ABSTRACT
In uncertain times—be it terrorist attacks or the Covid-19 pandemic— the national security state is called for. The rise of such a security dispositive, however inevitable, urgent and immediate it may present itself, is rather a modern-day invention. In this chapter we trace the rise of the national security state since the Enlightenment and the Napoleonic Age, when a dispositive of national policies and rule emerged out of the chaos of the Napoleonic Wars. This new security culture was territorial, national and internationally intertwined at the same time, and it was legitimised not by popular vote, but by the promise of peace, security and prosperity, and by the support of fellow monarchs within the Concert of Europe.
