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But it was the Maldives strike that best illustrated India's proclivity to take on the role of regional policeman. If the affair provoked unease among India's neighbors -- Pakistan accused New Delhi of having stage-managed the coup attempt -- it garnered approval in more distant quarters. Ronald Reagan, then in the White House, congratulated New Delhi for a "valuable contribution to regional stability."
The aborted coup reinforced the view of a number of key officials in Washington that the U.S. -- and other nations -- must come to terms with India's growing military and political clout in South Asia and the Indian Ocean. Said Richard Armitage, then the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs: "It doesn't make sense for the U.S. not to have a congenial relationship with the largest democracy and the dominant military power in the subcontinent -- and with a country that will clearly take its place on the world stage in the 21st century."
But the question remains: What does India intend to do with all that power? Ever since the India-Pakistan war of 1971, which led to the breakup of Pakistan and the transformation of East Pakistan into independent Bangladesh, New Delhi officially maintains that its arms buildup is needed to remain strong against Pakistan. The two nations have been at war three times since India gained its independence in 1947. Most analysts agree, however, that India has pulled well ahead of its archfoe: its modern combat aircraft, for example, now outnumber Pakistan's by as many as 5 to 1. China is sometimes invoked by Indian officials as the "real threat." But most analysts note that apart from maintaining its close ties with Pakistan, Beijing has taken no military or diplomatic action since the 1970s that could be construed as ! threatening by New Delhi.
India's growing military machine, meanwhile, has gained the uneasy attention of its neighbors along the rim of the Indian Ocean, like Australia and Indonesia. India's lease of a nuclear-powered Soviet submarine and its acquisition of Soviet-built long-range reconnaissance planes have raised anxiety in the Australian Parliament. In Jakarta an army colonel describes his government as "concerned" about India's longer-term intentions. For that reason, he explains, Indonesia is planning to build a large naval base on Sumatra to gain quick access to the Bay of Bengal.
Rajiv Gandhi has presided over much of the expanded military-spending program since he became Prime Minister in 1984. But he claimed in an interview with TIME late last year that India had no desire to dominate its neighbors: "We don't think in terms of dominance, we don't think in terms of spheres of influence. The right direction was what Gandhiji, Mahatma Gandhi, gave us. I see India today as being one of the prime movers toward a nonviolent, nonnuclear world."
Most Western analysts doubt that New Delhi has developed the capacity -- or the inclination -- to launch a sustained military action outside its immediate neighborhood. Today the territory that India most covets is purely psychological. Says a West European diplomat in New Delhi: "More than anything else, India wants to be taken seriously. It wants to be viewed as a world power. That is an end in itself."