According to realist paradigms, nuclear weapons can be seen as the ultimate guarantee of national security and when there will be no restrictions, states will strive to dominate or achieve parity. Lapse of New START can thus create worsening security dilemmas, where efforts of any state to enhance its deterrent value is seen as a threat, and the state retaliates. The position of nuclear weapons as power projectors will, therefore, be more intense.
Some analysts are of the view that Sri Lanka’s differential access — full executive level for India versus foreign ministry level for China — may reflect Sri Lanka’s carefully calibrated foreign policy. Sri Lanka is leveraging India for urgent, high-impact assistance and wider policy coordination and engaging China for strategic reassurance and medium-to-long-term cooperative alignment that is less intertwined with immediate executive decisions.
India’s challenge, and opportunity, lies in mastering torque rather than seeking a mythical centre of gravity. In a world defined by flux, leverage matters more than alignment, and agility matters more than allegiance. Strategic autonomy will not be preserved through rigid doctrines, but through continuous recalibration anchored in national interest, economic resilience, and confidence in India’s civilisational depth.
India’s response to Iran’s crisis illustrates the dilemmas facing middle powers navigating a polarised global order. While reaffirming principles of sovereignty, non-intervention and dialogue, New Delhi has largely confined itself to cautious diplomacy. For a country that positions itself as a voice of the Global South and a defender of strategic autonomy, such restraint invites scrutiny. Silence at moments of legal strain is never neutral. It contributes to the gradual normalisation of coercive precedent.
While the US and Israel is focused on Iran going nuclear, Pakistan is quietly transferring nuclear technology to Turkey. Beijing will be too happy to conduct Turkey’s first nuclear test on Chinese soil as it did for Pakistan, writes Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
A look at the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) countries - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka - shows the importance of effective and modern trade facilitation measures, writes Partha Pratim Mitra for South Asia Monitor
India and EU today need innovative new ideas to enhance their trade and economic cooperation, this being the key component for stronger partnership promoting economic growth in these troubled times, writes Sunil Prasad for South Asia Monitor
Coronavirus emergency brought together these South Asian nations as they reposed trust in SAARC. Thus, the pandemic delivered a promising indication of revitalization, writes Harsh Mahaseth & Saumya Pandey for South Asia Monitor
This is the BJP’s first success in the valley where it has always been regarded as untouchable. However, since local elections generally reflect the popularity of candidates belonging to the area, an outcome that ignores the wider political divisions is not unusual, writes Amulya Ganguli for South Asia Monitor
The return of active engagement with agrarian issues in university spaces is central to forging student-farmer solidarity, contends Arsh Ajmera for South Asia Monitor
Afghanistan wants Beijing to formally apologize for China’s spy-cum-terror module caught operating in Kabul violating international norms before the Chinese detainees are released. However, China will consider this demand an affront, writes Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
The region’s dependence on imports for production, as well as the contributions of its exports through value chains place some of its economies in an influential position within the global production and trading network, writes Partha Pratim Mitra for South Asia Monitor
The legacy of the Pakistani state’s sponsorship of some terror groups - mainly those used to help pursue its objectives in Afghanistan and India - means that the infrastructure of terror will prove difficult to dismantle (though Islamabad has made progress in curbing terror financing networks, amid strong international pressure), writes Michael Kugelman for South Asia Monitor
Dissent within Nepal’s Communist Party was brewing for a long time but dissolving parliament without a provision in the Constitution is unprecedented. China has invested too much in Nepal to let go of control of Nepalese politics, writes Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
If contract farming is an idea whose time has come, it is necessary to ask why did it take off from 2002-03 and then sharply decline by 2011-12 in this vanguard agrarian state, writes N Chandra Mohan for South Asia Monitor
More importantly, the South Asia region needs to realise that workers and farmers have a key role to play in promoting sustainable consumption as they are both the end consumers as well as the producers at the start of the supply chain, writes George Cheriyan & Simi T.B. for South Asia Monitor
But it is interesting to note that 49 years hence, there seems to be no change in how the nation views the civil war and a bloody separation of its eastern province, writes Mahendra Ved for South Asia Monitor
The ‘uncultured’ state of Pakistan has not apologized yet for the 1971 genocide. It should be compelled, writes Farabi Bin Zahir for South Asia Monitor
New Delhi also needs to recognize that the rules of diplomacy are changing and that country, especially the US under Biden, would not hesitate to make remarks about human rights violations or on communal tensions and certainly, the changes in the status of Jammu and Kashmir. None of these would qualify, for Biden’s Administration, as being ‘internal matters,’ writes Amb Amit Dasgupta (retd) for South Asia Monitor
