Transcript
STROBE TALBOTT: This book is in some ways a follow on to Steve’s earlier book, India: Emerging Power, which was published back in 2001. In the intervening nine years, India, of course, has grown in prosperity, it’s grown in its economic, and I would say, geopolitical clout, its role in an evolving international architecture of multilateral institutions. But of course, during that same period, since 2001, the neighborhood in which India plays such an important role, a neighborhood that is home to more than a third of humanity, has gotten, in some ways, even more complicated. That’s in no small measure as a result of the 2008 Mumbai massacre and the ensuing tensions between India and Pakistan, and, of course, we’ve also had, during this period, rising concerns about the long-term stability of Pakistan given the encroachments of the Taliban and al Qaeda into that country.
Also, to complicate the matter further, there is what I would call ongoing uncertainty about the future dynamics of India-China relations. And I would, just speaking for myself, not necessarily for the authors who will in a moment speak for themselves, I would put the overall context as follows: One of the more interesting -- in the sense of the old Chinese curse -- relationships in the world is the triangular relationship among China, India, and Pakistan. One leg of that triangle, namely the relationship between Pakistan and China, is, both historically and prospectively, highly cooperative whereas two legs of the triangle, the one between India and Pakistan and the one between India and China, are fraught with some danger.
Now, there is an idea out there that I suspect will come up in the course of the conversation and I know comes up in the book, that that danger can be managed in a way that somehow replicates the way in which the United States and the Soviet Union were able to keep the Cold War cold, that is to make sure that it didn’t turn hot in the form of a thermonuclear war. And, of course, the principle mechanism for that was mutual deterrence.
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