The most revealing part of External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s recent assessment of the changing world order was not that the United States is becoming weaker, but that America has “deliberately become a lonelier power.” That distinction deserves attention.
The United States remains the world’s most powerful military power, the issuer of the world’s principal reserve currency, a technological leader and the centre of an extraordinary network of alliances. It has no shortage of capability. What is changing is the relationship between American power and the countries that once regarded American leadership as the most predictable anchor of the international system.
For seven decades, American influence rested on a simple proposition: Washington would provide security and strategic stability, while its allies would operate within an American-led political and economic order. That arrangement was never entirely altruistic. America benefited enormously from it. But the bargain worked because both sides understood the benefits flowed in both directions. That confidence is now being tested.
The problem is not that America is asking allies to spend more on defence. Europe should shoulder a greater share of the burden for its own security, and Asian partners must also build stronger indigenous capabilities. The problem arises when burden-sharing becomes indistinguishable from transactionalism and allies begin to wonder whether American commitments will endure when the price becomes high.
A superpower can demand more from its partners. It cannot demand that they remain strategically dependent while also telling them that American commitments are negotiable. This is where America’s growing loneliness begins.
From Leadership To Leverage
Washington has increasingly shown a willingness to use tariffs, sanctions, technology restrictions and market access as instruments of statecraft. These instruments can be effective, compelling negotiations and protecting American interests.
But coercive leverage has a second effect that is less immediately visible. It encourages other countries to reduce their dependence on the country exercising that leverage. Europe is therefore discussing defence-industrial autonomy more seriously. Asian countries are diversifying their supply chains. Middle powers are building relationships with several major powers rather than placing all their strategic eggs in one basket.
This does not mean America’s alliances are collapsing. They are not. Nor does it mean Washington has lost its influence. It has not. The change is subtler and potentially more significant. Countries are beginning to prepare for an international system in which American power remains indispensable, but American policy is less predictable.
That is a very different proposition from American decline. The United States can still lead a coalition in a crisis. The question is whether it can persuade countries to follow its lead when their interests do not immediately align with Washington’s. Influence ultimately depends on more than power. It depends on confidence.
China’s Opportunity
China has been preparing for this moment for years. Beijing has not sought to replace the United States merely by matching American military power. Its approach has been broader. It has built influence through trade, manufacturing, infrastructure, technology, ports, critical minerals, telecommunications and supply chains.
China understands an important principle of modern power: dependency can be leveraged. The country that controls a critical component, mineral, technology, market or manufacturing chain may not need to fire a shot to influence another country’s strategic choices.
But China’s rise has its own limits. The more aggressively Beijing uses economic dependence as political leverage, the more determined other countries become to diversify. The more China expands its military footprint, the greater the incentive for regional states to strengthen their own capabilities and deepen security partnerships.
China therefore faces a familiar paradox of rising powers. Success creates influence, but excessive pressure triggers balancing. Beijing cannot assume that America’s relative strategic withdrawal will automatically translate into Chinese leadership. Many countries do not want to choose between Washington and Beijing. They want the freedom to work with both while safeguarding their own interests. That is precisely where India’s strategic space expands.
India’s Moment of Strategic Autonomy
India’s response cannot be to replace dependence on one power with dependence on another. New Delhi has wisely avoided that trap. India can deepen its strategic partnership with the United States without becoming an American ally in every theatre. It can work with the Quad while engaging with BRICS and the SCO. It can maintain its longstanding relationship with Russia while expanding defence and technology partnerships with Europe, Japan and other Indo-Pacific countries. This is not indecision. It is strategic autonomy, adapted to a multipolar world. But strategic autonomy is meaningful only when backed by national capability.
India cannot claim autonomy while remaining excessively dependent on foreign sources for critical technologies, energy, semiconductors, defence components or manufacturing inputs. Diplomacy can create room for manoeuvre. Economic and military strength determines how much room exists.
India therefore needs to accelerate the development of indigenous capabilities in defence, drones, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, space, cyber, energy and critical minerals. The objective should not be autarky. No major economy can produce everything itself. The objective should be resilience: ensuring that no external power can paralyse India’s national choices by controlling a critical dependency.
The same principle should guide India’s relationship with China. Engagement with Beijing is necessary, and strategic caution is equally necessary. The two countries can cooperate where interests converge, but unresolved security competition, the border question, trade imbalance and China’s growing strategic footprint around India’s neighbourhood cannot be wished away. India must engage China from a position of strength, not of hostility or dependence.
The New Strategic Geometry
The world emerging today is not simply bipolar, nor is it the unipolar system that followed the Cold War. It is becoming a system of overlapping partnerships.
A country may cooperate with America on security, with China on trade, with Russia on energy, with Europe on technology, and with the Gulf on investment. That may appear contradictory from the perspective of traditional alliance politics. It makes perfect sense from the perspective of national interest. This is why the old vocabulary of camps is becoming less useful. The real currency of power is increasingly strategic flexibility.
America still possesses enormous advantages, but it risks finding that leadership cannot be sustained indefinitely by pressure alone. China has accumulated impressive economic and military weight, but it risks provoking the balancing coalitions that every rising power eventually faces. India, meanwhile, has an opportunity that comes only rarely in history: to shape the emerging order without being trapped in somebody else’s design.
India’s challenge will be to resist both strategic dependence and strategic overreach. For Washington, the lesson is equally clear. A country does not become weaker simply by choosing to shoulder fewer of the world’s burdens. But it can become lonelier if its partners begin preparing for a future in which they cannot be certain of its presence.
And loneliness matters in geopolitics. Military power can win a battle. Economic power can win a negotiation. But enduring leadership requires something harder to acquire and far easier to lose: others’ confidence.
America’s greatest strategic challenge today is therefore not whether it has enough power. It is whether the way it uses that power will keep others from wanting to stand with it.
That may ultimately determine whether America’s current loneliness is a temporary repositioning or the beginning of a much deeper shift in the global balance of power.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lieutenant General A B Shivane, is the former Strike Corps Commander and Director General of Mechanised Forces. As a scholar warrior, he has authored over 200 publications on national security and matters defence, besides four books and is an internationally renowned keynote speaker. The General was a Consultant to the Ministry of Defence (Ordnance Factory Board) post-superannuation. He was the Distinguished Fellow and held COAS Chair of Excellence at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies 2021 2022. He is also the Senior Advisor Board Member to several organisations and Think Tanks.
