Opinion C Raja Mohan writes: In a multi-polar West, India’s opportunity

The Soviet collapse not only cemented the unity of the West but also saw an effort to expand it. Russia was briefly welcomed into the G7, and the 1990s were hailed as the “end of history” and the triumph of Western liberal universalism. Yet that unipolar moment soon frayed — first through a resentful Russia seeking more honourable terms of engagement, then through a rising China intent on building a post-Western order.

Many middle powers, including India, responded by calling for a multipolar world to temper American dominance. But as China’s ambitions widened, Delhi began to speak also of a multipolar Asia. Today, a new layer has emerged: The recognition of the deepening divisions within the West. Engaging this “multipolar West” has now become an important strand in India’s external strategy.

US President Donald Trump’s America First nationalism has sharpened internal Western fissures — questioning alliances, revising security commitments, and the arbitrary rewriting of global rules. The Trump era has forced both Europe and Asia to debate “strategic autonomy” and to plan for a world where longstanding American policies can no longer be taken for granted.

Differences between the US and its allies — on Russia, China, trade, and technology — are now quite deep. Europe also watches with unease as the American right challenges liberal norms and exports its culture wars across the Atlantic. The sense that Washington treats some allies more harshly than adversaries has rattled capitals from Berlin to Tokyo.

In response, Europe is discovering its own vocabulary of sovereignty. Emmanuel Macron’s call for a “Europe puissante” and Olaf Scholz’s Zeitenwende in defence spending have converged in a continental quest for self-reliance.

In her 2025 State of the Union address last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared that “Europe must be prepared to stand on its own feet — economically, technologically, and militarily.” The long-debated idea of strategic autonomy has moved from slogan to principle. Europe now seeks to hedge against US unpredictability by building an independent defence capacity, deepening technological and industrial sovereignty, and articulating a distinct approach to global governance and values.

To be sure, Europe remains internally divided — between east-west threat perceptions and north-south economic priorities — but the direction is unmistakable: Towards greater strategic unity and agency within a plural West. It will take a while, but it is an existential imperative for Europe.

A multipolar West does not mark Western decline; it is about a rearrangement within. The US remains at the top of the global power heap. What has changed, though, is the domestic political consensus on how Washington uses that position more unilaterally — and for what purposes — to protect its own interests rather than to lead a collective West or underwrite a global order. America’s allies in Europe and Asia have no desire to break ties with the US, but the engagement from now on will be on different terms.

China has risen to be the second most important power and is acutely conscious of its opportunities in a world that might see the US stepping back. Russia is determined to reshape the European order. That leaves the US allies in Asia and Europe scrambling to develop new strategies to deal with China and Russia, while reducing their dependence on the US.

Europe, on its part, is rearming itself, and expanding defence cooperation within the EU and bilaterally with the UK, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Economically, it is diversifying trade beyond the Atlantic — reaching deeper into the Indo-Pacific and Latin America through new trade and connectivity initiatives.

America’s Asian allies — Australia, Japan, South Korea, and ASEAN — are making similar adjustments. All will have to learn to live with a less predictable US, minimising risks while exploiting new opportunities that Western pluralism may bring.

India features prominently in Europe’s effort to diversify its strategic partnerships. The EU’s September 2025 Joint Communication on relations with India captures Europe’s widening geopolitical imagination. It asserts that “India’s success benefits the EU, just as the EU’s success benefits India”. The document outlines cooperation in trade, technology, and defence while acknowledging differences on Russia. It highlights connectivity through the Global Gateway programme, partnerships in digital public infrastructure, and collaboration on resilient supply chains. In Asia, it is moving beyond the China-centric focus of the last few decades and sees India as a pivotal actor in its Indo-Pacific outreach.

From the Indian perspective, a multipolar West brings both potential relief and considerable risk. A loosely knit West allows greater room for manoeuvre and cross-cutting coalitions. India can now explore multiple points of collaboration within the West. But the fragmentation of the West could weaken collective international responses to authoritarian assertiveness and generate instability.

India’s patient handling of the Trump-era turbulence, its renewed engagement with Europe and the UK, its search for a pragmatic balance between ties with Russia and the West, and its recent effort to reset ties with China show that Delhi’s diplomacy is adapting to change. Yet whether India’s internal structures — still slow to reform and modernise — can match the speed of external transformation remains unclear. Without domestic institutional agility and economic modernisation, India risks under-leveraging the new openings that Western pluralism creates.

The writer is a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express. He is also a distinguished professor at the Motwani Jadeja Institute of American Studies, Jindal Global University, and the Korea Foundation Chair on Asian Geopolitics at the Council on Strategic and Defence Research, Delhi