Great powers, defined as those who enjoy global economic, political and military reach, do not demand autonomy. They simply enjoy it and constrain the autonomy of others.

In the absence of a world government, it is the function of great powers to construct and sustain a measure of order in international affairs. Put another way, great powers define rules for the rest.

Weaker states tend to accept the rules, given the knowledge that a rule-based order serves their interests better than anarchy. It is only large states with national ambitions to improve their relative power position which insist on their freedom of action.

The emphasis on strategic autonomy was natural for an India that emerged out of colonial rule in the middle of the last century. Yet the nation’s founding fathers had a vision for India’s decisive future role in world affairs. As a weak post-colonial state, India had a strong motivation to prevent other powers from limiting its own room for manoeuvre. It therefore refused to abide by rules it considered discriminatory or unequal.

Six decades later, as India inches towards becoming the world’s third largest economy, there is little reason for it to obsess about strategic autonomy. As India ineluctably acquires great power capabilities, it will have to accept the responsibility to shape the international system and share the costs of managing it.

It might be too much to expect that the UPA government, which wants to serve its time out rather than exercise power, will give us a sense of how India hopes to engineer this great foreign policy transformation.

... contd.