NonAlignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the 21st Century by Sunil Khilnani Page A
Authors: Sunil Khilnani
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commitment on behalf of these values. India’s intervention in 1971, for instance, is one of the most successful cases of intervention on behalf of human rights—and well before current doctrines of Responsibility to Protect. But at the same time we need to make it clear to the international community that the circumstances under which armed intervention is warranted on behalf of these values needs to be very carefully weighed, and that universal norms and values cannot provide a fig leaf for the pursuit of great power interests.
CHAPTER 3
Hard Power
India’s foreign and strategic policy should aim at using a variety of tools, including diplomacy and deterrence, to prevent the outbreak of armed conflict. Nevertheless, a prudent state must consider various possible scenarios, where diplomacy and deterrence may fail, and armed conflict becomes inevitable. This chapter on hard power looks at these possible scenarios, given India’s unique security environment. India’s military doctrine remains defensive and the set of recommendations are in the nature of considered responses to acts of aggression.
India’s hard power has as its instrumentalities the armed forces under the Ministry of Defence, the paramilitary forces and the Central Armed Police Forces under the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the state police under the respective state governments. The armed forces constitute one of the instruments that deal with external threats while internal threats are dealt with primarily by forcesunder the home ministry and state governments. Their main political objective and purpose is to ensure the creation of a stable and peaceful environment in order to facilitate maximum economic development concurrent with equitable growth. The political objective demands a peaceful international environment especially in our strategic neighbourhood that comprises the Asian land mass and the Indian Ocean littoral. The political objective also demands internal, political, social and economic stability. The role of hard power as an instrument of state is to remain ready to be applied externally or internally in pursuit of political objectives. Historically, the greatest threat to India is the combination of external threats during a period of internal instability.
External Challenges
The realm of external challenges requires hard power in the form of military power. These include, primarily, maintaining India’s territorial integrity which encompasses land, sea and airspace frontiers. It also includes, among other things, the protection of trade routes, access to resources and protection of the Indian diaspora. Considering the unresolved disputes with China and Pakistan, India’s borders with both these countriescontinue to remain politically deadlocked, curtailing free movement of people and trade. Continuing boundary disputes and other potential political issues mean that there is also the threat of war that demands military preparations. Towards the east, attempts to connect India to South-East Asia through India’s Look East Policy have promise but still await fulfilment. In practice, the only direction in which India has greater freedom of projection is towards the Indian Ocean. Therefore the fundamental design that must underpin the shaping of India’s military power should be the leveraging of potential opportunities that flow from peninsular India’s location in the Indian Ocean, while concomitantly defending its land borders against Pakistan and China. The development of military power must therefore attain a significant maritime orientation. Presently, Indian military power has a continental orientation. To emerge as a maritime power should therefore be India’s strategic objective.
That both China and Pakistan are nuclear armed directly impacts the type of wars that can be fought. India has propounded the concept of conventional space being available under a nuclear overhang. But the limitations of conventional space
CHAPTER 3
Hard Power
India’s foreign and strategic policy should aim at using a variety of tools, including diplomacy and deterrence, to prevent the outbreak of armed conflict. Nevertheless, a prudent state must consider various possible scenarios, where diplomacy and deterrence may fail, and armed conflict becomes inevitable. This chapter on hard power looks at these possible scenarios, given India’s unique security environment. India’s military doctrine remains defensive and the set of recommendations are in the nature of considered responses to acts of aggression.
India’s hard power has as its instrumentalities the armed forces under the Ministry of Defence, the paramilitary forces and the Central Armed Police Forces under the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the state police under the respective state governments. The armed forces constitute one of the instruments that deal with external threats while internal threats are dealt with primarily by forcesunder the home ministry and state governments. Their main political objective and purpose is to ensure the creation of a stable and peaceful environment in order to facilitate maximum economic development concurrent with equitable growth. The political objective demands a peaceful international environment especially in our strategic neighbourhood that comprises the Asian land mass and the Indian Ocean littoral. The political objective also demands internal, political, social and economic stability. The role of hard power as an instrument of state is to remain ready to be applied externally or internally in pursuit of political objectives. Historically, the greatest threat to India is the combination of external threats during a period of internal instability.
External Challenges
The realm of external challenges requires hard power in the form of military power. These include, primarily, maintaining India’s territorial integrity which encompasses land, sea and airspace frontiers. It also includes, among other things, the protection of trade routes, access to resources and protection of the Indian diaspora. Considering the unresolved disputes with China and Pakistan, India’s borders with both these countriescontinue to remain politically deadlocked, curtailing free movement of people and trade. Continuing boundary disputes and other potential political issues mean that there is also the threat of war that demands military preparations. Towards the east, attempts to connect India to South-East Asia through India’s Look East Policy have promise but still await fulfilment. In practice, the only direction in which India has greater freedom of projection is towards the Indian Ocean. Therefore the fundamental design that must underpin the shaping of India’s military power should be the leveraging of potential opportunities that flow from peninsular India’s location in the Indian Ocean, while concomitantly defending its land borders against Pakistan and China. The development of military power must therefore attain a significant maritime orientation. Presently, Indian military power has a continental orientation. To emerge as a maritime power should therefore be India’s strategic objective.
That both China and Pakistan are nuclear armed directly impacts the type of wars that can be fought. India has propounded the concept of conventional space being available under a nuclear overhang. But the limitations of conventional space
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