Blog Post #1

Jessica Sensi

Blog Post #1

            “‘National Security’ as an ambiguous symbol” by Arnold Wolfers brought to light that many people believe that national security surrounds the idea that a state or nation is only as secure as their core values are. Personally, I viewed the term ‘national security’ as referring to the extent to which our nation, or any, was secure from attack resulting in mass casualty. Wolfers writes about how the term ‘national security’ and its meaning is not fixed, but ever-changing and specifically, he states that many view a nation’s security as being at stake when the existence of their core values is at stake.

            Before reading Wolfers, I wasn’t aware of this aspect of national security. However, after reading Wolfers I can now see what he means in that core values have a huge role in terms of how secure a nation is. Post 9/11, Americans feel as though terrorism and terrorist organizations target Americans and their values such as freedom and unity. As a New Yorker, I see this almost every day. Just this weekend I was in Manhattan and noticed tourists purchasing NYPD apparel in order to pay tribute to those who risked their lives in the line of duty in order to save those who fell victim to the attacks on The World Trade Center. If national security surrounded that idea of being safe from terrorist attacks, there would be a more direct approach towards retaliation or becoming more secure. However, to this day, 13 years after the attacks on The World Trade Center, people are fighting the war on terror because many terrorist organizations attack America because of their ideals and its democratic regime. The attacks symbolized an attack on who Americans are, it was not just an attack on those people in that building and on those plans at that specific instance.

            This became clearer in our first lecture as well. The ambiguity of the term ‘national security’ allows for many different types of security throughout one nation. For example, there is ontological security and human security. Human security regards having enough resources for people in order for them to lead a good quality of life. Ontological security focuses more on maintaining security of the being of certain things. In other words, the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were an attack on our values, on what makes America what it is, and on the idea that we are a free nation. To this day, we fight in unity against terrorist organizations as they try to spread their ideologies and radicalism because it is not in line with America’s ideologies. Because of America’s enduring patriotism, people are angered by terrorism and often associated the idea of national security with it when national security can pertain to many other things as well.

            Because of the ambiguity of the term, this idea of national security is up for debate and people twist the meaning of it in order to heighten up a cause, and to allow for legislation to pass that doesn’t necessarily need to be and so on. People use the term in order to further their agendas and while maintaining national security is very important, I believe people forget that it doesn’t necessarily to have relate to terrorism. Attacks on values can come from someone online through cyber means as well as many other routes that do not involve endangering citizens or mass killings. I believe the government should focus on what parts or pieces of America need to be more secure and then address that and inform the citizens. I think this would be helpful by answering all the questions that are presented in the Baldwin reading. Baldwin works off of Wolfers’ piece in that he further explains what needs to be outlined in order to describe a threat or something pertaining to national security. This outline could help The United States Government to prioritize needs or threats and create less debate on what national security encompasses.