Article from a word press by By Sajjad Shaukat
Ok dont worry I will give you more young lady
India’s geo-political importance in the emerging Asian environment is not as important the make-believing Indian analysts’ project. Pakistan’s importance and criticality is an acceptable fact and therefore the race between the three world powers i.e. US, China and Russia to befriend Pakistan. Indians need to accept this fact and learn to live with it. To explain this, I will palce a quote from an earlier posted analysis which is still current, even though it was written an year ago:
……………. Many believe that India is a regional power, yet they fail to realize the fact that its regional prowess can only be exercised against nations as small and vulnerable as Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bangladesh. It has not been able to convincingly project its power potential against present day Pakistan and China and it is unlikely to happen in the future as well. US Embassy, New Delhi (courtesy wikileaks) corroborates this fact indicating that, with present Indian military capabilities, Cold Start doctrine would encounter mixed results.
US, France, UK, China and Russia etc can project their power potential because either they do not have a powerful regional threat to counter or they have enough capability to deter a regional threat and also project their capability to take care of extra-regional threats.
India cannot laterally expand its influence beyond its western borders due the existence of geo-political impediments in addition to the geographical restrictions placed by the presence of Pakistan. Expansion of its influence towards the east is impeded due to the large geographical lay of China. Myanmar can provide India with limited ability to expand towards South East Asia. She attempted to undertake such a venture but due to its internal upheaval in adjoining areas failed to take timely advantage. Chinese influence in Myanmar has in the meantime increased manifold which may limit future Indian endeavours. Therefore the only direction it may be able to expand its influence is towards the vast expanse of sea in the south.
As per the perceived US game-plan for India, garnering of a seaward influence is likely to be supported by the US and West. This fact is corroborated by increased number of Indian naval exercises with navies of US and other western nations in recent years. The plan seeks India to act as a countervailing force against China, as a milkman to sustain US economy while competing with Chinese economic progress and to stabilize regional disputes with limited force projection capability.
India may become a strong economic power and be able to generate fair bit of economic influence in all those countries which are its trading partners and may also be able to exercise fair bit of negativity against Pakistan and China in this domain. However, it’s overall power projection and generation of influence in the key regions would still remain limited unless it drastically improves relations with both Pakistan and China. It also highlights the importance of strategic nature of Pak-China relationship.
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