A new world order .. why India should initiate a south Asian union

kit · Post by **kit** » 26 Jan 2017 14:02

The title speaks ..India stands at the threshold of destiny as America looks more likely to withdraw from Asia and ensuing a power vacuum.. An authoritarian state with hegemonic ambitions will always the bully of the neighbour hood putting smaller states at risk .. having neither the financial or economic clout .
India stands to gain strategically politically and from economic stand points
Discussion would be welcome

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 26 Jan 2017 14:30

a merger of asean and saarc and even the gcc with india at the centre... that could be the long term vision
like how it used to be

Marten · Post by **Marten** » 26 Jan 2017 14:46

Lalmohan wrote:a merger of asean and saarc and even the gcc with india at the centre... that could be the long term vision
like how it used to be

In the long term, they will hopefully go back to riding camels and fighting battles within themselves. No point wanting to extend ourselves beyond the Makran!

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 26 Jan 2017 16:01

agreed, the makran can remain the mleccha boundary
asean I think is more productive, they are too swayed by wahabbi funding at the moment - or atleast two important members are

panduranghari · Post by **panduranghari** » 26 Jan 2017 20:36

Kit saar,
My persepective is this;

Let us take a country like SL for example. A puny country which has nothing to sustain itself on. It was created on a westphalian agreement where their security was assured by the UN etc. To keep them sustained the IMF/WB loaned them funds. The were kept alive, barely. Being a member of UN gave them some imaginary responsibility. The leadership was kept satisfied. And it went on until now. As US withdraws, in comes Chinese cheque book diplomacy. The problem is the Chinese pockets are not deep enough. They may sell themselves like Rjapakshe did but still it wont be enough. They may host Chinese war ships but still it wont help because the supply lines are long and unless you have limitless pockets, it cant be sustained.

There will be a time within the next 50 years, these small puny nation states will demand joining the union of India because they will realise that is better for them in the medium to long term. While India wont open its cheque book, the market access will force the hands of SL. its the oncoming run away train. We wont miss that.

kit · Post by **kit** » 27 Jan 2017 13:23

The South Asian Union is an imperative in the next decade . India will need to embrace its destiny. China will try to influence countries using money and military strength.Only India by virtue of its democracy can provide the military and economic security to other states without impeding on their freedom. The countries will include all of the littoral island states in Indian ocean region and south east Asia ., most of the states do have ties to India culturally and economically for past century. It will be akin to the erstwhile old empire . , but will herald a new prosperity for the whole region. China can never be an alternative.

soumik · Post by **soumik** » 27 Jan 2017 16:02

We should initiate a security & economic union with the rest of South Asia barring Pakistan.
Following steps should be taken by us unilaterally
1) A declaration of a non aggression doctrine applicable to fellow south Asian states with the exception bof Pakistan. This should be followed up with the offer of funding a joint common border security force.

2) An unilateral declaration removing import duties on goods from the rest of south Asia , regular Taxes as applicable to domestic firms should still apply.

3) Removal of Visa Requirements for South Asian students to study in Indian privately owned colleges.

4)Initiation of a OBOR type logistical net where goods can travel with minimum hassle.

kit · Post by **kit** » 27 Jan 2017 17:44

No more "strategic" partnerships ..better is closer economic political and military integration will south Asian countries ..such an union will be beneficial to all the countries involved and allow them to retain independent governance

g.sarkar · Post by **g.sarkar** » 27 Jan 2017 20:03

All that sounds fine. But if we accept Muslims to come and settle down, India will fall. Hindus can not breed as fast and we will become a minority in our own lands not to speak of the spread terrorism. It is my belief that we have to thank Djinnah for removing a lot of them from our lands, thus helping Indian democracy to thrive.
Gautam

KL Dubey · Post by **KL Dubey** » 29 Jan 2017 09:58

"South Asian Union" is a misnomer and a conceptual trap.

