Lecture
Security is literally understood as the absence of danger and threats. As applied to society and the state, it is in essence the favorable — that is, peaceful — external and internal conditions of their development. Security may be represented as such a state of international relations and such a position of the state within their system as allows it to respond adequately to emerging dangers and threats. Thus, an understanding of the essence of "security" presupposes taking account of and analyzing its opposite — "danger."
The principal aim of security policy is: to prevent the use of nuclear weapons and other means of mass destruction in resolving international problems; to make people's lives safer and more favorable; to neutralize and check dangers and threats to the interests and values of the individual, society, the state, and the world community.
Social and public security, in the broad sense, is a fairly complex, multi-structured formation classified on many different grounds. By territorial scale and by object, the following types are distinguished within the structure of general security: international, regional, and national.
International security represents such a state of international relations in which favorable peaceful conditions are ensured for the progressive development of all the countries of the world community.
Regional security is the state of security of a region encompassing a group of countries, in which their stability and progressive development are ensured, as well as the collective counteraction of threats.
National security represents such a position of a nation (state) within the system of international relations as enables it, thanks to the particularities and level of its all-round internal development, to ensure guaranteed favorable conditions for the development of the individual, society, and the state, and the capacity to realize its national interests on the world stage.
All these types of security are closely interconnected. This is due to the fact that under contemporary conditions it is impossible for any state to ensure its own security unless the security of all is achieved. The world is indivisible, and any war, even a local or regional one, by virtue of the particularities of the ties among the states of the world community, in one way or another affects the security of each of them. In other words, security can only be universal and equal, and it can be attained only through joint efforts to prevent war.
An in-depth investigation of the essence of security presupposes distinguishing its principal kinds (components). Among these are: political, economic, social, informational, ecological, military, and others. Together they constitute a unified system for ensuring the security of countries, regions, and the international community as a whole.
A special place among them belongs to military security. Military security represents such a state of the interstate and intrastate military-political situation as makes it possible to neutralize and check attempts by destructive forces to inflict damage by military means upon the interests of the individual, society, the state, and the world community, and to ensure the country's sovereignty and its stable, progressive development.
Military security, understood in the broad sense, likewise constitutes a complex system and consists of several varieties.
International military security is a certain state of relations among states and peoples in which their interests are not threatened by external military dangers and threats, in which the peaceful and stable progress of humanity is ensured, along with the possibility for peoples to choose their own path of development independently, and the timely neutralization and termination of military conflicts and local wars.
The fundamental principles of international military security approved by the UN include: the renunciation of dictate and of violence in relations among states and peoples; equality of rights and respect for the security interests of all states; the non-infliction of damage on the security of other countries; the formation of relations among states on the basis of a balance of interests, cooperation, and trust; the balanced reduction of military forces and armaments, above all weapons of mass destruction, under agreed control over disarmament.
The principal directions of policy for ensuring international military security are the following.
First, the limitation of violence through the joint actions of international, regional, and national security systems. Of particular importance here are an effective policy for preventing wars and military conflicts, checking aggression against particular countries, combating international terrorism, and curbing militant nationalism and religious extremism.
Second, the creation and constant improvement of mechanisms of international collective security, the central link of which is the UN Security Council. Their chief purpose is to prevent a world missile-nuclear war, to prevent the spread of nuclear and other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, and to stabilize the socio-political situation in the world. The concrete contours of collective security were worked out by the UN. However, in recent years, owing to pressure from certain forces in the USA, the structures of the UN, in particular the Security Council, have reduced their activity in overcoming dangerous crisis situations. Moreover, after the liquidation of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, the leadership of the USA and NATO frequently act contrary to the requirements of the UN and use military force without the sanction of the Security Council.
Third, the embodiment of agreed norms and principles of global security in the treaty obligations of states, and the creation of effective systems for monitoring their punctual fulfillment.
Fourth, the orientation of the world community and of regional and national political actors toward the priority use of the whole arsenal of political, non-military means and methods of protection against military dangers and threats (negotiations, agreements, compromises, appeals to the International Court, economic blockade, the severance of diplomatic relations, etc.). Only if these means prove insufficient may a demonstration of military force, the dispatch of peacekeeping forces, and other operations by the armed forces of UN members be employed.
