India must act with strategic confidence in emerging global order: Amb. (retd.) Nirupama Rao
Pune : The valedictory session of the Asia Economic Dialogue 2026 featured Amb. (retd.) Nirupama Rao, former Foreign Secretary of India, and was chaired by Dr. Vijay Kelkar, Vice President of the Pune International Centre.
Amb. Rao described the current global moment as one in which the first principles of politics and economics are being questioned. The certainties of the post–Cold War order, she noted, no longer stand unchallenged.
She observed that geopolitics has entered the bloodstream of economics: trade is now strategic leverage, technology sovereign territory, finance an instrument of coercion, and supply chains potential battlegrounds. Rather than classical multipolarity, she characterised today’s system as “asynchronous multipolarity,” with power unevenly distributed across military, economic, technological and financial domains.
Amb. Rao identified key drivers of turbulence — renewed great power rivalry, the weaponization of interdependence, erosion of institutional guardrails such as the WTO and arms control regimes, transnational threats like climate change and pandemics, and domestic political pressures reinforcing nationalism.
While multilateralism is under strain, she stressed it is not dead. Cooperation is being reconfigured through pragmatic, mini-lateral and plurilateral platforms such as the G20. For India, reform rather than abandonment of multilateralism should remain the guiding principle. She said the future of multilateralism and geo-economics will be shaped by policy choices, institutional reforms, and leadership decisions — beginning in forums such as the AED.
She described the present phase as “strategic globalisation” — managed interdependence balancing resilience and exposure. The most plausible trajectory ahead, she suggested, is managed fragmentation shaped by diplomacy, with technological leadership proving decisive.
Calling India more than a middle power, she outlined imperatives: preserve strategic autonomy, build economic resilience through diversified partnerships, achieve technological sovereignty in AI and semiconductors, reform defence doctrine, and invest in societal cohesion and intellectual retooling.
The AI revolution, she emphasised, is civilisational in impact. India must globalise from a position of sovereignty, acting with clarity and confidence to help shape the emerging order.