Bangladesh could be an important catalyst in S Asia's strategic arena: Analysts

There is a need for increased connectivity, cooperation, and integration among South Asian countries and Bangladesh could be an important catalyst in the strategic arena, said regional security analysts.

South Asia should be given greater importance by major international actors, they said in a roundtable titled "Emerging Security Challenges: South Asian Security Landscape", organised by the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS) at The Westin Dhaka hotel on Sunday.

The event brought together national and international stakeholders, including ambassadors, foreign diplomats, government officials, editors, and academics. 

The moderator of the event, Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, a distinguished fellow at BIPSS, defined the region of South Asia and laid out the four key assumptions of security — security of what, for whom, from whom and by what means.

Highlighting the contested nature of the concept of security and the need for multi-level analysis to better grasp the concept, Iftekhar Ahmed said there are new conflicts as well as new alliances in the region. 

Although regionalisation is considered weak in South Asia, he said, citing the example of Saarc, South Asia is not a weak region and regional groupings remain of great importance.

Dr Niloy Ranjan, an associate professor of International Relations at the University of Dhaka, said, as the world order has become multipolar, South Asian states, such as Bangladesh, have greater strategic autonomy due to their strategic importance and geographical location. 

South Asia will become a significant trade hub in the future and multilateralism will continue to play a crucial role in facilitating regional cooperation, he added.

Turning to traditional security issues in South Asia, Brig Gen (retd) Shahedul Anam, former associate editor of the Daily Star, focused on hard security and the region's ability to defend its freedom of action. 

South Asia, he said, is not a single security construct and each state in the region has diverging perspectives about what security means. 

Shahedul Anam pointed out that externally generated factors are primarily to blame for South Asia's security woes. This region is the only one in the world where two nuclear powers share borders.

Addressing the roundtable, Farzana Mannan, an associate professor of the International Relations Department at Jahangirnagar University, shed light on non-traditional security issues in South Asia, focusing particularly on the impact of climate security on human security. 

While non-traditional security is not military in nature, it has the potential to trigger conflicts and irreversible consequences, she said, adding that climate security has a direct impact on human security and personal security because our food, health, and economic security are all tied to climate security.