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v

Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

UNLOCKING INDIA’S STRATEGIC POTENTIAL

IN CENTRAL ASIA

Roman Muzalevsky

October 2015

The views expressed in this report are those of the author and 

do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the 

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ISBN 1-58487-705-7
vii

CONTENTS

Foreword ..................................................................ix

About the Author....................................................xiii

Summary ................................................................xv

Introduction...................................................................1

I. India’s Delayed Arrival and

 Aspirations in Central Asia ..............................5

II. India’s Strategic Culture and

 Geopolitical Constraints ..............................17 

 Undefined Role, Unclear Direction.............17

Constrained Interregional Connectivity..... 22

Quicksands of Afghanistan and Pakistan....26

China’s Head Start and Encirclement 

of India..............................................................30

III. India’s Search for a Way Out: 

 Prospects and Limitations............................39 

 Delhi’s “Connect Central Asia” Policy........ 39 

External Competition and Cooperation......47

Regional Views and Areas of 

Engagement .................................................... 53

Search for Partners as Strategic 

Imperative........................................................60 

IV. Unlocking and Leveraging India’s 

 Regional Potential.................................................65 

Mitigating Af-Pak Security Challenges........65 

Shaping Iran’s Geopolitical Role...................70

Fostering Sino-Indian Cooperation.............. 73 
Exploiting Grand Strategies and 

Regional Connectivity Initiatives ..............76 

V. India’s Long-Term Presence in Central Asia: 

 From Aspirations to Influence.......................81

Endnotes.......................................................................89 

viii
ix

FOREWORD

As a region with abundant resources and rapidly 

growing transit potential surrounded by nucleararmed powers, Central Asia is increasingly drawing 

the attention of global players. Russia is actively seeking to rebuild its economic influence via the newly 

created Eurasian Economic Union. China is expanding 

its reach through a recently launched Silk Road Economic Belt. Other actors are jockeying for their share 

of the region’s pie, as well. But the United States and 

India are enjoying only very limited presence in what 

is increasingly becoming a critical part of the world. 

In this comprehensive and insightful account, Mr. 

Roman Muzalevsky, an author of a book and several 

monographs on global trends, great power politics, 

grand strategy, and connectivity issues, explains 

why India lags behind other actors in the region and 

what needs to be done to unlock its potential as a rising great power and shore up its strategic presence 

in Central Asia. The region, he argues, is of growing 

importance for India’s expansion as an emerging continental power, and failure to enhance its footprint 

risks delaying India’s global rise and undermining the 

U.S. global agenda of upholding the global order amid 

accelerating power shifts.

According to the author, a number of select elements of India’s strategic culture and geopolitical constraints have prevented Delhi from pursuing a more 

active and effective regional policy. India’s legacy of 

nonalignment, lost orientation, and inward focus following the collapse of the Soviet Union, among other factors, are, in part, responsible for the country’s 

lack of clear direction, absence of a widely appealing 
model, and somewhat passive foreign policy that still 

draws heavily on the outdated framework of India’s 

nonalignment legacy as its baseline. 

As if it were not enough, Mr. Muzalevsky contends 

that India also confronts major geopolitical constraints 

such as a disconnected Central-South Asian region, 

instability and volatility in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 

and tensions and border disputes with Beijing and Islamabad. China’s head start in undertaking economic 

reforms and its perceived strategy of encirclement of 

India have added further strains on India’s ambitions 

to enhance its strategic profile in Central Asia. The 

author approaches each of these issues with a critical 

eye and through the prism of India’s relations with 

individual Central Asian republics and great powers, 

highlighting deficiencies of India’s overall approach 

to the region and challenges and opportunities of its 

“Connect Central Asia” policy. He argues that India 

needs not only to compete but also cooperate with 

its perceived rivals in the broader region, especially 

China and Pakistan. Most importantly, however, Mr. 

Muzalevsky calls for an explicit partnership between 

the United States and India in the region, pointing to their overlapping agendas as part of the U.S. 

New Silk Road Strategy and India’s “Connect Central 

Asia” policy, which, in many ways, confront similar 

constraints.

Mr. Muzalevsky treats the prospects of such partnership with caution, pointing to India’s disinterest in 

power balancing schemes and proclivity for pursuing 

a strictly independent course. He also highlights the 

potential of this partnership to undermine U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese relations and lead to escalation 

of external rivalries in a region that is barely able to 

x
xi

cope with internal ones. But the author also provides 

compelling reasons for why such partnership is a 

must if Delhi and Washington want to advance their 

interests in and out of Central-South Asia. Neither of 

these powers enjoys a substantial presence in the region, and each is poorly positioned to take advantage 

of regional trends and opportunities to shape Russia’s, China’s, and Iran’s advances. Both, however, are 

English-speaking democracies, concerned about the 

future of Central-South Asia, given regional threats, 

Russia’s resurgence, and China’s expansion. Both are 

also seeking to reverse decades of separation between 

Central and South Asia as part of their strategies.

The parties are already aligning their positions on 

select issues and see a growing cooperation on strategic matters, including nuclear issues and privatization 

and investment into the Indian economy. The author 

makes an important caveat when discussing the prospects of such partnership in Central Asia, stating that 

the United States and India can now start pursuing a 

number of objectives, either in concert or separately, 

to unlock each other’s strategic potential in the region 

and beyond. Specifically, they should mitigate Afghanistan-Pakistan security challenges; shape Iran’s 

geopolitical role; foster Sino-Indian cooperation; and 

exploit grand strategies and regional connectivity initiatives of other players in Central-South Asia and the 

Greater Middle East. But the author’s advice stands: 

Delhi and Washington should partner to remain 

relevant in the region. 

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer 

this insightful policy guide to its audience of international relations professionals and policymakers working on issues ranging from U.S. and Indian policy in 
Central-South Asia to U.S.-Indian, Sino-Indian, and 

Indo-Pakistani relations.

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press

xii
xiii

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ROMAN MUZALEVSKY works for iJet International 

Inc., performing research, reporting, and analyzing 

global, regional and national security affairs, risks, 

and trends, as well as providing incident response and 

crises management services. He is also a Contributing 

Analyst on Eurasian Affairs and Security at Jamestown Foundation. Previously, he worked for CSM 

Solutions Inc., National Democratic Institute, Department for International Development Public Finance 

Reform Project, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, security consultancy Wikistrat, and global strategy advisory consultancy Krull Corp. in the United States 

and Central Asia. He conducted research on security 

issues in the post-Soviet space at the Center for Political and Military Analysis at Hudson Institute as part 

of the George F. Jewett Foundation Fellowship Award 

for Projects on the Study and Practice of Grand Strategies. Mr. Muzalevsky has authored at least 100 articles 

on Eurasian and global affairs, geopolitics, security, 

and strategic trends. He is the author of Central Asia’s 

Shrinking Connectivity Gap: Implications for U.S. Strategy

(2014); From Frozen Ties to Strategic Engagement: U.S.-

Iranian Relationship in 2030 (2015); and China’s Rise and 

Reconfiguration of Central Asia’s Geopolitics: A Case for 

U.S. Pivot to Eurasia (2015). Mr. Muzalevsky holds a 

diploma in international affairs from the International 

Ataturk Ala-Too University in Kyrgyzstan and an 

M.A. in international affairs with concentration in 

Security and Strategy Studies from Yale University.

xv

SUMMARY

India’s impressive economic growth over the last 

2 1/2 decades has brought India’s role and interests 

to the forefront of global politics and statecraft. Importantly, it has put India into a comparative perspective with China, another aspiring Asian great power 

poised to stiffen competition for resources and influence worldwide. Both are resource-hungry and rapidly emerging powers seeking a new place and role in 

the global and regional orders. Both are also strategic 

rivals and consider their immediate neighborhood of 

Central Asia of growing strategic importance to their 

grand strategies. For now, China has outperformed 

India in Central Asia on all counts, securing the region 

as a key resource base and platform for power projection. India launched the “Connect Central Asia” policy 

in 2012 to shore up its presence, but the policy has not 

yet secured for it even a remotely comparable stake in 

the region due to aspects of India’s strategic culture 

and geopolitical constraints. Meanwhile, U.S. strategic presence in the region leaves much to be desired. 

The United States is withdrawing from Afghanistan 

without major political or military gains from the conflict that has cost it and its partners a fortune in lives 

and money. The future of its military infrastructure 

and relationships with countries in Central-South Asia 

is a big unknown, with regional partners equating the 

U.S. military pullout with its waning commitment to 

support the regional economic and security order. 

To help unlock their strategic potentials, Delhi and 

Washington should join forces and cultivate a strategic partnership that makes Central Asia its major pillar. Until then, neither Delhi nor Washington is likely 

to succeed. Written in May 2015, this monograph 
examines related issues and proposes regional policy 

recommendations for India and the United States.

xvi
1

UNLOCKING INDIA’S STRATEGIC POTENTIAL 

IN CENTRAL ASIA

INTRODUCTION

India’s impressive economic growth over the last 

2 1/2 decades has brought India’s role and interests 

in the world and Central-South Asia to the forefront 

of global politics and statecraft. Importantly, it has 

put India into a comparative perspective with China, 

another aspiring Asian great power poised to stiffen 

competition for resources and influence among established and emerging powers alike. Both are resourcehungry and rapidly emerging powers seeking a new 

place and role in global and regional economic and 

security orders. Both are also strategic rivals and consider their immediate neighborhood of Central Asia of 

growing strategic importance to their grand strategies. 

Just as China has viewed its westward expansion into 

Central Asia imperative to acquire resources and project power globally, so has India deemed its northward 

push into the region essential to nurture and expand 

its potential as an aspiring global power.

For now, China has outperformed India in Central Asia on all counts, securing the region as a key 

resource base and platform for power projection. In 

2012, India launched the “Connect Central Asia” policy to shore up its presence, but the policy has not secured for it a stake comparable to other established or 

emerging great powers due to geopolitical constraints 

and aspects inherent in its strategic culture. Its go-italone approach has earned it little by way of global 

influence or regional presence in Central-South Asia. 

In the meantime, the rise of China and its perceived 

strategy to encircle India have erected new barriers for 

Delhi’s emergence as a great power. 
2

Meanwhile, the U.S. strategic presence in the region leaves much to be desired. The United States is 

withdrawing from Afghanistan without major political or military gains from the conflict that has cost it 

and its partners a fortune in lives and money. The 

future of its military infrastructure and relationships 

with countries in Central-South Asia is a big unknown, with regional partners equating the U.S. military pullout with its waning commitment to support 

the regional economic and security order. To help unlock their strategic potentials, Delhi and Washington 

should join forces in Central Asia. Despite promising 

signs, doing this is not going to be easy, given political 

barriers, institutional mistrust, and past grievances of 

both nations.

Whether India will rely on its own resources—to 

be expanded with the rise of its economy—or seek a 

partnership with the United States, or both, remains to 

be seen. What is clear is that India’s geopolitical role 

is set to expand considerably in the next years and 

decades. Such expansion will generate concerns for 

neighbors and distant actors alike, creating conditions 

for instability despite benefits of cooperation between 

them and India as one of the largest economies. Washington and Delhi should ensure they stay engaged in 

Central Asia and enhance their positions amid a power struggle unfolding between outside powers in this 

increasingly critical part of the world by mitigating 

Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) security challenges; 

shaping Iran’s geopolitical role; fostering Sino-Indian 

cooperation; and exploiting grand strategies and regional connectivity initiatives of other actors. This 

they should achieve as part of a strategic partnership 

that makes Central Asia its major pillar. Until then, 

neither Delhi nor Washington is likely to succeed.
3

The role of the U.S. military in the process, either 

as part of the U.S.-Indian strategic partnership or as 

part of U.S. overall efforts to cultivate such a partnership with Delhi, will be critical. Rightly so, because a 

lot is at stake for the United States in this seemingly 

remote backwater. As an area of growing external rivalries, the region of Central-South Asia is a source of 

both traditional and nontraditional security threats to 

U.S. national interests, be that in the political, military, 

or even economic domain. From interstate conflicts to 

transnational terrorism and from Russia’s attempts 

to reestablish geopolitical control to China’s efforts 

to achieve economic dominance, the region is a focal point of intersecting challenges and opportunities 

that the U.S. military should be better positioned to 

address and leverage in support of U.S. national interests. Pursuing those objectives as part of U.S. economic, political, and military efforts would help India 

unlock its strategic potential and assist Washington in 

unlocking that of its own. 

5

I: INDIA’S DELAYED ARRIVAL 

AND ASPIRATIONS IN CENTRAL ASIA

India’s impressive economic growth over the last 

2 1/2 decades has brought India’s role and interests 

in the world and Central-South Asia to the forefront 

of global politics and statecraft. Importantly, it has 

put India into a comparative perspective with China, 

another aspiring Asian great power poised to stiffen 

competition for resources and influence among established and emerging powers alike. Both are resourcehungry and rapidly emerging powers seeking a new 

place and role in the global economic and security orders. Both are also strategic rivals and consider their 

immediate neighborhood of Central Asia of growing 

strategic importance to their grand strategies. Just as 

China has viewed its westward expansion into Central Asia imperative to acquire resources and project 

power globally, so has India deemed its northward 

push into the region essential to nurture and expand 

its strategic potential as an aspiring global power. 

For now, China has outperformed India in Central Asia on all counts, securing the region as a key 

resource base and platform for power projection. In 

2012, India launched the “Connect Central Asia” policy to shore up its regional presence, but the policy has 

not secured for it a regional stake comparable to other 

established or emerging great powers. Select elements 

of India’s strategic culture and a number of geopolitical constraints explain the country’s lagging position 

behind China and its constrained role in the world 

and the Central-South Asian region. 

Indian authorities have not fully discarded the 

legacy of India’s nonalignment ideology and the role 

of this ideology in the country’s foreign policy, which 

has only recently started assuming a more assertive 
6

posture that takes national interests, not ideology, as 

its baseline. They are also coping with India’s lost orientation following the dissolution of the Soviet Union 

and are still defining India’s global and regional visions and roles. Finally, they continue to be preoccupied with India’s domestic challenges impeding more 

focused external policies and engagement. Together, 

these factors make India’s external direction slow and 

unclear, its policies less targeted and sustainable. Unless Indian elites address these issues, enhancing India’s global and regional position will prove a harder 

enterprise for the country that sees itself as an aspiring 

great power. 

The same goes regarding India’s ability to address 

a number of geopolitical constraints, which are products of geography, history, and India’s relations with 

neighbors. The existence of a disconnected broader 

region of Central-South Asia is chief among them. Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, which set Central Asian countries free to pursue links with neighbors in South Asia, and the U.S. military presence in 

Eurasia’s heartland for the first time in history, which 

opened a connection between Central and South Asia, 

both regions remain largely disconnected from within 

and without. They are also the areas that are least integrated with the global economy and whose constituent units have tense relations, impeding trade and 

economic development. India does not share a border 

with Central Asia and has to rely on the relatively 

isolated Iran, unstable Afghanistan, and airlifts from 

Delhi and Dubai to trade with the region.

India further confronts what I call the “quicksands” 

of Afghanistan and Pakistan—a status quo of now 

chronic instability and security risks in the region that 

sustain the disconnection between Central and South 
7

Asia and limit significantly regional economic development and India’s strategic reach in and beyond both 

regions. The instability in Afghanistan and Delhi’s 

tensions with Islamabad prevent India from establishing a direct and expanded link with Central Asia. 

Prospects of civil war, separatism, and disintegration 

in Afghanistan and Pakistan present additional challenges for India’s efforts to connect with the region. 

Delhi views its ascendance in Central and South Asia 

as critical for its plans to become a great power. But it 

cannot achieve this status without mitigating the challenges facing Afghanistan and Pakistan and addressing its tensions with Islamabad and Beijing, especially 

as they concern the transit role of Kashmir. 

Besides geopolitical constraints involving Pakistan, 

China, and Afghanistan, India also faces a highly competitive role played by China, with which it fought a 

war and still has unresolved border disputes. Delhi is 

concerned about China’s emergence as a neighboring 

great power and related impact on India’s global position in a potentially reformatted global economic and 

security order. It is also especially wary about Beijing’s 

perceived encirclement strategy to keep India tied to 

South Asia and the growing role of Pakistan as Beijing’s platform to deny Delhi an active regional role. 

The legacy of the 1962 border war and Sino-Indian 

border disputes reinforce this perception, impeding 

the development of transcontinental links via CentralSouth Asia (especially through Xingjian and Kashmir) 

with the participation of India, China, and Pakistan.

Despite its growing capabilities, India is starting 

its ascendance to the ranks of great powers from a 

lower economic base and at a slower pace compared 

to China and other Southeast Asian economies. It is 

the last major Asian economy to join the Asian eco-
8

nomic renaissance—a courtesy of its leadership during the Cold War that considered the success of others “as largely irrelevant to its [India’s] own future” 

and favored the “continuation of existing policies” as 

a sign of the country’s autonomous role in world affairs.1

 Only in the 1990s did Indian authorities start 

advancing economic reforms with a focus on privatization, a process that continues to this day and still 

faces enormous challenges. Unlike other Asian economies, India embarked on reforms after the collapse of 

the Soviet Union and amid expanding U.S.-led global 

economic integration and the risk of “increasing marginalization” if India failed to reform. The urgency of 

economic reforms was so grave that it prompted one 

commentator to compare India’s shift of economic 

gears with India’s second independence, only this 

time “from a rapacious and domineering state.”2 As a 

result, India is only now starting to enjoy the fruits of 

its economic reforms.

Those factors help explain why India’s trade with 

Central Asia was just $U.S.1.24 billion (B) in 2013-

14 compared to China’s at U.S.$50B or why, despite 

friendly relations, India’s model of development is 

not appealing and the regional states do not view India as a major counterbalancing force in their external 

strategies just yet. To beef up its foreign policy and 

to change the status quo in the region, in 2012, India 

launched the “Connect Central Asia” policy to link 

South and Central Asia via energy, trade, and transit 

corridors—a constrained connectivity initiative of an 

aspiring great power (India) with an agenda similar 

to the mission of the poorly executed New Silk Road 

Strategy (NSRS) of a relatively declining power (the 

United States). If successful, the policy would create 

a sustainable economic corridor between Central and 
9

South Asia, helping India project its presence in both 

regions and achieve a great power status sooner. 

