School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS)

Abstract

Climate change, pandemics, unregulated population migration, cyber security, energy and food supply chain security, people trafficking, and critical infrastructure protection all have one thing in common; they are part of today’s security agenda around the globe. They are non‑traditional security issues which demand a security policy response. Yet scholars and policy makers in the twenty-first century have been challenged about how best to deal with these non-military threats.

In this presentation I will describe the changing security environment in which non‑traditional security issues are now included as credible threats to the economic and well-being of nation-states. I will look at the case for broadening the concept of security with a reduced military focus and argue that events that degrade the quality of life of state and non-state actors threaten national security.

This shift of emphasis to include non-traditional security threats as part of the security agenda has generated much scholarly debate and, while some progress and concessions have been made in the literature, the concept is still not adequately addressed. The challenges of how to deal with non-traditional security threats are pressing and of real concern for policy makers and advisers. The second part of my presentation will look at the some of these challenges faced by nation-states and possible ways to address them in the Asia Pacific region.