It should be Indian Union/Republic of India only. All these areas are already historical parts of greater India (Akhand Bharat). However, "moonlight" hangs over many of these areas and they are not fit to join India. I do agree with the poster G.Sarkar. We must adopt a two-fold strategy:

1) We must work to dispel moonshine from the current political extent of India, and reduce it to negligible significance such that it cannot influence electoral politics. Only then can the larger project succeed.

2) We must integrate/annex countries that are not affected by this problem, and control the Indian Ocean thoroughly. E.g., Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Mauritius are all legitimate candidates to become parts of India.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 29 Jan 2017 11:00

I may be wrong here - but "multination unions" started in Europe where royalty were blood relatives. For that reason when European nation X got into a war with a neighbour - a distant nation ruled by a cousin joined that war too even though the actual dispute had no connection with that distant cousin's kingdom.

NATO works exactly like that because the US has a ruling class that are cousins of Europeans. Note that SEATO/CENTO did not have that blood relationship - so the US did not enter a war on behalf of Pakistan

Signed papers and treaties are of no use. When it comes to the crunch it is every nation for itself. India itself is the biggest and most successful South Asian union. No need to try and pull in reluctant recalcitrant pipsqueaks. Those who want friendship will get it anyway.

Karthik S · Post by **Karthik S** » 29 Jan 2017 11:10

Again, US became a power of its own, SU the same, China the same. We need to try to be like that. No point in having borrowed strength. Ofcourse, it's good to have allies in the region etc. but India should be a power on it's own merit.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 29 Jan 2017 12:36

kit wrote:The title speaks ..India stands at the threshold of destiny as America looks more likely to withdraw from Asia and ensuing a power vacuum.. An authoritarian state with hegemonic ambitions will always the bully of the neighbour hood putting smaller states at risk .. having neither the financial or economic clout .
India stands to gain strategically politically and from economic stand points
Discussion would be welcome

Where did you get this "America looks likely to withdraw from Asia" from?

The plan was to move 60% of assets to Asia-Pac. Check (per Adm Harris @ RD in ND).

Next, the game plan is to form a min gang of India, Japan and perhaps Australia. Singapore, Malaysia, etc are a good possibility.

In the next 30-40 years the US is going nowhere. Just BTW the F-35 is pretty much designed for that theatre. The latest carriers are built with that region at the forefront in thinking. And, the tech help the US is willing to part with WRT India, is with that in mind.

To complete the picture, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and a few African nations are already in the other camp.

Even Vietnam is wavering.

Thus the bigger threat to India are these nations, besides the Chinese carriers in the IOR.

Viv S · Post by **Viv S** » 29 Jan 2017 13:08

We seem to have four different if not contradictory visions expressed on just the first page itself -

1. Customs Union - ASEAN type economic union - taking the SAFTA to its logical evolution (minus Pakistan).

2. Collective Security - against a foreign hegemonic power.

3. Pooled Sovereignty - EU-type system but dominated by a local hegemonic power i.e. India

4. Greater India/Akhand Bharat - a neo-imperial model

kit · Post by **kit** » 29 Jan 2017 16:11

NRao wrote:
kit wrote:
To complete the picture, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and a few African nations are already in the other camp.

Even Vietnam is wavering.

Thus the bigger threat to India are these nations, besides the Chinese carriers in the IOR.

Only reason these countries are seemingly in the China "camp" is because china is spending money / infrastructure ( which in turn is spend on Chinese companies ) buying influence with politicians and bureaucrats .

