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EU turns to India for defense cooperation as US ties fracture

The Cradle | January 26, 2026

The EU and India are set to sign a security and defense partnership aimed at opening the way for Indian involvement in European defense initiatives, Reuters reported on 26 January.

The draft partnership – expected to be signed on Tuesday during the India–EU summit – would establish a framework for consultations between Brussels and New Delhi on their respective military programs.

According to the document, the two sides will pursue cooperation “where there are mutual interest and alignment of security priorities,” with India potentially joining “relevant EU defense initiatives, as appropriate, in line with respective legal frameworks.”

The agreement creates an annual security and defense dialogue between the partners, and extends cooperation to maritime, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism.

European officials justified the expanded partnership by citing “the growing complexity of global security threats, rising geopolitical tensions, and rapid technological change” as the rationale behind seeking closer ties.

The partnership arrives as Europe actively distances itself from dependence on both the US and China, seeking alternative diplomatic and economic relationships across other regions.

The push also comes amid deteriorating relations between the US and EU over Greenland annexation threats – as well as the recent aggressive expansionist posture adopted by the US – that officials warn of a complete NATO collapse if military action is used against long-standing allies

The defense pact will facilitate Indian companies’ participation in the EU’s SAFE program, an approximately $177-billion financial mechanism designed to accelerate member states’ military readiness, with the partnership aiming to enhance interoperability between the Indian and European defense sectors.

Tuesday’s summit will simultaneously announce the completion of free trade agreement negotiations that began in 2007 but stalled in 2013 before restarting in June 2022.

The EU represents India’s largest goods trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching approximately $136 billion in the 2024–2025 financial year.

Officials indicated the summit agenda will address Russia’s ongoing military operations in Ukraine, alongside finalizing mobility frameworks between the partners.

The India–EU defense pact comes after India signed a separate major defense agreement with the UAE involving nuclear cooperation, enhanced military ties, and commitments to double bilateral trade to $200 billion within six years.

That UAE deal followed Turkiye’s announcement of joining the defense pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, amid broader regional realignment as Riyadh reportedly establishes a military coalition with Somalia and Egypt to counter Emirati influence.

January 26, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment

Deep-state forces from abroad instigated violence in Nepal – former foreign minister

RT | January 13, 2026

External deep-state forces were instrumental in instigating the September 2025 violence in Nepal that led to the ouster of the government, its former foreign minister has told RT India.

K.P. Sharma Oli resigned as Nepal’s prime minister after violent clashes – known as the Gen Z protests – killed 77 and injured more than 2,000.  Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, a former foreign minister, has now backed Oli’s assertion that Gen Z protests that led to the ouster of the government were backed by external forces.

“Those elements who were actively engaged with the deep state, who used the cross-border misinformation and disinformation to instigate the violence, they were active,” he told RT India in an exclusive interview.

The remarks came after Oli told RT India about external influences in the uprising last year.

Gyawali said Kathmandu’s growing engagement with India and China and its aspiration of being a bridge for the economic development of Nepal between the two neighboring countries “was not a very good message to some powers.”

He added, “[They] wanted to use Nepal’s geostrategic location for their policy in their favor. So maybe our engagement with our neighboring countries may have some grievances to the big powers as well.”

The Grayzone has cited leaked documents to reveal that the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars tutoring Nepalese young people to stage the protests.

The Gen Z protests happened as the US sought to neutralize Chinese and Indian influence over Kathmandu, Grayzone investigations revealed.

The NED is officially a US State Department-funded nonprofit that provides grants to support ‘democratic initiatives’ worldwide.

The International Republican Institute (IRI), a NED division, has been accused of funding clandestine activities in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, apart from funneling tens of millions of dollars to Ukrainian political entities and anti-Russian interests.

January 13, 2026 Posted by | Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Arms, silence, and alignment: The moral and geopolitical cost of India-Israel military ties

By Ranjan Solomon | MEMO | December 29, 2025

India’s emergence as one of Israel’s most reliable arms partners is not merely a story of defence procurement or strategic pragmatism. It marks a deeper moral and geopolitical shift—one that signals how India’s foreign policy has moved away from ethical positioning and non-alignment toward transactional power alignment, even when that alignment implicates it in grave violations of international law.

For decades, India cultivated a carefully balanced foreign policy identity. Strategic realism coexisted with a rhetorical—and often principled—commitment to anti-colonialism, international law, and Palestinian self-determination. That equilibrium is now visibly fractured. As European governments confront legal challenges, parliamentary resistance, and mass public pressure over arms exports to Israel amid the devastation in Gaza, India has quietly filled part of the vacuum—not only as a buyer of Israeli weapons, but increasingly as a co-producer and supply-chain partner.

This distinction matters. Arms trade is one thing; arms integration is another.

Joint ventures, technology transfers, and domestic manufacturing under the “Make in India” framework collapse ethical distance. When Israeli drones, surveillance systems, or missile components are partially manufactured in India—or when Indian firms supply components to Israeli defence companies – responsibility is no longer abstract. India ceases to be a passive recipient of military technology and becomes embedded in the infrastructure of Israel’s war economy.

Geopolitically, the alignment is justified as realism. Israel offers high-end military technology, battlefield-tested systems, and privileged political access to Washington. India offers scale, manufacturing capacity, diplomatic cover, and a vast, dependable market. The partnership is efficient, mutually beneficial—and profoundly political.

But realism without restraint carries costs.

India’s growing defence intimacy with Israel has coincided with a striking diplomatic silence on Gaza. Abstentions at the United Nations, carefully calibrated statements, and the avoidance of legal language around occupation, collective punishment, and war crimes reflect not neutrality but risk management. Arms relationships constrain speech. They narrow moral space. They recalibrate what can and cannot be said.

This silence has consequences for India’s standing in the Global South. India has long claimed leadership among post-colonial nations, many of which view Palestine not as a peripheral issue but as a living symbol of unfinished decolonisation. By materially supporting Israel’s defence sector at a moment of unprecedented civilian suffering, India risks being seen not as a balancing power but as an enabler of impunity.

The comparison with Europe is instructive. European governments are hardly innocent actors, but they are constrained – by courts, civil society, investigative journalism, and international legal scrutiny. Arms export licences are challenged. Parliamentary debates erupt. Transfers are delayed, suspended, or reviewed. India faces no comparable domestic pressure. Its arms relationship with Israel operates in an opaque political space, largely insulated from parliamentary scrutiny and sustained media interrogation. This very absence of constraint makes India uniquely valuable to Israel at a time of growing global isolation.

