1、EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThis report uses a novel alternative futures methodology to demonstrate that Indias strategic preferences are not fixed but could vary discontinuously under different environmental conditions.MAIN ARGUMENTThe method of major/minor trends developed in this report suggests that the ro

2、ots of apparently surprising future behavior can be found in a close reading of a target states history. Using this method, the report outlines three unlikely but plausible alternative futures of India as a strategic actor. The first scenario envisions India as a Hindu-nationalist revisionist power

3、hostile to Pakistan but accommodating of China; in the second, it is a militarily risk-acceptant state that provokes dangerous crises with China; and in the third scenario, India is a staunch competitor to China that achieves some success through partnerships with other U.S. rivals like Russia and I

4、ran. These scenarios are designed not to predict the future but to sensitize U.S. policymakers to possible strategic disruptions. They also serve to highlight risks and tensions in current policy.POLICY IMPLICATIONSThe scenarios yield at least three major analytic insights that are relevant for toda

5、ys policymakers:India will continue to face difficult trade-offs in managing security threats from Pakistan and China. A redoubled strategic focus on Pakistan will almost certainly come at the expense of Indian capacity to compete with China in the Indian Ocean region.A more confident and risk-accep

6、tant Indian military may inadvertently pose strategic threats to the U.S. The U.S. may feel compelled to support India in future crises involving China; or even absent such a commitment trap, India-China crises are likely to jeopardize regional stability.To effectively compete with China, the U.S. m

7、ust prioritize its interests and adversaries. Successful competition against China may require the U.S. to tolerate or even tacitly support other erstwhile rivals.What kind of power will India be? The U.S. gaze has turned to India like never before,driven by two key factors. First, the strategic com

8、petition with China means that the United States recognizes the need to mobilize help from all of its potential partners. Second, India itself, albeit fitfully, is becoming a power of material consequence.Within years, the country went from being a part of “the most dangerous place in the world,” as

9、 President Bill Clinton called South Asia, to being “indispensable” for global security and prosperity, as President Barack Obama put it.1 For American strategists, the most common concern about India is whether it will fulfill its potential so that this “strategic bet” on India pays off. The United

10、 States has focused on accelerating Indias growth and plugging the country into U.S. systems, concepts, and perhaps eventually plans. While U.S. observers commonly question its capabilities,U.S. officials declare that India will naturally complement U.S. strategy because of shared values Indians spe

11、ak English, practice a form of imperfect democracy, and have signed on enthusiastically to a vision for a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” U.S. policy assumes Indian strategic preferences are stable and sees little risk that India might challenge U.S. security interests.A close reading of history, howe

12、ver, suggests that India contains multitudes. The British economist Joan Robinson suggests that “whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true.”2 This is the peace-loving nation of Gandhi that did not flinch in using force to consolidate its control over Junagadh, Hyderabad, Ka

13、shmir, Goa, and Siachen; and it is the status quo power that used a war to split Pakistan in half. This is the “nonaligned” power that abjured the Cold War while signing a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union; and it is the power that proclaimed its strategic autonomy while seeking the technol

14、ogical dividends of partnership with the United States. Indias strategic futures will be just as contradictory and complex.In this report, I identify another set of challenges for American strategists: aside from merely questionable capabilities, what happens if Indias strategic preferences shift? I

15、 use a novel methodology to illustrate alternative futures of India as a strategic actor over the next two decades, focusing on futures that may pose an unforeseen challenge to U.S. security interests. This in no sense suggests that such futures are likelythey are decidedly unlikelybut U.S. strategi

16、sts should consider them plausible. I analyze three scenarios: first, a revisionist India driven by Hindu-nationalist ideology, which may severely complicate U.S. efforts to counterbalance China; second, a risk-acceptant Indian military that engages in brinkmanship, which may endanger strategic stab

17、ility with both Pakistan and China; and third, an India that expands its competition with China into continental Eurasia, making common cause with U.S. rivals such as Russia and Iran.The Method of Major/Minor TrendsAlternative futures analysis offers a powerful tool to sensitize decision-makers to a

18、 range of possible futures. By generating hypothetical scenarios, with the explicit understanding that they are not necessarily the most likely, alternative futures can reveal possibilities that1 Jonathan Marcus, “The Worlds Most Dangerous Place?” BBC News, March 23, 2000, HYPERLINK http:/news.bbc.c

19、o.uk/2/hi/south_asia/687021.stm%3B http:/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/687021.stm; and “Joint Statement by President Obama and Prime Minister Singh of India,” White House, Office of the Press Secretary, November 8, 2010, /the-press-office/2010/11/08/joint-statement-president-obama-and-prime-ministe

20、r-singh-india.2 Quoted by Amartya Sen, “Contrary India,” Economist, November 18, 2005.EXPLORING INDIAS STRATEGIC FUTURES u TARAPORE 3cognitive biases had earlier obscured.3 There are several methods of alternative futures analysis. They generally involve a creative exercise of brainstorming, from wh

