Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm Ashton Ritanti and you're watching New Order broadcasting worldwide on RT International, including to an audience of nearly one and a half billion. On RT India, we examine how global power is being rewritten and how India and its partners are shaping what comes next as Trump, Netanyahu wars impact billions.
Delhi's diplomats seem to be everywhere at once. This week in Manila, an Asean foreign ministers meeting meeting opened with Jaishankar at the table in Riyadh. Modi's national security adviser Ajit Doval sat down for the third time this year with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan to discuss the Trump Netanyahu Epstein war. And in Kyrgyzstan, foreign ministers marked 25 years of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization where India has argued for multipolarity and sovereignty outside the NATO nation sanction system. This all amidst the continuing eu, US UK armed genocide in Gaza and Lebanon forgotten in NATO propaganda media. Iran's allies, allies in Yemen have threatened Saudi oil transport through the Red Sea. And the Strait of Hormuz is all but closed. Civilians in Russia also have been killed as EU UK intelligence agencies targeted Belgograd, Kursk and Bryansk to Moscow. Tambor, Vladimir and Stavropol. But in Delhi, it was Moscow's charge d' affaires summoned by Indian authorities. India condemned Russia for an attack on an Edessa departing cargo ship. Four Indian sailors were killed. Moscow says ships docking in Ukraine are carrying ammunition. Irony, though, because the deaths came as Washington finalized a plan by a dead Israeli asset, Lindsey Graham, to financially attack India for importing Russian energy. At the end of the show, we'll be joined by New Order Zah Khan to answer questions from you, the viewers. But with me now is a scholar who has spent decades arguing that the Global South's path to prosperity runs through infrastructure and industrial capacity, not the Old Order's catastrophic dollar based financial architecture. Joining me is Hussein Askari, the vice chairman of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden. Hussein Askari, welcome to New Order.
Every week, you know, on New Order, we've been talking about this port, Chabahar in Iran, heavily invested in by India.
And it seems, according to photographs that appear on social media, that the Netanyahu Trump coalition have all but destroyed it. What's the significance of Chabahar and those against a new order that would target it?
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you, Afshin, very much for inviting me to your wonderful show. Yeah. Well, the Chabahar port has become one of the signal projects which mark the emergence of a new world Order, so to speak, because it's one of the major elements in the Russia, Iran, India, north south international transport corridor.
And Chabahar was supposed to become one of these nodal points for the connection between Northern Europe, Central Asia, West Asia and the Indian subcontinent and of course the rest of Asia. And therefore this has both physically and symbolically means a lot to target the Chabahar port. And therefore it's a major disruption of the good relationships that India has been developing with Iran, but also simultaneously with the other Gulf countries, the Arab Gulf countries, but also with with Russia. So this is a, as you know, the idea of the new world order, you know, I can give this a general image is that the reason we have all these wars going on right now is before, if you allow me to have this image actually before an earthquake takes place, there are tectonic plates that move opposite each other. One tectonic plate moves upward, the other one moves downward and that creates friction.
And this is the reason we have all these wars for a while now is because we have one old system. The hegemonic US led unipolar world system is declining in every aspect. Economic, financial, physical, economic, but also in military terms because it's unable to achieve its goals even with the massive military power it has. And it has now hit the wall where other nations in the Global south are resisting both economically, financially, monetarily, but also militarily. And they unable to achieve that. Now it's not inevitable to have this clash which could, many people say we might have world war going on. It's not inevitable if certain people who got used to the idea of the supremacy of the west and the United States and American exceptionalism, if they accept that they could become equal members in a community of shared interests with all other nations under the UN Charter, we will not have all these problems. We could have a completely new world order where we share the fruits of development both in the west and the East. But there is an ideological blocking here. And there are people who are resisting the idea of a new world where the global south is equal to the global north or America should give up its supremacy ideology in this sense. So this is where we have the challenge. And there are ways to get out of it, of course, but it sits very deep in the mind.
