There is merit in the saying that you lose more than your stature when you visit someone uninvited. In the case of nations, the loss is even greater. And India will realise this over the coming months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi rushed to call on US President Donald Trump within weeks of his inauguration.
Modi’s agenda during his February 12-13 visit was to personally reinforce what external affairs minister S. Jaishankar had already offered when he had gone to attend Trump’s inauguration on January 20. Modi’s Mission Trump included a platter full of limitless possibilities. In return, Trump gave nothing, except platitudes and instructions that India needs to give even more.
For all his haste, what Modi has returned with is the risk of making India irrelevant in BRICS. This will make India geopolitically irrelevant too since India has failed to understand Trump’s agenda of Make America Great Again (MAGA) in his second term which has reversed US foreign policy pursued vigorously since 2012.
Starting with the Barack Obama administration’s 2012 ‘pivot to Asia’ strategy until Trump’s present term in office, the US focused on security competition with China by strengthening regional security alliances and working with strategic partners like India. The Joe Biden administration wanted to make NATO global by expanding its role from Europe to Asia against Russia and China which disagreed with the US’ balance of power politics and the concept of zero-sum security based on military power.
They instead sought a new world order based on indivisible security and development for all nations, especially emerging markets and developing nations collectively referred to as Global South constituting 80% of the world’s population. This created two diametrically opposite global governance systems, one with Global North nations and led by the US, while the other with Global South nations supported by China and Russia.
External affairs minister S. Jaishankar with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi. Photo: X/@DrSJaishankar
India sat at the centre of the theatre – Indo Pacific for the US and Asia Pacific for China and Russia – spanning two oceans (west Pacific and Indian Ocean) where global geopolitics was being played out by three great powers (the US, China, Russia) for stabilisation of the multipolar world. Given its location, India, for the first time since Independence, could take advantage of global geopolitics since all three great powers needed it to accomplish their visions. A great power is a nation with ability to influence events anywhere in the world and capability to defend its sovereignty by itself.
The US needed India to be its military bulwark against China in the Indian Ocean, while China and Russia sought India to strengthen BRICS to stabilise their global governance system which offered prosperity through connectivity.
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While the US never spelt out the endgame of its vision, its technology war (based on ‘small yard high fence’ strategy) with China signalled its determination to not allow it to win the fourth industrial revolution. Since the first two industrial revolutions happened in Europe and the third one in the US, it was inconceivable for the US and the West (Global North) that China wins the fourth one which would shift the global centre of gravity to the east resulting in what Xi Jinping refers to as once-in-century change. And through the security competition with China, the US wanted to delay if not stop People’s Liberation Army (PLA) break out from west Pacific to Indian Ocean since this would facilitate PLA’s hold across two oceans through which world’s maximum trade passed.
Against Russia, the strategy of eastwards expansion of Nato pursued since 1991 was meant to weaken Russia militarily and economically. However, Vladimir Putin is not Boris Yeltsin. And under Putin, Russia has become a great power which historically it had been.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) with US President Donald Trump at a summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland on July 16, 2018. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Enter Trump, who reversed the US foreign policy of bloc confrontation through alliances and strategic partnerships. He wants to restore US supremacy by managing the triangular relationship between the three great powers and hopes to split Russia and China partnership to make the US’ job easy. Trump, however, would continue with trade, tariff and tech wars against China identified as US’ main challenger. But the US security competition with China in the Indo Pacific has been put on the back burner with focus now on building deterrence and warfighting capabilities which the US military leadership has assessed had declined vis a vis the PLA.
In Trump’s plan both Europe and India have lost geopolitical relevance in their respective theatres. Acknowledging that Russia – a great power – could not be defeated on the battlefield, Trump, bypassing European nations, initiated peace talks with Russia to end the Ukraine war. The glaring geopolitical irrelevance of EU is not because it is devoid of technology heft – though compared with the US and China it is less since Europe lacks computing power and talent which former two have – but because Europe never bothered to build a security architecture, deterrence and warfighting capabilities of its own. A foreign policy without these in times of geopolitical transformation made Europe an appendage of the US.
