While examining the challenges confronting India’s current foreign policy, one finds the country’s leadership clearly supporting a multipolar world order, despite the United States’ still-unmatched dominance and its self-obsessed approach in international relations. This tendency endangers the national interests of relatively weak and developing nations of the so-called Third World, including India—though it is now the world’s fourth-largest economy. Such unilateralism discourages the consolidation of global and regional institutions in a multipolar world and undermines the spirit of multilateral negotiations, causing significant loss to developing nations.
Against this backdrop, India’s national development goals demand freedom of decision-making and independent action, guided by a foreign policy rooted in the doctrine of non-alignment. This doctrine enables India to safeguard its national interests, resist alignment with rival blocs, strengthen the spirit of multipolarity in international relations, and actively participate in all multilateral initiatives promoting peace, progress, and global security.
In today’s changing world, states face considerable challenges—even existential threats—due to structural compulsions in international relations, as noted by the realist scholar John Mearsheimer. Yet India’s ancient moral traditions and rich cultural heritage—characterized by peace, love, tolerance, non-violence, justice, and freedom—embody the ideals of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (“the world is one family”) and Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah (“may all be happy”). These principles underscore India’s enduring policy of humanism and globalism for the welfare of humanity, while upholding strategic autonomy through an independent foreign policy based on non-alignment.
Although critics have dismissed non-alignment as obsolete after the disintegration of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, the growing membership of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) continues to affirm its relevance in the current multipolar order. India and other non-aligned countries have largely adhered to the principles of non-alignment, despite occasional divergences in their national interests. The inherent balance in nature, recognized since Aristotle and by India’s ancient sages, operates at both individual and national levels to restore peace and stability in the world.
India’s foreign policy has always respected this natural law, seeking world peace and universal welfare. In contrast, many powerful Western nations—especially the United States—often pursue short-term national interests while neglecting the collective conscience of humanity, leading to instability, disorder, and widespread suffering. These trends are perpetuated by the structural domination of global financial institutions such as the WTO, World Bank, and IMF, along with military alliances like NATO and ANZUS, and by discriminatory disarmament treaties such as the NPT and CTBT, which preserve the military superiority of major powers. The concentration of veto power in the UN Security Council further entrenches this hierarchical order, leaving developing nations with little voice against these inequities.
These imbalances have fueled economic inequalities and heightened security concerns, visible in recent flashpoints such as US–Iran tensions, the prolonged Russia–Ukraine war, and the escalating Israel–Hamas conflict, which has drawn in Hezbollah and Houthi rebels. Growing hostilities between the US and China, tensions over Taiwan, the Korean peninsula crisis, and China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea further reveal the exploitation of smaller states by powerful nations—violating the principles of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia and the UN Charter that enshrined sovereign equality among states.
The simultaneous rise of China and Russia, allied with Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan, poses new challenges to the US-led liberal-democratic order. The resurgence of imperialist tendencies in US foreign policy under “Trump 2.0” risks deepening rifts within the Anglo-American alliance and the NATO bloc. Historically, American dominance in international relations—beginning after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919—was initially guided by President Woodrow Wilson’s idealism and his Fourteen Points, which sought to promote world peace through the League of Nations. However, ideological rivalry with the Soviet Union after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution shifted US foreign policy from idealism to realism, centered solely on protecting American interests.
This realist approach deeply influenced South Asia, often to India’s detriment, as the US favored Pakistan with military and economic support that strengthened its army, intelligence agencies, and extremist networks united by hostility towards India. As a result, the liberal-democratic world order is now transitioning toward a new framework dominated by emerging economies such as Brazil, South Africa, India, and Argentina, and by regional blocs like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The SCO, comprising China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, and others, has become an important platform for the Global South, promoting economic cooperation and South–South solidarity, principles long championed by the Non-Aligned Movement.
The recent SCO Summit in Tianjin (August–September 2025) reflected this shift, as the emerging “Troika” of Moscow, Beijing, and New Delhi appeared to challenge US supremacy. Yet deep-seated mistrust between Russia and China—and India’s own border tensions with Beijing—raise doubts about the durability of this alignment. Meanwhile, the United States, facing economic deficits and lagging behind technologically advanced economies such as Japan, Germany, and China, must now confront a multipolar world replacing the unipolar system that emerged after the Cold War.
India, while preserving its non-aligned orientation, seeks greater access to strategic forums such as the UN Security Council, G8, AUKUS, and the Nuclear Suppliers Group. It also requires advanced technologies in energy, space, supercomputing, defense modernization, and healthcare. At the same time, India faces persistent threats along the McMahon Line from China’s expansionism, as well as cross-border terrorism from Pakistan. Addressing these challenges demands clear and consistent support from Washington—not only for India’s security but for regional stability across South, West, and Central Asia.
The global community must therefore unite against the erosion of liberal and democratic values that once defined the West’s international order. Upholding the spirit of the Peace of Westphalia and the UN Charter’s principle of “sovereign equality of states” remains essential to sustaining a just and peaceful world. The international community must explore a pro-people alternative that challenges exploitative capitalism and neo-imperialism in all forms, rejecting the re-emergence of unipolar domination.
To counter the imperialist designs of the United States and the expansionist ambitions of Russia and China, nations of the Global South—particularly NAM members—must reinforce South–South cooperation and regional partnerships. They should prioritize worker-centric and sustainable development policies over neo-liberal frameworks that serve Western interests. Strengthening multilateral institutions such as BRICS and NAM, and building fair regional trade agreements, is crucial.
Global trade and tariff regimes must also promote fair labour practices, environmental sustainability, and economic justice for developing nations, while reconciling differences between the US and Europe to preserve liberal-democratic traditions rather than empowering autocratic regimes.
Although modern foreign policy often revolves around the pursuit and preservation of power, India’s diplomacy continues to reject narrow self-interest. The current leadership remains committed to independent decision-making while engaging with major powers to advance national goals. India supports a genuinely multipolar world and an inclusive Asia, promoting multilateralism and global cooperation. Its realist approach, grounded in non-alignment and non-conceit, ensures freedom of action and the pursuit of peace, development, and human welfare for all nations.
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*Department of Political Science, MDPG College, Pratapgarh (UP)
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