New Delhi, Jan. 11 -- Morning shows the day and developments during the first week of 2026 promise to turn the year into a geopolitical roller-coaster. India will probably need new tools during this period and may have to look further afield for some tips. Each nation's individual and unique strategy has to be a sum of parts, some of which may have to be borrowed.

At a stretch, even a small country like Laos can probably offer India some partial lessons. Here is why.

The landlocked southeast Asian country Laos earned a rather unenviable distinction during the mid-1960s and early 1970s: it became the world's most bombed country on a per capita basis.

Between 1964 and 1973, US bomber planes discharged over 2 million tonnes of ordnance ov...