India in 2011: The great power test

If India’s diplomatic run in 2010 saw significant advances in relations with all the great powers, the coming year will test India’s foreign policy on a range of issues: the global multilateral arena, especially the United Nations Security Council; the changing balance between major powers in Asia; and the unstable dynamic in our north-western neighbourhood.

The second half of the year saw visits from the leaders of all five permanent members of the UNSC -- the United States, China, Russia, France, and Britain. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also travelled to Tokyo and Brussels for the annual summits with Japan and the European Union. He also squeezed in a meeting with the German chancellor on his trip to Europe.
While the government has reason to celebrate the outcomes from India's engagement with the great powers, it can easily forget the main driver of the new international interest in Delhi -- India's return to high economic growth rates amidst the enduring gloom that has enveloped the advanced world after the global economic recession.
Diplomatic successes are rarely enduring if they are not rooted in purposefulness at home. The UPA's domestic policy drift since it returned to power in 2009 is palpable. Arresting it is a necessary precondition for credible diplomacy in 2011.Although each of India's relationships with major powers has its own specific character, four broad themes have stood out in India's big power diplomacy in 2010.
The first is about ending India's extended nuclear isolation. After it conducted five nuclear tests in May 1998, India embarked on a bold quest for reconciliation with the global non-proliferation order. A decade of sustained diplomatic effort, especially with the US, saw the Nuclear Suppliers Group grant an exemption in 2008 to the current international rules that bar civilian nuclear cooperation with India, a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The NSG exemption in 2008, however, has left India's status in the non-proliferation order undetermined. The focus this year has been on plugging this last gap between India and the nuclear order.

US President Barack Obama supported India's membership of the various non-proliferation groupings like the NSG, Missile Technology Control Regime, the Australia Group that regulates trade and chemical and biological materials, and the Wassenaar Arrangement that oversees trade in conventional weapons and dual-use technologies.
Other major powers, except China, have endorsed India's integration as an equal member of these important non-proli-feration clubs. Delhi's challenge in 2011 is to complete this process externally, and develop the necessary internal capabilities for regulating the outward flow of sensitive technologies from India.In a second major advance this year, India has won broader support from the major powers for India's permanent membership of the UNSC. While Britain, France and Russia had endorsed India's candidature earlier, Washington and Beijing remained ambivalent until recently. Obama came through during his visit to India, but Beijing is yet to make up its mind.
It is by no means certain that a consensus will emerge in near future for a substantive reform of the Security Council and the addition of new permanent members. While Delhi persists with its campaign, its ambition to play a larger role in world affairs will be tested during its two-year tenure as a non-permanent member of the UNSC beginning next month.Over the last decade and some, India's emphasis has been on improving its great power relations as part of its adaptation to the changed international context after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the process, India's traditional activism on the multilateral front was replaced by ducking difficult questions, or by incrementally modifying its positions under external pressure and the persistence of old thinking at home on global issues.
As a rising power, India is under intense scrutiny for the kind of role it might play in global negotiations -- from trade to climate change -- and on a series of international security issues before the UNSC, from Iran to North Korea and Sudan to Myanmar.Delhi won't be able to handle these issues without a fundamental rethink of its past premises on internationalism -- and crafting a new multilateral approach that is in tune with India's increasing weight in the international system, and the changing nature of its national interests.A third advance this year has been the international recognition of India's potential contribution to the construction of new security architecture for Asia. This acknowledgement, however, comes with a twist. Until now, India has had the luxury of developing relations with every major power without a reference to another, thanks to the absence of great power tensions.

As a rising China begins to challenge US primacy in Asia, India will find that gains in the relationship with one are likely to affect ties with the other. The imperative of managing the new triangular dynamic with Washington and Beijing involves Delhi defining its goals clearly and pursuing them firmly.
Finally, India has mobilised support from the major powers, barring China, on the critically important question of cross-border terrorism from Pakistan. Except Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, all the leaders Dr Singh met publicly urged Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice and wind down the terror machine on its soil.
While these words are indeed welcome, in the end they are merely words. Delhi knows that the US and the international community are nowhere near altering the India-centric strategic calculus of the Pakistan army.
That burden rests squarely on India's shoulders. Whether India should resume talks with Pakistan or not is only a minor question. The larger question of which it is part is how to craft a new strategy that can alter the internal dynamics of Pakistan. Finding a way to do that will remain the biggest and most urgent challenge for Indian national security strategy in 2011.
Source: Indian Express