While a full-fledged NSP may be difficult, it is time for a white paper from the government, setting out its thinking on these issues and the path forward.

Indian diplomacy has been bold and innovative but today's challenges require another reworking of statecraft in pursuit of the country's 'unvarying concerns' – safeguarding its sovereignty and overcoming poverty.

The stale thoughts of pale males in the 19th and early 20th centuries broke up the world of the peoples and communities of Ladakh and its environs. Until we break from those ideas, their lives will never be whole again.

The hyper-nationalist, assertive popular mood that we see in Xi Jinping’s China today, nurtured by the party-state, is a direct consequence of decisions taken by the Communist leadership that year.

The crisis has made it clear that India’s China policy cannot optimise for both security and prosperity.

China's actions have brought about what it should be trying to deter, i.e. closer India-US coordination. This means the decision was taken at the highest level in China for larger strategic reasons, not just tactical military convenience.

India now seems determined to cut itself off and isolate itself.

There’s plenty of scope for cooperation but both sides must guard against talking themselves into a classic security dilemma.

Whether China succeeds in her internal reordering and her external quest for primacy depends to a considerable extent on how the US and China handle their relationship.

There is opportunity again for India’s transformation in the emerging global situation, if we take advantage of it.

What worries me most is that if Bharat Karnad is right, we can only expect more of the same – or worse – should Modi return to power in 2019. That would further postpone or derail India’s transformation into a strong, prosperous and modern country.

India-China relations require a fundamental reset and a new scholarly book provides a useful, if indirect, contribution to how we think about the relationship.

The changing security environment in South Asia and elsewhere may have brought on new problems but it has given us new tools and abilities to deal with them.

The rise of centralising authoritarians has accentuated the fragmentation and regionalisation of world politics, diminished the capacity for compromise and made relations between competitive powers much more fraught than in the past.

The initiative's success ultimately depends on what regional players get from it in terms of economic, political and security benefits.

Much of what we have seen in the strengthened China-Pakistan alignment in the last decade is a reaction to the rise of India.

While the leaders have been careful in public, the terms in which foreign and security policy are discussed in China, India (and Japan) have become much more shrill.

In the second of a three-part article, India’s former National Security Adviser looks at the implications of a China that will be increasingly assertive in the Asia-Pacific.