With the end of the Cold War, India began to move away from these ideas, which had been dominant in India’s political class for almost half a century. As it opened its economy in the 1990s, India’s growth rate picked up. By the end of the 2020s, India is likely to overtake Japan to become the second-largest economy in Asia and the third-largest in the world. India’s economic transformation has been accompanied by growing defense expenditures, making it the sixth-largest military spender in the world in 2024. It also has the world’s third-largest armed forces. The 21st century has also seen the rapid growth of India’s technological capabilities, especially in emerging digital and related fields. India’s comprehensive national power—which was on a path of relative decline—began to grow in both absolute and relative terms in the early 21st century.

One of the unanticipated features of Asia’s new geopolitics has been the return of India to center stage. During the colonial era, British India played a decisive role in shaping the security order in the region, including substantial participation in the two world wars and other conflicts. Independent India deliberately chose to withdraw from such a security role in the name of non-alignment and opposition to Cold War bloc politics. India compounded its geopolitical abstinence by cutting links to Western capital in the name of socialism. Together, the choices steadily marginalized India in Asia—despite the centrality of the idea of post-colonial solidarity in India’s foreign policy.

One of the unanticipated features of Asia’s new geopolitics has been the return of India to center stage. During the colonial era, British India played a decisive role in shaping the security order in the region, including substantial participation in the two world wars and other conflicts. Independent India deliberately chose to withdraw from such a security role in the name of non-alignment and opposition to Cold War bloc politics. India compounded its geopolitical abstinence by cutting links to Western capital in the name of socialism. Together, the choices steadily marginalized India in Asia—despite the centrality of the idea of post-colonial solidarity in India’s foreign policy. This article is an adapted excerpt from India and the Rebalancing of Asia by C. Raja Mohan (Routledge, 220 pp., .95, September 2025).

With the end of the Cold War, India began to move away from these ideas, which had been dominant in India’s political class for almost half a century. As it opened its economy in the 1990s, India’s growth rate picked up. By the end of the 2020s, India is likely to overtake Japan to become the second-largest economy in Asia and the third-largest in the world. India’s economic transformation has been accompanied by growing defense expenditures, making it the sixth-largest military spender in the world in 2024. It also has the world’s third-largest armed forces. The 21st century has also seen the rapid growth of India’s technological capabilities, especially in emerging digital and related fields. India’s comprehensive national power—which was on a path of relative decline—began to grow in both absolute and relative terms in the early 21st century.

National capabilities alone, however, do not a great power make. Post-World War II Germany and Japan stand out as examples of states endowed with large capabilities but constrained by domestic pacifism and the status of junior partners in a U.S.-led alliance system. The difference is that India, like China, aspires to be a major world power. The growth of India’s national capabilities has been accompanied by a simultaneous discarding of the constraining ideology of non-alignment.

With material capabilities and a new political will, India’s location at the center of Asia and h