Salman Rafi Sheikh

In popular parlance, the US President Joe Biden is already known as ‘Genocide Biden’ – a title that unmistakably highlights the role Biden has been playing, since October 2023, in facilitating Israel’s brutal war on Gaza. With Biden now all set to not contest in the upcoming presidential elections in the US in November this year, the question of whether the new president – Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump – bring any change to the US policy towards Israel?

Shaped by the existing geopolitical dynamics, the Arctic region is coming under a lot of pressure from global powers. Russia and China, on the one hand, are seeking to integrate this region via what China calls a “Polar Silk Road” – something that would make the region’s fossil fuels accessible worldwide. But the US is increasingly worried about these developments. It primarily sees these developments from a zero-sum perspective, with any gains that the Russia-China duo makes directly…

Despite Washington’s concerns – and even warnings of consequences – it has not been able to wean New Delhi away from Russia. Instead, India has decided to deepen its ties with Russia. On the one hand, India’s alliance with Russia not only allows the former to maintain a balance between Russia and the US, but an alliance with Russia also comes with another critical benefit. With Russia being a vocal supporter of multipolarity and India being an ambitious global player itself, a multipolar world is a system that can meaningfully accommodate India, the world’s most populous state now. This was most clearly evident during the recent visit of India’s Prime Minister Modi to Russia.