Artificial Intelligence, Cyber and Internet Governance, Cyber and Technology, Cyber Security, Writing

Swords and Shields: Navigating the Modern Intelligence Landscape

SAMIR SARAN | ARCHISHMAN RAY GOSWAMI

As key custodians of a nation’s strategic intent, national intelligence services must account for and adapt to the wider socio-cultural and political factors shaping their operational environment. Today, shifting geopolitical tides in the form of accelerated multipolarity, scientific progress, and the erosion of accountability in global technological governance have converged to reshape national intelligence strategies. This paper seeks to make sense of these changes by discussing key features of the shifting global intelligence landscape. These include factors such as the role of ‘geotechnography’ in blurring distinctions between offline and online experiences, the consequences of growing inter-state competition over rare-earth elements and supply chains, the evolving character of human intelligence (HUMINT) amid ubiquitous technical surveillance (UTS), and the role of private sector intelligence and Big Tech in a data-infused geostrategic terrain. The aim is to foster a discussion on how nations think about and use intelligence in changing times. It closes with an exploration of the implications of these changes for India’s national security.

Originally appeared here

Global South, Green Technology, international affairs, Sustainable Development, Writing

Issue Brief : The Green Development Compact: Atlantic Ambition, Southern Scale

Amitabh Kant | Samir Saran

The United States (US) and the European Union (EU) have shifted beyond market-led climate action toward state-backed green industrial policy, driven by competitiveness, economic security, and technological leadership concerns. Despite differences in approach, Atlantic strategies share an inward focus that positions the Global South primarily as a consumer market or supplier of intermediate inputs. Such models are politically unsustainable for developing economies and economically inefficient for achieving the scale required for the global energy transition. This brief argues for moving from competition-driven industrial policy toward co-development and shared prosperity across regions. It proposes a Green Development Compact that integrates Northern capital, innovation, and corporate capacity with Southern scale, speed, and renewable endowments. It outlines practical instruments to operationalise this framework, including long-term offtake guarantees, shared innovation commons, and financial mechanisms that reduce risk for Southern projects.

Read more here.

Source: ORF Website, January 3, 2026

India, Writing

Growth story powered by indigenous engines

In the 1980s, a young India was being excited against older nation-states. In the 2020s, an ancient civilisation is leading the way in forging a new consensus

The year 2025 might well go down in Indian economic history alongside 1991 as a year that marks a decisive break with the past. These were both years that accelerated our intent, ambition, and execution as a nation. But, if in 1991, the initial burst of economic reform was driven by recognition of a balance of payments crisis, the 2025 reforms have been driven by understanding a balance of power opportunity. And this burst of reform, even more than those before, reflects how India’s leadership at the highest level — particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself — understands the way that growth is nurtured in this evolving, fragmented world.

By creating a political and geo-economic challenge, Donald Trump invited the Modi of the past to reappear: The political and economic revolutionary who thrives by confronting stale orthodoxy and refuses to outsource national destiny. By revealing international relationships as nakedly transactional, the US president reminded New Delhi of one basic truth: Nobody is going to celebrate India’s rise. In a progress-starved global economy, growth is not shared. Instead, growth is competed for, hoarded, weaponised. We might have been lulled into thinking, for a time, that growth would emerge from partnerships. But Modi has correctly identified that growth is DIY: We must do it for ourselves — and keep doing it. It must be incubated, nourished, and sustained domestically, like a household plant that needs constant watering, or a steel plant that can never be shut down. Global relationships matter, but the West is neither enemy nor saviour. It is simply a partner whose errant ways must be moderated through calm engagement.

In the 1980s, a young India was being excited against older nation-states. But, in the 2020s, an ancient civilisation is leading the way in forging a new consensus, through example rather than exhortation. This is what it means to be Bharat. Growth is the greatest, best example we can set for the world. And that is what Modi has given us in this year of reform on steroids: The building blocks of decades of growth.

Perhaps, the most consequential of these is the pushing through of the four labour codes. This is the biggest factor-market structural reset since the 1990s. Today’s India has finally understood the support businesses need to help us become a developed nation. Rules have been cut by three-quarters, reporting forms by 60%, and registers for returns by 90%. More than 60 million enterprises will benefit — five times the footprint even of GST.

But GST itself has been reshaped: Two slabs eliminated, compliance simplified. Lower tax enabled quarters of euphoric growth — but, even more importantly, the fatigue felt by small businesses was addressed. Reform is not just a one-off event, an initial investment; it requires maintenance, continual recalibration in response to lived reality, and attentive leadership.