Regional military security represents a certain state of relations among the peoples of one or another region in which socio-political stability within it is ensured, along with successful counteraction to military dangers and threats, to pressure, or to aggression against the states of the region. The objective necessity of creating such a system of military security stems from the limited capabilities, or the inability, of individual states of the region to overcome military threats by their own means. The creation of this type of military security presupposes an awareness on the part of the political and military leadership of these countries of the need for joint protection against dangers and threats, and their political will to create reliable mechanisms for the functioning of the collective defense of national interests.
The formation of regional systems of military security was supported by the UN. But at the same time its Charter emphasized that the activity of regional military-political organizations must be conducted in accordance with the principles of the UN. This was prompted by the fact that these organizations, and the states belonging to them, not infrequently pursued their security by military-confrontational methods to the detriment of the interests of other countries. In addition, regional military-political alliances were in some cases created on the initiative of the USA and the leading Western states, which pursued their own quite definite aims.
In order to counter these aspirations, the Warsaw Treaty Organization /WTO/ was created in 1955 as a response to the aggressive designs of the NATO leadership.
For the purpose of ensuring the security, development, and stability of their regions, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe was held in 1975, which resulted in the subsequent creation of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). At the beginning of the 1990s the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) arose, uniting 12 post-Soviet republics, including Russia. However, the intensified pro-NATO aspirations in the policy of some CIS member countries have weakened regional military security in the post-Soviet space.
Military security (or the military component) of national security. Having originated with the appearance of the first states, military security dominated for many years, since ensuring a country's security came down chiefly to defending the state's territory against aggression from without. Under contemporary conditions the provision of security is not confined to the solution of these tasks alone. Alongside them, increased importance is acquired by the defense of the chosen path of socio-economic development, of the values of the chosen model of socio-political organization, and of national traditions and the way of life.
There are several theoretical and methodological approaches to defining the military security of the state.
According to one of them, military security consists in maintaining defence capability at a level sufficient to ensure effective defence and to resolve crisis situations in the immediate vicinity of the country.
In the opinion of other scholars, the principal thing that defines the essence of military security is the country's protection from armed aggression and its readiness for the armed defence of the population, the integrity of its territory and the sovereignty of the country.
Military security is also interpreted as the protection of the vital interests of the state, ensured by the use of the military organisation for its direct purpose.
Military security is also defined as a state of interstate relations and of the country's defence capability such that it would deter other countries from unleashing war or armed aggression. Military security is characterised either by the absence of the use or threat of use of military force against the object of security, or by that object's ability to reliably withstand military pressure in any form.
The concept of military security may be interpreted more broadly. In that case it includes: a system of ideas and views on the defence of the state and society, a particular ideology; a type of activity aimed at preventing military danger and eliminating military threats; a state of social relations characterised by the protection of the interests of the state (the individual, society) from threats connected with the forcible resolution of international and domestic political problems; a system of state institutions called upon to protect society and its citizens from military expansion and from the forcible pressure of internal separatists; a property of a social system that allows it to preserve its own stability – that is, the possibility of sustained dynamic development, integrity and independence – in the face of external expansion; the ability of the state to defend its vital interests.
The points of view cited above reflect one or another aspect of the military security of the state. Their analysis makes it possible to formulate the definition of military security as follows.
The military security of the state is a condition of state institutions and of the country's military organisation in which its reliable defence capability and its protection from military dangers and threats are ensured, armed aggression is prevented or deterred, and, should a direct military danger to the interests of society and the individual arise, their armed defence is carried out.
In considering the external aspect of security, it must be noted that under conditions of a war unleashed against the state, it wages armed struggle in defence of the Fatherland with the aim of destroying the aggressor and restoring peaceful conditions and its own security. In peacetime, the activity of the state and the functioning of the military organisation are directed at preventing war and deterring an aggressor from unleashing it, that is, at preserving peaceful conditions for its existence and ensuring its security. "Russia's national interests in the military sphere," the National Security Concept of the Russian Federation notes in this connection, "consist in protecting its independence, sovereignty, and state and territorial integrity, in preventing military aggression against Russia and its allies, and in facilitating conditions for the peaceful democratic development of the state."
