Crafting India’s 21st-Century Grand Strategy: A Comparative-Critical Analysis

India’s 21st-Century Grand Strategy.

India’s rise as a global power calls for a well-thought-out grand strategy. This strategy should connect its economic, military, and diplomatic strengths with its long-term goals. In history, great thinkers like Chanakya, Sun Tzu, and Clausewitz focused on strategies for winning wars. Chanakya emphasised pragmatism, economic strength, and intelligence, focusing on diplomacy and power consolidation.

Sun Tzu prioritised adaptability, deception, and winning without conflict, stressing efficiency and understanding both self and enemy. Clausewitz viewed war as an extension of politics, highlighting the unpredictability of warfare, the importance of a clear objective, and aligning military action with political goals. Together, they shaped enduring principles of strategy and leadership.

Today, their ideas are applied to battles for influence, resources, and global standing. Three experts — Sreeram Chaulia (Friends: India’s Closest Strategic Partners, Rupa, 2024), T.V. Paul (The Unfinished Quest: India’s Search for Major Power Status, Oxford University Press, 2024), and Dhruva Jaishankar’s (Viswa Shastra: India and The World, Viking, 2024) — offer different views on how India’s foreign policy can achieve this balance.  Chaulia focuses on building strong friendships with key countries. Paul critically examines the challenges India faces in becoming a major power. Jaishankar blends India’s ancient traditions with modern strategies, showing how its historical strengths can shape its global role.

Exploring Strategic Partnerships: Chaulia’s Perspective

Chaulia’s Friends offers a granular analysis of India’s strategic partnerships with seven key nations: Japan, Australia, the U.S., Russia, France, Israel, and the UAE. His central thesis revolves around bilateralism as the cornerstone of India’s foreign policy, rejecting the efficacy of multilateral frameworks for achieving great power status.

He argues that these partnerships serve three purposes: securing India’s autonomy, countering Chinese hegemony, and fostering pragmatic alliances over ideological ones​​. His optimism about India’s adaptability is evident in his emphasis on leveraging relationships across ideological divides, exemplified by India’s simultaneous engagements with the U.S. and Russia.

However, Chaulia’s approach is not without criticism. His exclusion of India’s neighbours in South Asia overlooks the strategic importance of regional dynamics, a point that other scholars argue is critical to India’s rise​​. Moreover, his bilateral focus risks underestimating the potential of multilateral platforms like the G20, where India has effectively exercised leadership, as evidenced during its 2023 presidency​.

Paul’s Critical Realism: Assessing Power and Status

In contrast to Chaulia’s optimism, T.V. Paul’s The Unfinished Quest adopts a more critical lens, framing India’s rise as a protracted struggle constrained by structural and domestic challenges. Paul emphasises the socio-psychological and material dimensions of India’s pursuit of status, highlighting its desire to reclaim its civilisational greatness while grappling with poverty, corruption, and bureaucratic inefficiency​​​.

His historical analysis situates India’s foreign policy trajectory within the Nehruvian vision of global leadership and contrasts it with contemporary realities. While recognising India’s achievements—such as its nuclear status and growing economy—he underscores the limitations imposed by inadequate infrastructure, limited technological capacity, and developmental disparities.

Paul’s analysis excels in connecting internal deficiencies with external ambitions, serving as a sobering counterpoint to Chaulia’s optimistic bilateralism. However, his focus on structural challenges sometimes overshadows India’s recent successes, such as its strategic involvement in the Indo-Pacific through the Quad​.

Jaishankar’s Synthesis: Bridging History and Strategy

Dhruva Jaishankar’s Viswa Shastra combines historical depth with forward-looking strategy, offering a holistic vision of India’s role in the world. Divided into two parts—history and strategy—his book contextualises India’s current foreign policy within a lineage of strategic thinking dating back to ancient times. Jaishankar identifies 1991 as a turning point when India transitioned from Cold War non-alignment to a post-Cold War recalibration.

