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India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present
A clear-eyed look at modern India's role in Asia's and the broader world One of India's most distinguished foreign policy thinkers addresses the many questions facing India as it seeks to find its way in the increasingly complex world of Asian geopolitics. A former Indian foreign secretary and national security adviser, Shivshankar Menon traces India's approach to the shifting regional landscape since its independence in 1947. From its leading role in the “nonaligned” movement during the cold war to its current status as a perceived counterweight to China, India often has been an after-thought for global leaders—until they realize how much they needed it. Examining India's own policy choices throughout its history, Menon focuses in particular on India's responses to the rise of China, as well as other regional powers. Menon also looks to the future and analyzes how India's policies are likely to evolve in response to current and new challenges. As India grows economically and gains new stature across the globe, both its domestic preoccupations and international choices become more significant. India itself will become more affected by what happens in the world around it. Menon makes a powerful geopolitical case for an India increasingly and positively engaged in Asia and the broader world in pursuit of a pluralistic, open, and inclusive world order.
418 pages, Paperback
Published April 20, 2021
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September 10, 2021
Shivshankar Menon belongs to India’s foreign-policy royalty. Grandson of independent India’s first foreign secretary (K.P.S. Menon) and nephew to another (K.P.S. Menon Jr), he himself served not only as Foreign Secretary for three years (2006-09) but also as National Security Adviser for the next four (2010-14). He consequently writes with authority and panache about the fraught history of India’s relationship with China, and about global geopolitics viewed through a Nehruvian prism.
Unfortunately, the elegance of the writing cannot compensate for the hollowness of his thesis—that nonalignment (or “strategic autonomy”) has always served India well, and that India must continue to engage “with both China and the United States, not choosing sides, and having better relations with each than they have with each other”. He glosses over the inconvenient fact that the US and China had far better relations with each other than either had with India between 1971 and at least 2015. And that India was obliged to abandon nonalignment in all but name by signing the Indo-Soviet treaty of 1971.
The two key pathologies that undermine the credibility of Menon’s book are, first, a tenuous grasp of economics; and, less forgivably, an unrelenting bias in favour of China, which frequently leads him to see issues through China’s lens, sometimes to India’s detriment. To be fair, these pathologies were endemic to the Nehruvian diplomatic corps, faithfully reflecting Jawaharlal’s own blind spots.
The China tilt is evident in Menon’s dismissal of the term “Indo-Pacific” as “dangerously out of touch with reality”, replacing it with the old “Asia-Pacific”, despite the fact that “Indo-Pacific” specifically embraces India, while all previous Asia-Pacific institutions established since the 1990s had excluded India (at China’s behest). Astonishingly, Menon commends ASEAN’s unwieldy East Asia Summit as a better forum to address security concerns “from east Africa to the western Pacific”, even though China has effectively subverted ASEAN itself by using its economic leverage over Cambodia and Laos to destroy ASEAN’s ability to take a common stand on the South China Sea.
The “1996 Taiwan Straits crisis” is one that Menon returns to repeatedly. This crisis was caused by China firing missiles into the Taiwan Straits to intimidate the electorate during Taiwan’s first democratic election, called by the late incumbent Lee Teng-hui, who transformed Taiwan by democratizing all levels of government there.
Rather than address this as a conflict between democracy and communism, Menon focuses on China’s view of Lee “as a potential leader of an independent Taiwan”, and the US response of sending “two aircraft-carrier groups to the waters east of the Taiwan Strait”. He implies that China’s subsequent aggressive actions in the South China Sea—linking rocks and shoals to artificially create islands that will vastly expand China’s exclusive economic zone at the expense of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia—are a natural response to China’s comeuppance during the 1996 crisis.
On economics, he favours the Keynesian institutions that prevailed between 1945 and 1971, without acknowledging what precisely they entailed: fixed exchange rates (implying pegging all currencies to the US dollar) without free movement of capital across borders. He even attributes this to a mythical David (rather than John Maynard) Keynes. The Reagan-Thatcher era is dismissed as “market fundamentalism”, a valid critique of some of its financial aspects but also one that unshackled the potential of emerging economies like Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, China and India as they embraced globalization.
Menon spends no more than a sentence on China’s problems of industrial overcapacity, to which Premier Wen Jiabao first drew attention in March 2007. The liquidity glut unleashed in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008 proved a boon for China, enabling it to nearly triple its steel, aluminium, cement and car capacity over the next decade, thereby globalizing its problems of overcapacity. These had first emerged because of the propensity of China’s banks to lend unlimited amounts to state-owned enterprises, even if the latter had previously defaulted on loans. By June 2003, half of all loans on the books of China’s state-owned banks were non-performing.
In the year 2000, world steel production was 840 million tonnes; in 2020, China alone produced 1,053 million tonnes (up from 128 million twenty years earlier), while the rest of the world produced 811 million tonnes. China exported surplus steel below production cost to the rest of the world, the classic definition of dumping. Chinese producers in new industries like photovoltaic cells for solar energy similarly received unlimited loans, and excess Chinese production depressed global prices. It was insanity for the rest of the world to trade with China as if it was a normal market economy, when it clearly wasn’t. Former US President Trump took countervailing measures in the third year of his presidency—just as President Obama had imposed anti-dumping duties on imports from China in his final year.
