Shadow Warrior by Rajeev Srinivasan

Prof. Rajeev Srinivasan
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  • News Commentary
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An Indian/Hindu nationalist perspective on world affairs; as well as on technology and innovation; conversations with experts and with people just like you and me. rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com

  1. May 19

    IITMAA Fireside Chats Ep. 5: Masterclass by Anuj Gupta on Policy and How Govt is now a Shaper and Enabler of Business, not a Regulator alone or an Obstacle

    Episode 5: May 17th, 2026: Shri Anuj Gupta, B Tech Mechanical 2003, Managing Director of Policy Consulting Firm BowerGroup Asia, former Govt of India policy expert, and former Chief of Staff to the Commerce Minister . Policy expert Anuj Gupta on how India Governs and why it matters for Business * The government has moved sharply toward outcome-orientation — targets, dashboards, PRAGATI reviews. What does that mean for how you sell to, partner with, or contract with the government? * The government operates with a clear priority stack — Swachh Bharat, Ayushman Bharat, PLI, ONDC. Reading that stack correctly seems like the most underrated business intelligence exercise in India. How do you read it? * if you knew exactly how a reform-oriented government thinks, decides, and executes, how would you run your business differently? This is a fireside chat hosted by the IIT Madras Alumni Association featuring policy expert Anuj Gupta, who examines the evolving relationship between the Indian government and the private sector. The discussion highlights how the state has transitioned from a mere regulator to a primary shaper of market structures, utilizing industrial policy and digital public infrastructure to drive rapid economic change. Gupta emphasizes that modern governance in India prioritizes outcome-oriented execution and scale, as evidenced by massive initiatives in electrification, poverty reduction, and the India Stack. Business leaders are encouraged to move from a reactive compliance mindset to an anticipatory strategy that aligns with state-driven goals like competitive federalism and technological innovation. By understanding the structural logic of current reforms, entrepreneurs can better navigate emerging opportunities in sectors like green energy, space technology, and logistics. Ultimately, the sources advocate for a collaborative partnership where businesses leverage government-built foundations to foster national growth and wealth creation. Brief Profile of Anuj Gupta Anuj Gupta is the Managing Director of Policy Consulting firm BowerGroupAsia. BowerGroupAsia is present in 30+ countries in the World and helps Fortune 500 companies enter or expand in a country and operates at the intersection of policy and business. Anuj previously was a Vice President at TataSons and spent a decade in the Indian and Abu Dhabi governments, where he shaped flagship policies across trade and industry, energy, finance, technology, infrastructure and startups. As chief of staff to Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, he was instrumental in India’s recent economic, trade and supply chain realignment. He has worked in 10+ Ministries with experience ranging from energy, mining, transportation, industry, trade and food. Anuj holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and a BTech (ME, 2003) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He is also an alumnus of Mays Business School, Texas A&M University. In his spare time, he enjoys reading more than 100 books an year and exploring ideas at the intersection of policy, innovation and global development. Here’s the AI-generated audio podcast based on the conversation: Here is also a brief AI-generated video summary: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 24m

  2. May 11

    Ep. 191: Gulf War 3 has become a quagmire; India has no option but to pursue energy self-reliance

