Bharat Rakshak

VinodTK wrote: ↑18 Mar 2026 09:59 start with the defense minister move him to some other position
put in qualified younger person in his 50's

A_Gupta wrote: ↑17 Mar 2026 22:29 I don’t see a problem with the state. It is the mindset of the people. I see the government cleaning up the piles of garbage around the Yamuna; but people in automobiles littering, throwing stuff out of the vehicle and over the high fence on the Yamuna bridge, so the situation barely improves.

And of course, the state is run by many such people.

If the people were Gandhian, civic cleanliness would be one of their top values.

The “system” can readily be amended. Cultural shortcomings are much much more difficult to change.

To think that a new Constitution will change things is a bit of a fantasy.

—-
Also, from a historical perspective, the Indian Constitution is the Motilal Nehru proposal of 1929 or thereabouts and Ambedkar. It is not Gandhian. Gandhi wanted to give primacy to the village panchayats, and saw the Indian state as a confederation of panchayats, for example.

His name was Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

In 1930, he was 19 years old. A boy from Madras is boarding a ship to England on a scholarship to Cambridge.

During that sea voyage, he opened his notebook and started calculating.

By the time the ship docked in Southampton, he had worked out something no one in the history of science had understood before.

Stars do not simply fade and die. Stars above a certain mass collapse into themselves with such force that nothing can stop them. Not light. Not time. Not physics as anyone understood it.

What he had discovered on that ship would eventually be called black holes.

He arrived at Cambridge. He spent four years refining his calculations. He showed them to Arthur Eddington. The most famous astronomer in the world at that time. The man who had proven Einstein right.

Eddington watched his progress. Encouraged him. Asked him to present his findings at the Royal Astronomical Society in January 1935.

Then Eddington gave his own presentation immediately after.

He publicly ridiculed Chandrasekhar in front of the entire scientific establishment. He said the theory had no physical meaning. He called it absurd. He used his enormous reputation to crush a 24-year-old Indian student in front of everyone who mattered.

Chandrasekhar left that conference devastated.

He appealed to the president of the International Astronomical Union. He was told not to respond to Eddington publicly.

He left England.

He went to America. To the University of Chicago. He drove 150 miles every week to teach a class of just two students. Those two students were Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang.

Both of them won the Nobel Prize before he did.

He spent 50 years working quietly. He never stopped.

In 1983, the Nobel Committee called.

53 years after he worked out the existence of black holes on a ship as a teenager, the Nobel Prize in Physics was his.

NASA later named its most powerful X-ray telescope after him.

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

The universe he described is real. Eddington was wrong. The boy on the boat was right.

Most Indians have never heard his name.

They should say it every day.

Follow for real stories about Indians who changed the world.

Farah N. Jan is a senior lecturer in the International Relations Program at the University of Pennsylvania, where she specializes in nuclear security, alliance politics, and threshold wars in the Middle East and South Asia. She is completing a book on the Saudi-Pakistani alliance.

India’s record over the same period is one of conspicuous abstention. In the Persian Gulf, where millions of Indian nationals generate remittance flows exceeding $40 billion annually, India has deepened its economic ties and cultivated warm bilateral relationships, but has never converted that weight into a security role. There is no defense pact, no troops stationed on Gulf soil, no joint command structure. Pakistan, with a fraction of India’s economic footprint in the region, has all three. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cultivated personal relationships with Gulf leaders assiduously — the visits, the investment pledges, the carefully staged bilaterals. What he has not built is the architecture that would make India indispensable rather than merely welcome. India has built relationships everywhere and obligations nowhere.

India’s foreign policy underperformance relative to its capabilities is, at its root, a product of the same logic that explains Pakistan’s overperformance. India is secure enough not to need patrons, wealthy enough not to need remittance corridors, and large enough to set the terms of most bilateral relationships rather than adapting to the terms of others. These are, in the ordinary sense of the word, advantages. In the specific sense of generating diplomatic entrepreneurialism, they are constraints.

The ideological framework that governs Indian foreign policy, strategic autonomy, or in its current variant, vishwabandhu, a phrase that roughly translates as “India is a friend to all,” is not without internal coherence. It reflects a genuine reading of India’s interest in preserving optionality in a world dividing between American and Chinese orbits. But optionality is not strategy. A state that refuses to impose costs on Russia over Ukraine, maintains arms exports to Israel while abstaining on Gaza, and declines to take a position on any contested question of regional order is not exercising strategic autonomy. It is performing it, and performance without commitment generates no alliance relationships, no dependent states, no clients who owe their security to Indian support.

