Category Archives: India
4 pathways to cooperation amid geopolitical fragmentation
The world is experiencing geopolitical turbulence. Wars are raging across the Middle East, Europe and Africa; 2023 marked the largest ever single-year increase in forcibly displaced people.
In addition to these security challenges, the world faces a warming planet and fragile global economy that can only be addressed through joint action.
Despite this daunting picture, there are ways the international community can still work together. Experts from the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Geopolitics tell us how, in a new report entitled Shaping Cooperation in a Fragmenting World.
The report offers innovative pathways towards greater global cooperation in four areas: global security, climate action, emerging technology and international trade.
Below are the key highlights, as outlined by our experts.
1. Global Security – advancing global security in an age of distrust
By Bruce Jones, Ravi Agrawal, Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, Karin von Hippel, Lynn Kuok and Susana Malcorra
The starting point must be to recognize that distrust is, in the short and medium term at least, a baked-in feature of geopolitical reality.
Managing this and forging responses to global challenges despite it requires recognizing that collaboration is possible even under conditions of intense distrust: the US and the Soviet Union repeatedly proved this during the Cold War.
Third parties are key to managing the distrust through quiet diplomacy (often at or through the UN), brokering offramps, de-escalation and crisis avoidance. So-called “middle powers” have in the past played a key role in great power conflict prevention and de-escalation and are an important part of this moving forwards.
Although this term has, until recently, been confined to Western countries, shifts in the global balance of power mean that it extends beyond the West to “rising” powers elsewhere.
A standing mechanism that links the western major and middle powers with the non-Western ones (Brazil, India, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and so on) would create a diplomatic mechanism that could straddle the increasingly bifurcated worlds of the G7, Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad) and the expanded BRICs.
2. Climate Change – rethinking climate governance
By Samir Saran and Danny Quah
There is now a need to rethink global climate governance. The fundamental imbalance is this that while the developed world has been the key contributor to historical emissions, future emissions will be concentrated in the developing world. It is necessary to not just increase the amount of private capital deployed in the Global South, but also to ensure the scope of such investment is widened to include adaptation.
Similarly, the technology needed to scale up green energy solutions also remains concentrated in the developed world and China. The mandate and lending patterns of multilateral development banks should be changed and the start-up sector in the emerging world should be repositioned towards climate goals.
At the same time, multilateral forums such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the G20 must better acknowledge and differentiate impacts of climate change on health outcomes across genders and craft women-led initiatives to mobilize societal support for political action.
3. Emerging Technology – taming technology together
By Samir Saran, Flavia Alves and Vera Songwe
The prolific pace of advancement of frontier technologies and its pursuit by a multitude of state and non-state actors, with varied motivations, has opened a new chapter in contemporary geopolitics.
To ensure that efforts at tech regulation and stemming their proliferation succeed, countries will be required to undertake innovation in policy-making, where governments take on board all the stakeholders – tech corporations, civil society, academia and the research community.
Similar to the responsibility to protect (R2P) principle developed by the UN for protecting civilians from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, the international community must create a regulatory R2P obligation for states to protect civilians from the harms of emerging technologies.
And the Global South must convene a standing conference of the parties (COP) for future technologies, along the lines of COP for climate change negotiations.
4. International Trade – expanding and rebalancing trade
By Nicolai Ruge and Danny Quah
Strengthening and rebalancing the trade system requires expanding the trade agenda, not limiting it. The broader the benefits delivered by trade, the more firmly it will be aligned with national and global priorities.
Trade that is designed to deliver on globally shared priorities as defined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals will gain the trust of governments and citizens and be “fenced off” from geopolitical rivalry rather than disrupted for near-term political wins.
To rebuild global trust in the benefits of the multilateral trade system, it is of paramount importance that the Global South – and particularly least-developed countries – are not cut out of the growth and development pathways that participation in international trade provides.
Mechanisms must be in place to ensure they are able to take advantage of new opportunities created by shifts in global value chains.
How can these pathways be successful?
Throughout the report , one common factor emerged as key to enhancing cooperation across these four domains: inclusivity.
To address challenges in global security, climate change, emerging technology and trade, the international community must prioritize diverse voices and involve actors that have previously been on the margins of multilateral fora.
With this approach as a North Star, building cooperation is possible.
This publication originally appeared in World Economic Forum.
How India can become the bank for the Global South
Today, India is poised at the moment and GDP that China was in in 2007. Does it have the same gumption?
In 2007, China’s GDP was about $3.6 trillion. Today, India’s GDP is $3.7 trillion — perhaps more. This parallel is crucial to understanding the big moment that Indian diplomacy, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is recognising. A moment, if supported by India’s people, its companies and the state apparatus, will reshape the global order. An appreciation of this moment and putting its lessons into concrete actions is the big legacy of 2023 as India concludes a transformational diplomatic year — the year of its G20 stewardship.
Look back at history. In 2007, China was not yet the geoeconomic behemoth it is now. But with a GDP lower than India’s today, it became the go-to nation during the global financial crisis a year later. Every nation sought to deepen relations with Beijing, and to create a special place in their diplomacy for the People’s Republic. Its leaders were the toast of Davos and at business salons. China provided institutional and geoeconomic responses — a development bank, a cross-continental lending programme that galvanised infrastructure accretion without the legacy constraints of Western agencies, and a series of economic projects that eventually coalesced into the Belt and Road Initiative.
It is true that some of these have run into trouble. Nevertheless, the fact is China used its economic promise in 2008 to gain oversized economic and political influence that continues to stand it in good stead. It did this by offering itself as a vital additionality to the global order. At a time when the US was struggling to recover from the financial crisis and the Eurozone was tearing itself apart, it was China that promised stability and economic dynamism. The world wanted and needed an additional engine of growth and an additional source of investment. And so it also welcomed an additional centre of geopolitical power.
