Positive News about India

Folks,

This is very nice article about India and its place in the strategic world.
I have one disgreement with this article.
we should agressively pursue China as rival in all aspects. We should also
become more "Chanikyan" and we should strategise to beat out all masters in
the long term. In strategic affairs longterm wise China is the #1 enemy of
India. Currently we have the wherewittal to beat China in all aspects even
though we are #2 currently. We should pursue with all the neighbors of China
in the East Asia to checkmate it milatarily and economically. We should use
Russia and US (they desperately need us for their own different reasons) to
defeat China.

Read the following article and I am hopeful to know other members
perspective.
Ramana

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http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1583739,00120001.htm

HINDUSTAN TIMES.COM

The Rising

Manoj Joshi

December 28, 2005

Condoleezza Rice, Wen Jiabao, Junichiro Koizumi�s visits, the signing of a
Comprehensive Economic Cooperation agreement with Singapore, participation
in the East Asia Summit and its active role in the WTO negotiations � all in
2005 � are perhaps the best indicator of the pivotal role that India has
begun to play in the emerging Asian balance of power. The year gone by, and
the one to come, have enormous significance for India because today it
occupies a unique geopolitical position in Asia.

Located where it is, on the flanks of the Asean and the East Asian region,
and those of the West and Central Asia, India is in a swing-zone from where
its huge working age population, intellectual resources, manufacturing and
agricultural potential and military power, can enable it to influence events
in these regions.

There is a 19th century echo in the word �geopolitics�. Yet, it best
describes the moves taking place on the chessboard of nations today. In the
most basic sense, �geopolitics� is about the correlation between
geographical location and political power, and the division of the world
into core and periphery areas. But in a more sophisticated sense, it is a
palimpsest layered over by the resources a nation has, both physical and
human, its demographic profile, its political system and its military power.
Given its size, India is both a heartland and a maritime nation. In its
north, there are vast land-locked states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya
Pradesh and Rajasthan, each the size of a large European nation. On the
other hand, India�s political geography � primarily its unresolved conflict
with Pakistan and its troubled North-east � makes it a maritime nation
because most of its trade is seaborne and dependent on the security of sea
lanes. The peninsula, adjacent the key oil sea lane flowing from the Persian
Gulf to the Straits of Malacca, only serves to accentuate this.

India�s potential was always there, but it was locked up in a State that was
a founder-member of the non-aligned movement, and whose economic policies
verged on the autarkic, and some will argue, self-defeating. In 1990-91, the
end of the Cold War and a domestic economic crisis compelled change. India
practically abandoned the non-aligned movement, dismantled the licence-quota
raj and opened itself to the East and West. Instead of traps and pitfalls,
India found opportunities: its English-oriented education system yielded
Business Process Outsourcing advantages; liberalisation unleashed economic
growth, expanding domestic and export markets; and the 1998 nuclear weapons
test signalled that it was not willing to be militarily consigned to a tier
of second-ranking global States.

Since then the country followed a three-pronged approach. First, to
reintegrate India into the world economy. Second, to ensure the integrity
and security of the country. And, third, to further its political and
economic interests in the Asian region and across the globe. In these
endeavours, it is seeking to move the big geopolitical blocks � retain good
ties with Russia, improve ties with China, build strategic coalitions with
the US, the EU and Japan � with the expectation that the smaller ones will
fall into place on their own.

In the process, India has emerged as a significant element in the emerging
geopolitical equations that are sought to be rewritten in Asia as a
consequence of the rise of China. India�s importance comes from the fact
that it is No. 2, behind China, on virtually every measure of power. Had we
been No. 1, everyone would be finding ways to check us. As No. 2 we are in a
safe position of not being viewed as hegemonic (except in our limited South
Asian region), and courted by big players like the US, Japan and the EU.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of our current trajectory is the
not-so-subtle declaration by the US that it is committed to helping India
become a world power in the 21st century. The US decision to overturn its
decades-old policy of denying India nuclear and space technologies is one
outcome of this, as are the Japanese moves to sharply step up their
engagement with India.

In orthodox balance-of-power theory, States choose to balance or bandwagon a
hegemonic power. The choice before many of the smaller Asian powers is to
bandwagon with rising China, or help balance it. As of now, with a bit of
push from the US and Japan, they appear to be following the latter strategy
� in classical terms, seeking a state of stability or parity between
opposing forces. This was the principle that drove the post-Westphalian
State system in Europe, which was based on the understanding that the only
way to check power was by ensuring a balance or parity through diplomatic or
military action.

But we must be careful not to transpose too much of the 19th century
balance-of-power ideas on the situation of today. In a world where rivals
like the US and China are each other�s biggest trade partners, and nuclear
weapons maintain the balance of terror, competing States need to evolve ways
of cooperating with each other and developing a vested interest in the
other�s well-being. That is why it would be a serious mistake to see India
as an element of some new strategic alliance system aimed at China. True,
China�s continuing efforts to hobble India by providing nuclear and missile
technology to Pakistan are not those of a friendly country. But big boys
don�t cry. They get on with the game. And that is what India is doing in
seeking to resolve its border dispute and to forge deeper economic links
with China.

There was a time when geopolitical power was defined by simple arithmetic of
adding the tanks, aircraft and warships, or counting the GDP numbers and
natural resources. No longer. Nuclear weapons can, if used, trump any
conventional measure of military strength. But the lesson of the Soviet
collapse was that even nuclear weapons cannot get you too far. Russia�s
present predicament, among other things, is its adverse demographic profile
that limits the advantages of its enormous geographical spread and natural
resources. As the example of Japan shows, economic might alone is not
enough. Neither, for that matter, as the case of Saudi Arabia would reveal,
control over strategic resources like oil.

Power today is a multifarious compound of economic strength, cultural
vibrancy, diplomatic skills and, of course, military power. It is as much
about location, as it is about an optimum mix of soft and hard power. In all
these departments, India has something going for it, and hence the attention
it is getting. But India�s role in this is not so much aimed at China, as
towards peace and stability of the Asian region.

It is a well-known axiom that the strength of a gravitational force is
proportional to the mass of a body. In the Asian context, there is just one
country that can approach China in terms of its size, population, economic
potential and military capacity, and that is India. The new geopolitics is
not about revising the Cold War to contain rising China, but about the
emergence of a body with sufficient gravitational force of its own. One that
will offset the enormous pull, and consequent strains, that are being
exerted on the world system by its rise.