Wall Street Journal has this article on How India is shrewd enough to see US and China Smokescreens. The Article attributes this shrewdness to India on the basis of recent test of India's first ICBM - Agni-V. For my view on Agni-V and India's nuclear capability see my article at Frontier India - Agni-5 is not MAD
My view on the WSJ article
Indeed its the actions on ground that should be taken as input to formulating long-term responses. However, attributing shrewdness to largest democracy in the world on this is giving little bit too much credit to Indian policy makers and executives. Amazingly, Indian government continues to be reactive on all fronts - this is more so in security and defence than in other dimensions.
After Deng's reforms in 1978, China created a longterm vision of economic development focus till 2000 including assimilation of HongKong, and now they are in the Military capability phase of becoming a superpower. They are well on their way, and that's great planning and amazing focus on the plan for so many decades.
So, if a particular response survives the mess and becomes a capability - such as Agni-V - it will be foolhardy to attribute it to a shrewd response. I would like to state it to be a response of a nation who is reactive and may be more adaptive to changes and hence has a greater chances of survival rather than a nation who design change in the world with the purpose of controlling the world - for example, US policy of "shaping the world" and Chinese objective of becoming a superpower - militarily - by 2020.
NOW PUBLISHED AT FRONTIER INDIA AS
My view on the WSJ article
Indeed its the actions on ground that should be taken as input to formulating long-term responses. However, attributing shrewdness to largest democracy in the world on this is giving little bit too much credit to Indian policy makers and executives. Amazingly, Indian government continues to be reactive on all fronts - this is more so in security and defence than in other dimensions.
After Deng's reforms in 1978, China created a longterm vision of economic development focus till 2000 including assimilation of HongKong, and now they are in the Military capability phase of becoming a superpower. They are well on their way, and that's great planning and amazing focus on the plan for so many decades.
India is a Nation of Variety
In India, we do not have, as a nation a
clarity on what constitutes world power, and also the very nature of
Indian democracy and to a great extent social and intellectual fabric of
the country, is built on assimilation of variety - its amazing that
such large country builds and keeps on creating so much variety in its
systems and people. Multiple plans and initiatives of the Government in
multiple dimensions on the basis of specific keyholes that they may
have, is just a reflection of India as a nation of variety. So, if a particular response survives the mess and becomes a capability - such as Agni-V - it will be foolhardy to attribute it to a shrewd response. I would like to state it to be a response of a nation who is reactive and may be more adaptive to changes and hence has a greater chances of survival rather than a nation who design change in the world with the purpose of controlling the world - for example, US policy of "shaping the world" and Chinese objective of becoming a superpower - militarily - by 2020.
Algorithm for a Nation
India, on the other hand, has been just wriggling in this time
of strategic history - and to some extent may be more appropriate as a
nation to survive in the world of rapid change. However, I hope, Indian
can learn from China and US to start designing change in the world as
well - rather than adapting to change. As US is learning now and China
will be forced to learn in a decade or so - the best way of course is to
have largely an adaptive algorithm for the nation as somehow India has.
But India need to structure the adaptive algorithm with a design
algorithm to also create the change - that's what India should learn from
declining US and rising China!NOW PUBLISHED AT FRONTIER INDIA AS