If you study economic history of the world, I did that in the Stockholm University, you get this recurring theme of the so called the great divergence, that by 1750 India and China stopped to be the world's largest economies. Of course the explanations are that there's stagnation there, but there are other reasons why India and China stopped growing, but that the west, through the industrial revolution, has become the largest growth factor in the world economy.
And through that, and of course, we had 500 years of colonialism and imperialism, this idea of superiority became deeply entrenched in the minds of the elites in the west. And therefore it's very difficult for them now to accept the fact that China, India and other nations are rising. And as Mahmoud called it, you know, the opposite of divergence. He, in his book 2013, he wrote the book which called the Great Convergence, that actually India, China and other Global south nations are becoming equal to the Western powers, industrialized Western powers, But actually now 2026 or already last year, the Global south nations, the leading ones, are surpassing the west in certain aspects of their development. And that creates panic among these elites who are willing to go to war, probably World war, a nuclear war, but not give up that supremacy idea. And this is. It's time to change that idea.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Yeah. BRICS members repeatedly often say multipolarity doesn't mean things are going to be bad for Western Europe and the United States. They too, could be prosperous. I mean, do you feel it was Joe Biden who said, we won't leave a vacuum in this region to be replaced by Russia and China?
Do you think someone should have a word in Trump's ear to explain to him, a businessman, that the United States could prosper out of the multipolar war too? As his planes, warplanes targeted Chabajar Port. I mean, it was only in the past few days those images of the tower in the port collapsing emerged on social media. Or is it a concerted attempt? Nothing particularly to do with Iran. The war on Iran, the Israeli attack on Iran. Is this a war for brics?
[00:08:06] Speaker B: No, definitely. I mean, Trump already declared that he will not allow the BRICS nations to have any alternative system other than the dollar, and that the US Control in the world must remain. He will not allow that. And as you mentioned, exactly, Joe Biden said this in 2022 when he visited Riyadh. He said, we will not leave a vacuum in this region. So there is a very clear intention not to allow the Global south nations to work together and prosper together. So we are back to the old British geopolitical idea of divide and conquer, divide and rule, where there are friends and there are enemies. And those who work with us, even in the Global south, they are our friends. They will be protected. Not anymore, as we have seen, but they will not. But there is a philosophical, a deep philosophical difference here.
When the Western powers, the colonial system, imperialist system, believes in the zero sum game, does not believe in win win, that everybody could get a share of the pie. No, it's a small pie and we want the biggest part. And we will give whomever we want, who is friendly to us, who obeys us, the rest of the pie. And this is really, even economically, scientifically is not correct because we humans are creative and we can actually not only coexist together, but we can make this pie much bigger through scientific, technological progress, through infrastructure development. Now this, you see that China, India and even nations in Africa who were previously associated with famine and poverty, like Ethiopia, now are having enough food, they're industrializing, they're building infrastructure because science and technology and reforms can work so these nations can get out of poverty. They don't need to take from the West. It's not a zero sum game. But they can use their natural resources, their human resources, their geographical resources to build their countries, become productive and share that with others. And this is what is very strange for people who are used to the zero sum game imperialist, unipolar world idea that no, we are the big guys, we might makes right. I decide who eats and who does not eat. And this is where we have actually not only economic divergence between east and west, we have even a philosophical divergence.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I knew something had happened in 1750 other than the Orientalist explanations of stagnation in India and China.
What do you think Ajit Doval, the Indian National Security Advisor, was doing in Riyadh meeting his counterpart, his Saudi counterpart? And does that fit in with your concept of the Muhammad Accords, do you think? What do you think they'd be chatting about in Riyadh?
