In just five years after oil production began, Guyana has become the world’s largest per-capita oil producer and South America’s second-largest supplier of crude. Daily output now stands at ~926,000 barrels, with recoverable reserves exceeding 11 billion barrels in the Stabroek Block alone. Guyana has recorded a GDP growth of 43.6 per cent in 2024, one of the fastest rates globally. The former British colony has very rapidly transitioned from being a peripheral Caribbean economy to a strategically significant energy producer. This has attracted growing attention from both the United States and China, both seeking to secure economic, political and strategic influence in the world’s newest petro state. The manner in which Georgetown navigates and hedges against great-power competition over its resources shall determine whether its oil wealth translates into prosperity or succumbs to the familiar resource curse.
The Energy Architecture
Guyana’s transition has been remarkably rapid, with commercial oil production commencing in December 2019, within five years after ExxonMobil’s discovery in 2015. The Stabroek consortium, comprising ExxonMobil (45 per cent), Chevron (30 per cent) and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) (25 per cent), has invested billions in developing Guyana’s offshore resources. CNOOC alone has committed approximately $17.7 billion across six projects, making Guyana the company’s largest overseas investment. ExxonMobil projects production to reach 1.7 million barrels per day by 2030, placing Guyana among the world’s major non-OPEC producers.
Guyana’s energy strategy also goes beyond crude extraction. The Guyanese government is pursuing downstream industrialisation through the $2 billion Gas-to-Energy project, which will transport offshore natural gas to a 300-megawatt power plant at Wales. Supported by a $526 million loan from the US Export-Import Bank, it aims to reduce electricity costs and support the development of a domestic manufacturing base. The participation of companies such as TotalEnergies, QatarEnergy and Petronas indicates efforts to broaden the investor base beyond the Stabroek consortium. At the same time, the continued political consensus around the original Stabroek production-sharing agreement between the Guyanese government and the Stabroek consortium has provided a degree of policy predictability through the 2030s.
Washington’s Role
The United States has moved quickly to leverage Guyana’s newfound energy boom into a broader strategic partnership. In March 2026, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright met President Irfaan Ali ahead of the inaugural Shield of the Americas Summit, describing Guyana as “a huge part of this strategy, a very well-governed country with great energy resources”. The summit established the Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition, including Georgetown among a select group of participating Caribbean states. While it has been officially framed as a counter-transnational crime initiative, the initiative reflects broader US efforts to strengthen its security presence in the Caribbean and refocus attention on the Western hemisphere.
US engagement has also deepened militarily, with the USS Normandy and USS Mahan conducting exercises with the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) in 2025, while US Army Security Force Assistance Brigades have trained GDF units in jungle warfare and engineering since 2022. Washington has also supported the development of coast guard facilities and communications infrastructure, aiming to strengthen Guyana’s security amid continuing tensions over the Essequibo dispute with neighbouring Venezuela. The growing American footprint in Guyana is visible in the consolidation of Washington’s economic and strategic presence across Guyana’s energy, infrastructure and security sectors. Guyana’s strategic value to Washington also lies in its geography, where a sustained American presence in Georgetown helps shape the trajectory of a post-Maduro Venezuela, particularly as the question of whether Caracas drifts back into Beijing’s or Moscow’s orbit remains unresolved through the medium term.
Beijing’s Parallel Track
China’s presence in Guyana differs in scope and character. CNOOC is a passive financial partner in the Stabroek block, earning returns from a basin operated primarily by US energy companies. However, CNOOC has leveraged this expertise, earning secure production-sharing contracts for two offshore blocks in Trinidad and Tobago, citing its experience in Guyana.
For Guyana’s rise, the unresolved Essequibo dispute continues to cast a long shadow, with Caracas having escalated its rhetoric under former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. With Maduro’s removal, the risk of military escalation over the Essequibo has diminished, and the transition government in Caracas is likely to prioritise political stabilisation and economic recovery. However, the medium to long-term challenge for Georgetown remains economic, as Venezuela, which is gradually integrating into global energy markets, will compete with Guyana for the same Gulf Coast refining demand. Guyana’s growth opportunity remains intact, provided that the Caribbean remains within the US security umbrella and the Venezuelan energy sector’s recovery remains gradual.
Guyana’s Balancing
Amid intensifying great power competition, Guyana has sought to pursue multi-alignment. President Irfaan Ali’s re-election in September 2025 has ensured continuity in economic and foreign policy at a critical moment in the country’s growth story. Alongside the expansion of hydrocarbon production, Georgetown has pursued a dual-track approach to balance its oil-led growth by advancing its Low Carbon Development Strategy 2030 using its extensive forest cover to generate revenue through carbon credit mechanisms, including a $750 million agreement with Hess Corporation. At the same time, Georgetown has maintained close security and economic cooperation with the United States, retaining Chinese participation in the energy and infrastructure sectors, and continuing its adherence to Beijing’s One China policy. These policies reflect Guyana’s attempt to advance its economic and strategic objectives pragmatically, while seemingly preserving strategic autonomy by leveraging external partnerships.
The Outlook
By 2030, Guyana’s oil production could reach 1.7 million barrels per day. As the country’s energy sector grows, competition between the United States and China is likely to intensify in areas such as infrastructure and digital connectivity. While souring relations between Guyana and Venezuela increases Georgetown’s security dependence on Washington, a stable regional environment would allow Guyana to pursue a balanced foreign policy and more diversified external partnerships. Ultimately, Guyana is better positioned than other petrostates to convert its hydrocarbon wealth into prosperity, with the Natural Resource Fund Act of 2019 and the Stabroek production-sharing structure indicating a stable economic and institutional architecture that was absent in Venezuela. Georgetown’s deliberate policy of balancing American security cooperation with Chinese infrastructure financing is indicative of a conscious strategy of multi-alignment, rather than succumbing to great power competition that has polarised other petrostates.
For Indians researching security issues in the Northeast, three recent developments in Myanmar have once again put the spotlight on the situation there. The first is a May 2026 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) that pieces together eyewitness accounts of the killing of at least 170 Rohingya men, women, and children, with many others likely injured, in Hoyyar Siri village in Buthidaung township in Northern Rakhine on 02 May 2024[i]. The second is an account of another influx of Chin refugees into Mizoram in May 2026, following the Tatmadaw’s capture of Falam town in Chin state (adjoining Mizoram and Manipur).[ii] The third is the recently concluded visit of Myanmar President (formerly General) U Min Aung Hlaing to India from May 30 to June 03, 2026. According to the initial press release of the Ministry of External Affairs, ‘…he will be accompanied by a high-level delegation comprising several Cabinet Ministers, senior officials and business leaders. This will be the first visit of President U Min Aung Hlaing to India in his current capacity.’ The three events encompass a spectrum of issues that impact India’s relations with Myanmar, broader regional security, and India’s Act East Policy.
Map: Courtesy – Nations online Project
Myanmar is the bridge connecting Northeast India to Southeast Asia. If geographically included in Southeast Asia, it would be the region’s largest country, with 135 officially recognised ethnicities and a population of over 52 million (2003 census)[iii]. Myanmar is more than four and a half times larger in area than its Western neighbour, Bangladesh, yet has roughly one third of its population. Myanmar is a vital component of India’s Act East policy
Outline Economic Situation
Myanmar’s parliamentary elections were held from Dec 25 to Jan 26, with the Junta-supported Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) winning an overwhelming majority, further consolidating the military’s hold over the state apparatus. As a result of the USDP being perceived as a proxy for the military regime, the continuing clampdowns on civil liberties at home and the visibly close ties with Russia, most sanctions imposed earlier by the West on the military government remain in place. The nexus between Myanmar’s military and Iran, which is rumoured to be supplying drone parts to the Tatmadaw, has also reinforced the West’s perception of the Junta[iv].
The pressure of sanctions was intensified by the impact of the war in Ukraine and compounded by energy shocks from the current West Asian crisis. According to the Lowy Institute, ‘Myanmar has probably been affected more than any other country in Southeast Asia — both in terms of the lack of access to fuel, and also the rising prices…Myanmar is the only country in Southeast Asia whose economy has not recovered to its 2019 pre-COVID levels[v]. With fuel prices having increased more than threefold and deepening scarcity in rural areas, the economy is in a downward spiral, accelerated by power outages, a shortage of essentials such as fertiliser (due to cutbacks by exporters like China), and an overall lack of investment. As per figures of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), ‘…GDP has declined by a cumulative 16 per cent since 2020, with growth falling 2.2 per cent in fiscal year 2025 alone. Inflation has been consistently high, reaching 29 per cent in 2024 and 25 per cent in 2025.[vi]Today, Myanmar has the highest inflation rate in the whole of Southeast Asia[vii].
Currency: One of the most significant issues for the economy is the agreement between the Central Bank of Myanmar and the People’s Bank of China to link the Kyat and Renminbi digitally[viii]. This would bypass the international SWIFT banking system and convert Kyats directly to Renminbi, reducing dependence on the dollar. This move effectively ties Myanmar’s economy to China’s, with attendant consequences, especially regarding sovereignty.
The Security Situation
The civil war between the Tatmadaw and ethnic armies continues unabated in a see-saw fashion. It is taking a toll on the military, which is in the process of updating its conscription lists. According to a May 2026 report, around 13 million citizens have been found fit for conscription, and about 120,000 individuals have been recruited since the Conscription Law was enacted in February 2024[ix].
Since its reverses after the launch of ‘Operation 1027’ on 27 October 2023 (an offensive by the Three Brotherhood Alliance (3BTA), composed of three Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) in Shan state bordering China, with tacit Chinese approval for rooting out the scam centres there, the Junta has managed to claw back territory. After 15 months, it is in full control of an important central artery, the Mandalay Myitkyina Road and the connected towns in the Sagaing region[x] (see map on first page). With the capture of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state, the Junta is inducting fresh troops and equipment into Kachin. Seeing this, the regional EAO, the Kachin Independent Army (KIA), is reported to have gone on the defensive[xi]. The Junta also continues to hold the important ports of Kyaukphyu (the mouth of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor) and Sittwe (the gateway of the India-built Kaladan Multimodal Port Project), both in Rakhine, though Sittwe is blockaded on land by the AA and is being supplied by air and sea.
Elsewhere, too, the Tatmadaw has gone on the offensive. It has launched an offensive on multiple fronts to retake the trading hub of Maw Taung, which borders Thailand in the Thantharyi region (see map below) and has been under the control of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) since November 2025.
Note: Location of Maw Taung is approximate and not to scale. Map: Courtesy – Nations online Project.
As mentioned earlier, Falam, where Chin state’s only airport is located, was captured by the Tatmadaw in April 2026. With the Tatmadaw aiming to reestablish control over the Myanmar-Mizoram border crossings, the Myanmar border town of Rikhawdar would be the next objective (see map). This could spark another influx of refugees into India’s Zokhawthar. Even today, after the May 2026 influx of Chins into Zokhawthar, residents claim thatrefugees now outnumber the local residents there[xii].
Overall, the Tatmadaw has enhanced its capabilities with assistance from its main benefactors, China and Russia, enabling it to conduct offensive operations across the country. In the short- to medium-term, any overthrow of the regime by EAOs aligned with the opposition National Unity Government (NUG) appears unlikely, despite the EAOs still controlling substantial portions of territory in various regions.
Interestingly, the NUG continues to retain Myanmar’s seat in the UN. It has recently cleared pending UN membership dues of around one million dollars using existing funds and public contributions[xiii], a symbol of the support they still generate.
Outside Influences
Myanmar is one state in the Bay of Bengal where Russia, China and the USA have specific, sometimes overlapping and frequently competing interests. Gen (now President) Hlaing has visited Russia seven times to date. Russia is a major supplier of weapons to Myanmar and is rumoured to have shared intelligence with the Tatmadaw, even as it continues cooperation in the energy sphere, including nuclear energy. In February 2026, it signed a five-year military cooperation agreement with Myanmar to protect its territorial integrity and strengthen national sovereignty and security, as per Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu during his visit to Naypyidaw[xiv], further consolidating ties with the Junta. Russia, therefore, has no interest in regime change.