India is poised at a similar moment and with a similar GDP. Does it have the same gumption? As we enter 2024, this is the framework within which Indians must understand their place in the world today. The recent past teaches us that an India-sized economy of about $4 trillion can exert a huge influence. With vision and skilful diplomacy, it can carve a space for itself alongside economies that are four or five times large, like the United States, the European Union and China.
This is a real Indian opportunity in 2024, as Europe stagnates, the US turns inward and China deals with internal problems and its share of the global economy that is shrinking in nominal terms. The agenda for India’s next government must simply be this: Demonstrate India’s potential, and the additionality that it can provide for global growth, institutions, and security.
Additionality does not require extraordinariness. After all, China’s growth in recent years has not been extraordinary. But it had momentum, and that is what India has today. It has its own trajectory and the motive force, one better suited to a green and digital future. If China had mass manufacturing, the growth engine of the 2010s, India has its platform economy, the dynamo of the 2020s.
But additionality must have attributes. What Beijing offered 15 years ago was not an inchoate promise. There was a system, a schema, to the China proposition. This roadmap excited China’s partners. An entire future-focused architecture served as the loudest possible announcement that a $4-trillion economy would punch with the weight of a $15-trillion one.
Also, a new cooperation architecture needs to be put in place because India, in a very short while, will be spending serious money globally. The private sector is mobilising to support connectivity, supply chains, and resource resilience projects across the world. But public development finance will also grow alongside, and indeed, faster than India’s economy.
This is the substance behind India’s additionality. Even if we assume India grows at only 10 per cent a year in current dollars, below its recent benchmark, it will be a major new source of development finance. If India slowly but steadily raises its development cooperation budget to less than 0.5 per cent of its GDP by 2030, it will still have put around $70 billion into the global system. India is already the voice of the Global South; it will become the bank of the Global South.
This finance needs to be undergirded by India’s unique proposition, its own roadmap, and its own offering to the world. It urgently needs an outward-focused development finance corporation that can catalyse projects globally. It needs a bank, its own version of the China Development Bank, that will focus on global corporate needs beyond just trade finance. And it needs an imagery that is understood by others.
India’s government has shown this ambition at home. The prime minister’s Gati Shakti initiative links disparate infrastructure projects with a common vision. Similarly, we need an external engagement approach. Together with like-minded partners, India needs maps plotting priority infrastructure, connectivity routes, business and trading hubs and developmental projects. It needs to do this boldly and determinedly, identifying vital regions and sectors where it will resolutely plant the Tricolour. 2024 is the year for inking a world map described by India’s vision for its role in the world.
Source : Indian Express, December 13, 2023
The New Suez Moment? India’s G20 and the Tectonic Transition
The world moulded by the Delhi Summit will be one of people-focused principles, and agile, trust-based partnerships
It has been 14 years since the world’s leaders met at Pittsburgh and declared that the G20 was the world’s “premier forum for international economic co-operation”. In all these years, the G20 has broadened its horizons and extended its mandate, but it has never, till India’s presidency, offered a new vision for multilateral economic governance. This is not surprising. The Pittsburgh Summit, held in the shadow of the 2008 financial crisis, had a single-minded focus on saving a financial system distant from the streets of Mumbai or Mombasa. An organisation built for crisis management could not be expected to advance a wholly new vision for global governance.
The Pittsburgh Summit, held in the shadow of the 2008 financial crisis, had a single-minded focus on saving a financial system distant from the streets of Mumbai or Mombasa.
In recent years, the G20 has been a lukewarm affair with political leaders largely being relegated to talking heads. Since February 2022, there has been a real risk that the G20 agenda would, given its crisis management lineage, attempt to become a forum for addressing the war in Ukraine. The New Delhi Summit has not only course-corrected, but it has also given this group a new lease of life. The “bankers’ G20” has been replaced, now and forever, with a “people’s G20”.
India’s achievement in producing a consensus, and a communiqué, has rightly been hailed. The G20 may not be a politico-security forum, but as all the meetings preceding the leaders’ summit demonstrated, there was no getting around Ukraine. New Delhi and Prime Minister Modi were up to the task. The United Nations Security Council, with only five vetoes, has failed to simply reaffirm the basic values of the UN Charter. But with India’s stewardship, the G20—a body with 20 vetoes, not one—was nudged into reminding us that “all states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state”.
The United Nations Security Council, with only five vetoes, has failed to simply reaffirm the basic values of the UN Charter.
But what is even more important than India’s ability to deliver a consensus is that India’s G20 has humanised global governance. From climate finance to women-led development, India has taken up issues that so many struggle with and championed their solutions. In an era where populism has been simply wished away as a residual by-product of elite globalisation, India has used that same channel of multilateral cooperation to try and help the world’s underserved.
Partners in democracy: The US and India
India’s leadership, and the new direction it has given the G20, should come as no surprise. The world of 2023 is vastly different from the one in 2009. And India’s ascent to global deal-making has implications for the other great powers of the world: The United States (US), China, and India’s emerging-economy peers.
The Pittsburgh Summit was hosted by the world’s only superpower. Since then, a generation has passed. Attitudes have darkened. The superpower that, with such enviable confidence, steered the Pittsburgh agenda has turned its back on internationalism. It has raised gates to trade and walls against immigrants, and it now forces its money and energy to stay home rather than travel the world.
The superpower that, with such enviable confidence, steered the Pittsburgh agenda has turned its back on internationalism.
But the global system abhors a vacuum, whether of leadership or ideas. Time fashions its own alternatives. And, so, another vast democracy has risen to shoulder responsibility. As Capitol Hill recedes, Raisina Hill has stepped in. To be sure, it seems the US is shepherding India’s rise.
