How South Asian Countries Respond to Security Dynamics: Strategies and Measures

South Asia is one of the most strategically sensitive regions in the world. It packs together two nuclear-armed neighbours, decades of unresolved territorial disputes, porous borders, and a long list of shared threats ranging from terrorism to natural disasters. The countries here do not simply react to crises as they come. They follow deliberate strategies to manage their security environment, sometimes alone and sometimes together. Understanding these responses tells us a great deal about why the region remains both deeply interconnected and persistently divided.

What “security dynamics” means in South Asia 🔗

Security in South Asia is shaped by a distinct geography. India sits at the centre, sharing land or maritime boundaries with almost every other country, while the smaller states rarely border each other. This makes India the central reference point in everyone’s security calculations. Scholarly analysis notes that the overwhelming focus on the India-Pakistan rivalry has tended to overshadow other regional security concerns and slow down cooperation and conflict resolution.

Most countries in the region still prioritise traditional security, meaning military threats, territorial disputes, and the survival of the state. The India-Pakistan contest over Kashmir, border disputes at Siachen and Sir Creek, cross-border terrorism, and an ongoing arms race between two nuclear powers all fall into this category. Alongside these sit non-traditional security threats such as climate change, water scarcity, disasters, drug trafficking, pandemics, and food insecurity, which cut across borders and cannot be solved by any single state alone.

Why the threats are mostly internal and bilateral 🔗

An interesting feature of South Asia is that, unlike many regions, it has faced no single common external enemy that would force the states to unite. Instead, the threats are largely internal and directed at each other. As one study on collective security observes, the region carries colonial legacies of undemarcated boundaries and displaced ethnic and religious minorities, producing high levels of inter-state tension. With no shared adversary to rally against, cooperation has always been harder to build.

The main strategies states use 🔗

When a state faces a security threat, it can choose from a small set of well-known strategic responses. South Asian countries draw on all of them depending on their size, location, and capabilities.

Internal balancing 🔗

Internal balancing means building up your own strength rather than relying on others. This is the most visible strategy in the region. India and Pakistan have both invested heavily in conventional militaries and nuclear arsenals. Analysts point out that the two spend billions on defence and pursue a continuous arms race, even though large sections of their populations lack basic services. Smaller states also modernise their forces, but their capacity to match the larger powers is limited, so internal balancing alone is rarely enough for them.

External balancing 🔗

External balancing means forming alliances or partnerships with stronger outside powers to counter a threat. Pakistan’s long-standing strategic relationship with China is the clearest example, partly aimed at offsetting India’s size. India, in turn, has deepened ties with partners such as the United States, Japan, and Australia through groupings like the Quad. Smaller states sometimes seek outside backing too, which is why South Asian security cannot be understood without looking at the influence of external powers, especially China.

Bandwagoning 🔗

Bandwagoning is when a weaker state aligns with a stronger, sometimes threatening, power instead of opposing it. The logic is that it is safer to side with the strong than to resist them. As one analysis explains, a weaker state may align with a stronger adversarial power to reduce the risks that actor poses, while accepting that the larger partner gains more from the relationship. In South Asia, smaller neighbours occasionally tilt toward a major power when the costs of resisting seem too high.

Hedging 🔗

Hedging is the most common and the most subtle strategy for smaller and medium states. Instead of committing fully to balancing or bandwagoning, a state keeps its options open by maintaining good relations with competing powers at the same time. Researchers describe hedging as a continuum sitting between the two poles of balancing and bandwagoning, blending elements like economic pragmatism, limited engagement, and indirect balancing.

This is exactly how several South Asian states manage the rivalry between India and China. Countries such as Nepal and Sri Lanka try to draw economic benefits from China, often in the form of large infrastructure loans, while preserving their security ties and geographic closeness to India. The risk, as Sri Lanka discovered with the heavily indebted Hambantota port, is that hedging can carry hidden autonomy costs when investments turn into unsustainable debt. Hedging is attractive precisely because it avoids forcing a final choice in an uncertain environment.

Cooperation through SAARC 🔗

Recognising that many threats are shared, South Asian states created the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in 1985. Its membership includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. SAARC was meant to be the main forum for building trust and tackling common problems collectively.

Agreements on terrorism, narcotics, and disasters 🔗

SAARC has produced a real body of legal frameworks for cooperation. The SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism was adopted in 1987, and an Additional Protocol was later signed to broaden it, coming into force in 2006 after all members ratified it. A Terrorist Offences Monitoring Desk was set up in Colombo in 1995 to collect and share information on terrorist methods and tactics.