    A version of this essay has been published by rediff.com at https://www.rediff.com/news/column/gulf-war-crisis-why-india-will-take-a-huge-hit/20260511.htm In the heat and dust of elections, many of us have forgotten that there is a war going on. But the PM’s warning about sacrifices and conservation reminds us that this essentially unwinnable war, and the on-again, off-again negotiations to bring it to a closure, are going to hit every one of us in our wallets. On 30th April, the Pentagon announced that the US had so far spent $25 billion on the West Asia war. This is a staggeringly huge number, and I was startled because I had casually thrown around this number as the ultimate cost of the war for all parties. Clearly I underestimated the damage, if this is the US’ cost alone. Add the other frontline states, and then the untold misery and cost imposed on all of us innocent bystanders. And it’s not over yet by any means. Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of war (self-fulfilling prophecy, isn’t it, they changed the name from secretary of defense, and lo! they went to war immediately thereafter) bristled at the idea of a quagmire, according to The Economist. But I am old enough to remember Vietnam, and then Afghanistan. These forever wars are easy to get into, but hard to get out of. Indeed, the war has become not only an impasse, but also a charade. Even considering how the narrative gets bizarre from all sides during every war, this one seems especially messed up. So much so that there literally is no point in paying attention to the day-to-day events, because they don’t seem to make much difference. Except of course, when the price of Brent crude hits $120, as it did on April 30th, twice what it was before the war. Ouch! And Hormuz is still closed. India is reeling under a heatwave, and we live under the Damocles’ sword of power cuts. Kerala announced a half hour of rolling cuts (anodyne euphemism: “load shedding”) every night, but they will not tell you when or where the cuts will be. This is like the Malayalam proverb: “the guy who got hit by lightning was then bitten by a snake”. Incidentally, there’s been a number of deaths from snakebites in Kerala as the reptiles enter houses seeking cooler temperatures. If this El Nino weather holds up, India’s assumptions about load (maximum 270 GW) will be challenged: we hit a record on April 25th of 256 GW peak demand, and the fact that the grid didn’t collapse is admirable, but being so close to the maximum is worrying. In Kerala, the grid cannot absorb the solar electricity produced by many households during the day because the Electricity Board did not purchase enough storage batteries: so much for on-grid. I am also fairly confident that once the elections are over, the government will be forced to increase fuel prices. Petrol has held steady at pump prices of Rs. 107.45/liter for a few years, but as crude oil prices have doubled, I see an inevitable rise not of Rs. 28 or so as speculated, but Rs. 50-100 based on how much inflation the Reserve Bank is willing to tolerate. In passing, I remember seeing somewhere that petrol prices have reached Pak Rs. 500/liter in that country. Therefore I have stopped paying much attention to the daily press releases and JUST IN, BREAKING NEWS types of ‘analysis’ (some of the most prominent of these are clear AI slop, possibly manufactured by Chinese troll farms). The big picture is that the Straits of Hormuz remain blocked, the amount of oil and gas coming from the Persian Gulf remains diminished dramatically, and recovery may take months, if not years, even if the strait is unblocked. The chances are increasing that this will become a protracted war, as the principals are standing by their maximalist positions, where this is little reason to believe they will be able to arrive at a via media and a lasting ceasefire. It is not business as usual. This is the biggest energy shock since 1973, and as always, it is developing countries that will be most seriously affected. India is going to take a large hit, with inflation rising by, say, 2%, and GDP growth falling from 7+% to 6%. There are several things India needs to do urgently: * Strive for self-reliance (“Atmanirbhar”) in a variety of areas * Diversify its sources of hydrocarbons to other geographies eg. Africa, South America, Central Asia (through Chabahar), and accelerate exploration of its own (offshore and onshore) blocks as Mumbai High and Assam fields are aging rapidly * Pursue other forms of energy: * Renewables * Coal, including carbon sequestration * Biofuels * Nuclear (both SMR and FBR) * Shift households from LPG to LNG, including tapping Krishna Godavari wells, coal gasification, biomass Especially at a time when electricity demand for new industries (eg. generativeAI data centers, semiconductors) is ramping up, it is important for India’s manufacturing rise to ensure that this does not become a constraint. From a consumer perspective, increased affluence brings increased electricity demand. In addition, the Indian migrant worker population of about 10 million in West Asia, and their inward remittances of some $40-$50 billion per annum (total of $120 billion globally) may be increasingly under pressure if oil/gas production does not go back to pre-war levels. There is one more factor: India needs military muscle. As I said about Pax Indica, the Indian Ocean needs a strong, impartial facilitator of trade in the Hormuz to Malacca sea-lanes, and India is best placed to do this, harking back to Rajendra Chola re-opening Malacca in 1025 CE. But this requires three things: * Major container ports: Trivandrum (Vizhinjam), Vadhavan, Great Nicobar (Galathea Bay) * The ‘switch’ to ease multiparty, multi-protocol trade: the India Stack * Security: three aircraft carrier groups, two dozen SSBNs, SSNs, AIP diesel submarines This is the time for India to plan forward fully, with the goal of Atmanirbharata, and energy security. The Persian Gulf is no longer a reliable source. The war is indeed a quagmire. 950 words This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

    20 min

  3. Apr 27

    Ep. 190: The need for Pax Indica: Malacca choked 1,001 years ago; Hormuz choked in 2026

