INDIA
13 February 2026
India in a world adrift
We live in a world adrift, meaning a world between the old world order which is gone and a new one which has not yet taken form, according to Shivshankar Menon.
We live in a world adrift, meaning a world between the old world order which is gone and a new one which has not yet taken form, according to Shivshankar Menon. In other words, Menon insists that we are between orders.
Menon served as India’s National Security Adviser from 2010 to 2014. Prior to that, he held the roles of Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to several key capitals, including Beijing and Islamabad. He is now a Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.
His small volume, “India in a World Adrift: A Rising Power Takes Its Place Among Rivals”, was written for Australia’s Lowy Institute and published in March 2025, after Donald Trump assumed the US presidency for the second time. It may only count 128 pages, but every page is worth its weight in gold.
While the old order may have collapsed, analysts disagree about the timing. Suggested dates include the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the global financial crisis of 2008/9, the Covid pandemic starting 2020, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Whatever the case, the last coordinated response to a crisis was that of the G20 in April 2009 in response to the global financial crisis. There has been no coordinated global response to Covid 19 or the Ukraine war. The Global South does not wish to take sides on the Ukraine war.
Menon argues that the world order has gone through three phases since World War 2. First, the Cold War, a bipolar clash of ideologies and systems which had very little to do with each other. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union was the “unipolar moment” dominated by the US. These were the globalisation decades, of neoliberalism and the Washington consensus. Global supply chains were formed and the world was relatively open for goods, capital but not for people.
The globalisation decades shifted the global balance of economic power very fundamentally. In 1980 OECD countries accounted for around 63 percent of global GDP, but by 2016 that share was down to less than 50 percent. The US share stayed roughly the same between 25 and 30 percent of global GDP over this period. China and India gained tremendously, the former jumping from 3 to 18 percent of global GDP, while India rose from 3 to 8 percent of global GDP. It was Europe’s share that fell, as the world centre of economic gravity of the world shifted towards Asia.
The world is economically multipolar according to Menon, with China’s economic influence being truly global. However, the world is still unipolar in military terms. Only one power, the US, can actually project power across the world. China is still an Asian regional power militarily, although it tries to disturb US dominance. And even in Asia, China is surrounded by Japan and South Korea. Menon argues that the world is a “confused mess” politically.
Now we are in a world adrift, with a retreat from globalisation from which the greatest beneficiaries, and a rise in protectionism. Today, the US lacks the will to provide global public goods, while China lacks the capacity. Menon writes that the West today, for the first time in two centuries, accounts for less than half of global GDP.
Menon highlights a number of features of this world adrift:
– the return of power politics, with the Indo-pacific centre of geopolitics, as a consequence of China’s very rapid rise. The US faces a “near peer” competitor in northeast Asia.
– numerous flashpoints are alive and hot from the Senkaku islands, Taiwan, South China Sea to the India-China border.
– fragmentation of the global economy, with selective decoupling and weaponisation of economics
– ineffective international institutions.
– rise of new authoritarians, relying on nationalism. With slower growth, performance legitimacy declines, so they rely on nationalism.
Even before the return of Donald Trump to the US presidency, Menon believed that there was no going back to the good old days.
Menon was surprised that the Trump administration was organised, radicalised and effective in pursuit of goals. They were very effective at creating an alternative reality for “true believers” about a failing economy and a freeloading Europe.
Menon was equally surprised by the lack of resistance from the traditional establishment, that liberal internationalism has seemingly collapsed.
This historic shift is the culmination of several factors that have been operating in the US for several years, a drift to protectionism, isolationism, xenophobia and racism. The old establishment seems in denial.
Trump’s Middle East policy is not very different from Biden’s, China policy is more of the same. Elbridge A. Colby, US Under Secretary of War for Policy, has said that a possible defence of Taiwan is not worth the cost. Big changes have come in relations with NATO, Ukraine, Canada, Mexico, trade and the economy,
We have seen big changes, but to what? Menon argues that we are in an “orderless world”, but this was the normal state of affairs until the postwar period. Historically, times without order have been some of the most innovative.
Human progress has been fantastic over the past 2-3 decades, even though there has been no important international agreement, and international institutions have been destroyed. Absence of order offers opportunities for middle powers like Australia and India.
The world is adrift because all the great powers are revisionist, they want to change the world, they are not happy with how the world is today, The only hegemon is undergoing a “cultural revolution” of its own. The West is fragmenting. Multilateralism is dead, so everyone thinks that they can try their luck.
The world will stay adrift for a while because power is more evenly distributed than during the Cold War. Today, the US and China account for less than half world GDP. So it is unlikely that we’ll end up with one world order. There are already several Internets, China’s Internet is different from the Internet of the democratic world. Unless people can agree on what they want, it will remain a world adrift. Menon doesn’t see where the change to a more orderly world would come from.
Asia won’t be dominated by a single power. China is important politically. Trump is making China great again. But other countries are important like Japan, India and Korea. So we will see a mixed bag of relationships. While China is the most important economic power, it has not been willing to provide other public goods. China still has several selfish goals for herself to achieve. So there will be balancing and hedging vis-a-vis China. The US and China are part of the same economic system, and depend on each other like siamese twins.
The nuclear non-proliferation order has unravelled. It was evident when North Korea went nuclear. Ukraine’s Budapest memorandum, by which its sovereignty was guaranteed including by the US and Russia in return for giving up nuclear weapons, proved worthless. America’s nuclear umbrella has little credibility. The US won’t risk San Francisco or New York to save Tokyo or Seoul. So there will be a growing temptation to build nuclear weapons, especially among US allies.
