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Originally Posted by Chiron
If more than 5 colours were used in this analysis then the map would lose its meaning. I agree that some countries' status is not as clear-cut by using this system, such as India, but overall most countries are represented quite accurately.
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The map has already lost its meaning. It is kind of pointless to try and portray things in a Cold War style anymore
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Most people think that the Cold war ended, in reality only the rhetoric of the politicians has changed and some alliances have shifted, but the geopolitical struggle for world dominance has never ended. There are still two dominant geopolitical poles, the first one is the American empire and its system of alliances, the second one is the alliance of Russia and China and their close allies. India, by itself does not constitute a separate geopolitical pole, first of all because its nuclear forces are incomparable to the first two and secondly because India lacks its own independent military-industrial complex.
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If you are talking about nuclear weapons, only the US and Russia are in that club. If you are talking about military-industrial complexes then a lot of nations (like Iran and Israel and many others) are in it as a separate entity.
But there is nothing like the Warsaw Pact-NATO standoff in world events. And no organization that even links these nations into even a loose alliance.
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The Pakistani-backed insurgency in Kashmir makes it an East-West stand-off. You yourself have said that Pakistan is a Western ally. Although I concede that this is not a decisive factor and I am not using the extreme colours to represent it.
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But we are offering the Indians nuclear technology. And our support for Pakistan is highly conditional. I also fail to see how our assistance for Pakistan (which has always been conditional on specific American interests like fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan or the Taliban) outweighs the Chinese giving the Pakistanis the ability to launch nuclear weapons at western India.
I've read all of these, and I still don't see how any of this goes beyond simple diplomatic posturing, and it certainly doesn't come close to the levels necessary to constitute any kind of alliance. If anything, the United States and India are on their ways to being partners.
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Technologies such as? The one-off nuclear deal that is still being negotiated?
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Has China made that transfer? No. China is in large part the reason that India has the size of nuclear deterrent that it does.
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Military-technical cooperation between the US and India is about ~10% that of the Russo-Indian relationship, and it is nowhere near billions. For example FY2006 US govt. authorizations for defense related commercial sales to India amounted to $140 mil. While the Russian figure is around $2 billion per annum. I don't know what the figures for Israel and France are but I'm pretty sure Russia still dominates the Indian arms market and the Russo-Indian military-technical relationship is still the deepest one that India has. Therefore it is reasonable to classify India as slightly leaning East.
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No, that is the inevitable result of the Cold War, where India actually did lean towards Russia and most of their procurement was from there.
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So here are some counter-questions for you: If India is so neutral, why doesn't it use the European galileo for the targeting of its weapon systems or try to develop its own system? Why does India trust the Russian GLOSNASS more than the US GPS (which is currently much more comprehensive and complete)?
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Are you serious? Russia isn't a superpower anymore. Bidding and equipment compatibility are much more of a factor when it comes to things like this.