What is National Security?
Ask 10 people, and you may get similar, but varied responses, in essence, National Security has evolved from the original concept of protecting the nation from military threats to encompass terrorist or Paramilitary threats, economic threats, natural disasters and now cyber security – in the most basic form, but there is no widely held definition. Here are some quotes on National Security, courtesy of Wikipedia.
- “A nation has security when it does not have to sacrifice its legitimate interests to avoid war, and is able, if challenged, to maintain them by war.” (Walter Lippmann, 1943).
- “The distinctive meaning of national security means freedom from foreign dictation.” (Harold Lasswell, 1950)
- “National security objectively means the absence of threats to acquired values and subjectively, the absence of fear that such values will be attacked.” (Arnold Wolfers, 1960)
- “National security then is the ability to preserve the nation’s physical integrity and territory; to maintain its economic relations with the rest of the world on reasonable terms; to preserve its nature, institution, and governance from disruption from outside; and to control its borders.” (Harold Brown, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 1977–1981)
- “National security… is best described as a capacity to control those domestic and foreign conditions that the public opinion of a given community believes necessary to enjoy its own self-determination or autonomy, prosperity, and wellbeing.” (Charles Maier, 1990)
- “National security is an appropriate and aggressive blend of political resilience and maturity, human resources, economic structure and capacity, technological competence, industrial base and availability of natural resources and finally the military might.” (National Defence College of India, 1996)
- “National security is the measurable state of the capability of a nation to overcome the multi-dimensional threats to the apparent well-being of its people and its survival as a nation-state at any given time, by balancing all instruments of state policy through governance… and is extendable to global security by variables external to it.” (Prabhakaran Paleri, 2008)
We, at British Deomocracy has a seperate definition that encompasses the above sentiments.
National Security encompasses all aspects of our physical security, cyber security, economic security, civil security, educational security, health security, energy security and food security, if a nation makes these it’s priority, then the nation has National Security. We firmly believe that the UK Governments, since at least 1945, have abdicated their responsibilities on these, undermined our national security and as a result, left us vulnerable to outside interference in one or more apsects of our secuity.
WE WILL CHANGE THIS AND MAKE THIS COUNTRY SECURE AGAIN.
The main Job of the Prime Minister is to oversee National Security, but this does not happen, partly because the world and society is so complex these days we do not believe one person, no matter how dedicated and talented, is able to adequately perform their duties to the utmost of their extent required – as their employer, the nation needs to recognise this fact and make changes to ensure quality and effectiveness is achieved in the best interests of British Society.
It is the intention of British Democracy to create a Minsistry of National Security – this will be headed by the Deputy Prime Minister and will be the executive Ministry in charge of any agency that impacts National Security.
