IMAGE: PTI
When great powers flex their muscles, they usually prefer to do so in unambiguous ways. Think of American aircraft carriers patrolling the Taiwan Strait or Chinese coastguard vessels swarming disputed reefs. India, the world’s most populous nation and its fourth-largest economy, chooses a different path. It is neither a classic great power nor a mere regional actor. Rather than choosing one side, India occupies a strategic in-between space among global powers. This is not a sign of weakness. In fact that is an intentional decision. India is becoming, what analysts call, a master of “liminality”.
The term, borrowed from anthropology, describes a transitional state between two fixed positions. In geopolitics, it means a deliberate embrace of ambiguity. India refuses formal, binding alliances that might entangle it in others’ conflicts. It maintains working relationships with rivals such as China and Pakistan while deepening partnerships with America, the European Union as well as Japan. It is a member of the Quad, a grouping with Australia, Japan and America aimed at countering Chinese influence. Meanwhile it also participates in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a security dialogue led by China and Russia. It joins minilaterals like the I2U2 forum (with Israel, the United Arab Emirates and America) and trilateral initiatives with France and the UAE. This is a strategy of distributed leverage.
Geography and history dictate its approach. Unlike America, buffered by vast oceans, India shares a long, contested border with China and a perpetually tense one with Pakistan. Direct conflict is a constant risk. The legacy of colonialism and Cold War non-alignment has instilled a strong preference for what its officials call “strategic autonomy”. The goal is to ensure no side can be picked without India’s consent. This means a careful blend of détente and deterrence with Beijing, and a foreign policy that seeks to manage competition without provoking confrontation.
Economic heft provides the foundation for such manoeuvring. With a GDP of $4.2trn, India is on course to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2028. This growth fuels defence spending, now over $86bn a year, and ambitious indigenous manufacturing programmes for weaponry. It also underwrites a digital revolution. India’s “stack” of public digital infrastructures, particularly its ubiquitous instant-payment system, UPI, is a model for emerging economies. Investments in artificial intelligence and semiconductors seek to lessen technological dependency. Economic weight grants negotiating clout in global forums like climate finance and trade.
Military modernisation follows a similar dual track. India is expanding its nuclear and conventional forces; yet it cannot hope to match China alone. Rather it uses defence exports and technology partnerships as strategic tools. Selling weapons or co-developing systems with partners in South-East Asia and the Gulf creates networks of dependency and influence, enhancing security ties without the baggage of a formal alliance. The “Make in India” push for defence serves economic as well as geopolitical ends.
Critics, particularly some American strategists, see danger in this liminal strategy. They argue that India’s reluctance to fully align with the West undermines efforts to contain Chinese expansionism. By championing a multipolar world, they warn, India risks empowering the very autocracies that threaten its own security. Strategic autonomy, in this view, could become strategic isolation at an importnt moment. The counter-argument, articulated by India’s policymakers, is that unambiguous alignment would forfeit the country’s unique bargaining power and might even provoke the aggression it seeks to deter. In a fractured world, they say, flexibility is a form of strength.
India’s trajectory suggests it is playing a long game. Its rise will be multifaceted, driven as much by digital-public-goods diplomacy in Africa as by jet-fighter sales. Its greatest trouble is to sustain the domestic economic transformation that underwrites its global aspirations while steering through an increasingly treacherous neighbourhood. For the moment, though, India seems content and adept at operating in the shadows between the spotlights. ■
