India’s lack of a strategic culture hobbles its ambition
to be a force in the world
Mar 30th 2013 |The Economist - From the print edition
NOBODY doubts that China has joined the ranks of the
great powers: the idea of a G2 with America is mooted, albeit prematurely.
India is often spoken of in the same breath as China because of its
billion-plus population, economic promise, value as a trading partner and
growing military capabilities. All five permanent members of the United Nations
Security Council support—however grudgingly—India’s claim to join them. But whereas China’s rise is a given, India is
still widely seen as a nearly-power that cannot quite get its act together.
That is a pity, for as a great power, India
would have much to offer. Although poorer and less economically dynamic
than China, India has soft power in abundance. It is committed to democratic institutions, the rule of
law and human rights. As a victim of jihadist violence, it is in the
front rank of the fight against terrorism. It has a
huge and talented diaspora. It may not want to be co-opted by the
West but it shares many Western values. It is
confident and culturally rich.
If it had a permanent Security Council seat (which it has
earned by being one of the most consistent contributors to UN peacekeeping
operations) it would not instinctively excuse and defend brutal regimes. Unlike
China and Russia, it has few skeletons in its cupboard. With its enormous coastline and respected navy
(rated by its American counterpart, with which it often holds exercises, as up
to NATO standard) India is well-placed to provide security in a critical
part of the global commons.
Yet India’s huge potential to be a force for stability
and an upholder of the rules-based international system is far from being
realised. One big reason is that the
country lacks the culture to pursue an active security policy.
Despite a rapidly rising defence budget, forecast to be the world’s
fourth-largest by 2020, India’s politicians and bureaucrats show little
interest in grand strategy. The
foreign service is ridiculously feeble—India’s 1.2 billion people are
represented by about the same number of diplomats as Singapore’s 5m. The leadership of the armed forces and the
political-bureaucratic establishment operate in different worlds. The defence
ministry is chronically short of military expertise.
These weaknesses partly reflect a pragmatic desire to
make economic development at home the priority. India has also wisely kept
generals out of politics (a lesson ignored elsewhere in Asia, not least by
Pakistan, with usually parlous results). But Nehruvian ideology also plays a
role. At home, India mercifully gave up Fabian economics in the 1990s (and
reaped the rewards). But diplomatically, 66
years after the British left, it still clings to the post-independence creeds
of semi-pacifism and “non-alignment”: the West is not to be trusted.
India’s tradition of strategic restraint has in some ways
served the country well. Having little to show for several limited wars with
Pakistan and one with China, India tends to respond to provocations with
caution. It has long-running territorial disputes with both its big
neighbours, but it usually tries not to inflame them (although it censors any
maps which accurately depict where the border lies, something its press
shamefully tolerates). India does not go looking for trouble, and that has
generally been to its advantage.
Indispensable India
But the lack of a strategic culture comes at a cost.
Pakistan is dangerous and unstable, bristling with nuclear weapons, torn apart
by jihadist violence and vulnerable to an army command threatened by radical
junior officers. Yet India does not think coherently about how to cope. The
government hopes that increased trade will improve relations, even as the army
plans for a blitzkrieg-style attack across the border. It needs to work harder
at healing the running sore of Kashmir and supporting Pakistan’s civilian
government. Right now, for instance, Pakistan is going through what should
be its first transition from one elected civilian government to the next.
India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, should support this process by
arranging to visit the country’s next leader.
Our interactive map demonstrates how the territorial
claims of India, Pakistan and China would change the shape of South Asia
China, which is increasingly willing and able to project
military power, including in the Indian Ocean, poses a threat of a different
kind. Nobody can be sure how China will use its military and economic clout
to further its own interests and, perhaps, put India’s at risk. But India,
like China’s other near neighbours, has every reason to be nervous. The
country is particularly vulnerable to any interruption in energy supplies (India has 17% of the
world’s population but just 0.8% of its known oil and gas reserves).
India should start to shape its own destiny and
the fate of its region. It needs to take strategy more seriously and build a foreign service that
is fitting for a great power—one that is at least three times bigger. It
needs a more professional defence ministry and a unified defence staff that can
work with the country’s political leadership. It needs to let private
and foreign firms into its moribund state-run defence industry. And it
needs a well-funded navy that can become both a provider of maritime security
along some of the world’s busiest sea-lanes and an expression of India’s
willingness to shoulder the responsibilities of a great power.
Most of all, though, India needs to give up its outdated
philosophy of non-alignment. Since the nuclear deal with America in 2005, it
has shifted towards the west—it tends to vote America’s way in the UN, it
has cut its purchases of Iranian oil, it collaborates with NATO in Afghanistan
and co-ordinates with the West in dealing with regional problems such as
repression in Sri Lanka and transition in Myanmar—but has done so
surreptitiously. Making its shift more explicit, by signing up with
Western-backed security alliances, would be good for the region, and the world.
It would promote democracy in Asia and help bind China into international norms.
That might not be in India’s short-term interest, for it would risk
antagonising China. But looking beyond short-term self-interest is the kind of
thing a great power does.
That India can become a great power is
not in doubt. The real question is whether it wants to.
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