By now you will have asked yourself: doesn’t security depend on internal peace and order? How can a society be secure if there is violence or the threat of violence inside its borders? And how can it prepare to face violence from outside its borders if it is not secure inside its borders? Traditional security must also, therefore, concern itself with internal security.

What was the security challenge faced by the newly-independent countries of Asia and Africa internally?

Internally, the new states worried about threats from separatist movements which wanted to form independent countries.

The security challenges facing the newly-independent countries of Asia and Africa were different from the challenges in Europe in two ways. For one thing, the new countries faced the prospect of military conflict with neighbouring countries. For another, they had to worry about internal military conflict. These countries faced threats not only from outside their borders, mostly from neighbours, but also from within. Many newly- independent countries came to fear their neighbours even more than they feared the US or Soviet Union or the former colonial powers. They quarrelled over borders and territories or control of people and populations or all of these simultaneously.
Internally, the new states worried about threats from separatist movements which wanted to form independent countries. Sometimes, the external and internal threats merged. A neighbour might help or instigate an internal separatist movement leading to tensions between the two neighbouring countries.