ABSTRACT
This book is about India’s grand strategy — how Indians think about grand strategy and how India practices grand strategy in its most important security arenas. The term grand strategy is not one that is used very often in referring to the way that India deals with security. Some prefer the appellation ‘national security strategy’. We see no harm in that term, yet choose to stay with grand strategy on the argument that it has a historical lineage in strategic thought, going back at least to Basil Liddell Hart’s usage. Others argue that India has no coherent way of dealing with security and therefore both words — ‘grand’ and ‘strategy’ — are inappropriate. The editors of the volume are sceptical on the grounds that no complex, modern society could be devoid of grand strategic thinking and a more or less coherent set of practices that amount to a grand strategy. Given that India is a rising power and expected to play an increasingly prominent role in the international system, it is vital to understand how Indians think about grand strategy and how they practice it. The essays published here are part of an effort at mapping both grand strategic thought and practice.
