This book was resulted out of the conference, “Geopolitics of Energy in South Asia”, organized by the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) and supported by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), which was held in Singapore on 14 August 2007. The aim of this edited volume is to analyse how the geopolitics of energy in South Asia has affected foreign policy and relations between states in the wider region, as well as the global implications emanating from this.

The search for regional and global power status today is no longer linked to economic self-sufficiency, but rather to economic growth rates. Economic growth, however, can only be maintained with sufficient energy sources, hence the global drive for “energy security”. Whilst securing energy sources such as oil and gas in the Middle East has been a known parameter in western foreign policy-making since the end of the Second World War, it is only more recently that countries in Asia started to operate like their western counterparts. In part this development is linked to a move away from ideological politics and an embracing of a new form of interdependent Realpolitik, which consequently changes the global chess game radically.

Over the last decade energy security has, in fact, become a central concern for all countries in the South and Southeast Asian region. Although the issue of energy security is primarily a domestic concern, the search for further sources of energy has dramatically changed the construction of foreign policy. This is particularly but not exclusively the case for India. Recent political and economic developments have, in turn, altered relations between South Asian countries and their neighbours — China, Myanmar, Iran, Afghanistan, and the Central Asian Republics. The recent nuclear deal between India and the United States is also indicative of how energy and power politics are linked, and how it is these new inter-linkages which underlie relations between states today.