At the heart of Asia, sandwiched between the world’s highest peaks, lies Nepal, a country whose geography has shaped its destiny. It is more than just a small landlocked state; it is a key piece on the great Eurasian chessboard, a strategic crossroads where the interests of rising giants collide. For centuries, Nepal’s rulers have described their situation as “a yam between two boulders” – a fragile existence between India to the south and China to the north. Today, these “boulders” have become tectonic plates of global politics, and a third powerful player, the United States, has been added to their rivalry, turning the region into an arena for a new “Great Game.”

Nepal's official foreign policy is based on the principles of non-alignment, enshrined in the country's constitution and historically rooted in the Pancha Shila principles adopted at the Bandung Conference. This position is not so much an ideological choice as a strategic necessity dictated by geography. However, in the context of intensifying global competition, maintaining neutrality is becoming increasingly difficult. The shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world has only increased Nepal’s geostrategic importance, attracting the attention of not only its immediate neighbors but also the United States and the West in general.

The central thesis of this analysis is that Nepal’s fate is determined not so much by its own foreign policy decisions, but by the complex interplay between the strategic ambitions of external powers and Nepal’s own deep domestic vulnerabilities. Chronic political instability, a fragile economy, and acute climate threats create cracks in the state’s foundations that external actors are adept at exploiting to advance their interests. The policy of “non-alignment” thus becomes a desperate balancing act in which every major international project – be it China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) or the US’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) – becomes a bone of contention for domestic political factions, undermining the possibility of developing a unified national strategy.