India s Monroe Doctrine

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India's 'Monroe Doctrine' and Asia's Maritime FutureJames R. Holmes; Toshi Yoshihara

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RSAN0970-01611754-0054Strategic Analysis, Vol. 32, No. 6, September 2008: pp. 1–22Strategic AnalysisIndia’s ‘Monroe Doctrine’ and Asia’s Maritime Future

India’s ‘Monroe Doctrine’Strategic AnalysisJames R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara

Abstract

Many scholars assume that the European model of Realpolitik will prevailin Asia as the dual rise of China and India reorders regional politics. Otherspredict that Asia’s China-centric tradition of hierarchy will reassert itself.But Indians look as much to 19th century US history as to any European orAsian model. Indeed, successive prime ministers have explicitly cited theMonroe Doctrine to justify intervention in hotspots around the Indianperiphery. The Monroe Doctrine, however, underwent several phases dur-ing the USA’s rise to world power. Analysing these phases can help SouthAsia analysts project possible futures for Indian maritime strategy.

‘Manifest Destiny’ Goes to Sea

Strategists in New Delhi phrase their analyses of India’s maritimesurroundings—and the proper responses to those surroundings—in decid-edly geopolitical terms.1 Consider India’s 2007 Maritime Military Strategy,which contends that India’s geopolitical rise and quest for prosperity necessi-tate ‘a concomitant accretion of national power, of which the military powerwill be a critical dimension’. Declares the chief of naval staff in its foreword:

India’s primary national interest … is to ensure a secure and stable envir-onment, which will enable continued economic development and socialupliftment of our masses. This in turn will allow India to take its rightful

James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara are Associate Professors at the US NavalWar College. They are co-authors of Chinese Naval Strategy in the 21st Century: TheTurn to Mahan (Routledge, 2007) and co-editors of Asia Looks Seaward: Power andMaritime Strategy (Praeger, 2007). The views expressed here are not necessarilythose of the US Navy or the US Department of Defense.

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998 Strategic Analysis

place in the comity of nations and attain its manifest destiny … we do notharbour any extra-territorial ambitions, but aim to safeguard our vitalnational interests. Therefore … our primary maritime military interest isto ensure national security, provide insulation from external interference, sothat the vital tasks of fostering economic growth and undertaking devel-opmental activities, can take place in a secure environment.2

That India can only realize its ‘manifest destiny’ by erecting a militarybuffer against outside interference represents a striking statement. ToIndian strategists assuring India’s freedom to use the seas ‘under allcircumstances’ requires maritime forces able to discharge missions rang-ing from traditional combat to humanitarian assistance and disaster reliefto constabulary missions such as sea-lane security.3

In their nation’s novel bid for great sea power, Indians look for inspi-ration to the Monroe Doctrine, the 19th century US policy declaration thatpurported to place the New World off-limits to new European territorialacquisitions or a reintroduction of the European political system. JamesMonroe and John Quincy Adams, the architects of the doctrine, GroverCleveland, who saw the doctrine as a writ for US hegemony, and TheodoreRoosevelt, who gave Monroe’s principles his own forceful twist, mayshape Indian sea power. Consider Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s 1961speech justifying the use of force to evict Portugal from Goa:

even some time after the United States had established itself as a strongpower, there was the fear of interference by European powers in theAmerican continents, and this led to the famous declaration by PresidentMonroe of the United States [that] any interference by a European countrywould be an interference with the American political system. I submit that …the Portuguese retention of Goa is a continuing interference with the politicalsystem established in India today. I shall go a step further and say that anyinterference by any other power would also be an interference with the polit-ical system of India today … It may be that we are weak and we cannot pre-vent that interference. But the fact is that any attempt by a foreign power tointerfere in any way with India is a thing which India cannot tolerate, and which,subject to her strength, she will oppose. That is the broad doctrine I lay down.4

Nehru packed an enormous amount of substance into these few sen-tences. The following themes are worth accentuating:

• While a European presence on the Indian landmass precipitatedhis doctrine, Nehru took this opportunity to warn all external


India’s ‘Monroe Doctrine’ 999

powers against any actions, anywhere in the region, that NewDelhi might see as imperilling the Indian political system. Hisinjunction against outside interference laid the intellectualgroundwork for a policy aimed at regional primacy.

