Ministry of External Affairs Government of India

Strategic contours of India's Foreign Policy with special focus on India and EU

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  By: Amb (Retd) Bhaswati Mukherjee
  Venue: National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata
  Date: March 28, 2018
  

• A nation’s foreign policy is strongly influenced by the imperatives of its neighborhood, its strategic environment and the perception of its own status in the international community. India’s extended neighborhood, which some analysts define as one of widening concentric circles around a central axis of historical and cultural commonalities, is an appealing definition which is the only rational mean of demonstrating India’s future great power status. Permanent membership of the Security Council flows as a natural concomitant of India’s great power status and its legitimate rights and obligations to ensure international peace and security in an extended regional neighbourhood as well as in the Indian Ocean. India is also proactively pursuing a vigorous multi-lateral agenda, at a time when the world is facing these new challenges, based on its national security templates. In doing so, India is aware that its decision in these areas has a major global impact, as is normal in a globally interlinked world. As a founder Member, India views the UN as a forum that could play a crucial role to guarantee and maintain international peace and security. This has not been an easy task with many new and emerging challenges. India has worked with other partners to strengthen the UN system to combat new global challenges including the situation in the Middle East, rise of ISS, international terrorism, piracy etc.
• The end of the Cold War impacted India's foreign policy since India now had to address multiple new challenges including a unipolar world and the decline of the Nonaligned Movement. India sought new strategic partnerships with the USA and the EU on one hand as well as with emerging economies, notably Brazil and South Africa. India continued to develop its relations with Russian Federation with whom it has a strong military relationship. Israel has emerged as India's second largest military partner. At the same time, India tried to develop relations with its neighbours, through SAARC and bilaterally.
• India had thus to rethink its foreign policy directives, based on its definition of strategic autonomy and its national security interests. Although Non alignment was never formally set aside, there was a reformulation of core pillars of India’s foreign policy in actual terms including building new bridges and establishing new strategic partnerships. Hence, its Look East policy, its relations with ASEAN, its membership of BIMSTEC and its strategic partnership with the USA and the EU. This resulted in the development of new strategic paradigms in Asia and new challenges in managing relations with our neighbours.
• India has formal diplomatic relations with almost all nations, except failed States where governance is to be established or whose government have not been recognized by the United Nations. India does not recognize Kosovo or the TRNC (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus). A nation of 1.3 billion people, India is the world's largest democracy and will soon become the world’s third largest economy with a $ 3 trillion plus economy. A strong candidate for Permanent Membership to the Security Council, India is a nascent global power and a potential superpower. India has a growing international influence and a prominent voice in global affairs. India has a growing international influence and a prominent voice in global affairs. India is a member of important regional groupings including BRICS, IBSA, SAARC and BIMSTEC, G 20, WTO and IMF. India is a permanent dialogue partner of ASEAN.
• The strategic contours of a nation’s foreign policy are based on its national and external security imperatives. In a democracy like ours, it is decided by Parliament. To that extent, there has been continuity in our foreign policy, based on changing imperatives, since 1947. There have, however, been shifts by successive Governments. The foreign policy of our Prime Minister Modi is sometimes referred to as the Modi Doctrine. Basically, it includes the policy initiatives made particularly towards our other strategic partners by the current Government after PM assumed office on 26 May 2014. PM’s foreign policy is currently focused on improving relations with neighboring countries in South Asia, engaging the extended neighborhood in Southeast Asia and the major global powers including USA and EU. India also decided to strengthen its Look East policy.

Pillars of India’s Foreign Policy: Bilateralism versus multilateralism: India at the United Nations


• India has mainly pursued the bilateral approach in its relations with its neighbours, although we have also attempted to cooperate constructively through regional organizations such as SAARC. That engagement through SAARC has been a limited success is due to the complex India-Pakistan relationship. However, other regional initiatives, including the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor mark more successful attempts of India’s efforts to engage with neighborhood to regional fora.
• At the United Nations, India’s multilateralism has been a notable success. India was an original signatory and strong supporter of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights on 10 December 1948 which when adopted by General Assembly established "a common standard of achievement for all peoples and nations”. Permanent membership of the Security Council is an important and legitimate aspiration for India in order to play its rightful role in the maintenance of international peace and security. In its quest for global peace and security, India has played a leadership role in the United Nations General Assembly and in the Security Council. India has been a non-permanent Member of the UN Security Council seven times – 1950-51, 1967-68, 1972-73, 1977-78, 1984-85, 1991-92 and 2011-12. In 2011-12, India received 188 of the 190 votes in the UN General Assembly. India’s Permanent Representative, Ambassador and now Minister Hardeep Puri, chaired the Security Council in 2012.

