In defining the state policy, national security and foreign policy, the starting point is the national interest. If we take as a reference point that only one state is able to give your business a sense of political security, global and comprehensive objectives and national interests are the basic parameters of its overall activity of the state. However, given the diversity of partial interests that exist within a society, many of them conflicting with each other, the tasks of reconciliation and its final expression as the nation interests is the responsibility of those representing the powers State and have the government function.

This allows identifying the gap between the objectives of state and government. In those, survival, safety and welfare are the immutable aspects of state targets. They are, to give its name, objectives and broader national interests. As a tangible and measurable purposes an exercise of government generally correspond to a specific national project horizons established according to the timing of governance.

Thus, national interests and objectives defining the beginning of the policy of the state – the Great Political – and allows us to separate the permanent objectives – the state – from the strategic – inherent in a government project – in order to confront and make sense of the process of political action in its broadest sense. Policy decisions are defined behaviors and set goals and courses of action and measures taken to comply. It is clear that the determination of “national interest” cannot respond solely to a single perspective. The vision of the legal, sociological, economic or military analyst, is not broad enough to incorporate all the elements of a comprehensive understanding of present reality and future scenarios.

In its implementation or in the evolution of society itself – are generated flows and exchanges of information between internal and external actors involved in social dynamics. These data are quantifiable and qualitative allow access, under a methodical process, an overview of national and international reality and the real determination of objective criteria, that become permanent or strategic objectives. In this perspective is the balance of national power, the most appropriate approach when analyzing foreign policy and the state ability to take action to achieve their objectives and access to what it calls its interest and security. Security seeks to meet the vital objectives of permanence and survival of the state. This is important to emphasize this further, as well the national goals and interests and acquire a theoretical significance with a defined methodology for empirical validation.

There is an orthodoxy that divides the power in four fields are the classic political, economic, psychosocial and military. This division should not lead us to consider treatment as an inert object, forgetting that a dynamic relationship exists in human society. The ‘fields of power’ are frameworks that encompass activities consistent with each other by nature and are useful for the analysis of these in relation to the exercise of power and the genesis of it. In terms of national development uses, the National Power as a view for improving material and spiritual culture of society in terms of national security must be employed as a strategic tool, e.g. in order to overcome, neutralize or reduce the antagonisms that are filed with obtaining and maintaining permanent national objectives.

The usual method is to diagnose the political reality in the broad sense that allows you to include the set of social relations within the state, political and strategic goals, according to the national interest, strategic inventory and strategic diagnosis, interpreting international stage according to the objectives and capabilities of the various instruments available to the state for external and internal action, and, finally, the action plan. The coding of information into knowledge flows “useful and vital to the survival and security of the nation,” representing the efficient implementation of the instruments of power of a State, in time and more favorable circumstances achieving their goals.

National reality is the source of conception of foreign policy and whose needs must be satisfied that through their action in different areas in which the state interacts with the outside. From the reality when the planning process begins to take on foreign policy objective and is, in turn, a mechanism that provides guidance about what the national needs, from which the foreign policy objectives are paths is obvious that not only govern define the statistics and determine the national interest. Others factors affecting the survival of the state, territorial integrity and full autonomy of decisions of domestic and foreign policy are the ultimate goal of any process of foreign policy. The national interest is more than the standard by which situational factors are considered relevant and suggest a certain behavior. It is also the ultimate yardstick used to measure the success or failure of the state. The concept of interest is both at the starting point and purpose of the foreign policy process, so the entire sequence of events acquires a peculiarly circular.

Under the American view, national interest is irreducible. Henry Kissinger argues that every State must try to reconcile what he considers fair with what he considers possible. What is considered fair depends on the internal structure of their state. They may depend on its resources, geographic position and determination and resources, determination and internal structure of other states. In these terms, the nature of national power is concatenated to the interests and objectives. For that reason alone the State is capable of exercising a responsible and national security policy as it is also designing and implementing foreign policy, which is not detached from the general policy of the state.