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Security

Security denotes the state or practices aimed at safeguarding valued entities—such as lives, property, information, or institutions—from threats, risks, or harm, often defined as the low probability of damage inflicted by external actors or the ability to withstand and recover from crises.^[1]^[2] This concept encompasses both objective dimensions, like measurable resilience against dangers, and subjective elements, such as reduced anxiety from perceived safety.^[1] Rooted in human vulnerability to scarcity and conflict, security has been philosophically framed since antiquity, with thinkers like Thomas Hobbes arguing that without a sovereign authority, individuals face perpetual insecurity in a "war of all against all," necessitating the state as the primary guarantor of protection.^[3] In practice, it manifests across domains including physical measures against intrusion or violence, informational safeguards via core principles of confidentiality (restricting access to authorized parties), integrity (ensuring data accuracy and unaltered state), and availability (maintaining reliable access), national strategies to preserve sovereignty amid geopolitical threats, and economic policies to buffer against instability.^[4]^[5] While empirical advancements in technologies like surveillance and encryption have enhanced capabilities, controversies arise in balancing security with liberties, as expansive definitions can justify overreach, and institutional biases in policy discourse often prioritize certain threats over others based on ideological lenses rather than causal evidence of harm.^[6]

Etymology and Historical Evolution

Etymology

The term "security" originates from the Latin noun sēcuritās, denoting a state of being free from care, anxiety, or danger. This derives from the adjective sēcūrus, formed by the prefix sē- ("without" or "free from") combined with cūra ("care," "worry," or "concern"), thus literally implying a condition unburdened by existential threats or uncertainties.^[7]^[8] In classical Roman usage, sēcuritās emphasized personal or communal tranquility and safety, often personified as a goddess symbolizing stability amid potential perils, without implying expansive societal or ideological constructs.^[9] The concept retained this core sense of absence of threat through medieval Latin and Old French securité, where it denoted protection from physical harm or doubt, entering Middle English by the early 15th century as "securite" to signify freedom from peril.^[9]

Historical Development

The concept of security in early human societies centered on communal defense against existential threats from rival groups and environmental hazards, with empirical evidence from archaeological records showing fortified settlements dating back to the Neolithic period around 10,000 BCE in regions like the Fertile Crescent. In antiquity, this evolved into organized military structures for territorial integrity, as exemplified by the Roman legions, which originated during the Roman Kingdom circa 753 BCE and were refined through reforms in the 4th century BCE to counter invasions from Gauls and other tribes, relying on disciplined infantry and frontier fortifications to maintain empire stability amid constant barbarian pressures.^[10]^[11] The Treaty of Westphalia, signed on October 24, 1648, marked a pivotal causal shift by ending the Thirty Years' War and institutionalizing state sovereignty, wherein rulers gained exclusive authority over domestic affairs and territorial defense without external religious or imperial interference, thereby prioritizing balance-of-power mechanisms over medieval universalism to prevent large-scale conflagrations.^[12] This framework anchored security in verifiable interstate dynamics, evidenced by subsequent European congresses like Utrecht in 1713 that reinforced equilibrium to avert dominance by any single power. During the 20th century, industrialization and total war necessitated scaled-up state capabilities, culminating in the Cold War (1947–1991) where security hinged on nuclear deterrence to avert mutual annihilation. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established on April 4, 1949, as a collective defense pact among 12 founding members to counter Soviet conventional threats in Europe, with its strategy evolving to incorporate tactical nuclear weapons by the 1950s under doctrines like massive retaliation.^[13] Empirical support for deterrence's efficacy includes the absence of direct U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange despite crises like the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, where credible second-strike capabilities—bolstered by over 30,000 warheads at peak—imposed rational restraint on rational actors, though proxy conflicts in Korea (1950–1953) and Vietnam (1955–1975) tested conventional resolve without escalating to thermonuclear levels.^[14] Post-Cold War, the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 prompted debates on broadening security beyond military state threats, with the United Nations Development Programme's 1994 Human Development Report defining "human security" as freedom from fear and want across seven interlinked dimensions—economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political—shifting emphasis to individual vulnerabilities amid globalization.^[15] Critics, particularly from state-centric perspectives, argue this expansive approach dilutes focus on quantifiable interstate risks like aggression, complicating policy prioritization by conflating chronic socioeconomic issues with acute survival threats, as evidenced by subsequent reports' vague metrics that prioritize normative ideals over causal analyses of power imbalances.^[16]

Core Concepts

Definitions and Referents

Security denotes the state of reduced vulnerability to intentional threats that could undermine the survival or core functions of a referent object, emphasizing the objective mitigation of risks to vital interests over subjective sensations of assurance. This conception prioritizes measurable outcomes, such as the sustained probability of entity preservation amid adversarial pressures, rather than perceptual or emotional metrics.^[1] ^[17] In security discourse, referent objects—the entities whose security is at stake—primarily encompass states, whose vital interests revolve around sovereignty, territorial integrity, and institutional continuity, alongside individuals, whose concerns center on freedom from physical violence, economic deprivation, or rights violations. Empirical assessments reveal that state-level vulnerabilities exert a pronounced causal influence on individual-level harms; for instance, nations scoring highly on the Fragile States Index, which aggregates indicators of cohesion, economic decline, and human flight, exhibit markedly elevated incidences of population-wide violence, displacement, and mortality, underscoring how state erosion precipitates diffuse personal insecurity rather than the converse.^[18] ^[19] Security is demarcated from safety, which addresses safeguards against unintentional or accidental perils, including environmental hazards or systemic errors, in contrast to security's focus on deliberate, agent-driven antagonism such as military invasion or targeted disruption.^[20] ^[21] It further contrasts with resilience, defined as the post-harm aptitude for restoration and adaptation to disruptions, whereas security entails proactive diminishment of threat exposure to avert damage altogether.^[22] ^[23]

First-Principles Foundations

Security emerges from the fundamental human drive for self-preservation, a biological imperative rooted in evolutionary processes where organisms prioritize survival amid environmental pressures and competition for limited resources.^[24] Charles Darwin's framework posits that failure to adapt to threats results in elimination from the gene pool, extending to social behaviors where individuals and groups defend against harm from rivals seeking the same scarce necessities like food and territory.^[25] In human contexts, this instinct manifests as collective security measures against aggression driven by resource scarcity, which historically correlates with heightened conflict and violence.^[26] Power asymmetries exacerbate vulnerabilities, as weaker entities face exploitation or subjugation by stronger competitors, necessitating defensive capacities to maintain autonomy.^[27] Causally, security in an anarchic environment—lacking a supranational enforcer—demands self-reliant capabilities, particularly deterrence through credible threats of retaliation, rather than reliance on unenforceable assurances.^[28] Game-theoretic models, such as the Prisoner's Dilemma applied to international interactions, illustrate how mutual suspicion in zero-sum resource disputes leads rational actors to prioritize arming over unilateral disarmament, as defection (aggression) yields advantages absent binding commitments.^[29] ^[30] Deterrence succeeds by altering adversaries' cost-benefit calculations via demonstrated force, rendering attacks unprofitable, whereas diplomacy alone falters without this backing, as verbal pledges dissolve under temptation in repeated encounters. ^[31] Normative expansions of security to encompass freedoms from want or inequality diverge from these empirical foundations by disregarding resource trade-offs in finite systems, where allocations to socioeconomic buffers inherently diminish provisions for existential threats. Pre-World War II Europe exemplifies this dynamic: Britain's defense outlays hovered at 2.2% of GDP in 1933, rising tardily to 6.9% by 1938 amid competing fiscal demands including social programs during the Depression, while Germany's rearmament surged to 13% of GDP by 1936, facilitating territorial ambitions.^[32] ^[33] Such imbalances underscore how prioritizing welfare over military readiness can erode deterrence, inviting predation in power vacuums, as causal chains link budgetary diversions to heightened vulnerability rather than holistic stability.^[34]

Capabilities, Effects, and Empirical Measurement

Security capabilities encompass military assets, intelligence apparatuses, and formal alliances that enable states to deter or repel threats. Military strength, particularly nuclear arsenals, underpins extended deterrence strategies, as survivable second-strike capabilities make conquest prohibitively costly for adversaries.^[35] Intelligence networks provide early warning and operational advantages, while alliances like NATO amplify collective defense, distributing risks and resources among members.^[36] These capabilities have produced effects including a marked decline in great-power wars since 1945, with no direct conflicts between nuclear-armed states despite tensions such as the Cold War. Nuclear deterrence has effectively prevented escalation to major interstate wars, as evidenced by the absence of invasions among nuclear powers and the restraint shown in crises like the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.^[37] Alliances correlate with reduced invasion risks; for instance, NATO members have faced no territorial incursions from peer competitors since the alliance's 1949 founding, contrasting with non-allied states vulnerable to aggression.^[38] Empirical measurement relies on datasets tracking conflict incidence and severity. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) records 259 armed conflicts from 1946 to 2014, with interstate wars comprising a minority and none between great powers post-World War II; trends show a rise in intrastate conflicts but sustained rarity of high-intensity interstate engagements among major powers.^[39] ^[40] The Global Peace Index (GPI) quantifies peacefulness via indicators like militarization and conflict deaths, revealing that while global military expenditure reached $2.7 trillion in 2024, higher defense spending in secure alliances often aligns with lower external conflict involvement rather than causation of violence.^[41] High security investments carry negative effects, including opportunity costs that divert funds from productive sectors. Empirical studies across 135 countries from 1992 to 2020 indicate military spending efficiency varies but often crowds out growth-enhancing investments, with a 1% increase in military budgets linked to a 0.62% reduction in public health spending.^[42] ^[43] Panel analyses of non-OECD nations from 1988 to 2019 confirm military expenditures generally impede long-term economic growth by reallocating resources from education and infrastructure.^[44] RAND assessments highlight that while defense may yield spillovers like technological innovation, the net opportunity costs exceed benefits in non-crisis periods, as funds shifted to civilian programs could generate higher multipliers for employment and GDP.^[45]

