Who's India’s foremost national security threat?

On the basis of experience this neighbouring country was and would be the number one national security challenge.

The annual US intelligence report 2025, published recently, has clearly identified a pecking order of countries as well as themes that constitute America’s major national security challenges.

One may debate if the ordering of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea (CRINK) is appropriate since Russia still has huge stockpiles of nuclear arsenals and poses direct challenge to the US security. Nevertheless, while the formal pecking order in the US national security calculus is well-known and accepted in public, putting the same poser to Indian strategic scholars would certainly create difficulties and debates about India’s numero uno national security challenge!

The Pakistan threat 

For long, Indian strategic scholars considered Pakistan as the most important national security challenge. Part of the reason was that India had three direct wars apart from major and minor clashes with Pakistan. Also, until its disfigurement in 1971 through carving of Bangladesh, Pakistan enjoyed less asymmetry vis-a-vis India on all resource fronts.

Pakistan subsequently came out with a cost-effective proxy war strategy. India has consequently spent considerable amount of financial and military resources, including a constant mobilisation of almost five lakh soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir in nullifying Pakistan’s proxy war strategy. On the basis of experience, therefore, Pakistan was and would be the number one national security challenge.

China, the biggest national security threat?

Yet, not many would adhere to this hypothesis. Universities in India and the under-developed national security discourse heavily discount Pakistan in China’s favour as the top national security threat! The 1962 defeat, unresolved border dispute, China’s huge defence expenditure and the consequential military modernisation, its penchant for an aggressive strategic culture, and most importantly, its policy of constraining India through ‘string of pearls’ policy, are often cited as representative examples of China metamorphosing as the numero uno threat for India. Much of the assessments about China’s threat to India is based on these existing and futuristic challenges, apart from the difficult proposition of two rising powers living in peaceful co-existence.

Trade specialists would again cite China, albeit in a different avatar, as the numero uno challenge. China has been causing economic damage to India through huge trade deficit for almost two decades. Commendable public policy responses in India notwithstanding, the structural pattern of the bilateral trade relationship is consistent over the decades and almost institutionalised. China is happy with the status of trade relations that has been hitherto quite damaging to India’s domestic manufacturing industry. Therefore, even though a physical war is not happening between the two countries, China is profiteering from trade surpluses.

Arguments linking low economic status with security threats

Development economists would push these threats to sidelines and plead India’s low per capita GDP income, lower rate of skill-development, and consequential unemployment and poverty as primary representative challenges to national security. The ubiquitous justification is that conflicts and consequential hot and cold relations with neighbours are a ‘given’ in international relations. Domestic nation-building exercise is claimed as paramount concern. These development economists would, therefore, argue for greater resource allocation for developmental sectors vis-à-vis military and non-military threats.

Internal security threats were also competing for numero uno consideration in past but tremendous law and order improvements in last decade have caused internal security challenges to slide down in the national security calculus.

India’s tentative when it comes to identifying national security threats

Unlike the US, designing a national security threats pecking order is not an easy job in India. In the absence of an official policy statement, the entire debate is under-developed, under-pitched and national security experts and academicians have their own perceptions and misperceptions about the number one threat. Consequently, we do not have an outright answer to our national security problems as well as priorities.

Some examples would suffice.

First, while the US intelligence report has no qualms in identifying China as the number one security threat, we have some hesitation in identifying China as the primary threat. We do not realise that if China emerges as a military superpower and consequently challenges US military might at global level, its military postures and aggression would also adversely affect Taiwan, India and perhaps South China Sea areas at a regional level. Frequent skirmishes and localised conflicts (as we have seen in last couple of years) will increasingly be the order of the day. The Chinese themselves do not rule out an outright war to liberate Taiwan in future. The same may also come to India’s doors! Unfortunately, we do not have definite, predictive net assessments about a possible China – India war.

Second, we often have an ethical dilemma about developments in neighbourhood. For instance, the standard refrain in Indian security discourse is that a stable Pakistan serves India’s interests. However, the alternate proposition of Pakistan suffering from Baluchistan conundrum is not sufficiently explored from India’s perspective. Ideationally, Baluchistan’s independence would further reduce Pakistan’s capability to wage direct war against India. Its national image would take a beating both within and outside the country and reduce its proxy war waging capabilities. Both the propositions need objective academic discourse for identifying an advantageous strategy for India.

Third, we certainly do not have an answer to the elephant sitting in the room, i.e., a hypothetical Sino – Pak nexus and the consequential two-front war. Even in the 1971 War, China would have intervened but for the snowy Himalayas and the calibrated timing by India’s political-military leadership. Contemporary academic discourses do acknowledge a Sino – Pak nexus, but we do not have enough ideas for shaping a calibrated and cost-effective policy response.

Discussing security threats from neighbours even while maintaining good relations with them is not a bad deal. Only that we are overtly hesitant and sheepish about it. Forget the shenanigans from China and Pakistan, even smaller neighbours like Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal, Maldives and Bangladesh have adversely affected India’s security in past by occasionally colluding with extra-regional powers. The US intelligence report is a polite reminder that Indians should speak about national security threats in an open and objective manner.