A nyone not immediately caught up in the whirlwind of today’s Beltway foreign policy punditry would be driven to hair-tearing at the back-and-forth between defenders of the Bush Administration and the multitude of critics arrayed against it. That’s because while President George W. Bush’s approach has obviously failed, too many of its critics refuse to focus on why. Their alternatives revolve around competence, with perhaps a bit of multilateral fence-mending thrown in. But they also assume as valid the fundamental tenet guiding the Administration’s approach, as defined by George Kennan during the Cold War, that securing the national interest lies in protecting "the continued ability of this country to pursue its internal life without serious interference." While that approach might have been relevant to the era of Cold War containment, it is untenable today. In a globalized world, it is no longer enough to center our foreign policy on a narrowly-defined concept of "national security" that assumes the continued dominance of the nation-state. What is needed is a fundamental change in the terms of the debate to include a realistic assessment of a world that is both interdependent and increasingly fragmented. What is missing is consideration of human security–and why, if we are to promote effectively our sustainable security, it must be incorporated into a modern American foreign policy.

"Human security" is a concept more familiar to those in the economic development field than the foreign policy world. Some define it in narrow terms, referring simply to the challenges posed by war and mass atrocities. But, increasingly, it is being more broadly defined as a concept that goes beyond a singular focus on the survival of states–as "national security" does–to include the survival and dignity of human beings regardless of national origins. The UN’s Commission on Human Security defines it as protection of "the vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and fulfillment," while the Human Security Network–an alliance of like-minded countries ranging from Canada and the Netherlands to Jordan and Mali–describes its vision as "a humane world where people can live in security and dignity, free from poverty and despair..."