Shadow Warrior by Rajeev Srinivasan

* Sectors negatively affected. Pharma with $12.72 billion will be affected, textiles $4.3 billion, agri products $2.58 billion, jewelry $11.88 billion, autocomponents $2 billon may face 26%+auto specific 25%, chemicals $5.7 billion. Steel $475 million, with 26%+steel specific 25%, footwear $456 million

* Sectors positively affected (supply chain attraction): electronics and telecom $14.39 billion will benefit for 54% on china, engineering goods like turbines $7.1 billion because of china and vietnam, petroleum and minerals $3.33 billion, already negative tariffs

* Pharma has a specific carve out, and both apparel and footwear companies are struggling.

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Tulsi Gabbard’s visit comes at a time when things are quite fluid not only in the Indo-Pacific but also in the North Atlantic. The Five Eyes are beginning to fray a bit, too. What does all this mean for the future of Indo-US relations?

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A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-britains-outsized-malign-role-in-global-chaos-13872084.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

Being a keen observer of the United Kingdom, I have lately noticed a few apparently unconnected events with dismay. If I were to connect the dots, it begins to appear that Britain has had an outsize influence on international affairs. Maybe the James Bond meme isn’t the total fantasy I had assumed it was: a juvenile wet dream about nubile maidens and irresistible heroes bumping off sundry villains.

The reality appears to be quite impressive. This tiny, rainy island off Northwest Asia has been running quite a number of worldwide schemes. Its administrative center, Whitehall, manages a global web of intrigue and narrative-building, and has created a number of ‘imperial fortresses’, thus punching above its weight-class

One of their principal assets in gaslighting others is the BBC (not to mention their plummy accents that, for example, make Americans just melt). The BBC has a sterling reputation which does not seem well-deserved. There have been many instances of motivated bias (eg. in their Brexit or India coverage), lack of integrity (eg. sexual transgressions by senior staff) and so on. In reality, it is about as unabashed at pushing its agenda as Al Jazeera is about its own.

Admittedly, Britain has made one major blunder along the way, though: Brexit, which left them in trisanku mode, sort of adrift mid-Atlantic. They were distancing themselves from the European Union, counting on their so-called ‘special relationship’ with the US to sustain them, away from what they perceived, correctly, as a declining and disunited Europe. They also thought they could dominate their former colonies again (see the frantic pursuit of a Free Trade Agreement with India?) without onerous EU rules. Sadly, none of this quite worked out.

The reason is a fundamental problem: there is not much of a market for British goods any more. Indians once coveted British products as status symbols, but today, with the possible exceptions of Rolls Royce cars and single-malt whiskey, there’s very little anybody wants from them. They still do good R&D, make aircraft engines (India could use that technology), and their apparently for-hire journalism is well-known, but that’s about it.

On the other hand, they have managed to stay entrenched in the international financial system, starting with colonial loot, especially the $45 trillion they are believed to have taken from India. It is rumored that they used stolen Indian gold to buy distressed assets in the US after the Civil War. It is possible they had the same game plan for Ukraine: acquire rich agricultural land and mineral deposits at distressed prices. Some point to the port of Odessa as another target

Ukraine: bad faith actor?

It is remarkable how Boris Johnson, then PM of UK, is alleged to have single-handedly ruined the chance of a ceasefire in April 2022 during his visit to Kiev in the early days of the Ukraine war, when there was a chance of a negotiated cessation of hostilities with all parties adhering to the Minsk 1 and 2 agreements.

In January, just before President Trump took office, UK PM Starmer signed a minerals agreement with Ukraine as part of a “100-Year Partnership” that appears to pre-emptively undercut Trump’s proposed $500-billion US deal. That lends credence to allegations about the UK’s coveting minerals, as well as its not being interested in ending the tragic war.

Gold: is it all there?

The UK does have a thing for tangible assets, including gold. A lot of the world’s gold (5000 metric tons) is supposedly held in secure custody in London. But there are fears that this may not physically be there in the vaults of the Bank of England any more. They may have indulged in ‘gold leasing’, where the actual gold ends up being replaced by paper promises after it is lent out to bullion banks, from where it may be moved around and be inaccessible

Extraordinary delays in gold deliveries in 2025 (on withdrawals to New York triggered by tariff fears) increase this concern. There is a lack of transparency in transactions in the metal in the UK. Spooked, many countries are taking their gold back. India repatriated 200+ tons of its own gold from London in 2024. Venezuela is fighting a court battle to get its gold back.

Then there are concerns raised by the arguably unfair freezing of Russian assets held abroad as part of Ukraine-war sanctions: Starmer recently promised to give Ukraine $2 billion, basically the interest generated by those assets. This doesn’t sound quite right, and has dented the image of London as a reliable financial hub. Brexit was a blow; the rise of Dubai, Singapore, Shanghai and Zurich all threaten the City of London, but it is second only to New York, still.

Imperial Fortresses galore

Another win for the British was the selection of Mark Carney, a former Bank of England governor, as the Prime Minister of Canada. The Anglosphere continues to be dominated by the UK, although the Commonwealth is a club that serves no particular purpose any more, except as a curious relic of the British empire.

This highlights the concept of ‘imperial fortresses’: far-flung outposts that have helped sustain British military power and diplomatic clout despite the loss of empire. Traditionally, these were naval bases/garrisons such as those in Malta, Gibraltar, Bermuda, etc. that allowed Britain to keep an eye on the ‘restless natives’. However, I contend that the entire Anglosphere has been treated as imperial fortresses by them.

