An In-Depth Exploration of Poverty's Threats to Global Security

This essay delves into the multifaceted ways in which global poverty poses significant threats to national and international security. It begins by establishing that poverty, defined as a lack of access to income and basic human necessities, is a root cause of conflict and instability. The essay then explores theoretical aspects of poverty, referencing liberalism, realism, and constructivism to explain its existence and impact. It highlights several circumstances in which poverty acts as a security threat, including the spread of infectious diseases (like the Ebola outbreak), environmental degradation, criminal activities, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and terrorism. The essay emphasizes how poverty weakens governments, fuels social unrest, and makes vulnerable populations susceptible to exploitation by criminal and terrorist groups, concluding that addressing poverty is crucial for global security.

Running head: THE SECURITY THREATS OF GLOBAL POVERTY
Introduction
The world has advanced itself with new technological innovations and social change.
However, the most serious concern in today’s world remains to be the problem of poverty in
many countries. The debate of poverty as a threat to the global security have been going on
for decades but a solution is yet to be found for it. The fact that comes to question is if
poverty is a global security threat, then to whom is it is threat and under what situations can it
be called as a threat. Global security threat is referred to as the actions that intend to harm the
safety of a nation or cause suffering to its people and could extend outside it perimeter (Kay
2015). Hence, it is important to understand whether poverty does harm the safety of the
nation and whether there are possibilities of it possessing a much greater threat to the global
security. The essay will clarify on the prospect of poverty being a global security threat. It
will also discuss the different theories that deals with poverty. The further paragraphs will
describe the various circumstances in which poverty is a security threat and followed by a
conclusion.
Poverty as a security threat
It can be said that poverty is a security threat because where there is no satisfaction
there is no happiness and where there is no happiness there is no peace and rest. Poverty is
root of conflicts in a country and is often described as the condition of certain individuals
who do not have access to sources of income and are deprived of the necessary human
requirements such as food, shelter and water. Poverty is of two types, absolute or relative
poverty (Hagenaars 2014). Absolute poverty is the kind of poverty where the individual has
absolutely no access to any monetary income and is obstructed from any basic necessity
(Saito et al. 2014). On the other hand, relative poverty is derived by comparing individuals to
other members of the society (Hagenaars 2014). If an individual is present below the set basic

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living standard, then they are said to be living in poverty (Ravallion 2017). Poverty has many
implications which are health-related as well as possess a threat to the security of the nation
(Snarr and Snarr 2016).
Theoretical aspects of poverty
Poverty also takes into account certain theories of international relations like
liberalism, realism and constructivism to explain its existence in the nation. Liberalism states
that it is possible to eradicate conflict and threat with the assistance of the government
(Baylis, Smith and Owens 2017). Realism states that the structure of industrialisation and
reality has to change to remove poverty from nations (Guzzini 2013). Whereas,
constructivism says that if individuals and government shift their ideologies towards poverty,
rather than depend on tangible sources, then they can work towards the betterment of the poor
people (Adler 2013).
Taking into account the above-mentioned theories it can be said that, liberalism explains the
problems of poverty as a global security threat. Liberalism states that the government will
take the responsibility of protecting the people from getting harmed by others, but it can also
be realised that the government in itself can be a threat for the liberty of the people (Weiler
2016). The theory says it is the job of the government to remove those obstacles that can stop
the people from living a complete and fulfilling life. Liberals believe in the fact that
collaboration with the governing bodies of different nations can help in the reduction of
security threats for different nations. Liberals view poverty as an ever-growing aspect due to
being ignored by the government (Best 2013). They are often treated as outcasts and ignored,
as they cannot contribute to the economy of a nation (Hickey and Du Toit 2013). Therefore,
liberals emphasise that the government should look after the people in poverty to reduce the
global security threat that it possesses (Dean 2013). Monetary help could be taken from other

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nations, and collectively the government can help the poor by initiating different programs
that can help them to elevate the poor in the society.
Circumstances of poverty as a security threat
Poverty can lead to threat for the security of the nation in different circumstances
such as spreading of infectious diseases, degrading of the environment, criminal activities
national and internationally, drug rings, distribution chains of arms and weapons for the
destruction of mass, human trafficking and even terrorism. The first and foremost thing that is
affected by poverty is the emergence of diseases which may be fatal to the human health
(Ngonghala et al. 2014). When huge volume of people is absence from better sanitation and
infrastructure in many crowding areas create its danger intern of any major outbreak that may
or has transpire. For example, the outbreak of Ebola in 2014 begin in the poor communities in
West Africa. This disease outbreak was one of the fastest and the hardest to control among
all other contagious diseases creating dismay among constituents of those nations of getting
infected from this disease. Due to lack of proper medical and public health system the disease
was harder to contain and they started spreading like wildfire and even penetrated the elite
community people due to its contagious nature (Chan 2014). Ebola can be cured gradually
with good supportive care, but this becomes impossible for the people of the poor
communities and hence leads to death of many infected individuals (Fowler et al. 2014).
Although the Ebola crisis was in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra
Leone, but fear arose around the world when the first case of Ebola was discovered in Nigeria
at the airport. Therefore, it became a global security threat as people worry that travellers
from that part of the world entering in big cities could potentially spread the diseases globally
and could cause many death (Chan 2014). On the other hand, if this Ebola epidemic took
place in the Western World for example, it could have been contained in short period of time

