The Cult of Security in Contemporary International Relations

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Introduction

The term ‘cult of security’ is relatively new in Russian scholarship, dating back to the works of a number of Russian philosophers (Fatenkov, 2021) and historians (Kotsyubinsky, 2022). International studies have not yet paid attention to this phenomenon, although security is rightly considered to be one of the cornerstone concepts of political science.

It has been posited that the term can serve as a metaphor to indicate a number of interrelated trends in international relations, including the widening of security, the aggravation of global political contradictions, the mediatization of public policy (Soghomonyan, 2022) and the related rise of the phenomenon of ‘new populism’ (Vodak, 2018), as well as the activities of so-called ‘security professionals’  (a term of the Paris School of International Security Studies) encouraging the systematic reproduction of discourses of insecurity (Bigo, 2002). Taken together, the trends outlined above have a long-term negative impact on the political life of modern societies, leading to increased conflict and a wide range of constraints.

This article takes a first step towards a theoretical reflection on the emerging cult of security and explanation of its origins in relation to the widening of security definition in academic research literature. To this end, the author draws on elements of constructivist, hermeneutic approaches, as well as historiographical analysis. The first part of the paper is devoted to the analysis of academic debates on international security during the Cold War: How did the widening of security take place, what motives and arguments guided the experts of the past years? The second part is devoted to exploring the effects of the cult of security in international politics and some cases of its manifestation in real political practice.

The Widening of Security:  A Historical Perspective

It should be noted that the term ‘security’ itself falls within the range of concepts labelled in the academic literature as ‘essentially contested concepts’ (Gallie, 1969). Any contemporary interpretation of security is not without mentioning the multifaceted nature of this concept (Sergunin, 2005, p. 128), which takes into account both ‘hard’ (military) and ‘soft’ forms of security (economic, societal, environmental, information, food, etc.). The vague interpretation of security and its specific content is an important element of any public policy, opening up influential levers in domestic and foreign policy (Buzan, 1983, p. 9). This is partly why there is no universal definition of security due to the difficulty in using and interpreting it.

This article adopts a constructivist perspective on security, conceptualising it as a social or discursive practice that “aimed at changing the arrangement of political priorities” (Morozov, 2011, p. 25). Thus, by considering security as a practice, it is possible to trace changes in the use and understanding of this term. The widening of security is understood as a process whereby security is interpreted to include non-military threats and challenges as urgent political priorities.

In addressing the question of the establishment of the expansive interpretation of security in international studies, researchers frequently cite the late 20th century (Ignatieva, 2017, p. 87) or the final two decades of the century (Lantsov & Usmonov, 2008, p. 159). It is during this period that such important concepts for modern Theory of International Relations as ‘referent object of security,’ ‘securitization,’ ‘security sectors,’ ‘human security,’ ‘comprehensive security’ appear. The Russian scholar V.N. Konyshev (2004, p. 141) also believes that the first explicit calls for the need for a wider definition of security can be identified in the writings of Richard Ulmann (1983, p. 129).

However, there seems to be some reason to believe that the widening of security began to take shape in international studies much earlier than in the above-mentioned period.

It can be argued that until the end of the Cold War, international security was interpreted from the point of view of traditional approaches that emphasized the military-power aspects  of state security (Kochetkov, 2010, p. 30).  At the height of the Cold War between the  USSR and the U.S., the threat of a full-scale military clash and mutual nuclear annihilation overrode all other international security  issues. While agreeing with the above,  it should be noted that the dominance (to a greater extent in the USA, to a lesser extent  in Europe) of traditional and relatively narrow understandings of international security  during the Cold War never excluded the existence of other research views, traditions and approaches, in which one could also trace a tendency towards a wider definition of security since the 1960s.

It is therefore worthwhile to focus then on two strands of research that emerged during the Cold War and, in their different and individual ways, reflected the trend towards a wider definition of security and created the preconditions for the emergence of the contemporary cult of security: strategic studies and peace research.

