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By IASbaba On July 27, 2015 Categories: IASbaba's Mains Strategy, Mains Examination, UPSC

IASbabas International Relations

Strategy/Paper 2 UPSC Mains Examination

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Introduction
Decoding Directives
Paper 1
Paper 2
International Relations
Paper 3
Paper 4

STRATEGY FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The syllabus of International Relations (IR) in GS Paper II is given

below:

India and its neighborhood- relations.

Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements
involving India and/or affecting Indias interests
Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing
countries on Indias interests, Indian diaspora.
 Important International institutions, agencies and fora, their
structure, mandate.

Sources and resources:

Pax Indica by Shashi Tharoor- Voluntary

Indias Foreign Policy: Coping with the Changing World by
Muchkund Dubey
World Focus Magazine
The Hindu
Live Mint
Indian Express articles by C Rajamohan
IDSA
MEA Website
MEA Annual Report

Note Do not panic about lots of sources. IASbaba will be covering

them all Pax Indica and Muchkund Dubey- Any one of them will
sufce.

Introduction

IR is the most dynamic portion of the UPSC Mains syllabus. One needs
to keep a tab on all the recent developments happening around the
world that directly or indirectly affect India. IR is also one of the most
analytical segments of the syllabus. A thorough understanding is
required and thus supercial knowledge is of no use as far as IR is
concerned. Many candidates nd it difcult to manage IR because of
its vast and contemporary nature for the simple fact that not only one
must be acquainted with history to make sense of the current
developments but also be intelligent enough to make projections for
the future. Although candidates start preparing for IR with much zeal
and enthusiasm but all of that zzles out soon for the reasons
explained before. It is thus important to have a clear understanding of
some basic concepts related to the syllabus before we lay out a
detailed plan for the same. You have to equip yourself with the
following static portion before you start reading and appreciating
current developments in the eld of IR:


1. Basic philosophy and assumptions underlying IR

2. Evolution of Indias Foreign Policy
3. How the world has changed in the past few decades; impact
of those changes
4. How Indias Foreign policy has responded to those changes
5. Role being played by India on a regional, global and
institutional levels in the past

The best books for this purpose are Indias Foreign Policy: Coping with
the Changing World by Muchkund Dubey or Pax Indica by Shashi
Tharoor. Initial few chapters of both these books have dealt with all the
basic information that is required to expand your knowledge base with
respect to IR. You shall be able to better understand and appreciate
Indias Foreign Policy (IFP) thereafter. For example:

All our policies are aligned to primarily serve Indias national

interests, secure Indias borders, ensure military and non-
military security and promote global peace.

We as a nation-state believe in certain cardinal principles

which include non-alignment, nuclear disarmament,
multilateralism etc.

An understanding of aforesaid philosophies and principles

would make you aware of the underlying rationale behind
Indias stance on various issues, fora, events and
developments.

Moreover, you shall get acquainted with the following dimensions of

IR which will broaden your horizon further:

How changes in the past few decades for example end of

Cold War, disintegration of USSR, end of bipolarity,
emergence of capitalism, nuclear arms race, evolution
environmental regimes etc have changed the world and also
how India responded to them.
 What sort of strategies India adopts in exercise of its Foreign
Policy.

After having already made a strong foundation, you can delve into the
subsequent chapters of the books. We shall recommend Pax Indica
over Muchkund Dubey in this case as the former is more exhaustive,
analytical and elaborate than the later. Indias relations with various
countries, groupings and sub groupings have been dealt under
following heads:

India and its neighbors

Indo-US relations
Indo-Russia relations
Indo-China relations
Arab World and rest of Asia
Europe, Africa and Latin America

Only after completing these components you should look forward to

news papers. You would be able to make sense of the editorials in a
much comprehensive manner. But there is a little problem here. Even
if one goes through all these sources and develops a thorough
understanding of the same, it is not possible to retain the truckload of
information and perspectives provided therein. In fact in the
examination, this problem gets accentuated where one has to write an
analytical answer in less than 8 minutes.

So no matter how many sources you have referred to and how diverse
your understanding is, if you are not able to produce a satisfactory
response to a question, all your efforts are wasted. UPSC doesnt give
you consolation prize for being a laborious aspirant!

