Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm Afshin Ratanshi and you're watching New Order. We're broadcasting around the world, including to nearly one and a half billion on Aarti India. New Order explores how India and its allies are helping redefine the geopolitical landscape of the 21st century.
Reportedly, the UAE and Iran held their first high level face to face security meeting since the Epstein War began against Iran. That shift matters because it points to a broader reality. Meanwhile, expect some watered down communiques this week because the Genocide 7 is turning up in Evian, a town known for its still water. Tomorrow the G7 meeting had to be delayed by a day because Trump wanted to see some UFC fights on his 80th birthday. The countries of the G7 and their support, diplomatic and military for Israel and the Nazi dictatorship of Ukraine have led some to call it the Genocide 7. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, the US and the EU have all been involved in the atrocities on our screens all this week in Palestine, Lebanon and Iran. Nevertheless, this time around, the G7 is also hosting none other than India's longest serving Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Does the G7 need the leader of the EYE in BRICS more than he needs membership at the Genocide 7? Modi has been doubling energy imports from Russia and this week his diplomats hauled in the US Embassy in Delhi's James Meeks to give him a dressing down over US Navy blockade violence off the coast of Oman. In September, Delhi is set to host BRICS, including the UAE's Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Iran's Massoud Pjeshkian. Putin is coming. XI may follow. For the first time in years, the most consequential leaders in the non western world will be in the same room with India at the head of the table. Two summits months apart on opposite sides of the globe. Between them lies the struggle over who gets to shape the next phase of the international order.
At the end of the show, we'll be joined by New Orders Zahra Khan to answer questions from you, the viewers. But now let's go straight to Moscow to foreign policy scholar and Valdai discussion club expert Dr. Andrei Kortonov. Dr. Kortunov, welcome to New Order. So let's start before we get to the R in BRICS, let's start with the I 12 years Modi's been in power, he's defied the US over threats about buying oil from Russia, is friends with Iran, called in the US diplomat over US aggression off the coast of Oman just this week.
How would you characterize India Russia relations?
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Well, let me start with saying that it's an important period for India. In my view, India is positioned itself as a truly global power these days, not as a regional power, not as a natural leader of South Asia, but a global actor.
And this is an important transition because it implies that India now is responsible for the reproduction of what we call Global Commons.
It can no longer rely on bandwagoning or balancing, but it should have its own foreign policy strategy and it should take responsibility for the emerging global order.
In this sense, the Indian Russian relations is important because it's one of very few relationships between major powers these days which remain stable and predictable in the era of instability and chaotic changes and multiple crises.
This continuity and this stability is particularly important.
I think that Russia can always rely on India.
India can rely on Russia does mean that the two sides agree on everything, that they do not have diverging views on specific international issues, but they definitely trust each other. And I think that remains very important, especially in the situation that we face right now in the world.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: I'll get onto the more suspicious nature of the Quad in a moment then. But what is the reciprocal exchange of logistics support agreement, relos agreement, and how does that mean Russia will now be present on the Indian Ocean thanks to Modi?
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Well, it's a very interesting development. Frankly, I didn't suspect that something like that could happen so fast. But here we are.
Both sides agreed to give each other access to the military infrastructure and definitely that expands their mutual outreach capabilities.
India can be permanently present in the Arctic region and Russia might get similar access to the Indian Ocean. I think it's important symbolically, but it is also important in terms of long term strategies of the two countries because definitely they would like to diversify their communication routes. They would like to extend their presence in remote regions of Eurasia. So I think that this is a very interesting precedent which might offer both sides unique opportunities to enhance their global outreach. So I would say that it's a very important step.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: You taught it. Berkeley, CA I don't know whether Tulsi Gabbard moving from being DNI is a factor here. What do you think they've missed this, the Americans, that that's happening? They certainly haven't missed the north south transport corridor, have they? But normally you'd expect the Americans to react to something this relos agreement.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Well, my take on the United States and I'm very sympathetic to this country, I spent some time in America, but I think that they still take India as India was maybe 20 or even 30 years ago.
They believe that India can become a junior partner to the United States, that India will serve US Interests in their forthcoming confrontation with China.
They arguably believe that they can break the relations between India and Russia. And India will gradually shift to the United States as its main strategic partner. But India is simply too big and too powerful to be hijacked by any other major power. So I think that India will stay where it is.
