Modi-Putin Summit a Win-Win for EU and Trump-Vance

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet in New Delhi just days from now. Such a meeting of longtime friends is not a snub to the European Union (EU) and the United States, but could have the potential of helping them pull back from several economic woes and place them on the path to recovery. Whatever be the public expressions of politicians, there is little doubt that the majority of the (voting) public regard themselves as being less well off than they were in 2022. Much of the gloom is owing to the climbing costs of keeping the Ukrainian regime on the path of war rather than choosing peace. Presidents and Prime Ministers of the Atlantic Alliance ought to visit grocery stores to find out why. Inflation is a reality of the times, while supply disruptions are multiplying. While the Trump-Vance team has understood the folly of bearing the cross—the costs—of an unwinnable war, barring a few European leaders such as Prime Minister Orban of Hungary, very few of the rest have. Marjorie Taylor Greene may be wrong on some issues, but she is right to speak of the Political-Industrial complex driving countries to war and to consequent economic problems. In the past, no less a military personage than President Dwight David Eisenhower warned of the “Military-Industrial” complex keeping the desire for military solutions high so the latter in particular profits from the same. Alfred P. Sloan claimed that “What was good for General Motors was good for the US”. Sometimes it was, but often it was not. The model of low prices and high wages was first set by Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford in his Model T, cheap enough to be close to being every person’s car in terms of affordability, not by General Motors or Alfred Sloan. The Model T set off a boom in road building—and in higher car demand and production that made the US the manufacturing hub of the world. Whatever be the boost to production, wars are ruinous for human beings. Wherever there is some mutuality of interest, peace is always preferable to war. And peace is what the almost unspoken (by western media) benefit of the Modi-Putin meeting could be, not least for Europe and in particular Ukraine—for with Vice-President Vance proclaiming that “We (the US) are done with funding this (Ukraine) war,” the entire financial burden has fallen on taxpayers in Europe.

President Zelenskyy ought to have heeded the call by Prime Minister Modi to stop the war that began on 26 February 2022 when regular Russian forces invaded the border. Now it will only stop once Russia by agreement or conflict seizes the whole of the Donbas province. After that will need to be entered into the Ukrainian constitution, the commitment to never join NATO. As for negotiations with Russia, that will happen only after Zelenskyy resigns and hands over power to a caretaker government that would supervise long-overdue elections. Surely if he loves the Ukrainians as he claims to, Zelenskyy should now go into comfortable exile in London. While much is being mentioned about defence collaboration on advanced military platforms during the forthcoming Modi-Putin Summit, what merits equal if not greater attention is the potential for igniting a process that within 90 days will lead to the cessation of conflict in Ukraine, a course favoured by PM Modi from the start of the conflict and by President Trump since he took over as President of the US on 20 January 2025. European media, now with its Russophobia in full display, will portray the India-Russia Summit as a snub to the West. The opposite is the case. A successful outcome to the Summit would benefit the West the most, by stopping the draining away of European taxpayer incomes on a war that has been unwinnable from the start. Prime Minister Modi and President Trump are right and Prime Minister Starmer, President Macron, Chancellor Merz and European Commission Chairperson Ursula von der Leyen are wrong in their contrasting approaches to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Should the Ukraine war continue without a swift close, a taxpayer revolt will erupt within the European Union. Money that ought to be used to promote lowering of inflation, better healthcare and public facilities are literally going up in smoke from the conflict. The military has what gets known as Net Assessment, in which competing options are studied threadbare and conclusions reached as to the best course for a country to follow. Net Assessment was the brainchild of the legendary Andrew Marshall, who put his considerable wisdom at the service of successive US Presidents. Just months after the successful conclusion of the 2003 Iraq War launched by President George W. Bush, some of those consulted by Marshall said that from now onwards, the US military should leave the interior of Iraq to the Iraqis themselves, and concentrate on focusing on the Iraq border to ensure outside elements did not creep in and make stabilisation more difficult. Their counsel was not followed, the consequence being that ISIS developed among the population of Iraq, feeding on the anger of the dominance of the US military in matters of governance in what was after all their country, where Iraqis and not foreigners had the right to govern. Had the counsel been followed, Iraq would have escaped the growth of ISIS cells and consequent attacks on US military personnel.

Radicalism and violence are rising in the US and in once peaceable countries in Europe. Terror attacks against unwary and defenceless citizens have become reality. The US is already on the course of not spending taxpayer dollars on the Ukraine war. Only the Europeans are bearing the cost, in contrast to the Biden period, when almost half was borne by the US taxpayer, who took revenge by voting in Donald Trump and J.D. Vance to their offices in the White House. Several European leaders are on the same course as President Biden was. They need to follow the advice of Prime Minister Modi and stop the unwinnable war via the proxy of Ukraine against the Russian Federation.