China continues with its on-off strategy of support to the Tatmadaw and the rebels, stopping aid when its own interests, especially along the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), are threatened. China supported the EAOs in cleaning up the scam centres on the border when the Tatmadaw was unable to do so. Its role in subordinating Myanmar’s economy has already been mentioned. The release of Aung San Suu Kyi from prison to house arrest days after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit in the last week of April is being interpreted as another sign of Chinese influence over the Junta[xv]. Also, between 2021 and 2023, it has supplied around $ 267 million worth of weapons to the Junta[xvi]. Thus far, it has shown no interest in engineering regime change. China appears to be working towards better border security, securing Myanmar’s rare earth supply chains to Yunnan, and making economic investments in that country. Its other objective is access to the Bay of Bengal. Towards this end, it practices ‘selective intervention through multi-actor engagement, ceasefire management, security outsourcing and border pressure. Though it speaks the language of non-interference, China is actively shaping developments in its neighbour to advance its strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific...’[xvii]
The USA has drastically reduced assistance by nearly $1.1 billion since 2025[xviii], but lifted some sanctions on Myanmar companies. The Junta is interested in repairing relations with the US and has hired a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm for around $3 million per year to that end[xix]. The US has shown interest in the rare earth deposits in Kachin state, which are currently being mined by China and, in value terms, account for 60% of Chinese imports – though the process for moving the minerals out of Myanmar remains unclear, as do the prospects for future cooperation. However, it is apparent that the US, like China, increasingly views Myanmar (and Bangladesh) through the Indo-Pacific lens and would endeavour to expand its influence in myriad ways, including using aid as a lever to consolidate further in the Bay of Bengal region and limit Chinese influence.
The Rohingya Factor
There is increasingly palpable discontent among the Rohingya. Many still attempt to enter Malaysia (which is reported to hold over 200,000 Rohingya) by sea. Inside refugee camps in Bangladesh, cuts in food rations, overall shortages and depredations by militias /criminal gangs, including killings, torture and abductions, have worsened the law-and-order situation[xx]. Hierarchies, some of them criminal, run daily lives here through enforced diktats. Recently, triggered by the death of a youth, the Rohingya Gen Z organised themselves in protest by carrying out a coordinated online campaign in the camp, challenging self-styled community leaders. As observed by a journalist,’…for the first time in years, a segment of the Rohingya community is not just reacting to events, it is attempting to shape them’[xxi]
Rohingya militancy is getting increasingly better organised. Four known groups operate across the Myanmar-Bangladesh border and in settlements – the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA), and Rohingya Islami Mahaz (RIM)[xxii]. The Junta frequently employs ARSA to fight the Arakan Army (AA), which ARSA regards as its main enemy. The AA’s self-propagated doctrine, ‘The Way of Rakhita’[xxiii] with its four pillars- Nationalism, Militarism, Historical Criticism and Pragmatism, has varying interpretations. It could denote inclusiveness and a broader national identity, safeguarding the nation, revisiting past errors, and preparing for the future in a practical way – which might include reconciliation with the Rohingya. Equally, it might indicate a narrow focus on an exclusive Arakan identity, backed by military force and a willingness to deal with anyone supporting such goals, which bodes ill for future prospects for the Rohingya and Myanmar-Bangladesh ties. With relief aid for Rohingyas progressively reducing and unrest in the camps barely contained, Bangladesh’s social fabric is coming under increasing strain. This is fuelled by the spillover of activities of such terrorist groups into Bangladesh, which finds its policy options in Myanmar increasingly restricted as outside powers come to terms with the Junta. The fallout of the Rohingya and Chin refugee crisis remains of prime concern for India, which shares borders with both countries, warranting greater vigilance by Indian border guarding forces and dynamic updation of internal security schemes, co-opting the latest technologies.
Views of the NUG: The NUG, Myanmar’s shadow government, recently announced a new council in a statement titled ‘Announcement by the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union (SCEF) ‘ on its website. A line on ‘inclusiveness’ states ‘…Furthermore, we are committed to protecting and promoting the diverse identities of all ethnic nationalities residing within member states and units of the Union, and to firmly building a new Federal Democratic Union composed of states that fully guarantee equality among nationalities and the right to self-determination. However, as mentioned earlier, the question of the NUG coming to power remains moot, as does the issue of implementing such a contentious agenda in a nation with a well-documented history of ethnic violence and discrimination.
India and Myanmar
Indian President, Draupadi Murmu, with the President of Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing
Despite the 2021 coup and the overthrow of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, India has continued to adhere to its principle of non-interference in the affairs of neighbouring states. Accordingly, it has maintained bilateral relations with the Junta. Following February 2021, as a large number of Myanmarese Chins sought refuge with their kin in Mizoram (and some in Manipur, where ethnic strife between Meiteis and other tribal groups continues), India had to formulate a uniform policy to address this issue, incorporating humanitarian aspects, local sensitivities and security concerns. This has since been done.
To ensure peace at the local level and prevent disruption to work on its two-decade-old Kaladan Multimodal Port Project (KMMPP), which links Kolkata to Mizoram (via Sittwe onto Paletwa on the Kaladan River and thence onward to Zorinpui in Mizoram by road, bypassing Bangladesh), India resorted to a tactical outreach that included an unofficial meeting between an Indian Member of Parliament and Myanmar rebel groups[xxiv]. This was further expanded by opening a dialogue in Delhi in late 2024 with the concerned EAOs in Chin and Rakhine, as well as representatives of the NUG and the Junta. Ultimately, separate meetings were held with each group; India advocated for a ‘Myanmar-led, and Myanmar-owned’ solution, thereby reiterating its policy of non-interference.
President Hlaing’s visit to Delhi in June 2026 may have been partly inspired by an appreciation of India’s articulation of the above (non-threatening) policy. Some opine that the primary objective of this visit was to bolster the regime[xxv]‘s legitimacy. That said, the briefing by the Foreign Secretary after President Hlaing’s meeting with Prime Minister Modi indicates that Myanmar has broadly agreed to accommodate India’s major security concerns, notably an ‘assurance that Myanmar’s territory would not be permitted to be used against India’s security interests’[xxvi]. India further emphasised the importance of stability and peace in Myanmar for the security of its Northeast along the 1,643-km-long border. Discussions on cooperation in defence and security, critical minerals and rare earth and connectivity projects were also held. It is hoped that these interactions will lead to visible improvements in border security.
India’s contribution to various facets of Myanmar’s development (as with its other neighbours in South Asia) is vividly illustrated in the note on bilateral relations posted on the website of the Indian Embassy in Yangon. While discussion on defence cooperation during the recent visit was limited to aspects of training, capacity building, institution building, and UN peacekeeping, the larger issue of cooperation in the Bay of Bengal and the Indo-Pacific was addressed during the visit of India’s naval Chief, Admiral DK Tripathi, to Yangon in May 2026. This included strengthening existing arrangements for joint exercises, patrolling, hydrographic surveys, training exchanges, and staff talks. With increasing Chinese naval activity in the Bay of Bengal, India-Myanmar naval cooperation is likely to become increasingly important for India, especially given China’s majority shareholding in Kyaukphyu port at the mouth of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) and the rumoured infrastructure build-up in the Coco Islands[xxvii].
Conclusion
Internally in turmoil, Myanmar, as a neighbour, is becoming increasingly important to India. Great power competition, increasing Chinese inroads into that country and its impact on India’s security remain prime concerns. This necessitates realistic, sustained engagement with the ruling regime. Another factor is the future of India’s substantial investments in infrastructure projects in Myanmar, such as the Trans-Asian Highway and the KMMPP. Of these, the KMMPP, which was initiated in 2007-2008, was estimated to cost around Rs 3,200 crore four years ago [xxviii]. Yet even now, the Paletwa port on the Kaladan river remains in the hands of the AA. This also requires India to maintain engagement with rebel groups.
Overall, India needs to retain leverage with all parties in Myanmar without being perceived as an inimical neighbour. Only then will its border be secured and the vision of Act East, which includes developing the Northeast as a springboard towards Southeast Asia, be actualised.
References:
[i] ‘Skeletons and Skulls Scattered Everywhere’ Arakan Army Massacre of Rohingya Muslims in Hoyyar Siri, Myanmar 18 May 2026.
[ii] ‘Over 800 Myanmar refugees enter Mizoram amid Fears of fresh Junta offensive’ The Assam Tribune 17 May 2026.
[iii] Website of the Embassy of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, New Delhi.
[iv] ‘New resistance alliance built to win Myanmar’s civil war’ Dan Swift and Sean Turnell Asia Times 15 April 2026.
[v] Podcast ‘Myanmar at a crossroads: Five years after the coup’ by Hunter Marston, Sean Turnell The Lowy Institute 22 May 2026.
[vi] Myanmar’s Economy Faces Grim Outlook Under New Government ‘ Ambassador Scot Marciel Bower Group Asia 23 April 2026.
[vii] Inflation Forecast 2026 South East Asia (from TheGlobalEconomy.com)
[viii] ‘Myanmar at a crossroads: Five years after the coup’ Podcast by Hunter Marston and Sean Turnell , Lowy Institute 22 May 2026.
[ix] ‘New Myanmar Regime Tightens Forcible Conscription Covering 13 Million Citizens’ Myo Pyae The Irrawady 18 May 2026.
[x] ‘Myanmar Regime Takes Full Control of Mandalay–Myitkina Road to Kachin’ The Irrawady 08 May 2026.
[xi] ‘KIA Announces Shift to Defensive Strategy as Regime Troops Pour into Kachin State’ The Irrawaddy
May 19, 2026.
[xii] ‘‘Over 800 Myanmar refugees enter Mizoram amid Fears of fresh Junta offensive’ The Assam Tribune 17 May 2026.
[xiii] ‘NUG-funded payments secure Myanmar’s UN voting rights through 2026’ Mizzima News 11 February 2026.
[xiv] ‘Russia and Myanmar Sign Military Cooperation Agreement’ AFP 03 Feb 2026.
[xv] ‘Optics Over Outcomes: Myanmar’s Diplomatic Rehabilitation and India’s Tightrope’ Sreeparna Benerjee Observer Research Forum 13 May 2026.
[xvi] ‘Tatmadaw Moves to Re-Establish Control Over The India-Myanmar Border’ Afiya Ibnath Ayshi Bangladesh Defence Journal 14 May 2026.
Sustainability can be addressed through an independent inquiry into the fundamental issues at hand; at the same time, its interconnection with climate change cannot be ignored. What is more, both sustainability and climate change are part of a wider, existential challenge humanity faces, which I prefer to describe as the Environment Complex Challenge, encompassing biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and air, water, and soil pollution. While I would prefer to use the fitting term Anthropocene – as the concept offers a comprehensive description of human impact on Earth and is clearly a primary concern in any debate on sustainability and climate change – it is too closely associated with the failed attempt to name a geological epoch in Earth’s history.[1] Though I was never much of a supporter of that undertaking, I always appreciated the comprehensiveness of its focus. Indeed, in the words of Delanty and Mota (2017), the Anthropocene approach highlights the co-existence of natural and social worlds and the deep intertwining of human and other planetary life. After all, sustainability is about the enduring relationship among society, the economy, and the environment, including how society organises its impact on resources and the critical issue of how to organise economic development and growth.
With regard to sustainability, it is worth recalling its basic definition as stated in the Brundtland Report: meeting the development needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Our Common Future, 1987). The core argument is that we should be mindful of resource use and not consume more of existing resources than can be replaced, so that future generations will have the same opportunity for development. It is also worth recognising that reducing resource use will help mitigate climate change. While the definition in the Brundtland Report represents a general call for conscious behaviour, several more specific ‘calls to action’ can be identified. One with overriding importance is the increasing global water scarcity, a global challenge but with region-specific impacts. A recent United Nations report (Global Water Bankruptcy, 2026) highlights the seriousness of the water shortage that humanity is facing, assessing that humanity is living beyond water sustainability, as most water-related resources (rivers, lakes, aquifers, wetlands, and glaciers) are beyond full recovery; consequently, water-related risks have become systemic. It added that billions of people face water insecurity, and almost three-quarters of the global population live in countries classified as ‘water insecure’. Another serious topic is food security, and, equally worrying, food waste. A recent UN report states that in 2022, 1.05 billion tonnes, close to one-fifth of the available food, was wasted (UNEP Food Waste Index Report, 2024). With it, a considerable amount of resources is lost in growing and transporting the food in the first place, thereby having a strong negative impact on resource sustainability and on the dynamics of climate change. Land use offers another important focus, not least in connection with biodiversity loss.
