Polaris A Takshashila Institution Blog on International Politics and Security

Stability in one’s region is not necessarily a prerequisite for power projection.

One of the few points of consensus at a conference on India I helped organise in February was that India would find it difficult to escape its region unless it were able to establish peaceful relations with (and stability within) the countries in its immediate neighbourhood, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The feeling was that India would be tethered by disputes with these smaller states, and adversely affected by the instability spilling over from them. This would, in turn, compromise India’s great power ambitions. A similar logic underlies Pakistan’s longstanding policy of attempting to destabilise India through asymmetric and unconventional means.

This observation may seem obvious. The United States’ rapid rise in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was undoubtedly helped by the establishment of stable relations with its neighbours to the north (British Canada) and to the south (Mexico), after over a century of regular warfare. The Soviet Union only became a superpower after World War II resulted in both a power vacuum and bipolar stability to both its west and east.

But there are enough examples of the opposite being true—of great powers rising despite the complexities of their regions—to question the reliability of this dictum of political history.

Exhibit A. Europe. For much of modern history, the only powers capable of global reach were located in Europe: Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, England, France, and subsequently Germany and Italy. The close proximity of these states to one another, and the presence of strong second-tier states in their immediate vicinities, meant that at no time were the fates of these countries secure at home. This did not stop any of them from seeking conquests and projecting power on multiple continents. The most dramatic example may be that of Portugal, whose zenith came to an abrupt end after it came under the rule of the King of Spain. Even England/Great Britain, as it expanded its massive empire in the 17th and 18th centuries, was busy subjugating Ireland, putting down periodic Jacobite uprisings, and fending off an insecure France.

Exhibit B. Japan. The rise of Japan in the late 19th century after the Meiji Restoration coincided with unstable politics at home and in the region. Nine years into the new era, the Japanese ruling oligarchy had to crush the Satsuma Rebellion in the south. Japan went on to fight wars against China and Russia, and annexed Korea and Formosa (Taiwan). In 1941, when it attacked Pearl Harbor, Japan was still waging a war in its immediate vicinity in China.  In the midst of almost continuous regional conflict, Japan was accorded all the trappings of a great power, including seats at the League of Nations and the Washington Naval Conference.

Exhibit C. China. The growth of China is a remarkable story, but once again it has come despite—not because of—its political relationships with its neighbours. Certainly, China has not had a significant conflict since 1979 and it has settled many of its land boundary disputes. However, it continues to have uneasy relations with almost all its neighbours, including a sizeable dispute with its largest regional competitor, India. It also has one of the most unstable states in the world—North Korea—immediately bordering it. And the military presence of the world’s preeminent power in its region severely limits its actions. None of this, however, has stopped China’s rapid rise.

India’s relations with states in its region, and the varying degrees of political instability in each, is not something to be swept under the table or become inured to. But at the same time, it is premature to suggest that India’s region alone will constrain its growth, and its ability to play a more active role on the world stage.