The comments on the strategic landscape came at the Indo-Pacific Armies Chiefs Conference (IPACC), being attended by military leaders from 30 countries, ‘Hindustan Times’ informs.

“The region faces a complex web of security challenges, including boundary disputes. The need to comprehensively deal with these challenges has led to the full involvement of the states in the region, with all their organisations, including their armies,” Indian Defence minister Rajnath Singh (photo) said in his inaugural speech at the 13th IPACC, hosted by India and the US.

Rajnath Singh pointed out that states must recognise that global issues involve multiple stakeholders and no one country can address these challenges in isolation.

The defence minister said peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific can be achieved in consonance with the ancient Indian ethos of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (The world is one family).

Singh emphasised that the Indo-Pacific is no more a maritime construct, but a full-fledged geo-strategic construct, and the region is facing a complex web of security challenges, including boundary disputes and piracy.

He explained his vision for the region through a theoretical model by American author Stephen R Covey, which is based on two circles – ‘Circle of Concern’ and ‘Circle of Influence’.

“There may be instances when the ‘Circle of Concern’ of different nations overlap with each other. International maritime trade routes passing through high seas, beyond the exclusive economic zones of any country, are relevant examples,” he said.

“This can either result in conflict between nations or they can decide to coexist by mutually deciding the rules of engagement. The concept of these circles underscores the importance of strategic thinking and prioritisation,” he added.

Singh pointed out that states must recognise that global issues involve multiple stakeholders and no one country can address these challenges in isolation.

He stressed the need to engage with the broader international community and work collaboratively through diplomacy, international organisations and treaties to tackle common concerns within the overlapping ‘Circle of Concern’.

Singh was of the view that states, at the same time, must identify and seek to expand their ‘Circle of Influence’ to promote national interests on the global stage.

“This conference is an exercise where we all are trying to expand our ‘Circle of Influence’ while harmonising the overlaps of our ‘Circle of Concern’,” he added.

Rajnath Singh said security considerations have elevated the strategic significance of the Indo-Pacific and the vast stretch confronts a web of challenges that no country can tackle alone, with army chief General Manoj Pande describing it as a theatre of complexities with manifestations of inter-state competitions and a top US general calling for deepening partnerships in the region to jointly promote peace and stability.

Pande said India’s outlook for the Indo-Pacific emphasised respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, peaceful resolution of disputes, avoidance of force and adherence to international law.

“While efforts by countries are converging towards effecting a free and stable Indo-Pacific, yet we are witnessing manifestations of inter-state contestations and competitions.”

The army chief listed territorial disputes over landmasses and the militarisation of artificial islands in contested waters as key security concerns in the region.

India’s efforts to build robust military partnerships with friendly countries underscore its commitment to safeguard national interests and address global challenges, Singh said. “The Indo-Pacific Region has emerged as a pivotal geopolitical and strategic concept in recent years, transforming from a primarily maritime concept into a comprehensive strategic framework.”

Singh reiterated that India stands for a “free, open, inclusive and rules-based Indo-Pacific region.”

“States must recognise that there are global issues and challenges involving multiple stakeholders that no one country can address in isolation. They need to engage with the broader international community and work collaboratively through diplomacy, international organisations, and treaties to tackle common concerns,” he said.

In a joint press briefing with US army chief of staff General Randy George, General Manoj Pande said the Indo-Pacific construct has come to occupy central space in the contemporary geostrategic canvass in recent years. “Its significance reflects the evolving global dynamics in the political, security, economic and environmental domains. The region is a theatre of complexities and challenges. Periodic ideation and discussions among partners are necessary, with efforts focussed on the shared responsibility for achieving and sustaining peace and stability,” Pande said.

Responding to a question on China, the army chief said the IPACC construct was not a military alliance directed against any country or group of countries, with its goal being bringing military leaders together to enhance collaboration and understanding in the Indo-Pacific, sharing best practices, planning effective humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and charting a roadmap for the future. “The aim is to build trust and strengthen friendships.”

General George said IPACC was looking at building a security architecture that would bind the region together and lead to unity and collective commitment. “Unity and commitment are the best deterrents,” he said, adding that the partnership between the US and Indian armies was vital for stability in the region. In a challenging global security environment, having great allies and partners is more important than ever before.”

