"National Security" as an Ambiguous Symbol
Author(s): Arnold Wolfers
Source: Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Dec., 1952), pp. 481-502
Published by: The Academy of Political Science
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2145138
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Volume LXVII December 1952 Number 4
POLITICAL SCIENCE
QUARTERLY
NATIONAL SECURITY " AS AN AMBIGUOUS
SYMBOL
TATESMEN, publicists and scholars who wish to be con
S sidered realists, as many do today, are inclined to insist
that the foreign policy they advocate is dictated by the
national interest, more specifically by the national security interest.
It is not surprising that this should be so. Today any
reference to the pursuit of security is likely to ring a sympathetic
chord.
However, when political formulas such as " national interest
" or " national security " gain popularity they need to be
scrutinized with particular care. They may not mean the same
thing to different people. They may not have any precise
meaning at all. Thus, while appearing to offer guidance and a
basis for broad consensus they may be permitting everyone to
label whatever policy he favors with an attractive and possibly
deceptive name.
In a very vague and general way " national interest" does
suggest a direction of policy which can be distinguished from
several others which may present themselves as alternatives. It
indicates that the policy is designed to promote demands which
are ascribed to the nation rather than to individuals, sub-national
groups or mankind as a whole. It emphasizes that the policy
subordinates other interests to those of the nation. But beyond
this, it has very little meaning.
When Charles Beard's study of The Idea of National Interest
was published in the early years of the New Deal and under the
[481]
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482 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXVII
impact of the Great Depression, the lines were drawn differently
than they are today. The question at that time was
whether American foreign policy, then largely economic in
scope and motivation, was aimed not at promoting the welfare
interests of the nation as a whole but instead at satisfying the
material interests of powerful sub-national interest or pressure
groups. While it was found hard to define what was in the interest
of national welfare or to discover standards by which to
measure it, there could be no doubt as to what people had in
mind: they desired to see national policy makers rise above the
narrow and special economic interests of parts of the nation to
focus their attention on the more inclusive interests of the whole.
Today, the alternative to a policy of the national interest to
which people refer is of a different character. They fear policy
makers may be unduly concerned with the " interests of all of
mankind ". They see them sacrificing the less inclusive national
community to the wider but in their opinion chimeric
world community. The issue, then, is not one of transcending
narrow group selfishness, as it was at the time of Beard's discussion,
but rather one of according more exclusive devotion to the
narrower cause of the national self.
There is another difference between the current and the
earlier debate. While it would be wrong to say that the economic
interest has ceased to attract attention, it is overshadowed
today by the national security interest. Even in the recent debates
on the St. Lawrence Seaway, clearly in the first instance an
economic enterprise, the defenders of the project, when seeking
to impress their listeners with the " national interest " involved,
spoke mainly of the value of the Seaway for military defense in
wartime while some opponents stressed its vulnerability to at-
tack.
The change from a welfare to a security interpretation of the
symbol " national interest" is understandable. Today we are
living under the impact of cold war and threats of external aggression
rather than of depression and social reform. As a result,
the formula of the national interest has come to be practically
synonymous with the formula of national security.
Unless explicitly denied, spokesmen for a policy which would
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No. 4] NATIONAL SECURITY 483
take the national interest as
that priority shall be given t
analyzed.' The question is rais
ingly more precise formula o
men a meaningful guide for action. Can they be expected to
know what it means? Can policies be distinguished and judged
on the ground that they do or do not serve this interest?
The term national security, like national interest, is well
enough established in the political discourse of international relations
to designate an objective of policy distinguishable from
others. We know roughly what people have in mind if they
complain that their government is neglecting national security
or demanding excessive sacrifices for the sake of enhancing it.
Usually those who raise the cry for a policy oriented exclusively
toward this interest are afraid their country underestimates the
external dangers facing it or is being diverted into idealistic
channels unmindful of these dangers. Moreover, the symbol
suggests protection through power and therefore figures more
frequently in the speech of those who believe in reliance on national
power than of those who place their confidence in model
behavior, international cooperation, or the United Nations to
carry their country safely through the tempests of international
conflict. For these reasons it would be an exaggeration to claim
that the symbol of national security is nothing but a stimulus
to semantic confusion, though closer analysis will show that if
used without specifications it leaves room for more confusion
than sound political counsel or scientific usage can afford.
The demand for a policy of national security is primarily
normative in character. It is supposed to indicate what the
1 Hans Morgenthau's In Defense of the National Interest (New York, 1951) is
the most explicit and impassioned recent plea for an American foreign policy which
shall follow " but one guiding star-the National Interest ". While Morgenthau is
not equally explicit in regard to the meaning he attaches to the symbol " national
interest ", it becomes clear in the few pages devoted to an exposition of this " perennial"
interest that the author is thinking in terms of the national security interest,
and specifically of security based on power. The United States, he says, is interested
in three things: a unique position as a predominant Power without rival in
the Western Hemisphere and the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe
as well as in Asia, demands which make sense only in the context of a quest for
security through power.
