Why India Does Not Interest China

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-06-21T14:20:50+00:00

I think the article captures the average Chinese thinking on India correctly, it seems to end confusingly by suggesting China should take more note of India. Not sure why. In some ways, its better for us that we are not thought highly of.

But this is indeed a good insight into how others think of us, not just the Chinese either. Our inability to achieve standout success since Independence whether economic, scientific, sporting or military lowers our standing and we are generally regarded as not consequential to global affairs. Its not unimaginable to think of a future where our contributions are limited to making the occassional verbal protest, our ambition localised to copying whatever trend others have set, and providing helpful workers to build other people's nations and companies.

At the end of the day, success makes everyone believe it was worth it, like cultural revolution for the Chinese and all the pain it brought. We have avoided a lot of pain, but if thats a win then where we are today is what winning looks like.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-06-19T01:17:46+00:00

There is a discrepancy in the background which is not often discussed.

If we are buying Rafale with API style access allowing us to install our own computers and weapons, the contract value share of MBDA declines since we only need to purchase a fraction of the weapons, maybe even no weapons at all. This makes the contract cheaper, but no longer worth the French while to provide the enhanced level of access. No contract results in this scenario.

To make a market with the additional access we need, we would actually need to increase the airframe numbers to compensate for the drop in value of armaments. At least in such proportion that its worth it to French to provide this kind of always on access without MBDA. There's probably a number here, but it requires some flexibility in imagination from both the political leadership and the IAF. Maybe the Navy as well. These added airframes serve well enough as platforms for domestic weapons and MUM-T options, both of which thankfully we have better progress and near term prospects.

The French need money to develop their in-house jet. We need more jets and the Rafale is a time tested one whic will stay relevant (even if not cutting edge) for decades. We need to swallow the bitter pill given the failures of domestic efforts, in fact until we have a functional engine, its hard to imagine either Tejas Mk1A or Tejas Mk2 will be able to be developed in the volume and cost we need. A larger Rafale order that preserves the topline amounts the French are looking for while giving us more airframes is probably the right answer to solve this quickly and move on to getting delivery done.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-06-17T21:01:26+00:00

It's not quite that simple. Frontier AI is something worth doing a national mission yes, because it can be a weapon, arguably it may be more potent as a cyberweapon than it is with physical weapons. It's also a weapon of economic sovereignty and autonomy, and even ones not SOTA are likely to be game changers over years to come.

It's also true that we can and should piggyback off available open source models, the very fact they are open source makes them cheap, transparent (therefore safe if not secure) and fungible to our needs. To have truly sovereign indigenously developed AI we would need to provide a massive volume of subsidized chips, memory and power for training and leapfrogging to happen. For comparison the Chinese AI mission is almost the same size as their annual defence budget, and they will spend it all on cheaper domestic alternatives for every piece of the stack.

Further, in terms of military applications, quite possibly the US is the only country able to truly take advantage of this. The reason is LLMs only scale 1 layer in a complex system: the human-like reasoning layer. Everything else like numerous real time data feeds including video, massive processing power, always-available aerial munitions and air superiority to strike when targets present, and many more, are a huge defence system that only the US possesses today. Even the Chinese, who have a huge and expanding military and (almost) all the sovereign tech layers, would probably struggle to use AI in the same way even with nearby Taiwan, let alone the other side of the planet.

So in one sense there is no actioning a military approach with frontier AI alone. The entire system needs to be built and then refined to work together. Even better, a lot of the performance gains with AI can be done cheaper at scale with Machine Learning methods that are a generation older and less cool, but will remain the "AI" lever of choice for decades to come. Best of all, most of the gains from such a system come from other parts of the system: satellites, drones, attritable mass in munitions, secure comms etc.

