National insecurity: what happens when countries start to lose their sense of identity?

The Conversation · 🇦🇺 public Australia · Jun 04, 2026 · 823 words · By Nicholas Ross Smith

Middle Power Diplomacy International Relations Ontological Security

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What to know about Middle Power Diplomacy

The author applies the psychiatric concept of 'ontological security' to international relations, arguing that states like Russia and the US are acting out of a collapsed sense of identity. The piece suggests that middle powers, specifically Australia and New Zealand, should form an alliance to help stabilize the international order.

Propaganda risk 30%

Claims checked 8

Techniques found 3

Topics 3

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage

Left0%

Center100%

Right0%

3 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

You need only glance at the headlines these days to know that the current state of international relations is dangerous.

Why it matters

From Washington’s retreat from multilateral commitments to Moscow’s aggressive ethno-nationalism, the defining feature of world affairs is not simply cold strategic calculation but something closer to anxiety.

Common ground

To explain this search for certainty in a world that no longer reflects the stories states have long told about themselves, political theorists have turned to the field of psychiatry.

Perspective signals

The tension in the story is sharpened by Loaded Language, Causal Oversimplification, Exaggeration / Hyperbole: language that can make the dispute feel more urgent, personal, or adversarial than the underlying facts alone.

Follow-up questions

What new context would change how readers understand this Middle Power Diplomacy story?
What evidence would most clearly confirm or weaken the claim that In his book Modernity and Self-Identity, sociologist Anthony Giddens argues that ontological security for states involves a “sense of continuity and order in events”?
How does this story connect Middle Power Diplomacy with International Relations over the next few days?

open_in_new Read the original article: https://theconversation.com/national-insecurity-what-happens-when-countries-star…

analyticsAnalysis

30%

Propaganda Score

confidence: 90%

Minor concerns. Some persuasive language detected, but largely factual.

psychologyPropaganda Techniques Detected

eFinder identified 3 propaganda techniques in this article. These signals explain how wording, emphasis, or missing context can shape a reader's interpretation.

warning

Loaded Language 80% confidence

Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.

Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.

Why it matters: Recognizing loaded language helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

warning

Causal Oversimplification 60% confidence

Assuming a single cause for a complex issue.

Why it matters: Recognizing causal oversimplification helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

warning

Exaggeration / Hyperbole 70% confidence

Overstating facts or claims to create a stronger emotional response.

Why it matters: Recognizing exaggeration / hyperbole helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 8 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

verified Verified By Reference 4

check_circle Corroborated 3

help Insufficient Evidence 1

verified

Claim 1: “In his book Modernity and Self-Identity, sociologist Anthony Giddens argues that ontological security for states involves a “sense of continuity and order in events””

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

Wikipedia and academic web results confirm Anthony Giddens' definition of ontological security as a sense of order and continuity in experiences. While the evidence confirms Giddens' general theory, the specific application to 'states' is an extension of his work used by others (like Mitzen), but the core definition is verified.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is the author of more than 34…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Giddens

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In philosophy, the self is an individual's own being, knowledge, and values, and the relationship between these attributes. The first-person perspective distinguishes selfhood from personal identity. …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. Th…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology

+ 3 more evidence sources

verified

Claim 2: “The disastrous interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq shattered not just US prestige, but America’s story about being the “shining city on a hill”.”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

Wikipedia and other sources confirm the US military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The 'shattering of the story' is a qualitative analysis, but the factual basis of the interventions is verified.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Christopher Todd Donahue (born 13 August 1969) is an American general who last served as the commanding general of United States Army Europe and Africa and commander of Allied Land Command from 2024 t…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Donahue_(general)

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The United States Central Command (USCENTCOM or CENTCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the United States Department of Defense. It was established in 1983, taking over the previou…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Central_Command

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001, the United States declared the war on terror and subsequently led a multinational military operation against Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The stated goal …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Afgh…

+ 3 more evidence sources

help

Claim 3: “the antidote may lie in what Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has proposed: an alliance of “middle powers”.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

The claim identifies Mark Carney as the 'Canadian Prime Minister'. Mark Carney is a former Governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, but he has never been the Prime Minister of Canada. The provided evidence for this claim is irrelevant (referring to the Gospel of Mark), but general knowledge and the fact that Canada's PM is not Mark Carney make this false.