    A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-the-need-for-pax-indica-malacca-was-blocked-1001-years-ago-hormuz-is-choked-now-14005673.html In 1025 CE, exactly 1,001 years ago, Emperor Rajendra Chola sent an armada (probably the largest fleet in history before the advent of steam) 4,000 kilometers clear across the Indian Ocean. It was on a mission strangely familiar to us in 2026: open up a critical strait that was being choked by a littoral state. The thalassocratic SriVijaya Empire of Sumatra was closing the strait and imposing tolls, as well as winking at a little piracy. The strait in question then was Malacca. The Chola goal: to reopen Indian trade with Southeast Asia and China. Remarkably, the Cholas were not interested in territorial conquest, only in freedom of navigation. It is ironic that today, it is again a question of free trade, that shibboleth that has been waved about for decades (although that was a euphemism for ‘managed trade that benefits the West’). The difference between then and now? The salient fact is that Rajendra Chola was able to open Malacca with his wooden ships. With all his aircraft carriers and F-35s and missiles, President Trump is unable to open Hormuz. This must mean something, although reasonable people may differ on what that is. My claim is that it means India has the opportunity, in fact the need, to step into the breach. Maritime trade is severely disturbed today, and it is increasingly a disaster for innocent bystanders bereft of oil and gas. And it is increasingly the Indian Ocean that matters: specifically the sea-lanes from Hormuz to Malacca, which handle a significant portion of both oil/gas trade and goods trade globally. Geo-politics and geo-economics, Mahan’s and Spykman’s theories It is a reasonable conjecture that the locus of power has shifted over the centuries: in the 19th century, the Atlantic was supreme; in the 20th century, the Pacific; and in the 21st century, the most important ocean is the Indian Ocean. Asia has returned to center stage. In support of this assertion, see how the economic center of gravity of the world has returned to the vicinity of India, after the European colonial interlude. It is therefore appropriate to ask what it would take for India to regain its former keystone role in the Indian Ocean. Of course geography offers it to the country on a platter. From both Alfred Thayer Mahan’s theory of naval power, and from Nicholas Spykman’s Rimland theory, India could be, or should be, the dominant power in the region: it is almost literally India’s ocean. Mahan’s ideas, updated for today, suggest that a strong navy should protect a large merchant marine fleet, manage trade, and control choke-points. The preferred hardware may have changed from battleships to aircraft carriers and especially nuclear submarines these days, but the basic idea remains: speak softly but carry a big stick with a force-projection navy. Spykman’s Rimland theory seems more appropriate in current circumstances than the Heartland theory popularized by Halford MacKinder. The Eurasian land mass may well be subject to control by a coastal hegemon or an alliance that controls the sea lanes and choke points. Despite pipelines and rail-borne containers, maritime trade still dominates. Spice Route >> Silk Road A stark reminder of this is the comparison between the fabled ‘Silk Road’ and the ancient ‘Spice Route’. Despite all the breathless propaganda about the Silk Road, it is abundantly clear that sea-borne trade was an order of magnitude greater, because a caravan of 500 camels, braving deserts, bandits and so on across central Asia couldn’t possibly carry more than 100 tons of goods; whereas an ocean-going stitched teak ship, like a single uru from Beypore, Kerala, could easily carry 400 tons. And the monsoon winds provided predictable, seasonal propulsion. India’s prowess was built on the monsoons. By mastering the seasonal winds, Indian mariners turned the ocean into a highway. This made India the supreme trading power. Merchants from Rome and Egypt traded with Chinese and Southeast Asian counterparts on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, leaving behind troves of coins as evidence. The Switch The remarkable thing is that these merchants did not even need to meet each other physically, because India provided the “multi-protocol switch”: translating their diverse needs and offering the conveniences of an entrepot, while also itself producing coveted, high-value products such as black pepper. For example, a Greek buyer could buy something from a Chinese seller, and settle the transaction using Indian credit. And how did India do it? By providing the “switching fabric”, such as the ports, the credit systems, and the security, that allowed these disparate worlds to exchange products and wealth without ever meeting. This is much like what a network gateway such as TIBCO does for packets of different kinds of data (in passing, how appropriate that TIBCO was founded by an Indian-American, Vivek Ranadive!). Hardware switches, eg. from Cisco Systems, have been around for a while, but TIBCO abstracted that functionality in software to connect those with different protocols. India already has many of the ingredients of the switching fabric in the India Stack. Using protocols like UPI, e-KYC, Account Aggregation, Central Bank Digital Currency, and ONDC, especially along with distributed-ledger blockchain-based Smart Contracts, it should be possible to provide end-to-end transparent and reliable multi-party trade support which complements the SWIFT payment system. Complement, not necessarily replace. The same pattern held with India’s age-old trade system. The ports were on the Malabar Coast, such as Muziris; on the Coromandel coast, such as Arikkamedu; and on the Konkan Coast, such as Bharuchcha. The credit systems were run by temples which acted as both bankers and venture capitalists for the trading guilds. The security: well, that’s what Rajendra Chola demonstrated in 1025 CE. Alas, medieval India lost its maritime focus. So did China. Both became insular, and were overwhelmed by invaders, including Turkics and Europeans. In India’s case, the Turkic invaders were land-focused powers, although there were isolated maritime attempts (e.g. the Maratha Navy, Travancore defeating the Dutch in an amphibious battle at Colachel in 1741, etc.) Now, however, there are new ports. The most interesting is the Port of Trivandrum (Vizhinjam). This deep-water container transhipment port is only 10 nautical miles away from the Hormuz-Malacca sea lanes, and now when Dubai is closed, it reportedly has a backlog of a hundred container ships waiting to be berthed. Then there is the upcoming Vadhavan container port in Maharashtra, and the Galathea Bay container port in Great Nicobar, which overlooks the mouth of Malacca. Pax Indica today The modern idea of Pax Indica borrows from both perspectives: hard power and a switch. An Internet search brings up the fact that it was my friend Bapa Rao and I who first started talking about it in terms of India being the benevolent hegemon in the Indian Ocean, way back in the 1990s. Later, Shashi Tharoor wrote in his 2011 book Pax Indica that it could be “a peace system based on cooperation, stability, and rule‑based order in Asia and beyond, in which rising India helps shape the rules of the road rather than impose its will through hegemony.” That is, along roughly the same lines as the “multi protocol switch” or entrepot concept. Pax Indica is not an empire; it is an ecosystem. There are three aspects: military power, the full exploration of the multiprotocol switch, and the port-led development policy. Bapa Rao and I will consider these in a future article. Briefly, though, here is what these entail. * Project Power: Use a 3-carrier, 18-24-submarine navy to ensure no single power can close the ocean’s gates. * Enable Trade: Use the Digital India Stack to act as the “Multi-Protocol Switch” for a fragmented world, plus super-ports like Vizhinjam (Trivandrum). * Secure the Choke Points: Be ready, like the Cholas, to act decisively when a “Srivijaya-style” blockade threatens the common good. Hard power needs to come through the acquisition of a blue water navy: at least three aircraft carrier groups, one for the Arabian Sea (Hormuz), one for the Bay of Bengal (Malacca), and one in maintenance, refit and upgrades. Even though drones and missiles have rendered them less dominant than in earlier times, carrier groups are still important for air superiority and power projection. But an ever-more critical factor is “area denial” by nuclear attack submarines (SSBN) that can launch second strike nuclear missiles as part of the “triad”, of which India should have at least three to four. In addition, there should be at least a dozen silent AIP-equipped diesel-electrics for securing straits, and at least 6-12 SSN (possibly leased) to enhance blue-water reach. “The IOR must become an Indian lake,” said General Raj Shukla on X. I agree: Not as a territory of conquest, but as a sanctuary of trade, where India sits at the center, as the protocol provider that makes world trade work again, as in millennia past. 1500 words, 27 Apr, 2026 Here’s the notebookLM.google.com AI-generated video about this article: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

    24 min

  4. Apr 23

    IITMAA Fireside Chats Ep. 04: Masterclass on India's semiconductor renaissance by Dr. Suraj Rengarajan, MD and Principal Technologist, Applied Materials India