It is the rare succession in power in which its new wielder is welcomed by those who came before. But India’s vision for a renewed multilateralism is one that is welcomed by the US, for it is in America’s own interest as well. The tango amongst democracies was visible to all at the G20 Summit in Delhi. President Biden made it a point to be standing next to Prime Minister Modi at any and every opportunity.
It is easy to see why. Trump’s assault on multilateralism offended the US’ oldest allies in Europe; his open contempt alienated the developing world. The US, still reeling from those four years, has been flailing to reach out to powers old and new. It appears now to have found a way.
The US will find it useful to work with India not just on new, 21st-century issues, but to manage some of its 20th-century relationships that have become more tenuous today.
This is, indeed, a Suez Moment. As, in 1956, an older power found it needed a newer one to make a difference in the world, the US today has understood that certain geographies and actors require that India play a leading role. In that sense, the Delhi Declaration presaged a tectonic transition in global affairs. Biden, at least, has concluded that India’s leadership is good for America. This will not be hard to sell back home. Some progressives in his party might carp, but India enjoys a wide spectrum of support in US politics.
The US will find it useful to work with India not just on new, 21st-century issues, but to manage some of its 20th-century relationships that have become more tenuous today. Its relationship with Saudi Arabia is an excellent example; India plays a bridging role, allowing for new agreements on infrastructure and connectivity. And India’s presence in the room allows the US, Brazil, and South Africa to have a conversation among friends.
Joe Biden is proving he can put into practice ideas from Barack Obama’s presidency that had remained merely slogans. The US is, indeed, “leading from behind” under Biden. Ten years ago, that phrase might have sounded patronising or might have been a façade for the exercise of imperial power. But today, as the world has changed, it is a real formula for effective international relations.
India’s G20 presidency: Development for all
India’s formula for multilateralism has been welcomed by emerging economies from Brazil to Egypt to South Africa. They recognise that India can be trusted to steer the ship of multilateralism in the direction of their priorities. India’s leadership is not built on solitary, hoarded power. Nor is it the sort that Delhi demonstrated in the 1950s, while navigating between two brooding superpowers. Some thought the ‘Trump slump’ in multilateralism and America’s turn inwards would doom international cooperation. Instead, the sheer volume of cooperative activity has skyrocketed, albeit of a different nature from traditional multilateralism, and with novel arrangements.
India’s formula for multilateralism has been welcomed by emerging economies from Brazil to Egypt to South Africa.
The framework that time has fashioned and India has embraced is one that relies neither on the caprices of America nor on vassalage to China. It consists of multiple informal, mutually beneficial, and purpose-driven partnerships, built on agreements between sovereign governments that are based both on principles and on centring their peoples’ needs. In a sense, these attributes mirror India’s foreign policy approach over the last few years. Over the past decade, India has pioneered a multilateralism that is built around limited-liability, flexible partnerships: From the Quad to I2U2 to BRICS.
After the Delhi Summit, the emerging world knows that India’s achievements are commensurate with the breadth of their shared aspirations. Look at the scope of the commitments taken on by the G20 under the Indian presidency—from biofuels to the reform of international development banks. There is not one that is not of great—in some cases existential—importance to the developing world. And in all these initiatives, India is either a catalyst or a driver.
Global leadership today must take on the task of reshaping the world’s economy to the benefit of those who seek to still benefit from globalisation in a new avatar. Fortuitously, IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) will be in the chair of the world’s most multilateral grouping for another two years. And they have supported each other admirably. Just as India aided Indonesia in the last-minute scramble for agreement at Bali last year, the emerging market democracies came together to make a Delhi consensus possible.
Global leadership today must take on the task of reshaping the world’s economy to the benefit of those who seek to still benefit from globalisation in a new avatar.
But even among these nations, India is first among equals: With the largest population, greatest economy, and highest growth rate. It also has a geography that makes it impossible to ignore. The task of leadership cannot be avoided, and India has stepped up to do its duty. India matters. And India delivered. In that sense, the Delhi G20 is the intellectual and political successor to the Pittsburgh G20.
In Pittsburgh, 14 years ago, China’s GDP was the same as India’s today. It was growing fast—a country increasingly open, reformist, and dynamic. What a difference a generation makes! Today, an unstable China, struggling with its own woes, is a source of concern for all. It is a cause of anxiety, rather than a source of strength. Few nations can look to it and expect a stalling China to power their growth stories in the coming decades.
Another generation from now, the world would have changed again, but this time thanks to India’s rise. The world moulded by the Delhi Summit will be one of people-focused principles, and agile, trust-based partnerships. It will be one in which, for the first time in human history, global governance will be directed towards the needs of the majority of the global population. India’s foreign minister, Dr S Jaishankar, said it best. This G20, he told us, was making the world ready for India and India ready for the world.
This article is an updated version of a previously published article in the World Economic Forum.
Partnerships Matter: That City on the Hill; A Ship Adrift; A Lighthouse in the Tempest
India is the breakout partner for the US, defying what may once have seemed an improbable relationship.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first state visit to the United States (US) came at a pivotal moment for global politics. It took place as communities across continents grappled with extreme economic volatility, polarised and sometimes violent public, and a breakdown of an unwritten yet impactful consensus on the benefits and utility of globalisation and global integration.
As Air India One touched down in New York for the first leg of Mr Modi’s visit, the Russian special military operation (invasion) in Ukraine was entering a new round of bloodletting. The European Union was just one incident away from further mayhem. The US was witnessing its most vicious conflict of recent time, the Battle of Pronouns. The liberal order, so assiduously crafted over the past seven decades by the transatlantic alliance, was neither liberal nor an order; it was simply adrift.
Once a proud people whose every whim became a global fad, it was now a country divided by identity, perverse politics, and an enduring uncertainty about the future beyond 2024.
