By Brahma Chellaney, The Hill

President Trump once bragged in “The Art of the Deal” about the virtues of “truthful hyperbole” — manipulating perceptions, exaggerating momentum and creating leverage through illusion. In foreign policy, however, the same instinct has evolved into something far more dangerous: diplomacy as ambush.

One defining feature of Trump’s second presidency has been his repeated use of diplomatic negotiations not as pathways to peace or settlement but as instruments of tactical deception. Again and again, diplomatic engagement has coincided with — and appears in some cases to have facilitated — sudden military escalation. The pattern is now too consistent to dismiss as coincidence.

The risk is that if negotiations becomes associated with strategic chicanery, it could destroy the very credibility that gives U.S. diplomacy its power.

Iran offers the clearest example. In June 2025, U.S. nuclear talks with Iran in Oman provided cover for Israel’s devastating aerial assaults that caught Tehran completely off-guard, before Trump himself widened the conflict by ordering U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites.

Months later, as renewed Oman-mediated negotiations between Washington and Tehran appeared to be nearing a breakthrough, the Trump administration on February 28 abruptly launched “Operation Epic Fury” alongside Israel. Iranian negotiators reportedly believed they were moving toward a “nuclear freeze for sanctions ease” framework accord. Instead, Trump launched the war while Iranian forces were operating under reduced alert conditions.

Even after the conflict erupted, Trump repeatedly signaled possible de-escalation while widening the bombing campaign to target Iran’s civilian and economic infrastructure.

Then came the latest example. On May 25, shortly after Trump claimed that a deal with Iran to end the conflict was “largely negotiated,” U.S. forces sank two Iranian mine-laying vessels and bombed missile-launch sites in southern Iran, with the president threatening a full-scale resumption of the “shooting.”

The pattern is unmistakable: Diplomacy and military escalation are not operating on separate tracks. They are fused into a single strategy of confusion, misdirection and surprise.

Nor is Iran unique. In Venezuela, negotiations between U.S. officials and President Nicolas Maduro’s close associates continued almost until the moment Washington launched “Operation Absolute Resolve” in January. Venezuelan negotiators believed discussions over a power transition and immunity deal were making progress, even as U.S. intelligence reportedly used the diplomatic channel itself to gather targeting information and breach Maduro’s compound.

Using the negotiation process as a massive intelligence-gathering exercise enabled American agencies to pinpoint Maduro’s location before the strike order was issued, leading to his swift capture.

The same pattern appeared in Yemen. In March 2025, Omani mediators were in Washington discussing a possible maritime and security deal with the Houthis when the U.S. launched “Operation Rough Rider.” Houthi leaders, apparently expecting a diplomatic breakthrough, had not dispersed key missile assets. The opening barrage destroyed a substantial portion of their long-range strike capability, yet the operation failed to defeat the Houthis decisively.

Nigeria offers an even more jarring example, because the country has been a nominal U.S. partner. Throughout fall 2025, Washington held high-level security consultations with Nigerian authorities and negotiated expanded counterterrorism cooperation. Yet on Christmas Day, the U.S. launched strikes inside Nigeria against alleged ISIS-West Africa targets without informing the Nigerian defense ministry beforehand. Intelligence gathered by U.S. surveillance flights and during joint planning sessions reportedly helped facilitate the strikes.

In Syria, the strategy early this year took a different form — a feigned retreat. U.S. officials used deconfliction channels with Russian and Syrian counterparts to signal a “drawdown” of active patrols in the Badia desert. ISIS remnants moved into what appeared to be a security vacuum, only to find themselves drawn into predesignated kill zones targeted by U.S. loitering munitions.

Viewed individually, each case can be defended as clever statecraft or operational necessity. Together, they reveal a negotiate-to-strike doctrine. Under Trump, negotiations increasingly appear designed not merely to resolve disputes or conflicts but to lull adversaries into complacency, lower defenses, gather intelligence and maximize surprise before kinetic action begins. The diplomatic carrot remains visible until the instant the military stick lands its first blow.

Trump’s defenders argue that such tactics save American lives and that diplomacy is simply another instrument of war. But this logic ignores the long-term strategic cost. Diplomacy ultimately depends less on power than on credibility.

Military power can destroy infrastructure, topple governments and intimidate adversaries. It cannot by itself create legitimacy or durable political settlements. Those require credible diplomacy — diplomacy understood not as theater, bait or manipulation, but as a genuine effort to end conflicts or resolve disputes.

Tactical surprise can produce short-term military gains. But great powers require something deeper to sustain influence: durable trust in their intentions and commitments. Once that trust erodes, coalition-building becomes harder, crisis management becomes more dangerous, and deterrence becomes less stable.

During the Cold War, Washington and Moscow engaged in arms-control talks despite profound mistrust because both sides understood that the negotiating table was not itself a targeting mechanism. Once diplomacy is linked to deception, the incentive to negotiate collapses.

Russian officials now increasingly view U.S. diplomacy on Ukraine through a lens of dual-track manipulation — public engagement coupled with covert escalation.

