Heine Talks Active Non-Alignment on The Fletcher Forum Podcast
In December 2025, Ambassador Jorge Heine, former Chilean diplomat and professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies was interviewed by the Fletcher Forum Podcast to discuss his piece titled, Which Way The World Order? A Rising South, A Fractured West, And The Path Ahead. The article sheds light on Heine’s research on “Active Non-Alignment”; which argues that adopting active non-alignment as a foreign policy offers governments in the Global South a way to prioritize national interests without being pressured to align fully with either Washington or Beijing.
Heine explained that while the idea draws inspiration from Cold War–era non-alignment, today’s context is fundamentally different. The rise of the Global South, the expansion of South-South trade, and China’s emergence as a major economic competitor to the United States have created new opportunities for developing and middle-income countries to exercise agency. In this environment, Heine said, states can “pick and choose” partnerships issue by issue, something that was largely impossible during the bipolar Cold War.
Addressing critics who dismiss active non-alignment as outdated or impractical, Heine emphasized that the concept reflects how many countries are already behaving in practice. He pointed to responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where countries such as India, South Africa, and Indonesia declined to take sides, as evidence that Global South governments are resisting pressure to conform to great-power agendas. Far from being ideological, he argued, active non-alignment is a down-to-earth approach shaped by real policy constraints and opportunities.
Heine also highlighted the growing significance of forums such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which he described as expressions of the Global South’s demand for greater voice in global governance. As traditional Western-led institutions struggle to adapt to shifting power realities, these platforms—along with the assertive diplomacy of countries like India—signal a broader rebalancing of the international system. Taken together, Heine suggested, active non-alignment provides both a diagnosis of today’s fractured world order and a guide for how the Global South may help shape what comes next.
The full segment can be listened to here.
A former research professor at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Jorge Heine is a diplomat, international relations scholar, and lawyer. He is currently a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute. He has served as an ambassador of Chile to China, India, and South Africa. Heine has written over fifteen books, including The Non-Aligned World: Striking Out in an Era of Great Power Competition (2025), which provides insights on how the Global South can navigate the changing diplomatic landscape amid the U.S.-China rivalry.