The civil-military dimension deepens the same pattern. Indian foreign policy is produced through complex coordination among competing institutions — thoroughness at the cost of speed. Pakistan’s foreign policy is made, for better and for worse, by the army. This produces pathologies that are well-documented, the tolerance for militant networks, the double game that has frustrated every American administration since 2001. It also produces speed and coherence at precisely the moments that matter, which is why it was Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, not any Indian counterpart, on the phone with Trump and Tehran in the same week.

...commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none;....

A_Gupta wrote: ↑18 Mar 2026 20:59 Not sure what the confusion is of India’s goal of Vikasit Bharat.

Concomitant with prosperity is the means to defend it.

Given recent events, India needs to develop a strategy to deal with decapitation strikes.

India also needs to develop an effective lever against each major or peer power.

For example, India needs to be able to selectively block the Malacca Strait - this is a strategic lever over China.

India needs to figure out something similar to hold over the US (like China’s rare earths chokehold).

And so on.

chetak wrote: ↑22 Apr 2026 10:01
Academia and industry are parasitic organisms, and in a two way support system, each with a dual defined role of host nurtures the other. This is how the amriki MIC works. Is there any evidence of this happening here (1)
...

Are we to understand that over the past tens of decades the IITs and other academia, including research institutes (2)
How come our expensive IITs have, thus far, only managed to feed such technology rich ecosystems in foreign lands

> **A Note of Realism:** It’s important to remember that no relationship is *zero* percent transactional. Even the best of friends in the international community will occasionally bicker over trade tariffs or fishing rights. The difference is that in a non-transactional relationship, the "breakup" is never really an option on the table.

In the world of geopolitics, we often view countries like players at a poker table—calculating risks, hedging bets, and only "calling" when there’s a clear payout. This is the **transactional** model. However, some relationships operate more like a marriage or a deep-rooted family tie, where the bond exists independent of the daily "ledger."

### Defining Transactional Relations

A **transactional** relationship in international relations is characterized by a "quid pro quo" (this for that) mentality. It is often:

* **Short-term:** Focused on immediate gains rather than long-term stability.

* **Interest-driven:** Based purely on shared goals (e.g., "I need your oil; you need my weapons") rather than shared values.

* **Flexible (and Fickle):** The partnership dissolves as soon as the specific benefit disappears.

* **Zero-sum:** Both parties are constantly measuring who got the better deal.

---

### Beyond the Ledger: Non-Transactional Relationships

Relationships that go beyond the transactional are often built on **shared identity, historical memory, and deep institutional integration.** Here are the primary examples:

#### 1. The "Special Relationship" (United States and United Kingdom)

While interest-driven at times, the US-UK bond is rooted in deep cultural, linguistic, and historical ties.

* **Why it’s more than a deal:** They share "Five Eyes" intelligence at a level of intimacy that isn't granted to other allies.

* **The Glue:** It’s a shared worldview. Even when leaders disagree (like over the Suez Crisis or the Iraq War), the underlying bureaucratic and military machinery remains fused.

#### 2. The European Union (Supranational Integration)

The EU started as a transactional trade agreement (The Coal and Steel Community), but it evolved into something much deeper.

* **Why it’s more than a deal:** Member states have surrendered portions of their national sovereignty to a central body.

* **The Glue:** It is an "ever-closer union" based on the collective trauma of WWII. The goal isn't just to trade—it’s to make war between neighbors physically impossible by tangling their destinies together.



#### 3. Australia and New Zealand (The Trans-Tasman Bond)

This is perhaps the closest thing to a "familial" relationship on the global stage.

* **Why it’s more than a deal:** The **Closer Economic Relations (CER)** agreement and the **Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement** allow citizens to live and work in each other's countries almost as if they were one nation.

* **The Glue:** The "ANZAC spirit." Their military and social histories are so intertwined that an attack on one is culturally viewed as an attack on the other, regardless of what a treaty says.

#### 4. The Nordic Council (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden)

The Nordic countries maintain a level of social and political trust that is rare.

* **Why it’s more than a deal:** They have a formal passport union that predates the EU's Schengen Area. They coordinate on everything from labor laws to environmental standards not because they are forced to, but because they share a "Nordic Model" of social democracy.

* **The Glue:** High social trust and a shared cultural identity that views the region as a cohesive unit.

