The 2020 election saved American democracy ...

... for the return of Donald Trump

In light of this week’s US election result, let me share another “Philistine” column from my archives, this one from April, 2022. Originally published in Quadrant magazine. Enjoy!

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The Philistine

Salvatore Babones, Quadrant magazine, April 2022

The defeat of Donald Trump in 2020 saved American democracy. Not from Donald Trump: he never shut down websites, imprisoned protesters, or sicked the security services on his opponents. No, if anything, the 2020 election saved American democracy for Donald Trump. The four-year Trump pause that began on January 20, 2021, put the grown-ups back in charge in Washington—and the world. Like grown-ups everywhere, they immediately maxed out their credit cards, mortgaged the family home, stabbed their friends in the back, picked fights with the neighbors, gave stern speeches in their coronavirus masks while posing for unmasked selfies at the Superbowl, and offered nuclear weapons to Iran in exchange for promises to stop supporting terrorism and shift to nuclear blackmail instead. Thanks to the 2020 election, we all know what adult democracy looks like.

It's a lucky thing, too. Had there been no coronavirus; had the major media not conspired to suppress the Hunter Biden story; had the election been run under the pre-COVID rules, we would now be blaming Trump—for everything. The phase "imagine if Trump had done that" might never have entered the political lexicon. Ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan? Blame the rank amateurism of Trump's bumbling foreign policy team. Renewed North Korean missile tests? Blame Trump's personal courting of "little rocket man" Kim Jong-un. Russian invasion of Ukraine? Trump was only waiting for his second term to repay his true master in the Kremlin. Inflation a problem? Impeach Trump under the 'emoluments clause' for raising the rack rate at the Trump International Hotel. We would never have known how much better things might have been.

Luckily, the Democrats didn't just gain the Presidency in 2020, but both houses of Congress, too. As a result, the House January 6 Committee is free to conduct its insurrection investigation unhindered by budget constraints, Senate interference, or the rule of law. The investigation is absolutely crucial: not satisfied with blanket smartphone footage (and lacking access to the blanket security camera footage that the Democratic Congress refuses to release), the public wants to know what really happened on that 'darkest day' of American democracy. And the committee will surely confirm that the Capitol occupation constituted an 'insurrection' instigated by then-President Trump against the government of the United States. The committee hopes to bar Trump from running again the Fourteenth Amendment, since if the American people actually want Trump back, they must be insurrectionists too.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, passed in 1868, guaranteed "the equal protection of the laws" to formerly enslaved African-Americans. Incidentally, it also guaranteed the equal protection of the laws to New York real estate developers, Capitol occupiers, and even former insurrectionists—with one exception. It contains a special clause intended to deny equal rights to the erstwhile President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. Section 3 of the amendment provided that:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

Parse that, Sydney Law grads. This convoluted language was inserted to deny Davis—a man of modest means—a future living at public expense. Davis had been tried for treason, but acquitted on the clever argument that he had never engaged in treason against the United States because he had renounced his American citizenship before joining the Confederacy. There was thus nothing to prevent his being appointed to a sinecure by a sympathetic southern governor, or even resuming his prewar seat in the US Senate. Thus the careful language in the clause: no one who had "previously taken an oath ... to support the Constitution" and later engaged in insurrection, whatever his citizenship status at the time, could run for Congress or "hold any office ... under the United States". Merely giving "comfort" to the enemies of Nancy Pelosi would, under the Fourteenth Amendment, forever bar any supposed insurrectionist from ever holding office again.

Whatever the Macquarie Street barristers may make of that, careful Quadrant readers will certainly have spotted the loophole. Trump, it turns out, has never "taken an oath ... as an officer of the United States" and thus cannot be penalised for having broken it. That's because the President is not an "officer of the United States". The Constitution is reasonably clear on this point, always distinguishing between the elected leaders of the executive branch and the "officers" appointed to serve them. And even if that implicit distinction were to be ignored, the amendment itself explicitly enumerates the key positions from which insurrectionists are barred, and does not mention the presidency. Its framers seem to have felt that if Jefferson Davis had the [rhymes with 'walls'] to run for president, he was welcome to give it a shot.

