No. 76 DEDUCING INDIA’S GRAND STRATEGY OF REGIONAL HEGEMONY FROM HISTORICAL AND CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES Manjeet Singh Pardesi Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies Singapore APRIL 2005 With Compliments This Working Paper series presents papers in a preliminary form and serves to stimulate comment and discussion. The views expressed are entirely the author’s own and not that of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies The Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) was established in July 1996 as an autonomous research institute within the Nanyang Technological University. Its objectives are to: • Conduct research on security, strategic and international issues. • Provide general and graduate education in strategic studies, international relations, defence management and defence technology. • Promote joint and exchange programmes with similar regional and international institutions; organise seminars/conferences on topics salient to the strategic and policy communities of the Asia-Pacific. • Constituents of IDSS include the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) and the Asian Programme for Negotiation and Conflict Management (APNCM). Research Through its Working Paper Series, IDSS Commentaries and other publications, the Institute seeks to share its research findings with the strategic studies and defence policy communities. The Institute’s researchers are also encouraged to publish their writings in refereed journals. The focus of research is on issues relating to the security and stability of the Asia-Pacific region and their implications for Singapore and other countries in the region. The Institute has also established the S. Rajaratnam Professorship in Strategic Studies (named after Singapore’s first Foreign Minister), to bring distinguished scholars to participate in the work of the Institute. Previous holders of the Chair include Professors Stephen Walt (Harvard University), Jack Snyder (Columbia University), Wang Jisi (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Alastair Iain Johnston (Harvard University) and John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago). A Visiting Research Fellow Programme also enables overseas scholars to carry out related research in the Institute. Teaching The Institute provides educational opportunities at an advanced level to professionals from both the private and public sectors in Singapore as well as overseas through graduate programmes, namely, the Master of Science in Strategic Studies, the Master of Science in International Relations and the Master of Science in International Political Economy. These programmes are conducted full-time and part-time by an international faculty. The Institute also has a Doctoral programme for research in these fields of study. In addition to these graduate programmes, the Institute also teaches various modules in courses conducted by the SAFTI Military Institute, SAF Warrant Officers’ School, Civil Defence Academy, Singapore Technologies College, and the Defence and Home Affairs Ministries. The Institute also runs a one-semester course on ‘The International Relations of the Asia Pacific’ for undergraduates in NTU. Networking The Institute convenes workshops, seminars and colloquia on aspects of international relations and security development that are of contemporary and historical significance. Highlights of the Institute’s activities include a regular Colloquium on Strategic Trends in the 21st Century, the annual Asia Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO) and the biennial Asia Pacific Security Conference (held in conjunction with Asian Aerospace). IDSS staff participate in Track II security dialogues and scholarly conferences in the Asia-Pacific. IDSS has contacts and collaborations with many international think tanks and research institutes throughout Asia, Europe and the United States. The Institute has also participated in research projects funded by the Ford Foundation and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. It also serves as the Secretariat for the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP), Singapore. Through these activities, the Institute aims to develop and nurture a network of researchers whose collaborative efforts will yield new insights into security issues of interest to Singapore and the region i ABSTRACT This paper seeks to answer if a rising India will repeat the pattern of all rising great powers since the Napoleonic times by attempting regional hegemony. This research deduces India’s grand strategy of regional hegemony from historical and conceptual perspectives. The underlying assumption is that even though India has never consciously and deliberately pursued a grand strategy, its historical experience and geo-strategic environment have substantially conditioned its security behaviour and desired goals. To this extent, this research develops a theoretical framework to analyse grand strategy. This framework is then applied to five pan-Indian powers – the Mauryas, the Guptas, the Mughals, British India and the Republic of India – to understand their security behavior. It is discerned that all the five pan-Indian powers studied have demonstrated trends that display remarkable continuity in their security behavior. These trends can then be said to constitute India’s grand strategic paradigm and include – (1) A realist drive towards power maximisation due to structural reasons, including the use of force when necessary, under the veneer of morality; (2) Strategic autonomy in its security affairs and strategic unity of South Asia through an attempt to establish regional hegemony in the subcontinent; (3) Warfare as a part of statecraft as opposed to the exclusive realm of the military, and with a tendency to dominate, assimilate or accommodate opponents, as opposed to decisively destroying them; (4) A defensive strategic orientation against extra-regional powers and with a strategic orientation of ‘offensive defense’ in the subcontinent; and (5) A remarkable ability to gradually adapt to changing political and military trends while remaining consistent in the four strategic trends mentioned above. On the basis of these trends it is concluded that a rising India will behave in accordance with the core features of the theory of offensive realism. As India becomes