Every NCERT book that matters for UPSC — open a book, then a chapter. Learn each chapter's concepts, then how UPSC tests them — with diagrams, flowcharts and the past questions to attempt.
Security in the Contemporary World
Start here: why this chapter matters
We often hear that an issue is a ‘security issue’, as if that ended the discussion — too important or too secret to debate. NCERT argues that in a democracy citizens must understand what security means. The chapter introduces two ways of thinking about it — traditional and non-traditional — stresses that the context decides which threats matter, and ends with India's security strategy.
- Links: Chapter 1 (the Cold War and its arms race), Chapter 3 (conflicts in South Asia), Chapter 4 (the UN, peacekeeping, the IAEA), Chapter 6 (environment as a security issue) and Chapter 7 (globalisation); Politics in India since Independence Chapter 4 (wars and nuclear policy) and Chapter 7 (insurgencies in Punjab, Kashmir and the North-East).
- UPSC: GS2 (international institutions, groupings such as the Quad) and GS3 (internal security: terrorism, the links between external and internal threats, border areas). Prelims asks about arms-control regimes (1995–2022), refugees and migration (2009, 2022, 2023) and human rights (2011); Mains about terrorism (2015–2025), the external–internal link (2013, 2019, 2020, 2021) and the Quad and AUKUS (2020, 2021, 2026).
| Word | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Security | Freedom from grave threats to core values |
| Core values | What a state or people most want to protect — sovereignty, life, dignity |
| Deterrence | Preventing war by threatening an unacceptable cost |
| Defence | Limiting or ending a war once it has begun |
| Balance of power | Keeping a favourable distribution of strength with possible rivals |
| Alliance | A coalition of states coordinating to deter or defend against attack |
| Disarmament | All states giving up a type of weapon |
| Arms control | Rules regulating the acquisition or development of weapons |
| Confidence building | Sharing military information so that rivals do not go to war by mistake |
| Referent | The answer to ‘security for whom?’ |
| Human security | Protecting people, not only states |
| Terrorism | Political violence deliberately and indiscriminately targeting civilians |
| Refugee / migrant / IDP | Flees across a border / leaves by choice / flees but stays inside the country |
At a glance — the six ideas to carry away
- Security = freedom from threats so grave they would damage core values beyond repair — but whose values, and which threats?
- Traditional (external): the threat is another state's military; responses — deterrence (prevent war) and defence (limit or end it), balance of power, alliances; no world government, so self-help.
- Traditional (internal): new states faced neighbours and separatists together; internal wars are now over 95% of armed conflicts (NCERT).
- Cooperation: limits on war; disarmament (BWC 1972, CWC); arms control (ABM 1972, SALT II, START, NPT 1968); confidence building.
- Non-traditional: human security (narrow → broad → broadest: freedom from fear and want) and global security; threats — terrorism, human rights, poverty, migration, epidemics.
- Cooperative security with force as a collective last resort; India's strategy: military strength, international norms, democracy at home, development.
1. What is security?
At its most basic, security means freedom from threats. But life is full of threats; if every one counted, the world would be saturated with security issues and we would be paralysed. So scholars say only threats to core values count. Whose core values — the country's, or ordinary citizens'? Do governments always share citizens' idea of core values? And how intense must the threat be? NCERT concludes that security concerns only extremely dangerous threats — those that would damage core values beyond repair if nothing were done. Even so, it remains a slippery idea: conceptions change over time and differ among the world's billions of people in nearly 200 countries. NCERT groups them as traditional and non-traditional.
- Ares: a soldier with a rifle on his back rides a huge white dove, holding it by a bridle in its beak. NCERT asks whether ‘peacekeeping force’ is a paradoxical term. The point: peace imposed by armed force is a contradiction in terms, yet peacekeepers often do protect civilians — the paradox is real but not absolute; it depends on consent, impartiality and restraint.
- A girl asks: who decides about my security — some leaders and experts? Can't I decide? The point: in a democracy, citizens should have a say in what counts as a threat and what is spent to meet it.
2. Traditional notions: external threats
In the traditional, national security view, the greatest danger is military threat from another country to the core values of sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity; civilians too are endangered, and often deliberately targeted to break support for war. A government has three choices: surrender; prevent attack by threatening to raise the cost of war to an unacceptable level; or defend itself to deny the attacker its aims. Governments never advertise surrender as policy, so security policy is about deterrence (preventing war) and defence (limiting or ending it).