• Nehru acknowledged realities of power and geography. WhileIndia remained weak by most measures, he contemplated enforcinghis ‘broad doctrine’ with greater vigour as Indian national powerwaxed, furnishing new means and new political options. Heimplied that New Delhi could legitimately enforce his preceptsbeyond the subcontinent; how far beyond was up to futureprime ministers to decide.

• Nehru asked no one’s permission to articulate a hands-offdoctrine. While his doctrine would not qualify as internationallaw, it was a unilateral policy statement to which New Delhiwould give effect as national interests demanded and nationalmeans permitted. India did expel the Portuguese from Goa—affixing an exclamation point to Nehru’s words.

Each generation applies its nation’s founding principles differently. Inthe post-Nehru years, consequently, Indian statesmen interpreted andapplied his security doctrine not mechanically but according to their ownappraisals of India’s surroundings, its interests and its power. IndiraGandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were especially inventive about adaptingIndia’s security doctrine to contemporary needs and interests.5 Theirdepartures from Nehru’s original pronouncement—which was ambitiousin principle if modest in execution—were noteworthy:

• They projected his ‘broad doctrine’ beyond the Indian landmass,intervening around the periphery where Indian interestsdictated and Indian power made it possible. Not only direct chal-lenges on the subcontinent but crises elsewhere in the IndianOcean region merited action on New Delhi’s part.

• While the defensive action at Goa corrected a historical aberration—foreign occupation of Indian soil—Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhiprosecuted a more offensive variant of Nehru’s hands-off policy.They construed threats to ‘the political system established inIndia’, in Nehru’s words, more and more expansively as nationalpower grew, making a more forceful diplomacy possible.



• While Nehru said little about the extraterritorial application ofhis principles, his successors saw India as the rightful steward ofregional security. By policing insurgencies, natural disasters andother crises, New Delhi could deny meddlesome external powersany excuse to aggrandize themselves in the Indian Ocean andpose an eventual threat to India and its neighbours.

Not only vigorous diplomacy but also limited military operationsflowed from India’s security doctrine. From 1983 to 1990, most notably,New Delhi exerted political and military pressure in an effort to put anend to the Sri Lankan civil war. It waged a bitter, inconclusive counterin-surgent campaign on the island, in large part because Indian leadersfeared the United States would gain a new geostrategic foothold atTrincomalee, along India’s oceanic flank. One commentator depictedNew Delhi’s politico-military efforts as ‘a repetition of the MonroeDoctrine, a forcible statement that any external forces prejudicial to India’sinterests cannot be allowed to swim in regional waters’.6

India’s security doctrine resurfaced in 1988, when Indian forces inter-vened in a coup in the Maldives, and again in a 1989–1990 trade disputewith Nepal. Devin Hagerty sums up Indian doctrine thus:

India strongly opposes outside intervention in the domestic affairs ofother South Asian nations, especially by outside powers whose goals areperceived to be inimical to Indian interests. Therefore, no South Asiangovernment should ask for outside assistance from any country; rather, ifa South Asian nation genuinely needs external assistance, it should seek itfrom India. A failure to do so will be considered anti-Indian.7

This flurry of activity subsided after the Cold War, as New Delhiembarked on economic liberalization and reform while enhancing its armedforces. Influential pundits—even those who doubt the existence of an Indiansecurity doctrine—nonetheless continue to speak in terms of an IndianMonroe Doctrine.8 One well known commentator, C. Raja Mohan, routinelyuses the term.9 Declares Mohan, ‘This Indian variation of the Monroe Doctrine,involving spheres of influence, has not been entirely successful in the past, butit has been an article of faith for many in the Indian strategic community’.10

In a similar vein we postulate that the Monroe Doctrine has enteredinto the Indian foreign-policy lexicon. Because the doctrine was and



remains an intensely maritime concept—the influential sea-power theoristAlfred Thayer Mahan was an outspoken ‘disciple of Monroeism’—we useit to discern possible futures for Indian maritime strategy.11 Two assump-tions guide our inquiry:

1. The Monroe Doctrine is not simply a slogan Indian political leadersuse to justify regional hegemony. These leaders take the lessons ofUS history seriously and are attempting to fit these lessons toIndia’s distinctive geographic, political, and military circumstances.

