Walter Lipmann put the matter succinctly: “A nation has security when it does not have to sacrifice its legitimate interests to avoid war, and is able, if challenged, to maintain them by war.” [1]

Consider Aksai Chin: Are we prepared to go to war to recover it? Or, is it more likely that we will rationalize not going to war by giving credence to doubts: “Do we have an interest in the place? Is such interest as we have in it, vital? Is it legitimate?” What about Arunachal? Are we confident that, when challenged over it by China, we will be able to hold it by war? Is China clear on that? Building up capacities to defend them apart, bearing sacrifices for them apart, are we one even in what we regard as our vital, legitimate national interests?

A host of factors are liable to affect the security of our country – some here and now, others in the middle distance. And some will affect us twenty/thirty years from now But this last lot are no less important for that reason: their effects could be absolutely devastating, as we shall see, and preparing for them will take all of twenty/thirty years.

STATES IN OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD
Pakistan: Among the factors that bear upon our security here and now, is the course events are taking in Pakistan. After all, the respite that we have had in the last one and half years in Kashmir has been due primarily to the fact that Pakistan has been preoccupied with problems of its own: there is a lesson in that, of course, if only we would heed it – we should do what little we can to keep Pakistan busy in its problems.

... contd.