Pax Americana was now just a nostalgic musing. The country that was identified by South Block’s brains trust as India’s most consequential partner in this century, was unrecognisable. Once a proud people whose every whim became a global fad, it was now a country divided by identity, perverse politics, and an enduring uncertainty about the future beyond 2024. Elections that are celebrations of pluralism elsewhere were now viewed with trepidation and anxiety.
In the last decades of the Roman Empire, life may not have been too different. A bloated sense of virtuosity and entitlement, obsession with gender and sexuality, and condescension towards those different to you were some among the common attributes. Add to that the always present dark underbelly of American society—racism. This was now all pervasive and normalised across the political spectrum, either as nationalist fervour or ‘woke’ swag.
And American media was taking it to the industrial scale through its partisan and uninformed reportage on its own people and on others. Orientalism was justifiable as freedom of expression was somehow a divine endowment that fed its preferred echo chambers. Cancel culture was popular culture. Newspapers once again became pamphlets, and gun culture was the manifestation of a society determined to shoot itself in the foot. The Supreme Court of the United States was indicted in its collaboration to disenfranchise half its population and become part of the political circus.
The Supreme Court of the United States was indicted in its collaboration to disenfranchise half its population and become part of the political circus.
Maybe it was time for another democracy and plural society to step in. It was the right moment for the US to hear PM Modi’s assertion that “India has proved that democracies can deliver […] regardless of class, creed, religion and gender” and “there is absolutely no space for discrimination”. This assertion has weight. It comes from a man leading a nation with more diverse communities, cultures, and customs than any other on the planet. The man who is committed to carry the largest democracy forward and cognisant of the challenge of defending pluralism in a world where disorder is the favoured operating system.
The state must serve the streets, not surrender to it was the Modi proposition.
For India, despite the recent developments, America was still the best bet. A superpower in decline was easier to negotiate with and seek bargains from. A people most like its own were easier to disagree with and yet, collaborate to build a basis for the broadly similar future we would share. Of course, as it did this it would need to develop a thick skin and rebuff the commentariat from the Beltway and challenge SoCal’s technology platforms that would promote hate, cancel speech, supress dissent, and amplify irrationality depending on the politics that mattered to them.
India’s cultural and constitutional realities would need to be protected even if it meant throwing the harsh end of the rule book at some technology behemoths and meddlesome institutions cloaking themselves under thew garb of virtuosity. The challenge for India was to do both even as it set about expanding the strategic content of its partnership with the Biden team. And it had to do this while seeking to preserve its geopolitical space in a world where choosing sides was an obsession.
India’s cultural and constitutional realities would need to be protected even if it meant throwing the harsh end of the rule book at some technology behemoths and meddlesome institutions cloaking themselves under thew garb of virtuosity.
Assertiveness and confidence defined PM Modi’s body language as he strode down the steps of Air India One. A day earlier, he had announced India’s position on Moscow: “We are not neutral. We are on the side of peace”—a message to both Russia and to the ‘neocons’, who had grabbed the media space and headlines recently. He also expressed confidence about bolstering India-US cooperation at forums like the G20, the Quad, and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity. On American soil, he looked every inch the global leader who had put the idea of strategic alignment with the oldest democracy on steroids. This commitment was what he brought to the White House and raised the partnership five notches higher in tandem with President Biden who, despite domestic noise, turned up with his own resolutions.
First, India and the US have elevated their technology partnership to new heights. Both leaders hailed the launch of the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies in January 2023, recommitting their countries to the creation of an open, accessible, and secure technology ecosystem. Defence cooperation received a major boost with a landmark agreement for the joint production of fighter jet engines in India. In the domain of civil space exploration, NASA and ISRO will undertake a joint mission to the International Space Station in 2024. And a Semiconductor Supply Chain and Innovation Partnership has been launched to galvanise both countries’ semiconductor programmes. In each case, India is the breakout partner for the US, defying what may once have seemed an improbable relationship.
Second, the wide-ranging defence deals—that also included the joint adoption of a Defence Industrial Cooperation Roadmap and the launch of the US-India Defence Acceleration Ecosystem—are not merely commercial transactions but indicative of a definite strategic direction. The co-production of jet engines; exercises in collaborative research, testing, and prototyping; and joint def-tech innovation all have implications beyond the deals themselves. They provide international stability and fortify India’s position as a strong, progressive nation. For the US, they act as investments in the Indo-Pacific construct and in a country that is now a geopolitically robust actor.
India is the breakout partner for the US, defying what may once have seemed an improbable relationship.
In a sense, the transfer of GE F414 jet engine technology and the sale of General Atomic predator drones in a government-to-government deal constitutes strengthening the frontline of democracy in the emerging geopolitical contest against authoritarianism. These platforms will be deployed where it counts; in contrast, constructs such as AUKUS are contingency planning.
Third, the rousing reception of PM Modi’s speech at the US Congress—and the 15 odd ovations he received for his celebration of the values of democracy, the unity of cultures, women’s empowerment, sustainable development, and technological advancement—more than drowned out the axis of drivel represented by the half-dozen members of Congress who chose to boycott his address. These were ad hominem voices that revel in false reason and pandering to perverse vote-banks. Their naysaying cannot undermine the stature of an Indian Prime Minister. The applause that reverberated through Congress was a vindication of Indian leadership, and of the PM’s belief that the “[India-US] relationship is prime for a momentous future, and that future is today”.
Fourth, the massive crowds of the Indian diaspora who gathered outside the White House to welcome PM Modi represented an evolution of the human bridge between the two countries. Even as they jostled for space and waved Indian and American flags, they stood for a community that sees both New Delhi and Washington, DC as its own and that will play a catalytic role in nurturing the partnership. Our domestic debates and contests will layer and colour the bilateral relationship, even as our domestic resolve will add steel to the partnership.
The applause that reverberated through Congress was a vindication of Indian leadership, and of the PM’s belief that the “[India-US] relationship is prime for a momentous future, and that future is today”.
