I’ve been exploring the possibility that collective forms of violence are enacted according to certain templates (see, for example, my piece on “The Law of Sacrifice,” and Carpentier, 2015 on “The Ideological Model of War”). According to this view, specific historical events express ideas contained within certain structures of cognition.

I’ve sought a context or theoretical structure in which my ideas can find a place. Perhaps the domain of “security studies” within the field of International Relations (IR) provides this context.

Security, according to classic IR theory, concerns the “fate of human collectivities” (see Alvarez, 2006). The standard unit of security is the “sovereign territorial state.” The nation-state is the main referent of security and the “main object to be secured.”

If we wish to enter the domain of security studies as a frame of reference, we must first clarify the concept of security. Moreover, if one seeks to develop an overarching theory, we need to test the power of this concept—not only in relationship to current and recent events—but as it illuminates history.

What becomes immediately clear—when reflecting upon historical events—is that the concept of national security may have nothing whatsoever to do with the safety and security of individual human beings within a nation-state. Quite the contrary.

National Socialism, Hitler said, desired to “safeguard the people,” if necessary even “at the expense of the individual.” “The people,” in this common usage of the term, refers to the nation-state itself, the aggregate of individuals who constitute the country.

Security studies theorist Barry Buzan (2008) observes that the state is an “idea held in common by a group of people”; an idea residing within “the minds of the population.” It is the idea itself that becomes the major object of national security.

Nevertheless, when political leaders use the term national security, we naturally think that it is actual human beings who require—and obtain—protection by virtue of residing within a nation-state. We imagine that we—as individuals—will become safer and more secure by virtue of actions undertaken by government.

The bedrock of my critique of security studies—based on my study of history—is that national security may be entirely unrelated to the personal safety and security of individuals residing within a nation-state.

Indeed, when Hitler says that National Socialism seeks to “safeguard the nation at the expense of the individual,” he suggests that the security of the nation may mean insecurity for the individual. Hitler posed the question, “What is life?” and asserted, “Life is the Nation.” Individuals had to die, but “beyond the life of the individual is the nation.”

In Nazi Germany, millions of actual German individuals died in the name of securing the idea of Germany. So to begin our exploration, we need to start anew—assume we know nothing—and deconstruct this idea of “national security.” If national security does not mean security for actual human beings, what, precisely, is being secured?