RECENT DEVELOPMENTS in many realms of politics and the emergence of contemporary approaches in political science have left the students of international relations confused about the so-called unipolar world. This situation has many implications for international relations especially for the foreign policy of a nation. One of them is the repeated relevance of the non-alignment policy to the multitude of states of the non-aligned movement.

Because the policy emerged in the context of a bipolar world in the late 1940s, when the Cold War was in vogue, many related to the policy only in a bipolar context. But when the Cold War started ebbing in the 1970s with the first wave of détente some writers started questioning the relevance of non-alignment policy. The mistake was realised in the 1980s. But from 1988 onwards, a mistake was inadvertently committed by some of the writers with the arrival of a new détente between superpowers. We were told that in the changed context, non-alignment had no continuing relevance.

The fact of the matter is that the non-alignment policy was not completely related to a bipolar world and the Cold War between superpowers and the blocks they led. It just happened that non-alignment flowered in the post World War phase, after 350 years of struggle by small / weak states against the hegemony of great powers since the arrival of sovereign states in the middle of the 17th century in Europe. Therefore, whatever the world is – bipolar, multi-polar or unipolar, non-alignment as a foreign policy of the small / weak states will continue to remain valid. In other words, the policy will last as long as the sovereign nation states exist.

It seems pointless for a person to question today the continuing relevance of the policy which has become integral to the functioning of sovereign nation-states. The jaded question of the time is non-alignment with whom? The answer is non-alignment with the hegemony of great powers. It may be difficult to practise in a unipolar world but the policy as such does not cease to be pertinent.

The policy remains relevant despite periodical vagaries in the sovereign states system for more than three centuries. The traditional foreign policy choices open to small / weak states (isolationism, neutrality) are no longer available in view of the increasing interdependence of states. And the traditional foreign policy choices of the great powers (imperialism, nationalistic universalism) will be resisted today by an overwhelming majority of the states. All that is likely to happen is that the 350-year-old struggle of small / weak nation-states against the hegemony of the great powers will enter a new phase in which an overwhelming majority of small / weak states would challenge the lone superpower dominating the community of states.

As long as the functioning of sovereign nation-states is corrupted by power politics, ie as long as the system operates contrary to the theory that states are sovereign, independent and equal, the policy of non-alignment will remain valid and effective in international relations irrespective of periodical, marginal changes in the system.

The great tragedy (and of NAM too) is that it has been brought about by one member of the NAM (Iraq) through blatant violation of the UN Charter as well as NAM norms against a fellow member of both (Kuwait). It is a fact that the extant multi-lateralism is pretty weak but the community of states will not abandon them. They have survived bi-polarism and now they will survive unipolarism. After the tremendous progress made in the development of international law and international organisations, it seems unthinkable that they would permit the revival of the hegemony of one or more superpowers over the rest of the states.