Shifting sands of power: The message from Trump’s big Gulf trip – and what that means for India

Trump’s Mideast Tour Underscores Global Power Shift Away From America’s Old European Allies

A map of the world based on traditional military power shows a dramatic, indeed radical, shift from the world even a few decades ago.

Shifting sands of power: The message from Trump’s big Gulf trip – and what that means for India

The US president skipped mentioning the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor while in Saudi Arabia. But that’s a problem for Israel, not New Delhi.

Trump’s foray into the Middle East is a clear wake-up call for Beijing. China must concretely reconsider its approach to the region. Despite China’s growing economic influence in the Middle East in recent years, it often limits its room for maneuver with a mindset that only cares about economic development.

Trump's tour heralds a new era in US-Gulf relations

In The Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite Robert Kaplan reminds us of the episode in which April Glaspie, then US ambassador to Ba’athist Iraq and “an Arabist of the old school”, met Saddam Hussain in July 1990. Glaspie failed explicitly to tell the Iraqi dictator, who was massing troops on the border and engaging in a war of words with Kuwait at the time, that an invasion of his southern neighbour would be met with force. Kaplan, who se…