Beyond the Fable ban: Why tech diplomacy needs a ‘2+2+T’ upgrade

It clearly seems that the contemporary global order has decisively moved beyond unipolar or even conventional multipolar structures, transitioning into an immensely complex heteropolar reality.

Just three days after the launch of Fable 5 by Anthropic, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick issued an unprecedented export control directive to Anthropic citing national security authorities.

Because there is no reliable way to instantly verify the citizenship of hundreds of millions of users in real-time, Anthropic was forced to shut off access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 entirely for everyone, including American citizens, to ensure compliance.

This shows two major trajectories in technology policy.

The first trajectory means that governments might act to become more reactive.

While some view this as standard digital protectionism, it matters for a much deeper reason: it shatters the illusion of “weightless digitalization.” The second trajectory means that the element of trust among nations to cooperate on B2C and B2B digital supply and value chains will not remain the same.

This was even reflected in the Telegram Ban case in the Delhi High Court; in such instances, the mere removal of illicit material fails to address the foundational question of whether a platform's architectural design inherently facilitates the rapid, near-instantaneous reconstitution of the very same fraudulent networks.

Within this shifting paradigm, geopolitical and geoeconomic power is heavily complimentarily dispersed among sovereign governments, quasi-sovereign tech giants, and highly decentralized digital networks.

To navigate this era successfully, ensuring equitable AI diffusion requires India to fundamentally decouple technology diplomacy from the traditional parameters of economic statecraft.

Let’s understand this through the example of a digital cloud economy.The Physical Fragility of the “Cloud”The concept of the "cloud" implies an ethereal, borderless expanse, but the reality is that the digital economy is anchored to the ocean floor.

Over 95% of international data transmission, the very lifeblood of global AI infrastructure, has historically traveled through multi-terabit undersea fiber-optic cables.

These critical conduits connect Europe, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific, creating an intricate web of digital dependency.

In fact, the crisis around the Strait of Hormuz directly mirrors the systemic vulnerabilities of these digital cloud ecosystems.

If a cable snaps in the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea, sending a slow-moving, highly specialized vessel into a free-fire zone requires complex military escorts.

Furthermore, when cables in a chokepoint get damaged, the sheer volume of data in the Middle East corridor rapidly exceeds the capacity of alternative routes.

Although the internet is designed to reroute traffic, this bottleneck effect inevitably leads to extreme network congestion, packet loss, and latency.

Traditional Economic Statecraft and the Importance of DeepTech EcosystemIt is important to understand that conventional mechanisms of statecraft around technology per se, and how they are fundamentally inadequately equipped.For instance, traditional trade bureaus and commerce ministries are structurally designed to chase immediate export and import victories.

This foundational design makes them entirely the wrong vehicles for negotiating the architecture of algorithmic governance.

Even otherwise, conventional foreign policy circles and commentators propose managing frontier AI risks like the Fable 5 ban by routing chatbot diplomacy through traditional multilateral bodies like the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) or by negotiating bilateral “trusted corridors”.

In theory, this makes perfect sense.

Leaning on established diplomatic channels and consensus-driven forums feels like the mature, tested way to handle global tech governance.

The problem, however, is that the ITU is a slow-moving UN standards body.

It operates on a slow, one-nation-one-vote UN bureaucracy.

Export controls, by contrast, are rapid-deployment denial strategies designed to starve adversaries of strategic assets.

Further, the ITU is currently the exact battleground where China and Russia are actively trying to rewrite global internet protocols to legitimise their approach towards state control over data.

Funnelling frontier AI diplomacy through this body hands leverage directly to the nations these export controls are designed to constrain.

Furthermore, the US directive targeted all foreign nationals, proving that multilateral negotiations and “trusted partner” statuses may not offer reliable benefits.Now, in the economic front of technology, for decades, the dominant corporate model has been optimized for low-capital-expenditure, high-margin service delivery.

Why should a legacy enterprise risk billions of dollars on highly speculative, ten-year scientific research arcs when it can operate on safe, predictable, quarterly return-on-investment (ROI) cycles? Even if the state were to extend ultra-cheap credit, offer subsidized land and electricity, and provide aggressive corporate tax rebates for R&D, there is deep skepticism that legacy industry players would choose to operate at such low ROI or sacrifice quarterly dividends to build world-beating, foundational infrastructure.

Consequently, traditional industry chambers and legacy corporate forums no longer represent the structural survival interests of the emerging deep-tech and AI startup ecosystem.This is precisely where economic diplomacy requires a fundamental upgrade.

In this century, deeptech and AI startups serve as the primary instruments driving a state’s industrial policy.

National champions certainly hold value; however, securing supply chain and value chain sovereignty in the AI space remains economically unachievable without these agile innovation engines—especially as a developing nation like India focuses on stratifying its strategic avenues.The ‘2+2+T’ Diplomatic ArchitectureResident powers like India must evolve from digital services economies into infrastructure states.

This pivot is already underway domestically.

According to the 360 ONE Panorama 2026 Report, the physical foundation for this shift is visible in the labor market: manufacturing employment has officially overtaken construction as a non-agricultural employer.

While agriculture retains 266 million workers, the non-agricultural segment has swelled to 352 million.However, as the state executes this shift, it cannot replicate old dependencies in the digital realm.

Industrial policies must avoid over-subsidizing hardware supply chains that remain tightly coupled to foreign Large Language Models.

Instead, state funding must prioritize deep-tech startups building branched compute alternatives and decentralized AI architectures that bypass legacy WENA silicon.Yet, even a robust domestic manufacturing base offers no protection if international trade frameworks force local digital markets open on predatory terms.

Because AI supply chains operate in a gray zone between military defense and commercial trade, they require a diplomatic upgrade.This necessitates a "2+2+T" ministerial model.While conventional defense and foreign ministries—the "2+2" foundation—secure physical territory and geopolitical alliances, governments must establish a permanent "T" (Technology) pillar.

This means empowering technical plenipotentiaries to secure digital borders.

Operating in an insulated Track 1 lane that bypasses slow multilateral bureaucracies, this pillar’s mandate is state-to-state AI security and deep-tech coordination.

It ensures algorithmic sovereignty is never traded away for short-term commodity access.ByAbhivardhan, President of the Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law and Founder, Indic PacificANDAditya Jakki, Policy & Media Lead at Bharat Pacific, Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law.Get the latest technology news and updates.

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