The highway to infrastructural success has three clear signposts

Soon after we hit the national highway, my new car began to emit an unsettling beeping sound. I confirmed that the seat belts were on, all doors were securely locked, the fuel gauge showed a nearly full tank and even that the fog lights were off, but the beeping would come up every now and then. It was a few minutes later that I realized that the car sounded a beep whenever I crossed 80kmph and the warning notes would intensify at higher speeds. Someone in the back seat Googled this and found that audible speed warnings were mandatory in new cars.

Taiwan Strait: Are US-China gambling or guardrailing?

At a press conference on 11 January 2023, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan was not imminent. The statement conforms to a pattern where China and the US are prioritising engagement to dial down the heat. But at the same time, given that the US and China are locked in a security dilemma over Taiwan, a new modus vivendi between the two sides appears unlikely. 

Pakistan’s peace calls with India scream strategic desperation. It won’t bear results

Strategic desperation could be the reason Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is seeking to improve relations with India. Besieged by its internal politico-strategic environment, achieving peace can benefit Pakistan only if it can barter its real and imagined security concerns for economic relief. A possibility provided by its geographical location; alongside Afghanistan and at the crossroads of South, West and Central Asia. Moreover, unlike Afghanistan, it also has a coastline in proximity to West Asia’s global energy hub.

A new book of fables by a think-tank founder offers advice on how to be a good citizen

An excerpt from ‘The Nitopadesha: Moral Tales for Good Citizens’, by Nitin Pai, co-founder and director of the Takshashila Institution:

Damani the Crane became the proprietress of a famous eatery in the seaside city of Kajupranta after the retirement of her mother, Shramani, who had started the business many years before. The establishment had three employees, Jivaprada the turtle, Ratnakala the crocodile, and Yadayada the frog.

India’s Defence Budget: As Border Tensions With China Simmer, Can Govt Level Up?

As soon as the Union Defence Budget goes live, another cycle of discussions on its size and composition will begin. Analysts will focus on how the expenditures deviate from the previous year. The government on its part, will compare the current spending to what it was in 2014 to impress upon us that it has done enough.

Such discussions are of limited value. The budget is only a financial statement based on the government's priorities. The Defence Budget is then, a result of intra-governmental negotiations that consider India's threat perceptions, national security goals, defence capabilities, and the economic climate. As the government doesn't release any of these upstream ideas as official public documents, the Defence Budget becomes a focal point for understanding India's stance.

India-Egypt Ties: Forging A Deeper Cooperation

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi has been invited as the chief guest for India’s 76th Republic Day. Egypt is also among the nine countries India has invited to participate in the G20 summit this year. Last year, both countries celebrated the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations. India and Egypt share civilisational relations that have stood the test of time and are a testament to Afro-Asian unity. During the scourge of the Covid-19 pandemic, India sent an Indian-made vaccine to Egypt, while during the devastating second wave of Covid-19 in India, Egypt sent emergency medicines, oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators and Remdesivir to India. Egypt due to its historical legacy, the largest army in the region and strategic location, has emerged as a leading player in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region and India’s key partner in the region. The relationship between both countries has been gaining momentum with the presidency of Sisi since 2014 with deeper strategic and increased economic engagements. The visit of President Sisi to India provides opportunities for both countries to rekindle their historical friendship and scale up their relations as strategic partners.

Re-evaluating bioweapons amid global political fragility

Unstable political systems, ineffectual international organisations, and unprecedented technological advancements have created a global environment that can enable the development and deployment of bioweapons. New-age bioweapons could be used for more than just as weapons of mass destruction. This necessitates a new approach to mitigate risks by staying apace with technological development. India must take a leadership position at the Biological Weapons Convention while strengthening internal surveillance and health care systems to ensure its biosecurity. Investments in emerging technologies will be crucial to deter biosecurity threats.

