Is India on its way to becoming a superpower?

[GR!FF!N]

Name me any one country that was a "colony" of China.

That expansion you see is people being assimilated into the Chinese nation.

Once, Han Chinese was only one small tribe along the Yellow River. We grew and assimilated until we are now the largest ethnic group on the planet.

Every country has grown this way. Germany also started from one small tribe, so did Egypt and Mesopotamia. That is how ethnic and cultural identities evolve over time.

at the anicient times,there were no concept of "country",only "empire".China occupied those small empires under a large empire..thats it.every empire in country did that.and FYI,Tibet and East Turkestan are 2 countries that are Chinese colony till now.get real.when China "Unified" them,they were independent countries.

 

[Su-11]

The probability of India becoming a super power in future is ZERO! It will end up like Japan, a militarily passive state but an economic power. To become a super power, you need a lot of balls apart from economic might to back that up. India, or rather Indians in general, are only interested in making money, not becoming world leaders while taking huge risks in such an endeavor... and that is not going to change for the next 1000 years atleast.

One of the main attributes of becoming a super power which countries like the U.S and the Soviet Union took for granted is the predatory mindset which existed and still exists in the leadership of both those countries. India as a country and a society is basically a peacenik's paradise. Ofcourse India does fight its wars, but that's only because its territorial integrity is threatened... which is exactly what a docile animal like a Cow does when its calf is threatened. India is no Tiger with a killer streak, and never will be. It's not just the leaders, but the vast majority of the society are basically like so.
Just one simple scenario to explain the Indian mindset, the cuban missile crisis. The cuban missile crisis, wasn't really a crisis at all because the Soviet union never broke any international rules or treaties when it stationed its missiles in Cuba. It was PERFECTLY 100% legal. Infact the Soviet Union was only doing what the U.S had already done in Turkey & Italy, which was it stationed its Nuclear missiles bases there targeting the Soviet Union. In a full scale Nuclear war, the Soviet Union apart from its military industrial complex, had no real economy to speak of and most of its country was turned into rubble less than 20 years ago in the Second World War. The U.S had everything to lose if it initiates a suicidal war because apart from being untouched by the WW2, its economy and civilian infrastructure was the top in the world. And yet the United States not only threatened war on Cuba, but threatened a full scale nuclear war on the entire Soviet Union!! If India ever gets into such a situation, will it show such balls for a showdown? Absolutely NOT! The first thing which will be the standard reply of every Indian and the politicians is: "Comeon, we are the world's most richest country. We will loose everything and a lot of people will die, while the opposing country has nothing to lose and is basically a dictatorship which doesn't care about its people. We gain nothing by engaging in such a showdown. Lets call it quits." With a mindset like that would we ever become a superpower? The Funny thing is this factor is even now vividly in display vis-a-vis pakistan at present.
"Pakistan is an economically bankrupt country and in civil war, we will lose more with a war with pakistan, and that is not a smart thing to do. So Peace is the only Option. Dialogue is the only way forward."
^See the resemblance?
This country simply doesn't have what it takes to rise to the top of the food chain. It will forever remain the cow which defends its calf. Infact, if India grows more economically powerful, the weaker its willpower will become. The fear of losing the material gains will over shadow its willingness to show some balls in the face of a nuclear threat.

Money alone doesn't make one powerful. America has the guts to take the most bold decisions to convert all that economic might to Military power. India simply does not have what it takes to do the above.


So as per the above, the requirements are:
1: Strong Leadership & Society to back them
2: Strong Military

The other 3 other Requirements which are essential are:
3: Heavy Industries
India is a country which doesn't even manufacture the engines for its cars. Indian Heavy Industry is a joke when compared to that of Europe, Russia and the U.S

4: Natural Resources
An important super power attribute is the ability to fight prolonged wars. Soviet union(even now Russia) and the U.S have huge resources, including Oil and Gas. Infact, U.S was the largest producer of Oil and Gas before Oil was discovered in the Middle east. In a prolonged war, both Russia and U.S can safely depend on their own resources. India or even China have to risk their sea lanes, not to mention convince the oil producing countries to give them Oil. Or should do what the Germans & Japanese did, conquer territories for resources. India conquering territories is like saying- India will become a super power. Both are equally lame statements.
Check out the amount of Military production of Soviet Union and U.S during the Second World War to gauge the importance of Natural Resources. It would make you lose your freakin mind! Its no wonder these 2 went on to become Super powers.

