We are now living through a turning point in global political economy, where the time when people were naively convinced that post-Cold War international integration would be apolitical comes to an end. Newer global economy shows too many signs of not functioning as a neutral global trade environment but rather as a stage of global power rivalry, tech sovereignty disputes, and selective economic coercion. India experienced this trend firsthand in 2025 when the USA imposed on this country an extra 25% tariff directly tied to its Russian oil imports. This case of India's energy choices illustrated the fact that energy issue can go much further than the energy sphere. In August 2025, the USA issued its order in support of the mentioned connection. Meanwhile, China's monopoly over the supply chains of several critical minerals and clean technologies has proven that a certain amount of concentration in the economy can have a strategic value as well.

The concept of weaponised interdependence, given its name by the scholars Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, is when states make use of the power of asymmetric positions for obtaining information or otherwise coercing a rival. The highly globalised world requires states to take measures for their security beyond the traditional notion of territorial isolation. States also need access to a number of things: global financial systems, technologies, logistics, data and critical supply chains. Indeed, those states that are in control of critical nodes can use what were termed by Farrell and Newman as 'chokepoint' or 'panopticon' effects. This is why the economic, technological and national security policies are increasingly overlapping. For India, the problem is not whether or not to use interdependence in international relations, but how to utilize it without falling into the trap of becoming too dependent on other states.

Redefining Sovereignty in a Networked World

In responding to the crisis at hand, it is important for India to differentiate between interdependence and dependence, as well as between resilience and self-reliance, independence and strategic autonomy. Independence denotes liberty from foreign political control. Dependent states, on the other hand, experience relations where their choices are limited by foreign actors. Interdependence is that type of relationship between two parties that connects them with each other, no matter whether benefits are distributed unequally or not. The recent observations made by Amitabh Kant concerning strategic autonomy can contribute to the clarification of the issue because they put the idea of autonomy in terms of its ability to make decisions that benefit the national interests of countries in conditions of advanced partnership with other nations.

The importance of the distinction is that strategic autonomy should not imply that everything needs to be produced domestically. A nation trying to do so may end up increasing expenses, lowering competitiveness, and ensuring that some of the local producers will turn into beneficiaries of governmental protectionism. The Economic Survey 2025–26 points at the wiser approach when it comes to the resilience to recognize the vulnerabilities that are real strategic ones, to develop domestic production capabilities only where necessary, and to offset what is impossible to produce locally by means of diversification, warehousing the products, and working with several suppliers.

Strategic indispensability may be referred to as the most desirable end-result. It does not mean that India needs to be cut out of global value chains; rather the country should aim to become a reliable, effective and irreplaceable participant in these processes. The more India contributes to global services, technology and digital infrastructure and activities, the more expensive it will be for others to see India as their “disposable” partner. In this way autonomy gets strengthened through not only reducing dependence but also increasing the value of India’s contributions.

The Interconnected Web of Dependency: From Oil to Algorithms

The scope of India's predicament becomes even clearer when energy, minerals, technology, defence and space are viewed as a single system. Energy is the most immediate threat. India has been terribly dependent on crude oil imports, making its economy vulnerable to international prices, disruptions at sea and geopolitical restrictions. The Russian invasion of Ukraine exposed both sides to this vulnerability. The fact that India managed to buy cheap Russian oil exemplifies the usefulness of diplomatic flexibility, while U.S. tariffs showed how energy relationship can become a tool for exerting pressure on trade and foreign policies.

Energy change does not eliminate this vulnerability, but instead replaces it. Electric cars, batteries, solar panels, and other environmental technologies depend on focused mineral and manufacture supply chains. According to the International Energy Agency’s assessment of 2026, 85% of solar production and 80% of lithium-ion batteries come from China. A larger concentration is observed in some upstream processes. The lesson for India is not to reject the energy transition, but to prevent decarbonization from becoming another form of external vulnerability.

India has begun to cope with the problem, creating large-scale programs of mineral extraction abroad, including organization of a National Critical Mineral Mission project that aims to promote overseas mineral acquisition and provide connections with KABIL. In Argentina, KABIL obtained the right to explore and exclusively manage five lithium blocks in Catamarca covering over 15,703 hectares. The Ministry of Mining makes this goal strategic.

The same principle is true in terms of advanced technology. The emergence of AI has elevated computing, data, algorithms, and specialized hardware into strategic resources. The chip capacity is now more than an industrial policy issue; it has transformed into national security. India has reacted with the launch of the India Semiconductor Mission, and in July 2026 an enormous budget of ₹1,27,500 crores was allocated to Semicon 2.0. The goal is much broader than just producing semiconductors. It is about creating a whole ecosystem that includes design, production, and other capabilities.

The Indian system of digital public infrastructure is another means of building resilience. UPI and the Indian Stack show how interoperable technologies can help eliminate the dependence on exclusive systems. By August 2026, it was reported that the Indian government implemented UPI in 11 different countries. This is important because infrastructure also generates power and helps protect sovereignty. Thus, the task of India must be to have domestic digital systems and make them useful for implementation abroad.

