ABSTRACT
The status of security as a controversial political value and its habitual misuse as a rationale discouraged academic investigation, implying a lack of any intrinsic value. Traditionally international relations was dominated by realism, with its focus on power. From this perspective security was a natural consequence of the effective accumulation and exertion of power. Security as a strategic problem is quite different from an engineering problem. One might have complete confidence in the ability of a bridge to withstand a certain weight and volume of traffic or of armour to resist specified projectiles. A critical approach to the Cold War tended to be linked to attempts to move beyond the management of the core antagonism through improved superpower communications and refining techniques of crisis management to more thoroughgoing disarmament and reliance on international law and organizations. A more useful concept than the ‘arms race’ was that of the ‘security dilemma’.
