India's Foreign Policy Since 1971 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 157 adapting to the international environment, a problem not specific to the Third World. This "Janus Faced" nature ofthe state is the starting point ofMichael Barnett's stimulating work Confronting the Costs ofWar: MilitaryPower, State, andSociety in EgyptandIsrael. Barnett argues that the state's domestic goals—political stability and economic growth—often with conflict and even contradict its international aims, particularly defense preparation which often necessitates a tradeoffbetween various goals. The state's ability to deal with this conflict is affected by the opportunities , constraints, and threats ofboth the international and domestic environments and the state's strength relative to society. Barnett provides three broad strategies available to states: an "accommodational strategy" in which limited changes are made to the status quo; a "restructural strategy" in which the state "attemptls] to restructure the present state-society compact in order to increase the total amount of financial, productive [material], and manpower resources ... for war preparation "; and an "international strategy" in which the state forms alliances in order to gain military and economic support from external sources. Barnett applies this framework to examine how both Egypt and Israel used these different strategies to adjust to changing domestic, regional, and global conditions . He argues that both countries initially pursued accommodational strategies and when these proved insufficient in the face of international threats, real or perceived, they tried to restructure state-society relations by increasing the strength of the former. When even this strategy proved inadequate, they sought international assistance. As a work of synthesis, Confronting the Costs ofWar demonstrates the utility of the sustained use of an explicit framework, one that emphasizes the domestic and international environments in which governments pursue theirgoals, to illuminate the decisions and choices made over time by various state leaders. By using the Middle East to examine theoretical arguments about the relationship of war and states' power relative to society drawn from European experience, Barnett is able to refine them and to emphasize the need for increased sensitivity to the relationship's changing dynamic over time. Confronting the Costs of War is a valuable contribution to a variety of literatures , most clearly those on comparative politics, international relations and Middle East Politics. Frameworks derived from theoretical insights from other areas and time periods, including those drawn from the expanding literature on political economy, should increasingly be used to analyze the Middle East, as the Middle East should be used to test and refine them. India's Foreign Policy Since 1971. By Robert Bradnock. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1990. 128 pp. $14.95/Paperback. Reviewed by Anil George, JD., American University, 1992. In 1947 India began its course as an independent state in what was christened by its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, as a "tryst with destiny." In the postcolonial decades that have followed, western countries have sometimes understood India's foreign policy as unique to its history and geopolitical position, sometimes 158 SAIS REVIEW perceived it as anti-Western, and sometimes slighted its status in the world. In light ofa new Democratic administration in the United States which must examine foreign policy in a post-Cold War world, students ofIndia would profit by reading Robert Bradnock's analysis of India's foreign policy from 1971 to the time ofthe V.P. Singh government. Commissioned by The Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, India's Foreign Policy Since 1971 provides a quick education and a scholarly analysis oftwo decades ofIndian foreign policy, using as a starting point the year the world's largest democracy signed the Indo-Soviet Treaty ofPeace and Friendship. Bradnock asserts that India's treaty offriendship with the former Soviet Union should not be interpreted as an ideological shift from a non-aligned to a pro-Soviet stance. Instead, Bradnock adroitly explains, it was intended to protect India's national security interests; the event was less motivated by ideology than pragmatism . It was in 1971 that the United States formally announced its new policy towardthe People's Republic ofChina that eventually led to diplomatic ties between the two nations. Just nine years earlier, India had fought a devastating war with China regarding its Himalayan border. India's security was...