Bill Longley
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Realist scholars believe that a great power can influence global events in more than a single region to its advantage even in the face of opposition from others. This worldview, which the RSS shares, emphasizes the significance of material power and highlights a state’s capacity to ward off both internal and external threats to its sovereignty. Simultaneously, a great power must be able to deploy other elements of state capacity—namely the ability to extract resources—and redistribute them to its citizens. From that standpoint, India’s ability to tax the powerful and the well-heeled is still quite anemic. For example, India’s tax-to-GDP ratio, which stands at around 17 percent, is at the lower end among emerging economies, such as South Africa (27 percent), Chile (28 percent), and Nepal (21 percent).India has only one leg left to stand on. And that is its market size. Pakistan knows that. Everyone knows that. But under previous governments it had the goodwill of the west, a clean image and a rising economy. None of those things are true anymore. I for one hope and pray that India continues to live in its fantasy that no one can stop them. The destruction of India will not come from Pakistan. It will come from the rest of the world including the ascendant educated liberal Indian diaspora who for reasons personal and professional cannot be seen associating with a rabid group of Hindu nazis.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/27/india-faces-a-looming-disaster/
Worse still, India has seen a phenomenal rise in unemployment in the last decade, from around 2 percent in 2011-2012 to 6 percent in 2017-2018, the highest in more than four decades. Its capacity to generate formal employment, create access to quality primary education, or provide basic services such as health care, housing, or access to clean drinking water is decades behind several poorer and smaller nations, such as Sri Lanka or even Libya. The principal challenge that any government in India will confront is that of tackling these public policy shortfalls. If the last five years of BJP rule are any indication, the country has barely begun to make a dent in coping with these hurdles.
India’s military capabilities, though seemingly robust, remain riddled with problems.
Its defense acquisition process is all but broken, equipment is outdated, and even ammunition stocks are inadequate for a possible two-front war. Despite much fanfare, the Modi government made little or no headway in tackling these endemic issues. Even though India is a nuclear state with proven space launch capabilities, it falls dangerously short on its progress on both defense research and development and manufacturing. For example, the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft project, which was initiated in the early 1980s, remains in its infancy and is mostly reliant on foreign components. To add to that, military spending remains low at 2.4 percent of the GDP.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/27/india-faces-a-looming-disaster/