THINK PIECE 22 01 Security in Times of Uncertainty in Asia: Bringing the State Back in? by Mely Caballero-Anthony Across the world today, we see a growing list of security challenges affecting both state and human security. The threats we are seeing span a wide range of security issues from the conventional inter and intra-state conflicts brought on by territorial and maritime disputes, arms race and nuclear proliferation, to a host of non-traditional security challenges. The latter type of security threats is significantly challenging given their scale, complexity and transnational impact that defy state borders and controls. These kinds of threats include ­cybersecurity, new faces of terrorism and radical extremism, highly pathogenic pandemics, and severe weather events brought on by global warming. With all these new types of security challenges also remain many intractable intra-state conflicts stemming from ethnic tensions and societal fault lines, exacerbated by severe economic conditions and grave environmental degradation leading to extreme poverty, famine, strife and forced migration. The list of security threats from the local to the international level can be overwhelming, leading to concerns about prospects for global peace and security. Against this rapidly changing security environment, we observe two opposing trends. On one hand, the ability and capacity of states as security provider(s) have been severely challenged given the new security realities in the twenty first century. This has led to the emer­gence of other actors that engage in functions that were considered the domain of states, i.e. security provision and the monopoly of the legitimate use of force. Seen from the perspective of security gover­nance, we now see multiple sites of authorities. The consequence of such development is a fragmented, often chaotic security environ­ment where numerous actors engage in the business of providing security and violent activities, which endangers more people than it protects.