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484 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXVII
policy of a nation should be in order to be either expedient-a
rational means toward an accepted end-or moral, the best or
least evil course of action. The value judgments implicit in
these normative exhortations will be discussed.
Before doing so, attention should be drawn to an assertion of
fact which is implicit if not explicit in most appeals for a policy
guided by national security. Such appeals usually assume that
nations in fact have made security their goal except when idealism
or utopianism of their leaders has led them to stray from the
traditional path. If such conformity of behavior actually existed,
it would be proper to infer that a country deviating from
the established pattern of conduct would risk being penalized.
This would greatly strengthen the normative arguments. The
trouble with the contention of fact, however, is that the term
" security " covers a range of goals so wide that highly divergent
policies can be interpreted as policies of security.
Security points to some degree of protection of values previously
acquired. In Walter Lippmann's words, a nation is secure
to the extent to which it is not in danger of having to sacrifice
core values, if it wishes to avoid war, and is able, if challenged,
to maintain them by victory in such a war.2 What this definition
implies is that security rises and falls with the ability of a
nation to deter an attack, or to defeat it. This is in accord with
common usage of the term.
Security is a value, then, of which a nation can have more or
less and which it can aspire to have in greater or lesser measure.3
It has much in common, in this respect, with power or wealth,
two other values of great importance in international affairs.
But while wealth measures the amount of a nation's material
2 Walter Lippmann, U. S. Foreign Policy (Boston, 1943), p. 51.
3 This explains why some nations which would seem to fall into the category of
status quo Powers par excellence may nevertheless be dissatisfied and act very much
like " imperialist " Powers, as Morgenthau calls nations with acquisitive goals. They
are dissatisfied with the degree of security which they enjoy under the status quo
and are out to enhance it. France's occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 illustrates this
type of behavior. Because the demand for more security may induce a status quo
Power even to resort to the use of violence as a means of attaining more security,
there is reason to beware of the easy and often self-righteous assumption that nations
which desire to preserve the status quo are necessarily " peace-loving ".
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No. 47 NATIONAL SECURITY 485
possessions, and power its ability to control the actions of others,
security, in an objective sense, measures the absence of threats
to acquired values, in a subjective sense, the absence of fear that
such values will be attacked. In both respects a nation's security
can run a wide gamut from almost complete insecurity
or sense of insecurity at one pole, to almost complete security or
absence of fear at the other.4
The possible discrepancy between the objective and subjective
connotation of the term is significant in international relations
despite the fact that the chance of future attack never can be
measured "objectively "; it must always remain a matter of
subjective evaluation and speculation. However, when the
French after World War I insisted that they were entitled to
additional guarantees of security because of the exceptionally
dangerous situation which France was said to be facing, other
Powers in the League expressed the view that rather than to
submit to what might be French hysterical apprehension the
relative security of France should be objectively evaluated. It
is a well-known fact that nations, and groups within nations,
differ widely in their reaction to one and the same external situation.
Some tend to exaggerate the danger while others underestimate
it. 'With hindsight it is sometimes possible to tell exactly
how far they deviated from a rational reaction to the
actual or objective state of danger existing at the time. Even if
for no other reasons, this difference in the reaction to similar
threats suffices to make it probable that nations will differ in
their efforts to obtain more security. Some may find the danger
to which they are exposed entirely normal and in line with their
4Security and power would be synonymous terms if security could be attained
only through the accumulation of power, which will be shown not to be the case.
The fear of attack-security in the subjective sense-is also not proportionate to the
relative power position of a nation. Why, otherwise, would some weak and exposed
nations consider themselves more secure today than does the United States?
Harold D. Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan, Power and Society (New Haven, 1950),
defining security as "high value expectancy " stress the subjective and speculative
character of security by using the term " expectancy " ; the use of the term " high ",
while indicating no definite level, would seem to imply that the security-seeker aims
at a position in which the events he expects-here the continued unmolested enjoyment
of his possessions-have considerably more than an even chance of ma-
terializing.
