The central idea we have of the nation is geographic, encompassing a specific territory which we define by name as part of a given country. At the same time, there is a larger sense of the nation which centers on the people who comprise it, their ideology, their political leanings, and the way they make society-wide decisions. Security has always been a major component of social relations, with groups of people intent in protecting themselves from encroachments on their territory and prerogatives banding together for greater strength. The idea of national security extends beyond the immediate neighborhood, village, or town to a larger entity known as the nation-state, and people only began to develop a sense of national identity after the feudal era. The trend began in the sixteenth century with the breakup of the Holy Roman Empire (Manchester 159-160).
The trend accelerated in the last century. During the second half of the nineteenth century, and specifically between 1859 and 1871, a change came over Europe as several different nation states unified into larger empires more in keeping with the nations we know in this century. During this peri
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