 |
| S. JAISHANKAR || THE INDIA WAY|| |
2. The Art of the Disruption
S. JAISHANKAR || THE INDIA WAY||If you had believed the best minds of our times, this was not supposed to happen. But for two decades, China had been winning without fighting, while the US was fighting without winning. We speak here not just about outcomes in specific theatres or regions. It was even more about economic growth, political influence, and quality of life. As a result, along the way, America lost its famous optimism. Something had to give and it did, in the 2016 American presidential election. This obviously was not the only reason for that result. But through that one electoral event, the upholder of the international system turned revolutionary. And China, the rising power, finds itself defending the status quo – or at least the elements to its advantage.
The world faces an extraordinary prospect of its two leading players doing what it takes to win, and then some more. Their behavioural impact on each other and the world is now visible. In other circumstances, the US could be practising the art of the deal. But in an unfavourable landscape, it seems more focused on changing the terms of engagement. The need of the day apparently is to discard what no longer works for it. Deals may or may not follow. In the ultimate analysis, the ability of major powers to reach accommodation will shape our times. When ‘black swans’ meet ‘grey rhinos’, the very nature of the habitat undergoes transformation.
To the immediate beholder, these developments appear alarming. Especially so, if we focus on the events to the exclusion of trends. But international relations is an exercise of both forging convergences and managing divergences. Such dynamic processes will keep evolving while coexisting. At the extremes, they produce allies or create conflicts. But in an interdependent world, most relationships tend to settle down in the middle. Convergences even among competing powers is not unknown. The briefer examples include that of Germany and USSR after the First World War or the US and the USSR during the second one. In contrast, the trans-Atlantic bond between the UK and the US proved exceptionally durable.
Somewhere in-between would be the UK-Japan partnership after the Meji Restoration that lasted half a century. China’s collaboration with the USSR/Russia in the 1950s and again today is also noteworthy.
The US-China relationship that currently holds global attention has gone on for four decades, not a short span in modern times. Who benefited more in this period is a question to which we may get a different answer today than two decades ago. But because it was long enough to be taken as a given by two generations, we attribute to it a sense of being natural. We ask why it is under stress now, when we could wonder equally easily why it lasted that long. But beyond these two questions, what the world is arguing over is the continuing relevance of a system that the established powers devised but which was used so brilliantly by the rising one to advance its prospects.
Typically, convergences dilute as the parties concerned move towards closer parity. Or believe they do. That is true with the US and China today as it was with the US and USSR in 1948, or the UK and Japan in 1922. The absence of a shared adversary who drove the coming together also changes the situation. The defeat of Germany and Japan removed the compulsions for the continuance of the US-USSR partnership. The lower salience of Russia has been a factor for the changes in the US-China one. And not least, as the UK-US special relationship suggests, while social similarities can be an extraordinary binding force, dissimilarities can be equally divisive. It is tempting to see current events as an outcome of choices, dissimulation or even of egos. All of that may be true, but there is also the unending process of international relations at work.
The events of 2016 were more than exceptional in their nature. That the most powerful nation of our times should change course so sharply has a significance that is hard to overstate. While recognizing that, it should also be noted that these developments are not an entirely novel phenomenon. America First itself has a history, whose more controversial elements are sometimes evoked to criticize it. And its prioritizing of national interests at the cost of international responsibilities is something that spans the ideological divide. One might well ask what a Bernie Sanders foreign policy would have looked like. But in its earlier version, it was not yet an America of global magnitude and that is the real difference.
Russia too followed such an approach immediately after the break-up of the USSR in 1992. To varying degrees, other nations big and small practise it, even if they do not admit doing so. All of this is only explainable by the reaction of key political demographics to their economic predicament that they linked to developments in the world. Simply put, global supply chains were perceived as an economic threat, and immigration and mobility as a cultural one.
For many in Asia, it is difficult to comprehend the insecurities that globalization has created in the West. They have led to the left-right combination that helps the electoral success of nationalist candidates. Because the benefits of a more seamless global economy overshadowed the uneven distribution within societies and between them, there is today as much bewilderment at the turn of events as there is anger.
