As US President Donald Trump’s revived interpretation of the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ accelerates American strategic retreat from its pre-eminent position as the global ‘Uber-lord’, the global order is fragmenting into a more openly multipolar system.
In this emerging landscape, India, China, Russia and Europe will increasingly be compelled to carve out autonomous spheres of influence and selectively cooperate with one another to safeguard their interests amid declining US engagement.
For Indian policymakers, this shift poses a fundamental question: how should India manage its immediate neighbourhood when external guarantees can no longer be taken for granted?
Risks and opportunities for India
The answer contains both risk and opportunity. Strategic uncertainty heightens insecurity and opens up the prospect of facing multiple threats simultaneously in a fast-changing world. However, it also allows India far greater room to shape outcomes in South Asia and in the Indian Ocean arena on its own terms.
When India confronts China in the high Himalayas or counters Beijing’s “string of pearls” strategy across the Indian Ocean, where commercial ports acquired by the northern neighbour can rapidly acquire military utility, it can no longer assume the Quad will function as a near-military alliance.
As Washington signals reluctance to underwrite regional security indefinitely, India must increasingly rely on its own capabilities. This reality makes higher and sustained defence expenditure unavoidable, not as an act of militarisation but as a prerequisite for strategic autonomy.
Reassessing ties with the US
Equally important is the erosion of India’s confidence in the United States as a ‘principal ally’, a belief which was borne out of the way the US and India came closer to each other in the first two decades of this century.
That belief has been steadily challenged, most sharply by Washington’s response to the April 2025 terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir. The perceived US tilt toward Pakistan and its tendency to equate the aggressor and the victim generated deep unease in New Delhi.
For India, the episode reinforced a long-standing lesson: partnerships with great powers are transactional, not sentimental.
Declining Western involvement in South Asia
Yet, American retrenchment also carries a silver lining. The fear of intrusive Western political interests in South Asia appears to be receding.
The so-called “Gen Z revolts” in Bangladesh and Nepal — one chaotic and destabilising and the other managed and institutionalised — offer an insight into how the new global order may function with diminished Western involvement.
Bangladesh’s street uprising, which toppled the Sheikh Hasina government, unfolded before Trump assumed office, but the aftermath revealed Washington’s waning interest. Mohammad Yunus’s desperate oscillation between Western capitals and Beijing, and even an outreach to Pakistan and Turkey, underlines a deeper reality. The US possibly no longer sees Bangladesh as a strategic asset worth sustained political investment, particularly as it increasingly becomes an economic and governance liability.
Nepal, on the other hand, presents a striking contrast. There, a Gen Z-driven revolt removed a government but preserved institutional continuity through the appointment of former Chief Justice Sushila Karki as interim prime minister.
Her insistence that “Nepal will not be allowed to become another Bangladesh”, that is, descend into mobocracy and violence, marks a deliberate effort to restore order while maintaining democratic legitimacy.
Diverging democratic paths
The divergence is more than evident in the electoral processes of the two countries. Bangladesh’s elections, marred by the banning of the Awami League, arrests, and violence against candidates and minority communities, can scarcely be described as inclusive or free.
Nepal, by contrast, has allowed all political forces, including those recently ousted, to contest elections. The difference illustrates how domestic political culture, not foreign pressure alone, now determines outcomes.
This moment offers India renewed space to play the role it has historically aspired to, that is, be the principal stabilising democratic anchor in South Asia.
By supporting credible elections and post-election economic and institutional recovery in neighbouring states, India can exercise influence without coercion, something external powers often fail to achieve.
Engagement amid instability
Elsewhere in the region, US interests appear narrowly transactional. In Myanmar, Washington’s focus seems limited to the mineral-rich northern regions.
This reality lends pragmatic justification to India’s policy of engaging the military junta while also interacting with emerging quasi-states in northern Burma. While morally uncomfortable, such engagement may be the least destabilising option for border security and regional calm.
Afghanistan further illustrates the contradictions of US strategy. After first backing, then overthrowing, and finally enabling the return of the Taliban, the country has been left devastated and largely ignored by the West.
India, by contrast, has quietly rebuilt channels of engagement, and Kabul has resumed its traditional tilt toward New Delhi within the South Asian balance. This reflects India’s ability to operate patiently in strategic vacuums abandoned by larger powers.
Toward a multipolar future
The transition from a unipolar to a fragmented world order is no longer theoretical; it is visible and accelerating. The United States is increasingly preoccupied with its near abroad in Latin America and the Arctic, while implicitly signalling that Europe must manage its own security challenges.
Even on Taiwan, Trump’s rhetoric, limited to expressions of “unhappiness” rather than firm commitments, suggests deterrence without assurance.
This raises a critical question — are India, China and Russia emerging as countervailing forces as the US retreats and Europe recalibrates? Many analysts argue that this realignment is already underway, even if none of these actors, except perhaps China, is eager to formally assume leadership of a new order or even of a sphere within the new order.
Ukraine has become primarily a European burden rather than an American one, and Russia appears positioned to consolidate its gains in any eventual settlement. Europe, meanwhile, is gradually decoupling its strategic outlook from Washington’s, especially on China, the Middle East and Africa.
Shared interests, such as African stability and economic engagement, may push Europe to deal with Beijing pragmatically rather than ideologically.
Trump’s approach, intentionally or not, accelerates the emergence of a multipolar world defined by strategic autonomy rather than alliance discipline. India’s evolving relationship with the United States exemplifies this reality.
Cooperation will persist, competition will also be unavoidable, and restraint will replace dependence. Possibly, in the world of the future, no single power will be able to dictate outcomes — and for India, that may be both the defining challenge and the greatest opportunity of the coming decades.
The writer is former head of PTI’s eastern region network.
