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Human Security: A New Strategic Narrative for Europe

Article in International Affairs · March 2007

DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2007.00618.x

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Human Security: A New Strategic Narrative for Europe
Author(s): Mary Kaldor, Mary Martin and Sabine Selchow
Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 83, No.
2, Europe at 50 (Mar., 2007), pp. 273-288
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Institute of International
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 Human security:

a new strategic narrative for Europe

MARY KALDOR, MARY MARTIN AND SABINE SELCHOW

Absolute despair would be the wrong response [to the current situation in Iraq]. Instead
the disaster that is the West's current strategy in Iraq must be used as a constructive call
to the international community to reconfigure its foreign policy around human security
rather than national security.
Jan Egeland, UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs'

Human security refers to the security of individuals and communities, expressed

as both 'freedom from fear' and 'freedom from want'. Severe threats to human
security range from genocide and slavery to natural disasters such as hurricanes
or floods to massive violations of the right to food, health and housing. In this
article, we argue that the adoption of a human security concept represents a quali-
tative change in the conduct of foreign and security policy. This step-change is
particularly relevant for the European Union as it seeks to improve its effective-
ness and visibility as a collective global actor. Terms matter, and human security
is not simply a leitmotif for EU security policies,2 or an analytical label which
categorizes the EU's international role in the way that concepts such as normative
power or civilian power have done. 3 Rather, it provides an enduring and dynamic
organizing frame for security action, a frame which European foreign policy
texts and practices currently lack. Thus human security can be seen as a proactive
strategic narrative with the potential to further EU foreign policy integration.
To elaborate this organizing frame, we examine two distinct aspects of a human
security doctrine: lexis, or what is said and written about it; and praxis, or what it
means in terms of everyday actions, from policies to tactics on the ground.
The lexis of human security matters because it deals with how policy-makers
and the European public view and articulate issues of external security. This is
not just the stuff of academic discussions; we need to know what we mean when
we talk about the ideas, values, interests and goals of EU external relations. Even
practitioners who regard concepts with suspicion as abstract and unhelpful use

Quoted by Sarah Boseley, 'One in 50 Iraqis "killed since invasion"', Guardian, 12 Oct. 2006.
2 Sascha Werthes and David Bosold, 'Caught between pretension and substantiveness: ambiguities of Human
Security as a political leitmotif', in Tobias Debiel and Sascha Werthes, eds, Human Security on foreign policy
agendas, changes, concepts and cases (Duisburg: Eigenverlag, 2006).
Ian Manners, 'Normative power Europe: a contradiction in terms?', working paper 38/2000, Copenhagen
Peace Research Institute; Frangois Duch~ne, 'Europe's role in world peace', in R. Mayne, ed., Europe tomorrow:
sixteen Europeans look ahead (London: Fontana, 1972).

International Affairs 83: 2 (2007) 273-288

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Mary Kaldor, Mary Martin and Sabine Selchow

them unconsciously as mind maps in practical analysis and problem-solving. At the

same time, recent debates about the semantics of the 'global war on terrorism', or
whether what is going on in Sudan should be called genocide, reveal acute polit-
ical sensitivity towards policy terms and labels. In a Europe of 27 member states,
concepts can help us to reach common understandings and expressions of issues.
The praxis of human security deals with how this doctrinal concept translates into
practical action, and whether it is useful in guiding the actions of policy-makers,
planners and experts in the field.

Lexis and lexicon

We already do human security, we just don't call it that.4

This is a common response in discussions with practitioners about the concept of

human security. It presupposes that there is a difference between calling something
'human security' and actually doing 'human security', that is, between concepts or
ideas and political practice. Yet political concepts take hold only if they resonate,
if they contain real meaning as providing either a guide to action or a descrip-
tion of practice, and if subsequently action confirms the rightness of the descrip-
tion. Terms like 'humanitarianism' or 'democracy' have often been discredited as
Orwellian types of Newspeak when wars are conducted in their name, precisely
because they are empty linguistic vessels.
Developments in the European Common Foreign And Security Policy (CFSP)
have helped catalyse an emerging European discourse, but the lexicon of terms
used is a muddled affair, which obscures rather than clarifies the nature of European
foreign policy. Three key terms that are used to name what 'is done' provide at
least a partial view of what we mean by a European Security and Defence Policy
(ESDP): these are crisis management, civil-military coordination and conflict prevention.
We have selected these concepts as ones that are explicitly used within texts about
ESDP, indicating that certain essential features of the idea of 'human security' can
be found in current ESDP discourse, and leading us to assert that 'human security'
seems in essence to be something 'European'. However, we argue that using the
specific term 'human security' can help to take what is done a stage further.

Crisis management

Generally speaking, a crisis is something that is considered an 'urgent threat to the

core values of a polity'.5 The term 'crisis management' exemplifies the imprecision
of the EU's CFSP and ESDP language and illustrates the 'terminological jungle'
that surrounds collective security policy.6 Terms like 'crisis response', 'civilian crisis

4 Interview, Post Conflict Reconstruction Unit, Department for International Development, London, 7 July
2006.

s Arjen Boin, Magnus Ekengren and Mark Rhinard, 'Funtional security and crisis management: capacity in the
European Union', April 2006, p. 2, http://www.eucm.leidenuniv.nl/content_docs/eucmreportapril2006
web_publication_version.pdf, last accessed I Feb. 2007.
6 International Crisis Group, 'EU crisis response capability: institutions and processes for conflict prevention
and management', issues report 2, 26 June zo2ol0, Brussels.

