Security Without Trust Is Not Security

Edited Painted View of Mecca ca. 1301 AH-1883–4 CE, CCbySA3.0 via Khalili Collection Hajj and Arts of Pilgrimage mss 1169.jpg, via WikiMediaCommons.

AI Summary

Why does “security” fail to secure safety?

Modern security signifies a state of reassurance understood as the absence of anxiety; yet the dimension of trust underlying it has not been sufficiently examined. This essay attempts to reconceptualize safety as a relationship of trust toward others, drawing on the Arabic term amn (safety/trust) and the vocabulary of the Qur’an.

How does security driven by interests hollow out trust? And might safety be reconstructed not at the level of the state, but through the practice of faith by each individual?

Can Security Protect Our Lives?

It has already been one and a half months since the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively blockaded. The government attempts to simulate normalcy by releasing reserves and allocating subsidies; yet even if retail gasoline prices are kept within a certain range, “reassurance” cannot thereby be secured.

For instance, diesel stored in the internal tanks of buses and trucks is already said to have no clear prospect of supply [1].

The minimum requirements of national security are sovereignty, territory, and the people. Beyond this, they include the life and livelihood of each individual citizen, reason and education, posterity, and property [2]. However, in order to protect these, even if a state does not arm itself with nuclear weapons but instead relies on the nuclear umbrella as an ally, such forms of military national defense alone are in fact wholly insufficient.

For a state to establish security, it is necessary that energy, economy, and food security be developed comprehensively and simultaneously.

Is Military Force the Final Piece of Security?

Let us consider the two administrations leading the war with Iran: the Trump administration and the Netanyahu administration. We may begin by examining the energy self-sufficiency rates of their respective countries [3].

The United States stands at 133%, while Israel is at 59% (with natural gas at 44% and renewable energy at 15% being fully self-sufficient, and imported crude oil accounting for 18%).

Israel’s sources of crude oil are non-Arab countries. In this sense, its strained relations with Arab states have, paradoxically, hardened and strengthened Israel.

Japan, by contrast, has an energy self-sufficiency rate of 12.6%, with dependence on fossil fuels at 83.5%, and dependence on the Middle East reaching 94.1% [4].

As for food self-sufficiency, the United States exceeds 130%, while Israel surpasses 90%. Israel is also known as a leading country in cultivated meat technologies [5]. Japan, on the other hand, has a calorie-based self-sufficiency rate of 38%, the lowest among major developed nations.

If we consider the components of security as military, energy, and food, then the United States and Israel have already secured, to a considerable extent, energy and food security. Thus, “military security” becomes the final piece; and precisely for this reason, one might say that they are able to hasten toward securing safety through overwhelming military superiority.

The Path toward Isolationism

However, when a country like Japan — deeply embedded in interdependence in terms of energy, food, and resources — attempts to imitate this model, a different kind of danger arises.

Despite relying on the Middle East for 90% of its energy, Japan fails to cultivate the relational networks of what may be called a “sea of relations” [6]. While depending almost entirely on imports from China for rare earths and to a significant extent for agricultural products, careless political remarks threaten the security of diplomacy, the economy, and civilian exchange.

Yet at the same time, the government seeks to prioritize military security alone. Even though the current situation cannot withstand even a moment of economic isolation, it aligns itself with and draws closer to countries pursuing isolationist paths.

In principle, Japan is a country that renounces war, never resorts to military force as a means of conflict resolution, and seeks to establish an honorable position in the international community through the cultivation of trust — thereby realizing security. Such should be the orientation of a state under the Japanese Constitution. Yet, as far as can be observed, it appears to be advancing toward a kind of self-congratulatory, “model-student” isolationism.

What Is “Security”?

In fact, one underlying cause of the runaway tendency toward isolationism in discussions of security lies within the very word security itself.

sē- (without, away from) + cūra (care, concern) = sēcūra (a state free from worry)

Historically, the word evolved from the Latin sēcūra / sēcurus through French and into English. Its essential meaning was not merely “being protected,” but rather a state of reassurance in which one need not worry about theft or danger [7].

Thus, security may be paraphrased as “a state free from anxiety.” Yet how such a state is to be attained cannot be discerned from its etymology.

By contrast, the Arabic term for security, amn, does not simply mean the absence of worry.

Security in Arabic

The word amn (أمن) signifies both “safety” and “trust.” To say, “I performed amn,” is to say that one has given others a sense of safety and reassurance.

Safety is defined as the opposite of fear, and trust as the opposite of betrayal. Since “safety” and “trust” are thus synonymous, the state indicated linguistically by Arabic as “security” is one that is free from both fear and betrayal [8].

Accordingly, a “state free from worry” that is founded upon instilling fear in others or upon betraying them cannot, in Arabic terms, be considered a state in which safety is secured.

Therefore, if a person who cannot trust others seeks to realize such a “worry-free state,” the only option remaining is to treat others as enemies and eliminate them altogether. Israel’s persistent attacks on Iran suggest, at their root, a logic in which, within a structure that cannot trust others, “reassurance” can only be secured through the exclusion of others.

