Opinion: Why strategic autonomy still matters

THE chief guests at the Republic Day parade reveal the foreign policy zeitgeist of the nation in a particular period. The presence of two heads, European Council President Antonio Costa and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, tells us about how India is hedging its US relationship by reaching out to a near peer, at least in terms of financial resources and technology. Signing a trade deal with the EU as well as a defence and security pact underscores India’s determination.Recent developments in global politics suggest that the world may be entering a period of sharper uncertainty rather than a smooth transition. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney captured this mood by warning that the international system was experiencing a "rupture, not a transition."His remarks were echoed by several European leaders who emphasised the need for middle powers to act collectively, lest they be reduced to mere objects of great-power bargaining.European leaders, including France's President Emmanuel Macron, have increasingly spoken the language of "strategic autonomy." The idea had limited traction so long as the transatlantic relationship appeared stable.Today, however, doubts about American reliability have pushed even longstanding US allies to consider hedging strategies. Whether this moment proves to be a fundamental rupture or a passing storm remains uncertain. Deep historical, cultural and economic ties still bind the US to its allies, and NATO is, in fact, expanding its military capabilities. Yet uncertainty itself is a strategic condition — and it is one India can ill afford to ignore.For India, the lesson is not that alliances are suddenly obsolete, but that excessive reliance on any single partner carries growing risks. Recent frictions between the US and India underline a basic reality: in a more transactional world, leverage matters.India possesses significant latent leverage — its market size, its strategic geography and its role in balancing China — but this has not always been translated into bargaining power. In some cases, it has even diminished, as New Delhi has "voluntarily" curtailed oil imports from Russia and reconsidered its investment in the Chabahar port project under US pressure.There is no question that India needs the US. Access to advanced technology, foreign direct investment and geopolitical support have been central to India's rise over the past two decades. Washington's approach towards India since the mid-2000s was marked by a degree of strategic generosity, allowing New Delhi considerable autonomy even as ties deepened.This underpinned India's alignment with the US on issues such as Iran. Yet the political context in Washington has changed. The current American approach is overtly transactional, and India is no longer automatically viewed as a strategic bet worth sustained concessions.The latest US National Defense Strategy signals a sharper focus on defending the Western Hemisphere and suggests that support to allies elsewhere may be more limited and conditional. Relations with China are framed less in terms of confrontation and more by managed competition and stability.Taken together, this implies that American willingness to actively underwrite India's position vis-à-vis China may be more constrained than New Delhi has assumed since the Indo-US rapprochement that began in 2008.The danger for India lies in mistaking comfort for trust. Over the past 15 years, India and the US developed a dense web of political, technological and defence ties at a measured and relatively frictionless pace. This created a comfort zone in which hard questions about autonomy, leverage and long-term divergence were postponed.Trust, in international politics, is not an abstract sentiment but a function of converging interests — and those interests are now less aligned than before.Despite these external uncertainties, India is an island of stability in an unsettled world. Over the past year, the ruling BJP has consolidated political authority and advanced reforms in labour codes, securities markets, foreign investment rules and the GST.These measures are necessary to drive economic momentum, yet the economy continues to display signs of stress. Employment growth remains weak, capital inflows are insufficient and the out-migration of skilled talent continues. Meanwhile, India's external environment has become more complex, a military clash with Pakistan as well as political turbulence in Nepal and Bangladesh have added to regional uncertainty.In reassessing its global outlook, India would do well to revisit the lessons of non-alignment and strategic autonomy. While the terminology has evolved, the core objective remains the same: preserving sovereignty by building independent capacities. Autonomy has never meant isolation. Rather, it has meant the ability to engage widely without being constrained by the preferences of any single power.India's space programme offers a compelling illustration. Beginning in the 1960s with modest rocket experiments, India gradually acquired foreign technologies and licences — particularly from France and the US — and adapted them into indigenous systems. External assistance played a role, but it was India's hard-nosed focus on domestic capability that ultimately produced strategic independence in space and missile technologies.The capacities India must now develop are different in form but similar in spirit. Strategic autonomy today requires domestic capabilities in semiconductors and electronics critical for defence, artificial intelligence and robotics for surveillance, secure cyber infrastructure to protect critical assets and resilient space-based navigation systems such as NavIC.On the economic front, it requires supply-chain resilience, digital sovereignty in payments and data governance and a determined effort to promote capital investment which will, in turn, encourage robust domestic research and innovation ecosystems.Strategic autonomy, then, is not a slogan nor a rejection of partnerships. It is a recognition that power in the contemporary world flows from capabilities — technological, economic and institutional. India's task is not to distance itself from the US or any other partner, but to engage them from a position of greater strength. In an era of uncertainty and transaction, autonomy is not a luxury. It is a strategic necessity.

Opinion: Why strategic autonomy still matters

India has realised that excessive reliance on any single partner carries growing risks

Manoj Joshi

Opinion: Why strategic autonomy still matters

India has realised that excessive reliance on any single partner carries growing risks

Manoj Joshi

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