WEBVTT
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(siren wails)
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ABC's Peter Jennings is at the anchor desk.
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There is chaos in New York at the moment, within not one
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but two incidents and the second one coming at 9:03
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when television was on live
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and you could see what was clearly a jet aircraft flying
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into a second Trade tower.
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Both Trade towers now, these 110-story high towers
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have now been hit.
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Let's go, let's go.
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You don't want to be here, trust me.
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There was confusion in Washington
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because now everybody is engaged in this.
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The Pentagon is involved in this,
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all the intelligence services are engaged
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with this in the morning.
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Just run man.
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If you're of a certain age, you probably remember
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where you were on September, 11, 2001.
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Looking back, it's clear that there was a world before 9/11
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and then a world after it.
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There were huge global aftershocks, like the war on terror.
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9/11 changed things about our day-to-day lives
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in this country, changes made in the name of security.
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And if you've been in an airport in the last two decades,
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you know exactly what I'm talking about.
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In this episode, we're going to talk
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about national security and insecurity.
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When do policies keep us safe
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and when do they just make us feel safe?
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What trade-offs do we make for national security
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and where do these concepts come from in the first place?
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(upbeat music)
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I'm Jacob Corozza and you're listening to Now at Ohio State.
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We talk with researchers, innovators and bold thinkers
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who look at our world, see what the real challenges are
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and create the solutions that people need now.
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(upbeat music)
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The idea of national security isn't new,
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but there was a time before it was so top of mind
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in our lives.
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To understand that part of the story,
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we turn to historian Christopher McKnight Nichols.
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He's the Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair
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of National Security Studies
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and a professor of history at Ohio State.
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Chris sits down with our Franny Lazarus
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to discuss the history of national security,
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the role that fear plays in all of this
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and whether we should consider gun violence in particular
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a matter of national security.
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Chris, thank you so much for coming to talk with me today.
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I always learn a lot when we get together
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and you make national security,
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which for me is a very complex topic,
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really approachable and interesting.
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So I'm looking forward to our discussion.
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So am I, yeah.
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What is interesting to you about national security?
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Well, I guess I would say in the abstract,
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national security probably as you suggest
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isn't that interesting.
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It's this behemoth concept, it's vague, scary
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and the question is how do you moor it to lived experience,
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like what are we doing today that has to do
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with national security and is it in fact a real issue?
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And then historically, because I'm a historian,
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I'm most interested in questions
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of national security as they developed over time.
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How did the concept evolve, when was the word first used,
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how has it changed, has it changed in the structure
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of US government, society, culture, how regular people think
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about their own security or most importantly insecurity?
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And then how does that factor into international relations?
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In other words, how does it matter?
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One of the things that you've said before
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that I think is so interesting is
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that when the nation was founded,
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there was no concept of national security.
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That's not something that the people
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in that time thought about.
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Can you talk about that?
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Absolutely, yeah, so one really fascinating thing
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about the concept of national security as we think
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of it today in 2023 is that we tend to import back in time
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the same kinds of values, principles and assumptions
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that undergird how we think about the concept
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in our own lived experience.
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That's totally foreign, would be totally foreign
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to someone living in the 18th or 19th centuries,
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and even the early 20th century.
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So at the founding of the US and the Revolution, the 1770s
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up through the early republics or the early 1800s,
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there was no concept of national security.
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People lived really fairly fraught tense lives
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which recognized fundamental insecurity.
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From disease to attack, it was there.
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It was present in their lives.
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So whether it be national or individual security,
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that wasn't something that was promised.
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If you think about this era as one
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of roiling political tensions, but also certainties
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about absolute values there about religion,
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there's this sense that providence would decide whether
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or not you lived or died.
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One of the things that I think is at the core
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of national security is you've talked about a tension
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between security and insecurity,
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how secure we are versus how secure we feel.
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Can you talk about that?
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Yeah, so a first way to think about that is
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to think about the fact that the concept
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of national security didn't really emerge
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until the 1930s and '40s.
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And it comes out really of the crisis of world order
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in the 1930s as you see the march of fascism
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and imperialism Nazis, the Japanese Imperial Armies,
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battalions attacking other nations and groups.
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And so there's actually a scholar Edward Meade Earle
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at Princeton who coins the term basically.
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National security had been used before,
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but basically coins the term in a policymaking realm.
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And then very famously,
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and this is a great little juicy tidbit for listeners,
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in December 1940, FDR in a Fireside Chat
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where he argues the US should be the arsenal
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of democracy to help fund the wars around the world.