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Human security: a new strategic narrative for Europe

response' and 'humanitarian response', and 'conflict' and 'crisis', are often used as if
they were interchangeable.' The European Commission defines crisis management
as 'humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and combat-force tasks in
crisis management, including peacemaking'.8 There is a tendency within the EU
discourse to equate 'crisis' with conflict. Although crises are officially referred to
as either 'man-made' or 'natural', it is usually 'man-made' crises that are considered
an 'urgent threat to the core of values and the system of the EU as a polity'.
The EU defines crisis management in terms of capabilities, focusing on the
instruments of civilian crisis management (CCM), such as the police, the rule of
law and civil protection. As Renata Dwan points out, civilian crisis management
'is particular to the EU and has no equivalent parallel in the lexicons of UN, OSCE
or non-European regional organisations'.9
The European Council defines CCM as designed to help 'restore civilian
government' alongside other instruments, such as military means to restore peace
and economic means to restore the viability of conflict zones, and considers both
military and civilian crisis management as short-term instruments applied in the
immediate reaction to a crisis.Io The Commission, by contrast, considers CCM to
be a long-term activity." Recent efforts to integrate long- and short-term CCM
actions represent part of an attempt to build a more coherent and proactive, rather
than reactive, approach to CCM.
It was only after the end of the Cold War, in the face of the crises in the Balkans,
that the EU and its member states explicitly identified the need for viable and
synchronised crisis management structures and felt 'obliged to engage more
directly in conflict prevention and crisis management'.12
The first step in the establishment of new procedures and structures for the
development of a coherent and comprehensive crisis management (CM) capability
was the Swedish-Finnish initiative to integrate the so-called Petersberg tasks into
the Amsterdam Treaty in 1996. The primary concern in the Balkans crises was
the EU's lack of military capabilities; hence the main focus was on building a
European military force, while the concern for civilian capabilities came second.
Since 2002, the negative term 'non-military' has been increasingly replaced by
the positive term 'civilian', illustrating a discursive shift which stresses the multi-
faceted character of CM, involving a wide variety of personnel from police officers

7 Benita Ferrero-Waldner, 'The role of crisis response in external relations: "from needs to solutions: enhanc-
ing civilian crisis response capacity of the European Union"', paper presented to conference organized by the
European Commission in cooperation with the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), Brussels, 14 Nov. 2005,
speech/o5/684.
www.ec.europa.eu/comm/external_relations/cfspp/cppcm/cm.htm, accessed 14Jan. 2007.
9 Quoted in Agnieszka Nowak, 'Civilian crisis management within ESDP', in Agnieszka Nowak, ed., Civilian
crisis management: the EU way, Chaillot Paper 90o, June 2006.
'o A secure Europe in a better world: European Security Strategy, document proposed by Javier Solana and adopted by
the heads of state and government at the European Council in Brussels, 12 Dec. 2003.
" 'We recognise that conflict prevention and crisis management are long term undertakings': Chris Patten,
'Debate on conflict prevention/crisis management', European Parliament plenary, Strasbourg, 14 March 2000,
speech/oI/I23.
i2 Chris Patten, 'The EU's evolving foreign policy dimension: the ESDP after Helsinki', joint meeting of the
European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee with members of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly,
speech/oo/5I, Brussels, 22 Feb. 2000.

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Mary Kaldor, Mary Martin and Sabine Selchow

to judges and firemen. This is consistent with developments on the ground, where
the majority of EU missions have been civilian. Importantly, it also reflects the
foundational idea especially strong in Germany and the Nordic member states of
the EU as a 'civil power'.
The idea of civilian crisis management was given prominence during the 2006
Finnish presidency via the adoption of the Action Plan for Non-military Crisis
Management of the EU, intended to establish effective mechanisms of rapid
coordination and deployment. Rapid response, once seen as the guiding idea of
a collective European security presence, is now subsumed under crisis manage-
ment. Meanwhile the imperative of responding to the tsunami of December 2004
extended the concept of crisis management to cover natural disasters and civil
protection of local populations.

Civil-military coordination (CMCO)

The EU's crisis management efforts are increasingly characterized by a drive

for integration and comprehensiveness. This refers to integration between the
different 'pillars' of EU activity,'3 as well as to the coherence and integration of
civil and military capabilities. A comprehensive civil-military approach to crises
is embedded in the EU's understanding of contemporary challenges and threats.
According to the European Security Strategy (ESS), 'In contrast to the massive
visible threat in the Cold War, none of the new threats [outlined in the ESS] is
purely military; nor can any be tackled by purely military means. Each requires a
mixture of instruments."'4
The concept of CMCO adopted by the Council in November 2003 refers to the
internal coordination of the EU's military and civilian crisis management efforts."5
In contrast to national conceptions of civil-military coordination, the EU's version
is political rather than military-operational. In order to achieve coherence, the EU
concept of CMCO, as expressed in the Council paper, promotes the idea of a
'culture of co-ordination':

Rather than seeking to put too much emphasis on detailed structures or procedures ...
The aim must be to encourage and to ensure the co-ordination in the actions of relevant
EU actors in all phases of the operation. In this context, it is important to recognise that
this CMCO culture needs to be 'built into' the EU's response to a crisis at the earliest
possible stage and for the whole duration of the operation, rather than being 'bolted on' at
a later stage. This culture of co-ordination is based on continued co-operation and shared
political objectives.'6