When we consider these aspects, the inherent interlinkage between sustainability (the misuse and overuse of resources) and the dynamics of climate change needs to be acknowledged. Yet sustainability is also closely aligned with the broader human environmental imprint, which, in turn, links it to core aspects of the Anthropocene discourse (setting aside the earlier call to describe a geological epoch). As such, resource extraction and resource (mis)use are critical aspects that link sustainability to the Anthropocene concept. Such a perception is also supported by a critical discussion within the Anthropocene movements: when exactly humanity started to generate a fundamental and recognisable impact on the earth. Ruddiman et al. (2015) focus far back in human history on the beginning of the agricultural era, while Delanty and Mota (2017) identify the 18th-century Industrial Revolution as the beginning of the Anthropocene. While the selection of each date can be well supported by different perceptions and interpretations, one could still argue that, from the perspective of resource use, the Industrial Revolution may be the more impactful and lasting event. After all, it can also be interpreted as the starting point of capitalism and as a never-ending demand for resources, pursued through a continuous economic growth strategy at all costs. Indeed, it is capitalism, with its relentless push for relentless economic growth and resource overuse, which undermines any long-term sustainable prospect for humanity. This unyielding pressure for continued economic growth also underlies the dynamics of climate change and thus fundamentally contributes to what I describe as the Environmental Complex Challenge.
Returning to the Brundtland definition of sustainability, the primary demand is that humanity, indeed, every individual, must reconsider their use of resources to reduce the individual’s and, in extension, humanity’s environmental impact as much as possible. One may argue this is not only with a view towards future generations, but also with a view to the present. After all, reducing resource overuse will reduce air, water, and soil pollution, contributing to a healthy environment and a healthy life for everyone. It will also be an integral part of mitigating the climate change dynamic and, thus, climate change-related risks. However, one can argue that the list of public-professional references to sustainability exists longer than the list of references to the climate change dynamic, with a line of connected concepts and programs identifiable from the Brundtland Report (1987) to the Rio Declaration and its Agenda 21 (1992) to the Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030). In addition, we could observe influential regional concepts related to sustainability, such as the Factor 4 approach, developed by von Weizsaecker, Lovins, and Lovins (1997), which advocates increasing resource productivity to achieve sustainable development. They emphasise that improving resource efficiency would not only enhance sustainable development by reducing resource overuse but also generate additional wealth. This concept reminds us again of the interlinkage between the environment, the economy, and society. This triangular relationship is a defining one for thinking about sustainability.
Take, for example, climate change as part of the Environment Complex Challenge, of which sustainability is an inherent aspect. While it represents a global challenge, its impact is always local or regional, thereby affecting the individuals living in those areas. Examples include urban heat waves in Europe and South Asia, and widespread changes in rainfall patterns across Asia, which generate extensive negative impacts on vast rural communities that can last for years. Indeed, extreme weather events are becoming increasingly the norm and increasingly impactful. An estimation of the increasing costs associated with extreme weather events is provided by the World Economic Forum. While during the 1970-1979 decade, associated costs were USD 183.9 billion, they rose to USD 906.4 billion in the 1990-1999 decade, and to USD 1.5 trillion during the 2010-2019 decade (Charlton, 2023). Certainly, responding to extreme weather events by rebuilding and protecting is resource-intensive and therefore a challenge to sustainability in the long run or short run, depending on local circumstances. The threat of sea-level rise, again a global challenge with different local and regional implications, provides another good example. One just has to think about the various Asian megacities, from India to China, that are exposed to sea level rise. Or the threat of sea level rise to food security, when considering the potential devastating impact on the Mekong Delta, the ‘rice bowl’ of Vietnam. While localities and communities around the world are affected by climate change, some face a more severe challenge. We may take the case of Bangladesh, where rising sea levels may submerge wide parts of the country. Where will the people go? They will not stay to drown. As a consequence, tens of millions of climate refugees may move towards West Bengal, in India, and will not be stopped by security measures, when the alternative is drowning. Reducing resource use or increasing the productivity of its use will provide strong support for mitigating climate change by slowing the rate of CO2 increase. Once again, these factors highlight the linkages within the Environmental Complex Challenge and the role of sustainability within it.
At the same time, humanity still faces a fundamental challenge: widespread underdevelopment. One approach to addressing this challenge was the establishment of Agenda 2030, with the aim of ending poverty and hunger in all their forms and dimensions. The sustainable use of resources and protection from environmental degradation are two of the stated goals. Acknowledging the challenges facing the majority of the human population, 17 goals with 169 associated targets were identified (UN Resolution, 2015). What is more, the 2030 Agenda also underscores the interlinkages between development and the climate change challenge. Not only can climate change undermine some of the success already achieved in addressing underdevelopment, but it also increases the challenge of achieving some of the 2030 Agenda goals. Fuso Nerini et al. (2019) assert that 16 of the 17 SDGs and 40 per cent of all targets are impacted by climate change. The climate change challenge to sustainable development is increasing, since we are failing to arrest the climate change dynamic. A recent assessment indicates that we can no longer remain below a 2°C increase, let alone the 1.5°C enhanced climate target agreed in the Paris Agreement. Instead, the predictions made in the last couple of years state that we will be reaching 2.7°C warming by the end of the century (Climate Action Tracker, 2024: 1).
The Environment Complex Challenge highlights and supports another discussion, one related to reconsidering the object of security. While this topic is linked with the late-1980s to mid-1990s debate on the meaning and interpretation of security, by replacing the state as the object of security with a focus on the individual, the relevance of these challenges is as powerful as it was back then, considering the fundamental challenges humanity is facing; unsustainable use of resources, climate change dynamic, biodiversity loss, widespread pollution issues, and environmental destruction. Lipschutz (1995) states that individual security offers a broader recognition of the insecurity people face by including human welfare issues and underdevelopment. Similarly, Smith (2005) argues that security should focus on the real conditions of insecurity that people and collectives are facing. Such a strong focus on the individual, while the role of neither central nor regional governments should be ignored when addressing the sustainability and climate change challenge, is further justified because sustainable development and addressing climate change require a change of behaviour at the individual level. Otherwise, change will not happen. Indeed, it is our responsibility to bring about change and address the fundamental challenge to our future.
Nerini, F., F., Sovacool, B., Hughes, N., Cozzi, L., Cosgrave, E., Howells, M., Tavoni, M., Tomei, J., Zerriffi, H., & Milligan, B. (2019). Connecting climate action with other Sustainable Development Goals. Nature Sustainability, 2(8), 674–680.
Lipschutz, R. D. (1995). On Security. In R. D. Lipschutz (Ed.), On Security (pp. 1-23). Columbia University Press.
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[1] In early March 2024, the International Union of Geological Sciences confirmed the dismissal of recognition of the Anthropocene as a description of a new geological time.
Colonial and Imperial culture of greed for wealth, manifested in exploitative and extractive strategies, and an attitude of racial supremacy-endorsed by the Church, is so deeply entrenched in the West that it has never gone away but has continued in different forms and structures. It is this culture that needs to fall, to truly lead to a world of equality, values and ethics – reflected by the 2000-year old declaration –
“Yaadhum Oorey, Yavarum Kelir” – meaning “To us the world is one, All people are Kin”.
To say the West will fall is neither prophecy nor vindictiveness but the recognition of a historical necessity. Western global dominance — built across six centuries of slavery, colonial extraction, and neocolonial control — rested on the systematic violation of ethical principles that every major civilisation has independently affirmed. Systems founded on extraction and racial hierarchy carry the mechanisms of their own collapse. The decline now visible across economic, diplomatic, and moral indicators is not an accident of geopolitics but a consequence.
The Peninsula Foundation reads this moment through humanity’s deepest ethical traditions: Thiruvalluvar’s Thirukkural, Kaniyan Poongundranar’s declaration that all places are one and all people kin, Confucian governance by virtue, Platonic justice as harmony, and African Ubuntu — a person is a person through other people, in other words – I am because We are. Arising independently across continents and millennia, they converge on the very principles imperialism negates: universal human dignity, compassionate restraint, justice as social order, and communal interdependence.
By 2026, even Western institutions will concede the turn. The UN Secretary-General calls for accelerating an inclusive multipolarity; the JPMorgan Centre for Geopolitics describes a multi-speed order in which universal rules no longer bind; at Davos, middle powers spoke of permanent rupture rather than transition. Against this backdrop, the United States Secretary of State stood before the world’s premier security forum and called for the restoration of five centuries of colonial empires.
The Rubio Confession
On 14 February 2026, at the Munich Security Conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered what critics across the spectrum called the most openly pro-colonial address by a senior Western official this century. He mourned the loss of five centuries of Western imperial expansion; named anti-colonial uprisings as a cause of Western decline; urged European allies to shed their guilt and shame over colonialism; and summoned the West to a new Western century by competing for market share in the economies of the Global South — framing that South not as sovereign nations but as an economic space to be recaptured, that precise colonial and predatory framing.
This is not merely reprehensible; it is a confession. Facing structural decline, the imperial culture has abandoned even the pretence of moral authority and reverted openly to the logic of domination. Harvard’s Mathias Risse called the speech civilisational panic dressed as statecraft. The Global South’s response was swift: Indian commentary asked whether an American East India Company was coming; Brahma Chellaney saw the restoration of an exclusionary hierarchy; Sanjaya Baru urged India, as the beacon of anti-colonialism, to condemn it with the contempt it deserves.
The Architecture of Extraction
Rubio’s call to shed guilt is not only obscene; it is historically false. Utsa Patnaik’s study for Columbia University Press establishes that Britain drained £9.2 trillion — some $45 trillion — from India between 1765 and 1938, seventeen times Britain’s current annual GDP, by compounding India’s intercepted export-surplus earnings at the ordinary rate of opportunity cost.
India’s gold and foreign-exchange earnings — among the largest in the world — were permanently diverted to London, funding Britain’s industrial revolution, its wars, and its administration, and consuming between a quarter and a third of the central budget.
The mechanism was an elegant deception. After 1765, the East India Company taxed Indian producers, then used roughly a third of that revenue to buy their goods for export — paying them with their own taxes while acquiring their produce for nothing. The Council Bills system of 1861 industrialised this: foreign buyers paid London in gold and sterling for bills cashable only in rupees, which the colonial government paid out of its own budget. India’s gold and foreign-exchange earnings — among the largest in the world — were permanently diverted to London, funding Britain’s industrial revolution, its wars, and its administration, and consuming between a quarter and a third of the central budget.
Jason Hickel calculates that rich countries have drained $152 trillion from the Global South since 1960 alone. There is no Western century to restore that was not built on the theft of other civilisations’ wealth — legitimised for six centuries by the Three Cs of civilisation, Christianity, and commerce, and continued after independence through structural-adjustment programmes, an African external debt of $824 billion, and more than 13,000 active US sanctions.
The result was stark. India held the world’s second-largest export surplus for three decades before 1929, yet per capita income barely moved between 1900 and 1946, because the surplus was siphoned abroad rather than invested at home. Its share of global industrial output collapsed from 25 per cent in 1750 to 2 per cent in 1900. Japan, which kept its earnings, industrialised; India, whose earnings were confiscated, could not. The same logic ran through slavery, which research now confirms accelerated Britain’s industrial revolution — vindicating Marx’s image of capital arriving dripping with blood and dirt. Jason Hickel calculates that rich countries have drained $152 trillion from the Global South since 1960 alone. There is no Western century to restore that was not built on the theft of other civilisations’ wealth — legitimised for six centuries by the Three Cs of civilisation, Christianity, and commerce, and continued after independence through structural-adjustment programmes, an African external debt of $824 billion, and more than 13,000 active US sanctions.
