Foreign Policy — meaning, objectives, and where it comes from

Foreign policy does not emerge from a vacuum. It is a settled course of action, and a set of principles, through which a state defines its relations with others.

Working definition — Foreign policy is the course of action and set of principles a government adopts to define its relations with other states, and to set forth its positions on international issues.

• It may reflect broad national objectives, or a narrow, specific response to one situation — a combination of principles, interests and objectives through which a country conducts its external relations.
• In general it aims to fulfil the national interest. Hans Morgenthau: its primary object is the protection and enhancement of national interest, rooted in power.

Objectives

Sovereignty & integrity · Economic development · Political stability · National interest · Influencing international relations

• Sovereignty and integrity → territorial integrity and the security of the people; manifests as security concerns, military build-up and alliances.
• Economic development → trade agreements, investment, access to resources. Economic might is the lifeblood of scientific, military and soft-power endeavours.
• Political stability → within the country and abroad — supporting stable governments, mediating conflicts, promoting rights.
• Influencing international relations → shaping the world order and the behaviour of others; part of soft-power projection.

Who and what shapes it

• Harsh V. Pant → a nation’s foreign policy flows from several sources: the international system, its domestic political imperatives, the cultural factors underlying its society, and the personal characteristics and perceptions of individual decision-makers.
• Some factors are permanent / static (geography, natural frontiers); the domestic and external environments change with time. Permanent factors impart continuity, dynamic factors cause change. Policy is seldom static, yet certain factors remain significant over long periods.
• David Malone, C. Raja Mohan and Srinath Raghavan → foreign policy is shaped, powered and constrained by four factors — history, geography, capability and leadership; identity runs through all of them.
• Teresita Schaffer → the Indian identity of a peaceful, non-violent country is reflected in No First Use, Panchsheel, and exceptionalism in global negotiations.
• The relative weight of these factors keeps shifting with time, place and personality.

Geography · History · Culture · Social structure · Economy · Leadership · Domestic milieu · Defence & security · International situation

Permanent factors carry continuity · dynamic factors carry change. PERMANENT (Geography · History · Culture · Social structure) → FOREIGN POLICY (principles + interests + objectives, in pursuit of national interest) ← DYNAMIC (Economy · Leadership · Domestic milieu · Defence & security · International situation). Relative weight of each factor shifts with time, place and personality.

The four-factor frame, applied to India

• History → the claim of an ancient civilisation, and a lasting suspicion of the West; anti-colonial ethos feeding non-alignment and support for self-determination.
• Geography → insecurity along the borders; the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean shaping strategy; the largest littoral state of the Indian Ocean.
• Capability / economy → the contradiction of an emerging economy advanced in nuclear and space science, yet dependent on energy and defence imports.
• Leadership → Nehru’s idealism, Indira Gandhi’s realism, Vajpayee’s projection of scientific prowess, Modi’s fast-paced diplomacy.
• Domestic milieu → coalition politics and the centre–state dynamic (Teesta, CHOGM 2013). Social structure and culture → shared ethnicity in the neighbourhood; soft power through Yoga, Bollywood and the classical arts.

Geography as a Determinant

Foreign policy experts hold geography to be one of the most important, permanent and stable factors. Its constituents → topography, soil, fertility, climate, mineral resources, frontiers, neighbours — and above all, location.

“Any country’s foreign policy is determined by its geography.”

Napoleon Bonaparte

• Geopolitical scholars — Spykman, Mackinder and Alfred T. Mahan — stressed geography, especially location. The Mackinder–Mahan debate frames the role of location.
• Alfred T. Mahan → naval power and location build great powers (Britain); he identified strategic choke points whose control commands the sea — Suez, Malacca, the Persian Gulf.
• Mackinder → whoever controls the “heartland” controls the world.
• England’s location, surrounded by water, gave it strategic advantage; Afghanistan’s location made it the centre of the ‘Great Game’. The English Channel built British naval and imperial power; 19th-century US isolationism rested on favourable geography.
• Landlocked states, tropical states and those bordering a superpower are less self-sufficient than those with warm-water ports or temperate location.
• Geography’s importance has declined with technology and communication — large water bodies are no longer absolute barriers — but it still shapes foreign policy deeply.
• Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson → geography is not a permanent, unchanging factor, nor is technology the key to dominance; it is not even a good predictor of wealth or power. South Asia is the least economically integrated region in the world — not because of geography or technology, but owing to many other factors.