Perhaps unaware of these complexities, Menon advocates India joining the “Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), led by China”, excoriating the Modi government for not doing so. Menon acknowledges that India already has a free trade agreement (FTA) with ASEAN. India also has FTAs with Japan and South Korea, and is close to concluding one with Australia. Joining RCEP would effectively amount to an FTA with China (and New Zealand), without any additional safeguards against China’s pervasive non-market practices. Already, Chinese products enter India thinly disguised as ASEAN-made.
Joining RCEP would be tantamount to allowing even more aggressive dumping of Chinese products into India. Menon perpetuates the canard that India has turned inward under Modi: in fact, the Modi government has targeted small tariff increases on products suffering from Chinese dumping, while reducing other import duties. In 2021, India’s export growth has considerably outpaced China’s, as it did in 3 of the past 6 years.
Menon extols Nehru’s vision of an “area of peace in Asia” as the only outcome worth pursuing. But he acknowledges that this area of peace was disrupted by Pakistan going to war within 10 weeks of Independence and Partition in 1947, and that China violated Asia’s peace by its invasion of independent Tibet in October 1950.
Understandably, given his grandfather’s key involvement, Menon celebrates India’s role as peacemaker in Korea, asserting that the July 1953 “armistice was very close to what India had proposed two and a half years before”. While India relayed “messages from the Chinese to the United States…Nehru’s efforts had convinced Truman that ‘Nehru has sold us down the Hudson.’” There is nary a mention of the fact that, even as Nehru was loftily playing peacemaker between the US and China, the latter was busily building a highway right through Aksai Chin, which was (and still is) shown as part of India in our maps. Having ignored its construction, Menon slips this in much later: “Two Indian patrols sent out in 1958 to check on the Aksai Chin Highway were detained by the Chinese”. Who built this highway and when remain mysteries to the reader.
Despite the mention of “Asian geopolitics” in the title, the book remains obsessed with China (and its perspective on the region), while barely mentioning Indonesia, or the possible strategic importance of Japan and South Korea today. Nehru missed a great opportunity to join an economic confederation in Asia proposed by Japan’s Kishi Nobusuke in 1956. Menon does mention this little-remembered proposal that Nehru dismissed as a stalking-horse for American hegemony. South-east Asia responded positively, and the Japanese corporate presence across that region remains ubiquitous and beneficial to this day.
Predictably, given his Sinocentric perspective, Menon is dismissive of the Quad, preferring that India join RCEP despite 70 years of relentless hostility from China. During the Nixon-Mao dialogue in 1972, Mao spent more than half the time discussing his hostility toward India; yet India’s policymakers seem oblivious to this strategic reality.
Menon believes the US is a declining power, and that western economic involvement in East Asia is diminishing, “except in Singapore and Vietnam”. In reality, ASEAN’s and China’s export sectors are dominated by “western” companies, including those from the US, Japan, Europe and Taiwan, freeing up domestic capital for technology sectors that China seeks to dominate. On Pakistan, Menon laments that “we are a long way from the promise of the 2004-07 period, when India and Pakistan appeared close to addressing the issues between them”, neatly forgetting that the spirit of that period was disrupted by Pakistan’s terrorist attack on Mumbai (26 November 2008). Contrasting with India’s feeble non-response then, the Modi government’s robust response to Uri and Pulwama has considerably reduced terrorism since.
The US remains the global leader in innovation, and the Quad presents unique complementarities between India’s software and pharmaceutical expertise, US technology, Australian minerals, and Japan’s still-formidable corporate footprint (ranging from Toyota and Honda cars, electronics brands Sony, Panasonic, NEC and Hitachi, to mass-market Uniqlo and venture investor Softbank). The Quadrangular economic relationship, coupled with India’s labour reforms, are helping shift China-centred supply chains to India, while Japan’s partnership in infrastructure and the green transition help India exceed its commitments to the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Menon chooses not to appreciate any of this, instead ending with formulaic excoriations of today’s India. His book is sadly emblematic of the vacuity of the Nehruvian approach to diplomacy—subservient to China, suspicious of the US, and clinging to nonalignment despite its manifest failures.
Unfortunately, the elegance of the writing cannot compensate for the hollowness of his thesis—that nonalignment (or “strategic autonomy”) has always served India well, and that India must continue to engage “with both China and the United States, not choosing sides, and having better relations with each than they have with each other”. He glosses over the inconvenient fact that the US and China had far better relations with each other than either had with India between 1971 and at least 2015. And that India was obliged to abandon nonalignment in all but name by signing the Indo-Soviet treaty of 1971.
The two key pathologies that undermine the credibility of Menon’s book are, first, a tenuous grasp of economics; and, less forgivably, an unrelenting bias in favour of China, which frequently leads him to see issues through China’s lens, sometimes to India’s detriment. To be fair, these pathologies were endemic to the Nehruvian diplomatic corps, faithfully reflecting Jawaharlal’s own blind spots.
The China tilt is evident in Menon’s dismissal of the term “Indo-Pacific” as “dangerously out of touch with reality”, replacing it with the old “Asia-Pacific”, despite the fact that “Indo-Pacific” specifically embraces India, while all previous Asia-Pacific institutions established since the 1990s had excluded India (at China’s behest). Astonishingly, Menon commends ASEAN’s unwieldy East Asia Summit as a better forum to address security concerns “from east Africa to the western Pacific”, even though China has effectively subverted ASEAN itself by using its economic leverage over Cambodia and Laos to destroy ASEAN’s ability to take a common stand on the South China Sea.