Theoretical Perspectives

Realist and State-Centric Views

Realist theories of security center on the state as the principal unit of analysis in an anarchic international system, where the absence of overarching authority necessitates self-help for survival and security. States, driven by the imperatives of power politics rooted in human nature's inherent drive for dominance, pursue national interests defined primarily in terms of relative capabilities, such as military strength and alliances, to deter threats and maximize influence.^[46] This perspective, articulated in Hans Morgenthau's Politics Among Nations (1948), posits six principles of political realism, including that politics obeys objective laws grounded in unchanging human motivations for power, that interest is defined in terms of power, and that moral principles cannot universally guide state actions without risking national ruin.^[47] Morgenthau emphasized that security arises not from ethical appeals or institutions but from prudent calculations of power balances, as idealistic pursuits often collapse against the realities of state competition.^[48] Classical foundations of this view appear in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War (c. 411 BCE), which attributes the 431–404 BCE conflict between Athens and Sparta to structural fears induced by power shifts in an ungoverned system, famously capturing the dictum that "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."^[49] Thucydides' analysis underscores causal realism: wars stem from anarchy's incentives for preemptive action rather than miscommunication or ideology, with security dilemmas arising when one state's defensive measures threaten others' vital interests.^[50] Empirical validation of balance-of-power mechanisms, a core realist strategy for security, is evident in the Concert of Europe (1815–1914), where post-Napoleonic great powers—Austria, Britain, Prussia, and Russia—coordinated via congresses to contain disruptions, preventing hegemony and limiting wars to localized conflicts for nearly a century.^[51] This arrangement succeeded by aligning self-interested states against imbalances, as seen in interventions like the 1820 suppression of revolutions, demonstrating how mutual deterrence under anarchy can yield prolonged stability without supranational enforcement.^[52] Realists critique idealist alternatives for neglecting these dynamics, as exemplified by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which imposed disarmament and reparations on Germany without forging a sustainable European power equilibrium, thereby inviting revanchism and the power vacuum exploited in 1939.^[53] Proponents like Morgenthau argued that such treaties, prioritizing punitive justice over pragmatic containment, ignore the causal role of unresolved grievances in fueling state aggression, contrasting with balance-of-power successes by substituting moral absolutism for empirical power assessment.^[54] This failure highlights realism's insistence on state-centric security: absent credible threats of force, agreements dissolve, affirming that enduring peace derives from calibrated capabilities rather than institutional optimism.^[55]

Widening and Critical Approaches

![Syrians and Iraq refugees arrive at Skala Sykamias, Lesvos, Greece][float-right] Following the end of the Cold War, security studies expanded beyond military threats to encompass economic, societal, and environmental dimensions, often termed "widening." This shift emphasized human-centered vulnerabilities over state-centric defense, as articulated in the United Nations Development Programme's 1994 Human Development Report, which defined human security as protection from chronic threats like hunger and disease, prioritizing people over territories and sustainable development over armaments.^[56] The report argued that such threats undermined global stability more pervasively than traditional interstate conflicts, influencing policy frameworks like the EU's integration of migration and climate into security agendas.^[15] Securitization theory, developed by Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver, and Jaap de Wilde in their 1998 book Security: A New Framework for Analysis, formalized this broadening by positing that issues become securitized through elite speech acts that frame them as existential threats necessitating extraordinary measures beyond normal politics.^[57] Applied to non-military domains, it explained how migration flows or economic interdependence could be portrayed as dangers to societal identity or stability, justifying policies like border fortifications despite lacking inherent military equivalence.^[58] Empirical applications, such as framing irregular migration as a security issue in Europe, highlighted how discursive elevation could mobilize resources but also risked overextension.^[59] Critical security studies, exemplified by Ken Booth's work, advanced an emancipatory agenda, viewing security as liberation from oppressive structures rather than mere survival or state protection. Booth contended that true security requires dismantling power hierarchies that perpetuate insecurity, critiquing realist emphases on order and advocating for egalitarian processes to address root causes like inequality.^[60] This perspective, rooted in Frankfurt School influences, prioritized subjective freedoms over objective threat assessments, influencing academic discourse on global injustices as security dilemmas.^[61] However, implementations of widened agendas have shown correlations with decisional gridlock; for instance, the EU's securitization of the 2015 migration crisis—amid over 1 million irregular arrivals—coincided with fragmented responses, policy disputes among member states, and sustained border pressures, underscoring challenges in prioritizing amid diluted foci.^[62]^[63] Constructivist approaches further challenged materialist views by asserting that threats are intersubjectively constructed through social practices and identities, rather than arising solely from objective capabilities. Scholars like Alexander Wendt argued that anarchy's security implications depend on shared meanings, allowing non-material factors like norms to shape perceptions of danger.^[64] Yet, causal analyses in international relations reveal that material power distributions—such as military expenditures and alliances—more reliably predict conflict avoidance and deterrence success than discursive constructions alone, as evidenced by post-World War II stability patterns tied to nuclear balances over perceptual shifts.^[65] This suggests that while social construction influences threat interpretation, underlying capabilities impose realist constraints, limiting the efficacy of purely ideational reframings in high-stakes scenarios.^[66]

Key Debates and Contested Theories

A central debate in security studies contrasts narrow conceptions, centered on military threats to the state, with widened approaches incorporating human, societal, and environmental dimensions. Proponents of narrowing argue that broadening dilutes analytical focus and resource allocation, leading to empirical failures in addressing existential threats; for instance, data from failed state interventions show that prioritizing humanitarian or developmental agendas over core military stabilization correlates with prolonged instability and heightened state vulnerability. In Somalia, the 1992 U.S.-led Operation Restore Hope initially focused on humanitarian relief but expanded into wider nation-building under UNOSOM II (1993–1995), resulting in mission creep, the October 1993 Battle of Mogadishu with 18 U.S. fatalities, and ultimate withdrawal amid unchecked warlord violence, as evidenced by post-intervention assessments highlighting overextension beyond military capabilities.^[67]^[68] Realist critiques, drawing on historical patterns, contend that such widening ignores causal primacy of power imbalances, with quantitative analyses of post-Cold War interventions indicating lower success rates (e.g., below 30% stabilization in broadened missions per Uppsala Conflict Data Program metrics) compared to narrowly targeted operations.^[69] Securitization theory, articulated by Ole Wæver as a speech-act wherein declaring an issue an existential threat justifies extraordinary measures, faces realist pushback emphasizing material over discursive dimensions of danger. Wæver's framework posits security as performative utterance elevating issues beyond politics, but critics argue it underweights objective threats like military capabilities or resource scarcities, potentially enabling elite manipulation without addressing underlying causal structures.^[70] Empirical evidence from post-9/11 policies illustrates mixed efficacy: securitization of terrorism via U.S. declarations enabled the Patriot Act (2001) and invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), averting domestic plots (e.g., 100+ disruptions per FBI data) but incurring $8 trillion in costs, regional destabilization fostering ISIS, and civil liberty erosions without proportionally reducing global jihadist attacks, as tracked by the Global Terrorism Database showing persistent threats through 2020.^[71]^[72] Realists highlight that performative securitization succeeded against immediate tactical risks but failed causally against ideological and power-driven adversaries, underscoring the limits of discourse absent material deterrence. Debates between emancipatory critical theories, which prioritize liberating individuals from structural insecurities, and realism, stressing state power and anarchy, reveal predictive divergences, with the latter better accounting for great-power conflicts. Emancipatory approaches, as in Ken Booth's framework, critique realism for perpetuating hierarchies but have empirically faltered in forecasting events driven by balance-of-power dynamics, such as Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, where NATO expansion triggered Moscow's security dilemma amid perceived encirclement.^[73] Realist analyses, like John Mearsheimer's pre-invasion warnings of inevitable clash over spheres of influence, aligned with outcomes—Ukraine's post-2014 Western alignment provoked Russian intervention, resulting in over 500,000 casualties by 2025 per Oryx confirmed losses—while critical theories' normative focus on identity and emancipation overlooked raw power calculations, as evidenced by their scant pre-2022 emphasis on military deterrence over discursive peacebuilding.^[74]^[75] This underscores realism's causal edge in high-stakes scenarios, where empirical conflict data (e.g., Correlates of War project) consistently prioritize material capabilities over ideational emancipation.^[76]