How long can this be sustained ? The countries involved will have to payback .. and quite possible not ..the back lash against the ruling classes will cause strife

the lasting political and economic connections will be with those counties that share a common cultural heritage .. not without reason that Modi emphasized this aspect on his recent visits

kit · Post by **kit** » 29 Jan 2017 16:13

the political implications of Chinese investments in these countries are not very far off to see ..it will happen inside of a decade .. India needs to be ready for turmoil in its neighbor hood .. ( India should rather ) [ a Chanakian strategy would be to make sure that it happens ! ]

Viv S · Post by **Viv S** » 29 Jan 2017 19:00

soumik wrote:We should initiate a security & economic union with the rest of South Asia barring Pakistan.

g.sarkar wrote:All that sounds fine. But if we accept Muslims to come and settle down, India will fall. Hindus can not breed as fast and we will become a minority in our own lands not to speak of the spread terrorism.
Gautam

Total Fertility rate (2014, WB):

Sri Lanka - 2.083
Bangladesh - 2.175
Myanmar - 2.204
Nepal - 2.222
India - 2.427

KL Dubey · Post by **KL Dubey** » 29 Jan 2017 21:53

In the 1980s India lost not one, not two, but THREE opportunities thanks to the Gandee dynasty. In 1983 Indeerah/Maimuna failed to carry out the operation in Mauritius (a country already full of Biharis and Tamils). In 1988 the idiot Rajiv failed to put down roots in Maldives even though he had boots on the ground, and disingenuously handed back the keys to Gayoom after doing a house-cleaning job for him. In 1987-1990 Rajiv failed to wipe out the LTTE and proceed to make northern Lanka part of Tamil Nadu. If the government in Colombo had a problem with that, they would then have been coming up against all of India and not the LTTE.

Instead of "duniya kya sochegi?" kind of timidity, we should have simply stayed put there and after a while nobody would bother. If necessary, a propaganda initiative should have been set up to convince everyone that "these small island nations cannot govern themselves, so they are better off with us."

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 29 Jan 2017 22:29

kit wrote:
Only reason these countries are seemingly in the China "camp" is because china is spending money / infrastructure ( which in turn is spend on Chinese companies ) buying influence with politicians and bureaucrats .

How long can this be sustained ? The countries involved will have to payback .. and quite possible not ..the back lash against the ruling classes will cause strife

the lasting political and economic connections will be with those counties that share a common cultural heritage .. not without reason that Modi emphasized this aspect on his recent visits

No, it is ONE of the reasons. Perhaps.

Another, and I would think to be the major issue, is what KL Dubey has posted above - Indian reluctance to take the lead, even in small cases.

Singapore called India out when China sent troops to the border between India and Pakistan AND when China provided nuclear help to Pakistan. I think that was perhaps the most open revolt against Indian leadership (at least what I have come across). And, it continues: Adm Harris and the most astounding one of the US PACOM Army (yikes) complaining (granted he was not clear - should have provided more details).

OK, let me handle another dimension. You say "new world order" - it clearly implies that the nations of teh world should recognize Indian leadership in this "south Asian union". Heck when Modi, ON Indian soil, in the presence of EVERY BRICS (the most worthless org IMHO) leader said soemthign about terrorism and terrorists (everything was valid), WHO at BRICS or across the world stood by him? NOT ONE. Xi shot it down - on Indian soil. Putin put on his famous gaze (I do nto know what you are talking, but ....... I will smile). And, Brazil and SA, are not worth the salt out there. US did not, UK/EU did not. Japan did not. Australia did not. .........................

Point being, there is NOT ONE nation out there that would like India to lead - in anything. OK, cricket perhaps, but who really give crap for that? EVERYONE there wants, nope needs India though - skills (US/UK/etc), funds (France/Russia/etc). India is important enough, but never as important.

You want India to be counted, then clean up India. India is too fragmented and weak to make a move on the international playing field (stats do not account for most things).

And, finally, you talk of consolidation, China is talking fragmentation. Of India that is. Look very carefully and let me know where these two forces stand.

My prediction is that no country will willingly join this "union" and no nation will recognize such a "union". India would be well advised to channel those efforts into internal growth: Jobs to start with. You got to have something to defend.

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 29 Jan 2017 22:39

We should call it Federation of the Indian Subcontinent....
This will put TSP in a bind to join the federation, and thus making it easier to exclude them by their own action.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 29 Jan 2017 22:55

Kati wrote:We should call it Federation of the Indian Subcontinent....
This will put TSP in a bind to join the federation, and thus making it easier to exclude them by their own action.

