David Kennedy's Threat RankingsProfessor David Kennedy’s threat rankings on the global security matrix seem to have been based primarily on his conception of the state and system as needing several components in order to sustain itself. Thus, whereas a different interpretation of the matrix might have led to a perceived high level of threat to the state from terrorism or weapons of mass destruction, his interpretation of terrorism and WMDs as necessary to the existence and continuation of the state and the state system is distinctive for his systemic view of threats to global security. On the human level, Kennedy encountered difficulties in distinguishing between threats to the individual in different contexts. Whether he provided an interpretation of perceived threats from an individual living in a nation such as the U.S. or whether he tried to average the perceived level of threats to individuals across the world was unclear. Based on his threat rankings, the highest threats to individuals, those of resource conflict and environment, seem to apply to all individuals regardless of the strength or economic power of the nation from which they come. His discounting of warfare and failed states as significant threats indicates that he interpreted threats at the individual level from a more outsider-looking-in perspective, one in which the threats to an individual living in a warring state are canceled out by the greater majority of individuals that do not face this threat. His ranking of threats at the state and system level are based more on what he sees as the central factors that feed the state or system’s survival. From this view, whereas destruction from warfare is still a significant threat at all levels, the possibility of terrorism/crime or WMDs is not in itself a threat to the continuation and existence of the state or system of states. Kennedy’s comment that states want terrorism, or at the very least to convince their citizens of the threat of terrorism, seems in line with the view that external threats can foster a government’s role of providing security. Terrorism seems to be equated with a ‘threat of war’ that can foster a state’s survival, although warfare itself poses a higher level of threat. Kennedy’s questioning of whether failed states are endogenous or exogenous to the system of states, is also an important consideration in interpreting the threat of failed states that deserves consideration. From his ranking of states at risk to the system, he determines that states at risk are exogenous to the system. Thus, Professor Kennedy sees the threat of environmental degradation, pandemics, and resource conflict as the biggest threats, as these threats actually threaten the very existence of the system, whereas the threat of terrorism or WMDs that select states encounter is not as significant to the continuation of the state system. This view extends to the threats that networks (international organizations, think thanks) perceive, because perceived threats such as environmental degradation could actually foster more connections and networking among institutions, thereby strengthening the role of these very networks. Thus, the threats that networks perceive to global security is seen as distinct from what the networks need to sustain themselves. Thus, he adds an additional level to the interpretation of threats, one in which networks themselves have separate interests from global security. On the global level, Kennedy distributes the threats evenly, with the notable exceptions of WMDs and Infowar. Kennedy did not seem to consider the cultural factors from an Infowar as a significant factor, either due to the belief that information disseminated for specific interests could not affect state capabilities, or due to a misunderstanding of the concept of Infowar. Thus, Kennedy’s threat rankings coincide with the view that if states were not rational actors seeking to maximize their gains, there would be no need for an international system of states. The system of states provides a means through which states can foster their role as security providers and assure their future existence. However, Kennedy’s discounting of WMDs as a significant threat overall is puzzling in light of the threats that nuclear proliferation or weapons trafficking could pose to regional and global security. It is unclear whether his low ranking of the threat from WMD proliferation derives from a belief that nuclear deterrence has been effective or whether the threat of WMD proliferation has been embellished to foster alliance-formation or domestic agendas (an interpretation more relevant to the U.S.) The low threat ranking of WMD proliferation overall contrasts with the high level of threat that warfare poses at all levels. For example, how could the current North Korean nuclear crisis, with its potential to trigger regional militarization and security buildup, be explained by this global security matrix? North Korea’s nuclear crisis can also be seen as the ‘last gasp’ of a state acting out on the brink of its collapse, which raises questions for the overall low threat ranking given to states at risk and the threats they pose to regional and global security (North Korea’s nuclearization triggering Japan’s military normalization, which could produce parallel buildups in China’s military, creating further competition between the U.S. and China for authority in the region).