Geography and Indian foreign policy

• Ambassador Rajiv Sikri → both “India” and “Hindustan” have a geographical origin — named after the people beyond the River Indus (Sindhu).
• Blessed with abundant resources, India was a self-contained, self-satisfied, rich civilisation with nothing to gain from foreign forays → a defensive mindset; it did not craft a strategy to tackle foreign threats.
• Hence George Tanham argues India lacks a ‘strategic culture’ or a ‘grand strategy’ like the US or China. Tanham linked geography and strategy, but was largely repeating the criticisms of Indian isolationism and exceptionalism described by K.M. Panikkar.
• Long coastline and the Indian Ocean → a strategic edge to naval power; the busiest sea lane of communication; the shift of the global theatre to the Indo-Pacific; India can become a “net security provider” with a blue-water navy.
• Land boundaries with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar → frosty relations with China and Pakistan shape regional policy (SAARC, BIMSTEC, Neighbourhood First).

“One can change one’s friends, but not neighbours.” · “We can change our history but not our geography.”

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

• India connects South Asia with West, Central, South-East and East Asia → opportunities for trade, and security challenges from terrorism and instability.
• K. Subrahmanyam → a strategic equalizer can be achieved through advanced technologies — which the West has denied India — against those who claim that power and national security rest essentially on geographic factors.
• Duqm Port (Oman) and Sabang Port (Indonesia) secured in 2018; US naval presence at Diego Garcia; India and France in Djibouti — the contest for choke points.
• K.M. Panikkar and Shivshankar Menon → geography compels engagement with neighbours, management of border conflicts, and a strong naval presence. Proximity to Pakistan and China drives use of Kautilya’s Mandala logic — strategic convergence with Afghanistan, outreach to counter China.
• Peninsular projection and control of the Indian Ocean → maritime security, Act East, and the aspiration of net security provider. The National Movement and geography together balance idealism with pragmatic regional considerations.

History as a Determinant · Panchsheel

History has a prominent impact because officials rely, consciously or unconsciously, on their understanding of the past to address the present. Used properly, historical knowledge helps understand other peoples, gives perspective, and grants access to the wisdom of predecessors. Policy cannot be made on history alone, but it would be foolish to ignore what history offers.

• David Malone, C. Raja Mohan and Srinath Raghavan → history explains a good deal of Indian foreign policy — not only in the post-independence period, but even today. India’s location at Asia’s crossroads and its peninsular projection made it a natural transit point of trade.
• India never mounted aggressive campaigns for territorial expansion, even after being targeted by repeated invasions → a pacifist outlook expressed through the Panchsheel principles.
• Bitter experience with imperialism and colonialism bred lasting suspicion of Western hegemony (now led by the United States), and predisposed Nehru towards import-substituting industrialisation in a public-sector-dominated mixed economy.

Panchsheel — the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence

First formally enunciated in the Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet region of China and India, signed on 29 April 1954 (Jawaharlal Nehru and Zhou Enlai).

1. Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty
2. Mutual non-aggression
3. Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs
4. Equality and mutual benefit
5. Peaceful co-existence

History and Indian foreign policy

• The legacy of an ancient civilisation → Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the whole world is one family), drawn from the scriptures and from figures like Swami Vivekananda. The values that shaped policy: tolerance, non-violence, universal brotherhood.

Pacifism is “the deliberate acceptance of a method of approach to foreign policy problems which emphasised reconciliation, and the temper of peace, as opposed to a spirit of revenge and hatred.”

A. Appadorai

• British rule had a two-fold impact (A. Appadorai): the national freedom movement led to support for the freedom of colonial peoples — championing de-colonisation in Africa and a strong stance against apartheid; and the British practice of racial inequality committed India to rooting out racial discrimination.
• Socialist and communist strands within the national movement helped India appreciate ideologies beyond liberalism → cooperation with liberal democracies without opposing the socialist countries.
• Non-alignment flows from the ideals of the freedom struggle, with philosophical foundations in the Buddhist Madhyam Marg (Golden Mean). Freedom-struggle ideals also produced the co-founding of NAM, solidarity with the Afro-Asian world, and continued support for a two-state solution on Palestine.
• India inherited treaties, agreements and boundaries and treated them as sacrosanct — both India and Pakistan accepted the obligations of 627 treaties signed by the British.
• India also inherited the foreign policy establishment and British notions of neighbourhood relations. The neighbours’ perception that India plays the role of big brother in South Asia is a British legacy too.
• The baggage of legacy persists → some border tensions with Pakistan and China are British legacies; geography, ethnicity and economic viability were ignored in drawing the boundaries.
• Ancient scholars like Kautilya left a realist legacy — raja mandala siddhant, shad-gunya siddhant — still guiding India’s protection of national interest. Nehru used force to expel the Portuguese from Goa (1961); Indira Gandhi’s realism was visible in the creation of Bangladesh (1971).
• Even today India seeks strategic autonomy over alliance with any major power.

