Transnational Threats and Comprehensive Security Challenges

Abstract

This study aims to shed light on the historical evolution of transboundary threats and the stages through which the security process has developed, leading to the multiplicity of actors in the security arena. It also highlights the factors that have produced new types of security threats, which have compelled states to intensify their efforts to confront these challenges, particularly the new transcontinental threats resulting from technological development and globalization. After the Cold War, new actors emerged on the security scene, and the concept of security expanded to include different dimensions of human life. Security thus became multidimensional, encompassing societal, human, political, environmental, water, and economic security. This development came as a result of the diversity and severity of threats. Threats are no longer solely external, traditional, and clearly represented by military dangers; rather, they have become both external and internal, requiring concerted international efforts to protect societies from renewed, diverse, and hybrid risks characterized by speed, ambiguity, and surprise. The study also seeks to answer the main question: How have transboundary threats contributed to reshaping the concept of security from traditional security to comprehensive security? And what are the most significant challenges they impose on states in confronting them? The study adopts the descriptive-analytical approach through the analysis and description of previous literature, as well as the comparative approach to compare traditional security threats with contemporary security threats, and to compare the concepts of traditional security and comprehensive security. This contributes to a deeper understanding of the transformations that have affected the international security environment in light of globalization, technological development, and the multiplicity of security actors. The study concludes that confronting these threats is no longer possible through traditional tools alone. Rather, it requires the development of more comprehensive security policies, the strengthening of cooperation and coordination, investment in technology and human capacities, and a shift from a reactive logic to one based on anticipation and prevention, thereby enhancing states’ ability to achieve comprehensive security in a changing and complex international environment.