As global powers edge toward confrontation, India maintains a careful equilibrium, firm with adversaries, pragmatic with partners, and steady in a volatile neighbourhood.

The global order is increasingly defined by confrontation, not cooperation. The United States and China are locked in a prolonged contest for supremacy, a “cold confrontation" where technology, trade, and territory form the new battlegrounds.

For India, this shifting landscape is both opportunity and challenge. It finds itself between two great power rivalries and two volatile neighbours, navigating the turbulence of a nascent India-U.S. trade war, an emboldened China on its borders, and a desperate Pakistan lashing out after the setbacks of Operation Sindoor.

India’s strategic posture today rests on calibrated balance. On one hand, its partnership with the United States has deepened more in the last decade than in the previous fifty years, marked by foundational defence agreements, joint production initiatives under iCET, and growing technology collaboration. Yet, the honeymoon is not without irritants.

Washington’s new protectionist instincts, particularly in trade and digital services, have begun to affect New Delhi’s economic calculus. The U.S. tariffs on key Indian exports, the curbs on technology transfer, and tightening visa regulations have opened an unexpected rift just as the two nations celebrate unprecedented strategic convergence. The emerging trade friction underscores a critical reality: defence cooperation cannot indefinitely compensate for economic imbalances. For India, the task is to ensure that a security partnership does not evolve into a trade dependency.

New Delhi’s response has been measured. Instead of public confrontation, it has sought to widen its economic outreach by negotiating free trade agreements with the EU, deepening connectivity with ASEAN, and pursuing south-south supply chains through Africa and the Indian Ocean. This quiet diversification reflects India’s determination to remain indispensable........

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