The Engagement of India

Abstract

For much of the Cold War, most of the major powers could safely neglect India. India had friends in the developing world, but relations with most of the industrialized world were often strained. In its immediate region, India met with persistent "sibling rivalry" from Pakistan and remained locked in a "protracted contest" with China.1 While India forged a mutually beneficial relationship with the Soviet Union after 1971, its ongoing economic woes and rhetorical commitment to nonalignment "estranged" the country from Western states and other major Asian states, including Japan.2 The end of the Cold War, however, brought change. Initially India found itself in a difficult position. In the early 1990s, it was isolated and insecure, as its economy teetered on the brink of crisis, its Soviet sponsor fragmented and then disappeared, and its Chinese neighbor continued its rise. But only a decade later, India's fortunes appeared to have been transformed. The country had emerged from isolation and gained in confidence. By the early 2000s, India was increasingly acknowledged as an "emerging" or "rising" power of consequence in regional and world politics. 3