Equally significant is the ideological convergence beneath the hardware.

Israel is admired within sections of India’s ruling establishment not only for its military prowess but for its model of securitised nationalism—one that fuses religion, territory, surveillance, and permanent emergency. Defence cooperation thus operates on two levels: material capacity abroad, ideological reinforcement at home. Technologies perfected in occupied territories circulate globally, normalising practices of population control, digital surveillance, predictive policing, and militarised governance.

From Kashmir to urban policing, from drone surveillance to data-driven security systems, Israeli technologies and doctrines are increasingly embedded within India’s internal security architecture. What is imported as “counter-terror expertise” often returns as counter-citizen governance.

This is where the ethical rupture becomes unavoidable.

Supporters of the India–Israel defence relationship often argue that India does not directly supply “lethal” weapons for use in Gaza. This is a narrow and misleading defence. Modern warfare does not distinguish cleanly between lethal and enabling systems. Surveillance platforms, targeting software, drones, radar, electronic warfare, and data integration are integral to killing. Participation in these supply chains carries responsibility, even if indirect.

The irony is sharp. India, once wary of military blocs and foreign entanglements, now finds itself entangled through production lines rather than treaties. This is alignment by stealth. It avoids formal alliances but produces similar outcomes: shared interests, muted criticism, strategic dependency, and moral accommodation.

The costs to India are not merely reputational; they are structural and long-term.

First, India’s credibility as a voice of the Global South is being quietly hollowed out. You cannot credibly invoke anti-colonial solidarity while partnering militarily with one of the world’s most entrenched settler-colonial regimes. You cannot champion international law selectively without eroding its meaning altogether.

Second, India’s Middle East policy risks becoming dangerously unbalanced. While economic ties with Arab states remain strong, strategic intimacy with Israel alienates popular opinion across West Asia—particularly among younger generations and civil society actors. Governments may remain pragmatic; publics remember.

Third, there is domestic blowback. The normalisation of Israeli security practices – profiling, surveillance saturation, militarised responses to dissent – feeds directly into India’s democratic erosion. Technologies developed under occupation do not remain neutral when imported; they reshape political culture.

Finally, there is the question of historical judgment. Arms relationships forged during moments of mass atrocity do not age well. They leave archives, trails, and responsibilities. Today’s commercial rationalisations become tomorrow’s moral reckonings.

None of this requires hostility toward Israel’s existence, nor denial of India’s legitimate security needs. It requires something far simpler and far more demanding: moral coherence.

India has not replaced Europe as Israel’s arms partner because it is stronger or wiser. It has replaced Europe because it is less constrained—ethically, politically, and institutionally. That is not a compliment. It is a warning.

The question is not whether India has the right to pursue its interests. It does. The question is what kind of power India seeks to become: one that merely substitutes for Europe in Israel’s war economy, or one that understands restraint as a form of strength.

History is unforgiving to those who confuse strategic gain with moral silence. Arms deals fade from balance sheets; complicity lingers in memory. For a country that once spoke the language of justice fluently, the cost of forgetting that language may prove far higher than any defence contract can justify.

December 29, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s on Trump’s mind as US adjusts to multipolarity

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | December 12, 2025

The world order’s transformation to multipolarity is a work in progress with the variables at work, but its outcome will be largely determined by the alignment of the three big powers — the United States, Russia and China. Historically, the ‘triangle’ appeared as the lid came off the Sino-Soviet schism in the 1960s and a ferocious public acrimony erupted between Moscow and Beijing, which prompted the Nixon administration to moot Henry Kissinger’s secret mission to Beijing to meet up face to face with Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou En-lai and, hopefully, work out a modus vivendii to jointly counter Russia. 

Revisiting the Sino-Soviet schism, it is well understood by now that the US-Soviet – China triangle never really ran the course that Kissinger had envisaged. Kissinger’s failure to consolidate the opening of relations with China was partly due to his loss of power by January 1977 and, in a systemic sense, inevitably so, given the complexity of the boiling cauldron of Sino-Soviet schism where ideology mixed with politics and geopolitics — and realpolitik.  

While the western mythology was that the US built up the foundations of China’s rise, historiography points in another direction, namely, that Beijing always had in mind the dialectics at work and even as a degree of compatibility of Chinese and American interests in checking the expansion of Soviet power existed, Beijing was determined to avoid military conflict with the Soviet Union and concentrated its attention on improving its tactical position within the US-Chinese-Soviet triangle. 

On its part, the Soviet Union also consistently promoted increased exchanges with China despite the bitter acrimony and even military clashes with a view to undercut perceived advantages the US derived from the Sino-Soviet split — and even sought to persuade China to accept the military and territorial status quo in Asia. 

In fact, to retard Sino-US cooperation against them in the early 1970s, the Soviets offered at one point to modify their territorial claims along their border, to sign non-aggression pacts and / or agreements prohibiting the use of force, to base Sino-Soviet relationship on the five principles of peaceful co-existence, and to restore high-level contacts, including party ties, in the interests of their common opposition to the US. 

If China largely ignored these overtures, it was almost entirely due to the great turbulence in its internal politics. Suffice to say, no sooner than Mao, the Soviet Union’s nemesis, died in September 1976 (and the curtain descended on the Cultural Revolution), Moscow followed up quickly with several gestures, including Brezhnev sending a message of condolence (the first CPSU message to China in a decade), followed by another Party message in October congratulating the newly-elected CCP Chairman Hua Guofeng, and shortly thereafter in November sending their chief negotiator for border talks Deputy Foreign Minister Ilichev back to China in an attempt to resume the border talks. But, again, if nothing came of it, that was because of China’s invasion of Vietnam and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan soon thereafter in 1980. 

Indeed, looking back, the main legacy of the 1970s viewed through the prism of the US-China-Russia ‘triangle’ was the reorientation of China’s defence policy and its geopolitical realignment with the West. China made no contribution significantly to weaken the Soviet Union or to aggravate the stagnation and brewing crisis in the Soviet political economy.

Meanwhile, the Sino-US differences over Taiwan and other issues had reemerged by 1980-1982, compelling China to reassess its foreign policy strategy, which manifested in Beijing’s announcement in 1982 of its “independent” foreign policy — plainly put, an attempt to rely less explicitly on the US as a strategic counterweight to the Soviet Union — and the move to open “consultative talks” with Moscow, and a growing receptiveness towards the numerous pending Soviet overtures for bilateral exchanges (in sports, cultural and economic areas, etc), the overall direction being to reduce tensions with the Soviets and increase the room for manoeuvre for Beijing within the China-US-Soviet triangle. 

