STRATEGIC ANALYSIS
Contemporary Debates in Indian Foreign and Security Policy: India Negotiates Its Rise in the International System
Volume:
33
Issue:
5
Book Review
September 2009
Strategic Analysis, 33:5, 781-782
Harsh V. Pant, Contemporary Debates in Indian
Foreign and Security Policy: India Negotiates Its Rise in the International
System, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2008, pp. 202, ISBN 0-230-60458-7
The book under review covers major issues
of current debate so as to arrive at broader trends in contemporary Indian
foreign and security policy. These issues include India’s relations with the
United States, China, Russia, Iran, and Israel; civil military relations as
impacted by nuclear weaponization-related developments; ballistic missile
defences; and lastly India’s energy quest. Having written widely on strategic
affairs issues, Harsh Pant has little difficulty in organizing the book into
four sections on balance of power, the nuclear question, Middle East relations,
and energy security. While the author acknowledges that the book is not
inclusive, it does omit some pertinent areas such as India’s relations with its
neighbours, in particular Pakistan, and the internal security sphere. Their
inclusion would have helped bolster the author’s argument that India needs to
come to terms with its rising power status ‘as much more than a “South Asian”
power’. Pant is right that India’s image is acquiring an increasingly salient
form and substance in international affairs. As an economy that is weathering
the recession, India has acquired a changed profile and is stepping into the
bigger league. This is most evident from the nature of the debates recounted by
Pant. There is a strong introspective strain in all these debates, particularly
the one that attended the Indo-US nuclear deal. The expectation that internal
politics should not influence foreign policy is questionable since democracy by
definition implies governance responsive to the larger national sentiments.
Taking the state as a ‘billiard ball’ would result in an unsustainable answer
to the question posed by the author: ‘What should be the trajectory of Indian
foreign policy at a time when India is emerging from the structural confines of
the international system as a rising power on its way to possible great power
status?’
The author acknowledges the domestic brakes on
policy makers when he says that ‘today Indian policy stands divided on
fundamental foreign policy choices facing the nation’. It is true that India is
under-prepared for the tryst. For this, it will first need to address other
indices of national power, such as the human developmental index, expansion in
Indian foreign policy activity, reshaping of its military capability, and
desire for greater global influence. That these have been absent as polling
concerns is not because, as the author puts it, ‘foreign policy issues do not
tend to win votes’, but due to concerns of wider India being in the sphere of
‘low politics’. India needs to engage with the world in keeping with an
internally directed national interest and only on sustainable terms of national
power. With respect to the Indo-US entente, the author hopes for a strategic
partnership of equals to be arrived at between the two largest democracies.
Power differentials make this problematic and the direction of US hegemony
raises questions about how a closer relationship will progress. His discussion
of civil-military relations in light of weaponization is perhaps the first
academic look at the issue. The expectations of militarization have not been
proven in light of the Indian experience but the issue will bear watching in
the future as all elements of the nuclear triad will be in place by the middle
of the coming decade. In his discussion on the ‘Middle East conundrum’, the
author admits there are ‘no easy policy choices’, given the need for balancing
Indian interests in Israel with those in the rest of the region. This, he
feels, will be possible once India can ‘find its own balance between domestic
imperatives and its national strategic interests’. Pant believes that
eventually India will come closer to the US position on Iran. He also sounds
the alarm bells with respect to energy security bringing to the fore a possible
conflict with China over access to global energy sources. Pant’s coverage of
the debates is very informative and he has indicated where he stands on the
issues raised.