Canada, Australia and New Zealand still continue to have the British King as their Head of State, which is astonishing for supposedly sovereign nations. But it’s far more interesting that, in effect, the US has been treated as another vassal by the Brits, pillow-talked into doing things that are generally only in the interests of Britain. All that pomp and circumstance has beguiled poor Americans. Whitehall, I assert, have been Svengalis to Foggy Bottom.

Master Blaster blowback?

The other metaphor is from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), where "Master Blaster" is a literal duo: Master, a cunning dwarf, and Blaster, his brawny, enforcer bodyguard. The Americans unwittingly have provided the muscle to the calculating dwarf’s machinations, which generally end up mostly benefiting the latter

But there is yet another imperial fortress that we should consider: Pakistan. It was created expressly to be a geographically well-placed client state for the Brits to continue their 19th century Great Game from afar to checkmate Russia, and incidentally to contain India. From that point of view, Pakistan has been a successful imperial outpost, notwithstanding the fact that it, despite decades of US largesse, is a failing state (see the Baloch train hijack recently).

This is part of the reason why Americans have a hard time explaining why they get involved in Pakistan and Afghanistan again and again to their ultimate regret, with painful exits. They have been induced to do this by the clever Brits, who, quite evidently, sided with Muslims against Hindus in the sub-continent, for instance in the British-led merger of Gilgit-Baltistan into Pakistan, contrary to the Instrument of Accession.

There is considerable irony in all this, because one could argue that Pakistani-origin Brits have now done a ‘reverse master-blaster’ to the Brits. That sounds eerily like the ‘reverse-Kissinger’ that Trump is supposed to be doing. Or maybe it is a ‘recursive master-blaster’, although the mind boggles at that.

Consider the facts: UK rape-gangs are almost entirely of Pakistani origin; several current mayors (including Sadiq Khan in London) and past mayors are of that ethnicity, indicating a powerful vote-bank; they have at least 15 MPs and a large number of councillors.

There’s Pakistani-origin Sir Mufti Hamid Patel, the chair of the Office of Standards in Education; Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary; Humza Yusuf, the former First Minister of Scotland. This imperial fortress is fighting back, indeed, and winning. The UK may not have quite anticipated this outcome.

The American vassal-state is also beginning to rebel. Trump was personally incensed by the fact that Starmer sent 50 Labor operatives to work against him in the 2024 US elections: their interactions have been a little frosty.

Khalil, an embedded asset?

Then there is the case of a current cause celebre in the US, Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent. He has been accused of leading violent anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, and detained on that count. Interestingly, he had a security clearance from the UK, and was part of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, living in Beirut and leading a scholarship program for Syrians. Yes, Syria.

And then Khalil suddenly showed up with a green card (not a student visa), got married to a US citizen named Noor Abdalla, finished his program at Columbia, and so on. To me, all this sounds like it was facilitated, and that he has certain powerful foreign friends. No prizes for guessing who they were.

Iraq, Libya and Syria: Humanitarian crises

Speaking of Syria, Whitehall spent at least 350 million pounds sterling between 2011 and 2024 in regime-change activities targeting the Assad government, according to Declassified UK.

The UK’s meddling in the Middle East, going back to the Sykes-Picot carving up of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, and mandates in Palestine and Iraq, and even earlier to the antics of T E Lawrence, was clearly intended to advance and sustain British interests in, and influence on, the region. Which is not unreasonable.

The sad fact, though, is that it appears the British have actively fomented, or been deeply involved in, a lot of the military misadventures that have turned the region into a mess of human misery. To take relatively recent history, the invasions of Iraq, Libya, and now of Syria were arguably dreamt up or at least actively supported by Britain.

The invasion of Iraq was certainly endorsed by Tony Blair’s infamous September 2002 dossier about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which turned out to be imaginary, but then, lo! Saddam Hussein was overthrown and killed.

The invasion of Libya saw Britain take on an even more active role. David Cameron and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy in effect prodded a somewhat reluctant Barack Obama to invade, even co-drafting the UN Security Council Resolution 1973 in 2011 that was the formal permission for the war. The net result was the killing of Muammar Gaddafi.

In the case of Syria, Britain began covert operations in 2012, with MI6 allegedly organizing arms shipments, training and coordination of groups opposed to the Assad regime. The sudden fall of Assad in December 2024, driven by groups like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that Britain indirectly supported, underscores the successful outcomes of this policy.

In all three cases, a secular dictatorship was overthrown and religious extremists took over. Earlier, civilians had reasonably prosperous lives; women were generally educated and present in the workforce. After the regime changes, all three are bombed-out hellholes, with no rights for women or religious minorities. In particular, the latter have been consistently subjected to massacres, as in the recent large-scale executions of Alawites in Syria.

Even though Americans were the principal players in all these cases, the impression is that British Whitehall’s gaslighting of their US counterparts in Foggy Bottom could well have tipped the scales and turned skirmishes into outright war and disaster.

Thus it is clear that Britain is still a formidable player in the world of international relations, despite the loss of empire and relative decline. It is unfortunate, however, that the net result of its actions is to add to entropy and chaos and the loss of human lives and rights. Perfidious Albion it still is.

1950 words, Mar 16, 2025

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A version of this essay was published by the Deccan Herald at https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/the-end-of-the-european-century-3438618

The frenetic activity recently around the Ukraine war has brought into sharp focus several things. One is the irrelevance of the United Nations. Two, the fact that Europe has in effect reverted to being a backwater in the scheme of things. Three, the US may have finally escaped from being a British “Imperial Fortress”. Four, it would be generally a good idea for Europe to bury the hatchet with Russia, as they usually lose wars with Russia.

