India's strategic arc must leave Pakistan behind

The Hindu

4 days ago

The Indo-Pacific is the central geopolitical theatre of the Asian century. The global order is fragmenting as the U.S. recalibrates its strategic focus, and it is often said that Asia must assume responsibility for its own future. Robust guardrails for peace, not only among the great powers but also to contain peripheral disrupters, are required. A major task is to recalibrate the India-China-Pakistan triangle where India and China must assume the role of stabilisers, while Pakistan must be managed as a strategic irritant, not a geopolitical peer.
The India-Pakistan relationship has dominated South Asian security discourse for decades now. This 'dyad' is the inheritance of history, not a reflection of strategic parity. The global architecture today demands that India reframe itself — not as Pakistan's rival, but as a source of Indo-Pacific stability. Shifts in both strategy and narrative are required here: where Pakistan is engaged functionally but never allowed to shape India's broader posture.
The Pakistan challenge
Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state with a history of exporting instability and operating as a proxy for China's tactical goals. It is the perennial disruptor. Its structural asymmetry derives from its dependence on China for military, economic, and diplomatic sustenance. India must highlight this in international fora.
India's choice must be to pursue a policy of calibrated containment of Pakistan. Engagement should be minimal, transactional, and never allow for equivalence. Limiting interactions of high visibility and the avoidance of rhetorical excess denies Pakistan the legitimacy it seeks.
Pakistan is a predatory state that feeds not only on its neighbours but also on its people, but India cannot afford the illusion of a Great Wall to shut it out. The bottom line is that as long as the India–Pakistan conflict remains unresolved or is combustible, it will compromise India's ascent to great power status. The key is not to solve the problem on Pakistan's terms, but to contain it and remove it from the strategic core.
The China-Pakistan axis is no conventional alliance but a transactional entente where China uses Pakistan as an asymmetric lever against India. The challenge for India is to strategically decouple this partnership by treating China as a systemic peer competitor and Pakistan as a tactical irritant. They cannot be allowed to merge into a single strategic front in perception or in policy. India has done well to diplomatically expose the imbalanced nature of the China-Pakistan relationship. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is a textbook case of neocolonialism. Pakistan's agency is drained by its over-dependence on Chinese loans, weapons, and diplomatic cover. India must spotlight this reality globally.
India's operational strategy must ensure it is never compelled to fight both adversaries simultaneously. This requires flexible deterrence, investment in rapid mobility, intelligence infrastructure, and expanded, dynamic maritime partnerships. A two-front threat must be met with multi-domain preparedness. Always remember that power derives from strategic composure.
Narrative warfare is critical. Frame the China-Pakistan relationship as a challenge to regional autonomy — where sovereignty is traded for tactical advantage. In this projection, India assumes a leading role as a builder of institutions, the defender of multilateralism, and a responsible stakeholder in the Indo-Pacific's maritime and continental theatres.
Asia and Asians must be the principal stakeholders for their region's security architecture. Asia must construct its own guardrails, balancing continental and maritime interests, and not outsource stability to external powers. India and China bear a special responsibility here — not as rivals, but as co-architects of regional order.
No such balance can be sustained if either side enables peripheral destabilisers. Pakistan cannot be the prism through which the India-China relationship is viewed. The region must accept the reality: Pakistan is no strategic pole but a security concern. In South Asia, India is the continental power with maritime dominance. Stability in Asia demands that this distinction be institutionalised.
India-Pakistan engagement must not be proscribed, but it must be without illusion. Maintain hotlines, backchannels, and functional diplomacy to avoid miscalculation. Keep the conflict cold, and always below the threshold of defining India's strategic bandwidth. Great powers cannot be defined only by what they oppose, but by the upholding of balance and stability.
India, the architect
Accordingly, India must invest in alternative strategic triangles — with France and UAE, with the U.S. and Japan, with Australia and Indonesia — that reflect its wider engagements, and devalue Pakistan's centrality. These are not just alliances of interest but coalitions that build a compelling narrative. They project India as the architect, the builder of a forward-looking strategic arc, and not trapped in a legacy conflict.
Ultimately, the message must be clear: India's rise is not contingent on Pakistan's fall, but on India's ability to prevent Pakistan from shaping our national trajectory. China is the true peer rival; Pakistan must be the manageable risk. Strategic maturity lies in quiet, determined deterrence without chest-thumping. This is the essence of great power behaviour. For India, the Indo-Pacific expanse beckons and is its true habitat, where partnerships elevate, not entangle.
Nirupama Rao is a former Foreign Secretary. Follow her on X/@NMenonRao