---

### Comparison at a Glance

Code: Select all

| Feature | Transactional Relationship | Deep/Value-Based Relationship |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| **Primary Motivator** | Strategic necessity / Profit | Shared identity / Values |
| **Duration** | Temporary / Conditional | Intergenerational / Durable |
| **Communication** | Formal negotiations | Constant, informal "back-channels" |
| **Conflict Resolution** | Threats or withdrawal | Compromise for the sake of the union |

> **A Note of Realism:** It’s important to remember that no relationship is *zero* percent transactional. Even the best of friends in the international community will occasionally bicker over trade tariffs or fishing rights. The difference is that in a non-transactional relationship, the "breakup" is never really an option on the table.

In 1894, Lala Lajpat Rai realized a terrifying truth: Indians were funding their own slavery by keeping money in British banks. His response? He built a Financial Fortress called Punjab National Bank, a bank run by rebels that cut off the British Empire’s capital oxygen. This is the story of how banking became an act of revolution.

In the 1890s, Lala Lajpat Rai (The Lion of Punjab) looked at the balance sheets of the British-run banks (like the Presidency Banks) & realized something terrifying. Millions of Indians were depositing their life savings into British banks. The British then used that exact same money to:

- Fund the British Indian Army to suppress Indian protestors.
- Build railways to export Indian raw materials to Manchester.
- Lend money back to Indian businessmen at exorbitant interest rates.

It was almost like: "Indian capital is being used to tighten the chains on Indian necks."

Lajpat Rai did not go to a banker. He went to Dyal Singh Majithia, a visionary philanthropist. They met in a small room in Lahore with a few others... lawyers, teachers, & traders. They decided to start a bank that was Solely Indian. No British directors, no British shareholders, & no British capital.

When they opened the 1st office in Anarkali Bazar, Lahore, on May 19, 1894, the board of directors consisted of men who were on the Watchlist of the British Intelligence. PNB was not just a bank; it was an Intelligence Hub for the Swadeshi movement.

The British expected the bank to fail within 6 months. They believed Indians lacked the discipline to manage a complex financial institution. To gain the public's trust, the founders did something radical. They insisted on extreme transparency. While British banks were secretive, PNB published its books clearly to show that not a single rupee was leaving Indian soil.

Indian businessmen started moving their accounts to PNB as an act of protest. It was the 1st time in history that Banking became a form of Satyagraha. By moving their money, they were cutting off the capital oxygen of the British administration.

Lala Lajpat Rai was the 1st to open an account at the bank. His younger brother joined the Bank as a Manager. Authorised total capital of the Bank was Rs. 2 lakhs, the working capital was Rs. 20000. It had total staff strength of 9 & the total monthly salary amounted to Rs. 320.

Everyone had the vision that the bank should cater to the small Indian trader whom the British banks ignored. PNB became the backbone of the Indian industry in the North. It funded the 1st gen of Swadeshi textile mills, sugar factories, & iron foundries that the British refused to support.

PNB was headquartered in Lahore. When Partition happened, it lost its Heart. Its buildings, gold vaults, & records were stuck in a new, hostile country. Unlike other institutions that collapsed, PNB’s management worked tirelessly to ensure that every Indian refugee who had an account in Lahore could withdraw their money in Delhi.

They moved their registered office to Delhi just weeks before the borders closed. PNB became the Financial Lifeboat for millions of displaced Punjabis, helping them restart their businesses from scratch in a new India.

PNB was not built for profit; it was built for Protection. Lala Lajpat Rai knew that political freedom is a myth if we are financially dependent on our oppressor.

Every time we see a PNB branch today, remember: we are not looking at a corporate building. We are looking at a Financial Bunker that was built to stop the British from using Indian money to buy the bullets used against Indians.

Frank Meyer, that lynchpin of Reaganite conservatism, argued in a 1968 essay, “Western Civilization: The Problem of Political Freedom,” that “In England, both in practice and in theory, there arose out of the conflicts of the seventeenth century and the relaxation of the eighteenth, something closer to a society of personal freedom and limited government” than had yet been realized. “But the drag of established ideas, institutions, and power held that society back from achieving the political potentiality towards which it was moving.” It took the American colonists, “In the open lands of this continent, removed from the overhanging presence of cosmological remains,” to establish “a constitution that for the first time in human history was constructed to guarantee the sanctity of the person and his freedom.”

