Heine Publishes Op-Ed Arguing for Greater Recognition of Active Non-Alignment
Jorge Heine, Research Professor at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Interim Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, published an op-ed in The Hindu, one of India‘s leading newspapers, examining active non-alignment as a lens for global compromise in ending the Russia–Ukraine War.
This article, entitled “Applying Active Non-Alignment for Ukrainian Peace,” explored the motivations behind India and Latin America staying relatively neutral throughout the Russia-Ukraine War and cited active non-alignment as the method they were using to guide their foreign policy, much to the frustration of Western leaders.
An excerpt:
Suddenly, a war erupts in Europe, and this means that all bets are off, and all countries should chip in to support Ukraine. Yet, as India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has put it, ‘Europe has to grow out of its mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s.’ Unable to come to terms with the fact that developing nations are unwilling to wage economic war against Russia (let alone provide Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, as the United States and Germany recently tried to induce Latin American countries to do), northern leaders are quite at a loss as to what to do.
He also argues in defense of active non-alignment as a policy, pushing back against the notion that the strategy is simple neutrality, but rather “embodying a proactive attitude aimed at solving problems and generating the badly needed solutions our troubled world needs.” Heine centers the Global South as necessary for mediation and resolution in the Russia-Ukraine War and rounds out his argument by advocating for the Global South to use active non-alignment to play a larger role on the world stage.
The full article can be read on The Hindu‘s website.
Ambassador Jorge Heine is a Research Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He has served as ambassador of Chile to China (2014-2017), to India (2003-2007), and to South Africa (1994-1999), and as a Cabinet Minister in the Chilean Government. Read more about Ambassador Heine on his Pardee School faculty profile.