They fear Bharat as Bharat believes in “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam,” i.e., “The world is one family.” In this era of Trump and the wild card, the world looks to Bharat for leadership. — Alok Singh

The game of cards is a simulation of geopolitics. The cards keep changing hands, and certain cards in certain situations are Trump cards. In geopolitics, the Trump card is the scarce resource an individual player owns. It can be food, energy, security, or the future itself. The future can be a scarce natural resource, scarce financial muscle, scarce technological capability, or scarce human capital.

The other player’s trump card can counter the trump card of one player. But if the trump card of another player can counter the trump card of one player, then it’s not a trump card. Then it is a wild card. The wild card keeps changing hands, and its ability to be a decisive factor is contextual. The context depends on the phase of the game, the timing of the game, the withholding capability of different players, the survival strategy of other players, the strategic decision to lengthen the game till favorable situations arise, and many permutations and combinations for mutual benefit, or waiting for a win-win situation in a likely zero-sum game. 

The Trump card is the ability to negotiate in geopolitics. The wild card is more relevant in today’s geopolitics. The Trump card is there, but its shelf life is shorter. The resources that are scarce today can be irrelevant tomorrow. The resources of little value today can become the most valuable tomorrow.

The world is discussing, writing, and preparing for the so-called trade war. The existence of multilateral trade instruments like the World Trade Organization (WTO) still bothers many. The WTO is already an expired product, but it is not a hazardous product. Hence, it keeps being showcased in public policy discussions. The WTO is looking for an entity to whom it can be helpful, i.e., it is looking for a utility position for itself. 

The Chinese have already squeezed the WTO as much as they can during the first decade of this century. The Americans and Europeans squeezed the WTO to serve their maximum interests in the last decade of the previous century. The WTO is of no use to Americans, Europeans, or Chinese. So, no one cares about the WTO.

The export-driven economic growth model has prompted the leverage of the WTO to come up with a substitute. The Chinese did it well. They devised several regional, bilateral, and plurilateral trade agreements with and among various geographical areas of the world as an alternative to paralyzed WTO. The new American President recently said the Chinese President is his “dear friend.”

The Americans understand that it’s not only the WTO that is not serving America’s purpose, but many more international institutions are not in its sole control. The campaign of MAGA, i.e., Make America Great Again, has forced the occupants of the White House to revisit the drawing board. This drawing board projects its objectives as ending the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza war, controlling America’s trade imbalance, and other specific hidden agendas.

The role of the Russia-Ukraine war is the trickiest to understand in the context of MAGA. The Americans want to be great again at the cost of Russians and Ukrainians. The Americans created whatever trouble they could to debar Russians from the international fraternity, whether campaigning that no country trades with Russia or banning Russians from SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide International Financial Telecommunications. The new American President recently said the Russian President is his “old friend.” 

The Ukrainians own rare earth materials, which the Americans are eyeing and disclosing publicly, that we need Ukrainians. In lieu of that, we have to support Ukrainians. The trump card and the wild card of this game are universally acknowledged; hence, it’s a game where all the players are playing with their cards open. Access to defense products and technology, obviously outdated or, at maximum, penultimate, is binding Ukrainians to engage with Americans. The Europeans, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Russians sometimes appear as pawns in the game between America and Ukraine. The Russians must disengage from NATO and Europeans for historical reasons and a futuristic defense strategy. The world witnessed the press conference that the presidents of America and Ukraine attended; one is known for dramatics, and the other is a professional comedian. Whether that was planted or spontaneous won’t be easy to guess. Anyway, the new American President didn’t say anything or didn’t catch the attention like an old friend or dear friend to the Ukrainian President.

The new American President didn’t refer to the Bhartiya prime minister as an old friend or dear friend but instead said, “We missed you a lot.” The world is talking more about the Trump card of trade war and military war and needs to focus on the undisclosed war. 

But silently, the Americans acknowledge that it will be too late to do a deal for satellite communication and electric vehicles with Bharat as our young demography and the human capital have demonstrated to the world the successful execution of one-time pandemic COVID-19 vaccines and the evergreen universal digital transaction system, i.e., Unified Payments Interface (UPI). The shelf life of technology is getting less and less, and in a small window of opportunity, they want to squeeze the financial resources. In the case of imported electric vehicles and satellite communication, the strategy should be to delay such agreements to minimize the collateral damage.

The Americans are distracting the world with various wars, such as trade and military. Still, they are silently working on projects like United States Cryptocurrency Strategic Services. They wish to gain control of the multipolar world order. They have admitted the departure of the bipolar world and accepted that the unipolar world is history. They are coming up with a new service that will be needed and appreciated by the world population. They fear Bharat as Bharat believes in “VasudhaivaKutumbakam,” i.e., “The world is one family.” In this era of Trump and the wild card, the world looks to Bharat for leadership.           

(Alok Singh has a doctorate in management from the Indian Institute of Management Indore and promoter of Transition Research Consultancy for Policy and Management.)