Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm Afshin Ratanti and you're watching the first season finale of New Order broadcasting all around the world, including to nearly one and a half billion on a India We Only Order trace how India and its allies sit at the center of a transformation in world history.
As the Trump Netanyahu war in West Asia rages on with millions killed, wounded or displaced. The pressure is no longer longer confined to West Asia. Though Saudi Arabia has reportedly floated a non aggression pact with Iran for West Asia, geopolitical shockwaves are reaching the heart of the multipolar world itself. This week India hosted uae, Chinese, Russian and Iranian to name it. A few top officials at the BRICS foreign ministers meeting under its 2026 chairmanship. At the same time, Prime Minister Modi launched a major diplomatic tour across the UAE and Europe as Delhi attempts to balance energy, security, trade, stability, Western partnerships and Global south leadership all at once. The timing could hardly be more sensitive. Iran is demanding stronger political backing from brics against the US and Israeli violations of the UN Charter. Trump and Netanyahu bombed hospitals, schools and power stations amidst an avowed intent to commit genocide against a civilization. The two Gulf GCC members, Saudi Arabia and where I am the UAE are trying to avoid direct confrontation. And looming in the background is self proclaimed enemy of BRICS President Trump internationally last seen with a team of US ruling oligarchs in Beijing. As wars expand, economic blocks harden and major powers compete for influence across energy, trade and security, can the Global south still successfully navigate between rival systems? Or is the world moving towards a moment when neutrality itself becomes impossible? At the end of the show we'll be joined by New Orders Zahra Khan to answer questions from you, the viewers. With me now is one of the world's most influential voices in contemporary international relations. Scholar Professor Richard Sacwa has refused British totalitarian groupthink dismissing the Russiagate hoax that tried to depict Trump as a Russian agent, let alone the reasons for the conflict in Ukraine. His most recent books include Frontline Ukraine, the Putin Paradox and the Russo Ukrainian Follies of Empire. Professor Richard Sacwa welcome to New Order. After Iran, the war in Iran, the UAE and Iranian ministers meeting at the BRICS meeting in Delhi, let alone Trump in Beijing. Do you think we are witnessing the death of a unipolar order in real time?
[00:02:40] Speaker B: We definitely are. The unipolar order has been on its way out for quite a long time, but unfortunately unipolarity has in the United States begun to give way to unilateralism, which isn't much better so what we're witnessing is the twilight of that model of world order, which Russians love to call it the collective West. I call it the political west, as I say call it the Atlantic west, the split between Western Europe and the United States. But that whole model of world order established after 1945 is now giving way to, yes, multipolarity, but an alternative model of world order. And multipolarity is only a symptom. So it's not actually a world order in itself. What this alternative order is, is a vision which is in conformity with the norms of the international system. By that I mean the United nations established also in 1945, international law, the whole system, the whole setup after 1945, which was challenged by this collective west, by this Atlantic West.
But as this Atlantic west is losing power, it's going berserk. You could argue.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, there's reasons for optimism, clearly, but there's in the dying embers of unipolarity. I mean, how. I mean, it's a strange question to ask, but how close are we to global war?
[00:04:13] Speaker B: We've had a lot of discussions in Europe over the last few months and the way that the Russo Ukrainian war has become a Russo European war in the last few months and that many commentators would argue that we're in the thick of it, but clearly we're only in the foothills fortun.
It's not entirely kinetic. Of course, the European powers are supporting Ukrainian. It's to own another tax. And it's of course, militarizing itself and is trying to warn of a coming war with Russia. But the language is, in terms of. It's like the war fever in 1914.
It's a very frightening sort of atmosphere at this time.
And indeed, it's fortunate, of course, that European war talk is balanced by more sensible talk in most of the rest of the global south.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: I mean, can you understand, though, that in Western Europe, they're losing the global South? I mean, there's no real talk about Western Europe apart from, I suppose, as a target market for the BRICs, countries that are meeting in Delhi, the foreign ministers that were meeting in Delhi. And in that context, then Western Europe only has its war with Russia as a means to exist militarily. That's how they seem to define themselves.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: And of course, if it started backing off and if it actually began to talk to Russia, some leaders have suggested earlier, of course, Viktor Orban, who's no longer in power, and Hungary, Bart Do Weva in Belgium has said, well, hang on, it may be Sensible to talk to the Russians. The astonishing thing is that in just a couple of months, well, in less than, and in just about a month, this war, the Russo Ukrainian war, will be longer than the First World War.
But even by 1916, the second, third year of the First World War, people were saying, look, we need to talk to the Germans. The Germans put forwards peace proposals and so on. It's this stubborn, how can I put it. Stubborn refusal to engage in diplomacy is one thing which marginalizes the European Union and the European leadership more widely.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: And they're pouring billions of dollars worth of weapons into the Zelenskyy regime. And simultaneously they are introducing more and more sanctions packages on Russia.
