Donald Trump’s late-November National Security Strategy marks a sharp ideological and geopolitical shift, one that Colombo-based security analyst Nilanthan Niruthan says places unprecedented pressure on India to abandon strategic ambiguity. In an interview to the Gist, the executive director of the Centre for Law and Security Studies argued that the document is “as much a cultural manifesto as it is a geopolitical roadmap,” foregrounding civilizational identity, patriotism, and a repudiation of post-Cold War elite-driven foreign policy.
Beyond its tone, the document outlines several strategic departures. It elevates the Western Hemisphere as Washington’s core priority, downscales U.S. involvement in the Middle East in light of reduced energy dependence, and pointedly critiques NATO’s “expansionism,” a framing that will rile European partners. Yet the centre of gravity, Niruthan notes, is unmistakably the Indo-Pacific, where Washington seeks overwhelming military advantage to deter “unilateral changes to the status quo”—code, he says, for preventing a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
This Indo-Pacific vision hinges on allies, especially Japan, South Korea and India, taking the Chinese threat far more seriously. That expectation, Niruthan argues, directly collides with New Delhi’s cherished strategic autonomy. “India will have to pick a side,” he says, warning that autonomy becomes untenable when great-power competition intensifies. He adds that India cannot demand solidarity from partners in crises if it withholds alignment on issues central to U.S. interests
The strategy, he says, also carries major economic consequences for South Asia. By openly privileging fossil fuels—particularly U.S. natural gas—the document signals the fading viability of renewable-centric development pathways long embraced across the Global South. It also underscores future battles over AI, biotech, and critical minerals, sectors in which South Asia risks being left behind unless it rapidly positions itself within emerging global supply chains.
For smaller states like Sri Lanka, the implications are more existential. If U.S. efforts succeed in pulling India firmly into a China-balancing coalition, Colombo will face hard choices, particularly given its current posture of neutrality even in a Taiwan-crisis scenario. “Washington is asking India to take a stand. What happens when they ask the rest of us?” Niruthan asks.
Ultimately, he views the strategy not as a blueprint for future action but a codification of shifts already underway over the past year—a formal declaration of a world entering a sharper era of rivalry.
In a career spanning three decades and counting, Ramananda (Ram to his friends) has been the foreign editor of The Telegraph, Outlook Magazine and the New Indian Express. He helped set up rediff.com’s editorial operations in San Jose and New York, helmed sify.com, and was the founder editor of India.com.
His work has featured in national and international publications like the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, Global Times and Ashahi Shimbun. But his one constant over all these years, he says, has been the attempt to understand rising India’s place in the world.
He can rustle up a mean salad, his oil-less pepper chicken is to die for, and all it takes is some beer and rhythm and blues to rock his soul.
Talk to him about foreign and strategic affairs, media, South Asia, China, and of course India.
