This article explores the link between collective memory and state behaviour in international relations. In that regard, it develops a new concept entitled ‘temporal security’. Building on the existing ontological security literature, it extends a temporal understanding to its underlying identity concept. Countries are now assumed to be temporal-security seekers vis-a-vis a ‘significant historical other’ from their past. Decision makers thus enter into a self-reflective conversation with their country’s ‘collective memory’ when choosing courses of action. Contrasted with existing physical-security and ontological security explanations for state behaviour, the explanatory potential of the temporal-security approach is in a second step illustrated by the empirical case of West Germany and Austria, two former Nazi perpetrator states, and their respective assignments of support during conflict in the Middle East. Through a comparative, qualitative discourse analysis of historical documents during the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War and oil crisis of 1973, the empirical study finds that West Germany and Austria adopted different courses of action in their international politics, because they looked to Nazi Germany as their significant historical other.

本文探讨了集体记忆与国际关系中的国家行为之间的联系。在这方面，它发展了一个名为“时间安全”的新概念。基于现有的本体安全文献，它扩展了对其潜在身份概念的时间理解。国家现在被认为是相对于过去的“重要历史他者”的时间安全寻求者。因此，决策者在选择行动方案时会与他们国家的“集体记忆”进行自我反思的对话。与现有的对国家行为的物理安全和本体安全解释相比，时间安全方法的解释潜力在第二步由西德和奥地利这两个前纳粹肇事国的经验案例说明，以及他们在中东冲突期间各自的支持任务。通过对 1967 年六日战争和 1973 年赎罪日战争和石油危机期间历史文献的比较、定性话语分析，实证研究发现，西德和奥地利在其国际政治中采取了不同的行动方针，因为它们将纳粹德国视为他们重要的历史他者。