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Now, this is well before Pearl Harbor,
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a year before Pearl Harbor and says,
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no, actually this Fireside Chat is about national security.
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My friends, this is not a Fireside Chat on war.
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It is a talk on national security.
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Because the nub of the whole purpose of your president
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is to keep you now and your children later
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and your grandchildren much later out of last ditch war
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for the preservation of American independence
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and of all the things that American independence means
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to you and to me and to us.
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And so for the first time you get him blending a vision
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of socioeconomic security, this is his vision
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of the New Deal, the individual, the rights
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of the individual to have economic freedom,
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to have a job essentially and a roof over their head
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and enough food with a global order concept
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that the US even when not in war needed
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to safeguard its own national security
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and actually participate in wars and conflicts abroad
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to make sure that the domestic scene was safe.
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We met the issue of 1933 with courage and realism.
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We face this new crisis, this new threat to the security
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of our nation with the same courage and realism.
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So when you think about then the blending
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of security insecurity, really the New Deal era
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in the 1940s coming out of World War II are the key moments.
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And that's when you get the fear.
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And so the only thing you have to fear is fear itself
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is how FDR talked about depression.
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That becomes writ into how the Americans start to think
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about their relationship to the world and the menace
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of Nazism, the menace of the Japanese Imperial Armies
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and then, this will not surprise you one bit,
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the Soviet Union and Communism coming out of the conflict.
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And then that's really when you get
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this insecurity security kind of diad or dialogue
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where it's really fascinating to see in the '40s, '50s
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and '60s the advent of a fear-based way
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of talking about national security.
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And that is so much with us today.
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And we could dive into so many examples.
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One of my favorite examples
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that we talked about before is the TSA.
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So coming out of 9/11,
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think about how all of us pretty much have
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to take off our shoes or take something off,
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you have to wait in lines for security.
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Virtually everybody I know in the national security world
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would say that's mostly theater,
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it's theater about protection.
Really?
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Yeah.
Okay.
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But the point is that it mollifies us a little bit
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that we think something is taking place
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to prevent possible harm, but the reality is
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that we all live with this kind of inconvenience trip
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to trip in the name of national security.
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Does it really stop bombings, is it really going
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to prevent very dedicated folks who wanna harm us?
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And the answer for most professionals in that field is no.
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It's unlikely to stop great dedicated people.
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It filters out some folks who don't have a good plan,
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but otherwise, we're all inconvenienced.
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One of the things that you've talked about before
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in this progression from we founded the country,
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there is chaos everywhere and we don't assume any sort
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of national security.
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Then there's a shift at some point to total security
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and a desire for that.
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What led to the development of that want?
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So that's one of my favorite things to track
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in my own research.
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The shift from an idea of national interest
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in the 19th century, expansion, a larger military
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or ebbs and flows of how to keep the border safe,
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that then becomes a national security set of questions
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around the 1930s and 1940s.
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But it's really the middle of the Cold War
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that you get this concept of total security.
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And I think that's what shapes how a lot of us think today.
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It's this belief that we should be immune from violence
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or corruption or crime or even illness or disease.
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As you move through the '70s into the '80s, there's a move
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in the US, and Ronald Reagan is part of this,
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thinking that every American should be free and safe.
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It's projecting this in a rhetorical set of moves.
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And what's so odd, and we've chatted about this before,
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is if you think about American society in 2023,
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crime is down by and large, down over the last 20 years,
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all kinds of things
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and Americans have never felt more fearful.
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Poll after poll suggests that.
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And so you know there's school shootings
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and sensational press.
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There's been sensational press time immemorial
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going back to the revolutionary era
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and especially the early 20th century,
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the rise of the yellow press.
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So what's going on that makes us so fearful?
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And then how does that become a national security question?
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Chris, we've talked about FDR and the World Wars, 9/11
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and the reactive things that we as a nation have done
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to combat the fear that has come after those events.
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When we look at gun violence today,
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why are we not reacting in a similar way?
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So you can look at different exogenous effects,
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I would say, world wars, attacks.
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Those tend to unify countries, even if there's some dissent.
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What has happened both in terms of domestic terrorism
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in the US and in terms of school shootings is
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that we've both tragically normalized them
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and generally speaking, thought of them as in some form
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of the concept or practice of lone wolves
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or singular events.
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So a singular exogenous effect would be like 9/11.
