India In A Contested World Geostrategic Turmoil: Competitive Coexistence- By Col PK ‘Royal’ Mehrishi

Date:-31 August 2026

Introduction

The international system is passing through one of its most turbulent transitions since the end of the Second World War. The relatively predictable bipolarity of the Cold War disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The brief period of American unipolarity that followed is itself receding. What is emerging in its place is neither a stable multipolar order nor an agreed system of global governance.

It is a world of contested power, contested borders, contested technologies, contested trade routes, contested narratives and increasingly contested rules.

India stands almost at the geographical and geopolitical centre of this churn.

For New Delhi, therefore, the fundamental question is no longer simply:

Who are our friends and who are our adversaries?

The more consequential question is:

How does India simultaneously compete, deter, cooperate and coexist with powers whose interests sometimes converge with ours and sometimes collide?

The answer may lie in a doctrine of competitive coexistence.

1. Geography Offers India No Escape

Nations may choose alliances. They cannot choose geography.

India shares its continental environment with two nuclear-armed states with which it has fought wars—China and Pakistan.

To its north lies an increasingly powerful China. To its west lies Pakistan, whose strategic establishment has historically regarded India as its principal security challenge.

Beyond them lies an unstable Eurasian environment extending through Afghanistan, Central Asia, Russia and Europe.

To India's south stretches the Indian Ocean, ferrying energy supplies, international commerce, submarine cables and some of the world's most important sea lanes. To the west of this maritime space lies the Persian Gulf and West Asia, whose conflicts immediately affect India's energy security and millions of Indians living abroad.

To the east lies the wider Indo-Pacific, where Chinese and American strategic competition is becoming one of the defining features of the century.

India therefore possesses neither the geographical luxury of isolation nor the strategic luxury of ideological foreign policy.

Its statecraft must begin with a simple recognition:

India cannot withdraw from geopolitical competition. It must learn to manage it.

2. China: The Central Strategic Contest

No relationship illustrates the paradox of contestation and coexistence better than India-China relations.

The two countries are ancient civilizations, major economies, nuclear powers and neighbours. They participate together in institutions including BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Yet they also have an unresolved boundary dispute and fundamentally different perceptions of the Asian strategic order.

The Himalayan frontier remains the most immediate manifestation of this competition.

The trauma of Galwan in 2020 altered Indian assumptions about the durability of border-management arrangements. Even after subsequent disengagement processes and renewed diplomatic dialogue, New Delhi has repeatedly maintained that peace and tranquillity on the border are essential for normal bilateral relations.

As recently as August 2026, India and China again held senior-level boundary discussions in Beijing and agreed to continue seeking a “fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable” settlement. The very continuation of negotiations is important—but so is the persistence of the dispute itself.

India must therefore resist two equally dangerous temptations.

The first is the belief that economic engagement alone can neutralise geopolitical rivalry.

The second is that permanent hostility with China is either desirable or sustainable.

China is too large, too close and too economically significant to be wished away. At the same time, China's growing military capabilities, infrastructure along the frontier, maritime presence, relationship with Pakistan and wider Asian ambitions cannot be ignored.

India therefore requires a dual strategy:

Engagement without strategic innocence; deterrence without unnecessary provocation.

This is competitive coexistence in its most demanding form.

3. Pakistan: Deterrence Without Strategic Fixation

Pakistan presents a different challenge.

While China represents a comprehensive long-term strategic competitor, Pakistan has traditionally presented India with a combination of conventional military capability, nuclear deterrence, terrorism and sub-conventional conflict.

India cannot afford complacency towards Pakistan.

But neither should Pakistan be permitted to consume disproportionate Indian strategic attention. The difference in economic size, technological potential and long-term national trajectories increasingly means that India's grand strategy must look beyond the subcontinental rivalry.

The objective should not be endless escalation.

It should be the creation of such a favourable balance of power that attempts to impose unacceptable costs on India become increasingly unattractive.

A mature Indian Pakistan policy therefore requires credible conventional deterrence, effective counter-terror capability, intelligence superiority, diplomatic firmness and channels for crisis communication.