Beyond terrorism, members signed the SAARC Convention on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances to coordinate against drug trafficking, alongside conventions on trafficking in women and children and on child welfare. For disasters, the region established a SAARC Disaster Management Centre and a Natural Disaster Rapid Response Mechanism to coordinate planning and relief. An Agreement on a Food Security Reserve was also put in place to address food shortages. These frameworks show that, on paper, the region has tools to handle several of its most pressing non-traditional threats.

Why collective action keeps failing 🔗

The problem is that SAARC has rarely translated these frameworks into effective action. The biggest reason is the India-Pakistan rivalry, which repeatedly paralyses the organisation. The last SAARC summit was held in Kathmandu in 2014, and the 2016 summit scheduled for Islamabad was cancelled after a major terror attack on an Indian army base, with India and several other members pulling out. Since then, commentators have argued that without Indian participation and interest, SAARC simply cannot move forward.

There are deeper structural problems too. One assessment highlights that India holds around 77% of the region’s population, area, and resources, creating a power asymmetry that smaller members find uncomfortable. Intra-regional trade remains very low compared with blocs like ASEAN or the European Union, reflecting how little practical cooperation actually happens. The result is a forum rich in agreements but poor in implementation.

India’s response: Neighbourhood First and beyond 🔗

As the largest state, India’s choices shape the region more than any other. Its current approach is captured in the Neighbourhood First policy, which prioritises immediate neighbours through political engagement, development assistance, connectivity, trade, energy, and security cooperation. The Ministry of External Affairs frames this as strengthening regional cooperation across both traditional and non-traditional security, including maritime, cyber, climate, disaster, food, and human security.

In practice, this has meant financial and humanitarian assistance to neighbours, such as the substantial aid India extended to Sri Lanka during its recent economic crisis, along with maritime security cooperation across the Indian Ocean. The policy also has a clear strategic aim of reducing neighbours’ dependence on China and managing Beijing’s growing presence in the region.

Turning to BIMSTEC and sub-regional groups 🔗

With SAARC stuck, India has shifted energy toward smaller, more workable groupings. The most important is BIMSTEC, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, which links five South Asian countries (India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka) with Thailand and Myanmar from Southeast Asia. Crucially, it leaves out Pakistan, which removes the single biggest obstacle to cooperation.

Analysts describe BIMSTEC as a crucial link between India’s Neighbourhood First and Act East policies, with potential to advance regional connectivity, security cooperation, and free trade around the Bay of Bengal. India has invested in capacity building, centres of excellence, and training programmes to give the grouping momentum. Alongside it, the BBIN initiative (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal) pushes connectivity projects forward where the wider region stalls.

BIMSTEC is not a finished solution. A recent academic study raises an open question about whether cooperation in soft sectors will ever translate into genuine collaboration on hard security matters. Connectivity gaps, slow project implementation, and the persistent shadow of China-India competition all remain challenges. Still, for now it represents the most realistic path for India to keep regional cooperation alive.

Pulling the threads together 🔗

South Asian countries respond to their security environment through a mix of self-reliance, outside partnerships, careful hedging, and institutional cooperation. The smaller states lean toward hedging to protect their autonomy between India and China, while the larger powers invest heavily in military strength and external alliances. Collective frameworks like SAARC exist and are well designed on paper, but political rivalry, especially between India and Pakistan, keeps blunting their impact. India’s pivot to Neighbourhood First and BIMSTEC reflects a pragmatic acceptance that cooperation may need to happen in smaller circles to happen at all.

What do you think? Can sub-regional groupings like BIMSTEC ever build the kind of trust needed to tackle hard security threats, or will the India-Pakistan rivalry keep South Asia from acting as one? And should smaller states continue hedging between major powers, or does that strategy quietly trade away their long-term autonomy?

References

1. https://regionalsecurity.org.au/article/security-narratives-in-south-asia/
2. https://ndcjournal.ndc.gov.bd/ndcj/index.php/ndcj/article/download/122/107/217
3. https://strafasia.com/analysis-of-traditional-and-non-traditional-security-threats-to-south-asia/
4. https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2024/08/12/southeast-asias-grand-strategy-hedging/
5. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/political-science/articles/10.3389/fpos.2025.1598976/full
6. https://www.refworld.org/legal/agreements/saarc/1987/en/21019
7. https://fpa.org/saarc-i-evolution/
8. https://thediplomat.com/2022/09/saarc-is-dead-long-live-sub-regional-co-operation/
9. https://www.thefridaytimes.com/13-Nov-2025/saarc-limbo-india-pakistan-rivalry-crippled-south-asian-regionalism
10. https://www.security-risks.com/post/india-s-neighbourhood-first-policy-mea-perspectives
11. https://www.gatewayhouse.in/bimstec-steps-forward/
12. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10357718.2025.2548934