So, what it is the way out? How one can extract maximum from his
preparation to get the ultimate reward by UPSC? The answer lies to
extensive planning and execution. Basically all the subjects and topics
that you are studying are having souls. You have to try to be as close
as possible to the soul of the subject and channelize your efforts in
that direction. It means you rst need to identify all the dimensions of a
subject in the current scheme of things. Then you must organize them
in easily understandable compartments to ease your preparation. In
the age of internet, everyone knows everything but what makes one
unique is his/her ability to streamline all the scattered info to generate
a logical response. It helps you like tools and equipments. All topics of
the syllabus can be prepared with the help of different tools. But since
our attention here is IR, we demonstrate to you how such tools can be
developed and actually be employed during the examination.

So, here is a word of advice for you. Although, the books referred here
are systematic and lucid in their presentation, while you read these
relations from these books or any other source of your liking and of
course news papers, make sure that you compartmentalize the given
wisdom in the following separate headings. In fact it would be even
better if you prepare short notes or mind maps of the same: (IASbaba
will provide detailed Mind Maps for the same)

1. Signicance of the relation

2. Brief historical background i.e. major landmark moments
3. Identifying Four Cs i.e areas of Convergence, Confrontation,
Competition and Cooperation
4. Projecting the future

You will be amazed to notice how simple it becomes if we further

breakdown these broad headings and superimpose relations with any
country, grouping or sub grouping to extract maximum information
from our memory particularly during examination. We shall take up a
case to demonstrate the same but before we do that lets expand these
headings.

Talking of signicance, here are few pointers that you shall keep in
mind:

1. Is the country concerned a major economic/military/nuclear

power?
2. Does location of the country offer unique opportunities or
may be challenges?
3. Does India have signicant trade dealings with the country?
4. Does substantial foreign investment flow to India from the
country in question?
5. Is there any important defence/security tie with the country?
 6. Is there any dependence on the country for energy or food
security?
7. Is Indian diaspora present in the country?
8. Has the country contributed in Indias growth?
9. How do events/developments/outlooks/regimes/policies in
the country affect Indias interests?

Similarly pointers for the rest headings can be constructed as follows:

Historical background:

1. Immediately after independence, where did the country t in

IFP?
2. Contribution of the country in developing Indias industrial,
defence and scientic base
3. Deals or treaties signed between the countries
4. Conflicts in the past and their consequences

Note- Identifying the Four Cs i.e areas of Convergence, Confrontation,

Competition and Cooperation

Convergence:

1. Democratic form of government

2. Pluralistic societies
3. Development imperatives
4. Common problems

Confrontation:

1. Border disputes
2. Resource sharing
3. Cross border terrorism
4. IPR
5. Global environmental negotiations
6. Trade disputes

Competition:

1. Exploration and development of resources in different parts

of the world
2. Role in sensitive areas
3. Geo-strategic competition

Cooperation:

1. Dealing with terrorism, drug trafcking, environmental

pollution
2. Common stance on environmental negotiation forums and
WTO
3. Defence and security ties
4. Trade development
5. Infrastructure development
6. Science and technology
7. Global peace and stability

NOTE- Remember these pointers. We will be using them below to

understand the signicance of them one by one with an example.

Finally, projecting the future is something that requires in depth

understanding and also the aptitude to extrapolate history and current
developments to predict the future. Dont worry about this part as for
now. Once you evince interest in the subject, you shall be able to
develop this quality as well.

So, we have developed our tools. You can add upon these tools as per
needs and demands of the topic.

You shall notice during preparation of IR that all the news paper reports
and articles hover around these pointers only. There is rarely a
possibility of any information, views or opinions going beyond these
pointers.

Since you have these pointers already, simply put the information
received in the respective compartment.

For example if you have read articles on Indo-US relations in the past
one year or so, you would have realized that the issues were centered
around the following components:

Convergence: Repeated reference to democracy, pluralism and equity

by leaders of both nations

Cooperation: Finalization and operationalization of the Indo US Nuclear

deal, deals for sharing tax information to curb money laundering etc

Confrontation: Contentions regarding IPR and Trade Facilitation

Agreement at WTO, divergence at UNFCC, Devyani Khobragade issue
etc

Competition: Their roles in Africa, Maritime Asia etc

On the basis of these pointers you can thematically examine the

articles/chapters/news and prepare your own notes/mind maps.
Thereafter, your ideas shall take shape in a logical manner and you
would be able to answer any question. Similar strategy can be adopted
with respect to International Organization, diaspora issues etc.

Now, we take a case to demonstrate our strategy. Consider the

question that was asked in CSE 2013:

The proposed withdrawal of International Security Assistance Force

(ISAF) from Afganistan in 2014 is fraught with major security
implications for the security of this region. Examine in light of the fact
that India is faced with a plethora of challenges and needs to safeguard
its own strategic interests.