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And after 9/11, Americans were asked through the Patriot Act
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and a host of other mechanisms to give up some
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of their civil liberties in the interest
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of national security and personal security
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because people were so fearful.
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Where will be the next attack?
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Though individuals are fearful about mass shootings
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and other transgressions of their civil liberties today,
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but particularly that's a mortal one,
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they don't see that as systemic.
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I would argue it absolutely is systemic at this point.
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So the challenge is to then shape the rhetoric,
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the political rhetoric and the conversation
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so that it isn't individual but collective.
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And that's what FDR, going back to FDR, was so brilliant at
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in the New Deal and then in World War II.
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He made this claim that socioeconomic freedom
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and battling through the Depression was for all of us.
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There is no collective conversation about that in the US
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or very little on gun violence and comparable transgressions
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of civil liberties.
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We have talked a lot about fear and the fact
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that maybe some of it's real, maybe some of it's inflated.
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How do we cut through that to figure out when we really need
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to be afraid and when we should just relax?
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Well, one, that's a psychological question,
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(Franny laughs)
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but I'm a living breathing human being who fears
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and hopes and dreams, so I think I can handle that
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in the individual level and also scholarly.
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How do you actually make yourself more safe?
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If by some definitions of national security,
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it's about protecting internal values, internal principles,
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internal practices, some of those are
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about as a free society actually
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not having a school that's weaponized.
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So if you're on the PTA
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or if you're not on the PTA, get involved.
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Local government, I've testified.
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I've only been in the state of Ohio teaching
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for less than a year, testified
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in the state senate several times as an individual citizen.
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You just go out and you try to do it
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and you try to walk your values,
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even if you don't have a lot of time
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and talk to them all the way through.
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I think that's part of a vibrant state and democracy.
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And in some ways, that's the ideological way
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and the personal individual way
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that you can create national security
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by taking on yourself individual
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and collective security questions.
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That's one way to think about that.
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And I would suggest that people should find their issues
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that they care about, this is politics,
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and then really attempt to put a thumb on the scale
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for those things that they believe in.
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It's very easy in American society today
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with a 24/7 velocity of information
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to just be totally overwhelmed
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and have whatever your responses are,
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fear or anger, hate, love, just...
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And then wanna give up.
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Yes, absolutely.
And then turn it off.
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Turn off your feed, go to TikTok for cat videos or whatever.
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(Franny laughs)
Yes.
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And while that might be nice and numbing
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and get you out of the reality of it,
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it may be that that is really a big part
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of our undoing in this kind of security insecurity world
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that we live in today.
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Could we instead choose some middle path to move past that?
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Take some sense of your own risk, go ahead and move forward
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and take action in your everyday life.
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Chris, that was great.
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Thank you so much for joining us.
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It was great to be here with you.
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Thanks for having me.
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(light music)
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So far, we've mostly talked about national security
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in American terms, but every nation grapples
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with its own security and insecurity.
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Jennifer Mitzen understands this well.
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She's a professor of political science at Ohio State
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and she's done a lot of research on how governments
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around the world understand national security, particularly
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through the lenses of anxiety, emotion and identity.
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Again, our Franny Lazarus talks with Jennifer
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about how countries view each other's actions,
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the importance of diplomacy and how you can think
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about national security as a voter.
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Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us today.
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I'm really looking forward to our conversation.
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Thank you for having me, I'm really happy to be here.
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While I was doing research to get ready for today,
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there's a concept I kept coming across
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that is as I understand it foundational to national security
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and that is the security dilemma.
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Is that right, first of all, is it foundational
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and if it is, what is it?
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Yes, the security dilemma is an important concept
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for understanding international politics
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and it's really relevant to things going on today.
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Basically, the security dilemma says
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that any action a country takes
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to defend itself can't help but appear threatening
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to other countries.
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Any action a country takes
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to defend itself can't help but appear aggressive
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to other countries.
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And that's because basically states engage in two things
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to feel secure, to defend themselves.
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They either get the best weapons they can, so they invest
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in military or they make friends, they develop allies.
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So you do basically two things,
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build weapons and get allies.
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Those are the things you wanna do
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to just make sure that you remain secure.
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Now, what does a state do when it wants
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to aggress against another state?
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Well, basically get the best weapons that you can
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and you find allies, you create alliances.
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So the same actions can be both defensive and offensive.
