David Lake provides a theoretical framework for under- standing the security choices made by the United States in the twentieth century. He grounds his work in the metaphor that polities may be understood as firms producing security. The fundamental choices before states are unilateralism and cooperation. The former is equated with production within a single firm, and the latter can take several forms. Principal among these are alliances, in which polities act as if they were separate and independent firms entering into joint produc- tion agreements, and empire, which is similar to the integra- tion that takes place in the modern multidivisional corpora- tion. Alliances and empires form the end points of a continuum of security relationships. Alliances are at the anarchy end, as each polity retains full decision authority.