The clash between Republicans and Democrats is beginning to sound more like a fight between the ideas of national security and human security, as opposed to a search for an equal balance between the two.

While it has many strengths and vital concepts for a nation’s government, national security has recently been contorted into xenophobia and self interest. The conservative motive to divert all emphasis towards America’s hard power military and devotion to almost solely the American people has unraveled many issues.

National security stands to devote safety towards the state, but ironically actually creates the war in which it advertises to protect the people from. The principles of protection: to build arms, gain hegemony and exercise global dominance, have led national security to trigger numerous international tensions and conflicts through its need to overshadow with power.

National security’s ethics on a global scale create a power struggle between other nations, which are often underdeveloped and politically divided. Inciting fear towards other nations and reaping the benefits of personal gains, national security and the new founded aristocratic, self interested motives push other states into a future of conflict and dependency upon their hegemony.

The outcomes of undertaking international relations with a nationalist, self regarded mindset can contribute to the production of wars and political vacuums. This can then cause states to fail and their monopolizer to profit off the destruction of their country. Justifying their argument against their actions, national security cries out with propaganda to its citizens, preparing to rally them with fear.

Placing the state’s security above the individual coincidentally harms the nation as a whole. Pressing for emphasis on military expenditures, national security weakens a state in the long run by taking away from important human security aspects, and striking opposition and harm to the social institutes of the state.

Where America is powerful and unchallenged in our military capabilities, our internal institutes suffer tremendously. Welfare and education find themselves set to the bottom of the state’s to-spend list, and the citizens are subsequently left with deficiency of benefits, or even their rights.

Lacking attentiveness to our social institutes will result in further civil unrest of the people and domestic jobs weakening in quality. Ultimately, this can result in the US being left behind in the international community in terms of societal advancements.

It is hard not to question the repercussions of national security. If there is only means of benefits for military activity and involvement, then why continue to feed into the idea of building arms if the state can not uplift its remaining people in more ways than one?

This is not to make an argument that erases the concept of national security in America, and it is not to make a statement to pour absolute devotion into human security.

The argument, or rather goal, in maintaining a successful, functioning state is to find the complimentary boundaries and balance between the two. To have one, you must have the other; to protect the state, you must protect the individual.

The performance of the state is reliant on the individual’s capabilities, satisfaction and rights in order to allow the nation to strive. To protect the nation in which you seek, that nation must harbor not only the substantial protection from national security, but also sizable institutes that stand for the individuals.

It is not an easy decision to simply combine the two ideas, however. Our democratic society restrains the allotment for quick decisions, so it takes careful consideration and the work from all parties to be successful. It takes effort and devotion to hold the nation accountable for knowing when to use a specific security and how to combine the two.

Our concentrated focus on national security may lead to the eventual fall of America’s hegemony. As Americans, it is our duty to rally with change and find mutual grounds that will allow us to work cohesively and fix the broken system that is destroying our great nation. Leaders, politicians and individuals are already predicting the plummet, and all there is left to do, is for the American people to choose reform.