Not to worry: plans are afoot to find other mechanisms through which Trump can be prevented from running for a second term as president (or, should he be afflicted by an unlikely case of humility, a first term as vice president). Unfortunately for the Democrats, most of these plans involve state laws to keep Trump off ballots, and the Republicans control most of the state legislatures. The fourteen states that the Democrats control outright would back Hillary Clinton anyway (did you really think she would sit this one out?). So absent a wave of never-Trump victories in the 2022 midterm elections—about as likely as a wave of viral TikTok dance videos emerging from the US Senate—the only person who can stop Trump from running in 2024 is ... Trump. Or God, should He decide to intervene. And even on that, the Constitution is vague.

Nothing says 'democracy' like passing special laws to prevent your opponents from running for office. Still, if the self-described Democratic Party were to succeed in banning Trump, they might be doing the Republicans a favor. Today's Republican Party has a deep bench of talented demagogues who embrace Trump's policies and appeal to the Trump electorate but are not yet blocked on Twitter. Trump himself remains the most-disliked politician in America, beating even President Brandon (just) —though it must be admitted that data are not currently available for Hillary Clinton, who holds the unique distinction of being the only presidential candidate ever to become less popular after losing an election. Unsuccessful politicians usually receive an opinion poll bounce as the public forgets their foibles and reassesses their accomplishments. But during the first two years of the Trump administration, Hillary's approval rating actually fell a further 6 points.

Gallup hasn't done any polling on Hillary for four years now, but it may have to reboot its Clinton operation after the 2022 midterms. It will certainly have to reboot Trump. Gallup polled non-President Clinton continuously for 26 years, from 1992 to 2018, but ceased its Trump polling immediately after the Capitol occupation, pegging him permanently at an all-time low of 34%. In fact, it seems that no one has done any Trump polling since he left office. When pollsters don't ask an obvious question, it's usually because they don't want to know the answer. Can't live with him, can't live without him? That may sum up America's relationship with its least popular president since Andrew Johnson, who after all was only impeached once. Only Trump could have trumped that. It seems that Trump does everything bigly—even impeachment.

If (no, let's face it: when) Trump runs for president in 2024, it seems unlikely that he will face any serious opposition for the Republican Party nomination. The never-Trumpers are a dying breed, and one that Trump supporters are actively hunting to extinction. But the Democrats will field an opponent ("anyone but Hillary", we can hear the party faithful crying), and sometimes even a Zoom avatar on mute can beat the most disliked man in America. Whoever the Democrats run, remember that the presidency is not a popularity contest. As America's record voter turnout proved in 2020, it's unpopularity that drives the race. Electioneering is a blood sport, and it's blood the voters are out for. No one watches Squid Game for the victories. Democracy, too, is all about the losers. Nothing beats the satisfaction of stepping into the voting booth, pulling a lever, and whispering to the losing candidate: "you're fired".

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The Salvatore Babones Newsletter will return.

Where I Stand on American Politics

I'm proud to nail my colors to the mast. Wikipedia: please take note.

The United States presidential election is right around the corner, and the fear factor is palpable. But in reality there's little to fear, at least in the near term. The Biden-Harris administration had four years to end freedom of speech and take away your guns, but instead Harris went on national television to brag about her Glock. And when Trump had his four years in office, he declined to "lock her up" and somehow forgot to sign that executive order reinstating Jim Crow. Our futures are not at risk. Democracy is not on the ballot. Forget the inflammatory rhetoric -- on both sides. Trump is not Hitler, Harris is not Stalin, and there are no fascists or communists in America. Even those few Americans who have historically fooled themselves into believing that they were either fascists or communists have recoiled when confronted with actual, real-world fascism and communism. All Americans value life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We simply differ over the best ways to achieve them.