India and the quest for Permanent Membership of the Security Council


• The UN Security Council does not reflect current political realities. India’s credentials for permanent membership are well documented and recognised. A country of 1.3 billion with 160 million Muslims, India is the world's largest liberal democracy based on rule of law and human rights and world’s largest Muslim population. Its economy is US $ 2.8 trillion. It has also developed a credible nuclear deterrence based on no-first-use. India has an independent capability to place satellites in orbit, including production of the necessary launch vehicle.
• Participation in peace keeping operations is a key element of the credentials required for Permanent Membership in the Security Council. India is also the largest contributor to UN peace keeping operations, having contributed 1,60,000 troops to 43 of 65 of UN peace keeping operations. More than 160 Indian defence and police personnel have laid down their lives serving under the UN blue flag. At present, Indian Armed Forces are part of 7 of the 14 ongoing UN peace keeping missions. The first deployment of Indian Armed Forces was during the Korean War in the 50’s.

India and the EU Dialectics in Operation: Commonalities and Differences


• India EU relations officially date back to the early 1960s. India’s leadership had a clear perspective on building strong relations with the former European Economic Community (EEC), apart from developing strong bilateral relations with individual EU Member States. India was among the first to establish diplomatic relations with the EEC in 1962. Contrary to popular perception within the EU, encouraged by the UK, India never looked at its relations with the EU through the prism of its bilateral relationship with its former colonizer, the United Kingdom. India’s engagement with Europe was a separate and important pillar of its foreign policy.
• Although separated widely by geography as well as history, there are striking parallels in the separate journeys of EU and India. This phenomenon naturally impacts the relationship. Both have gone through a unique process of institution building to balance the rights of their citizens with the need for cohesion; they represent the two largest democracies in the world (if one counts the EU as a single member State even after Brexit); while culturally and linguistically they are among the most diverse regions on the planet. Business and trade relations continue to have the highest priority. The common commitment to democracy and rule of law, to the market economy and to inclusive development, which promotes the welfare of all segments of society through progressive public policy, is a defining factor in the India EU relationship.
• Europe has only recently rediscovered India. The moot question is, when will India rediscover Europe? Does India regard the EU as a significant actor or prefers the bilateral approach? Is it a dialectical relationship? How does USA impact these relations?
• Jean Luc Racine (2004) makes a cynical assessment about the EU-India-US triangular relationship: "Some will deride Europe as a "dowdy old lady", known "for over 400 years, but with "no excitement, no passion" left. The romance is with America, even if it is "tough love" because the US was more open to migrants and is more prone to change the world.”
• What adds complexity to this task is that conceptually India, post 1947, is regarded as a ‘modern state’, with the attributes of sovereignty, territoriality and raison d’état (justification of sovereignty). In contrast, the EU is considered to be a ‘post modern intra state entity’ which does not emphasize sovereignty, separation of domestic and foreign affairs, and which, after Schengen, increasingly regards borders as irrelevant.
• Unlike the EU, India does not believe in promoting its secular, pluralistic and democratic ideology to other states. India does not favour regime change to promote democracy or the RTP (Responsibility to protect). In addition, India has struggled to engage with an over institutionalized and over bureaucratised establishment in Brussels which often gives conflicting and confusing signals on key issues relevant to the relationship.
• The EU has been described as a civilian power, a soft power and now increasingly as a normative power in international relations. These concepts are interlinked and they are the result of the fundamentally different ways in which the Union views the world, as distinguished from India’s global vision. The EU has been described as foreign policy actor intent on shaping, instilling, diffusing and normalizing rules and values in international affairs through non-coercive means. This is an approach quite different from how India engages with the world.
• In this dialectical quest to rediscover each other, the EU needs to assert itself in political, military, cultural, social and economic terms, to avoid becoming marginalized and to regain international attention. The paradox is that while Europe as a geopolitical space is losing its centrality, the EU as an institution is getting more attention. Europe was slow to accept that as a region it had, with the end of the Cold War, lost its centrality in world politics, its strategic importance for the USA and for post Soviet Russia. These developments, along with the rise of India and China, made Europe more vulnerable. Whether European States, leaders and institutions have fully understood the scope of this shift and the risks that it carries is questionable. As Heisbourg (2009) says: "For the EU, the long term trends of global security makes it indispensable to transform what is still seen as a potential security actor into reality, because ‘the weight of not being’ is simply unbearable.”

