The Research Of National Security Strategy Of Small Countries In The International Community

In the opinion of the mainstream international political theory holders, the great powers are still the main object of international political study. It seems that in the anarchic international society, when the securicy of one state is threatened by another,there would not be any higher authority it can resort to, every state in the anarchic international society have to implement the self-help strategy to maintain security, thus the security issue of the small states appears to be a really pessimistic topic. Is it certain that the small countries can not decide their own destiny on chosing security strategies?What factors the small states would pay more attention to when deciding their own security strategy?Small states are such kinds of states,that in a certain period and international system,it would be difficult for them to rely on self-help to keep them away from foreign aggressions,they have to try other ways to defend their security for lack of sufficient resources. In terms of the external security environment of the small states, Realists and Liberalist share both consensus and differences.Although,they both agree with the hypothesis that the international society is in the state of anarchy, the Realism School is convinced with an pessimistic attitude towards the issue of the security of small states, Liberalism School,in contrast, holds a more positive perspective. They think that with the development of the globalisation and the integration of the world economy,the cost of war would became unbearable for any state, the military strength is no longer the most important means when countries dealing with disputes or conflicts between each other. In the opinion of the liberalists, international law and international norms plays a more and more important role in the international society, the small states do not have to worry too much about their safety. As far as I am concerned, the small states are exposed to threats not only from the great powers outside the region,but also from the regional powers,and even from the other small states.States can keep themselves safe by two means:one is to develop their own strength, and the other one is to make full use of the external forces. Small states lack the ability to implement the self-help strategy, so they usually tend to rely their safety on external strength.The security strategy of the small states include the policy of alliance, cooperational security, neutrality, power balance,self-help (pursuing nuclear weapons), collective security,etc. To a certain small country, what kind of security strategy it would take depends on many factors,such as the geographical location, the historical factors,the overall international environment, and the subjective cognition of the political leaders. Differently with great powers, the security strategies of the small powers are more comprehensive. In the diversified security strategies of the small states, there would always be one dominent strategy, For example, Singapore would mainly rely on the power balance strategy, while Switzerland would prefer the neutrality strategy.