wealthy, it will work towards maximising its political and military power; will avoid alliances that curb its strategic autonomy; will seek regional hegemony in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region, and will resist extra-regional influence in these regions; and will seek to become an extra- regional power in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. KEYWORDS – grand strategy, regional hegemony, pan-Indian power, strategic autonomy, strategic unity, strategic orientation ********************* Manjeet Singh Pardesi has been an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Singapore, since August 2003. He was initially trained as an Electrical and Electronic Engineer at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he studied on a Singapore Airlines/Neptune Orient Lines Scholarship. Thereafter, he pursued an MSc in Strategic Studies on a Singapore Technologies Engineering Scholarship at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Singapore. His research interests include Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and great power politics (with an emphasis on the US, China, and India). He has written a number of commentaries on RMA and India’s foreign and security policy, some of which have been published in The Straits Times, Singapore, and The Korea Herald, South Korea. He has lectured, conducted tutorials, and led discussion groups of the Tri-Service Staff Course and the Command and Staff Course at the SAFTI Military Institute, Singapore. ii DEDUCING INDIA’S GRAND STRATEGY OF REGIONAL HEGEMONY FROM HISTORICAL AND CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES 1 INTRODUCTION Do rising great powers attempt regional hegemony? The only regional hegemon in modern history and the current international system – the United States – established and consolidated its regional hegemony in the Western Hemisphere by end of the nineteenth century, before it started participating in world affairs as a great power.1 Beginning with Napoleonic France, all rising great powers, e.g., Wilhelmine Germany, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War tried unsuccessfully to establish regional hegemony. India is a rising great power.2 It is the world’s largest democracy, is a secular state, has the world’s second largest population and is the fourth largest economy when measured by purchasing power parity. It is also a declared nuclear weapons state with the world’s third largest army and amongst the top dozen states in the world in terms of overall defense expenditure. Over the past two decades or so (especially after it opened its markets in 1991), India has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world.3 In tandem with its economic growth, India has been slowly but surely modernizing its conventional military capabilities4 as well as its nuclear and missile capabilities5. This has led some long time India-watchers to conclude that India is in the The author would like to thank Surjit Mansingh, Satu Limaye, T V Paul, Lawrence Prabhakar, Arvind Kumar, Bernard Loo, Amitav Acharya, and Evelyn Goh for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts. Responsibility for all errors and omissions remains the author’s alone. 1 For America’s rise as a great power and a regional hegemon in the nineteenth century, see John J Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W W Norton & Company, 2001), p. 238-252. 2 Baldev Raj Nayar and T V Paul, India in the World Order: Searching for Major-Power Status (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 259. 3 Arvind Virmani. (2004). India’s Economic Growth: From Socialist Rate of Growth to Bharatiya Rate of Growth, [Online]. Available: http://www.icrier.org/wp122.pdf [2004, July 29]. According to Virmani, since 1980-81, India’s growth rate has increased from 3.5% p.a. to 5.7%p.a., and is currently “stuck” around 5.8% p.a. Another study has concluded that India’s economy is estimated to emerge as Asia’s second largest by 2015 even if it continues to grow at a relatively modest growth rate of 5.5% p.a. See Charles Wolf, Anil Bamezai, K C Yeh, Benjamin Zycher, Asian Economic Trends and Their Security Implications (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation Report, 2000), pp. 43-50 and 63-69. 4 Timothy D Hoyt, “Modernizing the Indian Armed Forces”, Joint Forces Quarterly, Summer 2000, pp. 17-22. Also see, International Institute of Strategic Studies, “India’s Military Spending: Prospect for Modernization”, Strategic Comments, Vol. 6 (July 2000), and “India’s Conventional Build-Up: Unsettling the Strategic Balance?”, Strategic Comments, Vol. 10 (December 2004). 5 Ashley J Tellis. (2001). India’s Emerging Nuclear Doctrine: Exemplifying the Lessons of the Nuclear Revolution, [Online]. Available: http://www.nbr.org/publications/analysis/vol12no2/v12n2.pdf [2004, July 29]. 1 process of acquiring the capabilities to “rise through the international order” to become a great power.6 The behavior of a rising state is a key concern of international politics. So, the crucial question is therefore how India will behave in the years to come. In spite of its growing strategic capabilities and having tested nuclear weapons, no Indian government has ever released a national security strategy, i.e., India has not yet enunciated its grand strategy, and it is unclear about its grand strategy.7 However, given its sheer size, location, and its growing economic, military and nuclear capabilities, it is clear that India will be a key actor in South Asia with the ability to provide or deny regional strategic stability. Moreover, its choices will also affect the countries and peoples in the region stretching from the Middle East and Central Asia to East and Southeast Asia, including the Indian Ocean littoral. This paper attempts to deduce India’s grand strategy from its history as well as theory. It seeks to understand if India’s long history has in any way shaped its conception of military power and national security.8 More crucially, it seeks to answer if a rising India will repeat the pattern of the all rising great powers by attempting hegemony in its own region.9 2 THEORY OF GRAND STRATEGY In his masterpiece called Vom Kriege (1833) on the science of war, the greatest of all Western writers on war, Carl von Clausewitz defined strategy as the use or threat of force “to achieve the military objectives, and by extension, the political purpose of war”10. Military historian Basil H Liddell Hart found the Clausewitzian definition of strategy very narrow due to its focus on the military and the battlefield. He therefore introduced the term ‘grand strategy’ (or ‘higher strategy’) “to bring out the sense of ‘policy in execution’”.11 According to Liddell Hart, the role of grand strategy was “to co-ordinate and direct all the resources of a 6 Stephen P Cohen, India: Emerging Power (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2001), p. 31. 