India's Strategic Imperatives for Growth and Security

As a large, developing nation with ambitions for growth and global stature, India must focus on securing four key areas: food, energy, markets, and technology. Achieving these goals requires cultivating alliances, even with global competitors, to prevent interruptions or interference.

Global Geopolitical Shifts

• The United States has initiated a disruptive transformation of the global geopolitical landscape, using taxes and sanctions to realign trade relationships.
• This realignment is likely to result in short-term national and financial market insecurities.

Tech Security: A Pillar of Sovereignty

• Tech security is crucial for both economic and political sovereignty. However, India's biggest weakness lies in the lack of control over the first-mile internet traffic managed through subsea cable ecosystems.

Subsea Cable Ecosystem

• Globally, there are over 500 subsea cables and 1,300 Cable Landing Stations (CLSs).
• These are primarily controlled by multinational telecom service provider consortiums and companies like Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft.
• India's subsea cable infrastructure is relatively limited, with companies like BSNL, Reliance, and Bharti-Airtel owning only a few of the 17 undersea cables terminating in India.

Geopolitical Implications

• Foreign-owned subsea cables pose vulnerabilities to cyberattacks and cyber espionage.
• Subsea cables can be weaponized during international tensions, as evidenced by incidents like the internet shutdown in Taiwan's Matsu Island.

Strategic Response and Recommendations

• Short-term: India needs to develop its own cable repair vessels for quick response to disruptions and reduce dependency on foreign assets.
• Medium-term
  • Significantly increase the number of CLSs to support India's ambition to become a digital hub.
  • Streamline regulatory approvals and provide economic incentives to expedite this process.
• Long-term
  • Develop comprehensive legislation for the construction and maintenance of communication cables.
  • Promote and classify submarine cables as essential services to protect critical information infrastructure.

Strategic Alliances

• India should forge alliances with regional and global partners, including BRICS and possibly China, to bolster its security architecture.
• This approach may provide more value than collective agreements focusing solely on economic retaliations, like counter-tariffs.

In a global landscape where the US prioritizes its interests, sometimes imposing sanctions on Indian corporations, India must look beyond traditional alliances to safeguard its national security and digital sovereignty.