If a country secures an advantageous trade agreement with another, one might would normally chuckle. However, if a distinguished scholar from the beneficiary issues a warning to the victim nation that the contract is a ‘death warrant’, it would be foolish not to take notice.

John Mearsheimer is an eminent American professor in political science and international relations at Chicago University. He described the recently announced framework for an interim trading arrangement between the United States and India as ‘a death warrant for a nation’s strategic autonomy signed by the hubris of a hegemon and the ruthless submission of a rising power. What we are actually watching is a massive superpower stripping away the core sovereignty of another state right in broad daylight… It is the complete and utter surrender of self-determination’.

He defined the pressure on India to buy $500 billion worth of goods and services from the US over five years as ‘a direct, violent siphoning of India’s industrial base and foreign exchange reserves… you have absolutely no choice but to strangle your own domestic producers, you destroy the very engine of national self-reliance, you turn your entire economy into a captive consumer market, utterly dependent on the supply chains of the stronger power’.

He continued, ‘This is not free trade, this is weaponised mercantilism designed to ensure permanent economic subordination… Washington has systematically broken the geopolitical spine of New Delhi’s foreign policy…. An India that abandons its neutrality to fall completely into America’s lap is an India that has lost its strategic flexibility.’

‘Meanwhile in Moscow,’ he added, ‘they are taking notes on a bitter lesson in betrayal. When you sever your energy lifeline with a massive military power just to appease a hegemon located halfway across the globe, you automatically turn yourself into a collateral target in their future strategic calculation. You isolate yourself on the world stage with the illusion of American protection; and if you think the surrender on the foreign policy front is not catastrophic enough, look at the geopolitical suicide happening right now inside India’s borders.’

Also Read: A trade deal and a $500 billion........

© National Herald