ABSTRACT
The common ground which most of the participants share is embodied in the tacit assumption that security, whatever else it entails, also includes a military component. If the assumption that military capability is essential for defence remains unchallenged, then all the arguments about the role that military capability should play in providing security make some sense. A context in which security could be reasonably thought of as enhanced by military capability was the system of sovereign states that emerged at the close of the Thirty Years' War, provided security referred to the national interests of those states. Warriors are concerned with the security of weapons systems; they worry about advantages that an adversary can reap from this or that political development, this or that technological innovation. In order to be listened to they must speak a language understood by those they speak to.
