1
An Overview
Satish Kumar
Global Power Trends
India stands at the cusp of a momentous change in the power structure of the world which began at the turn of the century and is likely to continue for the next three or four decades. India has the prerequisites and potential to emerge as a leading member of the power syndicate of the world of tomorrow if it governs itself well.
Authoritative independent assessments of the future world order do include India among those which will wield a significant share of global power in the next twenty or thirty years, even though that share will be much less than that wielded by the US, China and the EU, but much more than that wielded by Russia and Japan. A report of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) of the US titled Global Trends 2030 released in December 2012 points out that India will wield 12 per cent of the global power by 2030, as against 17 per cent by the US, 17 per cent by China, 12 per cent by the EU, 2 per cent by Russia, and 3 per cent by Japan. These shares of global power have been calculated on the basis of four variables, namely, GDP, military spending, technology, and population. If, however, three more variables are added to the basis of assessment, namely, education, health and governance, India’s share of global power in 2030 goes down to 7.5 per cent. Similarly, China’s share of global power also goes down marginally to 15 per cent. But the share of all developed countries goes up, the US’s to 18.5 per cent, the EU’s to 17 per cent, Russia’s to 2.5 per cent, and Japan’s to 5 per cent.1
According to the NIC report, India, in contrast to China, will remain a relatively youthful country, benefiting from a demographic dividend. The share of its population in the age group of 15–65 years will rise from about 65 per cent now to perhaps 69 per cent by 2030. But, to maximise its advantage from the greater proportion of its youth, ‘India will need to boost its educational system, both attainment and quality at lower levels; make substantial governance improvements, particularly in countering corruption; and undertake large-scale infrastructure programs to keep pace with rapid urbanization and the needs of a more advanced economy’.2
India’s terrible weakness in education and health sectors continues to be noted in various reports and assessments. Merely 60 million of India’s labour force is educated till the secondary level or above as against China’s 368 million.3 India ranks 161 in Life Expectancy Index, according to Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) The World Fact-book, with an average life expectancy of 67.14 years, as against China which ranks 96 with an average life expectancy of 74.84 years, and the US which ranks 51 with an average life expectancy of 78.49 years.4
Another area in which India needs to take urgent steps to catch up with the developed world is technology. As the National Power Index 2012 in this volume shows, India ranks a lowly seventeen among twenty-seven top countries of the world with regard to technological capability. It holds the twenty-third position in terms of the number of patent applications; the twenty-third position in terms of the number of researchers in R&D per million; the nineteenth position in terms of R&D expenditure as per cent of GDP; and the eighteenth position in high-technology exports as per cent of manufactured exports.5
An extremely serious area of concern for India’s national security in the next twenty or thirty years is energy scarcity. According to the National Power Index 2012, India is heavily dependent on energy imports, holding the twenty-sixth rank among twenty-seven countries. Besides, its own per capita energy production is very low, giving it the sixteenth position among the twenty-seven countries. India’s overall rank in energy security is twenty out of twenty-seven.6
Not only does India face the challenge of catching up with the developed world in terms of various power indices, but also the prospect of other developing countries catching up with or overtaking it by 2030, not individually but collectively, thereby competing with India in power and influence. According to the NIC report, the economies of other non-Western states such as Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, South Africa, Mexico, Turkey, and others that are in the middle tier today could rise by 2030. Individually, most of them will remain second-order players, but collectively they will begin to surpass Europe, Japan and Russia in terms of global power by 2030.7 Goldman Sachs has identified eleven countries in this category and calls them the “Next Eleven”.8
The world balance of power is changing and the process of change will continue for the next few decades, as stated before. In this fluid situation, all major powers are hedging their bets and making pronouncements to safeguard their interests. For instance, the US, while revealing its military strategy at the beginning of 2011, recognised the fact that global distribution of power was changing which was leading to the evolution of a ‘multi-nodal’ world, and yet asserted that the US ‘remains the world’s pre-eminent power’.9
China, on the other hand, advocated the principle of respect and equality. China’s defence minister speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue at Singapore on 5 June 2011 said, ‘countries big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor should be regarded as equal members of the international community; domestic affairs should be left to one’s own. There should be democracy in international relations.’10
Russia also took note of the fact that a complex reconfiguration of contemporary international relations was taking place which was contributing to the formation of a multi-polar world. Therefore, Russia’s deputy prime minister said at the Shangri-La Dialogue on 5 June 2011 that global security challenges could only be met with ‘coordinated effort’ and ‘bloc modalities’ should be replaced with ‘multilateral network diplomacy’.11
External Security
India has not thought it necessary to make any definitive statement of its security doctrine, but has chosen the path of ‘strategic partnership’ with all major powers. It has leveraged its economic rise, military strength and stable democracy to carve out areas of cooperation with them in order to promote its growth in a secure environment.