Strategic Studies: From Narrow  Definitions to “Grand Strategies”

Strategic studies are an interdisciplinary field of research on international security that originated in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1950s. These studies were primarily concerned with examining changes in the nature of power politics after the advent of nuclear weapons to optimize the use of military power and rationalize coercive methods while achieving political goals (Kamal, 1978, p. 15).

It is noteworthy that the very idea of strategic studies, at first glance entirely focused on the military-power aspects of states’ policymaking, was born out of a desire to move beyond a narrow definition of strategy understood in purely military terms. In his seminal essay “Strategy as a Science,” the American military historian and strategist Bernard Brodie attributed the birth of a new field of study to the need to overcome the dominance of military professionals in the discussion of strategy: “...Not so much that military will move in where they do not belong, but rather that in the process of moving in where in part, at least, they do belong, their advice will reflect their imperfections not as diplomatists but as soldiers” (Brodie, 1949, p. 467). Accordingly, the primary purpose of strategic studies should be to promote a proper “security policy” consisting of “total preparation for war,” waging war, and dealing “...with political, social, and economic as well as military matters in both domestic and foreign contexts” (Brodie, 1949, p. 477).

In fact, in Brodie’s formulation, one can already see signs of what would later be called the “widening of security.” From today’s perspective, the idea expressed by the American strategist seems obvious: any security policy encompasses both military and non-military dimensions. On the other hand, it is obvious that, irrespective of the extent to which the non-military aspects are expanded, such expansion remains inherently constrained, because, according to Brodie, security policy is an exclusive state prerogative, and its ultimate purpose is the preparation for war.

The 1973 global energy crisis also contributed to the development of strategic studies and the adoption of a wider definition of security. It was during this period that sectoral thinking about security — the notion that national security could be divided into a kind of problem areas or sectors: economic (Nye, 1974), energy (Deese, 1979), food (Hopkins & Puchala, 1978), and resource (Connely & Perlman, 1975) security — was actively emerging.

Thus, within strategic studies, by the 1980s, a fairly wide view of security had already emerged, taking into account both military  and non-military aspects of strategy and  sources of threat. This view was supported, among other things, by the consideration  that defining national security solely in military terms gave a distorted view of reality and reduced the total security of the state (Ulmann, 1983, p. 129).

A certain degree of ambivalence remained evident. Western scholars, on the one hand, recognized the importance of non-military aspects of security, arguing quite logically that “military power does not guarantee well-being” (Walt, 1991, p. 213). On the other hand, the entire logic of such studies was dictated by considerations of exclusively state security and interests, guided by the motive of preventing large-scale military conflicts by maintaining the balance of power. In other words, from the point of view of strategic studies, the above-mentioned security sectors (however numerous they may be) are nothing more than components of national security and variables in the overall state strategy aimed at achieving national interests (mainly those of the United States).

If strategic studies is regarded as more of an intellectual product of the Cold War era, with research questions and problems typical of that time, its current “successor” can be called the theory of “grand strategy.” As contemporary Western researchers note, it would be unusual today if the security studies curriculum did not include at least one course with entitled “grand strategy” (Silove, 2018, p. 27). This line of research, which has gained widespread popularity in the West, inherits the same modus operandi inherent in strategic studies: securing key state interests through military and non-military means, where economic power, military strength, political, social and diplomatic measures are the “building blocks” of strategy.¹ It is not difficult to imagine that with this approach, security can be interpreted in a very wide sense, encompassing all domains of human and social life, as long as they are linked to key state priorities.

Peace Research: On the Way  to “Perpetual Security”

A fundamentally different line of reasoning in the question of widening of security can be traced back to peace studies, which is an interdisciplinary field of research concerned with issues of war and peace.