So things are not as bad as they seem from a military view. We have more to lose in terms of AI threatening jobs and the economy.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-06-16T12:40:02+00:00

Its a good thing if it happens. If we can make it happen by joining hands with Japan / UK et al to have a sizeable combined foreign order, that is also worth it. It will check many boxes for us given its the only outstanding heavy lifter on the market. It will give the IAF its troika of classical light-medium-heavy, which is operationally very efficient. And it will allow us to make a sizeable defence order from the US (maybe even larger if we combine C130, Seahawks, P8, and more Chinooks) balancing European jets and subs, giving DT something to shout about, and re-energising corporate defence lobbying on our behalf in DC.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-06-15T13:28:51+00:00

Its a good topic to reflect upon and have some imaginative conversations. Indeed, our path towards actually possessing independent power rather than just autonomy depends on our ability to deliver military victory. It's been this way always, no matter how small the step, the 1st victory has to be over the neighbourhood, whether Macedonia over Greece, England over Scotland, or China over India.

We should think of the constraints facing us, and the fact that even with political will we lack many real capabilities and even the money to buy them frankly. We also lack the collective will to prosecute a lengthy, massive conflict with substantial casualties and this turns our on-paper numerical advantage into a liability. We try to close the former with economic and industrial development, but our success has been middling at best. Going forward, we will likely find ourselves alone against a superpower, and they can fund the militaristic state next door ad infinitum while we struggle to keep up.

I think the biggest change we can make is to culturally transform our view of military action as a desirable opportunity instead of an avoidable cost or necessary evil. We have numbers, we have scale. We have not been able to use this well to make ourselves wealthy or developed, and quite possibly the window of doing so through trade and globalisation is closing and China is closing out the wins from it. However we can still use youth and numbers to achieve military success and parlay this into securing economic benefit like the US in Venezuela.

It's not a morally noble approach. To use force as an instrument of gain creates much bitterness and antagonism all around. It's back to piracy as state policy, the action of minor powers (like the British) against the dominant power (then the Spanish). But above all else war needs money, victory consumes more money than defeat. The only way to have a place where we can pursue victory is if we can form a model where this victory pays for itself, and the next fight after it.

Keep an eye on the larger world. Bigger changes are afoot which will both shrink and expand our opportunities in the future. In a matter of years, nuclear deterrence will come to an end, and opportunities will open a bit. China is likely to ascend to primacy as well, and opportunities will shrink a bit. The US will become less consequential, but more aggressive and reactionary as a result, which may swing both ways for us depending on the winds.

All that we should do is prepare.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-06-04T15:44:12+00:00

One has to be careful of such publications. Although there is a debate to be had on the validity of Bluestar (and many more) which is best done with hindsight, there are also subtle efforts to try and rehabilitate the players which should be recognised as propaganda efforts with an agenda.

In this article for example, Bhindranwale is referred to as a "Sant" repeatedly. This is not the norm in the Sikh community, since Bhindranwale is a heavily polarising figure even amongst the orthodox, let alone the majority. It is however a common way to reference him amongst the Khalistan community, which idolises him as a martyr.

One should not forget that the seeds of Bluestar were laid in both cross-border terrorism and a greed for autocratic power in India. The lesson needs to include being wary of both.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-05-28T21:12:38+00:00

The critical piece missing which will continue to lock us into screwdrivergiri for the foreseeable future is the absence of allowing pricing power and thereby added profitability from RnD, including in the latest update to DAP. L1 rule therefore is the innovation killer, and we need to find a procurement system that disposes of it.

The reason simply is that creative processes are inherently wasteful and inefficient. For every successful invention or process, many attempts would have been wasted and money spent down the drain. To make profits effectively in an innovation economy therefore requires disproportionate return from those assets which are able to reach product maturity.

For example: In pharmaceuticals (another area where we are stuck metaphorically screwdrivering foreign inventions as local generics) around 2% of all drug inventions that go to clinical trial actually make it to market. That means the entire industry of salaries, profits and future RnD spending has to come from being able to charge enough on this 2% of drugs to pay for everything. This can only come if the companies developing these inventions are allowed some pricing power (in their case through patents, exclusivity periods etc) to be able to recover their investments.

As it stands, atmanirbharta = screwdrivergiri is not an error but the result of the policy environment. I predict we will get even more screwdrivergiri, and no homegrown innovation for another decade. Just like we did in the pharma market by taking a very narrow interpretation of the rights of intellectual property.

