In a turbulent world, India needs to plan for the worst

The US-ISRAELI attack on Iran caught New Delhi off guard. But to give the government its due, it reacted quickly, drawing up plans to deal with the coming shocks. The question now is: Could we have done better? The short answer is, yes, if we had been prepared for this contingency. It doesn’t take a genius to predict the consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on a hugely energy-dependent country like India. The purpose of this article is not to say, “I told you so,” but to describe how other countries have developed mechanisms to deal with possible catastrophes. During the Cold War, the US’s “grand strategy ” was crafted to prevent the spread of communism. The arrival of Andrew Marshall at the US Department of Defence focused the government’s approach. The core of Marshall’s theory was that emerging scenarios must first be defined before crafting any strategy. Marshall’s staff, for instance, ignored Moscow’s bogus economic data and predicted that by 1990, the USSR’s GDP would be roughly 30 per cent of that of the US. Marshall was also perhaps the first to identify China’s economic resurgence and the threats it might pose. But no amount of institutional strength is a substitute for political wisdom. Washington concluded that the US-China relationship could be mutually beneficial. The US consumer market was opened to China, resulting in the blistering growth of its manufacturing. The hollowing out of US manufacturing and its impact on jobs were among the factors that led to the rise of Donald Trump and the era of tariff wars. Marshall also saw India’s imminent rise as a great power. From about 2010 onwards, he began sending delegations to Delhi. His intent was twofold: To alert New Delhi to the dangers of China’s rise, and to encourage Indian institutions to adopt long-term strategic prediction practices. The interactions continued for about five years. The Indian military saw the benefit of these techniques and established the Directorate of Net Assessment under the Integrated Defence Staff. But the civil and foreign service bureaucracies largely ignored such techniques. After the Cold War, much of the geopolitical scenario-writing in Washington was taken over by the National Intelligence Council (NIC). The NIC is deeply influenced by net assessment techniques. Other countries have followed suit. Germany produces one scenario study, the UK, two. Perhaps the most admired work is that of Singapore. China uses scenario writing for its five-year plans; the PLA writes its own classified scenario. In this sphere, the polite description of India is “an outlier”. India has two options for scenario writing: NITI Aayog for geopolitics, geoeconomics, etc., and the National Security Council for military scenarios. For the sake of scenario building, consider two futures. In one, Beijing implements its “grand strategy” of world dominance by controlling institutions of global governance, attacking the dollar’s hegemony, building aircraft carriers. It also abandons its territorial theatre commands and establishes Eurasian tri-service command centres, ignoring the Western Hemisphere. In the second scenario, foreign capital outflows from India continue, and the rupee falls further. This raises the import bill, spurs inflation, and lowers GDP growth. How will India react to either? Menon is a retired rear admiral and author of The Long View from Delhi