Security Dilemma

Security problem encountered among states of roughly equal power, states that may get involved in an arms [Page 651]race and then be unable to disengage. Security dilemmas are possible when states are most concerned with their own security and with their relative power position in the international system. When this is the case, even peaceful states with no expansionist or aggressive ideas may be drawn into the dilemma. A security dilemma—and the arms race, which is tied to it—can occur without any participant desiring it.

The security dilemma begins when one state tries to improve its power position relative to one or more states by acquiring more arms. Its purpose—whether offensive or defensive—is unimportant; it has the same effect. This state, either seeking to grow more powerful or defend against another state, gains an advantage over its rivals or neighbors. These states, which are always protecting their own security, grow nervous because the first state has the means of violence and domination available. The increase in the first state's security causes a corresponding decease in the security of its rival or neighboring states.

To protect itself, each rival state will begin to acquire new weapons. The problem, however, is that offensive and defensive weapons are often indistinguishable, and the new weapons begin to look suspicious and menacing to the first state and to the other neighbors. Suspicions multiply, and the states begin to acquire more and more arms, resulting in a theoretically infinite game of one-upmanship. Security dilemmas lead almost inevitably to arms races, in which rival states race to acquire more and better weapons.

The security dilemma exists because both acquiring more arms and not acquiring more arms will not increase the country's security. In acquiring more arms, a state simply induces its rivals to buy more as well; in not acquiring more arms, the state faces a risk of military defeat by its enemies.

The security dilemma played itself out in accordance with the theory during the Cold War. Each time either the United States or the Soviet Union gained a slight advantage in the types of weapons, the other tried to match the first country or turn the advantage around. Thus, the Soviet Union raced to obtain nuclear weapons to catch up to the United States; the United States and the Soviet Union raced to develop space-based strategic weaponry. The same pattern occurred with regard to the number and location of weapons each acquired. Both countries became embroiled in an arms race; the United States placed missiles in Eastern Europe; and the Soviet Union attempted to place missiles in Cuba.

Security dilemmas do not necessarily need to be related to arms, nor do they necessarily depend on the actions of more than one country—though that is usually the way it happens. A country can create its own security dilemma, as did the European colonial powers and Japan in the 1930s, to some extent. Insecure economically, each of these powers sought to expand its territorial base to gain control of more resources. The English, French, and Belgians moved into Africa; the Japanese moved into China. As each country acquired control of more territory, it had more territory to defend, causing each to try to expand further to secure the previously conquered territory, rendering the country perpetually insecure.

...