The “1996 Taiwan Straits crisis” is one that Menon returns to repeatedly. This crisis was caused by China firing missiles into the Taiwan Straits to intimidate the electorate during Taiwan’s first democratic election, called by the late incumbent Lee Teng-hui, who transformed Taiwan by democratizing all levels of government there.
Rather than address this as a conflict between democracy and communism, Menon focuses on China’s view of Lee “as a potential leader of an independent Taiwan”, and the US response of sending “two aircraft-carrier groups to the waters east of the Taiwan Strait”. He implies that China’s subsequent aggressive actions in the South China Sea—linking rocks and shoals to artificially create islands that will vastly expand China’s exclusive economic zone at the expense of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia—are a natural response to China’s comeuppance during the 1996 crisis.
On economics, he favours the Keynesian institutions that prevailed between 1945 and 1971, without acknowledging what precisely they entailed: fixed exchange rates (implying pegging all currencies to the US dollar) without free movement of capital across borders. He even attributes this to a mythical David (rather than John Maynard) Keynes. The Reagan-Thatcher era is dismissed as “market fundamentalism”, a valid critique of some of its financial aspects but also one that unshackled the potential of emerging economies like Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, China and India as they embraced globalization.
Menon spends no more than a sentence on China’s problems of industrial overcapacity, to which Premier Wen Jiabao first drew attention in March 2007. The liquidity glut unleashed in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008 proved a boon for China, enabling it to nearly triple its steel, aluminium, cement and car capacity over the next decade, thereby globalizing its problems of overcapacity. These had first emerged because of the propensity of China’s banks to lend unlimited amounts to state-owned enterprises, even if the latter had previously defaulted on loans. By June 2003, half of all loans on the books of China’s state-owned banks were non-performing.
In the year 2000, world steel production was 840 million tonnes; in 2020, China alone produced 1,053 million tonnes (up from 128 million twenty years earlier), while the rest of the world produced 811 million tonnes. China exported surplus steel below production cost to the rest of the world, the classic definition of dumping. Chinese producers in new industries like photovoltaic cells for solar energy similarly received unlimited loans, and excess Chinese production depressed global prices. It was insanity for the rest of the world to trade with China as if it was a normal market economy, when it clearly wasn’t. Former US President Trump took countervailing measures in the third year of his presidency—just as President Obama had imposed anti-dumping duties on imports from China in his final year.
Perhaps unaware of these complexities, Menon advocates India joining the “Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), led by China”, excoriating the Modi government for not doing so. Menon acknowledges that India already has a free trade agreement (FTA) with ASEAN. India also has FTAs with Japan and South Korea, and is close to concluding one with Australia. Joining RCEP would effectively amount to an FTA with China (and New Zealand), without any additional safeguards against China’s pervasive non-market practices. Already, Chinese products enter India thinly disguised as ASEAN-made.
Joining RCEP would be tantamount to allowing even more aggressive dumping of Chinese products into India. Menon perpetuates the canard that India has turned inward under Modi: in fact, the Modi government has targeted small tariff increases on products suffering from Chinese dumping, while reducing other import duties. In 2021, India’s export growth has considerably outpaced China’s, as it did in 3 of the past 6 years.
Menon extols Nehru’s vision of an “area of peace in Asia” as the only outcome worth pursuing. But he acknowledges that this area of peace was disrupted by Pakistan going to war within 10 weeks of Independence and Partition in 1947, and that China violated Asia’s peace by its invasion of independent Tibet in October 1950.
Understandably, given his grandfather’s key involvement, Menon celebrates India’s role as peacemaker in Korea, asserting that the July 1953 “armistice was very close to what India had proposed two and a half years before”. While India relayed “messages from the Chinese to the United States…Nehru’s efforts had convinced Truman that ‘Nehru has sold us down the Hudson.’” There is nary a mention of the fact that, even as Nehru was loftily playing peacemaker between the US and China, the latter was busily building a highway right through Aksai Chin, which was (and still is) shown as part of India in our maps. Having ignored its construction, Menon slips this in much later: “Two Indian patrols sent out in 1958 to check on the Aksai Chin Highway were detained by the Chinese”. Who built this highway and when remain mysteries to the reader.
Despite the mention of “Asian geopolitics” in the title, the book remains obsessed with China (and its perspective on the region), while barely mentioning Indonesia, or the possible strategic importance of Japan and South Korea today. Nehru missed a great opportunity to join an economic confederation in Asia proposed by Japan’s Kishi Nobusuke in 1956. Menon does mention this little-remembered proposal that Nehru dismissed as a stalking-horse for American hegemony. South-east Asia responded positively, and the Japanese corporate presence across that region remains ubiquitous and beneficial to this day.
Predictably, given his Sinocentric perspective, Menon is dismissive of the Quad, preferring that India join RCEP despite 70 years of relentless hostility from China. During the Nixon-Mao dialogue in 1972, Mao spent more than half the time discussing his hostility toward India; yet India’s policymakers seem oblivious to this strategic reality.
Menon believes the US is a declining power, and that western economic involvement in East Asia is diminishing, “except in Singapore and Vietnam”. In reality, ASEAN’s and China’s export sectors are dominated by “western” companies, including those from the US, Japan, Europe and Taiwan, freeing up domestic capital for technology sectors that China seeks to dominate. On Pakistan, Menon laments that “we are a long way from the promise of the 2004-07 period, when India and Pakistan appeared close to addressing the issues between them”, neatly forgetting that the spirit of that period was disrupted by Pakistan’s terrorist attack on Mumbai (26 November 2008). Contrasting with India’s feeble non-response then, the Modi government’s robust response to Uri and Pulwama has considerably reduced terrorism since.