The diplomatic row with Canada will not impact the participation of its army in the conference, and the country is an “important partner” in the IPACC journey, said Major General Abhinaya Rai, additional director general, Strategic Planning.

“It doesn’t impact us. The Canadian (deputy) chief is coming here. His delegation is coming here. Even when we look at the relationships with some of our neighbours… where we may have had a standoff but we continue to engage them at all levels, be it the military level and at the diplomatic level. And I am referring directly to China here,” Rai said at a curtain-raiser to the conference that was attended by a battery of defence attaches from the participating countries, including Colonel Todd Braithwaite from Canada.

The Indo-Pacific Armies Management Seminar (IPAMS) and Senior Enlisted Leaders Forum (SELF) will also be held alongside IPACC.

The events will provide a unique opportunity “to build common perspectives towards a shared vision” and help build partnerships and strengthen friendships across the Indo-Pacific, said Army Vice Chief Lieutenant General MV Suchindra Kumar: “It is indeed fortuitous and a matter of great pride that the triad of IPACC, IPAMS and SELF is being hosted by the Indian Army in the same year as India’s G-20 and SCO Presidency.”

After decades of going it alone in security issues, Finns are finding that life in a large alliance is complex, expensive and deeply political. Now Northern Europe and the Arctic more important for the NATO security, The New York Times stresses.

Finland cast aside decades of military nonalignment and self-reliance and joined the NATO alliance. That happened with breathtaking speed, as these matters go, but gaining membership may have been the easy part.

Now comes the complicated process of integrating itself into the alliance and its requirement of collective defense — with all of its financial, legal and strategic hurdles. “Joining NATO is an expensive business, and supporting Ukraine is an expensive business, and there’s no end to that in sight,” said Janne Kuusela, director-general for defense policy at Finland’s Ministry of Defense.

Membership in NATO has long been considered a cheap benefit, given the American nuclear umbrella and the principle of collective defense. Achieving that will demand some difficult and costly decisions from the government and military officials as they learn to think strategically outside Finland’s borders and adapt its forces and their capabilities to the alliance’s needs.

They will have to decide how to move troops and equipment to Norway, Sweden or the Baltic States in the event they need reinforcements, for instance, or whether to participate in other NATO tasks like patrols in Kosovo or the Mediterranean.

At the same time, Finnish officials and analysts say, Finland will not alter its intention of defending every inch of its own territory, given its 830-mile border with Russia, a doctrine considered old-fashioned in the age of modern warfare.

For now, the country is negotiating a bilateral defense cooperation agreement with the United States, the kind of accord Washington has with many countries around the world, making joint exercises easier to plan and quicker to implement. It will cover what kind of U.S. troop presence Finland would allow and where, and what sort of equipment NATO’s most powerful country will be able to bring to Finland for exercises or prepositioning.

The negotiations are complicated, said Elina Valtonen, Finland’s foreign minister, in an interview. “Of course, it’s a balance, how to also defend your sovereignty against an aggressive and unpredictable neighbor, who does not respect the same values that we do with our friends and allies,” she said. “But Finland is a country where, typically, we like to have agreements, we like to have treaties, we are very legalistic.”

Finland’s relationship with the United States is considered as important as the one with the larger alliance, especially given the American nuclear deterrent that protects all NATO members. Finnish law prevents the importation or storage of nuclear weapons on its soil. But Finland will have to decide its policy on nuclear deterrence and the nature of its involvement in shaping NATO’s nuclear policy.

Much of the responsibility for integration with NATO rests with Gen. Timo Kivinen, the commander of Finland’s defense forces. He is familiar with the inner workings of NATO, since Finland has long been a partner nation and involved in NATO exercises; several hundred NATO troops have been stationed almost continuously in Finland since April 2022.

Even as a candidate member, Finland began the first stage of alliance defense planning that July. Now, as a full member, the planning is more intensive, but there is much to consider, he said, to align Finland’s defense plans with those of the larger alliance.

The war has made Northern Europe and the Arctic more important for the security of the whole alliance. So, General Kivinen said, it is also vital that Sweden, a longtime defense partner for Finland, get into NATO soon. That would make alliance planning easier, especially in determining how best to defend the Arctic, the Baltic region and four of the five Nordic countries — Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark (Iceland is the fifth).

