This article interprets the COVID-19 pandemic as a profound existential event that exposed the moral, political, and structural fragilities of the global order. Drawing on existentialist philosophy—Sartre’s ontology of freedom, Camus’ ethics of solidarity, Foucault’s bio- politics, and Agamben’s state of exception—it argues that the pandemic mirrored the human condition of interdependence, anxiety, and moral choice. Through literature and philosophy, crises are revealed as tests of responsibility within constraint, as tensions between freedom and surveillance, sovereignty and solidarity, inequality and justice. The study also integrates Marxian critiques of global capitalism and analyses how vaccine nationalism, digital surveillance, and emergency governance redefined sovereignty and ethics. It concludes by articulating an ‘existential diplomacy’ grounded in recognition, responsibility, and redistributive justice, signalling a movement away from technocratic management towards moral and democratic accountability.
An ethno-conflict erupted in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh in 1975 which lasted for more than two decades. It came to a formal end when the Bangladesh government and the ethno-guerilla group reached a negotiated settlement in 1997. Since then, a peace process has been underway, but violence still persists. This article illustrates why ethno-conflict erupted in the CHT and why violence still continues. It argues that Bangladesh since its inception has been an ethnocratic state and the ethnocratic statecraft has led to the rise of ethno-conflict and contributed to the persistence of violence in the post-accord CHT.
In recent years, partnerships with non-conventional allies have emerged as the norm in the world order, amid dynamic global polarity and unanticipated challenges. The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) announced at the 2023 G20 Summit exemplifies this trend, linking three diverse regions with shared vulnerabilities and interests. This article aims to identify the key material and ideational drivers behind IMEC and analyse its opportunities and challenges. The European Union’s search to de-risk their engagements, Gulf countries’ push for non-oil economic diversification and India’s adept navigation of shifting alliances presents a congruence of their interests. Despite normative differences of the three regions, shared geo-economic and geo-political concerns underpin IMEC’s vision. While opportunities arise from the October 2025 Gaza Peace Summit, implementation faces hurdles from Middle East instability.
This paper examines how ASEAN-led minilateralism in the Mekong subregion contributes to reinforcing ASEAN centrality amid great power competition, particularly between the US and China. Some intra-regional initiatives such as the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy, the Mekong River Commission, and the ASEAN Mekong Basin Development Cooperation are examined to evaluate how ASEAN states employ minilateralism to sustain cooperation amid both development needs and intensifying great power competition in the Mekong subregion. ASEAN-led minilateralism is neither purely normative nor purely strategic. Instead, it is a pragmatic blend of cooperation and competition, designed to preserve institutional coherence while responding to geopolitical volatility.
This paper examines education as a realist tool for soft power in West and East Asia, responding to Jane Knight’s call for regionalisation research. Challenging her liberal vision of knowledge diplomacy, it argues that states leverage higher education to navigate power struggles, counter external influence, and secure national interests. Historical and contemporary examples reveal education’s unpredictable outcomes, necessitating state learning from successful models. While complementing hard and economic power, education’s ideological divides, notably China’s non-liberal norms, fuel regional rivalry, risking instability. Asian states, including India, can strategically use education to enhance security and influence in a competitive global order.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, US political scientist Francis Fukuyama in his book The End of History and the Last Man (Citation1992) triumphantly declared that the event marked the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government (Fukuyama Citation1992).
However, time has since mellowed the now septuagenarian Fukuyama, whose earlier writings made him an ideologue of neo-conservative thought. In his book, Liberalism and Its Discontents, he accepts that the war-like misadventures of neo-liberals and the race and gender-based Left-wing identity politics of US ‘progressives’ have increased inequality around the world and caused the perception that liberal ideas are outdated (Fukuyama Citation2022).
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah (1905–1982) occupies an enigmatic position in Kashmir’s political memory. To his supporters, he remains the Sher-i-Kashmir; to his critics, a symbol of political compromise. Lockwood observed long ago that Abdullah’s politics were shaped by the ‘test of wills’ between his regionalism and nationalisms (Lockwood Citation1969, 384). This ‘test’ became the defining feature of his political life.
This review essay critically examines Chitralekha Zutshi’s Sheikh Abdullah: The Caged Lion of Kashmir and Altaf Hussain Para’s The Making of Modern Kashmir: Sheikh Abdullah and the Politics of the State. Zutshi interprets Abdullah primarily as a figure shaped by postcolonial nationalist narratives, arguing that his leadership was continuously reconstructed through symbolic representation and political pragmatism (Zutshi Citation2024). Para, in contrast, attributes Abdullah’s contradictions to his personal political development, asserting that Abdullah used ideologies ‘to raise his own stakes rather than to build a consistent political philosophy’ of his own (Para Citation2019, 280).
Pakistan has longed for external patronage, mainly because of its ambition to achieve parity with its eastern neighbour, India. It has often got external support, for two reasons: firstly, its geopolitical location in the region has attracted attention of great powers; second is its nature of emanating security threats from the region in the form of transnational terrorism. But the question arises—how has Pakistan benefitted from these and why? One of the factors that has marred the growth and stability of Pakistan is the abysmal state of its economy. One after another simmering economic crises, on one hand, have undermined the credibility of the political leadership and, on the other, they have emboldened the military to interfere in political affairs, leading to a power tussle, in which each has been trying to dominate the country’s domestic and foreign policy at the expense of restructuring the economy and polity. In such a situation, it is foreign aid that has helped the country survive. Pakistan has knocked at the door of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 23 times, the highest by any country.
