Globalization and New Issues about Security



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).