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Abstract
Since the end of the Cold War, India's strategic horizons have moved beyond its traditional preoccupations in South Asia. India is developing a strategic role in East Asia in particular. At the same time India's strategic thinking has undergone a revolution, as the country that prided itself on non-alignment has moved closer to the West. But India's culture, history and geography still fundamentally shape its worldview. In engaging with East Asia, India is guided by a mosaic of strategic objectives about extending its sphere of influence, developing a multipolar regional system and balancing against China. The interplay of these objectives will frame India's role in East Asia in coming years.
Notes
1For discussions on India's strategic engagement with East Asia, see N.S. Sisodia and Sreeradha Datta, Changing Security Dynamics in Southeast Asia (New Delhi: Magnum Books 2008); and David Brewster, India as an Asia Pacific Power (London: Routledge 2011).
2Manmohan Singh, ‘Address at the 16th Asian Corporate Conference’, Mumbai, 18 March 2006.
3See Asad-Ul Iqbal Latif, Between Rising Powers: China, Singapore and India (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing 2006).
4David Brewster, ‘The Strategic Relationship between India and Vietnam: The Search for a Diamond on the South China Sea?’, Asian Security 5/1 (Jan. 2009), 24–44.
5See David Brewster, ‘The India–Japan Security Declaration: An Enduring Security Partnership?’ Asian Security 6/2 (2010), 1–27.
6See generally, Francine R. Frankel and Harry Harding (eds), The India-China Relationship: Rivalry and Engagement (New Delhi: OUP 2004).
7For a discussion of the various dimensions of US–Indian strategic cooperation, see Sumit Ganguly, Brian Shoup, and Andrew Scobell (eds), US-Indian Strategic Cooperation into the 21st Century: More than Words (London: Routledge 2006).
8Rikhi Jaipal, Non-Alignment: Origins, Growth and Potential for World Peace (New Delhi: Allied Publishers 1983), 8.
9Among the plethora of studies on non-alignment and Nehruvian strategic doctrine, see Mannaraswamighala Sreeranga Rajan, Studies on Non-alignment and the Non-aligned Movement: Theory and Practice (New Delhi: ABC Publishing House 1986); and K.Subrahmanyam, Indian Security Perspectives (New Delhi: ABC 1982).
10Quoted in Sita Gopalan, India and Non-Alignment (New Delhi: Spick & Span 1984),2.
11For a study of the Non-Aligned Movement, see Jaipal, Non-Alignment.
12The extent to which in practice (if not in rhetoric) India progressively abandoned non-alignment in favour of realist policies after 1962 is still a matter of much debate. See, for example, Rudra Chaudhuri, ‘Why Culture Matters: Revisiting the Sino-Indian Border War of 1962’, Journal of Strategic Studies 32/6 (Dec. 2009), 841–69.
13For discussions of India's political relations in Southeast Asia during the Cold War, see Mohammed Ayoob, India and Southeast Asia: Indian Perceptions and Policies (New York: Routledge 1990) and Kripa Sridharan, The ASEAN Region in India's Foreign Policy (Aldershot, UK: Dartmouth Publishing 1996).
14C. Raja Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India's New Foreign Policy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2003), 27.
15Kanti Bajpai, ‘Indian Strategic Culture’, in Michael R. Chambers, South Asia in2020:Future Strategic Balances and Alliances (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute 2002).
16Rahul Sagar, ‘State of Mind: What Kind of Power will India Become’, International Affairs 85/4 (2009), 801–16.
17C. Raja Mohan, ‘India's Changing Strategic Profile in East and Southeast Asia,’ paper presented at the Regional Outlook Forum, Singapore, 8 Jan. 2008, 12.
18Ashley J. Tellis, ‘India in Asian Geopolitics’, in Prakash Nanda (ed.), Rising India: Friends and Foes, (New Delhi: Lancer 2007), 129.
19Varun Sahni, ‘India and the Asian Security Architecture,’ Current History 105 (690) (April 2006), 163–7.
20C. Raja Mohan, ‘India and the Balance of Power’, Foreign Affairs 85/4 (July/Aug. 2006), 17.
21C. Raja Mohan, ‘The Evolution of Sino-Indian Relations: Implications for the United States’, in Alyssa Ayres and C. Raja Mohan, Power Realignments in Asia: China, India and the United States (New Delhi: Sage Publications 2009), 270–90, at 288.
22Rajesh Rajagopalan and Varun Sahni, ‘India and the Great Powers: Strategic Imperatives, Normative Necessities,’ South Asian Survey 15/5 (2008), 5–32.
23C. Raja Mohan, ‘The Asian Balance of Power’, Seminar 487 (2000), <www.india-seminar.com/2000/487/487%20raja%20mohan.htm>.