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486 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXVII
modest security expectations while others consider it unbearable
to live with these same dangers. Although this is not the place
to set up hypotheses on the factors which account for one or
the other attitude, investigation might confirm the hunch that
those nations tend to be most sensitive to threats which have
either experienced attacks in the recent past or, having passed
through a prolonged period of an exceptionally high degree of
security, suddenly find themselves thrust into a situation of
danger.5 Probably national efforts to achieve greater security
would also prove, in part at least, to be a function of the power
and opportunity which nations possess of reducing danger by
their own efforts.6
Another and even stronger reason why nations must be expected
not to act uniformly is that they are not all or constantly
faced with the same degree of danger. For purposes of a working
hypothesis, theorists may find it useful at times to postulate
conditions wherein all states are enemies-provided they
are not allied against others-and wherein all, therefore, are
5 The United States offers a good illustration and may be typical in this respect.
For a long time this country was beyond the reach of any enemy attack that could
be considered probable. During that period, then, it could afford to dismiss any
serious preoccupation with security. Events proved that it was no worse off for
having done so. However, after this happy condition had ceased to exist, government
and people alike showed a lag in their awareness of the change. When
Nicholas J. Spykman raised his voice in the years before World War II to advocate
a broader security outlook than was indicated by the symbol "Western Hemisphere
Defense" and a greater appreciation of the role of defensive military power, he was
dealing with this lag and with the dangers implied in it. If Hans Morgenthau and
others raise their warning voices today, seemingly treading in Spykman's footsteps,
they are addressing a nation which after a new relapse into wishful thinking in 1945
has been radically disillusioned and may now be swinging toward excessive security
apprehensions.
6 Terms such as " degree " or " level " of security are not intended to indicate
merely quantitative differences. Nations may also differ in respect to the breadth
of their security perspective as when American leaders at Yalta were so preoccupied
with security against the then enemy countries of the United States that they failed
or refused to consider future American security vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. The
differences may apply, instead, to the time range for which security is sought as
when the British at Versailles were ready to offer France short-run security guarantees
while the French with more foresight insisted that the "German danger"
would not become acute for some ten years.
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No. 4] NATIONAL SECURITY 487
equally in danger of attack.7 But, while it may be true in
the living world, too, that no sovereign nation can be absolutely
safe from future attack, nobody can reasonably contend that
Canada, for example, is threatened today to the same extent as
countries like Iran or Yugoslavia, or that the British had as
much reason to be concerned about the French air force in the
twenties as about Hitler's Luftwaffe in the thirties.
This point, however, should not be overstressed. There can
be no quarrel with the generalization that most nations, most of
the time-the great Powers particularly-have shown, and had
reason to show, an active concern about some lack of security
and have been prepared to make sacrifices for its enhancement.
Danger and the awareness of it have been, and continue to be,
sufficiently widespread to guarantee some uniformity in this respect.
But a generalization which leaves room both for the
frantic kind of struggle for more security which characterized
French policy at times and for the neglect of security apparent
in American foreign policy after the close of both World Wars
throws little light on the behavior of nations. The demand for
conformity would have meaning only if it could be said-as it
could under the conditions postulated in the working hypothesis
of pure power politics-that nations normally subordinate all
other values to the maximization of their security, which, however,
is obviously not the case.
There have been many instances of struggles for more security
taking the form of an unrestrained race for armaments,
alliances, strategic boundaries and the like; but one need only
recall the many heated parliamentary debates on arms appropriations
to realize how uncertain has been the extent to which
people will consent to sacrifice for additional increments of security.
Even when there has been no question that armaments
would mean more security, the cost in taxes, the reduction in
social benefits or the sheer discomfort involved has militated
effectively against further effort. It may be worth noting in
7 For a discussion of this working hypothesis-as part of the " pure power "
hypothesis-see my article on " The Pole of Power and the Pole of Indifference " in
World Politics, vol. IV, No. 1, October 1951.
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488 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXVII
this connection that there seems to be no case in history in
which a country started a preventive war on the grounds of security-unless
Hitler's wanton attack on his neighbors be allowed
to qualify as such-although there must have been circumstances
where additional security could have been obtained
by war and although so many wars have been launched for the
enhancement of other values. Of course, where security serves
only as a cloak for other more enticing demands, nations or
ambitious leaders may consider no price for it too high. This is
one of the reasons why very high security aspirations tend to
make a nation suspect of hiding more aggressive aims.
Instead of expecting a uniform drive for enhanced or maximum
security, a different hypothesis may offer a more promising
lead. Efforts for security are bound to be experienced as a
burden; security after all is nothing but the absence of the evil
of insecurity, a negative value so to speak. As a consequence,
nations will be inclined to minimize these efforts, keeping them
at the lowest level which will provide them with what they
consider adequate protection. This level will often be lower
than what statesmen, military leaders or other particularly security-minded
participants in the decision-making process believe
it should be. In any case, together with the extent of the
external threats, numerous domestic factors such as national
character, tradition, preferences and prejudices will influence
the level of security which a nation chooses to make its target.
It might be objected that in the long run nations are not so
free to choose the amount of effort they will put into security.
