It is now clear that the Alaska Summit meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin on August 16 followed by the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) Summit in Tianjin on 31 August/1 September, marks a turning point when a new world order may be gradually beginning to take shape. In geopolitical terms, the two Summits taken together may represent profound developments: one, the end of the construct “West” as we know it; two, the obvious re-establishment of Russia as a great power after a hiatus and three, the strategic signalling to President Trump by countries like China and Russia that they are not bereft of options.
The notion of the “West” may be traced back in history even to the nineteenth century, but its more recent conceptualization begins with the World Wars and with the United States of America arguing for a political, economic and military union of all democracies. There are several fora such as the WTO, UN Security Council, IMF, World Bank etc which were used to pursue the interests of the “West”. It is a fact that these institutions have been weakened to a great degree. The ballast for the “West” was nevertheless the transatlantic alliance between the US and Europe. The Alaska Summit meeting which seeks to lay the foundations of a new European security architecture did not see the direct participation of EU and this is strategically significant. President Trump’s foreign policy has forever altered the conception of the Western construct. The picture of the major European leaders sitting in rapt attention in the Oval Office in front of Trump will haunt Europeans for a long time to come.
The other big implication is that Russia is back as a great power. In the past, the US and EU have done everything in their power to marginalize Russia and render it impotent following its invasion of Ukraine. It is fair to conclude that these attempts have come to nought with the one everlasting image from the Alaska Summit of Putin walking the red carpet and Trump waiting to receive him. The other enduring image is that of American marines bending down to straighten the red carpet for Putin. Russia will henceforth be a paramount factor in any security architecture being crafted for Europe.
To the extent President Trump has adopted a stable foreign and security policy doctrine, it is this: he tends to seek grand bargains with great powers, he puts American interests over everything else and consequently, he does not necessarily concern himself too much about the interests of lesser powers. But it is interesting that both China and Russia at the China Victory Day Parade on 3 September, were essentially signalling to President Trump that they will stay the course and not necessarily buckle under his pressure.
Where does all this leave India? India is not yet a great power so it will have to go back to the drawing board and reconfigure its ties with each of the great powers. It will doubtless seek to advance its vital national interests based on its time-tested policy of strategic autonomy. Doing so may require serious adjustments in India’s strategic calculus. With the US for example, India should stop expecting any leverage deriving from the fact of it being used as a counterweight to China, largely because the US and President Trump do not necessarily see it in those terms anymore. India should therefore start laying the foundation for a consequential and enduring relationship with US on its own merit, regardless of third country interests. There is enough convergence of strategic interests between the world’s oldest and largest democracies to do this. Looking at the medium to long term must inevitably be part of this exercise.
It is a truism that any détente in ties between US and Russia is good for India. It gives India that much more strategic space for advancing its interests by working closely to build on its legacy relationship with Russia. India argued long back that the solution to the Ukraine problem lay not in the battlefield but in dialogue and diplomacy. India was also the first to state that the “legitimate security interests” of Russia must be considered, for which it took a good deal of flak from EU and others. US-Russian ties are now at a serious inflection point. The famous Limousine ride between PM Modi and President Putin in Tianjin is the subject of much speculation. But since this comes close on the heels of PM Modi’s telephonic conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky, it must be assumed that a good part of that conversation was about how to bring the war to an end in Ukraine.
If the US is ambivalent about looking at ties with India through the lens of its own relationship with China, then India too believes that its ties with China “should not be seen through a third country lens”. This bestows on India more strategic space and flexibility in its own dealings with China. India must therefore lay a fresh and enduring basis for its own ties with China, a neighbour with whom it shares a long and disputed border and faces strategic competition in South Asia. India must strive for a multipolar Asia and in this it needs to convince China that stability in Asia is vitally linked to this single factor. The meeting on August 31 in Tianjin between Xi Jinping and Modi saw the two leaders agree that they are development partners, not rivals, which is a huge statement to make. But truth be told, structural impediments like the border issue continue to bedevil bilateral ties. Indian foreign policy was undoubtedly aligning itself closer to the “West” over the last two decades or so. President Trump, through his actions, may have brought this shift to an abrupt halt. What is more, there may be no “West” to align with, at least not the way we understood “West”.
The world is far from experiencing any strategic equilibrium or balance of power. Instead, the evolving world order seems, on the surface, like three great powers i.e. US, China and Russia jostling to delineate and carve out their own spheres of influence. That, however, would be an overly simplistic assessment. Sooner or later, middle powers like EU, India, ASEAN and Japan will make their presence felt within their geographies and by allying themselves with one or more of the great powers. Meanwhile, get used to a multipolar world that so many people had wished for. Multipolar the world order may be, but it is also one that is messy and fragmented.
Dr Mohan Kumar is a former Indian Ambassador and Director General of the Motwani Jadeja Institute for American Studies and Dean/Professor at OP Jindal Global University. Views are personal.
Diplomacy and Geopolitics 