24See, for example, Anindya Batabyal, ‘Balancing China in Asia: A Realist Assessment of India's Look East Strategy’, China Report (New Delhi) 42/2 (2006), 79–197; and Bharat Karnad, ‘India's Future Plans and Defence Requirements’, in N. Sisodia and C.Udaya Bhaskar (eds), Emerging India: Security and Foreign Policy Perspectives (New Delhi: Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis 2005), 61–76.
25Pranab Mukherjee, Address to the 5th IISS Asian Security Summit, 3 June 2006.
26Pranab Mukherjee, Address to the 7th Asian Security Conference, 29 Jan. 2005.
27Sudhir Devare, India and Southeast Asia: Towards Security Convergence (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 2006), 211.
28Purnendra Jain, ‘From Condemnation to Strategic Partnership: Japan's Changing View of India (1998–2007)’, Institute of South Asian Studies Working Paper No.41, 10 March 2008; and Brahma Chellaney and Horimoto Takenori, ‘Indo kara mita Nihon, Ajia’ [Japan-India Links Critical for Asia-Pacific Security] Gaiko Forum 7/2 (Fall 2007), 30–4.
29Ashley J. Tellis, ‘The Changing Political-Military Environment: South Asia,’ in Zalmay Khalilzad et al., The United States and Asia: Towards a New US Strategy and Force Posture (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 2001), 214.
30Non-public report, quoted in Ashley Tellis, India as a New Global Power: An Action Agenda for the United States (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for World Peace 2005).
31See, for example, Siddharth Varadarajan, ‘Bush, India and two degrees of separation’, The Hindu, 3 March 2006; Amit Gupta, ‘US-India-China: Assessing Tripolarity’, China Report (New Delhi) 42/1 (2006), 69–83; Mohan, ‘India and the Balance of Power’, 17; and Rajiv Sikri, Challenge and Strategy: Rethinking India's Foreign Policy (New Delhi: Sage 2009).
32C. Raja Mohan, ‘India, China and Asian security,’ The Hindu, 27 Jan. 2003.
33Chellaney, ‘Indo kara mita Nihon, Ajia.’
34Kanti Bajpai, ‘India: Modified Structuralism’, in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.), Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Influences (Stanford UP 1998).
35Manmohan Singh, ‘PM's Speech at India Today Conclave’, 25 Feb. 2005, New Delhi, <www.pmindia.nic.in/speech/content.asp?id=510>.
36Joint Statement of Prime Minister Singh and Prime Minister Abe, 16 Dec. 2006, <www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/abespeech/2006/12/15joint.pdf>.
37This represented a new approach for Japan, but clearly forms a key element in both neo-liberal and neo-conservative thinking in the United States. See generally, G. John Ikenberry, Liberal Order and Imperial Ambition: Essays on American Power and World Politics (Malden, MA: Polity 2006).
38B. Raman, ‘India & Japan: Democracy as a Strategic Weapon’, South Asia Analysis Group, Paper No. 206, 17 Dec. 2006.
39Brahma Chellaney, ‘Towards Asian power equilibrium’, The Hindu, 1 Nov. 2008.
40Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1987), 266.
41Victor D. Cha, ‘The Ideational Dimension of America's Alliances in Asia,’ in Amitav Acharya and Evelyn Goh (eds), Reassessing Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific: Competition, Congruence and Transformation (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 2007), 41–70.
42Ikenberry, Liberal Order and Imperial Ambition.
43C. Raja Mohan, ‘Balancing Interests and Values: India's Struggle with Democracy Promotion’, The Washington Quarterly 30/3 (Summer 2007), 99–115.
44Shyam Saran, ‘India and its Neighbours’, address in New Delhi, 14 Feb. 2005, <www.meaindia.nic.in>.
45James R. Holmes, Andrew C. Winner and Toshi Yoshihara, Indian Naval Strategy in the 21st Century (London: Routledge 2009), 33.
46Quoted in David Scott, ‘India's “Grand Strategy for the Indian Ocean: Mahanian Visions”', Asia-Pacific Review 13/2 (2006), 97–129, at 109.
47Pranab Mukherjee, Speech for the Admiral A.K. Chatterjee Memorial Lecture, Kolkata, 30 June 2007, emphasis added.
48Sikri, Challenge and Strategy, 250.
49For example, Scott, ‘India's “Grand Strategy for the Indian Ocean: Mahanian Visions”', 109; and Banyan, ‘The notion that geography is power is making an unwelcome comeback in Asia’, The Economist, 11 June 2009, <www.economist.com/node/13825154>.
50C. Raja Mohan, ‘Maritime Power: India and China turn to Mahan’, ISAS Working Paper No. 71, 7 July 2009, 9.
51Saul Bernard Cohen, Geopolitics of the World System (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield 2003).
52See, for example, H. van der Wusten and G. Dijkink, ‘German, British and French Geopolitics: The Enduring Differences’, Geopolitics 7/3 (Winter 2002), 19–38.
53Colin S. Gray, The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era: Heartland, Rimlands, and the Technological Revolution (New York: Crane, Russak 1977).
