'Active Nonaligment' On The March In A Multipolar World

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US banking on cheap missiles to narrow China war gap It's been five years since you first came up with the idea of active nonalignment. Why did you think it was time to revisit it now?

The notion of active nonalignment came up during the first Trump administration and in the context of a Latin America hit by the triple-whammy of US pressure, a pandemic and the ensuing recession – which in Latin America translated into the biggest economic downturn in 120 years, a 6.6% drop of regional gross domestic product in 2020.

ANA was intended as a guide for Latin American countries to navigate those difficult moments, and it led us to the publication of a symposium volume with contributions by six former Latin American foreign ministers in November 2021, in which we elaborated on the concept.

Three months later, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the reaction to it by many countries in Asia and Africa, nonalignment was back with a vengeance.

Countries like India, Pakistan, South Africa and Indonesia, among others, took positions that were at odds with the West on Ukraine. Many of them, though not all, condemned Russian aggression but also wanted no part in the West's sanctions on Moscow . These sanctions were seen as unwarranted and as an expression of Western double standards – no sanctions were applied on the US for invading Iraq, of course.

And then there were the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the resulting war in the Gaza Strip. Countries across the Global South strongly condemned the Hamas attacks, but the West's response to the subsequent deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians brought home the notion of double standards when it came to international human rights.

Why weren't Palestinians deserving of the same compassion as Ukrainians? For many in the Global South, that question hit very hard – the idea that“human rights are limited to Europeans and people who looked like them did not go down well.”

Thus, South Africa brought a case against Israel in the International Court of Justice alleging genocide, and Brazil spearheaded ceasefire efforts at the United Nations.

A third development is the expansion of the BRICS bloc of economies from its original five members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – to 10 members. Although China and Russia are not members of the Global South, those other founding members are, and the BRICS group has promoted key issues on the Global South's agenda.

The addition of countries such as Egypt and Ethiopia has meant that BRICS has increasingly taken on the guise of the Global South forum. Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a leading proponent of BRICS, is keen on advancing this Global South agenda.

All three of these developments have made active nonalignment more relevant than ever before.

How are China and the US responding to active nonalignment – or are they?

I'll give you two examples: Angola and Argentina.

In Angola, the African country that has received most Chinese cooperation to the tune of US$45 billion , you now have the US financing what is known as the Lobito Corridor – a railway line that stretches from the eastern border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Angola's Atlantic coast.

Ten years ago, the notion that the US would be financing railway projects in southern Africa would have been considered unfathomable. Yet it has happened. Why? Because China has built significant railway lines in countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia, and the US realized that it was being left behind.

For the longest time, the US would condemn such Chinese-financed infrastructure projects via the“Belt and Road Initiative” as nothing but“debt-trap diplomacy” designed to saddle developing nations with“white elephants” nobody needed.

But a couple of years ago, that tune changed: The US and Europe realized that there is a big infrastructure deficit in Asia, Africa and Latin America that China was stepping in to reduce – and the West was nowhere to be seen in this critical area.

In short, the West changed it approach – and countries like Angola are now able to play the US off against China for its own national interests.

Then take Argentina. In 2023, Javier Milei was elected president on a strong anti-China platform. He said his government would have nothing to do with Beijing . But just two years later, Milei announced in an Economist interview that he is a great admirer of Beijing .

Why? Because Argentina has a very significant foreign debt, and Milei knew that a continued anti-China stance would mean a credit line from Beijing would likely not be renewed.

The Argentinian president was under pressure from the International Monetary Fund and Washington to let the credit line with China lapse, but Milei refused to do so and managed to hold his own, playing both sides against the middle.

Milei is a populist conservative; Brazil's Lula a leftist. So is active nonalignment immune to ideological differences?

Absolutely. When people ask me what the difference is between traditional nonalignment and active nonalignment, one of the most obvious things is that the latter is nonideological – it can be used by people of the right, left and center.

It is a guide to action, a compass to navigate the waters of a highly troubled world, and can be used by governments of very different ideological hues.

Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentina President Javier Milei at the 66th Summit of leaders of the Mercosur trading bloc in Buenos Aires on July 3, 2025. Photo: Luis Robayo / AFP via Getty Images / The Conversation