Occasional Paper Series COD #15. SAARC: Security with a New Perspective

The late 20th Century was witness to profound changes in international relations and the concept of security. This period underpins not only the conclusion of the Cold War and the end of major conflicts in several regions, but also encompasses the transition from the Cold War security order to the beginning of a post-Cold War regional security dynamic. Paradoxically, this period has also witnessed greater strategic uncertainty, while at the same time raising hopes for peace and stability achieved through the pursuit of new security concepts and approaches. In other words, in the space that has replaced Cold War imperatives and overlay, new security ideas and institutions have begun to emerge. Modifiers such as "comprehensive", "common" and "cooperative" have been added to the trope "security" and have entered the parlance of regional security planners. This paper explores those ideas that fall under the expanding rubric of "South Asian Regional Security". It considers them in the light of contemporary developments in the theory of social and international relations, primarily on the approach of collective security. A key objective is to focus on the fundamental restructuring of the pattern of interactions between the countries of the South Asian region against the backdrop of an increasingly complex interplay between geo-economics and geo-politics. (...)