The US Harms The West’s Alliances With A Far-Flung Indictment In India

It has become fashionable in recent years for some opinion leaders in the US to espouse geostrategic ignorance and incoherence. On the right, it’s all about focusing on a kind of isolationism, that is focusing on national issues foremost. On the left, there’s a distrust, even among Americans, of American power wielded abroad that goes back decades via the Iraq war to the Vietnam War. No doubt both positions have some valid arguments. Trouble is, the world and America’s rivals don’t stand still while the West agonizes thus internally and shrinks from its global commitments.

Russia is busy recreating the Soviet sphere, while China daily weaves a global economic web to displace the West’s interests. Both believe that their form of governance is superior and must prevail. None of this has stopped the Biden Administration indicting Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and his group on bribery charges, in a surprise move just before leaving the White House, raising questions about targeting a major business figure pivotal to India’s economic growth and its alliance with the West, the US included. But more on that later.

Meantime, of course, as the West’s rivals press outward globally they also encourage and exploit contradiction and division within American and Europe. That can find many iterations from street unrest to social media influence to corrupt politicians. Sometimes the West just shoots itself in the foot, thinking it has the strength and leisure to do so. This column is about an egregious instance of just that in recent months, a species of geopolitical suicide launched last November during the Biden era and still uncorrected by the new White House. America and Europe’s great hope is India for countering China’s meticulously thought-out and geostrategically ultra-coherent global outreach. India is a natural choice due to its size and place. The idea – a straightforward one on the face of it – is to empower a rival to China in Asia, one that will become a competitor in trade routes from Asia to the world, especially via strategic zones like the Middle East.

You have heard of China’s Belt-and-Road-Initiative, BRI, a latter-day Silk Road via Central Asia, Indian Ocean, the Global South, to encircle the globe with Chinese money, infrastructure, digital pathways and much else. The only potential counter-balance to that in size and scope is IMEC, the Indo-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, launched in 2023. What makes IMEC’s success so critical? It goes from India to the West via the Mideast and encompasses the Abraham Accords. That is to say, it undergirds stability in this embattled region too, benefiting all of the West’s allies centrally. You will see how. Not only does IMEC interface with the Abraham accords but also with the pro-West Quad Alliance in Asia between the US and India, Japan, Australia. Think of it as regional alliances cementing the wider global network of IMEC to counter-balance China’s BRI network.

Now BRI might seem benign enough at first glance, merely a needed additional boost to the world’s economy, especially to developing countries. But you have to sit up and take notice when you learn details. China has spent over a trillion dollars in a bid for influence slowly expanded to include almost 150 countries, 60 per cent of the world’s population, and 40 per cent of global GDP, including advanced economies such as Greece and Singapore. Beijing’s pivotal partners westward to the global center include first Pakistan, India’s other big rival, via Pakistan’s ports and land access to Central Asia. It all connects to the other pivot of Iran, about which you all know as the great regional threat to Saudi and Israel. Herein lies the manifest dagger pointed at the Abraham accords and at the West’s strategic partners in the region.

If you haven’t understood the importance of the IMEC yet, consider that it concretely integrates the strategic joints of Abraham Accords into its own fabric. (More of that below). First, herewith some facts about IMEC:

In 2023, India, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union agreed to establish the India–Middle East Economic Corridor (IMEC) to enhance global trade and counter China’s BRI. The IMEC aims to connect a combined GDP of US$47 trillion with a comprehensive infrastructure network and focuses on high-efficiency trade routes, renewable energy, digital infrastructure and improved international communication networks. IMEC’s proponents want to build a transportation route from India to Europe via the Middle East: they envision ships carrying containers from Indian ports to Dubai’s Port of Jebel Ali. The containers would be moved from ships onto railcars, taking them about 2200 kilometers(1370 miles) north across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan to Israel’s Port of Haifa. In Haifa, containers would be reloaded onto smaller ships that can carry them to Europe’s seaports and through its inland waterways for distribution to their final commercial markets. IMEC’s infrastructure, container handling equipment and information systems stand to move cargo from India to Europe faster, using less fuel, and at a lower cost than the Suez Canal route.

So that’s the wider context of BRI vs IMEC. With all this at stake, let’s get to the part of the West shooting itself in the foot. We are talking about an intricate and integrated global network of pro-west alliances for stability and security and prosperity. Now see how the entire edifice is threatened by a single unilateral ill-conceived legal action by the US Feds, launched in November 2024 just before the national elections and no doubt intended to be eclipsed by the impending news noise. The Biden White House Justice Department decided to indict a lynchpin player in IMEC for bribery, the Adani Group in India, chiefly its boss Gautam Adani (and seven others).

Gautam Adani is one of India’s richest men and one of Prime Minister Modi’s political supporters. Now whatever you may think of Modi’s politics and governance, and there’s a lot to question, the strategic context is surely a far bigger consideration. Of course, Modi immediately took pains to distance himself from Gautam Adani while the indictment predictably dealt a blow to the company’s financial heft, affecting both stock value and investments in far-flung infrastructure projects. It isn’t merely that the Adani Group is a pillar of India’s economy, therefore its fate affects the strength of all the alliances, but above all, Adani has various degrees of ownership in ports where IMEC will operate from India to the Gulf and Saudi (and even Africa). Not least the Israeli port of Haifa. Here is a brief summary of the charges against Adani which include securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy.

This column is not about to adjudicate the merits of a complex legal case but suffice to say the US Justice Department has any number of priority legal cases to pursue. That it decided to launch this one when it did, just before the US election, for offenses committed outside the US, must raise eyebrows, knowing it will take that much longer to resolve, dealing a blow to stability in the Middle East, to the economy of Israel, to an entire global strategic confederation benefiting the West. One that was years in the making, potentially shaping the world’s future for years. Here, then, is an example of the West shooting itself in the foot while its rivals power on leaving the US and Europe behind economically, militarily, technologically and in every crucial measure. They must be laughing in Beijing.