The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon (Upated 2nd Edition)

COMMON SECURITY

59 COMMON SECURITY Conceived in its contemporary usage in Cold War Europe, it was first formulated in the 1982 r eport of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues, chaired by the late Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.1 Egon Bahr, a West German member of the Commission and a former adviser to W illy Brandt, has claimed credit for inventing the term. 2 According to Geof frey Wiseman, “common security is designed to be a long-term and pragmatic pr ocess that will eventually lead to peace and disarmament by changing thinking that has cr eated the superpower arms race, prevented arms control and disarmament, and which has seen continued high levels of conventional conflict.” 3 The Palme Commission’s report, Common Security: ABlueprint for Survival, described common security as underpinned by the assumption that security is best assur ed through cooperation rather than competitive power politics. The report set out six principles of common security: all nations have a legitimate right to security; military force is not a legitimate instrument for resolving disputes between nations; restraint is necessary in expressions of national policy; security cannot be attained thr ough military superiority; reductions and qualitative limitations of armaments ar e necessary for common security; and “linkages” between arms negotiations and political events should be avoided. 4 01 A_Pac Security Lexicon 9/24/07, 9:03 AM 59 60 The commission’s r eport dismissed notions of security as a zero-sum phenomenon that can be attained unilaterally . It recognized that “inadvertent” war could arise fr om the dynamics of a r eciprocal security dilemma, in which the defensive preparations of one state are seen as of fensively intended by rival states. 5 To avoid such a scenario, common security emphasizes the importance ofreassuring potential adversaries. According to Palme, “states cannot achieve security at each other ’s expense”; security must be achieved “not against the adversary but with him”. Common security, the report went on, “must replace the present expedient of deterrence.”6 The Palme Commission also called for arms contr ol, multilateral cooperation and the enhancement of the collective security functions of the United Nations. Common security is also closely associated with the development of specific confidence-building measur es (CBMs) intended to reduce tensions between the East and W est. These include the presence of observers from both sides at large military exercises, increased transparency, and information-sharing. Together these measures have the broad aim of reducing the fear of a surprise attack. There is, however, a certain tension at the cor e of the concept. As Andrew Mack notes, common security “must both avoid ‘security dilemma’ risks by r eassuring potential adversaries, while also deterring would-be aggressors. Achieving an appropriate balance between the r equirements of deterrence and reassurance is extraordinarily difficult.”7 The Palme Commission also viewed “security” as a multidimensional concept — a fact that has been overlooked in some of the more recent references to the concept.8 The commission’s report suggested that security must be conceived in br oad terms to include economic issues as well as military threats. It stressed the linkage between common security and common pr osperity. It declared that “security requires economic progress as well as freedom from fear”, and ur ged a mor e just distribution of global r esources between the North and South. 9 In the Asia-Pacific region, common security first came to prominence when it was linked with Soviet Pr esident Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1986 Vladivostok and Krasnoyask pr oposals for an Asian equivalent of the Helsinki (CSCE, or Confer ence on Security and Cooperation in Europe) process.10 These proposals were bluntly dismissed by the United States and some of its allies at the time as an attempt by the Soviet Union to intr oduce naval arms contr ol into what was then the U.S. Navy-dominated North Pacific. 11 COMMON SECURITY 01 A_Pac Security Lexicon 9/24/07, 9:03 AM 60 61 The concept was taken up again by the Australian and Canadian governments in 1990. Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans used the concept in several speeches and a now-famous article in the International Herald Tribune, entitled “What Asia Needs is a Europe-Style CSCA[Conference on Security and Co-operation in Asia]”. In it, Evans said unambiguously “it is not unreasonable to expect that new Eur ope-style patterns of cooperation between old...