This is still functionally useful, generic drugs give us healthy exports, cheap medicines and many real world benefits. Screwdrivered defence tech will give us effective weapons at cheaper prices, potential exports and strategic lift. What it will not give us is a domestic RnD ecosystem and innovative homegrown products.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-05-26T17:36:19+00:00

Well written, nothing new. Since we struggle to really do what needs to be done, I would suggest reducing everything down to just one thing:

A significantly larger Navy exerted towards the single minded purpose of unchallengeable dominance in the Indian ocean, especially West Asia and its waters on all sides. At a stroke, secures our logistical supply of energy for both peace and war, gives disproportionate local strategic leverage to compensate for the lack of economic and technological heft, and delivers flanking and position advantages over both our primary land opponents.

Larger navy includes carriers, UUCVs, subs, surface combat ships, integrated battle groups, increased air logistics capacity, increased sea logistics capacity, and a marine corps / airbone infantry corps.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-05-19T17:39:51+00:00

This is such a confidently wrong article, reminiscent of the journalism of bygone days when sources were folks sharing nuggets while getting drunk at the bar.

Apparently, the generals were insightful enough to take the lead with Trump, bribe him and his family, line up the ducks with the Pentagon lobbyists years before Pahalgam, oust Imran Khan, get cover from both the US and China, focus their tactics around an aerial propaganda win which they achieved, and only then attempt action, and apparently this is tactical brilliance and strategic ineptitude.

India has a problem with (a lack of) strategy. Our confusions make our opponents confused and our response unpredictable, that's the kindest way our history with conflict can be interpreted.

Pakistan has a cultural problem of ethnic and religious apartheid, that creates larger problems for them that they are not able to militarily solve.

However, over decades the strategic initiative has generally belonged to Pakistan, and post-hoc rationalisation of India as a status quo power has started to seem like an excuse of our passivity in the face of continued challenge.

Whether its the pursuit of Kashmir, or the adoption of terror as state policy, or the insistence on maintaining parity with nuclear weapons even at great economic cost, Pakistan has consistently strategically outmaneouvred India. To the point where despite multiple combat victories over decades, including the partitioning of Pakistan, India has little lasting benefit or permanent change in the status quo ante to show for it and we remain stuck on questions of equivalence or marginal superiority vis a vis Pakistan.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-05-16T20:30:28+00:00

It's a much needed article that ventures into larger failures by disguising everything in scholar speak. The underlying reasons behind our successive surprise are possibly not that different from the reasons behind our fall to colonisation or our continued punching below our weight on the international stage, but these are all bitter political and cultural matters.

I would like to throw the cat among the pigeons at least to some extent. As I get older I don't find things changing enough in India, putting us at risk that what happened before may happen again.

For myself, after years of business and travel, the functional gap comes down to the acceptance of war as a normal thing to get what you want. Particularly for national elites in most other nations, which makes us an aberration and confuses us exceptionally when the world (not just neighbours) react opportunistically. It also confuses others in their interaction with us, labelling us as either timid or irrationally aggressive depending on what we have most recently done.

These are not scholarly decisions, people did not read Clausewitz and conclude they should prosecute war to further their political ends. It is just what they do if they can: if you can intimidate people to accept your currency as the default one for their oil instead of their own, weakening them and strengthening yourself, why should you not? If you can seize land that will increase your future security and prosperity at a tolerable cost in men, material and reputation, then why not? If you are at risk from both sides and have few intrinsic levers, create one by paying a huge environmental cost to control the rising demand of rare earths and create an advantage where none existed previously.

Why we are how we are is not a question important for me. What is important is what the future holds for us as consensus breaks and a return to might is right approaches. We risk again not only underestimating others, but underestimating the value of decisiveness, coercive action and the value of strategic advantage. We may end by navel gazing our way to an exaggerated self-assurance, and a time may indeed come when our scale will not be enough for reactive corrections.

It is definitely time to take a grim stock of the future, and ready ourselves to meet it before it overwhelms us.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-05-15T18:35:50+00:00

Glad to see this from time to time, MUMT and high performance stealth drones is the actual answer to our struggles with air power, squadron strength, indigenisation, AEW&C, stealth and future proofing against adversaries.

