WORLD IN TRANSITION: BUILDING RESILIENCE FOR INDIA’S NATIONAL SECURITY

“A resilient society featuring democracy, trust in institutions, and sustainable

development lies at the heart of a resilient state.”

Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy, 2016: 24

 

 

Introduction

 

Exploring the long-term threats to India’s strategic autonomy^[i] is crucial for the country. It entails understanding and institutionalising mechanisms to build resilience in 21st-century India and creating decision-making processes and rule-based participation by institutions and organisations in the Indian government, the private and corporate sectors, and NGOs, on an even playing field. To build a specialised focus on resilience, an assessment^[ii] of the same in the Indian context would require an institutionalised network of multi-disciplinary skills. In the limited time, we decided to share the burden of ploughing through the strategic conundrum by uncovering the mosaic of  “World in Transition”^[iii] In the first part, I will first give an overview as to what were the security challenges that were faced globally between 1945 and 2000 and identify how the world remained strictly bipolar till the demise of the former Soviet Union till 1991.

 

More painful was the period between 1992 and 2000. It made the monopoly of nuclear weapons, which had made the construct of superpower into a binary platform crumble and has made cyberspace become dominated by information technology^[iv]. The domination of information technology can be seen more clearly from 2001 to 2022. Therefore, the world or the global order between 1945 and 2000 can be dubbed the “World in Transition”, and from 2001 onwards, it can be labelled the “Age of Uncertainty.”

 

In the deliberation of this paper, the following issues will be covered:

1. Historical Overview of the Strategic Challenges of the 20^th Century
2. Global Security Challenges Facing India in the 21^st Century
3. Great Power Competition
4. Recommendations
5. Conclusion

 

Historical Overview of the Strategic Challenges in the 20^th Century

 

Nuclear weapons^[v] have gained a reputation for providing deterrence in the execution of warfare strategies. Technology and foreign policy were intricately interrelated. Herman Kahn had written “Deadly Logic, ” and Kissinger had perpetuated “Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy.” MacArthur was the role model for every soldier in the Western world, while Mao and Ho Chi Minh served as role models for the developing societies of South and Southeast Asia. There were no takers for Lenin or Che Guevara. War was divided into two levels – conventional and nuclear. Strategic challenges underwent three distinct phases between 1945 and 2000.

 

WW II 1939 – 1945

The impact of technology^[vi] in conducting warfare was fully evident and expanded dramatically in air, land, sea, and underwater warfare. Technology decided policy making, unleashing the power of the Atom. The possible use of weapons of mass destruction became a reality, and the strategic challenge was to win the war.

 

Cold War: 1945-1991

Ideology takes centre stage as the liberal democratic form of governance operates with market forces and competes with centrally planned economies of socialist countries to establish bipolarity. Strategic analysis was based on privileged information, leading to a government monopoly in both systems. A significant reduction in the numerical manpower strength of Western armies focused on high-end technologies to incorporate nuclear weapons “sited for all round defence” through NATO’s military alliance politics to protect Western Europe by creating a ring fence around the southern tier of the Soviet Union, which has a Muslim population, through SEATO and CENTO. West and East, represented by the US and the Soviet Union, prepared for three and a half wars at the height of the Cold War.

 

SALT-I, 1991; SALT-II, 1993; CTBT, 1996; PTBT (Partial Test Ban Treaty, 1963); NPT, July 1968, entered into force March 1970. A Review and Extension Conference was conducted in 1995, deciding that the Treaty should remain in force indefinitely. The ABM Treaty was concluded in May 1972. The Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START-I, 1991) initiated START-II in 1993 but did not come into force. Similarly, the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE, 1990) was also implemented. Soviet revisionism during the Cold War period – from Stalin to Khrushchev to Gorbachev- ultimately led to the balkanisation of the Soviet Union in 1991. The proliferation of nuclear technology and nuclear weapons spread to other nation-states, resulting in a multipolar world.

 

Challenges during the Cold War^[vii] focused on avoiding nuclear holocaust and defining and limiting the periphery of deterrence, which explains the interplay between non-proliferation and proliferation doctrine.