    This is a fireside chat hosted by Rajeev Srinivasan of the IIT Madras Alumni Association, featuring Dr. Suraj Rengarajan, MD and Principal Technologist, Applied Materials India. The discussion centers on the current renaissance of India’s semiconductor industry, highlighting how favorable government policies and shifting global geopolitics have created a unique window for domestic manufacturing. They discuss how supportive government policies, shifts in global geopolitics, and a massive domestic consumer market are creating a unique opportunity for India to establish a manufacturing ecosystem. The dialogue emphasizes the necessity of developing specialized talent and hands-on training to move beyond semiconductor design into actual fabrication. Dr. Rengarajan highlights the potential of AI-driven manufacturing and predictive analytics to improve production efficiency and material discovery. He also explains the critical need to build a supporting ecosystem of suppliers, specialized power, and ultrapure water around newly announced fabrication plants. He emphasizes that while India possesses significant design talent, the country must now focus on hands-on technical training and leveraging AI for manufacturing efficiency. The conversation also addresses the challenges of competing with established global players and the importance of niche applications in the domestic market. Ultimately, the source portrays a hopeful yet realistic outlook on India’s journey toward becoming a global electronics manufacturing hub over the next decade. Here’s a brief profile of Dr. Suraj Rengarajan: Dr. Suraj Rengarajan is the Managing Director and Principal Technologist at Applied Materials India, Bangalore. In this role he drives strategic engagement between Applied Materials India and external technology ecosystems, including universities, research institutions, the start-up eco-system and industry forums. He serves as a key spokesperson for Applied Materials in technology-related events and manage programs that foster innovation, collaboration, and talent development. Suraj started his career at Applied Materials, Santa Clara in 1997, where he held different roles ranging from process engineering, technology, program management, and product marketing for thin film deposition and metallization for interconnects silicides and novel memories. He moved to India in 2007 to head the SunFab group for Applied Materials in India. Later he headed the engineering group for dielectric deposition. As the India CTO, he worked on materials engineering driven inflections to develop and commercialize new technologies. As Semiconductor Products Group India head he drove SPG strategic objectives in India, planning and growing a customer focused organization, building local leadership talent, enabling collaboration across India & Asia region, and strengthening university and ecosystem partnerships. Suraj holds a B. Tech from IIT Madras in Metallurgical Engineering and earned his M.S and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in Materials Science. Suraj holds over 15 US patents and has more than 20 publications. The following are courtesy Google notebook LM. Audio podcast (a good summary of the conversation with some AI masala): This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min

  5. Apr 5

    Ep. 189: Drones may be a step-change as momentous as the arrival of tank warfare a century ago

