Over the years, many people have been asking me to spell out clearly the general principles and philosophy animating my writings (and this blog). So, though long overdue, below is what has been just posted in the ‘About’ page of ‘Security Wise’.
———-

STATEMENT OF INTENT

‘Security Wise’ was the title of a fortnightly newspaper column I wrote for many years (in the ‘Asian Age’ and ‘Deccan Chronicle’). It is a blog dedicated unapologetically to espousing realpolitik values and realist foreign and military policies as vehicle for furthering India’s national interest (stripped of abstract universal concerns, such as world peace, disarmament and nonproliferation, Third World good, etc., and of emphasis mainly on soft power, that have for too long been the bread and butter of Indian foreign policy, both in the declaratory sense and in substantive terms). In a system of sovereign nation-states and a harsh “dog eat dog” international milieu, National Interest should be the only motivation and driver of all state policies in the external realm. Conjoined to the relentless and focused acquisition of strategic hard power capabilities, it will, as this analyst has argued since 1979, achieve for India Great Power it has always potentially been but which governments since 1947 have failed to realize. This is because of the absence of clearly articulated national vision, strategy, disruptive game-plan and policies, and of strong political will to implement them. It has resulted in a often skewed world-view, miscued geopolitics, a myopic approach fixating on “unfriendly neighbours”, an over-accommodating stance vis a vis powerful states, an inclination to uphold the status quo rather than challenge and upend the prevailing Asian and global order that discriminates against and victimizes India, a manifestly wonky threat perception and, hence, a military, dependent on imported armaments, with limited reach and clout backed by a truncated nuclear deterrent (that can boast of credible and reliable thermonuclear weapons only if India resumes open-ended underground nuclear testing). This constitutes the meat of the argument I have made for three and half decades now (in 2016), within government and military circles and outside of them, and reflects my bedrock beliefs, which are reflected in all my writings and in my posts in this blog. The arch-realist policy compass ‘Security Wise’ represents will not change, whichever the government of whatever ideological stripe is ruling in New Delhi at any given time.