India as an Asia Pacific Power.

• Author: Percival, Bronson
• Position: Book review

India as an Asia Pacific Power. By David Brewster. Abington, UK: Routledge, 2012. Hardcover: 219pp.

India's emergence as a potential global power with a significant security role in East Asia has lead to proposals to rethink the "mental map" of Asia. In recognition of India's potential, a new term--the Indo-Pacific region--has been coined in the United States. But India's claim to a strategic role in the Asia Pacific anticipates the future more than it reflects current realities. Thus a rigorous assessment of India's intentions, strengths and limitations is timely and valuable. Brewster's book, India as an Asia Pacific Power, makes a major contribution, in large part by sorting out the jumble of information and opinions found elsewhere. It is well-organized and serves as a good foundation for further analysis. Officials and scholars concerned with security issues in Asia, particularly those entranced with the assumption that India will help the US "hedge" against China's rise, should read this book.

In the early 1990s, India faced an economic crisis and, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, strategic isolation. India looked east to the dynamic economies of the Asia Pacific and gradually opened itself up, leading to impressive economic growth rates over the past two decades and then to influence beyond India's borders. Brewster explains how Indian foreign and security policy adjusted and evolved.

New Delhi has not articulated a grand strategy. Brewster argues that Indian strategic thinking is dominated first by fears of Chinese dominance in East Asia and intrusion into South Asia and the Indian Ocean and, second, by India's search for Great Power status. At the heart of the Indian dilemma is how to play a major role in the Asian balance of power in cooperation with others concerned about China's growing power, without compromising a cherished legacy. The legacy that continues to shape the mindset of India's elite is "strategic autonomy", the "holy grail" of Indian foreign policy even today. The dominant power in South Asia, India also inherited an assumption that it was destined to be a Great Power. In the Indian mind, Great Power status is apparently incompatible with lasting commitments to other states. Maintaining India's room for manuoever has often taken precedence over pursuing India's strategic interests.

Thus the enduring appeal of the idea that India can--as it sought to do with non-alignment--sit out assumed Great Power rivalry...