The sanctifying licence was issued long before the Council Bills, in Rome. A sequence of papal bulls — Nicholas V’s Dum Diversas (1452) and Romanus Pontifex (1455), and Alexander VI’s Inter Caetera (1493), proclaimed the year after Columbus reached the Americas — granted Catholic monarchs the asserted right to “invade, search out, capture, vanquish and subdue” non-Christian peoples, reduce them to perpetual slavery, seize their lands, and partition the non-Christian world between Spain and Portugal. From these decrees grew the Doctrine of Discovery: the claim that lands not inhabited by Christians were free to be “discovered” and their peoples’ sovereignty void. It furnished the racial and civilisational hierarchy — Christian over heathen, European over all others — on which five centuries of conquest were built, dressing the pursuit of gold, land, and labour in the vestments of salvation. The piety was the facade; extraction was the motive. Nor is the point contested by Rome: in 2023 the Vatican formally repudiated the doctrine, conceding the bulls were “linked to political questions” and never expressions of the faith — an admission, five centuries late, that the licence to colonise was always politics wearing the mask of God.
The Civilisational Verdict
Every tradition the Foundation invokes condemns this architecture. Thiruvalluvar’s Kural 113 warns that gain wrongly acquired must not be retained even for a day — the exact verdict on a Council Bills system that gave Indians rupees while stealing their gold; his Kural 551 holds a ruler who works injustice crueller than a murderer. Kaniyan Poongundranar’s Yaadhum Oore Yaavarum Kelir dissolves, at its root, the civilisational tribalism Rubio attempts to revive, for exploitation requires first believing that the exploited are not our kin. Confucius taught that legitimacy flows from virtue, not force; Plato named the tyrant as one who turns governance to private enrichment — the shape of a state that declares it will run another nation and seize its oil; and Ubuntu’s relational personhood is negated wherever a system is built to take from people, unawares, what they have earned.
Risse’s verdict is sharper still: Rubio’s West has no Indigenous peoples, no colonised subjects, no enslaved Africans, no Buchenwald near Weimar — only heroes and temporary setbacks. Such a West has never existed, and cannot be reinvigorated in 2026.
The New Theatre of Predation
The doctrine is not rhetorical. In January 2026, the United States bombed Venezuela, abducted its elected president, and announced that US companies would seize its oil while Washington “ran the country” — a clear violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, the International Commission of Jurists held. The same month, it cut off Cuba’s main oil supplier and, through Executive Order 14380, threatened any country that resupplied it, until the UN warned of humanitarian collapse — collective punishment of a civilian population. And in February 2026, the US and Israel launched a full-scale attack on Iran, killing its Supreme Leader, striking over 42,000 civilian sites, and — at a girls’ school in Minab — at least 167 children; the American Society of International Law named it a crime of aggression, and the UN Secretary-General confirmed it contravened international law. As Britain once dressed theft as commerce, the US now dresses resource seizure as law enforcement — the structural logic is identical.
The Measured Decline
The economic premise of the Rubio doctrine is fiction. Asia’s share of global GDP reached 55 per cent in 2024, years ahead of projection, and BRICS economies now exceed the G7 at purchasing-power parity. The Global South’s ascent is no Western beneficence but a return to the norm colonialism interrupted — China and India together held half of world income in 1700 before colonialism drove their share below a tenth. A declining West, in truth, needs the Global South to survive.
Moral authority has collapsed in tandem. Only 39 per cent of Americans now believe the United States is the world’s moral leader, down from 60 per cent in 2017; across Europe, support for Israel has fallen to between 13 and 21 per cent. Above all, Gaza has erased Western moral pretension: independent research estimates roughly 75,200 violent deaths and the displacement of about 90 per cent of the population, as governments that once lectured the world on human rights moved to justify mass killing — not an aberration, as one analysis put it, but an unveiling.
The Oligarchy Behind the Flag
Analysing nearly 1,800 US policy decisions, Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page found that economic elites and business groups exert substantial independent influence on policy while ordinary citizens have little or none — a pattern they termed economic-elite domination rather than democracy.
There is a sharper way to name what must fall. “The West” is not its peoples; it is a structure of concentrated power that governs in their name while serving far narrower interests. Analysing nearly 1,800 US policy decisions, Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page found that economic elites and business groups exert substantial independent influence on policy while ordinary citizens have little or none — a pattern they termed economic-elite domination rather than democracy. Their method has been contested, but elite-skewed influence is widely corroborated.
The architecture is visible and legal. Since Citizens United (2010), outside US election spending has risen more than twenty-eight-fold — from $144 million in 2008 to over $4.2 billion in 2024 — roughly $1.9 billion of it untraceable “dark money,” a few hundred mega-donors providing the bulk. Oxfam records billionaire wealth at a record $18.3 trillion in 2026, up 81 per cent since 2020; the twelve richest now hold more than the poorest four billion people, and billionaires are four thousand times likelier than ordinary citizens to hold office. Across 66 countries, nearly half of those surveyed say the rich simply buy elections.
The same convergence runs through the war and information economies. Some $191 million was spent lobbying the US defence sector in 2025, and more than 315 senior officers passed through the revolving door into the top weapons firms between 1995 and 2021 — Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex” at industrial scale. At the 2025 presidential inauguration, the heads of Amazon, Meta, Apple, Google, and Tesla stood arrayed behind the president — a tableau of what Shoshana Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism, in which control over information becomes a lever over democracy itself, as a Stanford working group chaired by Francis Fukuyama warned.
None of this requires a secret cabal — only aligned interests, legalised influence, and a public whose consent is manufactured rather than freely given. The decisive point is this: the structure that drains the Global South is the same one that hollows out wages, democracy, and dignity within the West. The dividing line is not West against the rest but concentrated extractive power against the world’s peoples — the Western working majority among them, conscripted to fight its wars and absorb its costs. When we say the West must fall, it is this structure that must fall, and democratic power that must be restored, at home as much as abroad. That is not the elimination of a people; it is the end of their domination by an oligarchy that has long claimed to speak in their name.
The Self-Defeating Logic of Overreach
Like the Council Bills before it, the Rubio doctrine carries the mechanism of its own defeat, for each intervention rebounds structurally. The seizure of Russian assets accelerated de-dollarisation; the bombing of Iran united a region against the US–Israel alliance; the abduction of Venezuela’s president hastened Latin America’s diversification away from Washington; the oil siege of Cuba drew unprecedented condemnation. An order that must abduct, blockade, and bomb to assert itself is not ascendant — it is exhausting the legitimacy on which power finally depends.
The Imperative of Justice
The fall of Western hegemony opens the possibility of justice but does not guarantee it; the outcome depends on whether rising powers build the multipolar order on genuine ethical foundations rather than replicating what they inherit. That demands sovereign equality without exception — Article 2(4) applied universally, and a Security Council reformed so that no state acts as judge, party, and executor at once. It demands historical accountability: reparative justice through climate finance, debt cancellation, technology transfer, and restitution is not charity but the minimum acknowledgement of documented theft. It demands that the ICJ, ICC, and UN human-rights bodies function without great-power interference; civilisational pluralism against civilisational supremacism; and, finally, democratic renewal within the Western societies themselves, whose peoples are not the authors of empire but among its subjects.
India is uniquely placed to articulate that alternative. Its inheritance — Thiruvalluvar’s justice, Kaniyan Poongundranar’s universal kinship, and the Gandhian tradition of non-violent resistance to precisely the domination Rubio seeks to revive — is the moral tradition colonialism suppressed but could never extinguish. Against a new Western century of restored hierarchy, the Peninsula Foundation offers the Tamil poet’s ancient answer, as relevant in Munich today as on the banks of the Kaveri two millennia ago:
Yaadhum Oore, Yaavarum Kelir — to us all towns are one, all people are our kin.
The West will fall. Fall it must. From its ruins, may justice arise.
Sources
THE MULTIPOLAR TRANSITION
JPMorgan Centre for Geopolitics — World Rewired: Navigating a Multi-Speed, Multipolar Order
United Nations — Secretary-General’s press conference on his 2026 priorities
World Economic Forum — Davos 2026: How middle powers are reading the global moment
THE RUBIO MUNICH SPEECH AND RESPONSES
US Department of State — Secretary Rubio at the Munich Security Conference (14 February 2026)
The New York Times — In Munich, Rubio Stresses Shared History to Europeans
Mathias Risse, Harvard Kennedy School (Carr Center) — A Human-Rights-Based Reply to Marco Rubio’s Munich Speech
China-US Focus — American Neo-Colonialism and the Confessional State
Chatham House — The West vs the West at the Munich Security Conference
India Today — Rubio’s Munich speech signals US colonial competition for the Global South
The Wire — Marco Rubio’s Defence of Colonialism Demands a Response from India
Firstpost — Rubio’s claim of a Western century is a myth
COLONIAL EXTRACTION: THE DRAIN AND THE COUNCIL BILLS
Utsa Patnaik (Columbia University Press), via Al Jazeera — How Britain stole $45 trillion from India
NDTV — How the British Empire robbed India of $45 trillion
self_study_history — Drain of Wealth: the Council Bills mechanism
COLLECTIVE India — ‘Drain of Wealth’, today
Wikipedia — Economy of India under the British Raj (global GDP share)
CEPR / VoxEU — Slavery and the British Industrial Revolution
Walter Rodney — How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Jason Hickel, via Al Jazeera — Rich countries drained $152tn from the global South since 1960
THE LICENCE TO COLONISE: PAPAL BULLS, CHRISTIANITY, AND NEOCOLONIALISM
Vatican News (2023) — Church defends Indigenous peoples: ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ was never Catholic — the formal repudiation
Canadian Museum for Human Rights — The Doctrine of Discovery (papal bulls and their language)
Church Life Journal, University of Notre Dame — Papal Condemnation of the Doctrine of Discovery
Emory University — The Philosophy of Colonialism: Civilization, Christianity and Commerce
Church Mission Society — Mission after George Floyd: on white supremacy, colonialism and world Christianity
Catalyst (McGill) — The IMF and World Bank: Neocolonial Domination, Debt Trap and Resistance
THE CIVILISATIONAL FRAMEWORK
Thiruvalluvar, Thirukkural (G.U. Pope translation) — Project Madurai
As West Asia’s geopolitical flashpoints grew more volatile, most notably with direct confrontation between the U.S., Iran and Israel, and the broader regional escalation, New Delhi’s diplomatic posture has come under intense scrutiny. India’s response is not a sign of diplomatic paralysis, nor a passive withdrawal from the global stage, but a calculated, measured quietude – an active realisation of its “calibrated multi-alignment” strategy.
This analysis decodes the rationale behind India’s silence through the lens of deep economic vulnerabilities, critical infrastructure dilemmas and multilateral frictions that New Delhi must navigate in order to preserve its foundational doctrine of strategic autonomy.
Juggling Act of Multi-Alignment
India’s diplomatic manoeuvring is taking place in a highly fractured West Asian landscape. Crucial regional partners are pulling New Delhi in opposite directions, and the government has to use precise verbiage and a highly restrained tone.
Two conflicting diplomatic realities illuminate the complexity of this tightrope. One is New Delhi’s Gulf alignment. India signed landmark defence and energy pacts during a high-profile state visit by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the UAE, standing “shoulder-to-shoulder” with Abu Dhabi after drone and missile strikes by Iran hit Emirati soil.
Second is Tehran’s direct engagement with New Delhi, assuring the security of Indian commercial ships in the key Strait of Hormuz, and proposing a long-term constructive role for India in the region.
At the same time India was hard at work, striving to ensure some degree of balancing vis-à-vis the warring parties that include negotiating for U.S. strategic partnership and Israeli technology and weapons (The West and Israel Axis); UAE energy and defence cooperation and Saudi capital flows (The Gulf Cooperation Council – GCC); and striving to retain its stakes in the Iran and Eurasian corridor via the Chabahar port and INSTC (International North–South Transport Corridor) trade route.