2. A rough consensus on the meaning of Monroe’s principles informsIndian foreign and military policy, notwithstanding the vagaries ofdomestic politics.12 Indian opinion-makers uniformly favourregional primacy for their nation, frowning on outside meddling inwhat they deem an Indian preserve.13

What would an Indian Navy inspired by James Monroe look like, andhow would it conduct business? Each generation of Americans interpretedMonroe’s ‘general principles’ of US diplomacy depending on its ownneeds, aspirations, and capabilities. Similarly, Indians will filter the axiomsenunciated by Nehru and Monroe through their own traditions, geopoliticalcircumstances, and national power.14 Tracing the impact of ideas onstatecraft—especially ideas imported from abroad—is no simple endeavour.But it is a worthwhile one.

A ‘Free-rider’ Navy

First of all, consider the original understanding of the Monroe Doctrine.In 1823, spurred by a dispute over Russian territorial claims in the PacificNorthwest, President Monroe informed Congress that ‘the American conti-nents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumedand maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subject for future colo-nization by any European power’.15 New acquisitions were off-limits notonly to Russia but to all imperial powers. To deter European conquest ofLatin American states that had just attained independence from Spain,Monroe further declared that the United States would consider

any attempt on [European governments’] part to extend their politicalsystem to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace andsafety. With the existing colonies and dependencies of any European



power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with thegovernments who have declared their independence and maintained it …we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them,or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European powerin any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly dispositiontowards the United States.16

Roughly speaking, then, the 1823 message to Congress forbade anyexpansion of European control over American territory beyond that whichthe European powers already exercised. Certain aspects of the MonroeDoctrine bear emphasizing:

• Monroe and Adams did not assert US control of the hemisphere.They considered their policy a common defence of the Americanstates. The geographic reach of the doctrine, moreover, was amatter of debate. Monroe’s language seemed to indicate that itheld sway throughout the hemisphere, but it remained unclearwhether the United States should or could enforce it that widely.

• Monroe’s precepts were not international law, which derives itsforce from the consent of states, but a unilateral policy. If USleaders wanted to enforce it, therefore, they needed a navy ableto unilaterally defend against European encroachment in theNew World.

• The US leaders nevertheless allowed the Royal Navy to upholdtheir non-interventionist policy. The US Navy lacked the capitalships to withstand European navies, but Great Britain also hadan interest in preventing rival imperial powers from making newinroads in the Americas. In effect the United States free-rode onBritish-supplied maritime security until the 1890s, when the firstmodern US battle fleet took to the seas.

• Monroe and Adams were agreeable to cooperation with Europeansas long as it did not infringe on US interests. Indeed, Monroe’s1823 message observed that the Royal Navy and the US Navywere jointly battling slave traders in the Caribbean. Formalalliance entanglements were unthinkable, but informal coopera-tion could serve mutual interests.

• Sheltering behind Britain’s ‘wooden walls’ allowed Americans toconcentrate resources on westward expansion and economic



development. Resources not needed for defence went into con-solidating the new nation—providing for economic growth thatultimately made world power possible.

This ‘free-rider’ paradigm from early US naval history has much torecommend it. It depends on ‘permissive’ strategic conditions in theIndian Ocean, including the presence of a dominant US Navy to assuremaritime security. Accepting the US security guarantee allows India topursue its uppermost priority—economic development—just as acceptingBritish protection indirectly supported US economic development.

What kind of Indian Navy would a free-rider policy require? Militarypower would rank lowest among the implements of national power underthis policy, while New Delhi would restrict its maritime efforts primarilyto the sea lines of communication crisscrossing crucial expanses—namelythe northern Indian Ocean. Indian officials would welcome cooperationwith the US Navy and other external navies to reduce the burden ofmaritime defence. Indian officials, moreover, would remain fairly com-fortable depending on outside suppliers for military hardware, since suchreliance would entail little risk.

One immediately deployable aircraft-carrier task force would doubt-less satisfy a free-rider policy’s requirements for naval diplomacy, human-itarian and disaster relief, maritime security, and lower-end combatmissions, so long as the United States remained a reliable custodian ofIndian Ocean security. The US Navy’s rule-of-thumb—that two to threeaircraft-carrier strike groups are necessary for one to be fully trained, inexcellent repair, and ready for immediate overseas deployment—impliesa free-rider Indian Navy composed of two to three carrier groups organ-ized into one fleet.17 Since local and regional commitments would notimpose the same wear-and-tear that worldwide operations exact from USequipment and personnel, the lower figure would probably suffice. Exactnumbers would depend on New Delhi’s tolerance for risk and the navy’sability to maintain its fleet in peak condition.