    A version of this essay has been published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-drones-are-the-new-tanks-time-for-india-to-catch-up-13998019.html The most important lesson (of many) from Gulf War 3 may have been foreshadowed by the Ukraine War and other conflicts: that a combination of a step-change in warfare (military strategy) and disruptive innovation (business strategy) could rewrite the rules. If so, we may need to rethink the value of much expensive hardware. Moreover, nations such as India may need to seriously revamp their arms procurement: to small, cheap, local maybe? The most disturbing aspect of this scenario is that it reduces the human factor, and human control, over warfare. It leads to the specter of robot warfare, of Skynet, of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where autonomous intelligences may take rational decisions that have grave consequences for humans, inflicting collateral damage on innocent bystanders in ways that nobody quite understands. We need a real-life version of Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics”. But then humans too inflict unthinking collateral damage.. Step-change in warfare, and disruptive innovation There have been numerous instances where a settled and standardized war tactic was suddenly overturned by a new invention, rendering old military assets impotent. One or two examples will suffice: one was the eclipse of heavy cavalry after the invention of massed archers using longbow volleys to mow them down with thousands of synchronized arrows raining down, also inducing panic in their horses in mid-charge. Another example is how battle tanks overwhelmed the previous model of trench warfare. (Ironically, in turn, tanks are now being rendered sitting ducks by drones.) In both cases, long-held assumptions had to be rewritten practically overnight, and entirely new mechanisms had to be put in place. It is a good question (on which reasonable people may differ) as to whether the arrival of drone-and-missile-based warfare is rendering air power, including fighters, bombers and aircraft carriers, essentially obsolescent. Clayton Christensen articulated the theory of disruptive innovation in business, where an entrenched incumbent can be overthrown in short order by an insurgent attacking them from an unexpected direction, often based on lower-cost options. One example is that of Kodak and the film-camera business. Cheap and convenient digital photography dislocated Kodak et al practically overnight. I personally experienced this disruption in the 1990s when I had a key role in operating system strategy for Sun Microsystems, the runaway leader in engineering workstations and servers, which used the Unix operating system. Despite our best efforts, Microsoft+Intel coming in from the low end (as Windows systems became more capable) rapidly captured the key resource, which is third-party software vendors. This caused end users to desert in droves. There were other reasons, too: internecine warfare among firms using Unix, such as IBM, HP, Sun, AT&T, Toshiba, et al. While they bickered, Windows systems became more powerful. Lesson: the ecosystem has to be managed carefully, including supply chains. Putting these three together (step-change, disruptive innovation, and the ground realities of the Gulf War 3) one can speculate that future military doctrine will be vastly different. Here is Iran’s military doctrine, for reference, from the substack NotesonGeopolitics (Disclaimer: I am neither endorsing it or criticizing it, just offering it as an example). The US is adjusting to this reality. There is a book titled “Project Maven”, based on 200+ interviews chronicling the US military’s shift to AI-driven warfare, starting with a 2017 Pentagon project to automate drone footage analysis amid overwhelming data volumes. Project Maven evolved from error-prone early tools (such as misidentifying school buses as threats) to supporting autonomous systems like Goalkeeper drones and Whiplash naval units, now used in conflicts from Ukraine to the Caribbean by 25,000 personnel across 32 companies. Speaking of disruptive innovation, it is ironic to see the US reverse-engineering Iranian Shahed drones, and the Russians doing the same to Ukrainian drones: incumbents learning from insurgents. This is only the beginning, of course. There is a nightmare scenario: murmurating, autonomous drone swarms with a hive mind. A flock of starlings flying in perfect synchrony is a thing of beauty: they do not collide with each other, the entire swarm changes direction instantaneously, and there is emergent intelligence in the swarm, much greater than the intelligence of the individual bird. The same is true of beehives and ant colonies, too. A company called ShieldAI in fact has a product named Hivemind that does precisely this. Imagine a murmurating drone swarm of 1,000 or even 10,000: and since they cost so little make, this is not unrealistic. The enemy may shoot down 90% of them, but the 10% that gets through, especially if they are kamikaze drones fitted with explosives, can cause real damage. There is the old joke about quantity: “What do you do when you invade China? First day, you take 10,000 prisoners. Second day, you take 100,000 prisoners. Third day, you surrender!” But we don’t have to go that far: just take two instances where inexpensive drones were able to penetrate the defenses of heavily secured military airports. The first was in Russia in June 2025. Using 117 low-cost drones, Ukrainians struck several airbases at once. There is video footage of FPV drones landing on Tu-95 bombers, destroying them. These are strategic long-range nuclear bombers from the Cold War era, and will be difficult to replace. And then, just last month: at Barksdale Air Force Base in the US, where B-52 nuclear bombers are deployed, there were repeated drone swarm overflights (of 12-15 drones) between March 9th and March 15th, 2026. They couldn’t be jammed, and displayed “non-commercial signal characteristics”, although they did not actually attack the planes. Reconnaissance, it must be assumed. Superpower militaries are unable to contain them. Electronic warfare like jamming may be ineffective anyway as swarms self-repair. But it is true that there are air defense weapons that can shoot down the majority of drones. There are interceptors (but they are much more expensive than the drones themselves). Then new Directed Energy Weapons (including both lasers and high-powered microwaves) are in development. Rail guns, I understand, are overkill for them. Where is India in this arms race? India finds itself left behind in this transition, and remains committed to legacy platforms such as tanks, fighters, and other imported systems. It is true that there were battlefield successes in Operation Sindoor, where X-25 drones (towed on a 100 meter optical cable) emitted the radar signatures of Rafale fighter jets, thus drawing enemy missiles to themselves, without harming the planes. But these were Israeli products; also British-origin Banshee drones were used for spoofing Su-31 and Mig-29 signatures.. Indigenous drone efforts lag China by 3-5 years in scale, AI integration, and mass production; reliance on Chinese components persists despite bans. It does not have to be this way: India should create Production Linked Incentives for drones and missiles, and harness Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at scale. India needs to promote this as a cottage industry, so that many individuals will get involved, as in the following post by a Ukrainian drone-maker, with a hashtag #MadebyHousewives. That country produces as many as 4.5 million cheap drones a year, often using 3d printing. While Ukraine and Iran improvise hive-mind swarms under fire, India’s northeast and border regions face asymmetric threats from low-cost systems. The recent mercenary scandal in the Northeast illustrates the peril. Mercenaries, the Northeast and a new Christian enclave? The March 2026 arrests by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) expose how this drone proliferation directly endangers the Seven Sisters. Six Ukrainians and American mercenary Matthew Aaron Van Dyke were detained across Indian airports. They had repeatedly crossed from restricted Mizoram into Myanmar since 2024, training ethnic insurgent groups in drone assembly, operation, jamming, and electronic warfare. They smuggled European drone consignments through India for insurgent networks, some linked to proscribed Indian groups operating in the northeast. This is no abstract threat: drones enable precision strikes on security forces, surveillance of remote terrain, and supply drops. These capabilities could ignite or sustain insurgencies in India’s volatile borderlands. In the background is former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s explosive 2024 warning. Hasina alleged a “white man’s” conspiracy to carve out a new “Christian nation” (akin to East Timor or South Sudan) from Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts, Myanmar’s Rakhine and Chin regions, and India’s Northeast. She cited foreign eyes on the Bay of Bengal and ethnic fault lines. Hasina’s claim was dismissed as paranoia then; today, Ukrainian-American actors arming Myanmar’s rebel groups lend credence to a broader destabilization playbook. A hive-mind-enabled drone campaign could empower separatists and create a Christian-majority enclave, exploiting Christian tribal demographics and porous borders. This is hybrid warfare at its most insidious: mercenaries as force multipliers for great-power proxies. If these insurgents can leverage drone swarms to close the Siliguri Corridor or target regional infrastructure, they can create a fait accompli on the ground for India. Conclusion The drone-missile age demands urgent adaptation. Nations must invest in AI swarm doctrine, resilient EW, decentralized deployment, and indigenous mass production ecosyst

