Assessing India’s Security Council performance

Richard Gowan offers an insightful review here of India’s recently concluded term as a Security Council member. He identifies two distinct phases.  India came onto the Council determined to galvanize Council membership reform, willing to challenge the West (over Libya, for example), and keen to work with other emerging powers. By the second year of ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

Richard Gowan offers an insightful review here of India's recently concluded term as a Security Council member. He identifies two distinct phases.  India came onto the Council determined to galvanize Council membership reform, willing to challenge the West (over Libya, for example), and keen to work with other emerging powers. By the second year of its term, on Gowan's account, India had more limited ambitions:

Richard Gowan offers an insightful review here of India’s recently concluded term as a Security Council member. He identifies two distinct phases.  India came onto the Council determined to galvanize Council membership reform, willing to challenge the West (over Libya, for example), and keen to work with other emerging powers. By the second year of its term, on Gowan’s account, India had more limited ambitions:

In 2012, India switched tactics and began to play a more defensive game. It took a lower profile on Syria, supporting American and European positions in the Security Council, leaving China and Russia isolated in their opposition to serious pressure on Damascus.  Indian officials continued to look for new openings on Security Council reform, trying to whip up support among developing countries.  But they used their presidency of the Council in November 2012 to highlight the uncontroversial issue of piracy. 

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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