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web search NEUTRAL — Mark is the only gospel with the combination of verses in Mark 4:24–25: the other gospels split them up, Mark 4:24 being found in Luke 6:38 and Matthew 7:2, Mark 4:25 in Matthew 13:12 and Matthew 25:2…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mark

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web search NEUTRAL — Mark 1:40 The Greek word traditionally translated leprosy was used for various diseases affecting the skin.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark+1&version=…

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web search NEUTRAL — Mark Mildren, MD is an orthopedic doctor specializing in hip and knee total joint replacement who is certified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery
https://slocumcenter.com/providers/mark-mildren/

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Claim 4: “As political scientist Jennifer Mitzen argues, states have similar needs to people: “to experience oneself as a whole, continuous person in time” to maintain a stable identity.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple independent web sources confirm that political scientist Jennifer Mitzen argues that states seek ontological security and the need to experience themselves as a whole, continuous entity in time.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The term ontological security was coined by psychiatrist R. D. Laing in the book The Divided Self in which it is described as a "basic existential position" from which a person "will encounter all the…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_security

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Randall L. Schweller (born 1958) is Professor of Political Science at the Ohio State University, where he has taught since 1994. He is a current member of the International Security editorial board an…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Schweller

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In international relations, the security dilemma (also referred to as the spiral model) is when the increase in one state's security (such as increasing its military strength) leads other states to fe…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_dilemma

+ 3 more evidence sources

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Claim 5: “President Donald Trump’s “America First” focus – a notion that the US should recover a simpler, more certain sense of itself by retreating from the commitments of the liberal international order”

CORROBORATED

Multiple sources confirm Donald Trump's 'America First' policy and its association with a retreat from the postwar liberal international order.

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web search NEUTRAL — Postwar Liberalism as America First. In Voltaire’s 1773 Essais sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations, he wrote that, “This body which was called and still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no …
https://www.illiberalism.org/trump-first-foreign-policy-and-…

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web search NEUTRAL — The international political world will remain divided between liberals and statists for the foreseeable future, but both sets of countries will depend on a liberal international economic order for the…
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/liberalism-retreat

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web search NEUTRAL — Donald Trump ran for the American presidency attacking his opponents and allies and promising to upend politics in Washington and around the world. Trump advocated for an “America First” foreign polic…
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-36099-2_…

verified

Claim 6: “The collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s shattered Russia’s sense of self”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

Wikipedia and history sources confirm the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991 (the 1990s). The 'shattered sense of self' is an analytical interpretation, but the factual event of the collapse is verified.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Soviet Union was formally dissolved and ceased to exist as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991. It also brought an end to the Soviet Union's federal government a…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Unio…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In the Soviet Union, a Union Republic (Russian: Сою́зная Респу́блика, romanized: Soyúznaya Respúblika) or unofficially a Republic of the USSR was a constituent federated political entity with a system…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republics_of_the_Soviet_Union

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It wa…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union

+ 3 more evidence sources

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Claim 7: “Australia and New Zealand... have always outsourced their survival to a security guarantor – that being the US for the past 75 years.”

CORROBORATED

The ANZUS treaty (signed 1951) confirms a security agreement between Australia, New Zealand, and the US for over 70 years. Web results explicitly mention the 'outsourcing' of survival to the US as a security guarantor.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS or ANZUS Treaty) is a collective security agreement between Australia, New Zealand, and the United States that was signed in 1951, and …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANZUS

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Foreign relations between neighbouring countries Australia and New Zealand, also referred to as Trans-Tasman relations, are extremely close. Both countries share a British colonial heritage as antipod…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia–New_Zealand_relation…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — New Zealand is a major non-NATO ally of the United States. United States and New Zealand share comparable histories; both nations grew from British colonies and both have indigenous populations of Eas…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand–United_States_rela…

+ 3 more evidence sources

verified

Claim 8: “In psychiatry, the term ontological security was coined by Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

Wikipedia and multiple web sources explicitly state that the term 'ontological security' was coined by psychiatrist R.D. Laing in his book 'The Divided Self'.

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web search NEUTRAL — The term ontological security was coined by psychiatrist R. D. Laing in the book The Divided Self in which it is described as a "basic existential position" from which a person "will encounter all the…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_security

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web search NEUTRAL — In psychiatry, the term ontological security was coined by Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing, who characterised mentally stable people as having an identity and sense of autonomy that is never in quest…
https://theconversation.com/national-insecurity-what-happens…

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web search NEUTRAL — The term ontological insecurity was coined by R.D. Laing to represent those with schizophrenia. Others have used this term to describe the experiences of those with mental illness, breast cancer and d…
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/living-while-palliat…

info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.