This intellectual tradition has a rich history, going back to German classical philosophy. It is worth recalling here the German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s treatise “Toward Perpetual Peace” (1795), which already quite clearly identifies an idea that is extremely important with regard to the issue at hand. The essence of this idea is as follows: peace between states and nations is achieved in theory by two ways. The first way involves the conclusion of a truce — it is a temporary absence of war, and therefore unstable, only “relatively stable peace” (Inshakov, 2021, p. 237). The second way is to create the necessary preconditions for overcoming the logic of confrontation and the necessity of war in principle, introducing the advent of lasting, “perpetual peace.”

Literally at the very beginning of his treatise, the philosopher makes this conceptual distinction clear: “No treaty of peace should be held valid in which there is tacitly reserved a matter for a future war. Otherwise, a treaty would only be a truce, a suspension of hostilities but not peace, which means the end of all hostilities — so much that even to attach the word ‘perpetual’ to it is a dubious pleonasm” (Kant, 1994, pp. 6–7).

Later, in the field of international studies, this idea was one of the first to be reinterpreted and redefined in the classic work of the American professor Quincy Wright “The Study of War,” where the first way — i.e. the absence of war — was called “negative peace,” and the second way — i.e. the creation of the prerequisites and conditions for the absence of war — became known as “positive peace.” It is quite logical that the author himself favored the second option, identifying positive peace  with “international justice” and the “spirit  of cooperation” between states (Wright, 1942,  p. 1091).

It was with the introduction of “positive peace” that the wider definition of security developed, because the creation of such prerequisites and conditions for conflict prevention basically requires going beyond the narrow understanding of security, which is “obsessed” with the issues of military confrontation between the great powers.

As Western scholars have noted, various interpretations of positive peace emerged  as early as 1950–1960 (Buzan & Hansen, 2009, p. 102), and the most prominent was the approach of the Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, who introduced the phenomenon  of so-called ‘structural violence’ to the peace studies agenda. According to the theory of structural violence, formed on the basis of a number of Marxist ideas, relations between great powers are not the only factor shaping the international security agenda. The security environment is influenced by many non-military factors that complicate the lives of people all over the planet in a systemic manner in a way that takes on the characteristics of real violence: imperialism and the economic exploitation of the poor by the rich, deepening economic inequality, the systematic violation of basic human rights, ongoing conflicts both within Western countries and in the Third World (Galtung, 1969, pp. 168, 171, 175).

Galtung’s ideas have undoubtedly had a huge impact on the way international security issues have been studied and addressed. In contrast to strategic studies, security in the concepts of positive peace began to be considered not so much from the standpoint of states, but from the standpoint of human communities per se. This shift can be regarded as a pivotal moment in the widening of security: the referent object of security becomes not only the state, but also the individual, with his or her own concerns, anxieties, and fears. Thus, it was under the aegis of peace studies that numerous issues of non-military security, not directly related to the survival of states or the policies of great powers, were systematically considered (Diehl, 2016,  p. 3). The observed widening of security was not only horizontal (in favor of new security sectors: economic, food, environmental, etc.), but also vertical (in favor of new levels of security: global and human).

Later, it was in line with this intellectual tradition that the concepts of common security,² comprehensive security (Chapman, Reinhard & Gow, 1983) and human security³ emerged. These approaches were distinguished by a further widening of security: considering the human being as the referent object of security, shifting attention from military threats to economic and environmental issues, and recognizing non-military threats as sources of conflict.

In contemporary international security studies, this tradition is reflected in the works of some Scandinavian scholars. Thus, in particular, the Norwegian researcher G. Hoogensen Gjørv, by full analogy with peace studies, distinguishes between negative and positive security. Negative security is associated with the traditional, narrow, statist perception of security problems. Positive security, on the contrary, implies the widest possible range of diverse political interests and actors involved in the discussion of security issues. The interpretation of security here has no limits at all, since, according to the author, the very nature of security is changeable and depends on the context of historical time and international situation (Hoogensen Gjørv, 2012, p. 844). Other modern researchers, in fact, identify the classical idea of peace with the concept of security, calling negative security the absence of threat, and positive security as a kind of “security plus,” i.e. the presence of conditions for human development and prosperity (Nyman, 2016, p. 823).