Even allies are uneasy, with Trump’s Iran adventure deepening perceptions of American unpredictability.

Once adversaries conclude that American negotiations are merely preludes to coercion, they will adapt accordingly. They will become less willing to engage and more inclined to escalate preemptively.

That is the paradox at the heart of Trump’s “diplomacy as ambush” strategy: tactics designed to maximize short-term leverage may ultimately weaken America’s long-term global influence.

A superpower can survive military setbacks. It is far harder to recover once its word loses value.

Brahma Chellaney is the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.“

By Brahma Chellaney, The Hill

For decades, Washington treated the Gulf monarchies as the immovable pillars of American power in the Middle East. The U.S. military presence there evolved into a vast, interconnected web of bases and infrastructure stretching across Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.

These states hosted U.S. troops, bought American weapons and aligned themselves with Washington’s regional priorities. In return, they expected the ultimate prize: protection under the American security umbrella.

That bargain is now fraying — and perhaps breaking.

The most important geopolitical shift in the Middle East today is not happening in Tehran, Tel Aviv or Ankara. It is happening quietly inside the royal courts of the Gulf sheikhdoms, which are reassessing whether the U.S. is still a reliable security guarantor or merely a power that uses their territory while leaving them exposed to retaliation.

President Trump’s Iran war has accelerated this reassessment dramatically.

When the U.S., in concert with Israel, launched war on Iran earlier this year, Gulf Arab states cooperated. American warplanes operated from bases on their soil. Trump singled out Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE as “excellent” partners while deriding NATO allies and Indo-Pacific partners for refusing to participate.

But the praise concealed a deeper problem: The Gulf states discovered that supporting American military operations carried potentially catastrophic costs for them, as their energy facilities and desalination plants became targets of Iranian reprisals. Gulf rulers watched as the U.S. deployed enormous military resources (including Aegis-equipped destroyers and advanced interceptors) to shield Israel from Iranian retaliation while Gulf states absorbed the payback for enabling American strikes.

That experience appears to have fundamentally altered their calculations.

Another turning point came recently when Trump announced “Project Freedom,” a U.S. naval initiative to escort commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after Iran disrupted maritime traffic. Washington viewed the mission as a demonstration of resolve. Tehran viewed it as an escalation. The Gulf monarchies viewed it as a potential disaster.

Saudi Arabia refused to grant the U.S. access to its airspace and bases to support the operation. Kuwait followed suit. Qatar, seeking de-escalation, imposed restrictions on activity from Al-Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East. Without Gulf cooperation, the mission quickly became logistically and politically unsustainable. Trump abruptly suspended it after just two escorted U.S.-flagged vessels passed through the strait.

In effect, Gulf states vetoed a major American military initiative — something that would have been almost unthinkable only a year ago. Only after Trump paused the operation did Gulf governments restore U.S. access to basing and overflight rights, underscoring that such cooperation is no longer automatic but conditional.

Washington had long operated under the assumption that Gulf bases were essentially available on demand during crises in return for American military protection. Now, however, Gulf states are increasingly asking a different question: Protection for whom?

From their perspective, the current arrangements look dangerously asymmetric. The U.S. can launch operations, rotate forces and eventually withdraw. But the six Gulf states remain geographically trapped beside Iran permanently. In any confrontation between Washington and Tehran, the Gulf monarchies become the frontline targets.

The lesson these states appear to have learned from recent hostilities is stark: They are platforms for American power, not equal partners in American protection. That realization is driving a profound strategic shift.

The Gulf states no longer appear willing to practice automatic alignment with Washington. Instead, they are moving toward what might be called “transactional neutrality.” In effect, they are applying Trump’s own worldview back onto the U.S. itself.

“America First” is increasingly being answered with “the Gulf First.”

That means Gulf monarchs are becoming far more selective about which American operations they support. The shift extends beyond military access. Major Gulf states are diversifying their defense partnerships, purchasing non-American technologies and exploring alternative security arrangements. Some Gulf governments are also intensifying diplomatic outreach to regional rivals, including Iran itself.

For them, de-escalation is no longer simply diplomacy; it is strategic self-preservation.

This should deeply concern Washington. The entire architecture of American regional dominance — air operations, naval deployments, intelligence coordination and energy security — has depended on nearly unconditional Gulf cooperation. That era may be ending.

Ironically, Trump himself has helped accelerate the process. His transactional approach to alliances convinced Gulf rulers that relationships with Washington are no longer rooted in enduring strategic commitments but in fluctuating cost-benefit calculations.

Once alliances become transactional, partners naturally begin asking whether the transaction remains worthwhile. The Gulf monarchies increasingly seem to believe it is not.

The implications extend far beyond the current Iran crisis. If Gulf states become reluctant hosts for American military operations, Washington’s ability to project power across the Middle East will shrink dramatically. The U.S. may still possess unmatched military hardware, but hardware alone is insufficient without reliable access, basing and political support.