Now that these bedrock bilateral partnerships are in direct conflict, it is extraordinarily difficult to maintain tight strategic autonomy.
Costs of Silence
Diplomatically, India’s external attitude is restrained, but the internal home reality is one of high-stakes management of acute energy and trade vulnerabilities. The ongoing conflict between the U.S., Israel and Iran has created immediate economic headwinds to New Delhi’s neutrality, threatening its viability.
Economic Vulnerability
For New Delhi, the most immediate casualty is energy supply security with long-term impacts. Retaliatory disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz have forced India to draw down its national petroleum inventories by 15%. Rising domestic fuel prices and supply chain shocks present a risk to broader inflationary pressures. These are evident in high-level political appeals to citizens to conserve fuel and undertake temporary demand reduction, and in suggestions of structural changes, including working from home and limiting gold imports, to stabilise the current account deficit.
Unfortunately, the public at large interpreted these as signs of impending doom rather than the precautionary measures, which were the intent. Thus, people rushed in to stock up on cooking gas, vehicle fuels, and even groceries, with many hoteliers reducing their menu offerings and food aggregators that service home delivery charging additional amounts in the guise of “packing charges,” etc., pushing up retail prices for unfounded reasons.
The most chaotic but strategic impact is expatriate safety. The transport disruptions, especially air transport to and from the Middle East, heightened fears of the potential displacement of the large Indian workforce in the region (approximately 8.5 to 10 million Indians reside and work across West Asia, primarily in the GCC countries). This prompted transactional diplomacy over “prestige politics,” focusing on localised maritime safe-passages and repatriation readiness.
Chabahar Port Puzzle & Infrastructure Stakes
India’s Eurasian connectivity plan is based on two big projects, the Chabahar Port in Iran and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). New Delhi’s investments are designed to bypass overland blockades and build a direct trade route to Central Asia and Russia. However, the recent surge of regional hostilities has put these strategic transit corridors in temporary jeopardy.
India can cede operational stakes to an indigenous Iranian operator to avoid secondary sanctions, or retain direct control and risk an instant diplomatic confrontation with Washington.
The impasse starkly illustrates the tension between India’s desire for sovereign regional connectivity and the hard realities of international secondary sanctions regimes.
Strategic Silence: Neutrality and Autonomy
India’s quiet reactions and generic pleas for “dialogue and restraint” are often seen by detractors as diplomatically problematic – the reluctance of a rising power to take a stand. But this could also be interpreted as a deliberate tactic for survival.
For decades, India has been decoupling its bilateral ties under its multi-alignment framework: procuring oil from Iran and the Gulf; sourcing weapons and defence technology from Israel; securing advanced technology and strategic backing from the U.S.; and taking sovereign wealth and capital out of the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Both the Russian and Iranian leaderships have publicly called upon India to use its unique position to be a long-term mediator, but New Delhi has deliberately refrained from doing so.
India has thus been consciously avoiding “prestige politics” by not taking on high-risk mediation initiatives beyond its immediate regional mandate. This stance replaces grandstanding with pragmatic, transactional arrangements, such as securing localised maritime safe passages for its commercial ships, rather than seeking to resolve deep-seated ideological wars.
Process Diplomacy: Handling Multilateral Frictions
The West Asia skirmishes have also tested India’s aspirations to lead the Global South, particularly in larger international platforms such as BRICS. The June 2026 BRICS foreign ministers meeting held in India exposed the limitations of consensus-based diplomacy.
Iran and the UAE, the new members, joined the forum in the midst of a heated deadlock; Tehran insisted on a direct and explicit condemnation of the U.S. and Israel, while Abu Dhabi countered with a call for a formal condemnation of Iranian actions in the region.
India used procedural diplomacy to recognise internal rifts without sweeping them away, avoiding the fracturing of the broader multilateral partnership over regional disputes, and thereby preserving its bilateral capital with both capitals- Abu Dhabi and Tehran.
Conclusion: Is Calibrated Silence Sustainable?
India’s strategic quiet is not an abnegation of responsibility. It is a conscious effort to protect its national interests from a volatile external crisis. In a remarkable blend of procedural diplomacy at forums like BRICS, refusal to be sucked into risky regional mediation, and pragmatic bilateral hedging, New Delhi has managed to avoid burning its bridges with either Tehran or the US-Israel-Gulf axis.
At the same time, this crisis is a crucial test of New Delhi’s professed policy of strategic autonomy. As the country’s domestic oil reserves dwindle and external sanctions squeeze key assets such as the Chabahar Port, the economic repercussions may ultimately outweigh the benefits of diplomatic quietude. India’s challenge going forward will be to ensure that its calculated neutrality is flexible enough to change if the regional balance tips into an outright breakdown of the regional order from a managed crisis.
Flattery may open doors, but it cannot sustain trust in high-stakes diplomacy. Pakistan’s Trump-centric approach reveals the limits of personality-driven foreign policy.
Pakistan’s recent foreign policy under a hybrid regime led by its Field Marshal Asif Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is heavily influenced by a personality-driven dynamic, particularly in its engagement with Donald Trump. As pointed out by Mehdi Hasan, a British-American journalist and political commentator, in an interview with NDTV, Pakistanis have “done a good job of sucking up to Trump,” underscoring a growing reliance on flattery and ego-boosting tactics to remain in Trump’s good books.
When Flattery Becomes a Diplomatic Constraint
From the early phase of Donald Trump’s second term, especially after developments like Operation Sindoor, Pakistan openly credited Trump for ceasefire efforts—something India refrained from doing. Islamabad went further by nominating Trump multiple times for the Nobel Peace Prize. At many international platforms, particularly during the Gaza Board of Peace meeting in Washington and earlier at the Gaza peace summit at Sharm el-Sheikh, Pakistan’s leadership left no stone unturned in praising Trump, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif describing him as a “man of peace” and even a “saviour of South Asia.” Even during recent ceasefire extensions by Trump, Pakistan continued this pattern of excessive praise.
This reflected a calculated strategy: to appeal to Trump’s personality, which is widely perceived as ego-driven and narcissistic. By consistently affirming his self-image and constantly putting messages into his psychological zone of acceptance. Pakistan managed to secure his attention and, to some extent, his favour. Of course, the United States has its own strategic calculations—particularly regarding Iran—but the personal dimension of Trump’s leadership style makes such flattery tactically useful in the short term.
However, this approach is now showing clear limitations, especially in the context of reaching any peace deal with Iran. The very strategy that helped Pakistan gain proximity is now constraining its ability to act as a credible intermediary. Because Islamabad has focused primarily on sending positive, non-confrontational messages to Trump, it appears reluctant—or unable—to convey messages that might irritate or challenge him.
This concern has been explicitly raised by Iranian voices. Iranian analysts and officials have questioned whether Pakistan is genuinely transmitting Tehran’s positions to Washington. One such voice, Iranian lawmaker Ebrahim Rezaei, pointed out that Pakistan is no longer seen as a neutral mediator. According to him, Islamabad selectively communicates, prioritising Trump’s preferences over balanced diplomacy. He stated that Pakistan “lacks the necessary credibility” and “always takes Trump’s ego into account and does not say a word against his wishes,” underscoring a growing perception that its role as an intermediary is increasingly compromised.
Importantly, the United States now appears to be echoing similar concerns. A CNN report published on May 12, 2026, titled “Trump increasingly considers resuming large-scale military action against Iran,” stated that many Trump administration officials believed Pakistan had been sharing “a more positive version of the Iranian position with the US than what reflects reality,” while also questioning whether Islamabad was “aggressively conveying Trump’s displeasure” to Tehran. Significantly, an earlier CNN report published on May 6, 2026, titled “US and Iran closing in on memorandum aimed at ending war, source says,” had already hinted at scepticism inside the White House, noting that Pakistani mediators were presenting an optimistic assessment of Iranian flexibility that some US officials did not fully share.
This is the core psychological flaw in a personality-centric foreign policy. When diplomacy is personalised to accommodate one man’s ego, it is bound to hinder strategic flexibility. Mediators must be in a position to deliver awkward truths and dissenting opinions. But when a state is afraid to upset a leader like Trump, it starts filtering messages, putting them into what can be called the ‘zone of psychological acceptance.’ Anything outside that zone is open to suppression.
Erosion of Trust and Mediation Credibility
As a result, trust erodes. Iran’s scepticism about Pakistan’s neutrality is not incidental—it is a direct consequence of this ego-management strategy. Even technical issues, such as disagreements over the scope of ceasefire agreements—for example, whether regions like Lebanon were included when the initial ceasefire between the United States and Iran was reached—became points of contention because communication was filtered, biased, and incomplete. This then became a major point of contention, with Iran maintaining that Lebanon formed part of the ceasefire framework, while the United States rejected this interpretation, deepening mistrust and reinforcing perceptions of inconsistency in how the agreement was conveyed. As Ebrahim Rezaei further said, “They are unwilling to tell the world that America first accepted Pakistan’s proposal but then went back on its word. They do not say that the Americans had commitments regarding Lebanon or the blocked assets, but that they failed to fulfil them. A mediator must be impartial, not always leaning to one side.”
In the long run, such a policy is unsustainable. Personality-driven diplomacy may yield short-term visibility and tactical gains, but it weakens institutional credibility. Relationships built around individuals rather than enduring interests and institutions tend to fade with political transitions. When leadership changes in Washington, Pakistan may once again find itself marginalised, having invested too heavily in a single personality rather than in a broader strategic framework.
As Pakistani security analyst and president of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, Muhammad Amir Rana, warned in his February 1, 2026, article “Pakistan’s Trump Test” published in Dawn, “The post-Trump phase will test Pakistan’s diplomacy and political leadership,” while also questioning “how far the country can maintain its relevance” once Trump exits the political stage. Rana further argued that Pakistan’s current diplomatic positioning is too closely tied to a “Trump-endorsed defence equation” and cautioned that, without developing “alternative strategic options,” Islamabad could face increasing diplomatic marginalisation in the future. These concerns reinforce the broader perception that Pakistan’s recent diplomatic gains are heavily dependent on Trump-era political dynamics rather than on durable institutional and bipartisan foundations in Washington.
Playing to a leader’s ego can open doors, but it also shrinks the space for honest diplomacy. Pakistan’s experience suggests that an over-reliance on psychological appeasement in foreign policy can compromise both credibility and effectiveness in complex negotiations. As also noted by American psychologist Michael Maccoby in his book, “The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership,” leaders with strong narcissistic traits may initially respond positively to admiration and validation. However, their effectiveness tends to decline over time as underlying behavioural patterns become more visible. In such contexts, strategies based on flattery and ego management may generate short-term gains but ultimately constrain credibility and weaken long-term influence.
Jeffrey D. Sachs: Briefing of the UN Security Council on Venezuela
January 5, 2026
Mr. President,
Distinguished Members of the Security Council,
The issue before the Council today is not the character of the government of Venezuela.
The issue is whether any Member State—by force, coercion, or economic strangulation—has the right to determine Venezuela’s political future or to exercise control over its affairs.
This question goes directly to Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.
The Council must decide whether that prohibition is to be upheld or abandoned.
Abandoning it would carry consequences of the gravest kind.
Background and context
Since 1947,United States foreign policy has repeatedly employed force, covert action, and political manipulation to bring about regime change in other countries. This is a matter of carefully documented historical record. In her book Covert Regime Change (2018), political scientist Lindsey O’Rourke documents 70 attempted US regime-change operations between 1947 and 1989 alone.
These practices did not end with the Cold War. Since 1989, major United States regime-change operations undertaken without authorization by the Security Council have included, among the most consequential: Iraq (2003), Libya (2011), Syria (from 2011), Honduras (2009), Ukraine (2014), and Venezuela (from 2002 onward).
The methods employed are well established and well documented. They include open warfare; covert intelligence operations; instigation of unrest; support for armed groups; manipulation of mass and social media; bribery of military and civilian officials; targeted assassinations; false-flag operations; and economic warfare aimed at collapsing civilian life.
