BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

NON-TRADITIONAL SECURITY THREATS OF BANGLADESH: CHALLENGES AND POLICY OPTIONS

Author: Sheikh Masud Ahmed

DOI Link: https://www.doi.org/10.56888/BIISSj2018v39n2a2

ABSTRACT

Non-traditional Security (NTS) issues, in recent times, have drawn heightened global attention and achieved undeniable prominence. Since the end of the Cold War, the world has witnessed unprecedented events compelling scholars and analysts to conceptualize or re-conceptualize the changing nature of threats to security in an increasingly interdependent and complex world. The past decades have been stunned by increasing numbers of terrorist attacks, state failures, deadly epidemics, rapidly fluctuating world energy and food prices, a global economic meltdown, and extensive natural disasters like cyclones, earthquakes and flooding. All these events led to the development of an alternative paradigm of security, i.e., NTS that focuses less on conventional military threats which has largely been defined in geopolitical and geostrategic terms and confined to the relationships among nation-states and their military strengths. However, NTS, though is a popular concept, remains ambiguous within and outside the academia; and in whatever context the NTS issues are coined together, Bangladesh as a developing country surely faces numerous NTS threats. Hence, the country needs to prepare itself to counter the challenges emanating from a host of NTS threats it is facing now or likely to face in near future. Against this backdrop, the paper has endeavoured to provide a brief conceptual understanding of the term NTS by delineating different explanations of the concept by renowned scholars and experts. It is argued that NTS is a useful framework of analysis to operationalize the concept of security in economic, social, political and internal security contexts. The paper also provides some arguments as to the need for ‘prioritization’ in curbing various NTSthreats of Bangladesh, given the country’s limited resources and capabilities. Keeping this point in view, the paper finds that Bangladesh is apparently managing the challenges well, but it needs to undertake proactive measures and policy options incorporating a dynamic and adaptive security framework, seek international cooperation and devise a comprehensive approach to meet the present and future NTS challenges of the country more effectively.