Thus, I. Kant’s idea of “perpetual peace” has received its novel continuation in the studies on international security. Experiencing a gradual decline since the late 20th century, peace  studies managed to lay the foundations for  a wider understanding of security, which  was later picked up by a number of  more recent conceptualizations: human security, comprehensive security, and critical security studies. These new conceptualizations have  also been adopted by policymakers: in the practice of international relations today,  and it is difficult to imagine a discussion of contemporary security issues without  mentioning human rights, individual freedoms, humanitarian intervention, discrimination  and inequality, and environmental degradation. The widening of security within peace  studies has been unprecedented and has  played a significant role in the development of the cult of security, which will be addressed subsequently.

Implications of a Wider Definition  of Security and the Emergence of the  “Cult of Security” in International Politics

Paradoxically, it seems that not only the adherents of strategic studies unwittingly contributed to the emergence of the modern cult of security by extending the priorities of state security policy to all domains of society, but also scholars in the field of peace studies. For instance, it seems to be a sharp but fair criticism of those who pointed out the main drawback of the above mentioned theory of structural violence by J. Galtung: the developed concept does not allow to empirically clearly separate the state of peace from the state of violence (Sylvester, 1980, p. 307) and, in fact, attributes to structural violence everything that the author of the theory does not “like” (Boulding, 1978,  p. 346). Thus, in the case of structural violence theory, “everything becomes peace” (Buzan & Hansen, 2009, p. 130).

“Everything becomes security” is what one might call the inevitable side effect of many theories that offer a widened understanding of security issues. This phenomenon gives rise to what has been termed the normative security dilemma, namely, the question of how to articulate or discuss security concerns when this knowledge potentially produces securitization (Eriksson, 1999)? And is it even worth considering something from a security perspective at all if it risks further widening the security agenda in practice?

A further element of the problem is attributable to the very nature of the intellectual heritage on which a number of more contemporary theorists and politicians rely. It is well known, for example, that in discussing the concept of “perpetual peace,” I. Kant — in the spirit of his epoch — distinguishes between “enlightened peoples” or “civilized states” (Kant, 1994, pp. 21, 24) and unenlightened peoples or “savages” with their “...lawless freedom” (Kant, 1994, p. 19). Naturally, the task of achieving “perpetual peace” and building the “peaceful federation” outlined by Kant falls on the shoulders of civilized states with a republican form of government. The American researcher M.W. Doyle, one of the authors of the democratic peace theory, later associated the emergence of such a “peaceful federation” with the “liberal peace zone” formed by liberal democracies not warring with each other (Doyle, 1983a, p. 213). The logical outcome of this development is the “civilizing attitude” towards peoples and states recognized as illiberal and the aggressiveness of liberal democracies towards other regimes, where the conditions for achieving so-called “positive security” are linked to the task of eliminating illiberal regimes. The use of violent instruments of coercion against such regimes is justified, leading, as M.W. Doyle himself recognizes, to foreign policy interventionism, “ideological crusades or internal ‘witch hunts’ ” (Doyle, 1983b, p. 329). Potentially, any actions taken by “illiberal” states are perceived with hostility and viewed through a security lens, and academic theories are found trapped within such geopolitical narratives.

Thus, securitization as a tool for linking certain events and phenomena to security needs in order to justify certain policies or actions is becoming a ubiquitous part of contemporary international life. Some critical scholars often characterize securitization as a political tool for managing and, if necessary, constructing public fears, used to promote one’s own role as a guarantor of protection and, at the same time, to mask one’s own political setbacks (Bigo,  2002, p. 65).

