With Trumpism knocking down the pillars and blocks that upheld the rules-based global order, underwritten by the world’s prominent liberal democracies, the other great powers and middle powers are scrambling to piece together a new architecture that offers some form of stability. Yet, these attempts for an alternate world order remain incremental, thanks to the concerns about the system being dominated by China and Russia, both with known aversions towards the rules-based order, even as Trump embarks on his own alternate ideas about global security and transnational partnerships. India, being sandwiched between its middle power status and great power aspirations, is uncertain about its forward path as a rising power. In this concise analysis of the changing world order, Ajaya Kumar Das evaluates how India could navigate this complex geopolitical maze.
Home page image: In retreat – symbolising Donald Trump’s abandoning the rules-based system
Text page image: An American flag hangs over a production facility. Trump’s policies have caused major setbacks for the US economy, despite all claims of ‘greatness’
Banner image: Symbols of the great power groupings – ASEAN, G7, NATO, SCO
In the face of President Donald Trump’s grand strategy of ‘predatory hegemony’ that exhibits sheer unilateralism and does not discriminate between partners and rivals, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, warned about the irreparable ‘rupture’ in the international order.
While invoking the famous phrase of Thucydides in the History of the Peloponnesian War —"the strong do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must” he called for a ‘third’ way of middle powers to navigate this volatility, in which many found the echo of the nonaligned block of the Cold War era.
This has prompted many analysts in India to suggest the need for engaging Carney’s agenda, while others see in India’s strategic diversification, which is otherwise labelled as nonalignment or multi-alignment, a template for middle powers.
While PM Carney rightly recognised the reality of the return of great power politics, his remedy lacks realism—that is, it is great powers, not middle or small powers, that create and run the international order defined in terms of international institutions that disproportionately benefit the former.
Any middle power coalition will be subject to the policies of divide and rule by the US and China. India’s ‘strategic diversification’ of its ties enhances its resilience and autonomy.
However, building bridges with anyone and everyone in this lopsided multipolar world, at the cost of a close partnership with the US, which has been built over twenty-five years, is not a sound strategy, especially for managing its relationship with China, which remains the biggest challenge for India’s security and growth as a great power.
The challenge from China is a geographical and structural reality. By keeping its relations with the US as only a part of the mix in its diversification, in the face of a volatile US, it will not produce effective deterrence against adversarial China.
If India’s interim trade deal with the US, agreed last week, and participation in the US State Department's inaugural ‘2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial’ are of any indication, then India is likely to give more priority to its relationship with the US following a turbulent year in bilateral ties.
Such a relationship with the apex great power also comes with opportunity and pressure, questioning at times the viability of its strategic autonomy and ability to diversify.
Can India then balance between the imperative of maintaining a close relationship with the US and diversifying its relations with the other two great powers, especially China? The answer to this question will shape India’s successful journey into the emerging global order.
A new world order
The world has become multipolar with China’s rise and Russia’s assertiveness as a great power, although it remains lopsided with the US possessing unmatched military and economic power, and therefore effectively presiding over a ‘one-sphere world.’
So, ‘vacillating between retreat and resistance’ as unipolarity comes to an end, the US is wrecking the old liberal order, which was otherwise in decline over the last two decades due to its own flaws. According to John J. Mearsheimer, the international order with more than one great power will be determined by realist logic: competition for power and security among great powers.
As the world drifts towards disorder under Trump’s grand strategy of predatory hegemony, it is argued that the new order can be built, minus the US. History suggests otherwise. It is very unrealistic to think of any reset in the global order without the apex great power.
Although Trump has withdrawn the US from sixty-six international institutions, as well as the World Health Organisation, UNESCO and the United Nations Human Rights Council, he has created a ‘Board of Peace’ to manage world conflicts beyond Gaza.
If this works, it may not replace the United Nations. But the existence of the former might make the latter more irrelevant. Or, it would be led by China, supported by many consequential middle and small powers, as well as Russia.
Another initiative by the Trump Administration has been the Pax Silica, to create supply chain security for critical minerals and technologies among allies and trusted partners.’
Image: President Trump unveiling the 'Board of Peace' in Davos
Alternatively, if we assume to be effectively living in a bipolar system under a multipolar ‘mirage,’ the world order will again predominantly feature power politics shaped by rising China, and the wavering US obsessed with maintaining its hegemony and, if not possible, then a favourable balance of power.
The Chinese trade surplus reaching USD 1.189 trillion in 2025 and the Trump obsession with tariffs causing the US to confront trade deficits are indications of the phenomenon that Martin Wolf of the Financial Times talked about – great powers adopting mercantilism.
This will imply a shift from neoliberalism to neo-mercantilism, in order to gain an element of power that should largely be viewed in the realist framework of zero-sum relative gains and likely conflicts.
Such conflicts might consequently result in finding commonality and developing new institutions. Again, that will be created by great powers, not middle powers like India.
The past, if any guide, showed that the bipolar Cold War was dominated by the two great or superpowers creating two ‘thick’ ‘bounded’ orders and a ‘thin’ international order that suited their interests.
Image: An interactive map by the Lowy Institute ranks great and middle powers on many indicators
These orders were largely driven by realist tenets. The middle and small powers had limited agency of their own to drive the trajectory of these orders.
