State Pursuit for Security in International System: Relevance for South Asia

Abstract

States accumulate power to ensure self-preservation, maintain sovereign status, implement
independent foreign policy, and if possible dominate. Primary objective of this paper is to
understand conditions leading states to carry out measures for self-preservation. It helps
the readership to comprehend how states preserve their independence in the international
system. International relations theories highlight essential features of the international
system, global security environment, and conditions leading to wars. This paper highlights
statesmen preserve state security through alliance formations, crisis escalation, crisis
management, arms racing, arms control, disarmament, nuclear proliferation, and military
modernization programs. The traditional concept of security is transformed post 9/11.
States are posed with manmade hazards and natural disasters posing threats to state
security and survival. State security as a subject remained ignored as military power lies at
the center of security studies. Central objective of this academic research is, therefore, to
understand state security in an anarchic international system by using different theoretical
models advanced by realists.