Non-traditional Security: Looking East

Two decades ago governments looked askance, with suspicion or even with downright hostility at any attempt to introduce non-traditional security concepts into the national agenda; this was especially so in regard to the efforts of academics, think-tanks and NGO’s, which had begun around that time. Today these efforts have been so successful that government spokesmen have internalized the concepts: when they talk about security they take pride in including things like food security, water security, as also security issues arising out of the economy, the environment, ethnicity. In part this is due to the support and generous funding given by the United Nations agencies, specially the UNDP, individual governments like those of Canada, Japan and Norway, and the dozens of international NGO’s, academic institutions like Harvard University and even individuals