Be it as it may, India’s “connect” policy faces tough 

competition, especially from the Russia-led Eurasian 

Economic Union (EEU) and the China-led Silk-Road 

Economic Belt (“belt”). This is despite India’s promising areas of engagement with Central Asian republics 

in areas as diverse as energy resources exploitation, 

nuclear energy cooperation, transit infrastructure 

development, trade facilitation, military and defense 

collaboration, development of space exploration related programs, and external strategic balancing. The 

policy is also conceptually concentrated on and limited to reconstruction and integration of Afghanistan 

with Central and South Asia, while lacking financial 

and diplomatic resources for this task. It further ignores India’s strategic need—no less geopolitically 

significant as the internal and external integration of 

Afghanistan—to resolve tensions with Pakistan and 

China and capitalize on their roles in reconnecting 

the regions and unlocking India’s strategic potential. Therefore, despite its projected rise as a great 

power in the long term, India’s south-north “push” 

in the next decade will be weaker and less assertive 

than China’s east-west “pull.” Bureaucratic politics at 

home and instability in the immediate neighborhood 

will keep India largely confined to South Asia and the 

Indian Ocean.

The regional position of the United States, too, 

faces major challenges. Washington and its allies are 

in the process of withdrawing from Afghanistan—a 

development that evokes concerns of unmanaged instability in the region and U.S. disregard of CentralSouth Asia at the time when new security challenges 

and opportunities are emerging, which could either 
10

undermine or reinforce U.S. global standing and its 

long-term capacity to remain a global power. What 

is more, it is a U.S.-Indian strategic cooperation that 

is increasingly in demand to ensure that both Washington and Delhi succeed in addressing these security threats, capitalizing on these opportunities, and 

achieving their objectives in Central-South Asia and 

the world at large. 

Currently, the U.S. strategic presence in the region 

and achievements as part of the NSRS leave much to 

be desired. By 2016, the United States is likely to withdraw from Afghanistan on schedule, without major 

political or military gains from the conflict that has 

cost it and its partners a fortune in lives and money. 

The future of its military infrastructure, including 

bases, agreements, and relationships with countries 

in Central-South Asia, is a big unknown, not only for 

its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO), but also partners in the region. The latter 

equate the U.S. military pullout with its waning commitment to support the regional economic and security order, to which Washington contributed but which 

it is now struggling to shape. 

The fate of the U.S. NSRS is no longer as important as it was originally promoted to be, and not only 

because of its own deficiencies in the form of limited 

funding, lacking commitment, and inactive leadership. Other actors are increasingly implementing similar concepts in practice and with a lot of success, enabling them to advance their national interests while 

advancing regional development. Beneficial as it is in 

some ways for the region, the implementation of similar connectivity initiatives by other actors without an 

effective and committed participation by the United 

States in its own initiative, let alone other projects, 

risks marginalizing the U.S. regional role of promot-
11

ing globalization and development as key pillars of its 

national security strategy. 

In the meantime, efforts of established powers to 

maintain their positions in the face of growing presence of emerging powers complicate the already complex mosaic of relationships in the region, surrounded 

as it is by four nuclear powers. Central and South Asia 

are experiencing instability but are reconnecting after 

decades of isolation. Iran is poised to become a key 

regional economic integrator after decades of isolation imposed by the West. China and India are rising 

as great powers and seeking to advance their interests with growing force. Russia seeks to reassert its 

traditional geopolitical role in the post-Soviet space. 

In short, parts of Eurasia are seeing a reconfiguration 

of their geopolitical maps—the processes the U.S. 

military should be ready to shape to advance U.S. 

national interests in the rapidly changing strategic 

environment. 

Indeed, the continent is undergoing rapid power 

shifts brought about by the rise of new powers and 

assertiveness of established ones, while confronting 

threats from nonstate actors like the Islamic State (IS) 

seeking to advance their agenda at all cost. But while 

the United States is present militarily in Central-South 

Asia, it is barely present economically and plans to 

disengage militarily at exactly the time when its overall presence is of growing importance to its ability to 

pursue new military missions in Eurasia and remain a 

relevant global player. India’s situation is similar, but 

only to an extent: it, too, is hardly present in Central 

Asia, but has a strong desire to set a deeper footprint 

as a way to achieve a status of great power. What they 

have in common is their lack of strategic presence in 

the region yet combined potential to be significant 

actors in Central-South Asia. 
12

To help unlock their strategic potentials globally 

and regionally, Washington and India should partner 

in Central Asia. Doing this is not going to be easy. 

Both states share political impediments, institutional 

mistrust, and a number of grievances. India views it 

increasingly important to carve out for itself an independent role reflecting its ascendance and confirming 

its status as a rising power and has traditionally positioned itself as an autonomous actor unwilling to be 

a “pawn” of other powers. Washington, in turn, may 

not want to commit to a strategic partnership that does 

not reflect a bigger voice and role by the United States, 

among other reasons. Yet, both recognize the growing 

importance of aligning their views and joining forces 

in tackling emerging challenges and opportunities. India’s go-it-alone approach has earned it little by way of 

global or regional presence, while the U.S. do-it-alone 

approach has undermined its influence worldwide. In 

the meantime, the rise of China is yet to erect barriers 

to Delhi’s emergence as a great power and Washington’s ability to retain its status as the strongest actor. 

Latest developments in the U.S.-Indian relations 

indicate that both actors are strengthening their strategic cooperation without compromising each other’s 

vital interests. In 2015, Delhi and Washington concluded another nuclear energy cooperation deal, opening 

the door for Delhi to import U.S. technologies critical 

for India’s status as an ascending technological power 

in sectors other than information technology (IT). This 

they did despite India not being a member of the NonProliferation Treaty (NPT). The agreement comes a decade after the parties concluded the first nuclear deal, 

seen as a “paradigm shift” in India’s geopolitical code, 

with Delhi feeling increasingly comfortable partnering 

with the United States to counter China’s advances in 
13

areas viewed as lying within India’s periphery.3 Both 

are pursuing similar connectivity strategies toward 

Central-South Asia. And both are increasing bilateral 

cooperation—in large part to even the scales of global 

power flows—as they confront a rising China in the 

Pacific and Indian oceans and now across Eurasia. 

The United States would benefit from a much 

stronger strategic presence by India in the heart of 

Eurasia. The former is a relatively declining power 

and a democracy that can facilitate India’s ascendance 

to a great power status quicker and with less obstacles. 

The latter is a rapidly emerging power and a democracy with an increasingly entrepreneurial and growing middle class, which can assist the United States 

in ensuring a peaceful global power transition from 

“the West to the rest.” Both should also be less concerned about competing with each other for strategic 

influence in Central Asia. The United States is far from 

the continent, does not wield influence in the region 

comparable to Russia or China, and would welcome 

India’s stronger presence to ensure that neither Beijing nor Moscow dominates the region. India, in turn, 

is closer to Central Asia but is a democracy, lacks any 

imperial legacy of expansion into Central Asia and, 

importantly, does not enjoy a strategic presence and 

perceived intent to dominate the broader region—all 

while facing Russia’s and China’s opposition to its 

regional advances. 

A strategic partnership with a focus on Central 

Asia between the United States and India should be 

premised on joint and unilateral actions aimed at mitigating Af-Pak security challenges to facilitate India’s 

linkages with Central Asia; shaping the geopolitical 

role of Iran to advance U.S. and Indian interests in 

the broader region; fostering Sino-Indian cooperation 
14

to enable India’s linkages with China, Pakistan, and 

Central Asia via Kashmir and Xingjian; and exploiting grand strategies and connectivity initiatives of 

other actors in Central-South Asia, such as Russia and 

China, to advance their own policies. Importantly, the 

U.S.-Indian partnership should not constrain Sino-Indian cooperation where it advances India’s position in 

Central-South Asia. Beijing plays a growing role in the 

evolution and stability of Afghanistan and Pakistan, 

and its interest in developing links between the Middle East and Central-South Asia could significantly 

facilitate U.S. and Indian regional policy if Delhi and 

Washington play their regional cards right.

The United States will not be able to achieve the 

previous objectives without relying on its military. 

From mitigating security challenges in the Af-Pak 

region, given the planned military withdrawal from 

Afghanistan and reformatting its missions in light of 

potential U.S.-Iranian détente, to promoting confidence building and shared security and crises management approaches with China and India and protection of vast and expanding economic infrastructure 

throughout Eurasia, the support of the U.S. military 

to the overall U.S. strategy in the region is going to be 

critical for U.S. general efforts to unlock India’s strategic potential across all four objectives. The earlier 

Washington engages Delhi in the region, the easier 

it will be for Washington to shape India’s emergence 

as a great power to support U.S. regional and global 

security agenda. 

India’s rise is undeniable and set to expand its 

global reach and Central Asia’s connectivity with 

South Asia. With time, Central Asian states may find 

it imperative to deflect the growing pressure from the 

east (China) and north (Russia) by cultivating closer 
15

ties with the south (India), as they look for a secure 

way of connecting with the world as independent 

units. India’s potentially transformational regional 

engagement is there to help. But Delhi is currently a 

latecomer to the region’s 21st century “Great Game” 

and faces tough competition from Russia and China, 

making it critical for Delhi to partner with Washington to bolster its strategic presence in the region. 

Until then, India’s arrival in Central Asia will remain 

delayed for the foreseeable future, making it harder 

for Delhi to turn its regional aspirations into sustainable long-term gains. Regardless of whether Delhi 

and Washington enter a strategic partnership in the 

region, the United States should better understand 

and help India address select elements of its strategic 

culture and geopolitical constraints that are impeding 

its efforts to connect with the region. 

17

II: INDIA’S STRATEGIC CULTURE AND 

GEOPOLITICAL CONSTRAINTS 

Undefined Role, Unclear Direction.

A number of elements of India’s strategic culture 

explain Delhi’s limited engagement with Central Asia. 

India’s legacy of nonalignment, lost orientation, and 

focus on internal agenda following the collapse of the 

Soviet Union, and relatively passive foreign policy 

have rendered its global role poorly defined and executed and, ultimately, unfulfilled. As a result, India 

has not pursued a clear direction, projected an appealing normative model of development, or exclusively 

relied on its national interests as the guiding principle 

of its foreign policy. But India recognizes these issues 

and, given its projected emergence as an influential 

global player, has sought to adjust its foreign policy 

in light of unfolding global dynamics and its national 

interests. 

While India officially discarded the ideological 

underpinnings of its nonalignment after the end of 

the Cold War, its foreign policy continues to reflect 

and project related principles. India refuses to participate in power-balancing schemes or serve perceived 

agendas of other power(s). This makes it difficult for 

Delhi to utilize the leverage of its potential allies and 

partners in areas of the world where its role is limited 

compared to its strategic needs. In Central Asia, where 

its geopolitical presence is insignificant but its needs 

and future role are potentially enormous, aligning 

with other actors would benefit Delhi. However, India tries to avoid becoming a “pawn” in the perceived 

U.S. chess game of containing China and Russia in the 

heart of Eurasia. 
18

In a way, Delhi finds it difficult to part with the 

legacy of its nonalignment model because it has simply not yet developed a new one. Pursuing a foreign 

policy reflecting elements of nonalignment allows it 

to preserve some sense of direction in the otherwise 

less controlled geopolitical environment. Ironically, 

the end of India’s nonalignment de facto came not with 

the end of the Cold War, but with it. After Indian and 

Chinese troops clashed along the border in 1962 and 

after Washington and Beijing reached détente in 1972, 

India was compelled—despite its promoted status of 

nonalignment—to align itself with the Soviet Union 

to balance the Sino-Pakistani-U.S. axis,4 while leaving 

room for a strategic autonomy vis-à-vis Moscow and 

retaining popularity in the third world. The demise 

of the Soviet Union shattered Delhi’s perception of its 

strategic environment and its role as the leader of the 

nonalignment movement. 

India’s foreign policy was disoriented, while its 

domestic policy was preoccupied with development 

challenges caused by the rupture of economic links 

with the Soviet Union. Former Indian Ambassador 

to the United States Abid Husain, an economist, described India as a tiger in a cage, a potentially powerful yet hesitant actor: “When the cage is open, the tiger 

would show its real strength. The cage is now open 

but the tiger refuses to come out of the cage.”5 Focusing on domestic challenges after the collapse of the 

Soviet Union distracted India from pursuing an active 

foreign policy, which has lacked assertiveness and 

only recently started operating in geopolitical codes 

rather than ideological frames of nonalignment. Its 

foreign policy also focused on the immediate region of 

South Asia, while treating Central Asia as Moscow’s 

periphery and neglecting China’s growing influence 
19

in the region. This explains India’s “gap between ambitions and capabilities” in the region that persists to 

this day.6

India’s inward-looking focus and preoccupation 

with domestic agenda have further prevented it from 

the creation of a normative and appealing development model and pursuit of a larger objective beyond 

its borders, even as the country has been gaining economic strength. Leading Indian intellectuals at the 

1919 Paris Peace Conference reportedly envisioned 

an independent India that would not project power 

outward or seek to dominate other states. This left 

little room for “a global objective in Indian strategic 

culture,” contributing to the emergence of a nonalignment tradition that bore the hallmarks of “sovereignty 

and autarky” viewed as “independence from the rest 

of the world, rather than as a particular way of engaging others.”7

 As an expert on India’s security policy, 

Achin Vanaik observes that India’s foreign policy 

has not had a “real strategic vision or well-developed 

strategic sense, being too prone to a moralistic form 

of posturing as a substitute for pursuing hard-headed 

and self-serving foreign policy perspective.” The lack 

of recognition of the importance of power accumulation and power politicking, Vanaik argues, allowed 

external forces to “repeatedly invade and defeat India 

over the centuries.”8

India’s proclivity to wait rather than act is another 

aspect attributed to its strategy, culture, and foreign 

policy. Rodney W. Jones, an expert on South Asia, 

for instance, argues that India is determined “to wait 

the opponent out” rather than engage it in an effort 

to produce “a pragmatic compromise”—a position 

reflecting India’s “profound sense of entitlement, superiority, and presumed deeper knowledge about the 
20

correlation of forces that distinguish India’s strategic 

culture.”9 The result is a rising India that remains a 

spectator with a “wait-and-watch-and-hope-for-thebest” approach10 rather than an active actor using every opportunity to enhance its presence in the region 

of growing importance for its ascendance as a great 

power. Unlike China and the EEU, whose “normative power” is based on the power of active example, 

India’s is based on the power of “passive example.” 

Delhi has an expectation that other actors will follow 

India without it having to provide any inducements.11

But it has not yet succeeded in leveraging effectively its rich popular identity, maturing politics, and 

economic progress.12

India’s anti-colonial struggle, nonalignment tradition, and unfulfilled economic potential have discouraged Delhi from actively promoting itself as a model, 

let alone imposing its vision of development on other 

countries. In Central Asia, it seeks to lead the way for 

regional republics—without a model—in areas such 

as democratic and secular development, building of 

multi-ethnic societies, and economic modernization. 

But even such an unimposing approach comes with 

a price. India’s political influence in the region is very 

weak. Delhi does not support regional opposition 

groups, considers the evolution of the regional states 

and societies through the lens of Islamic currents, supports a multi-ethnic federal system rather than unitary 

nation-state building premised on a dominant ethnic 

group, and has failed to demonstrate convincingly the 

fruits of its economic modernization given its widespread poverty and legacy of its cast system.13

India’s economic growth in high digits over the 

years (7.5 percent this year) and tensions with China 

and Pakistan nevertheless have prompted Delhi to 
21

pursue a more assertive foreign policy. India’s nuclear 

test in 1998 demonstrated Delhi’s more assertive foreign policy posture not just vis-à-vis nuclear-armed 

Pakistan and China, with which it has fought several 

wars (1948-49, 1965, 1971 with Pakistan, and 1962 with 

China), but also in relation to the United States and 

others with which it seeks equal great power relations. 

The test revealed Delhi’s technological prowess and, 

importantly, its intent to show off its capabilities as a 

rising actor ready to assume a geopolitical role no longer constrained by the Cold War.14 As former Indian 

Foreign Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee explained, 

India’s intensified engagement with South Asia and 

increasingly other areas of the world is “the beginning 

of the reassertion of India’s historically benign and 

stabilizing role in these regions, premised on the commerce of ideas and goods.”15

According to Indian strategist C. Raja Mohan, India’s grand strategy is preoccupied with three concentric geographic circles: an immediate neighborhood 

where India seeks primacy; an “extended neighborhood” covering the rest of Asia and Indian Ocean littoral where it seeks to counterbalance other powers 

and prevent them from undercutting its interests; and 

the rest of the world where India sees itself as a great 

power capable of playing a key global role.16 On a regional level, and specific to Central Asia, India gradually has transitioned to a more active formulation of 

its policy toward the region, as well. It started with 

its “Look North” and “Look West” policies toward 

Central-West Asia, initiating its “Connect Central 

Asia” policy in 2012. The “connect” policy seeks not 

to “look” north but to “connect” the north, reflecting 

an emphasis on action rather than observation. India 

intends to pursue a more direct and impactful engage-
22

ment with Central Asia by making Afghanistan the 

hub of interregional reconnection. 

But intent is not a capability, and India is yet to 

overcome a number of deficiencies related to its strategic culture and foreign policy, as well as major connectivity and geopolitical constraints, before it can 

enjoy strategic presence in Central Asia even remotely 

comparable to great powers. 

Constrained Interregional Connectivity. 

India faces a number of connectivity constraints 

limiting its presence in Central Asia: the fact of a disconnected Central and South Asia as a broader region; 

India’s lack of a contiguous border with Central Asia; 

significant geographical barriers; India’s unresolved 

political tensions with Pakistan and China; and interstate rivalries within Central and South Asia. The instability of Afghanistan and Pakistan is another major 

factor, which is addressed in a separate section. 

India and the rest of South Asia had interacted 

with Central Asia for centuries. But the division of 

spheres of influence between the tsarist Russia and 

Great Britain in the 19th century, the creation of the 

Soviet Union in the early-20th century, and the partition of India in 1947 sealed the borders between the 

two regions, leaving them largely disconnected—a 

status quo that in a significant way persists to this 

day.17 India found itself largely cut off from Central 

Asia during the Cold War, despite maintaining deeper ties with Central Asian republics compared to other 

powers due to its friendly relations with the Soviet 

Union until the latter’s collapse in 1991. The demise 

of the Soviet Union allowed Central Asian states to 

pursue links with South Asian neighbors as indepen-
23

dent units, but the constituent states of both regions 

failed to develop strong relations with each other or 

neighbors. The regional republics were preoccupied 

with day-to-day survival and consolidation as nationstates, guarding their newly found independence and 

perceiving countries in South Asia as less stable, less 

developed, and more risky partners, instead seeking 

ties with Russia, Turkey, European partners, and the 

United States, among other actors. 