It is the constant reproduction and construction of public fears that is the key feature of security as a form of practice, which, thanks to a wider definition of security, extends to the most diverse types of social relations. It is hard to disagree with the Russian philosopher A.N. Fatenkov that in the modern world there is a real “cult of security,” often replacing real security with total control and clogging the minds of ordinary people with bogus ideas about the outside world (Fatenkov, 2021, p. 106).

As asserted by the political scientist  V. Soghomonyan, under the conditions of the modern media technologies development, the effect is so strong that people, apparently, “...have learned to objectify social reality ... through the tools of artistic perception and  the construction of the world image” (Soghomonyan, 2022, p. 55). In other words, the threatening images broadcast from screens  and politicians’ mouths are increasingly perceived as real and objectively existing.  All this, in turn, creates good prerequisites for the flourishing of the cult of security on an unprecedented scale.

The danger of the so-called “cult of security” is that it forms a vicious circle in which security measures engender feelings of anxiety and unease, prompting further tightening of these measures. The essence of this phenomenon was very succinctly outlined by the famous sociologist Zygmunt Bauman in his arguments about freedom and security: “Once in the game of protection from danger, none of the defences already acquired feels sufficient ... The deeper the engagement in perpetually reinforcing and tightening defences, the deeper and more acute the fear of the menace: the image of the menace grows in awesomeness and terrifying ability in proportion to the growth of concerns with security and the visibility and obtrusiveness of security measures” (Bauman & Donskis, 2019,  p. 171). The aforementioned cult is also clearly manifesting itself in Western countries, leading to the consistent abolition of the basic principles of classical liberalism. In this case, according to the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, one of its consequences is also the strengthening of control over everyday human life and the transformation of extraordinary and exceptional measures into a routine of political life (Agamben, 2005, p. 104).

It is highly unlikely that this was the outcome foreseen by the scholars, who, since the 1980s, have consistently called for a wider definition of security. Indeed, the very  creators of securitization theory warned their readers: if excessive, securitization is fraught with the onset of “the international equivalent  of autism and paranoia” (Buzan, Wæver & Wilde, 1998, p. 208).

Thus, the widening of security in the present context has turned into the securitization of a huge number of issues, becoming one of the reasons for the modern cult of security. Some examples of this kind of politics are well known and will be briefly discussed below.

In Lieu of a Conclusion:  On the Manifestations of the Cult  of Security in the Modern World

A simple statistic supports the argument about the emergence of the security cult in international relations. Specifically, between the years 2000 and 2013, the number of Internet searches pertaining to international and national security increased by a factor of 50 and 60, respectively. The difference between the numbers for 2000 and 2024 is 1000 times.⁴ Concurrently, the number of international conflicts has reached unprecedented levels in recent years, as documented by historical records.⁵

There are reasons to believe that the increasing violence in the world is not a cause, but rather a consequence of the creeping expansion of the logic of security in all domains of human and social life. Any action by states in the international arena can now be seen as a potential threat.

An illustrative example is the media coverage of Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative on July 18, 2023. Russia’s actions were characterized by the West and the United Nations Secretary General in an extremely negative way, due to the alleged damage Russia had caused to world food security.⁶ At the same time, Russia’s decision to fill food shortages and donate grain to African countries⁷ was seen by EU officials as  “...a cynical policy of deliberately using food  as a weapon.”⁸

Another example is the phenomenon of “friend-shoring,”⁹ which is gaining momentum in a number of Western countries, obliging states to refuse economic cooperation with countries with different political values for reasons of national security. From a global economic perspective, this phenomenon represents a clear manifestation of protectionism, resulting in the fragmentation of global economic relations.

