Human Security Report 2005: War and Peace in the 21st Century [Paperback]

Modeled on the UN'sHuman Development Report, the first everHuman Security Reportwill provide an annual mapping of the incidence, intensity, causes, and consequences of global violence and policy responses to that violence. Each report will carry a series of essays focusing on a thematic issue. The theme of the first issue will be War in the 21st Century . These essays will explore the emerging consensus about the causes of what is now being called the New War and the increasingly blurred distinction between criminal and political violence in many parts of the world.Since the end of the Cold War, armed conflicts have increasingly taken place within, and not between, states. Boundaries between political and criminal violence are becoming increasingly blurred, while the very definition of security is undergoing radical change. Today, security is about the protection of communities and individuals from internal violence as well as the defense of borders against external threats. It is this focus--on the individual rather than the state--which distinguishes human security from national security . National security is about protecting the state; human security is about protecting people. Both should be mutually reinforcing, but secure states do not necessarily mean secure citizens. During the last 100 years far more people have died at the hands of their own governments than have been killed by foreign armies. Despite the fact that more than 90% of armed conflicts now take place within, and not between, states, most governments and mainstream security research institutions continue to focus on national, as opposed to human, security. National security remains important, but in a world in which interstate war is the rare exception there is a need for a new and very different global security audit. TheHuman Security Reportwill address this need.Modeled on the UN'sHuman Development Report, theHuman Security Reportwill provlSY