The Analysis of Security in the Prevailing Paradigms of International Relations

There are a variety of theoretical outlooks on war, military power and security that deal with this subject from a specific and different perspective none of which provides appropriate answers to the proposed queries. In this article, the author explains war and military power from the viewpoint of grand theories of international relations including realism, liberalism and the world system and along with them, he also extrapolates the outlook of constructivists as the theorists of the fourth debate in international relations. Within this framework, realists give priority to military hardware power and view war as a natural order of affairs. In contrast, liberals do not regard war as the natural order of affairs and while considering software power, they maintain that stability and security may be established through expanded economic relationships, free trade and enlargement of international organizations, thus in this way war could be avoided. The world system theory also considers the exploitative economic relations and injustice in international relations as the root cause of war and insecurity. The constructivist school seeks to link material affairs with non-material ones in the category of security. This outlook focuses on the change in perspectives, interpretations and understandings, and establishes a direct relationship among identity, interests and security. We face a combination of such theories in analyzing security at the international level, because none of them is lonely able to explain security.