Security Contexts

National and International Security

National and international security refer to state efforts to protect sovereignty, territory, and core interests from external aggression, primarily through military deterrence, alliances, intelligence cooperation, and diplomatic maneuvers. These strategies aim to prevent or respond to interstate threats, with empirical outcomes shaped by the balance of power and credible commitments to retaliation. Since 1945, the absence of world wars among great powers has been linked to nuclear deterrence under mutually assured destruction (MAD), where the certainty of devastating counterstrikes inhibits escalation to total conflict.^[77]^[78] Data on interstate conflicts show a marked decline in their scale and frequency post-1945, with no wars matching the mobilization levels of World Wars I and II; this "long peace" correlates with the spread of nuclear arsenals, as MAD raised the costs of aggression beyond tolerable thresholds for major powers.^[79] Arms races during the Cold War, while escalating tensions, empirically stabilized deterrence by ensuring parity, averting direct superpower clashes despite proxy wars.^[80] Alliances reinforce deterrence through collective commitments; NATO's Article 5, stipulating that an attack on one member is an attack on all, was invoked solely after the September 11, 2001, attacks, enabling coordinated responses, while post-2022 Russia-Ukraine developments prompted Article 4 consultations and bolstered eastern flank deployments to signal resolve without direct invocation.^[81] The Five Eyes intelligence partnership—uniting the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—has sustained effectiveness since its 1946 origins by enabling seamless signals intelligence sharing, aiding threat detection against state actors like Russia and China.^[82]^[83] Emerging challenges include hybrid warfare, as Russia's 2014 Crimea annexation and 2022 Ukraine invasion demonstrated, integrating conventional incursions with propaganda and subversion to erode defenses below full-war thresholds, yielding territorial gains at the cost of over 15% foregone GDP for Ukraine from 2013 onward via synthetic control estimates.^[84]^[85] Great-power rivalries, such as U.S.-China frictions in the 2020s over Taiwan and maritime domains, fuel military expansions and risk miscalculation, with U.S. strategies emphasizing industrial base revitalization and pacts like AUKUS to maintain qualitative edges.^[86]^[87] Critiques of these approaches note overreliance on coercive tools like sanctions, which have proven insufficient against adaptive regimes; North Korea's leadership has endured U.N. measures since 2006 by exploiting smuggling networks and ties to China, advancing its nuclear arsenal despite economic contractions, as evasion tactics sustain elite loyalty over broader collapse.^[88]^[89] This resilience highlights causal limits of isolation without military backing, prompting calls for deterrence rooted in verifiable capabilities rather than economic pressure alone.^[90]

Individual and Human Security

The human security paradigm, as articulated in the United Nations Development Programme's 1994 Human Development Report, reorients security toward individuals rather than states, defining it as protection from pervasive threats and disruptions to daily life through "freedom from fear" (violence and conflict) and "freedom from want" (economic deprivation and inequality).^[15] This framework encompasses seven interrelated dimensions: economic security (sustained employment and income), food security (access to nutrition), health security (protection from diseases), environmental security (sustainable resource use), personal security (safety from violence), community security (group protections), and political security (human rights and state accountability).^[56] Proponents argue it addresses root causes of insecurity holistically, but the concept's breadth has drawn criticism for vagueness, as its undefined scope risks conflating security with general development goals, complicating prioritization and empirical evaluation.^[91]^[92] Empirical evidence challenges the paradigm's emphasis on securitizing deprivation, showing that substantial reductions in poverty—a core "freedom from want" element—have stemmed from market-driven growth rather than interventionist security frameworks. In East Asia, export-oriented policies, private investment, and institutional stability from 1965 to 1990 yielded average annual GDP per capita growth exceeding 7%, halving poverty rates in countries like South Korea and Indonesia through integration into global trade, not expansive welfare securitization.^[93]^[94] These outcomes underscore causal links between secure property rights, low corruption, and rule-of-law enforcement—enabling entrepreneurial agency—over vague human security metrics that often prioritize state-led redistribution without verifiable deprivation impacts.^[95] Individual security prioritizes personal agency against violence, with data indicating that self-defense capabilities, including private firearm ownership under permissive laws, correlate with deterrence in contested studies. Estimates of defensive gun uses in the United States range from 61,000 to over 1.8 million annually, often exceeding reported violent crimes and suggesting a protective role where victims resist attackers.^[96]^[97] Cross-national comparisons reveal trade-offs: while U.S. firearm homicide rates (approximately 4.5 per 100,000 in recent years) exceed the United Kingdom's (under 0.1 per 100,000), the latter's strict restrictions coincide with rising knife-related assaults and burglary rates, highlighting how robust rule-of-law enforcement and individual rights may enhance personal safety more than disarmament alone.^[98]^[99] Critics contend human security overemphasizes structural vulnerabilities at the expense of individual agency, leading to implementations like gender security agendas under the Women, Peace, and Security framework that lack causal metrics linking interventions to reduced violence.^[91] Analyses reveal persistent data gaps in measuring gendered violence impacts, with correlations to factors like GDP weakening under controls for democracy and institutions, implying limited standalone efficacy without foundational rule of law.^[100]^[101] Such approaches risk securitizing social issues without evidence of net security gains, diverting from proven determinants like enforceable personal rights and deterrence.^[102]

Cybersecurity and Information Security

Cybersecurity encompasses the practices, technologies, and processes designed to protect computer systems, networks, and data from unauthorized access, damage, or disruption, while information security focuses on the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information regardless of its form.^[103] These fields address threats ranging from malware and phishing to advanced persistent threats (APTs) orchestrated by state actors, with defenses relying on layered approaches including encryption for data protection, firewalls to monitor network traffic, and zero-trust architectures that verify every access request irrespective of origin.^[104] The discipline traces its origins to the 1970s, when early experiments on ARPANET—the precursor to the internet—exposed foundational vulnerabilities, such as the 1971 Creeper self-replicating program that prompted the development of Reaper, the first antivirus tool.^[105] Threats escalated through the 1980s with worms like Morris (1988), which infected 10% of the internet and caused widespread outages, evolving into sophisticated exploits by the 2020s, including AI-enhanced attacks that automate reconnaissance, phishing, and evasion of detection systems.^[106] In 2025, vulnerability disclosures surged 16% year-over-year in the first half, with 161 common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) actively exploited, 42% lacking public patches at the time of weaponization, reflecting accelerated exploitation cycles driven by AI tooling.^[107] Empirical data underscores the escalating impact: global cybercrime costs reached $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, encompassing direct theft, downtime, and remediation, with ransomware incidents rising 35% in early 2025 alone.^[108] ^[109] State-sponsored operations, particularly from China and Russia, have intensified, leveraging AI for espionage and disruption; for instance, Russian actors targeted U.S. critical infrastructure during the Ukraine conflict, while Chinese groups conducted widespread supply-chain compromises.^[110] ^[111] These actors exploit economic and geopolitical asymmetries, with attributions often confirmed through forensic analysis by firms like Mandiant, though mainstream media reports may underemphasize state involvement due to institutional biases favoring diplomatic narratives over empirical attribution.^[112] Defensive paradigms like zero-trust have proven effective in limiting breach lateral movement, reducing average dwell times from months to days in adopting organizations, yet they demand continuous adaptation amid surging exploits.^[103] Offensive cyber capabilities, conversely, enhance deterrence by demonstrating retaliatory potential; historical cases, such as U.S. responses to North Korean hacks, illustrate how credible offensive posture discourages escalation, as adversaries weigh costs against uncertain gains.^[113] ^[114] Critics argue that excessive regulation, such as fragmented mandates increasing compliance burdens, stifles innovation by diverting resources from R&D and erecting barriers for smaller firms, evidenced by studies showing regulatory uncertainty correlating with reduced patent filings in high-risk sectors.^[115] ^[116] This overemphasis on procedural rigidity overlooks causal realities where agile, offensive integration—rather than purely defensive silos—yields measurable reductions in attack frequency through demonstrated resolve.^[117]