A third component is the balance of power: a powerful neighbour may become aggressive in future even if it shows no sign now, so governments work to keep a favourable balance, especially with neighbours, rivals and past adversaries — chiefly by building military power, on a base of economic and technological power. A fourth is alliance building: coalitions, usually formalised by treaty and directed at an identified threat, that coordinate to deter or defend and increase effective power. Alliances follow national interests and change when interests change: NCERT's example is the US backing Islamic militants in Afghanistan against the USSR in the 1980s and later attacking them after Al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, struck America on 11 September 2001. In this view most threats come from outside, because the international system has no central authority; the UN is a creature of its members, with authority only so far as they allow, so each country must look after its own security.
- Ares, ‘Economy of war’: a fighter jet built entirely of banknotes. The point: war and preparation for war consume enormous wealth — money that could meet other needs; and arms industries profit from it.
- Christo Komarnitski: in a room marked ‘Nuclear Powers Club’, leaders of established nuclear powers sit in armchairs puffing cigars whose smoke forms atoms; two small figures labelled ‘N. Korea’ and ‘Iran’ walk in with cigars of their own. NCERT asks how big powers react to new claimants and on what basis some countries can be trusted with nuclear weapons and others not. The point: the club's members deny others what they keep themselves — the inequality India criticised in the NPT; the members answer that every new nuclear state raises the risk of nuclear use.
- A boy asks how war, all insecurity and death, can make anyone secure. The point: in the traditional view, the ability to fight deters war; but war itself always destroys security for those caught in it.
- NATO (1949) is the classic treaty alliance: Article 5 treats an armed attack on one member as an attack on all. It has 32 members since Sweden joined in 2024 (Chapter 1).
- The Quad (Australia, India, Japan, the US) grew out of cooperation after the 2004 tsunami, met in 2007, was revived in 2017 and has held leaders' summits since 2021. Its agenda includes vaccines, critical technologies, infrastructure and maritime domain awareness — the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) was launched in May 2022. India says the Quad is not a military alliance; China calls it an exclusive grouping aimed at containing it. UPSC Mains 2020 asked whether it is becoming a trade bloc; Mains 2026 links IPMDA with India's SAGAR vision.
- AUKUS (September 2021): Australia, the UK and the US agreed that Australia would acquire nuclear-powered — not nuclear-armed — submarines, alongside cooperation on advanced technologies. Its members describe it as strengthening deterrence in the Indo-Pacific; China, and some regional governments, voiced concern about an arms race and non-proliferation (UPSC Mains 2021).
- Exercises such as Malabar (India, the US, Japan and Australia) are forms of security cooperation short of alliance.
3. Traditional notions: internal threats
Security must also concern internal peace and order. It got less attention after 1945 because, in that context, the most powerful states — the US, the USSR and Western Europe — seemed secure at home and focused on the external Cold War threat: each alliance feared attack by the other. Some European powers also faced violence in their colonies — the French in Vietnam in the 1950s, the British in Kenya in the 1950s and early 1960s. As colonies became free from the late 1940s, some joined Cold War alliances and feared being dragged into a hot war; NCERT says the Cold War was responsible for about one-third of all wars after 1945, most fought in the Third World. Some new states also feared attack by their former colonial rulers.
The new states of Asia and Africa differed from Europe in two ways: they faced likely conflict with neighbours — over borders, territory and populations — whom many feared more than the superpowers or ex-colonial powers; and they faced internal military conflict from separatist movements. External and internal threats sometimes merged, when a neighbour helped or instigated a separatist movement. NCERT notes that internal wars now make up more than 95% of armed conflicts, and that between 1946 and 1991 the number of civil wars rose twelve-fold — the greatest jump in 200 years.
- Ares, ‘Third World Arms’: a poorly dressed man bends over a giant artillery shell, beside a shopping trolley of small household goods. The point: poor countries spend scarce money on weapons that their people cannot eat or live in — insecurity is bought at the cost of welfare.
- Let's do it: list a week's external and internal conflicts from the newspapers — you will find far more internal ones, as NCERT's figures predict.
- A girl says those who fight against their own country must be unhappy about something; perhaps their insecurity creates insecurity for the country. The point: grievances and exclusion can drive insurgency, so meeting grievances through democracy is itself a security policy — the third component of India's strategy (section 8). It does not excuse violence against civilians.
