The Shiv Sena to an extent spoke a language similar to that of the BJP but found itself ceding ground to the BJP, to the point that it was perhaps existentially threatened. Not sure how to put this into words, but the Ayodhya movement is to the BJP what the Independence movement was for Congress.
RSJ's piece on BJP as juggernaut was very thought-provoking, esp on the how a dominant-for-long party ends up creating long term scars and structural changes.
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Pranay, what are your thoughts on the other side of the coin wrt "China as an international market failure"? i.e., How big/bad a problem is the US increasingly on the same topic? When they use the US dollar's status as international currency as a mechanism to impose unilateral sanctions all around? Or to arm-twist European companies like ASML on whether they can/cannot sell equipment to China? Over the last few years (Trump, Biden, now Trump again), directionally this is how the US is acting increasingly. Would you agree?
Raghu, excellent diagnosis of how BJP's organizational nous is a critical advantage.The "dissatisfied friend vs. hostile adversary" is a useful entry point.
I'm more optimistic than you are about the disciplining mechanism holding. Yes, the machinery is sophisticated and ambient, but when incumbents overextend into misgovernance or corruption, voters discipline them regardless of org advantages - we've seen this recently in Hungary and Poland earlier where heavily tilted fields still produced incumbent losses.
And India's federalism offers a structural check that doesn't exist in Hungary or Mexico's PRI era. BJP's inability to penetrate TN or Kerala despite the full machinery suggests cultural-linguistic diversity creates natural resistance to total dominance. The question isn't whether BJP can be removed nationally - it's whether the opposition can build competitive organizational capacity with fresh ideas and fresh faces.
Pranay, the weaponized interdependence framing is crucial for understanding why traditional trade policy tools have failed. A few thoughts on how we might extend your thinking:
On GCCs as leverage: You're right that 1,800 centers creates some org dependency that's stickier than factories. But there's a strategic question underneath: how do you convert presence inside someone else's perimeter into actual bargaining power? The Foxconn engineer recall shows companies can pull back even when deeply embedded. What would an offensive economic statecraft institution actually DO with this leverage that wouldn't trigger capital flight? Or counter measures that are even more damaging?
On the coordination problem: This might be the real wicked problem. You note that w/o x-country coordination, individual responses get destroyed by the next Chinese deflationary wave. But I'm skeptical coordination is achievable when major economies are operating from incompatible frameworks - US friend-shoring vs. EU industrial policy vs. China marcantilism vs India's import substitution. I wrote recently about how different analytical frameworks work at different scales - the Eagle and Dragon need singular maps because their movements reshape the terrain, but middle powers like India can afford tactical flexibility precisely because they're not trying to stabilize the whole system. That flexibility might be an asset when coordination fails, but it's not a substitute for solving the collective action problem. https://rajeshachanta.substack.com/p/the-maps-we-carry?utm_source=publication-search
On base-level capabilities: The ISRO/PARAM examples show India CAN build when denied, but the timeline problem you hint at is a killer imo. In cryogenic engines and supercomputers, 15-year development cycles meant catching up eventually. In AI chips and advanced semiconductors, 15 years means you're permanently behind the curve. The speed of the tech change determines whether "long memory + confidence" is resilience or just expensive delay.
One additional point: There's an epistemological dimension to weaponized interdependence that doesn't quite fit your framework but matters for strategy. When interdependence becomes a weapon, it's not just that supply chains get disrupted - it's that the assumptions behind planning become unreliable. 5 yr semiconductor fab plans assume stable access to equipment/materials. AI development roadmaps assume compute access. Trade agreements assume good-faith compliance. When these can be weaponized mid-cycle, the planning horizon collapses. That's not just a coordination problem - it's a knowledge problem. How do you build industrial policy when the substrate keeps shifting?
Maybe the answer is what you're gesturing toward with the SAMR-equivalent - not trying to out-plan China's subsidies but building the institutional capacity to respond faster when conditions change. Tactical flexibility as substitute for strategic foresight when foresight itself becomes unreliable.
On the Cambridge roundtable discussions, was there any convergence on what coordination actually looks like in practice, or just agreement that it's necessary?
