With Why Nations Rise: Narratives and the Path to Great Power, Manjari Chatterjee Miller has undertaken a very ambitious project and largely succeeded in broadening how we think about rising powers. Her focus on national narratives and idea advocacy—or how national leaders conceive of and telegraph their own definitions of power—provides an important corrective to structural explanations such as power cycle theory that fail to explain variation. At the same time, the book stays focused on considerations of power and therefore anchors the study of national narratives in something more concrete and measurable than simply “identity.”
For policymakers, the most important takeaway will be that India’s trajectory and role in Asia must be considered on India’s terms. Too often, U.S. officials define success in India policy in terms of agreements, summits, and joint military exercises—in a word, through alignment. Certainly, India’s closer cooperation with the United States and Japan through the Quad and other arrangements is an important tool of dissuasion in the face of China’s growing hegemonic ambitions in the region. But ultimately what is more important than alignment is India’s own capacity to contribute to a more favorable strategic equilibrium.
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