Economic and Resource Security

Economic and resource security encompasses strategies to mitigate disruptions in critical supplies and financial flows arising from scarcity, geopolitical tensions, or supply chain frailties, ensuring sustained access to energy, commodities, and trade networks essential for national prosperity. Vulnerabilities stem from concentrated production—such as oil reserves in the Middle East or manufacturing in Asia—and can precipitate conflicts or economic coercion, as finite resources incentivize competition under conditions of inelastic demand. Empirical analyses highlight that nations with diversified sources exhibit greater resilience, with metrics like net import reliance correlating inversely with vulnerability indices developed by agencies tracking global trade data.^[118] Historical conflicts underscore resource-driven security threats, exemplified by Iraq's August 2, 1990, invasion of Kuwait, motivated in part by disputes over oil overproduction that depressed prices and Iraq's need to consolidate reserves amid post-Iran-Iraq War debt exceeding $80 billion.^[119] Iraq, holding about 10% of global reserves, sought to control Kuwait's comparable share to bolster export revenues, leading to the 1991 Gulf War coalition intervention to restore supply stability.^[120] In contemporary settings, economic sanctions targeting resource exports reveal mixed efficacy; following Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Western measures capped oil prices at $60 per barrel and banned seaborne crude imports, yet Russia redirected flows to India and China, sustaining 2023 export revenues at approximately 70% of pre-war levels through discounted sales and shadow fleet shipping.^[121] This resilience, per International Energy Agency data, stemmed from pre-existing pipeline alternatives and demand elasticity in non-sanctioning markets, challenging assumptions of rapid economic isolation. Strategies for bolstering economic security emphasize diversification to counter trade dependencies, as evidenced by the U.S. shale revolution post-2008, which reversed net energy imports from 60% of consumption in 2005 to exporter status by November 2019.^[122] Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling expanded output from 5 million barrels per day in 2008 to over 13 million by 2019, reducing vulnerability to OPEC disruptions and correlating with lower household energy costs averaging $1,200 annual savings per family.^[123] This shift contributed roughly 10% to U.S. GDP growth between 2010 and 2015 via manufacturing resurgence and export gains exceeding $50 billion annually, illustrating causal links between domestic resource autonomy and macroeconomic stability absent in high-import reliant economies.^[124] Critiques of rapid policy shifts highlight induced scarcities, particularly in transitions prioritizing intermittent renewables, which amplify demand for rare earth elements like neodymium and dysprosium used in magnets for wind turbines and electric vehicles. China processed over 90% of global rare earth oxides in 2023 and mined 68% of output, creating chokepoints where export restrictions—as in December 2010 or potential escalations—could halt 80% of supply chains for affected technologies.^[125] Empirical modeling indicates U.S. clean energy deployment could face 34% shortfalls in cumulative capacity by 2030 due to bottlenecks in these minerals, underscoring risks of over-reliance without parallel mining investments.^[126] Such dependencies, concentrated in geopolitically assertive suppliers, contradict diversification imperatives, as diversification efforts lag behind projected demand surges of 400% for certain elements by 2040.^[118]

Physical, Home, and Corporate Security

Physical security measures protect individuals, residences, and businesses from tangible threats such as burglary, theft, and intrusion through barriers, surveillance, and human presence. These private initiatives rely on deterrence via visibility and rapid response, supported by empirical evidence showing reduced victimization rates. In homes, basic tools like reinforced locks and deadbolts form the first layer, while alarms and signage amplify deterrence without requiring active intervention.^[127] Home security systems, including alarms and visible cameras, demonstrably lower burglary risks; a Rutgers University analysis found installed burglar alarms reduce victimization odds by nearly 50%. Visible deterrents like security signage alone cut break-in probabilities by 25%, as burglars prioritize low-risk targets to minimize time and detection. Surveys of convicted offenders indicate 83% avoid properties with obvious security indicators, underscoring the causal role of perceived risk in rational offender decisions. Self-defense options, such as firearms or non-lethal tools, contribute to protection during occupied burglaries, with defensive gun uses estimated at 500,000 to 3 million annually in the U.S., though outcomes vary by training and context.^[127]^[128]^[129]^[97] Corporate physical security employs guards, perimeter fencing, and surveillance to safeguard assets and personnel, with layered approaches proving most effective. Studies confirm security guards reduce crime when visible and trained, deterring opportunistic threats through presence alone. Video surveillance enhances this by providing evidence and enabling real-time monitoring, though human oversight remains key for response. The U.S. private security sector expanded rapidly post-1970s, outpacing public policing; by 1990, it employed over twice as many personnel as sworn officers, driven by rising commercial needs and public sector limitations.^[130]^[131] Recent trends integrate physical measures with IT for unified management, as noted in 2025 industry forecasts emphasizing convergence to streamline operations without compromising core deterrence. This evolution supports scalability for corporations facing diverse threats. However, in weak states, heavy reliance on private firms can widen inequality, as affluent entities secure protection unavailable to the broader populace, potentially undermining public order where state capacity falters.^[132]^[133]

Environmental Security

Environmental security refers to the integration of ecological factors into security analyses, positing that environmental degradation, resource scarcity, and climate variability pose threats to state stability, human welfare, and international order. This framing gained prominence in the 1990s through scholars advocating for "widening" security beyond military concerns, highlighting potential for climate-induced migration and conflicts over water, arable land, and fisheries.^[134] Early claims emphasized climate change as a "threat multiplier," amplifying existing tensions via scarcity, though causal pathways were often indirect and mediated by governance failures.^[135] Empirical data, however, reveals limited support for strong links between climate change and violent conflict. A review of IPCC assessments finds scant evidence that climate acts as a primary driver of armed conflict, with non-climatic factors like political instability and economic inequality predominating; post-disaster analyses show conflicts escalating in only 29% of cases, de-escalating in 33%, and remaining stable in 38%.^[136]^[137] Quantitative studies confirm modest correlations, such as a 3.8-7.6% increase in interpersonal violence from temperature rises, but these effects are dwarfed by socioeconomic drivers and do not predict widespread interstate wars.^[138] Adaptation measures, including infrastructure and policy reforms, have mitigated many projected catastrophes, as evidenced by IPCC data on successful local responses to variability rather than systemic collapse.^[139] Claims of massive climate migration have similarly overstated realities. Projections from the 2000s anticipated 200 million or more displaced by 2050, yet 2023 data records 7.7 million internal displacements from disasters—mostly weather events like floods, not gradual climate shifts—with cross-border movements remaining an order of magnitude smaller than forecasted due to economic barriers and adaptive immobility.^[140]^[141] Historical climate cycles further contextualize current trends: the Medieval Warm Period (circa 900-1300 AD) featured regional temperatures rivaling or exceeding parts of the 20th century in the North Atlantic, driven by solar and oceanic variations absent industrial emissions, while the Little Ice Age (1450-1850 AD) brought cooling and agrarian stress without modern CO2 dominance.^[142] Such precedents challenge attributions of primacy to anthropogenic forcing, underscoring natural variability's role in past scarcities and conflicts.^[143] Securitized environmental policies have incurred security costs, exemplified by Europe's 2022 energy crisis, where accelerated renewable mandates and fossil fuel phase-outs amplified vulnerabilities to supply disruptions from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, driving wholesale gas prices to €300/MWh in August—over tenfold prior norms—and prompting emergency imports of coal and LNG.^[144] Intermittency in wind and solar output necessitated fossil backups, revealing trade-offs in transitioning from reliable baseloads, with total crisis costs exceeding €1 trillion in lost output and subsidies.^[145] From a realist perspective, environmental shifts enable geopolitical maneuvering, as Arctic sea ice decline—receding 13% per decade since 1979—has spurred competitions for untapped hydrocarbons (estimated 13% of global undiscovered oil) and the Northern Sea Route, shortening Asia-Europe shipping by 40%; Russia has fortified 20 new bases since 2014, while China pursues "near-Arctic" investments exceeding $90 billion.^[146]^[147] These dynamics prioritize resource control over ecological preservation, with militarization risks outweighing cooperative potentials under frameworks like the Arctic Council.^[148]

Perceptions and Recurring Themes

Public and Elite Perceptions

Public surveys consistently reveal a tendency to overestimate the likelihood of rare but salient threats, such as terrorism. For instance, a 2019 analysis found that nearly half of Americans believed they or a family member were likely to become victims of a terrorist attack, despite the annual risk remaining statistically negligible—far lower than everyday hazards like car accidents.^[149] This pattern intensified after the September 11, 2001, attacks, where national polls showed elevated fear levels persisting for years, even as subsequent incidents caused minimal casualties relative to pre-9/11 baselines.^[150] Objective data, including FBI statistics, indicate that between 2001 and 2020, fewer than 100 Americans died from domestic terrorism annually on average, underscoring the disconnect between perceived and actual probabilities.^[151] Elites, including policymakers and security officials, have at times amplified these fears to justify expanded measures, such as post-9/11 surveillance programs under the Patriot Act. Analyses of public discourse post-2001 highlight how official rhetoric framed terrorism as an existential, omnipresent danger, correlating with bipartisan support for policies that increased government monitoring capabilities, despite limited evidence of their necessity for preventing low-probability events.^[152] Surveys of security elites reveal divergences from public views; for example, while publics rank terrorism highly, elites often prioritize systemic issues like cyber threats or geopolitical rivalries, using public anxiety to mobilize resources.^[153] This dynamic suggests elite strategies leverage subjective fears for agenda-setting, as evidenced by sustained funding for counterterrorism apparatuses exceeding empirical threat scales.^[154] Cultural contexts shape these perceptions distinctly. In individualist societies like the United States, where personal autonomy is valorized, publics exhibit lower overall risk aversion and greater resistance to collective security impositions that infringe on liberties, per cross-national studies linking individualism to reduced threat perception.^[155] Conversely, collectivist orientations, prevalent in East Asian nations, foster higher acceptance of state-led security emphasizing group stability over individual rights, with surveys showing prioritized communal protection in threat assessments.^[156] Trust in security institutions has eroded in the 2020s amid high-profile failures, such as intelligence lapses and policy overreaches. Pew Research data indicate that confidence in the federal government, encompassing national security arms, fell to historic lows, with only 22% of Americans expressing consistent trust by 2024, down from peaks post-9/11.^[157] Gallup polls corroborate this, showing declines in institutional confidence across military and law enforcement entities tied to perceived ineffectiveness against evolving threats.^[158] This skepticism spans demographics but is acute among those questioning elite narratives on threat prioritization.^[159]

