Can India achieve Great Power Status ?

[pmaitra]

Never mind, I brought them back. This discussion is more relevant to how India can become a great power, IMHO.

 

[LurkerBaba]

He said that India is a vast experiment in progress that tries to manage vast ethnic, religious, linguistic and regional diversity and has been able to do so quite effectively till now. The TIME magazine had an article in the late 1950s that had predicted that this would probably be India's last election and that it will disintegrate as a nation in the near future. Before independence, the British had similar ideas and did not expect India to last more than 2 decades because of its vast diversity.
But he said that the way India will manage this diversity successfully (if it does so) will for sure be the model of a future world government. In other words, as the world becomes closer and more integrated and large scale migrations, it will be the Indian model that people will look at implement to manage their own diverse populations. Looking at this principle, I think that even if India manages to just integrate itself and make its people prosperous, that would be an achievement fit for a great power.

Being an experiment that might become a model for world government is definitely not great power material. The World may get more integrated, but integration itself can be (in layman's terms) of the melting pot or salad bowl variety.

India today is a very diverse salad bow, it may appear more colorful and exotic, but in practice meting pots tend to be more much efficient.

I have to say something, then Forum will send the update post of this thread to my email box.

No, it won't. Auto email was disabled since some member's compared it to spam.

 

[ejazr]

I just want to debate the point that Chechenya is/was in a better situation than Kashmir

Chechnya has a history of many 100 years of independant rule and on going rebellion agains the Czars and Soviety Union when they were taken over. The most recent case of this problem started with the break up of the USSR when other states like Kazakhstan e.t.c. demanded independance in the late 1990s and 2000s where the First and then Second Chechen wars were fought.

All up the casualty figures are expressed to be around 250, 000. Only in the first war, the estimated "official" casualties were 150,000 by Chechen officials. Overall, 100,000 servicemen have been lost in the fight.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/15/world/europe/15iht-chech.html

And what is the end state or solution? Putin basically allowed Chechenya to have a fully autnomous region with itsown President and Prime Minister and allowed the former nationalist sepratists.

Is this really a better outcome than what we have in Kashmir?

The entire conflict went basically from 1990-2004 with the major portion of the fighting culminating in 1994 itself when the local nationalist JKLF gave up armed combat. What remained where only Pakistani backed groups who basically had lost by 1998 and by 2002, Mushrraf was pressured to turn the tap off for the infiltration.

In this conflict till 2012, we have lost 50,000 people. We haven't had to declare a seperate PM or President for J&K as a comprimise solution and at the same time, we have not handed over the administration to former sepratists like Yasin Malik or other JKLF leaders which is what Russia did.

In 2011 12 million toursists came to Kashmir, while there is 90% vacancy in Chechenya hotels. IMO, the way India handled Kashmir was orders of magnitude better than how Putin handled Chechenya.
Hotel's 90-per-cent vacancy symbolizes challenge ahead for Chechnya - The Globe and Mail
Jammu and Kashmir had record 12 million tourists in 2011 - Times Of India

 

[pmaitra]

The most recent case of this problem started with the break up of the USSR when other states like Kazakhstan e.t.c. demanded independance in the late 1990s and 2000s where the First and then Second Chechen wars were fought.

From what I know, the Central Asian Soviet Republics wanted to preserve the USSR, albeit a reformed USSR as per Gorbachev's vision; they did not demand independence. The USSR broke up as a result of a conspiracy by the presidents of the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Belarussian SSR.

All up the casualty figures are expressed to be around 250, 000. Only in the first war, the estimated "official" casualties were 150,000 by Chechen officials. Overall, 100,000 servicemen have been lost in the fight.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/15/world/europe/15iht-chech.html

And what is the end state or solution? Putin basically allowed Chechenya to have a fully autnomous region with itsown President and Prime Minister and allowed the former nationalist sepratists.

Is this really a better outcome than what we have in Kashmir?