Posted by Joanne Park on October 17, 2006 12:03 PM | Permalink |
Prof. Kennedy's Rankings Analysis Professor David Kennedy of the Harvard School of Law visited IR135 on Thursday, August 12 and participated in ranking the threats in the Global Security Matrix. As a guest, Professor Kennedy had both an interesting take on the Matrix and a unique way of assessing threats. Posted by Christopher Keys on October 16, 2006 10:15 PM | Permalink |
David Kennedy's RankingsBefore jumping in to an explanation of Prof. Kennedy’s remarks, I think it is prudent to note several items. First, Kennedy went through the matrix vertically, looking at groups and then each risk. As a class, we worked through the matrix horizontally, focusing on the threats and how they relate to different human groups. Although one should ideally consider each box as though it were isolated and independent, it seems that Kennedy had a different context than the class for assessing threats. One of the more interesting, and certainly unscientific, areas of Kennedy’s assessment was in his use of averages. When looking at the threat of warfare to an individual, Kennedy remarked that a person in the U.S. would be ranked at a 7 while a person in a place such as Chad would be assessed a 2. To issue a ranking, Kennedy averaged these two numbers (sort of) to 5 for the entire category. I am surprised that the same method was not repeated for all other categories. For example, one might say the risk of warfare to Canada is low while it is high to Israel. The threat of states at risk was almost entirely discounted by Kennedy, who regarded the collapse or pending collapse of a nation as a threat of isolated impact that rarely occurs. This view negates a far reaching effects of a failed or failing state. After North Korea’s recent foray back into the arena of testing nuclear weapons, it has been hypothesized that the nation is indeed on verge of crumbling. On that assumption, a failing state with nuclear weapons is a serious threat to all levels of analysis on this matrix. Such a state could undoubtedly threaten the use of its nuclear arsenal in hopes of securing aid from the international community. At the same time, I think that it is difficult to underestimate how much damage a failed state with no nuclear capabilities would cause. The former Yugoslavia and now the Sudan are prime examples of this. Violence spills over borders and international forces get involved in these circumstances. Failed states cannot control their illicit exports, such as drugs or human trafficking, which certainly has an impact on people and organizations around the globe. Infowar was not a concern to Kennedy, who balked at the suggestion of media causing a threat to any of the levels of analysis besides the state. I do not think Infowar was described properly to him, however. Cyberterrorism and the use of electromagnetic pulses to destroy electronic devices were never brought up, leaving Kennedy under the assumption that the category is only referring to information transmitted through various forms of media. Prof. Luong, who teaches a course focusing on global security at Brown, lectured on Cyberterrorism and EMPs last week. Luong was particularly concerned about assaults on the computers that control electrical grids or if attacks were used to delay emergency response in conjunction with a conventional strike. Kennedy also viewed networks as international businesses, discounting what he called “do-gooders” as a small percentage of transnational networks. That’s fair, he has written a book on “do-gooders” and the lack of good they actually do titled The Dark Side of Virtue, but I am not sure that businesses aren’t destroyed by information. At the very least, we should say that many businesses are forced to adapt or change due to negative information about their practices being conveyed to the public. Just think of how much money McDonald’s has poured into creating media arguing that its products are healthy or how much the menu has changed since it became fashionable for experts to ridicule their food as fattening or harmful. Posted by Joshua Rosenthal on October 16, 2006 05:47 PM | Permalink |
Interpretation of the "Threat" Rankings by David KennedyThe IR135: History and Theory of International Relations class welcomed Professor David Kennedy of the Harvard Law School last Thursday. The class, led by Professor James Der Derian, requested that Prof. Kennedy perform a "threat ranking" within the Global Security Matrix. Kennedy contested the fundamental nature of threat ranking, an action which may or may not further the GSM's progressive goals of rethinking global security, and presented his own opinion on the subject of security. For Kennedy, the concept of absolute threat represents an abandonment of the culture of "tolerated insecurity" embodied in our legal system. This, in turn, undermines the spaces and practices enabled by this tolerated insecurity, such as our ability to engage in uncertain behavior that we perceive to promise a greater social good (e.g. innovate). As such, he was somewhat skeptical of the utility of the rankings, the validity of their criteria, and the [implied] methodology for completing a ranking. He did not, however, seem to comprehensively apply his conception of security within his rankings, likely due to the manner in which the rankings were completed (a back-and-forth intellectual exchange between the two professors). Professor Kennedy performed his rankings by assuming the position of the various actors (columns). It is interesting to note, however, that he was not entirely methodologically consistent with this perspective, often explicitly acknowledging the large magnitude of the perceived threat while simultaneously discrediting it with expert knowledge. For example, Kennedy said that while people perceive terrorism as a major threat, in reality one is unlikely to be affected. In contrast, he described resource conflict as a major "threat" to