Define your environment | The Indian Express

Define your environment | The Indian Express

Written by Raja Menon |Updated: July 12, 2019 12:07:30 am

The writer, a former rear admiral in the navy, is author of ‘A Nuclear Strategy for India’.

Define your environment

There is something the new government needs to do before making foreign policy

Today, as the new government begins its tenure, there is a crying need for a five or 10-year vision of the strategic environment.

The BJP’s thumping majority has led well-meaning strategic analysts in diverse fields of finance, labour, agriculture and diplomacy to writing in editorial pages, giving suggestions on policymaking to the prime minister. This article proposes to argue that decisions on policymaking are a rigorous two-step process. The first step is to define or specify the strategic environment either compartmentally or holistically, and then, to address policy at that environment. This suggestion has come up in various forms at different times and also been addressed sporadically. Most easy to understand is making foreign policy, which cannot really be done without defining the prevailing or near future strategic environment.