4. Traditional security and cooperation
Traditional security accepts that cooperation can limit violence, both in its ends and its means. It is now almost universally accepted that countries should go to war only for the right reasons — chiefly self-defence or to protect people from genocide; that armies must not harm non-combatants or unarmed and surrendering combatants, nor be excessively violent; and that force should come only after all alternatives fail. Three other forms of cooperation matter most. Disarmament requires all states to give up certain weapons: the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention banned their production and possession; NCERT says more than 155 states joined the BWC and 193 the CWC, including all the great powers. The superpowers would not give up the third weapon of mass destruction — nuclear weapons — so they pursued arms control, which regulates the acquisition or development of weapons: the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972 allowed only very limited missile defences; the US and USSR also signed SALT II and START. The NPT (1968) was arms control in that it regulated acquisition: states that had tested and manufactured nuclear weapons before 1967 could keep them; others gave up the right to acquire them. It did not abolish nuclear weapons but limited who could have them. Finally, confidence building: rivals share information on military intentions, plans, forces and deployments to show they are not planning surprise attacks, so that they do not go to war through misunderstanding. Overall, in traditional security, force is both the principal threat and the principal means of security.
- The BWC was opened for signature in 1972 and entered into force in 1975; the CWC was signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1997 (NCERT's ‘1997’ is the date of entry into force). The CWC is implemented by the OPCW in The Hague (UPSC 2016). NCERT's membership figures for the two conventions are dated.
- The NPT recognises as nuclear-weapon states only those that tested before 1 January 1967: the US, Russia, the UK, France and China (UPSC 2015). India, Pakistan and Israel never joined; North Korea announced its withdrawal in 2003. India opposes the NPT as discriminatory (UPSC 1991).
- NCERT's description of the ABM Treaty is compressed: by allowing each side only very limited missile defences, it kept both vulnerable to retaliation, so neither could hope to strike first and escape — mutual deterrence. The US withdrew in 2002.
- New START (2010, in force 2011) is a US–Russia treaty limiting deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 each (UPSC 2011). Russia suspended its participation in February 2023, and the treaty was due to expire on 5 February 2026. The CTBT (1996) has not entered into force; Russia withdrew its ratification in 2023; India has not signed it.
- A spoof ‘Terror Meter’ in the style of the US Department of Homeland Security's colour-coded alert (severe, high, elevated, guarded, low): its text promises to tell Americans ‘how terrified you should be’. The point: governments can keep the public in a state of fear — and fear can be used to stop debate on security, the problem NCERT raises at the chapter's start.
- A photograph of a yellow sign: ‘24 hour security on duty — he knows if you are naughty or nice’. The point: security measures can become constant surveillance of ordinary people.
- A boy laughs: first they make deadly, expensive weapons, then complicated treaties to save themselves from them — and call it security. The point: the arms race and arms control go together; critics call it absurd, while supporters say treaties make an unavoidable rivalry safer.
5. Non-traditional notions: human and global security
Non-traditional notions go beyond military threats to the many dangers affecting human existence. They begin by questioning the referent — ‘security for whom?’ — and so also what is secured, from which threats and by what approach. The traditional referent is the state; non-traditional views answer ‘not just the state but individuals, communities, indeed all humankind’ — human security or global security. Human security protects people more than states. The two should be — and often are — the same, but secure states do not automatically mean secure people: protection from foreign attack is necessary but not sufficient, and NCERT notes that in the last 100 years more people have been killed by their own governments than by foreign armies.
All agree human security's primary goal is protecting individuals, but differ on the threats. The narrow concept focuses on violence — in Kofi Annan's words, protecting communities and individuals from internal violence. The broad concept adds hunger, disease and natural disasters, which kill far more people than war, genocide and terrorism combined. The broadest adds economic security and threats to human dignity — ‘freedom from want’ and ‘freedom from fear’. Global security emerged in the 1990s for threats of a global nature — global warming, international terrorism, epidemics such as AIDS and bird flu — which no country can solve alone and which may fall disproportionately on some: NCERT says a 1.5–2 m sea-level rise would flood 20% of Bangladesh, inundate most of the Maldives and threaten nearly half of Thailand's population.
