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.
If Washington persists down this path, the response from the Global South will not be submission. It will be coordination. China, Russia, Brazil, India, and others have every incentive to deepen trade, energy, and financial cooperation—not out of ideological unity, but out of defensive necessity. Ironically, Trump’s economic nationalism may succeed in what decades of rhetoric could not - forging a more cohesive Global South.
So long as Indians do not find a true watchdog for the government, people will have to keep choosing the lesser evil. Youth are well aware of the situation of Arab countries post-revolution. In South Asia, although Sri Lanka and Nepal have been able to consolidate power to some extent, Bangladesh remains in a frenzy with rampant human rights violations, religious persecution and no legitimate government in sight. Hence, Indian youth prefer to seek reform from within rather than a full-blown revolution without any vision for the future
For Bangladesh’s Hindus, each funeral deepens the message that their lives are negotiable and their suffering invisible. If this trajectory continues unchecked, the country risks normalizing a culture of impunity that will ultimately consume more than one community. Violence ignored does not fade; it spreads. And the price of silence, as history repeatedly shows, is always paid in lives.
Keen observers of international and regional politics will not have missed the tacit presence of the invisible hand of the US in determining the democratic transition in Bangladesh. Obviously, TarIque had been tutored by the Americans about the best way forward for the transition towards democratic rule and delivering on the promises of cooperation on regional security. The intelligentsia inside the country could have hoped for Tarique referring to ‘’historical’’ figures from the Indian subcontinent, the Muslim world, and Bangladesh’s past.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation's (SAARC) Charter, by contrast, establishes no regional human rights treaty, monitoring body, or court. Scholars emphasize that governments in the subregion demonstrate a lack of deep commitment to human rights and remain unwilling to acknowledge subregional solutions. Victims of systemic violations have no forum for binding adjudication.
This fully unfettered approach to everything Trump does also has serious consequences for India. At least through the duration of the Trump administration until 2028, the Modi government will have to spread around its geostrategic and geoeconomic needs among various countries such as Japan, Australia, Germany, France and the United Kingdom or collectives such as the European Union, even as it deals with America with some judicious leveraging.
The ruling governments in Bangladesh often seek to use these laws in various ways. Critical expression, especially criticism of the government or raising questions about religion, can be met with swift arrest and harassment through laws such as the Digital Security Act (DSA). In addition, allegations of religious blasphemy are used to pressure and marginalize political opponents, opposition parties, and dissenting voices. Religious extremist groups use these laws to promote their ideology or to intimidate people of different faiths or those who hold non-religious views.
The question now is whether Washington’s ambitions end with Venezuela—or whether this marks a broader return to Cold War-style regional dominance. History suggests that when smaller states fail to act as “good neighbors,” interventions by great powers become inevitable. India’s interventions under Indira Gandhi illustrate this dynamic in South Asia. As Henry Kissinger observed, “to create order, it is necessary to create it within regions first and then relate them to each other.”
Contrary to popular belief, migration is not primarily a one-way movement from poor countries to rich ones. Nearly half of all migration from the Global South occurs between developing countries themselves, rather than towards the affluent Global North. Indeed, South-South migration, often taking place across contiguous borders with porous controls, is believed to account for nearly 80% of such flows.
Aside from digital platforms for women-owned business, another concrete example could be to foster women-led marketplaces. Located along borders between the two countries, these could be designed to be safe, offering clean facilities and childcare. Stable and lower cost customs and visa processes could help restore trade relations and the trust of local communities affected by conflict.
There is a difference between a BRICS common currency and de-dollarisation. While trade in local currencies is a compulsion due to sanctions and other changes in the global economic landscape, a BRICS common currency is not feasible due to economic and geopolitical reasons. India’s presidency of BRICS will be important, since it will have to walk a fine balance. While voicing the concerns of the Global South it would not want to get caught in a zero-sum geopolitical wrangling.
The year 2025 marked a mix of turbulent times for Pakistan with weakening yet stabilising economy, fractured, fragile polity and civil society, rise in enforced disappearances and heightened militancy. It also saw diplomatic initiatives with Asian states and resurgence of engagement with the United States. Overall, the Deep State with Pakistani Army leadership at the core continues to dominate the governance structures and institutions, further impinging on the democratic credentials of the country.
It is clear that in those 'virtual' negotiations, the participating sides were the US, Russia and China. The EU, including Denmark, the country whose territory Greenland is, was not. India neither. The old rule that if you are not part of the negotiations, you are likely a subject to the decisions, holds true. Possible future steps would include annexation of Greenland, as indicated by Trump on multiple occasions, including also in interviews after the Venezuela takeover. This would achieve another objective – to weaken the EU further, as no EU state will likely challenge the US if the annexation happens.
When cricket is weaponized against Bangladesh while India’s own internal challenges are ignored, the message is unmistakable: power, not principle, is guiding moral judgment. This undermines the very spirit of Neighborhood First, which depends on trust and even‑handedness. Over time, such practices erode confidence, deepen asymmetry, and weaken the foundations of cooperation.
South Asia’s unemployment challenge is unfolding differently across different regional countries, yet driven by almost similar structural failures. India’s scale magnifies the risks of jobless growth; Pakistan’s instability deepens youth disillusionment; Sri Lanka’s educated unemployment reflects long-standing policy neglect; and Bangladesh’s export-led success masks limited employment diversification. Unless these states move beyond fragmented schemes and adopt employment-centred growth, skill-linked education, and gender-inclusive labour reforms, the region’s youthful population will shift from being a potential dividend to a shared strategic vulnerability.
