Anthropic AI Shutdown Shows Why India Needs a Lawfare Doctrine

The mechanism matters here. The tool used here was neither a tariff nor a sanctions list. It was a domestic export-control directive: A piece of American administrative law, operating within America’s own statutory framework, that nevertheless reached across borders and disabled a commercial service almost overnight. That is the part India should study closely. The episode demonstrates that globalisation now runs not only on infrastructure and markets, but on law. Thus, India needs a lawfare doctrine, not merely a sovereign-AI strategy. The reaction in India was led, predictably, by Sridhar Vembu. The Zoho founder described technology as the “ultimate weapon”,…