Introduction

Collective Security can be understood as a security arrangement where a group of

countries pledge co-operative joint action in the eyes of threat to their economic or
territorial sovereignty. This threat may be thwarted in the form of sanctions or use
of armed force. The concept of Collective Security is seen as the basis of many
international peace agreements in the face modern international relations. Collective
Security system guarantees the security of each state of the world against any war or
aggression which may be committed by any state against any other state. It is like an
insurance system in which all the nations are bound to protect the victim of an
aggression or war by neutralizing the aggression or war against the victim.

Collective Security is currently regarded as the most promising approach to

international peace. It is regarded as a valuable device of crisis management in
international relations. It is designed to protect international peace and security
against war and aggression in any part of the world.

UN Charter includes a system of collective security which is designed to meet an

international crisis resulting from war or aggression or a threat of war or aggression
in any part of the international system. Balance of Power has lost its relevance as a
device of power management and Collective Security has gained recognition as a
modern device of power management which can enable the international community
to meet crisis situations.

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Collective security

Collective security can be understood as a security arrangement, political, regional,

or global, in which each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the
concern of all, and therefore commits to a collective response to threats to, and
breaches to peace. Collective security is more ambitious than systems of alliance
security or collective defense in that it seeks to encompass the totality of states within
a region or indeed globally, and to address a wide range of possible threats. While
collective security is an idea with a long history, its implementation in practice has
proved problematic. Several prerequisites have to be met for it to have a chance of
working. It is the theory or practice of states pledging to defend one another in order
to deter aggression or to punish transgressor if international order has been breached.

Definitions of Collective Security:

(1) “Collective Security is machinery for joint action in order to prevent or counter
any attack against an established international order.” —George Schwarzenberger

(2) “Collective Security clearly implies collective measures for dealing with threats
to peace.” —Palmer and Perkins

(3) “In essence, Collective Security is an arrangement among states in which all
promise, in the event any member of the system engages in certain prohibited acts

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(war and aggression) against another member, to come to latter’s assistance.” —
Schleicher

In simple words, Collective Security system guarantees the security of each state of
the world against any war or aggression which may be committed by any state
against any other state. It is like an insurance system in which all the nations are
bound to protect the victim of an aggression or war by neutralizing the aggression
or war against the victim.

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Early mentions

Collective security is one of the most promising approaches for peace and a valuable
device for power management on an international scale. Cardinal Richelieu
proposed a scheme for collective security in 1629, which was partially reflected in
the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. In the eighteenth century many proposals were made
for collective security arrangements, especially in Europe

At the start of the twentieth century two power blocs emerged through alliances
between the European Great Powers. It was these alliances that came into effect at
the start of the First World War in 1914, drawing all the major European powers into
the war. This was the first major war in Europe between industrialized countries and
the first time in Western Europe the results of industrialization (for example mass
production) had been dedicated to war. The result of this industrial warfare was an
unprecedented casualty level with eight and a half million members of armed
services dead, an estimated 21 million wounded, and approximately 10 million
civilian deaths.

By the time the fighting ended in November 1918, the war had had a profound
impact, affecting the social, political and economic systems of Europe and inflicting
psychological and physical damage on the continent. Anti-war sentiment rose across
the world; the First World War was described as "the war to end all wars", and its
possible causes were vigorously investigated. The causes identified included arms
races, alliances, secret diplomacy, and the freedom of sovereign states to enter into
war for their own benefit. The perceived remedies to these were seen as the creation

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of an international organization whose aim was to prevent future war through
disarmament, open diplomacy, international co-operation, restrictions on the right to
wage wars, and penalties that made war unattractive to nations

After World War I, the first large scale attempt to provide collective security in
modern times was the establishment of the League of Nations in 1919–20. The
provisions of the League of Nations Covenant represented a weak system for
decision-making and for collective action. An example of the failure of the League
of Nations' collective security is the Manchurian Crisis, when Japan occupied part
of China (which was a League member). After the invasion, members of the League
passed a resolution calling for Japan to withdraw or face severe penalties. Given that
every nation on the League of Nations council had veto power, Japan promptly
vetoed the resolution, severely limiting the LN's ability to respond. After one year
of deliberation, the League passed a resolution condemning the invasion without
committing the League's members to any action against it. The Japanese replied by
quitting the League.

The 1945 United Nations Charter, although containing stronger provisions for
decision-making and collective military action than those of the League of Nations
Covenant, does not represent a complete system of collective security, but rather a
balance between collective action on the one hand and continued operation of the
states system (including the continued special roles of great powers) on the other.

The role of the UN and collective security in general is evolving, given the rise of
internal state conflicts. Since the end of World War II, there have been 111 military
conflicts worldwide, but only 9 of these have involved two or more states going to

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war with one another. The remainder have either been internal civil wars or civil
wars where other nations intervened in some manner. This means that collective
security may have to evolve towards providing a means to ensure stability and a fair
international resolution to those internal conflicts. Whether this will involve more
powerful peacekeeping forces, or a larger role for the UN diplomatically, will likely
be judged on a case-by-case basis.