"3 See Catriona Gourlay, 'Civil-civil coordination in EU crisis management', in Agnieszka Nowak, ed., Civilian
crisis management: the EU way. Chaillot Paper No. 9, June 2006, pp. 103-19.
14 A secure Europe in a better world, p. 12.
"5 Civil-military coordination (CMCO) in the context of CFSP/ESDP addresses the need for effective coordin-
ation of the actions of all relevant EU actors involved in the planning and subsequent implementation of EU's
response to the crisis. For an overview of the development of CMCO within the EU, see e.g. Radek Khol,
'Civil-military co-ordination in EU crisis management', in Nowak, ed., Civilian crisis management, pp. 123-36.
I6 European Council, Civil-military co-ordination (CMCO), Doc. 14457/03, 7 November 2003.

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Human security: a new strategic narrative for Europe

Civil-military coordination sounds like, but is different from, civil-military

cooperation (CIMIC), a more controversial concept which in EU terminology
refers to cooperation with external actors in EU-led missions. The ideas of civil-
military coordination, cooperation or synergy (the Union is not sure which of
these nouns it prefers) are given institutional expression through the Civilian/
Military Cell (Civ/Mil Cell), established under the Italian presidency."7 'The
Civilian/Military Cell enhances the EU's capacity for crisis management planning,
reinforces national HQ designated to conduct an EU autonomous operation, assists
in co-ordinating civilian operations and generates the capacity to plan and run an
autonomous EU operation.'"s Another important initiative has taken place injoint
civil-military training, with two programmes related to CMCO (one run by the
Commission since 20oo and one offered by the Council since 2004). While these
initiatives receive vocal support (and the Commission has two members attached
to the Civilian/Military Cell), in practice civil-military cooperation remains a
marginal and contested practice.'9

Conflict prevention

Unlike crisis management and CMCO, which are primarily related to Council
operations, conflict prevention is a key discourse within the European Commis-
sion, which defines prevention in terms of addressing both the long- and short-
term causes of conflict through action on poverty, development, social injustice,
aid, trade, arms control and governance, although it is also associated with strat-
egies of 'preventive engagement' set out in the ESS. As Commission policy, it
combines long- and short-term measures. Long term include development policies
and cooperation with target states to reduce poverty, and an emphasis on cross-
cutting issues such as trafficking in drugs, small arms and people; short term
initiatives include sending observers to elections, giving emergency economic
assistance, applying sanctions and undertaking civilian missions. Confusingly,
given the overlap with Council terminology short term 'crisis management' is a
short term Commission tool within its overall responses to conflict.
This idea of conflict prevention is closely related to the notion of sustainable
peace, which figures in the discourse of the UN and of international civil society
actors.20 Sustainable peace was seen as the ultimate goal of conflict prevention,
management and resolution, for example in the initiative by the Finnish and
Swedish foreign ministers in 1996, with regard to the Petersberg tasks referred
to above, and actions in Bosnia and Macedonia through which the EU tried to
promote the idea at the UN.2' The conflict prevention discourse has its origins

17 'European defence: NATO/EU consultation, planning and operations', ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/

78414%20-%20oEU-NATO%2OConsultation,%2oPlanning%2oand%2oOperations.pdf, accessed ii Jan. 2007.
'8 www.consilium.europa.eu/cms3_fo/showPage.asp?id= 104&lang=DE&mode=g, accessed ii Jan. 2007.
19 Comments by Umberto Incisa, European Parliament hearing, Security and Defence Sub-Committee, Brussels,
19 Sept. 2006.
20 NGOs and other international organizations, including the UN, prefer the term peacebuilding.
2' Jaap Ramaker, 'Crafting a sustainable peace: supporting conflict prevention, conflict management and conflict
resolution', statement to the UN Parliamentary Forum, 9 Oct. 1997.

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Mary Kaldor, Mary Martin and Sabine Selchow

in a political ethos rooted in civil society, collective action, the public sphere and
reconciliation.

Conflict prevention attempts to break vicious circles of instability, with different

entry points for intervention at the various stages of conflict cycles, including
subsidiary tools of early warning and analysis on the one hand, and rapid response
on the other. It has also come to encompass capacity-building in target states and
a shift from the culture of donorship by the EU to ownership by the victims of
conflict, altering the contractual relationship between the two.
Despite its roots in civil activism, the term as currently used also implies a focus
on the nation-state, as institutional reform-of the security sector, thejudiciary and
governance-forms a significant part of the toolkit deployed under this heading. At
the level of individual member states, conflict prevention and post-conflict recon-
struction are often allied to strategies which target 'failed or fragile states'.22
The dividing lines between conflict prevention and crisis management are also
increasingly blurred, but while the two concepts are seen as complementary, they
can also clash: the long-term approach involved in conflict prevention is frequently
knocked off course by the imperatives of short-term crisis management.23 The
conflict prevention discourse places much emphasis on a variety of policy instru-
ments, and their coordinated use, in bridging the gap between chronic structural
problems in states and the outbreak of violence. It also intersects with multilater-
alism, in seeking to address conflict by working with target states and their regional
neighbours, and through partnerships with NGOs and local civil society.