Indeed, a broader detente between China and the Soviet Union had to wait till the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan following the Geneva Accords signed in April 1988. Nonetheless, a basic change in the Sino-Soviet relations through the 1980s appeared, which included regular scheduled summit meetings; resumption of cooperative ties between the CCP and the CPSU; Beijing’s acceptance of the pending Soviet proposals for non-aggression / non-use of force; and resumption of Sino-Soviet border questions at vice-foreign minister level. 

Washington could sense the shift in Chinese policy directions vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. Notably, reviewing the marked  shift in the Chinese strategy, a CIA assessment noted:

“More recently, Moscow followed Brezhnev’s call in 1982 for improved relations with China with a halt in most authoritative Soviet statements critical of China. When Sino-Soviet discussions resumed in October 1982, Soviet media cut back sharply on criticism of China. And they have remained restrained on this subject, although occasional polemic exchanges marked Sino-Soviet coverage at the time of Premier Zhao Ziyang’s visit to the United States in January 1984. Moscow has continued to be critical of China through the Soviet-based clandestine radio Ba Yi… China for its part has continued criticism of Soviet foreign policy, although past attention to Soviet “revisionist” internal policies has all but disappeared since China’s own economic policies have been significantly changed after Mao’s death.”  

Succinctly put, with CPSU General Secretary Gorbachev consolidating power circa late 1988 by his election to the chairmanship of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet and on a parallel track, Deng had outmaneuvered political rivals and become China’s paramount leader by 1978 — and had launched the Boluan Fanzheng program to restore political stability, rehabilitate those persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, and reduce ideological extremism —  the door had opened for the two erstwhile adversaries to enter the rose garden of reconciliation. 

Significantly, the timing of Gorbachev’s visit to Beijing to meet up with Deng in 1989 was far from ideal by virtue of the Tiannenmen Square incidents, but neither side proposed to postpone or reschedule the meeting. Such was the intensity of their mutual desire for reconciliation.    

Today, the above résumé has become necessary when we assess the future directions of the Trump administration’s China policies. The common perception is that Trump is attempting to create a wedge between Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China with a view to isolate the latter and thwart it from surpassing the US. But there is no shred of evidence available hinting at the potential for decoupling Russia from China. 

All the signs are to the contrary in the direction of the steady integration of the two countries. Last week, the Kremlin announced a visa-free regime for Chinese citizens to visit Russia. Interestingly, this was a reciprocal move. FT reported recently that a Chinese businessman has been given equity in Russia’s biggest manufacturer of drones which supplies the military — in the first known collaboration in the area of defence industry.

With the Power of Siberia 2 on the anvil, China’s dependence on Russia for its energy security will increase further. Russia’s foreign trade is undergoing a profound shift, with China replacing the EU as Russia’s main trading partner. Overall, Sino-Russian relations are closer today than they have been in decades. 

On the other hand, there is no credible suggestion that the Trump administration is preparing for a war with China. Japan under its new leadership is whistling in the dark. 

So, what is on Trump’s mind? In his revolutionary agenda for the remaking of the new world order, Trump aims at a strategic concord between the US on one side and Russia and China on the other. The recent US National Security Strategy strongly points in that direction, too. The implications of this revolutionary thinking for multipolarity are going to be profound — for partners such as India or allies like Japan or Germany alike.            

December 12, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Washington’s ‘Waiver On, Waiver Off’ Game at Chabahar

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – December 9, 2025

In recent months, Washington has swung from revoking to restoring India’s sanctions waiver for operating Iran’s Chabahar port. The ‘waiver on, waiver off’ routine, however, comes with a clear strategic intent.

The move is not just leverage over New Delhi as trade talks loom; it’s also a signal to Central Asian states that their economic futures — including access to Chabahar — depend on aligning their foreign policies with US preferences.

In September 2025, the United States pulled the rug out from under one of India’s most carefully nurtured strategic ventures: the Chabahar Port in Iran. Long viewed by New Delhi as a critical gateway to Afghanistan and Central Asia, Chabahar suddenly became a high-stakes chess piece in Washington’s policy game. On September 16, the US Department of State announced it would revoke the special exemption granted in 2018 under the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act (IFCA), with the revocation taking effect September 29. Overnight, Indian companies, shippers, insurers, and banks involved in the port’s operations were cast into uncertainty: their assets could be frozen, their access to the US financial system curtailed, and their commercial contracts imperilled.

This move did not occur in isolation. At the same time, New Delhi was itself involved in a high-stakes game with the US over bilateral trade. Specifically, it is resisting US pressure to halt oil imports from Russia. By targeting Chabahar, Washington signaled that it was willing to leverage unrelated strategic projects to enforce compliance elsewhere, effectively turning Indian economic and geopolitical interests into bargaining chips. Yet the situation shifted quickly: reports emerged on October 28 that Indian firms had halted Russian oil imports, and the very next day, the US issued a fresh six-month waiver, allowing Chabahar operations to continue without immediate penalty.

The rapid “waiver on, waiver off” cycle exposes the transactional and unpredictable logic of US sanction policy. A project that represents over $120 million in Indian investment, long-term regional connectivity, and painstaking diplomacy is reduced to a geopolitical pawn, its fate dictated less by commercial or developmental imperatives and more by Washington’s strategic calculus. This particular calculus, however, is not meant for India only. The politics of granting and restricting waivers is also tied very closely to Washington’s relationship with Central Asia.

The Central Asian gamble

Chabahar port is important not only for India but also for the landlocked states of Central Asia, offering a rare direct link to the Indian Ocean and a potential route to India that bypasses Pakistan. Several Central Asian states have expressed interest in using Chabahar Port for this purpose. Tajikistan has emerged as the most active player, signing a formal cooperation agreement with Iran in early 2025 and committing to developing a logistics hub with terminals and storage facilities. Uzbekistan has held discussions about utilising the port for trade and storage. While a lot of this is still far from being fully operational, there is little denying that a major roadblock has been the US sanctions.

