Brief #105War runs on factories again, foreign policy runs on reform at home, and a Council seat runs on African votes — PSIR & GS2 Brief, 22 July 2026

Long wars have put industrial capacity back at the centre of military power.

Prerna Gandhi writes that the name Cold War 2.0 no longer fits the present. The mistrust between the big powers looks more like the years before the World Wars. States doubt that cooperation will bring gains later. So they see less reason for restraint and prepare for long conflicts instead. In the 1990s the Gulf War taught armies that information would replace industrial capacity. The wars in Ukraine and between Israel and Iran have turned that belief around. Information is still needed. It is no longer enough to keep an army fighting.

She defines industrial statecraft as the use of industrial capability and policy tools to build national power. The tools are subsidies, technology ecosystems and supply chains. It covers physical infrastructure, steady innovation and the securing of critical raw materials. China has worked at this for years. That work now places it well in a contest defined by industrial competition.

The record

• The SIPRI Yearbook 2026 notes an 11th consecutive year of growth in global military expenditure since 2015.
• The United States is still the first military power, with unmatched capability in ISR, artificial intelligence, space infrastructure and networked warfare. It has still struggled to produce Patriot interceptors, Tomahawks, JASSMs and THAAD systems. Its shipbuilding and acquisition programmes face delays.
• A report of April 2026 by CSIS, titled Last Rounds? Status of Key Munitions at the Iran War Ceasefire, found that seven key American missile systems need about 42 to 64 months from the grant of money by Congress to full delivery.
• At a closed hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2026 on low cost munitions, Chairman Roger Wicker raised the danger of saturation attacks that empty stocks of very costly interceptors.
• Under the FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act the Senate has directed the Pentagon to build low cost alternatives for eight core weapons systems, among them cruise missiles and medium range air to air missiles.
• China announced its strategy of Military-Civil Fusion in 2015. It ties civilian and military work together in shipbuilding, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and semiconductors. Xi Jinping has repeatedly named technological self-sufficiency as a national goal.
• China’s hold over rare earth processing gives Beijing an unsaid veto over the present rearmament. Beijing uses export controls, technology restrictions and other forms of economic coercion.
• Russia has moved to a wartime economy. It has doubled or tripled military production for most categories of weapons in spite of sanctions. Europe is rearming against a long confrontation with Russia. Japan, Germany and India are expanding defence capacity as well.
• India’s Ministry of Defence declared 2025 the Year of Reforms. The draft Defence Acquisition Procedure announced in February 2026 moves from a Made in India approach to an Owned by India approach. It puts intellectual property and the keeping of source codes first, raises domestic content requirements and makes procurement simpler.

The argument

This is fresh material for the Paper II-A topics of national interest, security and power. The old measure of power was the quality of the platform. Gandhi adds a second measure. It is the depth of the industrial base that keeps the platform supplied through a long war. Quantity, she writes, is once again a form of quality.

Keep two distinctions from the article. The first is between strategic convergence and strategic alignment. India and the West share interests in semiconductors and defence technology. India can work with the West without taking western priorities as its own. The second is between buying a weapon and owning it. The draft procedure asks for the source code, not only the platform.

It also gives you a defence of strategic autonomy that is not sentimental. India’s geography, Gandhi writes, makes autonomy less a political choice than a first principle. India’s security needs are too wide for it to rest on outside guarantees or on collective defence. Use this in any answer on non-alignment today.

What rescued India after 1991 was reform at home, and that is the lesson for this year of shocks.

C Raja Mohan writes that historical analogies must be used with care. Even so, there is a striking symmetry between the problems India faced in 1990-91 and the problems the wars in Iran and Ukraine pose today. In 1991 upheavals in the Middle East and in Europe broke India’s economic and strategic assumptions at the same time. The same two regions are again forcing Delhi to reconsider the foundations of its national strategy. India is better placed than it was. It has a larger economy, greater diplomatic weight and wider partnerships. Its exposure to the world is also greater.

