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Editor’s Note
The United States, in its recent National Security Strategy, argues that strategy is not merely about responding to threats, but about aligning national power with clearly articulated priorities in a contested, multipolar world. This piece applies that reasoning to India’s current strategic situation, making a compelling case for India’s own National Security Strategy (NSS) now. The author argues that 2026 marks a clear inflection point: at a time when major powers are explicitly defining their interests and red lines, this piece makes the case that India’s strategic silence is no longer a virtue but a vulnerability.
George Tanham’s 1992 RAND study concluded that India and its strategic community lacked coherent, systematic thinking about national strategy. Three decades later, this diagnosis persists. India still lacks a publicly articulated National Security Strategy (NSS) despite repeated recommendations from the Kargil Review Committee (2000) and Naresh Chandra Task Force (2012), despite being the world’s fourth-largest economy with global ambitions.
Yet what is new is not the intellectual case that was made three decades ago. What is new is the strategic environment itself. The convergence of three strategic factors transforms the NSS from an academic recommendation into an urgent strategic imperative. These factors are India’s dramatically enhanced comprehensive national power, its ascent to leadership roles in global decision-making, and a fractured multipolar world order that punishes strategic ambiguity.
Why 2026 Is Different
Enhanced Comprehensive National Power: India’s power has grown across multiple dimensions. Economically, India recorded 9.2 per cent real GDP growth in FY 2023-24, the highest in 12 years and is projected to grow by 7.4 per cent in FY 2025-26 according to the Economic Survey 2025-26 tabled in Parliament on 28 January 2026. The economy is expected to sustain growth momentum at 6.8-7.2 per cent in FY 2026-27. On a purchasing power parity basis, India ranks third globally and is projected to become a $10 trillion economy by 2035.
Technologically, India has demonstrated space leadership through the Chandrayaan-3 soft landing near the lunar south pole and an accelerated Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme, with multiple uncrewed missions planned before a crewed flight around 2027. Militarily, indigenous defence production soared to a record Rs 1.51 lakh crore in FY 2024-25, an 18 per cent year-on-year increase and a 225 per cent surge from Rs 46,429 crore in 2014-15. Defence exports reached Rs 23,622 crore, with India supplying equipment to over 80 countries. 65% of defence equipment is now manufactured domestically. A nation of this scale and proportion cannot operate without a coherent strategy that integrates its capabilities towards stated national objectives.
Enhancement in the India’s Global Stature: India has progressively transformed itself from a “rising power” to a “global power”. As of 01 January 2026, India assumes the BRICS Chairmanship, which has expanded to include a ten-member bloc representing approximately 37-40% of global GDP (PPP basis) and over half the world’s population. India’s 2023 G20 Presidency secured African Union permanent membership and centred on Global South concerns.
Yet this expanded agency operates without a clearly articulated strategic framework comparable to those of other major powers. The United States publishes NSS with each administration; China issues periodic defence white papers. India’s absence from this category is increasingly untenable. Partners demand predictability; adversaries exploit ambiguity.
A Fractured Multipolar Order: The post-Cold War order has fragmented into a system “simultaneously more divided, more interdependent, and more contested” than at any time in the modern era. US–China strategic competition spans trade, technology, and security domains, with bilateral flows in goods and services remaining in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually, creating what analysts’ term “bounded confrontation.”
Power is now diffused across multiple actors with no single framework coordinating outcomes, pressuring middle powers to choose sides. India has navigated this environment through multi-alignment and strategic autonomy, but the costs of clarity are rising while the benefits of ambiguity are declining. In a fragmented order with competing blocs and uncertain rules, countries must articulate interests clearly to attract partners and deter adversaries. As Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar characterised it, “the contemporary environment is a bazaar, with more players, less rules and greater volatility.” Strategic clarity becomes currency.
What an NSS Would Unleash
Whole-of-Nation Framework: An NSS would restructure how India mobilises for security, shifting from a state-centric to a whole-of-nation approach. Currently, government agencies identify threats while private industry, academia, and civil society are passive spectators. With a publicly available NSS defining core national interests of sovereignty and territorial integrity, economic security, technological leadership, regional influence, and strategic autonomy, diverse stakeholders can align efforts without active government oversight. Private industry, academia, state governments, and the diaspora of 30 million Indians globally can understand which strategic priorities merit investment and action.