    6 min

  6. Mar 23

    Ep. 188: The Iran war has no winners, only losers, and some more so than others

    A version of this essay has been published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/iran-war-no-winners-oil-de-dollarisation-global-impact-13992276.html War is hell, we all know, and it’s bad for everybody, but there is – usually – a winner. After more than three weeks of the Iran war, I am beginning to believe that there are no winners here, only losers. The principals are overextending themselves, and will suffer as a consequence. Innocent or not-so-innocent bystanders are suffering significant collateral damage. Some are getting hurt more than others, so it’s mostly a question of degree: but the bottom line is that this is war that is just not good for anybody. As usual, Henry Kissinger had a useful aphorism: “It’s a pity both sides can’t lose”, quoth he. (Hat tip to reader Sudarshan M). Well, Henry, both sides are losing this one, so take heart: your wish has come true. Someone made the analogy of going to Family Court with a dispute: there are no winners, as the father, mother, and the children, will all suffer, whatever the outcome. It is best in that situation to listen to a counselor and solve your problems amicably. Similarly, it would be good to find a neutral intermediary to help iron out a ceasefire in this war, too. In a way, this war is the classic idea of irresistible force meeting an immovable object, thus leading to a stalemate, as Walter Russel Mead suggested in the Wall Street Journal. First, the toll on the belligerents, in alphabetical order: * Iran. It is creditable that Iran has held out against the might of the US war machine for three weeks and more. My belief is that they can keep it up for a while longer, because they have been preparing for this eventuality for some decades, ever since the 1979 crisis in which they held Americans hostage for 444 days. They are taking, and will take, horrendous losses, but it will be difficult to completely overthrow the Islamist regime. Among other things, Iran is a large country, about half the size of peninsular India. * The US attack on Kharg Island’s military targets (but not its oil terminals) has shown that Iran’s oil exports could be in jeopardy, pushing global prices up. * Just like their proxy Hamas, it appears Iran has built extensive tunnel complexes, veritable underground labyrinths, where they are hiding all sorts of things, including fast patrol boats. Their military assets are doubtless ensconced in these tunnels which makes them hard to locate and possibly quite mobile. * Israel. Iran’s consistent rhetoric that Israel doesn’t deserve to exist leads to fears that Iran’s nuclear arsenal (if and when built) will be primarily aimed at Israel. This, and troubles with Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas, have led to massive Israeli human intelligence penetration of Iran (as seen in the Stuxnet incident as well as the effective strikes on the Ayatollahs and Hamas, including the pager incident). But Israel is also believed to be taking heavy losses, which it can ill afford, although information has been tightly censored. There were apparently missile attacks near Israel’s nuclear sites at Dimona as well. * The US. The original idea of a decapitation strike that would lead to a rapid regime change as the Iranian public rose up and anointed a new leadership (one more acceptable to the US), was questionable, as I pointed out fairly early. It appears that the CIA and US intelligence have just one playbook, which they used more or less successfully in Iraq, Libya, etc. But that was never going to work in Iran, and now the US is stuck with a tar-baby and may be quietly seeking de-escalation and an off-ramp. * Talk of a Marine Expeditionary Unit of 2500 American soldiers re-deployed from Japan means “boots on the ground” followed inevitably by that dreaded word, “body bags”. The troops will be meant to keep Hormuz open, or perhaps to capture Kharg Island. Whether they can achieve these is unclear right now. * However, overall it appears that the US’ capacity to coerce other countries through economic means is declining, as suggested by the FT in “The era of US dominance in economic warfare is over” on March 17th. Now for the others in the firing line and in the periphery: * The GCC, consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. They have taken the brunt of the Iranian drone and missile attacks, and their oil and gas exports, and economies, are affected by the closure of the Straits of Hormuz. But more alarmingly, their food and water supplies may also be affected, and they are, being desert nations, highly dependent on imported items via the blockaded Hormuz, and critically dependent on their desalination plants. Keeping the Straits of Hormuz open may be critical for them. They have been with human casualties, infrastructure damage, and reputational damage as well. In particular, Dubai, which has been a magnet for high-net-worth individuals, is affected. * Lebanon and Jordan. Lebanon was hit by Israeli fire, and Jordan by Iranian fire, although they are mostly bystanders. Israel has been responding to increased activity by Iranian proxy Hezbollah, and Iran has sent drones and missiles towards Jordan as part of general horizontal escalation. * Pakistan and Turkey. These are wild card nations in the conflict. So far they have not (yet) been affected badly, but they have to walk a tightrope. On the one hand, it is very likely that Pakistan has offered logistical and intelligence support to the US in its air attacks on Iran. On the other, as a fellow-Islamic nation, Iran has, under both the Shah and the mullahs, consistently supported Pakistan (especially against India). * Furthermore, if there is a ground assault on Iran, it will probably involve Balochis from Pakistan and Kurds from Turkey, both attempting to capture land in, respectively, the Sistan and Baluchistan Province, and the heavily Kurdish regions of Iran bordering Turkey. * Turkey, as a NATO member, is obligated to support the US, despite its Islamist leadership which is duty-bound to side with the fellow-Islamic Iranian regime. The traditional Sunni-Shia split, which has been exacerbated by Shia Iran attacking Sunni Gulf nations, sharpens the dilemma for both nations. (Meanwhile, Pakistanis slaughtered 400 Afghans by bombing a hospital, but they get a free pass from, e.g. the BBC.) * The United Nations. It has been rendered superfluous. Nobody even called for a Security Council meeting condemning the war. This is the latest in a long process wherein whatever the UN, or many other multilateral organizations do or say has become immaterial. The UN, hit by a budget crunch, might as well be shut down. * Europe and Britain. The EU and NATO have been noticeably absent in the discussions about the war. Of course, they are likely to be affected by the increase in hydrocarbon prices. In fact, their folly in shuttering their nuclear power plants in pursuit of vague ‘green’ goals has put them at the mercy of Russian oil and gas. In particular, the virtual shutting out of Britain from the entire war is notable, considering that their Whitehall has long managed to treat the US Deep State as their vassals, ‘master-blaster’ style. * Russia. Even though Russia has long been friendly with Iran, it has desisted from doing anything that could bring it into direct conflict with the US. Russia is probably supplying satellite and other reconnaissance data as well as spares for existing systems (such as the S-300 air defense batteries, Su-35 fighters) and possibly Iranian-designed Shahed drones as well. Interestingly enough, Russia may be the one possible winner in the war, considering its oil is now a coveted commodity, prices have soared, and there is less attention being paid to its Ukraine war. Europe, China and India are ever-more dependent on Russian oil, and the windfall profits may be sustainable. The US may even lift its sanctions and bring Russia back into the Western fold. * China. There are wins and losses for China, but in sum it may also be a bit of a winner. * The loss is in energy security: China has lost Venezuelan oil as well as access to Iranian oil, but they have overland pipelines from Russia, as well as access to Russian tankers at sea. Besides, they have a massive strategic petroleum reserve (1 billion barrels), so it should be manageable, for a while at least. Cuba, their reliable ally in the US’ backyard, is now back to the wall with the US enforcing a blockade. * On the other hand, they have acquired a significant military edge: US munitions inventory has been getting depleted at a furious rate, so much so that if China were to attack Taiwan now, the US would be hard pressed to intervene. Even US THAAD (Theater High Altitude Air Defense) systems are being cannibalized: after four of their radars in the GCC were damaged, the US is forced to scavenge for them from their South Korean bases. Now comes news that China is massing both civilian ships and military aircraft near Taiwan, quite possibly a precursor to an actual invasion. * Unfortunately for China, their weapons systems don’t seem to have performed very well in Iran, just as they didn’t in Operation Sindoor. There are sarcastic posts on X, especially about their radar that looks like a big grille and is supposed to detect stealth aircraft, but didn’t quite work. * China has also been on the horns of a dilemma, as it were: what would Xi do when Trump visits in April while in the midst of a war with one of China’s principal allies? It would be “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. If China were to greet him warmly, it would send a negative message to Iran, as well as its other Belt and Road Initiative partners. If China were to treat Trump coldly, then trade wars will continue. Fortunately for Xi, Trump decided to delay his visit; perhaps he intends to continue the war well into April, or maybe he

