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From ARRSEpedia

National security refers to the requirement to maintain the survival of the nation-state through the use of economic, military and political power and the exercise of diplomacy.

Measures taken to ensure national security include:

• using diplomacy to rally allies and isolate threats.
• maintaining effective armed forces.
• implementing civil defense and emergency preparedness measures (including anti-terrorism legislation).
• ensuring the resilience and redundancy of critical infrastructure.
• using intelligence services to detect and defeat or avoid threats and espionage, and to protect classified information.
• using counterintelligence services or secret police to protect the nation from internal threats.
• using the concept of national security as a pretext to indulge any misguided act of foreign policy one chooses.