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Gokul Sahni Profile picture
Gokul Sahni
@Gokul_Sahni
Geopolitics, geoeconomics, & Cold War(s) - India’s viewpoint | MA Modern War @WarStudies King’s; MSc IR @RSIS_NTU; MBA @UniofOxford | Own views.
Jul 13 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“New York no longer boasts the world’s fanciest skyline; kids watching stray reels of Chongqing’s infrastructure in interior.. Bihar might testify to this fact. Yet New York, with its filthy subway and rat-dominated streets, remains enthroned as the world’s cultural capital.” 1/4 “For Wall Street and the larger US economic mainstream, the idea of rent freezes and a wealth tax might be ones they are used to hearing in the American political discourse, but these need to be kept away from New York City, the heart of the global financial system.” 2/4
Jul 13 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
“one way to make sense of White House actions is that America is trying to undercut China’s industrial hegemony while also protecting its own financial dominance, and vice versa. Tech hegemony, in my view, is still being contested.” 1/7 “Such thinking not only explains US-China relations; it also sheds light on how other countries are reacting, since the priority for them now is to create “anti-coercion” strategies, as the GCAP says. Unsurprisingly, this is sparking intense debate in places such as Britain.” 2/7
Jul 12 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
“The next election is now up for grabs. And a space has opened up in British politics. Labour seems locked into a tax and spend doom loop. Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, has jettisoned his old libertarianism and made a decisive leftward move on the economy.” 1/8 “There is no one now running convincingly on a platform of fiscal responsibility, growth and enterprise, offering a vision that is worth sharing the pain for.” 2/8
Jul 12 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
.@Dimi: “The Pentagon is pressing Japan and Australia to make clear what role they would play if the US and China went to war over Taiwan, in an effort that has frustrated the two most important American allies in the Indo-Pacific.” 1/5 “Elbridge Colby, under-secretary of defence for policy, has been pushing the issue in meetings with Japanese and Australian defence officials in recent months, said five people familiar with the discussions.” 2/5
Jul 12 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
“AI is only the latest in a sequence of inventions that have made humanity dumber. We outsourced our maths skills to calculators, our memory to Google and navigation to Google Maps. Some time in the 1990s, the decades-long international rise in IQs began going into reverse.” 1/5 “University administrators, having realised it’s almost impossible to prevent cheating through AI, are surrendering to it, signing partnerships with AI companies. Perhaps the purpose of university will now become to learn to use AI.” 2/5
Jul 11 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Some interesting details about the importance of allied country bases to the US:

"Consider the most concrete benefit: the more than 30 military bases the United States has set up across Europe." 1/11
foreignaffairs.com/europe/beware-… "The legal status of these bases is established in bilateral agreements that dictate how, when, and whether the U.S. military can operate from both the bases themselves and the airspace and waterways that allow access to them." 2/11
Jul 11 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
“Nothing can make right what has been done to these people, but there is one path forward that could give some meaning to their misery: a Palestinian state. It is not as unimaginable as it might seem.” 1/7 “The central reality to understand is that a Palestinian state will only come into being if Israel embraces its founding. The idea that Israel can be “forced” into granting this concession to the Palestinians simply does not recognize the realities of power on the ground.” 2/7
Jul 10 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
.@IgnatiusPost: “For spies, there is literally no place to hide. Millions of cameras around the world record every movement and catalogue it forever. Every action leaves digital tracks that can be studied and linked with others.” 1/9 “attempts at concealment can backfire in the digital age. An intelligence source told me that the CIA gave burner phones to a network of spies in a Middle Eastern country more than a decade ago and instructed them to turn the phones on only when sending operational messages.”
Jul 8 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
“The nation has been the largest investor in the US for the past five years and is a crucial security ally. All that only to end up with a tariff rate 1 percentage point higher than first proposed three months ago.” 1/5 “To add insult to injury, Japan was lumped in with countries that are far less vital partners, including Kazakhstan and Myanmar.” 2/5
Jul 7 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
.@KoriSchake: "Trump and his advisers seem to believe that, despite the country’s allegedly parlous condition, unilateral action on Washington’s part can still force others to capitulate and submit to American terms." 1/18
foreignaffairs.com/united-states/… "The Trump team... takes for granted all the benefits that a cooperative approach has yielded, and cannot envision a future in which other countries opt out of the existing U.S.-led international order or construct a new one that would be antagonistic to American interests." 2/18
Jul 6 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
“fresh-faced graduates are quickly turning glum. From North America to Europe, university leavers are struggling to find suitable work.” 1/5