Tanks(primary)
Soviet Union 105,251
United States 88,410
United Kingdom 27,896
Canada 5,678
Germany 67,429
Japan 2,515
Italy 2,473
Hungary 500

Tanks(secondary)
Soviet Union 92,595
United States 71,067
United Kingdom -
Canada -
Germany 43,920
Japan -
Italy -
Hungary -

Artillery
Soviet Union 516,648
United States 257,390
United Kingdom 124,877
Canada 10,552
Germany 159,147
Japan 13,350
Italy 7,200
Hungary 447


Military Aircrafts
Soviet Union 157,261
United States 324,750
United Kingdom 131,549
Canada 16,431
Germany 119,307 Also 3,172 V-2 rockets and 10,000 V-1
Japan 76,320
Italy 11,122
Hungary 1,046

Military production during World War II

What this means is:

a: Self sufficiency is important. You should not only be self sufficient in Technology and Knowledge, but you should also be self sufficient in Resources. India lacks that. See Japan & Germany, which had Heavy Industries and also the most intelligent people at that time to build them war machines, but they lacked natural resources.. even the resources in conquered territories of Japan and Germany couldn't match the superpowers.

b: The Axis, were at a serious disadvantage. Only Germany had a decent resources & production. Japan although larger in population than Germany, was lacking in natural resources and couldn't even match Germany(which was lucky due to Sweden and its conquered territories). Poor Germany had to take on the 2 Monsters all alone.(*That's really AMAZING, for a country of Germany's size*).

"The Soviet Union is richly endowed with almost every major category of natural resource. Drawing upon its vast holdings, it has become the world leader in the production of oil, iron ore, manganese, and asbestos. It has the world's largest proven reserves of natural gas, and it is rapidly catching up to the United States in the production of this increasingly important fuel. It has enormous coal reserves and is in second place in coal production (see fig. 7).

Self-sufficiency has traditionally been a powerful stimulus for exploring and developing the country's huge, yet widely dispersed, resource base. It remains a source of national pride that the Soviet Union, alone among the industrialized countries of the world, can claim the ability to satisfy almost all the requirements of its economy using its own natural resources."
Soviet Union - Natural Resources



5: An 'Ok' Economy
Yup! Just an Ok will do. You don't necessarily have to be super-rich to be considered as a Super Power.

GDP of the countries in Billions of USD
Year--------1938--1939 -1940-1941-1942-1943-1944-1945
Germany----351----384--387---412--417---426--437---310
SovietUnion-359----366--417---359--274---305--362---343
Britian-------284----287--316----344-353---361--346---331
USA---------800----869--943---1094-1235-1399-1499-1474

GDP of the Allies and the Axis

As you can see from the above, the economic GDP of Soviet Union and Germany was the same, but see the War production figures are heavily lopsided in favor of Soviet union. This was because of easy access to Raw Materials, and hence it could compete with even the U.S eventhough the Soviet Union had a Poor GDP. Also after the Second World war, the Soviet Union was in absolute shambles, while the U.S which was untouched by the war grew its GDP till it became more than 4 Times Larger than that of the Soviet Union. Further more, Britain and the Soviet Union had the same GDP! But still Soviet Union went on to Challenge not only the massively rich U.S, but also U.K, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, later China and pretty much almost everybody on this planet and earned the rightful Title of Super Power(!) all while having a puny economy. A perfect example of the popular saying "Money ain't everything".

There is another popular misconception(Partially driven by American propaganda of victory of Capitalism over Socialism) that economy alone lead Soviet union to it's demise. As you can see from the above, it is totally untrue. The Soviet Union had always been at a disadvantage. Also what is missed is, the economic problems were present throughout the 80's in the Soviet Union(infact the soviet military budget in 1988, a year before the iron-curtain started collapsing, was one the largest) but what tipped the balance and lead to disintegration was spineless leadership(The Point number 1: ) under Gorbachev who gave into what he called "democracy" & "people's will" which popularly came to be known as Glasnost. Soviet Union & the Iron curtain was essentially territories got during the Czar's era & WW2. Once the pandora's box of "people's desire" was opened over an empire build on military might, the empire was going to disintegrate. Add together the power struggle with Boris Yeltsin, who was keen to see the Union gone so that he could be premiere of Russia, the stage for dis-integration was set. Even during the last minute coup to save the empire, Gorbachev sided with Yeltsin, because he termed it as "military oppression of voice of the people". When the berlin wall was about to be breached, Stasi and KGB were all well prepared with their under cover agents, along with the military, to crush the revolt, and waited for the order to move in. But the order never came from Gorbachev. Be it in Romania, or East Germany.. Soviet union lost the willpower to impose its strength on those client states. Go and ask any Russian historian(not the ones settled in the west) what would have happened- If Khrushchev was in power in the 80's would Soviet union have disintegrated? The Answer would be a resounding no.

Hence:
1: India Doesn't have a strong Leadership and Society, and never will.
2: Its military follows minimum strategic deterrence and doesn't have the nukes required and never will:

3: Heavy Industries still in its infancy, but does India have what it takes to getting this one right.
4: Inadequate Natural Resource.
5: A bright looking economy.

So "Is India on its way to becoming a superpower?" . Absolutely Not!

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

at the anicient times,there were no concept of "country",only "empire".China occupied those small empires under a large empire..thats it.every empire in country did that.and FYI,Tibet and East Turkestan are 2 countries that are Chinese colony till now.get real.when China "Unified" them,they were independent countries.

You want to flame buddy?

Let's look at the actual history:

"India is merely a geographical expression. It is no more a single country than the Equator."

