Does the Elephant Dance? Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy. By David M. Malone. Oxford University Press; 425 pages; $45 and £25. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

Meet my buddy

ONE day India will be a great power. Its demography, nukes and growing economy make that almost inevitable. Outsiders, especially in the West, promote its heft so it can serve as an emerging rival to China. Look at the itineraries of world leaders, such as Barack Obama late in 2010, who troop to Delhi to say India deserves a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, and it may seem the country has already arrived.

Yet, as David Malone clearly sets out in his brisk survey of its foreign policy, there is a long way to go before the Indian elephant is really dancing. Its international policy is still mostly reactive, incremental and without any grand vision. Its few diplomats are good, but terribly overstretched. The world's biggest democracy is coy to the point of feebleness in promoting its values abroad. And its big but ill-equipped armed forces, perhaps the navy aside, trouble no military planners outside of South Asia.

It is easy to see why. India's long history of being invaded, and its preoccupation with holding itself together as a viable, democratic state, have left it little scope for acting overseas. Indians, like Americans, can be insular, believing that their huge country is the centre of the world. Its few leaders who bothered seriously with foreign matters, notably Jawaharlal Nehru, the brilliant and charismatic first prime minister, fell into moralising about others' wicked deeds and tried to avoid being embroiled in the cold war, but he did little to promote national interests. India still rues his baffling early decision to reject an offer of a permanent Security Council seat.

Yet India's biggest weakness, as Mr Malone rightly sets out, is in its own region. The trauma of partition ensured that relations with Pakistan would long be dreadful, and India has shown admirable restraint in the face of bloody provocations from across the border. But as the local hegemon it should be doing much more to foster economic ties and stability all over its back yard. Instead relations with all its neighbours, with the exception of a couple of minnows like Bhutan and the Maldives, are mostly sour, and regional trade is pitiful. Until India shows more charm—or strength—to those nearby, distant powers are unlikely to take its global pretensions very seriously.

The author, until recently Canada's high commissioner to Delhi, has a breadth of knowledge and makes his case well. He might have heeded his own advice and spent more time on India's biggest headache next door. The section on Pakistan, just six of 425 pages, is too slight for that troubling relationship. He might have done more, too, to justify his optimism that war between Pakistan and India is now less likely “than ever”. After all, violent confrontation between the two nuclear powers flares repeatedly. The shifting relations with an increasingly radicalised and troubled Pakistan—American feeling is certainly cooling towards the powers in Islamabad—will also affect India's foreign policy in time.

Mr Malone concludes that India will develop no grand foreign-policy vision, opting instead for pragmatism guided by economic interest. The hunt for oil and other energy, in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, mean a greater international reach and more competition with China. India will resist Western pressure to be any sort of counterweight to the much bigger power to its east, while at the same time expanding its trade with the rest of Asia. As for promoting values, India will try to show itself as a model of rapid economic growth and tolerant democracy. The elephant's dance will, in the end, be the great power of its example.