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And so no matter what you do in world politics
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to defend yourself, to merely defend yourself,
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you can't help but appear aggressive to other states.
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And because of that, the system is always prone
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to things like arms races and tensions and hostility,
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and you're always fearing the onset of war.
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And one great example is the recent trilateral agreement
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between the United States, South Korea and Japan.
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So Biden hosts a summit at Camp David,
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you make an agreement.
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What could be better, these historical foes?
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There's a lot of hostility between South Korea and Japan.
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Biden's able to bring them together
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and develop this cooperative agreement.
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I mean, it's not an alliance.
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They're basically agreeing to meet once a year.
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They're doing some combined military exercises,
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purely defensive.
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And they both say, hey, you know stability
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in the Taiwan Strait is really important to us.
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Nothing, that's all they're doing, totally cooperative.
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Well, if you're China, though, you look at that
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and you say, why are they solidifying that friendship?
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Why are they doing that?
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Any action you take just to be secure,
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just to firm up a relationship can't help
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but appear threatening to rivals.
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So we have an election coming up
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and there will always be a lot of talk
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about global security, American security.
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Should listeners scrutinize claims that politicians make
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when they say I can promise you total security?
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Absolutely, as we were just talking about
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with the security dilemma, the promise
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of total security is always gonna be a false promise.
401
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Nobody can ensure total security
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because we live in an anarchy of fellow states.
403
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So you should always be suspicious
404
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and you should look a little bit closer
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at what interest it serves
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to make the claim for total security
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and what policies are they putting forward
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with that promise.
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I understand that total security is not feasible.
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What are some ways that we can try
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to de-escalate situations brought about
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by the security dilemma?
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I wanna point to a particular moment after the end
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of the Cold War when by all accounts
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you would've thought NATO, a defensive alliance
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against the Soviet Union, would disband, but instead,
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it redefined itself as a collective security organization
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that started to expand.
419
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And in doing that expansion, you would think, oh wow,
420
00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:30.000
move expansion, Russia should be very nervous.
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This looks very aggressive to Russia.
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Well, at least in the beginning in the '90s,
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what did the NATO members do?
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Well, they offered Russia membership
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in a partnership for peace.
426
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They engaged Russia in dialogue at least at that point
427
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in order to help Russia feel as if at the time it was less,
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it was not an aggressive action,
429
00:18:52.140 --> 00:18:54.720
but it was a defensive action.
430
00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:57.960
So doing things like that, maintaining communication,
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using diplomacy strategically are ways
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that states can mitigate the security dilemma
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as they pursue their security interests.
434
00:19:07.290 --> 00:19:09.600
So then if we look at your work,
435
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you are focusing specifically
436
00:19:11.580 --> 00:19:14.820
on something called ontological security.
437
00:19:14.820 --> 00:19:17.400
My first question is what is that?
438
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I know, it's an unfortunate name.
439
00:19:19.230 --> 00:19:21.240
It's a really fancy name for an idea
440
00:19:21.240 --> 00:19:24.420
that I hope will sound very intuitive
441
00:19:24.420 --> 00:19:26.043
once it's unpacked a little bit.
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Ontological security refers to the need
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to have a consistent sense of self
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in order to live a healthy life.
445
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Okay, what does that mean?
446
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Let's unpack that a bit further.
447
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The basic premise is that all humans, you and me
448
00:19:43.080 --> 00:19:46.620
and everybody else are all on some level aware
449
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of our mortality.
450
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We're aware that we're all gonna die,
451
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that death could happen at any time randomly in any way
452
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and if you think too hard about that,
453
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it really gives you a sense of anxiety.
454
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Guess what's happening right now?
455
00:20:02.228 --> 00:20:03.330
(Franny laughs)
Anxiety.
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And reminds you of really almost the meaninglessness
457
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of our existence.
458
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It can be gone in a minute, we can't control it.
459
00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:13.680
What does it all mean in the end?
460
00:20:13.680 --> 00:20:14.700
And that's the thing.
461
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If we really did think about that all the time,
462
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we would be just the way I made you feel right now,
463
00:20:20.910 --> 00:20:23.790
just so anxious and so flooded with emotions
464
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that we would be utterly paralyzed.
465
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It's too overwhelming and awful to be confronted
466
00:20:28.560 --> 00:20:32.430
with that awareness and so we don't always think about it.
