Exploring The Neo-national Security Conception Of Germany

The change of the international security environment and the reconstruction of the regional security structure resulted in the transformation of the traditional security and the eruption of non-traditional security. As a result, building the neo-security conception became a trend in the world academic arena. After World War II, as a conquered nation and once the front line of the East-West-Confrontation, the neo-national security conception of Germany has been under the spotlight. This thesis aims to explore the groundwork on which the neo-national security conception of Germany was built from historical and realistic approaches, elaborate on the essence and extension of the neo-national security conception of Germany, outline the characteristics of the neo-national security conception of Germany, and finally tries to give it an objective comment. The thesis will be carried out through a "why-what-how" route.The first and second chapters answer the most worthy question in this thesis with details "where does the neo-national security conception of Germany get its root", believing that though the historical elements and realistic circumstances had different meanings to the generation of the neo-national security conception of Germany, they did contribute to interpreting it. Therefore, a combination of the two aspects would be complete the answer for the construction of the neo-national security conception of Germany. The first chapter focuses on the historical elements in the construction of the neo-national security conception of Germany, including two parts: pre-war era and after-war era. In the paragraph of "traditional conception of national security", a research into the historical documentations shows that several factors had influenced the neo-national security conception of Germany permanently: geopolitical circumstances, cosmopolitism, nationalism as well as militarism, however together they only have some potential and indirect influences upon the conception of national security. Whereas the inheritance of institutions and ideology from the cold war era has a more direct impact on the neo-national security conception of Germany, they defined the system of Bundeswehr and the framework of developing German's military force in Europe, in the mean time cultivate the restraint culture and cooperate spirit within the German society.The second chapter analyzes the realistic circumstances in which the neo-national security conception of Germany has been shaped. Differ from of the first chapter, this chapter is not carried out according to time but according to various areas. Begin with the analysis of the international factors; they are divided into the world security structure, the trend of interdependence, the security situation in Europe and the bilateral relationship of great powers, according to the number of participators and scope of the regions. These elements basically defined the target and process of the neo-national security conception of Germany; Admittedly,domestic factors, especially the system of law, the role of parties and the voice from general public cannot be ignored. In fact, they are amending the neo-national security conception of Germany through various channels.The third paragraph summarizes the neo-national security conception of Germany, through analyzing of scholars' articles and German official files on security issues. Although the understanding between China and German upon the conception of security differs, the neo-national security conception of Germany can be basically devided into six parts: security definition, security target, security interest, security strategy, security structure and security method. The security definition and security target mainly refer to the German scholar Dieter' work, while the understanding on security interest and the security strategy is based on the official file and white book of the German government. Security structure and security method are the most important content of this thesis, which represents the outer conditions...