Geopolitical environment in 2024 is anticipated to remain contested as in the past two years after outbreak of the War in Ukraine in February 2022. With a divided UN Security Council – the key geopolitical arbitrator in prevention of outbreak and sustenance of wars – termination of existing wars – Ukraine and Gaza apart from other smaller regional conflicts is unlikely.
Prevention of outbreak of war in other zones of frozen conflicts or hair trigger alerts ranging from the Korean Peninsula, South China Sea or Taiwan with the election of a President animus towards China also remains a question mark.
Propensity of state supported non state actors as the Houthi in Yemen who are holding global commercial shipping to ransom is another dimension of the unpredictable threats that are likely to be sustained if not intensified in 2024.
What is implied is a failure of diplomacy in termination and prevention of wars would mean a greater role for the military. Thus, these ongoing or threshold wars will impact India in multiple ways from energy to economic and maritime security in 2024.
In the regional sphere, India’s periphery is once again contested from a Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the West spreading terror proxies in Pakistan to a poly crisis in Islamabad and the civil war in Myanmar, spill over to India is explicit.
This will entail continued deployment of border guarding forces – military, para-military and central police organisations on the international borders. Then bilaterally there is the fragile situation on the Line of Control [LOC] with Pakistan and the Line of Actual Control [LAC] with China where conflict and escalation is controlled through a delicate process of diplomatic and military confidence building measures. But the very fact that there is eyeball to eyeball confrontation means potential for sudden escalation as in Galwan in June 2020 – an assessment made by the higher military commanders in India.
Such a scenario would entail continued deployment of large quantum of military force on the LAC and LOC in 2024. Another front – maritime with the threat to merchant shipping in the Northern Arabian Sea implies that the Indian Navy hitherto fore in the maritime domain surveillance role will have to deploy resources for sea control in 2024.
Active deployment of the military will impact modernization of the armed forces, a challenge both in terms of budget and intellectual and management capital. The ambitious project of creation of theatre command, jointness and integration and a lean and mean force may get the short shrift.
Yet another front is the internal one – militancy and terrorism with Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur in the North East likely to entail heavy deployment of the Army and the para military – Assam Rifles apart from other security agencies in 2024.
All this is envisaged as the country goes in for general elections likely in April May 2024 where political direction may be diffused.