Deterrence is successful not when war is fought brilliantly, but when an adversary concludes that initiating conflict will achieve nothing worth its cost.

India's strategic objective should consequently be deterrence with escalation control, rather than permanent mobilisation of national energies around Pakistan.

4. The China-Pakistan Strategic Nexus

The problem becomes considerably more complicated when China and Pakistan are viewed together.

The China-Pakistan relationship includes defence cooperation, infrastructure, technology, economic connectivity and strategic coordination.

For Indian military planning, therefore, the possibility of collusive pressure cannot be dismissed.

Yet a distinction must be maintained between preparing for a two-front contingency and assuming that every future conflict will automatically become a simultaneous two-front war.

Strategy must prepare for dangerous possibilities without becoming imprisoned by worst-case assumptions.

India requires adequate capability to deter opportunistic intervention by either adversary during a crisis involving the other.

That requires force mobility, surveillance, air power, missiles, logistics, ammunition reserves, integrated commands, cyber capabilities and increasingly autonomous systems.

But India's ultimate answer to a two-front problem cannot be purely military.

It must also be geopolitical.

The stronger India's relationships with the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia, Southeast Asia, West Asia, Russia and the wider Global South, the more complicated the strategic calculus becomes for any coalition attempting to isolate India.

Diplomatic depth is itself a component of deterrence.

5. The United States: Partnership Without Dependence

India's relationship with the United States has undergone one of the most significant transformations in contemporary international politics.

Defence cooperation, technology, intelligence exchanges, military exercises, trade and Indo-Pacific convergence have steadily expanded.

On 28 August 2026, for example, India finalised an agreement to procure Javelin anti-tank missile systems from the United States—another indication of continuing defence engagement.

Yet close partnership must not become strategic dependency.

Washington and New Delhi share important interests, particularly concerning a stable Indo-Pacific, maritime security, emerging technologies and the prevention of unilateral dominance of Asia.

They will not, however, always possess identical interests.

American foreign policy is ultimately constructed around American national interests, just as Indian policy must remain centred upon Indian interests.

Changes of administration, trade disagreements and Washington's global commitments repeatedly demonstrate why India should avoid converting convergence into dependence.

The Quad is useful precisely because it need not become an Asian NATO. India, Japan, Australia and the United States can cooperate in maritime security, technology, resilient supply chains, humanitarian assistance and maintain a favourable balance of power without requiring identical foreign policies.

India should therefore seek:

The strongest possible partnership with America compatible with the greatest possible Indian freedom of strategic decision.

That is not ambiguity.

It is sovereignty.

6. Russia: Neither Sentimentality nor Abandonment

Russia occupies another unusual position in Indian strategic thought.

For decades Moscow was among India's most dependable defence partners. Russian-origin equipment remains deeply embedded across India's armed forces.

Russia also continues to matter in nuclear energy, hydrocarbons, space, defence technologies and Eurasian geopolitics.

The Ukraine conflict and Russia's increasing relationship with China have complicated this equation considerably.

Yet abruptly abandoning Moscow would neither serve Indian interests nor automatically weaken the Russia-China relationship.

India instead requires a pragmatic approach.

Where Russian energy, military technology or diplomatic cooperation serves Indian national interest, engagement should continue.

Where excessive dependency creates vulnerability, diversification should accelerate.

Energy illustrates the logic well. In July 2026, Russian crude reportedly accounted for more than half of India's oil imports amid disruptions elsewhere in global energy markets.

This demonstrates something fundamental about Indian strategy:

Strategic autonomy is sustainable only when economic choices remain available.

India should neither romanticise old partnerships nor discard useful relationships merely to satisfy external expectations.

Foreign policy is not an exercise in gratitude.

It is the continuous management of national interest.

7. West Asia: Where Distant Wars Become Indian Problems

West Asia is sometimes treated as geographically external to India's principal security theatre.

That is increasingly untenable.India's dependence on imported energy, its commercial links, maritime routes and enormous diaspora make instability in the region an immediate national-security concern.

A missile strike hundreds of kilometres away can raise Indian energy prices.