Culture as a Determinant

Culture is a relatively new entrant in foreign policy debates. Realists — Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, John Mearsheimer — accorded it little importance. It gained prominence only after the Gramscian focus on hegemony and Joseph Nye’s emphasis on soft power.

• Culture has a subtle but powerful impact on how states and leaders behave → it provides ways of thinking, seeing and interpreting the world; cross-cultural settings such as foreign policy-making carry the potential for clashes.
• The strategic culture of a country bears the imprint of its civilisational values — India’s pacifism owes to a civilisational legacy of not being an invader, and a spiritual orientation towards non-violence in Jainism and Buddhism.
• A state with a unified culture and shared history can pursue an effective foreign policy through consensus; cultural and historical cleavages weaken it.

Culture and Indian foreign policy

• Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam → tolerance, non-violence, universal brotherhood. A. Appadorai → pacifism and non-violence come from an emphasis on reconciliation and peace over revenge and hatred.
• Pluralism and tolerance → a preference for sovereignty and caution in condemning the internal actions of other states — scepticism over condemning Russia’s actions in Crimea, a calibrated stance on Syria and Yemen; occasional intervention to secure the diaspora.

“Some of the characteristics and practices of Hindu civilization have a very noticeable influence on Indian attitudes and policies today. Among these are a kind of otherworldly attitude towards life and emphasis on non-material factors, and a ‘spirit of tolerance, detachment and meditation and compromise which perhaps is best exemplified in Buddhism.’”

N.D. Palmer

• Ideals of liberty, equality, democracy and socialism entered nationalist leaders through Western education and the Soviet experiment.
• India’s spiritualistic view of politics and power in Gandhi, Aurobindo and Tagore → world peace, peaceful means, keeping aloof from power-politics and military alliances; internationalism.
• Culture as a tool of foreign policy (soft power) → PM Modi’s success in having the UN mark an International Day of Yoga.
• Caution → culture as a means must not become chauvinism and hatred, as under the Pan-German concept that culminated in the World Wars.

Philosophical foundations — the settled list

• Moored in civilisational beliefs of peace, tolerance and One World (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam); guiding principles → Panchsheel, pragmatism, and the pursuit of national interest.
• Inspiration from Gandhi’s non-violence, moral behaviour and Satyagraha, and from the teachings of the Buddha and the Vedic tradition.
• Non-alignment → maintaining independence by not joining any military bloc; philosophical roots in the Buddhist Madhyam Marg.
• Anti-colonialism and anti-racism → support for Indonesia, opposition to apartheid, backing China’s inclusion in the UN.
• Peaceful settlement of disputes → enshrined in the Directive Principles; reflected in India’s stand on the Ukraine war.
• Foreign economic aid and a just world order → decolonisation, UN peacekeeping, disaster relief (Nepal, Turkey), vaccine support during the pandemic.
• Later expressions → the NAM doctrine, the Gujral Doctrine, Neighbourhood First, No First Use, South–South cooperation.

Peaceful co-existence as the cornerstone — and the counter-view

• The primary task of foreign policy → the country’s security, territorial integrity, and a peaceful external environment. At its heart lies Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, guided by the values of Buddhism and Gandhian non-violence.
• Panchsheel (Sino-Indian Agreement, 1954) → the Five Principles later became the basis for non-alignment and gave concrete expression to the UN Charter.
• Even amid persistent aggression from China in the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean, India has sought amicable resolution. With Pakistan, India has consistently used UN platforms and democratic means to highlight cross-border terrorism.
• Independent and rational stands despite pressure — the Ukraine crisis — reflect peaceful co-existence with strategic autonomy; a constructive role in bringing rival blocs and countries together, and global good during the pandemic.
• Critical view → peaceful co-existence now coexists with a firmer, more risk-taking posture, showing continuity of principle alongside pragmatic adaptation.