Do you think another notable aspect is the death of the NATO sanctions? I mean, famously, it's what 38 million the Lancet said have been killed by US sanctions between 1970 and 2021.
The world of sanctions by NATO countries is also over.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Well, unfortunately it's not over. The European Union has just adopted its 20th package and it's now working on its 21st. They're running out of things to sanction, of course, because it's now, as it were, the rebel is bouncing in sanctions terms, but nevertheless they're digging and digging their heels in the United States, of course, under Trump has made and in particular after the Anchorage meeting in Alaska in August 2025.
The Russians love to talk about the spirit of Anchorage, but this hasn't really been much in evidence, especially last autumn when Trump imposed severe sanctions on the Russian oil exports, which of course affected India deeply. And of course it had 25% extra tariffs imposed on it for continuing its import of Russian oil.
Of course, after Iran war they've lifted these sanct. But still it was a warning sign of a power which simply does not know it's addicted to sanctions. And I'm afraid it's going to be a very hard process to let them kick that bad habit, that addiction.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: But my point was they don't really care. You know, as the Russian, Chinese, Indian foreign ministers are meeting and South African and Brazilian in Delhi, they don't really appear to care that much anymore about the impact of tariffs or sanctions. I mean, obviously the Trump, Trump Xi Jinping meeting, Xi Jinping has been shrugging
[00:08:44] Speaker B: off threats of tariffs and indeed refusing to accept the second year sanctions on oil companies in China that continue to import Russian oil or any other Iranian oil in particular.
So indeed, China is big enough to withstand it.
India has been in a more difficult position because of its huge dependency on I think 78% of India's oil is imported and in particular from the Gulf.
But China is big enough to withstand it. Other countries can't.
Russia, of course, is also big enough to be the most sanctioned country in the world and still to survive, but it's taking a very heavy toll.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: I mean, do you think India has become one of the clearest examples of what a successful multipolar power looks like? It maintains relations, very close relations with Iran, close relations with Russia, and of course, close relations with the United States and China.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Yeah, this is why I'm a bit skeptical about using the word multipolarity. Yes, it's an important feature, but we have to be very careful how to define it. I personally believe that in terms of the charter international system, that is the United nations, that we've seen decolonization in the post war years and this system has now matured. India became independent obviously in 1947, but even before that it was made a founder member of the United Nations. Today we have 193 states in the world.
These states have matured. The post colonial states have matured.
None of them are willing to be bossed around by the traditional hegemon. So in other words, in normative terms, that is in ideological terms, we have 193 Poles. Of course, some are bigger, some are smaller. But even the middle powers, as Carney put it, the Canadian Prime Minister at the Davos meeting, the middle powers now have to step up. We're talking about Brazil, we're talking about South Africa, we're talking about Nigeria, the Philippines, Indonesia, other countries, all of these countries now playing in. And Saudi Arabia, so many. So in other words, the traditional US definition of a pole, which is the whole panoply of power, simply doesn't hold.
So what we're talking about is, as the great scholar Amrita Vacharya calls it, a multiplex world with so many different actor states. Of course, major corporations today act as quasi states, state organizations. There's also international organizations like the United nations itself, which of course stands above them all in normative terms. So the world is more complex.
As I say, the system has matured. And there's only one thing which has not matured, and that is the Western arrogance or belief that it has some sort of God given right to be hegemonic, to be dominant, and today even in the United States, to be dominant, even over its former allies in the Atlantic power system.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not sure about your emphasis on the UN though. I mean, let alone that someone called Annelina Baerbock I think she lied on her tv, didn't she?
She's become the President of the UN General Assembly. But obviously the UN has become come under increased scrutiny after its inability to appear to do anything during the Gaza genocide.
Surely the UN without India on the Security Council, some might say, or Saudi Arabia on it.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm glad you raised that.
It's the biggest crisis today. We're seeing a crisis of the political West, a collective west with the Trumpian disruption, let's call it that. But at the same time, the United nations is, as you absolutely rightly point out, in its most desperate stage since 1945.
The response to that is yes, indeed, they foisted Annelina be this militant former German foreign minister, Green Party. But that has been. And the Green Party. Yeah, well, some people, even in Germany, I heard her saying that she's been a magnificent example of a feminist foreign policy.
Well, if that's a feminist foreign policy, then, well, I think we could do without it.
Yeah. But the thing is to double down to support the un, not to dismiss it, in my view. And of course, India should be essentially a permanent member. So the crisis of this, of the United nations today may be an opportunity to reset some elements, including of course, bringing Brazil, India, some other countries, African obviously, to become permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. I can understand some Indian sentiments because we've been talking about it for so many years and it hasn't happened.