Psychological and Behavioral Dimensions

The availability heuristic, a cognitive bias wherein individuals judge the probability of risks based on the ease with which examples come to mind, leads to the overweighting of salient, vivid threats over statistically more common ones in security contexts. For instance, people tend to perceive air travel as highly dangerous due to memorable plane crashes, despite empirical data showing that the annual risk of dying in a U.S. car accident is approximately 1 in 5,000, compared to 1 in 7 million for commercial aviation fatalities.^[160]^[161] This distortion, rooted in evolutionary adaptations favoring rapid threat detection from recent or emotionally charged events, shapes security behaviors by prompting excessive fear of rare events like terrorism while neglecting routine hazards such as home intrusions or cyber vulnerabilities from phishing, which account for over 90% of data breaches according to Verizon's 2023 analysis.^[162] Risk compensation, also known as risk homeostasis, describes the behavioral adjustment where perceived enhancements in security lead individuals to engage in riskier actions, offsetting potential safety gains. Empirical studies on seatbelt mandates demonstrate this effect: after implementation in various jurisdictions, drivers increased speeding and aggressive maneuvers, with one analysis finding that seatbelt use correlated with a 10-20% rise in risky driving behaviors, partially negating injury reductions.^[163] In broader security domains, such as cybersecurity, users often bypass precautions like multi-factor authentication when antivirus software is installed, assuming protection, leading to elevated exposure; lab simulations confirm this, showing participants taking 15-25% more chances in simulated threat environments with added safeguards.^[164] This phenomenon arises from an evolved calibration of risk tolerance, where humans maintain a target level of perceived danger rather than minimizing it outright, as evidenced by field data on antilock braking systems prompting faster cornering speeds.^[165] Evolutionary psychology illuminates group dynamics in security, where perceived threats enhance in-group cooperation and favoritism, fostering realistic security postures through parochial altruism—preferential aid to kin or allies amid intergroup rivalry. Lab experiments reveal that exposure to outgroup threats boosts cooperative investments by 20-30% in economic games, with participants allocating more resources to in-group members under simulated conflict scenarios, contrasting with baseline cooperation absent threats.^[166] This pattern, adaptive for ancestral survival against rival coalitions, manifests in modern security behaviors like heightened tribal loyalty during national crises, where meta-analyses of over 50 studies link threat priming to reduced outgroup trust and amplified in-group vigilance, without invoking group selection but via individual-level kin selection mechanisms.^[167] Such dynamics underscore causal realism in security: threats do not merely provoke fear but evolutionarily tune behaviors toward collective defense, as corroborated by cross-cultural data showing consistent in-group biases under resource scarcity or predation cues.^[168]

Trade-offs and Dilemmas

In resource allocation, the "guns versus butter" dilemma highlights the opportunity costs of prioritizing security expenditures over social welfare, as finite budgets force trade-offs between military capabilities and domestic programs like health and education. In the United States, fiscal year 2023 defense spending reached approximately $820 billion, representing about 13.3% of the federal budget, while mandatory social programs such as Social Security and Medicare alone accounted for over $3.8 trillion in outlays, illustrating how defense increases can indirectly constrain growth in non-military sectors by crowding out private investment and long-term economic expansion.^[169]^[170] Empirical analyses across OECD countries from 1988 to 2005 show varied relationships, with higher military spending sometimes correlating with reduced social welfare allocations, though causality is debated due to confounding factors like economic growth rates.^[171] These trade-offs manifest causally through reduced fiscal space for welfare, as defense commitments lock in recurring costs that limit reallocations during downturns, evidenced by post-Cold War U.S. budget patterns where sustained military outlays exceeded pre-1990 levels relative to GDP despite dividend expectations.^[172] Moral hazards arise when security measures induce complacency or misdirected efforts, undermining overall resilience. The French Maginot Line, constructed in the 1930s along the German border, exemplifies this: despite its formidable fortifications deterring direct assaults, it fostered doctrinal rigidity and overconfidence, allowing German forces to bypass it through the Ardennes Forest in May 1940, leading to France's rapid defeat.^[173] This failure stemmed not from engineering flaws but from the causal illusion of static defenses substituting for adaptive strategy, creating a false sense of invulnerability that delayed mobile countermeasures.^[174] Similar dynamics appear in modern contexts, where fortified perimeters—whether physical or cyber—can engender underinvestment in flexibility, as resources devoted to immovable assets divert from agile responses, empirically observed in historical cases where perceived security bred strategic inertia.^[175] Escalation spirals in arms races pose recurring dilemmas, balancing deterrence benefits against heightened conflict risks, with empirical data showing context-dependent outcomes. Quantitative studies of strategic rivals from 1816 to 1993 indicate that arms races often elevate the probability of dispute escalation, as mutual buildups signal hostility and provoke preemptive actions, per the spiral model.^[176] Conversely, deterrence theory finds support in cases like the Cold War, where nuclear arsenals prevented direct superpower war despite tensions, though at the cost of resource drains and proxy conflicts; controls for unilateral buildups reveal no universal escalation link, suggesting alliances and signaling mitigate spirals.^[177]^[178] Causally, these dynamics arise from misperceptions amplifying threat perceptions, yet stable deterrence equilibria—evidenced by absent major wars post-1945 among nuclear powers—underscore that while spirals risk instability, calibrated arms levels can enforce restraint without inevitable conflict.^[179]

Criticisms and Empirical Realities

Over-Securitization and Ineffectiveness

Over-securitization refers to the excessive framing of non-military issues as existential threats under securitization theory, which elevates them beyond normal political deliberation into realms of emergency action, often bypassing democratic scrutiny and proportionality assessments. This process, originating from the Copenhagen School's framework, promises rapid threat neutralization but empirically correlates with policy distortions, as extraordinary measures prove unsustainable without addressing root causes through routine governance.^[180]^[181] In the European Union's handling of the 2015 migration influx, securitizing irregular arrivals—peaking at over 1 million asylum applications—as threats to societal stability and borders displaced integrative policy debates, channeling resources into fortified external controls and expanded Frontex operations. Despite budget surges from €143 million in 2015 to over €1 billion by 2023, irregular Mediterranean crossings remained volatile, exceeding 380,000 in 2015 and fluctuating without proportional decline until ad hoc external deals, underscoring inefficiencies in reactive securitization over systemic labor market or demographic adaptations.^[182]^[183] The U.S.-led Global War on Terror illustrates broadened security paradigms' fiscal and strategic shortfalls, with post-9/11 expenditures totaling over $8 trillion by 2021, encompassing direct combat, veterans' care, and homeland enhancements, yet failing to eradicate decentralized threats as affiliates like ISIS proliferated and the Taliban regained Afghan control in 2021.^[184]^[185] These outlays dwarfed pre-2001 counterterrorism budgets by factors exceeding 100-fold, but global jihadist incidents persisted at levels comparable to or above early 2000s baselines per databases like the Global Terrorism Database, highlighting causal disconnects between securitized escalation and empirical threat attenuation.^[184] Domestic implementations, such as the Transportation Security Administration's airport protocols, further demonstrate ineffectiveness, with annual operating costs surpassing $8 billion since 2002 alongside layered screenings that internal Department of Homeland Security tests in 2015 exposed as failing to detect contraband in 95% of undercover attempts. Cost-benefit analyses reveal aviation terrorism's rarity—accounting for under 0.5% of global attacks since 1970—rendering such measures disproportionate, as the annualized risk of U.S. passenger fatalities from hijackings post-reforms equates to probabilities below 1 in 10 million flights, far outweighed by procedural delays and economic drags estimated at $1-2 per passenger screened.^[186]^[187] Critiques of over-securitization emphasize its tendency to entrench crisis ontologies that undervalue institutional resilience and adaptive capacities, as seen in securitized domains where perpetual threat amplification—often echoed in policy discourses—diverts from evidence-based calibrations, fostering resource sinks without commensurate security gains. Empirical reviews of securitization applications reveal gaps in measuring "success," with many cases yielding audience acquiescence to measures but negligible threat reversal, perpetuating cycles of escalation over de-securitization toward normalized handling.^[188]^[189]