The United Nations, which is to say the “liberal rules-based international order” [sic] set up by the winners in World War II, may have reached the end of its useful life. The UN is going the way of its feckless predecessor, the League of Nations. There were resolutions and counter-resolutions at the UN and its Security Council, but none of it mattered. It signals the end of globalization, and the end of Europe’s brief dominance.

After Vladimir Zelensky made a spectacle of himself in Donald Trump’s Oval Office (which may have been instigated by Keir Starmer and others encouraging Zelensky to, as it were, stand up to Trump), there was the remarkable, hastily organized summit in London to drum up support for Ukraine. Alas, it showed instead the relative impotence of western Europe: despite their brave words, they cannot defend Ukraine without US support.

The participants were: Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Turkey, etc and Euro-grandees such as Ursula von der Leyen. It is unclear whether this motley crew can raise more than a few infantry brigades/squadrons of aircraft, and some munitions. Enough perhaps for a peace-keeping force after a standstill/ceasefire, but not for a defensive force if war were to continue.

A major problem with Europe is that they are living off of old glory. There was no reason to include both Britain and France in the UN Security Council with veto power after WWII, except for misguided American generosity. But there is a much bigger problem: after a brief ‘European Century’ (or to be precise, three or four centuries) of global importance, they are reverting to their natural, diminished state.

The economic center of gravity of the world, according to McKinsey and The Economist, has moved decisively to Asia from where it was in the post-war era (somewhere in the Arctic Sea near Iceland around 1950 and 1960). The Industrial Revolution enabled European conquest, and this caused a break in the pattern of Asian prominence.

The magisterial “Economic History of the World” by Angus Maddison for the EU showed how India was the biggest economic power in the world from 1 CE (where they started their study) up until the 1500s or 1600s. India and China dominated the world economy until European colonialism hollowed out both, especially India. Now the pendulum is swinging back. And with economic power comes military power, as well as influence.

My contention is that Europe isn’t really a separate ‘continent’, but only an appendage to Asia, and it should be called “Northwest Asia” henceforth.

A major reason for British power, apart from their guns, steel and ruthlessness, was their cunning use of far-flung ‘imperial fortresses’ such as in Malta, Gibraltar, Bermuda, Halifax, St Helena, Mauritius, Singapore, etc from which they could project power around the world. Interestingly, they were able to gaslight the United States into being another such fortress despite formal independence. Whitehall has led Foggy Bottom by the nose. In effect, NATO has been the instrument for this

The US now seems to have woken up, and is pushing back. Starmer was told by Trump that the best outcome is for the war to end and the misery to stop for Ukraine, despite loss of territory. In any case, territory in Europe has been very fluid, and they have been fighting interminable wars there such as the 30 Years’ War, 100 Years’ War, etc. Notably, the Crimean peninsula was ‘donated’ to Ukraine by Khruschev, himself a Russian-speaking Ukrainian.

There are age-old blood feuds in Europe. I realised this in the Soviet days when I had a study partner in grad school, a Ukrainian-American woman. By mistake I referred to her as a ‘Russian’ and she was most offended. I think this is because western Europe has been fighting with Russia forever, based partly on race (Russians are seen as ‘tainted’ by Asian blood) and religion (Russian Orthodox Church vs Catholics and other Protestants).

Unfortunately for them, western Europeans have continually lost their wars to Russia: most notably, Napoleon and Hitler were decimated. It would be best for all concerned if the EU/NATO and Russia were to make peace; otherwise they will both end up dominated and turned into vassals by China.

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792 words, 4 Mar 2025

A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-what-zelenskys-debacle-says-about-us-newfound-clarity-13867967.html

The tongue-lashing received by Vladimir Zelensky in the Oval Office, in full view of the media, was a point of inflection. It highlighted something that we had suspected: the end of the ‘European Century’ (or two or three), wherein they had risen to be the Masters of the Universe. Trump is emphasizing that the Atlantic was a 19th century story; with the rise of the US, the Pacific was the story of the 20th century; and the 21st finds the Indian Ocean rising.

Zelensky’s debacle was not the only pointer: Keir Starmer of the UK, despite some polite talk about the mythical ‘special relationship’, was told sharply by Vance that there is no more free speech in the UK, and that it affects American technology companies and citizens. Let us remember also how Elon Musk lambasted the UK for its Pakistani rape gangs, and the limp-wristed reaction of its authorities. Trump also told Starmer “That’s enough!”

JD Vance, again, spoke some home truths to the Europeans at the Munich Security Conference, telling them their problems are home-grown: excessive migration, lack of democratic values, and censorship.

All this is shocking to the supercilious elites of Europe, who are now seeing their cozy world collapse in front of their eyes: no more free-loading, no more Uncle Sam to the rescue. Suddenly, NATO is meaningless, and decades of Greta Thunberg and V-dem style lecturing, virtue-mongering and pontification are coming back to bite them on the backside.

They must be recalling William Blake’s apocalyptic vision in The Second Coming. Their world is indeed falling apart.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

It’s hard to blame the Europeans. They have forgotten how it was only yesterday, as it were, that they were being hounded by the Barbary pirates, enslaved and turned into janissaries by the Turks. I read how the author of Don Quixote had been himself captured, enslaved for five years, and ransomed in 1580 for 300 gold coins, worth some $40,000 today.