Implications for human security

Human security, as a term, can be understood to encompass the concepts of

conflict prevention, crisis management and civil-military coordination, but it
takes them further. It draws on the debates generated by these concepts as well as
other terms used more broadly in the current global discourse, such as 'responsi-
bility to protect', 'effective multilateralism' and 'human development'.
First of all, insecurity is closely related to crisis. Human security can be treated
as the 'crisis end' of terms like human rights and human development. It has
to do with human need at moments of extreme vulnerability, not only in wars
but in natural and technological disasters as well. Security is often viewed as the
absence of physical violence, while development is viewed as material develop-
ment, improved living standards. In much the same way, human rights are often
treated as civil and political rights, even though properly speaking human rights
should include economic and social rights. These distinctions pervade much of
the literature about human security as a policy concept, yet they are misleading.
Many conceptual boundaries, such as those dividing the political, civil, economic
and military, have to be redrawn in an era of globalization because they are defined
largely in terms of a nation-state frame. All three concepts-human security,

22 Active diplomacy for a changing world: the UK's international priorities, White Paper, UK Foreign and Common-
wealth Office, London, 28 March 2oo6.
23 Benita Ferrero-Waldner, 'Conflict prevention: looking to the future', speech, Brussels, 12 Sept. 2o006.

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Human security: a new strategic narrative for Europe

human rights and human development-include 'freedom from fear' as well as

'freedom from want'. Just as human rights includes economic and social as well
as civil and political rights, so human development is about more than a decent
standard of living. It is also about feeling safe on the streets and being able to
influence political decision-making. Human insecurity, even in conflict, is not
just about the impact of military violence; it is also about the consequences of
human rights violations, violent crime and the material consequences of conflict.
In contemporary wars, only a minority of deaths occur in battle. Most people who
die do so either because of violence deliberately targeted against civilians as a result
of terror, ethnic cleansing or genocide, or because of the indirect effects of war:
lack of access to health care, disease, hunger and homelessness.
Rather than seeing these terms as relating to different fields of activity (economic,
social, civil, political, etc.) we can more usefully understand them as different ways
of addressing human need. Human development is about capabilities, and about
the construction of institutions that give rights meaning. Nowadays the rule of
law, governance, community-building and so on are all considered key compo-
nents of human development strategies, along with policies enabling people to
make sustainable livelihoods. Human rights express a sense of human dignity, an
acknowledgement that human beings have the right to develop those capabili-
ties-that meeting urgent needs is not charity or paternalism.
So human security is part of human development and human rights; but it is, if
you like, at the sharp end of human development and human rights-it addresses
what Amartya Sen has described as the 'downside risks' faced by individuals and
communities.24 Some authors use the term 'vulnerabilities' as opposed to 'threats',
preferring the broader term that allows for more subtle forms of insecurity, not
linked to immediate violence.25 Perhaps the indicator that comes closest to a
measure of human security is displaced persons. Displaced persons are a typical
feature of contemporary crises, both natural disasters and wars. Since the 1970s
there has been a steady increase in the number of displaced persons arising from
each conflict. In Lebanon, in 2006 for example, over I,ooo Lebanese civilians were
killed and over 400,000 people were forced to leave their homes. Hundreds of
thousands had to leave New Orleans as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Displaced
persons are the victims of both physical and material insecurity.
Thus, while human security is about crisis management, it is about more than
that, for it offers a perspective on crisis itself. If a 'crisis' is an event or episode
that represents an urgent threat to the 'core values and system of a polity', human
security is about how we respond to an urgent physical or material threat to
individuals and communities. From a human security perspective, the aim is
not just political stability; it encompasses a notion of justice and sustainability.
Hitherto, stability has tended to be defined in terms of the absence of overt conflict
or, in an economic perspective, about halting a downward spiral of GDP or the

24 See www.humansecurity-chs.org/, accessed II Jan. 2007.

25 P. Liotta, 'Boomerang effect: the convergence of national and human security', Security Dialogue 33: 4, 2002,
pp. 473-88.

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Mary Kaldor, Mary Martin and Sabine Selchow

value of a currency. In recent years, the international community does seem to

have learned how to stabilize conflicts, how to reach and sustain peace agreements
and how to stabilize economies.26 But it has not yet learned how to address the
security of individuals and communities and deal with crime, human rights viola-
tions and joblessness. The parlance of crisis management, especially on the civil
side, within the EU does, of course, emphasize some of these 'vulnerabilities'-for
example, in the critical focus on strengthening the 'rule of law'. The language of
human security would further entrench this kind of thinking and would help to
underline the need to address these 'vulnerabilities' and thereby to reduce the risk
of renewed crisis.
Human security capabilities, like crisis management, require civil-military
coordination. But it is more than just a matter of coordination-or 'integration',
or 'synergies', to borrow from current parlance; human security is about how and
why civil and military capabilities are combined, rather than their automatic inclu-
sion as part of a standard conflict toolkit. In classic wars, civilians always insisted on
their autonomy from the military. Their ability to operate depended on 'humani-
tarian space'-their neutrality and impartiality were important to allow them
to help non-combatants, prisoners of war and the wounded on all sides. Many
humanitarian and development agencies fear that association with the military
will undermine their ability to work, and indeed this has happened in Iraq and
Afghanistan, where the international institutions are perceived to be on the side of
the coalition forces. Human security, however, as spelled out in the next section,
is not about war-fighting; it is about protection of individuals and communi-
ties, and it is about expanding the rule of law, while squeezing the arena of war.
In contemporary wars, where civilians are targets, humanitarian space is disap-
pearing. In a human security operation, the job of the military is to protect and
preserve that space rather than to fight an enemy. Thus human security is not just
about developing a culture of civil-military cooperation; it is about an entirely
new way of functioning in crises that is best described by a new language of human
security. The discussion surrounding CMCO does, of course, emphasize that it is
about political coordination and not just about organizational arrangements, but
such political coordination needs to be spelled out in terms of coherent goals and
methods and how they are defined.
Crisis management, whether we are talking about conflicts or humanitarian
disasters, is usually thought to encompass all phases of crisis-prevention, mitiga-
tion, recovery and reconstruction. There is a tendency for the international
community to be preoccupied with phases and to assume that different phases
call for different tools and instruments. Conflict prevention addresses the 'vulner-
abilities' that are associated with lack of human security-joblessness, weak rule
of law resulting in crime and human rights violations, weak capacity to provide
public services. These can be regarded as the structural conditions that make crises
more likely. They are not necessarily the causes of conflicts or natural disasters,

