The author seems to have either not understood or misread the Foreign Minister’s speech. The importance of ‘reading of the global tea leaves’ is already underscored by the Minister. So, then it is my read vs your read, perhaps. And seemingly, China’s rise and its weight put paid to the ostensible multi-polarity. But Jaishankar also notes that what defines power and national standing is also very different in today’s world. This is one of the most important observations – the US has not been able to win the war in Iraq despite all the calculations going in. The ‘vishwaguru’ point is frivolous and totally lost me. Indeed we would always benefit from a more trenchant analysis 🙂 but Jaishankar’s speech is a brilliant sweep of 70 years of foreign policy.
China is undoubtedly the second most important power in the world today after USA but there is a big gap in the capabilities of USA and China and further, big gaps between China on one hand and the other powers such as Russia, France,UK, Germany, India, Brazil etc. However, China is also India’s neighbor with whom we have unresolved boundary dispute and is a thick friend of Pakistan, our arch enemy. In the past, we, as a non-aligned country who belonged to neither camp, relied mainly on USSR to manage our strategic interests but after break up of USSR, we had to develop defense relations with USA, Russia, France, Israel etc to get required technology and equipment to balance China and Pakistan. This posture is likely to continue in future as well as our indigenous defense production is not adequate and our dependence of Russia is much deeper so that we cannot entirely rely on USA, which is also an unreliable and transactional partner. However, at the same time, we have carefully cultivated USA for hedging against China in Indo Pacific and with Russia, France, Isreal etc otherwise. There cannot be any change in this policy until we settle our border dispute with China which as of now, seems to be a difficult proposition in immediate future. So we have to manage the border and yet grow trade and investment with China at the same time to benefit from the Chinese economic power. In view of this, India’s current trajectory in foreign policy can be said to be practically the best. With Art 370 out of the way, we can now look forward to settle the border dispute with both China and Pakistan on as is conditions in J&K and later with China, on the Himalyan side, on the already agreed principles and parameters. This can happen in next decade and then the contours of our foreign can change. Jai Shankar’s analysis is brilliant and forthright and he is the right man at right place in Modi years.
I have a lot of respect for the intellect of this author to have put together this article, but this is a classic case of negligible insight or inference coming through for the user. Sorry, but the whole point of the article seems to be an attempt at providing a sophisticated critique of the speech by Mr.Jaishankar, and even that doesn’t come out because there is hardly any new opinion for the reader to chew on.
So the world is not multipolar but more bipolar. So what about it, would you have us not engage with someone, or accelerate engagements with a certain country? Which of the larger blocs – North/South America, Europe, Middle east, Asia uniquely serve India’s interests in the short/mid/long term horizon. How should India tactically rebalance it’s approach to the big two in the bipolar world? None of these facets were covered.
Russia is mentioned AT THE RIGHT SPOT in the column, under “The unipolar world order”, 4th paragraph. What is unfortunately not mentioned is that, it is not a country India should associate itself so closely!Russia is a rogue state, having no regard for other countries and their sovereignties.
The candour / forensic analysis ought not to have concluded in mid 2014. To be perfectly fair, a person in this position cannot be objective. It would have been better not to exhume the ghosts of the past. No bold departures are visible in foreign policy, any more than they are in economic orthodoxy, for all the putting down of predecessors. 2. If one starts with the immediate neighbourhood and works outwards, difficult to identify a single significant bilateral relationship that is in the pink of health, in any way on improvement over the past. If international relations is a game of poker, the pile of counters we have to play with is not growing, and it is looking increasingly modest in relation to our foremost adversary’s.
The author seems to have either not understood or misread the Foreign Minister’s speech. The importance of ‘reading of the global tea leaves’ is already underscored by the Minister. So, then it is my read vs your read, perhaps. And seemingly, China’s rise and its weight put paid to the ostensible multi-polarity. But Jaishankar also notes that what defines power and national standing is also very different in today’s world. This is one of the most important observations – the US has not been able to win the war in Iraq despite all the calculations going in. The ‘vishwaguru’ point is frivolous and totally lost me. Indeed we would always benefit from a more trenchant analysis 🙂 but Jaishankar’s speech is a brilliant sweep of 70 years of foreign policy.
China is undoubtedly the second most important power in the world today after USA but there is a big gap in the capabilities of USA and China and further, big gaps between China on one hand and the other powers such as Russia, France,UK, Germany, India, Brazil etc. However, China is also India’s neighbor with whom we have unresolved boundary dispute and is a thick friend of Pakistan, our arch enemy. In the past, we, as a non-aligned country who belonged to neither camp, relied mainly on USSR to manage our strategic interests but after break up of USSR, we had to develop defense relations with USA, Russia, France, Israel etc to get required technology and equipment to balance China and Pakistan. This posture is likely to continue in future as well as our indigenous defense production is not adequate and our dependence of Russia is much deeper so that we cannot entirely rely on USA, which is also an unreliable and transactional partner. However, at the same time, we have carefully cultivated USA for hedging against China in Indo Pacific and with Russia, France, Isreal etc otherwise. There cannot be any change in this policy until we settle our border dispute with China which as of now, seems to be a difficult proposition in immediate future. So we have to manage the border and yet grow trade and investment with China at the same time to benefit from the Chinese economic power. In view of this, India’s current trajectory in foreign policy can be said to be practically the best. With Art 370 out of the way, we can now look forward to settle the border dispute with both China and Pakistan on as is conditions in J&K and later with China, on the Himalyan side, on the already agreed principles and parameters. This can happen in next decade and then the contours of our foreign can change. Jai Shankar’s analysis is brilliant and forthright and he is the right man at right place in Modi years.
I have a lot of respect for the intellect of this author to have put together this article, but this is a classic case of negligible insight or inference coming through for the user. Sorry, but the whole point of the article seems to be an attempt at providing a sophisticated critique of the speech by Mr.Jaishankar, and even that doesn’t come out because there is hardly any new opinion for the reader to chew on.
So the world is not multipolar but more bipolar. So what about it, would you have us not engage with someone, or accelerate engagements with a certain country? Which of the larger blocs – North/South America, Europe, Middle east, Asia uniquely serve India’s interests in the short/mid/long term horizon. How should India tactically rebalance it’s approach to the big two in the bipolar world? None of these facets were covered.
You haven’t understood the column..
Why is Russia conspicuous by omission? Especially after the first two paragraphs?
Very curious…
Russia is mentioned AT THE RIGHT SPOT in the column, under “The unipolar world order”, 4th paragraph. What is unfortunately not mentioned is that, it is not a country India should associate itself so closely!Russia is a rogue state, having no regard for other countries and their sovereignties.
The candour / forensic analysis ought not to have concluded in mid 2014. To be perfectly fair, a person in this position cannot be objective. It would have been better not to exhume the ghosts of the past. No bold departures are visible in foreign policy, any more than they are in economic orthodoxy, for all the putting down of predecessors. 2. If one starts with the immediate neighbourhood and works outwards, difficult to identify a single significant bilateral relationship that is in the pink of health, in any way on improvement over the past. If international relations is a game of poker, the pile of counters we have to play with is not growing, and it is looking increasingly modest in relation to our foremost adversary’s.