"The era of US dominance has ended"
Indian External Affairs Minister Jaishankar speaks power to US truths
Indian External Affairs Minister, Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has made headlines again by stating that:
“Dominance of USA which started after end of the Cold War, has effectively come to an end.”
His comments come in the last weeks of the Indian elections, and are part of his government’s efforts to mobilise Indian opinion behind a strong majority Modi Government that can assert the influence of India, that is Bharat, in the world.
They are words of defiance since there have been a range of influence operations by the governments of the USA, Britain, Canada, and Western liberal NGOs to weaken “Hindu nationalism” and return India to its traditions of rule by the Congress Party (Gandhi dynasty), secular liberalism, and weak coalition governments reliant on Western support. Even little Australia has its shadow versions of these operations, with former head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Peter Varghese, and journalist-historian, James Curran throwing out slurs about Modi’s “cult of personality”, and recent backsliding to “illiberal, authoritarian” traits.
Jaishankar’s remarks rebuffed these slurs and subtle regime collaboration operations. They proudly assert the Indian way of democracy and foreign policy. But they also offer an interpretation of the central world history issue of our time. The US claim to primacy has collapsed and all cultures in the world are reimagining how they act.
Of course, many around the world continue to defend American Primacy and its more acceptable name of the International Liberal Rules Based-Order. Many journalists mock the idea of the multipolar world. Some academics point to the decades long record of predictions of American decline. In America, the downfall wails of American Supremacists shriek. Its leadership still believe in American Greatness, even while many American citizens express sullen self-doubt about whether they still live in the perfect republic.
The sickest expression of this Supremacism is Lindsay Graham’s remarks that America was right to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Israel should be free to do the same in Gaza. I am not exaggerating. You can watch my parody of the remarks in this YouTube short.
Jaishankar’s words are making waves in the halls of power of the world. But we mere citizens of the world should also think about Jaishankar’s remark that the era of USA dominance is over. The collapse of American Primacy will shape the geopolitical news for the next decade; and it is not only a question of great power politics. It opens a freer cultural space around the world. When USA dominance falls, all the peoples of the world are free to leave behind the tired tropes of American global monoculture. The brave and the free no longer call America home. Another attempt to build a Tower of Babel has failed, and we can make our own way in a polyglot world.
But is Jaishankar correct in his interpretation of this central issue in world history? I explore that in more detail in the remainder of this premium post.