This is the strategic paradox now confronting Washington. In alienating NATO and Indo-Pacific allies while simultaneously alarming Gulf partners, Washington risks discovering that even a superpower cannot operate effectively in isolation.

The Gulf monarchies are not abandoning the U.S., but they are redefining the relationship on narrower terms. The age of blank-check cooperation is over. Gulf allies are no longer willing to be the lightning rods for U.S. military campaigns while relying on uncertain protection when retaliation arrives.

And once allies learn they can say “no” to Washington, they rarely return to automatic obedience.

Brahma Chellaney is the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.“

Beijing no longer behaves like a rising power seeking acceptance into an American-led order. It behaves like a co-owner of the international system. And increasingly, Washington treats China that way.

Brahma Chellaney, USA Today

For years, Washington comforted itself with a reassuring phrase: China was a “near-peer competitor.” Near-peer implied China was close but not equal. It was a challenger still climbing the ladder while America remained securely at the top.

President Donald Trump’s just-concluded summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing shattered that illusion.

The visit showed that the world’s largest autocratic state is no longer America’s near-peer. It is America’s peer.

The symbolism alone was striking. Trump arrived in Beijing not as the triumphant leader of an unchallenged superpower, but as the head of a country increasingly constrained abroad, economically vulnerable at home, and struggling to impose its will even on far weaker adversaries.

When Trump postponed the Beijing trip from March to May, he likely expected to arrive after forcing Iran into submission. Instead, he landed in Beijing with the Iran war still unresolved, America’s military stockpiles depleted, and U.S. credibility bruised.

Xi understood the moment perfectly. The carefully choreographed summit was designed to project parity: two leaders, two superpowers, two equals managing global stability together. Beijing no longer behaves like a rising power seeking acceptance into an American-led order. It behaves like a co-owner of the international system. And increasingly, Washington is treating China that way.

Trump’s tone during the visit reflected the altered realities. The same president who routinely berates allies as freeloaders adopted a strikingly deferential posture toward America’s principal geopolitical rival. He praised Xi lavishly, calling it “an honor” to be his friend.

Equally striking was what Trump did not say. There was no mention of China’s human rights abuses – not of the mass incarceration and surveillance of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, not of the crushing of freedoms in Hong Kong, not of tightening repression in Tibet or Inner Mongolia. A decade ago, such silence from an American president visiting Beijing would have been politically unthinkable.

Today, it reflects a deeper reality: Washington increasingly treats China less as a wayward authoritarian state to be lectured and more as a peer superpower whose cooperation it needs and whose sensitivities it must manage.

In Trump’s first term, Washington still believed it could fundamentally reshape China’s behavior through tariffs, sanctions and technological pressure. The assumption was that America possessed overwhelming leverage. That confidence has eroded.

China today is not the China of 2017. It has built the world’s largest navy. It has dramatically expanded its nuclear arsenal. It has narrowed the technological gap in artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, robotics and quantum computing. In several strategic industries – batteries, drones, rare earth processing and green technologies – China now dominates outright.

Most importantly, Beijing has demonstrated that interdependence cuts both ways.

When Trump last year escalated tariffs, China retaliated by tightening rare-earth exports, exposing America’s deep dependence on Chinese supply chains. Suddenly, the world’s strongest economy looked vulnerable to industrial choke points controlled by Beijing.

That vulnerability hovered over the summit.

The most telling aspect of Trump’s Beijing visit was that both sides emphasized “stability” in their relationship. This is no longer a relationship defined by American primacy. It is one increasingly defined by mutual constraint.

The U.S. still possesses enormous advantages. The dollar remains dominant. America retains unmatched alliance networks, global military reach and world-leading innovation ecosystems. China also faces severe internal problems, including mounting debt, demographic decline and slowing growth.

But peer competition does not require symmetry. The Soviet Union was America’s peer despite being economically weaker. Britain was once Germany’s peer despite Germany’s larger industrial base. The defining characteristic is the ability to resist coercion and shape global outcomes independently.

China can now clearly do both.

Indeed, the summit underscored how much Washington’s ambitions have narrowed. Trump once talked about decoupling from China. Now the goal appears far more modest: managed coexistence, stabilized trade and guardrails against open conflict.

That is what peer rivalry looks like.

The danger for the U.S. lies in refusing to adapt to the new reality. Much of Washington still oscillates between complacency and denial, either dismissing China as fundamentally fragile or assuming America can easily restore uncontested dominance.

Yet China’s message during the summit was unmistakable: It no longer seeks admission into an American-led order. It seeks acknowledgment as an equal center of power.

And despite all the pageantry, Trump’s visit ultimately conveyed something Xi desperately wanted the world to see: The U.S. may still be the world’s strongest country but it no longer stands alone at the apex of global power.

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.”

Effective diplomacy depends on credibility, consistency, and a clear alignment with national interests. The US administration’s personalized, opaque, and venal shadow diplomacy delivers none of that, and it will leave the US less respected, less trusted, and less effective on the world stage.

