ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how India is trying to meet security goals at three levels of analysis: in the post-Cold War international system, at the regional level, and within the Indian domestic context. At each level, new opportunities and constraints are shaping the outcome of India's future status. As India plans its security in the 1990s, it has to try and reconcile its long-term strategic goals with the emerging international system as well as with its own domestic problems. The nation's dependence on external resources for development will have a crucial impact on security planning. With South Asia bogged down by the baggage of partition and the Cold War, the region for India to promote both its security and major power aspirations is the Indian Ocean. Internal security continues to preoccupy the Indian government, particularly in the crucial border states of Kashmir and Punjab where the Indian Army continues to fight a counterinsurgency campaign.