Are they not under a kind of compulsion to spare no effort provided
they wish to survive? This objection again would make
sense only if the hypothesis of pure power politics were a realistic
image of actual world affairs. In fact, however, a glance
at history will suffice to show that survival has only exceptionally
been at stake, particularly for the major Powers. If
nations were not concerned with the protection of values other
than their survival as independent states, most of them, most of
the time, would not have had to be seriously worried about their
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No. 4] NATIONAL SECURITY 489
security, despite what manip
in mustering greater securit
trary. What " compulsion " there is, then, is a function not
merely of the will of others, real or imagined, to destroy the nation's
independence but of national desires and ambitions to retain
a wealth of other values such as rank, respect, material possessions
and special privileges. It would seem to be a fair guess
that the efforts for security by a particular nation will tend to
vary, other things being equal, with the range of values for
which protection is being sought.
In respect to this range there may seem to exist a considerable
degree of uniformity. All over the world today peoples are
making sacrifices to protect and preserve what to them appear
as the minimum national core values, national independence and
territorial integrity. But there is deviation in two directions.
Some nations seek protection for more marginal values as well.
There was a time when United States policy could afford to be
concerned mainly with the protection of the foreign investments
or markets of its nationals, its " core values " being out
of danger, or when Britain was extending its national self to
include large and only vaguely circumscribed " regions of special
interest". It is a well-known and portentous phenomenon
that bases, security zones and the like may be demanded and acquired
for the purpose of protecting values acquired earlier; and
they then become new national values requiring protection
themselves. Pushed to its logical conclusion, such spatial extension
of the range of values does not stop short of world domi-
nation.
A deviation in the opposite direction of a compression of the
range of core values is hardly exceptional in our days either.
There is little indication that Britain is bolstering the security of
Hong Kong although colonies were once considered part of the
national territory. The Czechs lifted no finger to protect their
independence against the Soviet Union and many West Europeans
are arguing today that rearmament has become too destructive
of values they cherish to be justified even when national
independence is obviously at stake.
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490 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXVH
The lack of uniformity does not end here. A policy is not
characterized by its goal, in this case security, alone. In order
to become imitable, the means by which the goal is pursued
must be taken into account as well. Thus, if two nations were
both endeavoring to maximize their security but one were placing
all its reliance on armaments and alliances, the other on
meticulous neutrality, a policy maker seeking to emulate their
behavior would be at a loss where to turn. Those who call for
a policy guided by national security are not likely to be unaware
of this fact, but they take for granted that they will be understood
to mean a security policy based on power, and on military
power at that. Were it not so, they would be hard put to prove
that their government was not already doing its best for security,
though it was seeking to enhance it by such means as
international codperation or by the negotiation of compromise
agreements-means which in one instance may be totally ineffective
or utopian but which in others may have considerable
protective value.
It is understandable why it should so readily be assumed that
a quest for security must necessarily translate itself into a quest
for coercive power. In view of the fact that security is being
sought against external violence-coupled perhaps with internal
subversive violence-it seems plausible at first sight that the
response should consist in an accumulation of the same kind of
force for the purpose of resisting an attack or of deterring a
would-be attacker. The most casual reading of history and of
contemporary experience, moreover, suffices to confirm the view
that such resort to " power of resistance " has been the rule with
nations grappling with serious threats to their security, however
much the specific form of this power and its extent may differ.
Why otherwise would so many nations which have no acquisitive
designs maintain costly armaments? Why did Denmark
with her state of complete disarmament remain an exception
even among the small Powers?
But again, the generalization that nations seeking security
usually place great reliance on coercive power does not carry
one far. The issue is not whether there is regularly some such
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No. 4] NATIONAL SECURITY 491
reliance but whether there a
nations concerning their over-all choice of the means upon
which they place their trust. The controversies concerning the
best road to future security that are so typical of coalition partners
at the close of victorious wars throw light on this question.
France in 1919 and all the Allies in 1945 believed that protection
against another German attack could be gained only by
means of continued military superiority based on German military
impotence. President Wilson in 1919 and many observers
in 1945 were equally convinced, however, that more hope for
security lay in a conciliatory and fair treatment of the defeated
enemy, which would rob him of future incentives to renew his
attack. While this is not the place to decide which side was
right, one cannot help drawing the conclusion that, in the
matter of means, the roads which are open may lead in diametrically
opposed directions.8 The choice in every instance will
depend on a multitude of variables, including ideological and
moral convictions, expectations concerning the psychological
and political developments in the camp of the opponent, and
inclinations of individual policy makers.9
After all that has been said little is left of the sweeping generalization
that in actual practice nations, guided by their national
security interest, tend to pursue a uniform and there-
8 Myres S. McDougal (" Law and Peace " in the American Journal of International
Law, vol. 46, No. 1, January 1952, pp. 102 et seq.) rightly criticizes Hans Morgenthau
(and George Kennan for what Kennan himself wrongly believes to be his own
point of view in the matter; see fn. 15 infra) for his failure to appreciate the role
which non-power methods, such as legal procedures and moral appeals, may at times
successfully play in the pursuit of security. But it is surprising how little aware
McDougal appears to be of the disappointing modesty of the contributions which
these "other means " have actually made to the enhancement of security and the
quite insignificant contributions they have made to the promotion of changes of the
status quo. This latter failure signifies that they have been unable to remove the
main causes of the attacks which security-minded peoples rightly fear.