By Brahma Chellaney, Project Syndicate

In most democracies, a leader outsourcing high-stakes diplomacy to family members and business associates would provoke outrage. But US President Donald Trump has faced little pushback for doing so, with many downplaying his crony diplomacy as mere “heterodoxy.” The long-term consequences will be severe.

Instead of relying on the secretary of state and the professional diplomatic corps, Trump has placed pivotal diplomacy largely in the hands of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his business partner, the Manhattan real-estate mogul Steve Witkoff. Kushner was a senior adviser in Trump’s first administration, responsible for helping to broker the Abraham Accords between Israel and four Arab states, and is now, like Witkoff, a Special Envoy for Peace.

Together, Kushner and Witkoff have spearheaded negotiations on Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran. Yet neither had any diplomatic experience before Trump tasked them with resolving some of the thorniest and highest-stakes foreign-policy challenges of our time, and both have glaring conflicts of interest.

Start with Witkoff. Last year, Pakistan signed a controversial investment deal with World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm whose CEO is Witkoff’s son, Zach, and in which the Trump and Witkoff families hold a dominant ownership stake. This past January, a WLF affiliate reached another deal with Pakistan—this time, to introduce the company’s stablecoin for use in cross-border transactions.

But Pakistan has also been the site and, to an extent, the broker of talks between the United States and Iran. When actors are negotiating geopolitical outcomes and pursuing business opportunities in the same arena, diplomacy begins to resemble a marketplace: access, influence, and profit are tightly interwoven.

As for Kushner, after leaving Trump’s first administration, he set up a private-equity firm, Affinity Partners, and took billions of dollars from Gulf monarchies, including about $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. In other words, Kushner is dependent on Saudi capital. Yet he is now expected to negotiate a détente with Iran, even as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly urges Trump to continue the war.

And it is not just Iran. Kushner’s “New Gaza” proposal, unveiled at Davos this past January, has been widely criticized as “real-estate diplomacy,” as it effectively recasts reconstruction as a business venture while ignoring questions of sovereignty and rights.

Kushner and Witkoff’s conflicts of interest, together with their lack of foreign-policy credentials, explain why Trump has not sought to appoint them to official diplomatic positions. Special envoys avoid Senate confirmation hearings, as well as the disclosure requirements, ethics rules, and congressional oversight that bind professional diplomats. Kushner and Witkoff are thus able to exercise influence without transparency, and to negotiate on behalf of the US without accountability.

Of course, Kushner and Witkoff are hardly the only figures capitalizing on their proximity to Trump. Prominent allies and donors, such as Oracle’s Larry Ellison, have won big from their investment in the majority American-owned TikTok venture that Trump effectively forced the Chinese parent company to create, supposedly over national-security concerns.

Moreover, Trump’s sons, Eric and Donald, Jr., recently joined a drone company Powerus, and are attempting to sell drone interceptors to the Gulf states to ward off attacks from Iran as it retaliates for their father’s war. Foundation Future Industries, a robotics startup where Eric is chief strategy adviser, was recently awarded a $24 million Pentagon contract.

Now, reports are emerging of possible insider trading around the Iran war, with large bets being made right before market-moving public statements from Trump. Yet the American public, whether desensitized to Trump’s breaking of norms or simply unable to keep up with the pace and scale of the violations, hardly reacts to such news. Scandals that would have brought any past US administration down—or at least prompted urgent investigation—have become routine under Trump.

With a Republican Party that bows to Trump’s every whim and justifies his every crime—while controlling both houses of Congress—a kind of resignation has taken hold. But as outrage fades, so does the restraining power of political norms. As a result, abuses become increasingly blatant and egregious, and trust is eroded. Even if Trump’s cronies did manage to reach a peace deal, it would warrant suspicion, with every concession raising questions about who really benefits—and who is compromised.

This undercuts not only specific agreements, but also US global leadership more broadly. With US foreign policy now guided by personal loyalty, informal networks, and private gain, whatever credibility the US had as a reliable partner, good-faith negotiator, and champion of the rule of law has been decimated. None of this will be easily restored.

In the meantime, if foreign governments want to influence US policy or secure the country’s geopolitical cooperation, they must make it worth Trump’s while. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Trump’s so-called Board of Peace—a putative alternative to the United Nations where a permanent seat carries a billion-dollar price tag. This is less a multilateral institution than a pay-to-play geopolitical franchise, but some countries appear willing to cough up the cash to stay in the US president’s good graces.

Others seeking to shape US policy head to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which he increasingly uses for official diplomatic engagements. And, of course, there are those who go there to get in on the self-dealing, making business deals with Trump’s inner circle. Meanwhile, wars continue to rage, with far-reaching human and economic consequences.

Trump’s defenders argue that unconventional actors can produce breakthroughs where conventional processes have failed. But diplomacy is not merely deal-making; it depends on credibility, consistency, and a clear alignment with national interests. The personalized, opaque, and venal shadow diplomacy being pursued by Kushner and Witkoff can deliver none of that. What it can and will do is ensure that the US is less respected, less trusted, and less effective on the world stage.

Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research and Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, is the author of nine books, including Water: Asia’s New Battleground (Georgetown University Press, 2011), for which he won the 2012 Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Book Award.

© Project Syndicate, 2026.

By Brahma Chellaney
The Japan Times

In barely 15 months, U.S. President Donald Trump has generated more global upheaval than most leaders do in a lifetime.

By eroding international norms, unleashing cascading crises and roiling world markets, he has emerged as a principal driver of global instability. And he still has 33 months left.

There is no modern precedent for what is now unfolding. A single leader — at the helm of the superpower that built and sustained the post-World War II international order — is dismantling it at speed, while openly mocking the very rules that once underpinned American power.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has cast aside longstanding legal norms, authorized military strikes across multiple sovereign states and weaponized economic interdependence against allies and adversaries alike. From the slow strangulation of Cuba through blockade-induced deprivation to a war on Iran that has triggered worldwide turmoil, his actions have pushed the international system into uncharted territory.

Trump launched his war on Iran, as he did his military intervention in Venezuela weeks earlier, in the language of dominance. But its consequences unfolded globally in the language of scarcity — of fuel, food and even survival.

Iran and Venezuela account for almost one-third of global proven oil reserves. Bringing both into Washington’s strategic orbit would give the U.S. an unprecedented lever over global energy markets — one that could be used not merely to influence prices and supply, but to discipline rivals and steer the economic and foreign-policy trajectories of partners.

Trump’s vision of America’s global “energy dominance” was on display again at his April 6 news conference, where he pointed to Venezuela as a model for dealing with Iran, citing his seizure of Venezuelan oil. Describing himself as a businessman, Trump said he wants to likewise take Iran’s energy resources once the conflict is over. “To the victor belong the spoils,” he declared.

It was a revealing admission: Control over Iran’s vast energy wealth lies at the heart of his war of aggression.

What began on Feb. 28 as a joint U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran, however, quickly metastasized into the most consequential energy shock in modern history. Unlike the oil crises of 1973 and 1979, driven largely by political embargoes, the current upheaval stems from the physical destruction of energy infrastructure and the breakdown of critical supply routes.

Because energy underpins the global economy, the shock could not be contained. It rippled outward — destabilizing food systems, straining financial markets and hitting the poorest countries the hardest.

In terms of global impact, the Ukraine conflict pales by comparison. What began as a regional war with global implications evolved into a globe-spanning crisis driven by a single regional conflict. That is the enduring lesson of the Iran war.

More fundamentally, Trump’s neoimperial impulse is no longer latent; it is hardening into an expansionist doctrine that echoes the playbook of colonial empires rather than the norms of the post-1945 order. His push to increase already massive U.S. defense spending by over 50%, to $1.5 trillion, underscores the scale of that ambition.

From renewed pressure for U.S. control over Greenland and the Panama Canal to open-ended military interventions in Venezuela and Iran — and even talk of redrawing borders or relocating populations — Trump has revived a logic more familiar to the age of empires. The Monroe Doctrine, once regional, has effectively been globalized.

The question is no longer whether Trump is disrupting the international order. It is whether there is any historical parallel for such systematic disruption from within. There is not.

The U.S. was the principal architect of the current system. The rules governing trade, sovereignty and collective security were largely American designs, forged after World War II to prevent precisely the kind of instability now unfolding.

What makes this moment unique is not simply that these rules are being broken, but that they are being dismantled by an American president.

History offers examples of destructive leaders — such as Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Idi Amin and Moammar Gadhafi  — but they operated on the margins of the international system or in opposition to it. Trump is different. He is tearing down the house from inside.

Nowhere is this more evident than in his weaponization of interdependence. Trade, once treated as a stabilizing force, has been recast as an instrument of coercion. Tariffs are no longer just economic tools; they are strategic weapons.

By linking military protection to trade concessions and tribute-like payments, Trump has transformed alliances into transactional arrangements — security for sale. The postwar idea of collective defense is giving way to something closer to protection racketeering.

This shift signals a profound reordering of international relationships, in which commitments are perpetually subject to renegotiation.

Equally consequential is the erosion of sovereignty. U.S. military strikes have extended across the Middle East, Africa and even into the Caribbean, targeting states without clear legal justification under the U.N. Charter.

Earlier eras did see U.S. expansionist doctrines — from Theodore Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” diplomacy to William McKinley’s imperial ventures. But those belonged to a pre-1945 world, before the current international norms took shape. Today’s actions carry greater weight precisely because they defy a system the U.S. itself helped build.

The war on Iran marked a particularly dangerous gamble. Trump is the first leader to trigger a global energy crisis through direct military action of his own making.

At the same time, his administration is hollowing out multilateralism — the connective tissue of the international system. Just weeks before launching the Iran war, the U.S. withdrew from 66 international organizations in a single stroke, including the World Health Organization, while sanctioning International Criminal Court officials.