Tax cuts are, in fact, stimulus by stealth. When Union Budget 2025 raised the cut-off for income tax exemption to ₹1,00,000 a month, Modi showed that the creation of an Indian middle class requires its protection from government — not just from extortionary taxes but from unnecessary harassment and criminalisation. The Unified Securities Market Code, the Jan Vishwas 2.0 Bill, and the new Income Tax Act show that clarity rather than coercion is the cornerstone of India’s emerging State.

Finally, in December, three reforms signal the strategic confidence that Bharat now has. In the past, a divided polity twisted itself into knots about foreign participation in sectors such as insurance and nuclear energy. Those days are gone. Without fuss or fanfare, nuclear power and insurance were opened to private participation, their legal framework modernised and brought into line with global norms, and our clean energy ambitions restated.

Each of these reforms is individually significant. Taken together, they are revolutionary. Modi is doing nationally what he once did in Gujarat, what he did later with Digital India and the GST — taking big bets and forcing an ossified state machinery into movement through sheer willpower. No longer will anyone pretend that external benevolence can carry India forward. The engines and energy that propel us will be indigenous.

Throughout 2025, unforeseen challenges arose abroad. But Modi’s response was domestic energy, domestic focus, domestic reform. Before restructuring its partnership with the world, India must rewrite its contract with itself. This is the time to write India’s future, and Indians will do it.

Source: Originally appeared in Hindustan Times

Artificial Intelligence, India, Writing

Beyond Chips, Data Centres Lies India’s Ai Opportunity

As the world leaves the Compute Era and enters the Diffusion Era, India – its companies, its institutions and governments – must ask three questions

The world is competing over AI. But this will not remain merely a race towards a smaller chip, a larger data centre, or a faster model. The winner will be determined by those who turn innovation into impact and convert technological advances into product value, institutional capacity and community trust. Power in this era will flow not only to those who own algorithms or command fields of silicon, but also to those who find ways to weave AI into daily life at the national or continental scale.

Three distinct processes and evolutions compose this AI age. The first is the Compute Era, in which chip supply chains and hyperscale data centres determine market share. It tilts towards those with capital, energy and traditional resources such as land and water. The second is the Diffusion Era, where nations with population-scale digital platforms and deep real-economy deployment shape how and where value is created, captured, and compounded. The third is the Governance Era, in which sovereign power and political legitimacy — as well as geopolitical leverage — pick winners among AI systems.

As talk of overinvestment in data centres and supporting facilities grows, we may see the peaking of the Compute Era. Computational resources will become a utility — invested in like legacy utilities, priced like them, and regulated like them. Such a path has been followed many times: The introduction of a new technology, a boom period of sensation and overinvestment, followed by an overhang in which the physical, corporate and human-capital remnants of the boom are transformed into core infrastructure for broader innovation and growth.

What you do with compute infrastructure is what will create value in the Diffusion Era. Nations like India — experienced at adopting and adapting technology at scale — will have a natural advantage. The benefits of compute as a utility will flow to those who can build applications that create value for the greatest number. Trust will be the key. Success will depend upon how effectively kinship and trust can be nurtured, and how much value a community sees in a product. LLMs will have to localise. Large models are trained on the Common Crawl, which over-represents Western data and misrepresents the cultural context of countries like India. The Diffusion Era will seek to correct that. New winners will emerge from within communities. Beyond the horizon lies the Governance Era. Governments will respond to the Diffusion Era by guarding data sovereignty more zealously than they have hitherto. They will seek to control the utilities left over from the Compute Era, and intervene in the competitive dynamics of the Diffusion Era. Such a return to sovereign power is almost inevitable for a boom-bust-diffusion technology.

As the world leaves the Compute Era and enters the Diffusion Era, India — its companies, its institutions and governments — must ask three questions.

First, can Indian companies take the necessary risks? Do they have the capability to bet on an unknown future? Smaller enterprises have demonstrated they have the entrepreneurial nous to do so. But will the broader private sector be able to seize the benefits of the Diffusion Era? It will require a change in mindset, in corporate governance, and risk appetite.

Second, can Indian institutions and finance find, energise and incentivise capital to create systems that can bet on unknowns and undiscovered innovations? Can we ensure that patient capital emerges from India and the world that can support and develop infrastructure at a utility scale?

And can the government create a world-beating regulatory structure that blends private profit and public good — like, for example, the Digital Public Infrastructure model? Can it protect individual rights and digital sovereignty without stifling entrepreneurial fever? Can we build an India-specific AI architecture that sits comfortably within and atop a global AI system?

If India can answer these three questions, it will dominate the threefold era of AI. Let’s build compute infrastructure, unleash entrepreneurial communities, and create supportive regulation.

