In a security environment where the government seldom puts defence policy in the public domain and successive governments have failed to create a national security strategy, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh delivered a convocation address on Thursday to the graduating National Defence College (NDC) cadets in Delhi.
Such institutional speeches, especially those delivered at military training institutions, such as the NDC, are carefully parsed by defence analysts the world over, for indications of strategic policy. Thursday’s NDC speech was no exception.
The most striking observation that defence analysts arrived at is: although India has active borders with two hostile neighbours —