The navy would continue developing an undersea nuclear deterrentmanifest in fleet ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs). Conventional attacksubmarines would suffice for operations in nearby expanses such as theArabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal—the foci of a free-rider doctrine.Nuclear attack submarines (SSNs)—boats able to range throughout the



Indian Ocean basin and beyond—would take less priority for a free-ridernavy. As long as the nautical milieu remained fairly tranquil, New Delhicould exploit this strategic interlude to upgrade its maritime forces, workwith fellow navies to improve tactics and procedures, and pursue fleetexperimentation.

‘Strongman’ of the Indian Ocean

As US economic and military power surged in the 19th century, USleaders were less and less willing to entrust maritime security to outsidesea powers whose goodwill might prove fleeting. Emboldened, manyAmericans inferred new prerogatives from the Monroe Doctrine. Diplo-mats took to insisting that any canal dug across the Central American Isth-mus must be in US hands, not those of France or Great Britain. Theyconsidered European empires untrustworthy stewards of the sea lines ofcommunication that would come into being with an isthmian canal.18

The 1890s, in short, marked the ‘strongman’ phase of the Monroe Doc-trine. In 1895 Richard Olney, President Grover Cleveland’s secretary ofstate, interposed himself—uninvited—in a territorial dispute betweenVenezuela and British Guiana. The United States’ ‘fiat is law’ on matters ofvital interest, proclaimed Olney. The United States now possessed themoral standing and the maritime might to enforce its will throughout thehemisphere.19 Washington wanted to mediate a settlement, underscoringits claim to regional hegemony.20 Three points are worth noting aboutCleveland’s strongman doctrine:

• Material power encouraged US leaders to assume a more ener-getic stance in times of crisis—vindicating the witticism that prob-lems look like nails to statesmen who brandish hammers. Navalpower was the hammer for US hemispheric policy in the 1890s.

• The Cleveland administration projected the Monroe Doctrineoutward. A strongman policy required a US Navy preponderantnot just in US coastal waters but throughout the Americas. It wasthe embodiment of Olney’s ‘fiat is law’ maxim.

• The administration confronted Great Britain, long the guardianof maritime security in the New World. No longer, it seems, wereUS leaders content to free-ride on the Royal Navy, accepting thepolitical risks that such dependence involved.



Similarly an Indian strongman doctrine would demand the militarycapacity to dominate the Indian Ocean basin. Naval power would be thetool of first resort in difficult times. Indian officials would further widentheir strategic gaze to encompass all of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea,perhaps mounting a forward defence of Indian interests in the South ChinaSea, the western Pacific, or even the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

Indian naval planners would vest little trust in foreign military suppliersunder the strongman paradigm. Completing a self-sufficient indigenousdefence–industrial base, therefore, would assume high priority for theIndian military. In force-structure terms a hegemonic Indian Navy wouldprobably feature six to nine carrier task forces, four to six SSBNs, and afleet of SSNs. At least three carrier groups would thus be available forspeedy deployment. Indian forces would be organized into east- andwest-coast fleets, providing immediate military options in both the Ara-bian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, while the remaining assets would consti-tute a third, expeditionary fleet for power-projection missions farther fromIndian coasts—in all likelihood beyond the confines of the Indian Ocean.

The logic for an expeditionary fleet would be the same as for theforward-deployed US fleets that now anchor the overseas US navalpresence. A strongman navy would offer maximum flexibility in stressfultimes—albeit at considerable expense and effort.

A Naval ‘Constable’

Cleveland’s Strongman approach met with scepticism. Mahan, a prom-inent critic, saw the strategic geography of the Americas not as a realm ofUS hegemony but in narrow defensive terms. He espoused enforcing theMonroe Doctrine only in the Caribbean basin, a zone of vital US economicand military interest. In particular, the geostrategic value of secure seacommunications with the Isthmus, the ‘gateway to the Pacific for theUnited States’, could hardly be overstated.21 The canal then under construc-tion would spare East Coast-based shipping the arduous voyage aroundSouth America, shorten communications with the modest Pacific empirewon from Spain in 1898, and let the US Navy concentrate its Atlantic andPacific fleets for battle with relative ease. Mahan’s chief concern was tokeep the great powers—primarily Imperial Germany, which craved ‘aplace in the sun’ of maritime empire—from establishing naval bases fromwhich their warships could menace shipping bound to or from the canal.22



