This is the original version of the article published in the Op-Ed pages of the Times of India on 27th January 2026.
The statement was indeed rich coming from a country that had been part of the cozy club that enjoyed the fruits of that lopsided order. But Carney was merely spelling out the golden rule—that those with the gold make the rules. If any country gets this instinctively, it’s India. Erstwhile colonies like ours have been living under varying shades of this so-called “rules-based order” for centuries. The British Raj used to sell its conquests as a noble mission: it was “civilizing” the backward natives, modernizing society, bringing law and order, railways, and Enlightenment values. Same story with the Spanish in the Americas: they wrapped their land grabs and exploitation in the language of spreading Christ’s salvation. Every empire needs a pretty alibi to make the ugly reality palatable.
India does not need modern geopolitics to learn how rules are bent by the powerful. Bharat’s ancient epics hit this truth hard and straight. In the Mahabharata, there were supposed rules of conflict—dharma on the battlefield. But when winning mattered more, those rules got tossed aside. Bhishma was tricked by Shikhandi; Drona was broken by a lie about his son; Karna was hit while helpless fixing his wheel; and Duryodhana was finished with an illegal thigh strike. Bottom line? Rules last only until the powerful find them inconvenient. Then force wins, and the code bends or breaks.
Ancient Indian history too is replete with such examples. Invaders rarely announced themselves as plunderers; they arrived bearing a so-called higher purpose. Mahmud of Ghazni styled himself a champion of faith to his biographers, even as his repeated raids were meticulously aimed at temple treasures. Even Ashoka—now remembered as Ashoka the Great—ascended the Mauryan throne by eliminating numerous rival claimants. The Kalinga carnage was only a culmination of his power grab. Only after attaining uncontested dominance did Ashoka turn to dhamma, recasting conquest as remorse and empire as moral guardianship.
“What’s new?” you may ask. What’s new is the discarding of pretense. And for that candour, we should thank Donald Trump. George W. Bush sent his team to lobby hard at the UN, waving the WMD card and rounding up a “coalition of the willing” to make the Iraq invasion look legit. It was a charade—deeply misleading—but he played the game, pretending that international approval mattered. Trump? He just skips the whole script. No UN speeches, no coalition-building, no diplomatic theatre. He doesn't ask permission or try to convince anyone. He simply does what he wants—and that includes sharing personal communication from foreign leaders like Emmanuel Macron—messages that reveal Europe’s hypocrisy of looking away in Syria and Iran while worrying about Greenland.
In the Trumpian world, Venezuela or Iran are mere oil reservoirs, not polity issues. Greenland is simply a mineral-rich Arctic chessboard. Gaza is reduced to a PowerPoint presentation of beachfront potential. The weaknesses of neighbours and NATO allies are leverage in a strategic calculus. The vocabulary has shifted decisively—from values to valuation. This bluntness unsettles many because it punctures a comforting illusion of principles. They forget that the only unwavering principle of power is to shun acting on principle.
For India, this is neither a moment for outrage nor for romantic nostalgia about a fairer global order that never truly existed. Bharat understands—instinctively and historically—that moral language usually follows power rather than restrains it. This is civilizational memory. Chanakya articulated it with unsparing clarity in the Arthashastra, where alliances are provisional, treaties are tools, and ethical claims are subordinate to the survival of the state.
India’s foreign policy must continue to reflect this absence of illusion. India must continue sourcing cheap Russian energy despite Western discomfort, engage Israel while calling for restraint in Gaza, and avoid binary alignments over Ukraine. It must continue signing FTAs while political cycles play out in Washington, manage its border even as it talks to China, and deepen partnerships in West Asia while strategically evaluating Trump’s Board of Peace. It will simply be India operating without illusions—aware that power sets the terms and that rules are negotiable.
And no, this is not fence-sitting but the management of uncertainty. India must keep its options open because experience tells us that commitments harden faster than principles. In a world where rules dissolve under pressure, flexibility is the only durable advantage.