When the deep state joins the loud state in the US, a structural shift is well underway. What began as an unexpected political phenomenon has mainstreamed to some extent over the last three years. Even before the corona crisis, the influence of global supply chains and domination of technologies had given a sharp edge to growing trade frictions. The high stakes of this competition are underlined by the fact that it is in many ways about disruption itself. The resulting capabilities and their deployment could without exaggeration determine the future direction of the world. Part of the contest revolves around the utilization of big data. Equally consequential is control over key emerging technologies. The new contestation is about artificial intelligence and advanced computing, quantum information and sensing, additive robotics and brain-computer interface, advanced materials, hypersonics and biotechnology. Whoever harnesses disruptive technologies better will influence the world more. Major powers recognize this increasingly starkly. As trade disputes now assume much deeper connotations, the US, in particular, may end up contemplating a radically different industrial policy to suit its national security needs.
When new balances emerged, so did theories of the entrenched power resisting the rising ones. The Sparta-Athens example was cited, as indeed the UK-Germany conflict. But that is only one aspect of a phenomenon more complex than a clash foretold. For there is also evidence of the dominant helping the rise of the aspiring. China itself is a beneficiary, first of the assistance of the USSR in the 1950s, and then of the US since the 1970s. The truth is that these frictions are not fully structural nor always preordained. Every kind of example can be found in history. Dissimilar powers such as the US, European ones or Japan have both made common cause and gone to war. Related ones within Europe too have done the same. Culture has a role, as do interests and circumstances. But in the final analysis, it is all about calculations and aspirations. Both are derivatives of leadership choices and societal sentiments; nothing is really inevitable. And because it boils down to human factors, values and beliefs do play their part in shaping world affairs.
Many of the discomforts today arise from differences on key issues like the relationship between the state, politics, society, business, faith and the markets. It is expressed in matters of personal freedoms and institutional firewalls. Sociology matters, especially once it assumes global proportions. This is at the heart of the predicament the world faces today. And creating common ground is, therefore, the hardest diplomatic challenge. Whether these contradictions could have been finessed a little longer is debatable. But political outcomes in key nations have made the question irrelevant anyway. The Sino-US competition in its new avatar will be a long and hard contest without clear outcomes. The likely scenario is of a twilight zone, where shifts in geopolitics are compounded by leaps of technology. The rise of a new global power was never going to be easy, and an order waiting to happen will look like chaos till it does.
In an inter-dependent and constrained world, it can only unfold through tensions and negotiations, adjustments and transactions. In this process, much will depend on what is allowed to take root. An America that consciously chooses to be a higher cost but more insular economy, a nationalistic but innovative technology creator, and a self-sufficient but more powerful military, will mean a very different ball game. There will always be voices that would urge an accommodation. Perhaps even a return to the past. There is a third choice as well, one that retains the national security outlook of the present, but which appreciates the value of alliances. So, how much the culture of disruption will lead to the art of the deal still remains to be seen.
What can India do to advance its goals in this disrupted world? Much of that would depend on its handling of the two principal actors – the US and China. This is not the first occasion when India faces such a predicament. We went through the Cold War, maintaining our independence in policymaking amidst all its complexities. Far from being a linear exercise, India made the adjustments required on stressful occasions. After the Chinese attack in 1962, it turned to the US to the extent of asking for air cover. In 1971, presented with the prospect of a US-China-Pakistan axis and a looming Bangladesh crisis, it concluded a virtual alliance with the USSR. Whenever crises receded, India went back to the middle path. As Russia weakened and China rose, a new binary prospect appeared in the making. There was a natural tendency to transpose the earlier syndrome on this emerging one. But the era after the Indo-US nuclear deal of 2005 showed how excessive caution lost the chance to make more than incremental gains.