Civil war in Tajikistan in the 1900s and instability 

in Afghanistan from the 1900s onwards further impeded the development of any linkages between Central and South Asian countries. Both Tajikistan and 

Afghanistan represented and still represent connection points between Central and South Asia, making 

it crucial for their elites and counterparts in neighboring states to address any ongoing security concerns 

centered on separatism, cross-border militancy, and 

Islamist agenda. The instability in Tajikistan and Afghanistan facilitated cooperation between India and 

Central Asian states aimed at stabilizing the security 

situations in both countries. Today, this cooperation 

is in the works, given India’s concerns about the regional instability impacting its projected rise. But the 

planned exit of coalition forces from Afghanistan and 

the potential departure of Washington may delay and 

constrain India’s efforts to reconnect with the region, 

even if it would stimulate a need for Delhi’s deeper 

engagement with Central Asia. 

The U.S. military invasion of Afghanistan after 

September 11, 2001 (9/11) has been a transformational 

development for the broader region. But the reconnection process it set in motion may stall, if not reverse, 

when Washington and its coalition allies pull out of 

Afghanistan. The presence of U.S. forces in the heart 
24

of Eurasia for the first time in history led to the creation of the Northern Distribution Network as a corridor running supplies across Central Asia to coalition 

forces in Afghanistan. It has also encouraged intraregional and interregional collaboration on economic, 

political, and security matters, as concerned parties 

have searched for a solution to the conflict in Afghanistan and better prospects for their development. But 

the longevity and aftermath of this reconnection process as driven by the military presence of coalition 

forces is a big question mark after 2016. The end of this 

process and India’s do-it-alone approach in the region 

portend complications for Delhi’s efforts to reconnect 

Central and South Asia via a more stable, developed, 

and integrated Afghanistan. 

Unlike China, Russia, or Iran, India also lacks a 

contiguous border with Central Asia, which makes 

the pursuit of trade and transit links with the region a 

much harder enterprise. India has to rely on the relatively isolated Iran, unstable Afghanistan, and airlifts 

from Delhi and Dubai to trade with the region. Geographic barriers presented by the Himalayan mountain range complicate its reach north as well, making 

the development and advancement of India’s links 

with China’s Xingjian and Tibet a challenging, though 

not impossible, task on technical grounds. (Interestingly, China has boosted its connectivity infrastructure within Tibet and Xingjian provinces for economic 

and military purposes. But India has lagged behind 

in similar efforts in its northern areas,18 including in 

Aksai Chin—a region adjacent to Jammu and Kashmir that China administers but India disputes. Beijing 

uses Aksai Chin to connect Xingjian and Tibet via its 

national highway.) Moreover, the Indian subcontinent 

is rather “self-contained,” with a harsh terrain and an 
25

ocean isolating it on all sides and making it more of 

an island than a territory integrated with Eurasia.19

Robert Kaplan correctly points out the limiting factor 

of geography on India’s global and regional ambitions: “India is a regional power to the degree that it 

is entrapped by this geography; it is a potential great 

power to the degree that it can move beyond it.”20

India’s rivalries and tensions with Pakistan and 

China, along with perceived security threats from 

Bangladesh and Nepal, present a major obstacle for 

India to connect with Central Asia, while “robbing India of vital political energy” to project power across 

Eurasia.21 Pakistan, India’s rival in South Asia ever 

since India’s partition in 1947, denies India overland 

access to Central Asia, forcing it to rely on airlifts, sealanes, and overland links via Iran and then Afghanistan to trade with the region.22 Meanwhile, Sino-Indian disputes, including over Aksai Chin and parts of 

Arunachal and Himachal Pradesh, continue to strain 

the relationship between the two powers that once 

fought a war over contended borders. India’s borders 

with Pakistan and China are currently either sealed or 

partially open at few crossings, impeding transcontinental trade and transit. 

Rivalries and tensions within Central and South 

Asia among constituent states further impair interregional connectivity by hampering linkages within and 

between respective regions. In Central Asia, stricken 

by border, water, and ethnic disputes (especially in 

the Fergana Valley shared by Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, 

and Kyrgyzstan), a relatively isolated Uzbekistan and 

relatively open Kazakhstan struggle for regional primacy. In South Asia, riddled by insurgencies and militancy, the nuclear-armed Pakistan and India jockey 

for regional influence, as well. 
26

India has a lot to accomplish in Central-South Asia, 

as both regions remain largely disconnected from 

within and without and represent the areas that are 

least integrated with the global economy. This makes 

the involvement of great and emerging powers in 

the regions a source of opportunities and challenges, 

advancing the regions’ external integration but with 

a potential cost to the sovereignty and independence 

of the constituent countries. India is one such power 

that is projected to be an economic engine driving the 

reconnection of the regions, provided it properly addresses the connectivity constraints and Af-Pak challenges limiting its regional engagement. 

Quicksands of Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

To a significant degree, India’s limited presence in 

Central Asia is a factor of the war-torn Afghanistan 

and volatile security situation in Pakistan. The unfinished war in Afghanistan and the planned withdrawal 

of coalition forces from the country by 2016 threatens 

further instability in Central-South Asia and reversal 

of any modest connectivity gains that India and the 

regions have attained at a big cost. Meanwhile, economic and security challenges in Pakistan may swell 

considerably, threatening the country’s disintegration 

and, along with Afghanistan, inviting the involvement of state and nonstate actors and exacerbating the 

already fragile political and security fabric of CentralSouth Asia. India is yet to realize that its success in 

Afghanistan and Central Asia are hardly possible 

without its significantly improved ties with Pakistan 

and China—the countries playing a major geopolitical and geo-economic role in Afghanistan and broader 

Central-South Asia. Absent that, India will remain 
27

trapped in the quicksands of the Af-Pak region, unable to project a meaningful geopolitical role in either 

Central-South Asia or beyond. 

After the withdrawal of coalition forces, Afghanistan may experience disintegration due to a potential 

flare-up of civil war or major sectarian conflict that 

could engulf neighboring Iran, Pakistan, and Central 

Asian states. Expansion of the conflict beyond the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan could bring about 

systemic perturbations, if not for the global security 

system then certainly for the Eurasian continent or its 

geopolitical subsystems. This, in part, explains Delhi’s 

focus on reconstruction of Afghanistan and reconnection of Central and South Asia via Afghanistan as 

the interregional node of trade, energy, and transit 

connecting the two regions. This thinking in India’s 

foreign policy is significant. It goes beyond Delhi’s 

traditional and still strong obsession with Pakistan to 

encompass its responsible reconstruction role and a 

forward-looking policy vis-à-vis Central Asia despite, 

indeed because of, the war in Afghanistan. 

India is concerned about Islamabad’s and Beijing’s 

efforts to draw Kabul into their fold, especially after 

coalition troops leave Afghanistan. A Taliban-ruled 

Afghanistan once provided Islamabad with a platform for its strategic depth strategy that fed India’s 

sense of insecurity.23 China’s growing presence in Afghanistan may yet deal a blow to India’s plans seeking 

to establish its own strategic foothold in the country. 

India’s rivalry with Pakistan and China over Kabul is 

important to India for securing Afghanistan as the interregional link advancing Delhi’s agenda. But in the 

current shape, this process binds India to a two-front 

struggle with neighbors, sapping its resources and accentuating heavily the competitive rather than collab-
28

orative dynamics in its relationships with Islamabad 

and Beijing. Delhi should reformulate its engagement 

in Afghanistan and Central Asia by pursuing a cooperative accommodation with Pakistan and China 

focused more on collaboration than competition or 

disengagement. Achieving either outcome would 

be impossible without China and Pakistan changing 

their postures vis-à-vis India, as well. Currently, such 

will is weak in all three capitals—a dangerous status 

quo, considering Pakistan’s growing strategic role for 

China in promoting transcontinental development 

via Central and South Asia without the participation 

of India. 

A more positive cooperation involving China, 

Pakistan, and India would be hard to achieve without addressing the dispute over Kashmir and the latter’s role as a trilateral and transcontinental connector. The division of Greater Kashmir into Jammu and 

Kashmir and Azad Jammu Kashmir, administered by 

India and Pakistan respectively, and the establishment of a Line of Actual Control in 1949 over which 

China, India, and Pakistan fought several wars in the 

1960s, 1970s, and 1900s undermined any prospects of 

expanded transcontinental links.24 The status quo in 

Kashmir constrains Indo-Pakistan and Sino-Indian 

ties; prevents expanded transit and trade between 

Central, South, and East Asia; and could threaten an 

open interstate conflict. The three countries view their 

control over parts of Greater Kashmir as a source of 

military advantage in a possible escalation of conflict, 

reinforcing a perceived need to control the evolution 

of the region in ways that hamper rather than facilitate 

trade via this territory. Instead, they could cultivate 

regional stability by fostering the independence of a 

unified Kashmir. Since this position seems untenable 
29

at this time, the parties should pursue other possible 

arrangements. 

Besides tensions with Pakistan and China, as well 

as instability in Afghanistan, India also has to grapple 

with potentially game-changing regional ramifications of a volatile Pakistan. The issue of Pakistan’s 

territorial integrity has haunted its elites since the 

country’s creation in 1947, when it was carved out 

of India and saw a part of its territory now known as 

Bangladesh secede in 1971 in a bloody war. Nearly 4 

decades since, Islamabad has struggled to ensure domestic security amid militant attacks, some of which 

bear the hallmarks of separatism. Pakistani authorities fight Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Pakistani Taliban in 

Baluchistan, federally administered tribal areas, and 

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, besides struggling to maintain 

their hold on Kashmir. The funding of militant groups 

against Soviet forces and India has ricocheted against 

Pakistan. In 2014 alone, militant and terrorist attacks 

against the state and minorities left approximately 

5,500 people dead, including civilians, security forces, 

and insurgents/terrorists.25 The chronic instability 

could threaten popular unrest or disintegration of the 

nuclear-armed state, producing consequences with 

which India would not be able to cope alone and that 

would exacerbate the instability in Afghanistan and 

further complicate India’s efforts to reconnect with 

Central Asia. 

The less opportunities Pakistan has for economic 

development, the higher the risks of its disintegration 

and negative ramifications for neighbors in the region, 

especially India. Delhi should pursue a policy aimed at 

not only reconstruction and reconnection of Afghanistan but also incorporation of Pakistan in the regional 

economic system, with and without urgently needed 
30

political arrangements necessary to decrease its tensions with Islamabad. Ensuring a responsible and 

constructive role by Pakistan in domestic and regional 

security should inform India’s political, economic, 

and security dialogue and engagement with China as 

Pakistan’s main partner. India’s success as an aspiring great power requires a projection of power and a 

search for resources to buttress such power in order to 

address geopolitical dilemmas centered on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China. India’s search for genuine 

cooperation with Pakistan and China would accelerate the stabilization, reconstruction, and integration of 

Afghanistan into Eurasia’s fabric of commerce, while 

unleashing India’s strategic potential. Until then, 

the quicksands of the Af-Pak region will continue 

constraining Delhi’s global and regional reach. 

China’s Head Start and Encirclement of India.

As if facing volatile Afghanistan and Pakistan were 

not enough, Delhi also has to contend with ambitions 

of China—the only other Asian power challenging India’s long-term rise and search for resources, routes, 

markets, and bases in Central Asia. China had an earlier start in the race, initiating economic reforms in the 

1978-80s and unleashing a wave of economic development unprecedented in history. It has also pursued 

more skillfully its perceived strategy of encirclement 

of India, while Delhi has lagged behind with its own 

policies countering China and unleashing its own potential, including in Central Asia. China’s more successful use of partnerships as part of a more homogenous and centralized foreign policy and sharing of 

a borderline with Central Asia has ensured China a 

more expansive influence in the region.
31

China’s advantages over India notwithstanding, 

India has a number of attributes potentially making 

it the largest economy and a major strategic partner 

for Central Asia in the long term: India’s democratic 

system, relatively young and increasingly mobile 

population, entrepreneurial spirit of its growing 

middle class, and the wide use of English language, 

among others. 

China undertook economic reforms about a decade earlier than India. As an early starter, it achieved 

the status of the largest economy in 2014. With an 

economy worth $U.S.17.6 trillion (T) compared to the 

U.S. economy worth U.S.$17.4T (based on purchasing power parity), China enjoys the largest economic 

presence in Central Asia. India, on the other hand, 

began “waking up” only in the early-1990s after the 

collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold 

War forced it to reconsider its domestic and foreign 

policy in light of the transformed external environment. India then embarked on privatization of its 

economy (which continues to this day) and pursuit 

of a foreign policy increasingly guided by national interests rather than an ideology of nonalignment that 

drew on perceived impractical ideals. Still, India continues to lag behind China in economic development, 

especially in infrastructure investment, manufacturing, and education. Similar to China, it struggles with 

pervasive corruption, challenges of privatization, as 

well as sectarianism and separatism in a number of 

states. Its democracy in the short term is no match for 

China’s authoritarian system that “can make things 

happen” on command. In India, locals say “development takes place in spite of, rarely because of, government.”26 While India’s society has remained traditionally strong, its state has remained relatively weak.27
32

But unlike China and Russia, and similar to democracies like the United States, India’s government 

is unable to direct businesses to serve its geopolitical objectives in a given region with precision and 

foresight widely attributed to Beijing and Moscow. 

India does not have effective multilateral economic 

platforms in Central Asia, its businesses do not get 

considerable support of the government,28 and it does 

not make businesses a major part of its grand strategy. 

The companies led or controlled by China and Russia, 

on the other hand, have been relatively successful in 

acquiring assets and shoring up the countries’ influence in Central Asia and elsewhere. India’s increased 

economic and political presence in the region is thus a 

factor of more expanded collaboration between the Indian business community and the government.29 In the 

short term, India’s approach of building its economy 

from the bottom up is a disadvantage to its economic 

position vis-à-vis China, which pursues a top-down 

development approach.30

Beijing has also outsmarted India in geopolitics, 

leveraging alliances and partnerships as part of its 

relatively coherent and centralized foreign policy. In 

the race for resources and power, China views India 

as a rival and is seen as encircling China along its 

flanks and tying it down to the confines of South Asia. 

To that purpose, China has allegedly used its growing economic and security partnerships with Nepal, 

Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar to India’s northeast; Sri-Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia to India’s 

southeast; Pakistan and Afghanistan to India’s northwest; and Central Asian states to India’s northwest.31

India’s border war with China in 1962 and political 

tensions with Beijing have only underscored India’s 

perception about Beijing’s perceived attempts to out-
33

flank it.32 China’s alleged suggestion to the U.S. Pacific 

Fleet in 2009 to recognize the Indian Ocean as part of 

a Chinese sphere of influence have further reinforced 

India’s perception of Beijing’s disregard of Delhi’s 

ambitions and security interests.33

While China has relied significantly on Pakistan to 

outdo India in South Asia, it feels no need to rely on 

any other actor(s) to do so in adjoining Central Asia. 

Beijing already enjoys a relative edge in terms of economic presence and influence, relegating India to the 

status of a constrained, middle-ranked power that 

does not even boast a rapidly growing settlement in 

and emigration of its nationals to Central Asia. Nevertheless, China had to partner with Russia on global 

and regional issues to advance its position in Central 

Asia. Beijing and Moscow are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) opposing the U.S. 

perceived unilateralism in world affairs. By recognizing Russia’s predominant security role in Central Asia 

and proposing a free trade zone between the Moscowled Eurasian Union and the Beijing-led “belt,” China 

seeks an enhanced position in the Central Asian 

region without unnerving Moscow (just yet). 

Despite this “marriage of convenience,” Beijing’s 

ambitions threaten Russia’s long-term interests in 

Central Asia. This creates an opening for Delhi and 

Washington to exploit Moscow’s concerns in order to 

promote their influence in Central Asia, including by 

seeking an SCO membership for India. India’s membership in the SCO would enhance India’s ties with 

regional states and enable Delhi to shape its competitive relationship with China on more collaborative 

terms.34 India applied for membership in 2014 but 

continues to confront resistance. Moscow supports 

India’s membership to dilute China’s presence in the 
34

region, but China objects to it for fear of losing a share 

of its growing influence in Central Asia. The SCO’s 

rules and consensus among members that candidates 

must be signatories to the NPT and not have conflicts 

with members is another obstacle.35 Besides meeting 

these conditions, established or presumed, Indian 

elites would have to address their concerns about policy constraints, a loss of strategic autonomy, and association with authoritarian regimes that could come 

with India’s membership in the organization.36

Besides seeking the SCO membership and partnering with other powers to counter China’s perceived 

encirclement strategy, India has also been making its 

own advances in countries lying on China’s periphery. In Southeast Asia, it has acquired assets in the 

economies of Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, 

Thailand, and Vietnam. In Central Asia, it has cooperated with the regional states and Afghanistan against 

the Taliban in the 1990s and after 9/11, imported arms 

from Uzbekistan, sought rights to the use of the Ayni 

airbase in Tajikistan, assisted with training of the Kazakh Caspian fleet, opened a mountain biomedical 

research center, and participated in counterterrorism 

exercises with Kyrgyz special forces in Kyrgyzstan.37

To counter China’s military encirclement, India is 

modernizing its own military capabilities, enhancing 

its power projection capacity, building logistics and 

transit infrastructure in the north, and conducting military exercises with its distant and nearby partners.38

It has also sought the creation of a shared region-wide 

energy market in Central-South Asia, in part by pursuing the Central Asia-South Asia 1000 (CASA-1000) 

project and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) initiative to bring electricity and gas from 

Central to South Asia. After it lost to China the Petro 
35

Kazakhstan deal in 2005, India further proposed a Pan 

Asian grid backed by a U.S.$22.4B commitment, but 

the idea went off the radar after a reshuffle in its Petroleum Ministry.39

Despite their tense and competitive relations, India 

and China have been improving their ties over the last 

3 decades, with an increase in bilateral trade being a 

vivid demonstration of this development that may yet 

translate into more friendly ties. The complementarity 

of their economies—India is a leader in services production, while China is a leader in manufacturing—

adds another positive spin on the bilateral relationship that is already enjoying a bilateral trade turnover 

of U.S.$71B (though India’s trade deficit with China of 

U.S.$47B is a thorn). Chinese Premier Wen Jibao, for 

instance, remarked that India and China had conflicts 

only briefly in the 2,000-year history of exchanges, and 

the bilateral ties have been 99.9 percent friendly.40 As 

Kaplan explains, “India’s rivalry with China is not 

like the one with Pakistan at all: it is more abstract, 

less emotional, and (far more significantly) less volatile. And it is a rivalry with no real history behind it.”41

Furthermore, as former chief of the Indian navy Arun 

Prakash argues:

Both China and India have certain common threads 

running through their history, and this helps rationalize their contemporary behaviour as nation-states. 

