REGIONAL APPROACH TO SECURITY OF NON-ALIGNED STATES: THE CASE OF SOUTH ASIA

This article examines why South Asian non-aligned states repeatedly reached for regional approaches to security despite asymmetric capabilities and contested borders. It situates the debate within the late Cold War, when smaller states sought strategic autonomy while hedging against superpower rivalry. The discussion clarifies what “regional security” meant to policy elites: not collective defense in a NATO sense, but habits of consultation, confidence-building, and functional cooperation around shared risks such as terrorism, river management, and disaster response. It tracks how diplomatic forums created information channels, reduced misperception, and helped ring-fence disputes from escalation. The paper also notes the constraints: sovereignty sensitivities, domestic politics, and bilateral issues that periodically blocked deeper moves. Empirically, the piece points to incremental instruments—hotlines, joint working groups, observer missions, and legal templates—that signaled restraint without binding alliances. The core claim is that regional approaches were valued as tools of strategic insurance, allowing non-aligned states to thicken resilience without surrendering autonomy.

The body develops a three-part framework. First, strategic logic: non-aligned governments prized freedom of maneuver, so they favored low-cost, reversible security mechanisms over treaty-bound commitments. Second, institutional practice: modest but regularized meetings nurtured elite familiarity, and technical committees created “islands of cooperation” even when grand bargains stalled. Examples include information-sharing on insurgencies, coordinated border SOPs, and protocols for disaster relief that mobilized militaries in supportive, non-provocative roles. Third, political economy: trade corridors and energy interdependence offered incentives to avoid crises that would disrupt connectivity. Case vignettes reconstruct how signaling, advance notification of exercises, and joint statements dampened spirals during tense periods. The article also interrogates failures—moments when nationalism or domestic shocks overwhelmed regional restraint—and draws lessons about sequencing: start with transparency, codify limited rules, test implementation, and only then consider thicker pacts. It closes by arguing that, for non-aligned South Asia in 1988, efficacy lay not in mimicking great-power alliances but in designing fit-for-purpose regional practices that preserved autonomy while reducing risk.