by John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, is the first of President Vladimir Putin’s strategic allies to leave him to make whatever exit from the Ukraine war he can negotiate with President Donald Trump.
Modi did this by saying as little as he could about Russia last week in Washington while preparing his own military, energy supply, sea lane and land route agreements with the US; altogether, according to Indian sources in Moscow, they enlarge India’s role in the escalating US war against China across the globe, and diminish Russia’s role significantly.
“I have been in constant contact with both Russia and Ukraine. I have also visited both countries,” Modi said beside Trump at the White House on February 13. “And many people are mistaken and they feel that India is neutral. I would like to clarify: India is not neutral. We have taken a side, and we have taken the side of peace…Ultimately, you have to come to the negotiating table, and India has constantly made efforts that there are talks that take place where both parties are present. It is only then that we will find a solution. The efforts being made by President Trump — I support them, I welcome them, and I would like that President Trump is successful as soon as possible so that the world is on the path to peace once again.”
This isn’t a statement of India’s support for Russia, according to Russian sources. It is not even India’s acknowledgement of the wars which the US and its allies are waging against Russia simultaneously on its western and eastern, northern and southern fronts. It’s India’s declaration that it aims to be on the US side in the multi-front war India is waging against China from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. It is also a proclamation by Modi against the Arab, Iranian and Muslim resistance to the US and Israel on the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf.
“The prime minister and I,” said Trump, “reaffirmed that strong cooperation among the United States, India, Australia, and Japan [the Quad], and it’s crucial really to maintaining peace and prosperity, tranquillity even, in the Indo-Pacific.”
“We will work together to enhance peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific,” Modi replied, “The Quad will play a special role in this. During the Quad summit scheduled to be held in India this year, we will expand cooperation in new areas with our partner countries.”
A veteran Indian source in Moscow explains: “Indians are very pleased with the anti-China stand of the US. The last two years of relations with Russians have been bruising for Indians and a lot of top oil and gas managers are exasperated with the Russians. They would do anything to stop doing business with the Russians – this is not because of the sanctions, it is the Russians themselves! [From Modi’s visit to Washington] there is the general take that we cannot be throwing our lot with Russians because they are so unreliable now and are junior to the Chinese. Putin might have brokered the Ladakh moment, but all in all Indians prefer to deal with the US now. For now we know that the Americans call the shots.”
Russia has been relegated. In Delhi now, Quad is major league; the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS are minor league.
“One thing that I deeply appreciate, and I learn from President Trump, is that he keeps the national interest supreme,” Modi said in his Oval Office remarks. “Like him, I also keep the national interest of India at the top of everything else.”
The Indian media have interpreted this as more than compensating for the American put-downs Modi registered. “The President did not turn up to greet [Modi] when he arrived at the White House; Trump snubbed him by doubling down on reciprocal tariffs…Elon Musk insulted him by bringing his children to a business meeting… In the age of trivialisation through social media tattle and trolling, all of this is of little consequence… The broad consensus among more seasoned analysts and experts is that PM Modi disarmed a rampant US President…and advanced bilateral ties…The visit was actually a tour de force measured in terms of impact and outcomes.”
Click on the White House transcript to read what was said in the February 13 press conference.
In the White House press room on Thursday, President Trump stumbled over pronunciation of Prime Minister Modi’s name as he read haltingly from the speech prepared for him. He also evaded an Indian reporter’s question on anti-Hindu and anti-Modi operations in the US. “I can’t understand…a word he’s saying. It’s not the — it’s the accent. It’s a little bit tough for me.” The Indian press hit back at Trump’s deception.
In the 33-point joint statement which officials from both sides had negotiated word by word in advance of Modi’s arrival in Washington, Indian sources caution that points 1 through 6 cut across existing defence and military supply agreements with the Kremlin, while point 13 undercuts the current Russian oil and gas supply trade with India.
Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/
Trump amplified this for Putin’s ear. “The prime minister and I also reached an important agreement on energy that will restore the United States as a leading supplier of oil and gas to India. It will be, hopefully, their number one supplier.”
Before the Special Military Operation began in February 2022, India imported 4.2 million barrels of crude oil per day: 24% came from Iraq, 16% from Saudi Arabia, 10% from the US; only 2% from Russia. By 2023, India was importing 4.6 mmbd of crude. During this period, the share of imports from Russia climbed to almost 40%, while Iraq’s share slipped to 20%, Saudi Arabia’s fell to 15%, and the United States’ dropped to 4%.
Source: https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/
The Russian supplies of crude at a discount price dictated by US sanctions have also stimulated the Indian petroleum refining industry into re-exporting their products and enriching one of Modi’s leading political financiers, Mukesh Ambani.