26 'Final report of the Commission on Human Security', I May 2003, www.humansecurity-chs.org/finalreport/

index.html, accessed ii Jan. 2007.

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Human security: a new strategic narrative for Europe

but they weaken society's capacity to cope with crises. These 'vulnerabilities' are
usually exacerbated both by conflict and by disasters. Thus in the aftermath of
crises, the conditions for future crises are not suppressed but further aggravated.
Our solutions to crisis become part of a future problem. In terms of dealing with
conflict, this means that reconstruction is also prevention, and that both preven-
tion and reconstruction need to focus on the security of individuals rather than
only on the stability of states.
Human security could be considered a 'bridging concept' between the immediate
need for stabilization and the need, simultaneously and over the long term, to
address these structural conditions. Rather than seeing stabilization and structural
assistance as relevant to different phases of crisis, it is important to combine both
during all phases, even though the mix of instruments may vary according to the
specific situation.
In the case of the EU, the public language of foreign policy that is beginning to
emerge from the experiences of collective action needs to have a clearer focus. The
EU has distinctive public positions on issues such as the death penalty, human rights
legislation, Guantinamo Bay and extraordinary rendition. Media correspondents
and representatives of civil society groups, from unions to NGOs and businesses,
are widening their horizons beyond the technocratic vocabulary of economic
integration to take account of the new and growing foreign policy dimension
to the Union. At present this discourse is stranded in fragmented rhetoric and
multiple policy labels. These add to the confusion of purpose behind ESDP and
CFSP, and they also contribute to a lack of transparency and visibility. Human
security, already implicit in this discourse, could offer a new dimension to the
way the EU deals with conflict and instability. The next section elaborates this
argument by spelling out what a human security policy would mean in practice.

Praxis

Human security is utopian. Even if we had the capabilities, it is not practical or realistic.27

To espouse human security can be regarded as requiring a paradigm shift from

traditional national security approaches to foreign policy. Another common criti-
cism of the concept of human security, which appears to contradict the 'so what?'
criticism instanced at the beginning of the previous section, is the charge that
is too idealistic. But it can be argued that this paradigm shift is actually already
under way-and, moreover, that the new outlook is more realistic than traditional
national security approaches since it represents the only possible approach to the
kinds of insecurities that human beings face in the contemporary global era. How
we develop the concept of human security and imbue it with relevant meaning is
actually part of the process of implementing this paradigm shift.
The failure of the European constitutional treaty in 2005 and the present
uncertainty over whether and how it might be revived have limited the scope for

27 Authors' discussion with policy planners at the German Foreign Office, 29 June 2006.

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Mary Kaldor, Mary Martin and Sabine Selchow

innovation in foreign policy-making. The treaty's proposals for an EU foreign

minister, and for a combined external action service, would have provided institu-
tional support for an expanded EU external presence; but, perhaps as importantly,
the French and Dutch referendums sparked a crisis of democratic accountability
among the 25 member states and led to a paralysis of integration, exacerbated by
domestic political stalemates during this period in the Big Three foreign policy
member states, Germany, France and the UK.
The first years of the new century have also coincided with the passing of the
high-water mark of EU enlargement with the accession of 17 new central and
east European states, future rounds involving Turkey and some of the Balkan
states remaining highly contested. Enlargement has been arguably the EU's most
successful foreign policy, and successor policies designed to systematize relations
with neighbours to the east and south of the Union's borders offer less clear-cut
avenues of external stabilization.
Despite all this, security policy at ground level has seen unprecedented growth.
The EU currently has around I0,000 personnel deployed in 13 missions on three
continents, with Aceh, Sudan and the DRC (Congo) added in the past year and a
major new engagement in Kosovo planned for 2007. The diversity and ambition of
these missions, from monitoring a border in Rafah to monitoring a peace process
in Aceh, are fuelling a wealth of experience and lessons learned and building a
foreign policy acquis capable of informing future external security policy. At the
same time, the build up of capabilities has continued, both through the military
force generation process and the creation, training and deployment of rosters of
civilian experts, as well as the development of planning and operations infrastruc-
ture in Brussels to meet the headline goals of 2008 (civilian) and 2010o (military). The
creation of 13 battlegroups and of civilian response teams (CRTs) is the outward
sign of this capacity development.
Notwithstanding this positive picture overall, the nagging question remains:
what is the EU actually doing with its foreign and security policies? The polit-
ical and strategic goals of ESDP are poorly articulated, in Brussels, in national
capitals and on the ground where the Union intervenes. Mandates for external
security action date back to the Treaty of European Union of 1992, exist in
European Council declarations dating back to 1999,28 and are best codified in
the 2003 ESS. In all these documents, the emphasis is on security as fulfilling the
European integration project, and as a necessary adjunct to the Union's develop-
ment; questions about the specific goals and modes of a common security policy
are not addressed.29 The ESS itself, with its focus on threats, responsibilities and
capabilities, leaves unanswered key questions about why the Union should inter-
vene beyond its borders, where it should do so, and according to what criteria.
A growing corpus of knowledge and experience from its diverse interventions
to date remains fractured, lacking any strategic overview or 'road map' to enable