21、ich a futures analyst may inductively derive the key variables shaping the future and use combinations of those variables to generate differing scenarios. Some methods, such as “quadrant crunching,” deliberately invert assumptions or assessments to generate counterintuitive outcomes or detect “unkno

22、wn unknowns.”4 Regardless of the specific method, they generally rely on a creative process that hinges on imaginationthinking that is deliberately detached from empirical realityand the structured generation of hypotheticals.In contrast, the method of major/minor trends that I develop in this repor

23、t is based on detailed historical analysis. The method is premised on the insight that future behavioreven surprising future behaviordoes not spring from nowhere but rather evolves from observable past actions, preferences, and constraints. Every future scenario can trace its antecedents in a series

24、 of events, or a “trend.” When a future is not very surprisingthat is, only an incremental evolution from the pastit represents a continuation of the major trend of events, which is generally easily observed and understood through the orthodox narrative of events. When a future is surprising or unan

25、ticipated, it springs from the minor trend, which is characterized by exceptions to the major trend that do not fit the dominant pattern of behavior. Evidence of the minor trend may be dismissed and explained away by contemporaries as infrequent aberrationsa trend only in retrospect.5Surprising futu

26、res occur when that minor trend is catalyzed into a new major trend. Under certain new environmental conditionseither some attributes of the actor or a completely exogenous shockthe actors in question follow new or newly salient incentives, adopting new patterns of behavior. The previously unusual b

27、ecomes the new normal, yielding a surprising future or a paradigm shift. But the new dominant behavior always sprouts from a latent tendencyantecedent actions, preferences, or constraints. Likewise, every new major strain of behavior also accommodates its own exceptions. The new major trend comes wi

28、th a new minor trend. Thus, the major and minor trends occur concurrently: the major trend is readily apparent even to casual observers and is the dominant narrative about a given issue. But the minor trend is also empirically observable to subject-matter experts who know where to look.For example,

29、for two decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States enjoyed a “unipolar moment.” The major trend was defined by an apparent convergence among the great powers. From a more unified Europe to a chastised Russia and a still-developing China, countries bought in to the institutions and regi

30、onal balances of the U.S.-led order, and conflicts were found only on the periphery, usually waged by irregular groups with postmodern grievances. But a minor trend was also emerging: Russia and especially China were preparing for revisionist challenges to U.S. primacy. They were undertaking militar

31、y modernization and doctrinal innovations, which were largely dismissed by the major trend narrative as the marginal tinkering of second-rate powers; they continued to harbor irredentist claims on neighboring territories; they resisted the liberalizing influences of the U.S.-led system. Once catalyz

32、ed by the global financial3 Peter Schwartz, The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1996).4 Richards J. Heuer Jr. and Randolph H. Person, Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011).5 Sever

33、al analysts have suggested that states foreign policies can be understood as a product of several strategic approaches concurrently. One approach likely prevails at any given time, but the others are never completely relinquished. On the United States, see Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: Am

34、erican Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (New York: Knopf, 2001). On India, see Aparna Pande, From Chanakya to Modi: The Evolution of Indias Foreign Policy (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2018).4NBR SPECIAL REPORT u SEPTEMBER 2020crisis of 2008, the minor trend quickly became the major trend.

35、Behaviors that were previously infrequent and ambiguous became the norm. In the second decade of the century, Russia and China had constructed nettlesome anti-access/area-denial strategies that posed serious dilemmas for U.S. military planners; they used subconventional coercion to assert sovereignt

36、y over adjacent territory; and they built political influence at the United States expense, from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. Their shift in behavior was realobservers were not simply interpreting the same actions differentlybut did not spring from nothing. It had antecedents that were clear i

37、n retrospect.For the purposes of alternative futures analysis, the method of major/minor trends comprises four steps. First, using an expert knowledge of subject-matter history, the analyst identifies a key major trend. This is the target states normal or orthodox strategic approach to an issue, as

38、revealed by a consistent pattern of behavior over time. It is usually founded on a set of historical conditions, as well as preferences and constraints, particular to the target. Thus, in the example above the major trend could be described as Russian and Chinese strategic quietude. Both countries o

39、utwardly bought in to U.S.-led institutions like the G-8 and the World Trade Organization and opposed, but did not resist, the global expansion of U.S. military presence. This was based on the underlying historical conditions of their relative economic and military weaknesses.Second, using the same

40、expert knowledge of history, the analyst identifies a corresponding minor trend. This is a less clear pattern of exceptions to the norm, which may be infrequent and in each instance explained away as a contingency or aberration. The minor trend need not be the exact inverse of the major trendsuch bi

