When I said those statements, I said them because that was what the tone I got from your comments.
India may be behind China in some regards, but I have no doubt that it will catch up with China in the areas where it lags, and will overtake China in a great number of other areas.
It could very well be the inverse of what you said.
Not all of these nations either require foreign policies that involve warfare in order to maintain their wealth ( look at say Norway or New Zealand).
I never talked about foreign policy of warfare in order to maintain wealth was the only way to achieve a sustainable society. I infact, would say such societies run a great risk stagnation due the high costs incurred in those wars (UK -WWII, USSR - heavy expenditure on weapons, US - close to $600B/year on weapons), unless the results of those wars compensate them heavily for the task undertaken. However, with that being said, a nation can't be too complacent on such serious matters, for when the time comes it must be capable of defending its borders - consider South Korea/Japan and North Korea, especially when it lies in a geopolitical sensitive zone. Norway and New- Zealand have been very lucky because they are present in historically (past 50-60 years of course) very stable geopolitical sensitive areas. They wouldn't have been able to maintain that position if they had been present in say Mid-East, close to North Korea or Pakistan.
Let us say there is a situation like this : Government hikes fuel prices, people jump on the roads, create havoc, and destroy public property to force the government to lower prices. But economically, this decision is not justified. Hence I referred to the greater good.
As for the reason why people might take to streets :
Consider another case : A huge project is planned, in order to better utilize land, because of huge scarcity of land.There is huge slum, say in mumbai, and people just don't wanna move, and they are living illegally on government land. What will you do? Will you pay them market price for the land that anyway belonged to government. If the government did that, it would send a wrong signal to others in India, and would even give people a license to encroach on public property. If the government tries forced eviction, people in those slums will take it to the streets. The project will go into standstill.
Consider another case : There is a huge highway development project, and a road is to constructed. The government does not want to pay a penny more than the price at which land was registered. People registered land at extremely low prices (way lower than market prices) to save taxes. People don't want to sell this land at this price, because they would get nothing at this price, elsewhere. The project goes into a standstill. If the government tries forced eviction there would a riot. What will you do?
Of course, the whole problem would have been avoided if the people had been honest in the first place.
Consider another case: People see that people belonging from various castes get reservation. Now they want reservations too. Soon, the brightest people would crowded out because almost all opportunities are given to the people with reservations. Those who don't get reservations go to the streets.
Consider another case: There is a huge problem related to things such as people going to streets for religious festivities and blocking national highways and expressways . What will the government do? If the government tries any forceful method, it will take the form of a riot.
All these problems can be solved if we draw a line somewhere that enough is enough. You can't break it, and laws have to tough. The fines have to outrageously high. Even more importantly, it is one thing to have laws, but it is another thing to implement them. Agreed you can't be 100%, but an effort at reducing it will go a long way.
So the whole problem boils down to : Can the government implement those laws without being driven by ulterior motives (votes).
Further, the topic of notional and liberal democracy is another kettles of fish and is highly subjective matter. One can easily twist and turn statements in such things to support one's argument.