Post Cold War: 1991-2000

What were the conceptual issues at stake? The central question revolved around whether a new world order was emerging.^[viii] Did this signify the collapse of the existing global agenda, prompted by the disappearance of a permanent adversary and the dissolution of bipolarity following the fragmentation of the Soviet Union? Would this global transition mark the decline of the nation-state as the primary unit of international relations and political organisation? Could European integration lay the groundwork for a new supranational political architecture—a potential superstate? What would be the implications for key domains such as politics, economics, fiscal policy, monetary systems (including exchange rate mechanisms), migration, and environmental governance? And in this shifting landscape, does Europe assume the strategic and ideological role once held by the former Eastern Bloc?

What was Europe’s vision for the world in this evolving order? In the context of the so-called New World Order, Europe was confronted with several transformative dynamics:

• The erosion of collective leadership
• The decline of state capitalism
• The intersection of technology and development
• The ethical challenges posed by technological innovation
• The potential retreat of the welfare state
• The rise of the individual as a political and economic actor
• Shifts in international political economy, including regime theory and transnationalism
• Redefinitions of the nation-state, society, and identity
• The impact of technology on transnational structures and governance

 

These conceptual shifts posed fundamental questions about Europe’s role in shaping a new global paradigm.

 

Global Security Challenges facing India in the 21^st Century

 

It is abundantly clear in 2022 that the notion of Russia and China integrating into the liberal international order is beyond imagination. Instead, we are witnessing the emergence of a new era of intensified great power competition in the global arena. This great power competition differs from that of the Cold War and the early 21^st century, which saw the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of China as an economic and military power.

 

While the US has maintained its leadership as a superpower with its European allies and Japan, India has been emerging  as an important player in the global order with the fastest-growing economy, demonstrating potential for self-reliance and capacity building for resilience in non-military areas, such as containing the COVID pandemic.

 

While it is necessary to contemplate a world in which the United States and its allies compete with China and other autocratic regimes beneath the threshold of war, we cannot lose sight of the professed traditional mission of post-war U.S. strategy: to deter aggression by adversaries. This situation has also become more complicated as great power rivalry has intensified, along with the emergence of democratic powers like India coming to the centre stage of world events, contributing to a growing influence on world politics and becoming a leading actor in international political economy.

 

We often think of revisionist powers as countries determined to achieve global domination, such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. However, revisionism rarely manifests itself in the form of all-out war. Revisionist states typically target the non-vital interests of their great-power rivals, as this generally does not provoke the kind of retaliatory strike that attacking a vital interest would. Threatening non-vital interests—for example, by attacking a non-ally—leaves the status quo power uncertain about how to respond and whether retaliation is worth the effort.

 

Of course, the term “non-vital interest” is somewhat misleading. It only holds true when viewed narrowly and in isolation. While annexation and unprovoked invasion, like the case of Ukraine, clearly constitute a breach of the peace and threaten vital interests of nation states, seizing small rocks or strips of territory poses a more ambiguous threat. Such moves appear to be of limited strategic importance until, in the aggregate, they acquire much greater value. At the outset, the fact that no treaty has been breached and the territory seems to be of limited importance is highly significant to the dynamics and psychology of any given crisis. The small strategic value of the contested territory causes the dominant power to refrain from going to war at an extraordinary cost, which would be vastly and inversely proportionate to the value the dominant power places on the disputed territory.

 

This is not a new problem. It is textbook revisionism, which poses the most complex challenge that a major power can face. The purpose of revisionism is to make deterrence extremely difficult and to encourage rival great powers to accommodate them diplomatically or to limit their response to the point of being ineffective. While a regular security dilemma between two status quo powers can be addressed through reassurance and transparency, a revisionist power will not be satisfied with the restraint of others.

 

The most crucial piece of the post-war world order is not the United Nations or international financial institutions, important as they are. It is a healthy regional order. It is a truism to accept that America’s greatest success after World War II was to create a system in Western Europe and Northeast Asia that ended German and Japanese imperialism and provided the basis for shared prosperity. One must accept as a realist that if those regional orders fall apart, so will the global order. For example, a war between China and Japan—the world’s second and third largest economies- would have massive repercussions for the global economy. A Russian incursion into the Baltic, catalysed by the Ukraine crisis, would raise the risk of nuclear war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.

