India and Central Asia: The Mythmaking and International Relations of a Rising Power - Couverture rigide

'In this theoretically sophisticated and path-breaking book Emilian Kavalski lays bare the cognitive foundations of Indian elite thinking about India's foreign policy, role in the world and policies beyond the Subcontinent and raises probing questions concerning the true extent of India's power and the meaning of its rise. Anyone interested in Indian foreign policy and/or Central Asia should? read this book and ponder its implications.' --Stephen J. Blank, National Security Strategic Studies Institute, United States Army War College, author of 'Natural Allies: Regional Security in Asia and Prospects for Indo-American Strategic Cooperation' (2005)

'This book combines two topical and important themes. One is the rise of India as a significant emerging power. The other is the return of Central Asia as the scene for Great Power rivalries, the old nineteenth century 'Great Game' renewed in new geo-economic settings of the twenty-first century. ...The stakes are high in this energy-rich region, both for India, and the wider international system. Kavalski does a good job in bringing out both aspects of the situation, India and Central Asia, for the reader.' --David Scott, Brunel University, author of The Chinese Century: The Challenge to Global Order' (2008)

'Emilian Kavalski's excellent work is an important contribution to the theoretical debates on the rise of India as an emerging global power. ...This is a balanced, honest, innovative, deeply theoretical and highly critical analysis of India's post-Cold War policy towards Central Asia. Emilian Kavalski has managed to offer an interpretive discursive analysis of India's policy towards Central Asia - an attempt to de-construct and then re-construct India's Central Asia policy.' --Mojtaba Mahdavi, University of Alberta

India's role in global politics draws increasing attention from the international community. Unprecedented economic growth in the recent past, rising fundamentalism in national politics and the knife-edge of nuclear-fuelled tension with an unstable Islamic government in Pakistan are all bound up in Indian claims to geopolitical ascendance. At the same time, Central Asia has re-emerged as a site of international contestation or a 'new Great Game', with Russia, China and the US vying over security and energy interests in a politically unstable region. In this fresh and penetrating analysis of India's foreign policy, particularly on Central Asia, Emilian Kavalski illuminates India s international ambitions and capabilities, and its complex dynamics with great powers USA, China and Russia. India and Central Asia provides a timely and much-needed assessment of the foreign policy of a rising power.