Dynamics of India's Strategic Environment

Abstract

India's strategic environment has undergone significant changes in recent years, especially in the seventies. From the point of view of Indian foreign policy, the strategic environment and its dynamics can be studied in three different spheres: (1) the global strategic environment, particularly consisting of the strategic confrontation between the United States and its allies on the one hand and the Soviet Union and its allies on the other; (2) the immediate strategic environment, consisting mainly of Pakistan and China; and (3) the intermediate strategic environment, consisting of the non-aligned movement and the Third World. Needless to say, there is considerable and inevitable overlap and feedback among these three spheres of the strategic environment. They are, nevertheless, conceptually and operationally different spheres. The purpose of this article is to analyse the recent changes in these three different spheres of our strategic environment and the implications of these changes for our foreign policy in the foreseeable future.