Diverse Approaches to Multiple Challenges


• The evolution of a multi faceted and multi dimensional relationship was not an easy one. Europe and India are both similar and dissimilar. Modern Europe can trace its origins to the French Revolution of 1789 and the clarion call for ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’. India’s freedom struggle also led to the establishment of the world’s largest democratic, multi cultural, multi religious and multi ethnic state’s based on liberty, equality, fraternity, human rights for its citizens and rule of law.
• India and Europe, while facing many challenges after the end of World War II, continue to have different approaches, based on differing perceptions of the world order and their place in the global community. Both had to rethink their place in the world and re-examine their relationships with new and emerging global players. Except for UK and France, no EU Member State is a permanent member of the Security Council. UK is out of the EU. Will that change EU’s role in shaping international events?
• India and EU are combating similar challenges in the form of international terrorism, terrorist networks and sleeper cells as well as the threat of global Islamic fundamentalism. Unlike India, Europe is also facing another threat from within: their totally marginalized and impoverished Muslim populations who hold European passports but who feel they have no stakes in Europe’s future. They are falling an easy prey to jihadi ideologies and jihadist groups, luring them to plot terrorist attacks within Europe.
• Many Europeans are of the view that like India, Europe too has a difficult neighbourhood with a perceived threat from the Russian Federation ever present. They ignore the threat posed to the Western order by an aggressive and rising China. The reality is more nuanced. India, the world’s largest democracy is surrounded by several non democratic or semi democratic hostile neighbours, nuclear weapon states, one of whom, Pakistan, is the epicentre of international terrorism. Another neighbour, China, which has annexed Indian territory, is a permanent member of the Security Council and is determined to prevent by any means possible India’s rise, whether political or economic. The faceoff in Doklam in Bhutan’s territory, which ended in August 2017, is a case in point.

An Under-Performing Strategic Partnership


• The under-performing India EU Strategic Dialogue has often been described as high on rhetoric and low on substance. EU Member States, such as France and Germany have developed, on an annual basis, strong strategic bilateral dialogues after Pokhran. A further irritant was the tendency by some sections of the Commission and the Council to selectively target India for various social ills. These negative and conflicting signals from the EU resulted in Indian policy makers downgrading the India EU joint dialogue in preference for bilateral interactions, to the detriment of the strategic partnership.

Emerging Poles in a Multi- Polar World or Not?


• Emerging out of unipolarity and in accordance with European expectations, India and the EU should have become important poles in an emerging multi-polar world. Multi-polarity is based on the classical European political theory of the 19th century relating to balance of power. It implies a distribution of power in which more than four nation-states have nearly equal amounts of military, cultural, and economic influence. This, according to some European political scientists, ensures that in times of crisis international decisions are crafted for strategic reasons to maintain a reasonable balance of power. It is intended to result in a more rational decision making process even within the Security Council.
• The European position on multi-polarity represented a rejection of two global and antagonistic views of the future put forward at the end of the Cold War. One was Fukuyama’s optimistic view of the world in which democracy and the market economy become universal, peace prevails, and history ends. The other view was represented by Huntington that the clash of civilizations would lead to merciless confrontation globally between different cultures. India had never subscribed to either Fukuyama or Huntington’s views. Nor did India support the theory of ‘balance of power’, so dear to European classical diplomacy of the time.
• The above demonstrates the widely differing positions between India and Europe on multi-polarity as well as the ‘new rule-based multilateralism’. There is a total absence of consensus on the definition of multi-polarity versus balance of power. There are divergent perceptions about the role of Europe and India in triangular relationships involving Europe, USA and India or China, India and Russia. The European view of India and EU being independent poles competing with the USA did not fit in with India’s new strategic paradigm. India developed its most important strategic partnership after Independence in 1947 with the India US civilian nuclear deal. USA became the dominant focus of India’s foreign policy. USA was not a competing pole. It was a supportive pole as far as India is concerned. This distinction was key to understanding India’s strategic priorities of the time.

