A global playbook

In 2005, the Civil Nuclear Agreement opened up once again the strategic relationship between India and the United States (US), which were restricted by the US law after India’s nuclear test in 1974. The US attempted to alert India about the meteoric rise of China and the threats it could pose. The Indian government rightly decided that India was in no position in 2005 to confront China militarily, occupied as it was with its own economic growth. However, US attempts to convert the Indian government to modern strategic forecasting methods, necessitating the writing of multi-disciplinary scenarios was largely ignored, except by the armed forces which used it to predict emerging forms of warfare. With the arrival of Xi Jinping and his famous declaration of a “Chinese Dream’’, the subsequent reading of China’s Defence White papers and Military Strategic Guidelines made it clear that China had a long-term grand strategy to dominate world affairs. Actually, this shift had already been well articulated in Michael Pillsbury’s epic work on in 2015, ‘The hundred- year marathon: China’s secret strategy to replace America as the global superpower’, the title of which is self-explanatory. In 2017, India witnessed a small demonstration in Doklam when the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began building a road in Bhutanese territory that would have threatened India’s Siliguri corridor (Chicken’s neck). The Indian Army physically blocked the road construction and urged a status quo which the Chinese eventually accepted but again ignored by a massive troop escalation in the Galwan Valley in 2020 along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. In an attempt to make the Chinese withdraw, a violent physical confrontation ensued, without the use of firearms. The Galwan Valley incident marked a seminal shift in Indian strategic thinking by forcing a massive troop buildup against China and matching infrastructure along the border, thereby acknowledging a long-term competition with China. A small but significant incident at Galwan went unnoticed, which was, that the PLA had obviously anticipated the physical encounter, and provoked it by arming their troops with workshop manufactured spiked steel clubs, while Indian troops had to use rocks from the Galwan river.

In retrospect, it is unclear whether India had realised the full scope of China’s Grand Strategy or even accepted that China had a grand strategy. During the cold war, western intelligence analysts pointed out that China thought in decades, rather than years. The most specific warning about the Chinese Grand strategy came from the legendary strategic thinker Andrew Marshall, heading the US Office of Net Assessment, who incidentally was the same person who persisted for five years in trying to convert Indian strategic thinking to use modern techniques. The White House itself, however, ignored Marshall’s warnings by opening the huge US domestic market to cheap Chinese goods, spurring the blistering growth of Chinese manufacturing, and an annual adverse trade balance with China of $250 billion. This wiped-out US manufacturing and jobs and led to the rise of Make America Great Again (MAGA) and US President Donald Trump and the era of tariff wars, which China has already won by posting a bigger trade surplus after the tariffs. In the post-Galwan era, there was no Indian articulation of China’s Grand strategy and what India could possibly do against a country with a $20 trillion gross domestic product.

China has the controlling interest in 129 ports of the world, situated in around 65 countries, including the port operation of the Panama Canal, by Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong c

ompany. The global rise of China takes a completely different route from the rise of the US, which almost inherited that status after World War II by its dominance of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the replacement of the British pound by the American dollar. China has taken a different route on account of its own geography and strategic writings. While the hegemonic power of the US is manifested by its global theatre commands of the Indo-Pacific, Central command, the European theatre, the Africa command, and the Americas Command, the Chinese Grand strategy (at the present time) is based on economic dependence, the influence of infrastructure and finance, market access, strategic supply chain dominance, and replicating its own Anti-Access and Area Denial (A2AD) military strategies with its proxy and client states. These phenomena will be explained shortly as the background to analysing the long-term strategic implications of Operation Sindoor and the Iran war. The future adoption of a Mahanian strategy may be a work in progress, with its fourth mammoth nuclear-powered aircraft carrier now being built  and more in the pipeline. China’s overland connectivity is already in operation. 

However, a high-capacity container train has a payload of 300 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit), while a moderately sized container ship has a payload 200 times larger, so the overland connectivity is insignificant. In pursuit of its unique grand strategy, China is today the number one trading partner of 120 countries. Seventy-seven per cent of the trade flows westwards from China to Eurasia.

To understand the intellectual underpinning of China’s present Grand Strategy, it is necessary to see whose writings shape the Chinese strategic picture. Mao Tze Tung’s people's war theory was dumped in 1993 after the demonstration of the Revolution in Military Affairs by the US in the first Iraq war and replaced with “informationised local war in high-tech conditions”.