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Absolutely. I mean, the Muhammad Accords are something. I mean, it could become reality because those nations are looking for a new model, a new security architecture, security and economic architecture where they could coexist with each other.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Particularly catalyzed by the attack on Iran.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: Energized by it.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Absolutely. And also the genocide in Gaza and the brutality which was shown by Israel against not only the Palestinians, but also the Lebanese, the occupation of part of Syria, but also the brutality exhibited by both Israel and the United States in Iran, that those people you cannot trust. They have very vicious ideas about themselves and about others, and therefore you cannot trust them. So the old model, especially in the Gulf, was that you have this Berlin Wall, which is the gulf between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council. And then Iraq and Yemen are always in the periphery. They are not included in this architecture you have an exclusive club, which is the gcc. It's protected by the United States and Britain. They spend most of their resources because there is not much economic development was going on there in London, Wall street real estate.
But that model collapsed in 2014 when the oil prices went below $60. For a long period it was by $30 per barrel. And these nations were looking for a new economic model of industrialization and modernization. And who's there to provide this technology?
China came forward and then you have the other model of security model that these nations will be in conflict with Iran, with Iraq, with Yemen, but they can spend some of their resources on so called protection to get a shelter. That has also been proven to be wrong. So these two models, the economic model, the security model, both have failed. And now these nations are looking for a new model where they don't need shelter and security protection. Because the best protection you can get from Iran is to have good relations with Iran. This is what the Chinese achieved in 2023 when they brought Saudi Arabia and Iran to normalize relations.
And now Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been actually involved in intensive discussions on normalizing relations even with Iran and getting to some sort of a new arrangement for the Gulf. But now India, Pakistan has played a big role, but India should not be left out of this equation. India is also an important partner for all these nations. Russia is in the background. China is in the background. So if you have Russia, India, China working with those nations on a new economic security architecture where it's not necessary to have American, British military existence there, but they can arrange their security among themselves and that India, Pakistan, Turkey and China and Russia can guarantee the security of these nations. You don't need military bases, you need economic cooperation. You need to trust each other.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Hussein Nascari will continue after the break. Keep watching New Order.
You're watching New Order. Hussein Askari, you were talking about continuing ideas about a new order and the optimism and the way the Iranian war, the war in Iran has energized people's ideas.
I don't know whether you saw in the MoU, because you were referring in the end of part one about bases in this region and in the region of where these new corridors are being designed. Whether you think Iran had that in mind, because Article 4 of the MoU signed in Versailles by Trump, whether it exists or not today, of course, is another matter. The United States undertakes to withdraw its forces from the surrounding areas within 30 days after the final agreement. Do you believe that withdrawing US Bases In West Asia is one more aid to this new order.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think the intention of Trump and the Trump administration from this item is that they will withdraw completely from the area.
This is a temporary trust building attempt to move some of the military, the ships and the warships and the aircraft carriers. But they were not intending. But I think it would be very, very beneficial both for the United States and for the nations of the region. If there are no American bases because they have proven to be obsolete, they are not providing security, they're actually becoming a source of insecurity for those nations. And the Iranians are adamantly saying that they will not accept the status quo which existed before and that these bases will become a source of insecurity. I mean, you remember Henry Kissinger's famous saying that if you are an enemy of the United States, it's dangerous, but if you are a friend of the United States, it's fatal. And that's why all these bombs and missiles are falling on these nations. And this is the fatality. It's in the interest of everyone. I mean, if the United States wants to end the forever wars, if they want to save money, not spend money and lives on wars abroad, this is the best situation. That's of course, a matter of the United States.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: That's clearly a matter for them. But then given that context, ahead of the Delhi summit preparations obviously being made, the long run up to it, do you think the BRICS countries themselves, the BRICS plus countries, fully comprehend the levels of violence that are going to be targeting them ahead of these corridors being constructed and built? Do they understand that and will they be discussing that in Delhi? Because if you look at the preparations and the kinds of schedules that are being drawn up for discussions in Delhi in September, they don't seem to particularly reflect the levels of violence that a dying superpower might enact.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think the BRICS nations have decided that they don't want to be a political project or a security alliance or something.
