Security Seeking under Anarchy: Defensive Realism Revisited
Author(s)
Taliaferro, Jeffrey W.
Abstract
Defensive realism holds that the international system provides incentives for expansion only under certain conditions. Under anarchy, many of the means a state uses to increase its security decrease the security of other states. This security dilemma causes states to worry about one another’s future intentions and relative power. Pairs of states may pursue purely security-seeking strategies, but inadvertently generate spirals of mutual hostility or conflict. States often, although not always, pursue expansionist policies because their leaders mistakenly believe that aggression is the only way to make their states secure. Defensive realism predicts greater variation in internationally driven expansion and suggests that states ought to generally pursue moderate strategies as the best route to security.