The entire conflict went basically from 1990-2004 with the major portion of the fighting culminating in 1994 itself when the local nationalist JKLF gave up armed combat. What remained where only Pakistani backed groups who basically had lost by 1998 and by 2002, Mushrraf was pressured to turn the tap off for the infiltration.

In this conflict till 2012, we have lost 50,000 people. We haven't had to declare a seperate PM or President for J&K as a comprimise solution and at the same time, we have not handed over the administration to former sepratists like Yasin Malik or other JKLF leaders which is what Russia did.

In 2011 12 million toursists came to Kashmir, while there is 90% vacancy in Chechenya hotels. IMO, the way India handled Kashmir was orders of magnitude better than how Putin handled Chechenya.
Hotel's 90-per-cent vacancy symbolizes challenge ahead for Chechnya - The Globe and Mail
Jammu and Kashmir had record 12 million tourists in 2011 - Times Of India

Few things:

• J&K cannot be equated with Chechnya because we are not comparing apples with apples.
• True, from tourism point of view, J&K is doing better.
• Again, the Russian Federation hasn't lost an inch of her territory, not quite the case with J&K. Then again, we have Pakistan and PRC angle here, and the Russian Federation didn't have such big challengers.
• Presidents of republics are still subject to the Russian Federation and the Presidential Plenipotentiaries, and all Russian republics, krais and oblasts are subjects to the Russian Federation, so Chechnya hasn't become totally independent either and the Kremlin still has the final control on Chechnya's oil.
• Most of the violence these days are attributed to the Kadyrovtsy and yes, Russia convinced many of these former separatists to give up separatism and allied with them, just like India allied with the Ikhwanis.
• Again Russia has given sops to these pro-Moscow Chechen groups just like India has doled out financial aid and jobs to former Kashmiri militants and separatists.

 

[ejazr]

@pmaitra

Sure J&K is not comparable with Chechnya, but compared to Russia, I think India was in a worse situation and still emerged with a more favorable situation towards the end. This shows that hard power is not always enough to achieve end strategic objectives.

Points to note is that the territory we lost was right after independence and by the time the ascension happened, the PoK territory had ALREADY been lost. We have not lost an inch of territory since the LoC was finalized in 1948.
Also, we unfortunately took the dispute to the UN with the expectation that the UN dominated by US and UK would be favorable to our point of view but instead choose to support Pakistan as the Cold war emerged. Despite this backdrop we have succeeded in keeping foreign intervention out in our region.

Finally, while we did use some ex-separatist as Ikhwanis to fight against Pakistani backed groups in Kashmir, they were disbanded by 2000 and the bulk of the anti-militancy operations have been carried out by the J&K police themselves. The ruling parties in J&K, the NC and PDP both have advocated union with India and were never involved in separatist activities.
In Chechenya on the other hand, the separatist themselves have been made the President of Chechenya and given them the rule and security forces directly.

In our context, it would be like making Yasin Malik or Mirwaiz the CM and allowing JKLF cadre to hold J&K police posts.

The Chechenya situation is far from stable and IMO, it is quite possible that you can see the situation deteriorate again. There have been three major bouts of violence in the last 20 years. Compare this with India where the main bout of violence was basically between 1990-1994 where we fought an indigenous insurgency backed by Pakistan. And then later 1996-1999 where we basically cracked down on Pakistani based Islamic militant groups. Since then there has been an exponential drop in militant activities.

 

[p2prada]

I quoted you where you said Russia could barely contain Georgia. This is contrary to the facts where Russia swiftly went across the Caucasus, which acts as a natural barrier and almost took Tblisi. Now you are bringing in whole bunch of issues and inundating this discussion where the actual point is lost. Again, you said that Russia could barely contain Georgia and you are dead wrong there.

Even with the military hardware that Russia had that has lacked much needed maintenance, Russia did very well against the Georgian army that was well trained and armed with modern equipment by the West.

It was a division sized battle on both sides in Georgia. We had moved over 100000 troops during Kargil. Anyway, I guess my intention was lost in the post. Russia did struggle with logistics in Georgia, even with Division level maneuvers.

