India Must Fight Its Battles Alone Like All The Great Powers

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India Must Fight Its Battles Alone Like

All The Great Powers
N V Subramanian - October 20, 2016, 1:38 pm

SNAPSHOT

If India must ght its own battles, it has to be internally strong, focus on bilateral
diplomacy and shun external engagements that will not help its interests.

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Divisive internal politics must be reined in - the external threats to India are real.

The failure of the Goa BRICS Summit should tell the government what it should
already have known, and which has often been communicated by this writer. And
this is that India is virtually alone among the major powers of the world and has to
make its strategic way ahead using any and all means.
The Cold War is over. The Cold War gave advantages to India that are simply
unavailable in this uncertain, hostile, multi-polar world. Indias battles with China
and Pakistan would have to be fought by India alone. The US can only assist up to a
point without upsetting its own geostrategic equations. Russia wont come to
Indias aid in its present precarious condition.
Being alone is not such a bad thing. All great powers started alone. Starting out
alone, they had to learn to survive. They had to learn to judge the strategic
ecosystem and who to make temporary friends with and who to class as enemies.
They had to focus on their real strengths and gradually eliminate their weaknesses.
Not all of them succeeded. The table of great powers has consistently changed
century after century. India should not take fright at being alone.
A country that is internally weak can never be externally powerful. India has
become politically more divisive in recent decades and it would be unfair to blame
just one government and one set of leaders for this situation. Democracy
encourages and even celebrates political divisions but always within limits. Those
limits are now in danger of being breached. It devolves on all political actors to pull
back to sensible politics. The external threats to India are real.
The external engagements of India at this time (and perhaps for times to come)
must be undertaken with great care and caution. Prior to every external
engagement, India must re-acquaint and re-educate itself about its strategical
objectives. It should shun engagements that do not advance Indias strategical
interests in tangible terms.
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Compared to bilateral diplomacy, this writer is less keen about multilateral

engagements. There are fewer distractions in bilateral diplomacy. The setting for
give and take cannot get better. There is rmer control over the agenda. Indeed,
there are well-de ned agendas in bilateral diplomacy that do not obtain in
multilateral forums, unless you happen to lead them. Outside BIMSTEC, those
opportunities are presently rare for India.
There are lessons in this regard from 19th century Europe. One of the major
differences between Otto von Bismarck and Napoleon III was that Bismarck
mastered bilateral diplomacy while the other craved for the sort of multilateralism
represented by the Congresses which commenced from Napoleon Bonapartes nal
defeat and exile in 1815.
Except for the brilliance that Napoleon III exhibited which triggered the Crimean
War and broke Frances isolation after the Napoleonic Wars, he contributed little to
Frances strategic growth. Analysts of that period often blame Napoleon III for
Frances subsequent strategic paralysis that continues to this day.
Napoleon III sought Congresses so that others could ght Frances battles. His
agendas were weak and scarcely thought through. He had no strategic objective for
France. Seeing through him, the other powers refused to oblige.
The one who best saw through him was Bismarck, who loathed Congresses for the
same reason that Napoleon III loved them, and instead invested his brilliance and
energies in bilateral diplomacy. He spun such a web of bilateral diplomacy that it
made Germany into a great power.
Against his better instincts, Bismarck buckled to Europes pressure to hold the
Congress in Berlin when Britain and Russia had emerged from another of their
interminable scraps over the Balkans, and he said that the outcome would be held
against Germany. It was. From there to First World War was an unbroken slippery
slope.
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India should get over the fetish of multilateral engagements where it cannot control
the outcomes. How does BRICS serve Indias interests when it is dominated by
China which has openly turned against India? There can be no bigger insult than to
have a Summit hosted in your country turn against you.
Indias diplomatic establishment has to learn the new rules of the game. No one is
nobodys friend or ally in todays world. That is the sad truth. Each one is to
themselves. It is up to India to safeguard its strategic interests. India is alone. It
can see that as weakness, pity itself, and go down. No one will shed a tear.
On the other hand, India can visualise a challenge in solitariness and boldly plunge
forth. In the world of great powers, who dares wins!
This piece originally appeared on News Insight and has been republished here with
permission.

Pakistan

Britain

Napoleon Bonaparte

China

India

us

Germany

diplomacy

Russia

BRICS

BIMSTEC

Otto von Bismarck

N.V.Subramanian is the Editor of www.newsinsight.net and writes on politics and strategic

affairs.

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