The fifth and final “notch” has to do with continuity. The ties between the world’s oldest and largest democracies are enduring. From President Bush to Biden, with Obama and Trump in between, and from PM Vajpayee to Modi, with Manmohan Singh in between, we have seen heads of government on both sides staunchly committed to this relationship. Across parties, this has resulted in an abiding vision of a bipartisan future.
But it is now essential as well to recognise this partnership’s vitality for world affairs, its global impact on inclusive growth and development, and ultimately, on peace and prosperity. As the joint statement by the US and India puts it, “No corner of human enterprise is untouched by the partnership between [these] two great countries, which spans the seas to the stars.” It is time to invest in a global blueprint of this concert.
The present is muddy, the future is shared, and the possibilities are limitless.
India and the U.S. can together make tech more accessible to all
The growing partnership between India and the United States has the potential to shape both the global technology landscape and 21st-century geopolitics. The two democracies must ensure that technological advances work toward a more secure and prosperous world. There is already momentum: The U.S.-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), announced last year, made strides to strengthen the connections between the U.S. and Indian innovation ecosystems in January. As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington this month, now is the moment to aim even higher.
Modi and Biden should convene a strategic technology partnership that cements high-level support for deepening cooperation in both the public and private sectors on innovation between India and the United States. That demands enhancing people-to-people connections, collaborating on expanding secure technology infrastructure around the world, developing standards of governance for new technologies, and engaging jointly with the global south on a democratic vision for the future.
Today, the shape of that future looks uncertain, and techno-authoritarians are on the march. It will take the collective strength of the democracies anchoring the Indo-Pacific region to chart a different course. To do so, they must unleash market forces that align with their strategic objectives. India and the United States need to sensitize investors, target large pools of available capital, and ensure that their ambitions never lack investments. India and the United States can together ensure tech opportunities are made broadly accessible.
Modi and Biden should convene a strategic technology partnership that cements high-level support for deepening cooperation in both the public and private sectors on innovation between India and the United States.
Amid growing technology competition, the United States remains a leader while India has leapt forward as an innovation powerhouse. Both countries have robust, educated workforces: The United States leads in producing Ph.Ds. in science and engineering, while India is ahead in terms of graduates with bachelor’s degrees in those subjects. India’s entrepreneurial environment is also blossoming. In 2021, the number of Indian unicorns—start-ups valued at more than $1 billion—increased from 40 to 108. The same year, Indian deep tech ventures—those that portend a large impact but require significant time and capital to reach markets—raised around $2.65 billion. In domains such as the commercial space sector, India is becoming a key global player. New Delhi is a capable partner for Washington in the entire innovation chain, from research and development to production.
Both countries recognize the opportunity presented by emerging technologies and seem willing to work together to seize it. In February, the Modi government announced that investments in new technologies, particularly in digital infrastructure, will underpin India’s path to become a developed nation by 2047. And in the United States, public and private sector interests are converging on a tech-focused approach to the future, starting with the CHIPS and Science Act. The countries have cooperated on smart city planning and defense technology transfers. On the latter, their defense technology partnership appears poised for significant elevation, given reports that the United States will allow General Electric to produce military jet engines—one of Washington’s most closely guarded secrets—in India.
A strategic partnership between India and the United States, focused on technology, will further the countries’ shared talent advantage. The two workforces are already interwoven, especially in the technology sector. In 2021, Indians accounted for 74 percent of all of U.S. H1-B visa allotments, and Indian employees have spurred innovation at many U.S. tech firms—to say nothing of the Indian Americans leading two of the largest companies in the world. A strategic partnership could focus on identifying opportunities and removing hurdles for people-to-people flows.
A first order of business for such a partnership could be to address the U.S. visa backlogs for Indian applicants, both workers and visitors. Creating programs to strengthen investor and entrepreneurial relationships between India and the United States should be another priority; doing so would deepen connections between private enterprises. The education technology sector offers promising opportunities in this regard. As U.S. edtech firms seek to gain a greater share of the Indian online learning market, India’s edtech firms are increasingly going global and entrenching themselves in the U.S. market and elsewhere. India and the United States should tap into this environment of constructive competition and collaboration.
As U.S. edtech firms seek to gain a greater share of the Indian online learning market, India’s edtech firms are increasingly going global and entrenching themselves in the U.S. market and elsewhere.
Next, a strategic technology partnership would invest in expanding the global infrastructure to support the digital world, particularly in the global south. Collaboration in this sphere could run the gamut: joint research and testing on beneficial disruptive technologies, manufacturing hardware, and even pooling funds for large-scale investments. India and the United States must also work together with their partners to highlight that in a world of increasing geopolitical, health, and climate risks, resilient supply chains will be an essential element of cooperation going forward. This year, India’s G-20 presidency offers a platform to further this discussion; green development, inclusive growth, and technological transformation are at the heart of New Delhi’s G-20 agenda.
India and the United States each bring a necessary piece of digital infrastructure to the table. For its part, India is a leader in testing Open-Radio Access Networks (O-RAN) as a pathway to 5G coverage. U.S. policymakers are enthusiastic about O-RAN as an alternative to traditional network models, where Chinese multinational Huawei has emerged as a leading global player. And as growing U.S. private sector interest in India as a manufacturing location illustrates, the potential to build a supply chain ecosystem with India as a hub is increasingly plausible. Following the recent India-U.S. Commercial Dialogue, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding to set up a semiconductor supply chain and innovation partnership, which aims to promote supply chain resilience and diversification.
A strategic technology partnership between India and the United States should also prioritize developing the standards and principles that govern the technologies of the future. Defining such standards is critical in lowering the costs and barriers for Indian and U.S. tech companies to counter competitors operating from authoritarian states. The two countries will need to work with standards-setting bodies to define how they want emerging technologies to operate in the interests of democracies. Here, the iCET is already taking important steps on academic and industry collaboration. A strategic partnership could build on these efforts and coordinate further resources toward new private sector collaborations.
