Great Expectations

An end of the Cold War led to the opening of the global economies that has shaped the world order till date. There have been many highs and lows but the markets have adjusted globally. The geo-strategic calculus has been in a constant flux but this did not lead to the collapse of the inherent stability relationships that enabled the nations to do political and economic transactions. But one thing was surely there and that was the emergence of the United States as the sole superpower. Dismemberment of the USSR allowed it to execute and formulate its sphere of influence that had created a world order construed as the democratic renaissance. But politics is predominantly governed by the markets stimulated by robust economies and stable governments. Things are changing and changing fast. This year with the assumption of the office by the US President Trump, one thing has become vividly clear that governance and politics are not only shaped by the policies and public outreach but by the personality of the leader who is at the helm of affairs. Trump 2.0 has broken many myths. India that was banking on the assumed friendship of the US government has learned that it will have to chalk its own path in international relations and reduce the trust it poses on the so-called friendship that it felt was defined by the nature of the governance defined by the democratic values prevalent in both the nations. The role played by President Trump after the successful Operation Sindoor launched by India to impose a heavy cost on Pakistan to avenge the carnage of innocent people in the Pahalgam must have made the mandarins in New Delhi wiser. The reason being that the kind of assertion by Trump that was not needed has spoilt the trust and led to the trust deficit between India and the US. The overconfidence of the US President to claim that he was responsible for the India-Pakistan ceasefire has unsettled the applecart. As clarified by the Indian government that the ceasefire was the outcome of the DGMOs level channel of India and Pakistan and the US had no role to play in that. Not only that, the US seems to be playing a double game. As there are clear signals from the moves made by the US State Department to activate its relationship with the army establishment of Pakistan. The Trump administration is behaving as the day trader whose sole interest is based on profit making and having no respect for the long term relationship that can help both the democracies. Things have not stopped here. Trump has shown an interest to meddle in the internal affairs when he offered to arrange negotiations between India and Pakistan in the wake of Indo-Pak conflict in the aftermath of the Pahalgam carnage. Fortunately, this unwanted suggestion was out rightly rejected by India, saying that India –Pakistan will take that up bilaterally. What the Indian establishment needs to internalise is that it must shun the great expectations from the US and rely on its own wisdom to deal with terrorism meant to destabilise India in Jammu and Kashmir. The recently conducted all party Parliamentary delegation tours to various nations is indeed appreciable as it enables India to sensitise the global community about the threats that it faces from its immediate neighbourhood. This will outwit the meddling of the US meant to uphold Pakistani interests that are based on plausible deniability. To safeguard the national interest India must strike a comprehensive tariff deal with the US keeping in view its unpredictable policies. It must be noted that the Russia-Ukraine conflict and now the Israel-Iran conflict has proved that with the unpredictable policies of Trump 2.0,the world is destined for many surprises. In such a scenario India will have to develop a new foreign policy paradigm that is an amalgam of non-alignment and national interest.