Bates Gill

While it is still true that national or state security remains the dominant paradigm, the idea of human security has proven powerful enough to influence major policy decisions, as shown by the repeated practice of humanitarian military intervention. Today, the ‘responsibility to protect’, with its emphasis on protecting civilian populations from state predation, stands in stark contrast to the ‘global war on terrorism’, with its emphasis on protecting states from non-state actors. Advocates for each perspective arrive at very different conclusions about when, why and how to use military force.