For the fact is that a return to the past only accentuates our limitations and undermines confidence. It encourages risk aversion and prevents exploitation of new opportunities. At this stage of its rise, it is vital that India make the most of convergences with others. These may vary by the region or the issue. Where intersections of interest are multiple, it is perhaps best to just distrust and verify. Because global fluidity is so pervasive, India must address this challenge of forging more contemporary ties on every major account. Achieving an overall equilibrium will depend on how it fares on the individual ones.
In a world of more naked self-interest, nations will do what they have to do with less pretence. Hence, India must brace itself for what may be expected to come. It has to prepare for assertions of influence that will exploit power differentials, economic advantages and dependency of connectivity. And it can best respond with a logic that is understandable to the other party. We can, however, reasonably expect that even those more powerful have limited interest in an aggravation of ties. After all, they too operate in a world of multiple poles and greater choices. The future is, therefore, more one of management of differences and finding some stability in a changing dynamic. This will not be without problems and the key is to develop and sharpen strategic clarity. Even with neighbours with whom there are serious issues, there should be hope that the price of a pragmatic settlement will be less than the costs of a difficult relationship.
At the same time, the temptation to pursue illusory gains based on past constructs should be resisted. No serious practitioner of politics will accept that foregoing opportunities to leverage will ever be rewarded. India cannot give any other nation a veto on its policy options. This is particularly so in a world when all significant players are trying to be as open-ended on their own choices. Nor is there a basis to suggest that a modest Indian global profile will somehow be rewarded by polities who are intrinsically enamoured of strength. On the contrary, it is when options are available to be exercised – and from time to time actually are – that realism prevails. This applies to all countries, as even partners will always strive to better terms of transaction.
The tumultuous times we now live in are a far cry from the soothing mantras of globalization that we heard just a few years ago. Polarization permeates our world, whether in domestic politics or in inter-state relations. What the US and China are doing to each other is difficult enough. But what their behaviour will do to the rest of the world is even more impactful. It will change our thinking and in time create new habits and attitudes. Those will not be easily reversed, if ever. Some of us may imitate them; others may have no choice but to simply chafe. But all will react, one way or the other. When the smoke clears, a different global architecture will start to take form.
New equations and interests would have come into being. Single-minded pursuit of national interest will make our world look like a bazaar, with more players, less rules and greater volatility. As a result, goals are more immediate and approaches more tactical. Structures have weakened as interest in finding common ground recedes. New York, Geneva and Brussels are now symbols to run against. Advantages are asserted in a more transactional ethos with negotiators learning that to their cost. Erosion in trust has been sharp, especially for nations that are part of alliance systems. Dependability is now a growing question mark and friends and allies are no longer immune to pressures. In fact, everybody is fair game when big affinities no longer overlook smaller differences. As nationalism sharpens across regions, so does the characterization of diverging interests. Black and white are redefined even as ‘Green on Blue’ attacks enter the political domain.
But the fact is that there are stabilizing forces at work too, many from the earlier era. The caution of markets and the unpredictability of conflicts are constraining factors on extreme competition. Economic inter-dependence also limits the extent of political risk-taking. They will continuously contest the changes underway, generating heated arguments at home and abroad. So, even as nations play more roughly for narrower objectives, there would also be those who are prepared to settle for less. In the liberal world, this could mean limiting aspirations to pluralism, or just the defence of openness. When it comes to relationships and expectations, both believers and sceptics may converge where outcomes are uncertain. Given all these pulls and pressures, clarity and objectivity are the two attributes that will remain in short supply.
The trend till recently was firmly in the opposite direction. The world was not only more interlinked in its activities, but also confident in that thinking. We all spoke of a global village and saw globalization realized in a variety of practical ways. Technology was the great promise that we could see made us more connected with each passing day. The default solution to any significant challenge – whether promoting trade, addressing climate change or responding to terrorism – was through shared endeavours. However, all that has started to change. It is not that the ‘me’ did not exist before. But national and global interests were usually reconciled through a network of agreements, mechanisms and practices. Between nation states and the international community stood intermediaries, alliances, regional structures or like-minded partners. But this world, evolving steadily since 1945, stands eroded by disenchantment with globalization and anger at mercantilism. Its three key principles that we had taken for granted – access to global markets, value of global supply chains and reliance on global talent mobility – are all under stress. Players are moreover multiplying even as rules are weakening. The old order is visibly changing but the new one is not yet in sight.
