Transforming foreign policy

As a significant global player, India has to play a more nuanced, multilayered diplomatic game

Several weeks back, at a book discussion in New Delhi, two questioners questioned the author, a former senior official at the ministry of external affairs, on reasons for India not explicitly detailing the strategic objectives of its foreign policy. The author responded that the key goals, namely support for the country’s development objectives and the sustenance of its strategic autonomy, are sufficiently well known to not need elaboration. While true, the elaboration of policy objectives in an open document has deeper consequences. Consider the big picture.

The process of articulating foreign policy objectives would generate a national debate of a