The two countries will need to work with standards-setting bodies to define how they want emerging technologies to operate in the interests of democracies.
India and the United States must also work together to mitigate the challenges of emerging technologies. Technology cannot be divorced from its implications for human rights, national security, and information ecosystems necessary for functional democracy. This will be vital in 2024, when both India and the United States hold elections. Standards must hold actors to democratic norms (and constitutional laws). As the reach of digital authoritarianism grows, it is more important that networks are hosted by reliable telecommunications vendors that provide secure services and are headquartered in states that operate under the rule of law, such as those preferred by the U.S. and Indian governments.
Finally, the two countries should form a strategic partnership that aims to engage with the global south on how technology can promote shared security, prosperity, and resilience. India has worked to function as a bridge to the wider global south, including in digital infrastructure. A joint approach that unites a competitive package of technologies with a shared U.S.-Indian vision for open societies could serve to extend a hand to nontraditional partners during a key geopolitical moment.
A U.S.-India strategic technology partnership can set a positive trajectory for a tech-driven century. As technology developments transform national security, economic prosperity, and social relations, a transformational partnership between New Delhi and Washington will ensure that these advances arc toward the values of democratic societies.
The United Nations Security Council is constituted to further the colonisation project
We can all agree today that this has been a very long decade; and it’s only just begun. The fabric of internationalism has been ripped in the last three years, and the ability to forge consensus on many vital questions that can enrich peace and strengthen security is at its lowest in nearly a century. There is a clear need to reform and reshape key institutions of global governance. Certainly, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), in particular, needs an urgent overhaul.
Yet, we are all aware that the United Nations (UN) process as well the UNSC reform process are going nowhere. It is a fact that only once in the nearly eight decades of the UN’s existence has there been some semblance of reform—when the non-permanent seats of the UNSC were increased from six to 10. Since then, all efforts have largely been exercised in hollow statement-making. Tragically, these statements come with no timelines and are, of course, devoid of any content. Perhaps, this is the right time for this debate. Hence, the idea of bringing in new voices and opening this issue up for debate and discussion to the larger public—to the research community and to academia—must be lauded. We hope that the curious mix of practitioners and thinkers from the Global South can produce some breakthrough solutions that can take this debate forward.
The fabric of internationalism has been ripped in the last three years, and the ability to forge consensus on many vital questions that can enrich peace and strengthen security is at its lowest in nearly a century.
Decades of inaction have also resulted in the prevention of reforms becoming an ideal and an objective in itself. We have seen obstructive tactics, the emergence of a number of clubs and groups on this topic, and a myriad ways of stalling, delaying, and preventing progress. This, now, has become an end goal, and, perhaps, even a key responsibility area for diplomats posted to the hallowed institution that is the UN. That must change. We need to talk about progress in real terms. What should be the new format for engagement? There can be many answers to this question. What diplomats like Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj and academics like Matais Spektor say may not be the only solution. The solution may, in fact, lie in very different viewpoints and voices, and it is imperative that we hear them. Most importantly, we must all agree that status quo is not an answer.
The UN is facing a crisis of credibility as a global institution; and the lack of progress in the reform of the UNSC is going to create complete disenchantment. The future of the UN and its role is intimately linked to the progress made on this subject. Therefore, we must recalibrate our efforts as a global community and make sure that discussions on the reforms are infused with fresh voices and perspectives from geographies that are likely to contribute significantly to a stable and prosperous future. These are also the same nations that are likely to be most affected by a dysfunctional international institution.
Perspectives from the G20 and BRICS
Two recent debates we in India have been engaged in are of relevance to the conversation on institutional reform. One, of course, is courtesy the G20 presidency and its engagement groups that are working on various aspects of multilateral cooperation. Multilateral reforms is one of the most important debates happening in these groups. We are all apprised of the fact that the UNSC, the UN itself, the multilateral development banks, and the financial institutions need a complete overhaul. These institutions are no longer serving us in this particular century. The second is the aspirations of the BRICS. Under South Africa’s Presidency, there is an eagerness for and anticipation of institutions accommodating the aspirations of the African continent—a continent that is rising dramatically and rapidly.
The war is history, and so are the influence and capabilities of some of the members of this erstwhile group of victors.
We can see that different groupings are also beginning to understand and agitate this very important issue. Why is this important? Why mention the G20 and BRICS? The answer is: because we live in a deeply heterogeneous world. Some people also call it a multipolar world. It is untenable that a group of victors of a war from another century should be in charge of managing the world of today. The war is history, and so are the influence and capabilities of some of the members of this erstwhile group of victors. It is time to strengthen the A-Team and bring in voices who can serve all of us better. But beyond this particular aspect, there are three reasons for why we should be thinking about reform.
Why UNSC reform in particular
First, the current structure of the UNSC is perverse and immoral. For many in the Global South, it is a perpetuation of the colonisation project. The burden of the two World Wars was borne by the colonies, while the privileges of peace benefited the colonisers and their allies. Today, that is something that is being questioned by many; and it is increasingly going to become an important aspect of future debates as the world gets impatient with lack of progress in institutional reform.
Second, the reform is important because, currently, the UNSC is inefficient and does not serve the purpose it was installed for. In the past decades, we have seen how the will of the comity of nations has been negated by one or more of the permanent members. More recently, the crisis in Ukraine presents a classic example of the Security Council’s failure to deliver, and it is a stark reminder of why status quo is untenable. The voting patterns and the abstentions on the Ukraine conflict clearly point to the need to bring in others who can contribute to the global efforts around peace and stability.
We are struggling to reform the UNSC due to the nature of the inter-governmental negotiation (IGN) process itself.