India will develop relations with the United States. This relationship is very important for India, especially in terms of opportunities to get access to modern American technologies and to get investments from the United States.
But it doesn't mean that India will sacrifice its relations with Russia or with other nations. Even if you look at Iran, I think this relationship between New Delhi and Tehran is important for India. And I don't think that India will easily abandon this relationship just to please Donald Trump.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Yeah, they've apparently already rebuilt the railway lines as part of the north south transport corridor after Trump and Netanyahu bombed it. But then, I mean, did it surprise you that only this week that Delhi can just summon a US Diplomat to government offices to give him a dressing down over this brutal attack on Indian tanker in the Strait of Hormuz? How many times can India keep saying, look, we're going to import Russian oil, Look, we are working with Iran and we've got a tanker here. What are you doing bombing it? And we're going to continue being friends with Iran. I mean, how long do you think India can do that without incurring the wrath of U.S. empire?
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Well, I think that depends more on the United States than it depends on India. The United States should recognize the limits of its power. And the current situation in the Gulf is a very graphic manifestation of these limits. The United States cannot do whatever it wants in the world. It's not the only gay, the only guy in town, the only guy guy on the block. It has to accept that other players might have their own interests, they might
[00:08:34] Speaker C: have their own views and their own priorities.
So to some extent, you can argue that Trump is moving this direction. If you look at his decisions on the sanctions against Russia, he made already, I think, three waivers over the last three months allowing Russian oil to go to global markets and allowing India to buy the Russian oil without secondary sanctions threats.
But definitely Trump is primarily about destruction.
He's not about building something new. So I'm not sure that the US Instincts will shift momentarily. I think that it will take time. Maybe another administration should come to power, to Washington to formally recognize these limitations. Of the US Power. But India is doing what it believes is best for its own national interests. And on some issues it might
[00:09:45] Speaker B: keep
[00:09:45] Speaker C: in mind US priorities and US Demands. But on other issues, clearly it will ignore US Demands as excessive and as unrealistic.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: So you think the waiver will be renewed? I think it is expiring in June 17.
And even if it isn't renewed, India has previously said it'll just keep buying Russian oil anyway.
[00:10:10] Speaker C: Well, I think that if you look at the oil market, it's a global market. So if one country reduces the purchases of the Russian oil, these reductions are likely to be compensated by other buyers. So I don't see any way for the United States or for the west at large to somehow get Russia off the global oil market. I think it's not realistic. Russia might have to offer larger discounts.
Maybe the trade chains will be extended, but the oil will get to the end users anyway. I don't think that there is any way to block it. At least, you know, I don't see it. The United States can complicate the Russian oil expert, but it cannot stop it. It can probably exercise certain influence on India, but India will continue to use at least some part of Russia's oil.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: And then we get onto this chord.
I mean, what do you make of the Quad? That's the United States, two of its vassal states, Japan and Australia, together with India. They often talk about naval interoperability. I know you've been in Shanghai recently.
I mean, what do you think?
Does that worry the Shanghai Cooperation Organization? The Quad? How does that work when India is in brics?
[00:11:47] Speaker C: I think that first of all it's essentially a China problem.
Russia has frankly has very little to do with Quad, at least for the time being. Maybe at some point it will become more active in the Indian Ocean, but right now I don't see any.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: The Quad is there to threaten China. The Quad is there to threaten China.
[00:12:10] Speaker C: But again, I think that Chinese are a little bit paranoic about Quad. They present Quad as a kind of military alliance, anti China military alliance guided by the United States. But we all know that Quad is not an alliance. And basically you cannot say that Quad is a kind of US Construction.
There are countries.
I think that it would be an overstatement. I think each participant.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Surely the CIA is crawling all over. CIA is crawling all over the court. And we know from the New York Times in the past few days how Mossad is bugging the conversations of half of Trump's people and Pentagon advisor officials.
Are you being A bit naive about that. Yeah.
[00:13:01] Speaker C: It's all over the place. Of course, I wouldn't deny that.
But I think that India will remain the lowest common denominator of court and the Quad will emerge only as far as New Delhi allows it to develop.
So if India would like to put more emphasis on cooperation, let's say in modern technologies or in logistics, that will define the future of quad and not only of quad, but also, you know, this new project of Quad 2 which involves countries of the West Indian Ocean.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Dr. Andrei Kortinov, we'll continue the conversation after the break. Keep watching New Order.
