Is Nonaligned Foreign Policy for a Small Country Possible? The case of Bangladesh from 1972 to 1975 : Achievements and Contradictions

Khan, Haider (2023): Is Nonaligned Foreign Policy for a Small Country Possible? The case of Bangladesh from 1972 to 1975 : Achievements and Contradictions.

Abstract

How might it be possible for the foreign policy of a small country today to be part of a Nonaligned Movement(NAM) as the unipolar world ends? I do a historical geopolitical and geoeconomic case study to answer this question. How was it possible for the foreign policy of Bangladesh to be oriented toward the world as a part of an independent nonaligned movement even as the newly independent, poor, tropical country ravaged by a brutal war struggled to balance many competing internal and external demands? This becomes a complex question to answer particularly when we recall that the cold war between the US led Capitalist bloc and the USSR led Socialist bloc had already been raging for more than two decades. Only some larger mixed economies like India, Indonesia, and some revolutionary countries like Cuba and Algeria had managed to show such independence during the 1950s and 1960s. In case of Indonesia this was drowned in blood in a coup aided and abetted by the US.My recently developed theory of Critical TransNeoclassical Realism for geopolitics and geoeconomics helps answer these questions and raise the possibility of a new NAM.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Foreign policy, Geopolitics and Geoeconomics New NAM, foreign policy of a small country and NAM, Bangladesh after liberation, Critical TransNeoclassical Realism for geopolitics and geoeconomics
• Subjects: A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics; A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics > A13 - Relation of Economics to Social Values; F - International Economics > F5 - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy

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