DPSP of Indian Constitution are ideals which are meant to be kept in mind by the state when it formulates policies and enacts laws. There are various definitions of Directive Principles of State which are given below:

They are an ‘instrument of instructions’ which are enumerated in the Government of India Act, 1935.
They seek to establish economic and social democracy in the country.
DPSPs are ideals which are not legally enforceable by the courts for their violation.

Directive Principles of State Policy – Classification
Indian Constitution has not originally classified DPSPs but based on their content and direction, they are usually classified into three types-

Socialistic Principles,
Gandhian Principles and,
Liberal-Intellectual Principles.
The details of the three types of DPSPs are given below:

DPSP – Socialistic Principles
Definition: They are the principles that aim at providing social and economic justice and set the path towards the welfare state. Under various articles, they direct the state to:
Article 38 Promote the welfare of the people by securing a social order through justice—social, economic and political—and to minimise inequalities in income, status, facilities and opportunities
Article 39 Secure citizens:
Right to adequate means of livelihood for all citizens
Equitable distribution of material resources of the community for the common good
Prevention of concentration of wealth and means of production
Equal pay for equal work for men and women
Preservation of the health and strength of workers and children against forcible abuse
Opportunities for the healthy development of children
Article 39A Promote equal justice and free legal aid to the poor
Article 41 In cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, secure citizens:
Right to work
Right to education
Right to public assistance
Article 42 Make provision for just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief
Article 43 Secure a living wage, a decent standard of living and social and cultural opportunities for all workers
Article 43A Take steps to secure the participation of workers in the management of industries
Article 47 Raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living of people and to improve public health

DPSP – Gandhian Principles
Definition: These principles are based on Gandhian ideology used to represent the programme of reconstruction enunciated by Gandhi during the national movement. Under various articles, they direct the state to:
Article 40 Organise village panchayats and endow them with necessary powers and authority to enable them to function as units of self-government
Article 43 Promote cottage industries on an individual or cooperation basis in rural areas
Article 43B Promote voluntary formation, autonomous functioning, democratic control and professional management of co-operative societies
Article 46 Promote the educational and economic interests of SCs, STs, and other weaker sections of the society and to protect them from social injustice and exploitation


Article 47 Prohibit the consumption of intoxicating drinks and drugs which are injurious to health
Article 48 Prohibit the slaughter of cows, calves and other milch and draught cattle and to improve their breeds

DPSP – Liberal-Intellectual Principles
Definition: These principles reflect the ideology of liberalism. Under various articles, they direct the state to:
Article 44 Secure for all citizens a uniform civil code throughout the country
Article 45 Provide early childhood care and education for all children until they complete the age of six years. (Note: 86th Amendment Act of 2002 changed the subject matter of this article and made elementary education a fundamental right under Article 21 A.)
Article 48 Organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines
Article 49 Protect monuments, places and objects of artistic or historic interest which are declared to be of national importance


Article 50 Separate the judiciary from the executive in the public services of the State
Article 51
Promote international peace and security and maintain just and honourable relations between nations
Foster respect for international law and treaty obligations
Encourage settlement of international disputes by arbitration

Mukesh.Kumar wrote: ↑18 Mar 2026 00:54 Increasingly, I am coming to view this war as America's Suez moment. Britain and France could have carried the Suez campaign militarily through, but it was their ally America, which withdrew support, and that signaled world opinion turning decisively against them. And so it feels about the US now.

No one will go against the US and Israel, but in capitals across the world US envoys seeking support for keeping Hormuz Strait open will find colder responses.

Two articles that caught my eye on this:

1. In Fortune-Ray Dalio warns a brutal ‘final battle’ for the Strait of Hormuz is coming—and losing could end the American empire. I will pay attention becuse it came out in Fortune and the guy headed one of the largest hedge funds. This is Capital sounding the bugle
2. How America’s War on Iran Backfired-Tehran Will Now Set the Terms for Peace-Published in Foreign Affairs and authored by an old State Department hand. It's kind of like parts of the establishment sending out indirect signals that US has overplayed its hand. And he was on Trump's Iran negotiation team for Iran last year. He highlights a fact that I had sensed talking to my Iranian friends earlier-

What will happen of the war are not the main questions anymore. We need to think what this means for India in terms of:

1. Energy security
2. Technological security
3. Relationship with GCC and Israel
4. Multilateral fora like the UN
5. Decoupling from an ebbing US Economy and the USD
6. Conversely, how to manage Co-Opetition with China for Russian fuel, economy, influence
7. Impact on repatriations from GCC

