Like other diverse regions, South Asia faces com plex entanglements, historically unresolved conflicts, and overwhelming human security challenges. Underlining the importance of strengthening common security in the region, two South Asian countries — India and Pakistan — possess nuclear weapons, and are not signatories to either the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of COMMON SECURITY | October 2024 Nuclear Weapons or the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Yet if common security, human security, and development can be made to take precedence over con tested border claims and militarist approaches, an alternative paradigm will emerge throughout the region and beyond. South Asia must navigate some roadblocks to achieve common security, but also has some nascent successes.