9 On the problem of security policy (Sicherheitspolitik) with special reference to
collective security " see the comprehensive and illuminating study of Heinrich
Rogge, " Kollektivsicherheit Buendnispolitik Voelkerbund ", Theorie der nationalen
und internationalen Sicherheit (Berlin, 1937), which deserves attention despite the
fact that it was written and published in Nazi Germany and bears a distinctly "revisionist
" slant.
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492 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXVII
fore imitable policy of security. Instead, there are numerous
reasons why they should differ widely in this respect, with some
standing close to the pole of complete indifference to security or
complete reliance on nonmilitary means, others close to the pole
of insistence on absolute security or of complete reliance on
coercive power. It should be added that there exists still another
category of nations which cannot be placed within the
continuum connecting these poles because they regard security
of any degree as an insufficient goal; instead they seek to acquire
new values even at the price of greater insecurity. In this category
must be placed not only the " mad Caesars ", who are out
for conquest and glory at any price, but also idealistic statesmen
who would plunge their country into war for the sake of
spreading the benefits of their ideology, for example, of liberating
enslaved peoples.
The actual behavior of nations, past and present, does not affect
the normative proposition, to which we shall now turn our
attention. According to this proposition nations are called
upon to give priority to national security and thus to consent to
any sacrifice of value which will provide an additional increment
of security. It may be expedient, moral or both for nations
to do so even if they should have failed to heed such advice
in the past and for the most part are not living up to it
today.
The first question, then, is whether some definable security
policy can be said to be generally expedient. Because the choice
of goals is not a matter of expediency, it would seem to make
no sense to ask whether it is expedient for nations to be concerned
with the goal of security itself; only the means used to
this end, so it would seem, can be judged as to their fitnesstheir
instrumental rationality-to promote security. Yet, this
is not so. Security, like other aims, may be an intermediate
rather than an ultimate goal, in which case it can be judged as a
means to these more ultimate ends.
Traditionally, the protection and preservation of national
core values have been considered ends in themselves, at least by
those who followed in the footsteps of Machiavelli or, for other
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No. 4] NATIONAL SECURITY 493
reasons of political philosophy, placed the prince, state or nation
at the pinnacle of their hierarchy of values. Those who do so
today will be shocked at the mere suggestion that national security
should have to be justified in terms of higher values
which it is expected to serve. But there is a large and perhaps
growing current of opinion-as a matter of fact influential in
this country for a long time-which adheres to this idea. We
condemn Nazis and Communists for defending their own totalitarian
countries instead of helping to free their people from
tyranny; we enlist support for armaments, here and in Allied
countries, not so much on the grounds that they will protect
national security but that by enhancing such security they will
serve to protect ultimate human values like individual liberty.
Again, opposition in Europe and Asia to military security measures
is based in part on the contention that it would help little
to make national core values secure, if in the process the liberties
and the social welfare of the people had to be sacrificed; the
prevention of Russian conquest, some insist, is useless, if in the
course of a war of defense a large part of the people were to be
exterminated and most cities destroyed.'0
While excellent arguments can be made to support the thesis
that the preservation of the national independence of this country
is worth almost any price as long as no alternative community
is available which could assure the same degree of order,
justice, peace or individual liberty, it becomes necessary to provide
such arguments whenever national security as a value in
itself is being questioned. The answer cannot be taken for
granted.
But turning away now from the expediency of security as an
intermediate goal we must ask whether, aside from any moral
considerations which will be discussed later, a specific level of
10 Raymond Dennett goes further in making the generalization that, " if economic
pressures become great enough, almost any government, when put to the final test,
will moderate or abandon a political association " (such as the alliance system of the
United States with its usefulness to national security) " if only an alteration of
policy seems to offer the possibility of maintaining or achieving living standards adequate
enough to permit the regime to survive." "Danger Spots in the Pattern of
American Security ", in World Politics, vol. IV, No. 4, July 1952, p. 449.
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494 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXVII
security and specific means of attaining
erally expedient.
