EVENTS

Abstract        

Both China and India are rapidly progressing digital societies. Yet, their approaches to harnessing Internet technology for both civilian and military purposes could not be more different. While China has adopted a 'muscular' and 'custodial' approach to cyber technology, India has embraced a 'laissez-faire' and 'handmaiden' model to the growth of the Internet. How do they acquire, mobilize and utilize cyber power and what accounts for their contrasting behaviour in cyberspace? This paper argues that the Chinese 'cyber juggernaut' and India's policy of 'strategic restraint' in cyberspace is a result of the attitudes, values and interests that shape their 'conceptualization' of cyber power. In turn, their national cyber strategies in the quantum era are primarily driven by four main factors - strategic culture, political order, cyber capabilities and technology strategy/technology modernization goals.  

About the Speaker

Ramesh Balakrishnan is a Researcher in the Cyber Security Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. His research interests include the study of dual-use technologies and quantum-based socio-technical systems within the realm of International security and the global balance of power. He is also interested in research topics related to the emerging field of Quantum International Relations: cyber conflict & cooperation; the coercion, compellence and deterrence potential of cyber weapons; the effects and consequences of establishing state sovereignty in the virtual world -- 'Cyber Westphalianism'; India's emergence as a cyber power; and the role of network-centricity in India's military modernisation. Prior to working in the cyber domain, he worked for more than a decade in the U.S. and Canada in the telecommunications and communications software industry. In December 2015, he completed an MRes. (with Distinction) - Contemporary India, from the King's India Institute, King's College London on a Baillie Gifford Fellowship. His dissertation focused on the interplay between technology policy, varieties of capitalism, techno-politics and global technology control regimes in influencing the trajectory of India's semiconductor industry and the ramifications for India's economic and cyber security. In December 2013, he completed coursework on International security and American Foreign Policy at the Harvard Extension School, Harvard University. He also holds a B.E. (Electrical Engineering) from Anna University, Chennai and an International - MBA from the University of Memphis, Tennessee USA.