The European Century has made Europeans, and us, Fourth Worlders or those formerly colonized by them (as V S Naipaul put it), forget that Europe is just a backwater, a mere peninsula, an appendage, to Asia. It is now reverting to just “Northwest Asia”. For most of recorded history, Europe was an uncivilized land of savages; it was only the lucky accident of the Industrial Revolution that gave it the wherewithal to dominate the world.

But that is in the past: the economic center of gravity of the world has indeed moved from the Atlantic to Asia.

Source: The Economist.com

The illusion that America is obligated to support Europe, and also to fight Russia to the bitter end as part of the Cold War, was nurtured by Atlanticist Eastern Europeans exercised by an age-old blood feud: that between the Russian Orthodox Church on the one hand, and Catholics and other Protestant churches on the other hand.

Those certainties are now falling by the wayside, as Trump pivots to the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as well as back to isolationist Fortress America. As Zelensky did mention in his tirade, America has the good fortune to have two oceans around it, a serious moat.

The US has been gaslighted for a long time by nose-in-the-air Europeans, most especially the mischief-makers at the UK’s Whitehall (who are the real Deep State). But that’s wearing off, and the blinkers are falling from their eyes. Sadly for Zelensky, he will be the first one affected by this new-found clarity.

Zelensky also made several rookie mistakes. First, you don’t go to your benefactor’s lair (ie. the US Oval Office) dressed in a sweatshirt. Second, you don’t talk over Trump. Third, you don’t get into a shouting match in English with native speakers when English is your second language: you might miss the nuances of “you don’t hold any cards”, for instance. Fourth, and most importantly, you don’t trust Starmer, Macron, etc. and take up cudgels with Trump.

The near-simultaneous “toolkit” tweets from a lot of EU grandees suggests they gaslighted Zelensky into his suicidal bit of bravado against Trump in the Oval Office. They used the exact same words! And Trump doesn’t take slights lightly.

The implications are dire. The Ukraine War is as good as over, because the Europeans alone cannot (or will not) supply Zelensky with enough weaponry to hold off Russia indefinitely. The most likely outcome is a ceasefire followed by a standstill agreement: what Ukrainian territory Russia currently holds it will continue to hold; Ukraine will be de jure partitioned. The rest is negotiable.

If the Europeans had any sense, they would patch up with Russia. NATO as we know it will come to an end, and EU+Russia is a pretty powerful force, and neither will have to kowtow to China. With the US out of the picture, divided EU and Russia will both fall into the dhritarashtra alinganam of sweet-talking China. To their ultimate detriment, of course.

It is good to contrast Trump’s treatment of all these Europeans with his much gentler treatment of the Japanese PM Shigeru Ishiba, and the Indian PM Narendra Modi, both Quad partners. He was polite and businesslike with them. Also, when a reporter asked about AUKUS, the brain-dead partnership with the UK that Biden dragged another Quad partner, Australia, into, his response was: “What’s that?”

There were early glimpses of a Trump foreign policy taking shape, as I mentioned in two prior columns: Chronicles of a Foreign Policy Foretold and Trump’s America and Modi’s India. Now things are clearer: there’s a new Sheriff in town, and things are going to be different. But, William Blake notwithstanding, it’s not the end of the world. We will all carry on.

1000 words, 1 Mar 2025

Exactly a month into his new term, President Donald Trump’s latest major pick, Kash Patel, has been appointed as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation after a grueling confirmation in the US Senate. Tulsi Gabbard had earlier been confirmed as the Director of National Intelligence. Both these are positive from India’s point of view: they signal that the sinister Deep State may well be reined in, after decades of anti-India activism on its part.

Over the last week or two, there have been revelations after revelations of bad faith on the part of the disgraced US establishment, most notably in the shadowy USAID agency, which, it appears, was the absolute “Heart of Darkness” of the Deep State, neck-deep in covert operations, election interference, and general mayhem all over the world, and certainly in India.

Trump himself emphasized that $21 million in covert funds had gone towards affecting election outcomes in India. Presumably the reduced majority Modi got in 2024 could be traced back to this.

Fortress America

The general contours of Trump’s foreign policy are beginning to emerge. I predicted a month ago, before Trump had taken over, in ‘Greenland, Canada, Panama: Chronicles of a Foreign Policy Foretold’, that Western Europe, and the United Kingdom in particular, would find themselves treated as irrelevant to the new order to come. That has happened.

In fact, things have gone beyond what I anticipated. In a nutshell, Trump is downgrading the Atlantic, and his focus will be on the Americas, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific. Which, from a historical perspective, makes sense: the world’s economic center of gravity is moving towards Asia; trade flows in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans are increasingly more important than in the Atlantic; and a few centuries of European domination are pretty much over.

Sorry Europe, Atlanticism is at an end

To put it bluntly, the vanity that Europe is a ‘continent’ is now being exposed as hollow: to be precise, it is merely an appendage, an outpost, to vast Asia. Europe is at best a subcontinent, like India is; it should probably be renamed as ‘Northwest Asia’. The saga of ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ post the Industrial Revolution is winding down rapidly. There is some schadenfreude in that the UK becomes even more irrelevant: just a small, rainy island off NW Asia.

The Putin-Trump dialog suggests that Ukraine, and even NATO, are now superfluous. Atlanticism has been a constant in US foreign policy, mostly pushed by two forces:

* Eastern European-origin State Department officials who have inherited a blood-feud with Russia from their ancestors, eg. Brzezinski, Albright, Nuland, Blinken, Vindman

* an ancient intra-Christian schism between the Eastern Orthodox Church and (for a change) an alliance of Roman Catholics and Western Protestants like Lutherans, Anglicans and Calvinists.