He emphasises 14 strategic priorities, including balancing China, enhancing military capabilities, and fostering regional integration​​. His nuanced approach to China—acknowledging it as the central factor in India’s grand strategy—reflects a balanced combination of deterrence and engagement​.

Unlike Chaulia and Paul, Jaishankar places significant emphasis on India’s neighbours, advocating proactive engagement with Afghanistan and differentiated strategies for Pakistan. His broader vision of India as a normative power promoting inclusivity and multilateralism complements his practical policy recommendations​​.

Comparative Analysis: Strengths and Gaps

The strategic perspectives of Chaulia, Paul, and Jaishankar underscore India’s pursuit of autonomy while navigating complex partnerships and regional dynamics. Although they converge on the importance of strategic autonomy, their approaches differ significantly. Chaulia advocates for bilateralism, seeking autonomy within partnerships, whereas Paul critiques the limitations such alliances can impose. Jaishankar presents a broader, multilateral vision, integrating autonomy with regional and global engagement, which positions his approach as the most comprehensive of the three.

Strategic Autonomy and Partnerships: Strategic autonomy is a shared priority, but the authors differ in execution. Chaulia’s bilateralism highlights the potential for partnerships to preserve independence but risks overlooking the constraints inherent in such relationships. Paul provides a sceptical view, focusing on how alliances might erode strategic freedom. In contrast, Jaishankar balances autonomy with multilateral engagement, suggesting that a diversified approach offers resilience and flexibility. This vision effectively reconciles India’s quest for independence with the realities of interconnected global politics.

The China Factor: China emerges as a central theme in the works of all three thinkers. Chaulia identifies China as a key driver of India’s global partnerships, framing collaboration as a counterbalance to Chinese influence. Paul critiques India’s inconsistent policies towards China, which he views as a strategic weakness. Jaishankar places the India-China rivalry at the heart of his grand strategy, framing it as a defining challenge. His holistic view underscores the need for a well-integrated response to China’s growing influence.

Regional Dynamics: The authors diverge significantly on India’s approach to regional engagement. Chaulia’s focus on global partnerships tends to overshadow the importance of South Asia. Paul and Jaishankar, however, stress the need for securing influence within India’s immediate neighbourhood. Jaishankar’s nuanced advocacy for regional integration, coupled with strategic engagement, provides a balanced and forward-looking framework for managing regional dynamics effectively.

Historical and Normative Dimensions: Jaishankar’s integration of historical perspectives offers unparalleled depth, linking India’s ancient strategic traditions to its contemporary policies. While Chaulia and Paul acknowledge India’s civilisational legacy, they fail to explore its practical implications in detail. Jaishankar’s ability to weave historical insights into his strategic narrative not only enriches his analysis but also underscores the relevance of India’s past in shaping its future trajectory. This approach enhances the understanding of India’s grand strategy as rooted in both tradition and modernity.

Challenges and Limitations

Each author’s perspective, while insightful, has notable limitations that become apparent when examined through specific examples. Chaulia’s celebratory tone often simplifies the challenges of partnerships, such as India’s strained relations with the United States over trade tariffs and defence purchases, which show the complexity of balancing interests.

Paul’s critical realism, exemplified by his scepticism of alliances like the Quad, risks underestimating India’s capacity for innovation, as seen in its successful manoeuvring to deepen ties with ASEAN despite Chinese pressure. Jaishankar’s aspirational vision, while comprehensive in advocating for multilateralism, sometimes overlooks constraints, such as the slow pace of institutional reform within South Asia, evidenced by SAARC’s stagnation. These examples highlight that while Chaulia underscores optimism, Paul critiques limits, and Jaishankar envisions potential, each could benefit from a more balanced approach to fully capture India’s strategic realities and challenges.

Conclusion

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The Source’s Authority and Ownership of the Article is Claimed By THE STUDY IAS BY MANIKANT SINGH