Source: Originally Appeared in Indian Express

Global Governance, international affairs, multilateralism, Multipolar World, Writing

Annual Trends Report : Beyond Global Polarization: New Cooperation Wanted

Foreword by Karim El Aynaoui, Paolo Magri, Samir Saran

In 2025, the global landscape became increasingly fragmented and uncertain. Great power competition intensified, regional conflicts became protracted and exacerbated, while economic nationalism reshaped the rules of trade and development. The mechanisms for conflict resolution and cooperation that have long provided a foundation for international cooperation are now under strain due to polarization and mistrust. Even longstanding alliances, bilateral and collective security architectures at the core of international security system have not escaped these changes. While some attribute these trends to the emergence of a multipolar world order, there is no consensus whether such a transformation is occurring or on the causal link. There is agreement only on the notion that the world is moving beyond the post-cold war order and that, eighty years after the creation of the UN, institutional reform is overdue.

Yet while these challenges and the erosion of traditional mechanisms of cooperation understandably dominate the attention of the public, policymakers and the expert community, they do not tell the whole story. Amidst polarization, unilateral policies and growing calls by political leaders to adopt inward-looking policies, new and pragmatic forms of cooperation are emerging. By keeping sight of the shared interest in coordinating responses to global challenges, these efforts are, in effect, transcending some of the existing divides between nations of the North and the South. They therefore might merit recognition and sustained support, not only for their potential transformative impact but also for the message they convey: that alternative pathways are possible! It is the ultimate acknowledgement that living in a world where an increasing diversity of political, economic, and social models coexists and where differing visions of governance and development are put forward comes with difficulties. Yet this very reality also offers a great opportunity: plurality is key to finding appropriate responses to emerging challenges.

It is in that spirit that leaders and experts from over 100 countries convened in February 2025 for the AI Action Summit. The summit highlighted innovation, real-world applications, and economic prospects of AI, while also addressing wider risks. The signing by 58 nations, including Morocco, India and Italy, and various international organizations of the Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet demonstrates that a core group of countries willing to mutualize their efforts is emerging.

On the war in Gaza, the High-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and Implementation of the Two-State Solution, held in July, showed that many nations were eager to move past the deadlock in the UN Security Council and take collective action to end the war and discuss the contours of a comprehensive peace plan for the region, before the Gaza Peace Plan was signed by the parties and endorsed by the UN Security Council in early October. The New York Declaration, which is the outcome document of the July conference, was endorsed by 142 nations when they voted in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution backing the document. This stands as a reminder that coalitions can be formed across traditional divides. It is also a testament that when political will converges, pragmatic partnerships can emerge that transcend national interests, regional rivalries, or historical grievances. Unfortunately, at the moment a similar convergence has not yet fully materialized on the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Similarly, on the economic front, at a time when protectionism and economic nationalism seem to dominate the global narrative, it is important to recognize that new avenues for economic cooperation are also developing, as is the case for the Future of Investment and Trade Partnership (FITP), which brings together 14 small and medium-sized economies to support open and rules-based global trade. In sum, these efforts matter not only because they push back against the perception of an inevitable slide into isolationism or polarization into opposite camps at the international level, but also because they concretely demonstrate that pragmatic alliances that include diverse nations are still possible. Even when they operate outside traditional frameworks, such initiatives serve the broader global public interest by keeping channels of cooperation open. What stands out in these initiatives is the imagination behind them: a willingness to adapt, to experiment, and to work together in spite of differences. They reflect a simple truth: the challenges we face are shared, and the responses will only be effective if they are coordinated.

This belief is at the heart of the partnership between the Policy Center for the New South (PCNS, Morocco), the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF, India). Our three institutions coordinate a partnership that extends across regions, disciplines, and perspectives. The tripartite initiative that we launched in 2023 frames our strategic deliberations and engagement. It is an avenue for over 400 experts from three continents to meet, exchange, conduct research, and disseminate findings and cross-perspectives. One of the outputs of this joint research, the Annual Trends report, today in its third edition, seeks to provide a forward-looking analysis of global developments, to highlight areas where cooperation is possible, and to contribute ideas for a more inclusive and resilient international order.

This edition explores five key areas: global governance, security, the economy and development, energy and climate, and new technologies and the digital transition, underscoring that in a polarized world where blame and scapegoating consume valuable time, genuine progress depends on constructive engagement that brings together willing partners across regions to move beyond confrontation and build practical paths toward cooperation.

At the same time, even as new initiatives and partnerships take shape, this should not lead us to abandon the frameworks that have long underpinned international cooperation. Reforms are necessary, but they must not serve as an excuse to neglect the preservation of global public goods. These institutions remain the pillars that make cooperation possible, and investing in them is essential if we are to turn shared challenges into shared solutions.