The US remains the global leader in innovation, and the Quad presents unique complementarities between India’s software and pharmaceutical expertise, US technology, Australian minerals, and Japan’s still-formidable corporate footprint (ranging from Toyota and Honda cars, electronics brands Sony, Panasonic, NEC and Hitachi, to mass-market Uniqlo and venture investor Softbank). The Quadrangular economic relationship, coupled with India’s labour reforms, are helping shift China-centred supply chains to India, while Japan’s partnership in infrastructure and the green transition help India exceed its commitments to the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Menon chooses not to appreciate any of this, instead ending with formulaic excoriations of today’s India. His book is sadly emblematic of the vacuity of the Nehruvian approach to diplomacy—subservient to China, suspicious of the US, and clinging to nonalignment despite its manifest failures.
November 25, 2021
"Han Feizi", an ancient Chinese legalist envisaged a world which was homogenous, hierarchical and unipolar. The Chinese have after all been convinced that they enjoy a superior position by virtue of the "mandate of heaven" which only their rulers have. India under his contemporary Chanakya had more modest ambitions. Chanakya, with his realist gaze, looked at the world as multipolar where Sovereign "vijigsus" are contending for powers keeping their geographical position in mind working autonomously mostly but forging alliances when interests ally.
If Shivshankar Menon's book is something to go by, even in the modern world, these ancient philosophers have left their imprints in the self image and geopolitical calculus of both China and India.
Through its 500 pages of text, Menon draws extensively from history to give a holistic picture of how Indo-Pacific Geopolitics has evolved over the years and place of India within it. In an insightful paragraph he distinguishes Nehru's psyche from his daughter Indira.
"For Nehru it was about developing an alternative regional philosophy of inter-state relations where security dilemmas could be muted in both Asia and India’s immediate vicinity; whereas Indira Gandhi aimed to develop an Indo-centric subregional order where external involvement could be restrained and Indian leadership asserted. India’s centrality in southern Asia and the geography did not change.” Gandhi's influence is evident when India seeks to assert its dominance in South Asia while espousing for multilateral institutions on a global level.
But the instrumentality of the book lies in its grounding. It's not India centric. It's Indo-Pacific centric. Crucially enough, section after section has been devoted towards China, US, Pakistan and other players which lends the book crucial nuances, about how diplomatic relations unfolded and interests changed between nations. These nuances easily go missing when relations are analysed only bilaterally vis-a-vis India.
India today is facing unprecedented problems in its periphery but Menon doesn't place all his bets on QUAD which he sees only as a "maritime" organization. In one of the final chapters of the book he confidently asserts that India must, never cede it's "continental" capabilities to China, and maintain strategic autonomy in relation with Iran and engage more with multilateral trade organizations like RCEP. Although the opportunity cost of engagement with Iran for ties with the USA or consequences that local businesses will incur if India joins China-led RCEP are not questions Menon engages with.
However despite some shortcomings, in a market cluttered with deluge of sub par books on China that merely capitalizes on the current wave of nationalism, if you are willing to look past some obvious biases that are inevitable due to his baggage as a top bureaucrat, this is an indispensable addition to India's, external relations literature, that successfully plugs crucial holes.
If Shivshankar Menon's book is something to go by, even in the modern world, these ancient philosophers have left their imprints in the self image and geopolitical calculus of both China and India.
Through its 500 pages of text, Menon draws extensively from history to give a holistic picture of how Indo-Pacific Geopolitics has evolved over the years and place of India within it. In an insightful paragraph he distinguishes Nehru's psyche from his daughter Indira.
"For Nehru it was about developing an alternative regional philosophy of inter-state relations where security dilemmas could be muted in both Asia and India’s immediate vicinity; whereas Indira Gandhi aimed to develop an Indo-centric subregional order where external involvement could be restrained and Indian leadership asserted. India’s centrality in southern Asia and the geography did not change.” Gandhi's influence is evident when India seeks to assert its dominance in South Asia while espousing for multilateral institutions on a global level.
But the instrumentality of the book lies in its grounding. It's not India centric. It's Indo-Pacific centric. Crucially enough, section after section has been devoted towards China, US, Pakistan and other players which lends the book crucial nuances, about how diplomatic relations unfolded and interests changed between nations. These nuances easily go missing when relations are analysed only bilaterally vis-a-vis India.
India today is facing unprecedented problems in its periphery but Menon doesn't place all his bets on QUAD which he sees only as a "maritime" organization. In one of the final chapters of the book he confidently asserts that India must, never cede it's "continental" capabilities to China, and maintain strategic autonomy in relation with Iran and engage more with multilateral trade organizations like RCEP. Although the opportunity cost of engagement with Iran for ties with the USA or consequences that local businesses will incur if India joins China-led RCEP are not questions Menon engages with.
However despite some shortcomings, in a market cluttered with deluge of sub par books on China that merely capitalizes on the current wave of nationalism, if you are willing to look past some obvious biases that are inevitable due to his baggage as a top bureaucrat, this is an indispensable addition to India's, external relations literature, that successfully plugs crucial holes.
July 5, 2021
Outstanding. Menon's knowledge of geopolitics and strategy is deep. A must read book. Highly recommended.
October 2, 2025
Quite repetitive. Could have been edited better. Also existing biases of the author wrt BJP govt are evident which harm the credibility of the analysis. Overall, an okayish read.