When one sets out to define in terms o
of security to which a nation should aspire, one might be
tempted to assume that the sky is the limit. Is not insecurity
of any kind an evil from which any rational policy maker
would want to rescue his country? Yet, there are obvious reasons
why this is not so.
In the first place, every increment of security must be paid by
additional sacrifices of other values usually of a kind more exacting
than the mere expenditure of precious time on the part
of policy makers. At a certain point, then, by something like
the economic law of diminishing returns, the gain in security
no longer compensates for the added costs of attaining it. As
in the case of economic value comparisons and preferences, there
is frequently disagreement among different layers of policy
makers as to where the line should be drawn. This is true particularly
because absolute security is out of the question unless
a country is capable of world domination, in which case,
however, the insecurities and fears would be "internalized "
and probably magnified. Because nations must " live dangerously
", then, to some extent, whatever they consent to do about
it, a modicum of additional but only relative security may easily
become unattractive to those who have to bear the chief burden.
Nothing renders the task of statesmen in a democracy more difficult
than the reluctance of the people to follow them very
far along the road to high and costly security levels.
In the second place, national security policies when based on
the accumulation of power have a way of defeating themselves
if the target level is set too high. This is due to the fact that
"power of resistance " cannot be unmistakably distinguished
from " power of aggression ". What a country does to bolster
its own security through power can be interpreted by others,
therefore, as a threat to their security. If this occurs, the vicious
circle of what John Herz has described as the " security
dilemma" sets in: the efforts of one side provoke countermeasures
by the other which in turn tend to wipe out the gains of
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No. 4] NATIONAL SECURITY 495
the first. Theoretically there seems to be no escape from this
frustrating consequence; in practice, however, there are ways
to convince those who might feel threatened that the accumulation
of power is not intended and will never be used for attack.11
The chief way is that of keeping the target level within
moderate bounds and of avoiding placing oneself in a position
where it has to be raised suddenly and drastically. The desire
to escape from this vicious circle presupposes a security policy
of much self-restraint and moderation, especially in the choice
of the target level.12 It can never be expedient to pursue a security
policy which by the fact of provocation or incentive to
others fails to increase the nation's relative power position and
capability of resistance.
The question of what means are expedient for the purpose of
enhancing security raises even more thorny problems. Policy
makers must decide how to distribute their reliance on whatever
means are available to them and, particularly, how far to
push the accumulation of coercive power. No attempt can be
made here to decide what the choice should be in order to be
expedient. Obviously, there can be no general answer which
would meet the requirements of every case. The answer depends
on the circumstances. A weak country may have no
better means at its disposal than to prove to stronger neighbors
that its strict neutrality can be trusted. Potentially strong
countries may have a chance to deter an aggressor by creating
" positions of strength ". In some instances they may have no
other way of saving themselves; while in others even they may
find it more expedient to supplement such a policy, if not to
11 Not everyone agrees that this can be done. Jeremy Bentham wrote that
" measures of mere self defense are naturally taken for projects of aggression " with
the result that "each makes haste to begin for fear of being forestalled." Principles
of International Law, Essay IV.
12 The Quakers, in a book on The United States and the Soviet Union: Some
Quaker Proposals for Peace (New Haven, 1949), p. 14, state that "it is highly
questionable whether security can be achieved in the modern world through an attempt
to establish an overwhelming preponderance of military power." This can be
read to mean that a less ambitious military target than overwhelming preponderance
might be a means of achieving security.
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496 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXVII
replace it, by a policy intended to nego
of his aggressive designs.
The reason why " power of resistance " is not the general
panacea which some believe it to be lies in the nature of security
itself. If security, in the objective sense of the term at
least, rises and falls with the presence or absence of aggressive
intentions on the part of others, the attitude and behavior of
those from whom the threat emanates are of prime importance.
Such attitude and behavior need not be beyond the realm of influence
by the country seeking to bolster its security. Whenever
they do not lie beyond this realm the most effective and
least costly security policy consists in inducing the opponent to
give up his aggressive intentions.
While there is no easy way to determine when means can
and should be used which are directed not at resistance but at
the prevention of the desire of others to attack, it will clarify
the issue to sketch the type of hypotheses which would link
specific security policies, as expedient, to some of the most
typical political constellations.
One can think of nations lined up between the two poles of
maximum and minimum " attack propensity ", with those unalterably
committed to attack, provided it promises success, at
one pole and those whom no amount of opportunity for successful
attack could induce to undertake it at the other. While
security in respect to the first group can come exclusively as a
result of " positions of strength " sufficient to deter or defeat
attack, nothing could do more to undermine security in respect
to the second group than to start accumulating power of a kind
which would provoke fear and countermoves.