54Karnad, ‘India's Future Plans and Defence Requirements’, 62–3 (note 98).
55K.M. Panikkar, India and the Indian Ocean: An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power in Indian History (Bombay: George Allen & Unwin 1971).
56Scott, ‘India's “Grand Strategy” for the Indian Ocean’, 99.
57See generally, Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, Sea Power and India's Security (London: Brassey's 1995), 199.
58David Scott, ‘India's Drive for a Blue Water Navy’, Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 10/2 (Winter 2007–08), 1–42.
59Holmes et al., Indian Naval Strategy in the 21st Century, 154.
60K.M. Panikkar, The Future of Southeast Asia: An Indian View (New York: The Macmillan Company 1943), 100–1.
61David Brewster, ‘The Evolving Security Relationship between India and Indonesia’, Asian Survey 51/2 (March/April 2011), 221–244.
62Brewster, ‘India's Strategic Partnership with Vietnam’.
63C. Raja Mohan, ‘Is India an East Asian Power? Explaining New Delhi's Security Politics in the Western Pacific’, ISAS Working Paper No. 81, 11 Aug. 2009.
64Varun Sahni, ‘India's Security Challenges out to 2000’, paper presented at the Australia–India Security Roundtable, Canberra, 11–12 April 2005. Mahan also harboured significant doubts about the ability of the United States to transform itself into a maritime power. See A.T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (Boston: Little Brown 1890), 83–8.
65K. Subrahmanyam, ‘Slumber over national security’, Economic Times (New Delhi), 31 Oct. 2000.
66George Tanham, ‘Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretive Essay,’ in George K.Tanham, Kanti P. Bajpai and Amitabh Mattoo (eds), Securing India: Strategic Thought and Practice in an Emerging Power (New Delhi: Manhora 1996), 73.
67James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, ‘India's “Monroe Doctrine” and Asia's Maritime Future’, Strategic Analysis 32/6 (Nov. 2008), 997–1011.
68According to Indira Gandhi. See John W. Garver, ‘Chinese-Indian Rivalry in Indochina’, Asian Survey 27/11 (Nov. 1987), 1205–19, at 1207–8.
69Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon, 205.
70Ministry of Defence, Annual Report 2000–2001.
71 Chidanand Rajghatta, ‘Singhing Bush's praise’, Times of India, 13 April 2001.
72‘PM's Address at the Combined Commander's Conference’ 24 Oct. 2004.
73Quoted in Holmes et al., Indian Naval Strategy in the 21st Century, 38, emphasis added.
74Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon, 209.
75For a discussion of India's security relationships throughout the Indian Ocean, see David Brewster ‘An Indian Sphere of Influence in the Indian Ocean?’ Security Challenges 6/3 (Spring 2010), 1–20.
76Amit Baruah, ‘Not seeking exclusive sphere of influence’, The Hindu, 11 Feb. 2007.
77Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon, Ch.8.
78Holmes et al., Indian Naval Strategy in the 21st Century, 155.
79For a discussion of these different ways of exerting hegemony, see Rajagopalan, ‘India and the Great Powers’.
80Tanham, ‘Indian Strategic Thought’, 69.
81Dean G. Acheson, A Democrat Looks at his Party (New York: Harper 1955), 64.
82Walt, The Origins of Alliances, 23–4.
83Saul Cohen, Geography and Politics in a World Divided, 2nd ed. (New York: OUP 1973), viii.
84For examples of Indian claims about China's String of Pearls strategy, see Ramtanu Maitra, ‘India bids to rule the waves,’ Asia Times, 19 Oct. 2005; Sudha Ramachandran, ‘China moves into India's back yard,’ Asia Times, 13 March 2007; and Brahma Chellaney, ‘Assessing India's Reactions to China's “Peaceful Development” Doctrine’, NBR Analysis 18/5 (April 2008), 23–6.
85Adm. Arun Prakash, ‘China and the Indian Ocean Region’, Indian Defence Review 2/4 (Oct.–Dec. 2006), 7–12, at 11.
86See, for example, Colonel Gurmeet Kanwal, ‘Countering China's Strategic Encirclement of India,’ Indian Defence Review 15/3 (July–Sept. 2000), 17; Bharat Karnad, Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of Strategy (Delhi: Macmillan India 2005); Mohan Malik, ‘Sino-Indian Relations in the 21st Century: The Continuing Rivalry’, in Brahma Chellaney (ed.), Securing India's Future in the New Millennium (New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research 1999); and Iskander Rehman, ‘Keeping the Dragon at Bay: India's Counter-Containment of China in Asia’, Asian Security 5/2 (May 2009), 114–43.
87Karnad, Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security, 541 and Mohan Malik, ‘China's Strategy of Containing India’, Public Interest News Report, 6 Feb. 2009. <www.pinr.com>.
88Shiv Shankar Menon, ‘Maritime Imperatives of Indian Foreign Policy’, speech to the National Maritime Foundation, New Delhi, 11 Sept. 2009.
