the sphinx “not knowing nothing, no skill, no extra knowledge”, (46-47) he triumphed. By solving the riddle Oedipus became grand and short tempered and these characteristics brought him to his downfall. He is too proud to see any truths and he refuses to believe that he killed Laius his own father and married his own mother Jocasta. Tiresias, the servant of Apollo, is being called a lair after he told Oedipus that he was the one that killed his father. Oedipus refuses to believe that he could have been responsible for such horrible crime. He tells Tiresias that “envy lurks inside you” (435) and he thinks Creon sent Tiresias to try and overthrow him. Oedipus just accus...