Characteristics of non-traditional security threats

Non-traditional security threats are characterized by transnationality, uncertainty, suddenness and mutual transformation.

1. Transnational: Most non-traditional security threats are not a problem faced by one country alone, but when one country faces security pressure, they also pose threats to other countries to varying degrees, and even spread to the whole region or become a global problem.

2. The source of threats is uncertain: the main body of most non-traditional security threats is not a sovereign country, but the behavior of some organizations or groups or even individuals. For example, the increasingly rampant international terrorism is a typical example.

3. Strong suddenness: non-traditional security threats change rapidly and have strong liquidity. With the continuous development of economic globalization and the rapid and large-scale movement of the world population, once some security risks spread, the difficulty and risk of control will increase rapidly.

4. Mutual transformation: there is no clear boundary between non-traditional security threats and traditional security threats, and there is no insurmountable gap.

The difference between traditional and non-traditional security threats

Different connotations: traditional security threats mainly refer to some high political security issues in the traditional sense, which are military threats facing the country and military factors threatening international security. Compared with traditional security threats, non-traditional security threats are not outstanding security threats that human society has never encountered or rarely seen in the past. Besides military, political and diplomatic conflicts, they are other factors that threaten the survival and development of sovereign countries and all mankind.

Different extensions: According to the degree of threat, traditional security threats can be divided into three categories: arms race, military deterrence and war. There are world wars, total wars and local wars, international wars and civil wars, conventional wars and nuclear wars, and so on. According to the object of threat, it can be divided into national defense issues, territorial disputes, sovereignty issues and military posture issues between countries. Non-traditional security issues mainly include: economic security, financial security, population explosion, ecological environment security and so on.