The record

• Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. The American led war to reverse the annexation by Saddam Hussein sent oil prices up, disrupted remittances and worsened India’s balance of payments crisis.
• Within months the Soviet Union collapsed. It had been the principal anchor of Indian foreign policy during the Cold War. The coup by communist hardliners in August 1991 fell apart in three days. The Soviet Union disappeared in December.
• The twin shocks forced India to reform its economy, diversify its international partnerships and rethink its place in the world.
• The war that began with the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader on 28 February has raised energy costs, disrupted navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and exposed India’s dependence on the Middle East.
• Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding in June. The relief in Delhi proved premature as the conflict grew again. The Ukraine war has entered its fifth year with no clear path to a settlement.
• The sanctions legislation associated with the late Senator Lindsey Graham proposes heavy punitive tariffs on China, India and others that import Russian oil. President Donald Trump has asked for it to be widened to cover Iran.
• In 1990 the government had to evacuate a large Indian expatriate population, hold its relations with Iraq and the Arab world, answer the violation of Kuwaiti sovereignty and accommodate the military power the United States had assembled. Foreign Minister I K Gujral embraced Saddam. India also gave refuelling facilities to American military aircraft.
• Large parts of the political and foreign policy establishment then sympathised with Saddam as a friend of India and a figure of secular Arab nationalism. The same rigidity shaped Indian reactions to the Soviet crisis, when much of Delhi denounced Mikhail Gorbachev for seeking an accommodation with the West.

The argument

The three lessons are the answer material. First, no balance of power is permanent. The certainties of the 1980s were a stable Soviet Union, a bipolar order and dependable partnerships. All three vanished with astonishing speed. Indian strategy must study discontinuity as closely as it studies continuity.

Second, debate is itself a strategic asset. A foreign policy community organised around a rigid consensus will keep missing inconvenient possibilities. India needs stronger expertise on Russia, Iran, Central Asia and the internal politics of the Middle East. It needs investment in languages, history and regional study, and institutions willing to consider competing scenarios.

Third, external shocks and systemic change cannot be managed by diplomacy alone. What rescued India after 1991 were the internal reforms. Diplomacy then and now supports internal transformation. This is the line to use on the determinants of foreign policy, where the domestic economy is a determinant and not a background.

Raja Mohan also gives you a criticism of the Indian debate itself. Sympathy for Tehran, he writes, often rests less on the conduct of the Islamic Republic than on its resistance to America. The debate on Russia is personalised around Putin and sentimental about Soviet support for India. Both stand in the way of the study a country must make of the domestic politics of its partners.

India's seat on the Security Council will be won by coalition building in Africa, not by reputation.

Rajeesh Kumar writes that India launched its campaign on 14 July 2026 for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council for the 2028-29 term. The bid for 2021-22 was uncontested. This time Tajikistan is in the field. The election will be held in the General Assembly in June 2027, and a candidate needs a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting. His argument is that Council elections have become more competitive. Reputation and bilateral ties are still worth something. They no longer decide the result. The task for India is to turn long partnerships into votes, above all in Africa.

The record

• External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar launched the campaign at the UN Headquarters in New York on 14 July 2026. The campaign was launched under the theme SHANTI.
• India has served eight terms as a non-permanent member, most recently in 2021-22. It was then the sole candidate of the Asia-Pacific Group, after the group endorsed it unanimously, and it was elected with 184 of the 192 valid votes cast.
• Tajikistan announced its candidature in September 2022 and has never served on the Council. It has the backing of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Such endorsements do not bind anyone, because member states vote independently.
• In June 2026 Kyrgyzstan defeated the Philippines for the Asia-Pacific seat. The Philippines had been elected four times before and lost a Council election for the first time. Kyrgyzstan was contesting for the first time.
• In the Western European and Others Group, Germany lost to Austria and Portugal. Germany is the largest economy in Europe, a member of the G4 and an experienced member of the Council.
• The African Group has 54 member states. It is the largest regional group in the General Assembly. Voting there is by secret ballot and African countries vote independently.
• The African Union has built common positions on Council reform in the Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration. The Ezulwini Consensus asks for two permanent seats and five non-permanent seats for Africa in an enlarged Council.
• India has worked with African countries on Council reform through the L.69 Group and has supported greater African representation in global governance.
• The India-Africa Forum Summit has not been held since 2015. India and the African Union agreed together to postpone the fourth summit because of the public health situation in parts of Africa. Other partners have gone on holding Africa wide summits and ministerial meetings in the same years.

The argument

This is the current material for the standing question on India’s demand for a permanent seat, and for the topic of the United Nations as it works rather than as it was designed. Kumar separates two things a candidate needs. One is standing. The other is votes. Germany had the first and lost.

It also gives you a measured criticism of India’s Africa policy. India’s strength is bilateral, built over two decades through development cooperation, trade, defence cooperation, training and political exchanges. Its weakness is engagement with continental institutions, and the gap since 2015 in the India-Africa Forum Summit is the clear example.

Note the wider point for answers on multilateral diplomacy. The African Union coordinates common positions and African candidatures. It does not tell African states how to vote for a non-African candidate. So institutional engagement does not deliver votes by itself. It is the ground on which votes are sought.