Time for India to project hard power alongside soft power: Defence Secretary

Amid rising competitive populism and economic protectionism around the world, India needs to project its hard power alongside its soft power, said Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh on Friday.

Singh was speaking at the Southern Command Defence Tech 2025 seminar (STRIDE 2025) here.

Addressing the gathering, Singh said the trend of increasing globalisation and free trade has been brought to a halt by geopolitical factors linked to the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Europe and the rise of populist leadership patterns across the globe.


"These trends are causing competitive populism and economic protectionism around the world, accompanied by economic fragmentation, the decline of multilateral institutions, and a growing tide of nationalism.

"As a result, the need to back a soft power with hard power is becoming more and more critical at a time when strategic deal-making requires you to be able to project hard power as well," said Singh.

He also said there is a need to bring academia, research institutes like DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation), private and public sectors together to meet the capability enhancement needs of the country's armed forces.