For the past decade, if not longer, India has been touting a multipolar world. One cannot wish a multipolar world into being, though sometimes this is what Indian policymakers seem almost to suggest: The world either has several poles of strength, or it does not. Right now, it does not, with the US and China pre-eminent by a huge distance. The crisis with the US, however, is giving us a glimpse of a multipolar world. That glimpse is unsettling.
Having fantasised about multipolarity and brandished it as a good thing, we are now getting a ringside look at what it might entail. International Relations scholars are familiar with the debate on whether a bipolar or multipolar world is a more stable one, where stability means the absence of great power conflict and war. Probably the balance of scholarly opinion is that a bipolar world is the more stable since the two primary powers must only worry about each other. Their interactions, therefore, are more predictable even if they don’t like each other.
A multipolar world, by contrast, has been thought to be less stable since multipolarity implies at least three more or less equal powers (and more likely, four or five co-equal powers).
In such a world, keeping track of the interests, ambitions, and moves of several other powers is much more difficult. Permutations of allies and alliances can be quite dizzying, just by the mathematics of permutations.
We in India have favoured the emergence of multipolarity in the sense that it promises greater fluidity and choice in our external relations. But these must be balanced against the uncertainties let loose by three or more contending and mutually suspicious powers, all looking in several directions at the same time.
In saying all this, I am not advocating that the world remain bipolar. That the world will be increasingly multipolar in the years and decades ahead is fairly sure. If multipolarity is coming, we should prepare ourselves for what it means. US President Donald Trump, with his explosive economic policies towards India and his diplomatic finger-wagging, has given us a glimpse into what a multipolar world, in which India is still a distinctly secondary power, will be like.
First, as noted, it will feature much greater uncertainty. Until a few weeks ago, New Delhi could count on the US being positively disposed towards India and willing to take on a disproportionate share of the costs of a budding partnership. Can we really count on this looking ahead, even in a post-Trump era? Whatever happens internally in the US after Trump, can New Delhi ever count on returning to that cosy certainty?
Can we ever also count on China, Russia, and the European Union, the other powerful actors, holding true to promises made? They all have their own interests, ambitions, and policy preferences, and they will all, just like us, be constantly calibrating and recalibrating towards each other and towards India. So, greater fluidity of choice will have to be balanced against uncertainty of partnerships and quasi-alliances.
Second, a multipolar world often seems to get conflated in Indian minds with multilateralism — that in a multipolar world, the rules of international engagement would more likely be made through consultation and would more often be mediated and regulated by rules and institutions than is currently the case. What is now reasonably clear, on the other hand, is that in the emerging multipolar system, multilateralism is receding. Or, at least, that its recession is an equally likely outcome of multipolarity.
Third, Trump and his shenanigans have given India a foretaste of the possible dangers and pitfalls of a multipolar world. New Delhi has made a shibboleth out of “multialignment” and “strategic autonomy” (whatever those vaporous terms mean). We are now seeing what they can mean — not what they have to mean but what they very well could mean.
They could mean a very solitary, nasty, and brutal international existence where you dare not count on anyone. At the just-concluded Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, China and Russia supported India against the US and Trump’s tariffs. Can we really take much comfort from their words? The danger is that if they themselves cut a deal with Washington, the US President’s bullying of India won’t matter to them anymore. That’s multipolarity — you cut your deals, and good luck to everyone else. What is true of China and Russia is also true of the EU and Japan and other so-called friends of India.
This is not a defence of, or nostalgia for, unipolarity or bipolarity. It is simply a thought experiment on the future. Beyond Trump’s galling policies towards India, we need to think more seriously about the road ahead. That’s the real issue now, strategically speaking.
The writer is visiting professor of International Relations, Ashoka University, and emeritus professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore
