Deepa Ollapally

The Pragmatic Challenge to Indian Foreign Policy

A subversive pragmatic vision is increasingly challenging some of the key foundations of India’s traditional nationalist and left-of-center foreign policy, diluting the consensus that shaped the policy, and raising new possibilities especially for India’s relations with the United States and global nuclear arms control. This debate between two centrist foreign policy perspectives is not yet settled. The two are described here as ‘‘traditional nationalist’’ and ‘‘pragmatist,’’ with the former representing the established and dominant perspective, and the latter as the emerging challenger. 1 Actual Indian policy mostly splits the difference, mouthing traditional nationalist (hereafter referred to as simply nationalist) slogans while following pragmatist prescriptions. One major result has been the widening of political space for closer relations with the United States, even without a stable consensus. These taxonomies are ideal types: it is very unlikely that those characterized as either nationalist or pragmatist would agree with or accept every tenet of these categories. The categorizations are designed to provide an outline of the competing lines of argumentation about Indian foreign policy, rather than identify nationalists or pragmatists per se. It also is important to note that it is difficult right now in India to associate these perspectives with particular political parties, think tanks, or ministries. Thus, these perspectives are individualistic and do not correspond to particular organizations. They do, however, represent the views of important public intellectuals, policy analysts, academics, journalists, diplomats, and government officials.

Indo–Russian strategic relations: new choices and constraints

Three levels of analysis are applied: bilateral, regional and global. While the bilateral level has been critical in the past, global compulsions are becoming less intense, and regional dynamics now hold the key to future relations.

India: The Ambivalent Power in Asia

This article argues that India’s foreign policy preferences cannot be understood without referring to its state identity as it has evolved over time. The ambivalence that is evident throughout much of India’s post-Independence history lies in deep-seated identity sources—a unique mixture of post-colonial nationalism, civilizational exceptionalism and secular democracy. India’s identity has played out in foreign policy to place an inordinate amount of importance to strategic autonomy but with a normative aversion to power politics and use of force. This has led to an ambivalence that many observers find hard to understand. This orientation is now coming under increasing strain, because of the rise of a realist strand of thinking challenging the country’s traditional normatively driven foreign policy outlook. Realist thinking is posing as a distinct alternative that calls for a more proactive and power infused policy stance. The rise of China in India’s neighbourhood is giving greater weight to realist arguments. Although India’s core value of strategic autonomy is still in force in Indian foreign policy, the article suggests that it is taking on a different form that is more nuanced, more flexible and adaptable. As such, India may now be particularly well positioned to play the role of a ‘bridging power’ more effectively, matching its state identity with a new evolving international role. India’s membership in groups ranging from G-20 and Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) to India, Brazil, South Africa (IBSA) and ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and its being a serious contender for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, gives India distinct opportunities and status to utilize a greater mix of soft and hard power options than in the past. India may well be at the moment of overcoming its historical ambivalence to power-driven policies and purposeful action.

Understanding Indian policy dilemmas in the Indo-Pacific through an India–US–China maritime triangle lens

ABSTRACT Between the American rebalance strategy and Chinese Maritime Silk Road initiative, India is increasingly pressed to formulate a maritime strategy that ideally meets Indian economic and strategic objectives. This is generating major policy dilemmas for India stemming from the attraction of economic integration led by China on the one hand, versus the attraction of strategic integration offered by the United States on the other hand. This paper suggests that between these binary options, there are both opportunities and challenges for India, calling for fine-grained policymaking. The notional concept of an India–US–China maritime triangle is useful in sifting through the choices before India to meet its ambitions of development as well as retain and improve its strategic influence in the Indian Ocean and beyond.

Introductory Overview : Identity and Asian Powers: What Does it Mean for International Relations of Asia and Beyond?

The prevailing wisdom in International Relations literature that foreign policies of states may be understood without reference to their history, political values or culture, that is, their national identity, has not gone unchallenged. At the same time, arguments based on identity have yet to make significant headway against conventional realist thinking. In our view, this is due to two factors: (i) the continuing attraction of realism as parsimonious and powerful (ability to explain a lot with a little) and conversely (ii) the inability of identity theorists to put forward a shared operationalized and testable theory. However, it may be that we are at a particular historical juncture in which investigations of national identity are going to become inevitable, whether theories are underdeveloped or not. The current international system is experiencing clear power shifts not seen since the early twentieth century, with the rise of China and India and continued importance of Japan. The importance of Asia to the global order in the foreseeable future is now taken as a given. Both China and India, however, view themselves not just as normal states, but as civilizational entities. They have a surplus of history overlaid with feelings of pride as well as of hurt, resulting from the national humiliation of their slide into colonial control. Their sense of being exceptional states is just one indication of the importance of national identity in their thinking as they consider their international position. One question we, as analysts, need to ask is: Can we fully understand how these rising Asian states are going to engage globally without taking into account the political values, histories and strategic culture of these states? Or to put it another way, can we extrapolate the foreign policies of these countries simply from their rising economic and military profiles? We do not think so. However, we are not arguing that military capabilities do not matter or that states in general are not security seekers. We are, however, suggesting that states often make their foreign policy choices based on historical memories, long-standing values and on how they perceive themselves vis-à-vis other states. For example, China and India attach enormous importance to nonintervention norms—something that cannot be adequately explained without reference to their colonial humiliation and feelings of external vulnerability. They also continue to hold a good deal of suspicion about the Western liberal economic model—this is particularly surprising of India which is a liberal democracy, but it is even surprising of China, given its huge involvement in the liberal economic Introductory Overview

Rethinking Gender and International Security: Balancing Global and Regional Perspectives

The main objective of this article has been to strike a cautionary note in the act of theorising about gender and international security. It is important to consider the appropriateness of extending new models originating in the West to other societies no matter how attractive and persuasive they may appear at first glance. In looking at gender and international security issues and how they apply to non- Western societies it is necessary to keen in mind two important mediating influences that are bound to have an impact: the post-colonial international system that continues to be characterised by hegemonic political economy and military structures as well as differing sociocultural aspects. For any overarching model to have direct relevance for South Asia these factors have to be taken into account in some manner or other. (authors)