The new Malthusian security advocates use fearmongering tactics every bit as shamelessly as those overseeing the ‘war on terror’. Indeed, in the very process of depicting environmental and health issues as a major threat to human survival, they actually take the politics of fear far beyond the alarmist scenarios dreamt up by the architects of the ‘war on terror’. The Malthusian security agenda accepts the ideology of anti-terrorism in order to draw attention to its claim that there are even graver problems threatening the future and security of humanity.

In one very important sense, however, the Malthusian security agenda is even more retrograde than the traditionalist security agenda. The traditional variety was usually focused on a specific enemy; in many instances the enemy was clearly identified -- the Russians, the Cubans, or some specific group of subversives. Today’s security agenda, by contrast, is uncertain about how to distinguish friend from foe and what the problem really is. According to this view, there are no friends or foes. The new security agenda adopts a fiercely misanthropic outlook and blames human behaviour in general for threatening security. They believe that our behaviour -- leading to population growth, consumption of oil, environmental degradation -- is the real threat. For them, threats are transnational, global, interconnected; in other words, everything is a potential threat. Infectious diseases, environmental problems, economic discontent and terrorist violence are seen as being parts of a broader, generic security problem.

In years to come, this approach, which is now institutionalised through the US Department of Homeland Security, is likely to expand into more and more spheres of human experience. It is surely only a matter of time before the assumption implicit in the Malthusian security agenda -- that we do not simply need a ‘war on terror’ but a ‘war on everything’ -- will be made more explicit.

Expanding the ‘security threat’

Competing claims about what constitutes the greatest threat to global security are an exercise in what sociologists call domain expansion. ‘Once a problem gains widespread recognition and acceptance, there is a tendency to piggyback new claims on to the old name, to expand the problem’s domain’, writes the sociologist Joel Best (9). In other words, once terrorism and security have been defined as big problems that require serious attention, other claim-makers can appropriate these concerns to serve their own interests. Various different problems are now repackaged as ‘global threats’. ‘The initial claims become a foot in the door, an opening wedge for further advocacy’, says Best. Anxieties about international terrorism are not only mobilised to promote the ‘war on terror’ – they are also activated to highlight issues that have little to do with terrorists. So when a recent report concluded that the spread of HIV is ‘as big of a threat as terrorism’, it was drawing on the cultural script of the post-9/11 era (10). Other fear entrepreneurs have presented poverty reduction as being indispensable in the broader fight against international terrorism (11).

...

In one very important sense, however, the Malthusian security agenda is even more retrograde than the traditionalist security agenda. The traditional variety was usually focused on a specific enemy; in many instances the enemy was clearly identified – the Russians, the Cubans, or some specific group of subversives. Today’s security agenda, by contrast, is uncertain about how to distinguish friend from foe and what the problem really is. According to this view, there are no friends or foes. The new security agenda adopts a fiercely misanthropic outlook and blames human behaviour in general for threatening security. They believe that our behaviour – leading to population growth, consumption of oil, environmental degradation – is the real threat. For them, threats are transnational, global, interconnected; in other words, everything is a potential threat. Infectious diseases, environmental problems, economic discontent and terrorist violence are seen as being parts of a broader, generic security problem.

In years to come, this approach, which is now institutionalised through the US Department of Homeland Security, is likely to expand into more and more spheres of human experience. It is surely only a matter of time before the assumption implicit in the Malthusian security agenda – that we do not simply need a ‘war on terror’ but a ‘war on everything’ – will be made more explicit.

The new Malthusian security advocates use fearmongering tactics every bit as shamelessly as those overseeing the ‘war on terror’. Indeed, in the very process of depicting environmental and health issues as a major threat to human survival, they actually take the politics of fear far beyond the alarmist scenarios dreamt up by the architects of the ‘war on terror’. The Malthusian security agenda accepts the ideology of anti-terrorism in order to draw attention to its claim that there are even graver problems threatening the future and security of humanity.

In one very important sense, however, the Malthusian security agenda is even more retrograde than the traditionalist security agenda. The traditional variety was usually focused on a specific enemy; in many instances the enemy was clearly identified -- the Russians, the Cubans, or some specific group of subversives. Today’s security agenda, by contrast, is uncertain about how to distinguish friend from foe and what the problem really is. According to this view, there are no friends or foes. The new security agenda adopts a fiercely misanthropic outlook and blames human behaviour in general for threatening security. They believe that our behaviour -- leading to population growth, consumption of oil, environmental degradation -- is the real threat. For them, threats are transnational, global, interconnected; in other words, everything is a potential threat. Infectious diseases, environmental problems, economic discontent and terrorist violence are seen as being parts of a broader, generic security problem.

In years to come, this approach, which is now institutionalised through the US Department of Homeland Security, is likely to expand into more and more spheres of human experience. It is surely only a matter of time before the assumption implicit in the Malthusian security agenda -- that we do not simply need a ‘war on terror’ but a ‘war on everything’ -- will be made more explicit.

[ I'm not all that moved by this article.

Yes, organizations which have agendas (read as, every organization in existence) are going to attempt to capitalize on the idiom of the moment in order to get people thinking about their pet issues. No surprise there, it's been happening forever.

I bet in the late 1700's everyone in england tied every problem to all us pesky colonies.

I think the more likely result of all this isn't a DHS "War On Everything" but an eventual burn out of public attention. Eventually people will get tired of it and stop caring. Remember how charged the 1980's were? How about the 1990's? Not so much, right? Well, eventually people will reach their limit of tolerance for all this being scared and they'll basically stop.

That notwithstanding, however, a lot of these issues are pretty important. I don't disagree that it's often disingenous to link them to terrorism (even indirectly, as in "kills more people than..."), but that doesn't mean they don't pose threats. Ok, I'll concede the semantic argument that they're not "security" issues, per se, but ultimately I'm not sure it matters what you call it in the short term when it's still got to be dealt with in the long term. -k]