To do so, maintained Mahan, the US Navy needed a battle fleet ‘greatenough … to fight, with reasonable chances of success, the largest forcelikely to be brought against it’. This meant local superiority of naval forceto ‘beat off an enemy’s fleet on its approach’ to the Caribbean.23 Since theentire Royal Navy or German High Seas Fleet was unlikely to venture acrossthe Atlantic for a decisive fleet action, the US Navy could afford to prepareagainst smaller naval contingents. In short, a battle fleet symmetrical withEuropean fleets was unnecessary.

President Roosevelt agreed with Mahan’s logic. In his day imperialpowers typically dispatched warships when weak American governmentsdefaulted on their foreign debts. They seized customhouses, using tariffrevenues to repay their aggrieved creditors. This left Europeans in posses-sion of American territory. Roosevelt fretted that they might use debtcollection as an excuse to wrest away naval footholds in the Caribbean.

In 1904, accordingly, he fashioned a ‘Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.When the Dominican Republic went into default, threatening to triggerEuropean intervention, ‘TR’ informed Congress that ‘chronic wrongdoing’or governmental ‘impotence’ keeping Caribbean states from meeting theirforeign obligations justified preventive US intervention.24 Washingtonwould forestall violations of the Monroe Doctrine by stepping in itself.Proclaimed Roosevelt, ‘if we intend to say “Hands Off” to the powers ofEurope, then sooner or later we must keep order ourselves’.25

He thus asserted the right to deploy ‘an international police power’when governmental incompetence or malfeasance in the Caribbean basinthreatened to leave American territory in the hands of European navies.Three aspects of TR’s ‘constable’ paradigm bear on Indian politics today:

• As noted above, geopolitics was central to his Corollary, butRoosevelt jettisoned Olney’s overweening interpretation of theMonroe Doctrine, which needlessly affronted Latin Americansensibilities. He believed the United States had neither the need,nor the naval power, nor the forward bases to police the vastnessof a hemisphere. Local preponderance in the Caribbean wasenough.

• TR exercised the police power with forbearance. The Dominicanenterprise meant little more than stationing a warship inDominican waters for deterrent purposes and negotiating a



treaty empowering US customs agents to administer repaymentof the Dominican Republic’s foreign loans. Roosevelt in effectsaw the United States mediating tactfully between weakCaribbean Governments and rapacious great powers.

• The United States no longer needed British help to fend offEuropean threats to the Americas. London and Washingtonstruck a tacit bargain under which the United States mindedBritish interests in the Americas under the Roosevelt Corollary,while the Royal Navy withdrew from American waters toaddress more pressing concerns—namely the German High SeasFleet then building in the North Sea.

Having become a sea power in its own right, the United States couldusher foreign sea powers out of the Americas, assuming the mantle ofmaritime police duty. TR remained agreeable to temporary cooperationwith extra-hemispheric navies when there was little prospect of Europeanaggrandizement—a confident, strong United States had less and less tofear—but his default stance was that the United States and ‘advanced’ LatinAmerican states could police the New World themselves.

An Indian constable would occupy a middle ground between a free-rider and a strongman India. The military instrument would be an impor-tant tool for implementing a constable policy, but not the most importantone. While New Delhi would remain amenable to collaborating with out-side powers on a case-by-case basis, it would take a warier view becauseof the potential for emerging threats. With a greater sense of menace,increasing national confidence, and the ‘hammer’ of potent naval capabili-ties would come a tendency to apply India’s security doctrine morebroadly from a geographic standpoint—probably from the Horn of Africato the Strait of Malacca.

The boundary between a constable and strongman navy would blurfrom a force-structure standpoint, making net assessment a less reliableindicator of Indian policy and strategy. An Indian constable would stepup its efforts to improve its defence–industrial base, relying less onforeign suppliers. The Indian Navy would probably construct four to sixcarrier task forces, two to three SSBNs, and a mix of nuclear and conven-tional attack submarines. It would array these assets into two fleets, onestationed on each coast. At any time, then, at least one carrier group



would be available for immediate service in the Arabian Sea and anotherin the Bay of Bengal.