India’s state is worse since it lacks technology heft, credible security architecture, deterrence and warfighting capability against Chin, which it identifies as its primary threat. For this reason, after the June 2020 Galwan killings, India signed innumerable agreements with the US to become its de-facto military ally and a partner with global north nations. India took more interest in G-7 and QUAD than in BRICS and SCO. Through its 2023 presidency of G-20 (mix of Global North and Global South nations), India projected itself as the leader of Global South. Unlike China, with its multi-aligned foreign policy, India declared itself to be the bridge between the Global South and Global North nations. This provided India the reason to project itself as competing with China. In short, the US’ fulsome support became essential for India to cast itself as a major power headed to become a developed nation by 2047.
This foreign policy was based on minister Jaishankar’s assumption that ‘the US is undeniably the premier power of our times and will remain so’ as given out in his book, Why Bharat Matters. This assumption suited Prime Minister Modi too since the RSS has its biggest overseas support base in the US. Additionally, given the colonial mindset of Indian leaders, close ties with the US helps raise their stature in the eyes of the domestic audience.
Modi and Jaishankar, however, failed to realise that Trump had rubbished the Indian assumption of the US being the world’s premier power by seeking to MAGA through the triangular contestation where China and Russia were competitors. Given this, Trump has waylaid the Global North nations, the G-7 and G-20.
Oblivious of Trump’s worldview, Jaishankar attended Trump inauguration on January 20 as the prime minister’s special envoy, and met with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio to convey Modi’s message for the new administration. The message was that India wanted the bilateral relationship to be taken to higher level with bigger, bolder and more ambitious steps. Offering strategic loyalty without being asked, Jaishankar told Rubio that the Modi government wanted collaboration in all domains with the Trump administration. A key Indian objective in all this was an early Trump visit to India to attend the QUAD summit in Delhi. Since QUAD was not a priority for Trump, Modi himself decided to visit the US to strengthen bilateral ties.
Overlooking Trump’s insults of India being called the biggest tariff abuser and Indian illegal immigrants being sent back handcuffed and chained in the US military aircraft, Prime Minister Modi showed remarkable stoicism. India signed the US-India joint leaders statement skewed heavily in US favour and Modi did a joint press conference with Trump where the latter did most of the talking.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with US President Donald Trump. Photo: X/@POTUS
The longish joint statement which conveys far more than meets the eyes can be summed up under four heads: trade, defence, energy, and emerging technologies. Trump has asked Modi to dilute the $45 billion bilateral trade in India’s favour. He has said that the US would impose reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods which runs counter to the World Trade Organisation’s rules that guarantees preferential trade treatment to India being a developing nation. He has instructed India to trade with BRICS nations in US dollar and dollar payment system only. And finally, India has been told to work towards Mission 500 – the 2023 bilateral trade of $190 billion to reach $500 billion annually by 2030. India has accepted all trade conditions.
On defence, India has been asked to buy armaments worth billions of dollars to eventually pave the way for the purchase of F-35 aircraft. While calling it co-production (US never gives source codes of its technologies even to its allies), it would at best be assembling of the US equipment in India. The list includes anti-tank Javelin missile, six more P8Is, GE404 and GE414 engines, Stryker combat vehicles, and technologies for war domains of air, land, undersea, space and cyber space.
Moreover, while drafting the 10 years defence partnership framework, the two sides have agreed on a new initiative called the Autonomous Systems Industry Alliance (ASIA) to scale up new age technologies like drones, anti-drone systems, undersea systems and so on for the Indo-Pacific. This would mean (a) total dependence on the US for key equipment and technologies which would allow it control over Indian military options (b) end of Aatmanirbharta and (c) more capital expense in defence.