Read the volume here.

India, Maritime Security, Writing

Steady hand on the helm: India charts a confident course in global maritime transformation

India is strengthening its maritime presence and global trade links. New initiatives aim to boost shipbuilding and shipping capacity. India is also focusing on sustainable practices and digital transformation in its ports. These efforts position India as a key player in global maritime security and economic stability, fostering cooperative growth and reliable supply chains for many nations.

Over four-fifths of world trade still moves by sea. As geopolitical tensions buffet maritime routes, India’s role in protecting the global commons grows ever more strategic. The transition from SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) to MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), alongside the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047, reflects India’s intent to anchor both regional stability and global connectivity.

Under the Sagarmala initiative, India has expanded port infra, shipbuilding and port-linked industrialisation at record pace. In FY25, India’s 12 major ports handled an unprecedented 855 mn t of cargo – a 4.3% y-o-y rise. Container throughput grew by 10%, fertilisers by 13%, and petroleum traffic by 3%. For the first time, Paradip and Deendayal ports each crossed the 150 mn t mark, underscoring India’s operational maturity.

Yet, India’s ambitions extend beyond trade logistics. Despite its overwhelming dependence on maritime commerce – 95% by volume and 70% by value – India’s share in global shipbuilding remains modest, at about 1%, with its shipping registry accounting for only 0.8% of the world’s vessels. To remedy this strategic deficit, GoI has unveiled a ₹69,725-cr programme aimed at expanding shipbuilding capacity, financing mechanisms, skill development and regulatory reforms.

These measures, expected to add 4.5 mn gross t in capacity and generate over 3 mn jobs, mark Sagarmala 2.0, a comprehensive effort to position India among the world’s leading shipbuilding and shipping nations. The goal is clear: to secure at least 10% of global shipbuilding and ownership over the next decade, insulating India from external vulnerabilities and asserting its place in the global maritime economy.

The future of maritime growth, however, must be sustainable. India’s plan to establish green hydrogen hub ports in Kandla, Paradip and Tuticorin represents a decisive turn toward decarbonised shipping and industrial ecosystems. These hubs will leverage the country’s vast RE potential to power cleaner supply chains, spur green hydrogen exports and anchor new industrial clusters.

Simultaneously, digital platforms such as SAGAR SETU and the National Logistics Portal-Marine are facilitating a transition to a smart, paperless and transparent ecosystem, enabling real-time cargo tracking and seamless global integration.

India’s port-led development is no longer an inward-looking exercise. It is becoming a template for cooperative growth. The MAHASAGAR framework highlights the indivisible link between security and prosperity, drawing like-minded nations into shared maritime resilience. India’s participation in strategic corridors – from India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) to the Chabahar Port initiative – demonstrates how it is shaping the geography of global connectivity.

India’s maritime rise, therefore, is not a solitary journey. It is a collective ascent. It anchors supply chains, stabilises economies and offers the world a new pole of reliability in turbulent times. As the seas churn with uncertainty, India’s steady hand on the helm ensures that many more nations can sail ahead with confidence.

Source: Economic Times, October 29, 2025

economy, Writing

The affection economy

The future belongs to those who best understand that the prosperity, influence and well-being at this time is care and belonging.

Any epoch has an underlying currency that determines how power is distributed, partnerships are formed, and international relations are managed. In the distant past, it was fertile land. Then it was mineral resources. More recently, it has been demography, innovation or creativity that determined value, national purpose, and global power.

As old orders replace themselves, new economic forms emerge. The emergence of the information age gave us the data economy and the attention economy. In today’s world — decoupled, divided, atomistic — another term must receive our consideration: The affection economy.

Success today — in trade, in innovation, in the creation of value — depends upon how skillfully you curate a community, how effectively you kindle kinship, how carefully you nurture cohorts. Cohorts, kinships, communities: They are the building blocks of co-operation and economic success.

We have already seen glimmerings of this understanding permeate even the most rational, realist spheres of international relations. What, after all, do we mean when we speak of “like-minded” nations? Like-mindedness creates commonality. It creates a shared purpose and ensures a common direction. It means trust endures even through the temporary turbulence of the sort that the American president is currently inflicting.

The affection economy has visible effects on the corporate world as well. Both companies and countries compete for affection; they expand their footprint through a dedication to empathetic engagement and care.

The smartest places, like Dubai, have designed entire demographic and growth policies around curated communities. Visas are offered apparently for commercial reasons, but actually to create a golden cohort of affection. The purpose of their national policy is to make people embrace Dubai. Like Dubai, fly Dubai, buy Dubai, live Dubai.