But since the end of the Second World War there has arisen in America a political tendency that does have something in common with both fascism and communism, and that's militarism. American liberals as disparate as Dwight D. Eisenhauer ("the military-industrial complex") and C. Wright Mills ("the power elite") warned us about it, and anyone can see the difference between the ("inward-focused" or "isolationist," take your pick) America that existed before 1940 and the ("liberal internationalist" or "imperialist," take your pick) America that emerged after 1945. There are good arguments for and against the United States maintaining a large military, and there are good arguments for and against the United States using that military abroad. Leave these aside. The facts are that the United States does have a large military, and it does use it, for good and/or for bad.

And with a large military comes the rise of militarism.

Before September 11, 2001, militarism was a powerful but never a dominant force in American politics. Of course there was a defense lobby, of course there were jingoistic journalists, and of course the intelligence agencies looked to take care of themselves. But what once only one interest group among many became, over the course of the "War on Terror," became the dominant interest group. Anyone who reflects on the otherwise bizarre fact that Dick Cheney has endorsed Kamala Harris can see that. The Bushes, the Clintons (or at least the Rodhams), the Cheneys, the Obamas, and the rest of the first families of the American political establishment are all essentially militarists. They are many other things as well, good and bad (depending on your policy preferences). But for all of them, control over (or perhaps being controlled by) the security state is the dominant fact of their political careers.

That's not because they are bad people. It's because there is so very much money to be made from militarism -- and you don't have to be particularly smart to make it. Consider Ukraine. Unambiguously: Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 and bears full moral responsibility for waging a brutal war of aggression against a peaceful neighbor. It is reasonable (maybe right, maybe wrong; you be the judge) for the United States to support Ukraine in its efforts to retain its independence. But why were so many Americans doing business in Ukraine before 2022? Why was the serving vice president's son, Hunter Biden, a "consultant" there in the early 2010s? And why was the future Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, a "consultant" there in the early 2010s? Why were so many well-connected Americans making so much money in a relatively poor eastern European country with minimal trade ties to the United States? They certainly weren't there for the oil.

Ukraine is a marcher land of the American sphere (or the "American Tianxia," as I called it in my 2017 book). The marches are military frontiers where civil oversight is weak and shady fortunes can more easily be made. Easy money is the bane of orderly government; people will bully, bribe, and even kill for it. Apple and Google have made many people fabulously wealthy, but there are no (credible) stories of American political institutions having been undermined to murder, imprison, or otherwise silence opponents in the tech wars. Such stories are rife in relation to Ukraine. And not only in relation to Ukraine; in relation to Central America, the Middle East, and anywhere else where there is easy money to be made -- and protected. Military marches are the graveyards of republics and the rule of law. They are absolutely hostile to the liberal principles on which the United States was founded, and that underlie its continued prosperity.

The American militarists are not particularly concentrated in either political party; they seek to control both. From 2001 through 2016, they succeeded. And then, to paraphrase Polanyi, society acted to protect itself. In 2016, two outsider candidates challenged the militarist establishment that controlled the Democratic and Republican parties. In reality, it was not so much that the outsiders mounted challenges; outsiders had mounted challenges in every previous election, to little effect. The miracle wasn't the challenges; the miracle was that people of conscience in both parties flocked to the challengers. The 15 Republicans who ran against Donald Trump all ran against Donald Trump, not each other, but actual Republican voters chose Trump. And of course Hiliary Clinton ran against Bernie Sanders, who won the support of much of the party's rank-and-file. It took all the strength of the Democratic Party machinery to keep them down -- and him out.

My fellow progressives: it should give you pause for thought that Matt Taibbi, Glen Greenwald, Elon Musk, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have all lined up behind Donald Trump, whether explicitly or implicitly.

My fellow conservatives: it should likewise give you pause for thought that the Cheneys, Goldman Sachs, the intelligence agencies, and the retired generals have all lined up behind Kamala Harris.