Other leaders have challenged international norms, including Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Putin, but as outsiders. Trump’s approach is more destabilizing because it represents an insider threat. By abandoning agreements like the Paris climate accord, while openly entertaining territorial ambitions from Greenland and Canada to the Panama Canal, his administration has signaled that it no longer considers itself bound by the rules Washington once championed.

If the international system’s principal guarantor no longer believes in it, what remains?

To find even a loose historical analogy, one must look further back. Napoleon reshaped Europe through force; Bismarck discarded alliances in pursuit of advantage. Yet neither operated within a global order they themselves had constructed and sustained. What we are witnessing is something unprecedented: a great power dismantling its own architecture of order.

The consequences are already visible. Alliances are fragmenting. Markets are volatile. Smaller states are hedging, recalibrating or simply absorbing the shocks. The world is moving beyond Pax Americana — but not toward a stable alternative. Instead, it is drifting into uncertainty.

Today, the greatest threat to international peace and security is not a rising challenger. It is the transformation of the international system’s central pillar — the U.S. — into its principal destabilizer.

From rising fuel and food prices in Africa to fiscal stress across Asia and Latin America, the costs of Trump’s ambitions are being borne far from the corridors of power where they were conceived.

Brahma Chellaney, a longtime contributor to The Japan Times, is the author of nine books, including “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.”

By Brahma Chellaney, The Globe and Mail

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to India is intended to close one of the most acrimonious diplomatic chapters between two major democracies in recent memory and inaugurate a more pragmatic, interest-driven partnership for an age of geopolitical uncertainty. 

Rarely have Canada and India found themselves so publicly at odds as they did in 2023-24, when the relationship sank to its lowest point ever. Then-prime minister Justin Trudeau’s allegation of a potential link between the Indian government and the killing of a Sikh-Canadian on Canadian soil triggered a spiral of recriminations, expulsions, visa suspensions and nationalist outrage. 

The dispute also exposed a deeper structural fault line: Canada’s permissive approach toward Sikh separatist activism versus India’s zero-tolerance view of Khalistan militancy. For New Delhi, the issue has not been merely diaspora politics but national security, shaped by the memory of the deadly 1985 Air India bombing by Canada-based Sikh terrorists. For Ottawa, the challenge has been to balance civil liberties with public safety in a diverse democracy. 

Mr. Carney’s visit signals that both governments have decided the costs of continued estrangement are too high. 

The visit’s strategic logic is rooted in a shared reassessment of the global order. Both Canada and India are hedging against the volatility of great-power rivalry. Mr. Carney’s emerging “middle-power” doctrine emphasizes building networks of trusted relationships beyond Washington’s orbit. India, for its part, has long sought diversified partnerships to avoid overdependence on any single pole. 

In this sense, the visit is not just a bilateral reset but part of a broader pattern: a quiet consolidation among middle powers seeking resilience in a fragmenting world. Both Canada and India, though, are walking a tightrope. They want to diversify away from an unpredictable U.S. without triggering further retaliation from Washington. 

At the heart of the visit lies a concrete economic agenda. The most eye-catching initiative is a 10-year, US$2.8-billion uranium supply agreement, which could be signed during Mr. Carney’s visit. For India, Canadian fuel offers a pathway to reduce reliance on both Russian imports and coal. For Canada, it secures a long-term market at a moment when Western demand is uncertain. 

Canada, which sees more than 90 per cent of its energy exports go to the U.S., is seeking to become a major oil and liquefied natural gas supplier to India, the world’s fastest-growing major energy consumer, with demand expected to double by 2045. India is already the world’s third-largestenergy consumer. 

Alongside energy, the two sides are accelerating negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), with a target of doubling bilateral trade to $70-billion in four years. The scope extends well beyond tariffs: services trade, digital commerce, labour mobility, agriculture and critical minerals are all on the table. A CEPA would anchor a supply-chain corridor linking Canada’s resource base with India’s manufacturing and technological capacity. 

This economic agenda reflects a shared desire to “derisk” from China-centric supply chains without embracing full decoupling, and to hedge against shifting currents of U.S. policy. 

Yet the economic reset cannot stand without a parallel security understanding. Both governments recognize that another crisis over extremism or sovereignty could derail the entire project. 

In Canada, Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, would, if passed, criminalize the public display of terrorist symbols. It could signal to New Delhi that Canada is taking more seriously the issue of Sikh militancy. 

At the same time, both countries are expected to revive and upgrade their Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism, shifting toward real-time intelligence sharing and more streamlined extradition processes. India, for its part, is reaffirming respect for Canadian sovereignty after the controversies of 2023-24. 

The aim is to create institutional “guardrails”: mechanisms that allow co-operation to continue even when sensitive issues arise. 

Mr. Carney’s challenge, however, is as much domestic as diplomatic. Bill C-9 faces strong resistance from civil-liberties advocates, and parliamentary delays have already stalled its progress. Mr. Carney thus faces a delicate balancing act – demonstrating to India that Ottawa will act against extremist activity, while convincing Canadians he will not dilute constitutional freedoms or bow to external pressure. 

