Reflection on my Security Essay

In my security essay, I created a definition for security governments should use to decide whether or not an issue is a security threat. After a brief intro where I wrote about how many problems could be labeled as a security threat, I wrote “Therefore the government needs a precise definition of the word for all members to follow. I believe that security, for government purposes, should be defined as a threat that risks the lives of citizens under a particular government in the near future.” I defined the near future as what was likely or estimated to occur within a year. Although this part of the definition is a little difficult to calculate, it means that security issues are urgent which many of the students in class have come to agree with. I do still agree with my definition.

In the comments Professor Shirk wrote, “why the near future?” and that is because I believe that for government purposes, security issues need to be soon or immediate threats. As many of us have stated in class, the word security makes us feel like there is a sense of urgency. As Ole Waever discusses, security issues often lead to state centered solutions. Everyone rushing to find a sloppy solution to a long-term problem is not beneficial. We have seen the effect of this in The Big Truck That Went By. Even though there were some immediate threats, Haiti had a lot of long-term problems that caused them to depend on international aid during these types of disasters. The aid sent did not really benefit the country. Billions of dollars were donated to Haiti but the fast solution was not helpful. And there were a lot of long-term problems that were not addressed or were caused by the aid not being properly sent there. Issues that are very much long-term would not benefit by being labeled a security threat. Since fast state-centered solutions often do not help long-term threats, I believe that it should not be considered a security issue by the government unless it is urgent.

I also wrote that it should be a threat to the lives of the citizens of the government that is declaring it a security threat. For example, we read the article by Daniel Deudney about environmental degradation. He believes that environmental degradation should not be considered a national security issue because it is not that type of threat. We do not need the military or department of defense to combat environmental degradation. It is also not a problem that local governments can do much to solve. What they can do to try and solve it would not be extremely urgent or required to be labeled a security threat. For this reason, my definition, which was for governmental purposes, does not include environmental degradation. Unless it is so bad that threatens citizens’ lives right now, it should not be considered a security threat. We do not need the military combating the problems; we need policy makers and scientists working together to find solutions.

            Overall, this is why I agree with my original definition. That does not mean that there aren’t any other issues that could cause people to feel unsecure. However the government needs a concrete definition of what should be labeled as a security threat and this is how I would define it.   

Sex Trafficking

            Sex trafficking is much more prevalent in the United States than many believe and it is extremely prevalent in other areas of the world such as Southeast Asia. Although people disagree about whether or not prostitution should be legal, it is appalling that the people sex trafficked are forced to into that profession. Most don’t receive any pay or have any say in the safety procedures. As shown in Half the Sun, many times they are treated terribly, shamed, and become addicted to drugs. There is no doubt that this is wrong, but how do we even begin to combat this issue?

            Some people believe that legalizing prostitution would lessen the amount of forced prostitution. I have a hard time seeing how the two would correlate. Today, people who would like to be prostitutes could still do so by breaking the law. The women who want to be prostitutes but don’t because it’s against the law could become prostitutes once it is legal, but that is the only change I see occurring. I do not imagine that the people enslaving others and forcing them into prostitution really care about the law. The people who are being forced into the profession do no want it and likely would not chose that life if it were legal. It may make conditions better for them, but either way it is not the life they chose if it is forced prostitution. Legalizing prostitution would have a small impact on forced prostitution, which is the outcome of sex trafficking.

            In some parts of the world, forced prostitutions and sex trafficking can become so prevalent because of the corruption. For example, in Cambodia when there is a van full of people trying to cross the border without documentation, often the border control will let them in if they pay a bribe. The police officers there do nothing to try and stop forced prostitution, instead they use the brothel’s services. They do nothing to help women who try to escape from that life. In countries like this, the government could work towards having less corruption. Paying government workers higher salaries if they do not accept bribes could possibly be an incentive. Although it is hard to manage, it could be a step in the right direction.

            Another issue in some areas of the world is the culture. In some countries, men are not allowed to have sex with their girlfriends until they are married. However it is acceptable for them to pay other women for sex. This creates a huge demand for prostitutes. Many people in those countries say that they sacrifice some women so that the other women can remain pure until marriage. If there is a way to change culture norms so that there was less emphasis on marriage and more on the protection of women’s rights, this may also help reduce the forced prostitution. When there is less demand for prostitutes and each citizen is considered equal, there will be less forced prostitution.

            Although there is no way to completely prevent forced prostitution everywhere in the world, there is a reason why it is so prevalent in Southeast Asia. Legalizing prostitution will do nothing to prevent forced prostitution. The amount corruption is so high and the culture causes a huge demand for prostitutes. It also does not value the lives of all women. Changing the culture and corruption may lead to less forced prostitution and sex trafficking.