There has (always) been a plan with a much bigger role for India. US-India, which has grown to US-India-Japan and just may include Australia. On the side will be Singapore, Malaysia, perhaps another nation or two. But the odd man out in any of these combinations is - always - India. India wants to be counted, but not counted upon. Not saying one is better than the other, but that the message has to clear and transparent. India needs to sort its priorities out and implement them. Just maybe this relation with the US is not good. ??????

But, I am not sure why this downgrade to "south Asia". Economically, yes. Defense, no. Defense wise India is much bigger than that. Indian gaze has to reach the Pacific to the east and to the Atlantic to the west.

kit · Post by **kit** » 30 Jan 2017 11:28

maybe this thread should also discuss why India plays the reluctant lead

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 30 Jan 2017 13:06

SAARC has proven to be a disaster. The very word sounds like "Shark!Shark!..." A better title would be SAFE/SAEF.
South Asian Economic Federation or Federation Economique,pronounced "safe"! "BIMSTEC" sounds like an obscenity,"bumsteak"!

I wonder who dreamed up that risque abbreviation.

Here,Burma,Afghanistan,some other IOR nations like Mauritius,Seychelles, (Baluchistan,Sindh and Tibet later

)-even Malaysia ,Indonesia and Thailand since they share IOR waters, could be roped in as associate members. This entity should like the ECM was originally,devote itself to purely eco affairs and not attempt to create another monster off babudom like Brussels.Given our giant-sized stature,other smaller nations will feel intimidated if any political angle is attached to it.Security relationships can be on a bi-lateral basis. However,a clear criteria/signing on the dotted line, for membership should be "no allowance of a member's territory to be used for terrorists/individuals inimical to other member states,or allowing its territory to be used by any external power for military purposes" .This will immediately exclude the Pakis from it,as their ranting and raving about J&K<etc. and hosting anti-Indian terror cadre on Paki soil ,trikes them out. SAFE should replace SAARC asap. Accompanied by a pledge for member states to work out their differences peacefully and not militarily,as in the EU,will re assure smaller nations about India's huge mil capability. We will in fact become the de-facto guardians of the member states.

One is sure that Afghanistan,Sri Lanka,The Maldives, Mauritius,Seychelles,Nepal,BDesh,will join and Burma too will view this positively. This will make the number of member states 9,a "navaratna" to boot! MEA mandarins,are you listening?

The permanent HQ of SAFE could be in Sri Lanka,where Colombo has excellent international convention facilities.esp. the BMICH. It would also help wean Colombo away from a too tight embrace of the Dragon,ensuring its permanent pro-India foreign policy. With Colombo as HQ,other nations would feel satisfied that India is not trying to hog the whole show too,and the Lankans,having once hosted the NAM summit,strategically located in the IOR at the tip of the Indian subcontinent,halfway between the Orient ,Africa and Occident,will be perfectly poised to leverage the financial aspects of the entity. Colombo is already redrawing the master plan of the Chinese "Port City" into a "Financial City" ,to meet our sensitivities. It's now time to sound out potential member states. SAARC can simply die a natural death fterwards.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 08 Feb 2017 07:16

http://www.asianage.com/india/all-india ... error.html
India to host key security meet to nail Pakistan on terror

In another move to corner Pakistan on the issue of terrorism, India will “host the first ever meeting of national security chiefs of Bimstec nations to discuss action against terrorism, violent extremism and radicalisation”, with New Delhi also agreeing to host “an international conference on countering radicalisation”.

The decision was taken during the 17th Bimstec Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) which concluded in Kathmandu on Tuesday.

India is now increasingly investing its hopes for regional cooperation in the regional grouping Bimstec —- which does not have Pakistan as a member — instead of Saarc which has become rather dysfunctional due to Pakistan’s stonewalling tactics on issues such as regional connectivity. Bimstec comprises India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. With the exception of Southeast Asian countries Myanmar and Thailand, which are members of Asean, the rest of the Bimstec countries are also members of Saarc.