When it comes to Georgia, I think Russian ground forces did a pretty good job. Sure, VVS had to cut in training hours after the fall of the USSR, and true that Russia is a shadow of the USSR, but don't tell me they have less experience than any major European power. They have fought two wars in Chechnya and one in Dagestan. The amount of experience that Russia has accumulated since 1979 far exceeds any European country. See the list below:

• 1979-1989 - Afghanistan
• 1994-2001 - First and Second Chechen Wars
• upto 2009 - Insurgency in Chechnya
• till date - Insurgency in Dagestan

It's not about the warfighting experience. It is about money and logistics. Their troops can be as bad ass as any, but they cannot fight if they stop getting supplies and ammunition.

True, but how does that prove that Russia will lose a conventional war with India (keeping nukes out)?

Our logistics chain is much better and our command and control is even better than NATO's(if OOE is to be believed).

Russia-Georgia may not have been as intense as Kargil War, but I'm glad you did not say the Chechen Wars were nothing compared to Kargil War. They were much more intense and Chechnya is much more stable now.

Chechnya was much larger than Kargil, but that was different. The Soviet logistics had survived long enough to be used in Chechnya. But if you assume there was a third Chechen war instead of the Georgian war, then the Russians would have been in big trouble.

Moreover, you are incorrect when you said that Chechnya was not backed by foreign powers:

• They were flush with Saudi money and Pakistani indoctrination that was again funded by Saudi money.
• They took control of the oil fields and generated much needed revenue for the war till the Russians bombed their oil wells during the First Chechen War.

Again, you are lost on what I was trying to convey. In Kashmir and in Assam, the terrorists are supplied weapons, food and ammo from foreign countries directly across borders. In Afghanistan, the Taliban engage in fighting across the border and always find a safe haven in areas where there is no US presence. External funding has nothing to do with the strength of your logistics chain, especially when that logistics chain is backed by a third party.

 

[p2prada]

Again, the Russian Federation hasn't lost an inch of her territory, not quite the case with J&K. Then again, we have Pakistan and PRC angle here, and the Russian Federation didn't have such big challengers.

India had nothing to do with the land lost in Kashmir. PoK was already gone even before IA first landed in Srinagar.

 

[pmaitra]

P2Prada,

It is good to know that our logistics chain is much better and our command and control is even better than NATO's.

I agree with lack of maintenance of Russian military hardware, but that they have also restarted full scale training of their air force since the last couple of years and that they have never compromised with funding their strategic forces, even after the collapse of the USSR. Yes, they had problems with their trucks breaking down and there being logistic issues. I think Russia had to overcome two obstacles. One was the Caucasus range, which Russia had to cross and they had only one tunnel in N and S Ossetia and a railway in Abkhazia. The other obstacle was beyond S. Ossetia, Russia was on the offensive and Georgia on the defensive. Russia should have taken casualties in the ratio 3:1.

Russia, at the moment, is not short of money.

I think we can agree to disagree on how we view Russia's handling of the Georgia issue. We can agree to disagree on the possible outcome of a conventional war between India and Russia. We can also agree to disagree that the experience Russia has accumulated fighting wars on the ground exceeds that of Western European countries.

Let's leave it at that.

 

[ejazr]

Being an experiment that might become a model for world government is definitely not great power material. The World may get more integrated, but integration itself can be (in layman's terms) of the melting pot or salad bowl variety.

India today is a very diverse salad bow, it may appear more colorful and exotic, but in practice meting pots tend to be more much efficient.

.

I am not saying that just being a model is an end in itself.

Just to clarify what I meant, if India is able to continue integrating itself and achieve equitable growth till say 2050, automatically, India will probably have the largest or the 2nd largest economy in the world. This translates into military power as well.
At the same time, the fact that we can integrate such diverse groups within India means that our diplomats and officials (and politicians) will have a better experience and culture of integrating the vast differences on the International stage.

