India’s rise will be challenging and unlike China’s rise. China was fortunate to have a favorable international situation that catapulted its economic rise beginning with collapse of the erstwhile Soviet Union, what some scholars prematurely called, the end of history. A liberal world order, for the first time, became a possibility within a unipolar structure of world order. According to Professor Mearsheimer a liberal world order, an ideological order, is possible only within a unipolar structure of world order. The US backed by its political capital and economic power created the postwar liberal international order, encouraged by free trade, unrestricted capital movement and cross-border movement of people. Furthermore, this US-led international liberal order was centered on global capitalism and liberal democracy as its governing principle. The bonhomie between global capitalism and liberal democracy began falling apart in 1970’s due the inherent nature of global capitalism and also capitalism in general. Capitalism, now the governing principle of human civilization, is an improbable social formation, and a crisis prone economic system. Since the 1970’s, capitalism entered once again into crisis mode with crisis erupting at regular and frequent intervals. The 2008 financial crisis was the latest in the series of crisis capitalism faced since the 1970’s. China, the only nation today practicing Marxist-Leninist thought as an organizing principle of statecraft, saw the 2008 global financial crisis as a vindication of Marxist thought. China’s foreign policy behavior since 2008 turned assertive, if not aggressive after it discovered that it remained partially immune to the crisis. China had secured its economic rise by defying, not confirming to free-trade
The United States after reigning as the sole great power within the international system in the period following the end of cold-War, for the first time in 2017, officially recognized a multipolar world and the return of great power competition. However, the trend towards a multipolar world was first recognized by President Jiang Zemin and was enshrined in the text of the Russian-Chinese Joint Declaration on a Multipolar World and the Establishment of a New International Order, adopted in Moscow on 23 April, 1997 during the State visit of the President of the Chinese People’s Republic to the Russian Federation. India’s foreign policy establishment too judges the current international system to be multipolar, however, unlike Russia and China, India remains non-western, as against an anti-western orientation, in its foreign policy formulation. This is unhelpful, given that India’s rise will not be endowed with a rules-based international order with global capitalism as its governing principle in a multi-polar world order. The era of capitalism, as a period of history, is coming to an end. Capitalism is suo moto weakening the very foundation upon which it stands and this is clear in the US foreign policy behaviour. The need for unimpeded flow of foreign capital and technology, free trade, and cross-border flow of people is not given for India’s rise. The international system is increasingly turning inwards and this is true for many including India which seeks strategic autonomy. The key architect of the global governance, in the post-War era, the US in its National Security Strategy (December, 2025) states, “First and foremost, we want the continued survival and safety of the United States as an independent, sovereign republic secures the ‘God-given natural rights of its citizens’and priotizes their well-being and interests”. An insistence on sovereignty in a globalized world creates and sustains a contradiction and India’s rise is faced with this contradiction.
The US use of force against Iran and its quest for nuclear weapon is not limited to this tactical objective, but is aimed at strategic concerns far beyond Persian Gulf region. With Iran compromising on its sovereignty by accepting the demand to not pursue a nuclear power status and surrendering its enriched Uranium stockpile a day before the US and Israel began their military offensive on 28 February underscores the US aims and objectives. The US military action in Iran has also triggered a debate on if international order is indeed multi-polar. The US, according to many experts, remains a hegemon, perhaps a wanning hegemon, and the world by and large still unipolar. The US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, while speaking at the Raisina Dialogue 2026, said while India’s rise is in the interest of the US MAGA project, “India should understand that we are not going to make the same mistakes with India that we made with China 20 years ago in terms of saying, we are going to let you develop all these markets, and then, the next thing we know, you are beating us in a lot of commercial things”. It was the US adherence to capitalism which encouraged it to transfer technology, make investments, and invite China into its trading system. While this benefited the US immensely, with time the US foolishly fed its near-peer and is now executing strategies to undo this strategic blunder. No country, particularly in Asia – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Malayasia, Indonesia – has made economic progress without developing relations with the capitalist market space. Capitalism, although with fault lines, is the only known economic system that generates economic wealth and prosperity. India requires this economic system for its much-needed economic growth to successfully achieve its national goals. China’s practice of state-led capitalism with the aim of achieving socialism with Chinese characteristics is unsuited for India’s economic rise. The difference between capitalism and socialism is that market plays a key role within capitalism, whereas, in theory, there is no market in a socialist economic system. China, in its own description, is at the primary stage of socialism and practices capitalism with the aim to achieve socialism. Hence, while socialism has no issues with capitalism, capitalism does have issues with socialism. From a US perspective, the war over Iran for any reason, is an effort to defend global capitalism and the necessary infrastructure that supports it, for example free and open sea lanes of communication. For India’s economic rise, this need for global capitalism, although unfavorable in long-term, is necessary but not a sufficient condition as many domestic factors along with the international situation remain a challenge. Hence for India, the US can’t bog down in Persian Gulf and must defend a rule’s based international order for as long as possible.
Dr Sundaram Rajasimman Lectures at Sichuan Internation Studies University, Chongqing and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at themayandischool@gmail.com
