National security once meant armies; now it covers food, power grids and ecosystems
In 1943 Walter Lippmann defined a secure nation as one that need not give up its legitimate interests to avoid war, and could defend them by war if challenged. Later definitions kept widening, until by the 1990s they took in economic structure, technology, natural resources and public wellbeing alongside military strength.
The drift is visible in the definitions themselves. Harold Lasswell in 1950 framed security as freedom from foreign dictation. Arnold Wolfers in 1960 split it into an objective absence of threats to cherished values and a subjective absence of fear. Harold Brown, US defence secretary from 1977 to 1981, included fair economic relations with the world and control of borders, and Charles Maier in 1990 spoke of controlling whatever conditions a community believes it needs for autonomy and prosperity.
Threats now come in many forms: attacks by other states, including cyberattacks; violent non-state groups; organised crime such as drug cartels; and floods or earthquakes. Deeper drivers that cross borders include climate change, inequality, political exclusion and the spread of nuclear weapons. Governments therefore talk about economic, energy, food, environmental, border and cyber security as separate dimensions, closely tied to the ingredients of national power. Some analysts, including Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, stress political security, meaning a stable social order.
Infrastructure has become a central concern. Airports, bridges, hospitals, dams, power plants, refineries, seaports and water systems are all vulnerable to sabotage, contamination or natural disaster. Many countries assign dedicated forces to them, such as the United States Federal Protective Service and the British Transport Police, and even railway operators like Amtrak run their own police.
Military power still dominates in practice. Most states, including South Africa and Sweden, build their forces mainly for territorial defence, while France, Russia, Britain and the United States pay for costly expeditionary capabilities to operate abroad. The possible arenas of conflict have grown from land and sea to air, space, cyberspace and psychological operations. Increasingly, governments write all of this down in a formal national security strategy; Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States had done so by 2017, and India set up its national security council system on 19 November 1998.
Source: National security
