Conflict Security is an academic and policy concept within International Relations and Conflict Studies, not a specific Indian Act or provision. It involves the analysis of the causes, dynamics, and effects of disputes, clashes, and wars, extending beyond purely military considerations to include mediation and relationships. The concept gained prominence due to the growing complexity of threats to global peace and the difficulty of protecting civilians in armed conflicts. A closely related concept, Human Security, was formally introduced in the 1994 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), shifting the focus from the security of states to the security of individuals.
The mechanism of Conflict Security operates at three levels in the Indian context. At the global level, India demonstrates strong support for the United Nations and is a major contributor to UN peacekeeping missions. India's approach to protecting civilians in armed conflicts is based on International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the principle of sovereign equality, asserting that the trigger for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) should be mass atrocities. Regionally, India's strategy is dominated by traditional security concerns, focusing on deterrence and military power-projection, particularly concerning Pakistan and China.
Domestically, the concept connects to India's management of internal conflicts, such as the Naxalite movement, which began with a peasant uprising in Naxalbari, West Bengal, in 1967. A key recent change is the revocation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, which altered the region's special status. The overarching lesson from these internal conflicts is that lasting peace requires addressing the political and socio-economic roots of the conflict, not just military counter-insurgency. The concept is also linked to the Security Dilemma, where a state's attempt to increase its own security inadvertently decreases the security of others.