7 India’s strategic elite have just begun a debate on the need for a grand strategy. See Brigadier P S Siwach. (2004). A Perspective on Grand Strategy and Planning in India, [Online]. Available: http://www.usiofindia.org/article_apr_jun04_5.htm [2004, December 26]. Also see, K P S Gill. (2004). What’s India’s Grand Strategy?, [Online]. Available: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20041216&fname=kps&sid=1 [2004, December 26]. 8 In contrast to the approach taken in this paper, most analyses of international security issues focus on the structure of the system, domestic political circumstances of state(s) being studied, and the personalities of the key political and military leaders involved. See Kenneth N Waltz, Man, the State, and War, Revised edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). 9 China is the other rising great power that may attempt to establish regional hegemony. 10 Peter Paret, “Introduction”, in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, edited by Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press), p. 3. 11 B H Liddell Hart, Strategy, Second Revised Edition (New York: Meridian, 1991), p. 322. 2 nation, or a band of nations, towards the attainment of the political object of the war – the goal defined by fundamental policy”.12 Liddell Hart explained that grand strategy controlled military strategy and looked beyond victory in war to the subsequent peace – even if only from one’s own point of view. Since then, many influential historians and strategists have sought to define their own conceptualization of grand strategy to enhance the concept’s analytical value. According to Edward Mead Earle, “The highest type of strategy – sometimes called grand strategy – is that which so integrates the policies and armaments of the nation that the resort to war is either rendered unnecessary or is undertaken with the maximum chance of victory”.13 John M Collins gave one the most comprehensive definitions of grand strategy when he defined it as: [T]he art and science of deploying national power under all circumstances to exert desired degrees and types of control over the opposition through threats, force, indirect pressures, diplomacy, subterfuge, and other imaginative means, thereby satisfying national security interests and objectives . . . Grand strategy, if successful, alleviates any need for violence. Equally important, it looks beyond victory toward a lasting peace . . . Grand strategy controls military strategy, which is only one of its elements.14 What these definitions successfully established was that grand strategy had to necessarily look beyond the battlefield and military victory, and that it was as much concerned with peace as with war. However, these definitions fell short of establishing a rigorous social- scientific methodology to study grand strategy. On the basis of more recent scholarship, this study attempts to develop a systematic approach to study grand strategy. Analyzing Grand Strategy National Objectives Paul Kennedy defines grand strategy as “the balancing of ends and means, both in peacetime and in war”.15 Highlighting the centrality of the political element in grand strategy, he further adds, “Given all the independent variables that come into play, grand strategy can never be exact or fore-ordained. It relies, upon constant and intelligent reassessment of the polity’s 12 Ibid., p. 322. 13 Edward Mead Earle, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. viii. 14 John M Collins, Grand Strategy: Principles and Practices (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, 1973), pp. 14-15. 15 Paul Kennedy, ed., Grand Strategies in War and Peace (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 4. 3 ends and means; it relies upon wisdom and judgment”.16 It is important to understand that grand strategy is neither the end-state alone nor just the available means; in fact, it represents the relationship between the two. According to Barry Posen, “A grand strategy is a political- military means-ends chain, a state’s theory about how it can best ‘cause’ security for itself”.17 Based on these definitions it can be concluded that grand strategy denotes “a country’s broadest approach to the pursuit of its national objectives in the international system.”18 So the first step in analysing a state’s grand strategy is to discern its national objectives. A nation may pursue many different national objectives, e.g., survival, economic interdependence, promotion of democratic institutions and human rights abroad. International Environment The next step involves understanding the international system within which the state seeks to pursue its national objectives, for example, is it the Western Hemisphere, Europe, Asia, Northeast Asia or South Asia? “Grand strategy . . . exists within international politics but does not coincide with its boundaries”.19 Understanding this international environment “is essential to the formulation [or analysis] of any sensible strategic policy”.20 Grand Strategic Means and Ends We need to understand the ends that a state seeks as well as the means it employs to meet these ends. In the case of the United States, the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Defense Department Reorganisation Act requires the President to produce an annual statement of the National Security Strategy.21 The most recent US National Security Strategy document appeared in 2002.22 The ends that a state seeks and the means with which it shall seek them may be discerned from such an enunciation of a national security strategy. However, in the case of countries such as India, a comprehensive national security strategy has never been 16 Ibid, p. 6. 17 Barry R Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between the World Wars (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 13. 