Partnership among Equals First India EU Summit- Lisbon, Portugal June 2000


• The First Summit laid the foundation for the later strategic partnership. It was of great benefit to both sides. For the EU, the Summit level dialogue with the Indian PM gave a new perspective on issues in the neighbourhood of the European Union and India’s own neighbourhood. On the last day of the Summit, at the suggestion of the Portuguese Presidency, the EU Troika, acknowledging the key role of India in the emerging global scenario, invited Prime Minister Vajpayee to consider their suggestion to institutionalise these Summits on an annual basis. The venue would rotate between the EU Presidency and India. This offer was accepted by the Indian PM. A new era in the India EU relationship was launched. After the Lisbon Treaty, the Summits when hosted by the EU were held in Brussels.

Retrospective on Twelve Summits


• By February 2012, it was clear that the partnership was facing a real crisis. For the EU, the time had come to take a reality check. The prospect of a slow unravelling of the European Union leaving Europe weaker, more divided and less capable of addressing the multiple challenges to international peace and security was not an attractive proposition for India, a valued strategic partner.
• It was unfortunate that at Summit level or indeed at any level, these issues were never raised or discussed. It remained troubling that after so many crises, including the European sovereign debt crisis and talk of Grexit, both sides continued to have differing perspectives on these multiple challenges, their impact on India EU relationship and how to address these challenges. To redefine the partnership and make it relevant was the need of the hour. Instead, both sides moved away from meaningful discussions on a common strategic paradigm.
• From India’s perspective, the multiple crises within Europe were beginning to negatively affect EU’s image among Indian media, public opinion and policymakers. EU should have projected itself as a major global power centre, whose strategic perceptions globally and in India’s neighbourhood, coincided with India’s perspectives. The EU should have demonstrated that, despite these crises, it continued to be a major international player, capable and willing to use military power when required. The difficulty lay in EU’s collective self denial. The question that would logically arise was whether India and the EU were moving from "strategic dissonance to strategic divorce?” The answer would become clear when the Thirteenth Summit was finally held.

Cancellation of a Summit


• Many questions have been raised regarding the long gap between the Twelfth Summit in February, 2012 and the Thirteenth in May 2016. Why did the Summit not take place in 2015? To what extent what was the postponement due to the bilateral crisis resulting from the arrest of the Italian Marines? Was the Marines case mishandled by the State Government of Kerala aggravated by the ever present and watchful Indian media? It was, after all, unprecedented in diplomatic relations for the Commission not to respond to suggestions from Indian senior officials from MEA and the Prime Minister’s Office regarding finalization of Summit dates in April 2015. It would have been an opportune moment for the Indian Prime Minister to meet the new leadership of the European Union and the Commission.
• The crisis in the Indo-Italian bilateral relationship commenced on 15th February, 2012, three days after the conclusion of the Twelfth India EU Summit. An Italian oil tanker, Enrica Lexie, sailing from Sri Lanka towards Djibouti, inadvertently mistook unarmed Indian sailing boats with fishermen, approximately 20.5 nautical miles off Kerala and within India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), to be pirates. Chief Master Sergeant Latorre and Sergeant Girone —Marines on board the Italian tanker, shot dead two Indian fishermen. No warning was given. The unarmed victims aboard the fishing vessel St. Antony were killed, one shot through the head, the other in the stomach, with automatic weapons. Italian attempts to justify the incident made it more difficult for the Congress dominated Indian Government of the time and a Congress State Government in Kerala to come to a negotiated diplomatic compromise.
• The Marines were remanded to judicial custody for interrogation on charges of homicide. Based on the post mortem carried out on 16th February 2012, Kerala State Police charged them with murder. The Marines were eventually shifted to Delhi and through a judicial process, allowed to reside within the residence of the Italian Ambassador. The two Marines were allowed to return to Italy in early 2013 on temporary leave. Once back, Italian authorities notified India they were not coming back, unless there were guarantees they would not face death penalty. As expected, there was a public and media outcry. India’s response was immediate and severe. The Italian ambassador in India, Daniele Mancini, was summoned to the Foreign Office and informed that he was in contempt of the Indian Supreme Court. The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the Ambassador, who claimed diplomatic immunity, had no immunity, since he had appeared before the Court as a petitioner. The Court restrained the Ambassador from travelling outside India pending the return of the Marines. As a result, the two Marines eventually returned, without any of the guarantees demanded by Italy. This caused the resignation of the then Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Giulio Terzi, in defence of "honour of the country, of the armed forces, and Italian diplomacy".
• Matters appeared to become more complex with the appointment of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy, Frederica Mogherini as the European Union's High Representative in November 2014. The India Italian crisis now became an India EU crisis!
• The political fallout on the India EU relationship was immediate. It resulted in a marginalization of the delegation of the European Union to India which in turn impacted the overall relationship. Smaller EU Member States resented the very important takeaways from the Indian Prime Minister’s bilateral visits to France and Germany.

