CIAO DATE: 08/05

The War on Terror - Security Sector Governance and Military Implications

Abstract

The topic of this conference, "The War on Terror and its Impact on Security Sector Governance and Society", gives us the opportunity to engage in an intensive dialogue with participants from various countries and with different expertise. Let me briefly introduce my approach to this session. Since June 2003 I have been working at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, currently responsible as the Co-Director of the International Training Course on Security Policy training 30 participants from 23 different countries, amongst them two Russian participants. As our objective is to prepare the participants for international and national assignments in security policy branches, we are trying to create a fruitful balance between academic debates, concepts, practitioners' views and experiences and practical hands-on training. I would like to follow this approach today.

What does this mean for my presentation? I will start by analyzing some key factors that dominate the war on terror, although I would call it the fight against terrorism.2 The first question to answer is how security is perceived and achieved today, what has recently changed and what are the implications for the international community and the nationstate. Then I will describe the role of the military in the fight against terrorism and examine how the use of military force can best suit the overall political objective of that fight, namely to protect the citizens and to contain terrorism. Finally I seek to draw some conclusions for security sector governance.

Full Text (PDF, 20 pages, 73 KB)