October 15, 2022
From being a leading proponent of the Non-Aligned Movement and safely sailing the choppy waters of the volatile Cold War years, to being criticized as meddling in the internal politics of America, when the current Indian prime minister was seen pitching for an US president vying for a second term, India has come a long way since 1947. How did this change occur? How did India, following a painfully cautious approach in her dealings with foreign powers in Her nascent days as a nation state, evolve into a force reckon with? I have always been curious about that. This book has answered at least most part of that question, in an interesting, at times repetitive way.
First, the positives. The author, Shivshankar Menon, has the credentials to begin with. Having been the foreign secretary and national security advisor to the prime minister, he has had a ringside view of the geopolitical games. He was also a part of the team that convinced the Nuclear Suppliers Group to supply nuclear material. So, when someone like that writes a book, credibility is assured.
Also, the author makes it easy for us to understand India’s geopolitical past by breaking it into decades, starting from the days when India achieved independence from British colonialists. That breaking down of the entire past into manageable chunks of decades makes it easy for us to follow the narrative and understand the causes and effects. Being a professor must have come in handy for him to understand how to drive home a point, even one as intricate as global politics. His simple writing style coupled with his unbiased analysis of the policies of the Founding Fathers and the impact of their decisions make for good reading.
Now for the negatives, the book has some unforgiveable printing mistakes, as many of the pages containing the maps are left blank. With many other customers having left similar complaints on Amazon’s book page, this doesn’t seem to be a one-off instance, which is very bad on the part of the publishers. Two, for a book of this volume the font size is pretty small, making for strenuous reading. When it comes to the content, the author starts sounding a tad too repetitive in the second part. His obsession with China is a little tiring too. I was looking to read more about India’s tackling the threat from Pakistan, but the author would rather talk about China, which is understandably a larger threat to India.
The final part, where the author discusses India’s current geopolitical stance is bound to offend some people, especially my friends from right wing. But within these pages are some hard-hitting, bitter facts. Think for yourself! From being a major force that guided nations like Sri Lanka and Nepal through their political crises, brought into existence Bangladesh through a swift war, India is now straining to keep her ties intact with these countries. All this while China has already started meddling in their internal politics and defining their future, as is obvious in countries Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Even the faraway African countries are feeling the reach of China’s tentacles through BRI initiative and ‘string of pearl’ port constructions. Blaming it on the divisive politics of the incumbent government and showmanship that has little to show in terms of performance, the author finishes the book with a clear warning of the tough days ahead for India, if she chooses to ignore the highly volatile external developments, dividing the country based on an over-hyped halcyon past.
Right or wrong, India had an aura of neutrality in the past, having stayed as far from the power games of bipolar world as possible. That is why she could adapt without much difficulty to the post-Cold War world, when a more considerate USSR disintegrated. But the growth of ultranationalist forces within, that view even external relationships in terms of binaries of with us or against us – effects of association with the US, no doubt – leave India walking on thin ice on many fronts. The most glaring example is the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia, where by virtue of closer association, US is forcing India to condemn Russia on international forums but the enduring age-old ties and growing concerns on the immediate neighborhood force India to be more restrained on her views of the conflict. Result? India is being seen as an uncooperative partner by many in the West.
Not that the views of the hypocritical west matters, but an India that is trying to become the ‘Vishwaguru’, a force to reckon with not just in Asia but across the world, that surpassed some of the major western powers in economic growth, has to firmly make a stance on what she’s going to be – a compliant ally playing second fiddle to the tunes of major powers from West or blaze a path that is truly worthy of emulation by all, in terms of politics, unity, economic growth and overall well-being of her citizens. As Abe Lincoln once told, ‘a house divided against itself cannot stand’ and an India, trying to amplify the sins and glories of a distant past, cannot withstand the political whirlwind that is brewing in her immediate neighborhood. The author finishes the book with hopeful words of how a united India, with all her citizens marching together, holding high her flag of pluralism, can regain primacy on all fronts – domestic or international. And, I finished it with hopes too.
4.5 stars!
First, the positives. The author, Shivshankar Menon, has the credentials to begin with. Having been the foreign secretary and national security advisor to the prime minister, he has had a ringside view of the geopolitical games. He was also a part of the team that convinced the Nuclear Suppliers Group to supply nuclear material. So, when someone like that writes a book, credibility is assured.
Also, the author makes it easy for us to understand India’s geopolitical past by breaking it into decades, starting from the days when India achieved independence from British colonialists. That breaking down of the entire past into manageable chunks of decades makes it easy for us to follow the narrative and understand the causes and effects. Being a professor must have come in handy for him to understand how to drive home a point, even one as intricate as global politics. His simple writing style coupled with his unbiased analysis of the policies of the Founding Fathers and the impact of their decisions make for good reading.
Now for the negatives, the book has some unforgiveable printing mistakes, as many of the pages containing the maps are left blank. With many other customers having left similar complaints on Amazon’s book page, this doesn’t seem to be a one-off instance, which is very bad on the part of the publishers. Two, for a book of this volume the font size is pretty small, making for strenuous reading. When it comes to the content, the author starts sounding a tad too repetitive in the second part. His obsession with China is a little tiring too. I was looking to read more about India’s tackling the threat from Pakistan, but the author would rather talk about China, which is understandably a larger threat to India.
