Keywords
Abstract
Security is the primary responsibility of the nation-state and the most important issue that has attracted the attention of scholars in international relations. Despite this, security is a complex, contradictory concept that heavily relies on the approaches and theories employed by observers and researchers. Various theories have been proposed to describe, explain, and predict security issues. National security is one dimension of security, referring to the strategies that a government adopts to ensure safety, which may take an offensive or defensive stance depending on the circumstances it faces. If defensive decisions are categorized by type, they can be classified into active defense and non-offensive defense, where researchers sometimes interpret active defense as akin to preemptive attack, advocating the notion that "the best form of defense is attack." Non-offensive defense entails responding to enemy attacks after being attacked; in this case, the country must remain in a defensive posture and react to enemy operations. Active defense differs from non-offensive defense in aspects such as defense strategies, building trust, and presence in the region. However, their commonalities include being defensive in nature and supporting extensive diplomacy. Ultimately, countries with limited economic resources tend to support guerrilla warfare and adopt a non-offensive defense model or advocate for non-offensive defense. In contrast, countries seeking to expand their defensive capabilities and whose interests depend on regional presence tend to adopt an active defense model and support active defense policies.