The UAE may be the perfect exemplar, but it is not the only one. Other countries are constructing or have constructed soft power strategies around communities of interest. Germany is one; Australia and New Zealand, too — and of course Singapore.

Corporations have done it. In India, the stakeholder capitalism that Dhirubhai Ambani fostered — filling stadiums with tens of thousands of co-owners of the Reliance enterprise — offers an analogy. It percolates to the company’s thinking even today, with the equity community being succeeded by the data equity community, taking broadband to the bottom of the pyramid.

The US is a special case. Companies like Apple have built on that foundation to create global production and consumption networks that look to California for inspiration. The federal government has largely let the American private sector run the affection economy.

It is this stored-up affection capital that President Donald Trump is running down so speedily. What differentiates countries and companies today is the networks they lead. It has long been taken for granted that China lacked soft power, that it was respected but not loved. In the 21st century, this placed a hard ceiling on its rise. The US had no such hard ceiling till it constructed one for itself.

How has the affection economy come to dominate? The flattening of the world by digital technology has had something to do with it. It replaced organic connections created by neighbourhoods and workplaces with the more diffuse, detached and delicate bonds that are created online.

But this and individualisation have been in progress for decades. Political scientist Robert Putnam developed a theory in the 1990s of “social capital”, explaining how person-to-person connections were foundational for modern America. In his book Bowling Alone, he argued that this social capital was on the decline, taking civic consciousness with it. This would cause problems, as the community was the true determinant and differentiator of success. Francis Fukuyama demonstrated in his book Trust (1995) how social capital created trust within nations, and how trust led to stability and economic growth.

Putnam is not surprised that the desolation of communities has caused the rise of extreme movements. Political activist Steve Bannon has publicly said that Bowling Alone inspired him and others to identify their political movement as a cure for the social isolation felt by many Americans. This phenomenon is being replicated around the world: Individualistic societies are abandoning their lonely members to such extreme communities. These groups and movements may be only a dark imitation of the true solidarity and fellowship that creates trust, but they are still communities for those who have no other.

The final push that transformed global society would have to be a global event. Covid provided that impetus. It was a period when isolation deepened, the workplace became irrelevant, and the appeal of the solo actor was enhanced. Today, the digital nomad and the lone-wolf terrorist are two sides of the same coin.

The future will belong to those who best understand that advancements in the technology and economic realms have brought human collectives back a full circle socially. We have indeed returned to a primal state, where communities matter more than anything else. The currency for prosperity, influence and well-being at this time is care and belonging. Prime Minister Narendra Modi read this right when he spoke of vasudhaiva kutumbakam: One Earth, One Family, One Future. It is indeed the time for a return on and to affection.

Source : Appeared in Indian Express

Emerging Economies, Immigration Policies, India, International labour demands, Writing

Making the case for global workforce migration: A strategic blueprint to harness India’s demographic dividend

Authors : SANJEEV KRISHAN | SAMIR SARAN

Global labour migration has been instrumental in shaping how societies are formed and how economies function. Since the establishment of ancient trade routes to present day, labour migration has been an important factor in defining global geopolitical dynamics and shaping the socioeconomic fabric. Though labour migration is typically influenced by employment opportunities and earning potential, factors such as economic stability, geopolitical dynamics, national security concerns and the pursuit of higher living standards are also gaining prominence in influencing the workforce’s decision.

Global workforce, therefore, stands at a crossroad where global labour migration landscape is dotted with multiple challenges and requires a unified policy framework, coordinated international support and efforts for aiding labour migration flow across the world and to leverage human capital for global growth and prosperity. The key challenges that the world is witnessing today in the context of labour migration are multidimensional, spanning across policy and regulatory hurdles, including lack of adequate social security mechanisms, inadequate skill recognition and skill mismatch, short-term employment contracts and low social, cultural and political receptiveness.

Against this backdrop, this paper attempts to provide a comprehensive understanding of the global labour migration landscape with a focus on the underlying economic frameworks and cross-country evidence of evolving labour migration patterns, its socio-economic implications and how India’s demographic dividend can be leveraged in this context.

The first chapter looks at the dual role of labour – a crucial production factor and a demand driver – and its complementary relationship with technology in augmenting economic output and sustainable growth. The chapter enumerates the evolution of global labour migration patterns shaped by social, economic, political and technological factors as well as the structural shifts in labour migration patterns in the recent decade driven by technological advancements. It also examines the challenges and opportunities related to global labour migration, setting the context for a detailed discussion in the later chapters.