humans because one always has to worry about "what the Jones' have." At the level of the state, Kennedy concluded that the largest dangers were warfare, resource conflict, and the environment (particularly in the case of small island states). Kennedy described systems as "agnostic" in that they do not care about their current state. Thus, systems do not fear transition, just as individuals do not fear religious conversion because conversion presupposes a new belief system in which the end-state (post-conversion) is correct. He then concluded that terrorism, pandemics, WMD, and, to a lesser extent, the environment were threats to systems because they challenged their very being (but not their state). Kennedy imagined networks not as Slaughter's description of transnational NGOs and judges, but rather as a realistic total of all network activity (he also initially ignored networks as physical). This led him to conclude that networks, which are "cooly rational," should fear terrorism, pandemics, and WMD proliferation. Meanwhile, they would simply reroute around failed states, and be mechanisms for, rather than victims of, infowar. This actor-based analysis supposedly extends to the global level, where Kennedy asserted that warfare, pandemics, and the environment were the largest threats (followed closely by resource conflict and terrorism). However, one must wonder how these rankings were rationalized, as terrorism was given a high value despite being written off elsewhere. It is probably wise to assume that Prof. Kennedy did not strictly follow his earlier goal of positioning himself as the actor for this portion of the GSM, in part due to the incredible difficulty of imaging oneself as the "global level," and the implicit debate that would have to take place over exactly how that actor should be imagined (Gaia, a cold dead planet, the sum total of living things, the sum total of humans, etc.). In conclusion, Professor Kennedy's rankings are illustrative of the difficulty in performing a threat ranking within the GSM framework. Exactly how, and from where, one should evaluate threats makes individual expert rankings vary markedly. However, this is not a demonstration of the failure of the GSM. Rather it is a demonstration that the GSM is not a tool for understanding which threats must be addressed and when, but a mechanism for understanding the contentious nature of global security. Posted by Nick Greenfield on October 16, 2006 04:26 PM | Permalink |
David Kennedy's RankingsI thought it was extremely interessting to hear Professor Kennedy's justifications for his threat rankings in the Global Security Matrix. As we were going through the exercise again, I realized that I did not have a terribley good understanding on who the actors in the global system were and what their specific functions were when I made my initial rankings. I thought it was clever of him to average the rankings that he proposed for each actor and individual threat in the Matrix, depending upon the circumstances of the actor involved. For instance, when he ranked States at Risk he first looked at individuals in the United States, giving them a low ranking of a 6 or 7, and then individuals in a failed state to which he gave a ranking of a 1 or 2. By averaging these two values together, he was able to come up with a more appropriate threat ranking somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. When I did my rankings I was not anywhere near as objective as Professor Kennedy, and basically concluded threats based on my own personal experiences. If I had looked at the world as a whole, not just at the United States and my life as a New Yorker, I think my threat rankings would have been much less severe. Posted by Allison Wright on October 16, 2006 04:14 PM | Permalink |
My interpretation of Professor Kennedy's rankings (Emeline Lemoine)Anybody taking a look at Professor David Kennedy's global security matrix will notice that the spectrum of his rankings is very wide. Professor Kennedy gave a lot of high and low rankings. I found it interesting to see that, to give his rankings, Professor Kennedy literally put himself in the shoes of the different actors. For example, he asked himself: “If I were a State, would I consider terrorism as a threat?” I think that this way of thinking has a substantial impact on his rankings. When I gave my own rankings to the matrix, I proceeded in a different way. I wondered: “Do I (as a student of International Relations) think that terrorism is a major threat for a State or not?” As a result I gave a medium ranking to terrorism (between 4 and 5 probably) because I thought that, indeed, as a surprise attack, terrorism can destabilize the State. Professor Kennedy had a different and interesting approach. Embodying the State, Professor Kennedy asked himself a different question: “Do I (as a State) fear terrorism or do I want it?” In other words, he wondered if terrorism is only a bad thing or if the States can take advantage of it as well. As a consequence, his answer was that even though terrorism can destabilize the State, States can take great advantage of it as well, through a renewed legitimacy, a new sense of unity among the population, a new enemy to unite against… In short, Professor Kennedy reflected in terms of a balance between the advantage and the inconvenient. He wondered if, as a State, he would consider terrorism as weakening or strengthening his power. As his answer tended towards the latter, he gave terrorism a quite low ranking. In the same way, Professor Kennedy considered that war is not an important threat to the State System because war is a constitutive element of the State system. For example, war can be used to maintain the balance of power. One of the lowest ranking Professor Kennedy attributed was the threat of failed states (states at risk). I think that it can be understood by the statistical method that Professor Kennedy used for his rankings. While he was thinking about the