 

It should come as no surprise that China and Russia are regionally focused. After all, major powers are usually primarily concerned with their immediate environment rather than abstract notions of global leadership. However, the vulnerability of regional orders makes the global order vulnerable. If there is a significant challenge to the international order, it is most likely to occur at the regional level. This is why Russian and Chinese activities in their neighbourhoods are more reflective of their approaches to the international order than their explicit policy on global issues, although those are also important. Ultimately, a country’s willingness to honour the norm against territorial conquest is much more important than its compliance with the dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organisation or voting weights at the IMF.

 

Great Power Competition

 

The concept of global security^[x] occupies a foremost position in the minds of international relations policymakers and government officials in most countries. However, maintaining global security holds significance primarily for the so-called ‘great powers’. These powers can influence the international stage, change the lives of millions, and control the future. In his book ‘The World after the Peace Conference’, Toynbee describes the concept of a great power as “a political force exerting an effect coextensive with the widest range of the society in which it operates” (Toynbee, 1926).

 

In other words, a great power is a nation with sufficient scope to exert its influence and interests on the international stage successfully. In critiquing Toynbee, it is essential to argue that a power needs the necessary resources and political will to exert itself globally and to be recognised as a great power by other foreign states and societies. For example, today, Estonia cannot send troops to remote corners of the world or lead international coalitions at the United Nations due to its limited resources and incapacity. In contrast, the United Kingdom can. Metaphorically, it has a seat at the table, and other states acknowledge the ability of the United Kingdom to impose itself on the international stage, thereby establishing it as a global power.

 

In this context, it can be argued that great power competition among the great powers threatens global security by analysing three major global powers: the United States, Russia, and the People’s Republic of China. Each of these countries can exert influence on both the international and domestic stages, which is in coherence with the critique of Toynbee. Unlike the United States, however, Russia and China aspire to ‘steal’ America’s position as world hegemon. Their ambitions to become the undisputed world power are, for now, just aspirations. As long as the United States, whether in prosperity or decline, remains the world hegemon, the security threats posed by China or Russia will remain regionally constrained, thus not posing a menace to global security.

 

I would argue that Russia’s position is not of significant international concern. The Russian threat, or what Westerners perceive it to be, is not the massive bogeyman it was in previous decades. With the Soviet Union dead, the Russian psyche must prioritise defence due to its considerable loss of perceived friendly territory. Moreover, with NATO’s expansion into what Russia could perceive as its sphere of influence, the West risks igniting tensions that shouldn’t exist. Perhaps the duality that Russia seems to embody only needs to be coaxed out to transform into a cooperative member of the European Community. A cooperative Russia would benefit both peace in Europe and global peace.

 

Lastly, when addressing great power competition that threatens global security, the role of China must be analysed. China has a rich and complex history and culture; from the Qin Empire to Xi Jinping, China’s civilisation rivals even the greatest empires of Europe. As Kissinger argues in his book On China, the Chinese view themselves as having a national destiny to be not only the dominant power in Asia but also the world hegemon (Kissinger, 2012). With China’s recent diplomatic overtures in the international arena, incursions into the South China Sea (Sevastopulo, 2021), and threats against Taiwan (Patel, 2021), they, like Russia, are testing the will of the West – but more specifically that of the United States. However, some argue that China cannot, and can never, become the world hegemon due to economic failings and domestic crises.

 

Overall, China’s ambitions to become the world hegemon are undoubtedly evident. The incursions into the South China Sea and the ambitions to overtake the United States as the largest economic power clearly indicate this desire. However, this aspiration will remain merely a dream as long as America remains the top dog. The world may face significant threats to its security in regional areas (India-China border, South China Sea, Korean Peninsula) due to China’s pursuit of being number one. Still, as long as the United States can maintain its position, global security will remain intact.