A conflict around the Strait of Hormuz can affect Indian industry.Attacks on merchant shipping can raise insurance and freight costs.

Escalation between Iran, Israel and Arab states can complicate India's relations with countries that are individually important to New Delhi.

India therefore has little interest in sectarian or ideological alignments.

It has relationships with Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other regional states for different and legitimate reasons.

This is precisely where multi-alignment demonstrates its value.

India should remain capable of maintaining relations with countries that themselves may be adversaries.

Diplomacy becomes most valuable not between friends, but between states whose interests diverge.

8. The Indian Ocean Region (IOR): India's Natural Strategic Space

For centuries India's security thinking was overwhelmingly continental.

That is changing.The Indian Ocean is becoming central to Indian grand strategy.

China's growing naval reach, the vulnerability of sea lanes, submarine activity, energy routes, island states, choke-points and maritime infrastructure are transforming the ocean into a major arena of strategic competition.

India's Maritime Doctrine 2025 formally recognised the increasingly blurred boundary between war and peace, while India's 2026 Maritime Security Strategy places increased emphasis on persistent competition, deterrence, forward presence and the realities of “No War, No Peace” conditions.

This conceptual development is highly significant.Future competition may not begin with declarations of war.

It may involve surveillance, coercive maritime presence, cyber operations, economic pressure, information warfare, underwater activity, disruption of supply chains, proxy actors or strategic pressure below the threshold that traditionally justified military retaliation.

India must therefore become capable of prevailing not merely in war, but in the ambiguous space before war.

The Indian Navy will consequently become an increasingly important instrument of India's foreign and security policy.

The ocean offers India what the continental frontier often denies it—strategic manoeuvre space.

India should seek maritime superiority in its immediate oceanic environment while simultaneously positioning itself as a trusted security partner rather than an overbearing regional hegemon.

9. India's Neighbourhood: Power Must Be Accompanied by Sensitivity

India is by far the largest country in South Asia.That creates influence.It also creates apprehension.

Smaller neighbours frequently seek relationships with external powers partly to increase their bargaining space vis-à-vis India.

China has understood this well. Infrastructure, investments and political engagement have expanded Beijing's presence across India's extended neighbourhood.India cannot respond by expecting loyalty merely because of geography.The answer must be superior statecraft.

India must become the neighbour whose economic growth benefits surrounding countries, whose infrastructure connects rather than entraps, whose military responds first in disasters and whose political engagement respects sovereign dignity.

The objective should not be the dominance of South Asia.

It should be to make partnership with India the most rational strategic choice available to India's neighbours.

Recent efforts to repair difficult relationships—for example, Bangladesh's renewed call in August 2026 for conditions conducive to improving ties with India—show both the fragility and continuing importance of neighbourhood diplomacy.

Great powers frequently lose influence not because rivals become overwhelmingly stronger, but because smaller partners begin to perceive them as insensitive.

Indian power must therefore be accompanied by strategic empathy.

10. Strategic Autonomy: From Slogan to Capability

India frequently describes its foreign policy in terms of strategic autonomy.But autonomy cannot merely be declared.It must be manufactured.

A country dependent on another nation for critical weapons is not fully autonomous.

A nation dependent on external technology for communications, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, engines, surveillance systems or cyber infrastructure possesses constrained autonomy.

A country excessively dependent upon imported energy remains vulnerable to distant wars.

A nation whose supply chains can be interrupted by geopolitical coercion possesses limited freedom of action.

Therefore, *Atmanirbharta* in strategic sectors is not simply an economic programme.It is an instrument of national power.

India requires indigenous strength in defence manufacturing, aerospace, shipbuilding, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, space, telecommunications, energy, critical minerals, precision weapons and autonomous systems.

Strategic autonomy without industrial capacity eventually degenerates into diplomatic rhetoric.

The stronger India's domestic capability becomes, the greater its freedom to say both yes and no internationally.

11. From Non-Alignment to Multi-Alignment

India's Cold War policy of non-alignment emerged in a bipolar international system.

The present world requires something more flexible.