Sex Trafficking-Why there are no viable methods to stop it

Human trafficking, specifically sex trafficking, is a very important problem that ought to be addressed in some way. However, it is improbable that any measures taken to put a stop to it will be successful. Among these ideas that the class mentioned were suggestions to close borders or tighten border security, and making prostitution legal so as to be able to better regulate it through institutions. While there are understandable arguments to each one of these ideas, I do not believe that either would have a good outcome. Specifically, I would contend that legalizing prostitution would have more negative effects than positive because it would set a bad example for all individuals in different ways, it would not end forceful prostitution, and it would set a dangerous precedent for future legalization of unacceptable practices. 

The vision that I had in my head during the entire conversation was, if prostitution was legalized and all of a sudden the practice was prevalent, above ground, what would parents say to their kids when they inevitable asked about it. Kids are curious about everything! This would be a horrible thing to explain to little girls that some girls who grew up were selling their bodies and this is now an acceptable occupation. All of these years that feminists have tried to fight or women's rights would vanish. I understand that there is a feminist argument that women should be able to choose to do whatever they so please with their bodies. However, I would contend that in most cases, resorting to prostitution is far from a free-willing choice. Furthermore, what does it say when a government allows men to legally pay women to give their bodies? There is nothing okay with prostitution. There is an unequal balance of power between the prostitute and the person buying the service and that will undoubtedly follow the people into the rest of their daily lives. Prostitutes will feel inferior and men will look down on the women who "choose" to do this, as they do now. Legalizing the practice will certainly not fix this. 

Going off of that previous statement, legalized prostitution will also not end the horrors of sex trafficking. There will still be poor treatment of these people even when the institutions are "checking in on it". Putting this in perspective, right now prostitution is illegal but obviously the practices still occur in copious amounts. So, making the wrongful treatment or conditions of/for prostitutes illegal does not automatically mean that this won't still happen. That is just the nature of life. Theft is also illegal and that happens daily with the perpetrators often getting off, similar to many other crimes. Even tightening institutions won't pose a solution in my opinion. Using another example, Boston has some of the strongest police and criminal institutions compared to the rest of the world and yet Whitey Bulger was able to walk the streets instigating violence and several murders for decades with the FBI knowing. People are corrupt. Institutions can be corrupt. There is no way this will ever not be the case. 

The third factor of legalizing prostitution that's scary is the precedent that it might set. If the government were to make something so morally wrong and publicly controversial a legal occupation, what could come next? There is a tremendous danger in making practices such as these legal. The scariest to me is that after decades of this being legal, prostitution would become a social norm. It wouldn't be looked upon as this awful situation in which either women are forced into it or they lack self-respect. I think this would have tremendous implications in aspects of social life. At the end of the day, any type of human trafficking is a disgustingly horrific thing and our institutions obviously need to do a better job at preventing and stopping it. But, the ways in which they could do this are slim and in my opinion, probably not viable. 

Reviewing Security Essay

       In my security essay, I originally argued that security should be expanded from its traditional meaning of protecting state security to include human security, protection from environmental crises, and defense against the outbreak of diseases. These threats impose a sense of immediacy, and therefore should be prioritized. Because of a federal government’s centralized power, they are best equipped to handle these issues. Long-term problems, such as ontological, environmental, and economic securities do not pose as an immediate threat to survival and therefore should not be included in securitization at the state level. I argued that security is most effective when it is centralized in the hands of the state because military securitization was the best way to insure the safety of the nation (as well as human security) at large.

Now, I believe security is more nuanced than this definition. There are inevitable contradictions to providing safety when the state prioritizes state security over human security. An alternate solution is giving more authority to non-state organizations that have less political bias. Modern problems that fall under security, such as environmental crises and human trafficking, are not solvable with the involvement of the military.

The problem with the state having autonomous authority over what is considered security is that it prioritizes state security above all. This can have serious consequences for individuals within the state who need human security. For example, through the lens of the state, the greatest human trafficking threats involve securitizing borders and regulating crime rates from illegal immigrants. This frames trafficked people as corrupt, likely to engage in criminal activity, and likely to spread diseases into the community. This perception exaggerates the small number of trafficked victims that knowingly and willingly commit crimes in the countries they are trafficked into, and redirects blame away from pimps who have forced victims into trafficking. Trafficking involves human, national, ontological, and economic security for the victims, yet current policies of governments distort people's perceptions of who sex trafficking victims are. It is important that there be a centralized authority that is able to swiftly take lead in providing security when a militarized threat arises. However, there are significant detriments to human security when this authority is given to a government that politicizes human security issues.

