It is rare to see new academic theories permeate into the vocabulary of world leaders. That is precisely what has happened with “active non-alignment” (ANA), an idea propagated by Chilean practitioners Jorge Heine, Carlos Fortin, and Carlos Ominami. Heads of government and foreign ministers from Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, and South Africa have used this term recently to describe their country’s foreign policy positions.
In response to the war in Iran, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto took a position “consistent with the principle of active non-alignment to continue to push for a peaceful resolution and prevent the spread of conflict.” Malaysian Prime Minister (PM) Anwar Ibrahim adopted a “posture of active non-alignment, to preserve our ability to act on our own terms.” South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa publicly reaffirmed his “commitment to the policy of active non-alignment.” Brazil’s chief foreign policy advisor notes that “on some issues, we will vote alongside the US; on others, we may converge with China. This is the logic of active non-alignment.”
The Chilean scholars coined ANA in 2019 as a doctrine with a “pragmatic, non-ideological, almost transactional character.” In their recent book, The Non-Aligned World: Striking Out in an Era of Great Power Competition, they describe the effectiveness of ANA in a world where geopolitical uncertainty reigns supreme.
Heine and his co-authors point to Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci’s dictum that “the crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born: in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
This transitional phase has triggered fierce great-power competition between Washington and Beijing. Today, weaker States find themselves in a bind, where aligning with one side or the other puts a country in a subordinate role. The authors posit that “ANA makes it possible to take advantage of Great Power competition to increase policy options and margins of maneuver.” Furthermore, they reject making an “artificial binary choice between Washington and Beijing,” and instead suggest examining each foreign policy issue on its own merits and hedge to take advantage of new opportunities.
They cite two examples that showcase India’s use of ANA (which New Delhi calls “strategic autonomy” or “multi-alignment”). One is India’s membership of Quad and Brics; New Delhi does not have to belong only to one or the other, it can be part of both.
India’s refusal to align itself with either side in the Russia-Ukraine conflict is another case in point. New Delhi took advantage of the situation by importing copious amounts of discounted Russian oil after the war in Ukraine began — an example of using ANA to hedge and take advantage of new economic opportunities.
The notion of ANA is universal. Some examples from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are relevant for India. While China is the largest trading partner for most South American countries, the US remains the largest investor in most cases.
As many as 22 countries from LAC are part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. A number of them are also part of initiatives spearheaded by Washington, such as the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, or the Shield of the Americas. When Washington turns down overtures, LAC countries swiftly turn to Beijing; no other case is more emblematic than Ecuador’s signing of a free trade agreement with China in 2024 after Washington turned down the offer in 2022.
These balancing acts, the authors note, allow countries to build relationships of interdependence, rather than dependence.
India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar released a previous version of Heine’s book on ANA at a 2023 conference in Delhi.
It would be appropriate for India to follow one of ANA’s tenets: To put economics first, relegating ideology and politics to a secondary role. This is India’s ideal foreign policy positioning amid the current war in West Asia. New Delhi’s view should be like a horse with blinders — fixated on securing energy needs and the welfare of its 10-million diaspora in the region. Everything else is secondary.
Hari Seshasayee is co-founder of Consilium group and visiting fellow at ORF. The views expressed are personal