It is time that the Americans realized they’ve been turned into cats’-paws by these forces, and turned their backs on these ancient animosities, which have almost no relevance today. In fact one could argue that a NATO-Russian alliance is the right solution in the medium term, because otherwise both could become puppets of China. Bringing the Ukraine war to an end is a start.

The general tone of the Trump White House implies a Fortress America. In practice, this seems to mean that instead of being Globocop, the US focuses on a) the Americas, North and South, b) the Pacific Ocean, d) the Indian Ocean, in that order.

A new Monroe Doctrine in the Americas

The attention being paid to Canada and Mexico over and above the tariffs issues suggests that there is a plan to create a stronger and more unified North American entity; the noises about “Canada the 51st state” and “Gulf of America” suggest that maybe a new NAFTA-style agreement could be inked, especially now that the warming Arctic Ocean makes the thawing tundra of Canada more appealing.

It is true that there is no immediate thrust for a Monroe Doctrine-style exclusive US ‘sphere of influence’ in South America, but I suspect it is coming. Already, there have been positive vibes between Trump and Argentina’s Milei, and Salvador’s Bukele: the former for his DOGE-style chainsaw-wielding that’s showing results, and the latter for his strong law enforcement.

The Island Chains and other red lines in the Pacific

In the Pacific, there has been pushback against China’s moves on the Panama Canal: there are two Hong-Kong-based entities (read proxies of the Chinese government) controlling ports around it: Balboa on the Pacific side, and Cristobal on the Atlantic side.

On the other hand, there is increasing global support (with the judicious use of Chinese carrots such as BRI) for the annexation of Taiwan by China, including, if necessary, by force. A Lowy Institute study (“Five One Chinas: The Contest to Define Taiwan”) suggests that some 119 UN member states accept the official Chinese position on ‘reunification’. Only 40 countries are not on board with China’s claim of sovereignty over Taiwan.

It is very likely that there will be a showdown between the US and China over Taiwan, within the next two years. It is said that Xi Jinping has given a timeframe of 2027 for all this. It will be interesting to see how many states that condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will condemn China’s future attack on Taiwan. Chances are that many will be strategically silent.

Japan, Australia, South Korea and other friends of the US will have a hard time keeping the peace in the Pacific. The “Three Island Chains” act as increasingly critical red lines to contain an aggressive China. In fact, the Asia Maritime Initiative is speaking of five island chains (“China’s Reach Has Grown, So Should the Island Chains”), including those in the Indian Ocean (remember the “String of Pearls” intended to tighten around India’s throat).

The three island chains: 1. Taiwan, Japan, Philippines; 2. Guam, Marianas; 3. Hawaii

(Source: China is making waves in the Pacific, Alexandra Tirziu, Jan 2024 https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/china-pacific-conflict/)

Meanwhile, in a show of aggression far from its shores, three Chinese warships indulged in “live firing” in international waters between Australia and New Zealand, and commercial aircraft were warned to keep away. This is a warning to Australia, which, thanks to AUKUS foolishness, cancelled French submarines and now await British submarines… in the 2040s.

The increasing relevance of the Indian Ocean and the Middle East

Much of the world’s trade, including 75% of global maritime trade and 50% of its daily oil shipments, go through the Indian Ocean.

The main issues will be the control of the Straits of Malacca and Hormuz, and the alternative routes being explored by China via the Isthmus of Kra in Thailand, possible use of Coco Islands and other Myanmarese ports including Sittwe and (a bit of a stretch for China) access to Chittagong. There are also troublesome pirates, including Houthis, that make for perilous journeys leading to the Suez Canal, the Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea.

Interestingly, the US is making moves in the Indian Ocean that will support both the IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor) and I2U2, the India-Israel-UAE-US economic partnership. IMEC is the old Spice Route, revivified.

There is also the proposed Ben-Gurion Canal through the Negev Desert in Israel that would benefit Saudi Arabia as well (its futuristic NEOM city is nearby), and this would be made feasible by Trump’s proposed transformation of Gaza. It would be an alternative to Suez.

Following up on the Abraham Accords, Trump 2.0 would like to bring the Gaza war to an end, and create an environment in the Middle East where Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE et al will form a counter and a buffer to the machinations of Iran and Turkey.

The Indo-US joint communique is a statement of intent

It is in this global context that we need to analyze the joint communique between the US and India after the Trump-Modi summit. Both nations will be attempting to advance their own strategic doctrines. The US would like India to become a non-treaty ally. India would like to keep its multi-alignment policy going, along with Atmanirbharatha. These may make any bilateral progress a little rough but some give and take will work.

There are a few specific areas of interest:

* Defense

* There is an effort by the US to wean India away from its dependency on Russia for weapons. The most evident carrot here is the F-35 advanced fighter jet, which has now been offered to India for the first time, along with other conventional weapons such as Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stryker infantry combat vehicles, as well as the P8i Poseidon anti-submarine patrol aircraft, and various drones

* The P8i is already in service in India, and it would help keep an eye on the southern Bay of Bengal with its proximity to China’s submarine pen on Hainan Island

* The F-35 raises some questions. In the Bangalore Air Show it was pitted against the Russian Su-57, which is a lot less expensive. Also, the F-35 needs extraordinary levels of maintenance for its ‘stealth’ coating. Finally, should India invest in building its own AMCA 5th-generation fighter jet rather than buying?