The long-term guru for the PLA and the politbureau remains Sun Tzu, the Chinese author of “The Art of War”, which was written in the 5th century BC. His legacy is a number of intense and brief aphorisms, among which three stand out, the ruler (government) should choose war only as the last option, because war is destructive on one’s own country, second only to the destruction caused by enemy invasion; the greatest victory is that which is achieved without fighting; to succeed in distant operations, it is necessary to “shape the environment” so that victory can come without fighting.

In case there is a tendency to be dismissive of these aphorisms, it is well to understand that the foremost victim country of this strategic approach is India. From mid-1962, when Mao allegedly gave the directive to his army commander to “teach India a lesson’, to the catastrophically cynical step to arm Pakistan with nuclear weapons in 1980, the subsequent financial and infrastructure assistance, the conventional arms supply of tank guns, aircraft, frigates, submarines, all constitute, “shaping the environment” and winning without fighting, as will be seen later. Pakistan’s air war doctrine and approach to maritime strategy today are of Chinese origin. Adding to Pillsbury’s authoritative work on China is that of Indian-American Rush Doshi’s “The Long Game”, published in August 2021 by Oxford University Press, which describes China’s 30-year plan to supplant US hegemony first in Asia and later in the world. Lost in the mirth and hilarity surrounding the antics of the US president in early 2026 was that China had blundered in a strategic overstretch, in attempting to obtain a foothold in the American continent, by dominating the Venezuelan economy with credits and investment, infrastructure, energy and mining, thereby gaining access to the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Militarily, China provided tanks, missile systems, aircraft, radars and satellite ground stations that were dual use. In no way was this attempt any different from penetrating both Pakistan and Iran, as will be explained, only that on this occasion it had been over ambitious and underestimated the only Trumpian victory.

Surprisingly, China’s own military posture in the West Pacific is an offensive-defensive one in contrast to its plans to dominate the rest of the world. Temporarily forsaking an intent to challenge the oceanic dominance of the US Navy’s Mahanian strategy, China has adopted an A2AD strategy, where its main instrument is not the army, navy or air force, but its Strategic Rocket Force, a separate service, equipped with both nuclear and conventional warheads. It has 3,200 missiles, of all varieties to destroy US and Japanese military installations up to the second island chain. Backing this force is its advanced satellite surveillance capabilities and targeting software. A brief survey of these capabilities is necessary to understand what China can transfer to Pakistan and Iran. China relies on Yaogan electro optical synthetic aperture radar and electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellites to create targeting data against moving targets, like carrier strike groups. Static targets are detected by the Gaofen satellites. Positioning, navigation and terminal guidance is done by Beidou satellites. Targeting and communication data to missile firing units is done through Tianlian data relay satellites. This entire complex, although not yet as sophisticated as the US project “Maven”, the centralised targeting system software, is sufficient, if transferred, to affect balance against India in the Indian Ocean. Both Pakistan and Iran have already adopted the Chinese doctrines to fight the new age warfare with A2AD over the seas and reliance on the Strategic Rocket Force in land wars.

The outcome of Operation Sindoor has been discussed threadbare in the Indian media about the tactical and operational lessons. This clearly showed that India had achieved the purpose of the operation as being the future deterrent response to terrorist attacks on Indian soil. Missing are the larger strategic consequences that emanate from it. During the operation, it is admitted that Chinese technicians were physically present to prepare the Chinese origin J-10 aircraft for combat sorties. The fusion of the Swedish Saab Eeriye airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft with Chinese combat aircraft was engineered by Chinese scientists. Chinese Beidou satellites were integrated into Pakistani battlefield systems. During the conflict, China altered the orbits of its own Yaogan constellation to provide Pakistan with real time imaging of Indian targets over Pathankot, Adampur, Chandigarh and Gurdaspur. In April , Pakistan launched the Pakistan Remote Sensing Satellite-Earth Observation 3 (PRSC-EO3) enhanced high resolution satellite, built with Chinese assistance from the Juquan centre. During the conflict, China also provided Pakistan with real-time data on Indian military movements from its Gaofen and Jilin ELINT satellites. Since this operation, China has offered Pakistan the 5th generation J-35 stealth fighter, the KI-500 AEW aircraft and the HQ-19 ballistic missile defence system. In January 2025, Pakistan launched its electro optical earth observation satellite, based on the Chinese Yaogan satellite with Chinese assistance from the Juquan satellite centre.