Security-Liberty Trade-offs

The enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act on October 26, 2001, exemplifies security expansions that imposed significant civil liberties costs with limited verifiable gains in terrorism prevention.^[190] Analyses indicate that while the Act facilitated intelligence sharing, few terrorism convictions relied exclusively on its novel provisions, such as roving wiretaps or National Security Letters, which instead enabled broad data collection on non-suspects.^[191] Empirical reviews post-9/11 reveal that domestic terror incidents declined more due to pre-existing law enforcement enhancements and international operations than Act-specific tools, yet it normalized bulk surveillance, eroding privacy norms without proportional threat reduction.^[192] From foundational reasoning, individual liberty underpins societal security by enabling adaptive innovation and self-defense mechanisms that outpace centralized controls. An armed populace, as enshrined in the Second Amendment, deters governmental overreach by distributing defensive capacity, historically preventing tyranny in contexts where disarmament preceded mass oppression, such as pre-revolutionary examples cited by the Framers.^[193] This dispersion fosters resilience, as concentrated security apparatuses prove vulnerable to internal capture or failure, whereas liberty-driven vigilance—evident in civilian responses to threats—enhances overall deterrence without relying on state monopoly.^[194] Surveillance-dominant regimes, such as China's under the Golden Shield Project, illustrate how prioritizing short-term control stifles dissent and innovation, undermining long-term stability. Extensive digital monitoring, including facial recognition and social credit systems, has suppressed protests and transnational activism, yet correlates with escalating domestic security spending amid persistent grievances.^[195] In contrast, liberal democracies sustain higher resilience through trust-based social fabrics, where restrained security measures permit open discourse and economic dynamism, yielding superior outcomes in innovation metrics and crisis adaptation despite occasional vulnerabilities.^[196] Excessive securitization thus risks brittleness, as evidenced by suppressed adaptability in authoritarian models versus the self-correcting vitality of freer systems.^[197]

Recent Developments and Future Challenges

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence into cybersecurity frameworks has amplified vulnerabilities, with generative AI enhancing cybercriminals' capabilities and contributing to increased attacks, as noted in the World Economic Forum's Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025.^[198] While 66% of organizations anticipate AI's profound influence on cybersecurity by 2025, only 37% rigorously evaluate the security of their AI tools, exacerbating risks from unpatched systems and adversarial exploits.^[198] State-sponsored cyberattacks have surged, with the UK's National Cyber Security Centre reporting a threefold rise in significant incidents by November 2024 compared to the prior year, often driven by geopolitical motives targeting nations like the US, Ukraine, and Israel.^[111] This convergence of physical and digital threats underscores a blurring boundary, where hybrid operations—such as ransomware disrupting critical infrastructure—demand integrated defenses beyond siloed approaches.^[199] Geopolitical tensions since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine have reshaped global security, prolonging disruptions to energy and food supplies while straining NATO-Russia relations and accelerating Europe's pivot from Russian gas dependency.^[200] By fall 2025, Russian advances in eastern Ukraine, coupled with drone strikes on shipping, have heightened maritime insecurities in the Black Sea, with broader ripple effects including elevated global commodity prices.^[201] Concurrently, US-China technology decoupling has intensified, with tightened export controls on semiconductors and AI hardware since 2022 aiming to curb China's military advancements, yet fostering fragmented supply chains and retaliatory measures like rare earth restrictions.^[202] These dynamics, evidenced by a 2025 escalation in chip sale barriers, risk bifurcating global tech ecosystems and amplifying espionage via state actors exploiting dual-use technologies.^[203] The COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 onward exposed supply chain fragilities, with sectors reliant on Chinese intermediates suffering production drops of up to 20% and persistent delays through 2025 due to port congestions and labor shortages.^[204] Geopolitical factors, including sanctions and trade wars, have since ranked as the premier risk, outpacing environmental disruptions and prompting firms to diversify sourcing—yet empirical data shows incomplete resilience, as Houthi attacks in the Red Sea extended delivery times by weeks in 2024.^[205] This vulnerability persists, with 45% of organizations projected to face software supply chain attacks by 2025, per Gartner forecasts, necessitating causal hardening through localized manufacturing over optimistic globalization assumptions.^[206] Looking ahead, AI's role in warfare—evident in Ukraine where AI-enabled drones accounted for 70-80% of casualties by 2025—promises accelerated targeting and battle planning 400 times faster than human processes, but introduces perils like unintended escalations absent human oversight, as highlighted in RAND analyses.^[207]^[208] Climate-related challenges, viewed through a realist lens, compel adaptations to observed trends like record 2025 heatwaves driving agricultural strains, prioritizing competitive energy transitions and fortified infrastructure over unattainable emission targets that ignore enforcement gaps in developing nations.^[209] Future security hinges on mitigating over-reliance on autonomous systems, where causal realism demands hybrid human-AI protocols to avert miscalculations in contested domains, informed by data showing AI's amplification of existing asymmetries rather than neutral equalization.^[210]