1. Energy security - biggest issue and the most pressing, with limited options every country in the world is going for the same resources - i believe that for the future, indian companies are developing fields in south-east africa mostly tanzania and mozambique, but it will be a couple of years atleast before they come online. Once online though should keep us assured of uninterrupted supply.
2. Technological security - in terms of defense seems well placed, not so much with the dependence on us corporate infrastructure, do not see a fast, if ever, decoupling of the same
3. Relationship with GCC and Israel - interesting things happened in the interim and the gcc no longer speaks in one voice, imo, our camp is with the uae and associated friends, tolerable relations with qatar and steady if unexciting one with saudia and friends; with saudi and uae on the outs its a tighter ropewalk.
4. Multilateral fora like the UN - has been demonstrated as the defunct league of nations 2.0
5. Decoupling from an ebbing US Economy and the USD - never possible, if anything the us has gripped the world in a tighter vise
6. Conversely, how to manage Co-Opetition with China for Russian fuel, economy, influence
7. Impact on repatriations from GCC

Why do nations go to war? As Indians trace the origins and impacts of wars in Europe and West Asia, there has been a gradual evolution in our understanding of why wars are fought and what they leave behind. However, the same critical analysis is not extended as enthusiastically to India’s own wars and conflicts, leaving them shrouded in a sense of perpetual mystery.

Why do India’s adversaries initiate wars or conflicts against it?
In a recent interview, former Army Chief General Manoj Naravane was asked a reflective question: “Six years later, when you look back, do you think we could have done anything different?” He replied, “Perhaps we need to study China in more detail to understand what makes them tick. We were surprised because we don’t know their manner of working and thinking.”
He then recounted discussions on China’s motivations in Galwan, ranging from Covid-19 to the withdrawal of Article 370, but admitted that the search for a definitive explanation continues.

There are certain infirmities in India’s ability to reckon with past wars retrospectively as well as to anticipate future contingencies. For instance, China’s synchronised advance in 2020 was neither the first nor the only time that Indian decision-makers were caught by surprise in terms of the scale, timing and intent of adversary action. India was as surprised during Kargil in 1999, the India-China war of 1962, and the India-Pakistan wars of both 1948 and 1965.

There is something broader, more historical and perhaps more elusive at play here rather than merely the inscrutability of Chinese intent. After all, the Kargil Review Committee report (a laudable and unique act of reckoning in Indian history) was tellingly titled “From Surprise to Reckoning”—a descriptor that could apply to almost all of India’s analyses of war, with the possible exception of 1971.
There are three fundamental aspects of this problem that need to be better understood: war anticipation (before conflict), the determination of adversary motivations once a crisis/conflict has begun (during conflict), and India’s ability to interrogate the causes of previous wars or strategic surprises — in other words, deterrence failure — in order to draw lessons (after conflict). All three aspects are naturally interconnected and require broad analysis.

More complicated than intelligence failure
A peculiar feature of the Indian security state is the frequency with which failures to anticipate enemy action are explained away as “intelligence gaps” or “intelligence failures”.
China’s offensive in 1962 was partially blamed on Intelligence Bureau chief BN Mullick and his alleged failure to anticipate Chinese military action. The lack of healthy coordination between the Army and the Intelligence agencies is cited as one of the reasons for the Kargil ingress, while the 2020 crisis is also at times seen as resulting from gaps in surveillance capabilities.
Although this line of analysis carries a kernel of truth in all three cases, it is too narrow, simplistic and puts a premium on the detection of troop movements or the acquisition of crude information about enemy preparations.
This is puzzling because, in all three crises and wars, there were enough indications of military movements, as well as warnings and intelligence inputs.
Dramatic and adverse surprise developments have raised overwhelming questions. Given the need to preserve political and military morale, as well as to avoid mutual finger-pointing, there has often been a temptation to locate and confine the problem at the level of “intelligence failure”. This is also illustrated in accounts that present the core lesson of Galwan as the need for better surveillance capabilities at the lower level—a problem that is easy to solve and unlikely to elicit deeper institutional inquiries.

Conceptual failures and adversary motivation
The common thread in anticipation failure happens to be conception failure. This occurs when the state leadership adheres too strongly to fixed notions of an adversary’s strategic intent and behaviour pattern. When intelligence inputs pointing to a new development pile up, the state struggles to interpret it. This is because such inputs only point to anomalies and probable offensive intent, without explaining the larger politico-military intent.