* Even though there will be co-production agreements, the US is a whimsical supplier (remember Tarapur), and there will be little transfer of technology, so military procurement and cooperation must be carefully thought through by India

* Trade and Investment

* The goal is to reach $500 billion in bilateral trade by 2030, which would involve a doubling from current levels ($200 billion in 2023). Besides, the Trump doctrine of reciprocal tariffs and zero trade imbalance may make some of this difficult

* Indian firms are planning to invest $7.35 billion in the US

* Energy

* India will now get access to US civil nuclear technology, but there’s a small twist: the clauses invoking civil liability for nuclear damage will be deleted. This is reminiscent of Pfizer’s covid-era contract with developing countries: Pfizer was assured of indemnity (with the local governments being liable) in case of injury or death caused by its vaccine. This sounds like a bad idea

* India will increase its purchases of US oil and natural gas. This is a win-win: it will increase US imports to India, thus reducing the trade deficit, and India will be assured of additional supplies

* Technology and Innovation

* A whole raft of actions have been proposed, including a tie-up between the US National Science Foundation and the Anusandhan National Research Foundation in India, a program called TRUST, another called INDUS innovation, and one in the area of space collaboration, titled NISAR

* Multilateral Cooperation

* The Quad, IMEC and I2U2 figured in communique, but also something called the Indian Ocean Strategic Venture. I note this nomenclature progress with approval: there used to be the Asia-Pacific, then it was the Indo-Pacific, and now the Indian Ocean is being singled out

* In the area of counter-terrorism, the communique explicitly named Pakistani entities such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba, among others. This is a welcome change from the shadow-boxing indulged in by the Biden administration and others, whereby Pakistani terrorists were treated as ‘assets’

* The extradition of Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani-Canadian now in a Los Angeles jail, to India for investigation into his role supporting David Headley, in the 26/11/2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, is a welcome sign, after the curious Biden exertions in the Pannun case

* People to people links

* Indian parents are spending $8 billion a year to support 300,000 Indian students in the US. This amounts to a sort of ‘foreign aid’, and also incidentally supplies a lot of especially STEM graduates to the US economy

* Facilitating visas, which have become frustratingly difficult for Indian business and leisure travelers to the US. Last year, the wait for just a visa interview was 452 days in Chennai (as compared to 15 days in Beijing), which probably was the result ot the Biden State Department ‘punishing’ India for refusing to toe their Ukraine sanctions line

* The legal movement of students and professionals between the two countries is to be eased.

Overall, this is a statement of intent: both Modi and Trump are laying their cards on the table, and they will both (as they should) bargain hard to benefit their own nations. But India is no longer being treated as a pariah as it was since the Pokhran blasts, the denial of cryogenic rocket engines (via, yes, the Biden Amendment), and so on.

As Trump moves towards the inevitable multipolar world, he does not wish to leave Asia to eager hegemon China; as he wishes to move the US out of military entanglements in far-off places (for which he expects Europe and others to bear the burden of their own defense), it is natural for him to want India to punch its weight in Asia.

A mutually beneficial relationship free of the supercilious lectures by previous Democratic administrations (eg Daleep Singh on Ukraine sanctions, and he was, ironically enough, the great-grand-nephew of Dalip Singh Saund) would be welcome from the Indian point of view. Having a counterweight to China, and a G3 instead of a G2, would likewise be useful from the US point of view. Thus, there are glimpses of a possible win-win situation.

2222 words, 22-02-2025

A version of this essay was published by the Deccan Herald at https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/the-state-of-the-stateless-in-new-america-3396948

There are dramatic developments regarding immigration under the new Trump Administration in the US, and the long-term consequences for Indian-Americans are unclear. The harsh experiences of demographic change in Europe may be influencing lawmakers’ plans.

On the one hand, there is what appears to have been deliberately done under the Biden Administration: the ‘carte blanche’ to millions of illegal aliens to walk into the US and melt away into the general population. This has included hard-core criminal gangs as well as ordinary people who simply want a better life. As in the film ‘El Norte’, it is a dream for many from impoverished developing countries to somehow get to the fabled riches of the US.

As in some parts of India, local politicians may have encouraged illegal migrants expecting loyalty from them. With notoriously lax local laws in the US (no need to prove citizenship to vote), they may have calculated that they could permanently lock in a vote bank for themselves.

It is said that some number (70,000 to 700,000, the reported number varies) of illegal Indians have used ‘coyotes’ to get them into the US via the southern or northern borders (some may have overstayed their visas). The simple answer is that they will be extradited (if caught): some have melted away into ethnic enclaves, living in fear of the ‘migra’, like East Asian and Latino illegals.

There are allegations that the first batch of 104 illegal Indian citizens was sent back in chains, handcuffed, on a military plane, with limited access to toilets. This is inhumane, if true, and cannot be countenanced

There are also practical difficulties: many illegals have destroyed their papers, and have no incentive to prove their actual citizenship. They are, in effect, stateless. I am reminded of poor San Francisco businessman Vaishno Das Bagai, rendered a man without a country after the US canceled his citizenship in 1928, who committed suicide.

What do you do with stateless people? The facile answer is to imprison them, and Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay and Guantanamo have both been suggested as incarceration centers. But then what? It would be inhuman to simply jail them forever if they are not violent criminals.

There is also the fact that some sectors depend on foreign labor, for example agriculture (that needs fruit and vegetable pickers) and industry (some factories depend on low-wage illegal migrants), as well as the IT industry.

Talented and well-educated immigrants are giving the US an advantage in innovation and entrepreneurship. On the other hand, if they are forced to return, say to India, that might be good for the Indian economy.

Then there is the question of birthright citizenship. The 1868-vintage 14th Amendment grants citizenship to every child born in the US. It was done for freed blacks after the Civil War: before manumittance, slaves had been treated as chattel. This provision has been misused by ‘birth tourism’, wherein pregnant women show up just to deliver in the US.

