A Normal Study on Future Offers India in The Indo-Pacific Region

Abstract

The rim of the Indian and Pacific Oceans houses Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong and the ASEAN countries which today boast of powerful and growing economies, which are predicted to become the economic power houses of the 21st century. Dragons and Tigers are some names given to these resurgent economies. This is also an area where the interests of the world's most militarily dominant countries are likely to clash vis-à-vis USA, Russia, Japan, China (especially if it patches up with Taiwan, after absorbing Hong Kong), the Koreas and to some extent India and a combined ASEAN. This last grouping which began as an economic and social gathering of five Southeast Asian states (10 members at present) and they delayed their inauguration at Bangkok in 1967 awaiting a diplomatic message from India which never came, are now cooperating on security issues also, hence the assumption. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, the Elder Statesman and ex-Prime Minister of Singapore, predicted that the next. century could well be an Eastern century and added at his lecture to the National Defense College in Bangkok in 1991 that India would be engaged in internal economic and social restructuring for about 8 years and after that only, it will emerge as a power to reckon with. His predictions are generally well received and, in this case, seem plausible and so far on track. India is involved in changes, as one sees today and till the economy gains in growth rate its Military, Nautical and such ambitions will have to wait. What is visible is that many nations in the Asia-Pacific are able to sustain burgeoning military and naval budgets, despite the fact that Navies and Air Forces the world over are proving to be the most expensive of the Armed Forces to maintain and acquire.