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For the 2003 movie starring Martin Lawrence and Steve Zahn, see National Security (film).

National security refers to the requirement to maintain the survival of the nation-state through the use of economic, military and political power and the exercise of diplomacy.

Measures taken to ensure national security include:

• using diplomacy to rally allies and isolate threats
• marshalling economic power to facilitate or compel cooperation
• maintaining effective armed forces
• implementing civil defense and emergency preparedness measures (including anti-terrorism legislation)
• ensuring the resilience and redundancy of critical infrastructure
• using intelligence services to detect and defeat or avoid threats and espionage, and to protect classified information
• using counterintelligence services or secret police to protect the nation from internal threats

Contents 1 History of the national security concept 2 National security and rights & freedoms 3 Bibliography 4 See also

[edit] History of the national security concept

The relatively new concept of national security was first introduced in the United States after World War II, and has to some degree replaced other concepts that describe the struggle of states to overcome various external and internal threats.

World War II saw the rise of nationalist sentiment among both the axis and the allied powers. After the war, the U.S.S.R invaded Eastern europe, and many people feared it would rise up as yet another evil empire. The concept of national security became an official guiding principle of foreign policy in the United States when the National Security Act of 1947 was signed on July 26, 1947 by U.S. President Harry S. Truman.^{[citation needed]}

The majority of the provisions of the Act took effect on 18 September 1947, the day after the Senate confirmed James V. Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense. Together with its 1949 ammendment, this act:

• created the National Military Establishment (NME) which became known as the Department of Defense when the act was amended in 1949,

• created a separate Department of the Air Force from the existing United States Army Air Forces,

• subordinated the military branches to the new cabinet level position of the Secretary of Defense, and

• established the National Security Council, a central place of coordination for national security policy in the Executive Branch, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States' first peacetime intelligence agency.

During the Cold War's bipolar system, states were relying on the two superpowers to guarantee their national security.

The countries of the Soviet Union were sharing a common language and the same identity, therefore they did not perceive any threat from each other and unified under Russia. Despite losing their sovereignty their national security was guaranteed by the union.

Countries of the Western block were against Communism. They allied with each other and relied on the US as a guarantor. The issue of national security at that time was simple and not complicated as it became after the Cold War era.

But any system is not everlasting. Communism collapsed and sovereign states emerged without a guarantor. States had to build a nation, maintain national security and rely on themselves.

Following the terrorist September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, and subsequent terrorist incidents around the world, national security has had to become a paramount concern for governments and societies.

[edit] National security and rights & freedoms

The measures adopted to maintain national security in the face of threats to society has led to ongoing dialectic, particularly in liberal democracies, on the appropriate scale and role of authority in matters of civil and human rights.

Tension exists between the preservation of the state (by maintaining self-determination and sovereignty) and the rights and freedoms of individuals.

Although national security measures are imposed to protect society as a whole, such measures will necessarily tend to restrict the rights and freedoms of all individuals in society. The concern is that where the exercise of national security laws and powers is not subject to good governance, the rule of law, and strict checks and balances, there is a risk that "national security" may simply serve as a pretext for suppressing unfavorable political and social views. Taken to its logical conclusion, this view contends that measures which may ostensibly serve a national security purpose (such as mass surveillance, and censorship of mass media), could ultimately lead to an Orwellian dystopia.

In the United States, the politically controversial USA Patriot Act and other government action has brought some of these issues to the citizen's attention, raising two main questions - to what extent, for the sake of national security, should individual rights and freedoms be restricted and can the restriction of civil rights for the sake of national security be justified?

[edit] Bibliography

• Chace, James, Carr, Caleb, "America Invulnerable: The Quest for Absolute Security from 1812 to Star Wars", 1988. ISBN 0671617788

[edit] See also

• Anti-terrorism legislation
• Computer insecurity
• Good governance
• Homeland security
• International security
• National defense
• National Security Advisor (United States)
• National Security Agency (U.S.)
• Nuclear deterrence
• Police state
• Rule of law
• Security
• Terrorismbg:Национална сигурност

de:Äußere Sicherheit fr:Défense et sécurité id:Keamanan nasional he:ביטחון לאומי lt:Nacionalinis saugumas ja:安全保障