They have avoided that for a long time. But now even their economic survival because the supply chain interruptions that happened because of these wars, it becomes an existential matter for them and therefore economic future. So they have to discuss these matters, but they don't have political, military solutions for these issues and therefore they will.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: What else do they talk about at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization? What have they been talking about in Kyrgyzstan if it's not that?
[00:17:40] Speaker B: Well, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization also has a security aspect of it. They have to discuss security. But the kinds of security Issues they deal with is separatism, terrorism, extremism, and those things that they don't talk about.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Why do they always give to journalists things like that? It's about counterterror. And I mean, if one studies terrorism, one would argue that actually the same NATO powers have been arming the terrorism, arguably. But why in the handouts to journalists, is it all about those issues at a SCO meeting in Kyrgyzstan and not about the threat, the security threat from the United States and NATO?
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Yeah, this question of terrorism, of course, was a problem from the beginning. When these nations were created, these were real issues for China, for Central Asia held, the situation in Afghanistan, all these nations were affected. The situation in chechnya in the 1990s. So these were real problems. Of course, as you say, these were supported by outside forces, Western forces, but they could not take a fight with the United States and NATO directly. And therefore they are. They have to stick to the basic agenda. The BRICS nations were formed. I mean, I remember when Primakov, Yevgeny Primakov, started the whole thing in the 1990s, the China, Russia, India, the Rick, and then it expanded into the Brick and brics and so on. And now we have the brics. Plus, this is a hedging because they see that the Western transatlantic financial and economic system is collapsing and this is becoming very dangerous for them for their continued economic development.
And at the same time that they can see that through their own cooperation now they are getting their hand on certain technological matters, certain scientific development that they can on their own, without engagement with the west and avoiding friction with the west, they can on their own build a completely new economic structure, financial structure. You know, the Fortaleza summit In Brazil in 2014, that was a big, you know, crossroad for the whole thing because you. The establishment of the new development bank, financial cooperation mechanisms, investment mechanism. So there was a concrete ideas, but the whole time it avoided the political, military friction with the United States and NATO and Western powers.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: But maybe these global South African countries, you think they're still frightened hangovers of colonialism? I mean, let's pick on one country because in lots of the maps that your institute produces, beautiful maps of different ideas for creating prosperity for all and maps that show the kind of bright future that potentially could await billions of people in the global South.
We've seen what's happened to Syria and in the past few days. Syria is obviously one of these key hub points in your maps. It used to be Aleppo train station, famously where the Orient Express used to stop at Al Qaeda's Jelani runs it. He's just appointed a Zakawi operate operative.
Goes by the name Anas Khattab. He used to be called Abu Ahmad Hudud, head of Intelligence, let alone the Interior Minister.
Why is Syria always in the maps you produce and how should say India be viewing the fact that control is being exerted in this crucial Mediterranean country of Syria, which of course was so destabilized by Al Qaeda groups backed by NATO countries.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Yeah, well, there are, I mean, all nations in this region on our maps are important intersections of the global development and transport corridors. Syria was more vulnerable for many different reasons.
The countries who are most vulnerable are those with multiple ethnic and sectarian groups like Syria, Iraq, Iran, for example. It's easier to destabilize those nations than nations who are homogeneous in a way. But you said something, their future, something.
The development of the new World order has already taken place.
The growth of the brics, the Global south is already a fact. Many nations, as I mentioned, Ethiopia, now you have Egypt is emerging. You have a total shift in the global economic centers of power. It cannot be ignored. It's not something which will happen in the future. It has already happened. And this is why we have such a dangerous situation. The problem is that the Western powers who have declined economically, financially of their own through their own actions, their own thinking, as American economist Lyndon LaRouche long time ago said. He said, we shut down the steel industry, but we opened the stealing industry.
