I am not an expert on the topic. It is all a bird’s-eye view with me. I don’t know the nooks and crannies that help a country remain sovereign. It is always some give or take, always a negotiation, always a treaty.
For me, sovereignty is the ability of a nation to determine its own fate. It is important that the people of the country have a say in the direction they want it to proceed. Sometimes people need to see the greater good and may have to override the feelings or will of some citizens.
Anyway, I am going to talk about what I think it takes for a country to be independent and in control of its fate. I think the country needs to have food security, energy security and offensive or defensive security.
Food Security; Pillar 1
What I mean by food security is that a country should be able to feed its citizens even if all food imports are frozen due to a calamity or war. I am taking the worst possible situation here. If you cannot feed your citizens, they will revolt. An army cannot fight on empty stomachs. None of your country’s administration can justify the absence of food. The country will fall into anarchy if left without food. You can still control the populace by rationing food, but the lingering hate will eventually boil over and result in chaos. So a country needs to either store food so that it can last even in times of war, or become capable enough to grow food that can feed the entire population. How do we do that? India has enough arable land but must improve yield, irrigation efficiency, storage, and fertiliser independence to ensure long-term food security. Faster loops, from sowing to harvesting. We also need to develop sustainable farming methods so that we don’t destroy our soil in the process. Science is the way forward.
Energy Security; Pillar 2
Now we come to energy security. Currently the world is dependent on a handful of countries for oil. Oil will not disappear suddenly, but dependence on it is risky due to volatility, geopolitics and long-term depletion. Multiple alternatives are already being developed or deployed. But it will take time.
When I say energy security, I mean the ability to keep the lights on in your country, powering infrastructure such as hospitals, airports, railways and homes. We are overly dependent on oil for our logistics. Ships, trucks and vehicles all run on oil. Electric is slowly taking over but that transition is extremely slow. The military depends on oil imports to power tanks, jets, vehicles and other machinery. I think we should at least transition our consumer infrastructure towards electric and have huge oil reserves stored across the whole country. We should increase our nuclear energy generation capability. It is clean energy and can generate a lot of power with far less fuel and pollution.
But what do we do about our military infrastructure, which is almost entirely powered by oil? Small drones are electric but medium and large military drones usually use petrol-based aviation fuel due to endurance and payload needs. We can move towards a hybrid approach. Nuclear-powered submarines are already strategic assets. We can make our third aircraft carrier a nuclear-powered carrier. Obviously we cannot power rockets without petroleum products. Electric propulsion exists but cannot replace chemical propellants for rocket launches due to low thrust. So yes, a hybrid approach. I mean, imagine there is an attack and you cannot move your forces because your armoured vehicle is charging :P We can fix this specific thing with fast charging, but let’s first migrate our consumer infrastructure and think about the military later.
Defense Capability; Pillar 3
Okay, what is left? Defense and offense capabilities, yes. We should have our own jet that we can produce in large numbers. Every self-respecting country has its own jet. Come on, India. Everything we use to defend our nation should be producible within the country. No asking other nations to give us weapons. Ammo, guns, rockets, radars, jets, ships, maintenance of ships, software, everything needed to defend our nation should be produced in our nation. Of course, in peacetime we can have contracts with friendly countries and get ToT, but it is important to become independent in this sector. Reverse engineer, cultivate talent, let the young into the defense industry and innovate. Get an asymmetric advantage over your enemy. The best asymmetric advantage is the economy though. If you have a strong, growing economy, you have everything. Prepare for every attack and disable your enemy using sanctions and embargoes. Building your own weapons gives you an edge over your enemies. It brings respect. Also, depending on others to defend yourself is such a sus behaviour.
Digital Sovereignty; Pillar 4
Globalisation has brought the world closer. You would think that there are only three pillars, right? Nope. We are in the internet age, so there is a fourth pillar. Digital sovereignty. You should have the capability to protect all your infrastructure software. All the software that helps run hospitals, military systems, electrical grids and so on. You also need a swarm of bots that can help you shape narratives online. You need bots that scrape the internet for information. Information warfare is a real thing. You need your servers running in the country, you need to store important data within the country, and you need your own software so that other countries cannot harm your capabilities. You need to be able to protect yourself from cyber warfare but also be capable of launching cyber attacks to bring down essential infrastructure of your enemy. Your chip hardware needs to be designed by people in your country, printed by factories in your country and deployed by people in your country. I mean, your country’s gamers don’t need a chip made in the country, but the machine that is detecting and firing an interceptor rocket does need that. Not easy to achieve I know but is it needed? Yes. You have to build that capability. You have to have strategies to conduct information warfare online and shape narratives. Digital sovereignty is as important as the other three in this new age.
I think I have written too much. This is just my common-sense opinion, but to me, sovereignty must be earned every day, through strength, preparation and self-reliance.