         It is important that the definition of security emphasizes human rights over the securitization of the state. Traditionally, the safety of the state implied military intervention and a "boots on the ground" approach to security. However, in today's world, militarization for security purposes is not the most efficient way to solve certain security issues. For example, going to war would do little in combatting homegrown terror operations. Modern investigations of terror suspects are more likely to rely on technology, intelligence gathering, and fostering relationships between local and federal government to combat homegrown terrorism. A drone attack would be unacceptable on American soil in combatting terror because it breaches the constitutional right to trial by jury. The new face of terrorism succeeds the old methods of combat that the US attempted to use (unsuccessfully) during the Iraq war against modern terror. In the past, securitization of the state meant securitization of the state's people, but this is now outdated. The military is no longer always the most effective means of securitization.

Alternative organizations, such as the UN, World Bank, and other non-state actors would be much less biased in providing security. They would not prioritize state security over all else because they are not a state. The US took the initiative in sending aid to Haiti. Because priorities were state-centered, aid was not as effective as it could have been. Some of the money was appropriated to lobbying for more aid, where it was caught cycling in economies far from Haiti’s reach. Also, water bottles still litter the streets of Haiti today, where Haitians could have been given water filters. The government went into Haiti assuming what was best for Haitians, whereas an international organization may have been more accommodating to the Haitians’ needs. If an unbiased organization were given the authority to take charge in the crisis, it would have been able to put politics aside and focus on the needs of individuals. Environmental crises or human security issues cannot adequately be solved without a more modern definition of security and the use of external non-state organizations to prevent political bias.

The Ebola Outbreak

        Back in December 2013, the world faced the worst virus disease outbreak it had ever known. It was said to be as if people were watching a zombie movie with all the screaming and craziness. In Africa, bats were suspected of carrying a deadly virus, yet not many people were aware of this fact. The Ebola outbreak was traced back to a couple village kids who went into the forest and collected some bats and proceeded to eat them. After that, one of those little kids started to experience high fever, shivering, followed by two days of diarrhea, which lead to his death. That was only Day 1 of the virus. Villagers thought that it was a curse, or even as far as witchcraft, as his following family members died shortly after him. No one knew what was going on, let alone that it could possibly be Ebola. For 3 months, it was mistaken for malaria.
       There were many major problems that took place during the response period for the outbreak. There were tragic and mishandled steps when it came to resolving it. The response to the Ebola outbreak was a global failure, one that could have been avoided, if the proper responses would have been in place from the beginning. The first issue was how quickly it spread, without understanding what it was. The key to stopping Ebola was to isolate the sick, monitor anyone who had contact with the infected and safely bury the dead. Yet, none of these steps were properly executed.  When someone died because of it, people would touch the body, or it would be left on the streets for days before it was properly buried. There was also no record of who was with the infected before their death, so the number of people in contact was much higher than accounted for.
        The second issues was that the only organization that had ever dealt with Ebola was the World Health Organization (WHO). However, the major problem was that they didn't take the lead in the investigation and the quick response that this virus required. Instead, the WHO let their officials in Guinea, who had never dealt with it before, take the lead. Likewise, was the case in Sierra Leone when it spread, the government left this disease in the hands of an American company called Metabiota, who had never dealt with it before either. This was a major problem because at the rate that the disease was spreading and the amount of people who had passed in the first 3 months, it should have been clear that this wasn't just the ordinary flu.
     The third issue with the response to the outbreak was that every "official" that was in charge of making a decision, downscaled the size and problem of this epidemic. They started to only document confirmed cases and left every other one unaccounted for. This was a major issue because those that were left unaccounted for were spreading into different borders. Since no one was acknowledging the problem at hand, the WHO refused to declare an international health emergency. This should have happened after they saw how rapidly it was spreading and how many people were dying. In class, we discussed the meaning of labeling something a security issue and the cause of a speech act, but in this case, that was what exactly should have been done. With an outbreak that was uncontrollable and confusing, labeling it a security issue internationally was a proper response.

The similarities and differences between our reality and Snow Crash

Snow Crash is a science fiction book by Neal Stephenson. It was written in 1992. It takes place in Los Angeles, U.S.A in the near future. The U.S. has become a place where there is little to nothing. It has gone so downhill that there are only four strengths it has left: making music and movies, program software and delivering pizzas.  The strength that is looked at the most is program software, which relates to the metaverse, the main character Hiro Protagonist introduces us to. Hiro Protagonist is a smart and hardcore guy. He is very much a problem solver that takes risks. Stephenson portrays Hiro this way in the Metaverse. The Metaverse is a virtual world which is a popular multiplayer game with avatars as the characters. The Metaverse and the reality that Stephenson makes are very different places compared to our reality, this is certainly seen with security. I'll be focusing on the similarities and differences between our reality and Snow Crash's' reality and the Metaverse and how plausible each circumstance is. 