More fundamentally, Mr. Carney’s India visit marks a transition from an emotionally charged relationship to a transactional one. The bitterness of the Trudeau era is being set aside in favour of a sober recognition of mutual interests. 

If the uranium and hydrocarbon deals advance and CEPA negotiations stay on track, February, 2026, may be remembered as the moment Canada-India ties matured into a modern strategic partnership. For two pluralistic democracies navigating an uncertain century, this may prove to be the most sustainable foundation of all.

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and the author of nine books, including the award-winning Water: Asia’s New Battleground.

The election marks the arrival of a Japan that will be more assertive, more strategically self-confident and less inclined to subordinate its interests to shifting currents of U.S. policy. 

By Brahma Chellaney, The Hill

Japan’s Feb. 8 election was not merely an electoral landslide. It was a geopolitical turning point.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party secured a two-thirds supermajority — an outcome that finally gives Tokyo something it has lacked for decades: a political mandate to redefine its postwar identity and act as a proactive security power.

For Washington, this is both a gift and a challenge. The U.S. can now deepen collaboration with its most important and capable ally in Asia. Japan hosts the largest concentration of U.S. forces anywhere in the world. Its geographic position is uniquely strategic, and its naval and air capabilities are the most sophisticated among U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific, with interoperability unmatched by any regional partner.

But the election also signals Japan’s strategic reawakening. It marks the arrival of a Japan that will be more assertive, more strategically self-confident and less inclined to subordinate its interests to shifting currents of U.S. policy. Tokyo is no longer content to be a U.S.-protected power. It intends to be a shaping power.

For almost eight decades, Japan operated within self-imposed limits — constitutional pacifism, restrained defense budgets and a preference for economic statecraft over hard power. Takaichi’s mandate alters that trajectory. With a supermajority, she can pursue constitutional revision, formalize the status of the Self-Defense Forces and accelerate defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product.

Japan is set to shift from merely reacting to Chinese military pressure to imposing costs for it. Nowhere is this clearer than in the southwestern island chain stretching toward Taiwan. Tokyo is building the capacity to deny access, complicate Chinese planning and ensure that no “fait accompli” seizure of territory or coercive maritime gambit goes unanswered.

For American strategists concerned about U.S. overreach, this is a structural upgrade to the regional balance. A Japan capable of defending its southwestern approaches will reduce the burden on U.S. forces while disrupting Chinese war-planning.

Beijing’s pressure campaign was meant to deter Japan’s rightward drift. Instead, it helped bring about Takaichi’s landslide. Chinese economic restrictions, maritime incursions and thinly veiled threats did not fracture Japanese politics; they consolidated it. Voters concluded that dependence invites coercion and that resilience requires strength.

Japan’s push to rewire supply chains toward India, Southeast Asia and trusted partners is not just industrial policy — it is counter-coercion doctrine.

Takaichi has described a Taiwan contingency as an “existential threat” to Japan. That language would once have been politically radioactive. Now it carries electoral legitimacy and, if sustained, will alter the military geometry of the Taiwan Strait. In a crisis, Japanese bases, surveillance networks and maritime forces would become integral to a U.S. response.

For the U.S., this reinforces a broader trend: Chinese pressure is accelerating, not halting, the formation of balancing coalitions. A stronger Japan becomes the anchor of that process in East Asia.

Takaichi’s strategy also involves alliance diversification. She is building stronger economic and defense links with Australia, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and especially India, alongside the U.S. treaty alliance — insurance against volatility in American politics.

Japanese policymakers have drawn a sober conclusion: that resilience requires options. Fluctuating U.S. trade policy, tariff threats, periodic talk of retrenchment and transactional approaches to alliances have convinced many in Tokyo that Japan must insure itself against strategic volatility in Washington.

For the U.S., this is not a loss of influence but a redistribution of responsibility. A Japan that leads within the Quad, shapes regional trade architecture and invests in defense industrial cooperation strengthens a stable Indo-Pacific order — provided Washington treats Tokyo as a strategic partner rather than a junior ally.

Takaichi’s economic program — “Sanaenomics” — fuses industrial policy with national defense. Supply-chain resilience, semiconductor co-development, critical-mineral stockpiles and shipyard revitalization are designed to reduce Japan’s vulnerability to “weaponized interdependence.”

This aligns with Washington’s emphasis on economic security but also introduces potential friction. A more nationalist “Japan First” posture could collide with U.S. tariff policies or technology controls if not coordinated. The opportunity lies in building a shared defense-industrial ecosystem.

For years, American policymakers urged Japan to do more for its own defense. Takaichi’s victory answers that call.

But greater capability brings greater autonomy. Tokyo will expect a more important voice in alliance strategy — from Taiwan contingencies to regional trade architecture — and will not accept policies that expose it to coercion without consultation.