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and fewer death, but due to the high level of poverty present in those countries thing when
out of control.
Poverty is one of the most common reason for global conflict and security problems.
Poverty acts as a substance to the emergence of civil wars and various conflicts in every
nation (Cederman, Gleditsch and Buhaug 2013). Poverty can create conflicts in nations and
can lead to wars especially poor one usually due to the lack of opportunity within a country.
Thus, wars usually occur in those poor countries which in the end put extreme pressure on
neighbouring countries and the rest of the world to rescue its citizens (Nelson-Pallmeyer
2017). Some of these refugees could be terrorists or criminals but no ways for nations taking
refugees to distinguish such people from the others and also put burdens on those countries
economy (Holmes 2015). Thus, the entry of such refugees could cause serious threat to the
security of the country. Poverty weakens the government and obstructs its power and
authority thereby making it hard to control the conflicts occurring in the country ("Poverty
and conflict - GSDRC" 2018). Poverty is caused due to unemployment in the poor countries
hence providing no source of possible income and even stops them from getting education
and proper knowledge which makes them unable to elevate themselves in the society.
Underdeveloped nations are unable to provide proper facilities to their citizens and perhaps
due to poor economy system and weak institution (Lewis 2017). The poor class always exists
under continuous threat and unrest as they have no future to consider and are not paid
attention by the other sections of the society and even the government (Gupta 2015).
Moreover, political parties often ignore the demands and development needs of the poor as
they do not contribute much to the benefit of the party and are hence excluded from any
progress of the state or nation (Mulvey 2016). Due to the negligence and the lack of
opportunities among the poor, they tend to build up hatred for political parties and aim to
disrupt the peace and harmony of the nation and engage in violent activities (Addison, Bach

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and Braunholtz-Speight 2013). Additionally, the absence of legal ways to earn money leads
some of them to do illegal activities in the hope of earning more money. However, other
factors also come into existence such as, lack of concrete plan and hope for some poor people
about the future also enables them to engage in conflicts and terrorism as they fail to
contribute in any other section of the society (Akhmat et al 2014). Since the poor are
venerable in society makes them an easy target for the radical and terrorist groups to use or
act on them according to their wishes (Blattman and Ralston 2015).
Poverty also initiates drug abuse and drug trafficking among the people. People of the
poor class are under constant mental pressure and resort to drug abuse to occupy their
deficiency in life. It is a prevalent scenario among the poor people where drug use is a normal
phenomenon (Chakravarthy, Shah and Lotfipour 2013). Drug dealers target the people of
these social group as they tend to be illiterate and emotionally unstable due to their problems.
People living in poverty are often a social outcast and are treated with negligence and have a
bad situation in the society which pushes them to get attached to bad habits. These people
also become a target for children trafficking and women trafficking in many states (Sen
2014). Crime syndicates raise a tremendous amount of money from these activities at the
expense of the poor people as they realise that the government does not always take these
cases to be significant. These activities hence possess a grave threat to the security of the
nation as it makes the country vulnerable to illegal crimes and open to social abuse from
other countries and crime organisations.
Lastly, poverty is a significant cause of environmental degradation. Not just the
society, the environment is also greatly affected by poverty. First and foremost, deforestation
is caused due to the sudden increase in population among the poor class (Ucl.ac.uk 2018).
The increase in population in these social groups is due to the need for more members who
can bring decent income into the family. Due to this increase, more space is needed to

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provide space for living. Poor people are also very dependent on the natural resources as
compared to other people. They depend on these resources for their food and also for fuel
(Birhanu 2014). Trees are cut down for wood which they require for cooking their food as
they have no proper fuel system like gas in their houses. They also use wood and other
resources to build their living space because they usually lack the money or the means to get
a real and established housing. Over-exploitation of natural resources leads to many natural
hazards and global warming which is a global issue in recent times (Zhen et al. 2014). People
in poverty also suffers from many hygienic and cleanliness issues which can cause various
problems to the environment and also triggers the spread of various infectious diseases as
discussed earlier.
As discussed in the earlier paragraphs there are many results of poverty on the
security of a country. However, no concrete evidence has been found which could connect
that poverty and security threats are interrelated.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above essay that poverty does prove as being a threat to
the security of nations. Hence, it is essential for the government to provide any financial aid
to those people so that they could work towards their development. The security of a nation
should be the priority of the government and the betterment of the poor people their agenda.
However, due to the absence of proper evidence, the cause of threats in global security cannot
always be pinned on the poor people. The poor people cannot always possess a danger
globally as they are in turn affected by the violence and problems that are caused in nations
due to the situation that the people in poverty live in. Therefore, it can be deduced that global
security threat can occur due to various reasons and not only because of the existence of
poverty.

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