Security Studies During and After The Cold War

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There are differences found between the world during the Cold War and the present in terms of security challenges and issues faced by states when investigating the fine details of documents and actions but when retrospective on overall effect and our current global situation there are significant similarities can be found. The security and protection of the state has fundamental always been a priority of importance for any government or organisation since the unforeseen end to the Cold War between Soviet Russia and the United States. There has been astonishing steps taken by the international community to create global tranquillity amount states and to bring end to military conflict during this ‘New World Order’ but through revision of the methods deployed it becomes evident that many of these steps also portray continuity from the context of the Cold War. Although the fall of the Berlin Wall signified the end of conflict between the Communism and Capitalist ideology, new emerging issues such as the ‘War on Terror’ in the Middle East are fought in the same manner and built on the same ideological functions of the Cold War. Traditional security studies can define security as the protection of the state while critical security studies expands the role of security into protecting additional critiques involving the environment, nuclear warfare, gender and social equality. There has been movement from the traditional to the critical approach in international relations especially on the topic of security but the security challenges themselves have not change since the Cold War.

The understanding of security studies is most definitely changed since the end of the Cold War with revisionists changing how states interpret possible threats...

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...re also inherited in human nature transcend to become relevant in contemporary issues.

Works Cited

• Australia Government Department of Defence. (2009). Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030, Defence White Paper 2009. Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.

• Gorbachev, M. (2008). Russia Never Wanted a War. The New York Times, 20 August. A23.

• Gorbachev, M. (2010). Perestroika Lost. The New York Times, 13 March. WK9.

• The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. (n.d.). The Truman Doctrine. [Online]. Available at: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/doctrine/large/index.php. [Accessed 13 October 2011].

• United States Government. (2010). National Security Strategy. The White House, Washington.

• Walt, S. (1991). ‘The Renaissance of Security Studies’, International Studies Quarterly. Vol. 35(2). Blackwell Publishing.

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