In the same vein, the waiver also signals to Afghanistan, where India has recently become very active. The Taliban regime is currently involved in a border standoff with Pakistan. Kabul has suspended its trade with Pakistan, and the reopening of this route remains highly uncertain. At the same time, Washington has been pressuring the Taliban to come to terms with handing over the Bagram airbase to the US military for its potential operations against China. In this context, if Afghanistan wants to continue—and even expand—its trade with Central Asia and other countries beyond the region, i.e., with India itself, as an alternative to Pakistan, its best route goes through the Chabahar Port.

Beyond this, the US decision to grant the waiver—and unless it restricts it again in the future—also puts it in a position where it can influence several other regional trade and connectivity projects, including the Trans‑Caspian and broader International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) projects. By granting or revoking waivers, the US is signalling that it can create opportunities and or introduce uncertainty for companies and governments contemplating investment or trade through corridors that touch Iran.

For example, Central Asian states considering cargo flows via Chabahar—or via the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and beyond—must now weigh the risk that US sanctions could suddenly be applied, making insurance, financing, or banking services problematic and/or unavailable. Even if the Trans‑Caspian route itself does not pass through Iran, the interconnected nature of regional logistics networks means that a disruption at Chabahar could ripple across supply chains, raising costs or forcing alternative routing through Russia, Turkey, or China.

In essence, the waiver policy acts as a geopolitical lever. Its application is meant to put pressure on countries and companies so that they align their foreign and trade policies with US preferences, discouraging full exploitation of alternatives like the Trans‑Caspian corridor that could reduce American influence. The US has, for some time, been trying to expand its geopolitical footprint in Central Asia. Its ability to strangulate or allow Chabahar helps it signal its continued relevance. On the whole, the uncertainty imposed by such sanctions creates a risk premium, slows governmental and private investment, and subtly nudges regional actors toward pathways that the US finds strategically acceptable, even if they are less efficient or commercially less viable.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of international relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs

December 9, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Putin’s India Visit Signals Folly of Western Pressure – Academic

Sputnik – 06.12.2025

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India may have sealed dozens of strategic partnerships, but its core purpose transcends trade: Moscow is using its Soviet-era ally to send a defiant message to the West that it will not be isolated over the conflict in Ukraine, US academic Ramesh Mohan says.

Putin left New Delhi on Friday after witnessing with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi the signing of over a dozen bilateral agreements on technology, agriculture, tourism and defense cooperation. The subject of Ukraine or the increasingly bellicose US and EU sanctions against Russian oil weren’t in any of the signed documents.

Yet, those in the room — or thousands of miles away in any of the Western capitals that had been plotting their next move against the Kremlin — could not have missed the true significance of Putin’s two-day visit, said Mohan.

“The core message here is that Russia still maintains strong global alliances despite the multitude of Western sanctions and attempts to isolate Moscow over the war in Ukraine,” Mohan, an economics professor at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, told Sputnik.

Mohan, who also teaches about economics in international politics and regularly leads Bryant University study missions to Asia, said Modi was also sending a message to the world that US pressure will not dictate India’s policy.

“Modi is showing the West that India will not be cowed into abandoning its own national and strategic interests,” said Mohan. “The Russia-India alliance, particularly, is a long-standing, privileged partnership rooted in the Soviet era. I don’t ever see India forsaking that.”

The last time Putin met Modi was in the presence of Chinese President Xi Jinping when they attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in the Chinese port city of Tianjin in September.

The visual display of camaraderie between the three leaders had sent a message to the world even then that the so-called Global South solidarity could not be broken in the face of Western pressure, said Mohan.

December 6, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Putin reveals new plans with China and India

RT | December 2, 2025

Moscow wants to further develop its economic ties with its key trade partners, China and India, President Vladimir Putin said at the ‘Russia Calling!’ investment forum on Tuesday.

Beijing and New Delhi have refused to join Western sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine conflict and have instead boosted trade with Russia. The Russian leader hailed what he called a “rational and pragmatic” approach to cooperation taken by the two countries.

Putin paid tribute to “many years of friendship and strategic partnership” with both China and India, adding that the volume of trade with each has “significantly grown” over the past three years.

“We are aiming at taking cooperation with the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India to a whole new level, including through enhancing its technological aspect,” Putin stated.

Russia and China nearly doubled their bilateral trade from 2020 to 2024, surpassing $240 billion last year. Last month, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that the two nations had abandoned Western currencies in mutual settlements, with most payments now conducted in rubles and yuan.

Last month, Moscow and Beijing published a joint roadmap for further developing bilateral ties. They vowed to provide mutual assistance on issues ranging from agriculture, trade, ecology, and investment to AI and space exploration.

India’s exports to Russia are currently worth $5 billion, while imports from Russia amount to $64 billion. The countries are aiming to increase bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030. Russia is also expanding joint production with India in many areas, both military and civilian.

Earlier on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow is also ready to share its technological knowledge with New Delhi. “Whatever can be shared with India, will be shared,” he said.

Putin is expected to discuss the joint production of Russia’s fifth generation Sukhoi Su-57 fighter jets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his trip to India later this week.

December 2, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

How CIA secretly triggered Sino-Indian war

By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | November 26, 2025

From October 20 – November 21, 1962, a little-remembered conflict raged between China and India. The skirmish damaged India’s Non-Aligned Movement affiliation, firmly placing the country in the West’s orbit, while fomenting decades of hostility between the neighbouring countries. Only now are Beijing and New Delhi forging constructive relations, based on shared economic and political interests. A detailed academic investigation, ignored by the mainstream media, exposes how the war was a deliberate product of clandestine CIA meddling, specifically intended to further Anglo-American interests regionally.

In the years preceding the Sino-Indian War, tensions steadily brewed between China and India, in large part due to CIA machinations supporting Tibetan separatist forces. For example, in 1957, Tibetan rebels secretly trained on US soil were parachuted into the territory and inflicted major losses on Beijing’s People’s Liberation Army forces. The next year, these cloak-and-dagger efforts ratcheted significantly, with the agency airdropping weapons and supplies in Tibet to foment violent insurrection. By some estimates, up to 80,000 PLA soldiers were killed.

Mao Zedong was convinced that Tibetan revolutionaries, while ultimately US-sponsored, enjoyed a significant degree of support from India and used the country’s territory as a base of operations. These suspicions were significantly heightened by Tibet’s March 1959 uprising, which saw a vast outflow of refugees from the region to India, and the granting of asylum to the Dalai Lama, their CIA-supported leader, by New Delhi. Weeks later, at a Chinese Communist Party politburo meeting, Mao declared a “counteroffensive against India’s anti-China activities.”