Remember we are no longer in the Middle Ages or Bronze ages were like Genghis Khan a vast empire can be established or like the British we can go around a colonise a quarter of the world.

The US today uses a combination of hard power and predominantly soft power (loans/sanctions/aid, access to US markets, investments from US companies, Education and univesity scholarships and particularly a well established and respected global media and increasingly social media prescence). This is what India needs to learn and adopt and where a close partnership if not alliance with the US is crucial atleast for near future.

Becaues of India's size and diversity, just makeing sure that we evolve a more integrated and equitable developmental appraoch would be enough to translate this into the hard/soft power needed to upgrade from a regional power to a global power.

 

[p2prada]

One was the Caucasus range, which Russia had to cross and they had only one tunnel in N and S Ossetia and a railway in Abkhazia. The other obstacle was beyond S. Ossetia, Russia was on the offensive and Georgia on the defensive. Russia should have taken casualties in the ratio 3:1.

It's nowhere compared to the logistics chain that India and China have to build to conquer the Himalayas. Let's not forget we are raising 3 new Corps for handling China alone. We recently set up 2 new defensive Mountain divisions comprising of 36000 troops and are setting up two more divisions of 40000 soldiers as we speak, to create a strike Corps. All this is apart from the 10 Mountain divisions already operational. Georgia war was like something we maintain in one district in Assam.

India should have taken casualties in the ratio of 12:1 against the entirely defensive Pak military, but the casualty figure for India was 650 as compared to PA's supposed 500 to as high as 4000.

Russia, at the moment, is not short of money.

Nowhere compared to the result of the exercise we conducted only recently, an entirely networked operation(in the Northeast). Our very first Iraq war type networking that the US had achieved for the USAF.

I think we can agree to disagree on how we view Russia's handling of the Georgia issue. We can agree to disagree on the possible outcome of a conventional war between India and Russia. We can also agree to disagree that the experience Russia has accumulated fighting wars on the ground exceeds that of Western European countries.

Let's leave it at that.

I am not saying what the Russians did in Georgia was bad as they achieved the objectives they were looking for. What I am saying is if the Russians achieve a similar logistics problem against India, they won't last. But, as you said we can always agree to disagree.

 

[lupgain]

Known_Unknown, Sitting in a foreign country, collecting facts from internet and blabbering about hypothetical situation, which will never happen is of no use. No country is perfect. Human kind has seen rise and fall of so many great dynasties, kingdoms and civilizations. Change is evident and only permanent thing which the world has seen.

When god created such a diverse world and universe which has existed for millions of years. Being diverse can never be a curse then.

Post independence our foresighted leaders did a great job of uniting all princely states and provinces which urged creation of one nation called India. Had this not happened 60 years back, think how volatile this subcontinent would have been. Imagine this place being collection of small countries of the size of Srilanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, every one fighting for their existence. Then this would have been most worst and unsafe place in the entire world to live in. Best example is Africa, even after being so rich in natural resources and such a huge continent they can't become powerful because they can't unite themselves for common purpose like other great countries did.

We have to love and respect our unity and diversity and endorse this ideology of "Being Indian" for our better future. We feel safe in our houses today because of what our great leaders did in the past, we owe a lot to them and have to be thankful to our freedom fighters and great leaders because they understood the true meaning of being united.

About being super power, I feel be it India-China or any other developing or developed country, it goes same for all.

Any country who is strongly poised in following areas will be strong contender for becoming superpower:
- Strong strategic international relations
- Strong foreign policy
- Strong military
- Stable economy
- Strong GDP
- Geographical size
- Population size

20 years back when we didn't have most of these, even then china or any other country couldn't think of defeating us, today when we can at least think of achieving all of those, do you think china would ever think of attacking us.

Time and again it has been proved that technology has never won war for any country ( think about US-Vietnam war) but passion has and we Indians are very passionate about our country and culture.

