The Strategic Issues & International Relations Forum is a venue to discuss issues pertaining to India's security environment, her strategic outlook on global affairs and as well as the effect of international relations in the Indian Subcontinent. We request members to kindly stay within the mandate of this forum and keep their exchanges of views, on a civilised level, however vehemently any disagreement may be felt. All feedback regarding forum usage may be sent to the moderators using the Feedback Form or by clicking the Report Post Icon in any objectionable post for proper action. Please note that the views expressed by the Members and Moderators on these discussion boards are that of the individuals only and do not reflect the official policy or view of the Bharat-Rakshak.com Website. Copyright Violation is strictly prohibited and may result in revocation of your posting rights - please read the FAQ for full details. Users must also abide by the Forum Guidelines at all times.
Didn't know where to put this - moderator, please shift as necessary.
I think geopolitics/geoeconomics might fit, because China is aattempting to set a (legal) standard here. https://www.manilatimes.net/2026/02/15/ ... le/2278507
China court: Drivers still responsible despite autonomous vehicle
China’s top court has issued a ruling confirming humans in cars with assisted driving technology are responsible for their vehicle, setting a nationwide benchmark as Beijing positions itself as a standards-setter in the auto market.
In its ruling, the court referred to a case in which a man relied on the technology while drunk and asleep at the wheel.
...
“The on-board assisted driving system cannot replace the driver as the primary driving subject,” the Supreme People’s Court said in the Friday ruling.
The driver “is still the one who actually performs the driving tasks and bears the responsibility to ensure driving safety,” it added.
While most such systems currently used on the road specify that the driver is ultimately in control of the car, the court’s ruling now makes that a legal standard nationwide.
Maybe this should be India-France thread
“We believe in technology transfer...” Prez Macron’s big statement over India-France defence deal
Prez Macron’s big statement over India-France defence deal
Feb 17, 2026 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8f_d3q6lgc
// i didn't know Macron is fluent in English, he delivered it in Angrez. Pretty good speech.
bala wrote: ↑18 Feb 2026 03:41
Maybe this should be India-France thread
“We believe in technology transfer...” Prez Macron’s big statement over India-France defence deal
Prez Macron’s big statement over India-France defence deal
Feb 17, 2026 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8f_d3q6lgc
// i didn't know Macron is fluent in English, he delivered it in Angrez. Pretty good speech.
France’s Naval Group has criticized Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems for hurting European submarine vendors by transferring technology to countries that later managed to build their own boats for export.
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said
By Andrew Silver and Ben Blanchard / Reuters, SHANGHAI and TAIPEI
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation.
Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending.
LONDON, April 9 (Reuters) - Britain deployed military vessels to prevent any attacks on cables and pipelines by Russian submarines that spent more than a month in and around British waters earlier this year, Defence Minister John Healey said on Thursday.
Britain accused Russia of using the distraction of events in the Middle East to try to conduct the covert operation in the High North maritime region, home to key shipping routes and critical infrastructure such as undersea cables.
Healey said British forces and allies including Norway tracked and deterred malign activity by the Russian vessels, adding that the submarines had now left the area and there were no signs of damage to underwater infrastructure.
Revealing the operation publicly at a press conference, Healey said the intent was to show Russian President Vladimir Putin that the activity had been detected.
"To President Putin, I say 'We see you. We see your activity over our cables and our pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences'," he said.
"Our armed forces left them in no doubt that they were being monitored, that their movements were not covert, as President Putin planned, and that their attempted secret operation had been exposed."
Russia's embassy in London said Healey's statement was "impossible to either believe or verify."
The Lowy Institute is an independent, nonpartisan international policy think tank located in Sydney, Australia. It is Australia’s leading think tank, providing high-quality research and distinctive perspectives on the international trends shaping Australia and the world.
In this episode, host Lydia Khalil speaks with former US Ambassador and Director-General of ASIO Dennis Richardson and Interpreter Managing Editor Daniel Flitton, about the Five Eyes — the powerful and strategically important intelligence sharing alliance. Its member countries, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, have sustained and protected one of the world's most unified multilateral arrangements for more than 75 years. But even the Five Eyes may not avoid the wrecking ball that is the second Trump administration.
Lydia Khalil
Areas of expertise: Terrorism and violent extremism; digital technology; disinformation; authoritarianism; national security; emergency management and countering violent extremism; crisis and natural disasters; radicalisation; counter-terrorism; policy; Middle East; US national security
Daniel Flitton
Areas of expertise: Australian foreign policy and politics; Australia’s intelligence services; international relations in Asia
My blog post on an energy crisis that is already in our midst. My sense is the govt is not taking this seriously enough - at least going by the media. Yesterday, I did a short post with some numbers on this and I had a feeling that things were under control, but a deeper dive into the data suggested they are not.
3 weeks ago I argued the US goal in Iran is to seize the global oil spigot. Venezuela in January -> Iran in February.
Neutralize every supply channel outside the dollar system within 90 days. Achieve a compliant successor government and complete energy dominance.
The oil thesis was the obvious layer. However, when you zoom out & view the last four years as a single sequence rather than isolated geopolitical events, the architecture of the grander US plan becomes visible.
1st was Europe, which laid the groundwork.
