1 How does Humankind Address “Resource-induced” Security Dilemmas?

Community is social integration of “mutually related elements” to cope with dilemmas humans are confronted with in different environments for survival. Generally speaking, as the bonds of community, there are three types of “mutually related elements”:physically mutually related elements, such as consanguinity and geography; socially mutually related elements, such as schooling, profession, interests and power; and intentionally mutually related elements, such as identity, desire, self-esteem, and faith. The three types of mutually related elements intertwine and mutually construct. The “common features” that develop thereon become people's “distinctive mark”or “special identity” and assemble into a variety of “organic groups”, “responsible units”, and “action collectives” in society to acquire shared senses of “identity” and“security”. For example, in a state community, these senses consist mainly of “beinghere” of cohabitation, “we-feeling” of the same race, “homogeneity” of culture or civilization, shared political “legitimacy”, and collective “self-esteem” recognized by the international community. Traditional and non-traditional security communities are mostly transnational ones and the acquisition of shared “identity” and “security” is their basic motives, but the security dilemmas they confront are different, thus differing in qualities and taking different forms.

1.1 The Traditional Security Community: Deconstructing and Constructing“Military” Security Dilemma

Man is a “species-being” who is aware of its own existence. Humankind exists in groups and copes with threats by means of “community”, thereby constructing a special way of contact between people and between nations. In terms of the historical respect of human development, the history of human development is just a history of security community expansion. According to the research of anthropologists, the early human beings four million years ago mostly lived in a “mini-community” of several groups each of which consisted of four to five persons. However, the way of contact then between “groups” was not desirable. Whether through “war” or “trade”, the community people lived in was “fragile” and the relationship between communities was mainly“contending”.

“Security community” is a special category of the study of international relations, exclusively referring to an association of states that takes as its core safeguarding military and political security. In this paper, such a security community is referred to as “the traditional security community”, meaning “action collective” established for the purpose of addressing traditional security threats or “responsible unit” of alliance nature. Traditional security is security concerned with military and political fields and relevant to such national core interests as national sovereignty and state power. However, in anarchy, security threats are ubiquitous and actors are always suspicious of and hostile to each other; therefore, states have to rely on their own strength to preserve security but the preservation of security itself leads to the arms race and the institution of alliances. The establishment of the traditional security community resolves, to some extent, the negative impact exerted by security dilemmas on a single state. Although neorealism holds that “military” security dilemma is an intrinsic and structural feature of international politics in anarchy, constructivism maintains that “security dilemma is a socially constructed product” while the security community created on the basis of common values, the trust between subjects and the institutionalization of collective identity can resolve the security dilemma resulting from military force. “Security community not only means that there is no war but also means there are no large-scale and organized preparations for war either.” Nevertheless, what constructivists neglect is the expansion of the traditional security community tends to result in the general expansion of security threats. In the era of the Cold War, the two superpowers had each the most extensive traditional security community only to bring humankind unprecedented “nuclear horror” through “mutually assured destruction”. It is thus clear that the traditional security community, while resolving traditional security dilemmas, brings about a more extensive and profound “military” dilemma outside the alliances. As for the scarcity and shortage of more and more resources man suffers, the traditional security community is even unable to transcend sovereign constraints to cope with them.

1.2 Non-traditional Security Community: Deconstructing and Transcending“Resource-Induced” Security Dilemma

The non-traditional security community refers to “all the freedom from the threats caused by nonmilitary force to survival”, and “optimum coexistence of actors”. This type of security gives more expression to economy, culture, society, environment, resource, science and technology, and information. Immanuel Wallerstein thinks that the development of nations is very likely to be a harmful policy goal and they will gain interests at the expense of the interests of other regions. With limited resources, a nation becomes a contending unit and so does the realm of non-traditional security. Nontraditional security threat is a trans-national, and trans-sovereign challenge to security characteristic of shortage of and conflict over resources and its fundamental feature is“of nonmilitary force”. For this reason, non-traditional security threat tends to lead to“resource-induced” security dilemma, that is, the increase in one country's utilization and protection of resources will bring about another country's shortage and scarcity of resources. Even the profound impact exerted by such global non-traditional security threats as climate warming on individual countries is eventually characterized by the consumption of resources and whether these resources can be shared. (See Table 1)

Table 1 Two Major Types of Security Dilemma Confronting Humankind

Can the traditional security community address non-traditional security threats? The establishment of the traditional security community aims mainly to curb the arms race and war. For example, “maintaining regional peace” is still the most basic and important feature of NATO, the EU, and ASEAN. As non-traditional security is becoming an important issue of regional and global security, these traditional security communities begin to pay heed to and address such non-traditional security threats as the deterioration of the ecological environment, terrorism, illegal immigration, refugees, and transnational organized crimes. Take North Atlantic Council for example.In its Strategic Concept — Active Engagement, Modern Defense adopted in 2010, some important problems concerning environment and resource were incorporated into the category of cooperation and security. The security functions of the EU and ASEAN are more comprehensive. The two organizations established such core security functions as conflict prevention, crisis management, and anti-terrorist cooperation, and came to institute a multi-tiered and extensive security governance structure. However, with the limitations of its own positioning, practical capability, and available resources, the traditional security community cannot effectively resolve its regional and even global non-traditional security problems because of its weak intention for cooperation, monotony of approaches, and governance fragmentation in addressing non-traditional security threats.

If the basic value orientation of community consists in the acquisition of “identity”and “security”, to cope with security threats collectively is an essential property of any community. Globally, non-traditional security problems are increasingly prominent as universal threats confronting humankind but the traditional security community bound by military ties is far from adequate to respond to the trans-sovereign challenge to security and that which goes beyond state actors' capability. Even the EU is lacking in effective policies and often has difficulty in reaching consensus on waves of refugees. Therefore, the traditional security community proves ineffective in addressing security threats such as global warming, the spread of AIDS, and water shortage. As a result, humankind must create a new form of community to resolve non-traditional security problems.

As far as the global governance of non-traditional security is concerned, global nontraditional security threats are widely spread across the world so that no one can escape nor can anyone be held accountable for them. All countries are facing “resourceinduced” security dilemmas for all humanity. Without the theoretical construction of“species-being”, “generic value” and “generic security”, and common response, and without the construction of a more extensive non-traditional security community that transcends the limitation of national sovereignty, humankind will be trapped in new dilemmas under the context of globalization interlocked with deglobalization. Thus, the construction of “non-traditional security community” is an inexorable exploration for humankind to address non-traditional security threats.