| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper is rumination on a theme: How does India's sense of itself shapes its foreign policy? A reflective piece on this theme might be doomed from the start: aligning a conception of national identity with foreign policy might be the equivalent of trying to explore the relationship between an uncertain object and a moving target. Foreign policy and concomitant strategic thinking is so often the product of so many contradictory pulls and pressures. To discern a design in it may be more an act of retrospective reinterpretation than a description of actual intent. This is particularly true in the case of India, where the gap between aspiration and ability, and a deeply contentious domestic politics, make the articulation of long term objectives an extremely tricky business. Foreign policy is also an area where the gap between a nation's self image and the reality of its actions is often so pronounced that linking the two might seem an odd enterprise indeed.
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