467
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The ontological security hypothesis is
468
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that what makes it possible to live our lives
469
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and in a sense be ourselves are two things
470
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that we do without thinking,
471
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the routines of our day-to-day lives and the narratives
472
00:20:47.220 --> 00:20:50.070
that we tell ourselves about who we are.
473
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For example, I'm an American, I'm a professor, I'm a mom.
474
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Each time we tell ourselves a story like this,
475
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we're linking ourselves to bigger stories
476
00:21:01.410 --> 00:21:03.630
and to larger identities that are meaningful
477
00:21:03.630 --> 00:21:06.510
and that help us make our lives meaningful.
478
00:21:06.510 --> 00:21:09.450
And because those routines and the narratives
479
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help us get on with our lives and help us make the choices
480
00:21:13.740 --> 00:21:16.650
that we invest ourselves in and just be ourselves,
481
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we get really attached to them
482
00:21:18.510 --> 00:21:20.250
and it becomes hard to let go.
483
00:21:20.250 --> 00:21:22.440
Now that you've said all of this, Jennifer, is it fair
484
00:21:22.440 --> 00:21:25.020
to say then that individual sense of self,
485
00:21:25.020 --> 00:21:28.110
individual routines could have as much influence
486
00:21:28.110 --> 00:21:32.520
over national security as things larger like geopolitics?
487
00:21:32.520 --> 00:21:34.500
I know, it does sound odd.
488
00:21:34.500 --> 00:21:36.360
I've talked a lot about psychology
489
00:21:36.360 --> 00:21:39.426
and yet, I'm supposedly a scholar of international politics.
490
00:21:39.426 --> 00:21:41.010
(Franny laughs)
(Jennifer laughs)
491
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Well, yes, it does matter.
492
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And I'll tell in two ways you can think about it.
493
00:21:46.470 --> 00:21:48.690
One way would be as I said is one
494
00:21:48.690 --> 00:21:51.990
of the identities we link ourselves to, American.
495
00:21:51.990 --> 00:21:54.870
There's a narrative about what it means to be an American
496
00:21:54.870 --> 00:21:56.190
that I see myself as part of,
497
00:21:56.190 --> 00:21:58.740
that American citizens often see themselves as part of.
498
00:21:58.740 --> 00:22:02.070
So the idea of needing that consistent narrative
499
00:22:02.070 --> 00:22:05.070
of the self can be important in domestic politics.
500
00:22:05.070 --> 00:22:07.500
I'll talk about that in a minute.
501
00:22:07.500 --> 00:22:09.900
One of the things that I've developed and worked on
502
00:22:09.900 --> 00:22:12.330
with a lot of other people as well is the idea
503
00:22:12.330 --> 00:22:14.880
that because ontological security is so important
504
00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:18.870
for individuals, we can also make the assumption that
505
00:22:18.870 --> 00:22:23.160
or treat states, countries as if they too need
506
00:22:23.160 --> 00:22:26.010
and seek ontological security.
Interesting.
507
00:22:26.010 --> 00:22:28.740
And states, we can think can get attached
508
00:22:28.740 --> 00:22:31.470
to those relationships and identities
509
00:22:31.470 --> 00:22:34.770
that make them feel secure on the international stage.
510
00:22:34.770 --> 00:22:39.390
That's the ontological security hypothesis internationally.
511
00:22:39.390 --> 00:22:41.550
You've written about physical security
512
00:22:41.550 --> 00:22:44.340
occasionally being sacrificed for ontological security.
513
00:22:44.340 --> 00:22:47.160
Are guns an example of an ontological
514
00:22:47.160 --> 00:22:49.860
and physical security mismatch?
515
00:22:49.860 --> 00:22:53.400
Yeah, I definitely think you can read American gun policy
516
00:22:53.400 --> 00:22:55.230
and the inability or the difficulty
517
00:22:55.230 --> 00:22:57.060
of getting restrictions on guns.
518
00:22:57.060 --> 00:22:59.850
You can do an ontological security reading
519
00:22:59.850 --> 00:23:02.580
of what's going on here because the fact is
520
00:23:02.580 --> 00:23:04.710
that there's a lot of data out there
521
00:23:04.710 --> 00:23:08.070
that show that more guns do not create more safety.
522
00:23:08.070 --> 00:23:10.620
In fact, more guns create more violence.
523
00:23:10.620 --> 00:23:14.490
So why is that Americans are so attached to their guns?