Democratic Accountability: One defining feature of a democracy is accountability in governance. The NSS provides measurable standards against which the citizen and legislature can hold the government of the day accountable. The United States Goldwater-Nichols Act mandates NSS submission to Congress and explicitly requires parameters to measure progress toward strategic goals. Australia’s 2013 NSS mandates annual reports for accurate evaluation of objective achievement.
India currently lacks any mechanism for such accountability. Parliamentary oversight is confined largely to financial scrutiny; committees lack an explicit strategic benchmark for evaluation. With clearly articulated objectives such as “achieve cyber resilience capability by 2030” or “secure diversified supply chains for 70% of critical minerals by 2035”, Parliament and civil society gain benchmarks to monitor whether resources are allocated and capabilities developed. It creates electoral incentives for delivery and enables informed public debate. The argument that NSS creates a “commitment trap” misunderstands democratic governance; accountability is a feature, not a bug. Democracies are strengthened when governments must justify why national security objectives are being met or not.
International Experience
The US has published NSS with each administration since 1986, using the document to signal policy direction. The 2002 NSS set targets for doubling the poorest economies; the 2015 NSS recognised climate change as a threat to security; the 2022 NSS identified China and Russia as the greatest strategic challenges; while the latest edition brings the thrust back onto the western hemisphere.
Australia’s 2013 NSS provided an overarching framework with five-year priorities and annual implementation reports. Japan’s 2022 National Security Strategy explicitly identified China as its ‘greatest strategic challenge’ and committed to raising defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP by 2027, a major political undertaking in a nation with constitutional constraints and public sensitivities.
The implementation of NSS may prove challenging, as in Japan, where public and legal opposition to increased defence spending is widespread. The US has had persistent struggles with following up on the NSS with unmatched resources and massive cost overruns.
Lessons for India
A mere NSS document may not achieve the stated aims as per Viksit Bharat 2047. It would require sustained resources, political commitment and Parliamentary oversight. India has already demonstrated its capability to drive mission-mode efforts through its digital and space programs.
Why Now: Overcoming Historical Obstacles
Genuine obstacles persist, including political hesitation, a civil-military disconnect, and concerns about sensitivity. But these are no longer insurmountable. A dual-layer approach to a classified strategy with a public summary addresses sensitivity. A dual-layer NSS architecture, with a classified core document and a concise public summary, would balance legitimate concerns about sensitivity with the need for transparency and accountability. An NSS that explicitly incorporates periodic review cycles (every 4 to 5 years) and “adaptive implementation” language preserves flexibility. The argument that “we have an internal strategy without needing a document” becomes harder to sustain when the costs of opacity are measured against the benefits of ecosystem alignment and accountability.
Conclusion
The intellectual case for an NSS has not changed in three decades. What has changed is the cost-benefit analysis. India in 1995 could afford strategic ambiguity; India in 2026 cannot. The convergence of unprecedented comprehensive national power, leadership roles in reshaping global governance, and a chaotic multipolar order where clarity is strategic currency creates a moment that will not return. An NSS is not a war plan or rigid constraint on flexibility. It is a strategic architecture that enables decentralised actors to align efforts, creates urgency for mission-mode reforms, distributes accountability across government and society, and signals to partners and adversaries that India is a coherent, purposeful actor in global affairs. For a nation at India’s level of power and aspiration, this is not discretionary. The time to move from debate to decision is now.
Wg Cdr Akash Godbole (Author is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Aerospace Power and Strategic Studies, New Delhi)
Wing Commander Akash Godbole is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Aerospace Power and Strategic Studies, New Delhi. He is an alumnus of National Defence Academy and Military Institute of Technology, Pune. He is a Fighter pilot, Qualified Flying Instructor and Instrument Rating Instructor and examiner. He has held key field appointments including Fight Commander of a fighter squadron and Chief Operations Officer of a fighter base. He is presently pursuing research in the field of Air Power in Indo-Pacific as Senior fellow at CAPSS. His research areas include Indian military history, emerging technologies and application of air power.