Both are ancient civilizational entities with a very 

strong religious-cum-cultural underpinning which 

explains the enduring nature of their mores and traditions. About 500 years ago, these two nations were so 

prosperous that, between between them, they contributed over 50 per cent of the world’s GDP. Both have 

experienced invasions; for most part from Central 

Asia, but from the fifteenth century onwards, increas-
36

ingly across their shores. While the overland invaders, whether they prevailed or were defeated, became 

assimilated into the two resilient cultures, it was the 

Western interlopers, coming by sea, who inflicted 

subjugation and humiliation on both nations. This has 

created a deep national urge never to allow a re-run of 

history, and to regain past glory as early as possible.42

To be sure, both China and India face seemingly 

intractable border disputes in Jammu and Kashmir, 

Himachal Pradesh, and Arunachal Pradesh. At least 

323 border incursions were reported in 2011 along the 

Sino-Indian border, highlighting the extent of the dispute over the borderline and the risk of interstate collision. As of 2012, China maintained 400,000 troops in 

Chengdu and Lanzhou, while India deployed 235,000 

troops along its borders with Tibet.43 China, in addition to Pakistan and other nations in South Asia, have 

been “sustaining several insurgent groups” in India.44

Meanwhile, India is refining its “two-front war” doctrine vis-à-vis China and Pakistan, while still perceiving China as a threat. Despite subsequently improved 

rhetoric, India had viewed Beijing as its number one 

threat right before the country’s 1998 nuclear test, 

which it justified in part by pointing to the perceived 

threat posed by China. As India’s Prime Minister Atal 

Bihari Vajpayee explained in a letter to U.S. President 

Bill Clinton: 45

I have been deeply concerned at the deteriorating security environment, especially the nuclear environment, 

faced by India for some years past. We have an overt 

nuclear weapons state on our borders, a state which 

committed armed aggression against India in 1962. Although our relations with that country have improved 

in the last decade or so, an atmosphere of distrust persists mainly due to the unresolved border problem. To 
37

add to the distrust, that country has materially helped 

another neighbor of ours to become a covert nuclear 

weapons state. At the hands of this bitter neighbor we 

have suffered three aggressions in the last 50 years. 

And for the last ten years we have been the victim of 

unremitting terrorism and militancy sponsored by it 

in several parts of our country, especially Punjab and 

Jammu & Kashmir.46

But both increasingly realize the importance of a 

positive dynamic in their relationship as two rising 

powers and are working to resolve their disputes. 

They mitigated tensions over Sikhim, opened up the 

Nathula Pass across the Tibet-Uttar Pradesh for trade, 

and may yet facilitate India’s links with Central Asia 

via Aksai Chin and Xingjian.47 They also agreed to expand trade by opening up the Lipu-Lekh Pass linking India, China, and Nepal. Hu Shih, China’s former 

ambassador to the United States, commented on prospects of cooperation this way: “India conquered and 

dominated China culturally for 20 centuries [through 

Buddhism] without ever having to send a single 

soldier across her border.” Will it do so again, but 

economically?48

Moreover, one could interpret the perceived strategies of encirclement by China and counterstrategy 

by India as run-of-the-course expansions of economic and military power and influence of both rapidly 

growing Asian nations, which are hungry for resources, energy, and opportunities and are coincidentally 

seeking to secure them by extending respective influence in the same regions. This interpretation, however, has to withstand the test of time, geography, and 

projected geopolitical dynamics currently positioning 

the two powers as rivals and forcing India to rethink 

its grand strategy of pursuing a strictly autonomous 
38

role in world affairs. As an authoritarian, relatively 

homogenous, and economically wealthier state, China 

has pursued a more effective, national interest-based 

foreign policy that engages elements of power balancing and partnerships with allies and promotes China’s 

model of development worldwide, including in Central Asia. China and India also view resource-rich 

Central Asia as a platform of competition more than 

cooperation between the two giants. Beijing seeks to 

deny India a leverage over resource deliveries bound 

for China from and via the Middle East and Central 

Asia-South-Asia,49 even if India’s participation in China’s transcontinental projects could open new doors 

for Beijing. 

If they are not to leave India behind, Indian elites 

need to think in geopolitical and strategic codes more 

expansive than India’s immediate environs, projecting the country’s future against global dynamics in 

light of India’s potential status of a global power in the 

long term. They should also ponder India’s contribution to the world and its appeal as a developing and, 

later, a developed nation. At this time, China’s model 

of development—no matter how appealing, poorlydesigned, or promoted—is one asset India does not 

yet possess, not in Central or South Asia. This helps 

explain India’s relatively limited presence in both regions and its recent push at projecting its influence 

in the greater region as part of its “Connect Central 

Asia” policy.
39

III: INDIA’S SEARCH FOR A WAY OUT: 

PROSPECTS AND LIMITATIONS

Delhi’s “Connect Central Asia” Policy. 

To mitigate challenges impeding its reconnection 

with Central Asia and to expand its regional presence, 

India launched the “Connect Central Asia” policy in 

2012. The policy has enabled it to advance links with 

Central Asia via Afghanistan but is yet to secure a regional strategic presence comparable to other powers. 

Addressing deficiencies of the policy and ensuring the 

implementation of TAPI, construction of a proposed 

U.S.$40B gas pipeline from Russia to India via Central 

Asia and China, and expansion of CASA-1000 and the 

International North-South Transit Corridor (INSTC), 

among other projects, is critical. It would help India, 

the sixth-largest energy consumer, become a magnet 

for regional resources and a source of exports for the 

entire post-Soviet space, while unleashing its strategic 

potential as an emerging great power. 

According to India’s former Minister of State for 

External Affairs Shri Ahamed, the “connect” policy is 

based on proactive political, economic, and people-topeople engagement with Central-South Asian countries, both individually and collectively. As part of the 

policy, India announced plans to set up 14 flight links 

with Central Asian states; develop local IT, energy, 

banking, and pharmaceutical industries; and build 

energy infrastructure and e-networks linking Central 

and South Asia.50 Delhi also planned on establishing 

a new Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement with the region.51 The policy, which seeks to 

promote new and expand existing connections with 

the region, should contribute to India’s foreign policy 
40

objectives, both regional and global. As former secretary at India’s Ministry of External Affairs Rajiv Sikri 

put it: 

India would like to encourage the development of 

stable and secular regimes in Central Asia, lest weakened, unstable states with centrifugal tendencies become bases for terrorist, separatist, and fundamentalist elements, which could link up with counterparts 

in Afghanistan and Pakistan. . . . India seeks to have 

a firm foothold and exercise influence in Central Asia 

along with other great powers so that this strategically 

located region does not become an area dominated by 

forces inimical or hostile to India’s interests. . . . Aspiring to be an influential global power, India has to 

be a player in the unfolding ‘Great Game’ in Central 

Asia, in an equal footing with the other major players 

like the United States, Russia, and China if it is to successfully protect its vital national interests in Central 

Asia.52

But Delhi is far from attaining an “equal footing” 

on par with Moscow or Beijing. The “connect” policy 

does not pursue an explicit military or security initiative focused on Central Asia. It further lacks effective 

multilateral and bilateral frameworks of cooperation 

with the region. This does not mean India is not trying. India is a member of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures—the only 

organization having India and Central Asian states as 

members.53 It would also like the regional states to become members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in either the existing or 

a separate framework, while seeking membership in 

the SCO. Delhi has also been cultivating security and 

military ties with Central Asian states. It has found in 

Tashkent its major arms supplier and tried but failed 
41

to establish an airbase at Ayni in Tajikistan, which it 

helped refurbish. It also assisted with training of the 

Kazakh Caspian fleet, opened a mountain biomedical 

research center, and participated in counterterrorism 

exercises with Kyrgyz Special Forces in Kyrgyzstan 

for the first time in 2015. Finally, India has cooperated 

with Central Asian states on stabilization of Afghanistan. But Russia’s traditional and China’s emerging 

security presence and role present major obstacles 

to India’s efforts to establish its own security and 

military foothold in the region. 

While Russia has beat India in the race for military 

bases and geopolitical influence, China has outdone 

it in the race for markets and geo-economics presence—a sphere of activity that forms an overwhelming component of India’s “Connect Central Asia” 

policy. In 2013, China acquired an 8.4 percent stake 

in Kashagan oil field, which Kazakhstan had previously promised to sell to India for the same amount of 

U.S.$5B.The deal was one of 20 bilateral agreements 

worth U.S.$30B. India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is currently attempting to buy out ConocoPhilips’ 8.4 percent stake in the Kashagan oil field.54

Beijing also outperformed Delhi in securing rights to 

develop the Galkynysh gas field in Turkmenistan and 

is launching a pipeline in 2009 to supply Turkmen gas 

to China. Beijing and Astana further opened a second 

pipeline to bring Kazakh oil to China. Finally, China 

has invested far more resources in the region’s transit infrastructure, while boosting its economic presence in Afghanistan where it more visibly competes 

with India. 

Before India launched its “connect” policy, it established intergovernmental commissions for trade, economic, scientific, and technical cooperation with the 

regional republics.55 But it has attained only limited 
42

gains. In 2014, 2 years after it launched its “connect” 

policy, India’s trade with the region stood at approximately U.S.$1.24B compared to China’s at U.S.$50B. 

The same year, India’s exports and imports to the Central Asian region constituted less than 2 percent and 

1.5 percent of its overall exports and imports on average, respectively. India largely imports cotton, raw 

materials, zinc, uranium, iron, steel, and dried fruits 

from the region, while exporting tea, textiles, leather, 

rice, pharmaceuticals, IT technologies, and chemical 

products.56 This is why implementing TAPI, constructing the gas pipeline from Russia to India, expanding 

CASA-1000, and broadening INSTC is the priority for 

the “connect” policy. After all, cooperation between 

India and Central Asian republics is especially promising in the energy and transit development sphere, 

given the lack of transit infrastructure between Central and South Asia and India’s limited presence in 

the region’s energy market. As of 2011, India was not 

even on the list of top 10 countries involved in the oil 

and gas exploitation in Central Asia.57

The TAPI gas pipeline project, estimated to cost 

U.S.$10B, would reduce India’s dependence on energy 

imports from the Middle East, facilitate improvement 

in Indo-Pakistani ties, and advance development and 

integration of Afghanistan with the broader region. 

It would also challenge EEU’s energy interests in the 

Caspian, undermine Russia’s grip over the region’s 

energy exports, and help the Central Asian states diversify their ties to balance China. But the TAPI participants have failed to kick-start the project for financial and security reasons ever since the idea originally 

came up in 1995-96, despite making significant progress recently. The parties plan to start the construction 

of the pipeline in 2015 with a view to make it operational by 2020. 
43

Construction of the gas pipeline extending from 

Russia via Central Asia to China and then to India is 

another proposal India has been advancing to facilitate 

its resource acquisition strategy in Russia and Central 

Asia. The pipeline would transport gas from Russia 

via Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan to 

Kashgar in China’s Xingjian, before crossing into India via Ladakh or Himachal Pradesh.58 However, the 

project faces technical, financial, and geopolitical challenges and is subject to the resolution of territorial disputes and mitigation of Sino-Russian and Sino-Indian 

rivalries for Eurasian resources and trade. The interest of Russia and Central Asian states in the project, 

Russia’s overall leverage vis-à-vis China, and Beijing’s 

own interest in expanding its gas imports offer some 

prospects for implementation of this proposal.

 The CASA-1000, in turn, is already operational 

but could be expanded to increase electricity exports 

to Pakistan and India. As TAPI, it would bring India 

and Pakistan closer together, if not politically then at 

least economically, to ensure they are on a sustainable 

development path and are not a significant source of 

security threats for neighbors. As an Indian observer 

noted, any electricity lines extending from Central 

Asia via the Wakhan corridor would probably traverse areas of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan and India, making the Line of Control increasingly irrelevant 

as parties expand electricity and other types of trade.59

Besides financial challenges, the project confronts a 

limited electricity production capacity of Tajikistan 

and Kyrgyzstan in the short to medium term, as well 

as opposition of downstream Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan to required dam construction 

in the two upstream countries that the downstream 

states fear would deprive them of even more water 
44

resources. Delhi also has to face an emerging role of 

China as its rival for electricity imports, as Beijing 

seeks to import Central Asian electricity to develop its 

lagging regions of Xingjian and Tibet. India and China 

should approach the issue of importing the region’s 

electricity with an eye to mitigate the potential for interstate conflict, in the same way they should in the 

case of oil and gas imports from Central Asia. 

The INSTC, launched by Russia, India, and Iran in 

2000, is already partly operational but is yet to be finalized and should be expanded to include Central Asian 

states and Afghanistan, and potentially Pakistan and 

China, if India wants its reconnection with Central 

Asia to occur sooner rather than later. Kazakhstan, 

Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, as well 

as Armenia and Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus, 

among other countries, joined the project and are considering ways to tap into the initiative advancing sea, 

rail, and land connections between India, Iran, Russia, 

and Europe. India helped with the construction of the 

Zaranj-Delaram and Zaranj-Milak roads linking Iran 

and Afghanistan but should link and expand them as 

part of the INSTC.60

The isolation of Iran due to the standoff between 

Tehran and Washington and India’s tensions with 

China and Pakistan—besides challenges presented by 

geography or nonstate actors—have impeded these 

four geopolitically monumental projects. This is despite the argument that implementation of the initiatives would help address these very challenges. For 

now, Delhi is leveraging its economic ties with partner 

countries to advance these projects and to increase its 

overall presence in Central Asia irrespective of their 

implementation. 
45

In Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, India is involved in 

hydropower development initiatives. It also plans to 

open an Indian-Central Asia university and a military 

hospital in the two countries, respectively. In Uzbekistan, India is present in the pharmaceuticals, IT, construction, energy, and mining sectors. In Kazakhstan, 

its firms are actively involved in coal, oil, and uranium industries. From 2009-14, India imported more 

than 3,500 tons of uranium from Kazakhstan. Delhi is 

also interested in building a gas pipeline from southern Kazakhstan and has boosted its engagement with 

Iran, given a potential détente between Tehran and 

the West.61 But instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Tehran’s unresolved standoff with the West 

have hampered its efforts to import energy resources via proposed TAPI and Iran-Pakistan-India gas 

pipelines.62

But India’s main focus as part of the “connect” 

policy has remained on Afghanistan.63 Over the last 

decade, it has invested U.S.$2B in the country’s infrastructure and won rights to develop the Hajigak and 

other deposits (Afghanistan’s overall deposits are 

estimated at U.S.$1 to 3T). India has even deployed 

paramilitary forces in Afghanistan for the first time 

to protect its assets and personnel.64 Delhi committed $U.S.100 million (M) to develop the Iranian port 

at Chabahar and spent U.S.$136M to connect the port 

with Afghanistan’s Ring Road. The port would enable Delhi to access Central Asian markets without 

relying on Pakistan and position it favorably vis-àvis China, which helped build a rival Pakistani port 

at Gwadar linking China and the Persian Gulf. The 

Chabahar port forms a part of the INSTC, designed 

to expand a south-north vector of the transcontinental 

trade.65 As of 2013, about 60 percent of Afghanistan’s 
46

trade passed via a road network built by India and 

Iran linking Chabahar and Bandar Abbas ports with 

Central Asia.66 Besides its funding for roads, railways, 

medical facilities, and power networks, India helped 

Afghanistan become an SAARC member to facilitate 

its development and regional integration. 

India is interested in seeing Central Asian states as 

members of the SAARC, as well, and more generally 

seeks to extend its cooperation frameworks with other 

states to Central Asia and the Middle East, including 

the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), the Twelfth 

Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical 

Economic and Cooperation, and the India-Association for Southeast Asian Nations deal.67 It would also 

like to see regional republics, especially Tajikistan, 

Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, join SAFTA, which has 

Afghanistan as a member and Iran and China as observers.68 SAFTA is an agreement reached in 2004 that 

created a free trade zone for an area covering Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and 

Sri Lanka with the combined population of 1.8 billion 

people. The parties plan to reduce customs duties of 

all traded goods to zero by 2016. India and Pakistan 

acceded in 2009, while Afghanistan acceded in 2011.

Granted, the “connect” policy is more active than 

the “Look North” policy, has more funding, and focuses on Afghanistan’s reconstruction as the key to reconnection of Central and South Asia. It also promises 

a more profound involvement of India in the region’s 

future in the years and decades ahead. But it is not 

without its own challenges. It has no explicit linkage 

to the resolution of Sino-Indian and Indo-Pakistani 

disputes. It does not factor in the role of China, whose 

economic expansion can help India remove corks and 

unleash its expansion. It also lacks effective multilat-
47

eral economic and political mechanisms of engagement with Central Asia in economic and, importantly, 

security spheres. The projects that underpin the policy 

lack financial means compared to China’s “belt” initiative. Delhi also does not issue checks as easily as 

Beijing does and is not fully in the business of securing strategic assets and investments in the region at all 

cost. Finally, the policy lacks alignment with similar 

strategies of other actors, especially the United States, 

which pursues a similar agenda in the region. India 

thus should adjust the way of doing business in Central Asia by exploring its prospects of competition and 

collaboration with other actors in Central-South Asia 

to facilitate its regional position.

External Competition and Cooperation. 

India’s relationships with external actors in Central 

Asia exhibit competitive and collaborative dynamics. 

But its ties with Pakistan and China are not only more 

competitive and strained, but also potentially conflict 

prone if the parties fail to reach some type of accommodation in the long run. 

The Indo-Pakistani rivalry in South Asia is as old 

as the two countries themselves. Ever since the independence and partition of India in 1947, Delhi and 

Islamabad have jockeyed for territorial integrity, independence, and geopolitical positioning by fighting 

four wars (1948-49, 1965, 1971, and 1999); acquiring 

nuclear weapons; sponsoring militant and secessionist groups; engaging in trade spats and restrictions; 

and seeking financial, diplomatic, and military assistance from other powers. Similarly, the Sino-Indian 

competition for power and influence in Asia has been 

ongoing since the 1940s when China and India were 
48

established as modern states.69 India and China, a 

close backer of Pakistan, went to war with each other 

over disputed territories in 1962.