Alliances endure not because one side dominates, but because both sides see them as vehicles for advancing national strategy. A stronger Japan will strengthen the alliance if Washington treats Tokyo as a co-architect rather than a subordinate.

The most consequential implication of Japan’s election is regional. Across the Indo-Pacific, middle powers increasingly see a stronger Japan as a stabilizing “strategic ballast” amid uncertainty about both China’s trajectory and America’s staying power. Japan is reentering history as a security actor, not merely an economic one.

Washington should recognize what just happened. Japan did not simply elect a new government. It chose strategic normalization — deterrence over hesitation — and signaled that the era of passive alliance management is over.

For Washington, the message is clear: The most important geopolitical shift in Asia is not China’s rise alone, but Japan’s return. The alliance must evolve accordingly.

Brahma Chellaney is the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.”

Trump might have done India a favor. By exposing the raw transactionalism at the core of his foreign policy, he has left no doubt that, under his leadership, the US is not a reliable strategic partner.

By Brahma Chellaney, Project Syndicate

For over two decades, the United States has regarded India as a “natural partner” – a rising power whose geography, military capabilities, and democratic credentials made it indispensable to America’s strategy in the Indo-Pacific. Five successive US administrations, Republican and Democratic alike, invested heavily in strengthening that partnership, treating India not just as a market, but as a long-term strategic bet.

But the goodwill that the US built up with India over that period has been rapidly eroded since Donald Trump’s return to the presidency last year. Trump’s second presidency has brought repeated public insults and a bruising trade war, with the US using tariffs as tools of geopolitical coercion. The interim trade deal announced on February 2 may have halted the economic confrontation, but trust – the essential currency of any strategic partnership – is unlikely to be restored any time soon.

By reducing the effective US tariff burden on Indian goods from 50% to 18%, the newly announced deal will deliver short-term relief for India. But it comes with plenty of strings attached, including the requirement that India move toward near-zero tariffs on US industrial products and a wide range of agricultural goods. India’s decision to open its sensitive agricultural sector – the country’s largest employer – to a flood of imports from the US is already sparking a domestic backlash.

But that is not all. India has also agreed to purchase a whopping $500 billion worth of American goods over the next five years, and to replace discounted Russian oil with US energy at market prices, which also implies additional transport costs. Meanwhile, the US offered no binding commitments to India. This lopsided bargain looks nothing like a stable, reciprocal, rules-based trade partnership, and underscores how far US trade policy has drifted from World Trade Organization norms. It is probably best understood as a tactical de-escalation, not a strategic reconciliation.

The way the deal was announced reinforces this interpretation. Typically, bilateral agreements or joint statements are announced simultaneously in both capitals to signal equal partnership. The free-trade agreement India recently concluded with the European Union, which created a trade corridor encompassing roughly 25% of global GDP and one-third of world trade, was touted by both sides as the “mother of all deals.”

The US-India agreement, by contrast, was announced first by Trump, who portrayed it on his social-media platform as a favor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose “request” for an agreement Trump had granted “out of friendship and respect.” Days later, the White House released a “joint statement” outlining the terms of the agreement at 5:00 a.m. Indian Standard Time.

The Trump administration then added injury to insult, announcing a presidential executive order authorizing reimposition of punitive tariffs if the US deems India to have violated its commitment to halt all direct and indirect imports of Russian oil. By framing Indian energy imports as a US national-security issue, the administration has turned economic engagement into a compliance test. The message to India is unmistakable: autonomy will be tolerated only within US-approved limits.

India’s leaders have framed the agreement as a win, noting that India now faces lower tariffs than China or Vietnam. But this is a low bar for a relationship that successive US administrations described as “defining.” And they are probably well aware that Trump could still pull the rug out from under them. The arrangement’s details have not yet been finalized, and Trump has a long history of changing his mind, scrapping deals, and layering on new demands.

Whatever happens next, India will not quickly forget Trump’s past betrayals. Nor will it overlook his slights, such as branding India, whose GDP growth outpaces all other major economies, as a “dead economy” last July.

In a sense, Trump might have done India a favor. By exposing the raw transactionalism at the core of his foreign policy, he has left no doubt that, under his leadership, the US is not a reliable strategic partner. As a result, India’s government is committed to diversifying India’s economic relationships away from the US, as underscored by its FTAs with the EU and the United Kingdom – an effort that will likely continue, regardless of the new trade agreement with the US.

Markets, too, are unlikely to put too much faith in the US. News of the trade deal did trigger a stock-market rally in India, but the gains are likely to be short-lived.

Strategic partnerships are sustained not by tariffs and threats, but by predictability, mutual respect, and restraint – qualities that have been conspicuously absent from Trump’s presidency. The US should beware. Whatever short-term concessions Trump secures through bullying and coercion will be dwarfed by the long-term costs of destabilizing a partnership that, as previous administrations recognized, is vital to American interests in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research and Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, is the author of nine books, including Water: Asia’s New Battleground (Georgetown University Press, 2011), for which he won the 2012 Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Book Award.

© Project Syndicate, 2026.