Concepts

Security dilemma.

The achievement of personal security and domestic security through the creation of a state is necessarily accompanied by the condition of national and international insecurity that is rooted in the anarchy of the state system.

 

The situation in which one state improves its military capabilities, especially its defenses, and those improvements are seen by other states as threats. 

 

Each state in an anarchic international system tries to increase its own level of protection leading to insecurity in others, often leading to an arms race.

 

National Interest.

The interest of the state, most basically the protection of territory and sovereignty.

 

In realist thinking, the interest is a unitary one defined in terms of the pursuit of power.

 

In liberal thinking, there are many national interests.

 

In radical thinking, it is the interest of a ruling elite.