In September 2022, in these pages, I argued that national security is a taboo subject in Bangladesh. National security is taboo precisely because the discourse on national threats is the real taboo.

In Bangladesh, whether scholars or bureaucrats, military or civilian, nobody is comfortable discussing the country's emerging and existential threats.

The discourse of national security takes place rarely, and even in such rare discourses, there is a deliberate effort to demilitarize it. It is often portrayed to the public and indoctrinated in academic settings that Bangladesh has no security threats. Therefore, all it needs to do is focus on economic development.

The word “national security” is taboo in Bangladesh. There is no discourse -- public or private -- about Bangladesh’s national security threats. Bangladesh spends billions of dollars on defense each year, but since its existence for 50 years, Dhaka has not produced a national defense policy.

Currently, Bangladesh is pursuing “Forces Goal 2030” with the aim of modernization of its armed forces, but the sole purpose of this effort, the defense goal, is absent.

China’s position towards Bangladesh has evolved over the last 50 years from hostility into a reluctant embrace and is now a “strategic partnership.” Current Bangladesh-China relations rest on a mix of pragmatism, strategic ambiguity, and political accommodation. Bangladesh and China have built a deep interdependence which is tilting increasingly in China’s favor.

Over the past decade or so, with the winds of geopolitical change sweeping Asia, the Indo-Pacific has emerged as a focal point in global economics, diplomacy, and security. With its more than half of the global population, fast-rising prosperity, and the challenges of rising regional powers, the Indo-Pacific is the prime strategic hub for deciding the future of existing global order. To maintain the status quo in the region and keep China’s assertiveness in check, the United States, Japan, and Australia, among others, have advanced the idea of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” Although each of these countries has its own vision, the general aspiration to keep the region free from coercion and open for all is the benchmark that they share. Within the Indo-Pacific theater, the Bay of Bengal — situated at the intersection between South and Southeast Asia — is a divider, a connector, and one of the prime battlegrounds. The tumultuous strategic environment of the Bay — driven by traditional and nontraditional security concerns, and a rising economy mainly powered by infrastructure — suggests this subregion is fast becoming one of the key emerging hotspots for the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy. This, combined with the fact that climate change poses an existential threat to several states in the region, calls not only sustained focus by extraregional powers, but also for governance structures that can facilitate a rules-based order.

At the height of the Cold War in 1981, Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere quoted an African proverb at the Commonwealth conference: “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers”, which was recently echoed by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who added that, “when they make love, the grass suffers also”. However, this conventional wisdom seems flawed in the case of the China-India rivalry for regional influence in Bangladesh. Instead of losing—Bangladesh boasting South Asia’s second-largest economy—is reaping the benefits so far.

As the Biden administration implements its new Indo-Pacific strategy, Bangladesh’s relationships with neighboring India and China are drawing renewed interest from U.S. policymakers. U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland visited Dhaka in late March and signed a draft defense cooperation agreement; last year, Special President Envoy for Climate John Kerry also went to Dhaka in advance of the Leaders’ Summit on Climate. At the same time, Washington retains concerns over democratic backsliding, human rights abuses and constraints on free and open electoral competition in the country. Experts Anu Anwar, Geoffrey Macdonald, Daniel Markey and Jumaina Siddiqui assess the factors shaping Bangladesh’s relations with its neighbors and the United States.

As it has across the entire Indo-Pacific, geopolitical competition has intensified in the Bay of Bengal. There is, indeed, a competition between and among major powers; India competes with China, US-led allies challenge China’s assertiveness, and the Bay of Bengal—situated at the intersection between South and Southeast Asia—is a divider, a connector, and a battleground. To set out the trajectory, this article starts by identifying the strategic geography of the Bay of Bengal in the Indo-Pacific fulcrum, one prism through which to view the evolving international relations of the region. In doing so, the article discusses the factors that drive the evolving significance of the Bay for its littoral states and great powers. Then the focus shifts toward another prism—the nontraditional security issues including economy, ecology, and connectivity, which are of deep interest to all the littoral states. These factors can drive cooperation. This review of the hard and soft elements of the strategic environment of the Bay of Bengal suggests strong cohesion of the regional states is the key to mutual prosperity. But can this be achieved when the forces of division have become so much greater?

The impending effect of the US–China trade war on supply chain dynamics and investment patterns could help Bangladesh to emerge as a potential winner from the conflict. Despite the different nature of trade, the US and China both have been stable trading partners to Bangladesh for decades. While China is Bangladesh’s top import partner, the United States is the second-largest destination for Bangladesh’s exports. Bangladesh could gain benefit from both countries but in different ways. This chapter attempts to explore how Bangladesh can take advantage of the trade war. It further investigates the sectors that are well placed in Bangladesh’s economy to accrue the benefit.

Nowhere is China’s Belt and Road Initiative pose more apparent security challenges than in South Asia. The importance of this geographic space is self-evident as China considers this subregion as BRI’s priority theater. South Asia is where the continental ‘belt’ meets the maritime ‘road’ and connects three continents – Europe, Africa, and Asia – via land and the Indian Ocean. Having a foothold in South Asia via connectivity, China could reduce its dependency on vulnerable Malacca Strait by constructing alternative overland routes to ensure its access to the Indian Ocean and secure energy supply. Nevertheless, it is also where BRI poses a whole gamut of serious security challenges, from traditional conflicts centered on territorial and border disputes, to potential naval competition with India, to nontraditional religious insurgencies, to environmental unsustainability and corruption. China’s growing influence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) challenging India dominating regional security architecture – where smaller countries tend to tilt towards China as it comes with easy-cash and lucrative investment potentials. In addition to the possibility of dual-use (civil-military) of China build ports from Pakistan to Myanmar, the potential for the U.S. and India of losing their strategic edge in the IOR to an expanded Chinese naval presence looms large. Viewing BRI as an essential element of China’s grand strategy that can reshape this sub-regional security architecture in China’s favor, U.S. should boost its partnership with regional states, with India at the core and a comprehensive U.S. strategy blurs the traditional economic and security faults, not unlike BRI itself.