Bharat Karnad is
one self-proclaimed conservative foreign relation/defense intellectual in
India. He is a doctrinaire realist and has little patience for left of center international
relation experts. His latest book "Why India Is Not A Great Power (Yet)" tries to
answer the following question: Why is our country not counted as among
the major powers of the world?
He defines a major power as having following attributes-
-Maximize strategic location (let’s say India’s strategic
location is like an Aircraft carrier going into Indian ocean, it can be used to
control access or choke shipping channels like Strait of Malacca
-Distant defense: A major power would try to contain its
rival as far as possible from its borders/shore
-Arms dependency: A major power would be able to produce
most of its arms; it would not be major importer like India
-Software of hard power: A major power will have clear
vision for future, corresponding policies, capacity to implement strategies, in
short a Monroe document
-Ability to transform or change with time: To some extent ,
Indian Navy has managed to keep pace with changes in doctrine and technology.
India has many attributes of a major power like strategic
location, landmass, population etc. Still it hardly achieved any of the
above-mentioned attributes, remained an inconsequential power so far.
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