The primary responsibility of a nation is self preservation. A nation cannnot exist without its citizenry, therfore the overall protection of its citizens is, of course, the most integral part of the self preservation of a nation. This may include, but is not limited to, the confrontation of any threat, perceived or blatant, against the citizens of a nation, regardless of the size of the threat or its percieved harmlessness. Being that the primary role of a nation is self preservation, through the preservation of its peoples, a nation must value the lives of its citizens above those of other nations. For example, if a relatively small group of people in a foriegn country consistantly threaten the peoples of a nation, it is the responsibilty of the threatened nation to do whatever is physically possible to neutralize the threat, regardless of public opinion, as public opinion alone does not maintain the existance of a nation, and regardless of the possible innocent casulaties that may be incurred in the destruction of the threat, though they should be minimized. There will always be nations that want to destroy other nations and the only reason they don't act upon their wishes is because of their assured destruction from a mightier nation; therefore there must always be nations willing to balance potentialy threatening nations. For example, if Iran thought they could successfully destroy the US, they would without hesitation and without regard for innocent casualties, etcetera. The self preservation of a country depends nearly completely on the constant effort to improve or maintain military strength relative to other nations; The only other option is to wish that your nation's actions never offend or anger any sizeable group of people, but thats not a reality. Most disagreements to this are largley based on wishful thinking; for example, wishing and believing that it doesn't take armies and weapons in order to keep some level of balance in the world or believing that if countries could just 'understand' each other more there wouldn't be war; maybe a worldwide day of tolerance and understanding or an international hug day could be organized to help the effort, as long as it wouldn't interfere with the showdates of my new play "Blood for Oil"; which I'm also holding the lead role, as a gay laywer whose fighting corporate greed, the war and for equal marital rights through my legal smarts and interpretive ribbon dancing.