28 European Council, Presidency Conclusions, Cologne, June I999, Annex III, para. I, p. 33.
29 See Stefanie Flechtner, 'European security and defense policy: between "offensive defense" and "human
security"', Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft 4, Oct. 2006.

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Human security: a new strategic narrative for Europe

these experiences to inform future action. Thus some critics take the view that the
EU's security strategy is in fact only a 'pre-strategic concept'.30
The advantage of the term 'human security' is that it can be used to combine
many of the concepts and ideas that have been developed in the ESDP. It can
encompass conflict prevention, crisis management and civil-military cooperation,
and indeed it draws on the assumptions inherent in these concepts. But it also
offers a way to act, a set of principles for crisis management, conflict prevention
and civil-military cooperation. How an institution acts in crises becomes a symbol
of how it is perceived in general. Security is bound up with political legitimacy.
We feel safe if we trust our institutions, and we trust our institutions if we see that
they act effectively in crises.
There is a lot of discussion nowadays about the 'responsibility to protect' and
the conditions under which it is right to use military force. There is much less
discussion about how military force should be used in such a role; and yet this
is critical for effective protection. There are also discussions about why civilian
elements of crisis management should be used, with an emphasis on helping to
establish a rule of law, but much less about how and when they work together
with the military. Human security offers a set of principles that apply to both
'why' and 'how', both ends and means.3' A key element is the establishment of
the rule of law and the associated institutions, and from this perspective the role
of the military is neither war-fighting nor peacekeeping but rather supporting the
establishment of the rule of law.
The first principle of a human security policy is respect for human rights. This
is the key concept and most radically different, for the military, from the classic use
of military force. For civilians it is more obvious, since this is how we behave in
a domestic setting. For the military, it means the primary goal is protecting civil-
ians rather than defeating an adversary. Of course, sometimes it is necessary to try
to capture or even defeat insurgents, but this has to be seen as a means to an end,
civilian protection, rather than the other way round.
This principle implies a different way of thinking about collateral damage.
Proportionate collateral damage can be justified within the framework of tradi-
tional wars against foreign enemies. The problem is that nowadays it is difficult to
distinguish between wars and human rights violations. What appears to Ameri-
cans or Israelis as collateral damage as a result of legitimate attempts to destroy
an enemy appears to others as massive human rights violations. A human security
operation is more like a domestic operation-everyone is, in effect, a citizen. This
principle entails minimizing all loss of life, including the lives of the terrorists
or insurgents, who should be treated as criminals rather than enemies and where
possible arrested rather than killed.
This also means that human security operations may be more risky than contem-
porary military operations, because saving the lives of civilians whatever their

30 J. Lindley-French, 'The revolution in security affairs: hard and soft security dynamics in the 21st century',
European Security 13: I, 2004, pp. 1-IS.
3' A human security doctrinefor Europe: the Barcelona Report of the Study Group on Europe's Security Capabilities, presented
to EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, Barcelona, 15 Sept. 2004,
www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/2securitypub.htm, accessed II Jan. 2007.

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Mary Kaldor, Mary Martin and Sabine Selchow

nationality comes before force protection. This is something that is recognized by

human rights activists, who do risk their lives, if not by politicians.
Just as in coping with violence the focus is on the needs of the individual and
not only overall stabilization, in economic terms the human security principle
implies a focus on individual need rather than on macro indicators like economic
growth or budgetary stability.
The second principle is the establishment of legitimate political authority.
Human security depends on the existence of legitimate institutions that gain the
trust of the population and have some enforcement capacity. Again, this applies
both to physical security, where the rule of law and a well-functioning system of
justice are essential in constructing an individual sense of security, and to material
security, where the provision of legitimate employment, infrastructure and public
services has to be underpinned by a regulatory framework. Legitimate political
authority does not necessarily have to be wielded by a state; it could rest in local
government, or regional or international political arrangements like protector-
ates or transitional administrations. Since state failure is often the primary cause
of conflict, the reasons for state failure have to be taken into account in recon-
structing legitimate political authority. Measures like justice and security sector
reform, disarmament, demobilization and re-integration (DDR) and extension of
authority and public service reform are critical for the establishment of legitimate
political authority.
This second principle explicitly recognizes the limitations on the use of military
force. The aim of any intervention is to stabilize the situation so that a space can be
created for a peaceful political process rather than to win through military means
alone. The military, like the civilians, play an enabling role. The military support
and make possible various civilian tasks that contribute to the construction of
institutions capable of solving or managing conflict. In the end, it is only those
who are engaged in conflict who can end violence. The most that external actors
can do is to help provide conditions that make this possible. In other words, the
job of human security forces is stabilization or peace support rather than winning.
This is obvious for civilian crisis management but less obvious for the military,
who are used to believing that solutions can be imposed through force.
Actually, in most counter-insurgency operations, victory is very difficult to
achieve and can only be reached, if at all, through widespread destruction and
repression. The Chechen capital of Grozny, for example, has been reduced to
rubble, but sporadic violence continues. The Israelis have succeeded in slowing
down suicide attacks, but the overall situation is worsening. Human security
principles explicitly recognize the impossibility of swift outright victory and aim
instead to establish safe zones where political solutions can be sought or where
civilian instruments can help to provide the conditions for political processes.
Techniques such as the establishment of safe havens, humanitarian corridors or
no-fly zones are typical of a human security approach.
In this approach, politics is in command. Both economic and security policies
have to be guided by political considerations and, in operational terms, this means