Social Structure as a Determinant

Social structure characterises the nature of social relations among sections of society and the degree of conflict and harmony between them. It influences foreign policy indirectly, and changes in it change policy over the long term.

• A state with racial, religious, linguistic, class or ethnic cleavages struggles to secure cooperation from all sections. A homogeneous society produces a more coherent, even aggressive, foreign policy — Britain stood as one under Churchill in the Second World War because of social solidarity.
• Nehru → the foreign policy of a nation is an extension of domestic policy. Civilisational values imbibed in society guide the objectives and the means — non-alignment, Panchsheel, and the rise of soft power.

Shared ethnicity — distrust rather than strength

• The Tamil factor → rough patches with Sri Lanka; it even prevented the PM’s CHOGM visit.
• The Madhesi factor → distrust and anti-India feeling in Nepal; impact on constitution-making.
• India’s Palestine policy → shaped by the sentiments of minorities. Talmiz Ahmad counters that domestic determinants should not be exaggerated — it was energy, rather than ethnicity, that shaped India’s West Asia policy.
• The Muslim connection with West Asia; a large migrant population in the Gulf (the Kerala–Gulf link); the Sikh and Punjabi community in Canada — India–Canada relations embroiled in pro-Khalistan protests.
• Social structure is not the only determinant — world order, the structure of international politics, and the legitimacy enjoyed by the political elite also matter. India’s young demography pushes a focus on trade, investment and employment.

Economy as a Determinant

As per Sanjay Baru, economic performance and capability are a necessary — though by no means sufficient — foundation of political, diplomatic and military power. The implosion of the Soviet Union under economic failure, and the rise of China on rapid growth, both bear this out.

• A weak economy leads to dependency and loss of sovereignty; a strong economy gives a strategic edge and soft power (China’s chequebook diplomacy). India and others run ODA programmes to build soft power.
• Industrially advanced countries show complex interdependence (Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye) through high trade value; big pockets (US, China) fund external aid, military ventures and diplomacy.
• Economically developed countries possess greater military capability and exert greater influence. China’s ascendancy is challenging US hegemony → talk of Cold War 2.0 and the Thucydides Trap.

The Indian economy and foreign policy

• Sanjay Baru → from its inception, Indian foreign policy was shaped by two potentially contradictory imperatives: addressing India’s developmental needs, and the urge to inspire anti-colonial struggles and play a leadership role in the developing world.
• As a poor, agrarian society desperate to industrialise, India needed good ties with capital-surplus industrial economies → the architects combined the ‘idealism’ of a post-colonial republic with the ‘realism’ a backward economy’s developmental needs demanded.
• Post-independence India adopted a mixed economy; heavy dependence on oil brought focus on West Asia; economic conditions pushed advocacy for easing disparities at the WTO and World Bank, and South–South cooperation.
• Economic compulsions → India–China bilateral trade reached an all-time high of about US$125 billion in 2021–22 despite border tensions and frosty relations.

The neoliberal outlook — how far has it gone?

• Neoliberal foreign policy → states minimise regulation and facilitate seamless trade; through complex interdependence (Keohane and Nye), peace is sustained.
• Indian foreign policy began with Nehruvian idealism and economic isolation; the 1991 LPG reforms forced the private sector to look for markets abroad (Andres Velasco).
• Neoliberal markers → Look East (1993), India–Africa Summits, mending ties with the US, use of the WTO for services, FTAs, and the creation of the NDB and AIIB. Deeper trade architecture → DTAAs, transfer-pricing agreements, Act East and Connect Central Asia.
• Continuities that qualify the shift → South–South cooperation, and egalitarian positions at the WTO, the UN and climate forums.
• The realist streak persists → surgical strikes, Doklam, Galwan; caution over RCEP and BRI; multi-alignment and strategic autonomy.
• Kanti Bajpai → despite realism and idealism, the neoliberal position predominates in India’s pragmatic foreign policy.
• Verdict → the neoliberal outlook is increasingly visible but is not the single decisive factor; India cannot be a prisoner to one stream of thought.

Leadership as a Determinant

Structural realism neglects the personality factor, but it was soon recognised that actors significantly influence how foreign policy is conducted → neoclassical realism brought actor-level analysis back in.