The last eight years have witnessed a battle for the soul of the Republican Party, a battle that the militarists have definitively lost. The Republican Party is now a Trumpian Party. Whether or not you want Trumpian policies in government, it is good for American that the Trumpians are now in charge of the Republican Party. Would you rather have the Bushes? There will always be a Republican Party, and someone will always run it. Democracy requires choices, and Trump is offering a classic Republican choice: deregulation, lower taxes, punitive tariffs, and social conservatism. Those may not be your choices, but America would hardly be a democracy if the people who want those things were not allowed to vote for them. The complete rejuvenation of the Republican Party over the last eight years has turned it into the party that most Republican voters wanted to have in the first place. Now they have it.

No such rejuvenation has occurred for the Democrats. The Democratic Party remains the party of organized labor, welfare advocates, vulnerable groups, and salaried professionals. But it is a party controlled by the militarists. Joe Biden ran on a "buy American" platform under which he promised to use government procurement to steer jobs to unionized manufacturers; did you hear a word about that after November 2020? Where are the universal healthcare, the reparations for slavery, and the moral foreign policy? You may or may not want these things, but Democratic Party voters want these things. Bernie Sanders would have advanced these causes, and more. But Democratic voters were not given a straight-up fair choice in 2016, nor in 2020, nor in 2024. Three presidential elections in a row have seen the Democratic Party nominee chosen by insiders and imposed on the party. And why? Because where there is easy money to be made, democracy can wait.

The enduring strength of American democracy is its capacity for renewal. The Republican Party has been completely rejuvenated since 2016. The Bushes, Cheneys, and Boltons are out, and they're never coming back. And whether or not you personally like that, most Republicans like that. And in America, alone among the world's major democracies, it's the voters who decide who our candidate will be.

The Democratic Party remains under militarist control. Not only that; the Republican militarists have migrated to the Democratic Party, having nowhere else to go. Until the Democratic Party experiences a similar rejuvenation, American democracy will remain only partially reformed.

That's why I believe the reelection of Donald Trump is necessary for the renewal of American democracy. Only a thumping Trump victory can jolt the Democratic Party into reform. Trump has been so thoroughly demonized among ordinary Democrats that if Harris wins, it'll be "good enough" that she's kept Trump out. That's not good enough. Even for progressive Democrats, it's better to have four years in the wilderness during which the party completely reforms itself than four years in power that reinforces the militarist grip on the party. Consider this: Harris has welcomed the anti-Trump Republicans into the Democratic fold. How will that change the party, if she has four years in office to solidify the new condominium?

And consider this: when RFK Jr. joined Trump on stage to condemn big pharma, big agra, and the CIA, the MAGA audience cheered. In line with Kennedy, I am one of the five or ten percent of Americans who are crossover Sanders-Trump supporters. We may be in the minority, but we're the minority who will determine the outcome of this election. We're not Republicans, or even Trumpians. We're populist reformers. And we're all anti-militarists.

Ever since its founding, the United States has been compared to the Roman Republic. And to repurpose an aphorism, Rome didn't fall in a day. The vast, corrupt fortunes that undermined the Roman Republic were made in "the east" -- that is to say, in the military marches on the edge of the growing Republic's expanding sphere of control. There was easy money to be made staging coups and inviting interventions in the marcher lands of Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine, far from the oversight of a nosy senate and activist tribunes, and ambitious Romans made it. In the last century of the Republic, a new class of Romans exploited the military machinery of the legions and the administrative machinery of the state to serve their own personal interests. At first, they couldn't do it in Italy -- the city of Rome itself was sacrosanct -- but once they had made enough money in the marches, they ultimately undermined the Republic at home.

The Roman Republic wasn't overthrown by rogue generals or barbarian invaders. It was undermined by its own political class. If the American Republic ever falls, it will fall in the same way: from within. That fall is, thankfully, not imminent. Nor is it ever likely to occur, though "ever" is a long time. It will, however, be forestalled if Americans of all political persuasions stand up against the militarists in their ranks. What we need is a Republican Party that reflects the broad preferences of the majority of Republicans and a Democratic Party that reflects the broad preferences of the majority of Democrats. That's how the primary system works: it lets people on both sides vie for the votes of people in the middle. Primaries are the unique strength of American democracy, and our safeguard against authoritarian rule. Republicans have now had three free and open primaries in a row. It's time the Democrats had one -- in 2028.

