One of the main challenges of maintaining peaceful international relations is the escalation of distrust and the ensuing arms race.
The possibility that others might attack you is a reason to arm yourself. But this step will in turn be interpreted as a threat by the other, who will in turn arm itself (even more). Etc.
Aren’t there ways to simply invest in purely defensive weapons? So that your efforts to remain safe do not in turn threaten others? Which in turn allows others to also de-escalate?
In other words, are there military set-ups that are useless for offensive actions but good enough for defending a country?
I mean there’s the Iron Dome the US helped fund for Isreal. It’s a short range air defense system. It’s not built for offense, and wouldn’t work well for it from what I understand.
But even that there’s still the ‘self-defense’ mentality where the iron dome could shoot down non-combatants flying within range because of a supposed threat.
The other part of the “self defense” mentality is that a well defended entity is more likely to attack others through whatever means is available with the confidence that they don’t have to fear retaliation. It’s Titanic syndrome.