• Thucydides in the Peloponnesian War contrasted the cautious, pragmatic Pericles with the reckless adventurer Alcibiades, who abandoned Pericles’s plan and led Athens to ruin.
• Machiavelli (The Prince), Sun Tzu (The Art of War) and Kautilya (Arthashastra) all show how individual action secures the success of the state.
• James Rosenau → personality, or idiosyncratic factors, has a deep influence on the planning and execution of foreign policy.
• Leadership is constrained by governmental and social structure; its role is more significant in less industrialised nations. Laura Neack → a political leader is motivated by two goals: to retain political power, and to build and maintain policy coalitions.

The Indian experience

• Jawaharlal Nehru → internationalist in outlook, an enlightened rather than self-centred approach; commitment to world peace and disarmament, with Panchsheel as its typical expression.
• Indira Gandhi → strong and decisive, pragmatic and sensitive to national interest → a reorientation towards realism (Bangladesh, non-accession to the NPT, ties with the USSR).
• Atal Bihari Vajpayee → the reputed qualities of a moderate shaped engagement with Pakistan and the United States.

Domestic Milieu as a Determinant

The domestic milieu — the nature of the governing system, political culture, party policies, public opinion, tradition, and the structure of government and leadership — is an important determinant.

• The most important factor in decision-making is the political environment in which the head of government operates; the political system fixes the head’s scope and power.
• The nature of legislature–executive relations bears heavily on foreign policy — harmony is a source of strength, discord a hindrance; the party system, elections and the electorate also matter.
• The organisation and structure of government shapes policy — in a centralised, authoritarian system, foreign policy often remains isolated from the domestic environment.
• Devesh Kapur → public opinion is the least understood factor: largely acquiescent (latent) or implicitly supportive, but it can be ‘primed’ and strategically manipulated. The information revolution has raised its importance.

Domestic milieu in India

• A syncretic culture of ‘unity in diversity’; a parliamentary democracy giving representation to divergent groups; foreign policy a prerogative of the executive, yet Parliament influences it on occasion.
• National consensus cuts across parties → non-alignment as a core principle for all.
• Differences persist → Parliament was vocal on the China boundary and the Goa question in the late 1950s, and pressed the government to deplore the American action against Iraq in 2003.
• Parties, national and regional, take positions in their manifestos → DMK, AIADMK, MDMK (Sri Lanka), the National Conference (Pakistan).
• The Civil Nuclear Deal of 2008 → anti-US Left Front parties threatened to withdraw support.
• The Public Diplomacy Division was created within the MEA in 2006 to shape public opinion.

Defence and Security as a Determinant

Since the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), sovereignty has been central to international politics. The sanctity of territorial borders is the most respected principle → nations build preponderant military capability. Hans Morgenthau treats security as a core and permanent national interest.

• A credible military capability acts as a deterrent → nuclear weapons, alliances, collective defence (NATO), intelligence networks and counterterrorism cooperation.
• Questions of defence and security form part of a country’s strategic culture. Harsh V. Pant → cultural elements of the domestic environment shape national security interests and policies.
• The incessant acquisition of power can create a ‘security dilemma’ and an arms race, reducing security.

Security and Indian foreign policy

• Both external military threats and internal challenges are core concerns; the weight of security in Indian foreign policy has varied with individual, domestic and systemic factors.
• Harsh V. Pant → India’s behaviour has confounded observers by deviating from the ‘norm’ set by other major powers; Indian foreign and security policy has been deemed incoherent and inconsistent; Indian elites treat ‘strategic autonomy’ as central, with non-alignment as an instrument towards it.

George K. Tanham — the six policies India evolved for its strategic dilemmas

1. Prevent small neighbours from soliciting hostile external support.
2. Deny Pakistan the potential to challenge Indian predominance on the sub-continent.
3. Develop resources to fight a two-front war and achieve “power equivalence” with China.
4. Close relations with the Soviet Union to counter China and Pakistan.
5. Naval capabilities to deny any extra-regional power a meaningful presence in the Indian Ocean.
6. Approach world-power status through nuclear and missile capabilities and a blue-water navy, while seeking recognition as a great nation rather than a superpower.

