We have only ourselves to blame for our hard power deficit
As the churn in the global order continues, Indian foreign policy too faces a moment of reckoning. Our external partnerships are getting scrutinized and re-evaluated. After decades of firing persistent complaints at the US, it is now the turn of Washington to target New Delhi. A pivotal relationship built over decades is being challenged by forces beyond India’s control but with the potential to do long-term damage.
Some lazy analysis has followed about this being a moment for India to pivot towards China and Russia. But, as was clear from the recent gathering of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, New Delhi would rather maintain distance from such a configuration even as bilateral engagements with each are put on a more robust footing.
In this age of all-round pragmatism, sloganeering should make way for practical outcomes. For a long time, India had been leveraging the global environment to build its domestic capabilities—economic, diplomatic and military.
Now, as the global environment turns hostile, New Delhi will have to double down on building itself internally. Hard power is back in vogue as the main currency of inter-state engagement and so nations need to keep their powder dry. The European nations that had planned on emerging as an ‘empire of norms’ have been left to sit in front of a hectoring US president like school students.
China has tested India repeatedly along the borders in recent years and the Pakistani military establishment might feel that there is a new window of opportunity with Donald Trump seeking a bridge to Rawalpindi. Beijing is also testing us via Pakistan, so the present rapprochement with China is no guarantee of India-Pakistan stability.
The world is preoccupied with multiple challenges—Russia is fighting its own war, Europe is languishing without any significant hard power, America is fighting its internal demons and India’s Indo-Pacific partners are trying to stand up for themselves. It is China that is consistently working to churn out innovative weapon systems, as it revealed during last week’s military parade. From AI-powered drones to hypersonic missiles, its defence industrial complex is busy providing a quantitative and qualitative ballast to its defence forces.
For India, this is no time to be boastful. We must put in place the operational capacity needed to create an architecture of deterrence that can withstand external challenges. Resting on the laurels of Operation Sindoor is not an option. Building military heft calls for patience, foresight, intellectual coherence and humility.
The Narendra Modi government has a fine track record on defence reforms. It needed a strong prime minister to tell the nation’s commanders that they can’t work in silos. It required political will to shake up the edifice of inefficient defence public sector infrastructure. It required strategic foresight to start embedding the private sector and startups in the defence industrial ecosystem.
Modi’s announcement of ‘Mission Sudarshan Chakra’ reflects a clear recognition of our emerging security challenges. It envisions a multilayered framework that combines advanced surveillance, cyber defence and physical infrastructure safeguards to address India’s evolving threat landscape.
Yet, as a nation, we are so used to being reactive on defence, responding to a border skirmish here and a terror threat there, that carving out a proactive policy response won’t be easy. Regardless of government interventions, our defence policy debate is still stuck along predictable lines: defence versus development; off-the-shelf purchases; a civil-military disconnect; slow and inefficient modernization; resistance to the integration of services; overdependence on imports. These are all decades-old debates that we have been diffident in confronting.
While China talks less and implements, the argumentative India keeps on arguing with itself.
It is painful to see how India’s debate on theatre commands has been resurrected after Operation Sindoor. After a decade-long debate, doubts still seem to exist. When Modi inaugurates the Combined Commanders’ Conference 2025 in Kolkata next week with the theme ‘Year of Reforms: Transforming for the Future,’ he should remind the services that time is running out. Structural reforms within the military and a move towards civil-military fusion cannot be half baked.
One of our wisest leaders, P.V. Narasimha Rao, had suggested that not making a decision was also a decision. By not deciding on critical defence issues, we signal our strategic dithering to the world. We shouldn’t be surprised then if we end up becoming a target.
The author is professor of international relations, King’s College London, and vice president for studies at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.
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