Threat Perception and National Security

This paper examines the concept of threat perception to analyzing the national security which occupies one of the key positions in realist paradigm of national security. Both classical and structural realists believe that threats are the result of power asymmetric. Any transformation of power balance would make some states less secure due to the anarchical tendency of the international system, where no hierarchically superior global guarantor of peace exits. The most fundamental work on the role of perception in international politics has been carried by Robert Jervis. He argues that the explanation of crucial decisions is impossible without considering the decision-maker belief about the world and the image of other.