Seems like the chances for merit are only going to decrease for the youth – it’ll be all about who you (and your family) know. “The rise of artificial intelligence is a factor. In the US, entry-level tech jobs are coming under pressure as coding tasks are automated. The unemployment rate for computer engineering graduates is 7.5 per cent; the national rate is 4.1 per cent.” 2/5
Jul 6 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
“While Putin is busy with the invasion of Ukraine, China has given no explanation for Xi’s absence, throwing a question mark over the event... Heightened Middle East tensions mean the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran are not expected to come.” 1/5 “Some Brics nations, meanwhile, are pursuing other foreign policy paths. India is bolstering defence and trade ties with western democracies. It has recently agreed trade pacts with the UK and Australia, and is in talks with the EU and the US..” 2/5
Jul 6 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
“Sheikh Jaabari and four other leading Hebron sheikhs have signed a letter pledging peace and full recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Their plan is for Hebron to break out of the Palestinian Authority, establish an emirate of its own, and join the Abraham Accords.” 1/10 “The letter seeks a timetable for negotiations to join the Abraham Accords and “a fair and decent arrangement that would replace the Oslo Accords, which only brought damage, death, economic disaster and destruction.” 2/10
Jul 5 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
“The most dangerous consequence may not lie in further fighting with Iran — but in the emergence of a more fierce competition between Turkey and Israel.” 1/9 “That sentiment reflects a shift in Turkish thinking on Israel’s place in the region; once an ally, then a rival, it is now increasingly seen as an outright adversary.” 2/9
Jul 3 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
“What can be said for Starmer? At least one thing. He is preferable to his party. A great many of Labour’s MPs and activists are almost constitutionally incapable of making hard choices, about public money in particular.” 1/6 “Britain’s sickness benefits bill contributes to the nation’s high debt, low growth and tax burden. Of all the ways of reducing it — such as cutting payments or limiting eligibility — none is painless. Perhaps this particular reform was misjudged in its details.” 2/6
Jul 3 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
“It is often claimed that the United States has enabled India’s rise as a regional power altruistically. This idea draws heavily from a narrative centered around the 2008 Civil Nuclear Deal, which is still regarded in Washington as the defining milestone of progress.” 1/10 “But limiting the relationship to that moment is like celebrating a race where the hare sprinted early and has slept since. Yes, the US bent the global non-proliferation regime to secure India a waiver in the Nuclear Suppliers Group.” 2/10
Jul 3 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
“Mr. Mamdani’s ideas on economics and international relations mirror the failed policies of socialist-era India, from which his mother, filmmaker Mira Nair, emigrated in the 1970s.” 1/9 “Mr. Mamdani represents the left’s failure to learn the lessons of the Cold War. He also represents a crude brand of anti-Israel rhetoric more common in the so-called Global South.” 2/9
Jul 1 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
A lot of fear-mongering in this piece by Ashley Tellis but he also perceptively outlines New Delhi's reflexive - & ingrained - approach towards foreign policy:

"New Delhi does not want a world in which Washington is perpetually the sole superpower." 1/17 foreignaffairs.com/india/indias-g… "Instead, it seeks a multipolar international system, in which India would rank as a genuine great power. It aims to restrain not just China—the near-term challenge—but also any country that would aspire to singular, hegemonic dominance, including the United States." 2/17
Jul 1 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
“My own guess is that the strikes were highly effective. Uranium enrichment facilities rely on elaborate machinery, steady power supply & structurally sturdy environments. All that is likely.. compromised by the 14 bunker-buster bombs that hit their targets with precision.” 1/9 “But even assuming the damage was severe, most experts I have spoken to estimate that the strikes would have set back Iran’s nuclear program by one to two years. By contrast, the Iran nuclear deal finalized in 2015 placed Iran’s nuclear program in check for 10 to 15 years.” 2/9
Jun 29 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“unpredictability of the White House seems to have colored the successes that the Indian delegation achieved, which tried to focus more on institutional outreach. Despite Modi’s personal rapport with Trump, 🇮🇳 faces constraints on personal outreach to him that 🇵🇰 does not.” 1/4 “As a democratic country, beholden to a domestic audience that responds negatively to slights to its prestige, India will struggle to undertake personalized efforts to please individuals in Trump’s inner circle, especially as they could undermine the bipartisan support..” 2/4
Jun 28 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
“Look closely, and you’ll notice something peculiar: Many of the aircraft involved in the operation do not appear to have taken off from the large U.S. air bases in the Middle East — or, if they did, that fact has been carefully concealed.” 1/9 “Whether this reflects a choice made to spare gulf state partners’ ties with Iran or because these states denied the United States permission to use bases on their territory, the implication is the same.” 2/9