So equipped, New Delhi would stand a good chance of attaining TR’stwin aims of deterring or beating back outside aggressors and discreetlypolicing its extended neighbourhood. Indian leaders would enjoy greaterpolitical leeway than under a free-rider policy—but less than they wouldhave if a third, strongman expeditionary fleet were in existence. This modestposture would befit an Indian constable.

Whither Indian Naval Strategy?

Towards which archetype of the Monroe Doctrine will Indian navalstrategy tend? At present Indian security doctrine most closely approxi-mates the free-rider model. Despite the bleak outlook conveyed in theIndian Maritime Doctrine and the Maritime Military Strategy, New Delhievidently views the strategic milieu with equanimity. In the strategicinterlude they perceive, Indian officials have courted close ties with theUS Navy and Coast Guard to refine tactics and procedures, break downbureaucratic barriers between the sea services, and police the region forscourges such as weapons proliferation, piracy, and human trafficking.They appear undisturbed by the leisurely pace at which the three-carrier,‘blue-water’ Indian Navy they envision is taking shape.

Over the longer term the constable paradigm represents the mostlikely outcome for Indian sea power. Theodore Roosevelt’s vision ofbenign supremacy over vital seas will prove attractive for India, a nationwith a tradition of non-alignment and its own aspirations to regionalprimacy. Assuming the nation’s drive for economic development continuesto provide new resources for naval development, New Delhi willultimately pursue something resembling the two-fleet, bicoastal navyforeseen in our constable analysis. In the words of the Maritime MilitaryStrategy, this seagoing force would provide sufficient ‘insulation fromexternal interference’ as long as security conditions in the Indian Oceanremained fairly benign.

What would drive New Delhi to abandon its non-aligned posture, pro-nouncing itself an aquatic strongman? If China forward-deployed nuclearsubmarines in India’s backyard, or if the United States used regionalwaters lavishly for strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, such wildcards could



precipitate a doctrine that shut all external great powers out of the IndianOcean. Alternatively, mixed circumstances—say, Chinese naval encroach-ment coupled with continued good relations with the United States at sea—could give rise to a ‘variable-geometry’ Indian Monroe Doctrine. Under sucha doctrine the Indian Navy would focus its strategic and force-structureefforts on countering the Chinese naval threat while contenting itself to followthe US lead on constabulary matters such as combating proliferation andpiracy.

The strongman and the free-rider could coexist, then, letting India con-centrate its energies where needed most. In parting, a cautionary note is inorder. Analysts of Indian sea power should not assume India will apply itsMonroe Doctrine in doctrinaire fashion:

• Certain geographic differences between the Indian Ocean andWestern Hemisphere hold policy implications. Whereas keepingEuropeans out of Latin America was Monroe’s chief concern, thesouthern Indian Ocean holds less to beckon Indian strategists’ gazesouthward. Barring an overbearing great-power threat, this willdiminish the appeal of a strongman navy for Indian strategists.

• As noted above, New Delhi could apply different models of theMonroe Doctrine to different external powers. Indeed, TR sortedthe imperial powers into a strategic hierarchy, deeming Germanya serious threat, Britain a threat that could be deterred throughasymmetric means—namely a counterstroke against Canada—and France and the lesser naval powers minor nuisances at most.New Delhi may assign strategic priorities of its own.

In summary, Indians will take a variegated view of their strategicsurroundings and of effective naval strategy. No security doctrine—evenone bequeathed by James Monroe and Jawaharlal Nehru—is a foolproofpredictor of real-world statecraft.

Notes1 Government of India, INBR-8, Indian Maritime Doctrine, Integrated Headquarters,

Ministry of Defence (Navy), New Delhi, April 25, 2004, p. 64.2 Sureesh Mehta, ‘Foreword’, in Freedom to Use the Seas: India’s Maritime Military

Strategy, Integrated Headquarters, Ministry of Defence (Navy), Government ofIndia, New Delhi, May 28, 2007, p. iii, emphasis added.



3 Ibid.; Arun Prakash, ‘Shaping India’s Maritime Strategy: Opportunities and Chal-lenges’, Speech at the National Defence College, New Delhi, November 2005, athttp://indiannavy.nic.in/cns_add2.htm (Accessed August 5, 2008). At the timeAdm. Prakash was superintending the development of the Maritime Military Strategy.

4 Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s Foreign Policy: Selected Speeches, September 1946−April1961, Government of India, Delhi, 1961, pp. 113–115, emphasis added.