There are many differences between our reality and the Metaverse and the reality seen in Snow Crash. One example of a difference is how in Snow Crash's' reality there is a private military as oppose to a national military that we have in our government. I would say that this plausible to happen, however not likely in the near future. It certainly rethinks the idea of security because one of the core responsibilities of the government is to keep all of its citizens safe but with a private military than it would only be responsible for those that invest in it. The idea of a private military goes to show that Americans could possibly want more personal and private security, rather than have the government involved  I say this is plausible because we already have such a leiz-a-faire type of economy and wouldn't be surprised if there was more privatization of the government. Another difference that I see as plausible is a post-job world. In Snow Crash the only jobs that we are introduced to in the U.S. job workforce is anything the four industries of music, movies, program software and pizza. Even as a developed country, we still struggle to have enough jobs all throughout the country and we had a economic depression and just got out of a recession. Of course, this the difference between our reality and the one in Snow Crash, the U.S. is certainly stronger than other economies with plenty of jobs making it the strongest economy in the world. However, with more and more outsourcing, it makes it plausible that we could have a post-job world.    

There seem to be more similarities than differences between Snow Crash and our reality. One similarity is organized crime. In Snow Crash, people rely on the mafia in order to have a job in a world with little opportunity. The mafia also controls so much and has so much power. Uncle Enzo is at the top of the hierarchy, acting as a king. This is similar as organized crime in the U.S. because organized crime increases when there are few opportunities and there is someone at the top of the mafia who controls so much and is so powerful. Another similarity is snow crash. In the Metaverse, it is a drug that gives a virus on the person's computer and also impacts the persons health that got the virus as well. In our reality we do have drugs that impact peoples health whether they know the consequences or not. I would say that it is not plausible, at least in the near future. By that I mean it is not plausible that there could be a drug in a virtual reality that could harm a persons health. Another similarity in both realities is the inequalities that arose after the government became less involved. In Snow Crashs' reality, the government becomes less involved and thus can't provide basic public goods. This caused more a Leiz a faire economy, where corporations became more powerful and controlled peoples day to day lives. An example is how law enforcement no longer existed allowing crime to increase. This is a threat to security because the basic necessities such as public goods are no longer provided by the government for everyone. This is similar to our reality because are various different political, economic and other types of conflict that are government needs to figure out how solutions can benefit everyone. This makes it so that there wouldn't different security threats. This is certainly plausible, it is just not likely in the near future. It is plausible because there are so many different ways that the government could fail.       

Ebola- What Went Wrong

Ebola was a widespread epidemic that killed thousands of people in recent years. The problem began as a single case that came about from a group of boys being mischievous in the woods and finding a tree filled with bats. Evidently, bats are known for carrying the ebola virus. This was completely unknown to the people of Guinea. What started as one mysterious case of an unknown fatal illness quickly became something much, much worse. The "hospitals" in Guinea and Sierra Leone did not have the treatment, facilities, or man power to stop the ferocious spread. Even worse, the organization Doctors Without Borders could only provide what seemed like insignificant help. Although more should have been done to prevent and stop the spread of the disease, I don't think anyone would have been able to do anything monumental due to the circumstances of the situation.

First of all, for weeks and weeks no one even knew what was the matter with all of these patients. They were all just falling ill abruptly and as little as a day later they were pronounced dead. Ebola was not even a thought on any of the medical officials' minds. People in the communities even thought that the epidemic was nothing but a rumor and a conspiracy for the doctors to practice cannibalism. As a result of this, the treatment for the disease was not available right away and worse, the doctors and nurses were not treating the cases as seriously as they should have. They should have kept the patients contained and kept themselves protected from the air around the patients. Ebola is spread so easily and so quickly. So, for several weeks the medics were not following protocol for the ebola disease, resulting in the rapid spread of the disease. Even when the people found out that ebola was the deadly virus spreading, some believed this to be false and angrily left their treatment facilities and took to the streets, thus infecting more and more people. 

For an extended period of time, utter chaos ensued. Infected peoples were traveling around to different nations, unaware that they were becoming responsible for the deaths of hundreds more people. One girl traveled to Sierra Leone without anyone knowing and so the government of Sierra Leone believed that they were safe from the virus when in actuality, this was far from the truth. When family members and friends died, people rushed the sides of the dead bodies to wash, dress, pray over, and bury them. Dead bodies are seriously dangerous to be around and doing so almost guarantees a person to become infected. Again, the lack of information the people in Africa had was astounding. 

Although it is easy to say that Americans should have done more to help the situation in Africa, I think that it is difficult to require people to willingly travel to deadly areas where they are at serious risk of becoming infected. I think the real problem lies in the fact that no one in the area, not even the doctors, knew what was going on or how to even begin to treat it. Obviously this is a difficult, expensive, timely issue to address. To fix this problem would mean spending millions and millions of dollars on hospitals in the area and education for the medical officials. However, considering how poorly the ebola situation was handled, it is definitely an investment worth making. In this case, I don't think the hysteria of the ebola was far off from the reality of the situation. It is shocking how much of a nightmare the spread was and how everything that could have gone wrong, really did go wrong.