The second chapter looks at the evolution of labour migration theories, driven by factors like population changes, differential wages and technological changes. It explains the tenets of a fundamental model of global labour migration and talks about both the economic and social benefits of global labour migration, including skills transfer, entrepreneurship, innovation, remittances and higher gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

The third chapter highlights the evolving labour migration trends, with an analysis of immigration policies in key destination countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States (US). It also looks at frameworks like ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework (AQRF) and European initiatives like the Europass which aids labour migration across the world. The fourth chapter discusses the key challenges to labour migration, ranging from cultural and social barriers to institutional impediments like the absence of bilateral and multilateral diplomatic agreements. The chapter also highlights concepts like the ‘lottery of birth’,1 encapsulating the inherent advantages or disadvantages migrants face due to their birthplace. The fifth chapter focusses on India, underpinning its crucial position in the global labour migration landscape and identifying trends in Indian labour migration, while also detailing the country’s public and private sector initiatives aimed at facilitating international labour mobility.

The sixth chapter looks at the convergence of labour economics and international relations, highlighting the need for institutional arrangements to attain an equilibrium in global labour supply and demand. Furthermore, it enumerates how Indian labour markets can assume an important role in the global workforce landscape by aligning with global policies and institutional frameworks to fully leverage the economic potential of labour migration for both the domestic and global economy.

The seventh chapter maps global labour opportunities, emphasising India’s role in addressing workforce shortages in mature economies like Germany, Japan, and Canada. The section highlights how barriers such as skill mismatches, regulatory complexities, and qualification recognition persist and can be mitigated by strengthening skilling initiatives, aligning certifications with global standards, and leveraging AI-driven training platforms. Lastly, the concluding chapter on policy recommendations highlights how a sustainable workforce mobility framework necessitates robust alignment between domestic skill development initiatives and evolving international labour demands. A dynamic, future-ready labour mobility strategy can position India as a leading global talent supplier while maximising reciprocal economic benefits.

Read the report here.

international affairs, International Diplomacy, Raisina Dialogue, Writing

Raisina Files 2025 -The Reckoning: Regression or Renaissance?

Ed Samir Saran and Vinia Mukherjee

Editors’ Note

“later that night i held an atlas in my lap ran my fingers across the whole world and whispered where does it hurt?

it answered everywhere everywhere everywhere.”

~ Warsan Shire

That there can be no peace without development is a universal truism. The two, perhaps the loftiest and noblest of human aspirations, are perpetually interdependent: Conflict impedes progress; and the lack of economic opportunity can contribute to conflict. Today, as humanity’s excesses wage a war on the planet—causing extreme weather events, food insecurity, threats to health, and massive displacements—both peace and development will be the casualties unless we turn around.

The Reckoning: Regression or Renaissance? confronts the many obstacles that come in the way of our pursuit of peace, progress, and sustainable development, and offers insights into our choices. It is indeed a moment of reckoning, and this collection of essays engages with the debates that are crucial to the decisions that we will have to make.

As if climate change has not been enough to bring the world to its precarious state, there is more. There is still no end in sight to either the war in Ukraine or the conflict in Yemen, and tensions continue to simmer in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific. The COVID-19 pandemic caused the biggest setback in poverty reduction in decades, economic inequities persist in many places, and demographic shifts and ageing populations are giving birth to even newer challenges.

Genevieve Donnellon-May sets her sights on the Pacific, which is facing the dual challenge of navigating great-power competition and addressing pressing domestic concerns. Ensuring economic development, security cooperation, and environmental sustainability will be keys to peacebuilding in the region.

If peace is the aim, one region that has long been haunted by its absence is Africa. Davis Makori reminds us not just of this fact—that, following a brief period of optimism, armed conflict continues to be the scourge of the continent—but more importantly, that it is the civilians who bear the brunt of the constant state of war. The imperatives for Africa are early-warning systems, community-focused protection mechanisms, and UN reform to address the fundamental imbalance in the global peace and security architecture.

Europe is another theatre of conflict, and the domestic nostalgia for a glorious era of peace and prosperity, now lost, has become more intense. Velina Tchakarova lists a litany of challenges impeding Europe’s rediscovering of its old self: declining birth rates and an ageing population; dependency on other countries for energy supply; and growing security threats.

Agatha Kratz tackles the subject of Europe too, this time in the context of its relationship with China. Brussels and other member state capitals are showing a “newfound activism” against China, including launching trade defence cases and tightening investment rules. In the coming days, while EU-China relations could stabilise, there will still be no meaningful change in bilateral ties.

Kate O’Shaughnessy, in her piece, writes about the Indian Ocean region and how it looks much more unstable than it did only a decade ago. For the international community to engage meaningfully in the region and create an impact, it must include the voices of island states and address the issues that matter most to them—climate change, maritime domain awareness, regional economic integration, and human capacity building.

