The Non-Aligned Movement

India and China signed a trade agreement whose preamble set out the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, known in India as Panchsheel: mutual respect for sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference, equality, and peaceful coexistence. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru promoted the principles as the basis for relations among newly independent states that wished to avoid entanglement in the emerging rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Location: Beijing, China

Twenty-nine Asian and African states, most newly independent, met at Bandung at the invitation of President Sukarno of Indonesia. The conference condemned colonialism, affirmed the right of self-determination, and adopted a ten-point declaration on coexistence that built on Panchsheel. For the first time, the states that would later be called the Third World spoke collectively, and Bandung became the symbolic birthplace of non-alignment.

Location: Bandung, Indonesia

President Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and Prime Minister Nehru met on the island of Brioni and issued a joint statement setting out the principles of non-alignment: support for self-determination, opposition to military blocs, and cooperation among states outside the rival power groups. The Brioni meeting turned an idea into a policy course, with each leader pursuing it for different reasons — Yugoslavia's independence from Moscow, India's development priorities, and Egypt's campaign against colonialism.

Location: Brioni, Yugoslavia

Twenty-five states convened the first Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries at Belgrade, organized through the joint initiative of Tito, Nasser, Nehru, President Sukarno, and President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. The summit declared that non-aligned nations would pursue independent policies toward the blocs, called for disarmament and the admission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations, and established non-alignment as a formal international movement. It met weeks before the Berlin crisis peaked, heightening the summit's calls against bloc confrontation.

Location: Belgrade, Yugoslavia

The movement's Cairo ministerial meeting issued a declaration demanding more equitable terms of trade, development aid without political strings, and reform of the international economic system. The same year, the developing states organized as the Group of 77 within the United Nations, closely overlapping the non-aligned membership. Non-alignment acquired a second, economic pillar alongside its security policy: the claim that the international order itself, not only bloc rivalry, disadvantaged the Global South.

Location: Cairo, Egypt

The fourth summit, hosted by Algeria's revolutionary government, endorsed demands for a New International Economic Order — fixed commodity prices, debt relief, and control over multinational corporations. The oil embargo of 1973, in which Arab producers wielded the oil weapon during the October War, convinced many members that producer solidarity could reshape the world economy. The UN General Assembly adopted the NIEO declaration in May 1974, though its core demands were never implemented.

Location: Algiers, Algeria

The sixth summit in Havana, chaired by Fidel Castro, exposed the movement's central unresolved question: what non-alignment meant when the blocs were unequal in Cuba's eyes. Castro proposed describing the socialist camp as a natural ally, arguing that the Soviet Union supported liberation movements while the West opposed them. Most members, led by Yugoslavia and India, rejected any formal tilt toward Moscow, insisting non-alignment must remain equidistant from both superpowers. The summit kept the movement unaligned, but the dispute showed how far its members' interests had diverged.

Location: Havana, Cuba

The collapse of the Soviet bloc removed the rivalry that had defined non-alignment, and commentators widely predicted the movement's irrelevance. The tenth summit at Jakarta answered by redefining the movement's purpose around North-South economic inequality, democratization of the United Nations, and the concerns of the Global South rather than bloc politics. Membership continued to grow as newly independent states from the former Soviet space joined.

Location: Jakarta, Indonesia

When the UN General Assembly voted to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a large share of the abstentions and absences came from non-aligned states, including India, a founder member, and much of Africa and Asia. Many members pursued what analysts called multi-alignment — engaging the United States, China, and Russia simultaneously rather than choosing a side. Half a century after Belgrade, the refusal to align with a dominant power remained the movement's organizing principle.

The movement's nineteenth summit convened in Kampala, Uganda, which assumed the chairmanship for 2024-2027, with 120 member states and 18 observers making NAM the largest grouping of countries after the United Nations. The summit's agenda covered reform of the UN Security Council, debt, climate finance, and conflicts including Gaza. The movement that began as a Cold War survival strategy persists as the principal collective vehicle of states that position themselves outside the great-power alignments of the day.

Location: Kampala, Uganda