{{Short description|Foreign policy strategy}} In international relations, '''multi-alignment''' is a foreign policy strategy in which a state simultaneously cultivates strategic partnerships with multiple major powers or blocs, aligning with different actors on different issues, in order to maximize strategic autonomy and national interests. It is primarily applied to the Indian foreign policy under Narendra Modi and S. Jaishankar.<ref name="Hall" /><ref name="Donnell"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Raghavan |first1=P.S. |title=The Making of India's Foreign Policy: From Non-Alignment to Multi-Alignment |journal=Indian Foreign Affairs Journal |date=2017 |volume=12 |issue=4 |pages=326–341 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45342011 |issn=0973-3248}}</ref>
Indian diplomat Shashi Tharoor claims to have introduced the term in the 2000s, using it at the annual conference of Indian ambassadors in 2009 to "a frosty reception."<ref name="Tharoor24"/> It gained widespread recognition when India's External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar used it in 2020.<ref name="Tharoor24">{{cite news |last1=Tharoor |first1=Shashi |author1-link=Shashi Tharoor |title=I, Shashi Tharoor, coined the term 'multi-alignment' |url=https://www.theweek.in/columns/shashi-tharoor/2024/10/11/i-shashi-tharoor-coined-the-term-multi-alignment.html |work=The Week |date=October 13, 2024 }}</ref> Jaishankar has acknowledged Tharoor's claim.<ref>{{cite news |title=Tharoor thanks Jaishankar for giving him 'credit' for term 'multi-alignment', posts selfie |url=https://theprint.in/india/tharoor-thanks-jaishankar-for-giving-him-credit-for-term-multi-alignment-posts-selfie/932190/ |work=ThePrint |agency=Press Trust of India |date=26 April 2022 |quote=the term ‘Multi-alignment’ which I floated 15 years ago }}</ref> Separately, Parag Khanna has claimed to have coined it in 2007.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Khanna |first1=Parag |author1-link=Parag Khanna |title=To beat populism, blend democracy and technocracy, S'pore style |url=https://www.paragkhanna.com/2017-1-23-to-beat-populism-blend-democracy-and-technocracy-spore-style/ |website=The Straits Times |date=21 January 2017|quote=A decade ago I coined the term “multi-alignment”...}}</ref> Khanna and Raja Mohan wrote in a 2006 paper: "A neo-Curzonian foreign policy is premised on the logic of Indian centrality, permitting multidirectional engagement--or "multi-alignment"—with all major powers and seeking access and leverage from East Africa to Pacific Asia."<ref name="Hall" /><ref>{{cite web |last1=Khanna |first1=Parag |last2=Mohan |first2=Raja |author1-link=Parag Khanna |author2-link=Raja Mohan |title=Getting India Right |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A143011785/AONE |website=Policy Review |publisher=Hoover Institution |date=February–March 2006}}</ref>
Ian Hall identified three elements of Indian multialignment: 1) membership in various forums, 2) strategic partnerships, 3) normative hedging.<ref name="Hall">{{cite journal |last1=Hall |first1=Ian |title=Multialignment and Indian Foreign Policy under Narendra Modi |journal=The Round Table |date=3 May 2016 |volume=105 |issue=3 |pages=271–286 |doi=10.1080/00358533.2016.1180760}}</ref> It has been distinguished from the "multi-vector" of post-Soviet states like Kazakhstan, which involves distancing from a dominant former hegemon and Yevgeny Primakov's Russian model of multipolarity that applied equidistance among power centres.<ref name="Donnell">{{cite journal |last1=O'Donnell |first1=Frank |last2=Papa |first2=Mihaela |title=India's multi-alignment management and the Russia–India–China (RIC) triangle |journal=International Affairs |date=10 May 2021 |volume=97 |issue=3 |pages=801–822 |doi=10.1093/ia/iiab036|doi-access=free }}</ref>
It has been described as an increasingly common strategy in the age of multipolarity and apparent end of U.S. global hegemony in the 2020s.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Latham |first1=Andrew |title=As American global hegemony ends, multi-alignment rises |url=https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4671482-as-american-global-hegemony-ends-multi-alignment-rises/ |work=The Hill |date=18 May 2024}}</ref> Beyond India, it has been discussed by analysts as an actual or potential foreign policy pursued by Indonesia,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wicaksana |first1=I Gede Wahyu |last2=Yakti |first2=Probo Darono |title=Indonesia's New Partial Multialignment Strategy: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis |journal=TRaNS: Trans -Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia |date=November 2025 |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=264–281 |doi=10.1017/trn.2025.1}}</ref> Brazil,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Stuenkel |first1=Oliver |author1-link=Oliver Stuenkel |title=Multi-Alignment as Strategy: How Brazil Navigates Between Washington, Beijing, and the Global South |url=https://www.belfercenter.org/research-analysis/multi-alignment-strategy-how-brazil-navigates-between-washington-beijing-and |publisher=Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs |date=November 20, 2025 }}</ref> the United Arab Emirates,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bunskoek |first1=Raoul |last2=Janardhan |first2=Narayanappa |last3=Szalai |first3=Máté |last4=Koster |first4=Tobias |title=The UAE's Strategy of Multi-Alignment: A Dilemma for the EU and OECD? |url=https://www.clingendael.org/publication/uaes-strategy-multi-alignment-dilemma-eu-and-oecd |publisher=Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260225174803/https://www.clingendael.org/publication/uaes-strategy-multi-alignment-dilemma-eu-and-oecd |archive-date=25 February 2026 |date=22 October 2025 |url-status=live}}</ref> and others.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Vij |first1=Samriddhi |title=Reassessing Qatar's Multi-Alignment Strategy |url=https://orfme.org/expert-speak/reassessing-qatars-multi-alignment-strategy/ |publisher=Observer Research Foundation |date=24 September 2025 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Kopalyan |first1=Nerses |title=Armenia's Doctrine of Multi-Alignment: Strategic Partnerships, Not Alliances |url=https://evnreport.com/statecraft-governance/armenias-doctrine-of-multi-alignment-strategic-partnerships-not-alliances/ |agency=EVN Report |date=January 22, 2026 }}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
Category:International relations Category:Foreign policy Category:International relations terminology Category:Political terminology Category:Foreign policy doctrines