India’s rivalry with both actors is assuming new 

dimensions, with major implications for Eurasian stability. First, China’s rise as a global power and its expanding maritime and continental presence in areas 

surrounding India is turning Pakistan, and potentially 

Iran, into a primary component of Beijing’s transcontinental resources acquisition strategy and a platform 

of power projection along the rimlands and across 

Eurasia. This could aggravate the Indo-Pakistani and 

Sino-Indian rivalry if Delhi fails to cultivate cooperative dynamics in its relationships with Islamabad and 

Beijing. Second, India’s emergence as a global power 

and its own expanding maritime and continental presence are prompting Pakistan and China to search for 

allies to keep India in check, potentially exacerbating 

the Indo-Pakistani and Sino-Indian rivalry, as well. 

The projected expansion of India’s and China’s 

activities in Central Asia and reconnection of Central and South Asia add a twist to the Indo-Pakistani 

and Sino-Indian relationships, to the role of Pakistan 

in Beijing’s policy to keep India in check, and to the 

role of Pakistan and China in Delhi’s efforts to unlock 

India’s strategic potential in Central and South Asia. 

Were they to ease tensions, India, Pakistan, and China 

could benefit enormously from connectivity initiatives 

being advanced throughout Eurasia. Empires that 

used to rule over territories now occupied by all three 

states had once already extracted major geo-economic 

advantages from the Silk Road by facilitating transcontinental circulation of goods and ideas.70 Resolving Sino-Indian and Indo-Pakistani border disputes 

as major land disputes afflicting Asia would open up 
49

many of the broader region’s areas that have remained 

locked since the middle of the 20th century.71

Implementing and expanding TAPI, CASA-1000, 

Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI), INSTC, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor would demonstrate a great 

potential of trilateral cooperation in promoting national and interregional development. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), in its current design, 

passes entirely through Pakistan and its governed 

area in Kashmir, which India disputes. Turkmenistan 

and Kazakhstan may join the IPI in the future. India 

could import gas from Russia and/or Central Asia via 

Xingjian and the disputed Aksai Chin. It could also 

build links with Central Asia via Gilgit, Wakhan, and 

Srinagar-Muzaffarabad corridors running via Kashmir if the parties resolve their disputes.72

Currently, China and Pakistan are hesitant to involve India in energy pipeline projects given their 

competition for energy resources. Both signed a 

U.S.$7B deal to extend the Iran-Pakistan pipeline 

northward to China without involving India.73 But 

were they to include India, Pakistan and China could 

earn transit fees, enhance their trade with India and 

the region, and gain leverage over Delhi.74 China and 

India already share experience, pursuing joint projects, including in the energy sphere. They bid jointly 

for oil stakes and for exploring oil fields in Colombia, Kazakhstan, Sudan, and Iran. They also agreed 

to consider exploring jointly gas fields in Indonesia 

and Australia.75 Currently, the parties are considering 

launching an India-China oil consortium in Central 

Asia.76 Both countries further conducted joint searchand-rescue operations off the Shanghai coast in 2003 

and anti-terrorism exercises in China in 2007 when 

Indian forces set foot on Chinese territory for the first 
50

time since the 1962 war. More generally, they have 

held regular military exercises and exchanged delegations on all issues.77 Besides, China does not perceive 

India as a strong competitor in Central Asia,78 providing room for enhanced cooperation between the two 

countries in the broader region in the short term.

Addressing lingering issues with Pakistan and 

China is key for Delhi’s and Beijing’s less restrained 

role in South and Central Asia. While China and India 

are bound to be strategic rivals in both regions in the 

long term, they have to find ways to cooperate to avoid 

conflict and maximize their development potential. 

Neither China nor India alone is capable of reformatting the geopolitical field of Eurasia in order to benefit fully from any Eurasian economic development. 

But both countries can mitigate and prevent interstate 

frictions and conflicts in the continent by emphasizing 

collaborative dynamics in their ultimately competitive 

bilateral relationship. India needs to push north, while 

China is already seeking connections with the Middle 

East via Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and, potentially 

India to complement east-west links and diversify and 

expand its reach. 

India’s positive relationship with Iran is also instrumental for advancing transcontinental connections and India’s strategic presence in Central Asia, 

especially if Iran and the United States start improving ties. Iran borders energy-rich Turkmenistan and 

volatile Pakistan, and shares a cultural heritage with 

Tajikistan and India, presenting a number of avenues 

of cooperation with Delhi in trade, energy, and security spheres focusing on Central Asia. Delhi has already 

boosted its ties with Iran in response to the start of 

nuclear talks in 2014 but is yet to tap into Iran’s geopolitical position and capacity to advance its interests 
51

in Central Asia. India especially eyes Iran’s energy 

resources and transit potential but is increasingly concerned about China’s advances in Iran. Beijing has invested U.S.$120B into Iran’s energy sector over the last 

4-5 years. As of 2011, Iran was China’s second-largest 

oil supplier, accounting for 14 percent of China’s oil 

imports.79 An expanding cooperation with Iran enables India to enhance trade with Central Asia and 

keep China’s ambitions centered on Iran and Central 

Asia in check. Central Asian states are, in turn, interested in engaging Iran but cannot do so in a scalable 

way for fear of distancing themselves from Washington and other actors. Iran, in its turn, would like to expand its role in Central-South Asia, while diversifying 

its energy exports. Iran and Kazakhstan seek participation in the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Oman 

corridor, while Kazakhstan, Iran, and Turkmenistan 

already operate a rail line linking the three countries.80

Iran’s regional advances would ultimately compete 

with India’s, but the two would benefit from aligning 

their policies to promote their otherwise constrained 

engagement in the region in the short to medium term.

India’s ties with Russia are also helpful to India’s 

plans in Central Asia but, like any other aspiring hegemon, Russia does not always like to share. Moscow 

would be happy, in the words of Vladimir Jirinovsky, 

to “wash the boots” in the Indian Ocean, expand the 

INSTC, and see Delhi become a member of the SCO to 

balance China in Central Asia. Moscow already seeks 

to participate in north-south projects backed by the 

West, such as TAPI and CASA-1000, to at least shape, 

if not control, the reconnection of Central and South 

Asia.81 Russia would also like India’s assistance in 

diluting U.S. global influence in the quest for a more 

multipolar international order.82 But it would not like 

India to have a strong role in Central Asia, as its pres-
52

sure on Dushanbe to prevent Delhi from getting its 

first-ever overseas military base at Ayni has demonstrated. Some reports indicate that Moscow’s decision 

to block India’s access to the base in Tajikistan was 

to “punish” Delhi for trying to diversify its weapons 

suppliers.83 But the alleged punishment may be one 

aspect of Russia’s general opposition to India’s military role in Central Asia. Delhi’s best bet is to cultivate 

ties with Russia, exploit Moscow’s concerns about 

China’s rise, and leverage Russia’s regional position 

to advance its interests in Central Asia. 

But it is Delhi’s evolving relationship with Washington that portends major global and regional implications, especially if it assumes a strategic character 

with a focus on Central Asia. India is already a counterbalancer against China, a role the United States 

welcomes and a role that is autonomous rather than 

subordinate to U.S. global interests. As Mohan argues, 

“India has never waited for American permission to 

balance [against] China,” and has been doing so since 

China’s invasion of Tibet.84 Increasingly, Delhi and 

Washington face a need to work together in Central, 

South, and East Asia. Washington has also sought to 

promote integration of the broader region as part of 

the NSRS, which is overlapping with India’s “connect” 

policy. Both policies focus on reconstruction, integration, and positioning of Afghanistan as the integrating bridge between Central and South Asia, seeking to 

create a common energy market in Central-South Asia 

by advancing TAPI, CASA-1000, and other initiatives, 

while providing a platform for the Central Asian and 

South Asian republics to pursue southward vectors 

of development. Not least important are shared challenges facing both the NSRS and the “connect” policy, 

which should prompt Delhi and Washington to cooperate in advancing their regional influence. 
53

But Delhi and Washington have legitimate reservations about engaging one another in Central Asia. 

India continues to oppose U.S. perceived unilateralism in a quest for a more just and multipolar order, 

is not willing to be perceived as a U.S. pawn, is concerned about disrupting its ties with other emerging 

and established powers seeking to keep Washington 

in check, and is generally held back by the legacy of 

its nonalignment foreign policy tradition. The United 

States, on the other hand, risks undermining its ties 

with China and Russia and escalating external rivalries in Central Asia. It could also facilitate dynamics 

that would deprive the EEU of potential energy imports, which will be increasingly diverted to Southeast Asia, and potentially exacerbate conflict-prone 

competition over influence and resources in the 

Central Asian region. 

Examining India’s relationships with external actors sheds light on challenges and opportunities of 

India’s current and future engagement with Central 

Asia. But no less important are India’s relationships 

with individual countries of Central Asia, as they are 

only starting to shape up. 

Regional Views and Areas of Engagement.

Potential areas of engagement between India and 

Central Asia are profound, especially because India 

lacks effective and meaningful bilateral and multilateral mechanisms of engagement with Central Asia.85

But the parties need to do a lot of homework to realize 

this engagement. 

Central Asian states welcome India’s regional 

presence for a number of reasons. India is not only 

an aspiring great power—itself a major consideration 
54

for the regional countries located in its immediate periphery. It is still a developing nation that has shown 

great achievements in economic growth and does not 

seek to impose its will or way of development on others. It also remains a democratic and secular nation,

respectful of diversity and numerous ethnic and religious groups that are more optimistic about India’s 

future than they were about 2 decades ago when India embarked on economic reforms. Central Asians 

do believe India can offer a model of development 

in the short term that could compete with Russia’s 

or China’s. But they consider India’s successful economic development as a source of inspiration for the 

regional economies and populations that are eager to 

connect with South Asian neighbors and the world. 

As a potential great power, India offers regional 

republics an opportunity to ride the wave of development faster and counter ambitions of grandeur emanating from Moscow, Beijing, Ankara, or Tehran. Central Asian states cannot disregard this opportunity, 

not when outside parties seek to test or project their 

models of development in Central Asia.86 Provided 

the regional states start building links with one of the 

fastest growing economies (and potentially the largest) early on, they can tap into opportunities projected 

to spring up from these connections. Deepening the 

economic linkages would enable the regional economies to integrate with their neighbors to the south. 

Delhi’s more substantive economic engagement 

would translate into geopolitical leverage that the regional countries can use to balance external pressures 

from actors that once hosted the largest empires and 

continue to be active geopolitical actors on the Eurasian chessboard. India also offers the regional states a 

platform of technological cooperation as an important 
55

attribute of modernization for the regional economies. 

India is actively positioning itself as a technology 

power capable of overcoming geopolitical constraints 

in the broader region and is seeking to build for itself 

a regional presence worthy of a modern, 21st century 

power. In Central Asia, it has opened several technology centers, largely in in the information sector.87

Central Asian countries and India share not only 

history, but also culture and religion going back hundreds of years. This cultural connection remained 

alive somewhat even during the Soviet times when 

India was one of only four countries allowed to have 

a consulate in the Soviet Central Asia.88 India is also 

home to the second largest population of Muslims, 

many of whom practice a Sufi tradition of Islam predominantly practiced in Central Asia. What is more, 

Muslim countries of Central Asia prefer a stronger 

presence of India rather than Pakistan, being concerned as they are about fundamentalist and terrorist 

movements from Pakistan seeking to undermine the 

political and social fabric of the regional states and societies. They view Islamabad with suspicion, given its 

role in aiding the Mujahedeen in the fight against the 

Soviet Union and Pakistan’s perceived inaction vis-àvis terrorist groups that originated in Central Asia but 

are now based in Pakistan, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The regional states also share the 

memory of China’s control of part of the region in the 

past89 and welcome India’s role to offset Beijing’s current economic expansion in the region. Yet, India’s 

perception of the regional states sympathizing with a 

Sharia-ruled Pakistan, its preoccupation with rivalries 

with Pakistan and China, and its inward looking policies since the 1990s have misframed its policy, making 

it assume a “belated, slow, and half-hearted stand” 

toward Central Asia.90
56

As India continues its rise and Central Asian states 

continue their quest for external integration, more 

room for collaboration between the parties is expected 

in the coming years. While the stabilization, development, and regional integration of Afghanistan will remain a key pillar of their cooperation, other promising 

areas include energy, trade, and transit facilitation; 

defense collaboration; space programs development; 

and external balancing. Of all these areas, energy cooperation is a major priority for India, whose oil and 

gas imports are forecast to increase to 90 percent and 

40 percent, respectively, by 2020 in order to meet the 

country’s projected energy demand.91

Turkmenistan is a major prospective energy partner for India, while Delhi is an emerging vector of 

balancing against China’s growing presence in Turkmenistan’s energy market and Russia’s traditionally 

strong security role in the Caspian. Delhi views Turkmenistan as a critical component of its energy import 

diversification strategy, especially after India’s ONGCMittal acquired 30 percent of shares of two oil sites in 

the Caspian in 2007 but withdrew from the projects 

in 2010 citing “exploratory failures.”92 The construction of TAPI would be a major milestone, not only for 

India and Turkmenistan but also for Afghanistan and 

Pakistan, which suffer from lack of security and face 

potential disintegration. India would have a source of 

energy resources from Central Asia and a major infrastructural connection with the region, which would 

entail a much more expanded and dynamic economic 

presence of India in the region’s market. Turkmenistan would diversify its energy exports, this time not 

just vis-à-vis Russia but also China, which has recently 

replaced Russia as the largest Turkmen gas importer. 

Afghanistan and Pakistan, in turn, would tap into the 
57

region’s energy inflows to power their economies and 

help ensure sustainable economic development that 

promotes regional stability. 

Uzbekistan and India, in turn, have a lot of ground 

to cover in the areas of gas and uranium exploration, 

defense cooperation, transit infrastructure development, and external balancing. India is already engaged in the joint exploration and exploitation of gas 

fields and construction of liquid gas and oil factories 

in Uzbekistan,93 but more room exists for cooperation 

in this sphere. India looks to Uzbekistan to diversify 

sources of uranium imports and to boost cooperation 

in arms production—critical ingredients for India’s 

expanding nuclear capability and emerging indigenous arms industry. Delhi also considers Uzbekistan 

the key platform of transit connections in the region. 

Uzbekistan borders all Central Asian states and Afghanistan and has major rail and highways passing 

through its territory.94 But instability in Afghanistan 

and measures by the Uzbek regime to close down the 

country to its own citizens, neighbors, and the world 

has hampered the bilateral transit infrastructure development cooperation, even if Tashkent and Delhi 

could pursue a meaningful collaboration to integrate 

Afghanistan with Central-South Asia. Despite its central location, Uzbekistan has largely kept itself aloof 

from the rest of Central Asia and preferred bilateral 

rather than multilateral engagement.95 This partly explains why India has increasingly viewed Kazakhstan 

as its platform in Central Asia.96 Tashkent would like 

to see India alongside other Southeast Asian states to 

balance Russia and China. But until the parties expand 

their political engagement, this prospect is far off. 

As Central Asia’s largest economy, Kazakhstan 

presents significant opportunities for cooperation 
58

with India in oil and gas exploration, uranium production, trade facilitation, space programs development, and strategic balancing. Access to oil, gas, and 

uranium is critical for India, which depends heavily 

on uninterrupted imports of these strategic resources 

from overseas. But India’s energy presence is confined to “ancillary activities”97 and is yet to expand. 

In 2009-10, Videsh Limited got a 25 percent stake in 

the Satpayev block for the first time since 1995, when 

India started seeking a foothold in Kazakhstan’s energy sector.98 India also looks to expand trade with 

Kazakhstan, which accounts for 75 percent of India’s 

trade with the region. But the creation of the EEU and 

the potential creation of a free trade zone between the 

EEU and China could complicate India’s efforts unless 

it manages to develop a similar arrangement. 

Space development is emerging as a major pillar of 

India-Kazakh cooperation. India is interested in creating a landing space, utilizing a radar complex, and 

using Kazakhstan’s territory for launching its remote 

sensing satellite rockets. Astana, in turn, is interested 

in India’s space development program to develop that 

of its own, eyeing the expertise of a technology center in Bangalore and the possibility of expanding its 

satellite launching clients.99 Especially crucial to Astana is a potential platform provided by India to keep 

Kazakhstan’s two large neighbors in check as part of 

its praised multivector policy. Russia and China impact Kazakhstan’s evolution as an independent and 

resource-rich state, which is the largest (by territory) 

in the post-Soviet space after Russia, making Delhi a 

key partner for Kazakhstan. Both countries are also 

rapidly developing and emerging as leaders in their 

regions, seeking a status of modern and technological 

powers. 
59

India’s cooperation with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is largely about access to hydro resources, trade 

facilitation, defense cooperation, and gaining military 

presence in the two countries. The hydro potential 

of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is immense and presents major opportunities for India’s engagement in 

the production and export of electricity as part of 

CASA-1000. Trade facilitation and education are other prospective areas, but they remain limited for the 

time being. 

Defense and military cooperation, however, is 

emerging as an important pillar, with Delhi seeking to 

establish military presence and stronger military-tomilitary ties with both countries. In Kyrgyzstan, India 

eyes a torpedo production plant and torpedo testing 

site in northern Kyrgyzstan,100 besides opening a biomedical military research facility and holding Special 

Forces exercises in 2015 for the first time. In Tajikistan, 

it refurbished a military hospital at Farkor military 

facility and a runway at Ayni military base, cooperating with Dushanbe against the Taliban in the 1900s 

and since 2001. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan, China, 

and Pakistan along the Wakhan corridor, making the 

country important to India’s military contingencies.101

India’s bet on Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to advance its military presence in Central Asia is not coincidental. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are weaker and 

have less room for autonomous foreign policy compared to their larger and richer neighbors. But even 

here, India’s moves could be too little, too late due to 

Russia’s substantial military presence in both countries. Still, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain interested in boosting security and economic collaboration 

with India, considering it an evolving partner in their 

external balancing strategies. Moreover, India has 
60

viewed Tajikistan as a platform to enhance the bilateral framework of its engagement with Central Asian 

republics,102 while looking to Kazakhstan to boost its 

overall regional presence. 

Prospects for engagement between India and 

Central Asian republics clearly exist. But until they 

address instability in Afghanistan and, to a lesser degree, volatility in Pakistan, their reconnection is going 

to be slow, ineffective, and painful. As they ponder 

these hard questions, they should necessarily factor in 

the challenges and opportunities presented by the two 

unstable countries and minimize the likely fallout in 

the form of expanded flows of refugees, terrorism, and 

narcotrafficking due to reconnection of Central and 

South Asia. Cultivating relations is itself a difficult undertaking when you are starting from a low base, but 

doing so in the conditions of instability in neighboring 

countries that are linking Central and South Asia is 

a significant challenge, requiring India to search for 

allies in the region to shore up its regional presence. 

