Should India ‘Be East’ or Be Eurasian?

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Notes

1. President Barack Obama's address to a joint session of the Indian parliament, New Delhi, November 8, 2010; P.S. Suryanarayana, ‘US move to mentor India in new East Asia’, The Hindu, February 22, 2011.

2. According to the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of the Global Arms Trade (TSAMTO) 2010 Yearbook, between 2002–2009, Chinese weapon sales to Pakistan were US$ 1.97 billion, which accounted for 42 per cent of total Chinese defence exports in this period. Furthermore according to the existing portfolio of contracts, for 2010–2013, Pakistan's military will receive US$ 4.4 billion of weapons systems, which would account for 68 per cent of Chinese military exports in the next four years.

3. A purely defensive ‘attritional’ orientation is becoming outdated for two reasons: (1) the technological options available to the Indian armed services; and (2) China's own military and doctrinal innovations and the contemporary priorities of its political elite that no longer place a premium on large scale interventions in enemy territory. China's evolving strategy is based on rapid short-duration limited conflicts that are not aimed at acquiring territory but are intended primarily for punitive purposes.

4. In other words, a credible nuclear deterrent in relation to China will ensure that conflict remains confined within a limited threshold and will accord India the opportunity to deter conventional Chinese pressure on the frontier areas via a flexible asymmetric strategy outlined above.

5. Shivshankar Menon, ‘Towards a new Asian order’, Indian Express, February 22, 2011.

6. Zorawar Daulet Singh, ‘India looks on as the East integrates’, Asia Times, May 7, 2009.

7. In fact, ironically, one of the most significant strategic missions for the Indian navy is to support continental operations in the event of a military conflict in the subcontinent. The navy's role would be to deter extra-regional involvement in subcontinental disputes, thereby isolating the area of political-military operations and preventing any interference in bilateral disputes.

8. As Harold Sprout writes, ‘(I)t it still axiomatic that sea frontiers can be, and are, defended more securely, with less outlay and effort, than land frontiers’. Harold Sprout, ‘Frontiers of Defense’, Military Affairs, 5(4), 1941, p. 218.