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Theory

Collective security can be understood as a security arrangement in which all states

cooperate collectively to provide security for all by the actions of all against any
states within the groups which might challenge the existing order by using force.
This contrasts with self-help strategies of engaging in war for purely immediate
national interest. While collective security is possible, several prerequisites have to
be met for it to work.

Sovereign nations eager to maintain the status quo, willingly cooperate, accepting a
degree of vulnerability and in some cases of minor nations, also accede to the
interests of the chief contributing nations organising the collective security.
Collective Security is achieved by setting up an international cooperative
organisation, under the auspices of international law and this gives rise to a form of
international collective governance, albeit limited in scope and effectiveness. The
collective security organisation then becomes an arena for diplomacy, balance of
power and exercise of soft power. The use of hard power by states, unless legitimised
by the Collective Security organisation, is considered illegitimate, reprehensible and
needing remediation of some kind. The collective security organisation not only
gives cheaper security, but also may be the only practicable means of security for
smaller nations against more powerful threatening neighbours without the need of
joining the camp of the nations balancing their neighbours.

The concept of "collective security" forwarded by men such as Michael Joseph

Savage, Martin Wight, Immanuel Kant, and Woodrow Wilson, are deemed to apply
interests in security in a broad manner, to "avoid grouping powers into opposing
camps, and refusing to draw dividing lines that would leave anyone out. The term

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"collective security" has also been cited as a principle of the United Nations, and the
League of Nations before that. By employing a system of collective security, the UN
hopes to dissuade any member state from acting in a manner likely to threaten peace,
thereby avoiding any conflict.

Collective security selectively incorporates the concept of both balance of power and
global government. Thus it is important to know and distinguish these two concepts.
Balance of power between states opts for decentralization of power. States are
separate actors who do not subordinate their autonomy or sovereignty to a central.
Thus, "singly or in combinations reflecting the coincidence of interests, States seek
to influence the pattern of power distribution and to determine their own places
within that pattern." The expectation of order and peace comes from the belief that
competing powers will somehow balance and thereby cancel each other out to
produce “deterrence through equilibration.”

On the flip side, the concept of global government is about centralization. Global
government is a centralized institutional system that possesses the power use of force
like a well established sovereign nation state. This concept strips states of their
"standing as centers of power and policy, where issues of war and peace are
concerned, and superimposing on them "an institution possessed of the authority and
capability to maintain, by unchallengeable force so far as may be necessary, the order
and stability of a global community. Collective security selectively incorporates both
of this concepts which can broil down to a phrase: "order without government”

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Basic assumptions

Organski (1960) lists five basic assumptions underlying the theory of collective
security:[22]

• In an armed conflict, member nation-states will be able to agree on which

nation is the aggressor.

• All member nation-states are equally committed to contain and constrain the
aggression, irrespective of its source or origin.

• All member nation-states have identical freedom of action and ability to join
in proceedings against the aggressor.

• The cumulative power of the cooperating members of the alliance for

collective security will be adequate and sufficient to overpower the might of the
aggressor.

• In the light of the threat posed by the collective might of the nations of a
collective security coalition, the aggressor nation will modify its policies, or if
unwilling to do so, will be defeated.

Prerequisites

Morgenthau (1948) states that three prerequisites must be met for collective security
to successfully prevent war:

• The collective security system must be able to assemble military force in

strength greatly in excess to that assembled by the aggressor(s) thereby deterring the
aggressor(s) from attempting to change the world order defended by the collective
security system.

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• Those nations, whose combined strength would be used for deterrence as
mentioned in the first prerequisite, should have identical beliefs about the security
of the world order that the collective is defending.

• Nations must be willing to subordinate their conflicting interests to the

common good defined in terms of the common defense of all member-states.

Collective defense

Collective defense is an arrangement, usually formalized by a treaty and an

organization, among participant states that commit support in defense of a member
state if it is attacked by another state outside the organization. NATO is the best
known collective defense organization; its famous Article 5 calls on (but does not
fully commit) member states to assist another member under attack. This article was
invoked after the September 11 attacks on the United States, after which other
NATO members provided assistance to the US War on Terror in Afghanistan.

Collective defense has its roots in multiparty alliances and entails benefits as well as
risks. On the one hand, by combining and pooling resources, it can reduce any single
state's cost of providing fully for its security. Smaller members of NATO, for
example, have leeway to invest a greater proportion of their budget on non-military
priorities, such as education or health, since they can count on other members to
come to their defense, if needed.

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On the other hand, collective defense also involves risky commitments. Member
states can become embroiled in costly wars benefiting neither the direct victim nor
the aggressor. In World War I, countries in the collective defense arrangement
known as the Triple Entente (France, Britain, Russia) were pulled into war quickly
when Russia started full mobilization against Austria-Hungary, whose ally Germany
subsequently declared war on Russia.

