Sri Lankans love to project their country as the land of serendipity. So, when the island country saw the back of a four-decade-old violent Tamil insurgency in 2009, it was expected that it would surge ahead in a serendipitous way. The turn of events ever since has, however, proved that the country has not been that fortunate. In fact, immediately after the conclusion of the war, Sri Lanka (re)lapsed into multiple crises, occasioned by a regime which functioned in an authoritarian manner.

In the aftermath of the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal, China and India immediately sent relief teams. The relief efforts in Nepal showcase a competitive aspect of the two major regional powers, as China seeks to gradually increase its influence in South Asia. This article analyses how these two governments utilised relief efforts to increase influence in Nepal, within the wider context of the contentious Sino–Indian relationship. The Chinese and Indian relief responses after the Nepal earthquakes are extrapolated to assess their strategic utility.

For the last 15 years, the war in Afghanistan has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and the United States has sent thousands of troops and spent billions of dollars supporting strategies that have been unable to curtail the violence in the country. In addition to deploying over 130,000 troops from 51 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries and its partner nations, the United States alone spent over $686 billion in the ‘Afghan war’.

This article has two parts. The first part aims at analysing why nations are increasingly going beyond their multilateral and regional moorings to secure and advance their national interests. In doing so, why and how do they indulge in sub-regional engagements? It has been empirically seen across the board in almost every part of the world that sub-regional growth initiatives play a significant role in regional integration.