I think "Born Indian, always Indian", we take our culture where ever we go. Even NRI's who have settled abroad have taken our culture to that country. We have absorbed so many invasions from all great invaders. Our current culture is a mixture of all those races and cultures who came here and became part of us. But in the whole process we didn't lose our basic identity. This is our power I believe. Strong is the one who has good defense power than offence and that's why military is called defense not offence.

That's all I have to say, my final word would be "Let us contribute some good to our motherland and humanity"

We have both internal and external challenges to make our country good, but strong is the one who has survived test of time and we shall pass through this one as well. Its a country making in process.

 

[Jovian]

Hi all,

I hope I am not too impolite if I just answer to the title of this thread instead of painfully going through each and every single posts before my own. if I did repeat any points already presented by anyone in previous posts and pages, you have my sincere apology.

With regard to the title of this thread, Isn't it misleading and senseless to say the least? In essense and in practicality, the term "Great Power" should rightfully be consigned to the pages of our collective history books; where it belongs. If we think about it, the United State of America is a matter of fact, the last of the "Great Powers"; it being the only nation still maintaining its relative (or premium) position in the world after the last great debauchery, the one which eventually resulted in two catastrophic wars. Instead of apriring to achive the status of an extincted concept, nation like India should look forward and seek to build herself into one of our future's "Great Nation State". If you want to argue that China is not here yet either, at the very least you can't denie that they are much further along the way to achieving it.

Although I am unsure of any valid definition on what these "Great Nation States" are suppose to be, I think it will not be too far from our (collective) appreciation that these are nations who have a lot of clout in the running of the world; essentially nations who are a major part of how the world works. If, and that is an unreserved if, India wanted be able to claim her sit amount these Great Nation States, she'll have to start right now. Primary to her achieving it being setting up a foreigh policy for herself that clearly defined where she wanted to be and more importantly, how she will get there. A military is and should only be the final backup or insurance against things going very, very wrong; they should never be allow to be the foremost policy of any nation. How does a foreign policy works? Well, if I know I would have tried my hand in politics. However, even an outsider like myself can tell that a good foreign policy works better if you first seek out others and find common grounds, instead of showing off a brand spanking new saber that you've just bought at every opportunity.

It can be said that given China's position today, in term of her influence on the international stage, the United States missed their opportunity to set the term and conditions for China to participate in today's world order (don't really like this term, but could not think of an alternative way to describe it at the time). Around twenty years ago, after the end of the Cold War the US is in the prime position whereas China was weak and being confronted by many challenges; much of that internally. The US missed the golden opportunity to integrate the PRC into the world community at that point in time, which would have allowed them to set the terms and conditions that might set the course of history to this day.

It took the Chinese (PRC) around thirty years to bring about a change in their relative position (in the world). While that sound like a long time, and physically it is when you look at it in relation to any single individual's lifetime, it is actually a relatively short period of time in the collective history of the world. For those of our posters (and readers) from India, I think the best question you can ask yourself is NOT if you can replicate what the Chinese have achieve thus far, but how you can achieve your own success in your own way. You are much luckier than us Australian since you have the numbers (population) that (if properly managed) will almost automatically allocate you a position amount the Great Nation States in the future; there are only twenty millions of us here in our corner of the world. For those of you who "dream" of "beating China", what for? For what purpose? On what grounds? Wishing for the Chinese to "collapse"? Wouldn't you time be better spend "planning" your own "success" instead?




Regards,
Jovian

PS. I'm not too hopeful with our current batch of politicians. Not looking forward to the next election, choosing between one bunch of mindless zombies lead by an automated answering machine and another bunch lead by a mad monk.

 

[civfanatic]

Hi Jovian,

Can you elaborate some more on why you believe the term "great power" is obsolete, and why other countries besides the U.S. cannot achieve this status in the future? Also, according to you, what is the difference between a "great power" and a "great nation-state"? Many people believe that the nation-state will become increasingly irrelevant in the future as the world continues to move towards economic interdependence and globalization. In such a globalized world, overt conflicts between nation-states as we have seen in the 19th century and earlier part of the 20th century may become a thing of the past, or at least increasingly infrequent due to the disruptive effect that such conflicts will have on the world as a whole.