He called for official CPC communications to “sharply criticise” India’s premier Jawaharlal Nehru, stating Beijing “should not be afraid of making him feel agitated or of provoking a break with him,” and “we should carry the struggle through to the end.” For example, it was suggested that “Indian expansionists” be formally accused of acting “in collusion” with “British imperialists” to “intervene openly in China’s internal affairs, in the hope of taking over Tibet.” Mao implored, “we… should not avoid or circumvent this issue.”

Ironically, Nehru was then viewed with intense suspicion by the West due to his Non-Aligned commitment and broadly socialist economic policies. Thus, he could not be trusted to support covert Anglo-American initiatives targeting China. Meanwhile, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev considered Nehru an important prospective ally and was keen to maintain positive relations. Simultaneously, the Sino-Soviet Split, which commenced in February 1956 with Khrushchev’s notorious secret speech denouncing the rule of Joseph Stalin, was ever-deepening. Disagreements over India and Tibet only hastened the pair’s acrimonious divorce.

‘A weapon’

After months of official denunciations of Nehru’s policies toward Tibet, Beijing’s information war against India became physical in August 1959, with a series of violent clashes along the countries’ borders. Nehru immediately reached out to Moscow, pleading that they rein in their closest ally. This prompted a tense meeting in October 1959 between Khrushchev, his chief aides, and the CPC’s top leadership, at Mao’s official residence. Khrushchev belligerently asserted to his Chinese counterparts that their confrontations with New Delhi and unrest in Tibet were “your fault”.

The Soviet leader went on to caution about the importance of “preserving good relations” with Nehru and “[helping] him stay in power,” for if he was replaced, “who would be better than him?” Mao countered that India had “acted in Tibet as if it belonged to them,” and while Beijing also supported Nehru, “in the question of Tibet, we should crush him.” Assorted CPC officials then, one by one, forcefully asserted the recent border clashes were initiated by New Delhi. However, Khrushchev was highly dismissive.

“Yes, they began to shoot and they themselves fell dead,” he derisively retorted. A Soviet declaration of neutrality in the Sino-Indian dispute a month prior also provoked anger among the CPC contingent. Mao complained, “[the] announcement made all imperialists happy,” by publicly exposing rifts between Communist countries. Khrushchev et al were again unmoved by the suggestion. Yet, unbeknownst to attendees, they had all unwittingly stepped into a trap laid by the CIA, many years earlier.

In September 1951, a State Department memo declared, “The US should endeavor to use Tibet as a weapon for alerting” India “to the danger of attempting to appease any Communist government and, specially, for maneuvering [India] into a position where it will voluntarily adopt a policy of firmly resisting Chinese Communist pressure in south and east Asia.” In other words, it was believed that supporting Tibetan independence could force a Sino-Indian split. In turn, the Soviets might be compelled to take sides, deepening ruptures with Beijing.

This strategy informed CIA covert action in Tibet over the subsequent decade, which grew turbocharged when Allen Dulles became CIA chief in 1953. A dedicated, top-secret base was constructed for the separatists at Camp Hale, the US military’s World War II-era training facility in the Rocky Mountains. Local terrain – vertiginous, replete with dense forests – was reminiscent of Tibet, providing ample opportunity for insurgency practice. Untold numbers of militants were tutored there over many years.

At any given time, the CIA maintained a secret army of up to 14,000 Tibetan separatists in China. While the guerrillas believed Washington sincerely supported their secessionist crusade, in reality, the agency was solely concerned with creating security problems for Beijing, and resultantly inflicting economic and military costs on their adversary. As the Dalai Lama later lamented, the agency’s assistance was purely “a reflection of their anti-Communist policies rather than genuine support for the restoration of Tibetan independence.”

‘More susceptible’

Come October 1962, the CIA’s Tibetan operations had become such an irritant to China that PLA forces invaded India. Washington was well aware in advance that military action was imminent. A telegram dispatched to Secretary of State Dean Rusk five days prior to the war’s eruption forecast a “serious conflict” and laid out a detailed “line” to take for when the time came. First and foremost, the US would publicly make clear its “sympathy for the Indians and the problems posed by the Chinese intervention.”

However, it was considered vital to “be restrained in our expressions in the matter so as to give the Chinese no pretext for alleging any American involvement.” While New Delhi was already secretly receiving “certain limited purchases” of US military equipment, Washington would not actively “offer assistance” when war broke out. “It is the business of the Indians to ask,” the telegram noted. If such requests were forthcoming, “we will listen sympathetically to requests… [and] move with all promptness and efficiency to supply the items”:

“The US is giving assistance… designed to ease Indian military transport and communications problems. Additionally, the Departments of State and Defense are studying the availability on short notice and on terms acceptable to India of transport, communications and other military equipment in order to be prepared should the government of India request such US equipment.”

As predicted, the Sino-Indian conflict prompted Nehru to urgently reach out to Washington for military aid, a significant policy shift. Much of New Delhi’s political class duly adopted a pro-Western line, with calls for a review of the country’s Non-Aligned stance reverberating widely throughout parliament. Even Communist and Socialist parties that hitherto rejected any alliance with the US eagerly accepted the assistance. The CIA’s Tibetan operations had triumphed.

As a May 1960 Agency National Intelligence Estimate noted, “Chinese aggressiveness” toward New Delhi over Tibet had fostered “a more sympathetic view of US opposition to Communist China” among India’s leaders. This included “greater appreciation of the value of a strong Western – particularly US – position in Asia to counterbalance” Beijing’s influence regionally. However, the CIA noted how, as of writing, “Nehru has no intention of altering India’s basic policy of nonalignment, and the bulk of Indian opinion apparently still shares his attachment to this policy.”

The Sino-Indian War changed all that. A December 1962 Agency analysis of the conflict’s “outlook and implications” hailed New Delhi’s “metamorphosis”, which the CIA forecast would “almost certainly continue to open up new opportunities for the West.” The country was judged “more susceptible than ever before to influence by the US and the UK, particularly in the military field.” Conversely, the War had “seriously complicated the Soviet Union’s relations with India and aggravated its difficulties with China”:

“The USSR will place a high value on a continued close relationship with India. While its opportunity to build up lasting influence in the Indian military has virtually disappeared, it will probably continue to supply some military equipment and to maintain its economic ties with India.”