While equations between nations may be disturbed, the churning within societies is no less relevant. If the world is not what it used to be, it is because the shelf life of old normals has expired. The story in the Western world is of sharp income inequality, pressures on jobs, stagnant quality of life and blame on ‘outsiders’. Growing resentment that was left untended was finally given voice by black swan events. Brexit was the warning bell and Trump’s election the real thing. Whether it was targeting plumbers from Poland, caricaturing immigrants from Mexico or castigating refugees from Africa, politics mobilized around cultural threats and economic grievances. Doing so, it revealed that the thinking of established elites had become outdated. Small wonder that their foreign policy outlook should also be questioned, be it advocacy of collective interests or arguments of common good.
Once departures from the norm were set in motion, justifications were not difficult to find. The unfairness of globalization emerged as a lightning rod, especially the parts that could be directed at others. Big Tech underwent a rapid transformation from being the great hope to the new threat. The emergence of new agendas obviously tested old players, whose confidence that power would socialize proved misplaced. Across the world, it is being given form by political nationalism that challenges the status quo. The developing world, especially Asia, may present a contrasting picture with stronger growth rates and higher aspirations. But it is still in the middle of rebalancing and its declaration of success are very premature. Because globalization served much of Asia well, we wrongly assumed that its optimism was shared universally. When global convergence weakens, its advocates everywhere find their positions undermined.
As alliances erode and the US steps back from major international commitments, the resulting anxiety may be wider than we think. Once globalization comes under attack, all its facets are subject to pressures. Opposition to globalized business will naturally undermine its governing rules and criticize the institutions that oversee it. Such a world view will also resent those commitments that do not serve its immediate goals.
It is no accident that the political counter to globalization should focus on immigration and job security. These are issues that resonate most effectively with Western electorates, despite their economic logic being questionable. But the foreigner is a convenient whipping boy, in person as much as an economic competitor. And if their trading practices make it easier to do so, then apparently so be it. The Trump outlook depicts global supply chains as taking jobs away from America, calling into question the logic on which global business has relied on for years. Muscular use of tariffs constricts the hitherto generous access to the US economy. Financial policies and social pressures are seeking to bring manufacturing back to America. There are moves afoot to also ‘decouple’ the Western world from China in the sphere of sensitive technologies. How much they will succeed remains to be seen.
The other driver of the current volatility is opposition to global mobility. The phenomenon itself is a consequence of the spread of skills and more efficient economic practices. However, difficult times are increasing hostility to its social aspects. After all, cultural insularity goes hand in hand with economic protectionism. But these pressures must contend with business realities that have developed deep roots.
All said and done, talent will remain the prerequisite for technology leads. And this is what can make India’s position very different. It is the only viable reservoir that prepares skills before they flow into the world economy. The economic merits of such adjustable sources trump their social and political aspects. Making itself more relevant to the global knowledge economy clearly holds the key to India’s future relationships.
The impact on the global order of these developments is likely to be visible over the next generation. That would have many dimensions, each of them in itself a source of potential instability. The most obvious one is that the world will be increasingly multipolar as distribution of power broadens and alliance discipline dilutes. An India or a Brazil will demand a greater voice with a growing economy. Germany and Japan cannot be impervious to change in American thinking on, say, Russia or Korea. As consistency starts to be questioned, many more nations will start to do their own thinking and planning.
A more nationalistic approach to international relations will undeniably weaken multilateral rules in many domains. This will be particularly sharp in respect of economic interests and sovereignty concerns. Undermining the working of the World Trade Organization or disregarding the Law of the Seas are not good signs. This prospect of multipolarity with less multilateralism suggests a more difficult future even for the near term. This does not mean giving up on the latter. On the contrary, it requires a new energy to be poured into reformed multilateralism. The current anachronistic order must be pushed to change, along with its outdated agenda.