“In keeping with the high-priority BIMSTEC members attach to combat terrorism and trans-national crime, it was agreed that India would host the first ever meeting of Bimstec national security chiefs to discuss action against spread of terrorism, violent extremism and radicalisation,” the ministry of external affairs (MEA) said in a statement.

Y. Kanan · Post by **Y. Kanan** » 08 Feb 2017 08:12

g.sarkar wrote:All that sounds fine. But if we accept Muslims to come and settle down, India will fall. Hindus can not breed as fast and we will become a minority in our own lands not to speak of the spread terrorism. It is my belief that we have to thank Djinnah for removing a lot of them from our lands, thus helping Indian democracy to thrive.
Gautam

That's already happening even without any migrants.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 08 Feb 2017 08:33

Philip wrote:SAARC has proven to be a disaster. The very word sounds like "Shark!Shark!..." A better title would be SAFE/SAEF.
South Asian Economic Federation or Federation Economique,pronounced "safe"! "BIMSTEC" sounds like an obscenity,"bumsteak"!
I wonder who dreamed up that risque abbreviation.

I would prefer Federation Asia Economique pronounced as "Faque"

Vikas · Post by **Vikas** » 08 Feb 2017 12:05

Forget other countries, will India put boots on Ground for Vietnam if say tomorrow, Vietnam and China get into a shooting war or even provide ammunition and Brahmos during hypothetical tense eyeball-to-eyeball situation.
Even I doubt if Indian leadership would have the cojones to miff and incur wrath of Chinese.
Is there any country other than Bhutan and Nepal, for who we will stand up to any power and willing to shed blood if it comes to that.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 09 Feb 2017 12:10

Shiv,Ha!Ha! What about FAEQ..U?

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 09 Feb 2017 12:39

VikasRaina wrote:Forget other countries, will India put boots on Ground for Vietnam if say tomorrow, Vietnam and China get into a shooting war or even provide ammunition and Brahmos during hypothetical tense eyeball-to-eyeball situation.
Even I doubt if Indian leadership would have the cojones to miff and incur wrath of Chinese.
Is there any country other than Bhutan and Nepal, for who we will stand up to any power and willing to shed blood if it comes to that.

All these situations are due to other powers making the geo political moves in the asian region for the last 40 years

India is just a 'victim' and India has least stake in it unless China really attacks

India will find the least cost method to mitigate the risk
India has to watch the major moves. When India moves others will notice

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 25 Feb 2017 03:52

Related to a new world order, but not to a south Asian union:
https://www.aei.org/publication/the-asi ... el-auslin/
The Asian Century? A long read Q&A with Michael Auslin

What is Asia, what is not Asia? I define Asia as India eastward to Japan. So that’s India, China, South East Asia, Korea, Japan, even Far-Eastern Russia. It’s a great dynamic arc that sweeps upward. Usually we teach Asia, how I taught it at Yale and how most universities do it and how the US government does it, they divide it up. It’s East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia. Very few parts of government or universities look at it as a whole.
...
What you also see, though, to this point directly about Asianness is that Asians are beginning to think about themselves more as an integrated whole and a region. They’re talking about common problems and it really does peter out right when you get to India’s western borders. That becomes more the Middle East, it’s a different set of issues — India straddles that. But I think there is a growing common sense of identity, though not a growing a common sense of working together.
...
I think, in part, Asians have started to think of themselves as Asians because of the modernization that has swept into the region. They see these commonalities between them: the fact that you’ve grown a middle class, that, in many cases, you have a more representative government, certainly that you trade more with each other and you trade with the world. When they see it happening, in many cases with their neighbors, they understand that it’s something that is shared among them. They don’t think of themselves about Europeans or Africans. This is something that has happened in Asia over the past three or four decades.

...
The role of the United States is, in some ways, it replaces the fact that Asia does not have really a dominant country that is trusted by everyone. China is obviously the dominant country today but it has no real friends and allies. There’s no one that wants to become Chinese. There’s no one that really wants to ally with China. They want to trade with China and make as much money off of it as they can, but trusting China and becoming a partner is a whole different story.

