Band Of Brothers
0Monday, November 28, 2011 by Sanket Chaukiyal
RELEVANCE OF NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT (NAM) TODAY
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SHORT
INTRODUCTION TO NAM
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| NAM Countries Image Courtesy: Wikipedia |
The
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a group of non-aligned countries (reality is
different). It was formed in 1962 in Belgrade as an attempt to keep away from
the power blocks of the cold war, namely the NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Where an
adherence to any one of them meant an unconditional military, political and
economic support to the power blocks no matter what the conflict. It also meant
limiting oneself to trade mostly within a power block and alienation from the
other block.
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| NATO Vs Warsaw Pact Image Courtesy: Wikipedia |
However, there were more reasons
to the formation of this unique block. The other reasons were more relevant to
the formation of the NAM. They were based on mutual concerns. Some of those were:
- The need for self development with the assistance from both the power blocks.
- Formulation of national and international policy without the influence of the power blocks.
- Keeping out of the cold war and therefore avoiding confrontation in which there was no involvement at all.
- Preserving peace in the world as the more countries join the power blocks, the wider the range of confrontation possibilities becomes.
- Economic developments of self as most of the NAM countries were third world countries that were extremely poor.
- After being subject to colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, racism, occupation and foreign aggression, the NAM countries emerged as countries who did not wish to see this happen to themselves or others and hence adopted moral (idealistic) policies which were different than those of the power blocks.
- They wanted the world body (UN) to have the sole power in resolving the issues.
OTHER
FACTS
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The movement had 120 members and 17 observer
countries.
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NAM was the brainchild of Yugoslavia's
President, Josip Broz Tito, India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru,
Egypt's second President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ghana's first president Kwame
Nkrumah, and Indonesia's first President, Sukarno.
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Represents 55% of the world’s population.
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Second largest organization after UN.
IS
NAM RELEVANT?
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| Image Courtesy: Wikipedia |
Mostly
no, NAM is not relevant in today’s post- cold war world where the world has grown
more liberalised and the geo political dimensions of the world have changed to
a great extent where even the third world countries are shaping world politics
and economy. It is no more a world which is dominated or run by the developed
countries. Now, the developing economies of the world are set to become the
superpowers of the world but with soft power and hard power (eg: China and
India). Small countries now have more influence on world politics (eg:
Pakistan).
Looking back at history of
the NAM, the main reason for its formation was to thwart the cold war, but
since the cold war has ended, the relevance of NAM has also gone down. The objectives
of the NAM at that point of time are not relevant anymore. The world has
shifted towards realism and so the ideals of NAM which were heavily bent
towards Non-Alignment are not relevant.
The importance of NAM has
slowly decreased due to lack of enthusiasm shown by members, irregular
meetings, alignments and mostly a foundation built on ancient non-relevant
ideologies.
There are constant conflicts
between its members and this continues to happen as the NAM has no enforcing
powers.
NAM members are trying to reform the
organization by focussing on a different set of ideologies, namely
developmental ideologies like economy, development, poverty, war, etc. Although
these new ideas are laudable they are a bit too late as another form of
geo-politics has emerged which has become powerful and is more relevant to the
multi-polar dynamics of this century. This new form of Geo-Politics is known as
Regionalism.
WHAT IS REGIONALISM?
Regionalism
is where a group of nations come together and form an alliance which is based
mostly on economic cooperation rather than military cooperation. These groups
of countries have common interests and may be geographically close or have the
same purpose. The world has now realised one fundamental truth that is Darwin’s
theory of “Survival of the fittest”.
There is no one out to be benevolent out of genuineness. Everyone has an agenda
and is in the race to achieve economic prosperity and if one is left out then
they will be trampled upon by others. So what does one do against this? Form
alliance with like minded nations or those that have similar goals, in short, “Strength in Unity”. By coming together,
countries can cooperate amongst themselves and increase their trade, fight
against unfair policies of developed nations, represent the interests of the
developing countries at world bodies, further diffuse power in this world
thereby establishing multi-polarity.
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| Image Courtesy: NASA |
Some
regional organizations:-
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SAARC
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BRICS
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Sanghai Cooperation
Organisation
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IBSA
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Mekong Ganga Cooperation
BRICS
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| Image Courtesy: Wikipedia |
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Stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and
South Africa.
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BRICS is a political organization of leading
emerging markets.
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BRICS is a powerful alignment of countries
who have similar economic interests and have grouped together to resist
policies against them by international bodies, countries which could affect
their development.
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BRICS also plays a big part in safeguarding
the interests of developing nations and representing them on a world forum
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BRIC countries are developing very rapidly
and by 2050 their combined economies could eclipse the combined economies of
the current richest countries of the world. These five countries, combined,
currently account for more than a quarter of the world's land area and more
than 40% of the world's population.
Hence
it is easily seen why a Regional Organization like BRICS is more relevant than NAM in today’s world order.
PRACTICAL
ASPECT (Non-relevance of NAM)
1. It
is not practical for multiple organizations to exist which have the same
purpose and comprise of almost the same members.
2. A
country can only be a member of only as many organization as it can handle at a
time while looking at its own internal affairs. It is not possible for a
country to devote time to multiple organizations.
3. The
less organizations the better as power would be further dissolved.
4. Different
policies of different organizations might interfere with other.
5. Forming
an alliance ensures that your interests are protected.
6. Staying
with the countries in the NAM can also mean your own isolation from the world
as certain countries go against the world interests (eg: IRAN). So, India by
not supporting Iran’s nuclear weaponization has opened up benefits for its own
self like trade, weapons, etc.
7. Alliance
means “survival of the fittest”. Every country wants to go ahead, the only way
this is possible is with like minded countries.
8. The
world order is more based on “soft power” than “hard power” and so it makes
sense to have economic alliances and hence regionalism makes more sense than
Non-Alignment.
CONCLUSION
The world is full of
alignments in one way or the other. It is not possible to exist without
alignment if one wants to progress and protect interests. The world order is
such that it has become a mix of power distributed between developed and
developing nations and every nation is trying to come out at the top while the
ones at the top are trying to hold onto power. It makes sense to have strong
friends with like minds and interests. It makes more practical sense to
strengthen regional organizations which have more realistic ideals.
NAM has proved its
usefulness when it was most required but now it is not as relevant as it was
before. NAM is therefore not relevant in the current global geo political
scenario.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Category BRICS, Global Organisations, NATO, Non Aligned Movement (NAM), Regionalism, Warsaw Pact
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