In his study of the 1962 war, Professor Steven A Hoffmann explains the role of conception failure as a “failure to imagine or speculate about unorthodox courses of action which the opponent can adopt.”
Prior to 1962, Indian political leadership reached the fixed assessment that China was unlikely to enter into a significant conflict because of its own constraints. These constraints were assessed to be related to its intense competition against both the US and the Soviet Union as well as internal economic difficulties. The IB did deliver pointed reports in May 1962 (based on sources) that an attack aimed at removing forward-deployed Indian posts across Ladakh was imminent or likely. But such predictions did not explain strategic intent.

Lacking a theory of China’s motivation, even intelligence reports reverted to the thesis that China will not react strongly—based on the mere observation that it had not reacted too strongly in previous cases when the Indian Army established new outposts. Reflecting path dependency, even as intelligence reports from 1959 started noting accelerated military preparation on the Chinese side, both policy and intelligence assessment operated on the sole and fixed premise that China seeks to avoid war.

What is striking is that almost no one was able to visualise an offensive military operation in which the PLA fights through forward-deployed military concentrations (to correct a trend) and recedes back to its own territory.
Chinese actions were assessed merely through the rigid binary of ‘usual localised incidents’ or ‘all-out invasion’. This meant both intelligence and its analysis could only ‘confirm’ the former given that the latter was ruled out as a matter of political-strategic assessment.

The security system also overestimated the state of Indian military preparedness in the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) sector (present-day Arunachal Pradesh)—thereby overestimating military deterrence.
Hence, the system could not visualise a wider conflict in the nature of preventive war (and prepare for one) even after the political leadership had declared its intent to ‘throw out’ Chinese forces from Thag la ridge publicly on 12 and 14 October 1962 and had deployed a brigade to achieve the same.

The same pattern took hold prior to the Kargil War. The military leadership—based on a predictive model called Operation TOPAC—was committed to the idea that Pakistan would continue its policy of infiltration and terror support in Kashmir and refrain from any significant frontal conflict similar to the 1965 war.
Indian conventional superiority, as well as nuclear deterrence, deemed any operation aimed at holding strategic ground or an alteration of the LoC ‘irrational’ and ‘out of the question’ (as noted by the Kargil Review Committee as well).

This, in turn, impacted winter air surveillance operations as resources were focused on surveilling ravines and riverbeds (infiltration-friendly) rather than ridges (encroachment-friendly).
Hence, when intelligence agencies provided inputs regarding Pakistan’s suspicious purchase of 500 winter boots, road-widening activities, construction of underground bunkers, as well as troop and artillery build-up in PoK, these only confirmed the thesis that they were preparing for more infiltration. But since intelligence inputs could not (or did not seek to) explain strategic intent and logic, they were found to be unpersuasive and dismissed. Facts, after all, become meaningful only within pre-existing frameworks of understanding.

What makes the ‘only infiltration’ or ‘deterrence is strong’ assessment somewhat paradoxical is also the admission (in retrospect and in statements to the KRC) by military officials that the Indian Army would have struggled to bring its superiority to bear in the region given its ongoing commitments to counter-insurgency all across India.

This, after all, is something that Pakistan’s military planners may have noted as well—making the ‘fixed’ and impossible somewhat more dynamic and possible. Besides, the ongoing political rapprochement (reaching its height in bus diplomacy) subdued both operational concerns as well as more aggressive intelligence-collecting operations.

What was lacking in each case was the ability to visualise the adversary’s willingness to take the contestation to a higher level—or toward an objective that lay between conventional war and localised coercive encroachments/infiltrations. Intelligence inputs and analysis, in absence of such frameworks/visualisation, are predisposed toward confirming past templates of behaviour rather than pointing toward a new shift in the dynamic.

Importantly, this particular problem is not necessarily limited to a service or government or intelligence agency but tends to pervade across organisations and including the strategic community as well to a degree. Such ‘failures’ are national failures to a degree and it requires an intervention beyond mutual recrimination.

Deterrence failure in 2020: Does it fit the pattern?
There is now enough information in the public domain that points toward the architecture of China’s motivations before the April-May 2020 crisis. We know that Chinese calculations had fundamentally shifted in the aftermath of Doklam. This was evidenced by new investments in military infrastructure near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), as well as shifts in Chinese publicdiscourse and analysis. Chinese decision-makers simply concluded that the growing security dilemma along the LAC, in the backdrop of India’s new assertiveness and improved infrastructure, which facilitated its mobilisation capabilities, had made the existing status quo too volatile and undesirable.