These measures are illegal under the UN Charter, and they typically result is ongoing violence, lethal conflict, political instability, and deep suffering of the civilian population.
The case of Venezuela
The recent United States record with respect to Venezuela is clear.
In April 2002, the United States knew of and approved an attempted coup against the Venezuelan government.
In the 2010s, the United States funded civil society groups actively engaged in anti-government protests, notably in 2014. When the government cracked down on the protests, the US followed with a series of sanctions. In 2015, President Barrack Obama declared Venezuela to be “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
In 2017, at a dinner with Latin American leaders on the margins of the UN General Assembly, President Trump openly discussed the option of the US invading Venezuela to overthrow the government.
During 2017 to 2020, the US imposed sweeping sanctions on the state oil company. Oil production fell by 75 percent from 2016 to 2020, and real GDP per capita (PPP) declined by 62 percent.
The UN General Assembly has repeatedly voted overwhelmingly against such unilateral coercive measures. Under international law, only the Security Council has the authority to impose such sanctions.
On 23 January 2019, the United States unilaterally recognized Juan Guaidó as “interim president” of Venezuela and on 28 January 2019 froze approximately $7 billion of Venezuelan sovereign assets held abroad and gave Guaidó authority over certain assets.
These actions form part of a continuous United States regime-change effort spanning more than two decades.
Recent United States global escalation
In the past year, the United States has carried out bombing operations in seven countries, none of which were authorized by the Security Council and none of which were undertaken in lawful self-defense under the Charter. The targeted countries include Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and now Venezuela.
In the past month, President Trump has issued direct threats against at least six UN member states, including Colombia, Denmark, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria and of course Venezuela. These threats are summarized in Annex I to this statement.
What is at stake today
Members of the Council are not called upon to judge Nicolás Maduro.
They are not called upon to assess whether the recent United States attack and ongoing naval quarantine of Venezuela result in freedom or in subjugation.
Members of the Council are called upon to defend international law, and specifically the United Nations Charter.
The realist school of international relations, articulated most brilliantly by John Mearsheimer, accurately describes the condition of international anarchy as “the tragedy of great power politics.” Realism is therefore a description of geopolitics, not a solution for peace. Its own conclusion is that international anarchy leads to tragedy.
In the aftermath of World War I, the League of Nations was created to end the tragedy through the application of international law. Yet the world’s leading nations failed to defend international law in the 1930s, leading to renewed global war.
The United Nations emerged from that catastrophe as humanity’s second great effort to place international law above anarchy. In the words of the Charter, the UN was created “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.”
Given that we are in the nuclear age, failure cannot be repeated. Humanity would perish. There would be no third chance.
Measures required of the Security Council
To fulfill its responsibilities under the Charter, the Security Council should immediately affirm the following actions:
The United States shall immediately cease and desist from all explicit and implicit threats or use of force against Venezuela.
The United States shall terminate its naval quarantine and all related coercive military measures undertaken in the absence of authorization by the Security Council.
The United States shall immediately withdraw its military forces from within and along the perimeter of Venezuela, including intelligence, naval, air, and other forward-deployed assets positioned for coercive purposes.
Venezuela shall adhere to the UN Charter and to the human rights protected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Secretary-General shall immediately appoint a Special Envoy, mandated to engage relevant Venezuelan and international stakeholders and to report back to the Security Council within fourteen days with recommendations consistent with the Charter of the United Nations, and the Security Council shall remain urgently seized of this matter.
All Member States shall refrain from unilateral threats, coercive measures, or armed actions undertaken outside the authority of the Security Council, in strict conformity with the Charter.
In Closing
Mr. President, Distinguished Members,
Peace and the survival of humanity depend on whether the United Nations Charter remains a living instrument of international law or is allowed to wither into irrelevance.
Dubbed as the “mother of all deals”, the agreement links India’s tightly guarded market to the 27 nations of the EU bloc. The focus will be on the manufacturing and services sectors and on easing market access for key European products such as cars and wine, in return for easier exports of textiles, gems, and pharmaceuticals. The formal signing of the agreement would take place later this year, after the legal scrubbing is complete and ratification by EU member states.
The evolution of bilateral ties and the FTA
Post-Cold War, shared democratic values increased political and economic engagement, leading to the establishment of a Strategic Partnership in 2004. The Eurozone crisis stalled the progress made under the Joint Action Plan (2005) and Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) talks (2007). Ties remained under-leveraged as Europe turned inward and India diversified its partnerships, turning the relationship economically transactional and geopolitically underdeveloped.
The talks for the FTA started in 2007, but differences over market access for automobiles in 2013 led to a jettison. The EU had stringent legal mandates for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), investment protection, massive import duty cuts and sustainable development goals (SDGs). India, on the other hand, needed a more liberal framework for skilled professionals, addressing non-tariff barriers and excluding government procurement.
The 2019 COVID-19 Pandemic resulted in supply chain shocks. China’s assertiveness triggered convergence on resilience and technology, leading to the revival of trade talks and the establishment of the trade and technology council (2022).The resumption of negotiations aimed at three separate agreements- two on investment protection and geographical indication, to try for an early harvest on trade. Issues like data privacy and security-related legislation, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and IPR were not of primary concern and opening up government procurement was to follow the deals as concluded with the UAE and UK in 2025.
The FTA has now been finalised during the 16th India-EU summit, held in New Delhi on 27 January 2026. The summit has also led to the creation of a comprehensive strategic agenda towards 2030, which will replace the EU-India Strategic Partnership: A Roadmap to 2025. The past six months of accelerated talks leading up to the agreement are a by-product of incessant increases in tariff rates on the US side, China’s economic heft, and the economic impact on the EU from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The deal aims to advance the security alignment between the EU and Indiaami with growing concerns about India’s ties with Russia.
The EU-India Agenda 2025 strategy is to reinforce prosperity and security with India. The key pillars of this engagement are foreign policy and security cooperation, trade and investment, sustainable modernisation, transport and urban development, clean energy, focus on outer space, artificial intelligence, issues such as global economic governance, migration and mobility, education and culture and human rights.
Sectors of engagement
Currently, the major focus of bilateral ties is the trade and services sector, which is showing steady growth. The EU is India’s largest trading partner; total merchandise trade with the bloc was 136.54 billion USD in 2024-25. Indian exports have increased from EUR 19 billion in 2019 to EUR 37 billion in 2024, and imports from the EU have also reached EUR 29 billion in 2024. India-EU trade in services reached INR 7.2 Lakh Crore (USD 83.10 billion) in 2024.
Security and defence ties have deepened since the College of Commissioners’ visit to India in February 2025. The statement from this visit agreed to explore a security and defence partnership between the EU Commissioner for Defence and Space and India’s Minister of State for Defence. Simultaneous visits from the EU delegation in September and December 2025 led to advances in strategic dialogue.
The talks have been complemented by joint naval exercises and escort operations for humanitarian assistance near Somalia in 2018 and 2019, the Gulf of Aden in June 2021, the Gulf of Guinea in October 2023 and the Indian Ocean in June 2025. On the sidelines of the EU-India summit, a security and defence partnership has also been signed. This will expand cooperation in maritime security, counter terrorism and cyber defence.
Benefits for EU countries
Tariffs on 96.6% of EU goods will be eliminated or reduced, saving up to 4 billion euros per year in duties on European products. The FTA grants a competitive advantage for EU exporters, granting the biggest trade opening India has given to any trade partner. The deal ensures privileged access to the Indian services market in key sectors like financial services and maritime transport, but also ensures protection of the EU intellectual property, like trademarks. This makes the customs procedures in exports quicker and easier.
Breaking down the available data on exports for 2024 and considering the current and finalised tariff rates for the upcoming year, the bilateral relations look promising. The exports of machinery and electrical equipment amounted to 16.3 billion euros in 2024, with prevailing tariff rates of 44%. Aircraft and spacecraft, optical, medical, and surgical equipment exports amount to up to 6.4 and 3.4 billion euros, with tariff rates of 11% and 27.5%, respectively. Exports of plastics and pearls, precious stones and metals amounted to 2.2 and 2.1 billion euros, with tariff rates of up to 16.6% and 22.5%, respectively, in 2024.
Similarly, trade in other products is depicted as product (amount of exports, tariff rates) as of 2024: In chemicals (€3.2 billion, 22%), motor vehicles (€1.6 billion, 110%), Iron and steel (€1.5 billion, 22%) and pharmaceuticals (€1.1 billion, 11%) are also remarkable. The future tariffs on these products, as part of the deal, will be 0% except for motor vehicles, which will be 10% with a quota of 250,000 EU vehicles annually; this is still beneficial for European car makers.
Benefits for Indian sectors
With the FTA, over 99% of Indian exports gain preferential entry into the EU, apart from bolstering the ‘Make in India’ initiative, granting new opportunities for MSMEs and creating jobs for women, artisans, youth and professionals. Indian products worth 75 billion USD are set to be exported, and commodities from sectors like textiles, leather, marine products, gems, and jewellery amounting to 33 billion USD will gain immensely from the preferential access from the FTA.
India is powered by a young and dynamic workforce that can be leveraged to unlock opportunities across sectors and to enhance competitiveness on the global stage. The FTA also helps in integrating Indian businesses more deeply into global value chains, ensuring the country maintains its role as a key player and supplier in global trade. The labour mobility agreement opens opportunities for young professionals and seasonal workers and brings India into the EU’s Horizon research programme. The EU’s commitment to opening 144 subsectors in IT, professional services and education, and to facilitating easier labour mobility has also brought in a positive outlook.
In exchange for the tariff cuts, the EU has granted India immediate zero-duty access for labour-intensive exports such as textiles, apparel, leather, footwear, gems and jewellery. The deal is also expected to boost India’s agricultural and food sector through preferential market access for its agricultural exports and increased competitiveness for processed foods.
Geopolitical side of the agreement
In the past two decades, EU-India relations have matured in a stable geopolitical environment. The India-US relationship and Europe’s transatlantic bond were held as a matter of long-term potential rather than immediate necessity. But the scenario has changed, with rampant changes in the political leadership and incessant wars. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced Europe to commit to long-term defence rearmament and deterrence planning. The return of President Donald Trump to the White House has reduced trust and introduced uncertainty into Washington’s role for both Brussels and New Delhi, albeit in different ways.
The FTA was the result of a growing common concern: aggressive tariff rates by the US and its one-sided, unilateral approach with absolute disregard for the principle of reciprocity. Some EU countries recently faced fresh tariff threatsfrom Trump, who was put out by their refusal to accept his proposed takeover of Greenland. The deal was secured amid a flurry of countries striking deals and patching things up to navigate global uncertainty. During negotiations for the FTA, the potential repercussions of US interference were a concern, particularly the kinds of reactions to the agreement.
India-US Trade Deal
Fortunately for India, the US and India reached a trade deal on 1 February 2026, less than a week after the India-EU FTA was announced. The current tariff rates will be cut down from 50% to 18% on Indian goods in the US. The trade relationship between the US and India has been strained since the US imposed 50% tariffs, including a 25% penalty linked to India’s purchases of Russian oil. US stocks inched higher after Trump announced the deal with Delhi on Truth Social. On the other hand, this reduction will affect small businesses in the US, which will have to pay an average tariff of 2.5% on goods from India.
India, EU, Russia and China Relations
The EU-India relationship is often framed as a natural strategic alignment rooted in shared values and converging interests, but it is better understood as a parallel response to a shared pressure environment. India’s decision to preserve ties with Moscow, refrain from political condemnation, and expand economic engagement through a sharp rise in energy imports remains a persistent source of friction in the EU-India relationship. Meanwhile, recalibrated threat perceptions regarding economic and security policy are a serious point of friction with India. On the sidelines of the announcement of the trade deal, the EU has pressed for a change in India’s stance toward Moscow.
In their dealings with China, neither side can afford to fully decouple from Beijing. Deeper EU-India economic integration can help mitigate vulnerabilities linked to trade imbalances, technological dependence, and critical digital infrastructure. But India’s concerns about China’s territorial proximity and its defence engagement with Pakistan are significant. The FTA functions less as a mechanism for strategic risk reduction than as a political catalyst for strengthening resilience and autonomy.
