ABSTRACT
The intermestic intersection between domestic and international concerns is more pronounced in the area of foreign, including national security, policy than in most areas associated with American national politics. The major reason for this is that most of the objects of national security concern arise in the international environment, where the United States interacts with states and other entities with opposing, incompatible interests that, in the specialized setting of national security, those opponents may pursue through the use or threat of force. There are points of deep disagreement and conflicts of interest in traditional domestic politics (a problem explored in more detail in Chapter 7), but these rarely possess a violent dimension, which international interactions sometimes possess.
