Rarely do a multitude of challenges converge in a short period for the Indian foreign policy establishment as they have in 2026. The current year alone will be as difficult and challenging in its scope as the entire decade of the 1990s was for the foreign policy establishment. To tackle this, New Delhi needs to reimagine not just foreign policy but also the structure within which it is conceived and effectuated.
The large contiguous zone running from the shores of the Mediterranean to closer home is undergoing intense projectile wars.
On one side, the Israel-US joint attack on Iran and the subsequent Iranian retaliation have engulfed a substantial chunk of West Asia. The Israeli-US attack has targeted the core of the Iranian leadership and military installations. The Iranian counterattack has targeted states that house US military bases in the Gulf.
On the other side, further close to India, old simmering Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions have sprouted out into open and frequent cross-border violent exchanges.
The recent torpedo strike by a US submarine off the coast of Sri Lanka that sank an Iranian frigate is raising the spectre of the projectile war coming to our shores. The possibility of an Iranian missile or drone targeting a US-linked vessel in our exclusive economic zone or in the larger area in which the Indian Navy dominates cannot be ruled out at this stage.
The risky escalations in a matter of weeks in early 2026 have added to the challenges New Delhi faces in navigating unfavourable global geopolitics. A deeply polarised US polity has strained the Washington-New Delhi relationship which was carefully built and nurtured with bipartisan push in both countries for over two decades. From tariffs and Russian oil to immigration, the turbulent domestic politics within the US continues to exert pressure on New Delhi, bringing into sharp relief the question of Washington's reliability as a strategic partner.
India’s other (but historically older) partner, Russia, is stuck in the endless war in Ukraine, complicating New Delhi’s otherwise blooming relationship with Europe. Despite the optics of normalisation of New Delhi-Beijing ties over the past few months, it is an unavoidable reality that China supported Pakistan during Operation Sindoor and that structural problems exist in the New Delhi-Beijing relationship.
As if these issues were not enough, New Delhi faces the intricate challenge of ensuring access to technology, materials and capital in a world increasingly shaped by contestations for tech supremacy in AI, space and semiconductors. India has a lingering institutional memory of the long historical periods during which the country was subjected to multilateral export control regimes. Hence, last year, when the US attempted to control AI diffusion (rules now rescinded) and China instituted expansive rare-earth export controls, India was reminded yet again how major power contestations restrict the flow of tech and materials central to New Delhi’s growth aspirations.
It is true that for much of independent India’s history the foreign policy establishment has had to navigate an unfavourable external environment. From the early days of the republic, when New Delhi had to survive and develop as a newly decolonised state in a violent neighbourhood, to the heady days of the global financial crisis in the late 2000s, India has been through multiple trials and tribulations. But rarely has the foreign policy establishment confronted a range of challenges that span geographies, technologies and key partnerships. The last time the Indian foreign policy establishment was tested as thoroughly, if not more, was in a period that lasted for nearly a decade. The 1990s saw the convergence of the balance of payments problem, realignment of partnerships, nuclear testing and heightened tensions in the neighbourhood.
New Delhi needs to reimagine not just foreign policy but also the structure within which it is conceived and effectuated.
As for the unfavourable geopolitical scenario, India will have to architect sectoral plurilateral blocs to overcome geopolitical coercion. As researchers from the Takshashila Institution have argued in a recent foundational paper, while there is merit in engaging with existing multilateral groupings, New Delhi will have to seek out like-minded states sharing grievances with both the US and China. Together with these partners, New Delhi should create focused groupings in sectors like space, AI and digital public infrastructure to develop capabilities that will act as geopolitical backstops.
On tech contestations, as I have argued in an essay for India's World magazine, neither tech rivalry nor rapprochement between the US and China suits India.
A tech pathway that works for India regardless of what the major powers are up to will require the promotion of open technologies, doubling down on international cooperation to develop foundational capabilities and finally championing the diffusion of general-purpose technologies.
But the trickiest challenge will be handling the larger neighbourhood due to conflicting pushes and pulls from the different partners involved in the projectile wars. Domestic socio-political considerations will only add complications to New Delhi’s external machinations. At this stage, New Delhi should therefore maintain a vigilant and deterrent posture to prevent projectiles from reaching Indian shores. New Delhi may also at some point have to consider the costs and benefits of playing the role of a peace broker to bring the larger neighbourhood back from the brink of catastrophe.
But none of the above steps can be implemented effectively if the structure of the foreign policy establishment is not revamped. India cannot continue to have the same number of diplomats that significantly smaller states like New Zealand have. To tackle challenges that span geographies, technologies and partnerships, India will also have to infuse expertise from a range of stakeholder groups through an intensified lateral entry programme.
India must utilise the rare convergence of the three factors outlined above to revamp the structure and direction of foreign policy in what is shaping up to be arguably the most difficult year for the foreign policy establishment in decades.
(Lokendra Sharma is a staff research analyst with the Takshashila Institution’s High-Tech Geopolitics Programme.)
Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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