The final part, where the author discusses India’s current geopolitical stance is bound to offend some people, especially my friends from right wing. But within these pages are some hard-hitting, bitter facts. Think for yourself! From being a major force that guided nations like Sri Lanka and Nepal through their political crises, brought into existence Bangladesh through a swift war, India is now straining to keep her ties intact with these countries. All this while China has already started meddling in their internal politics and defining their future, as is obvious in countries Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Even the faraway African countries are feeling the reach of China’s tentacles through BRI initiative and ‘string of pearl’ port constructions. Blaming it on the divisive politics of the incumbent government and showmanship that has little to show in terms of performance, the author finishes the book with a clear warning of the tough days ahead for India, if she chooses to ignore the highly volatile external developments, dividing the country based on an over-hyped halcyon past.
Right or wrong, India had an aura of neutrality in the past, having stayed as far from the power games of bipolar world as possible. That is why she could adapt without much difficulty to the post-Cold War world, when a more considerate USSR disintegrated. But the growth of ultranationalist forces within, that view even external relationships in terms of binaries of with us or against us – effects of association with the US, no doubt – leave India walking on thin ice on many fronts. The most glaring example is the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia, where by virtue of closer association, US is forcing India to condemn Russia on international forums but the enduring age-old ties and growing concerns on the immediate neighborhood force India to be more restrained on her views of the conflict. Result? India is being seen as an uncooperative partner by many in the West.
Not that the views of the hypocritical west matters, but an India that is trying to become the ‘Vishwaguru’, a force to reckon with not just in Asia but across the world, that surpassed some of the major western powers in economic growth, has to firmly make a stance on what she’s going to be – a compliant ally playing second fiddle to the tunes of major powers from West or blaze a path that is truly worthy of emulation by all, in terms of politics, unity, economic growth and overall well-being of her citizens. As Abe Lincoln once told, ‘a house divided against itself cannot stand’ and an India, trying to amplify the sins and glories of a distant past, cannot withstand the political whirlwind that is brewing in her immediate neighborhood. The author finishes the book with hopeful words of how a united India, with all her citizens marching together, holding high her flag of pluralism, can regain primacy on all fronts – domestic or international. And, I finished it with hopes too.
4.5 stars!
September 21, 2022
Shivashankar Menon's central axiom is that in the India-China-US triangle, India must refuse to take a side and be more closer to both other nations than they are to each other. This is presented without much justification and held almost sacred. While unlike IR theorists of the old, Menon have talked a bit of economic aspects but the understanding seemed rudimentary (Fixed exchange rates wrt to USD is stated as an obvious good along with other scepticism towards forces of market in general.)
Menon is a critic of the term Indo-Pacific and states that the word have been forced by Washington and is “dangerously out of touch with reality” preferring the old "Asia Pacific." (A decade old but still very relevant rebuttal can be found in Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific.)
Towards the end Menon offers some of his predictions for the coming future. While the book was published in 2021, judging from bits of pieces of writing, the writing seems to have completed much before 2020 elections in November. In the two years since writing, one could see many of his short term predictions were wrong most glaring being about Afghanistan (Taliban regime is not accepted in the West yet), India's own neighbourhood (Nepal, Maldives, Lanka, Bangladesh have all either turned towards India or stayed the same rather than drifting apart) and Eastern Europe (Russian rhetoric and posturing were not just 'threats signifying its genuine interests' and have manifested into a 7 months are running war.)
Menon is a critic of the term Indo-Pacific and states that the word have been forced by Washington and is “dangerously out of touch with reality” preferring the old "Asia Pacific." (A decade old but still very relevant rebuttal can be found in Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific.)
Towards the end Menon offers some of his predictions for the coming future. While the book was published in 2021, judging from bits of pieces of writing, the writing seems to have completed much before 2020 elections in November. In the two years since writing, one could see many of his short term predictions were wrong most glaring being about Afghanistan (Taliban regime is not accepted in the West yet), India's own neighbourhood (Nepal, Maldives, Lanka, Bangladesh have all either turned towards India or stayed the same rather than drifting apart) and Eastern Europe (Russian rhetoric and posturing were not just 'threats signifying its genuine interests' and have manifested into a 7 months are running war.)
June 24, 2021
Excerpts from my review published for Swarajya (full link below)
"As they say, experience is the teacher of all things. The book that comes from a former Foreign Secretary and National Security Advisor can never be ignored. India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present by Shivshankar Menon provides a snapshot of India’s foreign policy in the wider collage of Asian geopolitics."
"This book attempts to pull India’s strategic discourse back to Asia. The author brings an Asia-centric view of Indian foreign policy, especially when a strategic convergence with the West overshadows its potential for engagement in Asia."
"The book is a welcome break from the “Indo-Pacific” dominated foreign policy constructs in recent times and offers good food for thought on Asia. It is already stirring fervent debates on Indian foreign policy and is a worthy read for enthusiasts."
For reading the review in its entirety, click
https://swarajyamag.com/books/a-snaps...
I tweet at @DarthThunderous.
"As they say, experience is the teacher of all things. The book that comes from a former Foreign Secretary and National Security Advisor can never be ignored. India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present by Shivshankar Menon provides a snapshot of India’s foreign policy in the wider collage of Asian geopolitics."
"This book attempts to pull India’s strategic discourse back to Asia. The author brings an Asia-centric view of Indian foreign policy, especially when a strategic convergence with the West overshadows its potential for engagement in Asia."
"The book is a welcome break from the “Indo-Pacific” dominated foreign policy constructs in recent times and offers good food for thought on Asia. It is already stirring fervent debates on Indian foreign policy and is a worthy read for enthusiasts."