Finally, the UNSC is undemocratic and non-representative. How can we accept a structure that shuts out Africa, Latin America, and democratic Asia, including the world’s largest democracy? The Permanent Five (P5) was configured to disproportionately include three European nations. Even having three nations in the P5 could not keep peace in the Old Continent. Clearly, here, three is a crowd. We need to reconfigure how we have structured the P5.
But this may not be the only viewpoint that is valid. There are others as well, and we must respond to and engage with them. For example, Uniting for Consensus argues that there cannot be any permanent membership of the UNSC for new members. This is a viewpoint against permanency and it must be put on the table. But, we must ask, if there is no permanency, why is it not applicable to the P5 as well? Why is it that all UN member states who want to be sitting as credible actors in the UNSC should not gain favour of 129 votes and assume a permanent role? These debates must not be cast aside or shut off. In fact, different groups and different viewpoints must be brought into the same room. And we hope that through this academic track, we can actually bring these varied perspectives together and come up with a mosaic of ideas and, thereafter, a symphony of solution.
To conclude, two points must be highlighted. First, we are struggling to reform the UNSC due to the nature of the inter-governmental negotiation (IGN) process itself. The fact that the IGN process, unlike any other in the UN, needs consensus for both process and outcomes makes it a nonstarter. In no UN negotiation is consensus a precondition for commencement. This is a fatal flaw in the way the process has been stitched together and no progress is possible unless we revisit this core element. Second, what is imperative is a concrete timeline as well. The 2024 Summit of the Future is being touted as a platform where productive discussions about UNSC reforms may finally take place. But the 2024 Summit cannot be regarded as a cure all and a one-stop-shop for everything. We must agree to a two-year timeframe, or a timeframe that others may suggest to be more viable, and we must rigorously adhere to it.
By the time the UN turns 80 in 2025, UNSC reforms must be well underway. Let us make this target a common agenda for all of us, with all our different viewpoints. Let us unite our energies to transform the UN into a multilateral institution that truly recognises the sovereign equality of all member states, and undertakes an operating systems upgrade that will bring it—with the rest of us—into the third decade of 21st century.
This article formed part of the Framing Remarks given by Samir Saran, President, ORF at the Roundtable on, “Shifting the Balance: Perspectives on the United Nations and UN Security Council Reforms from Global South Think Tanks”.
The roundtable also saw the participation of Ruchira Kamboj, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations; Matias Spektor, Professor of International Relations, FGV, Brazil and Visiting Scholar, Princeton University; and Gustavo de Carvalho, Senior Researcher, South Africa Institute of International Affairs, South Africa.
AI, Democracy, and the Global Order
Future historians may well mark the second half of March 2023 as the moment when the era of artificial intelligence truly began. In the space of just two weeks, the world witnessed the launch of GPT-4, Bard, Claude, Midjourney V5, Security Copilot, and many other AI tools that have surpassed almost everyone’s expectations. These new AI models’ apparent sophistication has beaten most experts’ predictions by a decade.
For centuries, breakthrough innovations – from the invention of the printing press and the steam engine to the rise of air travel and the internet – have propelled economic development, expanded access to information, and vastly improved health care and other essential services. But such transformative developments have also had negative implications, and the rapid deployment of AI tools will be no different.
AI can perform tasks that individuals are loathe to do. It can also deliver education and health care to millions of people who are neglected under existing frameworks. And it can greatly enhance research and development, potentially ushering in a new golden age of innovation. But it also can supercharge the production and dissemination of fake news; displace human labor on a large scale; and create dangerous, disruptive tools that are potentially inimical to our very existence.
Specifically, many believe that the arrival of artificial general intelligence (AGI) – an AI that can teach itself to perform any cognitive task that humans can do – will pose an existential threat to humanity. A carelessly designed AGI (or one governed by unknown “black box” processes) could carry out its tasks in ways that compromise fundamental elements of our humanity. After that, what it means to be human could come to be mediated by AGI.
A carelessly designed AGI (or one governed by unknown “black box” processes) could carry out its tasks in ways that compromise fundamental elements of our humanity.
Clearly, AI and other emerging technologies call for better governance, especially at the global level. But diplomats and international policymakers have historically treated technology as a “sectoral” matter best left to energy, finance, or defense ministries – a myopic perspective that is reminiscent of how, until recently, climate governance was viewed as the exclusive preserve of scientific and technical experts. Now, with climate debates commanding center stage, climate governance is seen as a superordinate domain that comprises many others, including foreign policy. Accordingly, today’s governance architecture aims to reflect the global nature of the issue, with all its nuances and complexities.
As discussions at the G7’s recent summit in Hiroshima suggest, technological governance will require a similar approach. After all, AI and other emerging technologies will dramatically change the sources, distribution, and projection of power around the world. They will allow for novel offensive and defensive capabilities, and create entirely new domains for collision, contest, and conflict – including in cyberspace and outer space. And they will determine what we consume, inevitably concentrating the returns from economic growth in some regions, industries, and firms, while depriving others of similar opportunities and capabilities.
Importantly, technologies such as AI will have a substantial impact on fundamental rights and freedoms, our relationships, the issues we care about, and even our most dearly held beliefs. With its feedback loops and reliance on our own data, AI models will exacerbate existing biases and strain many countries’ already tenuous social contracts.
That means our response must include numerous international accords. For example, ideally we would forge new agreements (at the level of the United Nations) to limit the use of certain technologies on the battlefield. A treaty banning lethal autonomous weapons outright would be a good start; agreements to regulate cyberspace – especially offensive actions conducted by autonomous bots – will also be necessary.
Technologies such as AI will have a substantial impact on fundamental rights and freedoms, our relationships, the issues we care about, and even our most dearly held beliefs.