What China sought, therefore, was a new normal based on domination of key vantage points and the denial of Indian access to strategically important areas.

The Indian Navy’s recent maritime security strategy document describes three factors that lead to deterrence failure. The first is an “Incorrect reading of the level to which a potential aggressor is dissatisfied with the status quo, thus rendering deterrence ineffective”.

Put simply, India underestimated the degree to which China was alarmed by India’s action in 2017 and therefore underread signs that Beijing had moved toward a fundamental shift in its threat perception toward Indian intention and nascent-yet-growing capabilities.

Hence (and perhaps ideally), when Chinese personnel and equipment started to move toward the LAC, India could have recognised the possibility that the PLA was advancing in order to hold ground i.e. a more permanent presence right at the LAC to ‘correct’ growing unfavourable trends. China was also reassured in this risky gambit by its perception of continuing and large gaps in India’s defence/deterrence capabilities despite great advancements, pointing toward possible Indian over-estimation of deterrence.

India did undertake bold steps toward deploying tanks in forward areas in the years prior—finger area in Sikkim as well as Depsang plains. This signalled offensive potential. But such deployments—while confident in their signalling—were not backed by depth in munitions, supply chains and surveillance infrastructure. This helps us visualise what the Chinese saw and deliberated upon from their vantage point in late 2019 or early 2020. The completion of the DSDBO road in Ladakh by April 2020 (runs parallel to the LAC) and its feeder roads toward Galwan valley and other key areas provided the perfect inflection point to set the ball rolling. The PLA assessed that Indian future temptations were only set to increase and a costly intervention in the present moment will still be less costly than one later i.e. a preventive war logic.

Despite such trends playing out in the open, the Indian security system may have in part succumbed to conceptual failure. Officials and analysts prior to May 2020 continued to frame the challenge at the LAC as primarily limited to localised incidents originating from tactical coercion. There was an inability to conceptualise an operation aimed at seizing domination over key routes and axes as a reaction to India’s own (entirely justified) efforts to enhance its own strength all the way up to the LAC after decades of neglect.

The prevailing political climate then, marked by Post-Wuhan trust-building, may have incentivised assuredness over concern (much like pre-Kargil).

Hence, despite all indications of gradual PLA movement toward key vantage points since April 2020, it was only when the PLA occupied the ridge lines of Finger 4 (mid May) with a parallel move to block the southern tip that incursion was seen as something more alarming than usual. By then, India’s options had already started to shrink. The 2020 conflict and stand-off, thus, cannot be chalked up to ‘intelligence failure’ or the lack of surveillance capabilities.

This motivation was also presciently anticipated by the influential security expert Colonel Zhou Bo who had noted in early 2018 that the Doklam crisis marked a ‘turning point’ that had put India on China’s ‘strategic radar’ and that the China-India border “would not be the same again”, with a LAC-wide war made more likely.

But this raises yet another question. The above explanation focuses on geography (vantage points), key infrastructure and worsening perceptions of India since Doklam; this has been available in many versions since June 2020. This was seemingly evident to scholars such asYun Sun, Jabin Jacob and M Taylor Fravel. Notably, sources (see) from the Indian Army itself had alluded to the same as they repeatedly suggested that the crises had been triggered by China’s objection to the DSDBO and its feeder roads towards vantage points. Chinese diplomacy and behaviour ever since have only continuously confirmed its validity in numerous ways. This author himself sought to explain the road to Galwan in much greater detail here.
Are we, then, predisposed toward single-cause explanations rather than a layered, scenario-based, multi-causal understanding of conflict and deterrence failure?

What is true and what is accepted?
Some historical accounts may be more well-grounded than others. But that does not necessarily mean they are widely accepted or impactful. In mainstream discourse, multi-causal explanations such as those outlined above have hardly found much resonance. Dramatic occurrences demand dramatic causes/explanations that emphasise anger, hurt and revenge.

The predominant view even in May-June-July was that the action was a diversionary crisis engineered by the CCP in order to divert its people’s attention from the growing pandemic or that it was a response to India’s decision in August the previous year to withdraw Article 370. In the years that followed, one often heard the explanation that it was caused by China’s need to undercut India’s growing foray toward building its maritime/naval power—the real concern for China. Yet another popular explanation in 2020-22 was that the action was a reaction to the growing India-US strategic partnership.

