In a few years from now, India will be looking at an entirely different type of military adversary across the borders, in our waters, in the air, in space and in our communication networks, says Nitin Pai.
'From Doklam to Wuhan and the return of the India-China relationship to its previous equilibrium is indeed a major contribution of President Xi and PM Modi. Without any doubt they deserve the kudos for their sagacity and their wisdom,' says Ambassador Gautam Bambawale, India's envoy to China during the Wuhan summit.
India has experienced hands and will emerge with flying colours, declares Inspector General Gurdip Singh Uban (retd).
'It is a testing time for our foreign policy which may involve a certain element of taking risks, assessing costs, and expecting failures,' asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
'We should not minimise the seriousness of Chinese encroachments because their perception is different.' 'Nor should we fall into the trap of accepting so-called 'buffer zones' in areas of overlapping claims. We cannot have buffer zones in our own territory,' asserts Ambassador Shyam Saran, a former foreign secretary.
'India appears to have stood its ground on strategic autonomy by resisting US pressure on Russia, China and Iran, but succumbed to the temptation to walk into a tighter embrace in defence cooperation, a high priority of the Trump administration,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Swaraj expressed satisfaction over the agenda of the inaugural dialogue while giving the details of the deliberations.
'India must close the missile technology gap with both China and Pakistan as early as possible, or else the credibility of India's nuclear deterrence will remain suspect,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
However, Denmark said it is difficult to conclude on the real intention behind this.
'After a strategic pause though, Beijing will revive its policy of slowly creeping towards acquiring sovereignty over the South China Sea.'
The PM's vision of a lean, agile, mobile and technology driven force requires more than 1.7 percent of GDP that it now gets.
In anticipation of a verdict to be delivered by the International Tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on Tuesday, China has orchestrated a worldwide campaign to defuse its findings.
The India that needs strategic alliances, defence cooperation and engaging meaningfully with neighbouring countries is quietly moving ahead with confidence, says Tarun Vijay
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