An Indian investment banker qualifies. The Modi-Trump points don’t so much cut out the Russians, he says, as supplant them. “They will cover where Russians have defaulted. Indians have understood that Russians will be unreliable and the Russian market will not be beyond $10-15 billion of Indian goods. The US is the primary market now for India and will be if manufacturing shifts away from China slowly. On the other hand, Indians will never curtail Russians from competing and doing real business in India if they have the will and means to.”
Points 23, 24, 27 and 28 are also interpreted by Indian sources as strikes intended by Modi and agreed by Trump against both Putin’s and China’s President Xi Jinping’s Caspian Sea and Belt and Road trade movement plans, as well as against China’s military resistance to escalation of US pressure on China’s shipping lanes in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and around Taiwan.
Since 1967 ASEAN has been an anti-Russian, anti-Chinese alliance.
Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/
Trump was explicit, adding Israel whose war against Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Iran is supported by Modi’s anti-Muslim domestic voters. “We agreed to work together,” said Trump, “to help build one of the greatest trade routes in all of history. It will run from India to Israel to Italy and onward to the United States, connecting our partners by ports, railways and undersea cables – many, many undersea cables.” In explicit payoff, it was announced that US Government funding for opposition parties and votes against Modi’s ruling BJP party has been cancelled.
Modi obtained this concession from Elon Musk who came to his meeting at the official Blair House residence for the Prime Minister with his girlfriend, his children, and a private business agenda that triggered corruption reports in the US media.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAut2426aX4
Modi’s direct and friendly interaction with the Musk children contrasts with the behavior of Trump who met with Musk and his son in the Oval Office later in the day. Indian and US sources have noted the contrast also. “To be sure,” commented one source off the record, “the Indians were taken by surprise at Musk's costume and entourage when they showed up at Blair House, but they were too politic to show it. Modi then acted towards the four-year old as you would expect from a human being, let alone a politician on camera. That Trump could not, was frozen when he had his meeting with the child, indicates to me that Trump is borderline psychotic.”
Ahead of Musk and Trump, Modi had met Tulsi Gabbard, the new US Director of National Intelligence (DNI). There has been extensive reporting of their meeting in the Indian press, but no official statement from the DNI. Indian sources and the Indian press noted that Gabbard is the first Hindu to hold a senior US intelligence post, and that in front of Trump she had taken her oath of office on the Bhagavad Gita.
The DNI ignored the Modi meeting. It then published the speech Gabbard gave the next day at the Munich Security Conference in Germany. “The challenges presented by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea,” Gabbard identified the US intelligence community’s targets, “similarly demand a united front to advance the cause of peace, freedom, and prosperity. To deter aggression and maintain stability, we look forward to working closely with those who share those interests.”
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5WhGJeoAow
In this hour-long podcast, one of India’s highest-ranking artillerymen, Lieutenant-General (retired) P.R. (Ravi) Shankar, analyzes the convergence of Indian strategy with the Trump Administration’s China warfighting objectives. He is dismissive of what Trump says, recommending instead to concentrate on what the US is already doing and now planning. “We should not rely on [Trump],” Shankar adds. “We should rely on him not at all.”
In his Indian strategy, Shankar ignores Russia. Click to view.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/live/6xAwwcJGqn0
Commenting on Shankar and on Modi’s Washington meetings last week, an Indian political source says “the fine details of what Trump says and does , tariffs or no tariffs, are not all that much of a problem for us. What he is delivering is already a lot. The Indians in his administration are loyal to India. The Trump family – Ivanka in particular – is also very good with India. We know we can get a lot out of Trump; and at a minimum, stop the Canadian, USAID, Ford Foundation, and Soros interference in Indian domestic politics. Indian officials know also that the US will have to act in tandem with them on Pakistan and Bangladesh. Perhaps in Afghanistan, too. So the finer points of Trump’s unreliability and all Americans being made out of the same cloth does not really concern Indians. After all, what other world order is there for them to choose from? What alternative can Russia offer?”
A US source agrees with Shankar’s identification of the anti-Chinese objectives common to US and Indian strategy in talks at the moment. He faults Shankar for over-estimating Trump’s capacities and the resistance he is generating at home. “My read is that no one, including Shankar, appreciates how bad the situation is in the US nor how much better, ultimately, the Chinese will be to deal with. The Americans are not reliable.”
As for Trump, the source comments: “Look at what the dyed hair, the caked-on make-up, his wild eyes are signaling: since the Inauguration Trump’s decline has become more evident across the board. His repetition of the same points, over and over again, with one wild assertion after another, is also a clear sign that he is losing his mind. His condition is going to get worse, much, much worse, and soon. As that happens, the things happening in the name of ‘President Trump’s wishes’ will accelerate and grow worse.”
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