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SHORT DRAFT ON SECURITY ECONOMICS
SHORT DRAFT ON SECURITY
OF ECNONOMICS
Aline BIKERNIECE ppłk dr inż. Sylwester T. KUREK
University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia Akademia Obrony Narodowej
Erasmus Student at NDU, Warsaw, Poland
Ekonomika bezpieczeństwa, głównie z uwagi na coraz to silniejsze oddziaływanie czynnika gospodarczego na współczesne środowisko bezpieczeństwa, stała się niezwykle aktualnym obszarem dociekań naukowo-badawczych. Różnorodność problemów podejmowanych w ramach tej, stosunkowo młodej, dyscypliny naukowej sprawia, że poglądy na treść i zakres ekonomiki bezpieczeństwa nie zostały jednoznacznie skrystalizowane. Co więcej, w literaturze przedmiotu można spotkać wiele różnorodnych podejść próbujących opisać ten specyficzny obszar naukowych penetracji, które można nazwać „narodowymi” ujęciami ekonomiki. Przedstawione fakty sprawiają, że w takim ujęciu zostały opracowane dwa, krótkie eseje autorstwa Veroniki Pastorowej i Aline Bikernice. Pierwszy – „Economics Of Security In Czech Point Of View” – ukazuje ekonomikę bezpieczeństwa z punktu widzenia badań prowadzonych w Republice Czeskiej. Drugi, pt. „Short Draft On Security Economics”, jest próbą nakreślenia szerszego kontekstu ekonomiki bezpieczeństwa jako obszaru rozważań nad bezpieczeństwem jako dobrem i potrzebą do zaspokojenia w wymiarze społeczno-ekonomiczno-politycznym. Z uwagi na wielkość obu opracowań oraz ich charakter, powinny być one traktowane jedynie jako głos
w dyskusji.
Introduction
Security economics is a relatively new part of the discipline of economics and at the same time a fast growing field. There is no agreement on the concept of security economics yet. Quite many definitions have been produced, but none of them is generally accepted. The very concept of security economics is contested.
This paper is divided into four parts. The first part introduces the reader to terms: security, human security, what leads to better comprehension of economic security. The second part provides general information of defense economy during peacetime and wartime, expenditures during these times and, through literature review, familiarizes the reader with defense economic during peace and wartime. The third chapter describes the normative problem of defense economics. The fourth and the last part reveal economic security in the era of globalization when the conventional warfare risks are diminished, but the risks of terrorism and local conflicts become more important.
Characterizing the economic security as a part of security
economics problems
If we would like to understand what economic security is, we must first define what security is. There is no agreement on the concept of security. Even though the wide range of studies of security have been published over the past sixty years, no single generally accepted definition of security has been produced. The very concept of security economics is contested. According to Bellany security is “a relative freedom from war, coupled with a relatively high expectation that defeat will not be a consequence of any war that should occur” . These days security is often defined as absence of threats or risks. Thereby nowadays the attention shifts away from the state-centered notion as “national security” to a concept of “human security” which focuses on individuals.
“Human security” aims at addressing today’s security threats in an integrated multidimensional and comprehensive way. By focusing on individuals and communities human security looks beyond the security of borders to the lives of the people and communities inside and across those borders, and provides the analytical framework for developing policies that not only shield people from critical threats but also empower them to take charge of their own lives.
Now we can focus on defining the economics of security.
The common notion of economic security is relatively well understood. It is static components related to the size, diversification and technological level of domestic industrial production, to the degree of:
- self-sufficiency in food,
- self-sufficiency in essential raw materials,
- self-sufficiency in fuels,
- raw material storage,
- level of development,
- size,
- geographical situation.
In this context a typical definition would be the one employed by Michael Intriligator, who says, that defense economics is concerned with that part of the overall economy involving defense-related issues, including the level of defense spending, both in total and as a fraction of the overall economy; the impacts of defense expenditure, both domestically for output and employment and internationally for impacts on other nationals; the reasons for the existence and size of the defense sector; the relation of defense spending to technical change; and the implications of defense spending and the defense sector for international stability of instability.