New trade regulations are also imperative. Unfettered exports of certain technologies can give governments powerful tools to suppress dissent and radically augment their military capabilities. Moreover, we still need to do a much better job of ensuring a level playing field in the digital economy, including through appropriate taxation of such activities.
As G7 leaders already seem to recognize, with the stability of open societies possibly at stake, it is in democratic countries’ interest to develop a common approach to AI regulation. Governments are now acquiring unprecedented abilities to manufacture consent and manipulate opinion. When combined with massive surveillance systems, the analytical power of advanced AI tools can create technological leviathans: all-knowing states and corporations with the power to shape citizen behavior and repress it, if necessary, within and across borders. It is important not only to support UNESCO’s efforts to create a global framework for AI ethics, but also to push for a global Charter of Digital Rights.
The thematic focus of tech diplomacy implies the need for new strategies of engagement with emerging powers. For example, how Western economies approach their partnerships with the world’s largest democracy, India, could make or break the success of such diplomacy. India’s economy will probably be the world’s third largest (after the United States and China) by 2028. Its growth has been extraordinary, much of it reflecting prowess in information technology and the digital economy. More to the point, India’s views on emerging technologies matter immensely. How it regulates and supports advances in AI will determine how billions of people use it.
Engaging with India is a priority for both the US and the European Union, as evidenced by the recent US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) and the EU-India Trade and Technology Council, which met in Brussels this month. But ensuring that these efforts succeed will require a reasonable accommodation of cultural and economic contexts and interests. Appreciating such nuances will help us achieve a prosperous and secure digital future. The alternative is an AI-generated free for all.
The new world – shaped by self-interest
A series of far-reaching events are shaping the 21st century. The current conflict in Ukraine, while grabbing headlines and engrossing the G7 summit in Hiroshima, may not seem as pivotal if one is situated in a different part of the world. To most, this is still a festering neighbourhood conflict that Europe must manage. It does not animate lives everywhere; neither does it shape anxieties or future partnerships.
India, Africa and Latin America are not indifferent to the crisis in Europe. They simply have more pressing matters to attend to — the imperatives of nation building being the most urgent. That they now also must navigate the collateral impact of the war makes them all but an interested party.
The first lesson from global reactions to the war is geography still matters. East-West and North-South binaries may be captivating, but proximity and the neighbourhood are considerably more important. We may be hyper-globalised, but we are also more local than ever before. Social media, trends in technology and politics, and a host of other factors have bracketed us into narrow spheres of interest. Thus, while India respects Europe’s difficulties, for it the 2020s began not with Ukraine but with Chinese aggression, the virus from Wuhan and the surrender of Kabul.
Social media, trends in technology and politics, and a host of other factors have bracketed us into narrow spheres of interest.
The second lesson pertains to the UN vote condemning the Ukraine war. Of the 140 countries that voted and condemned Russia, only a fraction sanctioned Russia. Studying the list of countries that were the earliest to receive vaccines in the pandemic could prove to be productive. It might explain which countries have sanctioned Russia. It will also offer valuable lessons about globalisation, its hierarchy and therefore, its discontents. Those sanctioning Russia today are not merely the victors of World War II, but also of globalisation and development. Others are well within their rights to challenge the status quo.
It is often stated, unthinkingly, that India is on the fence. India is not on the fence — it is only standing its ground. It will choose its priorities just as every other country has done. The recent spate of visits by European leaders to China shows that value-based frameworks are untenable. Nations are driven by self-interest and in this case, the need to maintain lucrative economic relations. India is no different. Even as it confronts the Chinese on the Himalayan heights, trade continues where the economy needs it. Distance matters; interest matters even more.
The third lesson derives cumulatively from four recent events: The pandemic; the fallout of the Doha Agreement and the abandoning of Afghanistan; the Chinese aggression on India’s borders; and new sanction regimes and their impact on the loosely termed “Global South”. The Covid-19 outbreak saw the overt hijack of medical equipment and access to vaccines, and growing gaps in treatment capabilities.
Nations are driven by self-interest and in this case, the need to maintain lucrative economic relations.
Indeed, when the pandemic struck, there was no superpower, there was no great power, and there was no big power. There were only selfish powers. Similarly, the Afghan people were betrayed and abandoned because it was expedient for higher powers to flee the country at a particular moment. And Chinese territorial incursions have provoked a range of self-serving responses from different actors otherwise keen to defend democracy.
Put bluntly, there is no moral high ground. All that remains is the ruthless pursuit of national self-interest. Two actors epitomised this approach in the 1960s and 1970s, one actor in the 1980s and 1990s, and several new voices have joined the fray in this century.
If meaningful international dialogue is to be conducted, nations must right-size some of their perceptions about each other and themselves. In this context, the tendency to frame the Global South as a possible bridge actor between competing positions has its merits. But the “Global South” is itself a deeply reductive term, which elides the group’s innate heterogeneity. Very few countries would like to be categorised as “southern” as they continue to rise and shape global systems. Five years from now, Brazil and India might bristle at such a label themselves.
The neatly packaged idea of the Global South fails to recognise that there will soon be far more decisive swings within the group than outside it. How the countries of the South organise themselves over the next decade will have a far more profound impact than the West on the global balance of power, and on the contours of the new world order. As this century progresses, an East and West will emerge within the Global North and South.
LLPs will come to constitute the geometry of politics, and countries will work together on specific issues, for specific purposes, and for specific outcomes.
Concomitantly, international engagements of the future will organise themselves around the standard operating principle of law firms — as limited liability partnerships (LLPs). LLPs will come to constitute the geometry of politics, and countries will work together on specific issues, for specific purposes, and for specific outcomes. With the transition to the new LLP ethos of geopolitics, we will not be burdened by the need to focus on anything other than the narrowly defined collaborative interest at hand, and can build relationships that are more strategic, if also more transactional. This is a gritty, realist world. We may not like it, but it’s here — and here to stay.
Samir Saran 