My Interpretation of David Kennedy’s Threat Assessment

David Kennedy’s approach to the threat assessment with the global security matrix was quite unique. He made a point before he began his assessment to explain his position regarding what his approach would be in assessing the threats presented by the Global Security Matrix. Although he found it would difficult for anyone to assess a threat by placing oneself in the place of others to asses the threat ranking, at times he would estimate it the threat based on the percentage of actors concerned or involved with the threat level he was analyzing. His approach was interesting and different from my own individual approach and that of the collective approach of the class, because he brought up the point of tolerated levels of insecurity in his assessment. This is quite different from the approach of security because it suggests that some of the various actors benefit and even promote certain levels of insecurity to promote their goals and agendas. He brought to light some examples in the field of law that also led to his point in approach of the GSM by providing examples of when people are allowed to have privileged injury and how in order to promote society, in his example of the neighbor playing loud music being at the domestic state level, a certain level of injury is tolerated. He then suggested the question for permissible injury at the international level and whether things that are security risks could be considered “a cost of doing business” in order to achieve an end or goal. With this in mind David Kennedy began to fill out the GSM.
An interesting urgent concern he noted was resource conflict at the Human level. He put it rather simply when he said that people are always concerned “… what the Jones’s ’ have…” in comparison to themselves. At the human level pandemic and the environment were seen to have generally high importance, but not as high as resource conflict. All other threats were considered minimal in importance.
At the state level warfare received the highest importance by him. This is not only because it is something that can change a state but because it can also benefit it as well. David Kennedy granted some importance to pandemics, resource conflict, the environment, and info war as well.
He began the system column by asking what was meant by system and then proceeding to ask in curiously sarcastic manner, “What state system?” to the surprise of the class of IR135. Once that was cleared up the David Kennedy granted a high level of security concern to terrorism and crime. This is not necessarily based on what the terrorism and crime can deal to the system directly but rather what it brings about indirectly as secondary results throughout it. This is very similar to his position on the threats affecting networks. Concerning that point he suggests terrorism and crime play a key role in addition to warfare in how it affects the network and how it runs. An example he provided was that of banking institutions having to follow stricter regulation that slowed down the exchange or flow of money as a result of terrorists being know to use that banking system. Other threats at this level and that of system were considered either low or of mid range importance.
At the Global level warfare, the environment, and pandemics were considered by him to be significant at a medium-high level. However, as with much of the other levels his concern for W.M.D. and their proliferation was very low or none at all. Although it is understandable that tensions such as those felt during The Cold War are not commonly felt today, there is still some considerable concern by states, such as the United States, on who acquires nuclear weapons. This is exemplified by the reactions of various countries in light of the recent nuclear tests carried out by North Korea. If W.M.D proliferation were not a relevant security threat then why is it that so many responses of disapproval have come from the North Korean tests on some many levels represented in the GSM? A similar question can be asked concerning David Kennedy’s assessment of the importance of InfoWar. The only point in which he considered it to be relatively relevant was at the state level. It is possible he might have misunderstood the concept developed by the GSM concerning InfoWar, but either way he made a point not to make it a security threat that is considerably relevant at most levels. This to me seems somewhat difficult to understand considering the huge impact information has in its various levels of use on whole populations, networks, the state, and the opinion of the common individual. Everything from a campaign commercial or product commercial on television to regimented propaganda in some countries are but a few examples of common InfoWar occurrences that shape people’s opinions and thus actions daily.

Posted by Ivan Maldonado on October 16, 2006 01:42 PM | Permalink

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