Threat to India’s ‘Great Power’ Status

• The threat of a U.S.-Israel-Iran war remains despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims of having vanquished Iran’s enrichment program.

• The war would be disastrous for India’s economic interests and harm its ‘great power’ ambitions.

• If Iran’s government is toppled, U.S.-led unipolarity in West Asia would be cemented, precluding the ability of rising powers such as India to grow their strategic footprint.

• A restart of the Israel-Iran war with U.S. involvement poses some risk of regime change or Balkanization in Iran.

• This would alter the distribution of power in West Asia, with no nation state that is not U.S.-aligned and controls all of its territory.

• India’s negotiating power with Israel and Gulf States was underpinned by the fact that it also engaged alternatively aligned states such as Syria and Iran.

• This would harm India’s ability to rise as a great power, as reinforcing the strength of the existing global hegemon, the U.S., means a relative weakening of all rising powers.

• A multipolar world order, in which India is one of the poles, constitutes one of the principal pillars of New Delhi’s foreign policy.

• India should urge restraint on Iran, highlighting that disruption of West Asian oil supplies would weaken India relative to China, which is less dependent on imports.

• India should impress on Washington that the U.S. and its allies can best serve their security and economic interests by accepting global multipolarity.