The coalition of Third World countries was formed around their poor economic condition or common aspirations to move up the ladder towards developing and developed world trajectories.
These efforts led to initiatives like the United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and G-77, which, though they were not effective in creating a new economic order. Rather than diverging economically or politically, they became willing participants in the American-led liberal order.
The Non-Alignment Movement (NAM), created after the Bandung Conference of 1955, had little impact on the course of Cold War superpower rivalry. Jawaharlal Nehru’s proposed ‘Third Force’ of the nonaligned countries collapsed as China emerged as the de facto leader of Asia, following Bandung and after decisively defeating India in a short war in 1962.
Under American hegemony, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the liberal international order was created that benefited all the participants. But it was the US that benefited more.
China, taking advantage of this order, has emerged as a peer competitor challenging American preeminence, making international power effectively appear today as bipolar, with Russia remaining as the weakest of the three great powers.
We may therefore see, as Mearsheimer argues, the emergence of two bounded orders, one led by the US and another by China.
In such a scenario, there will be many defectors under pressure or incentives from the US and China, leading to the collapse of a possible block of the Global South or the like-minded middle powers. Even issue-based coalitions on areas like climate change will not make much progress without the participation of either of the two great powers.
India holds about USD 4 trillion GDP against China’s USD 19 trillion and the US's USD 30 trillion, and its overdependence on foreign supplies for its military power means it could only be seen as a power like what China was during the Cold War.
While it cannot create order, it can, in significant ways, influence, if not shape, the emergent global order, to suit its national interest. Therefore, India must weigh in the pressure and opportunity and pragmatically choose whether to join the US-led Board of Peace and Pax Silica.
As India hosts the BRICS summit this year, which includes only the two great powers – China and Russia, it has to play the delicate balance between the two predatory great powers: the US and China.
Image: President Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos
World as equilibrium
The strategic objectives behind the ongoing policies of US President Trump continue to be mired in confusion and ambiguity.
While Trump claims to pursue the goal of Making America Great Again – implying its global dominance, which he claims to have diminished – his actions, on the contrary, clearly end up undermining the rule-based order that was developed to purportedly support its preeminence.
Besides imposing tariffs unilaterally on partners and rivals, Trump’s military machine goes to Venezuela to control its government and oil, aspires to take Greenland from Denmark and seeks regime change in Iran by mobilising its forces.
These predatory policies have resulted in their allies and partners diversifying their economic, defence and security ties to build their resilience and autonomy, and pursuing China as an alternative strategic partner.
Even if one believes in structural arguments that the US is only responding, without having any parallel experience, to rising China as a peer competitor, it is not China but the US that is globally perceived as aggressive with imperial impulses that need to be balanced and contained.
When it comes to India, it is not immune to pressure from the US. The US had supposedly facilitated the rebellion in Bangladesh, with an aggravated role of Islamist elements, which led to the ouster of an elected government.
The Trump Administration has also actively promoted and backed the Army’s predominance in Pakistan, which has only further undermined India’s national security. Trump also imposed the highest tariff rates on India, which has had immense costs on the country’s economic and strategic wherewithal.
In response, the hedging and diversification being increasingly pursued by the middle powers like India and the European Union (EU) have brought significant weight together, with the objective of bringing stability to this emerging balance of power.
Their strategic independence and resilience, and constructive engagement with both China, without leaving the scope of engagement with the US, are sound rational policies against structurally-driven and personalist-influenced exploitative policies of both the great powers.
The recently concluded India-EU free trade agreement (FTA), both accounting for 25 per cent of the global GDP and one third of global trade, being the largest for either side, along with the security deal, could shape the emerging order and balance against the rising mercantilism of great powers.
Image: PM Modi with President of the European Council, António Luís Santos da Costa and President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen (left), the Union Cabinet with Ursula von der Leyen (centre), and PM Modi with President Trump at the G7 Summit (right)
While the said trade deal has been 20 years in the making, the finalisation of the agreement has a lot to do with the predatory policies of Trump. Since it had a geopolitical statement directed at the US, the agreement with Brussels created pressure on the US to break the impasse and announce the interim trade deal with India, reducing the tariff on Indian exports to 18 per cent from the sky-high 50 per cent.
Despite its clear tilt in favour of the US, this agreement would enhance India’s economic competitiveness and accelerate growth by unlocking access to American markets, capital, and technology unavailable under the status quo.
India has also sought to diversify its trade relations by signing seven other FTAs since 2021 and is set to diversify further, which will cause economic growth and thereby enable its balancing capacity.
Courting the EU, which is not a state, for a strategic partnership, however, is not likely to create sufficient deterrence for India against China. It is also a reality that the European Union has sought to engage and strengthen its trade ties with China.
India at this juncture cannot afford even a short war with China, which will undermine its ability and confidence to rise as a great power. Therefore, India must create its capacity, use its diplomatic skill, and diversify its relations in order to maintain friendly relations with Russia, China and other middle powers and build on a strategic partnership with the US.
While pursuing these strategic pathways, the question remains relevant as to whether India can produce the kind of leverage that China has managed to set up against the US in order to protect its sovereign decisions.
The bottom line is: can India sustain its rising power?
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