Positing an "insecurity dilemma," in which national security, defined as regime security by state authorities, becomes pitted against the incompatible demands of ethnic, social, and religious forces, this book addresses the problems and prospects for security in the Third World in the 1990s.

The authors advance four lines of argument: First, there is a need to rethink the traditional realist notions of states, national security, territorial threat, and war. Second, the security dilemmas of Third World regimes are bound up in the process of statebuilding and in the practical implications of political development. Third, the repressive strategies that many Third World regimes have adopted reflect an underlying logic associated with the regime holders' interest in their short-term survival prospects. And finally, radically altered relationships and conditions in the international system mean that the security interests of Third World regimes and peoples will be viewed differently in the future by both superpowers and middle powers; and the consequence may well be that traditional regional powers will attempt to (re)assert their security priorities and claims to dominance.