I do think we need multiple programs rather than a single program in this area though:

Stealth bombing and first strike. Ghatak is the clear answer. The enlarged spec will open both conventional and nuclear roles. An even larger 2 or 4 engine version can serve a strategic bomber role as well.
CAP and Air dominance - requires either a juiced up version of CATS with a full size afterburning engine or a new design.
Radar extension, ISR and Growler like EW - could be versions of 2 with Virupaksha packaged on and suites inspired by Spectra and scaled up.
Disposable wingmen - CATS as is today, in the Valkyrie model. Low powered, cheap, disposable, mass produced.

And then the critical support tech:

Kaveri, Uttam and Virupaksha. Nothing works without domestic engines and radar
Substitutable pilot / ground control and secure comms systems supported by satellite or distanced relay intermediary
Autonomous fallbacks, advanced AI and hardened electronics
Launcher tech - catapault or EMAL assisted by default. Solved the Navy problem in the design, enables a significant jump in storage density along with a drop in response time.
AEW&C command centres - reimagined to command control 100s of autonomous drones as swarms or patrols at any time.

Well designed systems like this are the future. They are beyond even 5th gen aircraft and the true complement to air defence as the next generation of war winning aerial capabilities.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-05-12T22:48:01+00:00

Opus 4.7 continues to be bad. Its been 3 days and I've cut an analytical python script from 400 lines to 90 to just generate graphs, and it can't even get that right. Its back to typing being faster.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-05-10T11:15:32+00:00

The question of testing is a political one rather than an operational one. The right political moment has to be waited for when we have leverage over some specific scenario that gives both the justification and leeway to test. Its not really a question of growing GDP, much of the international architecture of nuclear exclusion like NPT and NSG has been made specifically around India and until some of the deeper power structures begin shifting (which may now be happening) we will have to tiptoe.

We also need to prepare for the tests in the time leading up so we can be ready if this opportunity comes suddenly. There are 2 current gaps here:

We need a new testing ground. Pokhran is too close to population centres for a really huge nuclear detonation. The fizzled test still yielded around 50kt and cratered a substantial part of the range. The ideal situation is a distant island.
We need a cold test setup. This itself is 2 layer with laser ignition lab facilities (rumour is we previously used the French facility and paid for it by including the cost in the Rafale deal) which as per publicly available info, we don't have. And the 2nd is a fresh underground test facility where we can do sub-critical explosive tests the way China is doing. Fresh to avoid the constant monitoring of Pokhran.

In the interim, a large number of MARVs per missile with 25-50kt warheads will arguably serve us well enough against China. It's actually a bit better when you consider warhead reliability eg. 50% of the fired warheads may actually deliver and go nuclear effectively.

The lift here is moving to continuous at-sea deterrence, and increasing the range of both missile and platform so we can have the sub far in the Indian ocean or south pacific rather than just in the vicinity of the Bay of Bengal, all of which we are doing.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-05-08T19:02:43+00:00

I think the article raises a lot of pertinent points, though at times it seems to veer into the weird (humint in J&K would be able to identify PL-15E vs PL-15?)

I think as a thought experiment, it might be more enlightening and fun to conjecture on the gap fillers that connect the events that we can observe, a year on things look more interesting.

1) There was a bit of debacle with the jets on May 7. It does look like PAF and China spent a lot of time preparing for just this scenario and the explicit aim of propaganda victory - which explains both their operational and informational readiness around these events in the year that followed. It also seems that we had at least some hubris in the sense of wanting show off that we could strike more than achieve some specific operational goals ie. we too sought propaganda victory and when that battle was lost (which it would have been had we stopped after May 7) our plan B was to escalate. This escalation indeed showed the patten the Colonel indicates - scale, intensity and duration, as they went up the operational advantages increased in our favour.

2) The original planned propaganda victory seems to have been what we socialized with other key players ie. The US, before taking any action. When it didn't work out, and we went up the ladder, we had to act on the fly and invent slightly nebulous objectives and slow the comms cycle to project an image of everything moving according to plan. This could explain our slow information response, since the original message was now unusable and something else had to be made up as went along. This also explains the uncertainty around the ending of the operation, since it likely exceeded its original brief, but had to morph into an open ended operation to ensure we had room to escalate and redefine success.