Menon served as India’s National Security Adviser from 2010 to 2014. Prior to that, he held the roles of Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to several key capitals, including Beijing and Islamabad. He is now a Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.
His small volume, “India in a World Adrift: A Rising Power Takes Its Place Among Rivals”, was written for Australia’s Lowy Institute and published in March 2025, after Donald Trump assumed the US presidency for the second time. It may only count 128 pages, but every page is worth its weight in gold.
While the old order may have collapsed, analysts disagree about the timing. Suggested dates include the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the global financial crisis of 2008/9, the Covid pandemic starting 2020, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Whatever the case, the last coordinated response to a crisis was that of the G20 in April 2009 in response to the global financial crisis. There has been no coordinated global response to Covid 19 or the Ukraine war. The Global South does not wish to take sides on the Ukraine war.
Menon argues that the world order has gone through three phases since World War 2. First, the Cold War, a bipolar clash of ideologies and systems which had very little to do with each other. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union was the “unipolar moment” dominated by the US. These were the globalisation decades, of neoliberalism and the Washington consensus. Global supply chains were formed and the world was relatively open for goods, capital but not for people.
The globalisation decades shifted the global balance of economic power very fundamentally. In 1980 OECD countries accounted for around 63 percent of global GDP, but by 2016 that share was down to less than 50 percent. The US share stayed roughly the same between 25 and 30 percent of global GDP over this period. China and India gained tremendously, the former jumping from 3 to 18 percent of global GDP, while India rose from 3 to 8 percent of global GDP. It was Europe’s share that fell, as the world centre of economic gravity of the world shifted towards Asia.
The world is economically multipolar according to Menon, with China’s economic influence being truly global. However, the world is still unipolar in military terms. Only one power, the US, can actually project power across the world. China is still an Asian regional power militarily, although it tries to disturb US dominance. And even in Asia, China is surrounded by Japan and South Korea. Menon argues that the world is a “confused mess” politically.
Now we are in a world adrift, with a retreat from globalisation from which the greatest beneficiaries, and a rise in protectionism. Today, the US lacks the will to provide global public goods, while China lacks the capacity. Menon writes that the West today, for the first time in two centuries, accounts for less than half of global GDP.
Menon highlights a number of features of this world adrift:
– the return of power politics, with the Indo-pacific centre of geopolitics, as a consequence of China’s very rapid rise. The US faces a “near peer” competitor in northeast Asia.
– numerous flashpoints are alive and hot from the Senkaku islands, Taiwan, South China Sea to the India-China border.
– fragmentation of the global economy, with selective decoupling and weaponisation of economics
– ineffective international institutions.
– rise of new authoritarians, relying on nationalism. With slower growth, performance legitimacy declines, so they rely on nationalism.
Even before the return of Donald Trump to the US presidency, Menon believed that there was no going back to the good old days.
Menon was surprised that the Trump administration was organised, radicalised and effective in pursuit of goals. They were very effective at creating an alternative reality for “true believers” about a failing economy and a freeloading Europe.
Menon was equally surprised by the lack of resistance from the traditional establishment, that liberal internationalism has seemingly collapsed.
This historic shift is the culmination of several factors that have been operating in the US for several years, a drift to protectionism, isolationism, xenophobia and racism. The old establishment seems in denial.
Trump’s Middle East policy is not very different from Biden’s, China policy is more of the same. Elbridge A. Colby, US Under Secretary of War for Policy, has said that a possible defence of Taiwan is not worth the cost. Big changes have come in relations with NATO, Ukraine, Canada, Mexico, trade and the economy,
We have seen big changes, but to what? Menon argues that we are in an “orderless world”, but this was the normal state of affairs until the postwar period. Historically, times without order have been some of the most innovative.
Human progress has been fantastic over the past 2-3 decades, even though there has been no important international agreement, and international institutions have been destroyed. Absence of order offers opportunities for middle powers like Australia and India.
The world is adrift because all the great powers are revisionist, they want to change the world, they are not happy with how the world is today, The only hegemon is undergoing a “cultural revolution” of its own. The West is fragmenting. Multilateralism is dead, so everyone thinks that they can try their luck.
The world will stay adrift for a while because power is more evenly distributed than during the Cold War. Today, the US and China account for less than half world GDP. So it is unlikely that we’ll end up with one world order. There are already several Internets, China’s Internet is different from the Internet of the democratic world. Unless people can agree on what they want, it will remain a world adrift. Menon doesn’t see where the change to a more orderly world would come from.
Asia won’t be dominated by a single power. China is important politically. Trump is making China great again. But other countries are important like Japan, India and Korea. So we will see a mixed bag of relationships. While China is the most important economic power, it has not been willing to provide other public goods. China still has several selfish goals for herself to achieve. So there will be balancing and hedging vis-a-vis China. The US and China are part of the same economic system, and depend on each other like siamese twins.
The nuclear non-proliferation order has unravelled. It was evident when North Korea went nuclear. Ukraine’s Budapest memorandum, by which its sovereignty was guaranteed including by the US and Russia in return for giving up nuclear weapons, proved worthless. America’s nuclear umbrella has little credibility. The US won’t risk San Francisco or New York to save Tokyo or Seoul. So there will be a growing temptation to build nuclear weapons, especially among US allies.