Already these four have agreed to operate their approximately 250 fighter jets as a joint operational fleet and also to provide air policing for Iceland.

NATO has placed Finland in the land-oriented command based in Brunssum, the Netherlands, which is charged with defending Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland and the Baltic nations.

Finland has already increased its defense budget, in part to pay for the purchase of F-35 fighter jets and new ships to better patrol its seas and hunt for submarines. It vows to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on the military, as NATO desires.

We Europeans are still convinced of the centrality of our small continent not only to the history of mankind but to shaping the world today. We lecture everyone else based on values that we firmly believe are universal. We think of ourselves as noble, powerful and well intentioned. But the period of true European power was really just a historical blip, writes Gerard Araud is a former French ambassador to the United States at London ‘The Telegraph’.

Yes, Europeans dominated the world between 1815 and 1945, and from then until today we have stood just behind the US. But that was only two centuries: a comma in the history of the world. Until 1650, the GDP of India and, until 1750, the GDP of China were probably larger than any country in Europe.

So, in New Delhi and Beijing, we were seen as the upstarts during our period of dominance, and the economic rebalancing underway over the past few decades between Europe and Asia is viewed as merely a return to the long-term historical norm. The upstarts are being put back in their place.

It is no surprise that, in 2016, Barack Obama in an interview with The Atlantic seemed to believe that the future of humankind would be decided between New Delhi, Beijing and Los Angeles.

Indeed, when I served as France’s ambassador to Washington, I noticed the extent to which our supposed heirs viewed us instead with a mixture of indifference, fatigue and neglect. We were the old aunt whose rambling utterances were more or less gently ignored.

For the US, the potential growth but also the main challenges are in Asia, so it is only logical for Washington to pivot towards that continent. There can be no confusion on this. For the US, Russia is a regional power, a pain but not the centre of their attention. They want to put an end to the war in Ukraine as soon as possible to face the real threat: China.

Are we Europeans able to prove that we still matter, that we are not just some peripheral touristic destination?

I doubt it, and for a very particular reason. As a Frenchman who has seen his country, the China of Europe in 1815, progressively lose its power in parallel with its demographic decline, I firmly believe that demography is destiny.

On this basis, Europe is facing an unprecedented situation. Its total population is projected to fall by 5pc between 2010 and 2050, but by 17pc among 25 to 64 year-olds. The populations of Hungary, the Baltic States, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Portugal, Italy and Greece are already declining, while Germany’s is plateauing before a predictable decrease. The median age of Europeans is 42 years compared with 38 in the US. It is increasing on average by 0.2 years per annum.

What does it mean? Less demand and therefore less growth; and less dynamic societies. In more concrete terms, it entails a threat to the ‘’European model’’, which is based on an uneasy compromise between a welfare state and economic reality.

Old age means ever-growing spending on health and personal assistance. The demographic crisis will, in turn, tear apart our societies between the working-aged and the retired in a context in which the latter enjoy a standard of living the former often can’t ever hope to reach.

More acutely, Europeans will fight over the question of immigration. The experts are very clear in their assessment: given the weak effectiveness of “natalist” policies designed to increase birth rates, there is no alternative to overcoming demographic decline in Europe other than immigration.

In today’s Europe, it is a euphemism to say that this solution won’t be generally welcomed. When a French minister recently hinted that we may have to accept a limited number of immigrants to deal with shortages of personnel in some sectors, there was such an outcry that he immediately backpedalled.

The UK left the EU largely to stop immigration even from European countries. In 2015, Germany might have opened its borders to more than one million immigrants from the Middle East, but this was in response to a humanitarian emergency.

In this context, emigration from Europe is especially unwelcome. We are losing young, highly educated individuals who go mainly to the US, where they will have better opportunities, be it in the research, academic or the private sectors.

When travelling in America, everywhere I went I met European researchers, surgeons, teachers and entrepreneurs. It was difficult not to feel sadness that these young people, who our countries had educated at a high cost, were instead enriching the US.

Don’t say my pessimism is only the usual French moaning; don’t add that British and French demographics are not that bad (although that is true).

Every signal is pointing towards an inward-looking Europe. Un continent de vieux. The future of humankind will be definitely decided elsewhere.