Such growth has also unbound India’s appetite for embracing an interlocking network of interests with nations across the globe, weak and strong—a necessary development to ensure its continued rise and security. For example, India has partially co-opted the Burmese regime with money and materials in an effort to contain Chinese influence and guerrilla groups operating in India’s north-east.
Meanwhile, the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal was implemented in an effort to overcome Non-Proliferation Treaty and Nuclear Suppliers Group-related proscriptions on dual-use technology exports to non-parties such as India, something that has helped the country tackle uranium fuel shortages while giving long-term stakes to US, Russian, French and perhaps Japanese nuclear power reactor manufacturers.
In addition, it is political as much as technical considerations that are weighing on India’s choice of where to purchase 126 multi-role combat aircraft—a major defence deal—with India warning the United States that it will be out of the reckoning if it sells F-16s to Pakistan as part of the Afghanistan bailout package.
Such defiance of the United States on the fighter aircraft issue marks a shift from the Cold War years as India seeks to bolster its regional, South Asian hegemony. This shift has also seen a recent effort to renew ties with Russia, which has been the quickest nation to sign up new reactors for India; price disputes on the Gorshkov aircraft carrier have also been resolved.
And, despite recent tensions, there has been progress on building pragmatic relations with China, overcoming the emotionalism of the 1962 war between the two (a war that India lost). For example, India and China were part of the BASIC group that prevented the United States and Europe from hijacking the Copenhagen Summit agenda, while India also has placed considerable value on intense consultation with Russia, Iran and China on Afghanistan, where the terrifying prospect of an Islamic caliphate looms, with snatchable Pakistani nukes nearby.
It would be a spectacular strategic breakthrough if India could dissuade China from encouraging Pakistani bellicosity (an attitude emboldened by earlier Chinese nuclear and missile proliferation). But India likely doesn’t yet have enough strategic weight to make that possible, and in the near-term can only count on a failing Pakistan becoming everyone’s headache, something that would prompt a range of international countermeasures.
There is, of course, a flip side to India’s approach. Because it sees no value, so far at least, in intercontinental power projection outside of the Indian Ocean littoral, India is limiting its great power ambitions by stunting its huge and growing military prowess; it is also so far yet to gain significant experience of foreign combat or intervention. It is therefore a victim of its own relative insularity in South Asia, meaning it can be effectively blackmailed by even weak states like Pakistan (although this approach still has the merit, for now, of meaning there are generally few questions raised about whether India’s rise is a peaceful one).
It’s clear that taming the three concentric circles of interest—a principle that has survived 23 centuries and recurs regularly in internal strategic discourse—is the key to India becoming a great power. Circumstance may have prevented this occurring until now, but recent developments suggest India is working to a time, perhaps not too far away, when it is a leading economy and a power able to reorder the world to its liking.
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ROBERT MATHEW
India has to shed her inferior mindset to be reckoned as global power. India’s slow progress in the economic front and the lack of a clear vision and the resources to reach her immediate neighbors are two factors that deter India to be seen as a great country. Economic growth in the past decade may forecast a prosperous India. Born with the economic prosperity is the large scale corruption that purges India worse than cancer. Billions of dollars are being stacked in foreign banks during the last six decades by the industrialist and the powerful men in connivance with the ruling politicians. The funds could have been well put to use to build schools, Hospitals and universities and to fight against poverty. The geopolitics around India has changed for worse and the country is surrounded with hostile neighborhoods. Military solution may not be a solution. In contravention, history bears testimony, that armed conflict is a justifiable means for assertiveness, and those involve have become powerful. India’s chaotic governance under the guise of democracy does not provide the country the required inertia to grow or to compete with a country like China. The gap between the rich and the poor is becoming a gap unbridgeable. The infrastructures entail billions. China and Pakistan together form a force formidable and grows together beyond the containment Indian army. India is at lest 50 years behind and is yet to put her house in order and secure her volatile boarders. India must be able to extend her infrastructure to her neighbors. The bitter reality is that India neither shown the will nor has the aspiration to reach the heights. She functions within herself not beyond. India, with her domestic oriented economic achievements, will remain the same for many years, where as China would have risen to a power beyond reach.
