Editorial 1: Gaza and Trump’s ‘expanding the canvas’ strategy

Context

West Asia is being reconfigured geopolitically with Saudi Arabia as one of its main architects.

Introduction

Donald Trump, a consummate dealmaker, often relies on the “expanding the canvas” strategy to resolve an intractable stalemate. Nevertheless, he made his most audacious ever deal-bid on February 4, 2025: with typical nonchalance, he wanted the Gaza Strip to be depopulated, with its 2.3 million residents being relocated to Egypt and Jordan while the United States was to take over this “demolition site” to develop it into “a riviera for the world’s people”.

• While swinging this wrecking ball over Gaza and the region at large, he also hinted that in the next four weeks, he may have another proposal for settling the West Bank issue. Both Mr.
• The trios: Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who was on hand — conspicuously praised Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) and hinted that Saudi Arabia would soon join the Abraham Accords.
• This prompted MbS to promptly state that Saudi Arabia would not establish ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state.
• To most observers: Mr. Trump’s pitch was chutzpah off his playbook of many recent grandiloquent remarks.
• To some others: it was a colonial land grab in West Asia, a veritable geopolitical minefield.
• Its maximalist opening overture seems to be designed to shock the opponent stakeholders into concentrating their minds and coming up with a more realistic counter-offer for eventual settlement on more balanced terms.

A geopolitical reconfiguration

• Mr. Trump’s “truthful hyperbole” only underlined two undeniable contextual aspects.
• First, after a particularly brutish and violent epoch since October 7, 2023, vital but volatile West Asia is now tethering on the verge of a profound geopolitical reconfiguration.
• Second, with a little nudge from its friends, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia might be among its prominent architects.
• The 16 months of unprecedented hostilities: have demolished several long-standing shibboleths — from Israeli invincibility to the end of the Syrian civil war.
• The feared Axis of Resistance: stands neutered for the time being, although a revival cannot be ruled out.
• Iran’s extensive:  and carefully assembled strategic outreach from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean has been upended and its deterrence against Israel has been dented.
• Israel’s victory: While Israel has managed a pyrrhic victory, its internal and external consequences are still panning out.

The West Asian Dynamics

• The mayhem has convulsed West Asia and bequeathed the hapless region with colossal challenges which can be broadly divided into two intertwined verticals: political and economic.
• Politically: the no-holds-barred conflicts and assassinations galore have left the region repolarised with fewer guardrails, lower mutual trust and unsated revengefulness.
• The regional turmoil:  can be further segregated into perennial sub-issues crying for lasting solutions such as the
  • Israel-Palestine question,
  • the Iranian quest for nuclear technology,
  • the Kurdish pursuit of national identity and
  • the Yemeni imbroglio.
• Ambiguity in the region: now also faces a “known unknown” all over again:
  •  In his second term, Mr. Trump appears as impulsive as before and more unpredictable
  • .mAlthough he professes to prioritise the American economic resuscitation, Washington’s global entanglements keep ceaselessly knocking at his door.
  •  Moreover, his abrasive cowboy diplomacy, his penchant for transactional short-term fixes and his propensity for overbidding are often counterproductive.
• Trumps two eras’s: he may discover that the world in general and West Asia in particular are no longer where they were during Trump 1.0.
• The Gaza war: has thrust forth the centrality of Palestinian statehood, complicating, if not derailing, his vision to expand the Abraham Accords with the inclusion of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.
• He also has to contend with the growing influence of the ultra-religious Jewish groups in Israel and the HTS-led Syria.