- Andy Singer: protesters with placards ask, ‘Can we have a few million dollars for a Department of Peace?’ A uniformed officer, surrounded by money bags labelled with hundreds of billions for the Iraq and Afghan wars, the Defense Department, veterans' affairs and homeland security, replies, ‘No… we can't afford it.’ NCERT: it comments on massive US defence spending and the lack of money for peace initiatives, and asks whether it is different in India. The point: budgets reveal which idea of security a government holds; compare India's defence spending with its spending on health, education and disaster management (‘Let's do it’, page 77).
- A boy says, ‘Now we are talking! That is real security for real human beings.’ The point: human security puts people at the centre.
6. New sources of threats
Terrorism is political violence that targets civilians deliberately and indiscriminately; international terrorism involves the citizens or territory of more than one country. Terrorist groups seek to change a situation they dislike by force or threat of force, choosing civilian targets to terrorise the public and turn its unhappiness against governments. Classic cases are hijackings and bombs in trains, cafés, markets and crowded places. Since the attacks of 11 September 2001, governments and publics have paid more attention, though terrorism is not new; most attacks in the past occurred in the Middle East, Europe, Latin America and South Asia.
Human rights are classified into three types: political rights (speech, assembly); economic and social rights; and rights of colonised people or ethnic and indigenous minorities. There is broad agreement on this classification but none on which set is universal, nor on what the international community should do when rights are violated. Since the 1990s, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the genocide in Rwanda and the Indonesian military's killings in East Timor have prompted debate on whether the UN should intervene: some argue the Charter empowers the international community to take up arms to defend human rights; others that powerful states' national interests decide which violations the UN acts on.
Global poverty: NCERT gives world population as 760 crore, rising to nearly 1,000 crore by mid-century, with half of population growth in six countries — India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Indonesia; in the poorest countries population may triple in 50 years while many rich countries shrink. High incomes and low growth make the rich richer; low incomes and high growth reinforce poverty, widening the North–South gap and disparities within the South. Most armed conflicts now take place in sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest region, where at the turn of the century more people were killed in wars than in the rest of the world combined. Poverty also drives migration to the North, creating political friction. International law distinguishes migrants (who leave voluntarily) from refugees (who flee war, natural disaster or persecution): states are generally expected to accept refugees but not migrants. People who flee but stay inside their own country are internally displaced persons — NCERT's example is the Kashmiri Pandits who fled violence in the Kashmir Valley in the early 1990s. The world refugee map tallies almost exactly with the conflict map: from 1990 to 1995, 70 states fought 93 wars that killed about 55 lakh people, and in the 1990s all but three of 60 refugee flows coincided with an internal armed conflict.
Health epidemics — HIV-AIDS, bird flu, SARS — spread across countries through migration, business, tourism and military operations; one country's success or failure affects others. NCERT says that by 2003 about 4 crore people had HIV-AIDS, two-thirds in Africa and half of the rest in South Asia; new drug therapies cut deaths in rich countries in the late 1990s but were too expensive for poor regions. New diseases — Corona, Ebola, hantavirus, hepatitis C — have emerged; old ones like tuberculosis, malaria, dengue and cholera have become drug-resistant; animal epidemics (mad-cow disease in Britain, bird flu in Asia) cost billions. Such epidemics show growing interdependence and the need for cooperation.
A limit on widening. Not every disease or distress is a security issue — otherwise the concept loses coherence. To qualify, an issue must threaten the very existence of the referent, though how varies: the Maldives may fear submergence by rising seas; for Southern Africa, HIV-AIDS was an existential threat (NCERT: one adult in six infected, one in three in Botswana); in Rwanda in 1994 the Tutsi faced a threat to their existence. Non-traditional security, like traditional security, depends on local context.
- Rwanda 1994: NCERT says nearly five lakh Tutsi were killed by ‘the rival Hutu tribe’ in weeks. UN estimates put the dead at about 8 lakh (800,000) in roughly 100 days, mostly Tutsi and also moderate Hutu; the killing was organised by Hutu extremist forces and militias, not by an entire community. The UN tribunal for Rwanda prosecuted leaders for genocide.
- NCERT gives the world's population as both ‘six hundred and fifty crore’ (page 65) and ‘760 crore’ (page 73) — an internal inconsistency from different editions; the UN estimates it passed 800 crore (8 billion) in November 2022.
- HIV: about 4 crore people were living with HIV in 2023 (UNAIDS) — NCERT's 2003 figure is dated. Refugees: UNHCR counted more than 12 crore (120 million) forcibly displaced people worldwide by mid-2024; NCERT's pie chart is for 2017.