Subsequently, New Delhi began assisting Anglo-American intelligence gathering on China and became actively involved in CIA wrecking activities in Tibet. The Sino-Indian War’s spectre hung over relations between the two nations for many years thereafter, and border clashes occurred intermittently throughout. Now, though, as Donald Trump bemoaned in September, India appears enduringly “lost” to Beijing and its close partner Russia. Decades of determined US efforts to foment antagonism between the vast neighbours have come spectacularly undone, due to the sheer weight of geopolitical reality.

November 26, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

India’s Tejas fighter crash in Dubai deals major blow to export hopes

Al Mayadeen | November 23, 2025

India’s ambitions to market its home-grown Tejas fighter abroad have suffered a major setback after the jet crashed during a demonstration at the Dubai Airshow, an event attended by military delegations and arms buyers from around the world, Reuters said on Sunday.

The pilot, Wing Commander Namansh Syal, was killed, and the accident immediately raised questions over the future of India’s flagship aerospace program.

The cause of the crash has not yet been determined, but analysts say the optics alone complicate New Delhi’s long-running effort to present Tejas as a viable, export-ready platform. As one expert put it, “The imagery is brutal”, recalling previous high-profile airshow accidents that undermined national showcases. “A crash sends quite the opposite signal: a dramatic failure,” said Douglas A. Birkey of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. He noted, however, that despite the negative publicity, the jet is likely to recover its momentum over time because “fighter sales are driven by high order political realities, which supersede a one-off incident.”

Tejas Turbulence

India has spent more than four decades developing Tejas, originally conceived to replace aging Soviet-era MiG-21s. The project survived sanctions after India’s 1998 nuclear tests, engine-development failures, and production delays at state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. Although the Indian Air Force has ordered 180 advanced Mk-1A units, deliveries have stalled amid supply-chain problems involving GE Aerospace engines.

A former HAL executive said the Dubai crash effectively freezes near-term export hopes, explaining that “the crash in Dubai rules out exports for now.” HAL had been courting buyers across Asia, Africa, and Latin America and even opened a regional office in Malaysia in 2023. With exports now unlikely, the company is expected to prioritise domestic production. Meanwhile, India’s fighter fleet has dwindled to 29 operational squadrons, far below the authorized 42, as older MiG-29s, Jaguars, and Mirage 2000s approach retirement. An Indian Air Force officer said, “The Tejas was supposed to be their replacement. But it is facing production issues.”

Fleet decisions

To plug immediate gaps, Indian officials are weighing additional off-the-shelf purchases, including more French Rafales, and continue to examine US and Russian proposals for the F-35 and Su-57, an unusual pairing of 5th-generation jets seen together this week in Dubai.

Despite the setback, defense analysts argue, according to Reuters, that Tejas remains central to India’s long-term industrial goals. Walter Ladwig of the Royal United Services Institute noted that the aircraft’s most enduring value will come from the ecosystem it creates, not export sales, stating that its significance lies in the “industrial and technological base it creates for India’s future combat-aircraft programmes.”

Rivalry Renewed

The airshow also became another arena for India-Pakistan rivalry. Pakistan showcased its JF-17 Thunder Block III, jointly produced with China, and announced a provisional contract with a “friendly country” for the aircraft. The jet was displayed alongside Chinese PL-15E missiles, which US and Indian officials claim were used to down at least one Indian Rafale in the fierce aerial clash between the neighbours earlier this year. Pakistan’s aerospace industry promoted the fighter as “battle-tested”, a reference to the recent four-day conflict.

Indian officials, meanwhile, noted that Tejas was not deployed in that fight, nor did it take part in the Republic Day flypast in New Delhi, citing safety considerations associated with single-engine aircraft.

November 23, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

Tata Group’s ties with Israel: How Indian capital fuels occupation and genocide

By Ranjan Solomon | MEMO | November 6, 2025

The mask of modernity

For over a century, the Tata Group has been celebrated as the conscience of Indian capitalism — a family of companies that fused profit with philanthropy, progress with ethics. To millions of Indians, “Tata” evokes trust: a brand woven into the very narrative of modern India. Yet behind this carefully cultivated image of virtue lies a darker reality – one that now links Tata directly to the Israeli war machine devastating Gaza.

A new report released by the U.S.-based South Asian collective Salam, titled “Architects of Occupation: The Tata Group, Indian Capital, and the India–Israel Alliance,” alleges that Tata is “at the heart” of the India–Israel military partnership and is “fundamentally embedded in the architecture of occupation, surveillance, and dispossession.” TRT World’s coverage of the report further details how the conglomerate’s various subsidiaries feed directly into Israel’s military-industrial complex.

The findings: A web of complicity

The report identifies several subsidiaries of the Tata Group as active participants in Israel’s defence and security ecosystem.

Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL), one of India’s largest private defence manufacturers, has long-standing partnerships with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Together, they manufacture key components for the Barak-8 surface-to-air missile system, which forms the backbone of Israel’s naval defence and is used in strikes on Gaza. TASL also produces aerostructures for F-16 fighter jets and fuselages for Apache attack helicopters, both extensively deployed by the Israeli Air Force.

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), another Tata subsidiary, is alleged to provide the chassis for MDT David light armoured vehicles used by Israeli forces in West Bank patrols and urban crowd-suppression.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the IT giant, is reportedly involved in building digital infrastructure for Israel’s governmental and financial sectors, including participation in Project Nimbus — the controversial cloud-computing contract co-run by Google and Amazon that facilitates Israeli state surveillance.

The Salam report argues that these are not isolated commercial arrangements but part of a systemic integration of Indian capital within Israel’s “occupation economy.”

Tata’s public sponsorship of global events, such as the New York City Marathon, is described as “sports-washing” — a means of masking its participation in war profiteering behind gestures of global modernity and social responsibility. Despite repeated inquiries, Tata Group has not issued a public response to the allegations.

From state to corporation: The India–Israel nexus

Tata’s complicity does not exist in a vacuum. It is the corporate mirror of a larger state transformation in India’s foreign and defence policy.

Since the 1990s, and more assertively under Narendra Modi, India has shifted from quiet engagement with Israel to a full-blown strategic partnership. India is now the largest buyer of Israeli arms, accounting for roughly 40–45 per cent of Israel’s defence exports.

Joint ventures proliferate:

  • The Barak-8 missile project, co-developed by DRDO and IAI, is assembled in part at Tata facilities.
  • India’s purchase of Heron drones, Phalcon AWACS systems, and Spike anti-tank missiles are products of the same industrial network that sustains Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
  • Several of these systems are used by India in Kashmir, linking one occupation to another — and revealing a disturbing symmetry between the surveillance of Palestinians and Kashmiris.

