Indian Security Policy in the 1990s: New Risks and Opportunities

Abstract

The nature of global politics and the accompanying security concerns are being transformed in the 1990s. On the other hand, the nature of regional politics and security concerns in South Asia appear to remain basically the same, although the intensity of some of the traditional issues have increased. While the end of the Cold War has ushered in an era of cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union (together with their European allies), the conflict issues that have plagued South Asia in the past — religious antagonism and violence, territorial separatism and its spillover effects, the conventional arms buildup, and the threat of nuclear weapons and missile proliferation — continue to keep South Asia near the edge of political instability and war. To be sure, unlike Indo-Pakistani relations, relations between India and China have considerably improved and may even revert back to the era of cordiality of the 1950s. But this change too constitutes the continuation of one of the past scenarios on the subcontinent.