Knowing what lies ahead (Column: The Third Eye)

New Delhi: As the world rolls over to a new year, the global security scenario is likely to continue with the trends that had shown up earlier. The rise of ‘proxy wars’ as a combat in which terrorism was used as the weapon, expansion of security to embrace new national and global dimensions, viability of bilateral and multilateral relations in a multi-polar order, drift of the world towards a new Cold War on the horizon due to the steady rise of China as a potential superpower rivalling the US and the appearance of India as a world power serving the cause of global peace and economic development while facing a hostile Sino-Pak axis, are the more significant of these trends.India’s strategy of achieving self-dependence in the spheres of both defence and economic growth and handling international relations with the freedom to determine who our friends and adversaries are at a given point in time is working out well and sustaining the image of this country for its voice of sanity on the ongoing geopolitical developments and the challenges of human-centric economic growth.India has the ongoing need for an extremely watchful security set-up, effective diplomacy and constant capacity building, to deal with what was an uncertain world situation marred by military conflicts in Eastern Europe and West Asia.Fortunately, the far-sighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi aided by an extremely competent National Security Advisor, had ensured all of that.In an era where open warfare had yielded to ‘covert’ offensives, the forces of Defence and Security have to combine to produce integral and effective responses like what has been achieved in J&K in the context of the ongoing cross-border terrorism desperately pushed there by Pakistan on the strength of elements recruited through indoctrination in the name of Jehad.Collaboration of China with Pakistan on matters relating to Kashmir had become intense following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution by the Parliament in 2019 and the validation of that act by the Supreme Court can be expected to lead to stepping up of covert operations by these two hostile neighbours against India.India, however, is well prepared to deal with them on LAC and LoC, on the marine front as well as on international forums.Punjab is another border state where the adversaries would attempt to revive militancy in some form or the other — possibly through the narcotic route. The use of Chinese drones for dropping arms and drugs in the border districts of Punjab is an indicator of this trend.China has been helped by Pakistan in reaching a ‘give and take’ arrangement with the Taliban in Afghanistan. As a result, China has extended its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) to Afghanistan having been assured of non-interference by the Taliban on matters relating to Muslim minorities of China.The advent of Information Technology has made social media an instrument of combat to be used for ‘radicalisation’, the creation of sleeper cells of terrorists including ‘lone wolves’ and building narratives to play ‘