David Brewster - India as an Asia Pacific Power

The emergence of India as a regional and potentially global power is forcing us to rethink our mental map of the Asia Pacific. We are only just beginning to discern how India may alter the global economic landscape. How will the rise of India change the strategic landscape of Asia and beyond?

This book provides a comprehensive assessment of India's strategic relations in the Asia Pacific, a region which has not traditionally been understood to include India. It examines India's strategic thinking about the Asia Pacific, its relationships with China and the United States, and India's increasingly close security ties with other major countries in the region. It considers the consequences of India's rise on the Asia Pacific strategic order and asks whether India is likely to join the ranks of the major powers of the Asia Pacific in coming years.

David Brewster is a Visiting Fellow with the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. He has written widely about India's strategic relationships in the Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean.

Routledge Security in Asia Pacific Series

Series editors

Leszek Buszynski, International University of Japan and William Tow, Australian National University

Security issues have become more prominent in the Asia Pacific region because of the presence of global players, rising great powers and confident middle powers, which intersect in complicated ways. This series puts forward important new work on key security issues in the region. It embraces the roles of the major actors, their defense policies and postures and their security interaction over the key issues of the region. It includes coverage of the United States, China, Japan, Russia, the Koreas as well as the middle powers of ASEAN and South Asia. It also covers issues relating to environmental and economic security as well as transnational actors and regional groupings.

1 Bush and Asia

America's evolving relations with East Asia
Edited by Mark Beeson

3 Regional Cooperation and Its Enemies in Northeast Asia
The impact of domestic forces
Edited by Edward Friedman and Sung Chull Kim

5 Australia as an Asia Pacific Regional Power
Friendships in flux Edited by Brendan Taylor

6 Securing Southeast Asia
The politics of security sector reform
Mark Beeson and Alex J. Bellamy

8 Human Security in East Asia
Challenges for collaborative action
Edited by Sorpong Peou

9 Security and International Politics in the South China Sea
Towards a co-operative management regime
Edited by Sam Bateman and Ralf Emmers

10 Japan's Peace Building Diplomacy in Asia
Seeking a more active political role
Lam Peng Er

15 Southeast Asia and the Rise of Chinese and Indian Naval Power
Between rising naval powers
Edited by Sam Bateman and Joshua Ho

David Brewster

This edition published 2012
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2012 David Brewster

The right of the David Brewster to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brewster, David.
India as an Asia Pacific power / David Brewster.
p. cm. (Routledge security in Asia Pacific series; 18)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-415-61761-1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-203-63768-5 (ebook : alk. paper) 1. IndiaForeign relationsAsia. 2. AsiaForeign relationsIndia. 3. IndiaForeign relationsPacific Area. 4. Pacific Area Foreign relationsIndia. I. Title. II. Series: Routledge security in Asia
Pacific series ; 18.
DS33.4.I4B74 2012
355.033054dc22
2011016300

ISBN: 978-0-415-61761-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-63768-5 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by Taylor & Francis Books

Thanks to Christine, Jack, Juliette, Bronte and Essie for their love, patience, support and understanding. Many thanks also to my dedicated editorial team.

18 April 2011

The emergence of India as a major regional and potentially a global power is forcing us to rethink our mental map of the Asia Pacific. We are only just beginning to discern how India may alter the economic landscape. India's impact on the strategic picture of Asia is even less clear. Although India is not traditionally understood to be part of the Asia Pacific, it is now claiming an important strategic role in that region. This book will examine the consequences of India's rise on the Asia Pacific strategic order and ask whether India is likely to join the ranks of the major powers of the Asia Pacific in coming years.

The consequences of India extending its power into the Asia Pacific are significant for itself, the region and the world. The Asia Pacific is the most economically vibrant region in the world and since the end of the Cold War has become the primary locus of interaction and competition between most of the world's major economic and military powers. The Asia Pacific is also becoming increasingly unstable, with numerous unresolved territorial disputes and shifting alignments in the face of China's growing power. India has the potential to profoundly alter the dynamics of the region. Some see the Asia Pacific's strategic landscape in coming decades as essentially involving competition and even conflict between the United States and China in East Asia. The rise of India has the potential to swing the regional balance for or against China, or even lead to a multipolar contest played across a wider space of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. India could bring greater stability to the region or it could make the Asia Pacific strategic order increasingly complex and unpredictable.