Threat, status disequilibrium, and national power

Associated with the concept of the nation state and system is a latent threat structure which this article seeks to delineate and to explore empirically. Why do the Japanese perceive the Russians as a serious political threat while discounting the potential military impact of the Chinese? Why did the United States consider the threat to its interests sufficiently grave in Indochina to fight a 10-year war against communism there while virtually ignoring the Castro regime less than 100 miles off the Florida coast ? What combination of German attributes and behaviour convinced France and Britain in the presence of aggresssive capability that they could disregard the threat posed to Czechoslovakia by Hitler in 1938? The latent threat structure of the nation state is neither obvious nor of trivial importance to global security and peace.