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Excerpt from www.news9live.com
Bengaluru: The formation of a US-led new security alliance in Asia – known as Squad to counter the hegemonistic aims of China has raised questions whether the old grouping of Quad that included India has been reshuffled to include Philippines in place of India. Such speculation may not be based on facts. India, despite its independent foreign policy which expressly forbids joining any security alliance, is important to the US and its Asian allies. India’s sheer size, its population which is the largest in the world, its economic clout as the fifth largest economy and its positioning as the southern neighbour of China sharing a 4,000-km border across the Himalayas, makes it critical for any strategy seeking to check China’s expansionist and aggressive ambitions.
India has always been reluctant to security alliances, not because of its diffidence in its military capabilities, but it fears that being drawn into one grouping or the other curtails its freedom of choice and its decision-making capability regarding its enlightened national interest, and that it could be drawn into conflicts that are not of its making, nor in its interest. During the Cold War, India refused to be drawn into either of the two blocs led by the US and the Soviet Union, even earning US dislike for its non-aligned policy.
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