National security is most often thought of in terms of political and military threats to the state—either from other states or geo-strategic alliances. Given such a framework, both the challenges as well as the responses have for long been viewed in terms of the military force or coercive ability of the adversary.

Events unfolding in today’s highly networked and globalised economies show the futility, and danger, of relying on such a simplistic template. Threats to national security are today multi-dimensional and call for a deeper study and understanding of a wide variety of factors to create a credible response mechanism.

Navigating the Near seeks to bridge this paradigm shift by studying non-traditional threats facing contemporary India. The study, with its sight on the next decade, evaluates how traditional threats confronting India are likely to be influenced in large measure by a range of factors and trends, both external and internal, that have, till now, remained on the fringes of security studies.