The rhetoric leaders use to speak to domestic audiences about security is not simply bluster. Political agents rely upon stories of enmity and threat to represent what is happening in the international arena, to whom and why, in order to push national and international security policy agendas. They do so for the simple reason that a good story is a powerful political device. This article examines historical ‘calls to arms’ in the United States, based on insights from archival research at US presidential libraries and the United States National Archives. Drawing on narrative theory and political psychology, the article develops a new analytic framework to explain the political currency and staying power of hero–villain security narratives, which divide the world into opposing spheres of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Shifting the conceptual focus away from speakers and settings towards audience and affect, it argues that the resonance of hero–villain security narratives lies in the way their plot structure keeps the audience in suspense. Because they are consequential rhetorical tools that shape security policy practices, the stories political agents tell about security demand greater attention in the broader field of international security studies.

领导人用来向国内听众谈论安全问题的言论不仅仅是吹嘘。政治代理人依靠敌意和威胁的故事来代表国际舞台上正在发生的事情、发生在谁身上以及为什么发生，以推动国家和国际安全政策议程。他们这样做的原因很简单，一个好故事是一个强大的政治工具。本文基于对美国总统图书馆和美国国家档案馆的档案研究的见解，考察了美国历史上的“武装呼吁”。文章借鉴叙事理论和政治心理学，开发了一个新的分析框架来解释英雄-反派安全叙事的政治货币和持久力，将世界划分为“善”和“恶”对立的领域。将概念焦点从演讲者和场景转移到观众和情感，它认为英雄-反派安全叙事的共鸣在于他们的情节结构让观众保持悬念。因为它们是塑造安全政策实践的重要修辞工具，政治代理人讲述的安全故事需要在更广泛的国际安全研究领域给予更多关注。