And the country is China

These factors are by themselves enough to raise concerns about the future. They are compounded by the fact that the country we are talking about is China, and not just any other country.

The dominant orientation of China throughout its history has been to power — the acquisition of power, the use of power, the manipulation of the symbols of power. Second, its singular concern in this regard has been to ‘control the periphery’ — that is, to control the areas from which, and the groups by which its security may be threatened. As the areas from which its security may be threatened now include those that are at great distances from it — say, the US — it is determined to acquire capacities that would enable it to keep those distant areas in check also. In any event, India lies literally on its periphery.

Third, and most consequentially, during the last two decades, China has completely rewritten its military doctrine — from ‘Peoples War fought on Chinese soil’ to ‘Local wars under high technology conditions’ to the current doctrine of ‘Force projection under high technology conditions’.

Fourth, China has been doggedly pursuing the consequential ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’, and the ever-new weapons systems that go with it. In particular, a novel danger stems from its emphasis on building capacities to hurl ‘the assassin’s mace’ at the ‘acupuncture points’ of integrated, modern economies — to disrupt power grids, financial systems, air traffic control networks, railway traffic control networks, communications and broadcasting networks... and to do so suddenly, simultaneously and on a fatal scale.

... contd.