5 Indian and foreign commentators use ‘Indira Doctrine’ or ‘Rajiv Doctrine’ inter-changeably with ‘India’s Monroe Doctrine’. Devin T. Hagerty, ‘India’s RegionalSecurity Doctrine’, Asian Survey, 31(4), 1991, p. 352.

6 Dilip Bobb, ‘Cautious Optimism’, India Today, August 31, 1987, p. 69. See alsoDevin T. Hagerty, n. 5, pp. 351–363.

7 Devin T. Hagerty, n. 5, pp. 351–353. See also Bhabani Sen Gupta, ‘The IndianDoctrine’, India Today, August 31, 1983, p. 20; and Raju G.C. Thomas, India’s Searchfor Power: Indira Gandhi’s Foreign Policy, 1966–1982, Sage, New Delhi, 1984, esp.p. 292.

8 Manish Dabhade and Harsh V. Pant, ‘Coping with Challenges to Sovereignty:Sino-Indian Rivalry and Nepal’s Foreign Policy’, Contemporary South Asia, 13(2),2004, p. 160.

9 C. Raja Mohan, ‘Beyond India’s Monroe Doctrine’, The Hindu, January 2, 2003, athttp://mea.gov.in/opinion/2003/01/02o02.htm (Accessed August 5, 2008). Seealso C. Raja Mohan, ‘SAARC Reality Check: China Just Tore Up India’s MonroeDoctrine’, Indian Express, November 13, 2005, LexisNexis Database.

10 C. Raja Mohan, ‘What If Pakistan Fails? India Isn’t Worried … Yet’, WashingtonQuarterly, 28(1), 2004–2005, p. 127, emphasis added.

11 Dexter Perkins, A History of the Monroe Doctrine, Little, Brown, Boston, MA, 1963,p. 186; and Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783(Little, Brown, 1890), Dover Publications, New York, 1987, p. 346.

12 Stephen P. Cohen detects a certain ‘core’ of principles uniting Indian thinkers. Theconviction that India should be pre-eminent in the Indian Ocean region ranks firstamong these. Stephen Philip Cohen, India: Emerging Power, Brookings InstitutionPress, Washington, DC, 2001, esp. pp. 63–65.

13 Ibid.14 Dexter Perkins, n. 11, p. 29.15 J.D. Richardson (ed.), Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 2,

Bureau of National Literature, New York, 1917, p. 287.16 Ibid.17 First tested in 2004, the US Navy’s ‘Fleet Response Plan’ allows it to temporarily

surge two-thirds of its forces overseas, rather than the customary one-third.Christopher P. Cavas, ‘US Navy Heads to Port as Exercises Wind Down’, DefenseNews, July 28, 2004, at http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=3108048&C=asiapac (Accessed August 5, 2008).


http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=3108048&C=asiapac

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18 Dexter Perkins, n. 11, pp. 168–169.19 Richard Olney to Thomas F. Bayard, July 20, 1895, in Ruhl J. Bartlett (ed.), The

Record of American Diplomacy: Documents and Readings in the History of AmericanForeign Relations, Alfred Knopf, New York, 1964, pp. 341–345.

20 Dexter Perkins, n. 11, esp. pp. 266–275.21 Alfred Thayer Mahan, Naval Strategy, Compared and Contrasted with the Principles

and Practice of Military Operations on Land, Little, Brown, Boston, MA, 1911, p. 111.22 Henry Cabot Lodge to Theodore Roosevelt, March 30, 1901, in Henry Cabot

Lodge and Charles F. Redmond (eds.), Selections from the Correspondence of TheodoreRoosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884–1918, Vol. 1, Da Capo, New York, 1971,pp. 486–487.

23 Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future(Little, Brown, 1897), Books for Libraries Press, Freeport, IL, 1970, p. 198.

24 Theodore Roosevelt, ‘Message of the President to the Senate and the House ofRepresentatives’, December 6, 1904, in US Department of State, Foreign Relations ofthe United States, 1904, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1905, p. 41;and Dexter Perkins, n. 11, pp. 228–275.

25 Theodore Roosevelt to Elihu Root, June 7, 1904, in Elting Morison et al. (eds), TheLetters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. 4, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA,1951–1954, pp. 821–823.


India s Monroe Doctrine

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Transcript of India s Monroe Doctrine