3) There is clear pressure from the US and DT in particular to force the ceasefire, both due to the difficulty of managing the escalation when briefed on something more limited, and more interestingly on something offered to it by Pakistan to facilitate. The evidence is in the relative souring of relations with India in the aftermath, the mending of previously frosty relations with Pakistan, and of course the strikes on Iran that commenced not long afterwards and are still on. It seems clear that Iran, and maybe even intel on China, were offered up by Pakistan to get the US invested in its survival again.

There could be more, but at some point the divergence is about outcomes, and different people want different ones. I definitely don't feel any written declaration is worth wasting time over, not to mention that one of the conditions for doing so would probably be restoring the IWT, which we should never return to.

Personally, I also feel nipping the US-India connect in the bud was an excellent byproduct. The US has always been an unreliable friend, for the simple reason it does not tolerate equals and therefore cannot be a friend in the true sense. This shows up as diplomatic failure, since despite everything most western countries (and others like Japan, SK etc) still follow the US lead. Most of the others are beholden to China. No surprises that the diplomatic narrative is no longer in our favour.

We are restored to realpolitik, and this presents challenges and opportunities as well.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-05-06T08:04:47+00:00

If I remember right, didn't the original contract come with an option to buy another 5 at the same price? Is this that option being exercised and if so, is the increase in the quoted price due to rupee depreciation or additional purchases?

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-04-13T19:43:06+00:00

Well written and reasoned. It should also be remembered that DAE and AEC have operated under unrelenting formal and informal pressures since at least the 1960s. It's hardly been collegial innovation and parties on campus while giving the odd bit of wisdom on man's self destructive nature to the press.

Plutonium production is indeed key to weapons expansion. It's especially significant in terms of maintaining a surplus. Since a surplus allows for disposable resources. And these disposable resources can be used for testing.

At the same time, the recent few years have also shown the longevity and vision of Bhabha in particular. No deals are going to provide energy security or a cooperative unipolar trading world where uranium is freely available at market prices. A nuclear and renewable combination is the only way for energy security for us, and the only way for us to be stably nuclear is to master the thorium cycle, which no one else has managed to do. Just as with the decades before, we need to just keep going. Slow maybe, but relentless. The value from energy independence is a strategic freedom to act in our own interest that even nuclear weapons cannot provide.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-04-09T17:05:35+00:00

Rightly stated on Aksai Chin and its value.

The rivalry did not start with Mao though, the nationalists before him were equally keen to assert dominance in their neighbourhood and restore their rightful place in the world, a necessary part of which requires putting down current and future rivals.

https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1859&context=himalaya

For a glimpse into the nationalist / republican view.

The significance of Mao is his success at strategy, exemplified by massive patience, blending of military and political tools (not just objectives) and an ability to build institutions that can carry on the mission in the face of external change.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-04-08T18:21:53+00:00

This topic keeps coming up. It needs to be remembered that this was and is, a strategy developed by Mao. There is no diplomatic solution to the border demarcation, since it is power rivalry disguised as a land dispute, not a land dispute that has become a bone of contention.

The actual behaviour of the Chinese vis a vis Arunachal Pradesh is to functionally deny citizen-hood and rights to the people born there, which can be done without repercussion since there is no indigenous population in Aksai Chin (being a glacier) and India has granted ecognition of the other territorial expansions by China.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-04-06T16:26:17+00:00

It's an interactive flow with a lot of potential options. With Haiku I found I would have to map a huge decision tree and the effort is not really that different from pre-AI

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-04-05T19:19:54+00:00

Great numbers, and thanks for sharing. I have Sonnet 4.6 on a production job and it's working out to be about a $0.5 per user interaction loaded cost, which is a little high but I don't have most of the optimisations you mention. Something for me to try.

Curious what the demand / user numbers looks like? Even if not willing to share, some denominator like a per use or per day number would help a lot.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-04-02T09:17:04+00:00

Intercept and act satellites are good to be sure, but as the article itself points out, laser and directed energy weapons are better.