It is also important to appreciate that the issue is not a binary choice between defending the order or inviting disorder. Unless we recognize that key elements of the order are no longer working for many stakeholders, confusion will continue to prevail over change. This will necessarily bring to the fore uncomfortable questions about current observance of rules, in both letter and spirit. And as major powers selectively advance arguments, much of the basic consensus that underpins the current reality will start to fray.
The emerging world is also likely to fall back on balance of power as its operating principle, rather than collective security or a broader consensus. History has demonstrated that this approach usually produces unstable equilibriums. World affairs will also see a proliferation of frenemies. They will emerge from allies who criticize each other or competitors compelled to make common cause. A more transactional ethos will promote ad hoc groupings of disparate nations who have a shared interest on a particular issue. This would be supported by requirements of working together and reaching out beyond alliance structures. The combination of these developments will encourage more regional and local balances with less global influence on their working.
The really uncharted territory that US-China frictions will take us into is that of coping with parallel universes. They may have existed before, most recently during the Cold War. But not with the inter-dependence and the inter-penetration of the globalized era. As a result, divergent choices and competing alternatives in many spheres will rest on partially shared foundations. This dilemma will be evident in a growing number of domains, from technology, commerce and finance to connectivity, institutions and activities. The key players will themselves struggle with the dichotomy of such parallel existence. Those who have to manage both, as most of us will, may then find themselves really tested.
Even if ties between China and the West take on a more adversarial character, it is difficult to return to a strongly bipolar world. The primary reason for that is the landscape has now changed irreversibly. Other nations are independently on the move, including India. Half of the twenty largest economies of the world are non-Western now. Diffusion of technology and demographic differentials will also contribute to the broader spread of influence. We see forces at play that reflect the relative primacy of local equations when the global construct is less overbearing. The reality is that the US may have weakened, but China’s rise is still far from maturing. And together, the two processes have freed up room for others. Both have a use for third parties as they contest each other. In fact, their mutual dynamic may well drive multipolarity faster.
The beneficiaries could well be middle powers. Those who already have prior advantages like Russia, France and UK will get a new lease of life. Some like India can aspire to an improved position. Others, like Germany, would increase their weight through collective endeavours. But this will also be a world of a Brazil and Japan, of Turkey and Iran, a Saudi Arabia, Indonesia or an Australia, with a greater say in their vicinity and even beyond. The dilution of alliance discipline will only further facilitate this process. What will emerge is a more complex architecture, characterized by different degrees of competition, convergence and coordination. It will be like playing expanded Chinese Checkers including with some who are still arguing over the rules.
A multipolar world that is driven by balance of power is not without its risks. Europe, with its World War experiences, is especially chary. Even dominant powers – the US, Russia earlier or China now – favour such balancing only for specific contingencies and not as a general approach. Past experience does suggest that unchecked competition can often spiral downwards, both regionally and at the global level. For that reason, international relations envisage collective security as a safety net. Even if that did not always work, broader consensus through wider consultations functioned as a Plan B. Those most unsettled at the prospect of multipolarity with weaker rules are nations that have long functioned in an alliance construct. Unlike independent players, it is understandably difficult for them to accept that the compulsions of inter-dependence are a good enough substitute. Others may contemplate this prospect with greater nervousness; but an India perhaps with a more open mind.
An individualistic world means that the entrenched order is more open to newer players. Longstanding collective positions may become less rigid. That the format of play is also more bilateral strengthens the inclination to make accommodations. This has been particularly in evidence in the security domain. Whether it is the nuclear deal and the NSG waiver, the partnerships in Afghanistan or the Malabar Exercise, they reflect a departure from the old group think to more contemporary pragmatism. It could also now extend to other domains.