In this geopolitical alignment, Hindutva nationalism and Zionism converge on the ideological front. Both justify domination through a rhetoric of “security” and “counter-terrorism.” Both normalise militarism as a form of patriotism. And both have turned their societies into laboratories of digital surveillance and ethno-religious control.

Thus, the Tata Group’s partnerships are not merely commercial. They are the economic expression of a shared political project — where corporate capital, state power, and ideology intertwine.

Corporate complicity and ethical evasion

Tata is hardly alone. Global corporations have long buttressed the Israeli state’s apparatus of control. Hewlett-Packard, Caterpillar, and now Google and Amazon have all been accused of enabling occupation and surveillance. What makes Tata’s case particularly striking is its moral posture.

A company that invokes Gandhi and philanthropy in its advertising now profits from an economy of death. Its own code of conduct commits it to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which prohibit participation in human-rights violations. Yet there is no visible accountability mechanism — no disclosure of its defence revenues, no public audit of ethical compliance, and no internal oversight on the human impact of its contracts.

The Salam report calls this “ethical evasion through corporate nationalism”: the idea that Indian companies can deflect scrutiny by invoking patriotism and “Make in India” rhetoric. This is a convenient cover for profiteering from war.

Silence and complicity in India

Mainstream Indian media have barely reported on the Tata revelations. Nor has the Indian government shown any interest in investigating them. On the contrary, officials continue to trumpet the India–Israel “strategic embrace” as a model of technological progress.

Civil society, too, has grown hesitant. Decades ago, India was a vocal defender of the Palestinian cause. Today, solidarity has been replaced by silence, fear, and a dangerous normalization of genocide. Universities that once hosted discussions on occupation now avoid the subject. Protesters risk arrest under draconian laws.

The corporate capture of conscience mirrors a broader moral collapse in public life.

What accountability looks like

International law is clear: any company knowingly supplying equipment or services that enable war crimes may be complicit in those crimes. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the UN Guiding Principles both outline corporate responsibilities in situations of armed conflict.

Tata’s alleged manufacturing of components for weapons used in Gaza should therefore be subject to independent investigation. Investors, trade unions, and consumers have the right — and duty — to demand transparency.

There are precedents: in the 1980s, global campaigns pressured companies to divest from apartheid South Africa. A similar moral movement must emerge against those profiteering from Israeli apartheid. The boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign is one such call, and Indian civil society should not remain absent from it.

When conscience is outsourced

Tata’s silence in the face of genocide is not just a corporate failure; it reflects the hollowness of India’s moral claim to be the land of Gandhi. What remains of that heritage when its flagship corporation contributes to the machinery of ethnic cleansing?

As Gaza’s children starve and entire families are buried under rubble, the Tata empire continues to sell technology to the state that kills them — while its advertisements preach compassion and “building a better tomorrow.”

No nation can claim moral leadership while its corporations build profit from the blood of the oppressed. The time for polite silence is over. India must confront what it has become — and reclaim the humanity it once pledged to the world.

November 6, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump may not follow through on Russian oil or Tomahawk

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | October 25, 2025 

The US President Donald Trump has seemingly shifted gear in the US strategy to stop Russia on its tracks from creating new facts on the ground in Ukraine. Russian forces have the upper hand all along the 1250-km Ukrainian frontline stretching Kiev’s defences and resources, which no amount of western military help can hope to reverse in a foreseeable future. Trump is compelling Russia to seek a military victory in Ukraine.

Trump so far put on the air of a statesman in great anguish over the humanitarian aspects of the conflict. Moscow tolerated the theatrical show to pamper Trump’s egotistic personality — that is, until Putin shattered the myth last week to expose that Trump actually holds the record as the American president who sanctioned Russia the most number of times, exceeding even his predecessor Joe Biden’s tally. 

Trump, in the new avatar as war monger has unveiled a strategy of climbing the escalation ladder in the war until Putin capitulates. To that end, he has expanded the sanctions regime to include Russia’s oil industry, and is toying with the idea to supply Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles that can hit deep inside Russian territory. 

The US Treasury Departments’ press release announcing the new sanctions against Russia reads as if its is custom made for targeting India. India and China account for some 80% of Russia’s oil exports, but the latter is the number one buyer with 60% of the imports  transported through pipelines, whereas India depends on carriers arranged by the Russian side (“shadow fleet”) which are also now under western sanctions. 

The press release claims that “The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behaviour.” It is a statement of fact because this is not really about oil, but about geopolitics. Whether Trump will actually press ahead with the oil sanctions remains unclear, since keeping Russian oil out of the world market risks high oil prices which could boomerang on the US economy and be damaging politically for Trump. 

Putin’s initial reaction last Thursday was that the oil sanctions are an “unfriendly” act which “will have certain consequences, but they will not significantly affect our economic well-being.” Putin said that Russia’s energy sector feels confident. He added, “This is, of course, an attempt to put pressure on Russia. But no self-respecting country and no self-respecting people ever decides anything under pressure.” 

Meanwhile, western hypocrisy broke through the ceiling, as the German chancellor Friedrich Merz who is one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the war is at Trump’s doorstep pleading for a sanctions waiver. Apparently, Germany has been quietly buying Russian oil even while portraying Russia in hostile terms, lest its GDP fell by another 3 percent! 

Germany “temporarily” took control of three subsidiaries of the Russian oil company Rosneft (which the US has sanctioned) to secure its energy supply. Interestingly, the UK PM Keir Starmer, the charioteer of the  so-called “coalition of the willing” raring to deploy troops in Ukraine to fight Russian forces, is travelling in the same boat as Merz seeking Trump’s waiver! 

Such shady behaviour with racial overtones by the Western countries holds lessons for India. Clearly, the effectiveness of the new sanctions against the Russian oil giants will depend on just how zealous the US is in enforcing them through secondary sanctions on entities that deal in Russian oil. If past experience is anything to go by, Washington won’t be able to sustain a full-court press – if for no other reason than that markets will force its hand once oil prices shoot up. 

That is to say, thanks to lax enforcement of sanctions, Russian oil will continue to reach the world market. Buyers like India who cut down oil supplies from Russia will end up paying higher prices. By meekly complying with Trump’s diktat, they compromised their interests. The sense of humiliation is such that Delhi shies away from engaging with Trump.  