Search for Partners as Strategic Imperative. 

Identifying and working with partner(s) in advancing its presence in Central Asia is a strategic imperative for India if it wants to establish a more prominent 

presence in the region similar to other great powers. 

Given numerous limitations on its ambitions, Delhi 

should advance cooperation with its perceived rivals, such as China and Pakistan, and actors that it 

views as its prospective strategic partners, such as the 

United States. However, the premise of this work is 

that a closer partnership with Washington in particular would help India overcome these limitations and 

better achieve its agenda. Building such a partnership 
61

and advancing its regional presence is a challenge for 

Delhi. It faces major constraints inherent in its strategic culture and foreign policies, hampering its ability 

to promote influence globally and regionally. But failure to accomplish related tasks risks delaying significantly India’s rise or making India fall further behind.

As a potential great power, India is losing out to 

all other great powers in the region, including Russia, 

China, the EEU, and the United States. It also finds 

itself struggling to compete with actors as middleand small-ranked as Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Iran. Perceptions of its potential 

emergence as a great power notwithstanding, India 

remains a middle-ranked power confronting a whole 

range of internal challenges that will likely preoccupy 

it for at least the next 1 to 2 decades before it can turn 

itself into a major global power. To make this transition faster, India needs partners to help it enhance 

its presence in Central Asia and beyond. Otherwise, 

its expansion as a great power will proceed primarily 

along the rimlands of Eurasia. 

Unlike Russia, China, and the United States, India 

starts from a lower base of engagement with the region since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is despite India’s relatively substantial economic presence 

in Afghanistan, where Pakistan’s involvement has 

long defined India’s policies that are only now starting to be proactive, go beyond India’s obsession with 

Pakistan, and reflect Delhi’s appreciation of Afghanistan’s role as an interregional integrator. It also faces 

major economic and social development constraints 

that keep its energies focused on internal rather than 

regional challenges and opportunities, which are both 

restricting and facilitating its expansion as a great 

power. Moreover, India does not have as much cash 
62

as China to throw around and has a lot to do at home 

first. Partnering with other actors on a strategic level 

could open doors to financial, diplomatic, and military support India needs to achieve its objectives. 

India also does not border Central Asia directly, 

having to lean on the unstable Afghanistan and somewhat isolated Iran to access the region. The instability in Afghanistan and uncertainty surrounding the 

potential for détente between Iran and the West leave 

many doors closed for Delhi, both in terms of its bilateral relations with these countries and in terms of its 

engagement with Central Asian republics. Were these 

two issues addressed, India would be in a more geopolitically favorable position to advance its “connect” 

policy and escape the confines of South Asia. Partnering with a democrat great power that not only has 

access to Central Asia but is also capable of influencing outcomes related to the evolution of Afghanistan 

and Iran is key to India’s active foreign policy toward 

Central-South Asia and the Greater Middle East. 

Further, India has strained ties with nucleararmed Pakistan and unresolved border tensions with 

nuclear-armed China—the neighboring countries 

with which it has fought a number of wars. Positioned 

between Pakistan and China in power rankings, India 

finds it hard to change the status quo alone. Having 

a partner capable of influencing China and Pakistan 

could give India a chance to attempt a change in its 

relations with the two neighbors. Otherwise, the tensions will continue to prevent India from pursuing a 

more active regional and interregional role in CentralSouth Asia. India and China should both be interested in normalization of their relations and stability 

in the broader region—a major imperative for their 

unimpeded emergence as great powers. 
63

Finally, India is stuck in the mind frame of its nonalignment tradition, which is potentially detrimental 

to its projected standing as the largest economy and a 

major military power in the decades ahead. While it is 

rightly avoiding a strategic partnership bordering on 

exclusivity and an antagonistic relationship toward 

outsiders, it is missing opportunities to join forces 

or align policies with actor(s) that could advance its 

influence where it is severely lacking. India still has 

that opportunity and should consider the benefits 

and challenges that such a partnership could generate for its global and regional positions. If it views 

Washington as a potential partner, it needs to address 

a domestic political discourse viewing the West as the 

colonizer, which is associated with its nonalignment 

tradition and struggle against colonialism.103 India 

would need to address related constraints inherent 

in its strategic culture and foreign policy, in the same 

way Washington would need to imbue with more 

substance its cooperation with Delhi. After all, only in 

the aftermath of India’s 1998 nuclear test did the U.S. 

engagement with India start to assume a serious diplomatic outreach rather than predominantly a military 

collaboration.104

Developing a strategically closer partnership with 

the United States could be key for India’s future global 

and regional role as a great power. As India, the United States faces a number of challenges projecting its 

influence globally and in Central Asia. But it also has 

a number of attributes making it a desirable partner 

for India on the world stage and in the region. Both 

are democracies and dynamic powers, concerned 

about China’s rise, Russia’s resurgence, and stability 

of Central-South Asian countries facing external pressures and domestic challenges ranging from the lack 
64

of economic development to the lack of democratic 

experience. Both seek a peaceful power transition 

from the “West to the rest.” Washington increasingly 

views Delhi as a trustworthy actor that could help it 

retain its leading position in the world. India, in turn, 

increasingly considers the United States as a platform 

for its advancement as a great power. 

More and more, India relies on the United States 

to provide it with latest defense technology and organizational models to develop its arms industry and 

economic processes.105 In 2005, Delhi and Washington 

concluded a 10-year-long defense partnership deal allowing for sale of U.S. ballistic missile defense systems 

and fourth-generation fighter aircraft to India.106 More 

recently, they signed an additional nuclear agreement, 

despite India not being a member of the NPT. Both are 

now increasingly viewing their cooperation as a key 

pillar of global and regional stability, conducting joint 

military exercises and expanding their economic and 

security cooperation. Both are pursuing similar yet 

constrained agendas of integrating Afghanistan into 

Central-South Asia and reconnecting the two regions 

by supporting geopolitically monumental projects, 

such as TAPI and CASA-1000, as part of the NSRS and 

the “connect” policy. Along with Kabul, they further 

agreed to hold trilateral consultations on promoting 

Afghanistan’s development.107 But the reality is that 

neither the NSRS nor the “connect” policy is capable 

of achieving set objectives faster and more effectively 

than a closer alignment of policies and engagement 

between Delhi and Washington designed to generate 

policy synergies in the wider region. 
65

IV: UNLOCKING AND LEVERAGING INDIA’S 

REGIONAL POTENTIAL 

Regardless of whether India and the United States 

enter a strategic partnership agreement focused explicitly on Central Asia, they can start, separately or 

in concert, executing the following objectives to unlock India’s potential and enabling Washington to enhance its own: mitigating Af-Pak security challenges; 

shaping Iran’s geopolitical role; fostering Sino-Indian 

cooperation; and exploiting grand strategies and 

regional connectivity initiatives of other actors.

Mitigating Af-Pak Security Challenges.

Support India’s Reconstruction Effort and Military 

Involvement in Afghanistan.

Both Washington and Delhi focus on Afghanistan 

as the node of interregional reconnection, reinforcing 

the imperative of putting Afghanistan on the track 

of stable development. China’s growing presence, 

India’s lack of resources but a strong intent to play 

a bigger role, and the U.S. withdrawal but a strong 

desire to shape Afghanistan’s future make it a major 

task. Washington and Delhi should develop and pursue joint economic, political, and military operations 

and projects to support Afghanistan’s reconstruction 

and external integration. The parties should upgrade 

the trilateral consultations (Kabul, Delhi, Washington) 

by advancing joint and coordinated rather than individual consultations-based action in both economic 

and military spheres. 
66

Shape Sustainable Political and Military Base in Kabul 

Favorable to Delhi.

Washington should use freed-up resources after 

the withdrawal from Afghanistan to shape a sustainable political and military base in Kabul favorable 

to Delhi. The military’s contribution to this effort is 

crucial, given its pronounced role in the U.S. overall strategy in Afghanistan. The U.S. military should 

leave behind a military presence and influence sufficient to pursue redefined U.S. objectives in the region; support Afghan security and military capacity; 

enhance Delhi’s military presence in Afghanistan; and 

advance U.S.-Indian military collaboration in CentralSouth Asia to complement their growing maritime 

military cooperation. The U.S. military should leverage its military engagement with India in Afghanistan 

as a platform to develop India’s military intervention 

capabilities and advance interoperability between 

U.S. and Indian forces. After all, the U.S. military may 

support, directly or indirectly, India’s military operations or pursue its own military missions in both 

Afghanistan and the region in the future. In the process, Washington should mitigate Delhi’s perceptions 

of U.S. bias toward Pakistan and encourage deeper 

U.S.-Indian military cooperation in Afghanistan with 

a view to expand it to military and other domains in 

their relations with other states in Central-South Asia. 

Enhance Military-to-Military Counterterrorism and 

Counternarcotics Cooperation.

The reconnection of South Asia with Central Asia 

increasingly requires transnational cooperation in 

fighting terrorism and narcotrafficking. This task 
67

is critical, considering the role of Afghanistan and 

Pakistan as hotbeds of homegrown and transnational 

narcotrafficking and terrorist networks and the potential of the Islamic State (IS) to build its capabilities in 

Central-South Asia. The U.S. military and intelligence 

services should pursue enhanced collaboration with 

Indian, Pakistani, and Central Asian counterparts 

to tackle both threats. In case of improved ties with 

Iran, U.S. and Indian militaries should tap into Iran’s 

resources in the fight against IS in Afghanistan and 

Central-South-Asia. In the process, the U.S. military 

should carve out a stand-alone platform of military 

cooperation between the United States and India focused specifically on Central Asia, not just Afghanistan. Working through a prospective partner that has 

only limited strategic potential in Central Asia, such 

as India, may allow the U.S military to advance its 

goals in Central Asia with less resistance from Russia. 

Moscow has long perceived U.S. efforts to advance 

counternarcotics and counterterrorist cooperation 

in the region as a ploy by Washington to promote a 

stronger military presence in Russia’s backyard. 

Encourage Af-Pak-Indo Trilateral Economic Cooperation. 

Indo-Pakistani tensions remain a major obstacle 

in reintegrating Central and South Asia, as well as in 

stimulating intraregional integration in South Asia. 

In addition to supporting TAPI and CASA-1000, the 

United States and India should advance trilateral projects in the energy, trade, and transit spheres. Unlocking trade between Pakistan and India would contribute to reconstruction and development of countries in 

South Asia, while boosting trade from and to Central 

Asia and enhancing interregional connectivity. Wash-
68

ington and Delhi should actively lobby Kabul and 

Islamabad to facilitate the implementation and expansion of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Trade and Transit 

Agreement, specifically as it concerns the enabling of 

access for India to export goods to Afghanistan via 

Pakistani territory and the potential involvement of 

India in the deal in a more expanded, region-wide 

framework. The role of the U.S. military in the process 

should rest on the task of advancing confidence-building measures and common understanding of security 

challenges and opportunities, with a view to support 

civilian efforts. It should rely on military exercises and 

educational exchanges in both bilateral and, ideally, 

trilateral frameworks of military-to-military engagement to promote related objectives. 

Facilitate Resolution of Conflict in Kashmir. 

The conflict in Kashmir plagues Indo-Pakistani and 

Sino-Indian relations, leaving room for escalation that 

could involve parties beyond the three nuclear-armed 

powers. It also continues to damage the prospects of 

national and regional development when pressures 

for connectivity are only bound to rise, as India and 

China rapidly expand their economic reach. Washington and Delhi should put the issue of resolving the 

Kashmir conflict on a high agenda in order to reduce 

regional tensions and increase prospects of regional 

collaboration. As part of this effort, the U.S. military 

should develop a better understanding of regional security and economic challenges and their implications 

for military strategies of concerned powers. It should 

also develop contingency and special forces operations scenarios in case of conflict escalation, while undertaking initiatives aimed at promoting confidence-
69

building measures, deescalating hostile rhetoric, 

decreasing militarization, and advancing border management cooperation involving India, Pakistan, and 

China. It should further work with civilian agencies 

within the U.S. Government to promote a mutually 

beneficial border regime in the region as a short-term 

arrangement, allowing for transcontinental commerce 

to flourish once again. Looking long-term, the United 

States and India should work with China, Pakistan, 

and the people of Kashmir to facilitate a long-term, 

durable arrangement in the region. In a situation so 

complex, Kashmir’s independence could be a logical, 

simple, and eventually acceptable solution to the puzzle that has long kept the three nuclear-armed powers 

on their toes. 

Advance India’s Geopolitical and Geo-economic 

Profile in Tajikistan.

India’s growing involvement in Afghanistan is a 

welcome development, but Delhi should also cultivate another node of connectivity, this time in Central Asia proper. While Afghanistan represents such 

a connectivity node on the northwestern tip of South 

Asia threatened by instability, Tajikistan represents 

such a connectivity hub on the southeastern tip of 

Central Asia threatened by separatism, regionalism, 

and cross-border militancy. Bordering Afghanistan, 

Pakistan, and China and dependent on security assistance from Russia and economic aid from China, 

Tajikistan offers India a platform to reconnect Central 

and South Asia along the south-north axis, but only if 

Tajikistan remains whole and integrated from within 

and without. Washington should foster quadrilateral 

economic and military cooperation involving Afghan-
70

istan, Tajikistan, India, and the United States. As part 

of this framework, the U.S. military should strive for 

enhanced military collaboration with Dushanbe and 

encourage the Tajikistani military to pursue expanded 

military cooperation with India. The U.S. and Indian 

military engagement with Tajikistan should advance 

Tajikistani military capacity to defend the country’s 

borders, given the threat of cross-border militancy 

from Afghanistan. They should also promote more 

effective counternarcotics and counterterrorism programs specific to Tajikistan, including as part of military exercises in bilateral and trilateral settings.

Shaping Iran’s Geopolitical Role.

Making Iran a Regional Balancer: Welcoming 

India’s Role in Iran and Central Asia.

The 2014-15 P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the 

United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany) 

nuclear talks and new geopolitical and geo-economic dynamics and imperatives over recent years have 

facilitated prospects for a détente between Iran and 

the United States, which may well evolve into a strategic relationship between Tehran and Washington, 

potentially within the next 2 decades. Shaping Iran’s 

geopolitical role, set to expand considerably in case of 

the détente, is critical for Washington and Delhi, given 

the dynamism displayed by other powers in Eurasia, 

such as Turkey, Russia, and especially China. Washington and India should ensure that they are a part 

of Iran’s evolution, not its demise. With that in mind, 

they should start thinking about how to shape Iran’s 

role as a future regional balancer jointly, which would 

welcome India’s expanding role in Iran and Central 
71

Asia and help maintain a balance of power in the 

Middle East. Specifically, they should identify ways 

in which Tehran’s geopolitical role can be helpful in 

advancing their interests in Central Asia, including 

as they relate to other powers and the fight against 

transnational terrorism and narcotrafficking. In the 

military sphere, and in the conditions of a U.S.-Iranian 

détente, the U.S. military should encourage the expansion of Indo-Iranian cooperation in Afghanistan, 

Central Asia, and the Persian Gulf. The U.S. military 

should stand ready to calibrate its own infrastructure 

in Eurasia and leverage Iran’s military capabilities to 

pursue new logistical and operational objectives in a 

transformed geopolitical environment of the Greater 

Middle East. By adjusting its military infrastructure 

requirements, the U.S. military can dedicate its resources to new missions and goals as they relate to 

China’s and Russia’s military infrastructure advances 

in Central-South Asia, the Caspian, the Persian Gulf, 

and the Indian and Pacific oceans. 

Advance U.S.-Iranian and Indo-Iranian Energy, Trade, 

and Transit Cooperation.

As does India, the United States faces an assertive 

China, which is invested heavily in energy-rich Iran 

and seeks to bring Tehran into its fold as part of its 

“belt” initiative, especially once all sanctions are removed and China finds itself on a shopping spree. 

Washington and Delhi are either not present in Iran or 

are far behind China. Meanwhile, the United States, 

India, and Iran are all somewhat isolated from Central and South Asia, despite immense opportunities 

for trilateral engagement. Where possible, the parties 

should identify potential opportunities of coopera-
72

tion early on to obtain and retain whatever advantage 

they can in case of a U.S.-Iranian nuclear deal and détente. In the process, Washington and Delhi should 

act on Iran’s concerns about China’s dominance in 

the country’s energy sector and advance their presence in Iran’s economy to facilitate their policies in the 

Middle East and Central Asia, where Iran will expand 

its presence in case of a U.S.-Iranian détente. As India and Iran start to build new and expand existing 

links with regional countries, cooperating with each 

other, including as part of IPI, will prove beneficial. 

But whatever economic links they pursue, the parties 

should ensure that proper security arrangements are 

in place to facilitate the development and expansion 

of such connections. The role of the U.S. military in 

developing combined military contingencies, advancing common understanding with Indian and Iranian 

militaries, and deterring state and nonstate actors 

from targeting this infrastructure would be crucial, 

especially during crises and armed conflicts involving 

regional partners and rivals. 

Encourage Indo-Iranian Cooperation in Reconstruction 

of Afghanistan.

Iran is not only a key to integration of India with 

Central Asia. It is also a crucial link in Delhi’s reconnection with the Greater Middle East. Bordering Afghanistan in the east, sharing a cultural heritage with 

Afghanistan, and given the history of its support to 

U.S. objectives in Kabul and interest in expanding 

its reach in case of improved ties with the West, Iran 

could represent a major asset to the United States and 

India. Its role, channeled in circumstances of growing 

strategic collaboration between Tehran and Washing-
73

ton, could promote U.S. and Indian interests and policies in Afghanistan and Central-South Asia. Neither 

party benefits from destabilization in Afghanistan, 

where they pursue reconstruction efforts. India and 

Iran already seek to expand energy and trade ties with 

each other via Afghanistan as part of their economic 

policies toward Central Asia. Washington should support the Indo-Iranian collaboration aimed at stabilization and integration of Afghanistan into Eurasia by 

advancing trilateral economic and counterterrorism 

collaboration focused on Afghanistan, Central Asia, 

and the Middle East. In the process, and in the conditions of a U.S.-Iranian detente, the U.S. military should 

share intelligence and work with its Iranian and Indian military counterparts in an effort to degrade terrorist and militant networks operating in and out of 

the Af-Pak region. 

Fostering Sino-Indian Cooperation.

Advance Resolution of Border Disputes 

and Demilitarization in Border Areas.

