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date: 14 February 2025

Rising Indialocked

Rising Indialocked

  • Erik UnderwoodErik UnderwoodMcGill University, Political Science
  • , and T.V. PaulT.V. PaulMcGill University, Political Science

Summary

India’s rise is best understood by combining the domestic, regional, and systemic levels of analysis, which provide a mixed picture for its potential to reach its ambitions. The rise of China as a powerful state in the Indo-Pacific has given India an important swing-power role as the United States and its Western allies in the region, especially Japan and Australia as well as many of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, consider India as a putative balancing force. India has pursued a hybrid balancing strategy, invoking both hard and soft balancing techniques, seeking to preserve its strategic autonomy and noninvolvement in intense great-power competition. India has soft power and demographic advantages, as while in the post–Cold War period, rapid economic growth provided the engine for its great-power dream. However, high levels of inequality, lingering poverty, uneven human development, and divisive ethnic politics all present domestic hurdles that India will need to overcome before getting its full recognition. Regionally, India’s rivalries with Pakistan and China have acted as drains on its military resources, but the developing Sino–U.S. rivalry presents a systemic opening that could help it partially overcome its regional challenges as the U.S. search for regional partners opens the way to balancing coalitions and economic opportunities for India.

Subjects

  • World Politics

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