By Pradeep S Mehta and Sohom Banerjee
In the uneasy interludes that now punctuate the unfolding tensions in West Asia, the global economy has quietly revealed a truth more consequential than the visible choreography of conflict. Even before any formal rupture in supply, tankers hesitated at the Strait of Hormuz, insurance premiums surged, shipping calculations were recalibrated, and markets began repricing risk with anticipatory precision. What responded, therefore, was not merely trade to disruption, but the entire geoeconomic system to the expectation of disruption. That distinction is critical. In an era increasingly defined by recurring crises, the decisive divide is no longer between countries that encounter shocks and those that do not, but between those that prepare for them in moments of relative calm and those that continue to confront them as unwelcome surprises.
The present turmoil, accordingly, is best understood not as an isolated disturbance, but as a stress test of national preparedness. West Asia has long been recognised as a theatre of structural fragility, particularly for energy-importing economies and trade-dependent states. The more pertinent question, therefore, is not whether disruption was foreseeable, but which countries regarded it as sufficiently inevitable to warrant pre-emptive safeguards.
China offers one of the most compelling illustrations of such anticipatory logic. Its long-standing recognition of chokepoint vulnerability, most notably through the so-called Malacca dilemma and its exposure to Hormuz, has shaped a geoeconomic strategy grounded in the premise that maritime dependence is not a transient inconvenience but an enduring structural liability. In response, Beijing has, over time, constructed a layered architecture of resilience. It has diversified energy sourcing across geographies, developed overland pipeline linkages with Russia and Central Asia, and cultivated alternative corridors such as the Myanmar route to mitigate, albeit partially, its overexposure to contested sea lanes. These measures have been complemented by the accumulation of substantial strategic petroleum reserves, conceived not merely as emergency stockpiles, but as instruments of macroeconomic stabilisation, designed to buy time, temper volatility, and cushion the domestic transmission of external shocks.
Equally significant is the fact that China’s response has not been confined to the supply side. By accelerating electrification and reducing the oil intensity of its broader energy mix, it has sought to attenuate vulnerability from within. This does not render it immune; residual maritime dependence persists, overseas investments carry geopolitical and financial risks, and strategic concentration in critical sectors has provoked countervailing responses from other powers. Yet the broader lesson is unmistakable. Resilience is most robust when diversification matures into genuine redundancy. For India, that distinction is not merely semantic, it is strategic.
Russia presents a different, though no less instructive, paradigm. Its strategic foresight has been shaped less by concerns of physical supply disruption than by the anticipation of coercion within an increasingly weaponised financial order. Following the first wave of sanctions in 2014, Moscow undertook a deliberate recalibration of its economic architecture. It reduced reliance on Western financial channels, invested in domestic payment systems, enabled alternative settlement mechanisms, accumulated fiscal buffers, and progressively reoriented segments of its trade towards Asian markets. In effect, Russia anticipated not a singular crisis, but a broader structural condition, that economic interdependence itself could be leveraged as an instrument of pressure.
This prior preparation helps explain its capacity to preserve a measure of continuity under intensified sanctions. Yet such resilience has not come without cost. Technological isolation, constrained access to capital, and an increasing reliance on a narrower set of partners, particularly China, have introduced new strategic constraints. The Russian experience, therefore, therefore, offers India a lesson that must be interpreted with discernment rather than imitation. Financial and institutional resilience are indispensable, but they must not be pursued at the expense of openness, competitiveness, or strategic flexibility.
India’s predicament lies not in any absence of capability, but in the incomplete institutionalisation of anticipation. The country has demonstrated considerable agility in responding to crises once they become manifest. Yet its structural vulnerabilities remain pronounced. High import dependence, a marked concentration of trade along maritime routes, exposure to external supply chains, and a growing reliance on digital infrastructure that is itself increasingly susceptible to geopolitical strain. The current West Asia conflict illustrates how rapidly these fault lines can converge. A disruption in energy supply can cascade into shipping constraints, translate into inflationary pressures, strain fiscal balances, unsettle supply chains, and expose less visible vulnerabilities embedded within undersea cable networks and digital connectivity systems. India, in essence, has developed a capacity to manage shocks after they materialise, but fewer deeply embedded mechanisms to cushion their impact before they arrive.
That, ultimately, is the deeper lesson emerging from both China and Russia. Their trajectories are not ideological templates for replication, but structural reminders that geopolitical instability is no longer exceptional, it is endemic. Their relative composure reflects not the absence of vulnerability, but the presence of prior preparation. For India, the imperative is therefore not mimicry, but method to embed foresight more systematically into economic and strategic policy; to strengthen buffers where feasible; to diversify routes and partnerships where prudent; and to build resilience across energy, finance, trade, and digital systems through sustained inter-institutional coordination.
The present crisis in West Asia is thus not merely an external disturbance. It is a warning from an increasingly volatile and tightly coupled global order. Some economies are compelled to absorb shocks as they arise; others prepare early enough to shape how those shocks are experienced. Strategic resilience is seldom forged in the immediacy of crisis; it is more often cultivated in the quieter intervals that precede it. In a century where disruptions are becoming progressively foreseeable, the true test of statecraft lies not only in the capacity to respond, but in the discipline to be less surprised.
The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer.
This article can also be viewed at:
"https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/"