18 Robert H Dorff, “A Primer in Strategy Development”, in U.S. Army War College Guide to Strategy, edited by Joseph R Cerami and James F Holcomb, Jr. (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2001), p. 12. Emphasis added. 19 Edward N Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, Revised and Enlarged Edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknep Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), p. 210. 20 Williamson Murray and Mark Grimsley, “Introduction: On strategy”, in The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War, edited by Williamson Murray, Macgregor Knox and Alvin Bernstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 5. 21 Dorff, op. cit., p. 16. According to many analysts including Dorff, National Security Strategy is the same as Grand Strategy. 22 The White House. (2002). The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, [Online]. Available: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf [2004, December 27]. 4 published. As a result, it becomes difficult to identify such a state’s desired ends and available means. At the same time, just because a state has not published a national security strategy document does not mean that it lacks a national security strategy. At a conceptual level, a national security strategy may be “declaratory, actual, or ideal”.23 A state’s ‘actual’ national security strategy may be discerned from its history by studying its military, economic and diplomatic behavior (means) and the outcomes of that behavior (ends). According to Colin Gray, “Means and ends will conduct a strategic discourse whether or not a polity has an explicit strategy (in the sense of plan)”.24 There is a growing body of literature that deals with the subject of grand strategic means. According to Alastair Iain Johnston, who believes that it is not useful to subsume grand strategic ends and means within the same concept (i.e. grand strategy), states pursue three ideal grand strategic means of security – accommodationist, defensive and offensive/expansionist.25 The primary problem with this typological approach is that it is non-exhaustive and even overlapping. Grand strategic means may be discerned by asking appropriate questions based on an alternative means-based definition of grand strategy. Robert J Art states that grand strategy “deals with the full range of goals that a state should seek, but it concentrates primarily on how the military instrument should be employed to achieve them”.26 Based on a natural extension of Art’s definition, it can be concluded that grand strategic means deal with instruments of force, threat and action (as opposed to the military instrument alone). Consequently, grand strategic means may be discerned by answering two inter-related questions – (1) What are the instruments of force, threat and action available to the state? How shall they be employed? (2) What is the given state’s strategic orientation? Strategic orientation represents a state’s overall security outlook. A typology similar to that provided by Johnston may be used to understand a state’s strategic orientation. This concept which operates at the grand strategic level should not be confused with the state’s military strategy or doctrine. 23 The actual grand strategy of a nation may or may not be different from its declared grand strategy. To understand the difference between these three categories of grand strategy, see J Boone Bartholomees, Jr., “A Survey of Strategic Thought”, in US Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy, edited by J Boone Bartholomees, Jr. (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2004), p. 82. 24 Colin S Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 16. 25 Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 112-117. 26 Robert J Art, A Grand Strategy for America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), p. 2. 5 On the other hand, there is limited literature on the subject of grand strategic ends, and there is no comprehensive list of typologies of grand strategic ends. In his brilliant work on strategy, Luttwak mentions a range of grand strategic ends that states seek – both implicit and explicit. Some of these include status quo, more power over other states and territorial expansion.27 Since, it is not easy to identify grand strategic ends, cues can be taken from a state’s geography (both its political geography as well as the geography of the international environment where it pursues its national objectives) in addition to its historical experiences.28 Deductions can then be made about its current grand strategic ends based on these cues combined with international relations theory. The fundamental question with regards to grand strategic ends is the country’s perception of itself and what role it aspires to play in the international system. In effect, a state’s grand strategic paradigm may be discerned by answering the following four questions29: (1) What are the given state’s national objectives? (2) What is the international system within which the state pursues these objectives? (3) What are the available grand strategic means? (4) What grand strategic ends does the given state seek? At this stage, two caveats must be highlighted. First, grand strategy is a dynamic concept and can change slowly with time in response to external and internal stimuli (for example, conquest/independence, war/its outcome, change in the structure of the international system, domestic revolution, technological breakthrough). Second, grand strategy cannot explain all policies and actions. A particular policy and its outcome is the product of a dynamic interaction between many factors including structure, people, politics, technology, ethics, economics, time and chance among others. By contrast, a state’s grand strategy provides an understanding of its long-term foreign and security policy goals. The claim being made is that a state will attempt to realize its grand strategy irrespective of how close a particular policy choice may be to this desired outcome. 27 Luttwak, op. cit., pp. 211-214. 28 On the influence of geography and history on grand strategy, see Murray and Grimsley, op. cit., pp. 7-12. 29 It is theoretically possible for a small state to have a grand strategy. However, the term is generally used for rising and great powers. See Kennedy, op. cit., p. 186 n18. 6