National security and economic prosperity are not competing priorities for India but mutually reinforcing pillars of state power. This article examines the ways and means by which India seeks to secure itself against military, economic, diplomatic and internal threats, and argues that a comprehensive, whole-of-nation security architecture is essential for sustained growth towards the goal of a developed nation, or Viksit Bharat, by 2047.

Security and prosperity have historically been treated in Indian policy discourse as sequential rather than simultaneous goals: first stabilise the borders, and then grow the economy. This approach is no longer adequate. In an era of hybrid warfare, economic coercion and information contestation, national security encompasses far more than military strength. It includes technological capability, access to natural resources, diplomatic leverage, human capital and, importantly, the collective will and morale of the nation.

Security, therefore, cannot be confined to the armed forces or the intelligence apparatus. It is also a condition that effective governance must create and sustain. The central question is consequently broader: through what ways and means can India secure itself militarily, economically, diplomatically and internally, while creating the conditions necessary for sustained prosperity?

Comprehensive Security as Doctrine: The National Security Advisor’s Framework

India’s contemporary security thinking owes much to the intellectual framework associated with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. In an early and widely cited formulation, Doval argued that a state confronting sub-conventional threats such as cross-border terrorism has three possible postures: a purely defensive mode; a defensive-offensive mode in which the state seeks to pre-empt threats at their source; and a fully offensive mode constrained by the nuclear threshold. He argued that a purely defensive posture could never produce victory. Even if the overwhelming majority of threats were intercepted, some capacity for harm would inevitably get through, leaving the state exposed and producing, at best, a stalemate rather than lasting security. The defensive-offensive approach seeks instead to address threats closer to their source while remaining conscious of the risks of escalation.

This approach found a clear practical expression in Operation Sindoor in May 2025, launched in response to the Pahalgam terrorist attack, when Indian forces conducted precision strikes against terrorist infrastructure inside Pakistan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi characterised the operation as a firm response to terrorism and an expression of India’s commitment to safeguarding national security.

The significance of this approach lies in the way it reduces the traditional distinction between offence and defence. Security is pursued not merely by hardening India’s own borders, but also by degrading an adversary’s ability to project threats in the first place. At the same time, such action has to remain calibrated so that deterrence is strengthened without allowing escalation to become uncontrollable.

Economic and Financial Security: Resilience as a Strategic Asset

Economic and financial instruments have increasingly become tools of coercion short of war. Restricting an adversary’s access to international capital, imposing sanctions and financial scrutiny, constraining foreign investment and disrupting remittances can affect both economic stability and a state’s ability to sustain its strategic objectives. These are precisely the vulnerabilities that India must seek to reduce, making economic resilience a first-order national security requirement rather than merely a developmental objective.

India’s ambition to become a developed nation by 2047 reinforces this linkage. Bold structural reforms, energy security and a stronger position in global trade will be essential to achieving the scale of economic growth that the country seeks. At the same time, developments in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology and other frontier technologies are closely linked to supply-chain resilience and national security.

Economic strength also has a direct bearing on strategic autonomy. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was among the senior Indian leaders who linked economic openness and national strength, arguing that an open society, political system and economy could themselves become sources of national power and legitimacy. India’s ability to become a major knowledge economy was central to this vision. The experience of the past two decades, however, has also demonstrated that economic openness must be accompanied by resilience. Under the present government, the doctrine of Atmanirbhar Bharat has extended this thinking into the defence-industrial base. Dependence on imported weapons and critical technologies can itself become a strategic vulnerability. Indigenous defence production is therefore not simply an industrial or economic objective; it is also an important element of national security.

Atmanirbhar Bharat, in this context, is best understood not as isolation from the global economy but as the creation of sufficient domestic capacity to engage with the world from a position of strength and confidence.

Diplomatic Strategy and Soft Power: Multipolarity and the India Way

If military deterrence and economic resilience constitute the hard core of national security, diplomacy determines the external environment in which that power is exercised.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has argued that the defining characteristic of the present international system is the movement from a unipolar to a multipolar order. India’s response has been to avoid permanent alignment with any single power while maintaining productive relationships with the United States, Europe, Russia, Japan and its immediate neighbourhood. This approach, often described as multi-alignment, is intended to preserve India’s strategic autonomy while maximising its diplomatic room for manoeuvre.

