Cak Fu

The concept of comprehensive security has changed with developments in the international situation. The global market issue and issue of universality (Human Rights, Gender, Civil Society, etc) have influenced the awareness of the people around the world concerning individual freedom. The debate of security emerged in the 17th century when it defined that the state had the rights to protect its citizenship. Traditionally, the notion of security is described as the state’s ability to counter external threats, and this is documented in Chapter VII of the UN Charter 1945. In the classical formulation, security is about how states use force to manage threats to their territorial integrity, their autonomy, and their domestic political order, primarily from other states. Therefore, a critic would take issue with this classical definition that the notion of security is unilateralist which is restricted to the military threat from the rival state. The other criticism is that the meaning of security in the classical formulation implicitly points to the protection and the welfare of the state. With this, the question arises as to how the state welfare can be reached when the welfare and the protection of individuals or citizens are not ensured.

Today, the global information and market flows rapidly through the every corner of the world. The political clash in a small village in Africa can be seen by people around the world at the same time that they can see children in Papua enjoying McDonalds and Coca-Cola. Nowadays, people are interconnected and are interdependent of one other, which means that the state is not able to stand alone without the support of other states. The issue of globalisation which emerged in the 1990s has shifted the international situation economically and politically, and is making the world one which is without border. On one hand, this situation has opened up opportunities for people to be free but on other hand, it also leads to political instabilities of the states throughout the world. Therefore, the world situation is made more complex with more conflicts which affects the developing and developed countries.
In the beginning of the 1990s, the paradigm of security has shifted from the absence of physical threats to territorial and functional integrity to the empowering of individuals. This circumstance is not only a result of the notion of universality but also by the fact that in some situations, the state fails to be the protector of its citizens. Moreover, the state can be a source of insecurity for the people. The military operation in Aceh province during the Suharto era can be an example where people felt insecure. In this case, the idea of security should be discussed in the terms of its objective of protecting the individual. Therefore, this is why the idea of security now must be focused on the human as an object.
Furthermore, the sources of insecurity are not dominated by state as an institution, unlike in traditional formulation of security, but the concept of security itself nowadays is going broader in terms of types and sources. In addition, threat in the security term should be considered not only physical but also non-physical. Therefore, threats to territorial integrity and political order must be reckoned not just from other states but also from various non-state actors and even natural catastrophes. This much more expanded notion of security, which broadens the instruments and sources of threat, may be called comprehensive security.