41、naries are rare in international relationsbut it usually involves a significant caveat, or a notably different approach, to the same issue. In the example above, the minor trend was Russian and Chinese military preparations, even while they temporarily acquiesced to U.S. primacy. Vladimir Putin and

42、the Chinese Communist Party also consolidated their domestic power, with a watchful eye on the “color” revolutions and liberal globalization.This selection of major and minor trends is the central interpretive task of the method. It requires not only a detailed knowledge of the targets historical re

43、cord but also a social-scientific sensibility to understand the underlying causes of that record. As an alternative futures exercise, identifying major and minor trends is compelling because this method explains why a particular pattern of behavior is dominant, and accordingly why it may be displace

44、d in the future. Russia and China muted their aggressiveness because they were temporarily enfeebled powers. However, they never abjured their anti-U.S. and expansionist impulses but instead quietly built their capabilities until they were ready to act.Third, the analyst builds a future scenario in

45、which the minor trend becomes the major trend, usually catalyzed by exogenous events or processes. The catalyst changes, or perhaps replaces, the original set of historical conditionsin some cases a group of political leaders or a domestic political consensusthat drove the major trend. The shift whe

46、reby the minor trend becomes the major is relatively rapida slow evolution would hold few surprisesand the target state in this scenario now has a new orthodox approach to the issue. In the example above, the scenario took shape after the 2008 global financial crisis following Russias and Chinas per

47、iod of consolidation. Both revisionist powers dropped the charade of buying in to the U.S.-led order and began to carve out their own exceptions to it. They militarily seized adjacent territories, defected from institutionsEXPLORING INDIAS STRATEGIC FUTURES u TARAPORE 5or launched their own, and pro

48、jected their political power from Syria to the Philippines at the expense of the United States.Finally, the analyst assesses the implications of that new approach for U.S. security interests. To complete the example of great-power competition, the United States now finds itself in the position of be

49、ing plausibly contested in key geopolitical regions with no clear technological or doctrinal fixes. Declaring Russia and China to be revisionists, U.S. officials now acknowledge the urgent task of buttressing American power.As with other forms of alternative futures analysis, this is an exercise not

50、 in prediction but in possibilities. Indeed, the method of major/minor trends deliberately eschews more likely scenarios; it does not pretend to offer a representative sample of alternative futures. Rather, by highlighting the minor trend that could be catalyzed into the major trend, it specifically

51、 searches for the less likely, disruptive futures. Minor trends may or may not become the dominant trend; there is certainly nothing inevitable about them. Most of the time, they are nothing but a series of exceptions to the rule that either continue to simmer marginally or dissipate over time. Japa

52、n, for example, never made a bid to challenge U.S. power, despite creeping fears of such a minor trend in the 1980s. It remained wedded to the major trend of being a stalwart U.S. ally. At the same time, to the untrained eye, the minor trend could be obscured in an oversimplified understanding of th

53、e target. Until relatively recently, most policymakers remained hopeful, if not convinced, that engaging China through liberal institutions would co-opt it and neutralize its expansionist preferences. The analytic taskthat which requires subject-matter expertiseis the identification of relevant majo

54、r trends whose corresponding minor trends of exceptions could, if catalyzed, severely disrupt U.S. interests. The value of the exercise, as in all alternative futures analysis, is to find the potential disruptors that may be unlikely but are nevertheless plausible.In the following sections, I outlin

55、e three such alternative Indian strategic futures. For each, Iuse the four-step process outlined above to show that Indias unsure growth in power is not the only uncertainty that U.S. strategists must consider.Scenario 1: The Restoration of Akhand BharatThe first scenario considers a future in which

56、 India takes a revisionist turn. India has traditionally been a status quo power, using force primarily to defend its territory. On occasion, however, it has also consolidated its periphery and seized new land. In this scenario, an aggressive Hindu-nationalist political consensus drives India to pre

57、ss its claims against Pakistan in Kashmir, while accommodating China to maintain a quiet eastern front.Major Trend: Preserving the Territorial Status QuoIndia is a status quo power. It has no irredentist claims or expansionist ambitions to take new territory. Even though thousands of miles of its no

58、rthern borders with both Pakistan and China are disputed, India would happily sanctify the de facto lines of control as the permanent boundary if it had assurances of the other sides commitment. It is, fundamentally, a satisfied power. The threats to its north arise not from a frustrated desire to p

59、ush its borders outward but from the fact that its borders are unsettled, with acquisitive rivals on the other side.6NBR SPECIAL REPORT u SEPTEMBER 2020This status quo position has deep roots in Nehruvian conceptions of sovereignty.6 Even before independence, the Indian National Congress began argui

60、ng that India with self-determination, freed of imperial “jealousies” and competition, would create a zone of stability in South Asia. With its demographic size and civilizational heft, India would be a self-evident great power, with no need to expand and conquer outward territories for the purposes