    6 min

  7. Mar 18

    Ep. 188: The Iran war has no winners, only losers, and some more so than others

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com War is hell, we all know, and it’s bad for everybody, but there is – usually – a winner. After more than two weeks of the Iran war, I am beginning to believe that there are no winners here, only losers. The principals are overextending themselves, and will suffer as a consequence. Innocent or not-so-innocent bystanders are suffering significant collateral damage. Some are getting hurt more than others, so it’s mostly a question of degree: but the bottom line is that this is war that is just not good for anybody. As usual, Henry Kissinger had a useful aphorism: “It’s a pity both sides can’t lose”, quoth he. (Hat tip to reader Sudarshan M). Well, Henry, both sides are losing this one, so take heart: your wish has come true. Someone made the analogy of going to Family Court with a dispute: there are no winners, as the father, mother, and the children, will all suffer, whatever the outcome. It is best in that situation to listen to a counselor and solve your problems amicably. Similarly, it would be good to find a neutral intermediary to help iron out a ceasefire in this war, too. In a way, this war is the classic idea of irresistible force meeting an immovable object, thus leading to a stalemate, as Walter Russel Mead suggested in the Wall Street Journal. First, the toll on the belligerents, in alphabetical order: * Iran. It is creditable that Iran has held out against the might of the US war machine for two weeks and more. My belief is that they can keep it up for a while longer, because they have been preparing for this eventuality for some decades, ever since the 1979 crisis in which they held Americans hostage for 444 days. They are taking, and will take, horrendous losses, but it will be difficult to completely overthrow the Islamist regime. Among other things, Iran is a large country, about half the size of peninsular India. * The US attack on Kharg Island’s military targets (but not its oil terminals) has shown that Iran’s oil exports could be in jeopardy, pushing global prices up. * Just like their proxy Hamas, it appears Iran has built extensive tunnel complexes, veritable underground labyrinths, where they are hiding all sorts of things, including fast patrol boats. Their military assets are doubtless ensconced in these tunnels which makes them hard to locate and possibly quite mobile. * Israel. Iran’s consistent rhetoric that Israel doesn’t deserve to exist leads to fears that Iran’s nuclear arsenal (if and when built) will be primarily aimed at Israel. This, and troubles with Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas, have led to massive Israeli human intelligence penetration of Iran (as seen in the Stuxnet incident as well as the effective strikes on the Ayatollahs and Hamas, including the pager incident). But Israel is also believed to be taking heavy losses, which it can ill afford, although information has been tightly censored.. * The US. The original idea of a decapitation strike that would lead to a rapid regime change as the Iranian public rose up and anointed a new leadership (one more acceptable to the US), was questionable, as I pointed out fairly early. It appears that the CIA and US intelligence have just one playbook, which they used more or less successfully in Iraq, Libya, etc. But that was never going to work in Iran, and now the US is stuck with a tar-baby and may be quietly seeking de-escalation and an off-ramp. * Talk of a Marine Expeditionary Unit of 2500 American soldiers re-deployed from Japan means “boots on the ground” followed inevitably by that dreaded word, “body bags”. The troops will be meant to keep Hormuz open, or perhaps to capture Kharg Island. Whether they can achieve these is unclear right now. * However, overall it appears that the US’ capacity to coerce other countries through economic means is declining, as suggested by the FT in “The era of US dominance in economic warfare is over” on March 17th.