The Shiv Sena to an extent spoke a language similar to that of the BJP but found itself ceding ground to the BJP, to the point that it was perhaps existentially threatened. Not sure how to put this into words, but the Ayodhya movement is to the BJP what the Independence movement was for Congress.
RSJ's piece on BJP as juggernaut was very thought-provoking, esp on the how a dominant-for-long party ends up creating long term scars and structural changes.
~~
Pranay, what are your thoughts on the other side of the coin wrt "China as an international market failure"? i.e., How big/bad a problem is the US increasingly on the same topic? When they use the US dollar's status as international currency as a mechanism to impose unilateral sanctions all around? Or to arm-twist European companies like ASML on whether they can/cannot sell equipment to China? Over the last few years (Trump, Biden, now Trump again), directionally this is how the US is acting increasingly. Would you agree?
Raghu, excellent diagnosis of how BJP's organizational nous is a critical advantage.The "dissatisfied friend vs. hostile adversary" is a useful entry point.
I'm more optimistic than you are about the disciplining mechanism holding. Yes, the machinery is sophisticated and ambient, but when incumbents overextend into misgovernance or corruption, voters discipline them regardless of org advantages - we've seen this recently in Hungary and Poland earlier where heavily tilted fields still produced incumbent losses.
And India's federalism offers a structural check that doesn't exist in Hungary or Mexico's PRI era. BJP's inability to penetrate TN or Kerala despite the full machinery suggests cultural-linguistic diversity creates natural resistance to total dominance. The question isn't whether BJP can be removed nationally - it's whether the opposition can build competitive organizational capacity with fresh ideas and fresh faces.
Pranay, the weaponized interdependence framing is crucial for understanding why traditional trade policy tools have failed. A few thoughts on how we might extend your thinking:
On GCCs as leverage: You're right that 1,800 centers creates some org dependency that's stickier than factories. But there's a strategic question underneath: how do you convert presence inside someone else's perimeter into actual bargaining power? The Foxconn engineer recall shows companies can pull back even when deeply embedded. What would an offensive economic statecraft institution actually DO with this leverage that wouldn't trigger capital flight? Or counter measures that are even more damaging?
On the coordination problem: This might be the real wicked problem. You note that w/o x-country coordination, individual responses get destroyed by the next Chinese deflationary wave. But I'm skeptical coordination is achievable when major economies are operating from incompatible frameworks - US friend-shoring vs. EU industrial policy vs. China marcantilism vs India's import substitution. I wrote recently about how different analytical frameworks work at different scales - the Eagle and Dragon need singular maps because their movements reshape the terrain, but middle powers like India can afford tactical flexibility precisely because they're not trying to stabilize the whole system. That flexibility might be an asset when coordination fails, but it's not a substitute for solving the collective action problem. https://rajeshachanta.substack.com/p/the-maps-we-carry?utm_source=publication-search
On base-level capabilities: The ISRO/PARAM examples show India CAN build when denied, but the timeline problem you hint at is a killer imo. In cryogenic engines and supercomputers, 15-year development cycles meant catching up eventually. In AI chips and advanced semiconductors, 15 years means you're permanently behind the curve. The speed of the tech change determines whether "long memory + confidence" is resilience or just expensive delay.
One additional point: There's an epistemological dimension to weaponized interdependence that doesn't quite fit your framework but matters for strategy. When interdependence becomes a weapon, it's not just that supply chains get disrupted - it's that the assumptions behind planning become unreliable. 5 yr semiconductor fab plans assume stable access to equipment/materials. AI development roadmaps assume compute access. Trade agreements assume good-faith compliance. When these can be weaponized mid-cycle, the planning horizon collapses. That's not just a coordination problem - it's a knowledge problem. How do you build industrial policy when the substrate keeps shifting?
Maybe the answer is what you're gesturing toward with the SAMR-equivalent - not trying to out-plan China's subsidies but building the institutional capacity to respond faster when conditions change. Tactical flexibility as substitute for strategic foresight when foresight itself becomes unreliable.
On the Cambridge roundtable discussions, was there any convergence on what coordination actually looks like in practice, or just agreement that it's necessary?