The Insecurity Dilemma

Book excerpt: With the end of the Cold War, the world is seen by many as an increasingly safe and secure place. In the Third World, however, people continue to be at risk, often from their own state authorities; these regimes in turn, beset with challenges to militarization and repression. What exists is not a security dilemma in the traditional sense, but instead insecurity dilemmas, in which national security, defined as regime security by state authorities, becomes pitted against the incompatible demands of ethnic, social, and religious forces.