In the interests of national security, the U.S. and a number of other countries are putting pressure on the social network TikTok¹⁰ and  the popular messenger Telegram.¹¹ For security reasons, Soviet monuments have been demolished in Latvia,¹² and in Finland the sale of real estate to Russian citizens has been banned.¹³

The manifestations of the security cult are manifold and deserve a separate study, which is beyond the scope of this article. Undoubtedly, the intensification of geopolitical contradictions in the era of the collapse of the current world order serves to exacerbate the superimposed effect. However, it seems that the consequences of the wide expansion of the security-oriented thinking in international relations are still understudied and may be more profound than it seems at first glance.

_{¹ Grand Strategy: Theory, History & Debates // Columbia University. 2022. URL: https://polisci.columbia. edu/content/grand-strategytheory-history-debates (accessed: 09.08.2023).}

_{² Common Security: A Programme for Disarmament. London, Sydney : Pan Books, 1982.}

_{³ Human Development Report 1994: New Dimensions of Human Security // United Nations Development Programme. URL: https://hdr.undp.org/system/files/ documents/hdr1994encompletenostats.pdf (accessed: 09.08.2023).}

_{⁴ The calculations take into account the degree of coverage of the world population by the Internet. Calculated by the author according to the data of Google search service and the International Telecommunication Union.}

_{⁵ Palik J., Obermeier A. M., Rustad S. A. Conflict Trends: A Global Overview, 1946–2022 // PRIO Paper. 2022. URL: https://www.prio.org/publications/13178 (accessed: 20.01.2025).}

_{⁶ Anderson S. Millions Face Hunger as Russia Withdraws from Black Sea Grain Deal Again // Health Policy Watch. July 17, 2023. URL: https://healthpolicy-watch.news/millions-face-hunger-as-russia-withdraws-from-black-sea-grain-deal-again/ (accessed: 09.08.2023).}

_{⁷ Rogozyansky A. Putin Promised Grain Shipments to Africa Without Compensation // Gazeta.ru. July 28, 2023. (In Russian). URL: www.gazeta.ru/politics/news/ 2023/07/28/20964776.shtml (accessed: 09.08.2023)}

_{⁸ Russia Must Stop Using Food as a Weapon // EEAS. August 2, 2023. URL: www.eeas.europa.eu/delegations/ bosnia-and-herzegovina/russia-must-stop-using-food-weapon_en?s=219 (accessed: 09.08.2023).}

_{⁹ Yellen Calls Out China’s Trade Practices During South Korea Visit // Business Standard. June 18,  2022. URL: https://www.business-standard.com/article/ international/yellen-calls-out-china-s-trade-practices-during-south-korea-visit-122071801525_1.html (accessed: 20.01.2025).}

_{¹⁰ Feiner L. Trump Says He’ll Delay TikTok Ban, but the Platform Must Be Sold // The Verge. January 19,  2025. URL: https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/19/ 24347202/trump-tiktok-ban-delay-us-acquisition (accessed: 20.01.2025).}

_{¹¹ Davies P. Telegram Responds to Legal Pressure by Providing Some User Data to Authorities // Euronews. September 25, 2024. URL: https://www.euronews.com/ next/2024/09/24/telegram-ceo-durov-responds-to-legal-pressure-by-providing-some-user-data-to-authorities  (accessed: 20.01.2025).}

_{¹² Vorontsova T. Riga City Council Approved the Demolition of a Monument to Soviet Soldiers // RTVI. May 13, 2022. (In Russian). URL: https://rtvi.com/news/ rizhskaya-duma-odobrila-snos-pamyatnika-sovetskim-soldatam/ (accessed: 09.08.2023)}

_{¹³ Stur B. Finland Blocks Russian Real Estate Transactions on National Security Grounds // European Interest. December 14, 2024. URL: https://www.europeaninterest.eu/ finland-blocks-russian-real-estate-transactions-on-national-security-grounds/ (accessed: 20.01.2025).}

About the authors

Oleg S. Gaidaev

Author for correspondence.
Email: gaydaev-os@ranepa.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5970-3726
SPIN-code: 7839-0802

PhD (Political Science), Senior Lecturer, Faculty of International Relations and Political Studies

References

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