• Tanham wrote in 1992; Harsh V. Pant holds that not much has changed in strategic thinking, and that India needs clearer strategic thought.
• The concept of security has changed → with a focus on human security, newer dimensions have entered: climate, food, energy, counterterrorism and the global commons.
• Kanti Bajpai → India’s national security strategy must include the global commons; its priorities should be (i) the safety of the planet, (ii) arresting climate change and preventing epidemics, (iii) stabilising the global economy, and (iv) global political stability, non-proliferation, the demilitarisation of outer space and freedom of the high seas.
• Internal security → cooperation with the US, Israel, Japan, France, and institutions like the UN and INTERPOL.

The historical trajectory of security

• Nehru’s ideational foreign policy gave little consideration to the security dimension → Tanham’s charge of a missing strategic culture.
• Sumit Ganguly → the commitment to non-alignment limited high defence expenditure; India’s policymakers ignored systemic constraints and chose an explicitly ideational policy with mostly disastrous consequences, leaving India unprepared for the 1962 war with China.
• Pakistan allied with the USA in 1954 to balance India → India’s tilt towards the Soviet Union.
• After 1962 → a realistic turn; under Indira Gandhi, a strategic partnership with the USSR, and close ties with Britain and France.
• The 1990s → weakened ties with newly formed Russia; India began looking East and West; matured relations with Israel.
• Nuclear weapons policy → 1974 (peaceful) and 1998 tests with sanctions; by 2008, the Civil Nuclear Deal and the NSG waiver; India is reconsidering No First Use in response to Pakistan’s tactical nuclear arsenal.
• Net security provider → the Quad, a blue-water navy, BIMSTEC, Project Mausam, IORA; the pivot to the US (LEMOA, the 2015 US–India Joint Strategic Vision), while pursuing strategic autonomy and multi-alignment (the S-400 deal despite US unease).

Pakistan after Pathankot — the shift

• Stephen P. Cohen → the India–Pakistan conflict is a “paired minority conflict” — each side views itself as threatened and vulnerable, which drives their respective postures.
• Since the January 2016 attack on the Pathankot air base, India has held that talks and terror cannot go together, asking for credible action against terror groups.
• Post-Pathankot → surgical strikes after Uri; pre-emptive non-military strikes at Balakot after Pulwama → a shift from a principle-based to a more transactional trajectory.
• Harsh V. Pant → India has shattered the myth of Pakistani nuclear capability and opened the possibility of a limited conventional war, putting the onus of escalation back on Pakistan.
• Beyond military measures → the International Court of Justice and the Financial Action Task Force used to build pressure.
• PM Modi has infused Indian foreign policy with a measure of risk-taking, unlike the risk aversion of the past. Foreign policies rarely alter radically with a change of government, but the assumptions that had governed India’s engagements have been fundamentally challenged.
• Critical view → Neelam Deo argues the hawkish stance towards Pakistan is yet to show any enduring gain.

International Situation as a Determinant

The broad currents of international politics have a direct bearing on foreign policy. The nature of the power structure in the international system influences every state’s policy; the difficulty is that states cannot control the behaviour of others.

• Inter-war years (1919–39) → the quest for French security, and the rise of fascism, Nazism and militarism.
• The Cold War (1945–90) → a bipolar order with ideological confrontation; the domino effect and containment (the Truman Doctrine, NATO, SEATO).
• End of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union → a unipolar order; socialism receded.
• Complex interdependence under globalisation, MNCs and IGOs; rising sensitivity to terrorism, human rights and self-determination.
• The 21st century → a shift towards a multipolar order with many regional hegemons (China, India, Russia, South Africa, Brazil).

India and the international environment

• Non-alignment → a direct response to Cold War polarisation.
• Nuclear disarmament → arising from the threat to human civilisation; the tests of 1974 (Smiling Buddha) and 1998 answered an international order that dismissed disarmament and sanctified an inequitable nuclear hierarchy.
• The Soviet disintegration → less enthusiasm for NAM, accommodation of American concerns, full ties with Israel, and an economic emphasis in relations.
• Post-Cold War → terrorism and human rights forced adjustments; J&K-related allegations caused difficulty in global forums.
• 9/11 → an opportunity to push India’s anti-terror policy and pressure Pakistan. Covid-19 → vaccine diplomacy as soft power.
• The Russia–Ukraine war → policymakers walking a tightrope, balancing the US (an emerging strategic partner) and Russia (a reliable partner).

External determinants of any state’s foreign policy

Foreign policy is not shaped in isolation: it results from interaction with, and reaction to, a multitude of external factors — the system level of analysis, where the international system is the cause and state behaviour the effect.