Select any two of the four basic strategies used to preserve security.

• Select any two of the four basic strategies used to preserve security. Identify and describe what assumptions are made about the opponent according to each of the two strategies you chose.

• Give an example of each of the two strategies in current world politics and speculate on their effectiveness.

The four strategies that are used to preserve security are Defense, Deterrence, Detente Diplomacy and Disarmament. It is not important to use exactly one strategy at a time. There are times when countries may use a mix of these strategies. Following is a discussion on two of these strategies.

Defense: Defense is the blocking of any attack by the enemy. The enemy might be a declared enemy who is on the borders and the army of the country that is defending its territory must be ready to fight all the times in case the enemy is hostile. We have recently noticed Saudi Arabia has bought billions of dollars’ worth weapons from America to defend its borders from a hostile enemy that is living on its Yemeni border. I think that this strategy might be effective in the current situation as the proclaimed enemy by Saudi Arabia is not that powerful and looking at the preparation of Saudi Arabia, they would not attack it.

Diplomacy: This is a strategy used by many countries to resolve tensions with other countries and avoid any kinds of wars which might have destructive consequences.  Diplomacy might be initiated by a third party between two countries that could potentially get into conflicts. A good example of diplomacy is the normalizing of relations with Cuba by the US president Obama. These relations did pay off and once a hostile country towards USA is neutralized.