National security refers to the protection of a nation’s people, institutions and resources. It involves a wide range of threats, including physical attacks on citizens and property, economic instability, cyberattacks and other forms of social disruption.

Among the key global security challenges are weapons of mass destruction, transnational crime, and climate change. Efforts to prevent or reduce these threats through nonproliferation efforts increase global security.

Protecting the Citizens of a Country

The role of national security is to protect the citizens of a country from threats that might jeopardize their lives, homes and livelihoods. These can include aggression from another nation or terrorists; global economic trends that threaten a country’s competitiveness or stability; or natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods or earthquakes.

A nation’s security apparatus is usually a team effort of the military, police and intelligence agencies. Those organizations have the task of safeguarding the nation’s borders, keeping orderly migration and defending against threats such as terrorism, espionage and cyber attacks.

A modern day national security operation is a complex and demanding undertaking involving the best practices of a number of disciplines including forensics, information technology, cyber defense, public health, law enforcement, logistics, intelligence and communications. Despite the complexities of this multi-faceted task, it is a vital part of any nation’s ability to deliver on its promises and make its citizens proud to call it home.

Preserving the Values of a Society

National security plays an important role in today’s world, primarily as a means of protecting the citizens of a country. This includes the protection of a nation’s economy, infrastructure, and society from threats such as terrorism, crime, and environmental degradation.

Moreover, national security also serves as a way of building conditions of peace and stability around the world by reducing global causes of insecurity. Those causes include climate change, economic inequality, political exclusion, and nuclear proliferation.

Heritage conservation theory and practice has moved through a “values turn” during the past generation, acknowledging societal values alongside heritage’s material, artistic, and historic canons of significance. This move has pushed conservation to grapple with a range of bigger issues, such as identity politics and cultural diversity, socio-economic performance under neoliberal regimes, environmental degradation and resilience, and more.

Defending the Rights of a Nation

Every nation faces threats, whether they are social (as in aggression by another country), economic (as in global trends that threaten a national economy) or natural (as in hurricanes and viral pandemics).

These can affect the lives of citizens and the overall health and well-being of the nation. These can include terrorism, corruption, crime, and other human rights violations.

There are many ways a nation can defend its own people’s rights and dignity. There are also many international mechanisms that focus on defending the rights of nations and their populations.

The United Nations plays an important role in defending the rights of nations. It is home to a number of international agencies and bodies that deal with issues such as the rights of women, children, indigenous peoples, refugees and others.

Defending the Rights of Individuals

The rights of individuals, whether in their own countries or across international borders, are often affected by national security policies and practices. These can include the use of military personnel and militarised police forces to control public behaviour; surveillance, including mass surveillance in cyberspace, which has implications for privacy; military recruitment and conscription practices; and wars.

The United States, for example, is a democracy that values the Bill of Rights and its protection of freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, petition and self-incrimination, as well as other legal protections. When federal, state and local governments propose laws or policies that threaten those rights, citizens organize to protect them.

Governments can and should do more to ensure that the rights of people are respected and protected. Human rights defenders help to strengthen the system of justice and promote good governance. They also work to raise awareness of human rights issues, improve conditions in disadvantaged communities and encourage a government to fulfill its commitments under human rights treaties.