If India ever needed to spend more money on building up naval assets and military firepower, it is perhaps now, when the world order is fragmenting and the geopolitical churn in the Indian Ocean area has heated up to a feverish pitch.

The unipolar world we had grown used to after the fall of the Soviet Union started receiving a notice from a rising China around the time of the Wall Street crisis in 2008. However, even then the combined strength of the US, along with its European and Asian allies, meant that the world, more or less, remained under one single star: Washington’s.

With the return of Donald Trump as President of the US, that notion has received a setback, as the US now expects its European and Asian allies to increasingly look after their own defence needs.

“America First” is turning out to be a policy of “America in splendid isolation.” Washington’s attitude towards Iran and the Taliban may herald the opening up of fresh theatres of war in our neighbourhood, besides deepening the Middle East crisis instead of solving it as is being hoped by some.

As a consequence, China’s influence in Asia is likely to increase rather than decrease. China’s naval base in Djibouti has become a military rival to the American base at Diego Garcia. Beijing is likely to have also acquired naval facilities in Cambodia’s........

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