National Security and International Relations

The quest for national security has become obsessive in a century which has experienced two World Wars and an unprecedented revolution in the cost and destructive potential of weaponry. But what constitutes security and how can it be achieved? This book gives an analysis of the criteria of decision-making in an area of risk and uncertainty. It explores the notion, expressed by Ramsey MacDonald, that "the problem of security is mainly psychological", arguing that a state's search for security has become more than its duty to protect the national territorial base and the lives and prosperity of its people. It is now part of a "politic of fear" and a key determinant of international relations. In its analysis of the major factors determining the peace-time priority afforded to security, this book is an important contribution to the development of a framework for understanding modern security issues. Its account of the gradual shift from the competitive model of security to the co-operative model, in which it seems that security can be shared, is particularly interesting in the light of the recent re-definition of East-West security relations and new Soviet thinking on security.