IR Simplified: Economy and National Security

Essence of Security

1. Before exploring the concept of national security, one must endeavour to grasp the fundamental nature of security in terms of political science and international relations. According to ‘Securitization theory’ of Barry Buzan and Copenhagen School of Security Studies, security is a speech act i.e. by saying something pertains to security, a topic is moved away from political quibbles into arena of security concerns; this legitimizes application of extraordinary measures against the socially constructed security threat.

2. The process of securitization is intersubjective, meaning that it is neither a question of an objective threat or a subjective perception of a threat. This analysis in security related studies is very thought provoking in the sense that how states or any global non-state actor frames the threats or issues that are existential in nature.^[1]

Traditional vs Non-traditional Threats

3. Since the dawn of time, security of humans and then nations was always attributed to use of force and wars. The violence that resulted in destruction of life or property was the biggest security threat for any entity. While these violent traditional threats are still valid today, the modern technology and globalization of geopolitics have given rise to non-traditional threats instead of military ventures that may become even more dangerous for a nation-state than the kinetic weapons of an enemy. Few of them are:

Economic security
Food security
Water security
Human security
Politic stability
Cyber terrorism
Psyops
Climate change
Pandemics

There are many more such non-traditional threats but for now, let us focus on the economic dimension of national security.

Importance of Economy for a Nation-State’s Security

4. It goes without saying that economy is inseparably linked with the national security. To provide evidence to this fact, one must look at the examples of superpowers of the recent past and present, e.g. Soviet Union and USA respectively. While both had large forces and modern technology, with USSR beating USA in space race multiple times, it all came down to the economic stability for ending the Cold War.

5. Economy is the one of the biggest elements of national power. A nation’s wealth can be transformed into a strong defence as well as prosperity of the people. To quote Paul Kennedy, “a nation’s military strength rests on its economic strength”.^[2] Also, Robert McNamara, the famous US secretary of Defence in Vietnam war, said: “Security means development and without development there is no security.”

6. Only a strong economy can ensure social stability because poor economic conditions lead to violence, political turmoil, social conflicts and crime. To put it simply, a strong economy will result in a stable internal society and security from external as well as internal threats. There is no accumulation of power of any kind by the actors without economic capital.

Few Indicators of Weak Economy that Threat National Security

7. a. Weak Economic Growth: The economic growth is directly related to population growth and should be at least double of it i.e. if a country’s population grows by 2%, anything less than 4% GDP growth and economic expansion is considered weak. It will lead to unemployment, poverty, high inflation, civil unrest, social chaos and criminal activity that will undoubtedly weaken national security. Pakistan has the growth rate of around 2% for population, but GDP growth according to latest figures by international monetary institutions is only 2.6%. With a strong military, our national security is threatened today more by an economic crisis than India.

b. Large Fiscal Deficit and Balance of Payments: Without going in technical details, balance of payments includes current and capital accounts of a government. A deficit in these accounts simply means that more money is being spent than the total income e.g., trade deficit with more imports than exports results in depletion of foreign exchange reserves. Pakistan’s total imports for current fiscal year till April are 48.21 billion $, with exports of 26.86 billion $, resulting in a massive trade deficit of 21.35 billion $.^[3] This is one of the top reasons for our high public and foreign debt as government has to borrow for covering the deficits in all accounts, of which the lion’s share is spent on interest payments instead of welfare of citizens.

c. Wagner’s Law of Economics: This law given by German economist Adolf Wagner posits that public expenditure rises as the national income and population rises. Pakistan’s population and expenditure are growing at an alarming rate, but the weak economy means that we have to rely on loans to make up for the extra costs. This leads to low human development index (HDI), poor infrastructure, import-based economy with no indigenous manufacturing etc. With a poverty rate of 40% and GDP per capita income of 1,580 $, Pakistan is in the bottom half of the lower-middle countries bracket provided by World Bank.^[4]

Guns vs Butter Dilemma

8. ‘Guns vs Butter’ dilemma is the trade-off between military spending and other public and social interests. Since inception of Pakistan, the national security narrative was India-centric and based on wars that can threaten the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan. However, even with numerical superiority and strategic depth, India has failed time and again to dominate and conventionally deter Pakistan. With clear evidence that Pakistan is not a walk over, my opinion is that the grave issues facing our national security are non-kinetic and non-traditional in nature.

9. It is the need of time that non-traditional threats be given a priority in resource allocation. Though India plays a part in some of them e.g. aggravating water and food security by building dams on our rivers, many other problems like an economy in shambles are a result of poor decisions by policymakers. With a hostile neighbour, traditional aspects of national security can never be disregarded. However, never in our history the need for a near-perfect balance between resource allocation was so high for the sake of a comprehensive national security strategy.

Stritzel, H. (2014). Securitization Theory and the Copenhagen School. In: Security in Translation. New Security Challenges Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137307576_2 ↑
Kennedy, Paul M. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Random House, 1988. ↑
https://profit.pakistantoday.com.pk/2025/05/02/april-trade-deficit-widens-to-3-year-high-as-imports-surge-exports-slump/ ↑
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=PK ↑

Geopolitics

IR Simplified: Economy and National Security

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