Same with India and Japan. You have the three largest nations in Asia essentially friendless. Japan has worked a lot to change that over the past several years, I think it’s making inroads, but none of them have allies, none of them have real relations of trust with their neighbors.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 25 Feb 2017 20:17

The rise of the shallow state in the US - relevant to the "new world order" part of this thread.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/22/th ... ate-trump/

The shallow state, on the other hand, is unsettling because not only are the signs of it ever more visible but because its influence is clearly growing. It is made scarier still because it not only actively eschews experience, knowledge, relationships, insight, craft, special skills, tradition, and shared values but because it celebrates its ignorance of and disdain for those things. ..... Indeed, from evolution to data about our economy to the science of vaccines to the threats we face in the world, they reject vast subjects rooted in fact in order to have reality conform to their worldviews. They don’t dig for truth; they skim the media for anything that makes them feel better about themselves. To many of them, knowledge is not a useful tool but a cunning barrier elites have created to keep power from the average man and woman. The same is true for experience, skills, and know-how. These things require time and work and study and often challenge our systems of belief. Truth is hard; shallowness is easy.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 02 Jul 2019 03:09

Time to revive this thread...

kit · Post by **kit** » 02 Jul 2019 03:57

Interesting how we are in a position that becomes so much relevant now ., posting the latest Economist article

https://www.economist.com/open-future/2 ... orld-order

Instead, the evolution of a new world order—a fully multipolar world composed of three (perhaps four, depending on how India develops) large regions that are distinct in the workings of their economies, laws, cultures, and security networks—is manifestly underway. My sense is that until 2018, multipolarity was a more theoretical concept—more something to write about than to witness. This is changing quickly: trade tensions, advances in technologies (such as quantum computing), and the regulation of technology are just some of the fissures around which the world is splitting into distinct regions. Multipolarity is gaining traction and will have two broad axes. First, the poles in the multipolar world have to be large in terms of economic, financial, and geopolitical power. Second, the essence of multipolarity is not simply that the poles are large and powerful but also that they develop distinct, culturally consistent ways of doing things. Multipolarity, where regions do things distinctly and differently, is also very different from multilateralism, where they do them together.

India provides a democratic and open alternative to China in the new world order for all countries in Asia. Its time to take its rightful place in the next decade as the centre of Asia as it once was.

khatvaanga · Post by **khatvaanga** » 02 Jul 2019 06:12

is it kosher / dharmic to post relevant article from ForeignAffairs here? There are a couple of articles which talk about the New World Order though we dont appear much in their design.

Sam Huntington calls it the Civilizational World Order in the Clash of Civis. That when the balls land, eventually, India being a civilizational power will hold the sway in the Subcontinent [if it plays the game well]. And that amongst the rest of civis [from Western perspective] only India / Hindu civilization has the core which more or less maps to the West [ethics, morals, demaacracy, society etc] and calls on the US [current anchor of the West] to develop friendship with India to live in the future.

chola · Post by **chola** » 02 Jul 2019 06:20

My two cents: we were always relevant but being officially tied to some South Asian "Union" is a sh1tty deal. We should do our utmost to dominate the region as the colossus (we already do) but we don't want to be stuck in a self-made region with the likes of Bangladesh, Nepal and Porkistan onlee.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 02 Jul 2019 08:15

A formal South Asian Union is unwarranted, unwanted and unlikely. However, like Imperial (and now Imperial Communist) China, we should re-establish our traditional influence and the idea of 'soft tributary'. This, after we eliminate Pakistan as a Nation State. Once Pakistan does not exist in its 'manufactured' form & content, the informal Union would become a reality.

