For the past quarter-century, “the United States has sought to help India rise as a great power,” correctly reasoning “that a stronger India would make for a stronger United States,” writes Ashley Tellis in a new essay in the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs. New Delhi’s goals do not always align with Washington’s, however. India “seeks a multipolar international system” that would restrain not just China, its primary rival, “but also any country that would aspire to singular, hegemonic dominance, including the United States.”
The problem for New Delhi is that its strategy “may not be effective or even realistic,” Tellis argues. “Although India has grown in economic strength over the last two decades, it is not growing fast enough to balance China, let alone the United States.” New Delhi will continue to need Washington to constrain Beijing, making its efforts to promote “a multipolar system that would limit Washington’s power” counterproductive. Even as India grows “undeniably stronger” in the coming decades, Tellis concludes, its “relative weakness, its yearning for multipolarity, and its illiberal trajectory mean that it will have less global influence than it desires.”
|