 

[Jovian]

Hi Civ(fanatic),

How are you?

Why do I go with the view that the term "Great Power" is obsolete? I guess for me (at least), this term was quite often associate with a part of our collective history that was most prominently defined by the competition between powerful nations; mostly in Europe. These are nations that achieved their relative position among other (nations) primary through conquest and displays of military strength; although it will be silly to say that those are the only display of the powers. There are also innovations, inventions and progresses that did cover broad area of society (economically, socially, scientifically, politically to name a few). After all, where would we be today without the progresses made in those days?

In today's multipolars world, it is unthinkable for one nation to invade, subjugate, and annex another; I guess the last attempt was by Sadam Hussain's Iraq invasion of Kuwait, but that's is still a rather confusing subject for me so I'll make it clear that I'll not debate this point here. Although it will be inevitable when this subject is brought up, the American's invasion of Iraq (Gulf War 2 on the news), Afghanistan will (and in someway can) be use as a counter argument. However I just don't see the prospect of Iraq and most definitely Afghanistan becoming colonies of the US; in the same context as in the past. So in that sense, the time of "Great Power" is over (hopefully) and now is the time for "Great Nation States". These are nations that achieve their relative position among others through their economic strength, social development, scientific achievement, political influence ... to name a few. Military will increasingly (hopefully) be the last "weapon of choice" for nations competing in this new world order. So why can't another country beside the US achieve "Great Power" status? Perhaps most don't bothered any more; the game has changed so to speak.

As you've rightly pointed out, the world is and will continue to more towards economic interdependence and globalisation. This new world order will unfortunately, like the one before it (the bipolar world of the Cold War), still retain one important characteristic. That not all nations are created equal. Some like China and India are literally giant in terms of population, while others like Germany and the US are Titans of innovations (just to name a few). There are nations like Great Britain who claimed their place among Great Nation States through the strength of the financial services their controlled (still). Nation states will not disappeared, at least not within our lifetime for a single and very simple fact. A person alone can move little, a people together can moved mountains. The day (who knows, perhaps tomorrow?) someone can come up with an alternate idea of directing a large group of people (a population to be precise), will truly be the beginning of the end of nation states. Globalisation will, like many innovations in our collective past, merely provide us yet another platform for interactions and competitions.

When we often heard about the "rise of China", why do you think India was so very often use as a comparison? One reason is because there are much similarities between these two giants. They are not yet (perhaps?) Great Nation States, given the multitudes of problems they are facing right now, but one appears further along this thorny path then the other. Using China as a example, she was the biggest economy for much of our recorded history. Knocked off from her premium position by a small nation in the nineteen century because of the industrial revolution; because a nation like Great Britain was able to produce more with less people through the use of innovations, the use of machines. Now, these (often taken for granted changes) are spreading and eventually the world will revert (more) back to its natural order; that the more people you have, the stronger you can be. So essentially India is often compared to China because there is an expectation around the world on what you can achieve; you are a billion strong, just like China. The expectation is not if you can "defeat" China, but what you can achieve with the sear size of your population. The question preoccupying you should not be if you are stronger or smarter or more righteous than China, but "are you up for the challenge of claiming you place among Great Nation States" of the future? Can you answer the expectations out there?


Best regards,
Jovian

 

[BillyJTindall]

Do u even know what u are saying?? If India falls or gives to chinese, it will be the end of freedom in entire asia and yes.. u can expect a third world war sooner!!! Forget abt all this stuff, do u think indians can live under chinese?? Don't even mistake india for another sidekick. It never bowed to Hitler, never bowed to US, UK or Russia and never will bow to China. If any country considers India as an equal and treat with respect, they will get the better deal from us. Case in point russia and france.

Too right; any country under orders from another there should always be an uprise or civil war. I think that a war between China and India would result in a
Possible victory for either as china would win in absolute man power but don't forget India are part of the commonwealth.