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The Salvatore Babones Newsletter will return.

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They wanted to make history. They got Kamala Harris.

It's time to revisit my November 2022 "Philistine" column for Quadrant magazine.

At the conclusion of the November 2022 US midterm elections I confidently predicted that:

The compromise solution was to keep Biden out of sight for a few years, then let him 'make history' by resigning … the 2024 election cycle will begin in earnest next March, and Kamala Harris will be running from the Oval Office.

As America heads to the polls again — with Kamala Harris on the ballot — I think it’s time to revisit one of my favorite “Philistine” columns. Enjoy!

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The Philistine, Salvatore Babones, November 2022

They wanted to make history. They got Kamala Harris.

Exactly why anyone would want Kamala Harris is something of a mystery. She didn't marry until she was just shy of her fiftieth birthday. It is, of course, barbarically sexist to comment on a successful woman's romantic life (just ask Gladys), but in Harris's case it's relevant. She got her start in politics at the tender age of 29 when her romantic partner at the time, the 60-year-old speaker of the California state legislature, appointed her to a high-pay, low-work sinecure on the California Medical Assistance Commission. Nothing to see here; move along. Down with the Patriarchy.

After more than a decade in (appointed) government employment, Harris ran for and won the elected post of San Francisco District Attorney in 2004. Yes, America elects its local prosecutors (as well as its sheriffs, accountants, and dog-catchers). In her first two years in office, Harris suspended the use of the death penalty for murder, created a special hate crimes unit, and offered convicted drug dealers the option to study for a degree instead of going to prison. When violent crime spiked, she switched to throwing offenders in jail—and throwing away the key.

Harris's new 'tough on crime' persona alienated progressives, but propelled her to state-level office. In 2010, she was elected California's Attorney General with the endorsement of the state's two long-time senators (Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer) and her local very long-time congresswoman (one Nancy Pelosi). With such powerful party stalwarts underwriting her campaign, Harris was able to win a whopping 33.6 percent of the vote in the Democratic Party primary. Her six male opponents split the remaining two-thirds, leaving Harris in command of the field. Score: Harris 1, Patriarchy 0.

In the ensuing general election, the perennially successful Democratic candidate for everything Jerry Brown handily won the governor's race with a 51-44 victory over the perennially unsuccessful Republican candidate for everything, Meg Whitman. Lower down the ticket, Harris snuck through with a plurality of 46.1 percent, just pipping her (male) Republican opponent's 45.3 percent of the vote. Sore: Harris 2, Patriarchy 0.

Now, in American elections, particularly at the state level, most people just pull a big lever that is labeled either "D" or "R", without paying much attention to the actual names listed under each. In that 2010 California state election, the Democratic Party candidate for governor won by a margin of 1.3 million votes. The Democratic Party candidate for lieutenant governor won by 1.1 million. For secretary of state, by 1.4 million; for state controller, by 1.8 million; for state treasurer, by 2 million; for insurance commissioner, by 1.2 million. Harris won her election by a mere 74,453 votes. For anyone to even notice a down-ticket candidate like Harris was remarkable. That people disliked her enough to specifically vote against her in the midst of a Democratic Party landslide is truly astonishing.

In any well-functioning political party, that election squeaker would have been the end of Kamala Harris's aspirations for higher office. Like the similarly-loathed Meg Whitlam, she might have been made ambassador to Kenya. But Harris was destined (earmarked?) for bigger things. When Barbara Boxer retired from the Senate in 2016, Harris ran for her seat, receiving the endorsements of ... Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Emily's List, and the California Democratic Party itself (yes, in America the parties can officially endorse candidates for their own nominations). The only prominent Democrat who didn't endorse her was Hillary Clinton. Eight years earlier, Harris had endorsed Obama for the nomination, and we all know who holds a grudge. It isn't the Patriarchy.

With such high-calibre support, it's no wonder that Harris won the primary election with a resounding plurality of 37.9% of the vote. To be fair, the California primary system is complicated, and many of those who voted against Harris were actually Republicans. But 'The Philistine' is a humor column, and it is under no obligation to be fair. Harris was hated all the way to Washington.

