(Newswire.net— February 20, 2019) — India persists on striking deals with countries that the U.S. is trying to isolate, which is considered by Washington to be a poke in the eye of the U.S. However, New Delhi sees it as the legitimate “India First” policy that protects national interests of the country which has one of the largest economy and military potentials in the world.
“We want our American partners to understand that we have our own interest and our own will, and we are not like some banana republic that can be pushed around…” Russia Today cited Sreeram Chaulia of India’s Jindal School of International Affairs.
“I think what Prime Minister Modi and our government is doing is we’re going to put India first,” Chaulia said.
One of the latest demonstrations of defiant behavior is ignoring sanctions the U.S. imposed to Venezuela who is currently seeking for a regime change. The sanctions are aimed at the people of Venezuela because it induced extreme poverty and a humanitarian crisis in this country. In the same time, pro U.S. opposition leader Guaido promised ‘Eldorado’ as soon as people help him overthrow Maduro.
Venezuela is currently hanging on due to oil sales revenue but the U.S. keeps threatening everyone who dares to by oil from this country. By purchasing oil from Venezuela, India joins China, South Korea and Japan. However, India pushes the boundaries even more by trading oil in other currencies than petro-dollar, which is extremely dangerous to the U.S. economy. So, the Trump administration threatened India with sanctions.
The threat of American sanctions is “not the end of the world,” Chaulia told RT. “We can survive them.”
Indeed, India is one of the rare countries in the world capable of surviving economic sanctions. The military threat is also a very wrong move because India has one of the largest and most modern military forces in the world. India recently purchased the Russian S-400 missile defense system and continues buying military equipment from Russia and the U.S.
Recent reports, however, say India may have ‘chosen a side’ by developing strategic high-speed missiles together with Russia. The latest test of the BrahMos missile shows that it is now ready for induction into the Indian Air Force, a high-ranked government official told the Hindustan Times. India plans to equip its 18 SU-30 Russian made military jets with this supersonic missile that is the fastest in the world reaching speeds of Mach 3.0.
The BrahMos missile is a joint Indian-Russian project, and named after the Brahmaputra and Moskva rivers in the two countries. It is considered unmatched in its category. A missile like BrahMos “can be a game changer for any air force in the world,” Sudhir Mishra, BrahMos Aerospace CEO said. India is also buying Russian frigates for its naval forces.
The Republic of India is the world’s seventh-largest economy by nominal GDP and the third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). However, in 2017, India’s economy has been the world’s fastest growing major economy, surpassing China.