A Rising India in the Crossfire of Competing Grand Strategies

Abstract

This chapter argues that while the rise of China will not be peaceful and will create threats to Asian nations in general and India in particular, the actions of India as a provider of security in the region will stand on the shifting sands of changing global alignments and competing grand strategies. As a country that will become the world’s third-largest economy within the coming decade, India will need to create and pursue its own grand strategy within the ongoing crossfire of interests between great power, the US, and emerging power, China. Further, it will also need to fine-tune its actions with the grand strategies of other geographies, notably the EU, Russia, and Pakistan. Above all, India will have to do this as a developing nation, i.e., while bringing prosperity to its citizens. Arguing for India to put in place its grand strategy, this chapter offers the large pillars and big priorities on the chessboard of statecraft upon which to situate it. Part 1 introduces the context and the theme of grand strategy and argues for its clear articulation by India. Part 2 explores the specific grand strategies of China, the US, the EU, Russia, and Pakistan, which India will ward off, embrace and deal with over the next decade, and possibly till the middle of the twenty-first century. Part 3 offers streams of analyses around which India will construct its grand strategy, within which China and its proxy Pakistan will be hostile forces, the US- and the EU-led will be new alignments in the Indo-Pacific, Russia a neutral actor, and the economy a strategic input supporting India’s rise.