Friends who differ or competitors who cooperate are a notable trait of this emerging scenario. Both express different aspects of constraints that limit freedom of choices in an interdependent world. The rise of nationalism is largely responsible for the former group while global threats bring the latter together. Thus, we have seen the US differ with much of the Western world, especially Europe, on issues like climate change. The politics of the TransPacific Partnership and the NAFTA were examples of the divisive role of trade. Energy policy has been an equally potent area, reflected in American criticism of Europe’s dependence on Russia. But more than specific issues, frenemies have grown as mindsets have changed. The belief that alliances are burdensome is by itself a cause for frictions.
In the final analysis, the utility of the current dispensation to America’s global posture has come into question. The momentum of the past, however, can still keep combinations alive of nations who may disagree about the present. Despite differences of views, traditions do continue a basis for working together, even if unhappily. A very different motivation is provided, however, by the compulsions of common concerns. We have seen coalitions of convenience on global issues like counterterrorism, maritime security, non-proliferation or climate change. These are issue-based and can again be effective even when grudging.
If division within alliances was one evolution, reaching beyond them was another. As the world moved in the direction of greater plurilateralism, result-oriented cooperation started to look more attractive. They were better focused and could be reconciled with contrary commitments. The growing imperative of sharing responsibilities was combined with an appreciation of influences beyond formal structures. Asia has been a particular focus for such initiatives, as regional architecture is the least developed there. India today has emerged as an industry leader of such plurilateral groups, because it occupies both the hedging and the emerging space at the same time.
Working with different powers on security, political and developmental issues has shown that making common cause can be extended by pragmatism and imagination. The twilight world is one full of partial agreement and limited agenda. Its ambiguous nature requires flexible arrangements that are customized to the challenge. These practices will not only become more widespread in coming times but occupy a prominent place in the foreign policy of states beyond India.
A world of multiple choices is increasingly opening up at different levels. We surely see that at the big table, where larger powers are dealing more opportunistically with each other. Through their behaviour, they encourage the rest of the world to also do so. In the light of the global balance being so fluid, the shaping of the local one has become a subject on its own. In the Gulf, there is a multi-cornered contest underway with faith, governance models, political principles and balance of power all providing variables. Less complex examples litter other parts of the world.
As they throw up issues, it is more effective for India to respond with engagement than by distancing. The skill that current diplomacy values most is dealing with contesting parties at the same time with optimal results. The pressure on players is definitely more in a higher intensity and less structured game. But there is a reason why going up the global power hierarchy is judged by the ability to successfully manage conflicting priorities.
Dominating the global stage today is very different from earlier days. When the world was much simpler, so too was the rise of powers. Fortunes were made and unmade by a combination of national strength, international opportunities and the quality of leadership. Superior technologies and practices produced decisive outcomes, often on the battlefield. Today, the variables that drive power and affect calculations are many more. Their interplay is also complex and less predictable. Equally important, their application takes place in a constrained, globalized and interdependent world. As a result, accumulation of influence substitutes for much rawer exercises of strength. Strategy has become more an effective deployment of resources than the use of force. Technology has opened up options like weaponization of finance or cyber interventions.
At the same time, persuasion and incentives are also more common than coercion. Consequently, nations now rise in a different way, without necessarily a signature moment of transformation. The global financial crisis of 2009 is a telling example where neither China, the rising power, nor the US, the one yielding ground, fully appreciated at that time the enormity of the tipping point.
An increase in the influence of nations may be more diffused and perhaps less tangible. But nevertheless, it is equally real. No one doubts China’s influence on the world stage, even if they don’t ponder that it was achieved by running trade surpluses rather than by shedding blood. Financial instruments, displays of strength and connectivity projects have provided opportunities to assert power without physically clashing with competitors.
That said, the latent threat of growing capabilities continues to underpin hard power. It explains why some, for example, embellish their past conflicts so much. In the case of India too, maintaining a more robust military posture and carrying out the 1998 nuclear tests were essential milestones in its evolution. But its global image is equally the result of its response to the Y2K challenge, its higher rate of growth and global acquisitions by its business. Power itself has now come to have different attributes and not all of them reside in the same nation.