Unfortunately it can never be known with certainty, in practice,
what position within the continuum one's opponent actually
occupies. Statesmen cannot be blamed, moreover, if caution
and suspicion lead them to assume a closer proximity to the
first pole than hindsight proves to have been justified. We
believe we have ample proof that the Soviet Union today is at
or very close to the first pole, while Canadian policy makers
probably place the United States in its intentions toward Canada
at the second pole.
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No. 4] NATIONAL SECURITY 497
It is fair to assume that, wh
comes a matter of serious co
dealing with potential oppone
where between but much clo
This means, then, that an att
even though the intention to
have crystallized to the poin
If this be true, a security poli
avoid accumulating power of
at that. Efforts have to be
goal of removing the incentiv
way of saying that security p
to occupy a position as close t
capabilities permit.
Such a twofold policy presen
efforts to change the intentio
to the efforts to build up str
any policy of concessions, sy
be underestimated. The paradox of this situation must be
faced, however, if security policy is to be expedient. It implies
that national security policy, except when directed against a
country unalterably committed to attack, is the more rational
the more it succeeds in taking the interests, including the security
interests, of the other side into consideration. Only in doing
so can it hope to minimize the willingness of the other to
resort to violence. Rather than to insist, then, that under all
conditions security be sought by reliance on nothing but defensive
power and be pushed in a spirit of national selfishness
toward the highest targets, it should be stressed that in most instances
efforts to satisfy legitimate demands of others are likely
to promise better results in terms of security."' That is probably
what George Kennan had in mind when he advised policy
makers to use self-restraint in the pursuit of the national interest.
While in the face of a would-be world conqueror who is
beyond the pale of external influence it is dangerous to be di-
13 As A. D. Lindsay puts it, " The search for perfect security . . . defeats its own
ends. Playing for safety is the most dangerous way to live." Introduction to
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, p. xxii.
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498 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXVII
verted from the accumulation of sheer defensive power, any
mistake about his true state of mind or any neglect of opportunities
to influence his designs, where it has a chance of being
successful, violates the rules of expediency. It should always be
kept in mind that the ideal security policy is one which would
lead to a distribution of values so satisfactory to all nations that
the intention to attack and with it the problem of security
would be minimized. While this is a utopian goal, policy
makers and particularly peacemakers would do well to remember
that there are occasions when greater approximation to such
a goal can be effected.
We can now focus our attention on the moral issue, if such
there be.14 Those who advocate a policy devoted to national
security are not always aware of the fact-if they do not explicitly
deny it-that they are passing moral judgment when
they advise a nation to pursue the goal of national security or
when they insist that such means as the accumulation of coercive
power-or its use-should be employed for this purpose.'5
Nations like individuals or other groups may value things not
because they consider them good or less evil than their alternative;
they may value them because they satisfy their pride,
heighten their sense of self-esteem or reduce their fears. However,
no policy, or human act in general, can escape becoming
a subject for moral judgment-whether by the conscience of
the actor himself or by others-which calls for the sacrifice of
other values, as any security policy is bound to do. Here it becomes
a matter of comparing and weighing values in order to
14 On the moral problem in international relations see my article on " Statesmanship
and Moral Choice" in World Politics, vol. I, No. 2, January 1949, pp. 176 et seq.,
especially p. 185. In one of his most recent statements on the subject, Reinhold
Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (New York, 1945), points specifically to
the moral problem involved in security policy-" no imperiled nation ", he writes,
"is morally able to dispense with weapons which might insure its survival" (p. 39).
15 It is not without irony that of the two authors who have recently come out
for a policy of the national interest, the one, George F. Kennan, who calls for a
policy of national self-restraint and humility, usually identified with morality,
should deny " that state behavior is a fit subject for moral judgment " (American
Diplomacy, 1900-1950, Chicago, 1952, p. 100), while the other, Hans Morgenthau
(op. cit.), calling for a policy of unadulterated national egotism, claims to speak in
the name of morality.
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No. 4] NATIONAL SECURITY 499
decide which of them are d
the evil of sacrificing other
try should do more to build up its strength, he is implying,
knowingly or not, that more security is sufficiently desirable to
warrant such evils as the cut in much-needed social welfare
benefits or as the extension of the period of military service.-'
Many vivid examplPs of the moral dilemma are being supplied
by current controversies concerning American security policy.
Is a " deal with fascist Spain " morally justified, provided it
added an increment to our security, though principles valued
highly by some were being sacrificed? Should we engage in subversive
activities and risk the lives of our agents if additional
security can be attained thereby? Should we perhaps go so far
as to start a preventive war, when ready, with the enormous
evils it would carry with it, if we should become convinced that
no adequate security can be obtained except by the defeat of
the Soviet Union? In this last case, would not the exponents of
amoralism have some moral qualms, at least to the point of rationalizing
a decision favoring such a war by claiming that it
would serve to satisfy not primarily an egotistical national demand
for security but an altruistic desire to liberate enslaved
peoples? It is easier to argue for the amorality of politics if one
does not have to bear the responsibility of choice and decision!
