Traditional and Non-Traditional Security Threats to Central Asian Security

Ajay Patnaik and Anuradha M Chenoy

Traditional conception of security emphasises territorial integrity and national sovereignty as primary values to be protected. In this notion, traditional threats are essentially related to external military threats that seek to undermine the security of the sovereign state and its territorial integrity. As the present book shows, the threats to Central Asian security are both external and internal. Today challenges from non-traditional threats are greater than traditional ones. Ethnic, religious and linguistic issues can create instability. Similarly, poverty, hunger, unemployment and unequal distribution of wealth as well as environmental issues are going to pose the biggest challenge to the regional states in the near future. The drying up of the Aral Sea is affecting the health and lives of hundreds of thousands of people cutting across republics. Water-related confrontations are not unlikely given the problems related to water-sharing in the region. This book focuses mainly on many of the non-traditional security threats to Central Asian states which can even affect relations between states and transform into traditional security challenges.

Ajay Patnaik and Anuradha M Chenoy Dr. Ajay Kumar Patnaik is Professor and currently Chairperson in the Centre for Russian & Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. A Ph. D from JNU, Prof. Patnaik was Visiting Scholar in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cambridge, U. K. (1992-93), ICSSR Exchange Scholar at the Institute of Ethnography, Moscow (1999), and at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Moscow (2010), Visiting Solanki Professor and Scholar in Residence at Yadunandan Centre for Indian Studies, California State University, USA (2006). He has authored three books – Nations, Minorities and States in Central Asia (2003), Central Asia: Between Modernity and Tradition (1995), Perestroika and Women Labour Force in Soviet Central Asia (1989); edited four volumes and contributed numerous articles in edited books and journals. Prof. Patnaik is also the Executive Editor of the journal Contemporary Central Asia.
Dr. Anuradha M. Chenoy is Professor, in the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University [JNU], New Delhi. She has written several books and over 70 articles in national and international journals on a wide range of issues. Her latest books are: Maoism and Other Armed Conflict; Human Security: Concept and Implications, 2003, (Co-authored); The Making of New Russia, 2003; Militarism and Women in South Asia, 2003. She has engaged with many social movements and closely linked to many civil society organisations. She comments regularly on radio and television and writes for Indian newspapers and popular magazines.