The US, for example, remains the world’s technological leader by a long stretch. But while behind on this score, China has used its financial and trading muscle to carve out for itself the number two slot. Europe is highly regarded for its industrial strength and quality of products. Even though it has pursued interventionist policies beyond the continent, it is still seen as punching below its weight. In contrast, Russia has summoned up its longstanding capabilities and by sheer willpower reinvented itself as a key player. So, what is the global hierarchy of power is no longer an easy question to answer. Because it has so many facets and is played out more locally, we are back to the matrix of many sides, many players, many games.
The domain most affected by all these disruptions is the provision of global goods. American parsimony and Chinese nationalism have renewed a debate on this subject. The vision and activities of Europe have also shrunk. Few other powers have moved to pick up the slack, India being a part exception. An unwillingness to commit resources to a larger global cause is very much in consonance with a narrower approach to international relations. That debate is framed, for example, around continuing troop commitments to Afghanistan and the Middle East. Or responding to the corona pandemic more lately. But it is much more complicated than that, encompassing respect for international law or responding to serious misbehaviour. Indifference to the most egregious actions of terrorism, for example, allowed it to become the norm in a large geography. India, of course, has a particular complaint in that context.
The discipline of the global order was given credit in the past for a range of preventive measures. Non-proliferation experts would confirm that many more nations would have gone nuclear but for alliance pressures. Much has depended on the credibility of key powers in underwriting their commitments. If that erodes, it could have a profound impact on the calculations of many. It will also make it difficult to reach understandings on new dimensions of threat, such as in cyber or space. The next decade will unfortunately be less generous and so more unsafe.
Keeping that in mind, India has to carefully navigate the near future whose contours are starting to define themselves. Leading nations, not just the US and China, will be surely more nationalistic and create space for others.
Power distribution will continue to spread and multipolarity will accelerate.
But greater players will not mean better rules; probably quite the opposite. As new capabilities and domains rise, global rules will struggle to keep pace. These developments will pose challenges to a rising power like India that would definitely prefer greater predictability. But if it can handle the uncertainty, its rise can also be faster.
At various levels of global politics, balances of power will be sought and often achieved. Loose and practical arrangements of cooperation will proliferate across geographies. Some will be composed of the like-minded, others more opportunistic, and still more, a mix of the two. Regional politics and local balances will gain importance.
Clearly, India will have to engage a broader set of partners more creatively. The transactional bazaar will bring together frenemies, grappling with the compulsions of globalization. Many will use the newer techniques of finance, connectivity or technology. India will need to find adequate responses, nationally where possible or in partnership, where required. Each of these issues is a challenge in itself and their matrix will determine India’s future in a volatile world.
India could rise in an incremental way, as it was hitherto wont to do, hoping to play a balancing role as new equations came into play. Or, it could be bolder and seek to determine agendas and outcomes. To some extent, Indian hesitations of playing a leading role derive from its recollection of formidable powers like the US and USSR. But China has shown that a developing society, albeit of a large size and dynamic economy, can start to assume that responsibility. India could well follow in its footsteps, obviously at its own pace. That is, in fact, the calculation or perhaps even hope in many quarters.
A flatter world has been beneficial to India as its rise has been welcomed by many entrenched powers. The American interest in working with India has been evident for two decades and has now further accelerated. Russia remains a privileged partner with whom geopolitical convergence is a key consideration even in shifting circumstances. That has given the relationship a unique ballast. After Brexit, a more uncertain Europe has also developed a growing interest in India as a force of stability and growth in Asia. China, for its part, sees India as inherent to the rise of Asia and the larger rebalancing of the power distribution. The expansion of Japan’s concerns and interests has created the basis for a completely different quality of ties. Countries of Asia, especially in the ASEAN and the IndoPacific, visualize merits in India’s ability to shape a more multipolar Asia. The other extended neighbourhood in the Gulf has also welcomed the return of India to its region. While doing all this, India has retained its traditional constituencies of support in Africa and the rest of the political South. As the power differential vis-à-vis the world narrows, collaboration possibilities have expanded. If the world has developed stakes in India’s prominence, the latter, in turn, can utilize that sentiment to the fullest.