Vikas · Post by **Vikas** » 02 Jul 2019 10:22

Did we ever dominate the region as is being claimed here. What we had was Bharat all the way from Afghan to Burma and traders travelling to nook and corner of Asia and it was Bharat dominating Bharat.
In last 500-600 years, when did our armies walk into a neighboring country and forced it into submission or when did we launch Armada against Europe, China, Japan or even Iran.
All this talk of Bharat dominating the region is just blissfully thinking of the past. Civilizational bonds and memories are not forever.
Our civilizational baseline was reset once we lost Vijaynagar empire after Delhi somewhere in middle centuries.

chola · Post by **chola** » 02 Jul 2019 13:24

SSridhar wrote:A formal South Asian Union is unwarranted, unwanted and unlikely. However, like Imperial (and now Imperial Communist) China, we should re-establish our traditional influence and the idea of 'soft tributary'. This, after we eliminate Pakistan as a Nation State. Once Pakistan does not exist in its 'manufactured' form & content, the informal Union would become a reality.

India and Cheen are both blessed and cursed by their neighbors. But in diametrically opposed ways.

Cheen is both blessed and cursed by powerful cultural sons and daughters. India is both blessed and cursed by pathetically weak ones.

China is helmed in by potent East Asian nation states like Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam in an arc around its periphery. But because it is considered the Greece and Rome of all the afore-mentioned nations, it will always benefit from civilizational, cultural and emotional ties. The investment, technology leaks and human interactions with Korea, Taiwan and Japan had made Cheen into what it is today.

Bharat dominates its neighbors in a way that Cheen can only dream of. There is no South Asian of the stature of Japan or Korea to really challenge her. True, we are hounded by our most "powerful" neighbor. But that neighbor is a failed state and a cesspool of archaic medieval religious tenets with lower human development and potential than Vietnam. We already hold a tributary state system to a greater degree than Cheen. North Korea displays more independence from Cheen than Bhutan from us.

But such weak neighbors also lowers overall development of the region. Unlike Cheen, our cultural sons and daughters had not and will not bring us up. It is we who must develop and drag them up. We will never be able to attract the same kind of investment resource. There is no equivalent of Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese FDI and technology transfers in HSR, ship-building, semi-conductors and the whole damn high tech supply chain.

So the best of both worlds is dominating our region in practice but casting our position as a major member of Asia to the East and Southeast too.

ricky_v · Post by **ricky_v** » 02 Jul 2019 19:25

Huntington's theory is outdated imo because it considers civilizations to be static which may have been an ardent wish not reflective of reality. Civilizations stick to their ways due to institutional memory, if the people in the system are not co-opted or bring a different perspective, that cannot be considered to be in stasis.
With the rise of diaspora and interconnectivity, the strains of all civilizations are jostling with each other in all spheres of human acuity;to consider any as insular is not factual today. The veneer of civilization is off for every participant, only the strength of the adherents can keep some strain alive otherwise we are all hurtling towards a civilizational blob.
Coming to our case, why should we settle for laggards when our diaspora has endured that our reach is far longer?, sooth Asia offers nothing to us but responsibilities and no benefits but spite.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 03 Jul 2019 20:37

Irony in long-term perspective:
Through the 1960s to 80s the Oiropeans etc sneered at the Republic of India, predicting its doom and explosion.
Today the stability and longevity of Oirope look far more glooomy. Maybe they will emerge as a New Strong Oirope. I mean the Khilafat of Oiropistan. The first (and last) democratically elected shariah govt.

The lessons should be studied by all desis arguing for Yoonited South Asiastan, bringing Mauritius, Maldives, Seychelles etc into the Indian Union. A United South Asia, with 500 million "new" citjens who used to be Pakistani, BD, Afghan, Maldivian, Mauritian. Imagine the ~~Lok Sabha~~ Loya Jirga-e-Khilafat composition in that New Odor.

You must be kidding. Keep up Friendly Relations with all these nations, but keep them separated, as separate and numerous as possible. Enforce the separation with Friendly Gestures such as Prithvis, Agnis, Sagarikas, BrahMos etc. With frequent Friendly Vijits by distinguished Indians such as Shri Viraat, Smt. Su (30MKI), M. Rafale, etc.