Because the United States and Europe, they moved away from industrial development, economic development, social development into financial speculation, but also waging wars. Many people like Trump say, oh, we were sleeping while China and India and others, they were eating our lunch. No, you were not sleeping. You were waging wars. And you changed your whole economic culture into worshiping money, making money through money in the financial markets, creating bubbles. And this burst in 2008, this was a big wake up call for the Global south nations. And I think the BRICs started to grow after the 2008 global financial crisis because they realized those people are not sane. Those who are running the economies of the United States and the eu, Japan, and therefore you have a completely new economic culture. But it has already happened, Afshin. It's not something in the future.
What we see happening in Syria, in Palestine, in Iran, these are attempts to stop that. These are attempts to block the road to this integration of the Eurasian nations. This is the old geopolitical idea, like the British, Halford Mackinder, the British geopolitist that Germany and Russia should never work together. They should never become collaborators.
Kissinger said China and Russia should never get together.
Then Brzezinski comes and they said China, Russia and Iran should never work together. That would be the biggest danger. The rise of the Global south is unstoppable.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: Hussein, where they on that unstoppable note? Hussein Huskari, thank you.
Questions from you, the viewers now mediated by Zahra Khan.
[00:24:42] Speaker C: Big activity on X this week. Envy has asked, is India being called the fastest growing economy because their policies are that good or because of sheer population?
[00:24:50] Speaker A: Sheer population? It's a mathematical proportion, year on year GDP growth. But what is GDP anyway? As Hussein Askari was saying, the New Development bank, they should be giving us the figures so we get BRICS GDP figures rather than the ones from the imf, which spends all of its time with the CIA destroying the lives of billions of people in the Global south using privatization. Except the New Development bank doesn't produce any figures. So we have to rely on the IMF, which indeed says fastest growing major economy is India, 6.6%. But actually the largest fastest growing economy is Macau, 60%, followed by Guyana and Libya at 17 and a half. So it's nothing to do with size. But we have to realize GDP itself is a problem because the biggest GDPs can be helped by natural disasters or epidemics because it takes money to pay for those. But the point is, Russia is now the most economically powerful country in Europe because of GDP by ppp. Because a lot of these countries in the Global south, let alone Russia, is sanctioned and you have to use currency fluctuation and local currencies to understand gdp.
[00:25:56] Speaker C: And Clari has asked, is there going to be SARC representation at the upcoming BRICS summit?
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Sarc? You're being sarcastic. What on earth is sarc? SAARC. South Asian association for Regional Corporations. 20% of the world's population. WikiLeaks exposed it as a organization hugely infiltrated by the United States. Maybe that's why it won't be represented at BRICS at all. They haven't had a meeting now. They were supposed to have a meeting in 2016 in Pakistan. It never happened. India now favors the Bimstec Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Tech and Economic Corporation. They may be represented at brics, probably will. But interesting how this organization, it's headquartered in Nepal. Sarcastic seems to be dead quiet for 10 years.
[00:26:38] Speaker C: And finally, Cliffhanger wants to know, seems like the US can block and steal US dollars anywhere in the world. How do the Gulf States now feel about the safety of their funds now that their wealth is in USD.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Yeah, $5 trillion of GCC sovereign wealth funds, much of it in dollars. Given the United States stole $300 billion from the Russian people, you'd think GCC countries would be reconsidering investments in the United States. And they have been. Rupee and yuan oil contracts being settled. GCC buying structural leverage in companies in the United States like OpenAI and Anthropic, which are in themselves connected to BRICS countries because of Russian rare earths in China and Russia. And also they're offloading a lot of the bonds. But the fact is Trump threatened to bomb and destroy a GCC country just in the past few weeks. Oman up the Gulf from here. So can any GCC country actually keep on using dollars? We don't know.
[00:27:39] Speaker C: Thank you for answering those questions, Afshan. We'll pick this back up next week.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Zarakan, thank you. And that's it from me. Afshin Ratanzi. Follow us on xnewordertv. Ask your questions. Maybe it'll be yours that gets answered next Sunday. In the meantime, we'll keep tracking how global power is reshaped in real time and what it means for India's position in this new order.