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The book is structured around three concepts—security, community, and emancipation—that arguably are central to the future shape of world politics ...
[62]
Security and Emancipation - jstor
153. Page 10. 322 Ken Booth emancipation implies an egalitarian concept of liberty. ... new breed of students trained in Security Studies, broadly defined.
[63]
Migration Crisis Tests European Consensus and Governance
Dec 18, 2015 · ARTICLE: Europe's defining challenge in 2015 was the exponential growth in the number of asylum seekers and migrants arriving on its shores.
[64]
[PDF] The Influence of the Migration Crisis of 2015 on the EU Migration ...
The EU was criticized for the lack of a coherent and effective migration policy, which is difficult to shape due to Member States' national sovereignty issues ...
[65]
Critical Theory, Security, and Emancipation
Nov 30, 2017 · Ken Booth (1991) further identified two elements of the relationship between security and emancipation, defining security as the absence of ...
[66]
[PDF] Critical Theory and Security Studies
Again, a pure structural realist would find this question odd, for threats in a self-help system arise from the material capabilities of possible opponents. An ...
[67]
Constructivism (Chapter 6) - Understanding International Security
Oct 12, 2025 · The critics argued for a “deepening” of security to include actors other than the state, and a “widening” to incorporate threats other than ...
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US intervention and burden shifting in Somalia, 1992–1993
The intervention ultimately failed, but the military learned useful lessons ... The failure in Somalia increased the US military's reluctance to deploy ...
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Somalia intervention | UN Peacekeeping, US Military ... - Britannica
Third, the failure in Somalia made the international community reluctant to intervene in other civil conflicts, such as the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. This ...
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[PDF] wp111 - Refocusing Concepts of Security
This paper investigates two phenomena: first, the conceptual broadening of the term 'security' and the implications of this broadening for the contemporary ...<|separator|>
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[PDF] Waever-Securitization.pdf - Library of Social Science
Note 23: More precisely, in the theory of speech acts, "security" would be seen as an illocutionary act; this is elaborated at length in my "Security, the ...
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(PDF) The securitization theory - ResearchGate
Feb 7, 2024 · ... risks overlooking the material realities. and structural inequalities that fuel security threats. Can powerful actors truly manipulate ...
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Phronetic Ethics of Securitization | Global Studies Quarterly
May 10, 2024 · ... dangers. Political actors use discourse to identify existential threats and seek legitimation from an audience for the exceptional measures ...
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Critical Security Studies and World Politics - ResearchGate
Booth identifies three scenarios in which the state fails to protect its population (Booth, 2005) . First, when the state is unable to protect its minorities. .
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The Realist Case for Ukraine - Institute for National Strategic Studies
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Can 'Realists' and 'Hawks' Agree? Half-measures and Compromises ...
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Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation - Hoover Institution
Mar 7, 2011 · Mutual assured destruction raises enormous inhibitions against employing the weapons. Since the first use of nuclear weapons against Japan, ...<|separator|>
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A New Paradigm: Mutually Assured Security - War on the Rocks
Jul 20, 2021 · Mutually assured destruction aims to deter nuclear attack by convincing a potential attacker that it will receive punishment out of proportion ...
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Feb 21, 2018 · Since 1945, there have been relatively few large interstate wars, especially compared to the preceding 30 years, which included both World Wars.
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[PDF] Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice - DTIC
altogether in the name of deterrence (nuclear weapons are moral since they are meant to prevent war, not to wage it) and of retaliation (since France will ...
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Topic: Collective defence and Article 5 - NATO
Jul 4, 2023 · With the invocation of Article 5, Allies can provide any form of assistance they deem necessary to respond to a situation. This is an individual ...
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https://law.yale.edu/mfia/case-disclosed/newly-disclosed-documents-five-eyes-alliance-and-what-they-tell-us-about-intelligence-sharing
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Newly Disclosed Documents on the Five Eyes Alliance and What ...
Apr 25, 2018 · The Five Eyes alliance facilitates the sharing of signals intelligence among the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
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Full article: The Economic Costs of Hybrid Wars: The Case of Ukraine
Our counterfactual estimation by the synthetic control method shows that Ukraine's per capita GDP foregone due to the war amounts to 15.1% on average for 2013– ...
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The Future of Great Power Competition: Trajectories, Transitions ...
This narrative clash will continue throughout the 2020s. America's challenges are offset by Chinese and Russian limitations and liabilities. Neither Russia nor ...
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Achieving “peace through strength” in the 2020s - Brookings Institution
Feb 21, 2025 · One more central element of America's defense strategy in the new era of great-power rivalry concerns the U.S. defense industrial base.Missing: tensions | Show results with:tensions
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What to Know About Sanctions on North Korea
A 2019 UN Security Council report [PDF] found that humanitarian aid to North Korea could take up to ten months to be processed, if it is not blocked altogether.Introduction · Why does North Korea face... · What other governments...
[90]
Trading with Pariahs: North Korean Sanctions and the Challenge of ...
The consensus among analysts and academics is that economic sanctions against North Korea have been largely unsuccessful (Hudson and Francis 2016; Peksen 2016; ...The Rationale (and Failure) of... · Shooting Blanks or Just Bad... · Conclusion
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The Kim Regime: Sanctions, Diplomacy, and Nuclear Survival
May 15, 2025 · North Korea has become resilient to sanctions by relying on sophisticated smuggling operations, including ship-to-ship transfers of oil and ...
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A Critical Evaluation of the Concept of Human Security
Jul 5, 2014 · Critics of human security argue that its adoption has done little to change the behaviour of states or alleviate pressures of everyday life ...
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[PDF] THE INSECURITY OF HUMAN SECURITY
Nov 6, 2014 · General Criticism of the Human Security Concept ... This wide and vague definition has lead critics as such Roland Paris to ask: what is not.
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The East Asian Miracle: Building a Basis for Growth in - IMF eLibrary
Jan 1, 1994 · From 1965 to 1990, the region's 23 economies grew faster than those of all other regions (see Chart 1), and income inequality declined, sometimes dramatically.
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Growth and Poverty: Lessons from the East Asian Miracle Revisited
The dramatic improvement in the quality of life that accompanied this miraculous economic transformation has virtually abolished extreme poverty in these ...
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Publication: Rethinking the East Asian Miracle
The principal message is that sustained economic growth in East Asia will rest on retaining the strengths of the past -stability, openness, investment, human ...
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Levels and Changes in Defensive Firearm Use by US Crime Victims ...
Nov 6, 2024 · Over the 4 periods, for all crimes, victims reported gun defenses in an average range of between 61 000 and 65 000 incidents per year.
[98]
Defensive Gun Use Statistics: Self-Defense Cases (2025) - Ammo.com
Aug 20, 2025 · Studies consistently average 1,820,000 defensive gun uses per year compared to 1,100,000 reported violent crimes. 62.7 million American ...How Often Are Guns Used in... · The Self-Defense Statistics...
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Gun Deaths by Country 2025 - World Population Review
“Total Gun Deaths All Types” and “Rate of Firearm-Related Death” include deaths from all three subcategories of gun death: violent/homicide, unintentional/ ...
[100]
U.S. Gun Policy: Global Comparisons - Council on Foreign Relations
The debate over U.S. gun laws has raged for decades, often reigniting after high-profile mass shootings. Gun ownership and gun homicide rates are high in the ...
[101]
[PDF] Mapping Gender Data Gaps in Human Security | Data2X
Data collection efforts should be broadened to capture a larger sample of women and a wider spectrum of violent behaviors and their impact on women, including ...Missing: empirical metrics<|control11|><|separator|>
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[PDF] Advancing an Empirical Research Agenda - The WomanStats Project
Sep 23, 2009 · Similarly, when controlling for democracy, the impact of GDP per capita on women's physical security decreases by about. 23% and the correlation ...Missing: metrics | Show results with:metrics
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Human Security: Concepts and Measurement | Cadmus Journal
Feb 28, 2023 · † In addition to being vague, the concept is also criticized for giving equal weights to different aspects of insecurity and threat, thus ...
[104]
Cyber Security Vulnerabilities: Prevention & Mitigation - SentinelOne
Aug 25, 2025 · As we enter 2025, cyber threats continue to affect organizations of all sizes and types. These threats range from simple issues like weak ...
[105]
Top 5 Cloud Security Trends to Watch in 2025 - SentinelOne
Jul 31, 2025 · The cybersecurity workforce shortage is expected to reach 1.8 million, 88% of workloads are expected to be autonomously updated by 2025. AI ...
[106]
The Evolution Of Artificial Intelligence In Cybersecurity - VC3
Oct 3, 2023 · One of the earliest known instances was the "Creeper" virus, which spread through the ARPANET, a precursor to the modern internet. While ...
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The Evolution of Cyber Threats: From Viruses to AI Attacks
Nov 13, 2024 · Explore the evolution of cyber threats, from early viruses to sophisticated AI-driven attacks, and how we adapted over the years.
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H1 2025 Malware and Vulnerability Trends - Recorded Future
Aug 28, 2025 · CVE disclosures increased 16% compared to H1 2024, with 161 of those vulnerabilities actively exploited in H1 2025. Of those, 42% had a public ...
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Cybercrime To Cost The World $10.5 Trillion Annually By 2025
Apr 27, 2025 · Cybersecurity Ventures expects global cybercrime costs to grow by 15 percent per year over the next five years, reaching $10.5 trillion USD annually by 2025.
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Cybersecurity Statistics 2025: Q1–Q2 Facts, Trends, And Charts
Jul 2, 2025 · Ransomware attacks surged 35% in Q1 2025 compared to Q4 2024, with over 2,200 victims listed on leak sites. · The number of active ransomware ...
[111]
Russia, China increasingly using AI to escalate cyberattacks on the US
Oct 16, 2025 · The U.S. is the top target for cyberattacks, with criminals and foreign adversaries targeting companies, governments and organizations in the ...
[112]
Significant Cyber Incidents | Strategic Technologies Program - CSIS
This timeline lists significant cyber incidents since 2006. We focus on state actions, espionage, and cyberattacks where losses are more than a million ...Missing: 2020s | Show results with:2020s
[113]
[PDF] The ecosystem behind Chinese state-sponsored cyber threats
Its mission is to provide businesses and public organizations with the best protection technologies against cyber attacks. By combining threat anticipation ...
[114]
[PDF] Offensive Cyber Capabilities are Needed Because of Deterrence
Deterrence will only be effective if one can build and demonstrate offensive cyber capabilities.
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U.S. Cyber Deterrence: Bringing Offensive Capabilities into the Light
Sep 7, 2022 · As proposed above, clarifying acceptable norms while strengthening DCO capabilities could reduce some of the risk associated with retaliation.
[116]
Navigating Over-Regulation In Cybersecurity - Forbes
Dec 9, 2024 · This inflexibility holds back innovation and increases vulnerability—as seen in high-profile breaches such as the Office of Personnel Management ...Missing: criticisms | Show results with:criticisms
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Does cybersecurity risk stifle corporate innovation activities?
This paper examines the impact of cybersecurity risk on corporate innovation activities and uncovers two important channels: risk-taking and precautionary ...
[118]
[PDF] Rethinking Cyber Deterrence: Adapting to the Realities of the Digital ...
Mar 8, 2025 · However, the effectiveness of offensive cyber capabilities as a deterrent remains ambiguous and challenging to assess.1 Deterrence, a concept ...
[119]
Clean energy supply chains vulnerabilities - IEA
The production of critical minerals is highly concentrated geographically, raising concerns about security of supplies.
[120]
Igniting Iraq's Invasion of Kuwait – Loans, Land, Oil and Access
At the same time, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait of over-producing crude oil for export and depressing prices, depriving Iraq of critical oil ...
[121]
The Gulf War | Miller Center
Indeed, oil was driving force behind the invasion and would lead to U.S. military involvement.
[122]
Russia's War on Ukraine – Topics - IEA