As the Polar Regions become pivotal to global politics, is India doing enough to keep up the momentum? This inquiry lies at the heart of Evolution of India’s Polar Policies, authored by Jawahar Bhagat and Anurag Bisen. The book is a rare academic contribution that provides an integrated assessment of India’s polar engagements in both the Arctic and Antarctica. Moving beyond conventional scientific and moralistic perspectives, it presents a distinctive blend of strategic insight and policy analysis through geopolitical, geo-economic and security-oriented lenses.
Three main points need to be kept in view in a discussion of the background against which Indo-Soviet relations have developed.
First, Jawaharlal Nehru enunciated the policy of non-alignment and took the initiative for the development of Indo-Soviet friendship at a time when Stalin regarded India as a semi-colony and the late Prime Minister himself as a British stooge and when he hardly took any interest in Southern Asia.
The departure of President Ayub from the Pakistani scene after a decade of almost unchallenged supremacy provides us with an opportune moment for the evaluation of his contribution in the sphere of Pakistan’s foreign policy. Like every other sphere of Pakistani life, the foreign policy of Pakistan, as it has developed over the last decade, has been primarily the handiwork of President Ayub.
We should disabuse our minds from the outset from the notion that President Ayub Khan’s 10 years in office had brought about any basic rethinking as far as the fundamental objectives of Pakistan’s foreign policy are concerned. These objectives remained the same during the Ayub period as they had during the pre-Ayub days.
In the aftermath of the Cold War, the international order has undergone profound transformation with China’s rapid rise posing a challenge to the US hegemony. The competition between these two great powers extends beyond the economic sphere into geopolitics, with Southeast Asia emerging as a focal point in their struggle for influence. From the perspective of offensive realism, John Mearsheimer argues that in the anarchic international system, great powers relentlessly seek to maximise their power to ensure security, making conflict inevitable. Employing the offensive realism approach, this study analyses the reasons why Southeast Asia has become entangled in US-China competition, examines the opportunities and challenges it faces, and assesses the responses of Southeast Asian countries in safeguarding their strategic interests.
This article examines how fear motivates the states to pursue nuclear weapons, contributing to the growing literature on emotions in International Relations and strategic studies. It reviews the concept of fear in IR theory and links it to established models of nuclear motivation. Using discourse analysis, the article investigates Pakistan’s nuclear programme, arguing that fear played a critical role in accelerating its pursuit of nuclear capability. The findings suggest that fear operates dynamically, varies over time and shapes the urgency and pace of nuclear development. Finally, the article proposes a framework for analysing fear as a driver of nuclear proliferation.
The article contends that the expanding regional and global terrorism, purportedly by the ‘Islamists’, led to the transformation of Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia, from ‘faith’ to ‘traditional’ Islam. This change was the nadir of a process that commenced with the origin of Islam in the region. The evolution, which was gradual till the pre-Soviet times, pronounced with the emergence of post-Soviet regimes, mainly due to security compulsions. The article further asserts that though this change seems innocent, it has serious implications for the region, per se, increased security threats to existing regimes, their ‘reimagined’ Islam, and the region’s pristine legacy of inter-cultural and intra-faith bonding.
India’s maritime sector is central to the country’s security and economic well-being, given its vast coastline and strategic position. India’s approach to maritime security has evolved in response to new types of threats, learning key lessons from incidents such as the Kargil conflict and the 2008 Mumbai attacks. There have been major positives—through the Coastal Security Scheme and the creation of institutional mechanisms like the National Maritime Security Coordinator (NMSC). However, gaps in coordination and resources remain. There is, therefore, a need to address these. This would include making the maritime security apparatus more robust, including empowering the NMSC, greater involvement of coastal communities, and adopting smarter technology and data-driven practices to enhance coastal vigilance and response mechanisms.
Japan’s security policy has transitioned through three distinct phases: passive, active and now proactive. Initially, Japan adhered to a defensive stance, avoiding active engagement beyond its borders. In the active phase, Japan began taking limited regional and global responsibilities, though its actions remained reactive. This period hinted at a move towards ‘normalisation’, yet significant limitations persisted. In the current proactive phase, Japan has adopted a leadership role in regional and global security, with the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) policy playing an important legitimising role as a source of widely accepted norms. This paper uses Japan’s Defence Export Policy as a case study to highlight its security evolution and the role of the FOIP narrative in legitimising its proactive stance.
The increasing inability to distinguish between civilian and military uses of satellite systems has created a governance gap that undermines crisis stability and confidence-building measures. Dual-use satellites blur the line between peaceful and military space activities, complicating arms control and international security. This paper analyses the technological, strategic, and legal implications of such systems that heighten strategic ambiguity and instability. It qualitatively evaluates governance frameworks, including the Outer Space Treaty and recent non-binding measures. Findings show that current mechanisms are inadequate, exacerbating mistrust and risks of miscalculation, underscoring the need for adaptive legal tools and sustained international dialogue.
The Saudi-Pakistan Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA), signed on September 17,2025, is a dramatic development amidst a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape in West and South Asia. Pakistan’s strategic elite has once again shown itself adept at geopolitical rent-seeking by leveraging the country’s nuclear status, religious identity, and geographical proximity to the Arab World to cultivate partnerships that can bail out its crisis-ridden economy. However, Pakistan’s primary objective is to counter India’s new assertive deterrence posture in ‘Operation Sindoor’, which established new rules of engagement, challenging Pakistan’s policy of using terrorist groups to secure its geopolitical goals under its nuclear umbrella. Saudi Arabia, for its part, seeks to shore up flailing deterrence against Iran and Israel. By asserting an outsized security role in the Gulf region, Pakistan is also holding out the promise of burden-sharing to the United States, increasingly viewed as an unreliable security guarantor despite its longstanding military preponderance in the region.
