India's vibrantly free press, independent judiciary and messy electoral politics may sometimes hamper economic development, but they also make the prospect of an Indian superpower seem far less threatening than that of a resurgent China or Russia.
While I am sure that Alexander Golts, the much-touted Russian military expert, knows a great deal more than I do about the inner workings of the Russian defense ministry, he apparently knows almost nothing about American electoral politics and how it influences the development of foreign policy.
In the absence of such a development, it's hard to see the electoral maths opening up a real opportunity for a unionist candidate, no matter how united his or her support.