Voices Anand Neelakantan Devdutt Pattanaik Ravi Shankar Neha Sinha Anuja Chandramouli Mata Amritanandamayi MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment NEW DELHI march 16 2025 SUNDAY PAGES 12 The New World Order The brotherhood of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk is reshaping the world, while China waits for its moment. India must rethink its alliance strategies to stay relevant in the power game THE COLD WAR THAT SHAPED AMERICA AND THE WORLD: In 1950, China, under Mao Zedong had waged war with America over Korea. Neither side won, but Castro realised there is indeed a world power which could give the omnipotent Americans as good as they got. Concerned about losing a vasal state so close to American soil, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in July 1962, offered Castro the protection of the Russian nuclear umbrella and installed medium and long-range nuclear missile launch-pads in Cuba. American President John F Kennedy ordered a 500-mile naval blockade to prevent more Soviet missiles from reaching the neighbourhood. Russia sent warships to Cuba. Khrushchev told Kennedy, “I do not doubt that if someone attempted to dictate similar conditions to you—the United States—you would reject such an attempt. And we also say—no.” The phrase “eyeball to eyeball” came from that confrontation. On the morning of October 24, US Secretary of State Dean Rusk had whispered to National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, “We’re eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.” ALLY KHRUSHCHEV BACKED CHINA IN 1962: Another eyeballto-eyeball confrontation was happening on the India-China border around the same time. India lost both the border war and land to China. Jawaharlal Nehru saw Mao as “half man, half devil” and accused the Indian Communists of wanting to “wash off his face so that it won’t be frightening, like a devil’s.” A trifecta of betrayal and self-interest emerged on the Asian theatre comprising Khrushchev’s USSR and Mao’s China at odds and Russia refusing to back India against China. Moscow suspended sale of MiG-21s. A week before the Chinese incursion, Khrushchev told a Chinese diplomat that the Soviet Union supported Beijing’s protests against India’s ‘territorial encroachment’; similar to what Trump is telling Zelenskyy on Putin’s behalf. On the day China’s PLA crossed into India, the power struggle between the Soviets and the Chinese was put in cold storage; in return Khrushchev expected Mao’s support in the Cuban Missile Crisis. China held off propaganda blitzes against Russia. But when Khrushchev blinked, a furious Mao called him a coward. Sick of Mao’s belligerence, Khrushchev revoked his position on selling MiG-21s to India. After five decades of fighting China, an unenviable task awaits Modi and India which had basked in the vishwaguru glow. South Block will have to navigate the US-RussiaChina triangle with deft diplomacy and trade dialogues. WHY INDIA CANNOT TRUST TRUMP: The American president is an unreliable ally He . humiliated his ‘good friend’ Modi Elon Musk was initially shaped by Nehru’s “peacemaker” role while his daughter Indira wanted India to be a “security seeker”. Her stance almost changed the country into a Russian satellite. Ironically Modi and Nehru are on the same page with India seeking to play a larger role, offering to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. But Trump has no compunctions of conscience. The author of the Art of the Deal sees himself as a world solo peacemaker, negotiating with the Taliban before, and now Hamas and Ukraine. His allies are forced to swallow their bile because there is no Western world order without America. The Trump of 2025 is treating India as a piece on the subcontinent chess board, not as an ally or friend. National security expert Bharat Karnad says, “Basically, nothing much has changed. It’s always the powerful running the world, in different guises. Trump knows that America can’t be as dominant as it was in the previous era. He is trying to see if he can get Russia on his side, so together they can corner China. He needs proximity to Putin to put China on the spot, otherwise China becomes uncontainable. As Elon Musk goes on a rampage chopping US government, an American news report quoted senior officials saying he and Putin are in regular touch and Musk held off giving Starlink access to Taiwan as ‘a favour’ to Xi Jinping serious thought. He is blowing hot and cold on China; it puts India in a difficult situation.” Finally, after much dithering, the Indian government seems to have got its courage back. Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal declared that India has made no commitments to the US over the tariffs; neither has the tariff hike begun. Should India give in, it will severely impact the economy Goods . like foreign cars, clothes and alcohol will become cheaper almost by half. The RSS which controls the levers of government won’t take this lying down because of their proSwadeshi ideology Ideology is the . minefield of international relations. Indian foreign policy took a slow U-turn after the Cold War. PV Narasimha Rao, India’s prime minster then, cautiously began to improve relations with the US, Western Europe, and China. In 1991, the movement for liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation began under Rao with IMF-returned economist Manmohan Singh at the helm. Indian foreign policy That’s the larger strategic plan. This is actually a good thing—Trump is essentially doing the hard work for India. But that doesn’t mean that he is India’s friend; he is nobody’s friend, America is nobody’s ally .” Pakistan has been desperately trying to manoeuvre its old favoured position, but Trump isn’t buying it. In his first address to Congress, he praised Pakistan for helping the CIA capture terrorist Mohammad Sharifullah, who was behind the 2021 attack on US troops at Kabul airport. Recently, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Turkmenistan was deported from the Los Angeles airport despite a valid visa. THE PUTIN-TRUMP BROMANCE IS UPENDING THE OLD ORDER: Putin, unlike Khrushchev, hasn’t blinked. Three years after the Ukraine invasion, the unthinkable has happened. The US voted with Russia on two UN resolutions on Ukraine against the Europe-backed UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russian aggression— Trump even accused Ukraine of invading Russia. Israel, India and Putin allies like Iran, Israel and US February 2022. Vladimir Putin launches an invasion of Ukraine. Three years of war, Russia loses over 8,00,000 soldiers. The US and the West give Ukraine money and weapons. They impose sanctions on Russia to cripple its economy Then . comes along Donald Trump, the 47th president of the United States. For the first time in history, he tilts the US towards Russia and castigates his Western allies. The 21st century’s New World Order is born. A divided Western alliance, with the Washington-Moscow axis on one side and UK and Europe on the other. China stands aside, watching. Perhaps, smiling. publicly at a press conference in Washington by announcing in the PM’s presence that the US would do the same to India with import taxes and “it no longer matters to us that much what they charge.” He even mocked an Indian reporter’s accent. After a few days of harsh tirades, Trump said that “somebody is finally exposing them (India) for what they have done.” Like in 1962, Russia is silent on the Trumpian offensive, considering India ignored Biden’s sanctions against buying Russian oil. Only it is the US playing the USSR with India this time, not China. Harsh Pant, Director, Studies and Head of the Strategic Studies Programme at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi, says, “As far as Modi and Trump are concerned, it’s not really a question of trust. It’s about what you can possibly do and how you can engage with an administration where the top leadership is seemingly devoid of a wider framework. Trump’s stance of challenging China’s dominance largely creates a space for India and the US to work together. While there are no indications that he is not going to do that, there are also no indications that he is giving it After decades of a healthy relationship, barring some turbulent phases, India has more or less stabilised its relationship with the US. Earlier, slow to commit, during the first Trump administration India signed three defense agreements with the US in just four years. The Biden administration continued the progress, working to divert important supply chains away from China. But in the present Trump government, India is suddenly not sure where it stands with the US Russia ctober 1962. The world is on the brink of nuclear annihilation. The Cold War between historically implacable foes America and the Soviet Union, which began in 1947 on the ruins of post-Nazi Europe, is at its coldest—a blizzard of coups, proxy conflicts, dramatic intelligence wins and losses, and military grandstanding. The conflict between Communism and the Free World is shaping the 20th century’s World Order. The Cuba Missile Crisis is the apex point of this remorseless rivalry In 1961, the . Americans place nuclear missiles in their bases in Italy and Turkey, and CIA tries to overthrow Cuba’s cigar-smoking president Fidel Castro. Worried about the threat to his government’s existence, Castro begins to pivot towards China, which makes the Russians antsy . They place nukes in Cuba and the Americans threaten to launch missiles against the island. It takes 12 nerve-wracking days for things to settle. Where India Stands India’s historical relationship with Moscow, forged during the Cold War, is well known; Modi has only built on it. India had neither condemned nor condoned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and had abstained from voting on the issue as a member of the United Nations Security Council. Of late, three main factors—Russia defence relations, oil and domestic political theatre—is driving the relationship China O By Ravi Shankar (From left) Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping After India and China completed the contentious disengagement process in Depsang and Demchok in Eastern Ladakh, bringing to an end the 54-month-old military standoff in the area, the relationship between the two nations has entered the ‘phase of recovery’, as some Chinese officials termed it recently. The two sides are working to revive the various dialogue mechanisms. On the ongoing tariff war with US, China reached out to India with suggestions of putting up a joint opposition Turn to page 2