6.3 NATIONAL INTERESTS, THREATS & RISKS National interests flow from national values and guide political decisions. The realisation of national interests achieves goals such as economic prosperity, security and stability of the State, protection of individual freedoms and a good international order. Nations mobilise all tools of national power to realise their national interests. Failure to protect national interests endangers national values. As the figure below indicates, nations may justify the threat or use of military force to defend one of four national interests. Figure 7 – National Interest Matrix The vertical axis shows the four main national interests. “Defense of homeland” is the most important because countries must resist threats to their existence and territorial integrity at any cost. On the horizontal axis, “Survival” interests have the highest intensity as they too focus on direct national threats. As such, nations rely on military force to defend such interests. A country suffers serious harm if “vital” interests are unattainable. Thus, nations are unwilling to compromise these interests and deploy strong measures including force (Drew and Snow 2006, Sklenka 2007). “Major” interests do not require force to defend. Lastly, “peripheral” interests do not pose a threat to a nation as a whole. 6.3.1 Cybersecurity “Intensity of Interest” We regard cybersecurity as a “Vital” interest to many nations. We follow the advice of the Plenipotentiary Conference Resolution 174 (Guadalajara, 2010) that warns that the illicit use of ICTs could have a detrimental impact on a State’s infrastructure, national security and economic development. This could be any State as attacks are borderless. 39