India is Failing to Step Up as Multilateralism Beckons
As the United States under Donald Trump has become increasingly aggressive against its own allies, those allies have not been standing still. The Körber foundation in Germany has headlined its Middle Powers Initiative since 2024, reaching out to key potential partners in the developing world such as India, Brazil, and South Africa. What received a great deal of headlines, though, was the January 20, 2026 speech by the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. In it, he called out the hypocrisy of believing in a “rules-based order” while routinely turning a blind eye to the violation of those rules by powerful countries.
He challenged his listeners to, “[apply] the same standards to allies and rivals”, he condemned “the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination” while dealing with would-be hegemons. Instead of accepting this or retreating into fortresses, he counselled a broader international association of “middle powers” focussed on sovereignty, rule of law, and open trade.
“This is not naive multilateralism,” Carney stated, “Nor is it relying on their institutions. It's building coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations.”
Nehru's ideas formed the bedrock of the Non-Aligned Movement
While commendable, Carney’s speech is nothing new. Jawaharlal Nehru gave multiple versions of this speech decades go. It was the bedrock of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Panchsheel Principles, and the way that India went about creating strategic autonomy for itself post-Independence. To its credit, the Körber foundation has made the link explicit, tracing a path of the new multilateralism from the Bandung Conference (1955), the first major step towards the creation of NAM, to the current Middle Powers strategy.
This approach pursued not just by Germany and Canada, but also a host of other US allies who have now realised that they are mere vassals to a superpower, should have been an attractive one. So far, though, it has received a tepid response. Part of the reason is hypocrisy. NAM was largely condemned by US allies, who were cocooned by NATO, frightened the Soviet Union, and unwilling to back decolonisation that was at the heart of NAM. They were unwilling to acknowledge the real needs of the post-WWII developing countries.
Carney’s speech demonstrated how parochial and hypocritical this vision remains. The Canadian prime minister invoked the following “fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter and respect for human rights.”
Carney mentioned Greenland and Ukraine as targets of aggression, but somehow forgot to reference the US murder campaign in the Caribbean, the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president (however problematic his regime or compromised his mandate), the US/Israeli war on Iran, the Israeli war on Lebanon and its violation of Syrian territorial integrity. For all the talk of the UN Charter or respect for human rights, Canada continues to abet and support Israel when the International Court of Justice ruled on the continuing illegality of Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian Territories on July 19, 2024.
The ICJ bluntly stated that, “all the States parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention have the obligation, while respecting the Charter of the United Nations and international law, to ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law”.
The biggest failure, though, is the lack of ambition. For all of Carney’s talk about what “middle powers” can do he tip-toes around the biggest question he himself raises. In his speech he stated, “American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.” This is, at best, a partial truth. In terms of “collective security” it edges closer to being an outright lie. Nonetheless, the most important part is the first one: open sea lanes.
All empires have rested on secure trading routes. Roman roads, or the Grand Trunk Road in South Asia, are emblematic of how important trade routes were, how much they benefited everybody and not just the hegemonic entity. Since the 19th Century the vast majority of trade has been borne by the sea, and now more than 80% of trade goods travel by sea.
The US, as the foremost naval power with approximately 750 military bases around the world (and more at home) has been the guarantor of open sea lanes. Of course, as the largest trading partner for most countries, this has benefited the US the most, but it has also benefited trade movement around the world for everyone. The current standoff at the Strait of Hormuz, though, has shown clearly that the US seems no longer willing, and maybe not even capable, of fulfilling this function.
The entanglement of the US, not just through military bases, but also through NATO, the US-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command, the Five Eyes intelligence network, and much more, means that the security of many of the “middle powers” (and that of their trade routes) is dependent on US power. The costs of any disruption can be very high. When the Somalian state collapsed in the 1990s and piracy began along its coastline, it cost billions in world trade. In the wake of the US/Israeli war on Iran, piracy along the Somalian coast has resurfaced.
This is why the Mecca Alliance, between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey – all ostensibly allied to the US, one even a NATO member – is so significant: because it envisions creating an order that is an option to the US-led one.
'New India' has little standing in NAM
In theory, India could be the missing part of the puzzle. One look at the map, and you see that that India’s geographic position means it straddles sea routes from South Africa to Egypt, to Southeast Asia and Australia. The Quad, even without the US, combines the naval potential of India, Japan, and Australia – three of the major navies in the world. Furthermore, with its own history of strategic autonomy and NAM, India could be the critical country to expand beyond the vision of global security and human rights beyond merely the security of rich countries.
In reality, though, 'New India' exercises none of these capabilities. The 2026 International Fleet Review held in February 2026 showcased India’s potential naval capability and collaboration with navies from the Indian Ocean Region, with 19 out of 84 ships from foreign countries, and 74 countries participating. Just afterwards, on March 4, 2026, a US submarine sank the Iranian warship IRIS Dena just out of our territorial waters. India did not even condemn the action. It was Sri Lanka that stepped up, rescuing sailors and providing safe harbour to another Iranian ship. Under Modi, our core naval competence seems more geared to searching and kidnapping women fleeing from the United Arab Emirates than securing sea routes.
As for a corrective to the parochial conversation on human rights and democracy, let us pass over that with a sigh, as Modi’s India has seen every form of repression, and even hosted the extremist Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich in 2025. Smotrich lives in one of the illegal settlements that the 2024 ICJ judgment condemned and vociferously calls for war crimes.
Most problematically, India has little standing in NAM, whose sessions Modi has never attended. Instead, the personalised diplomacy that Modi has followed means that he asks Putin to end a war, and Putin ignores him (and retains the Indians serving in the Russian Army). Modi pleads from Trump to not put tariffs, and India gets higher tariffs than Pakistan. Trump promises to confront Xi Jinping, and after seven years of achieving nothing, rolls out the red carpet because he is desperate to show his leadership in the year that India chaired BRICS, a year in which BRICS achieved almost nothing.
As the global order changes, the “middle powers” approach of countries like Germany and Canada is neither credible nor enough. We need bigger and more ambitious approaches, but India has no Nehru now to dream and act bigger as it did before. It does not even have a Manmohan Singh, after whose tenure Modi could invite the leaders of all neighbouring countries for his inauguration. Today, most of the leaders of our neighbouring countries choose other countries to visit first. We sail on perilous waters.
Omair Ahmad has worked as a political analyst and journalist in India, the US and the UK. He was the editor of The Third Pole.
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