For reading the review in its entirety, click
https://swarajyamag.com/books/a-snaps...
I tweet at @DarthThunderous.
July 14, 2025
Menon's "India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present" is a scholarly study of the evolution of India's foreign policy, especially vis-a-vis Asia. The book includes interesting accounts of the events that shaped India's engagement with the world post WW-II - the Asian Relations Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement, the wars with Pakistan and China, India's twin nuclear tests, as well events precipitated by non-Asian powers that had a lasting impact on Asia - such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Sino-Soviet split and Sino-US rapprochement in the 1970s.
Repetitions in the book, and some glaring editorial errors, do put off the reader occasionally. However, for the most part, the book is an engaging and intellectually stimulating read.
My favourite paragraph from the book is the following contextual inference based on Alexis de Tocqueville's insights on revolutions:
"revolutions are produced by improved conditions and rising expectations, not by mass immiseration. This is exactly where globalization has left us - a time when everything is amazing and nobody is happy."
The book ends with prescriptions on how India can engage with Asia and the world to advance its domestic interests, and what she should do and avoid doing in the pursuit of strategic autonomy.
Repetitions in the book, and some glaring editorial errors, do put off the reader occasionally. However, for the most part, the book is an engaging and intellectually stimulating read.
My favourite paragraph from the book is the following contextual inference based on Alexis de Tocqueville's insights on revolutions:
"revolutions are produced by improved conditions and rising expectations, not by mass immiseration. This is exactly where globalization has left us - a time when everything is amazing and nobody is happy."
The book ends with prescriptions on how India can engage with Asia and the world to advance its domestic interests, and what she should do and avoid doing in the pursuit of strategic autonomy.
December 12, 2021
India is very much a part of the Asian story and always has been. Indian policymakers have not just been the objects of others’ policies but have exercised agency and worked actively to shape trends and developments in Asia, from the inception of independent India.
The record also shows that India is not an island but an interdependent part of that Asia and has been most successful when most connected to that world.
This book is the story of India in that changing Asia, of how India has adapted to changes since Indian independence in 1947, when the modern Indian state came into being.
A must read for every student of Indian history.
The record also shows that India is not an island but an interdependent part of that Asia and has been most successful when most connected to that world.
This book is the story of India in that changing Asia, of how India has adapted to changes since Indian independence in 1947, when the modern Indian state came into being.
A must read for every student of Indian history.
March 29, 2022
If history teaches us anything it is that nothing is permanent, that change is constant. This book is a compelling account of the way the modern India and rest of the Asia have shaped each other.
December 30, 2021
Read only the present part of the book. Relations and diplomacy wrt China are very well explained.
July 10, 2021
An excellent and well-researched work by an eminent practitioner of Indian foreign policy. Especially noteworthy is the fact that he consciously chooses to cite academic research on Asian geopolitics and international relations, a refreshing change from other bureaucrats' outputs.
Two pet peeves remain, though. The first is poor editing. I was really shocked to see shoddy editing come out of Brookings, as I use their reports quite frequently in my work, and have never had occasion to complain about it before this instance. To give an example, in one four-sentence paragraph, the author mentions the word China six times, with sentences beginning and ending in the words. I really wish someone paid more attention to spellings, uses of nouns and punctuation placement, as that would have elevated the work considerably.
Another complaint I have is directed against the author: the usage to anthropomorphic language relating to countries. This is a correction that has been suggested by several editors I have submitted academic work to, and its validity remains. The notion of referring to countries as 'she' and 'her' passed away with 19th and early 20th century 'chummy-old-boy' period of Victorian high-noon colonialism, when Britannia and her sisters Franconia and Germania strut the stage with a signature sense of superiority. Academic convention after World War II has evolved with the insights of political science and refers to countries as 'it', because it is widely understood that countries are not living entities, but rather fictions that 'exist' only as long as the people living in a given territory agree it 'exists'. Even more confusingly, the author does use this terminology, only to revert back to 'she' and 'her' later on. This reduces the value of an otherwise valuable book.
Two pet peeves remain, though. The first is poor editing. I was really shocked to see shoddy editing come out of Brookings, as I use their reports quite frequently in my work, and have never had occasion to complain about it before this instance. To give an example, in one four-sentence paragraph, the author mentions the word China six times, with sentences beginning and ending in the words. I really wish someone paid more attention to spellings, uses of nouns and punctuation placement, as that would have elevated the work considerably.
Another complaint I have is directed against the author: the usage to anthropomorphic language relating to countries. This is a correction that has been suggested by several editors I have submitted academic work to, and its validity remains. The notion of referring to countries as 'she' and 'her' passed away with 19th and early 20th century 'chummy-old-boy' period of Victorian high-noon colonialism, when Britannia and her sisters Franconia and Germania strut the stage with a signature sense of superiority. Academic convention after World War II has evolved with the insights of political science and refers to countries as 'it', because it is widely understood that countries are not living entities, but rather fictions that 'exist' only as long as the people living in a given territory agree it 'exists'. Even more confusingly, the author does use this terminology, only to revert back to 'she' and 'her' later on. This reduces the value of an otherwise valuable book.
