When Donald Trump won he wasn’t setting a trend. He was merely following an already established international one — of a ‘strongman’ leader. Putin, Erdogan, Modi, Duterte, Xi Jinping and Abe, all represent this drift, at varying intensities of the outward trappings of democracy. The last time something like this happened was during the inter-war period.
The Great Depression and its economic shocks left the world in a state of severe political and economic instability, warranting the rise of such strongman leaders. Perhaps the aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis, the general instability in Europe, Asia and the ever spiralling conflict in the Middle East may have fuelled this demand now.
The political narratives of all these strong men have similar elements of self-pity, humiliation at the hands of foreign powers, hyper-nationalism and promises of restoration of national pride; a scant disregard for the rules and norms of the extant international order forming the underlying thread.
In this sense, Trump and Putin, seem to have been cut from the same cloth. Trump vowed to ‘drain the swamp’ of corrupt power elite in the American system. Putin orchestrated clashes with the Russian oligarchy. Both have portrayed the outside world as full of ‘hostile enemies’ out to destroy their country with help of ‘inside enemies’.
The cornerstone of Trump’s election campaign was his claim that the world is laughing at them and that he would make ‘America great again’. Putin’s approval ratings have gone up despite the severe repression he unleashed against critics. Their style of personalised diplomacy and statecraft is unconventional. Trump went against traditional Western consensus by trashing the EU, the global trade system, the Paris climate accord and his scepticism about the relevance of NATO. Instead, he chose to adopt a more nationalistic pose. Putin never thought much about the traditional Western institutions and international law anyway.
Although there are similarities, ‘Trumputin’ cannot be considered a single organism. Trump is erratic, confused and inexperienced— his handling of Russiagate allegations, flip-flops on the travel ban, ludicrous notions about the wall, constant tirade against the media, paranoia about Iran that he shares with Prince Salman and much more. Perhaps, the image of him completely lost for company during the G20 summit in Hamburg best captures this confusion.
Putin, on the other hand, an ex-KGB spy, is much more experienced politically and level-headed. Whilst he operates in a different context in terms of the not so democratic domestic institutions in Russia, he still has managed to place Russia as a potential leader of an alternative world order. The fact that Russia is an invaluable player in the Middle East now is a testimony to his political acumen; truth be told, Putin is the only leader who has consistently maintained that only a political solution can end the conflict.
All this is happening at a time when the credibility of the US as a global leader is at an all-time low. Trump’s has time and again maintained that America has to start looking inwards. But, given his inconsistent world view, he has restricted this rhetoric only to economic policy, as of now. Trump’s position on the three crucial issues at the summit — free trade, climate change, and global migration management— is well known. He prefers protectionism to free trade, outright bans on migration which is a direct consequence of disastrous foreign policy and thinks climate change is a hoax. Xi Jinping rose to fill his gap by pledging support for a more open global economy and a tightened coordination of economic policy to avoid pitfalls of unregulated financial capitalism.
A default but reluctant current leader of the West, Angela Merkel has much to gain from the multilateral Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) stretching to the Ruhr valley. This potential integration of Eurasia is the crucial message behind Beijing’s ‘panda diplomacy’. The massive trade deal between the EU and Japan only reaffirms that Trump is marching America in the opposite direction.
Where does this leave Modi? So far Modi has displayed all the attributes of a strongman leader. On the surface, Modi’s foreign policy might come across as merely a change in style, but a closer look reveals a naked pragmatism compared to our earlier principled tradition. Overturning reflexive non-alignment, Modi seems to have managed to cultivate some enriching partnerships with the US, Russia, Israel, Japan and Australia.
Despite frequently raising the familiar bogey of Islamabad and terrorism, Modi has introduced some much needed strategic manoeuvring space. Notwithstanding the Dokhlam standoff, New Delhi’s response to the BRI challenge will firmly reveal intentions of where it seeks to place itself in this transitioning world order. Though for now, New Delhi cannot economically challenge a belligerent Beijing, but if it can manage an impressive growth rate and play its cards right, it can hope to contain Beijing's influence in Asia in the future.
(The author is a scholar in international relations from the Jindal School of International Affairs, Haryana)
