EVENTS

Abstract          

India faces dramatic challenges to its strategic thinking, as it becomes a great power in an especially complex and dynamic global environment.  Assuming this role will require developing a very different understanding of India’s strategic environment and force unprecedented strategic choices, especially relating to the other great powers in the region.  This paper will provide a detailed discussion of India’s strategic environment, the major strategic issues and choices this environment will impose, and the special strategic options that involve India’s relations to the United States and China.  We consider a strategic environment defined by deep interdependence, large and rapid change, and the importance of systemic thinking.  India will need to develop a much more far-reaching strategic position about global interdependence, global regimes and norms, structural power and managing its relations with China and the U.S.  Achieving this will require substantial changes in India’s strategic culture and will place large demands on its political leadership.

About the Speaker

Thomas D. Lairson is Professor of Political Science at Jindal Global University and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Rollins College.  He was formerly the Gelbman Professor of International Business and Professor of Political Science at Rollins College.  He received the Ph.D. in political science from the University of Kentucky. Dr. Lairson was the first Ford Foundation Professor of International Relations in 1994 at the Institute for International Relations in Hanoi and has taught at East China University of Science and Technology, Wuhan University, and at Jindal Global University in India. He was awarded a Senior Fulbright Fellowship for Singapore in 2011.  Dr. Lairson teaches courses on the international political economy of Asia, with a focus on China.  He has published articles recently on the global financial crisis, U.S.-China relations, Vietnam and China, the global economy, state capitalism in China, and the strategic relationship of China and Russia.  With David Skidmore, he is author of International Political Economy: The Struggle for Power and Wealth in a Globalizing World, Routledge, 2016.