Far be it from a political scientist to claim any particular
competence in deciding what efforts for national security are or
are not morally justified. What he can contribute here is to
point to the ambiguities of any general normative demand that
security be bought at whatever price it may cost. He may also
be able to make it more difficult for advisers or executors of
policy to hide from themselves or others the moral value judgments
and preferences which underlie whatever security policy
they choose to recommend or conduct.
The moral issue will be resolved in one of several ways de-
16It would be unrealistic to assume that policy makers divide their attention
strictly between ends and means and only after having chosen a specific target level as
being morally justified decide whether the means by which it can be attained are
morally acceptable. Moral judgment is more likely to be passed on the totality of a
course of action which embraces both the desired end and the means which lead to it.
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500 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. LXVI
pending on the ethical code upon which the decision is based.
From one extreme point of view it is argued that every sacrifice,
especially if imposed on other nations, is justified provided it
contributes in any way to national security. Clearly this implies
a position that places national security at the apex of the value
pyramid and assumes it to constitute an absolute good to which
all other values must be subordinated. Few will be found to
take this position because if they subscribed to a nationalistic
ethics of this extreme type they would probably go beyond security-the
mere preservation of values-and insist that the nation
is justified in conquering whatever it can use as Lebensraum
or otherwise. At the opposite extreme are the absolute pacifists
who consider the use of coercive power an absolute evil and condemn
any security policy, therefore, which places reliance on
such power.
For anyone who does not share these extreme views the moral
issue raised by the quest for national security is anything but
clear-cut and simple. He should have no doubts about the right
of a nation to protect and preserve values to which it has a legitimate
title or even about its moral duty to pursue a policy meant
to serve such preservation. But he cannot consider security the
supreme law as Machiavelli would have the statesman regard the
ragione di stato. Somewhere a line is drawn, which in every
instance he must seek to discover, that divides the realm of neglect,
the " too-little ", from the realm of excess, the " toomuch
". Even Hans Morgenthau who extols the moral duty of
self-preservation seems to take it for granted that naked force
shall be used for security in reaction only to violent attack, not
for preventive war.
Decision makers are faced with the moral problem, then, of
choosing first the values which deserve protection, with national
independence ranking high not merely for its own sake but for
the guarantee it may offer to values like liberty, justice and
peace. He must further decide which level of security to make
his target. This will frequently be his most difficult moral task
though terms such as adequacy or fair share indicate the kind of
standards that may guide him. Finally, he must choose the
means and thus by scrupulous computation of values compare
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No. 4] NATIONAL SECURITY 5O1
the sacrifices, which his choic
rity they promise to provide.
It follows that policies of nat
good or all evil, may be moral
depending on their specific ch
stances of the case. They may
and the consideration which t
security; they may instead be
to protect national values. Aga
instance for the consideration
particularly of weaker nations
of the recklessness with whic
altar of some chimera. The tar
ment for being too ambitious
being inadequate; the means em
costly in other values or for b
of variety which arises out of
the value computation would
meaningless, to pass moral ju
" national security policy in ge
It is this lack of moral homo
curity policy justifies attacks
on moral evaluation. The " m
mean a wholesale condemnatio
tional security-as being an ex
of a security policy relying on
The exponent of such " mora
security for all peoples can be
such " good" and altruistic m
suasion, a spirit of conciliation
world government. If there ar
notion, and have influence on
to disabuse them of what can
illusions.
It is worth emphasizing, ho
argument, which without rega
would praise everything done f
ticularly everything done fo
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502 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXVII
power of resistance, is no less guilty of applying simple and abstract
moral principles and of failing to judge each case realistically
on its merits.
In conclusion, it can be said, then, that normative admonitions
to conduct a foreign policy guided by the national security
interest are no less ambiguous and misleading than the statement
of fact concerning past behavior which was discussed earlier.
In order to be meaningful such admonitions would have to specify
the degree of security which a nation shall aspire to attain
and the means by which it is to be attained in a given situation.
It may be good advice in one instance to appeal for greater effort
and more armaments; it may be no less expedient and morally
advisable in another instance to call for moderation and for
greater reliance on means other than coercive power. Because
the pendulum of public opinion swings so easily from extreme
complacency to extreme apprehension, from utopian reliance on
" good will " to disillusioned faith in naked force only, it is particularly
important to be wary of any simple panacea, even of
one that parades in the realist garb of a policy guided solely by
the national security interest.
ARNOLD WOLFERS
YALE UNIVERSITY
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