Revival of a Summit- Brussels, March 2016


• A bilateral dispute could not permanently block the dynamics of the India EU Summit Partnership. It demonstrated the India EU Strategic Partnership could not be held hostage to any narrow bilateral agenda. The long delayed Thirteenth India EU Summit was held in Brussels on 30th March 2016. The Summit took place in the background of a deepening crisis in Syria, the rise of the ISIS and a fully fledged migrant crisis for Europe being faced in its outer periphery, notably by Greece. International terrorism was substantially impacting Europe and its people, resulting in the strengthening of right wing groups, rise of racism, attacks on migrants and xenophobia. It was in the background of this unfavourable international environment and in the shadow of the terrorist attacks in Brussels a few days earlier that the Summit was finally held on 22nd March 2016. The success of the Summit was due to a commendable combination of political pragmatism and diplomatic skills. It had the potential to render the partnership more meaningful and effective, in spite of the challenges ahead.

Learning to Address Roadblocks Jointly


• The EU continued to be in a state of denial regarding its own crises. EU leader still felt that the EU remains a major pole in an emerging multi-polar world. There was reluctance, notably by bureaucrats in Brussels but also by many EU Member States, to give priority to their relations with India vis a vis China. Senior Indian officials resented the ‘kid glove’ handling by the EU of sensitive political issues from a Chinese perspective. They also raised questions about the impact of the 16+1 ongoing dialogue with China on the Strategic Partnership with India. This attitude to China was in stark contrast to a perceived ‘patronizing and over critical’ European analysis of social issues in India. The Indian leadership remained baffled by this attitude. Indian officials welcomed USA’s position of no public criticism of India noting that USA shared India’s concerns regarding China’s increasingly aggressive manoeuvres in India’s neighbourhood and its attempts to confine and constrict India.

Fourteenth Summit In Search of an Elusive New Paradigm in India EU relations


• It was a Summit based on huge expectations on both sides, the first between the leaders of India and the European Union since Brexit. The meeting was rich in symbolism, marking 55 years of diplomatic relations between the world's two largest democracies. Held in the shadow of repeated terrorist strikes in a continent which had once prided itself on its liberal democratic values which now seemed under siege, the Joint Summit Statement represented a political breakthrough on several issues.
• Informed sources after the conclusion of the Summit indicated that many sensitive issues relating to India’s neighbourhood, including threats to India from jihadi terrorist groups based in Pakistan, the situation in Afghanistan and the potential for regional destabilisation by the flight of the Rohingyas from Myanmar to Bangladesh were discussed at Summit level in a free and frank atmosphere.
• The language on Rohingyas, given the different perspective on both sides, was of particular significance. While there was no direct reference to Aung San Suu Kyi, there was an implicit acknowledgement of the responsibility of the Myanmar authorities to restore the status quo and enable the return of these displaced persons given that the displacement was caused by violence on both sides.
• There has been talk in some circles of the need for informal meetings to identify roadblocks and work on a roadmap of deliverables. While a so called ‘Track 2’ process has long existed with India’s other strategic partners and also its adversaries, such as Pakistan, it is inexplicable why such a process was not initiated by either side. It demonstrates the low priority that both sides attach to the Strategic Partnership. This was clear earlier when the India EU Round Table, referred to as ‘Track one and a half’ was wound up. It would be timely to establish such a Track 2 process– discussions amongst civil society composed of think tanks, academia, business and media. Its agenda could focus primarily on how to strengthen the business and commercial partnership and move forward on the BTIA.
• To redefine the partnership and make it relevant remains the need of the hour. Taken from this negative perspective, the Fourteenth Summit certainly broke new ground. It put to rest the nagging suspicion that India and the EU were irrevocably moving away from each other. In the ultimate analysis, the Fourteenth Summit demonstrated that India and the EU have slowly but surely rediscovered each other.

