India, Jan. 16 -- For years now, India's military planners have prepared for what former chief of defence staff Bipin Rawat called "a two-and-a-half front war". Rawat's phrasing refers to simultaneous conflicts with Pakistan and China on the country's northern and western borders, alongside internal security challenges.

But, in a world upended by America's volatility under the Donald Trump regime, India is confronted with perhaps its gravest set of strategic vulnerabilities: China is untrustworthy, the US is undependable, and the immediate neighbourhood is adversarial.

And while India has long counted on its distinctive soft power - a large democracy with peaceful transition of power election after election, pluralism, Bollywood, and ci...