
The psychological level, by contrast, is a far more subjective measurement of the people’s willingness to support the government’s efforts to achieve national security goals. foreign policy employs economic and diplomatic tactics to reduce its dependence on oil imported from politically unstable regions such as the Middle East. For example, to help bolster its energy security, U.S. It further anticipates a more prominent security role for nonmilitary factors, such as intelligence, economics, and diplomacy, and the ability to use them as political-military levers in dealings with other countries. The physical level is an objective, quantifiable measure based on the capacity of the country’s military to challenge its adversaries, including going to war if necessary. Successful implementation of any national security strategy must be conducted on two levels: physical and psychological. The global interconnection and interdependence among countries experience since the end of the Cold War makes it necessary for countries to cooperate more closely. These are demands for which no single country’s national security apparatus can handle on its own and, as such, require multinational cooperation. Global security, on the other hand, involves security demands such as nature-in the form of climate change, for example-and globalization, which have been placed on countries and entire regions. Thus, Makinda’s definition of security would seem to fit within the confines of national security. Professor of Security Studies Samuel Makinda has defined security as “the preservation of the norms, rules, institutions, and values of society.” National security has been described as the ability of a country to provide for the protection and defense of its citizenry. Since the War on Terror became a multinational effort there has been an attempt to establish a dividing line between national security and global security.

government policymakers struggle to balance the demands of several “national securities.” Among these are economic security, political security, energy security, homeland security, cybersecurity, human security, and environmental security. To ensure national security, governments rely on tactics, including political, economic, and military power, along with diplomacy.įor most of the 20th century, national security was strictly a matter of military power and readiness, but with the dawn of the nuclear age and the threats of the Cold War, it became clear that defining national security in a context of conventional military warfare had become a thing of the past.Today, some non-military levels of national security include economic security, political security, energy security, homeland security, cybersecurity, human security, and environmental security.

National security is the ability of a country’s government to protect its citizens, economy, and other institutions.
