Revision summary
Globalization makes national security more than an army on a map line. Open money, data, and travel carry terror finance, malware, and influence as well as trade. Supply-chain and energy dependence turn a foreign factory or strait into a security risk. Cyber, information, maritime, and climate shocks sit beside conventional war. The State must filter flows with intelligence, FATF, CERT-In, and diplomacy without shutting the growth pipe.
Model answer
Introduction
Globalization opened trade, travel, wires, and ideas. National security used to mean a border army and a customs post. In the global age the same openness that grows GDP also carries terrorists, malware, dumped goods, and influence operations. The challenge is to stay open enough to prosper and closed enough that a networked threat cannot walk in on a tourist visa or a fibre cable.
Body
How globalization rewrites the threat
- People, money, and data cross faster than a 1960s visa file; a radicaliser on an encrypted app and a hawala rupee do not queue at the checkpost.
- Supply chains for energy, electronics, medicines, and rare materials sit in other countries; a blockade, a sanctions list, or a factory fire abroad can starve a domestic line.
- Dual-use technologies and foreign direct investment in sensitive sectors blur the line between a commercial deal and a strategic foothold.
- Diaspora, students, and social media are both assets and vectors: the same pipe carries remittances and propaganda.
Concrete challenge clusters
- Transnational terrorism and organised crime use global finance, fake identities, and safe-haven hopping; 26/11-type city attacks showed that a launch pad next door plus a global kit can hit a financial capital.
- Cyber security: critical infrastructure, banks, and ministries live on networks that a remote actor can probe; CERT-In and a National Cyber Security Policy (2013) were the 2018-era Indian reply, still racing the threat.
- Economic and energy security: oil import dependence, WTO-era trade shocks, and currency swings are security files, not only commerce ministry files.
- Information and identity: fake news, communal rumours at viral speed, and radicalisation of lone actors sit below the nuclear and conventional rungs.
- Maritime and space commons: sea lanes of the Indian Ocean and satellites are global public goods that pirates, grey-zone navies, and debris can spoil.
- Climate and pandemic-type shocks (already visible as SARS/H1N1 lessons by 2018) move across open skies; they are security because they break food, health, and order.
The policy tension
- A fortress that shuts FDI, students, and fibre also shuts growth; a naive open door outsources the monopoly of legitimate violence.
- The workable reply is layered: border and visa intelligence, FATF-grade finance controls, cyber hygiene, strategic reserves, neighbourhood diplomacy, and lawful domestic policing that does not itself become a recruiting sergeant.
- National security in the age of globalization is therefore whole-of-government: MEA, MHA, defence, finance, and MeitY share one map. The army remains necessary; it is no longer sufficient.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD G[Open flows goods people data] --> P[Prosperity] G --> T[Terror cyber crime] G --> S[Supply chain energy] G --> I[Info radicalisation] F[Intel FATF CERT reserves MEA] --> M[Filtered openness]
Conclusion
Globalization binds India’s prosperity to open flows of goods, people, and data, and those same flows carry terror, cyber attack, supply-chain coercion, and viral propaganda. Challenges are transnational, not only territorial. The reply is intelligence, cyber and finance controls, reserves, and diplomacy — openness with a filter, not a wall or a welcome without a lock.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Discuss the disaster management in India at the Centre, State and District levels.
Next question in the 2018 paper (Q19). View answer →
-
Does globalization mean the army is obsolete?
No. Conventional and nuclear deterrence remain. They do not police a malware packet or a hawala chain.
-
Is shutting the internet the way to secure a globalised India?
A blunt shutdown can pause a rumour and also halt banks, hospitals, and trade. Layered cyber and legal tools beat a permanent dark switch.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2020 · Q18 · UPGS3 · 12 marks
Describe in detail the issues of nuclear proliferation and the existing control mechanism. -
2020 · Q20 · UPGS3 · 12 marks
At present, in emerging security challenges, how can nuclear weapons be advantageous in India's security management? Explain. -
2019 · Q7 · UPGS3 · 8 marks
What are the causes of industrial sickness in India? Give suitable suggestions to overcome the problem. -
2019 · Q12 · UPGS3 · 12 marks
“Nuclear deterrence is the only effective alternative to counter the deadly genocidal nuclear weapons.” Analytically explain this statement. -
2019 · Q17 · UPGS3 · 12 marks
Explain the challenges of food security in India. How can they be removed? Explain. -
2018 · Q8 · UPGS3 · 8 marks
Discuss the corrective strategies needed to win the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) doctrine affected citizens back into the mainstream of social and economic growth. -
2018 · Q14 · UPGS3 · 12 marks
“Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are the drivers of economic growth and employment proliferation in India.” Examine this statement. -
2018 · Q20 · UPGS3 · 12 marks
Write a note on the challenges and their solutions for Law and Order in Uttar Pradesh at the present time.
More from this paper
Q1 · UPSC Mains 2018 · UPGS3 · 8 marks
Evaluate the effects of globalization on industrial development in India.
Economic planning and NITI Aayog
1991 reforms and WTO entry opened Indian industry to trade, capital, and technology. Autos, pharma, telecom, and organised engineering gained FDI, quality, and exports. MSMEs in labour-intensive lines faced cheap imports and informal labour. Factory growth clustered in a few belts; manufacturing’s GDP share stayed modest. The effect is mixed capability, not uniform industrialisation.
Q2 · UPSC Mains 2018 · UPGS3 · 8 marks
Describe the targets of energy generation through renewable energy sources in accordance with National Energy Policy 2017 drafted by NITI Aayog.
Economic planning and NITI Aayog
NITI Aayog’s 2017 draft NEP folds existing RE and climate pledges into one energy frame. 175 GW by 2022: 100 GW solar, 60 GW wind, 10 GW bio-power, 5 GW small hydro. About 40 per cent non-fossil electricity capacity by 2030 is the Paris-linked target. 24×7 power for all and village electrification are the access companions. Corridors, bidding, and must-run status turn capacity targets into generation.
Q3 · UPSC Mains 2018 · UPGS3 · 8 marks
Throw light on the ‘Pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in India’.
Economic planning and NITI Aayog
SDGs are seventeen 2030 UN goals; India maps them onto existing Union and State schemes. NITI Aayog coordinates and publishes the SDG India Index; MoSPI builds indicators. Poverty, health, education, water, energy, and climate goals ride on named flagships. Large inter-State gaps remain on nutrition, learning, and air. Pursuit is federal delivery, not a separate UN ministry.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.