The asked question was in news during that time and anyone regular
with the newspapers and some background could answer the question
without much difculty. Let us apply our strategy here to answer the
same question.

The question is talking of strategic interests of India in the region. It

means we have to rst identify its strategic interests and only then we
could answer the main question that is the challenges that ensue after
the departure of ISAF. If you remember, we talked about signicance.
Now refer to those pointers and identify the most suitable ones for this
question. You would accept that except points 2,6 and 7 all other
points are irrelevant for this question. Let us enumerate these points
and expand them to have a fair idea:

Pointer 2. Does location of the country offer unique opportunities or

may be challenges?

Afganistan is gateway to Central Asia and West Asia and a natural

frontier in the North west of South Asian landmass.

This location has created potential to develop a hub of energy trade

and transport corridors. It means that the region is strategic to Indias
energy security.

The region has mostly been a fertile ground for terrorist activities. ISAF
withdrawal would leave a void that can be seized by terrorists again
jeopardizing Indias security i.e. fertile ground for ISI, resurgence of
Taliban, another Kandhar hijack type incidents etc

Pakistan may seize the opportunity provided by US withdrawal to

devour the regime that compromises with them.

Pointer 6. Is there any dependence on the country for energy or food

security?

Already discussed above.

Pointer 7. Is Indian diaspora present in the country?

Yes. A number of engineers, doctors, teachers and many other

professionals are present in this region involved in the reconstruction
and rehabilitation of Afganistan. Their lives would be severely under
threat of security in the region is not ensured.

So, more than half of our job is done by merely recollecting information
from our pointers. Now we can frame the answer by being a bit
suggestive i.e. How we can secure our interests? For framing this part
also, we can refer to our headings of the Four Cs. Clearly, we have to
focus upon cooperation here as all other Cs are irrelevant.

Let us examine it further. Have a close view of what pointers 1, 3 and

5 say.

1. Dealing with terrorism, drug trafcking, environmental

pollution

India must work to improve state capacity of Afganistan to combat

terrorism and reduce vulnerability for extremist takeover.

3. Defence and security ties

Capacity building and up gradation of the Afghan National Security

Forces (ANSF) to ensure peace and stability in the region.

5. Infrastructure development

To ensure prosperity in the region that shall ensure long term stability
in the region.

Finally let us consolidate all the information to produce our answer:

Afghanistan is gateway to Central Asia and West Asia and a natural

frontier in the North West of South Asian landmass.
This location has great potential to develop as a hub of energy trade
and transport corridors. It means that the region is strategic to Indias
energy security.

However, the region has mostly been a fertile ground for terrorist
activities. ISAF withdrawal would leave a void that can be seized by
terrorists again jeopardizing Indias security i.e. fertile ground for ISI,
resurgence of Taliban, another Kandhar hijack type incidents etc

In fact, Pakistan may seize the opportunity provided by US withdrawal

to devour the regime that compromises with them.

Moreover, a number of engineers, doctors, teachers and many other

professionals are present in this region involved in the reconstruction
and rehabilitation of Afghanistan. Their lives would be severely under
threat if security in the region is not ensured.

Therefore, India must work to improve state capacity of Afghanistan to

combat terrorism and reduce vulnerability for extremist takeover.

Also, India can contribute to capacity building and up-gradation of the

Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to ensure peace and stability
in the region.

Finally, India must continue the reconstruction and rehabilitation work

in the region to ensure prosperity in the region that shall ensure long
term stability in the region.

End Note Similarly, pointers for other parts of the syllabus can be
developed to streamline our understanding of the topic and help us
recollect information in a quick and efcient manner. We shall come up
with similar strategies and more detailed Mind Maps to make your
preparation exciting and easy. Hook for more strategies and expert
guidance on other aspects of Mains preparation to be aggressively
covered after PRELIMS 2015.

Share you thoughts and feedback. Your appreciation and participation

is the only prerequisite for IASbaba to continue unhindered. Best
Wishes


IASbabas Daily Prelims Test [Day 40]

UPSC Civil Services(P) 2015 Admit Card - Available for Download

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Featured Comment

Anand Veeral
2 years ago

Ok , seriously , I read your last post on mains and was at

utter loss of words to write anything in comments (As I have
used almost all of my extremely appreciative phrases in my
lexicon in praising the earlier initiatives , so u know I am
quite literally at " loss of words " ) .

And after reading this one , my speechlessness became

embedded to the point of feeling dumb .

Still , the feeling to thank you was so overwhelming , I

thought of at least telling you that just because I am at a loss
of words and not commenting does not mean i am not
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