- Kyoto: India ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2002 and the Paris Agreement in 2016 (Chapter 6).
- Tab, ‘Taking the train’: a station board lists arrivals — from Madrid on 3.11, London on 7.7 and Mumbai on 7.11, all ‘Arrived’ — and a fourth line marked ‘?’; below, a hooded Grim Reaper labelled ‘Terror’ waits with a suitcase. The point: train bombings struck Madrid (11 March 2004), London (7 July 2005) and Mumbai (11 July 2006) — terrorism is international, targets ordinary commuters, and the next target is unknown (dates Beyond NCERT).
- A black-and-white photograph captioned ‘He doesn't exist!’: a homeless man lies on a pavement while passers-by walk on without looking. The point: the poorest people's insecurity is often invisible — human security begins by noticing them.
- A girl asks why we always look outside when talking about human-rights violations — don't we have examples at home? The point: every country, India included, must examine its own record — institutions such as the National Human Rights Commission exist for this.
- A Gobar Times poster: life expectancy around 40 years in sub-Saharan countries; infant mortality of 3 per 1,000 in Sweden, 1 in 100 in developed countries, 1 in 7 in the Indian subcontinent and 1 in 5 in parts of Africa; deaths of children under five as about half of all deaths in the developing world against 5% in the developed world; and a note that in 1975 some low-income countries such as Cuba and Sri Lanka had long life expectancy while richer ones did not. The point: income distribution and public services, not income alone, decide people's health security.
- A pie chart, ‘Where the world's displaced people are being hosted — refugees in the world (2017)’ (UNHCR): Africa 30%, the Middle East and North Africa 26%, Europe 17%, the Americas 16%, Asia and the Pacific 11%. The point: poor regions near conflicts host most refugees, not the rich North. Dated: use with its year.
- Let's do it: plot threats to people's security on a map of Africa — conflicts, epidemics, drought, displacement.
- Definition: there is still no agreed UN definition of terrorism. India proposed a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism at the UN in 1996; it has not been adopted, partly because states disagree on whether armed struggles for self-determination or acts by state forces should be covered. The Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee was set up after 11 September 2001 (Chapter 4).
- Examples UPSC uses: ETA in Spain (UPSC 1994); the Islamic State (ISIS), which seized territory in Iraq and Syria from 2014 and recruited online (UPSC Mains 2015); attacks in India such as Mumbai (2008) and Pahalgam (2025), described in Chapter 3. Mains questions on causes, funding, linkages and counter-measures (2016, 2017, 2021, 2025) build on NCERT's definition.
- Human rights: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) includes civil and political rights and economic and social rights such as education, food and equal access to public service (UPSC 2011). The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol define refugees; India is not a party but has hosted large refugee populations (Tibetans, Sri Lankan Tamils, Afghans, Chakmas). The 2018 Global Compact for Migration is non-binding, was not endorsed by every UN member and does not cover internal displacement (UPSC 2023). Large refugee settlements include Dadaab in Kenya and Bidibidi in Uganda (UPSC 2009, 2022).
- Debate: those who stress human rights argue for intervention to stop atrocities (the 2005 ‘responsibility to protect’, Chapter 4); those who stress sovereignty warn that powerful states intervene selectively — NCERT gives both views.
7. Cooperative security
Many non-traditional threats need cooperation rather than military confrontation. Force may have a role against terrorism or in enforcing human rights — even there with limits — but it can do little to reduce poverty, manage migration and refugee flows or control epidemics; in most cases it would make matters worse. Cooperation may be bilateral, regional, continental or global, depending on the threat and on countries' willingness and ability. It may involve international organisations (the UN, WHO, World Bank, IMF), NGOs (Amnesty International, the Red Cross, foundations, charities, religious groups, trade unions, social and development organisations), businesses, and great personalities such as Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela. Cooperative security may use force as a last resort — against governments that kill their own people or ignore their misery, or against international terrorists and those who harbour them — but it is much better when force is sanctioned and applied collectively by the international community than when one country decides alone.
- Keshav (The Hindu): a figure with a globe for a head edges along a tightrope with a balancing pole; below, a small figure labelled ‘Terrorism’ dangles from the rope, while a wild figure labelled ‘Natural disasters’ comes charging down the slope. NCERT asks how the world should address these issues. The point: the world must handle several threats at once and keep its balance — through cooperation, not one-dimensional responses.