Listening to what small and developing states have to say will be critical, because in many ways, the Global South will be the fulcrum of change.

In global governance of healthcare, for example, the year opened with pivotal shifts as the United States withdrew from the World Health Organization, provoking uncertainty about global health security, disease control efforts, climate resilience programmes, and pandemic preparedness. Ayoade Alakija, however, in her essay, sees the opportunity: the disproportionate power the US is ceding may now be re-distributed, and emerging economies of the Global South should increase their agency and autonomy.

The Global South will also need to step up in the area of international trade, where South-South cooperation can help these countries compete on equal footing with the Global North. For Kekeli Ahiable, expanding access to markets will create growth that in turn can pull over 700 million people in developing economies out of extreme poverty.

Part of the trade imperative for the Global South is to gain access to low-carbon technologies to accelerate the energy transition—a task that is complex, as Lydia Powell writes. Efforts to nurture a low-carbon future must balance the emphasis on mitigation with the adaptation needs of the Global South, while considering their right to human well-being, often neglected in North-led prescriptions for climate change.

Mannat Jaspal also examines themes around energy transitions, and writes that, while the proportion of fossil fuels in the energy mix will decline, they will not disappear entirely even in net-zero scenarios. A key to decarbonising is technology—and there’s the rub: The gap between the required deployment of low-carbon technologies and current patterns is significant, and of the technologies that need to be deployed by 2050, the best results so far are primarily in less complex and more commercially viable applications.

Technology is also key in the domain of quantum research, the subject of a contribution by Linda Nhon and Andreas Kuehn, written in the context of the race between the United States and China. As the new Trump administration prepares to define policies that will shape the US science and technology leadership trajectory in the next four years and beyond, it needs a clear vision of how the country can reach quantum superiority.

Technological imperatives are similarly present in the domain of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the subject of an exposition by Trisha Ray. She notes that building and deploying AI at scale requires capital, infrastructure, and manpower that right now, only highly centralised entities like tech giants and rich governments can marshal. She gives us four models for how states will likely nurture ‘sovereign AI’, or AI that uses a country’s own resources.

While the subjects of quantum computing and AI may be relatively new, what we have been tackling for some years now are the challenges posed by the proliferation of social media and its use for malicious activities. Anulekha Nandi and Anirban Sarma discuss the perpetual dilemma in the governance of social media—once not too long ago heralded as the ‘public sphere’ ideal: finding the sweet spot between free speech and security.

This same dilemma finds its place in the gargantuan task of counterterrorism. Naureen Chowdhury Fink, in her essay, explores the intersection of technology, gender, and counterterrorism. She uses the case of ISIS and how it used gendered narratives in its search for legitimacy during the years of building its ‘caliphate’, and underlines the importance of considering this nexus when crafting sustainable and effective prevention and response strategies.

Two other geographies that we cover in this volume are Latin America and the Arctic. Dawisson Belém Lopes writes that even as China’s economic footprint may be expanding across Latin America, US hegemony remains palpable. More importantly, however, countries in the region are navigating the US-China power struggle “with pragmatic ambivalence” while maintaining their diplomatic approach.

And what of the so-called “great game” in the Arctic—home to vast reserves of energy sources and rare-earth minerals as well as important trade routes? Alexander Sergunin and Valery Konyshev surmise that the Arctic players, motivated by their common interests, will likely work to resolve their tensions not by force but through negotiations and arbitration.

We close the journal with the question of how we can have meaningful reforms in current international financial institutions. Karim El Aynaoui, Hinh T. Dinh, and Akram Zaoui argue that what is needed is a “paradigm shift” in the relationship between these institutions and developing countries. Rather than relying primarily on international assistance, developing nations should leverage technical expertise to mobilise private capital—both foreign and domestic—for development. In turn, IFIs must prioritise technical assistance, institution-building, and private capital mobilisation to help countries achieve sustainable and resilient growth.

Each of the 16 essays in this volume gives us enough to mull on where we want to head next. The reckoning will not just be about who gets to mine the Terbium in the Kvanefjeld plateau of Greenland, or whether or not China succeeds in claiming the Scarborough Shoal. It is about entire island states that will disappear; the millions in Africa who have been dependent on UN humanitarian assistance for 20 years. Our sound judgement is being called upon not just for the ‘great games’ but for the every single day: Do we keep hurting and wither, or do we create a new era?

Read the journal here.

