After the demise of the erstwhile Soviet Union, the balance of power arrangements agreed at the end of WW2 started unravelling rapidly. Besides the expected political, economic and military consequences, it also created an unprecedented level of hubris in the attitude and dealings of the sole superpower. The world had to live with and bear that intransigence and bullying for more than two decades. This period was long enough to dilute international political and economic orders, which were already loaded against weaker nations. Countries largely had limited options to defy or resist the hegemonic desires of the United States of America. Even allies started feeling the heat of unreasonable demands or diktats that went counter to their national interests.

But as the dictum goes, ‘the only permanent feature is continuous change’, and thus this near absolute monopoly on world politics and the economy started withering away. Multiple poles started emerging and coalescing, thus resisting unipolarity. Russia was labelled as resurgent and China as a revisionist power.

Though China and Russia, followed by India, Brazil, Europe and South Africa, started developing their economies, technologies and polities quite rapidly, there was one major stranglehold that was not allowing the economic........

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