Distinctions: “Collective Security”, “Balance of Power”

and “Global Government”

In order to understand the underlying logic of collective security, it would be

important to distinguish collective security from two closely related terms, namely
balance of power and global government. A balance of power arrangement between
states rests on the idea of decentralization. States act as separate units without
subordinating their autonomy or sovereignty to any central agency established for
the management of power relations. Thus, “singly or in combinations reflecting the
coincidence of interests, States seek to influence the pattern of power distribution
and to determine their own places within that pattern.” Under this conception, states
may form defensive alliances such as under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) against actual or perceived external threats. These sorts of flexible alliances
allow for recurrent shifts of alignment to take place. The promise of order lies in the
expectation that competing claims to power will somehow balance and thereby
cancel each other out to produce “deterrence through equilibration.”

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On the other hand, global government posit the creation of a centralized institutional
system superior to individual states with a monopoly on power and the use of force
similar to that of well-ordered national state. This conception is based on depriving
states of their “standing as centers of power and policy, where issues of war and
peace are concerned,” and superimposing on them “an institution possessed of the
authority and capability to maintain, by unchallengeable force so far as may be
necessary, the order and stability of a global community.” Global government is
thus a normative or ideal vision of the international political community under a
universal law which does not currently exist

The concept of collective security sits uneasily between and incorporates elements
of both these elements (balance of power and global government) thus functioning
as a dialectical notion of “order without government” in an effort to manage the
problem of power relations between states by “superimposing a scheme of partially
centralized management upon a situation in which power remains fused among
national units.” The hybrid system involves a centralization of authority over the use
of force to the extent that states are deprived of the legal right to use force at their
own discretion and agree to follow objective rules governing the threat and use of
force requires an international organization with authority not only to determine
when a resort to force is illegitimate but also authority to require states to collaborate
under its direction in suppressing such use of force. This is system of collective
security falls short of creating an institution with a centralized monopoly of force in
the full sense implied by world government. The power wielded by a hybrid
collective security system thus can reach no further than that given by the sovereign
will of its members.

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Conclusion
Collective security is one type of coalition building strategy in which a group of
nations agree not to attack each other and to defend each other against an attack from
one of the others, if such an attack is made. The principal is that "an attack against
one, is an attack against all." It differs from "collective defense" which is a coalition
of nations which agree to defend its own group against outside attacks. Thus NATO
and the Warsaw Pact were examples of collective defense, while the UN is an
attempt at collective security. Proponents of collective security say it is a much more
effective approach to security than individual countries trying to act alone, as weaker
countries cannot possibly defend themselves, and countries that try often become
involved in never-ending arms races which actually detract from, rather than
enhance, their security over the long term. In addition, it is argued, collective security
arrangements encourage international cooperation, while balance of power
deterrence leads to competition and conflict instead. Although the UN got bogged
down in the superpower conflict during the cold war, now that that era has ended,
many observers expect and hope that the UN will become a much more effective
actor in protecting the security of its members.

Other scholars and diplomats, however, feel the collective security concept is
misguided. It is seen as conceptually muddled (as it is often confused with other
similar concepts) and naively unrealistic. In addition, it has been argued, collective
security arrangements will turn small struggles into large ones, and prevent the use
of alternative (nonviolent) problem solving, relying instead on the much more costly
approach of military confrontation. In addition, there is always a danger, that
alliances formed for the purposes of collective security can also service as a basis
for an aggressive coalition.

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Bibliography

• Beer, Francis A., ed. (1970). Alliances: Latent War Communities in the
Contemporary World. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston.

• Bourquin, Maurice (1936). Collective Security, A record of the Seventh and

Eighth International Studies Conference. Paris: International Institute.

• Claude Jr., Inis L. (2006). Collective Security as an Approach to Peace in:

Classic Readings and Contemporary Debates in International Relations ed. Donald
M. Goldstein, Phil Williams, & Jay M. Shafritz. Belmont CA: Thomson Wadsworth.
pp. 289–302.

• Ghosh, Peu (2009). International Relations (Eastern Economy ed.). New

Delhi: PHI Learning Private Ltd. p. 389. ISBN 978-81-203-3875-3. Retrieved 15
October 2010.

• https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2948271

• http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/international-politics/collective-security-
meaning-nature-features-and-criticisms/48490

• https://www.britannica.com/topic/collective-security

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

“I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the kind
support and help of many individuals and groups. I would like to express my sincere thanks to all
of them.

On the successful completion of this project, I would like to thank my respected mentor, Dr. Manoj
Mishra sir, who despite all of his pre-occupations, provided me all the assistance I needed for the
accomplishment of this project and guided me while I tread on the tenebrous boulevard of
ignorance. Had it not been for her support I wouldn’t be able to grasp the cognizance of something
as enthralling as this. I thank her profusely for providing me this engrossing topic to work on which
helped me to learn and relearn, to explore and re-explore my knowledge of sociology.

I would like to convey my gratitude towards my friends and batch mates who have rendered me
their valuable time and without them this project would not have been in present shape and form.

No work is complete with solo endeavor, neither is mine. I thank each and every non-teaching
staff of Faculty of Law, BHU for their unconditional support and infinitum. I would also like to
convey my thanks to the Library Staff of BHU.

Last but not the least; I especially thank my Parents who have given me a chance to study in this
esteemed University, a heaven for overall development.”

Shreyansh kushwaha

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