There's a lot of disappointment.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: Professor, we'll continue after the break. Keep watching. New Order.
You're watching.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: New Order.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Professor Richard Sacwa, you were talking about how the UN should be reformed. Trump, in fairness, seems to understand the significance of why different transnational institutions need to be reformed. Do you think it's important for Trump to dissolve NATO if he's going to be part of the. Or if the United States is going to be part of this new.
I don't know whether I should say multipolar after what you were saying in part one, but multi nodal world,
[00:15:03] Speaker B: it would be logical because what the United States has always done is ensured to defend its own sovereignty. Even when it established the Atlantic system, the political west, the collective west, it always retained its autonomy. And one of the conditions for to joining the United nations as opposed to the League of Nations in 1919 was the veto power in the Security Council.
And of course Trump earlier this year left six 66 international organizations, half of them UN agencies, including important ones like the World Health Organization. No. So the United States is going it alone. It is the most powerful country in the world.
It still has a booming economy despite increased petrol prices and so on and rising inflation. It's a booming economy, 2.7% growth this year. Obviously not as much as India, which is the world's fastest growing economy, but it's doing very well for a mature economy.
And it says it doesn't need these allies, it doesn't need what Joseph Nye calls soft power, it doesn't need anyone. But it respects power. And that's why when Trump meets talks with Xi Jinping, they talk as equals, because China is not going to be pushed about. And of course India has been much buffeted over the last year or so, given the sanctions, given the threats, because clearly over the last year or two, the India has had sought to rebuild the relationship with Washington.
But the events of the last year have made this perhaps the most difficult time in US Indian relations over the last three decades. Even one could say, yeah, we don't
[00:16:51] Speaker A: know what's going to be the fastest growing economy by the end of this year, as there has been so much turbulence that has been catalyzed by the war in West Asia, clearly. And it's interesting that there was less of the weaponizing of human rights in the run up to the Trump Xi meeting in Beijing.
That traditionally has been a means and a way of trying to belittle brics nations and the global South. In Western Europe, I suppose, specifically in Britain, in fact, in Parliament, it was only a couple of months ago that people were talking about the fact that India had no freedom of expression.
Do you think we'll continue to see that weaponization of human rights as much? And I suppose I kind of ask it in the context of you and what happened to you in Heathrow Airport on 13 June.
I understand 2025, freedom of expression is a value for Western Europe.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: It's a crucial value for all peoples. One has to say this isn't a privilege, something just the mature Western powers. But it has to be understood in context, it has to be understood as a evolutionary process.
And of course, as you say, the human rights has been too often instrumentalized. And so you have this systemic double standards, you use it as a weapon against opponents and you give a free pass to your friends. But I'm a rather old fashioned person and do believe, and this is why at the core of the BRICS Charter and its documentation is precisely this appeal to the UN Charter, which of course also maintains the whole stack of elements of human dignity. And of course in later years, including social rights and so on. These things are fundamentally important, but they become degraded when they become an instrument of geopolitical competition and contestation.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: So what did happen to you in Heathrow?
[00:19:09] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So I was detained. They were waiting for me as I came off the plane.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: What did you do, Professor Sacrament? I started this interview off by saying, you were a scholar, renowned all around the world for your work on international relations.
What possibly could you have done?
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Well, it's interesting this.
The detention is under the 2019 Counterterrorism act, and they're allowed to hold you for up to six hours without charge. And there was a peculiar quirk of this, or feature of this law, is that if you say no comment and refuse to answer a question, it is taken as an indication of guilt, so they can immediately arrest you if you say no comment or refuse to answer a question. In other words, this goes against the fundamental principles of British common law, where you assume to be innocent, presumed to be innocent, rather than guilty until proven guilty.
It's astonishing things. So they do four hours of questioning which tried to. It was a fishing expedition. And, of course, I have nothing to hide and my views are open out there. I'm very willing to debate with anyone. I mean, even, by the way, coming on this TV show carries a certain element of jeopardy, let me put it this way. But, you know, I'm not going to be intimidated, but if anybody else asks me to speak.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: So they stopped you because of what your differing perspective on intellectual debate currently raging in global international relations circles.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: It was never specified. It was never specified. And fortunately, maybe not after this discussion, but fortunately the case has gone quiet.
I've also got some very good lawyers involved in the case, and they've been excellent.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: I mean, why I draw attention to it is there's such vibrant debates going on amongst Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states, officials, scholars, academics and in BRICS countries about what this future world is rearranging into.
Whereas then you hear about what you just said. I mean, is there a group thinking going on in Western Europe?
[00:21:34] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. We've seen many cases on the continent. The famous case of the Swiss scholar Jacques Beau, who's been stuck in Belgium for the last few months.
Yes, there is.