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Human security: a new strategic narrative for Europe

that there needs to be a single commander, political or military, who understands

politics and has access to political authority.
The third principle is multilateralism. 'Effective multilateralism' is another key
term in the European discourse. Multilateralism means more than simply 'acting
with/as part of a group of states'. In that narrow sense, nearly all international
initiatives might be considered multilateral. Multilateralism is closely related
to legitimacy and is what distinguishes a human security approach from neo-
colonialism.
First, multilateralism means a commitment to work with international institu-
tions, and through the procedures of international institutions. This means, first
and foremost, working within the UN framework, but it also entails working
with or sharing out tasks among other regional organizations, such as the OSCE
and NATO in Europe, the AU, SADC and ECOWAS in Africa, or the OAS in the
western hemisphere.
Second, multilateralism entails a commitment to creating common rules and
norms, solving problems through rules and cooperation, and enforcing the rules.
Nowadays, legitimate political authority has to be situated within a multilateral
framework. Indeed, state failure is partly to be explained in terms of the failure of
traditionally unilateralist states to adapt to multilateral ways of working.
Third, multilateralism has to include synthesis and interoperability, rather than
duplication or rivalry. An effective human security approach requires coordination
between intelligence, foreign policy, trade policy, development policy and security
policy initiatives; between the member states; between the European Commission
and the Council; and between these and other multilateral actors, including the
UN, the World Bank, the IMF and regional institutions. Preventive and proactive
policies cannot be effective if they are isolated, let alone contradictory.
The fourth principle is the bottom-up approach. It is critical to have a good
grasp of the local situation. This requires intensive consultation, not simply to
win hearts and minds but in order to gain knowledge and understanding. This
principle seems obvious, but there is often a built-in tendency to think 'we know
best'. Women's groups are particularly important since women are usually more
likely than men to be engaged in the everyday consequences of conflict rather than
in sectarian struggles for power.
Human security is about empowering vulnerable communities, even in condi-
tions of conflict and crisis, rather than coercing or regulating them to produce
peace. A bottom-up approach also means a new contractual relationship between
the EU on the one hand and, on the other, states and local people who are the
target of intervention. It is also more conducive to the success of external missions
to build a better role for local intelligence and for longer-term sustainable relations,
to make missions more accountable to local populations.
The final principle is regional focus. There is a tendency to focus on particular
countries when dealing with crises. Yet insecurity spills over borders through
refugees, transnational criminal networks, trade in illegal commodities, minorities,
extremist ideologies and so on. It is impossible to manage the conflict in Sierra

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Mary Kaldor, Mary Martin and Sabine Selchow

Leone without addressing other crises in West Africa, especially Liberia. The war
in Afghanistan will not end without cooperation with Pakistan, Iran and Tajiki-
stan. And there are many other examples of 'bad neighbourhoods'. In its relations
with neighbouring states, the EU has recognized the importance of a regional
approach. Its Neighbourhood Policy towards Russia and surrounding states, and
the Barcelona Process/Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, both rely on the idea of
a regional dialogue, but this principle has been less systematically applied to its
crisis policies.
The case of Afghanistan, though not the only example, illustrates what can
go wrong when the principles of human security are not applied. In Afghani-
stan, NATO has tried to put into practice some of the current ideas about crisis
management and civil-military cooperation in the provincial reconstruction teams
(PRTs). Moreover, these efforts are undertaken within a multilateral framework
involving the UN, the EU and individual states, including EU member states.
However, the overall approach represents a mix of traditional national security
thinking alongside some elements of what could amount to a human security
approach. First of all, in the south and south-east, the priority has been defeating
the Taleban rather than protecting people. Since it is often impossible to distin-
guish Taleban fighters from civilians, many civilians get killed. However much
NATO and US forces proclaim their 'hearts and minds' strategy, the killing of
civilians undermines those protestations. Moreover, PRTs in other regions are, as
it were, contaminated by what is happening in the south and south-east. Second,
the inclusion of warlords and opium poppy-growers in the political institutions
and the weak rule of law, including reliance on, for example, Shari'a courts, has
meant a failure to establish legitimate political authority. The present government
is dependent on the international presence; despite some real advances such as the
election of women, trust in institutions is very low, and this makes it extremely
difficult to mobilize popular support for efforts to defeat the Taleban. Third, the
inclusion of warlords, while partly, of course, explained by the American reliance
on the Northern Alliance in toppling the Taleban, is also the outcome of an exces-
sively top-down approach and a failure to involve civil society, especially in the
initial political settlement. Finally, although there is now talk about Pakistan's
responsibility for harbouring the Taleban/Al-Qaeda, not nearly enough emphasis
has been placed on relations with neighbours, thus allowing insurgents to be
recruited from abroad.