You're watching New Order. Dr. Kortinov, far more important perhaps than Evia Genocide 7 more important than the Quad will be the BRICS summit then in Delhi. Rubio, of course, was in India recently.
The Trump Secretary of State.
What do you think the BRICS summit must achieve to make BRICS truly important for the age we live in?
[00:14:25] Speaker C: Well, let me start with saying that my guess is that the Trump administration seems to be obsessed with BRICs. Trump doesn't like it.
He believes that the BRICS groupen is anti American, that it wants to undermine the US Interests and that basically he should fight against it. I don't think that BRICS is an explicitly anti Western body or anti Western grouping. It's a non Western group of nations, a group of nations which can offer its own views on the emerging world order, on the transformation of the global financial system, on the new rules of the game and the international trade.
So definitely it is not a group that would consult Donald Trump on what it should do, on how it should evolve. At the same time, we should keep in mind that BRICS is a very diverse group of nations.
There are major powers and medium sized powers. There are developed economists and emerging economists within brics. And it's not easy to come to a consensus on many divisive issues. For instance, it would be difficult to expect brics to come with a united position on the US Iranian conflict because we have the Islamic Republic as a member of brics, but we also have the United Arab Emirates and it's which
[00:16:14] Speaker A: they've both been talking, I should say in the past few days. There are reports, well, they have been,
[00:16:18] Speaker C: this is no right to you. I think that this is very important that they are talking because I don't believe that any security system in the Gulf area can remain stable unless it involves the Islamic Republic. So Arab states of the Gulf have to talk to Iran. They have to find a way to accommodate the legitimate interests of the Islamic Republic. And I think that the option of an Arab NATO which will contain and determine the Islamic Republic is not a very promising option if we are talking about the regional security.
But let me just continue and say that the BRICS summit in New Delhi will be very important because it would allow, first of all to assess the progress that has been reached since the recent summits in Brazil and in Russia and maybe to pave the way to institutionalize BRICS further in terms of its prominent bodies, in terms of its financial institutions, in terms of its trade practices. I think the time has come to put more meat on the bones of this group and to make sure that it's not just a club of non Western countries, but it is a body which might offer various formats of multilateral economic, financial and political cooperation.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Do you think they have the right urgency about all of this?
[00:18:04] Speaker C: Well, I hope so, but a lot will depend on the host country.
So a lot will depend on whether the MODI leadership is committed to investing more of its political capital to the BRICS Gulf, whether it is ready to give a boost to institutions within the BRICS community.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: Well, clearly all the other letters of BRICS don't care much for the NATO nations, the European Union, Britain, the United States, war on Russia through Ukraine.
How long is that conflict, do you think gonna last? I mean, why has Russia not ended this NATO neo Nazi axis ranged against it? A question the global south are asking.
[00:19:03] Speaker C: Well, as President Putin recently mentioned, we are getting closer to the end of the conflict. It doesn't mean that it will end tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, but I think that we, we are probably approaching the final stage of this conflict if we take the territorial issue, which remains one of the most divisive issues.
Russia is making progress.
Maybe not as fast as many people in Moscow would like to see it, but it is making progress in getting control over all the territory of Donbass. And it might be a matter of a couple of months if Ukraine does not decide to demonstrate more flexibility on the territorial arrangement.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Clearly it isn't. I mean, what is the tactics? I mean, Putin has been criticized for belatedly even only just understanding what NATO were up to after being hoodwinked by the Minsk accords.
What is taking him so long?
[00:20:09] Speaker B: Well, it's hard to tell.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: I think that if you look at the dynamics of the special military operation, maybe the main goal is to save as many lives as possible, not to sacrifice too many people to have a steady, albeit not very fast advance in Donbass. But of course, we should not underscore the Western military support to Ukraine. If you look at the recent Ukrainian drone attack that targets in the Russian territory, this is a new development. And definitely this is something that has to be considered by the Russian side as yet another complication in terms of getting to a final settlement. I think that right now the situation is that both sides believe that with time their positions might get stronger. Russia believes that it will convey militarily on the battlefield. Ukraine probably counts on most support to come from Europe, and maybe they count on what they believe to be their technological edge in the drone warfare. It's hard to tell.
