Civil-Military Fusion As a Metric of National Power and Comprehensive Security

For decades, democracies including India have kept the civil and military spheres apart**x2014;out of fear of militarization, competition for resource allocation from a common pool, even to privilege business & commerce over security. The results, however, has often been sub-optimal in terms of delivery.In sharp contrast, China went the other way. Through its doctrine of Military-Civil Fusion (MCF), it has seamlessly linked civilian capacities and military prowess**x2014;in shipbuilding, semiconductors, AI, and the emerging storm of technologies**x2014;using commercial scale and capital to fuel its strategic-military ascendancy. The United States once practised civil-military integration with great agility, only to retreat into silos, and is now struggling to rebuild lost synergies.