Army’s most potent weapon against China on Indian borders—human force

In the Himalayas, it is not mass—which China perhaps can muster—that will matter most. Instead, the ability to sustain troops logistically is what counts, and that ability can be put under strain even by small groups that can threaten the adversary’s rear. General Manoj Pande, Chief of Army Staff, addressed the media in Delhi ahead of Army Day on 15 January. He described the situation along the northern border as stable, under control, but unpredictable. General Pande declared that the Army is highly prepared and well poised to meet any challenges, even though China has enhanced its troops across the Eastern border. It is an assurance that will possibly be tested in due course.

Challengers of Big Tech’s sway on the internet won’t have it easy

Writing about competing visions for the future of the internet in a column at the turn of 2022, I argued that two of the much-hyped contenders, the metaverse and web3, appeared far fetched. It is hard to imagine everyone wearing virtual-reality goggles to engage with the internet, crypto is too complicated, and both are costly ways to access the global network. Last year was somewhere between a wake-up call and a devastating setback for promoters of 3-D metaverses and crypto services, with lower profits, higher interest rates and scandals delivering the due reality checks.

Don’t wait for National Security Strategy. Bring theatre command system, first things first

The public debate on the politically mandated structural reform of the military to a theatre command system received a booster dose when former Army chief General M.M. Naravane described the prevailing implementation approach without a National Security Strategy as “putting the cart before the horse”. It is a smoking gun assertion for the tardy progress of the reform and indicates a military view that political guidance is lacking to fulfill the task assigned.

Who should call the shots in a theatre command—Air Force, Army, Navy? Let the context decide

Last week, I wrote about the military identity being targeted by civilian authorities in the context of civil-military relations. The argument made was that the impact of the military’s denuded identity could manifest itself in tainted military advice. That, in turn, could cost the nation dear. In fact, the phenomenon is layered atop another identity struggle that got deepened three years ago when the Narendra Modi government created the post of the Chief of Defence Staff and mandated him to restructure the Armed Forces by creating Theatre/Joint Commands. Thereafter, what has apparently transpired is the boosting of self-preservation efforts due to perceived threats to the individual Service identity that has been traditionally based on land, sea and air identity. Integration through restructuring is facing headwinds that are derived from such perceptions. The end result is that the Theatre Command is nowhere in sight.

Why we shouldn’t copy-paste EU’s ‘one nation, one charger’ policy

A common mistake in public policy is the inability to confront trade-offs. Every government policy seems well-intentioned, nice-sounding, and welfare-enhancing. The union consumer affairs ministry’s recent moves towards a ‘one nation, one charging port’ for all electronic devices (except for wearables) demonstrates the need to be wary of intuitive solutions to complex policy problems.

India is following the European Union example here, which has banned all chargers except USB-C from 2024. The intent is two-fold—reducing consumer inconvenience because of multiple chargers. And two, reducing e-waste. Lofty goals. Who could say these aren’t problems that need to be solved?

Canada-India Relations: Revitalising for a New Era

Canada recently released its Indo-Pacific strategy acknowledging the region’s centrality in present-day geopolitics. The region is home to 65 percent of the world’s population and will have 50 percent of the world’s GDP by 2040. At the same time, the Indo-Pacific has many geopolitical hotspots and is seeing a deepening of great power rivalry with the emergence of a belligerent China. Also, climate change is a pressing challenge for the Indo-Pacific, given that it is not only home to some of the fastest-growing economies in the world but also 50 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy provides a comprehensive blueprint for its engagement in the region with an initial investment of around $2.5 billion over the next five years and the identification of India as a key partner. The publication of the strategy provides a new opportunity for both India and Canada to recalibrate their geo-economic and geopolitical engagement. But this requires addressing key political obstacles and deepening economic ties.

India’s civil-military fusion order of the day but not at the cost of military identity

It is a no-brainer that religion and caste continue to hold the centre stage in India’s domestic political firmament and impose many obstacles on its developmental path. What is often not acknowledged is that identity issues are also germane to defence reforms. The primary contest is between the identities of civil authorities and the military.