- Ares, ‘World Blindness’: a man presses his fingers into his eyes; on his raised hands are the words ‘WAR’ and ‘TERRORISM’, and tears run down his face. The point: preoccupation with war and terrorism can blind the world to other threats — poverty, disease, climate.
8. India's security strategy
India has faced traditional and non-traditional threats from within and outside. Its strategy has four components, used in varying combination. First, strengthening military capabilities: India has fought Pakistan in 1947–48, 1965, 1971 and 1999 and China in 1962; surrounded by nuclear-armed states in the region, its government justified the 1998 nuclear tests as safeguarding national security; India first tested a nuclear device in 1974. Second, strengthening international norms and institutions: Nehru supported Asian solidarity, decolonisation, disarmament and the UN as a forum to settle conflicts; India sought a universal, non-discriminatory non-proliferation regime for all weapons of mass destruction; argued for an equitable New International Economic Order; used non-alignment to carve out an area of peace outside bloc politics; joined the Kyoto Protocol; and has sent troops on UN peacekeeping missions. Third, meeting internal challenges: militant groups in Nagaland, Mizoram, Punjab and Kashmir have at times sought to break away; India has tried to preserve unity through a democratic system that lets groups voice grievances and share power. Fourth, development that lifts people out of poverty and limits inequality: partly successful; democratic politics gives the poor a voice and presses governments to combine growth with human development — so democracy is also a way to greater security.
- A boy says he feels happy that India has nuclear weapons but doesn't know how exactly they make him and his family more secure. The point: nuclear weapons serve deterrence between states (India's doctrine: no first use, credible minimum deterrence — leps204); they do little against terrorism, disease, poverty or disasters — Exercise Q10.
- Let's do it: compare India's spending on traditional security (defence) with non-traditional security (health, disaster management, environment). Use the latest Union Budget figures with their year.
- Let's do it together: four villages on a river — the first settlers, two larger villages and one with an extravagant lifestyle but a small population — each claim a bigger share of shrinking resources and clash; groups negotiate to restore peace. The point: like nations, villages argue from history, numbers and habits; agreement that accommodates all is rare but necessary — the logic of cooperative security over resources.
NCERT's in-text questions, cartoons and activities — short answers
‘Have you heard of a peacekeeping force? Is it a paradoxical term?’ (page 64)
‘Who decides about my security? Some leaders and experts? Can't I decide what is my security?’ (page 64)
‘War is all about insecurity, destruction and deaths. How can a war make anyone secure?’ (page 65)
‘How do the big powers react when new countries claim nuclear status? On what basis can some be trusted with nuclear weapons and others not?’ (page 66)
Browse a week's newspapers and list external and internal conflicts. (page 67)
‘Those who fight against their own country must be unhappy about something. Perhaps it is their insecurity that creates insecurity for the country.’ (page 68)
‘How funny! First they make deadly weapons, then complicated treaties to save themselves from them. They call it security!’ (page 69)
Is it any different in our country? (Andy Singer cartoon, page 70)
‘Why do we always look outside when talking about human-rights violations? Don't we have examples from our own country?’ (page 72)
How should the world address the issues shown (Keshav's tightrope cartoon)? (page 75)
‘I feel happy that my country has nuclear weapons. But I don't know how exactly it makes me and my family more secure.’ (page 76)
NCERT exercise — answer outlines
Try each first. Q1 and Q2 are also in the self-check.
Q1. Match: (i) confidence building measures (ii) arms control (iii) alliance (iv) disarmament — with: (a) giving up certain types of weapons (b) exchanging information on defence matters regularly (c) a coalition to deter or defend against military attacks (d) regulates the acquisition or development of weapons
Q2. Traditional, non-traditional or not a threat? (a) spread of chikungunya/dengue (b) inflow of workers from a neighbouring nation (c) a group demanding nationhood for its region (d) a group demanding autonomy for its region (e) a newspaper critical of the armed forces
Q3. Difference between traditional and non-traditional security; to which does the creation and sustenance of alliances belong?
Q4. How do the threats facing people in the Third World differ from those in the First World?
Q5. Is terrorism a traditional or a non-traditional threat?
Q6. What choices does a state have when its security is threatened, in the traditional perspective?
Q7. What is balance of power? How can a state achieve it?
Q8. Objectives of military alliances; an example with its objectives.
Q9. Rapid environmental degradation is a serious threat to security. Agree?
Q10. Nuclear weapons as deterrence or defence have limited use against contemporary threats. Explain.
