Submission statement: The world’s largest democracy, India, is seen as the West’s obvious ally against the growing might of China. But there might be a risk that India is not the stalwart ally the West has assumed.
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Question marks have been raised about India’s attachment to freedom and democracy. In the last 20 years they fell from 27th to 108th in democracy rankings and to 161st out of 180 in press freedom. In foreign policy India is at best ambiguous. Ignoring sanctions on Russia, India is the third largest buyer of Russian oil. And in 2017 joined Russia and China in the economic and defence group, SCO.
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In this debate S.Y. Quraishi, Kate Sullivan de Estrada and Alpa Shah discuss whether it is time to recognise that Modi’s India, with the largest population in the world and the fastest growth, has its own agenda independent of the West.
EmpiricalAnarchism on
A long time Soviet ally should not be seen as an obvious friend to the west in any scenario, even if territorial disputes makes Indian cooperation with China unlikely. That said, India does not have the foreign policy of a great power and lacks the projection capacities to adopt one, and as such, it will remain a subsidiary power to Russia until Russia is not capable of having subsidiaries, at which point it will likely try to fill Russia’s role as the primary revisionist state present in the international system.
plushie-apocalypse on
Why do these pundits always claim ‘X Century’ as if climate change isn’t a thing? Nobody knows what geopolitics will look like when mass flooding, heatwaves, and famines become commonplace, and that day is approaching faster than many realise.
Joseph20102011 on
India is an overpopulated continent with relatively lower female labor participation and an elitist higher education culture that will impede its rise as the world’s superpower in the 22nd century.
4 Comments
Submission statement: The world’s largest democracy, India, is seen as the West’s obvious ally against the growing might of China. But there might be a risk that India is not the stalwart ally the West has assumed.
Â
Question marks have been raised about India’s attachment to freedom and democracy. In the last 20 years they fell from 27th to 108th in democracy rankings and to 161st out of 180 in press freedom. In foreign policy India is at best ambiguous. Ignoring sanctions on Russia, India is the third largest buyer of Russian oil. And in 2017 joined Russia and China in the economic and defence group, SCO.
Â
In this debate S.Y. Quraishi, Kate Sullivan de Estrada and Alpa Shah discuss whether it is time to recognise that Modi’s India, with the largest population in the world and the fastest growth, has its own agenda independent of the West.
A long time Soviet ally should not be seen as an obvious friend to the west in any scenario, even if territorial disputes makes Indian cooperation with China unlikely. That said, India does not have the foreign policy of a great power and lacks the projection capacities to adopt one, and as such, it will remain a subsidiary power to Russia until Russia is not capable of having subsidiaries, at which point it will likely try to fill Russia’s role as the primary revisionist state present in the international system.
Why do these pundits always claim ‘X Century’ as if climate change isn’t a thing? Nobody knows what geopolitics will look like when mass flooding, heatwaves, and famines become commonplace, and that day is approaching faster than many realise.
India is an overpopulated continent with relatively lower female labor participation and an elitist higher education culture that will impede its rise as the world’s superpower in the 22nd century.