Has the Non Alignment Movement Lost Its Relevance in a Multipolar World

In September 1961 leaders from twenty five countries gathered in Belgrade for the first summit of the Non Aligned Movement. Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Sukarno of Indonesia had come to affirm that newly independent nations need not choose between the American and Soviet blocs. By the 1980s the movement had more than a hundred members, representing most of the world's states. In October 2016 the Prime Minister of India chose not to attend its summit in Venezuela, a break with long practice. The topic asks whether the movement has lost its relevance, and the answer depends on what we think it was for.

The movement grew from the Bandung Conference of 1955, in which twenty nine African and Asian states met in Indonesia to discuss decolonisation, peace and economic cooperation. Non alignment was a response to a specific situation. Two superpowers armed with nuclear weapons demanded allegiance, and smaller states risked being drawn into a conflict they did not want. By staying out of military alliances, they aimed to preserve their independence, to mediate in disputes and to use their votes at the United Nations for their own interests. Nehru called it not neutrality but an independent approach on every question.

For some decades it achieved results. The movement was a voice against colonialism and apartheid, and it helped make the end of empire a global norm. India stayed outside both blocs and received aid from both, building steel plants with Soviet help and taking food and technology from the United States. The Panchsheel principles of 1954, including mutual respect for sovereignty and non interference, set the tone. In the economic field, the movement's push for a new international economic order in the 1970s highlighted the claims of developing countries.

Its limitations were evident even then. Many members were aligned in practice. India signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union in 1971, and Cuba was a leading member while depending on Moscow. The members often disagreed with one another, and wars between them, such as that between India and China in 1962, exposed the weakness of the claim to solidarity. The movement had no secretariat of weight, no enforcement and no common programme beyond declarations. Its resolutions were more often rhetoric than action.

Its resolutions were more often rhetoric than action.

The end of the Cold War in 1991 removed its original logic. With the Soviet Union gone, there was only one superpower, and the question of aligning between two blocs disappeared. Critics said that the movement had no purpose, and its summits turned to general themes such as poverty and the reform of the United Nations. Meanwhile, its members became differentiated. Some, like India, China and Brazil, grew into large economies, while others stagnated. The category of developing countries now includes both rising powers and failing states, whose interests diverge on trade, climate and security.

The world today is neither bipolar nor unipolar, but multipolar. The United States remains the strongest power, China is rising rapidly, and the European Union, Russia, Japan and India are significant centres. Regional powers such as Turkey, Brazil and Saudi Arabia act with independence. New groupings such as the BRICS, the G20 and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation give states platforms that did not exist before. In such a world, the old picture of two camps and a middle is replaced by overlapping networks, and states can join several of them.

Strategic autonomy is more valuable in this environment, and not less. A state in a multipolar world faces pressure from several sides and needs the freedom to cooperate with different partners on different issues. India has described its approach as multi alignment, engaging the United States on defence and technology, Russia on arms, China on trade and the Gulf on energy, while participating in Quad consultations and in the BRICS. The government in 2016 declined a Cold War style choice. Practical experience supports the approach. India has bought weapons from Russia, France, Israel and the United States in the same decade, and has kept up relations with Iran and Saudi Arabia, and with Israel and Palestine, at once. This is the continuation of non alignment in spirit, and its supporters argue that it is the same principle, adapted. Nehru's idea was independence of judgement, and that remains central.

There is also a case for the movement as a collective voice. With about 120 members, it comprises nearly two thirds of United Nations members. On issues such as climate justice, the reform of global financial institutions and the rules of trade, the developing world needs to speak together. The movement offers a forum, even if a weak one, for coordinating positions. The Global South has interests in common that are not captured by any of the great powers, and a body that articulates them has relevance.

Still, the doubts are serious. A movement defined by what it is not, non aligned, finds it hard to define what it is for. The members do not share a common enemy or ideology, and the loudest voices are often countries with little weight. India's own behaviour suggests that it sees the movement as a legacy and not a strategy. When the Prime Minister did not attend the summit in 2016, he signalled a preference for groupings that offer concrete returns. The movement survives, but its energy has gone elsewhere.

The most honest answer is that non alignment as an institution has lost most of its relevance, while non alignment as an attitude has gained a new one. The world has many more poles, and each small and middle state has more room to manoeuvre, and also more risk of being caught between them. The word may have been retired, but the practice of keeping options open is as old as diplomacy. It is, however, hard to say whether a country can be non aligned when it is surrounded by neighbours who are not, and whether the independence that Nehru prized can survive when the choice of friends is a matter of daily negotiation.