Nevertheless the concept - security economics can be defined as ”those activities affected by, preventing, dealing with and mitigating insecurity including terrorism in the economy. Such broad definition includes private and public activities in both legal and illegal areas of the economy”.
We could also definite security economics as, “field of national economic management concerned with the economic effects of military expenditure, the management of economics in .
Defense economy during peacetime v. war time
War economics is as old as war itself, as a special field of interest war economy did not emerge until the twentieth century. This branch of investigation is much younger than its subject matter.
War economy is the term used to describe the contingencies undertaken by the modern state to mobilize its economy for war production. Philippe Le Billon describes a war economy as a ”system of producing, mobilizing and allocating resources to sustain the violence”. There are not only human activities to be re-allocated; everything that society possesses, all natural re-sources and instruments of production, every productive agent must be employed for the prosecution of war.
Speaking about defense economics in wartime there is no such thing as an inexpensive war. First, there is the human cost in loss of life and in the physical and psychological maiming of healthy people. While the personal cost of such loss is immeasurable, the
Also during times of peace military budged must be managed. As Economics Nobel Prize laureate Prof. Israel Aumann says: ”In order to achieve peace we must first and foremost be prepared for war”. Maintaining a strong military during peacetime is expensive. Among the costs are recruiting, training, and support military personnel. These costs include maintaining a pay scale for the military that encourages highly motivated and trained personnel to stay in the military for
a career, create conditions for civilians surviving in the extreme situation, run the science and research studies in defense and security fields, participate in the task and operations for the alliance’s armies and in realizing defense investments, gather state reserves, ensure with necessaries weapons.
To sum up, peacetime defense economics focuses on issues of allocation of resources between the military and civilian sectors, the relative size and character of the various armed forces, and the choices and design of their weapons.
Defense: A normative problem in economics
The lengthy and disperse list of changes to security aftermath the Cold War makes it harder to think through and organize the normative defense problems where all objectives are no longer merged into the goal of containment, but the goal still remains an achievement of a good overall Pareto resolution of risk and conflict. Even though the underlying environment has changed a lot, in a way the same normative imperatives endure. Assuming armed forces can advance these objectives, the old imperatives include:
- avoid/minimize global or greater power war but prevail if it occurs,
- avert/minimize nuclear war but suffer least and prevail in the event,
- prevent/minimize nuclear, chemical, biologic terror, or other large ongoing criminal events,
- facilitate peaceful political and economic development favorable to democratic ideals, and interest of democratic countries,
- manage/minimize “freelance” inter-state violence in its many forms,
- suppress or diminish intra-state violence where desirable to do so.
The objective of “prevail” remains essential even if it places defense economics on one side of a quarrel. The normative problem of defense economics involves14:
- how to specify these goals?
- how to measure and weight them?
- recommend the extent to achieve them,
- do this at the lowest cost.
At this level of national and international policy the academic community of defense experts remains on the fringes. Moreover, economics has competition: the entire discipline of international relations is devoted to understanding the deeper root of conflict. Yet economics retains an important role even at this level of grand strategy - the role of identifying relationships among policies and objectives, and researching for efficient resolutions.
Economic security in Era of Globalization
The nature of security threat has changed since the end of the Cold War, but the world remains a dangerous place with myriad security concerns. In recent years the conventional warfare risks have diminished, but the risks of terrorism and local conflicts have become more important. The International Task Force on Global Public Goods distinguishes six clusters of interconnected security threats:
- war between states,
- internal conflicts,
- terrorism,
- organized crime,
- use and spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons,
- poverty, infectious disease and severe environmental degradation.
This broad definition encompasses natural catastrophes as well as criminal attacks. Causes and consequences of these events differ a lot. Therefore, a further distinction can be made with regard to natural or biological threats, war and (internal) conflicts of societies and human-induced insecurity. Human-induced insecurities is defined as insecurities resulting from action undertaken by agent that result in damage to third person and/or their property. The damage may be inflicted on purpose or accepted as a byproduct. Terrorism and organized crime are examples of human induced insecurities. Human-induced insecurity takes important place in global world.
New technology in the form of information revolution has contributed to creating a ...
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