SAARC: security with a new perspective

Abstract

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.