I’ve heard that geopolitically, India is considered a water power, whereas China is both a land and water power. What implications does this have for the destiny of each country?
Please clarify as I don’t recall reading anything along this line.
What are their national interests? What are their geopolitical goals?
The U.S., very early on, became a “trading nation.” That meant that open trade lanes, everywhere, were vital to its national interest, and that led us to become a Naval Power.
China is a trading nation these days, and India to a lesser degree. But there aren’t any current real threats to shipping lanes. (Some problems with small scale piracy.)
What is the future of warfare? Will the major nations become closer and closer to each other, and approach a global economy? In that case, land war will become rarer. We’ll all get along, because we’re invested in each other. (The “weak Fukuyama hypothesis,” to which I subscribe)
Will terrorism be the enemy of the century? Will warfare and police enforcement merge? This seems more likely than any large-scale naval wars.
Predicting the future is thirsty work! Another lemonade!
Can you provide any sources that make this distinction? (I do not doubt that you have heard it, but I have never encountered such a distinction and I am curious who has made it.)
If anything, I would have considered both of them “land powers” (at least since the self-imposed destruction of the Chinese fleet in the fifteenth century). China and India each had excellent sailors and the Chinese, in particular, had superb ships, but neither were actually outfitting a power-projecting navy at the time that the Europeans overran their countries and they have only just barely established important navies in the last few years.
Land and sea power represent a 19th century frame of reference. Considering *air *power would get you into the 20th.
But it’s now the 21st century. International politics aren’t geo- at all to any significant degree anymore, are they?
All of politics (and history, naturally) is applied geography 
Historically, yes, but today?
Military power is still important. Control of straits and land corridors gives nations extra trump cards. Doesn’t matter if using them seems wholly unfeasible, the fact that they have the capability is still quite powerful.
Please explain what you mean by India being a “water power” and China being a “land and water power”.
Wouldn’t that just be a straightforward observation of counting tanks and counting ships? How many soldiers in the infantry, and how many sailors in the navy?
ElvisL1ves makes a good point; we haven’t been paying enough attention to the great Air powers.
(How long until we start talking about Orbital powers?)
India’s not even close to a water power yet. They have plans for this, and will probably be able to deploy over the water in the next 15-20 years.
From what I’ve read in military analyst circles, the Indian air force is supposed to be one of the better ones in the world, but I can’t recall where I’ve read that. India does have sizeable land-deployment capability, so I’d categorize it as both an air and land power, rather than a water power.
I also don’t see how China could be categorized as a water power. They also have plans to become one, but they aren’t there yet. I don’t really know much about Chinese air power. Characterizing them as a land power seems reasonable to me.
Geopolitically speaking, China is an island. They have the Himalayas to the south, other mountains to the west, and the barren wastes of Siberia to the north.
So even though they don’t have much force projection capability, and won’t for some time, they’re closer to being a water power than anything else.
I agree that the Chinese core is quite isolated, but in terms of land routes there is the Silk Rd., Manchuria, and the jungle passage at the east end of the Himalayas in Southeast Asia.
Here’s an article explaining the ‘China is an island’ viewpoint (with map)
And historically they may not have been particularly concerned with sea trade but now China has the ‘string of pearls’ bases along the sea routes to the Indian Ocean, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka with the Seychelles possibly coming soon! They’re not necessarily military bases but the Seychelles one, at least, will be used for resupplying Chinese Navy ships involved in anti-piracy patrols.
All a bit worrying for India seeing China pouring billions into the region.
Of course still today. Conflicts are still dictated by geographically-driven needs (oil is the big one of course, but not the only one) and still peter and fall on geographical lines (the hills of Afghanistan, the hills of Kurdistan, the straits of Taiwan, who controls the Red Sea etc…)
ETA: air power is not divorced from geographical diktats - you need bases, you need carriers on controlled seas, you need fuel sources, topography influences meteorology which influences missions, radar coverage etc…
The United States operates more aircraft carriers groups than the rest of the world combined. There is no other relevant sea power unless we say so.
In addition to each other, India and Pakistan are bordered by countries like North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan and a bunch of other former Soviet-stans and Russia itself. In other words, you have two rapidly industrializing countries with populations of over a billion people in one of the worst neighborhoods in the world. So a primary concerns of both India and China will be securing its borders from it’s potentially unstable neighbors.
Naval power comes into play if China or India want to start projecting power. Either may have aspirations on becoming major regional powers which would potentially bring their navies in conflict with not only each other but Japan and the US.
Meh. Aircraft carriers were awesome in 1945, and were still nifty in 1980. Today ? They’re floating artificial reefs. Which is why the US (and NATO, and China, and India) takes care not to overly antagonize nations and ethnic groups that boast a halfway decent air or submarine force.
And yes, Phalanx is shit. It’s “let’s at least try to do something”, not “AH ! Vampires inbound ! The fools !”.
I’m not really seeing a war brewing between either of these three. They’re not even measuring each other’s AirDick™ size. Unlike Russia, which as I speak is probing airspaces left and right. US included.