Realist perspectives on national security

Kanti Bajpai's exploration of realism in external relations serves as a useful guide for gaining different perspectives on India's foreign policy

How Realist Is India’s National Security Policy?

Editor: Kanti Bajpai

Publisher:  Routledge

Pages: 198

Price: Rs 1,295

Professor Kanti Bajpai, who currently teaches at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, has edited a very useful volume of essays assessing India’s national security policy from the perspective of India’s diplomats, academics and senior military leaders. There are also contributions from two foreign academics.

These essays have been put together in honour of Professor Bharat Karnad, who has, through his writings, gained a reputation for advocating an assertive security posture for India and focused on China as India’s main adversary and security challenge. This posture is equated with a “realist” policy, although the concept of realism itself is rather vague and malleable. It is a term that is usually applied to assessing a country’s foreign policy but foreign policy and national security are intimately inter-linked.

Several of the essays are really about India’s foreign policy rather than focused more narrowly on national security, where the military dimension is prominent. If one breaks down the concept into its key components, which feature in the collection of essays, realism appears to imply that in the classic “guns versus butter” debate, guns take priority. In other articulations, guns enable butter and not the other way round. To a realist, an assertive posture towards other states need not be linked to matching military capabilities; assertiveness is of value in itself. This version of realism also demands self-reliance in key military platforms, including the nuclear domain. Thus, atmanirbharta is a feature of realism. We see this realism reflected in the section entitled “Military Realism”, and the contributions in this section are understandably from former military officers.

The section entitled  “Realism in Diplomacy” is really a critique of India’s foreign policy with contributions from former diplomats about India’s policies with respect to West Asia and South-East Asia. These contributions  suggest that India’s policies in these neighbouring regions have evolved in a more “realist” direction but this should be ascribed to the expansion of India’s economic and military capabilities, particularly after the adoption of far-reaching economic reforms and liberalisation. Dr Bajpai refers to the consensus among the contributors that India’s external posture has moved in a more “realist” direction in recent years. I think realism is a consequence of growing capabilities rather than a result of deliberate choice. For example, in the guns versus butter debate, India’s policy has consistently been in favour of butter. Military expenditures have remained between 2 and 3 per cent of gross domestic product for several years now, including under a political dispensation that considers itself more realist than its predecessors.

One was intrigued by the inclusion of a fine essay by Shyam Babu, who has drawn attention to the multiple and festering fissures in Indian society, in particular, the caste system. This is a plea for “domestic first” which other “realists,” such as Pravin Sawhney, appear to reject. How realistic is an assertive external posture for a country that lacks social coherence? This is a valid question.

Dr Bajpai has categorised the contributors to this volume as “hard realists, liberal realists and prudential realists’. Dr Karnad, Pravin Sawhney and Balraj Singh Nagal are the hard realists. C  Rajamohan and S Jaishankar, the external affairs minister, are put in the liberal realist category. This category has been described as being preoccupied with power, but also concerned with norms and institutions. The liberal realist is committed to the use of power in pursuit of India’s interests, but wants India, as a leading power, to shape norms and institutions in a direction more aligned with both Indian values and interests.

The last category is of prudential realists such as former National Security Advisor, Shivshankar Menon, who links national security to the economic and social transformation of India. This in turn would enable enhanced national security. In his essay, Dr Menon describes India’s national security policy as being “realistic” rather than being realist, and this is an important distinction. Prudence demands the avoidance of the use of force except in extreme circumstances. The focus must remain on ensuring a supportive external environment in which the Indian state becomes more capable and resilient. The prudential realist would find the hard realist provocative, even reckless.

The last two chapters provide an external perspective on India’s national security policy. Jon Dorschner focuses on how the US perceives India and finds that the realists in the US establishment have ignored the domestic and ideological factors that have repeatedly belied the assumptions about converging geopolitical and security interests. This chapter is more a critique of US policy towards India rather than about India’s national security policy, but it is interesting to find a perspective that sees limited American interest in the Indian sub-continent.

The last chapter is by the Pakistani analyst, Shuja Nawaz, who is currently based at the Atlantic Council in Washington. This essay has little to do with realism of whichever kind. Instead it is a plea for India and Pakistan to follow what he describes as a “rationalistic” approach to their relations. This would recognise that the real challenges confronting the two countries are domestic, which can be dealt with by creating a more benign environment in the sub-continent.

The book is useful in providing different perspectives on India’s external relations. It is more about foreign policy than about national security, and it may have been better to bill it as an examination of realism in India’s external relations. Having read through the various contributions, I would certainly count myself in the “prudent realist” category.
 

The reviewer is a former foreign secretary and chairman of the National Security Advisory Board. He is also an honorary fellow at CPR