For years now, India’s military planners have prepared for what former chief of defense staff Bipin Rawat called “a two-and-a-half front war”. Rawat’s phrasing refers to simultaneous conflicts with Pakistan and China on the country’s northern and western borders, alongside internal security challenges.
But, in a world upended by America’s volatility under the Donald Trump regime, India is confronted with perhaps its gravest set of strategic vulnerabilities: China is untrustworthy, the US is undependable, and the immediate neighborhood is adversarial.
And while India has long counted on its distinctive soft power — a large democracy with peaceful transition of power election after election, pluralism, Bollywood, and civilizational history — in this new Darwinian age of ruthless force, “rules-based-order” seems like a tagline from a Hallmark card. There is no moral arbiter giving India points for good behaviour.
Soft power will always have its place, but in this age of geopolitical churn, the only instrument of protection is building greater hard power.
American political scientist Joseph Nye defined hard power as the ability to “use carrots and sticks of economic and military might to make others follow your will”. India’s soft power makes us the more attractive entity in Asia; China’s hard power gives it greater leverage.
Not for a moment am I suggesting on giving up or diluting what makes us distinct. In fact, every time there is a chink in our armor when it comes to all that we are proud of — our freedoms, our diversity — it hurts our strategic advantage. But the need to build more aggressive military capacity and grow the economy has never been more important.
In 2025, India’s defense budget surged to an all-time high of $86.1 billion, eight times that of India’s main adversary, Pakistan. India is also the fifth-largest military spender in the world. But India’s defense budget is roughly just 1.9% of its gross domestic product (GDP). In 2024, China spent $314 billion on military expenditure, compared to India’s $86 billion, according to data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Without unshackling economic potential, India’s military spending may remain constrained. But given the collusive threat from two nuclear-armed neighbours, coupled with, at the very best, a disengaged Trump administration, India must spend more on security. Consider for a moment how many balls are up in the air. India’s longest international land border — 4,096.7 kilometers is with Bangladesh — and is the fifth-longest in the world. It runs through five states — West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Mizoram, and Meghalaya.
Not only are religious minorities being targeted in an increasingly radicalized and lawless Bangladesh, the caretaker regime in Dhaka is also actively hostile to India. Bangladesh’s interim head, Muhammad Yunus, has aggressively focused on India’s Northeast. On a trip to pitch investment to China, he called the north-eastern states “landlocked”, presenting Dhaka as the “guardian of the ocean for all of this region”.
While American agencies are widely seen to have played a covert role in the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government, India should also be concerned about China’s growing footprint in Bangladesh. Bangladesh signed a $370-million agreement with China for the expansion of the Mongla port. And, there have been reports of Chinese involvement in the development of the Lalmonirhat airbase.
A parliamentary panel on foreign affairs led by Shashi Tharoor has also flagged the growing links between China and the Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh. Just this week, ahead of elections in Bangladesh, the Chinese ambassador in Dhaka met with the Jamaat chief, Shafiqur Rahman.
China has long played the game of the neo-imperialist, using infrastructure and investment to peddle influence in India’s neighbourhood. Apart from Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Chinese have grown roots in Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. If reports this week are true, the government is considering lifting curbs on Chinese firms that are keen on bidding for government contracts. This was a 2020 curb in the aftermath of the Galwan clash in the high Himalayas between India and China.
While border tensions have reduced and there is an obvious need to build some bridges with Beijing given the impasse between India and the US, this would be a mistake. Cheaply manufactured Chinese goods have already hurt small and medium Indian businesses. But beyond economics, this is, or should be, about strategic resistance.
That said, there aren’t a whole lot of good options in the face of an unhinged world order. In comparison to the obsequious and cringe-inducing behavior of the Europeans before Trump, India’s conduct is certainly more dignified. But now, New Delhi’s mantra of strategic autonomy faces a real test.
And to ride this storm — even if one assumes a reset will follow in the post-Trump years — India needs not just resilience, but instruments of hard power. That is where India’s attention should be.
Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and author. The views expressed are personal