Border disputes strain Sino-Indian ties, impeding 

economic linkages not only between the two powers 

but also between China and South Asia, on the one 

hand, and between India and Central Asia, on the 

other. The United States and India should dedicate 

more resources to advancing the resolution of SinoIndian border disputes and demilitarization along 

the border areas, but without portraying or positioning Washington as an arbiter. The U.S. military’s role 

here comes down to the following major tasks: advancing demilitarization in Sino-Indian border areas; 

promoting common understanding between Chinese 
74

and Indian militaries as part of bilateral and trilateral 

engagement; holding bilateral or multilateral military 

exercises with Central Asian, Chinese, Indian, and 

Pakistani armies; promoting educational exchanges; 

sharing intelligence and security assessments; and 

planning joint and combined contingency operations 

in case of conflict escalation in disputed border areas. 

Resolving these border disputes would contribute to 

normalization of relations between two major Asian 

rivals, helping the United States uphold systemic stability. It would also enhance China’s and India’s roles 

as interregional economic engines, contributing to 

development and integration within Eurasia. The parties could then pursue and expand economic links via 

Xingjian and Kashmir more effectively.

Facilitate Joint and Combined Sino-Indian Resource 

Acquisition Strategies.

China’s “go global” campaign has achieved a more 

active and far-reaching resource acquisition strategy 

globally, including in Central Asia. As a country trailing behind, India needs China’s cooperation in select 

parts of the world to advance its own resource acquisition strategy. This especially concerns Central Asia, a 

region of growing importance to the resource-hungry 

Asian giants where Beijing outbids Delhi. Both already 

have experience pursuing joint bids to acquire stakes 

in oil and gas fields in various parts of the world. But 

this experiment is limited, as both countries continue 

to perceive each other as long-term strategic rivals. 

The United States should encourage Delhi and Beijing to participate in combined resource development, 

production, and delivery projects in Central Asia, both 

on a diplomatic and financial level. A result is not only 
75

an enhanced ability for India to access Central Asian 

markets, but also an improved and more trustworthy 

relationship between India and China as a source of 

global stability. At the same time, the U.S. military 

should support and encourage Delhi’s incipient efforts to build a regional, and eventually global, military infrastructure to protect its expanding economic 

interests and presence around the world. As it does 

so, it should focus on identifying common threats and 

opportunities for military engagement involving all 

three parties so as to lessen the prospect of armed conflict amid the global race for resources and on devising joint political and military approaches to address 

crises and conflicts induced by resource scarcity, environmental degradation, and natural disasters. 

Stimulate Confidence-Building Measures and 

Shared Regional Security Approaches.

The rise of China and India is a source of major 

challenges and opportunities for the global and regional security system. As the two countries’ profiles 

expand in Central and South Asia, both China and 

India should develop confidence-building measures 

and shared regional security management approaches. The alternative is a lingering suspicion and potentially explosive conflict between the two countries, 

which are only starting to learn the ropes of projecting influence globally in the conditions of the 21st 

century. The United States should encourage the two 

powers to develop common platforms of cooperation 

in Central-South Asia but seek to participate in such 

arrangements where practical to prevent an unlikely 

but potential emergence of an unfriendly “Chindia.” 

Washington should support India’s membership in the 
76

SCO, allowing India to advance its regional presence, 

check China’s rise, and boost interregional reconnection. A security framework of cooperation promoted 

by and involving India and China would allow for a 

sustainable evolution of different parts of the rapidly 

developing and developed Asia. In the process, the 

U.S. military should focus on promoting the idea of 

and helping design shared security and military arrangements and responses to regional and/or domestic crises in Central Asia in an institutional setting. 

The U.S. military should consider ways of cooperating with the SCO in areas such as counterterrorism, 

counternarcotics, border management, and the fight 

against cross-border militancy. Provided India becomes a member of the SCO, the U.S. military should 

work with Indian military to advance related objectives, while promoting a shared approach to security 

management and discoursing competitive dynamics 

that are prone to conflict. 

Exploiting Grand Strategies and Regional 

Connectivity Initiatives. 

Advance India’s Role in Grand Strategies 

of Central Asian Republics.

Central Asian states view the role of outside powers as crucial in their grand strategies. Currently, India does not feature prominently in these strategies, 

but Washington and Delhi can address this deficiency 

by advancing the role of India as a future great power. 

In the process, they should emphasize to the regional 

states the importance of developing the southern vector of connectivity by advancing strategic ties with 

India, while pointing to a possible U.S.-Indian part-
77

nership in facilitating this dynamic. As part of the U.S. 

strategy, the U.S. military should promote the geopolitical role of India and the United States in the military doctrines of the regional states as a component 

of their grand strategies; leverage India’s unimposing 

regional posture and counterterrorism capabilities 

to advance military ties with the republics; develop 

security arrangements to safeguard infrastructure of 

transregional projects with participation of Central 

Asian states, Afghanistan and, under the right conditions, Iran; identify and help address security vulnerabilities of individual republics as part of bilateral and 

multilateral military collaboration, including through 

intelligence sharing and arms sales/transfers; increase the frequency of counterterrorism and disaster 

relief military exercises; and increase the quota of students and scholarships for Central Asian students in 

U.S. and Indian military academies. Pursued together, 

these efforts would reinforce the message that the regional states have options to pursue strategic engagement with distant actors, as well.

Align and Combine Parts of U.S. NSRS with India’s 

“Connect” Policy.

Both the NSRS and the “connect” policy share 

similar objectives, but neither one is solely capable of 

achieving its objectives faster, more efficiently, and 

in a more sustainable manner. Aligning, combining, 

and jointly pursuing components of the two initiatives would generate policy synergies and achieve 

outcomes faster and more effectively. India and the 

United States could combine the U.S. “software” with 

Indian “hardware” or vice-versa dependent on a project. U.S. institutional and trade facilitation expertise 
78

in combination with infrastructure development and 

investments by India would help complete a CentralSouth Asian economic bridge faster. Besides other 

benefits, doing so would enhance the symbolism of India and the United States working together and demonstrate the commitment of both powers to regional 

economic development and security after 2016 when 

Washington and its allies plan to withdraw from Afghanistan. But closer U.S. economic engagement with 

its prospective partners would require a new role for 

the U.S., Indian, Afghan, and Central Asian militaries 

in safeguarding their interests. As part of its militaryto-military engagement with its regional counterparts, 

the U.S. military should facilitate security conditions 

conducive for effective and uninterrupted functioning 

of cross-regional projects and initiatives, such as TAPI, 

CASA-1000, and other existing and potential initiatives being advanced by the parties in the broader 

region. It should develop security arrangements and 

contingencies for engaging individual, joint, or combined military and security forces to safeguard these 

assets, especially during regional crises or armed 

conflicts threatening this infrastructure. 

Channel China’s “Belt” and Other Connectivity 

Initiatives in South-West Direction.

China’s “belt” initiative is primarily an east-west 

corridor via Central Asia. And while the CPEC facilitates a south-north connection, it does not involve 

Central Asian states or India. Washington and Delhi 

should advance the participation of Afghanistan, India, the United States, and Central Asian republics in 

China’s “belt,” potential expansion of the CPEC, and 

other connectivity projects to foster east-southwest 
79

and south-northwest linkages. Washington and Delhi 

should focus on positioning Kashmir and Xingjian as 

energy, trade, and transit connectors and shape their 

evolution in conjunction with tasks seeking the resolution of border disputes and relaxation of tensions in 

the region. Such an approach would create openings 

for the United States, India, Afghanistan, and Central 

Asian states to develop north-south and south-north 

linkages in addition to east-west and west-east connections and do so in collaboration with China and 

Pakistan. As such U.S.-Indian engagement in transregional projects grows, and given the conflict potential 

of the areas where these projects operate, the U.S. and 

Indian militaries should synch their views and practices to advance security and stability in the region. 

They should also work with their counterparts in 

China and Pakistan to mitigate any suspicions associated with the growing U.S.-Indian economic and military engagement in the region and, ideally, advance 

common understanding and shared security arrangements. Focusing on counterterrorism as a first step 

could be the best platform for deepening military-tomilitary engagement, as all four actors share a history 

of struggle against terrorism. 

Facilitate the INSTC Linking Russia and India 

via Central Asia.

As Russia pulls Central Asia north and China pulls 

it east, it is imperative that India and the United States 

ensure that their connectivity strategies open up new 

vectors of economic development, military engagement, and strategic collaboration for Central Asian republics without imposing them or denying the republics a choice of pursuing linkages in other directions. 
80

Washington and Delhi should facilitate and expand 

the INSTC, necessarily linking the EEU, Russia, and 

India via the Caspian region and Central Asia. This 

would help develop a vertical line in Eurasia strong 

enough to approximate, if not match, the horizontal 

line of rapidly expanding east-west economic linkages. Otherwise, the balance of forces in Eurasia will rest 

on a skewed axis, constraining strategic options for regional economies and external players alike. To assist 

the overall U.S. goals of advancing transcontinental 

connectivity, the U.S. military should work with its 

partners in NATO, Russia, India, and Central Asia to 

advance security of the areas where INSTC would operate in its existing and expanded format. In the northern tier of the INSTC, the U.S. military effort should 

concentrate on the task, seeking to mitigate interstate 

tensions in the region stemming from the unresolved 

status of the Caspian. In the southern tier, it should 

work with its regional counterparts to reduce security 

threats, such as cross-border militancy, transnational 

terrorism, and narcotics and human trafficking, which 

threaten the economic flows generated by the INSTC. 
81

V: INDIA’S LONG-TERM PRESENCE 

IN CENTRAL ASIA: 

FROM ASPIRATIONS TO INFLUENCE 

From the 16th to the 18th century, India and Central 

Asia interacted as part of an “interimperial system” 

that involved the Ottoman, the Mughal, the Safavid, 

and the Shaibanid empires. A common “Persianate 

code of conduct” going beyond religious affiliations 

defined interimperial communication and diplomacy, 

linking the empires. But the Great Game, the Russian 

revolution, the creation of the Soviet Union, the fall 

of the Ottoman Empire, and the de-Persianization of 

India have made the borders between empires less 

permeable.108 Even the end of the Cold War and the 

emergence of independent Central Asian states made 

this interaction difficult, as the newly independent 

countries cautiously embarked on their quest for a 

place on the political map. 

But a quarter of a century afterward, Central Asia 

is opening up, albeit still slowly, assuming a growing 

strategic importance for neighbors and the rest of the 

world. India, which had more or less interacted with 

the region until the creation of the Soviet Union, has 

become increasingly engaged in Central Asia over the 

years. But unlike Russia, which has been projecting its 

influence in and out of the region for a century and 

a half, India is a latecomer to the region’s 21st century “Great Game.” And unlike China, it is starting 

its great power ascendance from a lower base and at a 

slower pace, explaining its policy failures globally and 

in Central-South Asia. 

Select elements of India’s strategic culture and 

geopolitical constraints account for its delayed arrival and limited presence in Central Asia compared 
82

to great and middle-ranked powers alike. At the same 

time, a number of attributes make it a major partner for the regional states in the long run, capable of 

standing up to a potential regional hegemon—China. 

While Delhi may choose to rely on its own resources 

to advance its strategic position in Central Asia on par 

with Russia, China, or the United States, it is far better 

off partnering with Washington on a strategic level, 

given constraints of its strategic culture and geopolitical challenges it confronts. Without collaboration with 

the United States, its strategic positioning in Central 

Asia and the world will be slower, while its efforts 

to turn its regional aspirations into influence will be 

severely constrained.

Ever since it officially shed the principle of nonalignment in its foreign policy after the collapse of the 

Soviet Union, India has failed to define its role for the 

region or the world as an aspiring great power or serve 

as a model of development. As a result, it has no clear 

direction to pursue and no appealing model to offer 

to its neighbors, including in Central Asia where the 

regional republics look more to Russia and China for 

guidance and assistance on economic, security, and 

development matters. Nor has it yet fully embraced 

the concept of national interests as the guiding principle of its policy, even if one could justify the importance of nonalignment in advancing its perceived national interests during and after the Cold War. Unlike 

the United States or China, India has no allies. But its 

efforts at cultivating such a relation with Vietnam109 is 

a promising sign that Delhi should replicate in Central 

Asia, where Tajikistan and Kazakhstan could serve 

such roles on the southernmost and northernmost 

points of Central Asia. 
83

India’s lack of success in advancing its presence 

in Central Asia is not the result of its own failures 

alone. Its “Connect Central Asia” policy confronts 

a disconnected broader region of Central and South 

Asia, whose subregions lack connectivity within and 

between each other and witness ethnic tensions and 

rivalries for primacy among constituent states. Unlike 

Russia or China, India does not border Central Asia, 

having to rely on airlifts from Delhi and Dubai, volatile Afghanistan, and relatively isolated Iran to trade 

with the region. It also faces an unstable Afghanistan 

and unfriendly Pakistan, whose evolution is key to its 

regional ambitions. Meanwhile, its tensions with Islamabad and Beijing further limit its reach in Central 

Asia. As a result, Delhi is confined to South Asia, unable to unleash its potential as an aspiring great power. 

As India’s rival for global primacy and resources, 

the rising China presents a formidable strategic challenge to India. This challenge is especially pronounced 

in India’s immediate neighborhoods of Central and 

South Asia, where Beijing has been making increasingly successful, far-reaching strides. China’s head 

start in economic reforms and its already strongest 

position in Central Asia have contributed to its relatively stronger geopolitical and geo-economic position in Central Asia, reinforcing Delhi’s perception of 

Beijing’s intent to encircle India, tie it down in South 

Asia, and prevent it from enhancing its presence in 

Central Asia. This has prompted India to counter 

China’s moves in an attempt to retain its position, including in Central and South Asia, where it has been 

bolstering its partnerships with regional countries. 

But the challenge presented by China is not just that 

of rivalry for resources and influence. It is also one of 

finding political will to cultivate a collaborative com-
84

petition between the two rising powers. India should 

thus partner with Beijing where possible to advance 

its regional position. 

India’s failures attributed to its strategic culture, 

geopolitical constraints, and rivalries of local and external powers within Central and South Asia require 

Delhi to enhance its effort to connect with the region—

something it has yet to achieve as part of its “connect” 

policy. Launched in 2012, the policy has sought to 

link Central and South Asia by focusing on the development and integration of Afghanistan from within 

and without, thereby opening new doors for India to 

import strategically vital resources for its resourcehungry economy and to project its rapidly growing 

power not only out of South Asia but also Central 

Asia. India’s “connect” policy is a reflection of both 

geopolitical constraints it confronts and geopolitical 

solutions it employs to overcome these constraints 

and extend its reach. Despite its proactive stance and 

focus on action rather than observation, the “connect” 

policy has a long way to go before it delivers. In large 

part, this has to do with instability in Afghanistan and 

Pakistan—the countries on which India relies to fully 

connect with Central Asia and that teeter on the brink 

of potential disintegration. 

India’s “connect” policy also has to contend with 

relatively less constrained policies of other actors in 

Central Asia, big and small. The attained presence 

of these actors, especially Russia and China, but also 

Turkey and individual EEU members, make Delhi’s 

desired regional goals look more like aspirations and 

ambitions rather than attainable gains and real prospects. To advance its presence in Central Asia, India 

can and should capitalize on favorable views of the 

regional republics and areas of potential engagement 
85

that exist between them, especially in energy, weapons procurement and defense, transit infrastructure 

development, and trade facilitation. It should also engage rather than shun its perceived rivals. Doing so 

would advance development in and between Central 

and South Asia, helping it unlock its strategic potential and enabling the regional republics to develop a 

southern vector of development and build their external balancing capacity. While a latecomer in the region, India is not unwelcomed by Central Asian states 

that are eager to diversify their ties and secure access 

to the Indian subcontinent and Indian Ocean. 

But this approach is not enough, considering India’s lost ground since the collapse of the Soviet 

Union. A search for allies and partners is a strategic 

imperative for India—a task bordering on a feat, as 

India is yet to discard the legacy and policy inertia of 

its nonalignment ideology and embrace the national 

interest as the guiding principle of an active rather 

than passive foreign policy. While Delhi should strive 

for cooperation with its current and long-term rivals 

and challengers such as Pakistan and China, it should 

develop a weighty strategic partnership with the 

United States. As the world’s strongest power with a 

democratic system and limited role in Central Asia, 

Washington is a natural partner for Delhi in a region 

dominated by authoritarian Russia and China. India’s 

lack of imperial history, democratic tradition, history 

of nonalignment, and shared concern about China’s 

emergence make Delhi a prospective partner for the 

Unites States globally and regionally. Joining forces in 

Central Asia would allow both to advance and sustain 

their long-term regional positions vis-à-vis other powers. This is critical because both enjoy limited presence in Central-South Asia, pursue similar agendas, 
86

and confront similar global and regional threats posed 

by state and nonstate actors. As they consider such a 

prospect, they should unlock and leverage India’s regional potential by pursuing the following objectives, 

which should also uncover the U.S. strategic potential 

in Central-South Asia.

First, the United States and India should work together to mitigate security challenges in the Af-Pak 

region by focusing on development, reconstruction, 

and integration of Afghanistan into the broader region and by encouraging Pakistan to clamp down on 

homegrown militant and terrorist groups. This objective rests on the execution of a number of following 

tasks, allowing India to connect with Central Asia 

more safely, efficiently, and in a sustainable manner: 

supporting and expanding India’s reconstruction and 

involvement effort in Afghanistan; encouraging AfPak-Indo economic cooperation and relaxation of political tensions; facilitating resolution of the conflict in 

Kashmir; and advancing India’s profile in Tajikistan, 

which borders Pakistan and China and could serve as 

Central-Asia’s receiving end of interregional reconnection. 

Second, the United States and India should shape 

Iran’s geopolitical role in the world and Central-South 

Asia provided Washington and Tehran conclude a nuclear deal and work toward a détente. In the process, 

they should encourage Iran to play a role of regional 

balancer vis-à-vis Turkey in the Middle East and China and Russia in Central Asia, which would welcome 

India’s growing presence in the Iranian economy 

dominated by China and facilitate India’s strategic 

presence in Eurasia. They should further advance 

Indo-Iranian energy, trade, and transit cooperation 

with a focus on involvement of Central Asian states 
87

and Afghanistan, in part by implementing the longoverdue IPI project and encouraging Iran’s participation in resource deliveries from Turkmenistan and the 

Caspian to Pakistan and India. Moreover, they should 

encourage Indo-Iranian cooperation in rebuilding and 

integrating Afghanistan from within and with Central-South Asia, especially given the potential of the 

country’s disintegration after 2016. 

