Provision of Protection

provision-of-protection measures the structural power a state derives from providing security to others on terms it sets — who shelters whom, and what the protector extracts in return. The structural question is Strange's own: who provides security to whom, against what threat, and on what terms? Force possessed is the necessary condition for this power, not the power itself.

Strange defines the Security structure as "the framework of power created by the provision of security by some human beings for others. The protectors… acquire a certain kind of power which lets them determine, and perhaps limit, the range of choices, or options available to others" (Ch.3, Strange 1994, p.45), and gives the diagnostic questions directly:

• "Who provides security to whom? Against what perceived threat or threats? What price or terms are exacted for this security?" (Strange 1994, p.45)
• The protectors' power is not benign overhead: "By exercising this power, the providers of security may incidentally acquire for themselves special advantages in the production, or consumption of wealth and special rights or privileges in social relations" — so the security structure "inevitably has an impact on the who-gets-what of the economy" (Strange 1994, p.45). This is the structural payoff a provider extracts, i.e. the terms.
• Capability is only the necessary condition: "The relational power of Allied warships over neutral merchant ships was the basis or necessary condition for the setting of a highly partial security structure within which trade could be carried on. It was accepted and traders conformed to the rules laid down by the two great naval powers, so that it came briefly to resemble a regime or power structure" (Strange 1994, p.34) — the structural power was the rule-regime, not the warships.
• The "geometry, or pattern, of state-state relations" is itself a security-structure variable — whether there are many small states, two dominant states, or an oligopoly of Great Powers — i.e. a provider's centrality is structural, not a sum of allied force (Strange 1994, p.46).

The structural fact is the provision relationship and its terms, not the inventory of warheads or bases — those are only the necessary condition (Strange 1994, p.34).