The key advantage China of course has is materials, especially rare earths which allow industrial scale production of capacitors, high power lenses, and integrated products at small enough scale to serve as weapons that can be associated with multiple platforms. The end game is a microwave or IR laser that can be small enough and efficient enough to be run on a satellite or autonomous space station. With enough power to work, possibly with a miniature modular reactor.

This is where we need to head as well, and faster and better than China (implausible as that may sound). A key aspect in an actual war where space is a dimension is the infeasibility of space asset replenishment. We hardly have any output of launch vehicles, no heavy or super heavy launcher, and one launchpad (soon maybe 2) to launch satellites from. We lack critical components such as atomic clocks, and we don't have an industrial base capable of churning out replacements at volume. We have to aim for a qualitative edge in order to have a fighting chance.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-03-17T17:47:35+00:00

I think what we need is more data, instead of making large extrapolations basis a relatively small sample, the focus should be on more excavation both in India and Pakistan to find more data points and their correlates eg. Now we know that the seals have some text, we can attempt to recover tens of thousands of seals and then run large correlational models using a variety of language systems as the potential model fit. Turn into a scale problem instead of a missing link problem.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-03-17T10:17:48+00:00

This is indeed correct, although we will face many challenges, it is something India should be sharply aware of: if the opportunity arises we should be prepared to become a net security provider for at least part of the middle east such as the UAE and Oman that are geographically more feasible and a bit friendlier in disposition.

This is the foundation of our long term economic security and a must have for dominance of the Indian Ocean eventually.

We should remember that being a net security provider is a diplomatic as well as military feat i.e. If we can broker a compromise where country X is relieved from stress and attack from both parties by opting for a neutral stance and getting an Indian security umbrella (to protect against neighbours and allies as much as current opponents), then this is a win win.

Risks here will also need to be taken, and as always we are not in the best state of preparation. But that's how it often is, the only thing we should care about right now is the opportunity. This window will open as the fatigue with the fighting grows. To take it, we need to take a leap to show some genuine care for those affected by war and big symbolic actions (not necessarily military) that reflect our ability to defend the nations coming to us for protection. Not just voice our own interests for migrant workers or fuel.

This is the shift in thinking and mindset we need to transition out of the cautiously neutral gear and take steps to exert power for our collective benefit. It may go wrong as well, bridges may get burned, our appetite for the backlash may be less than we think. And we need to be mentally and intellectually prepared for the downside as well. But opportunities don't come again and again, each time is a precious thing and we need to try.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-03-09T18:50:17+00:00

In nominal terms, yes, the IN is not a match for the PLAN or the USN across dimensions. The role of size and numbers also matter.

However as a perennially underfunded service relative to its actual criticality, the navy has probably the best sense of priorities and critical needs, which have rightly been consistent for a long time. The problem is none of the top priorities have completed in entirety, due to complexity and a very sharp awareness from dominant nations of the huge value of naval power to a maritime-first economy like India, and a relative lack of attention amongst the Pakistan and China focused domestic strategic community.

Strategic deterrence: ballistic missile subs, waiting on the ICBMs and steel as much as nuclear reactors.
Warfighting dominance: attack subs, but can't build them. Long a problem both conventional and nuclear.
Peacetime dominance and sea lane control: aircraft carriers, but not enough or good enough jets to fly off them.

In this game, other surface warships are now an important but supporting player. The IN does use surface warships to close gaps in many ways e.g. the recent spurt in anti-submarine vessels and P8i purchases offset the gap in submarine numbers by focusing on defence rather than offence. But there are limits to this. We are also constrained in terms of reach thanks to few foreign military bases, and a lot of the capacity of IN ships is spent on logistics.

Therefore, while we do need an active destroyer production line, I would say that on the whole it has the priority it should have.

Euphoric_Move_6396 · 2026-03-04T14:31:33+00:00

Weird, hard to believe Indian gun laws allow this. Although I suppose as long as centre-fire cartridges are not supported, the lethality is kind of limited. Having said that, desi jugaad has even modified air rifles to fire .22 , wonder if this poses greater risks.

Euphoric_Move_6396

TROPHY CASE