Economic issues

• West Asia’s current economic problems are two-fold.
• The first set is rooted in the conflicts waged over the past few years including in Gaza (rebuilding 1,70,000 houses destroyed is to cost $50 billion), Lebanon ($8.5 billion) and Syria (damage from a 13-year civil war is put at around $500 billion).
• While humanitarian issues are urgent, a return to socio-economic normalcy would necessarily await the respective political resolutions.
• In many cases, the western economic sanctions also come in the way. The second regional economic problem is structural:
  • the dependence on hydrocarbons, notoriously fickle natural resources threatened by a global consumption peak by the end of this decade.
• Recent Trump disruptions: including walking away from the Paris climate accord, the launch of the “Drill, baby, drill” campaign and the public call for lower oil prices, make one wonder whether he is part of this specific problem or its solution.
• The shale revolution has made the U.S. the world’s largest hydrocarbon producer, but the technology, being more expensive, is highly price sensitive.
• Oil prices concerns: If oil prices are drastically forced down, shale technology may no longer be remunerative.
• Further, an oil glut would dent the West Asian economies which are widely expected to bear the major burden of the huge post-conflict reconstruction.

Trumps Radical actions

• Mr. Trump’s tariffs and sanction blitzkrieg: against friends and foes alike has not only disrupted global trade and investment flows but has also led to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar.
• Most West Asian currencies are tied to the dollar, they have also risen, denting their economic competitiveness and derailing their bids to diversify away from oil.

Spotlight on Saudi Arabia

• To help cope with the multiple crises in West Asia, the U.S. and the Kingdom need to reorient their over 80-year-old alliance beyond its traditional “security in return for oil” paradigm.
• The Kingdom, the region’s biggest economy (GDP 1.07 trillion), has come out relatively unscathed by the conflicts waging around it.
• It is relevant to note that the Saudi Public Investment Fund is estimated to have total assets of $930 billion and Saudi Aramco has a market capitalisation of $1.79 trillion.
• The country is led by MbS, a pragmatic young leader with an iconoclastic ambition to head the Arab and Islamic world.
• Apart from hosting two well-attended Arab-Islamic Summits on the Gaza conflict, he has extricated himself from the costly Yemeni civil war and normalised ties with Iran and Qatar.
• He has deepened links with Russia and China without antagonising Washington.
• With Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil exporter, MbS has been a moderating influence on OPEC and OPEC+.
• A fortnight ago, Mr. Trump told a Davos videoconference that his first official international phone call after re-entering the White House was with MbS, where the Crown Prince offered to invest $600 billion in the U.S. Mr. Trump then coolly asked him to “round off” the figure to $1 trillion.
• The incident only goes to show that the Kingdom under MbS has what it takes to be a political and economic bulwark for the region.

Way forward

• Before the Gaza war, America’s regional diplomacy was focused on Riyadh-Tel Aviv reconciliation.
• While MbS did not rule out joining the Abraham Accords, he played hardball by asking Washington for stiff concessions including
  • a bilateral security treaty,
  •  access to nuclear technology and
  • state-of-the-art weaponry.
•  16 months of sordid bloodletting in Gaza has left plenty of toxicity in its wake, making MbS now insist on a pathway towards a two-state solution, which the Israeli Parliament has officially rejected.

Conclusion

Despite these serious obstacles, the rationale for a Saudi-U.S. re-engagement remains intact as MbS can usefully fund the reconstruction of the war-ravaged regions and leverage Saudi Arabia’s profile to persuade doubtful and sullen Arabs to see the merit of a negotiated solution. Mr. Trump’s other challenge lies in coaxing the Israeli leadership to be more flexible and go beyond its survival instinct. Thus, while Trump-MbS bromance may or may not launch a trillion-dollar bilateral investment boom, their synergy would be a priceless contribution to healing the mauled West Asia.

---

Editorial 2: India as a bridge between the Global North and South

Context

New Delhi’s aspiration to be the ‘voice’ of the Global South can take shape if it also learns to listen.

Introduction

In his address in January 2025, in Conclusion a, while addressing the 18th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas convention, the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, said, ‘Today’s India not only firmly asserts its own point but also strongly amplifies the voice of the Global South’.

