And your point is ?
" evaluated. In this context, India's search for
great power status through nuclear- military
means might at best be difficult and, at worst,
an exercise in superfluity."
India achieving great power status through nuclear- military means would be a nationalist/machismo ideal. It may have been true a few decades ago. Not anymore. and never will be.
One has to look to china and realise that even after china has stolen it's nuclear arms and missile secrets the US has not done anything to antogonize china. Why ? Because of the trade relations and the fact that the US salivates over the huge chinese market for US goods.
India/indians need to realize this and do accordingly.
India's " search for
great power status through nuclear- military means" has been a blessing in disguise. It serves as a deterrent to pakistan's aspirations of defeating india and annexing territory. Had india pursued a different policy would a nuclear pakistan stop at kargil. The whole world has now accepted that india has genuine security concerns and through kargil it has shown very clearly what the real situation is. For pakistan, it's folly in kargil means that unles they seek a genuinely different direction, (as a mature nuclear power) a country born out of hatred will die out of hatred.
" space technology, defense systems, nuclear engineering, telecommunications, the first three are "holy cows" where cost is no factor, and no one is allowed to question the huge inefficiencies."
'Holy cows' is right and sacred too. Unlike pakistan which got it's nuclear devices and missiles off the shelf with chinese and korean instructions, india largely developed it's technology through R&D. The result now is that, that space technology will allow india to launch it's own telecom, metro... and other countries satellites at fractional costs (as it did recently). The defense systems etc... now allow india to build spares and service existing weapons. Nuclear engg. is now close to being very fruitfull. All of these have helped india in building a large technological/scientific base that will help india in modernizing it's infrastructure and save valuable foreign exchange. |
