Power moving from centre to non-state actors: Menon on Pak

New Delhi: National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon today said non-state actors are performing state functions in India’s neighbourhood, in an apparent reference to extremist groups operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“Sixty percent of what I look at is not state dealing state. We see immediately in our neighbourhood,” he said chairing a session at the first National Conference on International Relations.

“So called non-state actors, they perform state functions. They act for the State,” Menon said, without naming any country.

The US has accused Pakistan’s military-run Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of extending support to its “veritable arm”, the Haqqani network to carry out attacks on American and NATO centres in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has denied its involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and has blamed it on non-state actors. Speaking on the changing power situation in the world, Menon said besides technology non-traditional factors such as food and energy security were the catalyst for change.

Menon said power was moving from larger states into the hands of small groups of people. “There are structural shifts in nature of power… The nature of international relations is changing,” he said. He said India needs to anchor this shift in balance of power towards itself. Menon also stressed on the need to develop an Indian way of looking at international relations.

PTI