And of course, Starmerism is the most vivid expression of closing down, of debate. We're really sort of the way he came to power in instrumentalizing various charges against Corbyn. And of course, he was the one who said that to be opposed to NATO membership is incompatible with Labour Party membership. Now, this is an astonishing phrase, because the Labour Party was always a broad church. It's got the British Labour Party.
The British Labour Party, yes.
And it was a movement and of course the peace movement has been an integral part of it. And of course it's now been chased out of the Labour Party. So yes, is a closing of the West European mind and it's very frightening and it's closed on positions of permanent war, militarism, remilitarization, and of course a very profound Russophobia, which you could look at its historical context, but in my view it's being fed by this Atlantic power system since 1945 with the first Cold War and now what we could call a second Cold War.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: I mean, if these russophobic threats against Global south countries don't seem to have any traction, Modi didn't seem to care about what he's being told to act, how he's supposed to act with Putin, he always talks about his warmth with Vladimir Putin. If the threat of tariffs couldn't prevent India from going to the Tianjin Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting, what are these powers going to do? What is Washington, how is it going to retaliate if none of its threats seem to spur any kind of action that they desire?
[00:23:47] Speaker B: In fact, quite the opposite. These actions of the US and the West European powers are treated with contempt, increasingly with contempt, amongst great swathes of the Global South. This sort of irresponsible bullying, this sort of attempt to impose endless sanctions, and of course secondary sanctions are totally irresponsible and more than that, by the way, illegal. Because only the United nations has the right, the Security Council, to impose multilateral sanctions. So all of this, they say it's in defense of international law, but the very act in trying to defend the international law in this way is an undermining and repudiation of international law. It's a classic case of double standards defeating the norm which they're meant to be upholding. Like the anti disinformation campaigns, which in themselves are a form of disinformation.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: Professor Richard Sacwa. Thank you.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: And now, Zahra Khan. New orders. Zahra Khan is here for the season finale of New Order. Richard Sacwa. Professor Richard Sacwa was stopped at Heathrow Airport in London under terrorism.
[00:25:07] Speaker C: I can't believe that in the big year of 2026 we're still talking about people not having the freedom of expression and speech.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: You're gonna go to London on holiday?
[00:25:16] Speaker C: Not. I don't think it's on my list anymore after hearing that story.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Give me some questions from the viewers
[00:25:22] Speaker C: and one of them, I think you might recognize them because they've written to us before. June RTCB who's asked, how can the world stop the US Israel from the mass killing?
[00:25:32] Speaker A: I mean, that's obviously the question of our times. Every person should be asking that themselves. I think you can't stop Israel from the killing. 93%, I think, in a recent poll supported, say, the bombing of Tehran. So who knows what they say about Gaza and southern Lebanon.
What about the United States? I don't think you can necessarily stop. But I tell you, the countries that are complicit, arguably in the killing. Germany, 31% of Israeli weaponry coming from them. Britain supplied the F35 components with which Israel uses its warplanes to destroy. Turkey Ceyhan port involved in the transit of oil. France BNP Parada, the primary dealer in the bond market. Italy continued to export throughout the Gaza genocide. Holland parts warehouses. South Africa, a BRICS country, Israel's top coal supplier. Perhaps people in those countries could do something.
[00:26:25] Speaker C: I mean, this was just an assumption that maybe June and I had the same thought, that when they asked how can the world, it meant things like blocks like brics, like you've mentioned South Africa.
But interestingly, to see that they might be complicit. OM has asked what specific alternative security architectures or regional alliances should India prioritize to protect its maritime interests in the Indian Ocean if it exits the Quad. And I think that's something to do with what you said last week, the Quad.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: All right, because I was saying that India should leave the Quad. There are loads of them. But I suppose they're not so military. The Quad is about military ties of India with the United States.
I think it could expand on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that it joined in 2017.
Obviously, there's BRICS. I'm not saying the new development bank can be militarized so much. North south transit corridor between India, Russia and Iran could be strengthened in some way. But I think the Primakov, he had a meeting in New York in 2002. The Rick, Russia, India, China, that should be perhaps resurrected. They met 18 times by 2019 and somehow it was dissolved. So maybe the Rick should be the new Quad. How about that?
[00:27:38] Speaker C: I mean, Quad, I think would require four members, but I see you've tried to sneak it in just as the season is ending. But thank you so much for answering all of those questions.
[00:27:46] Speaker A: See you in a couple of weeks. Thanks, Zahra. That's it from me. Afshin Ratanzi on New Orders season finale Remember to follow us on social media. And here's a question for you. How does India and the Global south deal with the threat of Western Europe's war fever against Russia? Send us your answer on exit new ordertv. We'll be back on Sunday, June 7th. Join us for the next season as we we continue to track shifting global power and where India sits in this new Order.