Trump’s executive order canceling birthright citizenship was opposed by 17 states; and a Federal judge has stayed the order. It will end up in the Supreme Court, and the conservative majority will probably be unwilling to override something that is spelt out in the US Constitution. It would be virtually impossible to bring a new Amendment to overturn the 14th, because the legislature is finely balanced between Republicans and Democrats.

Thus, after a few months of wrangling, it is likely that birthright citizenship will stay on the books.

There is also a curious sideshow, with US citizen activist Kshama Samant of Seattle, and friends, invading the Indian consulate there demanding that she be given a visa to visit her ailing mother. No country is obligated to give anybody a visa or a reason for denying it.

Of course, there is a more immediate concern from the points of view of the million-strong Indian origin H1-B visa holders, mostly engineers, who are stuck with the 9,800 per-country annual limit of employment-based Green Cards. This means they are generally at the mercy of their employers. It is not clear that the US government will do anything to change this status quo.

Japan, China etc are facing a demographic crisis because of low fertility rates. So is most of Europe. The US has had the advantage of attracting immigrants. With the current confusion, the net result may well be that the US will cease to attract immigrants, which would in the long run be a net loss for the country especially if smart young people prefer to stay at home.

770 words, Feb 3, 2025 updated Feb 8

A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/greenland-canada-panama-how-trump-2-0-is-going-to-be-a-wild-ride-13852423.html

In a week when a staggeringly large wildfire laid Los Angeles low, for which the ‘progressive’ mayor and the governor could be partly to blame, it was also intriguing to see president-to-be Trump’s statements about purchasing Canada and Greenland, and laying claim to the Panama Canal.

There was also the withering attack on Britain – including direct accusations against their Prime Minister Keir Starmer – over the horrific gang-rapes of young girls there for decades. Presidential Buddy #1 Elon Musk used X (Twitter) to exhume this story of 250,000 girls (according to Musk) being turned into sex-slaves. It had been swept under the carpet.

My first reaction to these – how shall I put in politely – “imperial” assertions was that Trump is being himself, mercurial, and that he was merely making flippant comments with no intention of following through. But on thinking about it, there is a certain logic to it, as outrageous as it might appear.

On the one hand, there is precedent: the US did buy Alaska from Russia, and Louisiana from France. There is also precedent for invasions: it invaded Mexico and annexed, if I remember correctly, California, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and bits of several other states. Furthermore, the province of Panama itself was separated from Columbia by the US in 1903.

On the other hand, there are fairly good reasons for all this. I have been of the opinion that the recent H1-B narrative was astroturfed by the British Deep State (“Whitehall”); the Musk counter-narrative on rape affects both Whitehall and its Parliament (“Westminster”) as Starmer appeared unnerved in debate with his opposition; who knows if it might lead to his downfall.

Apart from any personal reasons Musk may have (he himself went through the H-1B system and may be sensitive about it), it is yet another indication that the alleged ‘Special Relationship’ between the US and the UK may now be mostly a pious myth. Trump, rightly, focused on the Quad, and it was Biden, an Atlanticist, who cooked up the AUKUS submarine alliance, which seems to have achieved very little so far, although The Economist magazine talks it up.

Britain, to nobody’s surprise after Brexit, is spiralling down into irrelevance.

Besides, the UK Labour Party allegedly indulged in election interference, with 100+ ‘volunteers’ sent to swing states during the US Presidential election campaign to support Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate. This, one could argue, is casus belli.

Trump has also in the past made noises about Europeans not bearing their fair share of the cost of the NATO military alliance: he prodded them to increase their spending to 2% of respective GDP, and now may want more. He does not seem to think it’s America’s duty to spend blood and treasure protecting wealthy Europeans from the alleged Russian threat.

But the Canada/Greenland offer is not so much about Europe as it is about China. It is about the fabled Northwest Passage, the alternative polar route for trade, which becomes viable as a result of global warming. This can become a new seaborne trade route between the Atlantic and the Pacific, much of which is now through the Panama Canal.

In an engaging conversation on pgurus.com, retired General and geo-strategist Rajiv Narayanan laid out the case for fending off the Chinese. He said they have been talking up the ‘Arctic Silk Route’, which alarmed the Russians, who immediately upgraded the military capability of some of their Arctic Ocean outposts.

China does have a problem. They are concerned about their dependence on the Straits of Malacca, which India (and possibly other Quad members) could blockade. They have been talking to the Thais about a canal through the Isthmus of Kra, and it is possible they may have grand plans of getting access to Chittagong (after surgically removing India’s control of the Northeast by invading through the Chicken’s Neck).

The Chinese are also active in the Panama Canal. A Hong Kong firm now runs two major ports, Balboa and Cristobal, at either end of the canal. Chinese firms also run the Panama-Colon container port under the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative). They also have a railway project that is a direct competitor to the Panama Canal, the 3000 kilometer Bi-Oceanic Corridor, from Brazil’s port of Santos to Peru’s port of Ilo, connecting the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Thus, it is not purely idle talk on the part of Trump to pinpoint Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal. There is method to this apparent madness. There are also immense mineral resources in both Canada and Greenland, which will become accessible as the tundra thaws.

Canadians may well accept such an offer from the US, considering the mess their politicians, especially Trudeau, have made. The Canadian dollar is now at 0.69 US dollars, down from a peak of 1.06 US dollars in 2011. In addition, the Trump threat of 25% tariffs on Canada, if put in place, could squeeze that nation’s exports.