May 29, 2021
A quiet detailed account of history and challenges faced by India in Asian Geopolitics.. Mostly focussed on China and South Asia neglected west asia
Moreover the writing lacks objectivity, because of clear bias of the writer towards Nehru and his family and against the present dispensation
Moreover the writing lacks objectivity, because of clear bias of the writer towards Nehru and his family and against the present dispensation
August 1, 2021
A good book giving an account of India and Asia's geopolitics from 1947 to 2020. The author has devoted far too much space to China and their growth story. Certain passages felt repetitive, especially in second part of the book. I liked the afterword section on India's destiny.
Read
October 3, 2021India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, PresentGreat read for people especially for those who follow Asian history, Asian politics, Indian politics and history.
The author, a distinguished civil servant, has nicely built the history behind the various events affecting Asia starting from the World wars, Cold wars, Sino - American and Sino- Russian relationships, context to Jawaharlal Nehru`s foreign policies and non-alignment, India`s shift towards USSR in the 70`s post the Bangladesh war, shift towards USA in 90`s after the collapse of USSR and the present government`s tilt towards USA given the hostilities with China.
While the reader can get overwhelmed with the facts, the pedagogic style of writing and repeat of events, it is however a very logical construct to the foreign policies followed by various Indian governments.
I would rate it a 4/5.
The author, a distinguished civil servant, has nicely built the history behind the various events affecting Asia starting from the World wars, Cold wars, Sino - American and Sino- Russian relationships, context to Jawaharlal Nehru`s foreign policies and non-alignment, India`s shift towards USSR in the 70`s post the Bangladesh war, shift towards USA in 90`s after the collapse of USSR and the present government`s tilt towards USA given the hostilities with China.
While the reader can get overwhelmed with the facts, the pedagogic style of writing and repeat of events, it is however a very logical construct to the foreign policies followed by various Indian governments.
I would rate it a 4/5.
Read
June 8, 2022An Excellent Book on India's role in Asia and the World
The author's understanding of the complex world of games nations play and his ability to present it to the reader in a lucid style is wonderful. It provides some sane advice to India's policy-makers about the best pissible course India should take to build its internal strength, without trying to assume any impractical international role, not commensurate with its real strength. Indian leadership would do well to heed the author's advice to follow such domestic polucies as would consoludate rather than fragment the Indian society on religious and other avoudable faultlines.
The author's understanding of the complex world of games nations play and his ability to present it to the reader in a lucid style is wonderful. It provides some sane advice to India's policy-makers about the best pissible course India should take to build its internal strength, without trying to assume any impractical international role, not commensurate with its real strength. Indian leadership would do well to heed the author's advice to follow such domestic polucies as would consoludate rather than fragment the Indian society on religious and other avoudable faultlines.
June 26, 2021
Awesome. The first part of the book lays out the history and geography of India and sets the definition for geopolitics. The reader follows India as it emerges from British rule with the near simultaneous expectation that it is a region and world player. Fascinating. The reader follows India as it grows into this role and quickly becomes juxtaposed with China, often working as a counter balance. I recommend this read for those serious about the study of Asia as the emerging center of commerce and influence.
July 31, 2021
It's a good book on international relations from India's perspective. Though if anyone is well versed with the subject and current developments, then the book doesn't offer anything new. But for anyone new to this field, the book is like a goldmine.
My rating: 3.5/5
My rating: 3.5/5
August 25, 2021
A goldmine for beginners of IR to understand how India sees Asia. Sweeps India's foreign policy through Independence through Corona crisis of 2020 and how India should make sense and its position in Asia in the coming days.
July 26, 2021
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February 1, 2022
A books which summarizes India's Foreign policy from begining to current, easy read with economics and globalization at center stage
March 25, 2025
It’s said that every politician is a follower of an obsolete economist. I’d further argue that every bureaucrat is a follower of an obsolete politician
June 16, 2025
India and Asian Geopolitics by Shivshankar Menon is a sharp, structured exploration of India’s foreign policy journey over the last 75 years. Divided into Past, Present, and Future, the book traces how India has navigated decolonization, Cold War power shifts, the rise of China, and the evolution of multilateral alliances. Menon’s deep diplomatic experience adds weight to the narrative, and his insider perspective brings credibility to the strategic analysis.
That said, the writing is dense, often repetitive, and stylistically dry, more bureaucratic than narrative-driven. The book leans noticeably toward the Nehruvian worldview, showing sympathy to Congress-era strategies while being overtly critical of the current administration. Pakistan’s long-standing sub-conventional aggression is underplayed, while China’s threat is amplified, sometimes disproportionately.
Despite these gaps, the book remains a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how India thinks about its role in Asia, earning a strong 3.5/5 rating. Whether you're interested in the Indo-Pacific, strategic autonomy, or South Asia’s security dynamics, this book provides a valuable framework, even if it stops short of addressing some of the more recent tectonic shifts.
Check out the detailed review on my personal blog: https://eyesthatseeall.blogspot.com/2...
That said, the writing is dense, often repetitive, and stylistically dry, more bureaucratic than narrative-driven. The book leans noticeably toward the Nehruvian worldview, showing sympathy to Congress-era strategies while being overtly critical of the current administration. Pakistan’s long-standing sub-conventional aggression is underplayed, while China’s threat is amplified, sometimes disproportionately.
Despite these gaps, the book remains a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how India thinks about its role in Asia, earning a strong 3.5/5 rating. Whether you're interested in the Indo-Pacific, strategic autonomy, or South Asia’s security dynamics, this book provides a valuable framework, even if it stops short of addressing some of the more recent tectonic shifts.
Check out the detailed review on my personal blog: https://eyesthatseeall.blogspot.com/2...
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews