National Security Midterm Assignment example

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National Security Midterm Assignment

Question 1: In what ways is a non-state actor different from a nation-state?

In the field of the theory of threat, a nation-state actor would never be defined as a “terrorist”, maximum “a country which supports terrorism”, or “host-state” . The word “terrorist” could be referred only to non-state actors because of the clear definitional dichotomy between the nation-state and non-state actors. It allows politicians avoiding misleading citizens and analysts creating a clear definitional framework.

A nation-state actor has a form of political organization under which a relatively homogeneous people inhabits a sovereign state. A non-state actor, in its turn, is anything else except a state. Thus, different groups may be named as a non-state actor:

Terrorist groups: ISIL, ALF, ELF..;

Insurgents: the Confederacy..;

Cyber criminals and bio criminals;

Murderers, propagandists and so on.

Such a broad definition of a non- state actor has two sides. On the one hand, it complicates the theory of threats of non-state actors but also allows to draw attention to new, just emerged types of non-state actors who constitute a threat. Meanwhile, the definition of a threat as “the attempt of influence made of A, which is perceived hostile by B” is appropriate while accessing all types of threats, from both nation-state and non-state actors. However, there are still many differences between a non-state and a nation-state actor.

The List of Differences

War, guerrilla warfare, and terrorism have the common ground that all these types of confrontation are threats. However, scholars distinguish them by defining to what extent a threat is conventional. Thus, war is perceived as the conventional military threat because a) it is announced b) it is evident who participate in it c) militants have strict set of rules and established code of behavior. For instance, militants must omit killing civilians. The guerilla warfare is less convenient than the war because the tactic of guerillas often includes attacks on civilians, but terrorism is the least convenient threat because terrorists hit everybody and usually have not any set of rules. The same “convenient” dichotomy is present while analyzing nation-state and non-state actors. Nation-state actors are perceived as a more convenient threat because of several nuances:

more information available about them;

they have familiar traits as states;

they often obliged to act in accordance with international contracts;

imposing sanctions on countries is easier than on non-state organizations.

Thereby, threats from a nation-state actor are “traditional” and “non-traditional” in the case of a non-state actor. Traditional analytical approaches are not effective while evaluating threats from a non-state actor. The scope of analysis is less focused while accessing non-state actors because of informational lacunas. For instance, it is impossible to use historical method to observe a previous policy of a non-state actor and trace its ideological development as well as in the case of a nation-state actor, which emerged a long time ago.

“Wicked” problems, which were described by Moor, mean the influence of our established mental framework …

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