Choices: inside the making of India's foreign policy

Abstract

The collapse of the Soviet Union and India's economic crisis in 1991 led to the opening up of the Indian economy and subsequent changes in India's foreign policy. In Choices, well-known Indian diplomat Shivshankar Menon, who held key positions in the Indian government, including foreign secretary and national security adviser, analyses five key decisions in India's post-Cold War foreign policy. These choices are the decision to sign the 1993 Border Peace and Tranquillity Agreement with China and the Civil Nuclear Treaty with the United States; not using force against Pakistan after the 26/11 Mumbai attack; India's response to the Sri Lankan civil war; and eschewing a first use policy on nuclear weapons. Thus the book is not a diplomatic memoir, as readers might expect, but a keen analysis of Indian foreign policy-making. Chapters are divided in two, where the first part deals with policy choices within a particular crisis setting and the second expands on India's current and future policy options. In the first chapter, Menon discusses India's decision to sign the 1993 Border Peace and Tranquillity Agreement with China. For the author, it seemed impossible to solve the boundary dispute permanently, as right-wing forces on both sides would never have allowed settlement of the dispute. The China–India agreement succeeded in keeping the peace as it opened scope for engagement. Menon has a positive outlook on India–China relations in general and argues that the 1993 agreement has been one of the best examples of cooperation (p. 28).