India’s political leadership, which represents the civil identity, would prefer to have the Armed Forces on a tightrope that it can unleash on the nation’s enemies in order to protect national interests. Unquestioning obedience is the political preference and the route taken mostly by authoritarians and despots. But in democracies like India, the leadership is expected to confer and be advised on how and for what purpose should the military be deployed against the adversaries.

Why BF.7 won't remain only China's problem much longer

With China abruptly abandoning its zero-Covid policy, a horrendous picture of collapsing healthcare systems is being reported from there. While making sense of the developments there is made hard by the fact that China is not always keen on sharing data in a transparent manner and its official figures can be quite misleading, latest reports do show that the BF.7 subvariant is the most infective variant present in that country. While official confirmation of BF.7 being the culprit for this wave is still awaited, let’s take stock of what we do know about it.

India's PLI vs China’s PLA: Can Delhi’s Strategic Use of Trade Thwart Beijing?

The past three years have witnessed the emergence of a new pattern in the India-China relationship. With tensions along the disputed boundary escalating, New Delhi has increasingly chosen to respond with actions in the economic domain.

For instance, even before the standoff began in Eastern Ladakh in April 2020, the Indian government made prior approval mandatory for investments from the countries sharing land borders with India. Following the Galwan Valley clash, decisions were taken to ban Chinese apps on national security grounds and exclude Chinese vendors from India’s 5G ecosystem, and there has also been an intensification of investigations into Chinese enterprises.

Yangtse showed Army capability but it’s Navy that can shift balance of power in India’s favour

The troops of two nuclear powers, India and China, had a face-off on 9 December in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang sector at a height of 16,000 feet at sub-zero temperatures. They were carrying weapons but didn’t use them. Perhaps following the orders of their political masters passed down through their military bosses, the troops reportedly restricted themselves to pushing, shoving, and punching. Some used clubs to inflict injuries that weren’t serious but required hospitalisation.

Military force application seemed to be bound within some mutually understood parameters. The encounter was short. Local commanders soon met and blamed each other. Anodyne statements about the need to avoid such incidents in future ensued.

Technological power in today’s world is much too concentrated

You don’t have to be a Luddite to have serious misgivings about brain implants. There certainly are beneficial uses, but once brain-computer interfaces become commercially available, we can neither predict nor control what they will end up being used for. There is a risk we will rapidly and thoughtlessly end up changing what it means to be human. With only an indirect interface to the human brain, social media networks have profoundly transformed human society. We are still discovering how pervasive information networks influence human cognition, but we already know enough to be concerned about the impact on rational thinking and collective opinion formation.

Pain & gain: Deterring China requires us to change Xi’s cost-benefit calculations

This month’s clash between Chinese and Indian troops at Tawang is yet another reminder that New Delhi must ratchet up military, diplomatic and geopolitical pressure on Beijing until it changes its strategic calculations. At this time the Xi Jinping regime’s calculation runs something like this: the global balance of power is such that China can change the territorial status quo in its neighbourhood on its own terms through the use of military force. This approach succeeded in the South China Sea, and to some extent in Doklam and Galwan.

Theatre commands to defence university, why Indian security interests need a political push

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s clarion call for Atmanirbhar Bharat in May 2020 made self-reliance a policy goal for the Ministry of Defence. Despite decades of effort, India’s defence industrial ecosystem has failed to achieve substantive progress and indigenous research, development and production capabilities remain a challenge.

Time will reveal whether the slogan has been matched by accomplishment. However, even if Atmanirbhartha is accomplished to any acceptable degree, India’s military effectiveness will require the fulfilment of two other crucial reform initiatives – defence university and theatre commands. Both reforms have the potential to provide massive doses of energy to advance India’s military effectiveness through the improvement of leadership and achieving jointness among the three Services through organisational restructuring.