However, as regards long-rage Tomahawk missiles (range: 3000 km) Putin was polite but frank in his reaction, saying, “This is an attempt at escalation. But if such weapons are used to attack Russian territory, the response will be very serious, if not overwhelming. Let them think about it.” 

The deputy chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev was even blunt in conveying the Kremlin thinking:

“The US is our enemy, and their talkative ‘peacemaker’ has now fully embarked on the path of war with Russia… this is now his conflict, not the senile Biden’s!… the decisions made are an act of war against Russia. And now Trump has fully sided with the insane Europe.

“But there is also a clear plus in this latest swing of the Trump pendulum: we can strike all the Bandera hideouts with a wide variety of weapons without regard to unnecessary negotiations. And achieve victory precisely where it is only possible: on the ground, not at a desk. Destroying enemies, not concluding meaningless ‘deals’”.  

Apparently, the message went home. Trump, before emplaning for Malaysia on his 3-nation Asian tour, made sure that his special envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff extended an invitation to his Russian interlocutor Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of Russian Direct Investment Fund, to go over to Miami for a quiet conversation to talk things over. The two erstwhile businessmen are meeting today.

Meanwhile, Trump has hinted in anticipation of his forthcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday that he may not after all carry out his threatened 100% tariffs on Chinese goods and other trade curbs starting on November 1 in retaliation for China’s vastly expanded export controls on rare earth magnets and minerals. China’s tough stance is paying off. 

Similarly, the Kremlin’s blunt threat of retaliation against Tomahawk will be heeded seriously. Putin has many options — Oreshnik capable of Mach 10 speed, for instance, is a hypersonic missile that is also nuclear capable, against which the West has no defence. The weapon has entered into serial production and been supplied to the armed forces.

Again, Russia’s new jet-powered glide bomb gives a significant boost in range and superior resistance to electronic countermeasures. It is capable of hitting Ukraine’s western border. It is also moving to mass production and the West is defenceless against it. 

October 25, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump’s Strongman Persona Inevitably Results in Lies and War

By Prof. Glenn Diesen | October 17, 2025

Trump’s claim that Prime Minister Modi had promised to end the purchase of Russian oil was obviously false; in fact, there was apparently no phone call between the two leaders at all. Such fabrications, portraying world leaders as deferential to him and as praising his greatness, constitute a recurring pattern—one that parallels his militaristic approach to peace.

As the president of a declining hegemon, Trump is convinced that the weakness of his predecessors was the source of decline. Trump has therefore concluded that projecting strength can reverse the erosion of American power. In constructing himself as the ultimate strongman—allegedly respected by all—he positions himself as the sole saviour of the US. The image of a powerful, decisive and respected leader capable of restoring US dominance also functions domestically to consolidate political support and project stability during the country’s uneasy transition from a unipolar to a multipolar international order. The American public is seemingly prepared to look the other way or justify the dishonesty and moral disgressions as the price worth paying for a return to greatness.

The central problem with the strongman image is that it sustains unrealistic expectations of reviving US primacy rather than adapting to the realities of a multipolar world. The outcome is a pattern of deception and conflict that ultimately undermines, rather than strengthens, the United States.

When the strongman cannot coerce his counterparts into subservience, the only recourse is retreat into fantasy. In this imagined world, other leaders allegedly regret their decisions of not falling into line, tremble as Trump wags his finger, shower him with compliments, offer tribute to the United States, and in Trump’s own words, line up to “kiss my ass.” Within the Trumpian bubble of superpower cosplay, these scenes of deference are celebrated as signs of a return to greatness, yet in the real world, American credibility declines and decadence deepens. As the gap between fantasy and reality widens, Trump becomes increasingly reckless. Case in point, the threats against India to sever ties with Russia and India backfired spectacularly as Prime Minister Modi instead went to China to cement India’s relations with Russia, China and the SCO.

Great powers and independent states cannot simply fall in line, for doing so would predictably lead to their destruction or subjugation. The ultimate aim of an aspiring hegemon is not to reconcile differences in pursuit of peaceful coexistence, but to defeat rival powers and capture independent states. The objective of the economic confrontation with China is not to renegotiate trade agreements, but to undermine China’s technological capacity and contain it militarily to restore US primacy. The purpose of the proxy war against Russia is not peace in terms of finding a new peaceful status quo, rather it is to use Ukrainians and increasingly Europeans to bleed and weaken Russia until it can no longer sustain great-power status. Similarly, the goal of the confrontation with Iran is not to reach a new nuclear accord—Tehran has already accepted such terms in the past—but to achieve Iran’s capitulation and disarmament by linking the nuclear issue to restrictions on missiles and regional alliances. Any power that concedes even marginally to US pressure ultimately finds itself in a weaker and more vulnerable position—one that the aspiring hegemon will inevitably exploit. Any peace agreements are therefore temporary at best, as an opportunity to regroup.

India presents an intriguing case, as it is not an adversarial power. Its commitment to non-alignment makes strong relations with the United States desirable, yet the very same non-alignment necessitates strategic diversification to reduce excessive reliance on Washington. Should India be persuaded to sever ties with other major powers such as China and Russia, it risks becoming too dependent on the United States and absorbed into a bloc-based geopolitical system. Subordination to a declining empire would be perilous, as the United States would predictably use India as a frontline against China, and simultaneously demand economic tribute and cannibalise Indian industries in pursuit of renewed dominance. In essence, India must avoid becoming another Europe.

The strongman act is most effective with weaker and dependent states—such as those in Europe—that are willing to subordinate themselves entirely in order to preserve American commitment to the continent. European states lack the economic capacity, security autonomy, and political imagination to envision a multipolar world in which the United States wields less influence and holds other priorities than a close partnership with Europe. Consequently, European leaders appear willing to sacrifice core national interests to preserve the unity of the “Political West” for a little while longer. In private, they may express disdain for Trump; in public, they pay tribute to “daddy” and line up diligently in front of his desk to receive praise or ridicule. Yet this subservience is inherently temporary: leaders who disregard fundamental national interests are, in time, swept aside by the very forces they seek to suppress.

The strongman does not create any durable peace the underlying problems are never addressed. The mantra of “peace through strength” can be translated into peace through escalation, with the assumption that the opponent will come to the table and submit to US demands. However, rival great powers that have nowhere to retreat will respond to escalation with reciprocation. The delusions of the strongman in the declining hegemony will therefore inevitably trigger major wars.

October 17, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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