Re: ‘Indian air force a third of China’s’
"India will need some scientific miracle to be a super power in that same sense as USA. But then like in so many other ways, the Indian sense of super-powerhood will be very different from the rest"
Indian sense of happiness is different from the stereotypical western sense. While taking stock, they give more weight to spiritual and ethical factors more; most Indians will feel quite happy with what they have even if it is little.
Indian sense of economic well being is different as well. Their mode of development is internal economy focussed and only to a small extent exports based.
Indian sense of justice is different as well; they are perfectly happy to concentrate power on respective community leaders (some call it caste politics) and then these community leaders are the representatives who duke it it out for resources in the democratic totem pole of power. In the west caste based power allocation will be considered illegal and discriminatory.
Without getting into the good or bad of these things, suffice to say Indian sense for things are markedly different. Hence my forward looking statement that what will make the Indians feeling of super-power will also be different. It won't simply be measured as superiority in terms of fighter jets, number of bombs or GDP.
And I'd argue, rightly so. After all the US with the highest counts on both has not been able to avoid the massive down turn whereas Indians have.
May be it's because we have less to lose or may be it's because the USA is a 20 years ahead of us in systemic maturity and so we're able watch and not ape everything!