As for Greenland, its sparse population of only about 57,000 people may not feel particularly Danish, since they were actually colonized by the Danes around 1721. They may well be willing to join the US. Incidentally, we are all used to thinking Greenland is a gigantic landmass, but that is an illusion from the Mercator Projection. In reality, it is about 2/3rds the size of India, and about the same as Saudi Arabia.

Be that as it may, what is most relevant to India in these musings by Trump is whether it gives any clues as to how he may affect India’s interests. If he is intensely focused on China, then that is good for India. If he wants to cut Europe down to size, and to exit the disastrous Ukraine war, India would benefit. If he can end the Gaza war, great.

Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, visited India recently. It is likely that the intent was to bully India into unilateral concessions before Trump takes over. I saw a new AI roadmap on Twitter that shows a) allies with whom the US will share technology (basically the Anglosphere + Japan + some of Western Europe), b) friends with which it will be arms-length (most of the world, including India), and then c) foes that will be sanctioned (eg. China).

Then there is the Damocles Sword of tariffs hanging over India (Trump claims India has the highest tariffs in the world and he threatens to retaliate in kind), and these will hurt.

At the moment, trying to divine Trump’s foreign policy is a tall order. We have to read the tea leaves or chicken entrails, or extrapolate from whatever crumbs of information we get. This is going to be a wild ride.

The AI-generated podcast on this essay courtesy NotebookLM from Google:

1100 words, 11 Jan 2025

A version of this essay was published by deccanherald.com at https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/h-1b-rape-gangs-and-fact-checks-when-narratives-boomerang-3351471

For students of media, the last week of December and the first week of January have been a treat: a rare occasion to watch narrative wars in real time.

The first manufactured narrative was the all-out attack on H1-B Indians. An impartial Martian, on observing this, would have concluded that if only the million Indians (mostly engineers) were sent back pronto to India, all of a sudden world peace would break out, or whatever heralds the Millennium for those who believe in all that.

Au contraire, it was a mountain being made out of a molehill, an astroturfed story that didn’t have legs. It is true that there is resentment in the US about illegal aliens, as the 10 million or so that Biden allowed in are going to be a burden on the country both socially and economically. Illegal immigrants are committing horrific crimes, for example setting a woman on fire in the New York subway.

The subway story got visibility for a day or two (according to Google Trends), but then all of a sudden the narrative switched to H1-B Indians taking jobs away from natives. With a heady cocktail of xenophobia, racism and religious bigotry, the story turned into a tirade against Hindus in particular, and how primitive India is, according to extreme right-wing MAGA Trumpies.

‘Manufacturing consent’ usually has somebody instigating it, and normally it is the US left wing: remember the ‘critical caste theory’ circus and accusations of casteism against two engineering managers at Cisco in California, that fell apart in court? Tablet magazine had a long read titled Rapid Onset Political Enlightenment on the ‘permission structure’ created by Democrats like Obama to manipulate public opinion: a proverbial Deep State operation

But this time the US right wing was also in the fray. So you have to look further for possible puppeteers. The usual suspects would be China and Pakistan, as those most keen to put India down. But it may be Britain, based on anecdotal evidence: the Economist magazine’s choice of Bangladesh as the “country of the year” while Hindus are being genocided there; and the Financial Times’ decidedly sour take on D Gukesh’s staggering chess world championship win.

Brits continue to be severely prejudiced against India; they left a divided subcontinent with lots of fault lines; and they cannot come to terms with their fall and India’s simultaneous rise. Whitehall also has disproportionate influence on the Anglosphere.

But the H1-B controversy boomeranged on them, as it embroiled Elon Musk, who had been on such a visa, as he stoutly defended the idea that the US needed to attract talented immigrants.

It is a bad idea to fight Elon Musk, because he has Trump’s ear, and more importantly, he has the megaphone of X (earlier Twitter). He demonstrated that by bringing up what the entire British establishment had swept under the carpet: the long-running industrial-scale ‘grooming’ and rape of young white girls by Pakistani gangs. The cases in towns like Rotherham and Rochdale and many others got some publicity earlier, but that has long receded in the public memory.

But Musk turned the tables by highlighting the appalling allegation that as many as 250,000 underage (some as young as 11), mostly working-class white girls, often residents of foster homes (where they were because of problems with their families), were systematically targeted mostly by Pakistani-origin Britons. The girls were gaslighted, raped, gang-raped, tortured, forced into prostitution, trafficked, mutilated, and, in some cases, killed. It is horrendous sexual exploitation.

Even more appallingly it appears that UK authorities (including police and politicians) and the media deliberately suppressed all this in the interests of “preserving communal harmony”, a euphemism for political correctness and fear of violence. And instead of calling the perpetrators “Pakistani Muslims”, the term used was “Asian”, which is misleading. It wasn’t Chinese, Japanese, or Indians doing it, it was almost 100% Pakistani Muslims.

It is even alleged that Keir Starmer of the Labor Party, the UK Prime Minister, may be implicated because he was Director of Public Prosecution (2008-2013). This is a major crisis. The Anglosphere was falling apart already with Trump’s obvious contempt for Trudeau, which may have been partly why the latter quit

On top of this, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg announced that he was dispensing with ‘fact-checkers’ and going with community notes, a la X. This is an implicit admission that much of the narrative on Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram etc. has been fake.

2025 is off to a good start. Manufactured narratives are in headlong retreat.

Here’s the AI-generated podcast about this essay, by NotebookLM by Google:

770 words, 8 Jan 2025