25 February 2009: Reuters
By William Maclean - Analysis
LONDON (Reuters) - The global downturn will push countries to provide smarter, more cost-effective homeland security, potentially curbing procurement of expensive gadgetry and quickening a trend to more international cooperation.
Counter-terrorism will remain an important priority for all governments, not least because security is a vital pillar of economic confidence and multibillion dollar business sectors such as tourism and transport are often targets of armed groups.
But budget pressures will force policymakers increasingly to identify waste and question big-ticket purchases of technology, a trend underpinned by worries in the West that intrusive monitoring poses a risk to civil liberties, analysts say.
"People often think there's a need for pervasive Orwellian surveillance, but in fact networks built on trust can provide the effective intelligence required," said Henry Crumpton, a former senior official of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
"We must ask ourselves in all seriousness how long we can continue to drain our economies in a futile attempt to secure everyone and everything at all times," said Raphael Perl, Head of the Action Against Terrorism Unit at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
"Even if it were possible, which it is not, the societal danger from erosion of human rights and civil liberties from extreme security measures is real, is increasing, and has been greatly underestimated in terms of sinister implications."
Since the Sept 11 attacks governments around the word have spent heavily on airport screening, import inspections, data mining systems and electronic monitoring of everything from emails, Internet chat rooms to city streets and offices.
Hundreds of billions more have been spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where a U.S.-led alliance has sought to quell insurgencies and root out al Qaeda cells.
But London's International Institute for Strategic Studies thinktank said in its 2009 Military Balance global defense review that "defense spending seems bound to come under close scrutiny" by governments around the world hit by recession.
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The wars' ongoing costs will be a hefty component of the U.S. budget rolled out on Thursday by President Barack Obama, who has pledged to review major defense programs.
A budget-driven rethinking of security policy by Washington and its allies could be a blessing in disguise, some observers argue, prompting a return to reliance on traditional tools such as international cooperation and on-the-beat policing.
David Kilcullen, a military adviser to Western governments, said: "A bit more fiscal discipline is probably not a bad idea."
"I think there's been a lot of waste."
Satish Nambiar, a former deputy chief of the Indian Army Staff, said the beat constable tradition had been in decline in India "and that's a very major drawback. There's no one better to tell you what's going on than the guy on the ground."
