The Energy Crisis and the South Asian Security

Abstract

The contemporary security discourse has come a long way from the conventional perspective of strategic studies. In a world confronting depleting resources, the idea of security is incomplete today without the idea of energy security. Unless a country has access to scarce energy resources, its huge stockpiling of arms and ammunitions can hardly make it safe. Therefore, contemporary security studies include concerns for energy security along with concerns for other non-traditional security issues. Moreover, there are certain problems faced by members of contemporary societies, which cannot be efficiently dealt with by the nation-state system alone. So, there may be a requirement of some transnational initiatives, along with the state system, which can try to solve some of the present-day problems of human society. Keeping these in mind, this article attempts to re-examine the question of common security as part of human security in South Asia in view of the growing energy crisis in the region.