India’s strategic partners which provide it a sense of security and contribute to its growth are the US, Russia, France, Britain, Germany, and Japan. With all of them, India enjoys a strong relationship of cooperation in specified areas of mutual benefit. Also, there is hardly any contradiction between India’s relations with any of these countries.
The US bolstered India’s morale a great deal by promising to support its bid for membership of export control regimes like the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Australia Group and Wassenaar Arrangement during President Obama’s visit in November 2010. Necessary initiatives were taken by the US in 2011 to fulfil its promise. Cooperation in the field of nuclear energy remains a priority area between India and the US even though India’s Nuclear Liability Law continues to be a sticking point. Nevertheless, the signing of an MoU between Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and the US nuclear firm Westinghouse in June 2012 marked a significant progress in Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation. US concerns about the opening up of multi-brand retail have been taken care of by India with the Parliament passing the relevant law in December 2012. But the US remains concerned about India refusing to go the whole hog with its Iran policy even though it exempted India from its Iran-related sanctions in 2012. The US considers India to be the ‘lynchpin’ of its newly carved Asia Pacific strategy although India would like to move somewhat cautiously towards agreeing to play that kind of a role. And yet, the third round of India–US strategic dialogue took place in Washington in June 2012, strengthening cooperation in vital areas of counter-terrorism, intelligence, homeland security, cyber-security, energy, climate, education, science and technology, trade, and global partnership. India’s partnership with the US is thus quite robust with positives and negatives balancing each other over time.
India’s partnership with Russia is marked by a rare degree of durability and consistency. It is durable because there is no geopolitical contradiction between them. It is consistent because there are no undue expectations from each other and complaints on either side are sorted out in the right spirit. Defence and nuclear cooperation have always been the dominant features of India–Russia cooperation. In December 2011, Russia handed over to India the much awaited US$ 920 million nuclear attack submarine, Nerpa, to be rechristened INS Chakra, on a ten-year lease. In April, soon after the Fukushima disaster, the Russian president assured the Indian prime minister at a meeting in Sanya that there would be no rethinking on the ongoing construction programme as well as the roadmap for future cooperation with regard to the Kudankulam reactors. In June 2011, at the plenary session of NSG in the Netherlands, Russia reiterated its intention to support India for ‘full blooded’ membership of the NSG. The trend continued in 2012 as well. INS Chakra was inducted into the Indian Navy in April 2012. Foreign ministers of the two countries discussed matters of mutual interest at a RIC (Russia–India–China) meeting in Moscow in April, and defence ministers of Russia and India met in New Delhi in October. A comprehensive review of the relationship, including problem areas, was undertaken during President Putin’s visit to India in December 2012. The high points of this visit were the signing of a defence deal worth INR 250 billion with Russia and the creation of a US$ 2 billion investment fund with US$ 1 billion to be contributed by each side. The momentum of India–Russia partnership thus continues to be sustained.
With France, India has a very active partnership in matters of defence, nuclear and space cooperation. In July 2011, India signed a deal worth US$ 2.4 billion with France for upgradation of fifty-one Mirage 2000 multi-role fighters in the Indian Air Force’s combat fleet. Also, in the same month, France assured India repeatedly that the NSG’s decision in June to bar transfer of sensitive enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technologies to non-NPT signatories will not detract from the exemption granted to India in September 2008. Earlier in December 2010, during President Sarkozy’s visit, France had supported India’s membership of the four multilateral export control regimes. France accepted with grace the new rules for nuclear liability framed by India in November 2011, and according to reports in December 2012, an ‘early works agreement’ between the French company Areva and the NPCIL for Jaitapur nuclear power plant is now in its closing stages.12 The launch of Indo-French Megha-Tropiques satellite by PSLV-C18 on 12 October 2011 was yet another example of the thirty-year-old cooperation in space between the two countries. But the crowning glory of Indo-French cooperation was the selection by India of the French fighter aircraft, Rafale, in the fiercely competitive US$ 10 billion worth deal for 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircrafts (MMRCAs) on 31 January 2012.
India and Germany have affinity of views on matters pertaining to terrorism and Pakistan’s role in promoting it. During German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to India in May 2011, issues regarding Afghanistan, Pakistan and terrorism figured high on the agenda of bilateral talks. Also on the occasion, the German foreign minister conveyed positive signals of support for India’s full membership of the four multilateral export control regimes. Germany had also supported India during the ...