Improving economic and political prospects is the necessary condition to contemplate India’s rise in the world order. But sufficiency requires a favourable environment as well as the leadership and judgement to take advantage of it. And it is changes in regard to these two factors that today make a strong case to take India’s aspirations more seriously. The right strategic calculations require a proper comprehension of the transformation in the international landscape. Assessing its contradictions accurately at the global and regional level opens up opportunities for progress. At its heart right now is the dynamic between the US and China. But also relevant are the determination of Russia, the choices of Japan and the durability of Europe. The loose coalition of developing states will play some part, although it increasingly differentiates on issues of concern. And as multipolarity grows and discipline erodes, it is really sharper regionalism that can produce outcomes beyond the control of major powers. Multilateralism may well take a backseat as rules and norms come under greater scrutiny and the consensus among the Permanent Five (US, Russia, China, UK and France) weakens. All in all, this points to more fluidity and unpredictability.
In theory, this new reality should be welcomed by the beneficiaries. After all, the demand for a more multipolar world has been pressed for many years by them. Now that multipolarity is upon us, its compulsions and responsibilities will make themselves felt. Nations will have to forge issuebased relationships that can often be pulling them in different directions. Keeping many balls up in the air and reconciling commitments to multiple partners takes great skill. There will be convergence with many but congruence with none. Finding common points to engage with as many power centres will characterize diplomacy. The country that fares the best is the one which has least problems with its peer group.
India must reach out in as many directions as possible and maximize its gains. This is not just about greater ambition; it is also about not living in yesterday. In this world of all against all, India’s goal should be to move closer towards the strategic sweet spot.
The shifting sands of global politics have always been the determining context for national choices. The post-colonial era that followed the Second World War saw India’s return to the international arena as a sovereign power. Gaining independence ahead of many other colonies, it enjoyed first-mover advantages in world affairs for a considerable period. The next shift came when India had to respond to the Sino-US rapprochement, one facilitated by Pakistan. It did so by aligning to a great degree with the USSR. While that too took it through the next few decades, economic compulsions and the onset of unipolarity compelled further adjustment. The Indo-US nuclear deal of 2005 was symbolic of this repositioning which helped accelerate India’s rise in the global order. Today, this country finds itself at another crossroads, this time one where choices are less clear and risks more complicated. To forge ahead, it is imperative that there is an adequate appreciation of the enormity of the disruption to which the international system is now being subjected.
As Indians weigh their prospects, they must consider themselves in the overall flow of modern history. Placing national prospects in a context of global events does not come easily to self-absorbed societies. Yet, divorced from the larger picture, they could misread their position or ignore their destiny. India’s current modernization is one of a series that goes back to the Meiji Restoration in Japan. Even then, Indian nationalists perceived it as the beginning of the revival of Asia, hailing Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905. But it was that country’s socio-economic transformation that was the really lasting story. The creation of the Soviet Union, emergence of the ‘tiger’ economies in East Asia and the ASEAN, and, finally, the rise of China – all saw the rest of Eurasia playing catch-up. Each one of these developments have had their influence on India, sometimes unconsciously so. Admittedly, India is the only one to have undertaken this journey more arduously on a democratic vehicle. But politics and sociology aside, its efforts in the last quarter century reflect broadly similar goals and objectives as those of Asia. If it differed, it was more in the depth and intensity of change, where an evolutionary approach produced less sweeping outcomes. Some of the consequential constraints are therefore only now being addressed.
Foreign policy is now an exercise to assess the disruptions underway and the trends that accelerate, mitigate or counter new directions. The coronavirus pandemic may well be a further complicating factor. But as the global architecture opens up and India’s own capabilities strengthen, it has greater freedom than in the past to organize its rise. This process will naturally have its risks that will need careful assessment. Much of the strategy would revolve around creating a more favourable landscape. Changing the global discourse in its favour is also essential at this time. But the end goal even, perhaps especially, in a volatile world is clear. Many friends, few foes, great goodwill, more influence. That must be achieved through the India Way.