MK Bhadrakumar

former ambassador

Washington expects India to comply with its “hellish sanctions” against Russia. This paradigm has been presented as a battle between democracies and autocracies. But India will not be swayed by such a cover-up. The fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a notable exception to receive Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for a 40-minute meeting against the tumultuous backdrop of global politics sent a powerful message. Modi stressed that India attaches utmost importance to relations with Russia in its global strategies. Indeed, it speaks to Modi’s warm personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the centrality he attaches to the strategic partnership with Russia in his own global vision.

The real agenda of the West is the reimposition of a unipolar world order to perpetuate its dominance over the international economic and political order.

There could be no more definitive signal than what Modi gave – that India’s strategic autonomy is non-negotiable and its national honor as a fiercely independent country is non-negotiable. Hopefully the curtain will now fall on Western bullying.

Likewise, reading of EAM Jaishankar’s meeting with Lavrov suggests that an in-depth discussion on “the general state of cooperation” took place. EAM’s emphasis on a “stable and predictable” bilateral relationship presaged Lavrov’s publicly expressed confidence that “a way would be found to circumvent the artificial obstacles created by the West’s illegal unilateral sanctions”. This also concerns the field of military and technical cooperation. We have no doubt that the solution will be found and that the respective ministries will work”.

Jaishankar deftly navigated the Indian approach in a period of profound transformation of the international system and world order by viewing the paradigm solely through the prism of the country’s interests, as Modi would have expected. The national consensus will welcome it.

Basically, what you have to understand is that the confrontation that has been smoldering Ukraine for a decade actually concerns the contours of the world order. The specter haunting the West is that its five-century-old global dominance has been seriously challenged as multiple centers of power (such as China, India) have emerged in various regions. It’s a last desperate roll of the dice, so to speak, to roll back the forces of history. The real agenda of the West is the reimposition of a unipolar world order to perpetuate its dominance over the international economic and political order.

While in Delhi last week, US Deputy National Security Adviser Daleep Singh blurted out the truth when he explained the rationale behind giving a ‘financial shock’ to the Russian central bank: “What we are doing is pushing Russia back for decades”. I think they go back to the USSR, in terms of technological sophistication, which reduces Mr. Putin’s ability to exert influence and wield power on the world stage. Russia has become a thorn in the flesh because of its independent foreign policies that hinder or block the West’s global policies aimed at transferring wealth from resource-rich countries or bullying weaker countries into submit. On the other hand, militarily as well, Russia has achieved a superiority in hypersonic missiles which could give it a monopoly on nuclear-capable weapons for the foreseeable future. And on top of all that, Russia’s alliance with China and India has the potential to be a game-changer for the economic order.

Washington’s confidence that the sanctions would deal a mortal blow to the Russian economy is already shaken. Reuters reported on Friday that the ruble had risen to its highest level since the start of the conflict in Ukraine on February 24, thanks to “a real improvement” in the country’s finances and also due to capital controls. Russian stock indices hit their highest since February 22. And, of course, Russia has not defaulted on its debt repayment. Meanwhile, if Russia creates new facts on the ground east of the Dnieper River, we envision a whole new world. Ultimately, American leadership will no longer be taken seriously, especially in Europe. The frenzy of rage in Washington is evident.

At the same time, the excessive use of sanctions by the United States as a weapon to punish countries is also triggering a blowback. Raghuram Rajan wrote last week: “It is not impossible to imagine a country being subjected to economic warfare because of its government’s stance on abortion or climate change, for example. A widespread fear of indiscriminate punishment would lead to more defensive behavior. Following the measures taken against the Russian central bank, China, India and many other countries will fear that their own currency holdings (debt of advanced economies) will prove unusable if a few countries decide to freeze their assets. More countries could also start exploring collective alternatives to the SWIFT financial messaging network.

Gita Gopinath, first deputy managing director of the IMF, said the unprecedented financial sanctions imposed on Russia threatened to gradually dilute the dominance of the US dollar and encourage the emergence of small currency blocs based on trade between groups of countries. . In fact, the share of international reserves has increased from 70% to 60% over the past two decades with the emergence of other trading currencies.

The erosion of the status of the dollar as a “world currency” would have profound geopolitical consequences. The sum of all unpaid debts owed by the US federal government as of February 1 exceeded $30 trillion for the first time. Public debt to GDP is expected to reach 138.10% of GDP by the end of 2022. Now what if the United States cannot pay off its debt? The highly arbitrary and illegal seizure of Russian central bank reserves shows that anything is possible. The United States really ripped the playbook.