I was reminded today—because of a great lunchtime talk by @ShirinSinnar —of an old seed of an idea: Imagine if we thought about security threats less in terms of national security and more in terms of human security.

Thread /1

The two categories obviously overlap. Some of the stuff that we now frame as threats to national security might just be reframed as threats to human security. /2

But the reframing might change how we think about the issues and what kinds of governmental responses we expect or tolerate. /3

The pandemic is an example. Remember when people wanted to call covid a national security threat so the govt would take it more seriously? But it’s not a national security threat, at least not directly. It’s a threat to human security. And a direct one. /4

If we start thinking that the gov’t should provide more human security and be less obsessed with national security, covid is an obvious case for serious govt’al action. 5/

Or take counterterrorism policy. Terrorism is arguably a national and a human security problem. But if you think more in terms of the latter, you might try less to prevent all attacks on The Homeland and might focus less on attacks committed by perceived “outsiders.” /6

You might focus more on the human lives saved and the human lives lost. As it now stands, we think too little about the latter. We’re obsessed with the national security angle. /8

Or maybe a human security lens shifts resources from intel and defense toward things like . . . safety in schools and gun violence. /9

And maybe courts feel less allergic to reviewing govt’al action. The gov’t doesn’t get to cough up the phrase “national security” and be done. It has to explain how it’s helping and how it’s hurting people. /10

Anyhoo, just a thought. Because if you think the national security apparatus has gotten too big and too unaccountable (as I do), then it’s not enough to keep tinkering around the edges. We need to change how Americans think about their own security. 11/11