ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a coherent review of national security literature as a necessary background for presenting additional perspectives. National security was perceived in a military and strategic sense. National security as a phenomenon of inquiry in social science research has been tightly linked to both the properties of the international system and the attributes of its actors. National security literature is overwhelmingly responsive to conflictive events on the international level and to domestic crises that challenge the behavior of the state and the status of the ruling elite. Despite a national focus, the way to understand national security literature is to look at it as part of the international relations literature. The concept "severe deprivation of economic welfare" might be considered analogous to the concept of "military security" in protecting core values from external threat.