- Winston Churchill

There was no such thing as India in history. It was a creation of the British colonialists, and they gave it the same name they gave to other unrelated peoples, such as the Red Indians and the West Indians.

 

[ashokdeiva]

You want to flame buddy?

Let's look at the actual history:

"India is merely a geographical expression. It is no more a single country than the Equator."

- Winston Churchill

There was no such thing as India in history. It was a creation of the British colonialists, and they gave it the same name they gave to other unrelated peoples, such as the Red Indians and the West Indians.

Brother, chill out, it seems that you can be easily provoked, if you find some ones post foolish then the best thing to do is avoid replying the sedond best thing is to reason with him, and the worst thing to do is get to his level and troll. you are doing the worst thing, don't you realize

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Brother, chill out, it seems that you can be easily provoked, if you find some ones post foolish then the best thing to do is avoid replying the sedond best thing is to reason with him, and the worst thing to do is get to his level and troll. you are doing the worst thing, don't you realize

I used to do that before, unfortunately the majority of Indian posts are designed to get a reaction from us. I'm just being polite, by giving them what they want.

 

[joyamalik87]

It is a well written article. We have quite a way to go before we can call ourselves a superpower. But we are getting there, slowly but surely. We have uplifted a very large number of people out of poverty into the middle class since '91. Education and healthcare are being attended to. We need these to be more accessible to some segments of the population though. We certainly are dealing with problems as they come, not burying them and forgetting they existed. That's a step in the right direction for sure.

i love you sunny

 

[cloud_9]

"India is merely a geographical expression. It is no more a single country than the Equator."

- Winston Churchill

There was no such thing as India in history. It was a creation of the British colonialists, and they gave it the same name they gave to other unrelated peoples, such as the Red Indians and the West Indians.

Thanks for the History lesson

P.S - Someone explain him we called our country Hindustan,Bharat and it's the same in local languages till today.....India is just a modern internationalised name?

 

[GR!FF!N]

You want to flame buddy?

Let's look at the actual history:

"India is merely a geographical expression. It is no more a single country than the Equator."

- Winston Churchill

There was no such thing as India in history. It was a creation of the British colonialists, and they gave it the same name they gave to other unrelated peoples, such as the Red Indians and the West Indians.

thats pretty much true...because,there was no country named India,but there was vast empire name "Bharata" or "Hindustan"..though alexander used the term "Indus"..and i can assure you,India was just like China,a country on uncounted empires.but all were joined to build one country,and it was not a handywork of British,it was a handywork of few leaders and a person named sardar ballav bhai patel.

 

[dott]

You want to flame buddy?

Let's look at the actual history:

"India is merely a geographical expression. It is no more a single country than the Equator."

- Winston Churchill

There was no such thing as India in history. It was a creation of the British colonialists, and they gave it the same name they gave to other unrelated peoples, such as the Red Indians and the West Indians.

Famous last words of winston churchill before getting kicked out of india . btw did he know that india also ha its hindi name since last 3000 yrs

 

[GR!FF!N]

I used to do that before, unfortunately the majority of Indian posts are designed to get a reaction from us. I'm just being polite, by giving them what they want.

me too just replied your posts.you wanted to know name of countries under china's rule ..so i posted it.i have no intention to troll.

 

[Fireaxe888]

To be a superpower you need either a large army and a grip on half a continent (The Soviet Union), a vast Empire with an unbeatable navy and outposts on every continent (The UK, and it was a true superpower only until around the 1890s) or the same but with bases rather than colonies (the USA).

While India has done a lot, let's not kid ourselves here. Although you have the vast potential of over a billion people, your military and economy don't come close.

The Agni V isn't even comparable in range to a 60s era ICBM, you lack a powerful surface navy and a large nuclear submarine arm. Your most advanced military technology is imported. You aren't self-sufficient in resources and don't yet have the money to buy enough from abroad. You need to get large parts of your population literate and lift them out of poverty (think around 9000-10000 USD GDP per capita) before thinking of worldwide power projection.

You can go a long way, but you're still at the starting posts.

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

You want to flame buddy?

Let's look at the actual history:

"India is merely a geographical expression. It is no more a single country than the Equator."

- Winston Churchill

There was no such thing as India in history. It was a creation of the British colonialists, and they gave it the same name they gave to other unrelated peoples, such as the Red Indians and the West Indians.

Ofcourse churchill the great imperialist would say that,there was no history lol.We were a civilization thousands of years ago .Gave the world 4 religions.I used to respect chinese as a great civilization but on this forum u really get to see how they view others just as vassals or colonies.China has nothing on us ,we are just as ancient and great a civilization as any.Chinese attempts at neo imperialism will be spat at.

 

[junk]

India can be a super power, but it needs one thing done first.

 

[dott]

India can be a super power, but it needs one thing done first.

no need to tell us, thanks

 

[junk]

no need to tell us, thanks

the other day i was reading a article about how trillions of dollars worth of transactions in india are locked due to pending court cases on land transactions, why cant you guys do something about it? some cases go upto 50 years ?