Dr S Jaishankar, the Indian External Affairs Minister, was recently quoted saying, “Americans stopped trying to control everything that happens on the planet and began to take responsibility for global processes more carefully.”
Many leading international media outlets truncated the sentence, “The dominance of the US has effectively come to an end,” and eschewed the important context in which the statement was spoken.
This gave the impression that, somehow, the Indian foreign minister had embarked on a mission to malign the US. This is a fairly good example of how devastating the fourth estate of democracy can be when it chooses to be wayward.
The statement became viral because it came from a foreign minister known as a suave diplomat, an astute politician, and a pragmatic policy planner with rich experience. Giving wide publicity to an out-of-context statement can only be a matter of design, not chance.
The Design
The design is to deepen the wedge between fast-rising Indian civilization-based nationalism and the ‘small fry’ colonial era mentality.
The 2014 parliamentary election was the first clarion that denounced the small-fry mentality and opened the window that would let in the fresh and energizing air of resurgent India. If the diehard conservatives were taken aback by the results of that election, they had yet to face the far bigger trauma in 2019.
It was only after the 2019 elections that the political stereotypes in our country began identifying and consolidating their remnants. To confront the resurgent forces in a decisive battle, the regressive forces decided to heavily depend on an offshore support structure that denounced all organs of the Indian state.
To convince the offshore structure of their adherence to their designs of parceling out India, these elements chose foreign political capitals and economic hubs as the bastions of their anti-nationalist propaganda tirades.
Their takers in those lands were waiting in the wings. They became proactive and challenging only when the enigmatic INDI-Alliance surfaced, albeit after some hiccups and hesitations. This Alliance was the outcome of rapid interaction among the on-shore and off-shore coordinating processes led by the leading group of Congress with a hand logo.
The Context
Let us throw some light on the context in which the Indian foreign minister made the remark. He was trying to draw the attention of the world community towards the unprecedented changes through which the contemporary world was passing.
He focused on the universal impact of the changes starting with the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 with its worldwide impact, digitalization, AI, space exploration, climate change, mobility of labor force, connectivity and ownership of resources, etc. These are not issues of little importance.
The deeply impacting changes threw up new opportunities and aspirations among nations and groups; it sped up the urge for economic changes and paved the path for planning for a new economic and political order in the world. Multi-polarity was a reality and even the United States could not escape its impact.
In elucidating his understanding of the emergence of a new world order, he very fairly said that even the US could not remain unaffected by the overwhelming changes. The precise sentence that the foreign minister framed to state his inference ran as this: “Americans stopped trying to control everything that happens on the planet and began to take responsibility for global processes more carefully.”
Some time ago, Christophe Jaffrelot, the renowned political scientist, reviewed Jaishankar’s book The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World on YouTube. He very ably analyzed the depth and relevance of the Indian foreign minister’s observations and began his discourse with the “end of US dominance.”
The Imperatives
For a research study, it would be fitness to elucidate our viewpoint through palpable examples from contemporary history. American dominance of the world after WW II was the result of the dynamics of the last battle between human freedom and dignity against regimentation and subjugation.
The cost of upholding human freedom was heavy, mostly paid by European nations. American dominance of production and distribution, demand and supply, resources and their exploitation, etc., had naturally passed into the hands of a much more powerful and pragmatic Union of American States.
Massive post-WWII reconstructions like the Marshall and other plans, including even the PL—480, were not of small significance. These activities cannot be called “dominance,” as that would mean taking only a myopic view of the situation. That “dominance” was inevitable because it was inherent to the post-war reconstruction dynamics.
It is true that with the US taking large strides in the realms of science and technology in the post-WW II era, the US democracy outstripped its reasonable limits but only to face tough opposition, at times forcing her not to remain impervious to the fast-moving changes.
Washington was face to face with new ideological, geostrategic, geographical, and economic priorities after the era of the Cold War ended in 1991.
Russian Federation
Russia offers the toughest challenge to the US and her European partners essentially because of the creation of a patent adversary in the shape of NATO.
This so-called watchdog organization has proved ineffective on the ground but remains an intractable irritant in the European continent. The Ukraine war is actually Russia’s war against NATO.
Two years of full-fledged support to Ukrainian proxy has become a contentious issue for the American Congress. Despite sanctions on Iran, the US could neither stop the shipment of Iranian ammunition and drones to Russia nor could Washington stop the flow of Russian oil to India and Russian gas to Europe.
Ukraine War
The Global South, by and large, rejects the American stand in Ukraine. In the American Congress, strong voices are raised against pouring billions of taxpayers’ money into the Ukrainian war and for what purpose?
China
The question is not whether the two superpowers have comparable military might; the question is China’s reach and influence in Third World countries and its developmental enterprise on almost all five continents of the globe.
The Western media publishes much less about the phenomenal changes China’s entrepreneurs have brought to the African Continent. China controls the world economic order, and a majority of United Nations members are on China’s side in world issues.
Iran
Belligerent Iran has been defying all antics of the US to isolate her and subject Iran’s economy to sanctions. Iran has defied the sanctions and is foremost among the opponents to Washington’s West Asia and Middle East policy.
In the context of the 7 October attack of Hamas on Israel, President Biden and his Secretary of State acknowledged they had no proof of Iran’s involvement in the perfidy. In the wake of Iran’s massive missile and drone attack on Israel, Washington has been working on secret negotiations with Iran and, at the same time, repeatedly announced withholding shipment of bombs and other war material to Israel.
India
The world’s largest democracy refused to endorse the US-sponsored condemnation resolution against Russia by the UN. India’s stand is that the UN Security Council is not a truly representative body and, hence, not acceptable because India has often demanded fundamental reforms in the antiquated UN system and charter.
India continues to buy oil from Russia despite sanctions imposed on Russia. Again, despite sanctions on Iran, India, and Iran have signed a ten-year Chabahar agreement that will eventually result in an overland link between India and Moscow via the Caspian and Caucasian regions.
The US threatened India with the imposition of sanctions and India responded by saying that the US does not have the right to interfere in India’s internal affairs.
What do all these developments indicate? Evidently, the US domination is coming to an end, and the US itself is feeling the heat of this phenomenon. This makes it more plausible that the era of hegemony and domination has to yield space to multipolarism.
- Prof. KN Pandita (Padma Shri) is the former director of the Center of Central Asian Studies at Kashmir University.
- This article contains the author’s personal views and does not represent EurAsian Times’ policies/views/opinions in any way.
- The author can be reached at knp627 (at) gmail.com