In a rapidly changing international environment, India’s security cannot depend solely on formal alliances. It must also rest on the accumulation of comprehensive national power and the ability to work with different partners on different issues. Engaging America, managing China, cultivating Europe, reassuring Russia, strengthening ties with Japan and drawing neighbouring countries closer are all components of this broader diplomatic strategy.

This diplomatic realism is complemented by India’s considerable soft-power potential. Shashi Tharoor has long argued that the traditional calculations of hard power are no longer sufficient to explain a country’s influence in world affairs. India’s democratic traditions, cultural diversity, diaspora, civilisational heritage and global appeal provide forms of influence that can complement military and economic power.

Hard power provides the ability to deter and, when necessary, impose costs. Soft power can help shape perceptions, build partnerships and generate goodwill. Taken together, they strengthen India’s ability to influence the international environment in which its national interests are pursued.

Understanding Adversarial Instruments: Financial and Faultline Warfare

Strategic planning is incomplete without a clear understanding of the instruments through which rival and adversarial states pursue coercion below the threshold of open war.

Two broad categories are particularly relevant. The first is financial pressure: the use of sanctions, tariffs, financial oversight mechanisms and restrictions on foreign investment to constrain an adversary’s economic freedom and, in some cases, its ability to finance proxy conflict.

The second is the exploitation of internal fault lines. Separatist or regional grievances, civil-military tensions, perceptions of corruption and failures of governance can all be amplified by external actors seeking to weaken an adversary without engaging in direct military confrontation.

India’s response must therefore operate on two levels. The first is to strengthen macroeconomic and financial resilience through sound banking regulation, diversified trade relationships, adequate foreign exchange reserves and credible participation in international financial systems. The second is to strengthen social cohesion, equitable regional development and institutional integrity so that external actors have fewer grievances to exploit.

Internal governance is consequently a national security variable. The decline of major powers has historically been associated not only with external threats but also with authoritarianism, discriminatory governance, poor delivery of justice, institutional decay, corruption and bureaucratic ineffectiveness. A state that governs effectively and fairly is better placed to deny adversaries the internal fault lines on which coercive strategies depend.

Towards Viksit Bharat: Integrating Security and Prosperity

India’s ambition to become a developed economy by 2047 cannot be separated from the security conditions required to sustain investment, trade and technological advancement. As India becomes one of the world’s largest economies, its national strategy must look beyond short-term economic output and consider the resilience of the systems on which long-term prosperity depends.

This includes the ability to withstand financial shocks, reduce dependence on external suppliers for critical minerals and technologies, and avoid infrastructural and technological dependencies that could become difficult to reverse. Dependence on external suppliers for critical inputs can become a strategic vulnerability, particularly when those dependencies can be exploited through economic or political pressure.

The challenge, therefore, is not simply to achieve higher economic growth. India must build an economy capable of absorbing shocks, maintaining strategic freedom of action and continuing to grow even when confronted with external disruption. Economic resilience must become an integral component of national power.

Conclusion

India’s national security is not a precondition that must first be satisfied before prosperity can be pursued. It is an integrated dimension of prosperity itself. Military deterrence protects the country against direct and proxy threats; economic self-reliance reduces vulnerability to financial and industrial coercion; diplomatic multi-alignment reduces the danger of strategic isolation; and soft power, social cohesion and good governance strengthen the country against the internal fault lines that adversaries may seek to exploit.

A durable Indian strategy for the twenty-first century must therefore treat security and prosperity as a single, continuous national project. Strength in one domain must reinforce resilience in the others. Military power must support economic confidence; economic strength must provide the resources for national security; diplomacy must create strategic space; and good governance must provide the internal cohesion on which all other forms of national power ultimately depend.

The ultimate measure of national power is therefore not merely the ability to deter an attack. It is the ability to govern, grow and prosper undeterred.

Group Capt R K Yadav is currently pursing his PhD in Aviation management from UPES, Dehradun