Simply put: no one likes Kamala Harris. No one even feels bad for not liking her. Her boss doesn't like her; her aides don't like her; even her Irish terrier doesn't like her. Harris featured it (no one knows the sex) in a single 2018 Facebook post for National Puppy Day, calling the one-year-old her "office dog", which implies that she never actually took it home. Now presumably five years old (and hopefully still alive), the dog was never seen or heard from again.

This unpopular but well-connected puppy-hater from San Francisco is the candidate whom the Democratic Party has anointed to 'make history' as the first female President of the United States. Yes, President. Not only will Harris make history as the first female President; she will make double-history as the first female President of Color.

When the Democratic Party establishment united behind candidate Joe Biden in 2020, it wasn't because they liked him, or thought that he would make a good president. It was to keep the insurgent but surging Bernie Sanders off the ticket and out of the White House. As the Philistines like to say, si cambia il maestro di cappella, ma la musica è sempre quella. Sanders had swept the first three primaries, and his only serious opponents were the 'my two dads' McKinsey consultant Pete Buttigieg and a person named Amy Klobuchar. Scared to death that a socialist version of Donald Trump might sweep to power and drain their own particular corner of the swamp, the party elders (and in this case, that term is meant to be taken literally) cut a deal. They agreed to back Biden—but only if he would set up Harris as his successor.

By this point, Harris had already dropped out of the race. But she had been the only African-American woman in it, and there was no way the Democratic Party was going to run two white men at the top of the ticket in 2020. If Biden wanted the nomination, he would have to share it with a woman. But which woman? A Democratic Party grandee named Jim Clyburn saw his chance to answer that question, and he took it.

The next primary on the calendar was in South Carolina, and Clyburn had represented South Carolina in Congress since 1993. The octogenarian African-American was one of the few remaining veterans of the 1960s civil rights movement, and was the African-American kingmaker in a state where African-Americans accounted for more than 60 percent of the Democratic vote. Clyburn had repeatedly pledged not to endorse a candidate before the South Carolina primaries were decided, but Biden needed help, and Clyburn was in a position to exact a price for that help. His price was Kamala Harris.

With Clyburn's timely endorsement, Biden swept South Carolina, and one week later the rest of the south. Clyburn duly cashed his chits. He went on national television to urge Biden to select an African-American woman as his running mate, because "African-American women needed to be rewarded for their loyalty". He might just as well have added "and because if you don't, you'll pay for it". Of course, Biden chose Harris, and he's been paying for it ever since.

That's how the Democratic Party got a presidential candidate that few people wanted, paired with a vice presidential candidate that nobody liked. Biden was simply the 'candidate who could beat Trump'; there was no alternative. All of the other contenders—'Red' Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren, Michael 'Mini Mike' Bloomberg, Pete 'Millennial Mayor' Buttigieg, and Amy 'Who?' Klobuchar—were fundamentally unelectable. The party faithful wanted a young, female, (preferably non-binary) Person of Color to waive their rainbow flag, but what the party establishment wanted most of all was to beat Donald Trump. The compromise solution was to keep Biden out of sight for a few years, then let him 'make history' by resigning. That was the only way to give America the virtue signal it desperately needed but stubbornly refused to elect.

Sixty percent of Americans think that Joe Biden is unfit to be president, and the other sixty percent feel the same way about Donald Trump. But all 120% loathe Kamala Harris. No matter; she'll make double-history all the same. The 2024 election cycle will begin in earnest next March, and Kamala Harris will be running from the Oval Office. It's no wonder that the Democrats are desperate to see Trump put safely behind bars before the race begins. Trump couldn't beat an empty podium in today's America, but he'll trounce Kamala Harris. Score: Trump 2, Establishment 0.

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The Salvatore Babones Newsletter will return.

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Why India Embraces Russia

India's avuncular prime minister Narendra Modi is famous for his hugs. Or some would say: infamous.