Wesley Rampersad
Sadly, you are right! India is limiting herself.
jay
India’s gdp has been growing at 9% over the last decade and contonues to grow at 8% inspite of corruption and poor governence.we come to know of this corruption because india has democracy and freedom of media.on the other hand corruption in china does not make news as it is sensored.india enjoys good deplomatic relations with both developed and developing world.china makes all its military equipment indegenously or gets it from russia because no other western country would sell military equipment to them.not many countries in the world can boast of good relations with usa and israel on the one hand while also having filriendly and stratigic ties with russia and iran on the other.india recently won a non-permanent seat at the united nations with a record number of votes.this shows the respect that it enjoys in the international community.india already has the worlds 4th largest economy(ppp) and the 2nd largest army.india is also considered as the 4th most influencial country only behind usa,eu and china by the national security advisor of the usa.india might remain behind china for the near future but it will be atleast 2nd ahead of even usa in about 25 yrs in terms of gdp(ppp).during the cold war ussr was the second largest economy;that did not mean that it was’nt a superpower.to underestimate india’s rise as a great power would be a gross error on part of any sane minded millitary stratigist or historian.wake up people.india will become a great power not merely by its politicians believing that india is strong but when its common citizens start believing in india’s strength and greatness.
Ps-i would much rather prefer being a poor indian with freedom than being a little less poor but severely opressed chinese.JAI HIND
shashi bhushan
I hope india future made power full country in the world …..I am proud of india.
mandrewsf
“India is limiting its great power ambitions by stunting its huge and growing military prowess; it is also so far yet to gain significant experience of foreign combat or intervention.”
I ought to think that foreign interventions has given India enough headaches. Sri Lanka is the perfect example of an intervention gone wrong, not to mention Bangladesh and Nepal. Military strength is not measured in the amount of foreign wars that a nation has fought, but in its training, leadership, equipment, and élan.
A great power does not have to rise out of military status alone. Japan has not fought a war in the last sixty years and yet it is firmly a member of the Great Powers. India’s greatness will be a fact once it achieves internal peace, unity, and economic prosperity. India’s current lack of political weight is not because its military is not strong enough (it is more than adequate for a nation with an economy smaller than Canada and no threat of war with any of the great powers), but because, to put it a bit uncharitably, it seems more like a continent-sized confederation than a functioning, coordinated nation-state.
Meanwhile, perhaps the best dose of medicine the Indian leadership should take is patience.
Sriram
India is behind Canada by about $37 Bn in nominal terms but about 3 times and about $3tn ahead of it in PPP terms. Of course on a per capita basis there is no comparison.
k;lkl;
I hope india future made power full country in the world …..I am proud of indi
captainjohann
India is considered weak because its leadership thinks it is weak. They even ask USA to help contain Pakistani bellicosity. It cannot deal with this problem itself. The foreign office and ruling bureaucracy take hints from USA as most of their kin are green card holders and aspire US citizenship. It is building road for NATO in Afghanistan and that country’s parliament building while China has acquired the biggest copper mine in Afghanistan. By betraying Iran, it has foreclosed its options instead of working for Israeli/Iran rapprochement.
GLN PRASAD
Well said. India’s growth is slow and steady. Gradual. It is not all of a sudden turning point. It had been planted during the pre-independent moment itself. With rich resources, man-power India would have become super-power at least 4 decades ago except due to the corruption and mockery of people it took another 40 years to reach this point. Good English, easy grasping of changing technologies and trust worthy mentality of Indian has brought India to this present state.
The development is un-avoidable. Even the loop-holes of democracy also can not stop this progress.
At least for the forth coming generations, let us hope all well with India’s future.