New Delhi, October 20
Pointing out that the world community had failed to ensure "effective, rule-based order" which could address threats like terrorism and WMD proliferation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said India has to evolve a "new paradigm" of security cooperation which would be relevant to the emerging multi-polar world.
Addressing the top Commanders of the Indian Armed Forces here at the Combined Commanders Conference, the Prime Minister asserted that global threats like terrorism require global response.
He pointed out that globalisation had "sharpened the threat posed to us by instability in both our immediate and our proximate neighbourhood".
Dr Manmohan Singh said India had to be "mindful" of the desire of extra-regional powers to keep it engaged in low-intensity conflicts and local problems "to weigh us down in a low-level equilibrium".
He said that New Delhi would have to meet these challenges and adopt a strategy accordingly. This strategy should be based on "three pillars" — strengthen itself economically and technologically, to acquire adequate defence capability and to seek partnership on strategic, economic and technological fronts.
He, however, noted that "the absence of an effective, rule-based order is acutely felt in addressing contemporary security threats, such as terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Touching on the new global order, he said the USA is today the dominant economic, military, technological and cultural power.
He, however, said that India, along with the European Union, Russia, China and Japan was anticipated to consolidate their individual positions to play a global role.
"We must evolve a new paradigm of security cooperation relevant to an emerging multi-polar world in which global threats obtain global responses."
Noting that this was what India had sought to do, he said New Delhi had entered into strategic partnerships with the US, Russia, Japan and the European Union and was pursuing strategic cooperation with China.
About the threats posed by terrorism, the Prime Minister said it was in India's security interest to ensure that its neighbours evolve as viable states with moderate and stable political and social environment and a robust economy.
He said South Asia "must be home to open societies and open economies. That is in our interest and in the interests of all countries" of the region.