When India’s prime minister Narendra Modi met Russia's Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin in July, he was photographed hugging the Russian dictator—even as NATO leaders were meeting in Washington to discuss the Ukraine war. Six weeks later, he was photographed hugging Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. What gives?

The Indian Century Roundtable has just published a landmark paper by Prof. Ramesh Thakur explaining “India’s Shifting Balance of Interests Vis-à-vis Russia”:

• Ramesh Thakur | India’s Shifting Balance of Interests Vis-à-vis Russia

Prof. Thakur, a former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, is Emeritus Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, and a Senior Scholar of the Brownstone Institute. He is an expert on both Russian/Soviet and Indian international relations. We couldn’t ask for a better guide to the topic than him.

In his paper, Prof. Thakur writes that:

Outsiders often fail to understand what drives democratic India’s intimate ties with authoritarian Russia because they don’t see the world as viewed through Indian eyes and minds. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, India’s stance has both puzzled and irritated Western friends and commentators but is consistent with the trajectory of India’s foreign policy that seeks to balance a range of interests and principles in bilateral relations and multilateral forums. The US is India’s single most important global partner and there is a broad national consensus underpinning that. Yet it is also in India’s interest to remain engaged with other non-Western countries and groupings in pursuit of strategic autonomy.

He traces the India-Russia relationship back to the Cold War, a time when the United States was not always friendly to India, and indeed armed and trained India’s arch-rival, Pakistan. Prof. Thakur writes that in this period “the intimacy of the Indo–Soviet relationship was based on conjunctions of political, military and economic interests.” Nonetheless, according to Prof. Thakur,

The relationship was an ideological misfit from the start. One country was the world’s largest democracy with a bewildering myriad of political parties (including several variants of the communist party), competing trade unions and a robust press. The other was the most powerful communist state where the party claimed a monopoly of political and trade union activity and the press was entirely subservient to the interests of the ruling regime. Marxist ideology is the antithesis to the caste-dominated majority Hindu society of India. Culture and education turned Indian minds to the West rather than to the Soviet Union.

After the dramatic events of 1990-1991, which included not only the breakup of the Soviet Union but also the end of India’s “license Raj” and the opening of the Indian economy, the India-Russia relationship became more transactional. Prof. Thakur writes that “India scrambled to readjust to the changed unipolar world and recalibrate relations with the US while still heavily dependent on Soviet military supplies.” These changes ushered in three decades during which the United States was eager to improve relations with India—and to develop India as a market for military exports. This period of accommodation and courtship came to an end with Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Overt aggression by Russia, China, and (it must be remembered) the United States in various conflicts around the world has led India to be more circumspect about its partnerships and relationships. And not only India. Prof. Thakur reminds us that:

In a world characterised by such great-power behaviour, countries outside the rivalry between the democratic West and key authoritarian states judge their own long-term interests lies in minimising the chances of a major power war, protecting the fragile nuclear peace, creating a rules based order that is respected by all powers and in the meantime hedging their bets against geopolitical shocks in their own immediate region. The lodestar of their foreign policy will continue to be the safety, security, prosperity and wellbeing of their own people first.

As Prof. Thakur explains:

When making decisions, governments must strive for a balance among different sectors and groups domestically, among different nations and groups internationally, and between material interests and ethical principles. India resents and reacts irritably to being lectured by Westerners on foreign policy moralism because it is not and never has been prepared to outsource the calculation of its balance of interests on any issue to foreigners.

Indian commentators never tire of pointing out that Europe spends more on Russian gas than India spends on Russian oil. Even more ironic is the fact that Europe buys Russian oil back from India in the form of refined petroleum and diesel fuel. Yet Western commentators continue to malign India for importing discounted Russian oil, despite the fact that India (with a GDP per capita of USD $2800) can much less afford the luxury of choosing its suppliers than the European Union (with $42,500).

On balance, India tends to be a force for stability in the world. India may not always condemn aggression, but it never supports aggression. When it comes to the Ukraine war, India may buy weapons from Russia, but it doesn't sell weapons to Russia. Most of all, much like Australia, the European Union, or indeed the United States, India sees no reason to take sides in conflicts where its own interests are not at stake.