Notably, none of the above single-point explanations have been fully developed and have remained mere hunches or guesswork. They do not explain the timing, the scale, the risks and costs undertaken and Chinese behaviour ever since.

There is a second class of explanations aimed at the other end of the spectrum. These theories emphasised structural factors such as Chinese proclivities toward salami-slicing and coercion, Chinese expansionism in Asia or growing Chinese assertiveness.

A third category sees the crisis as simply pre-destined, a skirmish that had escalated in absence of a border agreement and as something that was waiting to happen. This indeed is a difficult thesis to accept given that Galwan valley itself was not disputed until China made new claims in the summer of 2020.

How India thinks about its past wars
What this muddle points to is India’s struggle in deciphering adversary motivations — both in peacetime and during war.
A country’s ability to apprehend future wars is built through the sustained practice of historical studies—both official and academic. In this regard, India’s record of historiography on past wars is telling and requires brief attention.

The overwhelming majority of India’s wars have been initiated by Pakistan. There is, in general, little intellectual curiosity about Pakistan’s motivations in India. The revisionist state to India’s west is often seen as opportunistic, irrational, and unworthy of serious analytical dissection. Given its fixed hostile intent, conflict initiation can simply be explained away either as tactical ingenuity or delusional overconfidence.
This simply means that there is little fodder for reflection and debate that are conventionally necessary for cultivating strategic foresight about war and peace.

It is therefore not a great surprise that the only war to spawn a significant body of politico-military historiography and some debate over causes and blame has been the India-China War of 1962. But even here, the record has been less than satisfactory. Political sensitivities across successive governments produced both censorship and squeamishness, while also leading to simplistic notions of brute Chinese expansionism and cunningness—if only to contrast it with the perceived naivete and idealism of PM Nehru’s foreign and security policy. For too long, the politics around the 1962 War was enveloped in the trope of ‘betrayal’. It had emotional resonance domestically. It is therefore ironic that BN Mullick titled his account of the war My Years with Nehru: The Chinese Betrayal, despite the fact that Chinese diplomats and military commanders had repeatedly warned of conflict before October 1962.

It is only in more recent years, and with some distance, that there has been a new historiography of the conflict that rightly presents a more dynamic and complex account of the causes of war—without necessarily shying away from criticism of the government.

The accounts by Srinath Raghavan, Mahesh Shankar, and AV Bhasin have brought us much closer to an understanding of China’s motivation than earlier. The present scholarship is essentially more realist, strategically sound and avoids simplistic explanations of what was indeed a very dramatic war—but drawn out by gradual developments of events (Tibet uprising), intractable and complex negotiations, inadvertent choices, hardening dilemmas and misperceptions. But this has taken a long time and in the meantime, a very weak grasp of the causes of 1962 has impacted India’s China policy ever since.

Are there similar reasons at play that prevent us from recognising the pathway to 2020?
An explanation that includes India’s own strategic choices is still somewhat taboo, given the essentially moralist approach India takes to conflict (still).

Second, in the Indian general view, the key importance of vantage points in Eastern Ladakh is missed and hence any explanation that emphasises tactical-operational gains (for either side) is seen as an underwhelming explanation. This is unfortunate, given the seeming importance the PLA itself allots to control over such vantage points and patrolling points. Instead, explanations based on China’s long term international and geopolitical strategic objectives are preferred.

Third, Indian officials (serving and retired) and even scholars are ill-disposed toward seeing India’s security-maximising moves as ‘threatening’ or ‘concerning’ to the other side. This is because India has never initiated conflict in its history and has been a relatively satisfied status quo power. This leads to underestimation of the adversary’s level of dissatisfaction toward India’s military build-up.
In the present context, the prevailing general agnosticism toward China’s motivation in 2020 is no longer justified and has had costs both in terms of responses as well as negotiations.

Continued agnosticism leads to greater self-deterrence and a psychological disadvantage—given that India is then forced to second-guess the ways in which its own actions could ‘provoke’ China again. Given that Chinese strategic intent behind 2020 is not objectively a mystery, the record suggests that Indian inquiry must focus as much on its own historical cognitive blind spots when it comes to gauging adversary motivation and intent. Deterrence and anticipation failure, in India’s case, has often occurred as a consequence of India’s own strategic idiosyncrasies rather than due to intelligence failures or enemy inscrutability.