 

Recommendations

 

India needs to enhance its competitiveness in relation to China and other authoritarian powers to acquire resilience and achieve strategic autonomy. In this regard, the following recommendations are made:

 

1. Pursue military modernisation to continue reorienting India’s defence policy toward addressing major power competitors. The United States must also incorporate initiatives that enhance strategic competitiveness while rebuilding the domestic economy after the pandemic. This includes a strategic approach to technological innovation and reducing the vulnerability of certain sectors of our society to interdependence with adversaries. Strategic thinking must be integrated across all relevant government agencies and departments.
2. Next, competition with China should embody a positive and affirmative vision of the free world, which we would continuously work to strengthen and improve. This would include increasing the free world’s resilience to pressure and shocks from authoritarian states; protecting democracy and the rule of law from illiberal forces; coordinating on technology policy; enhancing cooperation on transnational challenges such as climate change and global public health; and developing a suite of capabilities to shape the international order. It must also involve an ambitious and proactive effort to help free societies and like-minded partners recover from the pandemic, including in the developing world.
3. Continue to deepen the Indo-US alliance and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific by focusing on deterrence through denial, enhancing the credibility and resilience of India’s presence in the region, encouraging cooperation among allies and partners, assisting allies and partners in responding to external coercion and interference, deepening cooperation with the US, Japan, Australia, and Southeast Asian countries while balancing against China. The time has come to strengthen ties with Taiwan.
4. Revise India’s defence spending target to encourage European allies to invest in civilian and military capabilities, such as new technologies, to help them compete with China.
5. Facilitate a national conversation about the type of strategic competition India wants to engage in. Great power competition is not a strategy but a condition we must cope with in all its dimensions. We are still at a relatively early stage in identifying different competition strategies. Over the next ten years, India must refine and develop its thinking on the objectives of the competition and the means to accomplish these accordingly.

Conclusion

 

The idea that great power competition threatens global security is indisputable—history, particularly the horrors of the 20th century, serves as a stark reminder. However, such threats are considerably diminished in a unipolar world dominated by a single hegemon. Under American leadership, the international order has enjoyed relative stability; ideally, this influence will continue to serve as a cornerstone of global security.

 

While rival powers such as China and Russia may aspire to challenge or even supplant the United States as the dominant global force, such an outcome remains improbable. The current world order will likely endure as long as the U.S. maintains its strategic pragmatism—remaining more Machiavellian, if necessary, than its competitors—and preserves internal cohesion. In this context, American hegemony remains the most reliable guarantor of international stability for the foreseeable future.

 

Acknowledgement

While composing this position paper, I have not deviated from the research method by adding many essential footnotes. However, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the numerous writings of scholars and professionals in the field, US Congressional Research monographs, UN reports, and several independent papers on the subject. I have taken the liberty to quote and rearrange their thoughts to provide seamless output in this deliberation, which, to my knowledge, has not appeared thus far. I want to acknowledge all the authors whose work has enriched my understanding and assessment.

 

Author Brief Bio: Professor Gautam Sen was Formerly Sawarkar Professor of Strategic Studies (1981-2007), Head Department of Defence Studies (1981-2001), Director Board of Colleges & University Development (2001-2004) Director National Centre of International Security and Defence Analysis (2002-2007) at the University of Pune. He was Director General and Member Board of Trustees, Indian Institute of Education, Pune (2006-2011), Research Professor National Security Council Secretariat, GoI, Delhi (2015-16).  He has been a Visiting Professor at Madras University, Gujrat Vidyapith, Goa University, Institute of Social and Economic Change and UGC Visiting Professor at Gorakhpur University. Air Marshal Subroto Mukherjee Chair of Excellence, United Services Institution, Delhi (2018-19). Sen has also been a FORD FOUNDATION International Fellow at Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Twice Fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), London.

 

 

References:

^[i] Muraviev, A.D., Ahlawat, D. & Hughes, L. India’s security dilemma: engaging big powers while retaining strategic autonomy. Int Polit 59, 1119–1138 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00350-z and Boradey, H. (2022, March 11). India- Strategic autonomy through non-alignment policy. The Kootneeti.

https://thekootneeti.in/2022/03/10/india-strategic-autonomy-through-non-alignment-policy/  and  Finding Strategic Autonomy in the Quad: India’s Trial by Fire. (2021, March 18). The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/finding-strategic-autonomy-in-the-quad-indias-trial-by-fire/

^[ii] Fjäder, C. (2014). The nation-state, national security and resilience in the age of globalisation. Resilience, 2(2), 114–129.

https://doi.org/10.1080/21693293.2014.914771

 

^[iii] This aspect is discussed in the main text of this presentation as “Historical Overview of Strategic Challenges of the 20th Century and Global Security Challenges Facing India in the 21 st Century pp 7-10

 

^[iv]  Mallick, P. (2023). Information, Cyber and Space Domain and Its Application in Future Land Warfare.