Prof. Thakur’s paper is a must-read for anyone who has been mystified by India’s relationship with Russia or Modi’s embrace of Putin. It lays out the history and explains the logic of Indian foreign policy-making. And it brings us closer to a genuine understanding of India. Once again, the paper can be read online or downloaded as a PDF from the Indian Century Roundtable website at:

• Ramesh Thakur | India’s Shifting Balance of Interests Vis-à-vis Russia

I’m sure that you will enjoy the paper as much as I did.

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I started the Indian Century Roundtable think tank almost two years ago with help from members of the Indian-Australian community. Since then, the organization has raised enough money to pay for professional services, establish a small reserve, and (most importantly) commission research. Prof. Thakur’s paper on “India’s Shifting Balance of Interests Vis-à-vis Russia” is our fourth paper, following papers from:

• Salvatore Babones | Inside the V-Dem Rankings

• Vikram K. Malkani | Understanding Aadhaar: India's National Identification Initiative

• Salvatore Babones | The Weaponization of Caste in America

For me, the Roundtable is an entirely volunteer (that is: unpaid) effort. But even with me contributing my time for free, the organization does have expenses. We receive no government assistance, of any kind, from any government. Nor does my university contribute. Instead, we rely entirely on the more than 500 people who have given their own money to support the Indian Century Roundtable. If you would like to support our work, and you are financially able to do so, please consider donating at:

• GoFundMe | Indian Century Roundtable Launch Fund

The Indian Century Roundtable is now a going concern and an established feature of the global India-focused think tank ecosystem. We are financially stable. But we are not yet at the point where we can hire even a single staff member. I’m happy to give my time for free, but some (paid) support staff would be very welcome. If you or anyone you know would like to sponsor our work at a level that would allow me to hire one or more full-time staff members, please do be in touch. Until then, thank you for your well-wishes, and be sure to read Prof. Thakur’s paper!

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On the Western Foundations of Indian Nationalism

As India celebrates 77 years of independence, a look at the construction of "India" as a national idea

Today, everyone knows what and where is the country called “India.” But India was not always India. For many Indians, it was (and is) “Bharat.” For others, most famously Winston Churchill, it was merely a “an abstraction”:

“India is no more a political personality than Europe. India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator.” — Winston Churchil, 1931

As history played out, in 1947 British India was divided by majority religion, resulting in the horrors of Partition. But it could have been divided by language, or by geography, or by historical antecedents. Most of India’s Hindu independence leaders — Gandhi, Nehru, Savarkar, Ambedkar, Prasad, and others — wanted to inherit an undivided India. Jinnah, as head of the Muslim League, refused to play ball.

But 1947 wasn’t the first time India was divided. What is now Sri Lanka was hived off by having a different governance structure under the British crown from early in the nineteenth century. Burma was hived off in 1937 (a mere decade before independence) as a separate administrative unit. Nepal and Bhutan were allowed to remain dependencies by the British, and thus retained independent. The map could have been very different.

This Independence Day, I’ve recorded a video presentation explaining how the various bids for “nations” to be carved out of British India were informed by nineteenth century Western political theory and played out against the backdrop of World War One, the breakup of empires and the League of Nations:

• YouTube | The Western Foundations of Indian Nationalism

Few people remember how prominent John Stuart Mill, Leo Tolstoy, and most of all Giuseppe Mazzini were in the minds of India’s independence leaders. To give just a tiny teaser: Gandhi traced his doctrine of non-violence to Mazzini, and Savarkar translated Mazzini into Marathi. It really is a fascinating bit of forgotten intellectual history.

The major faultlines of Indian politics today — the INC/BJP split — can be traced directly to differing conceptions of the Indian nation (and Muslims’ place in it). Those ideas of the nation themselves ultimately derive from different readings of Mazzini. I very much enjoyed telling a little piece of this story, and I hope you will enjoy watching it.

Happy Indian Independence Day. Jai Hind!

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