Security Dynamics of India's Future Relations with Southeast Asian Nations

Our national security is a state or condition where our most cherished values and beliefs, our democratic way of life, our institutions of governance and our unity, welfare and well-being as a nation and people are permanently protected and continuously enhanced. There are seven fundamental elements that lie at the core of, and therefore further amplify our definition of national security. At the same time, they constitute the most important challenges we face as a nation and people.

Description of Fundamental Elements
1. The first and foremost element is socio-political stability. We must achieve peace and harmony among all regardless of creed, ethnic origin or social station. The government and the people must engage in nation-building under the rule of law, Constitutional democracy and the full respect for human rights.

2. The second is territorial integrity. We must ensure the permanent inviolability of our national territory and its effective control by the Government. This includes the preservation of our country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and its protection from illegal incursions and resource exploitation.

3. The third is economic solidarity and strength. We must vigorously pursue a free-market economy through responsible entrepreneurship based on social conscience, respect for the dignity of labor and concern for the public interest. We must perpetuate an economic regime where the people take command of their own lives, their livelihood and their economic destiny.

4. The fourth is ecological balance. National survival rests upon the effective conservation of our natural environment in the face of industrial and agricultural expansion and population growth. We must promote sustainable development side by side with social justice.

5. The fifth is cultural cohesiveness. Our lives as a people must be ruled by a common set of values and beliefs grounded on high moral and ethical standards, drawn from our heritage and embodying a identity transcending religious, ethnic and linguistic differences.

6. The sixth is moral-spiritual consensus. We must be propelled by a national vision inspired, and manifested in our words and deeds, by patriotism, national pride and the advancement of national goals and objectives.

7. The seventh is external peace. We must pursue constructive and cordial relations with all nations and peoples, even as our nation itself must chart an independent course, free from external control, interference or threat of aggression.

Principle and Concept of Security
The discipline of International Relations has traditionally been governed by realist thinking. In the field of Security Studies, the realist security paradigm - the old state-centered and militaristic view of security - has reigned supreme for many years. According to the realist approach, states are the primary source of both security and insecurity. According to the proponents of this view, states will inevitably suffer from insecurity as long as there is no overarching authority structure in the international system. In the absence of a higher political authority that can guarantee security, states, which. are assumed to be rational entities, will make similar strategic calculations. Each will seek to acquire military power in order to deter an attack. Since no supranational authority exists, states have only themselves to rely on for security, making the international security system a self-help system characterized by the security dilemma.

The "logic" of the security dilemma has been contested by those informed by liberal or idealistic principles, who contend that the negative implications of international anarchy can be modified through the creation of rules and norms that govern state behavior, such as that informing the practice of collective security, for example. Yet, despite the tremendous contribution of the United Nations to global security and stability, the concept of collective security does not depart significantly from the traditional security paradigm's military- and state-centrism. As the Cold War came to an end, the preoccupation with interstate conflict gave way to a number of other security issues, such as intrastate conflict. A number of other issues were also recognized as security concerns, including illegal immigration, environmental degradation, organized criminality, and terrorism. As a result, a greater departure from the traditional approach to security was thought to be required. Accordingly, a debate ensued between those seeking to broaden the scope of Security Studies and those who sought to preserve a narrower focus. Those in favor of widening the agenda argued that issues traditionally associated with domestic policy, such as health, the environment, immigration, and rights, ought to be viewed as global security issues. Given this altered focus, the means of achieving security necessarily extended beyond the use of force and deterrence.

An increasing number of International Relations scholars, including some neo-realists, called for a widening of the security agenda. For example, the Copenhagen School sought to set out a framework for security capable of incorporating a wider security agenda. It aimed to establish a more radical view of Security Studies by including both military and nonmilitary issues and the securitization of those threats (i.e., a way of distinguishing security from merely political issues). Their so-called sectoral approach classified security into five principal substrates: military, political, economic, environmental, and societal security. Efforts to increase the scope of security have been accompanied by attempts to challenge the military- and state-centrism of the traditional security paradigm on a more fundamental level through the concept of human security, which refocuses security on the individual rather than the state. By focusing on the individual, the numerous ways that human welfare is affected by different phenomena, such as environmental degradation, poor governance, and organized crime, could more adequately be captured.

Many of the issues rendered more visible by a widening of the security agenda and the concept of human security were trans-boundary in nature in that they.transgress the boundaries of individual states and thus affect a number of states at once. This means that effectively addressing such security challenges requires cooperation between. states. In many respects, in response to the realization that states needed to cooperate in order to tackle many of the multifarious security challenges identified during the Post-Cold War era, a cooperative- security concept was elaborated in the late 1990s. According to this concept, national security was no longer just a national concern; rather, it was also transnational in that no state can claim or achieve security through its own efforts alone. In elaborate form, cooperative security combined many dimensions of all of the above efforts to reconceptualize security, but it went beyond each individual contribution. It went further than the concept of collective security in that it emphasized achieving security with other states, as well as against them when necessary. In some versions, it called for cooperation between states not only in efforts to tackle transnational security challenges, but also to promote human security within a zone of cooperative security, as well as beyond it.

Security through cooperation is imperative in a world in which threats to security are often transnational. Transnational security threats are non-military in nature and transcend a number of state borders, threatening the political, social, or economic integrity of a state. The primary agents driving many transnational threats are often non-state actors, such as criminal and terrorist networks, and traffickers of various kinds. This creates considerable problems for states and state-based arrangements that have been established to deal with more traditional, military-security challenges. It also encapsulates the sense in which national borders demarcating separations between national economies and ethical norms are less important than they once were. The focus on individual or human security, for example, implies that universal human-rights norms override the principle of noninterference that had previously been crucial to state sovereignty.

The identification of the security of groups and cultures within states is particularly important within the context of transnational realities, including migration and irregular immigration and xenophobic and exclusionary tendencies in host societies with regard to culture, political beliefs, and religion. A better understanding of different cultures and greater tolerance and respect for diversity could help to prevent or at least mitigate some of the most pressing security concerns of our day.