Notwithstanding the geopolitical turbulence and heightened security hotspots across the globe during the opening weeks of 2026, the security landscape for India will remain much the same as it was in 2025 with greater uncertainty in the neighbourhood. Limited in its bandwidth to influence global security events such as those continuing or unfolding in Ukraine, Iran and Venezuela, India will have its plate full navigating a slippery regional security landscape.
Notwithstanding the significant successes in Operation Sindoor and the almost complete contraction of the menace of left-wing extremism, the snowballing political crisis in Bangladesh has sent India’s security establishment into a tizzy over what will come next. On another front, the slowing pace of the India-U.S. security cooperation and the lukewarm approach of the U.S. to collaborative security in the Indo-Pacific, coupled with the thawing of U.S.-Pakistan relations, point to the need for a rethink in India’s approach to a multi-front security threat. To top it all, America’s “retreat” from the global scene and a seeming willingness to cede security space in the Indo-Pacific to China have serious security ramifications for India despite a mild thaw in India-China trade relations.
Op Sindoor: looking ahead
Operation Sindoor has redrawn the contours of India’s unwritten national security strategy that places at its centre a more assertive and proactive strategy that is now willing to explore “prevention, pre-emption, and punishment” as the new normal against Pakistan, should it continue to support terrorism against India as an instrument of the Pakistani state. For the first time in Independent India’s military history, the IAF emerged as the sword-arm of Indian statecraft with its first-mover advantage, precision capability, offensive firepower, and remarkably effective ground-based integrated air defence network. At the doctrinal level, the offensive-defensive and multi-domain employment of air power in Operation Sindoor paved the way for a more nuanced understanding of the importance of military air power in the national security calculus. What will be interesting to watch out for is whether this proactive strategy will translate into a more assertive combined arms approach and lead to better integration within the national security establishment.
Wiping out LWE
From 120 districts across 10 states which were intensely affected by the left-wing extremism (LWE) movement that threatened to rupture the socio-cultural fabric of India’s heartland between 2006 and 2016, 2025 witnessed a remarkable disintegration of the movement thanks to a coercive, concerted, and collaborative security posture that saw the security forces employing both traditional kinetic strategies and non-traditional means that have completely eroded the ideological and financial edifice on which the movement was based. Currently, only 11 districts remain classified as LWE-affected with only three as most-affected. While kinetic action in 2025 saw five top Naxalite Central Committee leaders and 317 cadres killed along with the surrender of 2,000 cadres and several top leaders, the focus in 2026 must shift to a “winning hearts and minds” strategy.
Lending legitimacy to the concerted offensive action will be a concurrent strategy of good governance, speedy development initiatives, and integration of the surrendered cadres into the mainstream.
Instability in Bangladesh
In probably what has been the speediest decline since Independence in bilateral relations, and exacerbation of concerns over security, with its neighbours, India must determine the extent to which its deteriorating relationship with Bangladesh has security ramifications. Illegal migration will continue to be triggered by climate change and an internal security threat for India can emerge from collusive radical Islamist groups within Bangladesh and the Pakistani deep state. Hugely invested in restoring stability to all parts of the northeast via the twin developmental planks of infrastructure and investment, India may be hard-pressed to secure its porous 4,000-km-long border with Bangladesh that encompasses five States without diluting its security posture along other fronts such as the Myanmar and the Arunachal fronts.
Collusive Pakistan threat
Notwithstanding India’s military success during Operation Sindoor, the military threat from Pakistan has not diminished for several reasons. First is the meteoric ascent of Field Marshal Asim Muneer and his vitriolic brand of anti-India brinkmanship. Second is the unfathomable renewal of Pakistan’s military bonhomie with the United States. Third, the speeding up of Chinese military assistance to Pakistan to make good all the losses and consumption during Operation Sindoor will ensure that any future conflict scenario will ensure a perfect laboratory for testing Chinese military hardware. Last, the Pakistan-Saudi military alliance and the likelihood of Turkey joining them could pose a serious headache for India. It is unlikely that there will be a cessation to Pakistan’s proxy war strategy against India that will seek to gain momentum from the growing Pakistan-Bangladesh security relationship and the revival of domestic jihadi networks in India such as the one that triggered the Red Forts blast in Delhi in November 2025. Clarion calls for revenge by the Jaish-e-Mohammad chief and his lieutenants cannot be taken lightly and India’s counterterrorism and intelligence grid must be prepared for Pahalgam- or Pulwama-style terrorist strikes.
The China challenge
Notwithstanding the easing of tension (not scaling down of forces) along the LAC and a superficial thaw in economic relations, the continued build-up of PLA and PLAAF infrastructure in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) and Chinese sabre-rattling over Arunachal Pradesh suggest that India cannot let its guard down with respect to its most serious military adversary in the coming year. The pace at which China is arming itself with multi-domain capabilities such as fifth generation fighter aircraft, unmanned aerial combat vehicles of various sizes, range and endurance, aircraft carriers and light tanks for high-altitude operations has ominous portents for India. With the window for India to catch up with China militarily long gone, what however remains is the possibility of crafting asymmetric strategies in areas where India matches or lags marginally behind China.
In the final analysis, 2026 suggests that India’s national security will experience regional turbulence with minimal involvement in the larger international security landscape. Pakistan will continue to be an irritant, Bangladesh will continue to be unstable till the elections and impede short-term prospects of peace and stability in the northeast, the frontage of Jihadi radicalism will expand and China will continue with its strategy of “dualism” that pushes for trade to coexist with belligerence and opportunistic coercion along contested borders. There will be no easy answers for India in 2026.
Arjun Subramaniam is a retired Air Vice Marshal from the IAF. Views expressed are personal