threat represented by failed states over individual human beings for instance, Professor Kennedy said that it obviously constituted an important threat for the people that are living in such states but that the threat was almost non-existent for the inhabitants of other states. On this basis, Professor Kennedy logically argued that, failed states representing a very small fraction of all states, the threat of states at risk over individuals was low. If we follow his argument, Professor Kennedy’s ranking makes sense. However, I am not convinced by Professor Kennedy’s hypothesis that states at risk only constitute a threat to individuals living in them. I personally think that through the spread of war from a failed state to another state or the development of terrorism, crime, drugs and other international traffics in failed states, states at risk can constitute a threat to individuals all around the world. Also, unlike Professor Kennedy, I do not think that because failed states do not belong to the state system, they do not represent any threat to it. I think that the simple risk of contagion from a failed state to another state is a threat to the state system. According to Professor Kennedy, Information Warfare is not an important threat in the international society. If he invented the matrix himself, I do not think that he would have mentioned infowar among the threats. I think that even when Professor Kennedy gave a medium/high ranking to infowar – as a threat to states, he did so under the pressure of the class. His first reaction was to say that information warfare was not an important threat because states use it on a daily basis (through propaganda or spying for example). I think that Professor Kennedy might have underestimated information warfare as a threat, especially to networks. Also, Professor Kennedy had a different approach towards the State system than Professor Der Derian notably, considering that such a system does not actually exist since states live in anarchy. In conclusion, I would like to say that I found it interesting to see that the rankings in the matrix can be very different not only from one person to another but also according to the method one chooses to reflect on the threats. For example, there are several different approaches to the relevance of every threat: the damage that the threat can cause, the likelihood of the threat to actually happen, the perception of the threat etc. According to what approach you give more attention, the matrix can be really different. Today, after looking at Professor Kennedy’s rankings, but also at the rankings of the other students of the class, I realize that if I had to rate the threats again, I would probably give a different ranking because I might favor a different approach. Posted by Emeline Lemoine on October 16, 2006 03:29 PM | Permalink |
My Interpretation of David Kennedy’s Threat AssessmentDavid 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. Posted by Ivan Maldonado on October 16, 2006 01:42 PM | Permalink |
My interpretation of David Kennedy's GSM Ranking {Aaron Wee}Prof Kennedy's Threat Ranking was based on his conception not so much of direct threats or potential for harm to the actors, but of the limits and tolerances of unfavorable conditions levelled against them. In that thinking, his belief in the potential for serious destabilisation is in marked contrast to the Class Aggregate (which paints a nearly uniform yellow shade of danger). However, it was apparent in the class discussion that Prof Kennedy did not fully understand the concept and role of InfoWar in the threat matrix, or perhaps he did not even regard it as a worthy destabilisng factor in the greater scheme of things. That being said, it was perhaps not surprising to note that Resource Conflict and the Environment were apparently of a greater concern than Warfare and Terrorism. To Prof Kennedy, the amibugous transhuman is constantly in a struggle for resource conflict, a stance that I share with him. What is the history of human activity without the history of economic activity, the endless cycle of demand and supply and the eternal problem of limited resources unable to satiate unlimited wants. Human economic competition, be it a struggle for basic needs or the oneup-manship that has dogged bourgeois society since its haughty beginnings, has been of prime and utmost concern for all of humanity. As the resource conflict turns from wants to needs, when our basic survival and need for food, water and living space gets threatened, society will come to the terms that it has reached its productive limit. To overcome, first economic, then social then violent conflict will consume the common man. With very good reason, Prof Kennedy realises the immediacy of the threat, perhaps not in such dire terms, but as an immediate limit to our respective tolerance levels. Of note is Prof Kennedy's interpretation of the System actor, especially telling in his playing down of the threats posed by warfare, states at risk and resource conflict, to its existence and continuation. The reassertion that there is no state system and that we live in essentially an international anarchy, was the basic underlying of his understanding. However, for him to see terrorism as a greater threat to the state system is a little perplexing. If one is to consider internal revolutions of the scale of Bolshevism (that essentially shunted the Soviet Union from the international community for a decade) as terrorism and crime and not as say warfare or states at risk, then the justification of terrorism's threat to the system is apparent. However, as it stands, there is no greater threat to the existence of state systems then external influence as manifested by warfare. As evidenced by imperialism when European powers forcibly dismantled the internal systems of Africa, the Americas and Asia, warfare is a great impetus for the revamping and reorganizing of state systems. Continental conflicts have