Article by Amit Dwivedi
Why India’s next security doctrine must move from managing internal threats to building national resilience
India’s two-and-a-half-front formulation entered prominent public strategic discourse around the prospect of simultaneous pressure from China, Pakistan and an internal-security challenge. In June 2017, then Army Chief Gen. Bipin Rawat publicly stated that the Army was prepared for a two-and-a-half-front contingency involving “China, Pakistan and internal security requirements simultaneously.” [1]
The strategic environment has since evolved.
India’s principal conventional internal-security indicators have improved substantially. Government data records LWE-perpetrated violence falling from 1,936 incidents in 2010 to 234 in 2025, while resultant deaths declined from 1,005 to 100. LWE-affected districts also fell from 126 in 2018 to eight by December 2025. [2]
Northeast insurgency-related violence has also declined substantially over the longer term, falling from 824 incidents in 2014 to 201 in 2022. The subsequent increase to 243 in 2023 and 266 through November 2024 was attributed by the Ministry of Home Affairs primarily to ethnic strife in Manipur, rather than a broad resurgence of insurgency. [3]
This does not eliminate the half-front; it changes its character.
The Strategic Problem
The question is no longer only how India fights an internal threat. It is how India prevents an internal vulnerability from becoming a constraint on its ability to fight an external war.
Analytical Definition
A vulnerability becomes a strategic half-front when it can consume national resources, require security-force diversion, disrupt critical systems, or constrain strategic decision-making during an external crisis.
The half-front should therefore be assessed not only through insurgency and terrorism, but also through vulnerabilities in society, information, cyberspace, critical infrastructure, the economy and population movement where these vulnerabilities could materially affect national capacity during an external crisis.
The Half-Front Test
When multiple dimensions deteriorate simultaneously, an internal-security problem becomes a strategic constraint.
Capacity Consumed → Forces Diverted → Critical Systems Disrupted → Strategic Choices Narrowed
The Policy Question
Can India reduce the military resources required for internal-security contingencies while increasing the state’s ability to detect, absorb and contain disruption during an external crisis?
The critical transition is:
Security Burden → Strategic Constraint
At Level 1, the state pays a security cost: manpower, money and administrative attention are diverted.
At Level 2, it begins paying a strategic cost: force allocation changes, external options narrow and military capacity available for the primary theatre can be reduced.
The policy objective should be to prevent Level 1 from becoming Level 2.
Half-Front Scale
Half-Front Scale communicates
The progression from Contained → Security Burden → Strategic Constraint → Political Stress → Institutional Crisis → State Transformation, and explicitly marks Level 1 → Level 2 as the critical threshold.
Suggested Analytical Framework
Why Resilience is a Defence Issue
Military power depends on the national systems that sustain it — manpower, infrastructure, communications, finance, logistics, public institutions and political endurance.
An external conflict can also generate internal burdens of its own. During the 1971 Bangladesh crisis, approximately 10 million refugees entered India, creating an extraordinary humanitarian, logistical and administrative burden. [4]
The doctrinal objective should, therefore, not be to make the Army increasingly responsible for every internal contingency.
It should be to manage each contingency at the lowest effective level of the national-security architecture, preserving military capacity for missions that genuinely require military capability.
Security Layer Architecture
Police
↓
CAPFs
↓
Specialised agencies
↓
Civil administration
↓
Military (Only when required)
The Army should be the escalation layer — not the default layer.
The Technology Layer
The architecture should follow a simple chain:
Detect → Verify → Assess → Act → Recover
AI, sensors and UAVs can improve detection and situational awareness. Human intelligence and authorised institutions must verify and decide.
Police, CAPFs and civil administration should handle most contingencies; military intervention should remain the escalation option where military capability is genuinely required.
A national early-warning architecture should integrate existing data, sensors, UAVs and intelligence, with defined legal authority, human verification, auditability and institutional accountability.
Policy Priorities
1. Establish a National Resilience Framework
Create a common framework linking internal security, critical infrastructure, cyber, information resilience and crisis continuity, with clear institutional responsibilities.
2. Build an AI-Enabled National Early-Warning Layer
Integrate existing data, sensors, UAVs and intelligence to identify emerging disruptions earlier, with human verification, legal safeguards, auditability and institutional accountability.
3. Reduce Military Diversion
Strengthen police, CAPFs, intelligence and civil-administration capabilities so that military capacity remains available for external contingencies.
4. Stress-Test India for a Simultaneous Crisis
Conduct recurring national exercises combining:
External Military Pressure + Internal Disruption + Cyber / Critical-Infrastructure Shock
Measure military diversion, detection time, response time, infrastructure continuity and remaining combat capacity.
5. Establish a National Resilience Baseline
Identify critical systems whose disruption could materially affect national continuity or military readiness, and establish minimum standards for redundancy, continuity and recovery.
The Primary KPI: During a simultaneous crisis, how much military capacity remains available for the external theatre?
Supporting Indicators*
Detection time ↓
Response time ↓
Military diversion ↓
Critical-system continuity ↑
Conclusion
The objective is not to eliminate every internal vulnerability. It is to ensure that internal vulnerabilities cannot readily become strategic constraints during an external crisis. The measure of success is therefore simple:
When India faces external pressure, how much national and military capacity remains available for the external theatre?
Military Power + National Resilience = Strategic Freedom of Action
The goal is not to fight a larger half-front. The goal is to shrink it.
References
[1] Rawat, Gen. Bipin. Chief of Army Staff, June 2017. Contemporary record of his statement that the Indian Army was prepared for a “two-and-a-half-front” contingency involving China, Pakistan and internal-security requirements.
[2] Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India / Press Information Bureau. Official data on Left Wing Extremism, including violence, resultant deaths and affected districts through 2025. 2026.
[3] Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Security Situation in North Eastern Region as a Whole from 2004 Onwards. Official statistical profile through November 2024.
[4] UNHCR. Historical documentation on the 1971 Bangladesh refugee crisis; approximately 10 million refugees entered India during the conflict.
