"China tests resolve not through war, but by eroding will, inch by inch, map by map. India's strength must lie not in loud defiance, but in quiet, unshakable strategic clarity."
India’s strategic security conversation is often intense, but rarely sustained. The Galwan incident in 2020 was expected to mark a turning point. It exposed not just a breach along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), but a breach in assumptions about China’s intent, and about the stability of the frontier. The national response was immediate, but reactive. Yet, within a few years, the tone has shifted from urgency to routine and the focus from Galwan to Sindoor. Infrastructure reviews continue, dialogue processes remain in motion, and military posture is maintained, but the sense of strategic focus appears diluted. Operation Sindoor was a low-end spectrum and high probability occurrence. The elephant in the room is China. Yet the reality of Chinese collusion resulting in fusing two fronts into one remains the challenge. Further, Bangladesh's inimical flavour poses emerging challenges.
The strategic security vision must prepare the nation for a long-distance marathon while adapting to a short-distance sprint. Ironically, the Indian strategic discourse lacks foresight and remains tactically responding to the last conflict. China looks at India through a strategic lens—calculating long-term influence, shaping the regional order, securing its periphery and fusing its capabilities through proxy play to keep India engaged and its rise trajectory stymied. India, in contrast, looks at China myopically through a tactical lens, reacting rather than being pre-emptive or proactive. It’s a crisis-to-crisis management by emergency power procurements and knee-jerk reactions. This has been a traditional psyche of India’s defence calculus since independence, ingrained by the British Psyche of being Indian.
India must begin to assess China in the manner that China already assesses India: as a competitor of consequence, not just a neighbour with whom it shares a contested boundary. This is not just a political gap. It is a national strategic lapse.
China has not changed its strategic posture against India. It has cemented it with a different power play. The LAC today is more militarised than at any time in the past two decades. The Chinese are now playing their game through their proxies—Pakistan and Bangladesh—while keeping the LAC live. This is called strategic outstretch, which comes with a penalty. And yet, India’s approach, publicly at least, appears to have fallen into that familiar pattern: manage the crisis, avoid escalation, move on.
The PLA at the LAC is not just a military signal
It is often forgotten that the PLA is not a traditional military. It is the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party. Its role is as much political as operational. Its movements at the LAC serve several purposes—testing Indian response, signalling domestic strength, and reinforcing territorial claims.
India responded with mirror deployments, logistical mobilisation, and restrained diplomacy. However, the reality on the ground is status quo ante April 2020, a historic past with the creation of buffer zones and restricted patrolling. Strategic advantages have been lost, and costs have escalated. Negotiations and talks may go on, but the hard reality is a new status quo that India neither desired nor designed, but now has no choice but to navigate.
India’s strategic challenge has outgrown the Himalayas
China’s strategic encirclement is not rhetorical. It is geographic, psychological and economic. From the Gwadar port in Pakistan to Hambantota in Sri Lanka, from hydro projects in Nepal to telecom footprints in Bangladesh and the Maldives, China’s presence around India has moved from economics to embedded influence.
In Bangladesh, Chinese military supplies and digital platforms are now a routine part of the landscape. In the Maldives, the diplomatic churn has clear implications. Nepal’s engagement with China is no longer limited to infrastructure—it now includes trans-Himalayan trade and military diplomacy.
India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ must not just sound right; it must act right. If China’s visibility grows in the region and India’s engagement remains passive or transactional, the balance of influence will shift quietly—and possibly, irreversibly.
The China–Pakistan equation has shifted gears
For decades, China and Pakistan have described each other as “all-weather friends.” That cliché has now acquired operational teeth. Joint exercises, advanced arms transfers, cyber cooperation, and strategic dialogues have created a seamless theatre of pressure along India’s northern and western flanks.
What once was a hypothetical “two-front war” is today a synchronised challenge. The collusion has now manifested into the fusion of two players on one front, as seen during Operation Sindoor. Indian military planning can no longer afford to treat the western and northern borders as separate realities. Multifront, multi-threat challenges, along with the most vulnerable internal domain, are enlarging.
Towards a coherent grand strategy
India still lacks a coherent Grand Strategy that aligns political intent, diplomatic acumen, economic capability, and military power. The future battlespace is not about winning wars—it is about deterring them, shaping them, and if needed, ending them on favourable terms.
To do so, India must:
* Finalise a national security strategy.
* Invest in cyber, AI, and space dominance.
* Reorganise for multidomain operations.
* Embrace offensive strategic doctrines – from strategic restraint, to strategic assertion, to strategic preemption.
* Integrate political, economic, and military instruments into a coherent vision.
Warfare in the future is no longer about war alone—it is about contesting the very architecture of power. India must not only adapt—it must lead.
Deterrence must be grounded in strategic clarity, capability, not hope
India’s restraint post-Galwan was prudent. Escalation at that point would have played into Beijing’s hands. But restraint must not become policy inertia. Deterrence has meaning only when backed by capability, credibility and strategic communication. Diplomacy is effective when it rests on strength, not just of argument, but of posture.