But so far, unfortunately, I do not see a lot of flexibility on either side, which suggests that both believe that time is plain on their side.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the media obviously is censored in those NATO nations that are at war with Russia through Ukraine. I mean, they're claiming that the Russian economy, the iron brics, is in trouble. The economic statistics showing a decline.
What do you make of it there in Moscow?
[00:22:10] Speaker C: Well, the only reaction I have to that is that they have been saying such things since the very beginning of the conflict, that the Russian economy is in trouble, that problems are mounting, that social tensions are growing, and that before too long we're likely to see a regime change in Russia.
However, that has not happened. I don't think that it will happen anytime soon.
So I think that we have no reasons to believe that their current predictions about the Russian economy will turn out right because these assessments have been compromised already.
Of course there are problems. Of course, any war imposes a burden on the national economy, and this conflict is not an exception.
However, I think the Russian economy has demonstrated spectacular resilience and also spectacular adaptivity. So I don't think that it will implode tomorrow or in a half a year from now.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Russia can sustain it.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: It's the largest economy in Europe now. I mean, what do you think? Any raised eyebrows there, though, that people will be seeing Modi on the red carpet with leaders of G7 countries that, quite apart from the genocide in Gaza, are responsible for ordering, in effect, the killing of Russian soldiers?
[00:23:41] Speaker C: Well, you know, this is an interesting question because as you probably remember, Russia was a member of the G7 group for a couple of years, and in G7 it was G8. Then they always maintain that the only criteria for being a part of this group is to adhere to democratic values. Now we have India.
India.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: Zelensky is there too, by the way.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: Yeah, Zelenskyy is there too.
[00:24:14] Speaker C: But, you know, it's always perceived as the largest democracy in the world, at least. You know, this is the rhetoric that we get from the West.
However, I don't recall a single statement from any of the Western leaders that would suggest that India should be invited to join G7 as a full fledged member.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: Well, just very quick is why.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: I mean, do you see the war coming to an end, though, in Europe?
[00:24:45] Speaker C: I think that the war is coming to the end.
It will probably take another couple of months.
But I would say that I would be very surprised if we get together with you in a year from now and we would still discuss this military operation, as we discussed today.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: Dr. Henry Kordanov, thank you.
[00:25:07] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: And now, New Order's very own Zar Khan with questions from the viewers and
[00:25:18] Speaker D: keeping up the tradition of our viewers having some of the best usernames. Kash Gella has asked. India looks to be changing the rules of global politics, or are they just better at playing them than others?
[00:25:28] Speaker A: KA loves India, obviously. Well, as Andrei Kortnov was saying, India seems to be having its finger in all the different pies.
4.15 trillion GDP, 6.5% growth this year. It's third most powerful economy in the world by PPP, if you believe GDP figures. And in fact, if any other country was doing what India was doing, they'd call it strategy. But because it's India they call it, it's balancing things. No, it is obviously strategic. But what other country in the world could summon a U.S. diplomat to its government offices and tell them off? Normally, Trump's people and Rubio's people would be going, who are you to tell the United States off? Well, that's what Modi's foreign affairs department has done. Demography, energy demand, it's military weight, its technical labor force, all of those things I think give it that power. So I guess it is playing them better than the others, or at least people are afraid of India anyway.
[00:26:25] Speaker D: As somebody who contributes to the GDP of India, I absolutely do believe it. And moving on, guerrilla radio has asked, how will shuddering US imperialism affect Emirates?
[00:26:35] Speaker A: The UAE is of course in brics, as we mentioned with Kortunov, a dialogue partner with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
I think it's obvious. I mean, UAE, India, trade, look at it, 70 billion.
That's just half a billion less than US UAE trade.
So the UAE is in a position to go any way it wants if the US starts collapsing as people are predicting. Given all these wars, the debt and internal civil war in the United States, which is being predicted by some people, not just within the Maga movement.
[00:27:11] Speaker D: See, we've run out of time. We had so many more questions. So I'll have to be back next week to do the rest of them.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Keep those questions going anyway. Zahra Khan. Thank you. And that's it from me. Afshan Ra. Fancy. Remember to follow us on social media. Here's a question for you. Do you think that the Ukraine proxy war will end in 2026? Send us your answer to XEW ORDERTV. Join us next Sunday as we continue to track shifting global power where India sits in this new order.
