Reinventing Human Security: Lessons from Chinggis Khan’s Biography

Robert E. Bedeski

August, 2013

The concept of human security has enjoyed some prominence in development and security studies/policy, especially within several Asian nations. While criticized as too broad for policy application, human security can also be faulted as excessively dependent on direct or indirect state (state-centric) action. An alternative approach is to re-formulate human security as human-centered, or ‘anthrocentric.’ From this perspective, human security’s core concern of ‘safety of individuals’ is refined as ‘Prolong Life, Postpone Death,’ with the individual mortality event as the ultimate and inevitable security failure. By examining the historical biography of Chinggis Khan a full array of security inputs can be identified, and a working (and quantifiable) theory of human life security can be derived.

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