On his election to his second term as the President, Donald Trump said, “The world has gone crazy.” Eight months down into his tenure at the helm, the news is, ‘It is crazier and there is no stopping.’ In these few months, the world has witnessed two new wars, Indo-Pak and Iran-Israel; and seen two ongoing wars, Israel-Gaza and Russia-Ukraine, intensify.
The sideshow in Yemen goes on unrelented. The US itself is active in and around Venezuela even when internal dissidence and political and social turmoil because of incessant upending of the existing sociopolitical order inside the US is forcing him to move troops to major cities to control some functions. American academia, economy, and the society at large remain possessed by uncertainty.
The White House rules and what Trump says is decree. Juxtapose that with the much-touted Gaza Peace Plan and its principal interlocutor, Donald Trump, and the mess is obvious. To be fair, little may be said of those who hail all that comes out of the White House, including the Peace Plan, for Trump leaves no choice but for his audiences to only cheer his proclamations. This includes world leaders that he invites into his chambers.
So, when the Foreign Minister declares on the floor of the Parliament that the announced Peace Plan is not the one the eight leaders of the Muslim World agreed to with Trump, yet hail what is announced only proves that you live by the rules Trump ordains. His mantra to the world at large is, ‘Take it or leave it.’ So, you ‘take’ the bargain on offer for that is the only offer. There cannot be a more authentic illustration of Hobson’s choice.
There are two parallel thoughts which must be factored in while contemplating what will come of this world, or three. Let us begin with the third first, and this became obvious in the recently concluded UNGA session: Donald Trump castigated the UN reducing it to further irrelevance, almost denigrating it as a willing foe of all that the US stands for in the world. While China reinforced the need for strong multilateral institutions to ensure the continuity of the rule-based order that eighty years of the UN signify.
Trump has this almost overwhelming belief that the world has been taking advantage of America without equitable return. How may such a return be shaped remains vague. Tariffs, yes; but this can only be at the cost of the global economy slowing down to the point of a recession, forcing many least and less developed nations to a threat of a virtual or an impending default.
First of the two thoughts relates to how China and Russia, the two of the more significant poles in the much sought after multipolar world, have chosen to remain quiet on some major disruptions in the global system that have till now kept the order predictable and universally acceptable. If the US was seen to be withdrawing from it putting at risk the global system in which both China and Russia were assumed to be opposing US’ declared interests, none ventured to step in, first to fill the vacuum which can only spell doom for an organised international order, and two, to offer a replacement order that could keep the global system functional and predictable.
Default recourse to regional groupings of the non-West nations only indicates a known fallback to the Blocs that the world was happy to see the end of – it had enabled a period of exemplary growth through a more integrated and interdependent world. I consider this approach void of imagination and shorn of the sense to devise or tweak an ‘order’ to suit the genius of the new society and economy in an age of technology. Instead, both Russia and China were in as much hurry as the rest to accommodate Trump’s invocations on trade and tariffs as were the minor players.
Conclusion: the poles that we hinge our future and promise to for humanity are not yet ready to carry the weight of the rest. Multipolarity, thus, remains a distant dream.
The second is the case of India, and though it can be a man’s idealist and spatial pursuit, it is illustrative of how rapidly the environment is changing. And if so, should the rest of the world be as sure-footed about its commitments and options as they really are? But first India. Remember the time, only some months back, when the mantra of the global South began being pedaled by India’s presumptive national spokesperson, the indomitable Shri Subrahmanyam Jaishankar? It seemed India was on to something.
Buoyed by its presumed sense of exceptionalism and that her economy had taken some usefully good turns, and the belief in its spiritual exaltedness — Hindutva — it used an existing notion and pedaled it as novel idea in a hope to wield the centrality to India’s long-held claim to being the singular pole in some mythological rendition. It aimed at mimicking a great power in- waiting much before it carried enough meat on its bone.
For some time, the world watched in amazement and amusement as one conference after another the mantra was jargoned before it in arrogance and hubris which was cliched but never with such impunity. Till May happened, and then Trump happened. The ivory tower of ‘global South’ came crashing down, replaced with the even more innovative ‘strategic autonomy’ to save from the blushes of how fortunes of an ideational pursuit met the realities of a different world.
‘Strategic autonomy’ is a jilted response to how Trump has repeatedly belittled India on the world stage while praising Pakistan which India assumes is its slight. But it is also a useful flight from an uncertain strategic environment — and hence the ‘Lagrange’ moment that Shashi Tharoor refers to in his recent piece. Being in a state of nothingness, ethereal, non-palpable, lost in the mist. That is how India defines her current predicament and resort. There is value in appearing lost but not when you simultaneously seek to rediscover the mythological missing ‘pole’.
Back at home, we seem far more assured of our initiatives than the rest. The Saudi Defence Pact may be just that and not much more in an environment when the Middle East is struggling to find its bearings. It may be diplomatic fizz, but what else remains to be seen. Saudi Arabia though can leverage it to its advantage. Towing to Trump was pragmatic and none so anomalous considering how the rest of the world is adjusting to these uncertain times. It always helps to accept that any interaction with the US is mostly transactional.
A bit of playing to the moment, like crediting Trump, may seem outlandish but if it works to the benefit of the nation, so be it. In a transactional relationship you take what you can for the time it lasts. The price we pay, though, must not be borne through generations.
