Ideas Of India 2025: Are Donald Trump’s often-bizarre claims (“Canada as the US’s first state”, and “US ownership of Gaza to redevelop it as a sort of Middle-Eastern riviera while Gazans move elsewhere”, to cite a few) nothing more than former US President Richard Nixon’s ‘madman theory’ in action?
This and several other intriguing aspects of the Trump presidency and its implications for the global order were discussed on Friday as MP Shashi Tharoor held a power-packed Q&A with former US diplomat Kurt Volker at ABP Network’s Ideas Of India 2025 conclave in Mumbai. Volker’s session sought to unpack ‘The New World Order: View From America’, and he provided some key insights on Trump and his modus operandi as US president.
The ‘madman theory’ is based on the idea that a leader who appears unpredictable — capable of doing anything, global order be damned — is more likely to have their way in the realm of geopolitics. When Shashi Tharoor asked Volker, who worked with Trump during his first tenure as President, if the theory described the latter’s functioning, he agreed.
“I am quite sure that’s what we are seeing…” Volker said. “He uses unpredictability and uncertainty as a device to get people to react to him and do what he wants them to do… and I think that he has the ambition of settling issues and moving on… he wants to end the war in Ukraine, end the war in the Middle East, balance trade, focus on future competition with China, rebuild and strengthen the American economy, that’s what he wants to do… and, to do that, he is using all kinds of tools, including threats and unpredictability and insults… to shake everything up to try to push it his way.”
Volker, a former intelligence analyst with the CIA, served as the US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations from 2017-19. He also served as US Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) between 2008 and 2009. He is president and founder of Alliance Strategic Advisors, LLC, which provides strategic advice and services to business clients with interest in Central and Eastern Europe.
Catch the entire session here:
The India-US Relationship
As Tharoor noted, India and US relations have reached a point where any setback seems unlikely, given their shared democratic ideals, “no real areas of disagreement”, and also the large — and powerful — presence of the Indian diaspora in the US. But, can the US once again turn less than friendly or more indifferent towards Indian interest in the coming years?
Volker said “anything is possible in the world of geopolitics”. “Anything is possible, and it would depend upon issues that arise… that we don’t see in front of us today but it would be a diversion from what looks to be the natural path, which is [a] growing relationship… growing closeness between the US and India.”
The discussion led to a light moment between Tharoor and Volker as the former noted that some of the top positions in the Trump administration were held by people with Indian roots, including FBI director Kash Patel. When Tharoor spoke of the “tremendous Indian influence… consciousness possible” in the highest echelons of the Trump administration, Volker acknowledged the fact but added, “You’re right, but I would caution… no one should assume that all Indians think alike.” Tharoor, witty as ever, responded, “They know. We don’t [think alike] here in India.”
The China Factor
Perhaps no contemporary geopolitical discussion is complete without touching upon the dragon in the room, and the China question formed among the most engaging segments of the conversation.
Tharoor asked Volker about Trump’s apparent u-turn on China since his first term, when he “was pretty belligerent… there was even a trade war”. Now, Tharoor added, “There seems to be a very different kind of atmosphere towards China with Mr Elon Musk’s voice being pretty prominent in the administration. There seems to be a willingness to consider a trade deal with China, maybe more than a trade deal, and we in India are watching this with some curiosity as well as some concern…”
Volker started by seeking to “remind everyone here that when Trump took office in 2017, the prevailing wisdom in Washington DC was that China can become a responsible stakeholder in a global economy”. “That assumption was way out of date, we we had seen for years that China has an assertive or aggressive mentality with respect to the global liberal order, with respect to trade, with respect to its neighbourhood, and so Trump changed that and really built a bipartisan consensus in Washington that we have to prepare for a situation where China is a rival, a competitor, and, potentially, an adversary…” he said.
This situation, he added, did not change during the Biden presidency, and “I think Trump is [now] looking to see where we can avoid conflict with China”. “…It doesn’t change the understanding that this is the kind of China we’re dealing with… The contrast is with India. So, you look at China as a rising power economically, politically, militarily, technologically, but one that is a direct adversary of the United States. You look at India, which is a rising power economically, politically, technologically, but is a friendly country… one that we feel that we share a certain set of values with… that is a democracy… that has the opportunity of being a very strong partner with the US.”
The Tariff Issue
According to Volker, “President Trump… personally likes Prime Minister Modi”, but noted in the same breath that “that doesn’t stop the transactionalism that Donald Trump has… he’ll still look at transactions, he’ll still look at tariffs and level;ing those off… but I think there is a more positive attitude towards India and more wary attitude towards China.”
The reason for the lack of a trade war with China, he added, “is to see whether we can avoid that degree of confrontation”.
Tune into ABPLive for more electrifying conversations from Ideas Of India 2025, which concludes on Saturday. Guests on Day 2 include the famous and beloved ‘Khan Sir’, Navy chief Admiral Dinesh K. Tripathi, actors Dia Mirza and Aamir Khan.