Contemporary understanding of national security

Abstract

The end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the danger from the Soviet Union and its disintegration itself have brought new dilemmas about the notion of security. Security studies in Europe and the United States have shifted their focus from the state survival (the so-called 'hard security') to the care for economic prosperity (the so-called 'soft security'). Asymmetric security threats such as terrorism and organized crime have contributed to actualization of the 'soft' approach to security, that is the process of securitization of social instability, economic problems, migration problems, environmental threats, epidemic of infectious diseases and other phenomena and processes that the traditional concept of 'hard' security has not recognized as security processes and phenomena. The main subject of this paper is an attempt to offer contemporary understanding of national security, or the understanding of 'soft security' through the theory of classical realism and neorealism, alternative approach to security, constructivist studies and liberal and neoliberal theories.

Keywords

• national security
• state
• human security
• national interests