Third, while Washington and Delhi pursue coengagement with China, they should not lose sight of 

the task to foster Sino-Indian cooperation to ensure a 

smooth reconnection of Central and South Asia and a 

peaceful global environment conducive for unlocking 

India’s long-term potential in the world and the broader region. Harnessing and channeling China’s rapid 

push into Eurasia is critical for interests of both the 

United States and India, given Washington’s declining global profile and Delhi’s growing but constrained 

global role. To that purpose, the United States and India should advance the resolution of Sino-Indian border disputes; facilitate the pursuit of joint and shared 

Sino-Indian resource acquisition strategies, especially 

in the immediate neighborhoods of Central and South 

Asia; and stimulate confidence-building measures and 

shared security approaches, including by supporting 

India’s membership in the Beijing-led SCO. 

Finally, the United States and India should not 

only imbue their connectivity initiatives with muchneeded commitment, funding, and leadership, but 

they should also exploit grand strategies and connectivity initiatives of other powers to facilitate Eurasian internal and external integration with the global 

economy, while opening up opportunities for India’s 

south-north economic push. To achieve this, Washington and Delhi should advance India’s role in grand 
88

strategies of Central Asian republics by highlighting 

concerns centered on the rise of China and the benefits 

of a strategic U.S.-Indian partnership for the region. 

They should also align parts of their connectivity initiatives to achieve faster and more effective regional 

outcomes. They would further benefit from channeling China’s “belt” and other connectivity initiatives in 

southward and south-northeast directions. Finally, the 

parties would do well to facilitate north-south trade 

and transit linkages, including as part of an expanded 

INSTC already linking Russia, the EEU, and India, 

that should involve Central Asian countries, as well as 

Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Whether India will rely on its own resources—to 

be expanded with the rise of its economy—or seek a 

partnership with the United States, or both, remains 

to be seen. What is clear is that India’s geopolitical 

role is set to expand considerably in the years and 

decades ahead. Such expansion will generate concerns for neighbors and distant actors alike, creating 

conditions for instability despite any benefits of cooperation between them and India as one of the largest economies. Washington and Delhi should ensure 

they stay engaged in Central Asia and enhance their 

positions amid a power struggle unfolding between 

outside powers in this increasingly critical part of the 

world. To do this, they should cultivate a strategic 

partnership that makes Central Asia its major pillar. 

Until then, neither Delhi nor Washington is likely to 

succeed.

The role of the U.S. military in the process, either 

as part of the U.S.-Indian strategic partnership or as 

part of U.S. overall efforts to cultivate such a partnership with Delhi, will be critical. Rightly so, because a 

lot is at stake for the United States in this seemingly 
89

remote backwater. As an area of growing external rivalries, the region of Central-South Asia is a source of 

both traditional and nontraditional security threats to 

U.S. national interests, be that in the political, military, 

or even economic domain. From interstate conflicts to 

transnational terrorism and from Russia’s attempts 

to reestablish geopolitical control to China’s efforts 

to achieve economic dominance, the region is a focal 

point of intersecting challenges and opportunities that 

the U.S. military should be better positioned to address and leverage in support of U.S. interests. Pursuing those objectives as part of U.S. economic, political, 

and military efforts would assist India in unlocking 

its regional strategic potential and help Washington 

unlock its own. 

ENDNOTES

1. Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, 

and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia, New York: W. W. Norton & 

Company, 2011, p. 25.

2. Ibid., p. 26.

3. Sudeepto Adhikari, Akbouri Radha Krishna Sinha, and 

Mukul Kamle, “India’s Changing Geopolitical Code: an Attempt 

at Analysis,” Geopolitics Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 4, Winter 2008, p. 26.

4. Ibid., p. 19. Also see Harsh V. Pant, The Growing Complexity of Sino-Indian Ties, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. 

Army War College Press, 2014, p. 3. 

5. Emilian Kavalski, India and Central Asia: The Mythmaking 

and International Relations of a Rising Power, New York: I. B. Tauris 

Publishers, 2010, p. 30.

6. Sebastien Peyrouse, “Domestic and International Articulations of the Indian Involvement in Central Asia,” in Marlene Laruelle and Sebastien Peyrouse, eds., Mapping Central 
90

Asia: Indian Perceptions and Strategies, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 

2011, pp. 75-79.

7. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, quoted in Emilian Kavalski, Central 

Asia and the Rise of Normative Powers: Contextualizing the Security Governance of the European Union, China, and India, New York: 

Bloomsbury, 2012, p. 127.

8. A. Vanaik, “Making India Strong: The BJP-led Government’s Foreign Policy Perspectives,” in J. McGuire and I. Copland 

eds., Hindu Nationalism and Governance, New Delhi, India: Oxford 

University Press, pp. 390-391. 

9. Quoted in Ibid.; Kavalski, p. 128.

10. S. Mahalingam, “India-Central Asia Energy Cooperation,” in K. Santhanam and R. Dwivedi, eds., India in Central 

Asia: Advancing the Common Interest, New Delhi, India: Anamaya 

Publishers, 2005, p. 133. Also see Kavalski, p. 139.

11. Kavalski, pp. 140-141.

12. Vishakha N. Desai, “From Statecraft to Soulcraft,” in Clay 

Chandler and Adil Zainulbhai, eds., Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower, New York: Simon & 

Schuster, 2013, pp. 302-303. 

13. Peyrouse, “Domestic and International Articulations of 

the Indian Involvement in Central Asia,” pp. 79-80.

14. For more discussion, see Kavalski, pp. 45, 67-68. 

15. Ajay Patnaik, “Framing Indo-Central Asian Relations, 

1990s-2000s,” in Laruelle and Peyrouse, p. 98.

16. Ibid., pp. 98-99.

17. Marlene Laruelle, “Foreign Policy and Myth-making: 

Great Game, Heartland, and Silk Roads,” in Laruelle and Peyrouse, p. 16. Also see Sanjay Kumar Pandey, “India and the Importance of Central Asia,” in P. L. Dash, ed., India and Central Asia: 

Two Decades of Transition, New Delhi, India: Oxford University 

Press, 2012, p. 2.
91

18. Nimmi Kurian, India-China Borderlands: Conversations 

Beyond the Center, New York: Sage, 2014, pp. 66-83, 91.

19. George Friedman, “The Geopolitics of India: A Shifting, 

Self-Contained World,” Stratfor, December 16, 2008. 

20. Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography: What the Map 

Tells about Coming Conflicts and the Battle against Fate, New York: 

Random House, 2012, p. 254.

21. Ibid., p. 233.

22. Meena Singh Roy, “India’s Policy Toward Central Asia: 

The Pakistan Factor,” in Laruelle and Peyrouse, p. 175.

23. Ajay Darshan Behera, “The Resurgence of the Taliban and 

Regional Security Concerns,” in Laruelle and Peyrouse, p. 203.

24. Roy, p. 175.

25. “Fatalities in Terrorist Violence in Pakistan 2003-2015,” 

The South Asia Terrorism Portal, accessed June 18, 2015.

26. Robert D. Kaplan, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future 

of American Power, New York: Random House, 2010, p. 112.

27. Gurcharan Das, the CEO and author, quoted in Fareed Zakaria, “The Rediscovery of India,” in Chandler and 

Zainulbhai, p. 5. 

28. Also see Sebastien Peyrouse, “Comparing the Economic 

Involvement of China and India in post-Soviet Central Asia,” in 

Marlene Laruelle, Jean-Francois Huchet, Sebastien Peyrouse, and 

Bayram Balci, eds., China and India in Central Asia: A New “Great 

Game?” New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp. 155-156.

29. Basudeb Chaudhuri and Nampreet Sethi, “India-China 

Interactions in Central Asia through the Prism of Paul Kennedy’s 

Analysis of Great Powers,” in Laruelle, Huchet, et al., p. 127. 

30. Wolfgang Schurer, “A Geopolitical and Geo-economic Overview: On the Rise of China and India as Two Asian 
92

Giants,” The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Vol. 29, Issue 2,

Summer 2005, p. 158.

31. For more on China’s perceived encirclement of India, see 

David Scott, “The Great Power ‘Great Game’ between India and 

China: ‘The Logic of Geography’,” Geopolitics, Vol. 13, Issue 1-26, 

2008, pp. 4-7. 

32. For more on the term, see Zhao Gancheng, “The Rise of 

Chindia and Its Impact on the World System,” in Roy Huisken, 

ed., Rising China: Power and Reassurance, Canberra, Australia: The 

Australian National University Press, 2009, pp. 65-77.

33. Harsh V. Pant, “China’s Half-Hearted Engagement and 

India’s Proactive Balancing,” in Ian Hall, ed., The Engagement 

of India: Strategies and Responses, Washington, DC: Georgetown 

University Press, 2014, p. 121.

34. Sanjay Kumar Pandey, “India and the Importance of 

Central Asia,” in Dash, p. 7.

35. Peyrouse, “Comparing the Economic Involvement of 

China and India in post-Soviet Central Asia,” pp. 84-85.

36. Swaran Singh, “China-led Multilateralism in Central Asia: 

Strategic Implications for India,” in Dash, pp. 66-67.

37. Yu Jianhua, “Competition for Caspian Energy Development and Its Relationship with China,” in Charles Hawkings 

and Robert Love, eds., The New Great Game: Chinese Views in Central Asia, Fort Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office, 

2006, p. 149.

38. For more on India’s strategy countering China’s perceived 

policy of encirclement, see Scott, pp. 7-9.

39. Nirmala Joshi, “India-Central Asia Energy Cooperation” 

in Dash, p. 56.

40. Schurer, pp. 72, 161.

41. Kaplan, Monsoon, p. 249. 
93

42. Arun Prakash, “Introduction” in Sam Bateman and Joshua Ho, eds., Southeast Asia and the Rise of Chinese and Indian Naval Power: Between Rising Naval Powers, New York: Routledge, 

2010, p. 2.

43. Sumit Ganguly and Manjeet S. Pardesi, “Can China and 

India Rise Peacefully?” Foreign Policy Research Institute, Summer 

2012, pp. 477-478.

44. Adhikari, et al., pp. 22-25.

45. Letter from Atal Vajpayee to Bill Clinton, as cited in Pant, 

The Growing Complexity of Sino-Indian Ties, pp. 4, 28.

46. Ibid.

47. Mushtaq A. Kaw, “Restoring India’s Links with Central 

Asia across Kashmir: Challenges and Opportunities,” in Laruelle 

and Peyrouse, p. 181. Also see Marlene Laruelle and Sebastien 

Peyrouse, “Managing Regional Geopolitical Uncertainty,” in 

Laruelle and Peyrouse, p. 156.

48. Vinay Rai and William L. Simon, Think India: The Rise of 

the World’s Next Great Power and What It Means for Every American, 

New York: The Penguin Group, 2008, p. 247.

49. Jean-Francois Huchet, “India and China in Central Asia: 

Mirroring Their Bilateral Relations,” in Laruelle, Huchet, et al., 

pp. 112-113.

50. Roman Muzalevsky, Central Asia’s Shrinking Connectivity 

Gap: Implications for U.S. Strategy, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies 

Institute and U.S. Army War College Press, November 2014, p. 37.

51. Ivan Campbell, “India’s Roles and Interests in Central 

Asia,” Safeworld Briefing, October 2013, p. 2.

52. Quoted in Zhao Huasheng, “Cooperation or Competition? China and India in Central Asia,” in Marlene Laruelle, JeanFrancois Huchet, Sebastien Peyrouse, and Bayram Balci, eds., 

China and India in Central Asia: A New “Great Game”?, New York: 

Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp. 132-133.
94

53. Peyrouse, “Domestic and International Articulations of 

the Indian Involvement in Central Asia,” p. 86.

54. Raj Kumar Kothari, “India’s ‘Connect Central Asia Policy’: 

Emerging Economic and Security Dimensions,” Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 2, Issue 6, 2014, p. 240.

55. Gulshan Sachdeva, “Indo-Central Asian Economic 

Relations,” in Laruelle and Peyrouse, p. 132.

56. Kothari, p. 242. 

57. Peyrouse, “Comparing the Economic Involvement of 

China and India in post-Soviet Central Asia,” pp. 82-83. 

58. Nivedita Das Kundu, “India-Russia Strategic Cooperation: Eye on the Future,” in Nivedita Das Kundu, ed., India-Russia 

Strategic Partnership: Challenges and Prospects, New Delhi, India: 

Academic Foundation and Indian Council of World Affairs, 

2010, p. 157.

59. S. Varadarajan, “Power Grids and the New Silk Road in 

Asia,” The Hindu, July 11, 2005.

60. Sachdeva, p. 137.

61. For more, see Roman Muzalevsky, From Frozen Ties to Strategic Engagement: U.S.-Iranian Relations in 2030, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College Press, November 

2014, p. 38.

62. Ibid.

63. Roman Muzalevsky, “India’s ‘Connect Central Asia’ Policy Seeks to Compensate for Lost Time,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 

Vol. 9, Issue 176, September 27, 2012.

64. Marlene Laruelle and Sebastien Peyrouse, “Managing Regional Geopolitical Uncertainty,” in Laruelle and 

Peyrouse, p. 151.
95

65. For more discussion see Muzalevsky, From Frozen Ties to 

Strategic Engagement.

66. Ahmed Rashid, “Stumbling toward Peace,” in Chandler 

and Zainulbhai, p. 365. 

67. Laruelle and Peyrouse, p. 155.

68. Sachdeva, p. 139.

69. Sumit Ganguly and Manjeet S. Pardesi, “Can China 

and India Rise Peacefully?” Foreign Policy Research Institute, 

Summer 2012, p. 474.

70. Sreemati Ganguli, “The Revival of the Silk Roads Topic: A 

Contemporary Analysis,” in Marlene Laruelle and Sebastien Peyrouse, eds., Mapping Central Asia: Indian Perceptions and Strategies, 

Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011, p. 61.

71. C. Raja Mohan, “Emerging Geopolitical trends and Security in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the People’s 

Republic of China, and India (ACI) Region,” Asian Development 

Bank Institute (ADBI) Working Paper Series, No. 412, March 

2013, p. 14.

72. Nirmala Joshi, “India-Central Asia Energy Cooperation” 

in P. L. Dash, ed., India and Central Asia: Two Decades of Transition, 

New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 56. Also see 

Mushtaq A. Kaw, p. 187.

73. Ajay Patnaik, “Framing Indo-Central Asian Relations, 

1990s-2000s,” in Laruelle and Peyrouse, p. 102.

74. Kaw, p. 187.

75. Harsh V. Pant, “China’s Half-Hearted Engagement and 

India’s Proactive Balancing,” in Hall, p. 118.

76. P. Stobdan, “Central Asia: India’s Northern Exposure,” 

Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses Monograph Series No. 

44, New Delhi, India: Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, 

May 2015, p. 21.
96

77. Pant, “China’s Half-Hearted Engagement and India’s 

Proactive Balancing,” p. 119.

78. For more on mutual perceptions, see Huasheng, 

pp. 131-138.

79. Jagannath P. Panda, “India’s New Look at Central 

Asia Policy: A Strategic Review,” in Laruelle, Huchet, et al.,

pp. 115-116.

80. Aset Ordabaev, Geopolitika transportnykh koridorov 

v Tsentralnoi Azii (The Geopolitics of Transport Corridors in Central Asia), Astana, Kazakhstan: Institute of World Economy and 

Politics, the Fund of the First President of Kazakhstan, p. 44.

81. Gulnoza Saidazimova, “Integraziya v Tsentralnoi Azii: 

realii, vyzovy, vozmojnosti” (“Integration in Central Asia: Realities, Challenges, and Opportunities”), Tsentralnaia Azia i Kavkaz, 

September 2000.

82. Nick Bisley, “Engagement, India, and the Changing 

International Order,” in Hall, p. 190.

83. Marlene Laruelle, “Russia Facing China and India in 

Central Asia: Cooperation, Competition, and Hesitations,” in 

Laruelle, Huchet, et al., p. 21.

84. Quoted in Kaplan, Monsoon, p. 129.

85. Peyrouse, “Domestic and International Articulations of 

the Indian Involvement in Central Asia,” pp. 80-86.

86. I. Iskakov, “Problemy i perspektivy integratsii evraziiskogo prostranstva” (“Issues and Prospects of Eurasian 

Integration”), ББК 63.3(2)64-6, p. 243.

87. Sebastien Peyrouse, “Comparing the Economic Involvement of China and India in Post-Soviet Central Asia,” in Laruelle, 

Huchet, et al., p. 168.

88. Louise Merrington, “India and China: Strategic 

Engagements in Central Asia,” in Hall, p. 91.
97

89. Adiljan Umarov and Dmitriy Pashkun, “Tensions in Sino-Central Asian Relations: Implications for Regional Security,” 

Central Asia Series, Watchfield, England: Conflict Studies Research Centre, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, January 

2006, p. 2.

90. D. Kaushik, “India and Central Asia: Past and Present 

Relations and Future Hopes,” Contemporary Central Asia, Vol. 1, 

Issue 1, 1996, pp. 226-239.

91. Sascha Muller-Kraenner, “China’s and India’s Emerging 

Energy Foreign Policy,” Discussion Paper, German Development 

Institute, Bonn, Germany, 2008. 

92. Peyrouse, “Comparing the Economic Involvement of 

China and India in Post-Soviet Central Asia,” p. 159.

93. Ibid.

94. Ordabaev, p. 16.

95. Farkhod Tolipov, “Flexibility or Strategic Confusion? 

Foreign Policy of Uzbekistan,” Uzbekistan Initiative Papers, 

February 2014, pp. 3-5.

96. Peyrouse, “Domestic and International Articulations of 

the Indian Involvement in Central Asia,” p. 81.

97. Peyrouse, “Comparing the Economic Involvement of 

China and India in Post-Soviet Central Asia,” p. 159.

98. Sanjay Kumar Pandey, “India and the Importance of 

Central Asia,” in Dash, p. 8.

99. Peyrouse, Monsoon, p. 197.

100. Stobdan, pp. 48-54.

101. Panda, p. 116.

102. Kavalski, pp. 102-103.
98

103. Peyrouse, “Domestic and International Articulations of 

the Indian Involvement in Central Asia,” p. 88.

104. Ian Hall, “The Engagement of India,” in Hall, pp. 7-9.

105. Cohen, “India and America: Redefining the Partnership,” 

in Chandler and Zainulbhai, p. 337. 

106. Hall, pp. 7-9.

107. Kothari, p. 242.

108. Laurent Gayer, “From the Oxus to the Indus: Looking 

Back at India-Central Asia Connections in the Early Modern 

Age,” in Laruelle, Huchet, et al., p. 127.

109. For more on China’s perceived encirclement of India, 

see Scott, p. 10.
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