Challenges
The lack of a resolution in some of the issues that jeopardised the finalisation of the deal in 2013 persists and is not addressed in the current agreement. Agricultural trade negotiations, which historically have been a sticking point, are kept outside the tariff reductions on both sides. Under the agreement, India will not be granted exemptions under the CBAM, which came into effect on 1 January 2026. CBAM can negatively impact Indian Iron and Steel exports. This was a contentious issue even in the India-UK FTA, with a fear of exporters from India having to pay ‘Green tax’. The duty-free access of EU goods into India can disrupt the trade balance and negatively affect domestic products.
On issues like easing of regulatory complexity, non-tariff barriers, high compliance standards, climate-related commitments, and rules of origin, both parties have differing interests. All of these issues carry adjustment costs that may be felt most acutely by exporters and suppliers operating with limited capacity. It would be critical to see whether, after the current geopolitical uncertainty settles, the intention to smooth these issues still remains.
The FTA’s ratification in the European Parliament is pending, but the commitment to early operationalisation means the deal is set to enter into force within a year. However, the EU-Mercosur agreement, concluded after 25 years of negotiations, is now facing opposition from the European Parliament. Although approval from each country is not necessary for the India-EU FTA to be operationalised, it would still need parliamentary approval.
Apart from the trade deal, the agreement also considers a broad array of topics. Maintaining balance amid shifting positions and competing geopolitical interests is essential for the deal to meet its preconditions.
This article analyses India’s approaches to refugee issues, their limitations, and the challenges faced by refugee communities due to the absence of a comprehensive, standardised refugee policy framework. With over 200,000 refugees from neighbouring countries and others, India has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol, leading to ad hoc, inconsistent and indirect policy applications through complementary legislation. Due to this, refugee communities face significant barriers in terms of accessing education, employment opportunities, healthcare and welfare facilities, government financial aid schemes and legal provisions and protections, including government identification, leading to deportation and exclusion from Indian society. The Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, complicated these conditions and exposed the dire living conditions of refugees. To address these gaps, the paper offers actionable recommendations, including developing a generalised, human-rights-oriented refugee policy that adheres to international humanitarian standards, establishing an institution for refugee protection, conducting comprehensive data collection, and creating collaborative committees that involve diverse stakeholders to address marginalised refugee groups.
Background of the Policy Issue
According to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, refugees are defined as person/s residing outside of their national territory/boundary and is unable/unwilling to return to the country of their nationality, owing to conflict, fear and possibility of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a group and/or political opinion (UNHCR, n.d.). The convention initially applied to European refugees but was expanded through the 1967 Protocol to cover refugees globally and remove any temporal/geographical limitations. The legality of refugee protection is governed by the 1951 Refugee Convention, the 1967 Protocol, and regional- and host-country-level instruments. The 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol are not legally binding, leaving states with the authority and legitimacy to grant refugee status, with UNHCR support through the facilitation of international standards and the maintenance of refugee camps and asylum seeker facilities (UNHCR, n.d.).
As of 2024, India has a refugee and asylum seeker population of more than 240,000 refugees originating from multiple neighbouring countries, including Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Pakistan, Tibet and Afghanistan (Rajan and Sreekumar, 2024). The country has been regarded as a “haven” for refugees throughout history. Yet it lacks a comprehensive domestic refugee policy for the assistance, regulation, and protection of refugees. India has also chosen not to sign the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol (Khosla, 2022).
Current Policies and Their Effectiveness
The Foreigners Act of 1946 and the Indian Passport Act also indirectly influence India’s refugee policy, deeming those entering India without a visa to be illegal immigrants. They do not include specific approaches to refugees.
The Indian government currently manages refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons through ad hoc, arbitrary and ambiguous legal pathways. By employing a unique dual system which divides the asylum caseload between UNHCR and the government based on regions, India leaves a significant number of people in vulnerable and precarious situations (Vijayaraghavan, 2020). While the UNHCR employs the Refugee Determination System (RSD) for asylum seekers arriving from non-neighbouring countries and Myanmar, those from neighbouring South Asian countries must approach the Ministry of Home Affairs directly, resulting in inconsistent protection (Shankar and Vijayaraghavan, n.d.). The Foreigners Act of 1946 and the Indian Passport Act also indirectly influence India’s refugee policy, deeming those entering India without a visa to be illegal immigrants. They do not include specific approaches to refugees (Borah and Das, 2024).
Several refugees and asylum seekers lack legal status despite being recognised by UNHCR, with exceedingly limited access to government schemes, health care facilities, education, identity documentation, social integration, and economic development (Vijayaraghavan, 2020). Upon recognition by UNHCR, they are issued identity cards, but these cards are rarely recognised by State governments, leaving them with insufficient protection. They also face difficulties obtaining Aadhaar identification, further restricting access to health and welfare benefits and to public services such as bank accounts (Vijayaraghavan, 2020).
India has endorsed the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), which requires the implementation of RSD mechanisms for the registration and identification of refugees and the just determination of asylum applications (Shankar and Vijayaraghavan, n.d.). However, India has not implemented these processes, leaving the UNHCR to handle applications under its Memorandum of Understanding with the international organisation (Shankar and Vijayaraghavan, n.d.).
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), introduced in 2019 by the ruling government, sparked widespread agitation due to its religious criteria for Indian citizenship and state protection. By specifically catering to religious minority groups from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, the country’s first direct legislation for the protection of refugees further marginalises specific refugee groups. It restricts access to protection (Shankar and Vijayaraghavan, n.d.).
The Immigration and Foreigners Act, passed in April 2025, replaces the Foreigners Act, 1946; the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920; the Immigration (Carriers’ Liability) Act, 2000; and the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939. While the Act does not specifically address refugees, it aims to curb illegal immigration into India and prioritise national security. The Act introduces stricter penalties for entry and stay violations by foreigners in the country and authorises Immigration Officers to examine passports and other documents as and when required, to seize them if deemed necessary, and to arrest foreigners without a warrant (Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025). The Act also allows the Central Government to prohibit, regulate and restrict the entry of foreigners into India if they are deemed a security threat, with no mechanism for appeal. Heavy penalties for violations of the law are introduced, with entry into India without a valid visa or passport resulting in a fine of approximately Rs 5 lakh and up to 5 years’ imprisonment (Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025).
In September 2025, however, the Ministry of Home Affairs stated that Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who entered India before 9th January 2015 would be exempt from penal provisions if they did not hold valid travel documents (The Wire, 2025). Therefore, Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who are registered with the government will not be treated as undocumented immigrants. In another order issued in September, the Union home ministry declared that members of minority communities from neighbouring countries, including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, who fled to India before 31st December 2024 to escape religious persecution, will be allowed to stay despite a lack of travel documents (The Wire, 2025).
Limitations/Gaps
A significant limitation to adequate protection of refugee communities in India is the severe lack of awareness of existing refugee policies and the UNHCR’s role in recognition and protection. Due to the lack of a generalised refugee policy applicable throughout the country, refugees often hesitate to approach Indian authorities for fear of persecution and deportation, even when undergoing financial discrimination and mistreatment (Shankar and Vijayaraghavan, n.d.). The continued ambiguity in India’s definition of refugees also further complicates the problem.
The COVID-19 Pandemic and India’s sudden lockdown implementation affected refugees to an extreme degree. The lack of savings and inability to earn income left refugees stranded, a situation further exacerbated by the temporary suspension of UNHCR’s refugee status determination activities (Shankar and Raghavan, 2021). Most refugees live, and continue to live, in unsafe and vulnerable conditions, which enhances the risk of infection and spread of the pandemic among refugee communities. Vaccination drives that provided free testing and vaccination were few and far between, and limited access to public health care facilities and financial aid created significant challenges, leaving refugees dependent on the generosity of their employers and landlords (Shankar and Raghavan, 2021).
While refining outdated laws and regulations that do not meet contemporary migration requirements is necessary and welcome, significant gaps remain in the Immigration and Foreigners Act 2025. The criteria for deeming a person a security threat have not been established, which could result in unlawful deportation, prohibition, or imprisonment. The Act also does not distinguish between foreigners and refugees, who are often forced to partake in irregular methods of travel and stay in search of safety and security. Many lack the means to obtain visas and passports and may lose their proof of identity during dangerous travel.
The ambiguity of refugee policy leads to variations in the treatment of different refugee communities, usually determined by contextual and geopolitical factors. For example, while Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in the South can seek employment and government financial aid, the same cannot be said for Rohingya refugees, who are often put in refugee detention camps or deported (Sandhu and Sebastian, 2022). The lack of a policy is addressed through ad hoc measures, often implemented by the police administration, that prioritise surveillance and security over protection and welfare. The recent orders that provide certain exemptions to Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and refugees from neighbouring countries are definitely a step in the right direction, but ultimately bring further complications, especially considering the exclusion of certain communities based on religion. This also allows the ruling government to adapt its governance framework to align with ideological principles. By assigning a religious criterion for Indian citizenship and state protection, the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 ensures the marginalisation of select groups of refugees and asylum seekers, bringing into question the secular characteristics of India’s governance (Rajan and Sreekumar, 2024).
The lack of privacy, haphazard sanitary conditions, poor menstrual management and double surveillance by state authorities and refugee communities sheds light on an intersectionality of issues women refugees face in protracted refugee situations and camp sites
A significant aspect of refugee discourse is its gendered nature, but it is rarely addressed in policy debates and discussions. Women refugees who make up almost half of the refugee population in India are often solely held accountable for caregiving responsibilities and sustenance of the family, further limiting their access to education, employment and individual development (Malik, 2024). The lack of privacy, haphazard sanitary conditions, poor menstrual management and double surveillance by state authorities and refugee communities sheds light on an intersectionality of issues women refugees face in protracted refugee situations and camp sites (Malik, 2024). While women refugees are beginning to achieve representation in the refugee discourse, refugees from LGBTQIA+ communities and second-generation refugees remain mostly out of the picture. Second-generation refugees who are completely isolated from urban society are further restricted from access to quality education and employment opportunities. More often, they are left stateless and lack access to government recognition and welfare facilities because their parents have not been provided with refugee status (Shankar, 2024).
Actionable Recommendations
To address these gaps in refugee regulation, a comprehensive, human-rights-oriented refugee policy that adheres to international standards of refugee protection and implements an RSD process should be introduced to ensure consistent and justified treatment of all refugee groups. Considering past policies and measures implemented for Tibetan refugees, it is evident that policies focused on their integration and protection can have a significant positive impact on their community. Indirect legislation has been invoked to ensure basic constitutional protection for certain groups of refugees, but this is typically done by lower courts that lack the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction (Shankar and Vijayaraghavan, n.d.). Additionally, complementary legislation, while helpful to a certain extent, simply does not address most issues and concerns of refugee communities. The Immigration and Foreigners Act advocates a more hands-on approach to migration management. Still, it does not strike a balance between upholding national security and implementing humanitarian measures and lacks a specified approach to refugees and asylum seekers within the country.
Collecting accurate data on the statistics of refugees and asylum seekers in India plays a significant role in the development of a domestic refugee policy. Currently, the 2011 Census remains the only eligible data for policy analysis. Adequate data, along with policy directives to protect the humanitarian rights of refugees, need to be prioritised to develop comprehensive policies (Vijayaraghavan, 2020). A leading institution can be responsible for collaboration and coordination across relevant departments to develop an overarching legal framework for refugees, with a specific focus on their social and economic integration, education, employment opportunities, and access to welfare and health care facilities. A specialised committee to address gendered concerns can be formed within the institution, thereby drawing attention to issues affecting women in refugee communities.
Through overarching approaches across various legal and political channels, a generalised refugee policy aligned with international standards can be implemented, providing refugees with adequate legal protection, security, and opportunities for integration.
