CHARTING A COURSE

INDIA'S FOREIGN POLICY PRIORITIES IN THE CHANGING GLOBAL LANDSCAPE

- Priyanshi Agrawal

Dynamic polarity and unanticipated challenges have shaped global politics where rising powers and middle powers and not just major powers play a crucial in the world order. The rise of traditional and non-traditional security threats has recalibrated Indian foreign policy as India moves from the era of nonalignment to the era of multi-alignment, which not only helps it to pursue its national interests but also tackle global challenges in a more cooperative manner. Ensuring non-traditional security simultaneously with traditional security has become a key element of Indian foreign policy. The COVID-19 pandemic, rising inter-state wars and climate change has further prompted India to diversify its relationship. The rising ambitions of China and its assertive territorial claims in the terrestrial and maritime arena have acted as a catalyst to diversify India's engagement and invest its resources in its capacity building, to fuel economic growth and development. As John Mearsheimer, an American political scientist, stresses the equal importance of 'latent power' (economy and population) and military power to become a superpower, recent developments in Indian diplomacy and the Indian economy appear to follow Mearsheimer's recipe to be a superpower.

India's strategic partnerships, with the USA, Japan, France and Israel among other Western powers and the Arabian countries of Saudi Arabia and UAE among others in diverse domains ranging from strategic sectors like defence, energy and space cooperation to agriculture etc.