sometimes, while not demolishing existing state systems, repudiated international structure within the European context and replaced concepts and ideas of international relations, moving from princely actors to national actors. The conquests of Napoleon and Hitler have redefined European polities and their views on sovereignty and what it means to be a part of the international system of states. The concept of networks and their role in the InfoWar was also, I feel, not fully explored. One of the key consequences of our new information age is the rapid ability for any single individual to utilise the network advantage of technology to diffuse thoughts and ideas and use that network as a force multiplier. This is the age where information and the battle for hearts and minds are won and lost through the power of networks. Networks are more than just infrastructure components of our modern society; they are slowly but determinedly integrating into our common agenda. Any individual with basic access to the world wide web can, with very little knowledge and capital, disseminate radical views that oppose conventional state-sponsored information sources, and with eloquence and luck, reach just as broad or an even broader audience. The multiplicative impact of networking abilities has enabled information to become a critical resource and acts as a focus for the transhuman actor to band together to form supra-national entities with international influence. Broad, loose coalitions of politically-minded individuals with differing social goals have been known to exert influence over mainstream media and local government to enact significant changes, and more radically, militant groups have harnessed that same collaborative power to draw more to their ranks. Individuals may now see themselves as extensions of networks rather than states themselves, a drawing together of ideology and belief rather than by nationality or state. Last seen in a broader context in the Middle Ages, that was known as the Crusades. The ability to harness hearts and minds and to gear them towards singular goals and methods can be used to great effect and can only be ignored at one's own risk. States at Risk recieves disappointingly low attention on Prof Kennedy's ranking, perhaps duly so considering the sometimes criminal lack of interest by the average civilian of unaffected regions and the much lower than average people directly affected by it. However, once again, states at risk are fertile jumping off points for a series of myriad problems for states, systems and networks in general. An immediate effect would be the great influx of refugees into neighbouring states that would inevitably further burden and exacerbate existing resource conflicts, from tangible items like housing and basic necessities, to intangibles like employment, education and social rights. There is also the distinct issue of conflicts and problems from states at risk spreading into these neighbour states, either through an extension of the conflict or as a result of tensions brought about by the refugees. In the modern failed state conflict, national boundaries are not as hard and fast as they once were and paramilitaries and guerillas that often dog these states at risk are not beholden to respect international laws and treaties. Additionally, when states fail, law and order are often the first to be lost in the conflicts and struggles that arise. With that comes the distinct but remote possibility of international crime and terrorism. This has been graphically illustrated in Afghanistan, but can also be seen in Indonesia's failure to rein in the pirates of the Straits of Malacca, the trade in conflict diamods in sub-Saharan Africa, the long civil conflict in Uganda and the drug-related trade in Colombia and Burma. States at Risk, though they may not pose immediate state- or system-existentialist threats, contribute significantly to the dangers that exist to confront international order. Posted by Aaron Wee on October 14, 2006 03:14 PM | Permalink |
Ranking ExplanationHuman & States at Risk Human & Terrorism/ Crime Global & Environment Posted by Rukesh Samarasekera on October 10, 2006 12:31 PM | Permalink |
Chris Keys' Justification for Most Extreme Rankings -- Orignally 9/30 under Allison WrightChris Keys' Justification for Most Extreme Rankings The biggest threats that I assessed were Environment and InfoWar for Humans, Resource Conflict for the state, and the Global Environment. The environment is such an integral part of human life that an awful one destroys humans' ability to live in a certain area. As the world becomes more and more polluted, the quality of human life will decrease far faster than any threat of war, terror or WMDs could cause. When taken to a global scale, this could potentially mean the end of mankind. InfoWar is similarly important for humans because many, if not all, of the other categories can be swayed by it. People who don't believe in Global Warming won't care about the environment. Small children in the Middle East who grow up hearing about the wrongs of Israel and America can later perpetuate hatred by way of terrorism and warfare. Finally, resource conflict has historically lied at the core of warfare and conflict for states. As resources are depleted in the future, this could become an extremely relevant category again. The smallest threats that I assessed were terrorism for people and the globe, WMDs for people, and WMDs and InfoWar for the globe. Terrorism and WMDs are extremely unlikely to ever affect the lives of individual humans. As Dr. Der Derian has stated, the average bathroom is more dangerous than WMDs/Terrorism for the average person. Additionally, the globe is too broad a stage for terrorism to ever seriously affect its stability. The same rings true for InfoWar, as the human population is too different for all people to be truly affected by its presence. Posted by Christopher Keys on October 9, 2006 06:53 PM | Permalink |