• When India held the 3rd Voice of Global South Summit 2024, last August,
  • Mr. Modi said that India aspires to lead the required reforms to take developing countries into a new,
  • more inclusive structure of global governance.
• Key questions: What has influenced India’s renewed enthusiasm to champion the cause of the developing world?
  • And, how can the country influence change to become an effective global development partner?
• Unlike the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM), India’s motivation does not appear to be based on decolonisation or strong criticism of the West.
• Rather, as India attempts to increase its presence in the Global South, it is simultaneously deepening its relationships with traditional partners such as the United States and Europe.
• The high-level visit of Jake Sullivan, the former U.S. National Security Adviser, in January, reflects this. Mr. Modi’s visit to Poland, in August 2024, also shows India’s attempt to create new alliances.

The China factor argument

• The cynical answer often circles back to India trying to counter China’s growing global dominance.
• Trends of foreign direct investments: in Africa indicate that India appears to be in a race with China, mainly focusing on countries which already have a significant Chinese presence.
• Industrialised countries: are thought to be strategically partnering with India to contain China’s rising international footprint.
• The Quad partnership, an on-going dialogue between Japan, India, Australia and the U.S., for a free and fair Indo-Pacific, is seen as one such attempt.
• The India-China competition: does not give the full picture.India is trying to create an individual identity as an emerging power in its own right to forward its own strategic trade, defence, and geopolitical interests.
• Global South countries are disillusioned: with present economic paradigms, burdened with debt and conditionalities.
  • They are not looking for another China or a new western institution.
  • India can fill this gap while being a bridge between the Global North and Global South.
  • To be successful, India needs to back up its rhetoric with the right strategies.

Steps that India must take

• The first is for India to double-down on its call for an alternate paradigm of development cooperation that is not solely top-down, dictated by the Global North.
• India often lays emphasis on equal partnerships with other developing countries, trying to set itself apart from traditional powers.
• In practice, it signals otherwise by putting forward strategies with an India-first approach.
• The newly announced ‘Global Development Compact’: aimed at facilitating growth in the Global South, was described as rooted in Indian experiences and strategies.
• India’s development story as an emerging power and being the world’s largest democracy makes it unique.
  • However, it does not hold all the policy answers.
•  India’s benefit: It would merit India to not only assert itself as a provider of knowledge but also be open to learning from other Global South countries to address its domestic challenges.
• Countries bounded news: Countries are bound to be more receptive toward a country that views them as partners.
• India as a Big Brother: India may also be perceived as a big brother imposing traditional donor and recipient relationships.

A human centric approach

• New Delhi has laid stress on a more human-centric approach to tackle developmental challenges.
• This has been defined at international fora towards promoting behavioural change via Mission LiFE (‘Lifestyle For Environment’), which encourages low consumption lifestyles.
• Rebranding India:  the need is to rebrand human-centric development in order to focus on building human resource and capacity, especially to tackle future sustainability challenges.
• Skill India or schemes that mainstream women into entrepreneurship, will be attractive for countries in the Global South which are also seeking to grow their domestic industry.
• India’s capacity building strategy:  has tended to revolve around the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme, which implements sector-specific short-term activities. It would be more effective for longer term engagement to assist countries in creating their own institutional capacity to create a better workforce.
• India can leverage its experiences with micro, small and medium enterprises to foster exchanges.
• A focus on digital infrastructure:  climate and energy solutions as well as water and food security are key areas for cooperation.

The goal ahead

• India has called for more inclusive global governance.
• The nation demonstrated this intent by championing the addition of the African Union into the G-20 (in 2023) during India’s presidency.
•  India should not be content with facilitating changes in established international institutions but also learn to build domestic capacity.
•  Focus on Norns and rules: As India aspires to become a stronger global development player, it must establish norms, standards and systems to work with partner countries.
• Initially, it is beneficial to use existing institutional channels of partners such as the United Nations or Germany and France that are more experienced in development cooperation.
• The-long-term goal: should be for India to create its own robust domestic systems for international cooperation.
• Trilateral partnerships: And increased engagement with new partners need to be seen as a learning by doing process, where India imbibes its experiences to scale up India-led global initiatives.

Conclusion

India aspires to be the ‘Voice’ of the Global South, but it also must ‘listen’ to be a good leader. When India spearheaded NAM, the country showed the world that there is a new, third option for developing countries. India should not miss out on an opportunity to do the same thing now.