Is it utopian to suggest that the concept of human security can be applied in

such difficult, dangerous and complex crises as Afghanistan? It is evident that tradi-
tional security approaches do not work. Moreover, elements of a human security
approach already exist in much EU thinking and doing. What we are suggesting
is that developing the narrative and putting into practice the principles of human
security should at least be tried if we are serious about facing up to current security
challenges.

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Human security: a new strategic narrative for Europe

Human security as value added

What would human security principles add to what is being done already? Essen-
tially, they amount to a strategic narrative with several consequences:

* Coherence. It is very difficult to achieve coherence through institutional mea-

sures. Turf battles and bureaucratic competition are inevitable in any large or-
ganization. Additional coordination mechanisms can oftenjust add to the layers
of competition. What is really needed is conceptual coherence: clarity about
shared goals and principles, encouraging notions of public service and commit-
ment.

* Effectiveness. The principles of human security provide a focus for exter

dates. They offer a framework for standardizing doctrines and rules of
ment. Essentially, the principles, adapted to each situation, could be exp
on a card carried by personnel deployed to crisis regions. They coul
used as a checklist for those involved in planning and evaluating operati
provide a reference point for the EU's intervention.
* Visibility. At present, public awareness of the EU role in dealing with c
very limited. A readily understandable policy concept could help to
the public impact of EU missions. A human security approach would
both the internal and external legitimacy of intervention, underpinnin
a set of norms and values, and offering both EU citizens and those i
countries with clear principles and justifications for security policy.

Why should the EU adopt a human security approach and lexicon? The fir
obvious argument is self-interest. Europe can no longer insulate itself fro
abroad. Terrorism, transnational crime and migration are all intertwined w
in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. A focus on the human facto
(in)security also allows us to construct more plausible links between our in
domestic security and external relations, instead of tolerating the dichoto
bombing insurgents abroad and building community programmes to
potential suicide bombers at home.
But even if there were not self-interest, there is an ethical argument. Eu
watch television and browse the Internet, and if they are aware of tr
other parts of the world, they do want to be able to contribute to their all
Concern about wars, human rights, the environment and poverty are par
identity of Europeans.
Perhaps most importantly, there is a legal argument that brings togeth
ethical and self-interest arguments. Europeans have an interest in the ext
international law, and international law has to be underpinned by global n
Human security is about upholding those norms in crisis situations. It could
a 'symbolic signpost' in the development of the EU's strategic culture, rec
the Union's normative and value-driven tradition with a quest for effecti
which has led the EU to develop military capabilities.32 A human security

32 Manners, 'Normative power Europe'.

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 Mary Kaldor, Mary Martin and Sabine Selchow

for Europe brings together both internal and external aspects of security, and also
suggests new ways of combining them.
The foundational ideas behind European external relations reflect a backward
glance to history as well as an attempt to look forward to the international environ-
ment of the twenty-first century. Many Europeans crave a role for the EU on
the world stage as a peace promoter in order to banish the demons of Europe's
own conflict-ridden experience; they seek to extend beyond Europe's borders the
zone of peace and stability which the integration project has helped to achieve;
and they believe that the EU can use its transformative power to persuade others
to move from war to peace and to universalize its own norms and ethics.33 The
adoption of an explicit human security approach would be a way to reiterate and
reinforce those foundational ideas and help to break through the political paralysis
that followed the French and Dutch repudiation of the constitution.

Conclusion

In this article we have proposed human security as the basis of both a discursive/
linguistic shift and a change in operating principles. We believe that the language
of European security is important and that the current fragmentation into multiple
policy labels adds layers of linguistic confusion to an already incoherent institu-
tional architecture. Europeans in 27 different member states need to find common
meanings that express the unique character of CFSP/ESDP and enable them to
project the EU's personality on the world stage. We have also examined what a
human security approach means in practice, to show that it is not simply a label
serving the EU's own image as a security actor, but allows the EU to put in place
a coherent and innovative policy tailored to the complex needs of contemporary
global security.
There are those, of course, who see the EU as a means for strengthening
European nation-states in an era of globalization, and envisage a foreign policy
based on self-interest. While the foundational idea(l)s of the EU led to its being
characterized as a normative, ethical or civilian/civilizing power, other ideas have
always existed alongside this dominant thread, for example that the EU, rather
than the Western European Union, should be a guarantor alongside NATO of
European defence.34 Human security offers a way to reiterate and reinforce those
foundational ideas, which are inspirational to many Europeans, and to distance the
EU from aspirations to great power status.
Finally, a human security approach may be the only way to close what can be
described as the security gap. Conventional military approaches do not seem to be
working in places like Iraq or Afghanistan or Lebanon. Millions of people live in
situations of deep insecurity, in large parts of Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans,
Central Asia and the Caucasus. The inability of our institutions to address the
challenge of global insecurity greatly weakens their legitimacy.

33 See Javier Solana, 'Three reasons for Europe', NRC Handelsblad, 17 May 2005.
34 Javier Solana, 'Remarks to the press on the results of the French constitutional referendum, 30 May 2005', in
EUsecurity and defence: Core documents zoos, Chaillot Paper 87, March 2006.

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