Abstract:

The uncertainty that had followed the demise of the Cold War, at which time the enemy was apparent, threats were obvious and the appropriate response to those threats could easily be determined, as well as the acceleration of globalisation led to a series of changes in how the notion of security should be conceived. As a consequence, it has increasingly become difficult to come up with a definition of security that is easily understood, reliable and long-lasting. Nor could the boundaries and contours of the concept be established in mutual terms. Since the question of whose security could no longer be answered with a traditional and automatic response, that was the nation-state and individuals as well as non-state actors needed to be taken into account. Again, threats have been evolving from their classic status of being cross-border in origin and military in form into one whose source, timing and form could no longer be easily predicted while the frontiers of the new battle-lines appeared to be the entire world. As the concept of security acquired new meaning, international terrorism, organized crime groups, cyber terror, states with hostile intents, proliferation of conventional weapons and weapons of mass-destruction have been reformed into physical threats. Assaults towards national economies, international economic order or financial markets, aggressions committed against wealth, health and the environment, migratory and asylum movements have begun to form the new threats to national interest. Yet again offences committed against universal democratic values, human rights and freedoms have been lined up as threats to common values.

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