Did the global response to 911 make us safer Benedetta Berti
Almost 20 years have passed since 9/11.
It is time to take stock of where we stand
and stop and think.
It is time to ask ourselves,
have the assumptions and policies
we developed in the wake
of those tragic events
truly made us more secure?
Have they made our societies,
both in Europe and in the United States,
more resilient?
I’ve worked all my life
in the field of security and defense,
and I am convinced
that now, more than ever,
we need to radically reframe
the way we think and act about security,
and especially
about international security.
By international security,
I actually mean what we do,
how we prepare our countries
to better respond
and prevent external threats,
and how we protect our citizens.
The key to both
is to focus on protecting civilians,
both in our own countries
and in those where we are present
in the name of security.
Now, this idea goes
against the fixed narrative
that we developed over the past 20 years
over what security is and how to get it,
but that narrative is flawed,
and worse, it is counterproductive.
Over the past 20 years,
both in the United States and in Europe,
we’ve come to accept that we must
talk about security in zero sum terms,
as if the only way to gain more security
is by compromising on values and rights:
security versus human rights,
safety versus freedom and development.
This is a false opposition.
It just doesn’t work like that.
We need to recognize
that security and human rights
are not opposite values,
they are intrinsically related.
After all, the most basic human right
is the right to live
and to be free from violence,
and a state’s most basic responsibility
is to guarantee that right
for its citizens.
Conversely, if we think
about communities all over the world
affected by war and conflict,
it is insecurity and violence
that stops them from achieving
their full freedom and development.
Now, they need basic security
just as much as we do
and they need it
so they can live a normal life
and so that they can
enjoy their human rights.
This is why we need to shift.
We need to acknowledge
that sustainable security
builds on a foundation of human rights,
builds on promoting
and respecting human rights.
Also, over the past two decades,
we have accepted that the best way
to guarantee our own security
is by defeating our enemies,
and to do that, we need to rely
almost exclusively on the military.
Again, this clashes with my work,
with my research,
with what I see in the field.
What I see is that building
sustainable security
has a lot less to do
with crushing enemies,
has a lot less to do
with winning on the battlefield,
and has a lot more to do
with protecting victims
and building stability.
And to do that, well, the military alone
is simply insufficient.
This is why I believe we need to shelve
the never-ending War on Terror,
and we need to replace it
with a security agenda
that is driven by the principle
of protecting civilians,
no matter where they are from,
what passport they hold,
or where they live:
Vancouver, New York,
Kabul, Mosul, Aleppo or Douma.
Sustainable security tells us
that we’re more likely
to have long-term security
at home for ourselves
if we focus our engagements abroad
on protecting civilians
and on ensuring their lives are lived
in dignity and free from violence.
For example, we all know
that defeating ISIS
is a security achievement.
Absolutely.
But rebuilding destroyed homes,
restoring order,
ensuring a representative
political system,
these are just as, if not more important,
and not just for the security
of civilians in Iraq and in Syria,
but for our own security
and for global stability.
More fundamentally,
ISIS’s danger should not just be counted
in the number of weapons it holds
but also in the number of children
it has kept out of school
or indoctrinated.
This is from a security perspective.
From a security perspective,
the long-term generational impact
of having millions of children in Syria
growing up knowing only war
and out of school,
this is a far more dangerous
threat to stability
than all of ISIS’s weapons combined,
and we should spend just as much time
and just as much energy to counter this
as what we spend
when countering ISIS militarily.
Over the past two decades,
our security policy has been short-term.
It has focused on the here and now.
It has systematically downplayed
the link between what we do today
in the name of security
and the long-term impact of those choices.
In the years after 9/11,
some of the choices,
some of the policies we’ve implemented
have probably made us less,
not more secure in the long term.
Sustainable, civilian-centered security
needs to look at what happens
in the long term.
Again, for example,
relying on drones to target enemies
in faraway countries may be a tool.
It may be a tool to make sure
or to lessen the threat
of an imminent attack
on the United States.
But what about the long-term impact?
If civilians are killed,
if communities are targeted,
this will feed a vicious circle
of war, conflict,
trauma and radicalization,
and that vicious circle is at the center
of so many of the security challenges
we face today.
This will not make us safer
in the long term.
We need civilian security,
we need sustainable
civilian-centered security,
and we need it now.
We need to encourage thinking
and research around this concept,
and to implement it.
We live in a dangerous world.
We have many threats
to peace and conflict.
Much like in the days after 9/11,
we simply cannot afford
not to think about international security.
But we have to learn the lessons
of the past 20 years.
To get it right, to get security right,
we need to focus on the long term.
We need to focus on protecting civilians.
And we need to respect
and acknowledge the fact
that sustainable security
builds on a foundation of human rights.
Otherwise, in the name of security,
we risk leaving the world
a far more dangerous and unstable place
than what we already found it in.
Thank you.
(Applause)