Our strategic imagination must look beyond geography
An opinion in The Indian Express argues that India’s foreign policy and security planning should be guided by evolving global linkages, technology, and non-traditional risks rather than fixed geography.
- Non-traditional security includes threats beyond direct India–Pakistan style wars, such as cyber risks, technology disruptions, and cross-border transnational problems.
- Map-bound threat thinking means planning based mainly on fixed geography and old assumptions; the debate highlights limits of such planning when risks evolve through technology and global connections.
- Strategic alliances are cooperation arrangements among countries for security and diplomacy; the debate links alliance-building with managing uncertainty in external threats.
What happened
The Indian Express opinion calls for India’s foreign policy and security planning to look beyond traditional geography and fixed assumptions about the world. The opinion argues that India should design decisions around evolving global linkages, technology-led change, and non-traditional security challenges.
Background: why geography-based planning can be incomplete
UPSC can frame the issue as a shift from map-based threat assumptions to risk-and-technology based planning in foreign policy and security. Use the theme to explain how global networks and technological systems change threat perception and policy tools, and why capability-building and alliances matter for adaptation.
Related dispatches