A crucial precursor to the formation of this leading institution and refugee policy is the need for productive discourse among the ruling government, policymakers, experts in the field, and refugees themselves, to prioritise the safety of these vulnerable communities. Through overarching approaches across various legal and political channels, a generalised refugee policy aligned with international standards can be implemented, providing refugees with adequate legal protection, security, and opportunities for integration. Without a well-articulated policy specific to refugees, they will continue to be vulnerable, with limitations to their rights and protection. Therefore, it is imperative to strike a balance between upholding national security and ensuring the dignity and protection of refugees and displaced persons. Recognising international human rights norms in formulating refugee policies in India can help build a comprehensive migration policy framework that addresses the country’s unique refugee challenges.
Works Cited
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Borah, D., & Das, B. (2024). India’s Refugee Policy: A Critical Analysis. Library Progress International, 44(3), 9877–9885.
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Khosla, M. (2022, September 22). The Geopolitics of India’s Refugee Policy • Stimson Center. Stimson Center. https://www.stimson.org/2022/the-geopolitics-of-indias-refugee-policy/
Malik, A. (2024, August 9). Refugee rights, the gendered nature of displacement. The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/refugee-rights-the-gendered-nature-of-displacement/article68506611.ece
Rajan, S. I., & Sreekumar, A. (2024). An Overview of India’s Migration Governance Over thePast Decade. https://core.ac.uk/reader/611833180
Sandhu, K., & Sebastian, M. (2022, August 19). Rohingya and CAA: What is India’s refugee policy? BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-62573446
Shankar, P. (2024, January 5). India’s stateless babies: How lawless asylum rules leave refugees in limbo. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/1/5/stateless-babies-in-northeast-india-refugee-mothers-pray-for-nationhood
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The Wire. (2025, September 4). MHA Exempts Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees Who Came to India Before Jan 9, 2015, From Penal Provisions – The Wire. The Wire. https://thewire.in/rights/mha-exempts-sri-lankan-tamil-refugees-who-came-to-india-before-jan-9-2015-from-penal-provisions
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Vijayaraghavan, H. (2020, September 8). Gaps in India’s Treatment of Refugees and Vulnerable Internal Migrants Are Exposed by the Pandemic. Migrationpolicy.org. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/gaps-india-refugees-vulnerable-internal-migrants-pandemic
The old world order is not returning; the international system is structurally transforming into a fragmented multipolar reality. In this age of disorder, flexible institutions and reformist leadership—exemplified by India—are essential to sustain global governance.
The 56th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting took place in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, from January 19 to 23, 2026, under the theme “A Spirit of Dialogue.” The forum brought together global political, business, and intellectual leaders at a moment when the international order is not merely under strain but undergoing a deeper structural transformation. Discussions at Davos underscored a shared recognition that dialogue in today’s fractured global environment is not a sentimental ideal but a strategic necessity—particularly amid intensifying geopolitical competition, accelerating technological disruption, economic fragmentation, and the growing limitations of established institutional frameworks. Significantly, the conversations reflected a broader shift in global thinking, moving away from nostalgia for a stable post–Cold War order toward an urgent search for more flexible and adaptive forms of global governance capable of managing uncertainty, fragmentation, and persistent conflict.
The contemporary international system is undergoing an unprecedented degree of geopolitical turbulence. Institutions such as the United Nations and other global governance mechanisms—established in the aftermath of the Second World War—were designed to manage conflict and promote cooperation within the structural realities of that era. Today, however, the assumptions underpinning these institutions no longer align with prevailing geopolitical conditions, rendering many of them increasingly ineffective and disconnected from contemporary realities. This growing institutional disconnect is inseparable from deeper structural changes in the global system itself. As Zack Cooper, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, notes in his Stimson Center essay “An American Strategy for a Multipolar World”, “a multipolar world is now unavoidable, with legacy powers increasingly accompanied by a number of rising powers… this is a much more complex system than the multipolar dynamic that existed in Europe after the Congress of Vienna… today’s multipolar system is highly fragmented along regional and functional lines.” This observation captures the core challenge of the present international system: it is not merely shifting in power distribution, but fundamentally transforming in structure and complexity.
From Bipolarity to Fragmentation
The post–Second World War order was shaped initially by Cold War bipolarity and later by a brief unipolar moment following the end of the Cold War. In contrast, the current system is marked by fragmentation, instability, and a gradual transition toward multipolarity. Historically, periods of power transition—particularly multipolar configurations—have been associated with heightened uncertainty, miscalculation, and conflict. The present environment reflects this pattern, as competing power centres and overlapping crises push the international system toward persistent volatility.
In this volatile context, states are increasingly adopting hedging strategies to manage risks and vulnerabilities. From Europe to Asia and beyond, countries are diversifying partnerships, avoiding rigid alignments, and seeking strategic flexibility. This behaviour is neither anomalous nor irrational; rather, it is a structural response to systemic uncertainty. Such adaptive behaviour, however, is itself a symptom of deeper structural instability in the international system.
As many scholars, most notably Kenneth Waltz, have long argued, an emerging multipolar order tends to be among the most unstable configurations in international politics, marked by heightened risks of conflict, miscalculation, and escalation. With multiple powers competing simultaneously and no clear hegemon capable of stabilising the system, the international order becomes increasingly fragile and prone to error. The contemporary system appears to be operating on this edge, shaped by overlapping crises and rival power centres.
Compounding this instability is the rapid emergence of critical and disruptive technologies, advanced weapons platforms, cyber capabilities, and artificial intelligence. These developments further intensify volatility by lowering barriers to conflict, accelerating escalation dynamics, and complicating traditional deterrence frameworks. International experts at a 2025 conference warned that such technologies are “eroding present deterrence frameworks” and could destabilise the global security order without a global regulatory consensus. Similarly, the World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025 notes that “cybersecurity is entering an era of unprecedented complexity,” as the rapid adoption of AI without adequate safeguards creates far-reaching security risks requiring multilateral cooperation.
While some observers attribute current turbulence primarily to political leaders such as Donald Trump, this interpretation is overly simplistic. Trump’s policies may have accelerated existing trends, but they are not the root cause. The deeper drivers lie in structural shifts within the international system and in long-term transformations within American domestic politics that have altered the foundations of US global engagement.
Davos and the Recognition of a New World Order
These concerns have been openly acknowledged by global leaders at the World Economic Forum. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, speaking at Davos, argued that“the old world order is not coming back,” cautioning against nostalgia-driven policymaking and warning that the global system is undergoing a rupture rather than a smooth transition. He further observed that economic interdependence has increasingly been weaponised and warned middle powers that “if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.” Such remarks reflect a growing recognition that disorder, competition, and power asymmetries are now embedded features of the international system.
Similarly, World Economic Forum President Børge Brende highlighted the depth of uncertainty confronting the global order, noting that “the political, geopolitical, and macroeconomic landscape is shifting under our feet.” Emphasising the limits of unilateralism and rigid frameworks, Brende stressed that “dialogue is a necessity, not a luxury,” reinforcing the idea that cooperation must persist even in an era of fragmentation. These statements underline a critical point: the challenge today is not the absence of institutions, but their inability to adapt to changing geopolitical realities.
French President Emmanuel Macron further reinforced this diagnosis at Davos by warning of a “shift towards a world without rules, where international law is trampled underfoot and where the law of the strongest prevails.” His remarks underscore the erosion of the post–Second World War multilateral framework under the pressure of returning imperial ambitions, coercive diplomacy, and unilateral action. Macron’s warning reflects a broader concern that global politics is increasingly shaped by power rather than norms. At the same time, he rejected intimidation as an organising principle of international relations, stating that “we prefer respect to bullies,” and called for effective multilateralism—one that is reformed and updated rather than dismantled.
Reforming Global Governance for an Age of Disorder
Against this backdrop, the central question is how states can navigate such geopolitical turbulence. A rigid, blueprint-based institutional approach—reminiscent of Cold War–era frameworks—is no longer viable. What is required instead are flexible, adaptive institutions capable of absorbing shocks, accommodating diverse interests, and operating under conditions of persistent uncertainty. Since traditional multilateralism is increasingly strained, it is essential to recognise that disorder itself is likely to remain a defining feature of the contemporary international system.
Any effort to design or reform institutions must therefore begin with this recognition. Fragmentation and regionalisation—particularly through minilateral and issue-based coalitions—are inevitable outcomes of a multipolar environment. However, this does not eliminate the need for global cooperation. Rather, it demands cooperation frameworks that are flexible, inclusive, and responsive to evolving geopolitical realities. Institutions must be capable of adapting to shifting power balances rather than attempting to impose outdated structures on a transformed system. In these tough times, the world requires greater cooperation and coordinated action, because the challenges we face—such as climate change, cyber threats, economic instability, and regional conflicts—are global in nature and cannot be solved through isolated national approaches.
Another limitation in current thinking is the tendency to interpret global politics solely through the lens of US–China rivalry. While great power competition undeniably shapes the international environment, such a narrow focus underestimates the agency of middle and regional powers. Many states actively shape outcomes, norms, and institutions rather than merely reacting to great power pressures. Effective institutional design must therefore reflect this distributed agency and avoid reducing global politics to a binary rivalry.
Equally important is the need to move beyond linear and deterministic thinking. The contemporary world is characterised by non-linear dynamics, uncertainty, and complex interactions. Predicting the future exclusively through the lens of past patterns—particularly those rooted in liberal or Cold War assumptions—is increasingly misleading. Institutional responses must be grounded in realism, flexibility, and adaptability rather than static or idealised models of order.
Recent initiatives such as Donald Trump’s proposal for a “Board of Peace,” driven largely by personal leadership and transactional logic, illustrate the limitations of personality-centric approaches to global governance. Given their temporary nature and the likelihood of reversal under future administrations, such initiatives lack durability. Moreover, such proposals are often unrepresentative and do not reflect the realities of the international system; they are based on authoritarian-style solutions rather than broad-based legitimacy, consensus, and institutional resilience. In contrast, reforming existing institutions—particularly the United Nations—offers a more sustainable path forward. Reforms that reflect contemporary geopolitical realities would enhance the UN’s relevance without undermining its foundational principles.
India’s Reformist Approach to Global Governance
India’s approach to global governance is particularly instructive in this context. When India criticises the United Nations or other global institutions, its objective is not to dismantle them but to reform them. This distinguishes India from countries such as China and Russia, which often seek to replace existing structures with alternative, and frequently anti-Western, institutional arrangements. India positions itself not as an anti-Western power, but as a non-Western one—committed to liberal democracy, pluralism, and engagement with existing global frameworks. As India’s Ministry of External Affairs has emphasised,“the architecture of global governance in 2025 for the future cannot be written in ink from 1945,” highlighting the need to update institutions rather than replace them.
This distinction is crucial. India has significantly benefited from the existing international order, and its economic transformation since the post-1991 reforms has been largely enabled by the stability, access to global markets, and investment flows that the post-World War II system provided. Consequently, India has little incentive to support a China-centric alternative. Reforming the current system, rather than replacing it, aligns with India’s long-term strategic interests. Moreover, India’s leadership and participation in forums such as the SCO and BRICS have played a stabilising role. Without India’s presence, these platforms could easily evolve into explicitly anti-Western blocs. India’s foreign policy is best understood as reformist rather than revisionist, acting as a bridge between the West and the Global South; as Chatham House notes, India seeks to “change the international order from within rather than overthrow it.” Yet many Western policymakers fail to understand India’s global vision and often categorise it alongside other revisionist powers, viewing India narrowly through a bilateral prism or primarily as a counterweight to China. This misreading overlooks India’s broader role as an independent norm-shaping power.
In light of these dynamics, the most effective strategy for navigating contemporary geopolitical turbulence lies in reforming and revitalising existing institutions rather than constructing entirely new ones based on rigid, blueprint-style thinking. A blueprint approach assumes that we can predict the future and design institutions accordingly—an assumption that is inherently flawed because the future is always uncertain and unknowable. Institutions must therefore be designed to capture the reality of moving from the known to the unknown and to adapt continuously as new challenges emerge. They must be made flexible, resilient, and responsive to disorder rather than designed to eliminate it. Accepting instability as a structural condition—and designing mechanisms of cooperation accordingly—offers the best chance of sustaining global governance in an increasingly fragmented world.