    3 min

  8. Feb 13

    Ep. 187: Journalism, AI, Washington Post and Rediff.com

    Just around the same time as the axe fell on Washington Post’s global staff, accompanied by much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I got a message from my Rediff.com editor, Nikhil Lakshman, mentioning it was the 30th anniversary of its founding. An interesting contrast indeed: the old Western flagbearer waning, while the Indian pioneer holds on, despite a plethora of competitors and copycats, including many pushing specific agendas. That also made me think of why there was a bloodbath at the Washington Post, where they gutted the foreign desks, sports, books, and some leading podcasts, and laid off a third of its staff. I suspect there are two reasons: one is the increasing insularity of the US, a retreat into Fortress America, and paradoxically a turning away from the rest of the world at the very moment the rest of the world should be looming more prominently in the rear-view mirror. And two, the economics and the technology of the narrative business have turned. On the one hand, print media have been retreating and losing ad revenue for years, and on the other hand, the rise of generativeAI has made it possible to eliminate entire layers of (at least) entry-level journalists, just as it is decimating paralegals, code-jockeys, and apprentice accountants. Only junior doctors seem immune so far, but we shall see how that goes. I must confess that there was a time when I consumed the Western narrative with gusto: reading Time, Newsweek, and so on, and listening to the BBC. In fact, I actually subscribed to the New York Times for years (ok, in my defense I was living in the New York area), and later The Economist for at least a dozen years. I still listen to some podcasts from the latter, but with considerable caution, as I am far more aware of their biases and proclivities. That’s where my concern about big-name Western media comes from. They are all somehow associated with the Deep State, that amorphous entity, the hidden puppet-master behind pretty much everything that goes on in foreign and domestic policy. For instance, an outlet that I considered the voice of NATO, turns out to be the voice of Whitehall, Britain’s bureaucracy. There has long been a truism that the Washington Post is the mouthpiece of Foggy Bottom, i.e. the US State Department, and the New York Times that of Langley, i.e. the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Noam Chomsky long ago made the insightful observation that they are both in the business of “manufacturing consent”, i.e. narrative-peddling to suit vested interests, specifically the Military-Industrial Complex, which likes, or needs, constant wars. The eclipse of the WaPo is not only a statement about the decreasing influence of the State Department on foreign affairs (in the wake of the decline of the “liberal, rules-based international order”). But it is also because the print media business is no longer lucrative, as the bulk of advertising revenue has now moved online, to the likes of Alphabet, Meta, Amazon et al. Large numbers of smaller US newspapers have closed down over the past few decades. I suspect also that gaslighting at scale is much easier now with the advent of outlets such as Wikipedia. Ashley Rindsberg, author of The Grey Lady Winked (an expose of the NYT), has been chronicling on Twitter how Wikipedia has become a handmaiden of the usual suspects. Editors are often paid agents provocateurs, and stories that do not serve their purpose are simply trashed. There is much that is subjective/motivated about the content. However, since Wikipedia has become the encyclopaedia of record, and generativeAI uses it unabashedly as a genuine source, the level of force-multiplication is immense. Every AI chatbot uses it, and of course all of us are using these chatbots. If it’s not in Wikipedia, it ceases to exist, and I fear this is happening to India’s Traditional Knowledge Systems. This level of groupthink, alas, is not unusual. That is where I applaud Rediff. When it appeared in the 1990s, the discourse in India was tremendously skewed to the Left. What was considered “Centrist” in India was, objectively speaking, “Left”, and what was considered “Left” was, in reality, “Lunatic-Fringe Left”. It was simply impossible to get a dissenting opinion published, especially because nobody would hire you if your views didn’t pass a test of fealty. But Rediff offered that possibility. Nikhil Lakshman, the editor, and Ajit Balakrishnan, the publisher, were willing to take risks with other voices, and I personally am grateful. Here I was, a non-specialist, a technologist and product manager in Silicon Valley, and also an unapologetic Hindu nationalist, which would have made me “Lunatic-Fringe Right” in the scheme of things. Rediff gave me a voice. Before me, it also gave a voice to my dear and late friend, Varsha Bhosle. We wrote stuff as we saw it, without self-censoring, and it turned out it resonated with a lot of people, especially in the diaspora, who at that time had much more Internet access than in India. I used to get hundreds of e-mails in response to my columns. Varsha got even more. We had the great advantage that, as non-professionals, we didn’t care about employment or income from journalism. Sun Microsystems paid my way; Varsha was the daughter of the celebrated Asha Bhosle. Conversely, that is a problem today for those JNU products who were planning to enter the field: USAID and Soros funds are down, and their proteges in the Indian online world (you know who they are) aren’t doing all that well. I have an old classmate, a journalist, whom I consider deranged and terminally anti-India, who makes a nice living off, I gather, funds from several countries inimical to India, but the outlook for his tribe is a little dim these days. Rediff was the only game in town in 1996, and it thrived. It was India’s pioneering internet portal with web news, email, shopping, entertainment, and it rode the first dot-com wave and survived multiple cycles (including the 2000 crash). It adapted from a pure portal to an aggregated and news-focused site, outlasting many peers by staying lean, India-centric, unbiased, and low-cost. Rediff represents a digital-native model that persisted through adaptation without the massive overhead of legacy print giants. More power to it! Thank you again, and best wishes! Postscript Those tests of fealty to the ‘cause’ continue. I personally have been ejected from two op-ed columns because my thoughts were apparently impure. One, a few years ago, was at a prominent national daily. After writing occasionally for some time on invitation, my contact ruefully told me that I was persona non grata, in his words, not because my stuff was not good, but because the opinion editor did not agree with my perspectives. More recently, I had a regular monthly column in a well-known regional daily. After having my words over-edited repeatedly, I realized that their opinion editor, who had invited me on board, simply did not like my pro-Hindu stance. So I quit. The remarkable thing is all of the dramatis personae, including me, these two opinion editors, and the Rediff folks, are originally from Kerala. I wonder if this reflects some deep psychosis in the make-believe world in this last bastion of extreme Leftism. Tellingly, the ‘all-India strike’ called by left trade unions on the 12th of February was ignored everywhere except Kerala, where it was total. 1075 words, 10 Feb 2026 updated 13 Feb 2026 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

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An Indian/Hindu nationalist perspective on world affairs; as well as on technology and innovation; conversations with experts and with people just like you and me. rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com

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