Between Submission and Faith

At the same time, even within the Arabian Peninsula — where Mecca was once praised as a land of peace [9], and where security based on trust should function more than anywhere else — we can glimpse a reality in which the “interest” of maintaining monarchical regimes dissolves and transforms the core of trust within security.

According to the Qur’an, when the desert Arabs are asked, “Have you believed?”, they respond, “We have believed.” Yet since they say this merely for the sake of self-preservation, they are more appropriately described as submitters or followers [10].

Turning to the present, are not those who bear responsibility for security acting not out of belief in Allah, Muhammad, and the Last Day, but rather — prior even to belief — under the whisper and grip of “interest”? Do they not submit unconditionally to what is presented as divine command, while in fact treating “the rule of profit” and “the rule of human power” as that which ought to be believed?

What Is Disbelief?

A related term to amn is “faith” (īmān). Therefore, in considering security, it becomes essential to discern what one believes — or what one is in fact believing.

The opposite of faith is disbelief. While unbelievers are often collectively subjected even to words of condemnation, the self-reflection of believers themselves is strikingly lacking. Acts of submission as Muslims have come to function as if they were proof of being believers.

Under such conditions, it is no surprise that security becomes hollow.

Yet this examination is not particularly difficult. One must ask: are one’s prayers performed merely as obligation or habit? More broadly, are one’s choices of action being replaced by an orientation toward “interest,” whether for the sake of those in power or for oneself?

Disbelief is a state in which the object of belief has been usurped by “interest.” It is from confronting one’s own disbelief, and from recovering faith as a believer, that the reconstruction of security begins.

Without Fear, Without Hesitation

If a president can utter threats such as “reducing a country to the Stone Age,” then perhaps violations of international law and war crimes may come to seem inevitable. However, to continue to follow such a power as an ally without offering any evaluation whatsoever is undeniably a state of disbelief in which one has lost sight of what one truly believes.

Moreover, whether in exchange rates, crude oil futures, or cryptocurrencies, the greater the fluctuation, the greater the profit for those who benefit. The wealth of the affluent expands without limit. The anxieties, distrust, and instability of markets and societies are directly converted into enormous profit. This is another dimension of security driven by “interest.”

Even so, will we still entrust security to the state? Can this truly be called security?

Fortunately, the believer knows of a presence to which one can appeal directly. A receptacle for words and actions that provide others with safety and reassurance.

Is it not, perhaps, to trust someone — without succumbing to fear, without fearing betrayal, and by setting aside “interest”?

The World Is Made of Connections

Strengthening national defense toward other countries without being grounded in trust merely generates an irreversible path toward isolationism and carries the risk of rapidly losing trust.

Security is not limited to energy and food. The global interdependence of fields such as naphtha — used even in medical equipment — as well as grains, feed, and fertilizers, is even higher. That people in Japan have been able to live relatively stable lives despite a calorie-based self-sufficiency rate of 38% is precisely because connections with the rest of the world have been maintained.

The benefits of smartphones and the internet are likewise made possible by the stable circulation of rare earth resources.

The agents of security are not masses placed within relations of domination and submission. Rather, they are each individual human being — equal, singular lives — connected through relationships of trust as believing subjects.

It is not too late. Let us repent, seek forgiveness, and attempt — even in the smallest ways — to act so as to provide others with safety and reassurance.

Security is not a matter of the state. It is a matter of the practice of faith by each individual — of whether one can offer safety to another.

Allah knows best.

Footnotes

[1] “Japan’s Response Required amid the Continuing Energy Crisis,” Hōdō Tokushū (News Special), TBS Television, April 4, 2026.

[2] From the five essential necessities (al-ḍarūriyyāt al-khams) in Islamic law. See my previous article, “The Network of the Strait of Hormuz: Japan’s Security in the Indian Ocean Region.”

[3] “Energy Situations of Various Countries in Data,” Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Japan.

[4] “Is It True That Japan’s Energy Self-Sufficiency Rate Is Only About 10%?” Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, METI, Japan.

[5] Taro Shōji, “Gas Fields Supporting Israel’s Military Actions; Imported Oil and Gas Supporting China’s Demand,” The Economist Online, May 7, 2025.

[6] On the concept of the “Sea of Relations,” see my previous article, “The Network of the Strait of Hormuz: Japan’s Security in the Indian Ocean Region.”

[7] On the etymology of “security,” see “Security: Spelling, Meaning, and Etymology of the English Word.”

[8] Lisān al-ʿArab, entry on “amina (أمن).”

[9] See my article, “Peace upon ‘This City’: On the Title and Verses 1–2 of Sūrat al-Balad in the Qur’an.”

[10] See the Qur’an, Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt (49:14).

Special Thanks to: ChatGPT

Title Image:

Edited Painted View of Mecca ca. 1301 AH-1883–4 CE, CCbySA3.0 via Khalili Collection Hajj and Arts of Pilgrimage mss 1169.jpg, via WikiMediaCommons.

Acknowledgements

This English version was prepared with the support of ChatGPT. The author gratefully acknowledges its assistance in translation and linguistic clarification.

Original version in Japanese:

安全はなぜ保障されないのかーーアラビア語によるセキュリティー再考