September 18, 2011

Indian Strategic Thinking on US

The unfortunate aspect of Indian Strategic Thinking at both the Military and Political levels is that there is none.

Comprehensively the political leadership has been unable to even begin to appreciate the nuances of strategic military thinking. In addition, due to subordination of the military planners to the civil political control and increasing restrictions being placed on independent military thought processes within the armed forces out of a deep rooted paranoia of miltary take over of power, there has been a systematic degradation in the quality of military planners also. More and more its being seen that the top military brass is being subjugated by offer of incentives in forms of post-retirement governorship etc. This has led to a comprehensive vaccuum in the overall strategic military planning in India with ominious results awaiting in future.

The recent assertiveness of PLA along LAC with both GoI and IA in a denial mode, is a perfect example of the same.

Alliance with US should have been fostered decades back and not today. While our politicos fear being seen as a lackey of US, the truth is, there is no harm being a lackey of US if it serves our purpose and does not obfuscate our long term goals. Compromise of short term 'principles' is justified for realisation of long term principles. France is an excellent example of an ally of US who used US to become stronger and also follow an independent foreign policy. So is Japan another case.

If the US wants to help India only in order to check China, then by all means we must seek that help. Its not binding on us to continue the alliance at a latter date.

1 comment:

Marie Owens said...
