Grand Strategy | A new chapter for India’s regional strategic policy
India’s neighbourhood ties will have its wins and losses in the neighbourhood, and it must learn to take them in its stride.
In 2025, India’s foreign policy must deftly navigate a rapidly evolving strategic landscape in the neighbourhood. Over the years, even as India has transformed both in power and temperament, its neighbourhood has changed politically and strategically, and the relationship between the two has transformed as well. South Asian geopolitics — its balance of power, rivalries, partnerships, and the level of external interest and involvement — have all undergone major transformations; 2025 will bring some of these changes into sharper focus.
Let me highlight five features that have come to characterise our region over the past two decades.
What stands out about India’s neighbourhood today is the dramatically diminished interest of great powers compared to a decade or two ago. The era when the United States was a key geopolitical player in South Asia — driven by its military presence in Afghanistan, concerns about terrorism, and the India-Pakistan situation — has largely passed.
A related focus of the international community was the Kashmir conflict, and South Asia was often referred to as a nuclear flashpoint. Today, those concerns have taken a backseat, and the international community has its hands full elsewhere, and Washington is no longer interested. In some ways, South Asia is far more stable today compared to other regions in the world.
Second, at long last, India’s frontier with Pakistan has somewhat quietened down — the Line of Control in Kashmir is mostly peaceful, infiltration is largely contained and attacks inside Kashmir are at best sporadic. There is minimal diplomatic engagement between the two sides, with no trade, political interactions, or high commissioners present on either side for over five years. This calm is beneficial as long as it lasts, even as it is important to note that several issues between the two sides remain unresolved, which could render this calm tenuous.
What may further sustain this calm between South Asia’s arch-rivals is the rising tensions between Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and Pakistan. If, a decade ago, New Delhi’s biggest worry was Pakistan gaining strategic depth in Afghanistan through the Taliban, they have now become a bigger worry for Pakistan instead. The Taliban are no longer Pakistan’s proxies in Afghanistan and are making revisionist claims vis-à-vis Pakistan. While Islamabad initially tried to pin the blame on New Delhi for instigating the Taliban against it, things between Kabul and Islamabad are so bad today that it no longer bothers making such claims.
Third, South Asia today is a region with little regional instinct. Not only has the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) been dysfunctional since 2014, but even the organic connections among the people of the region via trade, travel, tourism and education are on a sharp decline. Bilateralism has thrived at the cost of regionalism. To its liking, New Delhi is no longer dealing with South Asia, but with individual States in South Asia, and, as a result, Delhi is less anxious today about smaller regional States banding together against it.
Fourth, the region’s two major powers, India and China, share an uneasy relationship that fluctuates between deep distrust and cautious optimism. Just as we were getting used to a recent pact between them on patrolling along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), we are learning about China’s plans to build a mega-dam on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River, and the creation of two counties in an illegally occupied section of Ladakh. Thus, while we may like a stable relationship with China, we are most likely to have a testy relationship with the rising superpower next door.
Finally, India’s relationship with its smaller neighbouring States will witness constant fluctuations. Put differently, India’s neighbourhood ties will not be a settled affair going forward. Instead, it will be a constant process of firefighting, smart diplomacy, and outreach. India will have its wins and losses in the neighbourhood, and it must learn to take them in its stride.
If indeed this is the regional strategic landscape India will be dealing with in 2025, what must New Delhi’s broad policy directions be? Let me highlight a few. One, it would be in India’s interest to preserve the calm with Pakistan. Now is not the time for a comprehensive dialogue process with Pakistan nor is it the time to escalate military or geopolitical pressures on it. New Delhi should maintain a measured distance from Pakistan while continuing backchannel conversations.
Engagement with the Taliban must also be careful and incremental lest it blow up the calm on India’s western front. The Taliban is more beneficial to India as a non-enemy than as a friend: As a friend, it would be a liability, while as an enemy, it could be fiercely adversarial.
Even though great powers have lowered their interest in South Asia, New Delhi should explore creative ways to leverage their involvement in the region. The time to leverage such engagement is precisely when they have lesser interest and fewer stakes in it. India should, for instance, confer with the incoming Trump administration regarding the region, especially the future of Bangladesh. India should also leverage the financial and infrastructural capabilities of countries like Japan, South Korea, and European powers to provide regional public goods in South Asia. Finally, India’s South Asia policy must be organically linked to its Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific strategies.
Happymon Jacob teaches India’s foreign policy at JNU and is the founder of the Council forStrategic and Defence Research.The views expressed are personal
