By Ozeh, Cornelius Chiedozie
Introduction
The
ever widening interconnection of the economic, technological and
socio-political sectors of the countries of the world necessitated the
redefinition of the concept of security beyond strategic concerns. We are used to think security in terms of
military threats and arising beyond the borders of one’s own country.
Traditionally national security is understood as “the acquisition, deployment
and use of military force to achieve national goals” (Held and McGrew 1998). Walt
(1991) classical view of security promoted a state-centric position that
restricted the application of security to threats in the military realm only.
The
re-conceptualization of security brought about a two dimensional shift from the
original notion of security: broadening,
i.e., consideration of nonmilitary security threats such as environmental
scarcity and degradation, spread of disease, overpopulation, refugee movements,
terrorism; and deepening, i.e.,
consideration of the security of individuals and groups rather than focusing
narrowly on external threats to states such as ethnic conflict, civil war,
environmental threats and survival of individuals (Brown 1994).