Regarding energy, Trump wants India to buy more crude oil and gas. At present, India’s crude oil in order of preference comes from Russia (40%), Iraq, Saudi Arabia, UAE and the US. Getting most from the US will make crude oil expensive for Indians. Moreover, the US wants India to buy its small modular nuclear reactors after the Modi government relaxed the liability clause which had held up purchase of US nuclear reactors under the US-India 123 nuclear agreement. At present, France and Russia support India’s civil nuclear energy needs.
On emerging technologies which will charge the fourth industrial revolution, India will be totally dependent on the US. These would include AI infrastructure, quantum technologies, cyber technologies, subsea cable and so on. META has already announced its project Waterworth to build 50,000km subsea cable connecting five continents to boost Internet and AI development with India being the only nation in South Asia to be digitally linked with the US. Moreover, Elon Musk’s company Space-X with its Starlink services will provide satellite internet to India. And, after the recent meeting of Modi and Musk in the White House, Musk has firmed up plans to open Tesla production lines in Delhi and Mumbai.
Let’s now consider the serious implications – geopolitical and strategic – of India mortgaging its present and future to the US. In geopolitical terms, a sinister US game is at play. To recall, in July 2024, as a US senator, Marco Rubio (now secretary of state) had introduced the US-India Defence Cooperation Act in which a key objective was to provide limited exception to India from CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) for purchase of Russian equipment while expediting US defence sales to India.
To be sure, besides defence, India is dependent on Russia for its energy needs and military technology – BrahMos being the prime example. Russia has provided India with technologies that no other nation would give and has been a dependable partner both during the Soviet days and under President Putin. Moreover, Russia has been India’s guarantor of peace with China (it helped India with 2018 Sochi summit which followed Modi-Xi summit in Wuhan, and in the drafting and signing of 10 September 2020 joint statement with China for peace on the Line of Actual Control). Most of all, it was Russia which brought India and China together under the Trilateral Framework which evolved into BRICS.
With the range of commitments that India has made to the US on defence, energy, military technology and trade within BRICS, bilateral ties between India and Russia cannot remain upbeat with India pretending it is business as usual with Moscow. An important objective of BRICS is to displace, not replace, the US dollar with trade in local currencies by synchronising member nation’s payment system. China, Russia and Iran have adopted this route, and more nations are expected to follow suit. India not doing this would make its standing shaky within BRICS.
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Once China loses hope of India’s wholehearted participation in BRICS, bilateral ties would take a nosedive. At present, China is walking the extra mile to normalise ties with India. This is not so much for benefiting from the Indian market – in 2024, China had global trade surplus of $1 trillion because of its trade with Global South nations – but because it, along with Russia, wants to stabilise BRICS which underpins their global governance system. Once this hope is lost, China would seek closer ties with South Asian nations brooking no interference from India. And it is no secret that today, China has expansive grey zone operations capabilities (below the threshold of a hot war), which would impact India’s national and economic security.
Moreover, Trump’s distancing itself from Europe is good news for China and Russia. Uneasy European nations are already considering more trade with China. Soon Europeans will realise that without Russia inside the tent there can be no sustainable European security architecture. With NATO’s future hanging in balance, this is critical for peace in Europe till Europeans build their own deterrence and warfighting capabilities with minimal backing from US military.
Thus, in geopolitical terms, with an uneasy partnership with the US, which is 12,000km away and focused on its MAGA agenda, India would be left to fend for itself in a volatile neighbourhood with two live military lines (with Pakistan and China) seeking support from its partners in Europe and West Asia who themselves face an uncertain future. Additionally, with the bifurcation of trade, commerce, technology, internet, critical supply chains between the US and China, India, on US technology standards will find it difficult to communicate and trade in its neighbourhood with nations on Chinese technology.
The key point is this: if India is serious about MIGA (Make India Great Again) and not be a lackey of MAGA, then it must abandon Prime Minister Modi’s wise crack made in the US: that MAGA plus MIGA becomes MEGA (mega partnership). For MIGA, the Modi government needs to find a stable anchor in its geography and geopolitics rooted in Global South with Russia and China as partners.
Pravin Sawhney is the author of The Last War: How AI Will Shape India’s Final Showdown With China.