BRICS, India, India-Russia, international affairs, world order, Writing

5 ways in which India-Russia relationship will shape the world in 2025

The ability to partner with nations that are deeply divided by geopolitics has been a feature of Indian diplomacy since Independence. The India-Russia relationship serves not just the two countries in question, but the world

Foreign policy trends in 2025 will be shaped by shifts in great power relationships. A new administration in the US could upend its relations with old allies in Europe and intensify rivalry with China. In an uncertain world, India plays a leading role in maintaining balance. The global community is watching New Delhi’s efforts to restore stability to its troubled relationship with China, and wonders whether the Indo-US dynamic will recapture the energy that characterised it in Donald Trump’s first term. In spite of all this, the most consequential bilateral relationship in 2025 will be between India and Russia.

The strength of ties between New Delhi and Moscow matters to both countries. It touches core mutual areas: Trade in energy, technological co-development, and strategic interests. Russia remains India’s most accommodating partner when it comes to high-tech supplies. While the West — France and the US in particular — are relaxing rules for trade with India in dual-use tech, there is still a long way to go before New Delhi’s undersea and long-range requirements are satisfied by the West. This is where Moscow steps in.

The global community is watching New Delhi’s efforts to restore stability to its troubled relationship with China, and wonders whether the Indo-US dynamic will recapture the energy that characterised it in Donald Trump’s first term.

What some overheated commentary on the India-Russia relationship misses is that it is of deep importance for the West as well. The BrahMos missile, co-developed by India and Russia, has been given to the Philippines to fend off the Chinese. In other words, it is only through India that Russian technology can be used to preserve the rules-based order. And it is only because it is India that no Chinese veto is permitted by Moscow on such sales.

This is but one example of the unique nature of the relationship between India and Russia. Their closeness will have deeper implications in 2025, a year in which it will be recognised as a global public good. Here are five ways in which this relationship is vital for the preservation of global order.

First, it serves as a bridge between the rest of the world and a Russian polity that has been alienated by, and has set out to further alienate, the Western ecosystem. India’s commitment to multilateralism and the global order anchors Russia, its close partner, to a system that it otherwise seeks to disrupt. India can do this because it is not seen as agitating for any one political or geopolitical position. It is a boundary nation that transcends systems, and provides an ability to connect — even integrate — separate universes.

Second, the India-Russia relationship prevents the Russian bear from totally entering the dragon’s den. A Russia locked into servitude to Beijing’s interests would be profoundly inimical for the world order, the West in particular. India’s outstretched hand grants Russia the ability to manoeuvre and allows it to avoid capitulating completely to China’s demands. It has become increasingly clear — at BRICS and elsewhere — that avoiding becoming a junior partner to its giant neighbour is a priority for Moscow. Russia expects a partnership of equals. India provides one, China does not. Europe must realise that when peace eventually returns to the continent, it will be with Russia as an equal of the European Union, and not subordinate to it.

India’s outstretched hand grants Russia the ability to manoeuvre and allows it to avoid capitulating completely to China’s demands.

Third, trade between India and Russia in fossil fuels is designed to be compliant with sanctions meant to limit Russian profits. This too provides broader benefits to the world. It brings valuable price stability and predictability to energy markets, which is vital for the West and for Europe in particular. It is no exaggeration to say that the energy trade component of the Indo-Russian relationship prevents Europe from slipping further into political disorder.

Fourth, the relationship allows for new possibilities in the crucial Arctic region. Without India’s increasing strategic presence in the Arctic, in partnership not just with Russia but also with European and Nordic friends, a new Russia-China axis would have shaped the region’s future. This would have spelt disaster for the ecology and security of global supply chains. India’s growing role instead opens better options. A Chennai-Vladivostok corridor, co-owned by Russia and India, might be a first step towards a more effective and inclusive connectivity and governance architecture for the region.

Finally, India’s presence in groupings with growing power and influence like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation ensures that these are not weaponised against the West. As External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has put it, India is non-Western, it is not anti-Western. This moderate and reasonable attitude shapes the actions and positions of such groupings. The entry of New Delhi’s candidates — and Western friends — such as the UAE, Egypt and Vietnam into BRICS as either members or partners has further moderated that grouping. The presence of these countries, and India’s leadership, ensures BRICS serves more as a complement to legacy, Western-led multilateral groupings than as a challenge.

India’s presence in groupings with growing power and influence like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation ensures that these are not weaponised against the West.

The ability to partner with nations that are deeply divided by geopolitics has been a feature of Indian diplomacy since Independence. It is only now, however, that this ability will be revealed as essential to prevent the fracturing of a stressed global order. The India-Russia relationship serves not just the two countries in question, but the world. The policy community in both India and the West is keenly aware of this relationship’s pivotal importance. Scepticism in the West’s Russophobic media and think tank ecosystem does not change that reality.

Source : The Indian Express, December 20, 2024