ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part describes the principal archetypes for the alternative global security systems most widely under consideration. Classifying so broad and varied a range of proposals inevitably involves a certain simplification and may create somewhat artificial distinctions between systems and strategies that are better conceived as complementary. The system of competitive national arsenals by which the nations of the world operate is commonly called the “balance of power”—or, as it has been more aptly termed in the case of the superpowers, “the balance of terror.” It is an arrangement somewhat more organized than an imagined “state of nature” but a good deal less consciously contructed than a national constitution. A global security system encompasses the entire human community within its protective circle and seeks to assure security equally to all nations and peoples within it.
