Security Studies: western birth and raise.

Literature on security discipline has been initiated from the heart of the western states, it was as early 1942 with the publish of “Qyincy Wright's Study of War, to during world war II which is considered as “the golden age” or the “first wave of security studies“ 1 , during which civilians were more evoked to participate in advocating and planning the world security. Work on literature post nuclear power recognition evolved to cover “alternative strategies, cause of stability, alternative targeting polices, potential value of arms control & role of conventional forces and limited war in the nuclear age”2. American universities trended with the fashionable domain,” major graduate schools for International affairs were founded in such Johns Hopkins & Columbia universities in addition to research centers focusing on national & international security 3. Nevertheless, such a trend have failed to stretch ““the golden age” or the “first wave of security studies” by mid 1960”, as scholars have “failed to produce Ph.D. students”4. Literature shifted after the emergence of U.S-Soviet cold war from the study of the war to the international political economy, due to the US economic deteriorating position, stressing more on the role of economics. Shift also affected topics to investigate, going to application away from theory that has enlightened the scholars of the “golden age”. In once instance Walt stresses has described as more serious danger “the politicization of research support”, he identifies more number of institutes and foundation that facilitate the search of the scholars in this domain based on their political views, which will eventually threaten the integrity of the security studies.

Drivers of the emergence of the security Studies in early 1940, to the “the golden age” or the “first wave of security studies 1 ; to post 9/11, have been the political, military & economic position of the west. It came with world’s urge for peace development and order of the world, nevertheless, it is does not undermine the truth it is a western product as Barry Buzan and Lene Hansen indicate " Like IR itself, ISS is mainly a Western subject, largely done in North America, Europe and Australia with all of the Western-centrisms that this entails " 5. Although challenges have been made to the traditional frameworks of the field, new factors that saw the light to widen its boundaries. Attempts by writers such Mohammed Ayoob 6 has put the substantial reasons that security studies did not have theoretical tools to analyze the Third World. These tools need to take into account Third World’s particular historical, political, social and cultural dimensions. Requirement for such a frame within Security Studies is applicable due to the major differences between the western and the non- western social, political, economic, interest and cultural aspects

Post-colonial studies portraits the struggle between colonized and western countries as a struggle between “what is considered Western, modern, urban, industrialized, upwardly mobile and masculine [with] no mimicry [leaving] behind the so-called traditional sectors and natives who are backward, rural, agricultural, socially stagnant, and feminine”7. Mohammed Ayoob in The Third World Security Predicament defines the term Third World as describing “the underdeveloped, poor, weak states of Asia, Africa, and Latin America that together make up a substantial numerical majority among the members of the International system”.8

The Security definition in particular, seems varied in the west from the Third world countries. Health, famine, water, fragile economic (managed by IMF), territorial boundaries are the main concerns of Third World countries, while military power, economic domination are western leaders ambitions, which are the built of the basis of securing food, money and people development. What is west have secured during the evolution of their states, third world countries have missed while they were under the western military, territorial colony. The inheritance of the western structure in third world countries have only contributed in misunderstanding the democracy, national security and nation interest.

Generally, Third world sees the security studies as the manifestation of the western ideas of ordering states relation, as well as relation between the society and the state. Also they foresee it as notion of the western democracy system, where the power of determination is in hand of the people, in addition to the vast difference of the definition of security between Western countries and the rest of the worlds’ countries, have helped in widening the gap between what third world societies, states perceive as security from what the western states see as a security discipline, which is revolutionized based in the interest of the greater powers.

Michael J. Glennon 9 discuses the selectiveness of intervention mainly U.S and the west have played in the last 70 years world turmoil, he also integrates the reasons for such selectiveness. Main concern was the inability of UN charter and the International law to govern aggressively the rules of intervention, he states examples of domestic instability in Somalia, Rwanda, & Haiti, where the UN charter have failed to legally and constituently addressed when is was drafted. He proposed the reason of going to historical conflicts between states and neglecting the fact that, inner-states conflicts should be addressed. What we are currently witnessing in these days is the lack of the world’s great power countries to intervene in the Syrian situation, not only for the political, ethnics, western economic interest in Middle east, but also for such action should be legalized by the UN security council.

Such a conflict would lead to the wish of re-drafting of the UN charter. The necessity to include in world’s countries internal and external politics, Third world security fears, International relations and the changes that theorist did not address in their theories. The participation of great power countries as well as the majority of the world countries in the world’s legitimate charter would enrich it, propose collective solutions , instead of the unilateral actions, foresee future issues and prescribe the balanced solutions.

1- Walt (fn. 19); and Colin Gray, Strategic Studies and Public Policy: The American Experience (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1982).

2- Stephen M. Walt ,International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 2. (Jun., 1991), pp. 211-239

3- SECURITY STUDIES AND THE END OF THE COLD WAR By DAVID A. BALDWIN P 121

4- Stephen M. Walt ,International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 2. (Jun., 1991), pp. 215-216

5- THE EVOLUTION OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES, 2009, p1

6- Ayoob, Mohammed, The Third World Security Predicament (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995)

7- Ling, L.H.M. “Cultural Chauvinism And The Liberal International Order: “West versus Rest” in Asia’s financial crisis”” in Power in a postcolonial world: race, gender, and class in International Relationsed. Geeta Chowdhury and Sheila Nair (London: Routledge, 2002):p 121

8- Ayoob, Mohammed, The Third World Security Predicament (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995), P 12

9- The New Interventionism: The Search for a Just International Law by Michael J. Glennon Source: Foreign Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1999), pp. 2-7