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Grand Strategy | Eight steps for India’s strategic reorientation
Delhi must reconsider whether it’s advisable to continue prioritising multilateral diplomatic efforts around the narrative on terrorism stemming from Pakistan
Contemporary India is faced with a series of strategic challenges with potential implications for its national security in the medium to long term, even if not much may change in the short term.
For one, the US has gone from a stabiliser and security guarantor to a disruptor in India’s broader region. Secondly, the coming together of Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia at a time of unrelenting American heat on India and low tide in the Indo-Pacific is bad news for New Delhi. There is no point in spinning these challenges to gladden our hearts. We must address them.
This, no doubt, is a crisis of immense proportions, which calls for major changes. Delhi needs to think big, radical, faster and out-of-the-box because extraordinary times demand extraordinary decisions. Politicians and policymakers in Delhi must take a pragmatic and focused approach to national security, defence, and working with like-minded powers.
In this column, I will outline eight ideas to broadly reorient our strategic approach, addressing the emerging challenges, though not exclusively. One, it is time to abandon the L1 (”Lowest Bidder”) policy of defence procurement. While there are now multiple pathways to defence procurement beyond the L1 route, it remains the default option. It is time India streamlined and simplified the complex bureaucratic maze surrounding defence procurement. Sometimes, it seems that our procurement procedures are as daunting as the challenges posed by our adversaries.
Two, while multi-alignment is still India’s best foreign policy bet, we must consider pursuing it with clear and defined objectives. We must not confuse, as we often tend to do, the policy’s vision, an abstract set of principles, with its objectives, which are its practical, measurable outcomes. I would argue that, from a policy point of view, the objectives of multi-alignment matter more than its underlying vision. If so, we should focus on clearly defining the specific goals we want to achieve through the policy, rather than venerating the policy itself as an end in itself.
Delhi must reconsider whether it’s advisable to continue prioritising its multilateral diplomatic efforts around the narrative on terrorism stemming from Pakistan. While India continues to be affected by terrorism originating from Pakistan, the reality is that there are few takers for India’s narrative on terrorism in the international community today. They have moved on and are increasingly less interested. So, India should do what it takes to defeat terrorism on its own, but it makes little sense for us to spend precious and limited diplomatic capital on building a grand narrative on an issue which has no takers in the rest of the world.
Four, Delhi must consider getting into more targeted, objectives-based military agreements. While defence diplomacy, military exercises, and strategic partnerships are important parts of India’s global strategic engagement, the reality is that they are meant for peacetime or periods of stability and certainty. None of them - defence diplomacy, military exercises, and strategic partnerships - seem to come to our aid when we face a strategic contingency, which means that their utility is limited. Delhi must therefore consider pursuing more impactful, results-oriented, and purposeful defence agreements with countries like, for instance, France or Australia. In any case, it is high time we re-evaluate the true utility and effectiveness of our strategic partnerships.
Five, Delhi should initiate a strategic dialogue with NATO. Historically, the India-NATO relationship has been characterised by caution, distance, and limited engagement on somewhat benign issues. In fact, China holds more dialogues with NATO than India does. NATO, notwithstanding its current difficulties, will continue to be a force to reckon with. The point is not that India needs formal agreements with NATO, but that it should begin a serious strategic dialogue to explore potential areas of cooperation during times of crisis.
Six, Quad must have more military focus. Perhaps it is the wrong time to suggest it, given that Washington is less focused on the Quad and the Indo-Pacific than ever before. Yet, I believe the Quad is here to stay and will play a significant role in shaping the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific. If the Quad is here to stay, it raises the question of whether its current focus is sufficient or if it should be subtly reoriented toward a more military-centric purpose and intent. In its current form, the Quad will yield more of the familiar results: a feel-good perception of a like-minded coalition during good times and a lack of decisive action during crises. Is that what we want?
India must significantly invest in defence innovation. It should establish a dedicated budget to attract top talent from the private sector, bypass bureaucratic hurdles, and create specialised emergency innovation centres for defence applications of Artificial Intelligence, drone technology, cyber warfare, and military applications of space, among others. These emergency innovation centres should not be managed by existing public sector institutions or generalist bureaucrats. To ensure effectiveness, the government must implement special emergency procedures that enable immediate action outside regular bureaucracy. They should operate with time-bound targets and goals, and salaries must be competitive with global standards. No world-class defence or technological innovation will be possible in India if talent is paid standard salaries.
Finally, the Government should consider appointing special envoys dedicated to agile backchannel diplomacy and special, time-sensitive tasks. As the small diplomatic corps handles daily tasks, these envoys can undertake specific missions with greater agility and strategic vision. Potential appointments could include envoys for the Indo-Pacific, Middle East, Af-Pak, and Emerging Technologies, all reporting directly to the EAM and PM.
India’s grand strategy is at a critical inflection point. It can either continue with business as usual, hoping another crisis does not arise soon, or reimagine its strategic approach to prepare to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
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(Happymon Jacob is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Shiv Nadar University, founder and director of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, and the editor of INDIA’S WORLD magazine.)
