Why India And World Must Worry: Big-2 Superpowers Are Headed By Reckless Warmongers

Last week, Tulsi Gabbard, a US Democratic party candidate for the presidency two years ago, left her party because it had become an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness."

The Democrats, she said, “are hostile to people of faith and spirituality. They demonise the police and protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans. The Democrats of today believe in open borders and weaponise the national security state to go after political opponents. Above all else, the Democrats of today are dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.”

She is not off the mark.

The Joe Biden administration has demolished the rules-based world order by weaponising finance, imposing arbitrary sanctions against countries that fail to toe its line, supplying more and more lethal weapons to the Ukrainians to fight Russia, and bringing economic woes to the whole world, especially the poor, by allowing inflation to soar everywhere.

Biden is effectively running a first world mafia in the name of democratic values. Gabbard is well out of his party.

On the other side of the Pacific, another thuggish global superpower, led by Xi Jinping, is baring it fangs. Xi is consolidating his power over the Chinese Communist Party and looks set to adopt an agenda that threatens all its neighbours, including Taiwan, India and many of the countries claiming rights to the South China Sea.

According to a Reuters analysis, in his speech to the ongoing Communist Party Congress, Xi “used the terms ‘security’ or ‘safety’ 89 times, up from 55 times in 2017”, while “his use of the word ‘reform’ declined to 48 from 68 mentions five years ago.”

Clearly, Xi thinks China’s time as the world’s topdog has arrived, and the world must now kowtow to him and his country.

Xi’s rise represents the rise of another autocratic Hitler, this time in Asia.

The last time we had such dangerous leaders leading their countries was before the Second World War, when the rise of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin brought us a world war that led to millions of deaths.

This time, the world’s two superpowers are headed by two groups of Mafiosi, each keen to expand its turf at the cost of smaller warlords like Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Consider the damage inflicted by the kinds of policies pursued by Don “Corleone” Biden and Xitler.

The US has weaponised global finance by imposing the most extensive economic and financial sanctions on Russia, including the freezing of Russia’s own dollar assets, and targeting Putin’s close business allies. Those not seen to be backing the US line on Russia face economic pressure to conform, and sanctions, too.

Uncle Sam’s massively expansionist fiscal policies over the last decade and a half have brought us the highest levels of inflation in living memory, forcing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates dramatically.

This has strengthened the US dollar, the currency in which most global trade is denominated, causing inflation elsewhere and pushing most countries towards slowdown and recession.

NATO is expanding at a frenetic pace, with Sweden and Finland knocking at its doors, and Ukraine likely to follow suit at some time in the future.

As Gabbard notes, at no time in US history — outside the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960s — has the US moved so close to nuclear war.  

China has weaponised Covid, both internally and externally, by imposing endless lockdowns in its own cities in pursuit of a ruinous “zero-Covid policy”. It has also used the Covid period to attack a peaceful country like India and rattle its sabres against Taiwan.

Between Covid and the Russia-Ukraine war, the global supply chains have broken down like never before.

The world is careening towards a mix of Cold War and Hot War simultaneously, with the US and China heading for the first, and Europe for the second.

In this scenario, when two mafia dons — and a minor don — fighting for supremacy, the non-combatants will be worst affected.

For India, this means policies must be prudent, for we are sure to face a dramatic slowdown in fiscal 2023-24.

We can expect the world to slip into a sharper slowdown and even recession as rate hikes start to bite, and the current domestic demand scenario — which is driving growth in India — starts tapering off as the Reserve Bank of India too is forced to raise rates to fight inflation.

We have to be economically cautious like never before and prepare for the worst.

First, we must focus on adequate production of wage-goods, especially food, so that the poor are not impacted adversely.

Second, we must use the world’s new wariness towards China to sell India as a manufacturing destination, apart from expanding capabilities in offshore and onshore services delivery. No country can be a services superpower without a major addition of manufacturing capability.

Third, we must speed up the indigenisation of defence output, and speed up imports of critical equipment from our friends. Our most reliable defence partners are France and Israel, while the US can be an additional supplier. But US defence deals will always come with strings, and will be subject to domestic political pulls and pressure.

Fourth, India must stop defending the rupee and conserve reserves for tougher times.

Fifth, politically, the Narendra Modi government must reach out to states for greater devolution of power and also more alignment on policies to promote manufacturing and services. Red-tape, especially at the state level, must be cut to the bone. Cooling the political temperature is now vital for economic growth and job creation.

India has to act on the presumption that it has to fight all its battles alone. Friends are welcome, but we cannot be sure of anyone’s friendship when the world is ruled by two mafia thugs.