The summarised conclusion of these events is that India has been successfully lured into a disastrous long-term India-Pakistan strategic escalation as envisioned in China’s Grand Strategy to tie India down South of the Himalayan border, as part of its intentions to “shape the Indian ocean environment” and forestall an offensive Indian maritime strategy to thwart its westward sweep to dominate Eurasia.

It is interesting to know how the above conclusions so far arrived at fit in with the new dimensions and outcomes of the Iran war. To begin with, the most earth-shaking revelation is that the beginnings of the Chinese strategic assistance to Iran coincides almost exactly with China’s decision to convert Pakistan into a nuclear weapon power, in early 1980 (thinking in decades). In that year, China became Iran’s most generous arms supplier in the Iran-Iraq war, providing anti-ship missiles, tanks, artillery and small arms. After 2000, assistance shifted to more devious routes. Then followed inputs for ballistic missiles, including precursor materials for solid fuel, for missile body production and, for radars and electronic warfare. Beidou navigation data was given early on. Perhaps, the most significant help was drone engines, connectors and materials. China became Iran’s largest oil buyer, thereby financing its military modernisation. Backing all these transfers, it was shielding Iran in international forums and attempting to legitimise Iran’s nuclear posture. These measures exactly mirror the China–Pakistan axis with the addition of shielding Pakistan from UN sanctions on abetting terror against India.

There is very little to add to the media narrative of the Iran war, the hysteria about drones, the strategic blunders of President Trump on the possibility of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and assuming an internal revolt in Iran. The long-term assessment and outcomes have been completely ignored. Most importantly for India, it was that this conflict that most damaged the Indian economy, prosperity, finance, energy security, raised CAD, and inflation and crashed the rupee. All this occurred far outside its territorial boundaries, contradicting the accumulated wisdom of India that the Indian military’s primary function is to win border wars arising out of territory disputes. Even so, the startled reaction of an energy-dependent India in not anticipating a possible closure of Hormuz will far outweigh the collective damage suffered by India over 70 years. During the war, Chinese purchases of Iranian oil increased through shadow trading. A critical development was Iran’s acquisition of a Chinese Earth observation satellite the TEE-01B, which provided submeter resolution imagery enabling the accurate geo location of US hangars, fuel depots, radars, command centres and aircraft on the ground. Battlefield awareness was done by AI-imagery and data processing compressed into minutes, raising Iran’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability almost up to US standards. But the biggest question is yet to be answered. How has India’s preoccupation with territorial war been rudely shattered forever in the future? In the aftermath of the Iran war, world power equations will shift decisively from territorial control to dominating the world’s interconnected systems, including energy corridors, digital infrastructure, maritime routes and financial systems. After the war is over, the smarter nations would be those that adapt quickest to the new realities because the world is not going back to the older system. Nations would now also attempt to control digital nodes, cable landing stations, undersea cable runs, data centres and satellite networks. In this area, the US currently holds the initiative, but China’s Grand Strategy of dominating world trade and the international network of ports has already foreseen such an event. The other area of conflict would be control of financial systems, such as Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. The dominance of the dollar will be challenged by Gulf sovereign wealth funds, Chinese capital and BRICS. In the end, China emerges as the winner in 2026/27. Chinese victory was obvious during Trump’s visit to China on May 14, when Xi Jinping warned the US on Taiwan, and conceded nothing.

Ever since Thucydides, the Greek historian, wrote the first rational account of a war, devoid of mythology and decisive divine intervention, the purpose of war has remained unchanged for 3000 years. However a country may express it, they all fall into the basket of “altering enemy behaviour by the use of force”. Also remaining unchanged is that war is an extension of politics, as famously said by the universally revered military strategic writer Klaus von Clausewitz. The conversion of a political objective into military strategy is influenced permanently, by firstly, the frankness of the dialogue between the political class and military leaders, secondly by the geography of the conflict, thirdly by the resources available, the fourth by the prevailing culture of the country and the armed forces, and temporarily by technology, because the answer to technology is a later technology. Hugely underestimated is culture, the leading cause of the US’ defeat in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran where over reliance on technology blinded US leaders into ignoring the cultural tendencies of the enemy. The primary cultural ethos deployed against India today is the Chinese heritage of thinking in decades, with a grand strategy that runs for a hundred years and began in 1980 with China’s decision to shape the South Asian environment by suppressing India and challenging the US in West Asia with Iran. Indian strategic analysts grossly err in misjudging both culture and geography. The latter is India’s only asymmetric card against superior resources and simultaneously, its only weakness if it ignores the benefit to China of the Himalayas.