India's Foreign Policy: Continental and Maritime Dynamics.

India's balancing against China has both continental and maritime dimensions. India first approached China's challenge from the continental sphere by forgoing its military alliance with the former Soviet Union. This policy allowed New Delhi to exercise a degree of military dominance over South Asia. However, the sudden demise of the Soviet Union and the concurrent rise of China forced India to redefine its balancing strategy. The paper offers a realist explanation of India's foreign policy. It argues that India's strategic shift from the continental domain to the Indo-Pacific region was a departure from the classical realism of Kautilya to a neoclassical realism understanding of dealing with China's rise. The paper concluded that the two domains of India's foreign policy are interlinked. The developments in the Eurasia region have shaped New Delhi's military and strategic cooperation with the US and Quad-level cooperation with the US, Japan, and Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]