The enduring presence of the transnational Jihadi terrorist group Al Qaeda, the so-called vanguard of the global jihadist movement, reminds us of its stature, strength and resilience in the face of a decade-long concerted 'war on terror' against this group and its support system across the globe. Since the deadly September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the group's leadership strategically achieved relative success in expanding its physical infrastructure and ideological base.
Non-alignment is backed by a recent report prepared and published by the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, in February 2012. Reminiscent of a movie sequel, it is refreshed, repackaged, updated and delivered in a 2.0 form, titled “Non-Alignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty-First Century”. And like most movie sequels today, it also runs on an altogether new script with only an imaginary connection to the first. Why stick to the name, then?
In spite of the seemingly difficult terrain in generating and implementing confidence-building measures in South Asia, all are not doom and gloom. It is thus plausible to make the following conclusions based on existing regional and sub-regional arrangements in South Asia.India and Pakistan, as the two new de facto nuclear weapon states in the nuclear club since 1998, have embarked upon some meaningful nuclear risk reduction measures through a series of bilateral agreements.
In the era of aggressive globalization, block politics hardly matters. However, economic integration, free trade, GDP growth, and connectivity through infrastructure development do matter most to the international system. Where all the leaders have failed to forge regional cooperation during the 22 years of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) existence, International Financial Institutions (IFIs) like the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have rekindled hope in SAARC to become relevant, although economically.
Agro-terrorism has received little or no attention in India [or for that matter in South Asia] because terrorists have yet to employ agricultural assaults as a method of operation in this region. The threat scenario would involve a deliberate introduction of a disease agent, either against livestock or into the food chain, for purposes of undermining stability and/or generating fear among masses. Even terrorist group can achieve their objective by using radiological dispersal devices against food or water supply.