Non-Contact Warfare

Lessons from the US National Defence Strategy

Abstract

The 2018 National Defence Strategy (NDS) unveiled by the Pentagon can be encapsulated in three words ‘compete, deter and win’. Key
questions that arise are: What does it mean and how it gets manifested? NDS as the capstone document has been guiding the geopolitical discourse and global security developments. The Pentagon’s efforts to redraw its dominance strategy and course correct its two decades of distraction due to endless wars in Afghanistan and West Asia have already manifested in Sino-US relations. A decade of ‘pivot to Asia’ policy put in place by Obama’s administration gathered storm during Trump’s tenure. 2018 NDS declared China and Russia as strategic competitors. Washington’s assertion of widening the competitive space is based on the premise of seamlessly integrating the US “multiple elements of national power—diplomacy, information, economics, finance, intelligence, law enforcement, and military”. A closer examination of how the game gets played by the various national power elements under the new Biden administration will determine future policy directions against China and Russia. The lessons for India are ominous as it helps it to navigate the geo-strategic labyrinth.