After it invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russia cut 80 billion cubic metres (bcm) of pipeline gas supplies to Europe, plunging the region into an energy crisis.
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Economic analysis of the US unconventional oil and gas revolution
Mar 22, 2014 · The US unconventional energy boom has reversed the decline of domestic production, lowered oil and gas imports, reduced gas prices, and created political space ...
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US Shale Industry Credited with Driving 10% of US GDP Growth
Aug 26, 2019 · The shale industry alone drove 10 percent of the growth in the US economy's gross domestic product from 2010 to 2015, according to a new study.
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For the US economy as a whole, the shale revolution has had two major effects: reducing energy prices for consumers, and increasing the importance of the.
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Rare earth elements facts - Natural Resources Canada
Sep 19, 2025 · China is the world's leading producer of REEs, accounting for 68% of global mine production in 2023, estimated at 240,000 tonnes. The United ...
[127]
Understanding supply chain constraints for the US clean energy ...
Sep 30, 2025 · Results show that, due to bottlenecks in nickel, silicon, and rare-earth elements, the US could fall short by over 730 GW—34% of its cumulative ...
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Rutgers Study Finds Alarm Systems Are Valuable Crime Fighting Tool
Feb 5, 2009 · In short, the study found that an installed burglar alarm makes a dwelling less attractive to the would-be and active intruders and protects the ...
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According to security.org, just having a security sign in your yard alone reduces your chances of being broken into by 25%. Got cameras? That's even better ...
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Do Security Systems Deter Burglars? | Moore Protection LA
Jun 27, 2025 · The findings were striking: 83% of participants reported avoiding homes with obvious security system indicators, while 60% stated they would ...
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Do Security Guards Reduce Crime? Here's What The Data Says
Based on current research and real-world evidence, the answer is yes, especially when they are trained, visible, and used strategically.
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Hallcrest Report II: Private Security Trends (1970 to 2000)
This report describes the growth and changes in the private security industry between 1970 and 1990, discusses emerging and continuing issues and trends in ...
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Future of Security Technology: Industry Trends of 2025 - Pelco
One of the new security technologies for 2025 is security convergence, or the integration of traditionally siloed security systems, particularly physical ...
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May 12, 2017 · For the 81 states for which estimates were available, private security ... That's not surprising, given that the state sector has failed at ...Missing: privatization | Show results with:privatization
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Conflicting messages? The IPCC on conflict and human security
The Third and Fourth Assessment Reports of the IPCC have been criticized for a shallow discussion of the possible impact of climate change on conflict.
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Summary for Policymakers | Climate Change 2022
This Summary for Policymakers (SPM) presents key findings of the Working Group II (WGII) contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the IPCC1 .<|separator|>
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Conflict and Insecurity in the IPCC
Jan 25, 2018 · Yet, there is little scientific evidence in these reports for the view that climate change is an important driver of conflict. The Fifth ...
[138]
Rise or Recede? How Climate Disasters Affect Armed Conflict Intensity
Jan 4, 2023 · After climate-related disasters, 29 percent of these armed conflicts escalated, 33 percent de-escalated, and 38 percent did not change.
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Climate change causes conflict: How policy can respond - CEPR
Dec 14, 2024 · Our main estimates imply an approximately 4.9% to 9.8% increase in group conflict and 3.8% to 7.6% increase in interpersonal conflict due to the ...
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Joint statement on climate change and conflict in IPCC report
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Global climate migration is a story of who and not just how many
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Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and 20th century temperature ...
Evidence is presented for a long period of sustained regional and North Atlantic-wide warmth with low-amplitude temperature variability between ∼450 and 1000 AD ...
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2.3.3 Was there a Little Ice Age and a Medieval Warm Period
Thus current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this timeframe, and the conventional terms of Little Ice ...
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[146]
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The 2022 energy crisis has raised critical policy questions on enhancing short-term energy security while committing to the green transition.
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Melting Arctic to Open Up New Trade Routes and Geopolitical ...
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Geopolitical Competition in The Arctic Circle
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[PDF] When Data Do Not Matter: Exploring Public Perceptions of Terrorism
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Dec 4, 2002 · standing fears about the threat of terrorism and weapons of mass de- ... ———, “Public Concern About Terrorist at Post-9/11 Low,” The Gallup.
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Public Opinion and Counterterrorism Policy | Cato Institute
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government, public opinion and security elite seem to agree on the type of threats they ... survey of threat perception and security policy assessments ...
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Security politics becomes a seller's market where the public will overpay for counterterrorism policies.”1 Specifically, Americans have spent significant ...
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Individualism-Collectivism and Risk Perception Around the World
Sep 8, 2025 · Results show that individualistic culture is associated with lower perceived risk among first-generation immigrants. Moreover, we identify ...
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Human Security, Individualism and Collectivism - Cadmus Journal
Feb 28, 2023 · In collectivist cultures conformity is the norm, education is founded on rote learning, and unconventional thinking is discouraged. But in ...
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Americans' Views of Government: Decades of Distrust, Enduring ...
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Confidence in U.S. Institutions Down; Average at New Low
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The State of Public Trust in Government 2024
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A classic example of the availability heuristic is believing that airplanes are unsafe because of highly publicized plane crashes.
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Oct 5, 2022 · But the fact is car accidents are far more common than plane crashes, meaning the chances of being in a plane crash are dramatically lower ...
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The availability heuristic describes our tendency to use information that comes to mind quickly and easily when making decisions about the future.
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The empirical analysis provides strong support for the notion that people offset the restraint benefits of seat belt use by driving more aggressively. Also, ...Missing: security seatbelts speeding
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An experimental test of risk compensation: Between-subject versus ...
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In 2023, the US military spent approximately $820.3 billion, or roughly 13.3% of the entire federal budget for that fiscal year.
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Mandatory outlays by the federal government totaled $3.8 trillion in 2023; more than half was for Social Security and Medicare. The largest increases over the ...Discretionary Spending · Mandatory Spending in Fiscal... · Menu · Page 5
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France's Maginot Line Totally Failed, But Not For The Reason You ...
May 14, 2021 · It is a harsh lesson of history that an idea can be brilliant in itself, yet fail for all sorts of reasons. Especially in military history, ...<|separator|>
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Why France's World War II defense failed so miserably
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Securitization theory and its empirical application: a literature review
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The vulnerability of securitisation: the missing link of critical security ...
This article proposes to focus on vulnerability in the operationalisation of securitisation theory. It argues that in empirical investigations we often fail ...
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Economic | Costs of War - Brown University
Peltier shows, military spending is inefficient for employment: spending on education and healthcare would create more jobs while reducing the federal budget.
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Costs of the 20-year war on terror: $8 trillion and ... - Brown University
Nearly 20 years after the United States' invasion of Afghanistan, the cost of its global war on terror ...
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Airport Security: Astoundingly Expensive and 95 Percent Ineffective
Jun 3, 2015 · A recent leaked report on the TSA revealed glaring failures by the agency. But screenings aren't worth the cost even in the best of ...
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Understanding Securitization Success: A New Analytical Framework
Mar 31, 2025 · Despite prolific critique, development, and refinement of securitization theory, there is still no clear understanding of what “success” means.
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Twenty-five Years of Securitization Theory: A Corpus-based Review
Jan 20, 2022 · The present article systematically reviews a corpus of 171 securitization papers published in 15 major International Relations journals since 1995.
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Jun 22, 2005 · ... evidence from intelligence investigators to criminal ... Act for terrorism-related abuses that are not related to the Patriot Act.
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How Effective Are the Post-9/11 U.S. Counterterrorism Policies ...
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How Does an Armed People Secure a Free State?
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(PDF) Between Stability and Suppression: China's Golden Shield ...
Jul 3, 2025 · However, this strategy carries substantial financial and societal costs: rising domestic security expenditures have paralleled an increase in ...
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The Road to Digital Unfreedom: President Xi's Surveillance State
Chinese authorities are wielding facial-recognition software, big-data analytics, and other digital technologies to control China's citizens by monitoring ...<|separator|>
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The Dangers of the Global Spread of China's Digital Authoritarianism
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Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025 - The World Economic Forum
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Jan 10, 2025 · Financial losses due to cyberattacks. 11%. 11%. Damage to brand reputation and loss of customer trust. 7%. 12%. Not concerned. 3%. 2%.
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May 22, 2025 · A RAND research team examined the Russia-Ukraine war's geopolitical and military consequences through fall 2024.Missing: empirical | Show results with:empirical
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Tech impact from US policy pivot on chip sales in China: Expert
Aug 18, 2025 · The sale of certain US chips in China could have a major impact on the global technology industry and influence the geopolitical jockeying for ...
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COVID-19 Supply Chain Disruptions - ScienceDirect.com
We find that sectors with a high exposure to intermediate goods imports from China experienced significantly larger declines in production, employment, imports ...
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Supply Chain Disruptions in 2025 - OptimizePros
Jun 28, 2025 · Geopolitical instability has emerged as 2025's top supply chain risk, with trade restrictions and sanctions disrupting established logistics ...
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Top Cybersecurity Statistics: Facts, Stats and Breaches for 2025
CompTIA states that global cybercrime costs will cross $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, marking a 10% year-over-year increase. 3. The World Economic Forum's ...
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE'S GROWING ROLE IN MODERN ...
Aug 21, 2025 · Drones now cause 70–80% of battlefield casualties, with both sides developing AI-powered targeting systems. AI has boosted first-person view ...
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Air Force AI writes battle plans faster than humans can
In a recent Air Force experiment, AI algorithms generated attack plans about 400 times faster than human staff, a two-star general ...
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A Dose of Realism: Geopolitical and Security Dimensions of Solar ...
Sep 22, 2025 · Every year gets worse; the summer of 2025 was the hottest on record in the country, and across Europe, wildfires burned more than 1 million ...
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[PDF] An AI Revolution in Military Affairs? How Artificial Intelligence Could ...
Jul 4, 2025 · Our central predictions are about what characteristics AI-enabled warfare will reward, not about how to label those changes. Because AI is ...