India must now recognise that its deterrence failed to prevent Galwan or Pahalgham, and strategic surprise once again prevailed. It has succeeded, so far, in preventing a full-scale war on both fronts. This is most creditable but insignificant to rest on for the future.
The future of deterrence on India’s Northern front does not lie in force-on-force posturing and defensive reactive mindsets, but in denial and domination. China must be denied its strategic aims to stymie India’s rise by making the cost unacceptably high. Further military denial and domination capability would deter China more effectively and with a proactive mindset. That means border infrastructure, real-time C5ISR (Command, Control, Computers, Communications, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) capability, precision long-range vectors, force integration, and seamless logistics. It also means the political will to preempt, not just react.
Border infrastructure cannot be a catch-up game
In the last three years, India has stepped up admirably—laying roads, upgrading airstrips, and reinforcing forward posts along its borders. But a reactive infrastructure policy cannot keep up with a proactive adversary. Infrastructure must not just support existing deployments; it must shape operations. Every delay gives China more time to consolidate. Every seasonal pause is a space for Beijing to recalibrate.
The same applies to capability. India cannot afford a future where drones, hypersonics, or AI-enabled surveillance tip the balance once again.
Investment in defence R&D and homegrown technology induction through smart Atmanirbharta defence eco system is no longer an option, it is a strategic necessity. The frustrating acquisition cycle and legacy doctrines must be replaced by outcome-oriented and time-sensitive procurements, as well as doctrine-based capabilities for future wars. It's time that the Cold Start doctrine be put in the freezer and the Cold Strike doctrine empower deterrence and warfighting.
The role of strategic partnerships
China understands leverage. It uses trade, finance, and military supply to extract deference. India’s strength must rest not only on what it can leverage, but also on its global positioning.
By deepening ties with partners like Japan, France, Australia, and the United States, India can shape a network of pressure points compelling Beijing to think twice before altering the status quo. These alignments need not provoke war; they simply increase China’s uncertainty. And uncertainty, in strategic terms, can be as powerful as deterrence. The target must be the Chinaman’s mind. In modern warfare, the cognitive geography is as important as the battlefield geometry.
Clarity of purpose must replace episodic response
India needs a coherent China strategy, not a patchwork of reactions. This strategy must cut across ministries, opposition parties, and states to be rooted in real capability assessments and engage Parliament and the public. National security cannot be outsourced to military men alone. It must be anchored in policy, budget, and diplomacy. It’s not a political gimmick but a national cause.
Public understanding is also vital. An empowered and security-conscious society is the best shield for a Surakshit Bharat. India must create a ‘National Citizens Security Culture’ that makes each individual a stakeholder in national security and empowers them to recognise and report threats. This must be how India educates its youth, informs its public, and frames its national conversation, not with political rhetoric, but with sober, strategic clarity.
Six rings for a strategic posture
1. Build with Intent: Border infrastructure must serve military utility, not just headline value. They must find expediency and connectivity to the frontline geography. Priority and resource allocation must not find slippages.
2. Invest in self-reliance: Defence innovation must move beyond slogans. Production timelines, technology induction and quality assurance matter. Self-reliance and self-sufficiency must be the key.
3. Anchor regional leadership: Neighbours must choose India because it delivers, not because China overreaches.
4. Institutionalise integration: Integration of resources, logistics, and tri-service planning cannot wait for another crisis. Doctrinal, structural, and training reconstruct is required.
5. Stay diplomatically engaged: Talking to China is not weakness. But dialogue must come from strength, not hesitation.
6. Smart Atmanirbharta: A clarion call beyond politics and bureaucracy lethargy, which is measured by time-sensitive outcomes and the central role of the startup industry in the defence ecosystem.
In Conclusion: Hold the line, but know why
China is not looking for war with India. It doesn’t want one. Its gains lie in the grey zone—short of conflict, but enough to alter facts by fuelling proxy play. India must not play by that script. What cannot be recovered today must not be lost tomorrow.
India’s rise will not be judged by its economic metrics alone. It will also be measured by how it secures its sovereignty without overreaction, and illusion by being powerful. Strategic patience is a strength. Strategic denial is discipline. Strategic preemption is both an art and a science. Together, they can hold the line—quietly, but firmly. Time is running out, threats can manifest tomorrow, and capability building cannot wait anymore.
Lieutenant General A.B Shivane, is an NDA alumnus and a decorated Armoured Corps officer with over 39 years of distinguished military service. He is the former Strike Corps Commander and Director General of Mechanised Forces. As a scholar warrior, he has authored over 200 publications on national security and matters defence, besides four books and is an internationally renowned keynote speaker. The General was a Consultant to the Ministry of Defence (Ordnance Factory Board) post-superannuation. He was the Distinguished Fellow and held COAS Chair of Excellence at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies 2021-2022. He is also the Senior Advisor Board Member to several organisations and Think Tanks.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.
