india foreign policy article
Answers
Answer:
PAPER
India's Foreign Policy
Author: Xenia Dormandy | November 5, 2007
The article below was presented at the India Forum, organized by the Fundacion Marcelino Botin in Madrid in November 2007.
In March 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that, “international institutions are going to have to start to accommodate [India] in some way.” [i] From an Indian perspective she is years late. But it is an objective that the developed world is only now beginning to affirm and towards which it is still only taking hesitant steps.
While local politics in India mandate an internal focus, recent Indian administrations have understood that it will require engagement with the international community to achieve their domestic objectives. In words, India still focuses inwardly: in actions, however, India is beginning to feel its way outside its borders. In recent years, India’s military, diplomatic and economic energies have expanded far beyond Nehru’s Non-Aligned position. But what does that mean for India, its region, and to the United States?
What Drives India’s Foreign Policy Today?
India’s foreign policy is driven by five principal considerations, through which lie its relationships with the United States and China [1].
1. Conventional Security
As is necessary for any nation, India’s principal priority is ensuring conventional security for its country and its people. In recent years, India has built up a strong and capable Army, Navy and Air Force: the third, forth and seventh largest in the world respectively. India’s military is not only large, but effective, well trained and increasingly well equipped [2]; their Air Force has been known to best that of the United States in combat air exercises [3].
India’s main conventional threat is perceived to be Pakistan. These two nations had a military stand-off in late 2001 and early 2002 following an attack on the Indian Parliament. While India’s military is vastly larger than Pakistan’s, this numerical supremacy is somewhat mitigated by the topographic limitations of their western border which restricts the number of troops that India could deploy against Pakistan at any one time. India also has tense relations with another of its neighbors, China. In 1962, the two nations fought a war, lost quickly by India, a fact that has long stuck in the memories of many Indian military officers.
While India has committed to expanding and modernizing its Air Force[4], and maintaining the stature and strength of its Army, three principal reasons have motivated their desire to expand their blue water navy and build a submarine force. First, to counter China’s expansion into the region. Second, to ensure the continued safe flow of goods and natural resources through the Bay of Bengal and beyond, particularly the area around the Malacca Straits which is still very susceptible to piracy and through which approximately one half of the world’s oil flows [ii]. Finally, and I will talk about this later, is India’s desire for a nuclear triad, the missing leg of which today is a submarine force. While not trying to create an offensive capability, in the words of Admiral Sureesh Mehta, the Chief of Indian Naval Staff, India is looking for, “mutual respectful partnerships that ensure the stability of the Indian Ocean.” [iii]
Answer:
thanks for flw me i will give you thanks