Existential Security: Towards a Security Framework for the Survival of Humanity

Abstract

Humankind faces a growing spectrum of anthropogenic existential threats to human civilization and survival. This article therefore aims to develop a new framework for security policy -'existential security'that puts the survival of humanity at its core. It begins with a discussion of the definition and spectrum of 'anthropogenic existential threats', or those threats that have their origins in human agency and could cause, minimally, civilizational collapse, or maximally, human extinction. It argues that anthropogenic existential threats should be conceptualized as a matter of 'security', which follows a logic of protection from threats to the survival of some referent object. However, the existing frameworks for security policy -'human security' and 'national security'have serious limitations for addressing anthropogenic existential threats; application of the 'national security' frame could even exacerbate existential threats to humanity. Thus, the existential security frame is developed as an alternative for security policy, which takes 'humankind' as its referent object against anthropogenic existential threats to human civilization and survival. Policy Implications• 'Anthropogenic existential threats' refer to a class of threats that have their origins in human agency and could bring about, at the minimum, the collapse of civilization, or, at the maximum, human extinction. The spectrum of anthropogenic existential threats is broad and growing.

New Frontiers in Biosafety and Biosecurity

“…Banning all biotechnology research may maximize short-term human safety but endanger it in the long term because medicine, agriculture and manufacturing are unable to innovate. Conversely, placing no restrictions on research may hasten the development of life-saving products but also increase the probability of existential damage to human civilization ( Sears, 2020 ).…”

Can Security and Safety Education Support Sustainability? Lessons Learned from Poland

“…[13][14][15][16][17]. However, the catalogue of the term bezpieczeństwo is much wider and breaks a given taxonomic order; the examples from the literature include either more generic or more specific views, inter alia: state security, societal security, and human security [19]; social security [20]; societal security and safety [21,22]; gender security [23]; personal and existential security [24,25]; food security [26]; food safety [27,28]; health security and safety [29]; information security education and training [30]; energy security [31][32][33]; economic security [34]; industrial security [35]; industrial safety [36]; innovation security [37]; cybersecurity [38]; production safety [39]; climate security [40]; environmental security [41]; groundwater security [42]; water security [43]; water safety [44]; ecosystem security [45]; legal security [46]; global security [47]; community security [48]; community safety [49].…”

Social resilience to nuclear winter: lessons from the Late Antique Little Ice Age

“…Marshall, 1987;Seitz, 2011;Thompson & Schneider, 1986), but in recent years several groups have used climate modelling to argue that even a small, regional nuclear exchange would cause at least several decades of cooling across much of the globe (Mills et al, 2014). The threat of nuclear winter, then, is a serious one, and one that must be considered as an existential hazard to humanity (Sears, 2020). Mechanisms that might provide social resilience to the hazard of nuclear winter need to be actively sought by security policy makers (Scouras, 2019).…”