524
00:23:14.490 --> 00:23:18.510
Well, it reminds me of I think it was the first time I went
525
00:23:18.510 --> 00:23:22.320
to Germany and a German friend was telling me
526
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about riding on the Autobahn
527
00:23:23.970 --> 00:23:28.320
and how there was no speed limit, and I was totally scared.
528
00:23:28.320 --> 00:23:30.180
I said, why is this the case?
529
00:23:30.180 --> 00:23:33.217
And he said, "Well, Germans love to drive fast
530
00:23:33.217 --> 00:23:35.467
"and it's just part of what it means to be a German,
531
00:23:35.467 --> 00:23:37.237
"just the way Americans love their guns
532
00:23:37.237 --> 00:23:39.240
"and it's part of what it means to be an American."
533
00:23:39.240 --> 00:23:43.020
And the more I reflected on that, the more that made sense
534
00:23:43.020 --> 00:23:47.880
and linking the gun not just to aggressive power,
535
00:23:47.880 --> 00:23:51.180
but linking the gun more in a deeper way
536
00:23:51.180 --> 00:23:55.260
to American sense of itself, American self-sufficiency.
537
00:23:55.260 --> 00:23:57.420
And when I was growing up, I used to watch The Lone Ranger
538
00:23:57.420 --> 00:24:01.320
on Sundays and this is the guy who kept everybody safe
539
00:24:01.320 --> 00:24:03.060
by being out there on the frontier
540
00:24:03.060 --> 00:24:05.040
and using his gun for the good of everybody.
541
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By himself.
542
00:24:06.120 --> 00:24:10.410
By himself, and this idea that at the end of the day,
543
00:24:10.410 --> 00:24:12.780
it's up to us to keep ourselves safe.
544
00:24:12.780 --> 00:24:15.090
Individualism is part of American identity.
545
00:24:15.090 --> 00:24:19.290
And that rugged individualism seems to be linked
546
00:24:19.290 --> 00:24:21.480
to this ability to defend oneself
547
00:24:21.480 --> 00:24:24.150
and therefore to own one's own gun.
548
00:24:24.150 --> 00:24:25.680
Well, Jennifer, thank you so much.
549
00:24:25.680 --> 00:24:27.810
This was really enlightening.
550
00:24:27.810 --> 00:24:30.600
You're so welcome, thanks for having me.
551
00:24:30.600 --> 00:24:33.183
(upbeat music)
552
00:24:35.490 --> 00:24:38.280
The world is only getting more complex and sometimes
553
00:24:38.280 --> 00:24:41.160
it feels like the challenges facing us are multiplying.
554
00:24:41.160 --> 00:24:43.950
With threats like climate change and gun violence,
555
00:24:43.950 --> 00:24:45.390
the issue of national security
556
00:24:45.390 --> 00:24:47.520
is not going away anytime soon.
557
00:24:47.520 --> 00:24:50.100
So what does it all mean for our future?
558
00:24:50.100 --> 00:24:52.800
How can we stay safe and just as importantly
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00:24:52.800 --> 00:24:55.140
go about our lives feeling safe?
560
00:24:55.140 --> 00:24:57.690
There are no easy answers, but it's worth remembering
561
00:24:57.690 --> 00:25:00.390
that humans have always faced danger and uncertainty
562
00:25:00.390 --> 00:25:03.270
and we've never had better tools to understand our world
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00:25:03.270 --> 00:25:04.200
and each other.
564
00:25:04.200 --> 00:25:06.930
If we take the time to think deeply about issues
565
00:25:06.930 --> 00:25:08.970
and actually work together as a community,
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00:25:08.970 --> 00:25:11.883
maybe we can make the world safer for generations to come.
567
00:25:13.597 --> 00:25:16.180
(upbeat music)
568
00:25:22.209 --> 00:25:23.640
Now at Ohio State is produced
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00:25:23.640 --> 00:25:25.230
by The Ohio State University's
570
00:25:25.230 --> 00:25:27.420
Office of Marketing and Communications.
571
00:25:27.420 --> 00:25:32.420
For more information, visit us at go.OSU.edu/now.
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00:25:33.210 --> 00:25:34.830
Special thanks to ABC News
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00:25:34.830 --> 00:25:37.140
and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
574
00:25:37.140 --> 00:25:39.840
for the archival audio heard in this episode.
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00:25:39.840 --> 00:25:41.550
I'm your host, Jacob Corozza.
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00:25:41.550 --> 00:25:43.327
Thanks for listening.
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00:25:43.327 --> 00:25:45.910
(upbeat music)