National security and SAARC

There is a growing tendency among sections of influential opinion in our part of the world to focus on economic and related benefits that closer ties with relatively larger regional organizations, such as BIMSTEC, could bring, but it could prove counter-productive for small states of South Asia to allow the importance of SAARC to be downplayed in their regional policies, in the process. The mounting economic shocks administered by COVID-19 ought to drive this lesson home.

Major powers of South Asia, such as India, are seen by some as particularly keen on strengthening their cooperative ties, for example, with BIMSTEC and BCIM, but small countries like Sri Lanka cannot do so at the cost of their ties with SAARC. However, this is not to imply that India is paying markedly reduced attention to SAARC. It’s just that SAARC has come to be seen as not fully measuring-up to expectations. Hence, the tendency among some regional states to look beyond SAARC for the betterment of collective and individual economic prospects.

This tendency to downplay SAARC, considering its seeming ineffectiveness, is only to be expected but post-COVID-19 times are so bleak from an economic standpoint in particular that states in our part of the world could be committing a grave regional policy blunder by writing-off SAARC as a failed catalyst in regional cooperation. The truth is that economic failure is the current lot of most countries and regions. The time is ‘now’ to increasingly and vigorously facilitate collective economic cooperation. SAARC, accordingly, is of continued relevance and usefulness.

Besides, there are issues pertaining to security and defence that are peculiar to the SAARC region only that necessitate closer cooperation among the countries of South Asia, both big and small. In this connection, the decades-long argument on regional cooperation still holds. Deliberations on individual and collective security, for example, do not come within the scope of SAARC but continued efforts at regional economic cooperation among the SAARC Eight could help to a degree in defusing security-linked tensions in South Asia. It ought to be demonstrated by the SAARC Eight that stepped-up economic cooperation and the resultant spirit of amity among them could, to some extent, facilitate the resolution of regional security questions. Interestingly, the collective economic miseries resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic reinforce the validity of this line of thinking that optimists on SAARC affairs have been voicing over the years. The economic downturn, post-COVID-19, is of such proportions that there is no alternative to cooperation in the economic field in particular, within South Asia.

Needless to say, stepped-up economic cooperation within South Asia, while generating a degree of amity in the SAARC region, could improve the overall security climate within South Asia. That is, national and collective security could be steadily strengthened. This would be a result of the mutual faith that economic cooperation generates. And it is a country’s immediate environs that impacts most on its security. It is for this reason that multi-dimensional cooperation within SAARC should be considered a top priority by the relevant states.

It is economics that holds the key. It is not possible to speak of national or regional security without taking into consideration economic security, that of individual countries and otherwise. That is, economic security is central to national and international security. Those sections in Sri Lanka who are loud on ‘national security’ need to focus on this relationship.

The ruining of economic prospects, nationally and otherwise, leads to social unrest and discontent. When the latter occurs, using the ‘big stick’ on people or subjecting citizenries to repression in the name of ‘national security’ proves ineffective in the medium and long terms for governments. It is stable economic equity that leads to a measure of enduring peace, within states and internationally.

Likewise, one ought to be feather-brained to argue that ‘national security’ and domestic reconciliation are mutually-exclusive things. Without cooperative and peaceful living among communities ‘national security’ cannot be had and it is economic equity that usually solidifies internal peace and security. Simplistic thinking on these questions could prove fatal for countries.

In the case of South Asia, the predominant power is, of course, India. If regional security is to be achieved, India’s neighbours would need to learn to live with her and vice versa. The countries of the region are obliged to take into account each others sensitivities. They would need to frame their policies, taking into account these sensitivities, if regional security is to be fostered and consolidated.

The COVID-19 pandemic strongly underscores the above considerations. India’s GDP has reportedly shrunk by -23.9 per cent in the present crisis. Except in the case of a relatively robust economy, like that of Bangladesh, most of the other countries’ economies will be badly hit to the degree to which the Indian economy suffers a downturn. Small countries, such as Sri Lanka, hamstrung by a lack of economic outreach, cannot depend too heavily on extra-regional economic organizations, such as BIMSTEC, for her economic sustenance. They would have no choice but to integrate their economies, to the extent possible, with the major economies in their midst, such as those of India and Pakistan.

But the Indian economy could not be expected to be hemmed in for too long by any current economic constraints on account of its relative vibrancy. It can afford to look very much beyond South Asia for its economic nourishment, the current economic decline notwithstanding. The size and strength of its economy enables it to do this. But this does not apply to the smaller and more vulnerable economies of the region. They need to depend mainly on their immediate neighbours.

It does not follow from the foregoing that the small states of South Asia should confine their economic interactions and exchanges to only their region. They must increasingly seek economic opportunities and markets, for instance, beyond South Asia. They need to remain internationalist in outlook and reach. But it should be realized that these states’ immediate environs determine the main directions in which they develop, in economic and security terms.