India, Sept. 23 -- Contemporary India is faced with a series of strategic challenges with potential implications for its national security in the medium to long term, even if not much may change in the short term.

For one, the US has gone from a stabiliser and security guarantor to a disruptor in India's broader region. Secondly, the coming together of Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia at a time of unrelenting American heat on India and low tide in the Indo-Pacific is bad news for New Delhi. There is no point in spinning these challenges to gladden our hearts. We must address them.

This, no doubt, is a crisis of immense proportions, which calls for major changes. Delhi needs to think big, radical, faster and out-of-the-box because extrao...