In a press conference on April 19, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced that it was disbanding PLA Strategic Support Force and creating three new arms in its place—aerospace force, cyber force and information support force (ISF). Of these, the ISF is an entirely new entity, which rightly spiked interest worldwide. However, both the announcement and the ISF went almost unnoticed in India, a measure of Indian government and military’s focus.
Clearly, FORCE couldn’t have let this pass. The May cover story not only explains what the ISF is, but also puts its importance in context of the war that the PLA is preparing for against its peer competitor—the United States. Of course, this does not mean that Indians should shrug their collective shoulders in the manner of ‘this doesn’t concern us’ (as they seem to have done), because PLA’s capability building against the US only adds to its total asymmetry against India. Worse, this asymmetry is not only in the war-fighting capabilities, but in the conception of the war itself. When the gap starts with the thinking itself, one can only imagine the enormity of bridging it. The first step towards that is knowledge. Hopefully, the cover story will help with that.
Maybe, Indian policymakers can be excused for indifference this time. The nation, after all, is in the throes of General Elections, which for the first time since 1951, have been spread over a period of two-months–almost three if one counts from the date of the announcement to the declaration of results. The first Indian elections were spread across five months. Elections are the foundation of any democracy. More so for a multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-lingual nation like India with acute social, economic and geographic inequalities, elections are a test of its founding principles; of the compact Indians made with each other upon independence.
The importance of the current elections cannot be emphasised enough. The outcome with determine not only the political future of India, but its very character—whether it with retain its multiple diversities like a mosaic or increasingly drift towards a singular identity. It will also determine India’s place in its neighbourhood and the world—whether it will embrace the geopolitical shift and become one of the changemakers, or cling to the old order, even at the cost of its irrelevance in its own neighbourhood. Whether it will choose conflict or cooperation—both inside the borders and outside.
When you read this, four more phases of polling would be left. Think of the kind of future you want for yourself and your children. Vote wisely.