Defence presents a more challenging version of the situation. India has historically relied on military systems from foreign countries, especially Russia. However, the process of decreasing that reliance cannot take place instantly because military platforms have very long lifespan and maintenance systems, which can be quite complex. Nevertheless, some moves have already been made in the right direction. The Minister for Defence has been allocated ₹7.85 lakh crore for 2026-27 Union Budget, out of which ₹1.39 lakh crore is to be spent on buying military equipment from the Indian company. Moreover, the statistical data provided by the Ministry of Defence for its indigenisation program indicate that indigenous defence production achieved record high of ₹1.78 lakh crore in FY 2025-26.

The strategy has to be to avoid transitioning from one type of reliance to another. Diversification thus becomes as important as indigenisation. The new agreement signed between India and EU in January 2026 establishes new ways for fighting in the area of maritime security, cyberspace, and cooperation in defence supply chain resiliency. A similar approach can be used in relation to such countries as France, Japan, USA, ASEAN, and other countries having high capacity.

Space introduces an additional layer of complexity. With the growing prominence of space infrastructure for areas such as communications and finance, and as orbital dependence continues to be increasingly important to national defence, the ISRO data shows ISSAR-2025 has nearly 1,60,000 alerts on close encounters of spacecrafts in outer space over 2025, along with more than 1,50,000 alerts on information from the US Combined Space Operations Center related to India’s satellites. Therefore, India's space situational awareness system in the NETRA program along with its debris free space mission enables and improves an overall strategic arsenal of the country. Therefore, the SpaDeX mission proves up the essence of the technology capability and future space operations.

What East Asia Teaches India About State Capacity

India's goal of achieving resilience cannot be dependent solely on adopting protectionist measures. Countries like Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam show that successfully integrating into global production systems requires effective governance systems, quality institutions, enough number of competitive firms, and constant updating. The lesson here is not for India to choose an East Asian policy approach but to understand that it needs to develop indigenous capabilities and employ them to be competitive globally.

Thus, Swadeshi is not the ideology for protecting domestic industries but a well-thought-out strategy for developing capabilities. The state’s support should be linked to tangible results such as improved productivity, technological progress, better performance in exports, and supply chain resilience. If domestic production is neither competitive nor strategically important, it is more reasonable to invest in diversification and stocking than to resort to permanent protection."

A Multi-Dimensional Roadmap for Networked Autonomy

To begin with, India ought to consider diversification as an instrument of securing its interests. It should not depend too much on any single foreign source for any energy product, mineral, technology, finance-related service or defense supply chain. Diversification may sometimes cost more than concentrated buying, but such premium must be regarded as an insurance cost for political and military disruptions.

Second, India must use its size as a market as a strategic advantage. It can get access to one of the biggest consumer markets in the world in return for providing local content, technology, commitment to manufacture some goods, participation in the supply chain.

Next, India must strengthen partnerships but must not become a prisoner of any coalition or bloc. Cooperation with the United States may help speed up access to advanced technology, and engagement with Europe, France, Japan, ASEAN, Russia and other partners will expand the strategic options available. The Lowy Institute’s 2025 Asia Power Index ranks India third with respect to its comprehensive power in Asia but shows a negative Power Gap of -4.0, meaning that it is not yet converting its resources into influence. To close this gap India must strengthen its economic relations, institutional capacity and international connectivity.

Additionally, while developing capabilities, India must also invest in redundancy. Strategic reserves, alternative suppliers, backward and forward integration, secure data infrastructure and cyber resilience will ensure that one particular disruption from outside will not turn into a national disaster of utmost proportions.

At last, India has to strengthen the internal bases of its independence. Availability of power, cost of logistics, research, and development, presence of skilled human resources, production competitiveness and regulatory efficiency are not minor economic issues. They are the core strategic assets. Any state that is unable to produce effectively, where innovation is slow and the delivery of goods is inefficient will always be vulnerable in international politics, no matter how ambitious its international doctrine is.

Conclusion

Strategic autonomy in today’s world of weaponized interdependence means not putting distance between sovereign states and the rest of the globe. It does not imply balancing internationally. Rather, it is a way of thinking for countries that are self-assured: engage extensively, rely to a limited extent, diversify rationally, and develop capabilities that allow them to make choices.

Therein lies an irony: an issue of geopolitics is also potentially a bonanza for India. Countries are becoming vulnerable through their own energy and technology needs, but what is critical is that India must use this vulnerability to leverage its own advantages. The aim is to change India from an actor managing dependencies to the one capable of building networks.

The ultimate test of Indian strategic autonomy will not be to become independent but to be able to maintain stability while being dependent on the outside world. Thus, India will be resilient enough to absorb shocks while remaining connected to the world and not lose anything because of this dependence.

(The views expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views of CESCUBE)

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