India’s Great-Power Delusions

14 comments

1. paywall: [https://archive.ph/vxBxI](https://archive.ph/vxBxI)

   Submission statement: India, despite its economic growth and potential as a great power, faces challenges in matching China’s economic and military might. While India’s economy is projected to grow, it is unlikely to surpass China’s by mid-century. To counter China’s influence, India will need to continue its cooperation with the United States, as other Indo-Pacific powers are not strong enough to compensate for the U.S.

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3. Seems suspect from the first sentence tbh. I doubt anybody in India buys that the US has sought for India to have great power status while simultaneous arming and financing pakistan. And thats just one premise. The US does what benefits it, as all countries in geopolitics do. Rarely has its interests really aligned with Indias

4. My 2 cents, our geopolitics before 2014(pm modi’s tenure) was handled by top level bureaucrats under parliament,with little to no influence from general public or low level parliamentarians, expect on boarder issues.Current Right wing supporters need a larger than life stance to deviate from any criticism on internal matters.But stll a huge % of people in India will be happy with a ‘Non-align’ policy.

5. Given their massive population and manufacturing base I feel like it’s impossible for India to not reach great power status at some point unless every Indian leader just continuously fumbles for a century

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7. No propaganda here. No suspect sentences here. You must realize who the author is before the perspective sinks in.

   Written by Ashley J Tellis. An indo-american with a capital A. He says the things India’s don’t want to hear but also things Americans don’t want to hear.

   There is an element within the American admin which would like to see India rise to balance China. But there is also an element which keeps Pakistan afloat, let it go nuclear etc. Ashley falls into the first group. He always advocated for the Indian perspective on oil imports from Russia even if while doing so he said India can’t be “family” the way Australia and UK are.

   But here I feel is reaching, his premise of India not having true friends is irrelevant when no one apart from the Americans have reliable security partners and again only because they need the Americans more than the other way around. Friends come through deep dependencies, India doesn’t have those. Maybe Bhutan?

   He is imploring India to align with the Americans because be knows it benefits America just as much as India. That’s the long and short of it.

8. It’s an incredibly stupid article. There is no ambition for India to be a super power or a super power. At best, it can aspire to be a regional power.

9. India does have great power delusions and the government in charge loves trotting out its collective GDP, which hides the fact that the country is actually poor. But the author is hell bent on hyphenating India with China, something the Indian foreign policy establishment doesn’t consider anywhere close to its policy. That is the policy the US wants India to adopt and India is willing to superficially dance on that tune to extract benefits. Indians know very well they are not in any position to be openly hostile with China and the same is for all the asian countries in the US encirclement of China in the Indo Pacific. If the US under Trump really thinks countries like the Phillipines, Vietnam, Japan etc are going to be dragged into a war with China, they are in for a hard surprise. All the countries are playing along while collecting what benefits they can.

   The very premise that India has to become a power solely to cointer China for the sake of the US is a myopic American perspective.

10. American propaganda piece.

    This is the agenda of this article:

    >New Delhi and Washington then will—indeed, must—continue cooperating in the years ahead.

    >But those hoping for a boundless friendship will be disappointed. Despite its weaknesses, India will not settle for any alliance with the United States, and there will be limits on their partnership. That is because India does not want to be part of any collective defense arrangements. Instead, it will zealously guard its nonallied status.

    Some very silly statements made too. If China right now, with a GDP of 19$ Trillion is able to ward off the US, with a GDP of 30$ Trillion, then why wouldn’t India in 2050 to China and the US? The average of India’s growth rate over the last 3 years is about 7.2%.

    By almost all estimates and using current growth rates, India should be just over half of China’s GDP in 2050, about where China is to the US today, and that’s certainly stopped the US from doing a great deal of things.

    So why is the picture portrayed differently for India, here?

    Where it comes to military capabilities, the author seems to have chosen to also completely forgo the presence of a dampener in the form of the tallest mountain range on Earth separating India and China. As long as that exists, there will never be a time where China can easily invade India. In fact, invading India in itself is akin to putting your hand into a beehive, a guaranteed endless war, where China is at a disadvantage. Heck, Iran’s 90M has already dissuaded a ground invasion of Iran….So imagine 1.4 Billion-1.5 Billion.

    The author seems to also be projecting their own objectives on the topic – containing China. India has only gotten on-board with this because of China’s own attempts of containing India, which is a fruitless endeavor because its quite frankly impossible with the cards it has. The economies of both Bangladesh and Pakistan have nose-dived, one has been in a endless cycle of loans for years and the other has decided to follow that path.

    And geographically, India has a huge coastline.

    Ultimately, the PRC will have to realise that India is there to stay, even if its 10 or 20 years from now. At that time, it may also realise that yes, India may be a ally to no one, but can also be a friend to everyone, including it.

    The only agreeable point is influence. Yes, India is sorely lacking in that department, sure. But even in its past when it used to hold significant percentages of world GDP it was never globally influential. The Mughal Empire never did anything major outside of the subcontinent, for example.

11. I feel like the West cares more about India becoming/not-becoming a ‘great power’ more than India does itself, lol

    India only cares about India, and all power they want is only in regards to what benefits India’s control of the Indo-sphere, and prevent their people from starving or being colonized/balkanized again

    Ironically tho, just purely based on demographics and expected economic growth alone, India is inevitably going to be a ‘great power’ in 2050 onwards purely because Chinas population pyramid is going to collapse, while India is still going to grow until about 1.7 billion before stagnating and falling off.

    Even if they don’t want to, India is going to be forced to be a 3rd ‘great power’ which is below America/China and used as a counterbalance whether they like it or not. It’s not anytime soon, but its inevitable in 30 years

12. India’s sheer size gives it great potential. It’s ambitions just can’t be dismissed as delusions.

    That being said, to say it has challenges to overcome would be a massive, massive understatement:
    – It has huge linguistic, religious, and cultural divisions.
    – It’s a poor country.
    – It lacks basic infrastructure over significant portions of it’s population centers.
    – It’s legal system and government bureaucracy is… let’s just say lacking.
    – And it’s surrounded by large significant hostile powers from pretty much all land routes.

    It’s internal divisions make the widespread reforms and construction necessary to deal with the teeny-tiny problem of poverty difficult.
    If it’s to become greatly influential beyond it’s borders it will have to focus it’s efforts overseas, which would be an expensive long term investment.

13. There’s definitely a pattern of inflated self-image among some Indian netizens—this belief that India is leading the world in everything from tech to morality. But from the outside, a lot of that comes off as tone-deaf or even a bit of a joke.

    Pride is one thing, but when it turns into blind nationalism and constant one-upmanship, it stops being impressive and starts looking delusional.

    In my opinions Indians are pretty much the laughing stock of the world

14. The focus of the piece is too focused on military and economic power. The real focus should be on the problematic educational system, on the constant brain drain, and the exclusion of women from the work force. China was able to quickly develop once economic reforms took place because they had educated workforce, no cultural limitations regarding the access of women to the labour market, and the Chinese that would go abroad were expected to contribute back not in remittances but in expertise and know how, even if that meant industrial espionage. China also has a very pragmatic approach to the economy, where decisions are not ideological as long as it doesn’t undermine the power of the CCP.

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