http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/world/asia/22india.html <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/world/asia/22india.html>
But in recent years, while world attention has focused on China's military, India has begun to refashion itself as an armed power with global reach: a power willing and able to dispatch troops thousands of miles from the subcontinent to protect its oil shipments and trade routes, to defend its large expatriate population in the Middle East and to shoulder international peacekeeping duties. "India sees itself in a different light not looking so much inward and looking at Pakistan, but globally," said William S. Cohen <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/william_s_\ cohen/index.html?inline=nyt-per> , a secretary of defense in the Clinton administration who in his new role as a lobbyist represents American firms seeking weapons contracts in India. "It's sending a signal that it's going to be a big player." India is buying armaments that major powers like the United States use to operate far from home: aircraft carriers, giant C-130J transport planes and airborne refueling tankers. Meanwhile, India has helped to build a small air base in Tajikistan <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritorie\ s/tajikistan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> that it will share with its host country. It is modern India's first military outpost on foreign soil.