 

^[v] For over 50 years, but especially since the end of the cold war, the United States and the Russian Federation (formerly the Soviet Union) have engaged in a series of bilateral arms control measures that have drastically reduced their strategic nuclear arsenals from a peak of around 60,000. The most recent of those measures, the New START Treaty, limits the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons to 1,550 per State. New START is scheduled to expire on 5 February 2021; should it expire without a successor or not be extended, it will be the first time that the strategic arsenals of the United States and the Russian Federation have not been constrained since the 1970s.*

* The New START Treaty entered into effect on 5 February 2011 for a period of 10 years. It can be extended for up to five years, unless it is replaced earlier by another agreement.
Source: Federation of American Scientists.  Although nuclear weapons have only been used twice in warfare—in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945—about 13,400 reportedly remain in our world today and there have been over 2,000 nuclear tests conducted to date.  Disarmament is the best protection against such dangers, but achieving this goal has been a tremendously difficult challenge. See https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/

 

^[vi] In the long-term, nuclear weapons produce ionizing radiation, which kills or sickens those exposed, contaminates the environment, and has long-term health consequences, including cancer and genetic damage. Their widespread use in atmospheric testing has caused grave long-term consequences. See What happens if nuclear weapons are used? – ICAN https://www.icanw.org              catastrophic_harm

 

^[vii] Muggah, R., & Yves Tiberghien. (2018, January 30). 5 facts you need to understand the new global order. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/01/five-facts-you-need-to-understand-the-new-global-order/

 

^[viii] Kempe, F. (2022, April 3). Op-ed: A new world order is emerging — and the world is not ready for it. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/03/a-new-world-order-is-emerging-and-the-world-is-not-ready-for-it.html and Yllmaz, E. M. (2008). “The New World Order”: An Outline of the Post-Cold War Era. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/19517 and Also see Perspectives on the future of the global order. (n.d.). Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/perspectives-on-the-future-of-the-global-order/

 

^[ix] Anant, Hardeep. (2015). Challenges facing India in the 21st century: An HRD perspective. 13. 1367-1375 and Also see Siwach, R. S. (2003). India’s Security in the 21^st Century: Challenges, Management and Futuristic Directions. Indian Journal of Asian Affairs, 16(1/2), 145–158. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41960508

 

^[x] Global security includes military and diplomatic measures that nations and international organizations such as the United Nations and NATO take to ensure mutual safety and security. Global security, instead, has five dimensions that include human, environmental, national, transnational, and transcultural security, and therefore, global security and the security of any state or culture cannot be achieved without good governance at all levels that guarantees security through justice for all. Security, like peace, identity and other terminologies in that fold of international political theory has attracted many definitions. Unfortunately, many contributors approach these concepts from their own ideologies. Hence, broad areas of description of the term “security” exist. If defining security is that elusive, there is little wonder why operating within its coverage is so fluid. In the name of security, people and governments have taken actions where intended and unintended outcomes have become difficult to handle. Because of its seeming lack of conceptual boundary, security, as a concept, is used to entice and whip up patronage for many political projects both at the state and international levels of politicking. Hence, Paul D. Williams argued that “security is therefore a powerful political tool in claiming attention for priority items in the competition for government attention”. The following references will be useful: Williams, Paul D. ed. Security Studies: An Introduction, Routledge, UK, 2008. Makinda, Samuel M. Sovereignty and Global Security, Security Dialogue, 1998, Sage Publications, Vol. 29(3) 29: 281-292. McSweeney, Bill. Security, Identity and Interests: A Sociology of International Relations, Cambridge University Press, 1999. Human Security Unit, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Human Security in Theory and Practice(http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HS_Handbook_2009.pdf). Musarrat, Jabeen. Governance Divide, Pakistan Horizon, The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, Karachi, Vol. 56, No. 4, 2003. Beres, Louis Rene. Terrorism and Global Security: The Nuclear Threat, Westview Press Inc., 1979.