Laying the BRICS of a New Global Order: From Yekaterinburg 2009 to eThekwini 2013

12. India’s Security Calculus in Balancing Regional and Global Geopolitical Agendas

231 CHAPTER 12 India’s Security Calculus in Balancing Regional and Global Geopolitical Agendas Tirumalai Cunnavakum Anandanpillai Rangachari ‘No country can adopt a policy that is demonstrably to the disadvantage of the country… At the same time, we must strive to harmonise the national interests of various countries while advancing our own.’ Jawaharlal Nehru ‘The world is getting more interconnected and interdependent. Global challenges affect all countries and their citizens, regardless of who is responsible e.g. climate change and environmental issues like biodiversity and resource scarcity; global economic and financial issues; migration or pandemics; global terrorism and cyber crime... the global governance landscape is getting more complex. These challenges have to be addressed through global decision-making and global action.’ Excerpts from the Address of the President of the UNGA to the UN University in Tokyo, 29 October 2010. THE CONTEXT T he end of the Cold War held out the promise of peace and growth. In the two decades since, we are still far from resolving threats to peace and stability; indeed, there are manifestations in new forms and personas. New challenges – the environment and climate change, food, water and energy security, demography – have emerged with the potential for disturbing the established order. Political uncertainty and instability discourage investment; competition for resources and markets, unless regulated through agreed rules, impair growth. 232 CHAPTER 12 The political and economic model that formed the template for global order in the post-War era is changing. On the political side, the ‘Arab Spring’ and ‘Colour’ revolutions have demonstrated the feebleness of political structures and processes that do not have legitimacy drawn from the support of the people. They have brought out the limitations of unrepresentative and unresponsive regimes in dealing with the legitimate aspirations of their peoples. On the economic side, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, it is evident that there can be no ‘one-size-fits-all’ formula that will be relevant and applicable globally. Each country has to devise a system that suits its own genius best, derives the maximum benefits from its own comparative advantage and addresses the problems that are distinctive to its situation. The centre of gravity of international affairs is said to be shifting from the Atlantic to the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. This could be considered a natural corollary of the demographic shift; it is estimated that by 2025 two thirds of the world’s population will live in Asia. Already, India and China account for two fifths of the world population. The Asian economies – China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and others – have performed well and hold potential for future growth. Trade within Asia has tripled over the past decade. Problems remain but in Asia, as in the major emerging regions , the world looks very different – a world of challenges, yes, but also a world of ‘resilient dynamism’ in the words of Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.1 This perception of a shift draws sustenance also from the view – however imagined or transient given that the US dollar still accounts for over 60 per cent of global currency reserves – that following the global financial crisis of 2008 the US became a declining power with concomitant consequences for global growth and security. It is fuelled by the EU’s declining share in global GDP over the last three decades, by the still anaemic economic recovery and by the burdens of demography and highest levels of post-war public debt. IMF’s World Economic Outlook estimates global growth in 2013 at 3.5 per cent, which is not much higher than last year. A good part of this growth is expected to come from the emerging economies . As Christine Lagarde put it at Davos earlier this year, We are standing in the antechamber of a new global economy... geographically different, driven more by the dynamic emerging markets and developing countries... also be generationally different, shaped by different values and principles.2 If so, the world is entering a new era presaging a reallocation of political and economic power. 233 INDIA’S SECURITY CALCULUS IN BALANCING REGIONAL AND GLOBAL GEOPOLITICAL AGENDAS The BRICS are at the forefront of this shift, partly because of their role as emergent economies and partly due to a genuine shift from a uni-polar to a multi-polar world. INDIA’S SELF-PERCEPTION IN THE EMERGING ORDER India has to anticipate the kind...