The India Factor in the EU’s New Strategic Priorities


• Faced with multiple crises, ‘Brussels’ appears to be adopting a more collegial approach with a greater understanding of the complexities of India’s problems and its strategic priorities in its increasingly difficult and dangerous neighbourhood. There is greater comprehension regarding India’s focus on hard power. The reluctance to give priority to relations with India, over China is baffling. Why is India at second place? EU must acknowledge that as 2.7 trillion dollar economy, India is a valuable asset for Europe.

The Way Forward Between India and EU


• Is there a way forward? Is the gap between the two sides too wide to be fixed? Is the problem ideological? Has colonialism affected India’s thinking along with its continuing membership of NAM? In light of India’s colonial experience, the EU’s self-representation as a ‘force for good’ might taste of hubris and hypocrisy.
• India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru was of the view that India should stay away from ‘alliances’ and ‘arrangements’. PM Singh took this step forward when he said: "India is too large a country to be boxed into any alliance or regional or sub regional arrangements, whether trade, economic or political.” While India may indeed continue to shy away from "alliances,” it has become part of a rapidly increasing number of "arrangements” of differing purpose, cohesiveness, and geographic extension, but each with obligations that impact on India’s foreign policy options.”
• The ‘Way Forward’ would depend on both sides bridging the gap and moving towards a dynamic relationship which corresponds with the political needs of sides as well as a pragmatic business relationship and a BTIA based on equality and need. India needs to address, as underlined by Pohl (2012): "the issue of its great power deficit which appears to be less one of ability than of political will… India remains wary of assuming global responsibilities that might impose limitations on the options available for pursuing its own immediate national interests…While India is becoming comfortable with its new weight as an emerged power, it does not appear quite ready yet to step up to the plate as a co-manager of the global order.” India needs to effectively demonstrate its emerging great power status to a European Union now anxious to reach out and consolidate a faltering strategic partnership. If successful, it could alter fundamentally the geopolitics of this millennium. The rest of the 21st century could then belong to India and the EU.

Concluding Reflections


• In a global context, foreign policy has come to be a mechanism by which a nation pursues its legitimate aspirations based on its national security interests externally through bilateral and multilateral agendas. We live in challenging times where the world order is being re-shaped, on one hand because of the decline of the West and rise of emerging States and on the other, because of the threat posed by international terrorism and non-state actors. This is compounded, in our case, by our hostile neighbourhood where especially in the context of Pakistan, the issue is how to engage and how much space to engage. Engagement with Pakistan must continue. We have no other option. Similarly with China, we need to continue to engage and utilise emerging fissures such as China’s increasing discomfort with internal developments in Pakistan and rise of jihadi groups which ultimately are also an emerging threat to China’s restless Muslim provinces. Unfortunately, for the moment China appears to be in no hurry to settle its border dispute with India. In any future peace agreement, whether with Pakistan or China, sovereignty and self respect are the two important principles to be kept in mind. On the other hand, some give and take is inevitable. Henry Kissinger had famously said that while the Congress of Vienna in 1815 had brought peace to Europe for 100 years, the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 broke down in a short period because, unlike in Vienna, where all parties had been equally dissatisfied with the Agreement, at Versailles only one party, Germany, was so victimized that Germany had to break the Agreement whenever possible and sooner rather than later. The Kissinger doctrine has become a vital part of any successful peace agreement.
• During these challenging times India needs to brainstorm its future foreign policy direction. Should we formally break with non-alignment? Should we become a Dialogue Partner of NATO? Should we balance our relation with USA and Russia? As for Europe, as an important strategic partner, India needs to carefully re-craft its relations with the European Union. India needs to consistently and continuously monitor its relations with its hostile neighborhood. Our foreign policy parameters would need to take these developments into account while evolving our reactions. We need to carefully monitor these developments since they could, unless we are vigilant, directly impact our national security. What is required is a sober assessment of our short, medium and long term priorities based on our projection as an emerging power.