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11.06.2009

NATIONAL SECURITY AND IDEOLOGY

   

Gagik Ter-Harutyunyan

1.jpg (original)Due to ongoing system changes alongside with the reconsideration of some notions (globalization, controlled chaos and etc) there is a necessity to rethink at some extent the perceptions and connections between national security (NS) and ideology. In this context one of the most dynamic and fast changing components of the NS – informational component, which at the current stage acts as a bearer and the “spreader” of the main provisions of the national ideology, worth special mentioning.

Ideology as the content of the national security

Today the notion of the NS includes almost all the spheres of human activity: military-political, social and economic, informational, spiritual and psychological and others, which, in their turn, are closely connected with each other. As a result, the borders between those spheres are now conventional. In our opinion, such a development trend not only creates the common edges between the notions of the NS and ideology but it also unites them. It is characteristic that some authors define the ideology as the most efficient regime of global processes and the complex of the postulates, which obtain interconnection. Such a definition was also used for the NS and one can state that amid current developments ideology is a theoretical content of the NS. In this respect let us mention that since Antoine Destutt de Tracy, who put into circulation in European tradition at the beginning of the 19th century the term “ideology”, there have been many, and in our opinion, very often complementary definitions. Such a situation is rather natural when we speak about the complex concepts and in this short survey we, depending on the subtext of the narration, will use different definitions of this or that concept.

At the same time the concept of ideology have also evolved and lost its former (e.g. communist, national-socialist and vulgar-liberal) univocal, certain interpretation. In this context it is characteristic that due to the current crisis in the countries, which are traditionally regarded as liberal, the process of legitimating and the development of socialist ideas is going on. Thus, the “poly-ideological” communities are formed, where, to one degree or another, the ideological views, which express universal, i.e. socialist or liberal, and national-civilizational perceptions are spread.

The comparative observations come to prove that one of the main criteria of the efficiency of the NS system, i.e. the competitive ability of the state, is mostly conditioned by the ability of the given community to form poly-ideological or, in other words generalized synthetic field. In this context China, which used in the end of the last century the complex of socialist, liberal and national-conservative postulates, can be brought as an example of the state with the competitive ability. The English speaking communities, for which the liberalism and the traditionalism were priority national characteristics, began to make a point of socialist postulates and thus, they increase their competitive ability. In Russia alongside with the bearers of the nationalist-traditional and liberal ideas the vast stratum is the adherent of socialist ideas and if the RF succeeds to combine those trends (which despite some positive tendencies, has not been done yet) this will definitely increase the competitive ability of Russia.

Thus, at current stage the global ideology of the societies and the states (in the context of the competitive ability) should include different ideological postulates. Such an approach should also be implemented while working out the postulates of the NS.

Peculiarities of economy security at the current stage

Let us mention that in the aforementioned global ideology the national-conservative concepts are less “materialized” and their role in the sphere of economy looks to be restricted. At the same time those concepts determine some peculiarities of management and are directed to the self-sufficiency. Amid the current crisis that tendency brings to the protectionist economy policy. It would be enough to mention that for the last year in 17 from 20 countries, which carried out the “open-door” policy; more than 47 protectionist decisions have been made.

In our opinion this phenomenon is not only determined by the economic and tactical considerations to overcome the crisis, but it also expresses some kind of long-term strategy, which is adequate to the logic of multi-polar world order. As a result, the economic expansion assumed multiple-vector character and today the leading economic countries are obliged to protect from economic expansion of the countries, which were considered to be “backward”. Thus, current economy processes, being based on the postulates of universal ideologies, also have definite national-conservative ideology logic.

Let us also mention, that the protectionism expresses not only the tendency to the self-sufficiency, but it also creates some kind of economic base to resist the undesirable processes.

Unity of informational security and national-conservative ideology

According to classical formulation, the national-conservative ideology, which co-opts the spheres of intellectual and spiritual processes and perceptions, is the system of the ideas, views and national values where the relation of people to each other and to the reality is realized and estimated. At the same time, ideology can be regarded as a real factor only if it turns into the component of social conscious. Meanwhile, this can be carried out only with the help of informational technologies (if we interpret this term widely and do not mean exclusively a simple propaganda). In other words, national ideology, in case if its necessity is realized, must be the foreground and basic component of informational space. It follows thence that the main tasks of informational and psychological security are:

  • the implementation of national-conservative ideology in informational field;
  • the protection of the aforementioned ideological concepts from the external and internal distortions;
  • in the context of national interests the spread of ideological concepts in the external informational field.

Thus, if the generalized ideology of the society and the generalized concepts of the NS coincide then national-conservative component of the ideology, in its turn, is connected directly with the sphere of informational security (IS). This allows to say that the functions of the conceptual (not the technical) part of the IS and of the national-conservative ideology coincide, and those concepts together can also be formulated as the complex of the instructions, which provides the most efficient mode and the interrelation of informational processes.

Existence of critical infrastructures within the conceptual part of the NS

In some leading states (mainly in the US) the provision of the informational security of the so called critical infrastructures, i.e. the systems of management, energy and water supply, communicational and informational, police and rescue services, financial and other systems, are regarded as the priority. The provision of the security of those systems from the point of view of the NS is fairly supposed to be the priority technical task. We suppose that such “critical infrastructures” are characteristic and important for the conceptual, i.e. national-conservative part of the IS ideology as well. It is not a mere chance that the American experts identify the main task of the NB as the protection of the national values. From practical point of view it means that from the system of national values the theses, which corruption can cause the national demoralization and degradation, should be chosen and be the object of much concentrated attention and protection.

From all has been said it follows that the formation of the real IS system is not possible without the provision of corresponding ideological postulates. But it does not mean that the formation of IS should be carried out only after the approval of those postulates As we have mentioned above the informational security is, in point of fact, identified as national-conservative ideology and the separate conceptual elaborations in the sphere of IS will, undoubtedly, promote to the elaboration of the complex of ideological approaches.


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