As one surveys the landscape of Indian foreign and security policy at the end of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's 10 years in office, it appears strewn with wreckage on all sides.
The Chinese have upped the ante on the border dispute, ties with Washington have plateaued, Russia is looking elsewhere, the European Union is disappointed, the morale of our defense forces is low, Maoists are gaining ground in large parts of the nation, and the peace process with Pakistan is going nowhere.
There is a whiff of fragility and an air of underconfidence as if, at any moment, the entire façade of India as a rising power might simply blink out like a bad idea. National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon thinks India "should not want to" emerge as a superpower.