Q11. In India, which type of security has been given priority — traditional or non-traditional? Examples.
Q12. The cartoon (page 80): a sow labelled ‘WAR’ suckling piglets labelled ‘TERRORISM’. Write for or against the connection shown.
What to remember
Numbers
One-liners
- Security covers only threats that could damage core values beyond repair.
- Traditional security: the state is the referent; force is both the threat and the means.
- Deterrence prevents war; defence limits or ends it; balance of power and alliances support both.
- Disarmament abolishes a weapon type; arms control regulates; confidence building prevents war by mistake.
- Non-traditional security asks ‘security for whom?’ — people and humankind, not just states.
- Human security: narrow (violence), broad (hunger, disease, disasters), broadest (want and fear).
- New threats — terrorism, rights abuses, poverty, displacement, epidemics — need cooperation.
- India: military strength, international norms, democracy at home, development.
Traps to avoid
- Alliances belong to traditional security (Exercise Q3); terrorism is non-traditional (Q5).
- Disarmament (giving up weapons) ≠ arms control (regulating them) ≠ confidence building (sharing information).
- NPT-recognised nuclear-weapon states: US, Russia, UK, France, China — not India, Pakistan or Israel (UPSC 2015).
- The CWC entered into force in 1997 but was signed in 1993; the BWC dates from 1972.
- New START is a US–Russia treaty on strategic nuclear arms, not an energy or EU pact (UPSC 2011).
- Refugees cross a border; internally displaced people do not; migrants leave by choice.
- India is a member of the MTCR, Wassenaar and Australia Group, but not the NSG; NSG membership does not make a state an NPT party (UPSC 2018).
- Bidibidi is in Uganda; Dadaab is in Kenya (UPSC 2022).
- The Global Compact for Migration is non-binding and not endorsed by all UN members (UPSC 2023).
- AUKUS submarines are nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed; the Quad has no mutual-defence treaty.
How to strategise
Prelims — what UPSC asks
- Arms control and disarmament: CWC signatories (1995), mustard gas (1997), the Ottawa landmines treaty (1998), the OPCW (2016), New START (2011), the NSG (2008, 2018), the Australia Group and Wassenaar (2011), Hague and other conventions (2020), the NPT (1991, 2015), India–US nuclear friction in 1978 (1979).
- Human rights, refugees and migration: the UDHR (2011), Dadaab (2009), Bidibidi and Dadaab (2022), the Global Compact for Migration (2023).
- Terrorism and conflicts: ETA (1994); instability and coups in the Sahel (2024).
Mains — where it appears and how to answer
- GS3 terrorism: ‘a competitive industry’ (2016), solutions and funding (2017), causes and nexus (2021), its manifestation in India and counter-measures (2025), ISIS (2015) — start from NCERT's definition, then causes, linkages, India's legal and institutional response, and cooperation (CCIT, FATF, UN committees).
- GS3 external–internal link: internal security and border management (2013), the India–Myanmar border (2019), transborder crimes on the Myanmar, Bangladesh and Pakistan borders (2020), external state and non-state actors (2021), illegal migration (2014) — build on NCERT's ‘external and internal threats merge’.
- GS2 alliances: the Quad as a trade bloc vs military alliance (2020), AUKUS (2021), IPMDA and SAGAR (2026) — state each member's and critic's view; tie to NCERT's alliance-building and cooperative-security ideas.
- Answer frame: define security and the referent → traditional view (choices, balance, alliances, arms control) → non-traditional view (human, global) → the specific threat as facts → stated positions where contested → cooperative response with force as a collective last resort → India's four-part strategy.
Self-check
Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.
1. NCERT Q1: Which matching is correct?
2. NCERT Q2(c): ‘Emergence of a group demanding nationhood for their region’ is best seen as:
3. Which of these are nuclear-weapon states recognised by the NPT? 1. China 2. France 3. India 4. Israel 5. Pakistan
4. The ‘New START’ treaty is:
5. What follows from a country becoming a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group? 1. Access to the latest nuclear technologies 2. Automatic membership of the NPT
6. Which is correct? 1. Bidibidi is a refugee settlement in north-western Kenya. 2. Some people who fled South Sudan's civil war live in Bidibidi. 3. Some who fled Somalia's civil war live in Dadaab, Kenya.
7. Under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which are human rights? 1. Right to education 2. Right to equal access to public service 3. Right to food
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