Clarifying the essence of military security presupposes defining its structure. In accordance with such a criterion as the principal actors ensuring military security, it may be represented structurally by three interconnected levels.
The first is the social level. At this level social relations and public opinion are formed, including with regard to the necessity of ensuring military security. In other words, this level may be represented by everything that is done in society in the interests of accomplishing the tasks of military security.
The second level is that of the state. At this level the goals and tasks of state military policy are determined, the conceptual foundations for ensuring military security are elaborated, state structures are created to accomplish these tasks, and their functioning is organised.
The third level is the military one. At this level the problems of ensuring military security are solved in practice, and the military organisation carries out specific military-political, combat-training and, where necessary, combat tasks. This level is connected chiefly with the functioning of the Armed Forces.
Unlike other types of security, the military security of the state possesses specific features. They are determined by its characteristic traits and functions.
The principal traits of military security include the following.
Military security is connected with the necessity of responding to a particular type of dangers and threats – military ones. Military dangers and threats have existed throughout the entire history of humankind. They have led to wars with countless human casualties, colossal material damage and a radical change in the picture of the world. Some military threats give way to others. But they have never been entirely absent, nor are they at present. Moreover, for Russia there is at present an increase in the level and scale of threats in the military sphere. This is connected with the elevation to the rank of strategic doctrine of NATO's shift to the practice of forcible (military) action outside the bloc's zone of responsibility and without the sanction of the UN Security Council, with the growing technological lead of a number of leading powers and the build-up of their capabilities for creating a new generation of armaments and military equipment, with a new stage of the arms race, and with the intensified activity of foreign special services on the country's territory.
Military security is determined by the state of the country's protection from real and possible military dangers and threats. It depends on many factors, but a special role among them belongs to the orientation and effectiveness of military policy. "Military policy is a sphere in which military force is engaged, force possessing enormous capabilities and resources for influencing the processes of the state's life. It establishes social priorities and achieves their realisation by relying on the state's military force. Military policy may be defined as a sphere of social relations in which the interests of large groups of people are reflected and in which military force is engaged."
Military security is directly determined by the capacity of society and the state to eliminate the military dangers and threats that arise. This essential trait of military security presupposes the mandatory presence of forces and assets whose use would make it possible to eliminate existing and possible threats. A special role among these forces belongs to the Armed Forces.
Such are the principal traits of military security, characterising it as one of the most important types of national security.
The principal functions of the state's military security system are the following.
Stimulating the activity of all social and political forces and integrating their efforts to protect, by all means, including military ones, the national, regional and global interests of the country against attempts by hostile forces to inflict damage on them by military means.
The elaboration and adoption of measures to prevent and neutralise potential and real military threats to the democratic, progressive development of the country.
The creation and preparation of Armed Forces capable of countering existing and possible dangers and threats, and the determination of the legal foundations, principles and methods of using these forces to ensure national security.
Direction and control of the actions of the security agencies in the armed defence of the interests of the individual, society and the system of state power, and of the territorial integrity and national independence of the state, against external and internal military dangers and threats, and countering armed destructive actions by political and criminal groups.
Providing guarantees of the socio-political stability of society, and maintaining law and order, legality and civil peace in the country.
Improving state cooperation in the military field with a view to creating an effective system of collective defence and representing the interests of the state at the regional and global levels.
The timely identification of military dangers and threats, forecasting their evolution and possible consequences for the country in the near term and the distant future, adjusting the content of military policy on the basis of forecasting data; and creating conditions for preventing possible dangers and threats or neutralising them painlessly for society.
The functions of military security are not something unchanging. They are directly determined by the character of the military-political situation and depend on the emergence of new problems requiring solution by military means.
An analysis of the military security system allows certain conclusions to be drawn. First, military security is a constituent part of national security, which is implemented by various means (political, diplomatic, administrative, economic, spiritual-ideological, informational and others) used in combination. Military means acquire particular significance when all others have failed to produce the expected result. Second, the international, regional and military security of a particular state are closely interconnected with one another.
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