Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has called for Sri Lanka to evolve its traditional non-alignment policy into a multi-alignment approach as global power structures shift and geopolitical uncertainty increases.
Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has advocated for Sri Lanka to transition from classical non-alignment to what she terms "multi-alignment," a contemporary strategy suited to navigating present-day geopolitical turbulence. Speaking at the Professor Shelton U Kodikara Memorial Oration organized jointly by the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies and the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies, Kumaratunga argued that countries in the Global South must adopt strategic hedging and multi-alignment approaches to protect national interests amid mounting uncertainty.
Kumaratunga observed that much of Sri Lanka's post-independence foreign policy operated without sufficient academic grounding, with diplomatic practice dominating over scholarly analysis—a gap she credited late professor Kodikara with helping to fill. She characterized the current international environment as one where the established order has been fundamentally disrupted, requiring new frameworks for smaller nations to navigate competing interests.
International Relations scholar Amitav Acharya, speaking at the same event, presented a complementary vision of future global order. Rather than viewing current changes as a simple transition from Western to non-Western dominance, Acharya proposed the concept of a "Global Multiplex"—a decentralized international system where power is distributed among multiple actors including great powers, regional powers, international organizations, and non-state entities. He cautioned against reducing contemporary geopolitical shifts to mere multipolarity, emphasizing instead the need for more pluralistic frameworks.
The discussions underscore evolving perspectives on how smaller nations like Sri Lanka should position themselves in an increasingly complex international landscape where traditional power alignments no longer suffice.