India today works with the United States, Japan and Australia through the Quad.

It simultaneously participates with China and Russia in BRICS and the SCO.It develops partnerships with Europe while maintaining its relationship with Moscow.It has deepened ties with Israel while simultaneously expanding relations with Arab states.This is not necessarily contradiction.It is multi-alignment.

In May 2026 India hosted BRICS foreign ministers in New Delhi while continuing its engagements with the Quad and Western partners—an institutional illustration of India's effort to operate across competing geopolitical configurations.

Traditional alliance politics asks:“Whose side are you on?”Indian strategy increasingly needs to answer:“On this particular issue, where does India's interest lie?”

That distinction will become more important as the international system fragments.India should therefore avoid being incorporated into any permanent bloc whose decisions are made elsewhere.

It should instead participate in multiple arrangements, each serving specific Indian interests.

12. The Emerging Indian Doctrine

India's strategic behaviour can ultimately be distilled into several principles.

First, peace must remain preferable to conflict, but peace without deterrence invites coercion.

Second, economic engagement must continue even with strategic competitors wherever national security permits.

Third, partnerships should be deep, but dependency should be shallow.

Fourth, military strength must support diplomacy rather than substitute for it.

Fifth, India must maintain escalation dominance against weaker adversaries while retaining escalation control against nuclear powers.

Sixth, the Indian Ocean must receive strategic priority commensurate with India's continental commitments.

Seventh, technology, industrial capacity and economic strength must be treated as components of national security.

And finally:India must remain strategically Indian.

It need not become an appendage of the West to balance China.

It need not become anti-Western to preserve relations with Russia.

It need not abandon BRICS because it participates in the Quad.

Nor does dialogue with China imply acceptance of Chinese strategic primacy.

These are false binaries.

The twenty-first century will reward countries capable of operating between them.

Competitive Coexistence

The choice confronting India is therefore not simply contestation or coexistence.

India will experience both.

With China, competition will coexist with trade and diplomacy.

With Pakistan, deterrence may coexist with periods of dialogue.With America, strategic convergence will coexist with disagreements.

With Russia, historical partnership will coexist with diversification.

Across the Indian Ocean, cooperation will coexist with increasingly intense competition for influence.

India must therefore perfect what may be called:

"Competitive Coexistence"

It means possessing sufficient military power to deter aggression.

Sufficient economic power to withstand coercion.

Sufficient technological capability to retain independence.

Sufficient diplomatic flexibility to talk to adversaries.

And sufficient national confidence to cooperate without becoming subordinate.

The objective of Indian grand strategy should not be to defeat every competitor, oppose every rival or dominate every neighbour.It should be to create an environment in which no external power can dictate India's choices.

This distinction is crucial.A great power does not prove its greatness by continuously exercising force.It proves its greatness when its accumulated military, economic, diplomatic and technological power makes the unnecessary exercise of force increasingly avoidable.

Conclusion

The coming decades will not offer India a tranquil strategic environment.Its borders will remain contested.

The Indian Ocean Region (IOR) will become increasingly crowded.

Technology will create new domains of conflict.

Economic interdependence will coexist with economic warfare.Alliances will shift.

Great powers will compete.

Middle powers will hedge.

Smaller states will extract advantages from that competition.

India cannot prevent this transformation.It can, however, determine how successfully it navigates it.

The country must possess the capability to contest when its sovereignty, security or fundamental interests are threatened.

But it must simultaneously retain the wisdom to coexist wherever coexistence serves the larger national interest.India's strategic objective should therefore be neither belligerence nor passivity.

It should be:

Deterrence without arrogance.

Autonomy without isolation.

Partnership without dependence.

Competition without permanent hostility.

The essence of India's emerging grand strategy can perhaps be stated in one dictum:

Compete where interests collide.

Co-operate where interests converge.

Deter where sovereignty is threatened.

Co-exist where geography leaves no alternative.

That may ultimately be India's most viable path through the geopolitical turmoil of the twenty-first century.

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NOTE - The views in the article are the author's personal views based on his study / research / experience.The maps and photographs are for symbolic representation only.