The Ukraine conflict provided the justification for sanctions that collapsed Russian pipeline gas from 150 billion cubic meters to 40.
Then Nordstream was destroyed, which rewired the entire European energy system permanently. The US went from supplying 28% of Europe's LNG in 2021 to 58% by 2025, exporting a record 111 million MTs, the 1st country in history to break 100 MT.
Europe was transformed from a customer with options into a captive market now purchasing its survival in USD.
2nd was Syria.
The fall of Assad severed the critical node connecting China's Belt & Road Initiative to the Mediterranean.
The trilateral railway linking Iran, Iraq & Syria, designed to bypass Western maritime chokepoints, was completely destroyed.
This isolated Iran geographically & cleared the path for what came next.
3rd was Venezuela.
In January the US effectively took control of the world's largest heavy crude reserves. The US Gulf Coast has the most advanced refining complex on earth, specifically built for heavy sour crude. Phillips 66, Valero & the rest are now positioned to process hundreds of thousands of barrels of Venezuelan crude daily.
The US captured a massive strategic reserve & solidified its position as the dominant exporter of refined petroleum products, an industry worth $110 billion in 2025 alone.
Venezuela & Iran were the two major oil supply channels that existed outside the dollar system. Both produce heavy crude sold primarily to China & evaded US financial supervision. Both now being neutralized within 90 days, which leads us to..
4th is Iran & the Middle East energy shock.
Israel struck Iran's South Pars gas field, the world's largest natural gas reservoir. Iran retaliated against Qatar's Ras Laffan, the single largest LNG facility on earth, responsible for a fifth of global supply. QatarEnergy's own assessment is that 17% of export capacity is gone and recovery will take up to 5 years. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. European gas prices spiked 70%. Asian spot prices doubled.
The only remaining scaled supplier? The United States.
If Iran falls & a successor government is installed that the US controls or influences (the Delcy model described weeks ago) then roughly 40 to 45 million barrels per day of global production out of 103 million is effectively under US control. OPEC becomes irrelevant because the US coalition is now the marginal producer. Now add the gas dimension & it goes beyond oil.
This war is solidifying the petrodollar system as it evolves into a hybrid petro/LNG-dollar. The old system was built on Saudi crude priced in USD. The new system is built on American crude plus American gas from the Gulf Coast, with no alternative supplier of comparable scale. The dependency is deeper because LNG infrastructure requires long term contracts & regasification terminals that lock buyers into supply relationships for decades. Europe & the Pacific allies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.) cannot pivot away as there is nowhere left to pivot to. They're now locked into the US energy system.
The market confirms this. DXY went from 96 to 101. Gold down ~20% from its January all time high. Bitcoin down 20% on the year. Brent above $100. European & Asian institutions are liquidating precious metals and crypto to buy dollars because they need dollars to buy the only remaining scaled energy supply. The world is selling its gold to buy American energy in American currency. The dollar is now being weaponized through energy dependency.
The structural repricing is happening regardless of how the conflict resolves.
But the US grand strategy goes deeper..
Artificial intelligence is a physical industry. It runs on power and chips. Data centers require massive uninterrupted baseload electricity, primarily provided by natural gas. Semiconductor fabrication requires helium & rare earths.
By choking the Strait of Hormuz & crippling Middle Eastern LNG & helium production, the US is systematically degrading China's ability to power its data centers & fabricate semiconductors at scale.
The US is energy self sufficient, especially with newly captured Venezuelan reserves & expanding Gulf Coast capacity running on domestic gas.
On the other hand, China is import dependent & every joule it imports effectively now transits chokepoints the US Navy controls..
Iran was the Belt & Road's overland energy bypass, the corridor that allowed China to mitigate the Malacca Trap. With Iran neutralized that corridor is severed. China faces a world where its compute infrastructure competes for scraps on a depleted global LNG market, while American data centers run at full capacity on domestic energy.
Russia is next in the sequence. A post-war Iran reopening under US influence competes directly with Russia for the same refineries in China & India at lower cost. Iran's production costs are lower. Russia loses its last structural advantage in heavy crude & its economic lifeline. Additionally, under the Iran war cover, Ukraine has been opportunistically destroying Russian energy infrastructure & all signs point towards Russia being at the end of the line. The message from Washington becomes very simple: we dismantled two regimes in three months, your economy is about to get crushed, sign the Ukraine deal.
Then Trump sits down with Xi holding every card. Complete energy dominance. The hybrid petro/LNG-dollar fortified, Iran cleared, Russia cornered, & China facing the Malacca Trap fully closed with no remaining energy bypass.
Israel & the GCC are absorbing the kinetic cost of a conflict whose primary beneficiary, counter to the mainstream narrative, is actually America (First). Qatar offline for 5 years reprices the entire global gas market in favor of US exporters for the remainder of the decade. The Gulf states face years of rebuilding. Europe faces its 2nd energy crisis in four years.
Sure, the average American might face temporary moderate inflation & higher gas prices. But if you are the architect of the US empire & you view the rise of China & Chinese ASI as an existential winner takes all scenario, the collateral damage is acceptable cost.
Whoever controls the energy corridors controls the monetary system. Whoever controls the monetary system & the energy supply simultaneously controls the compute infrastructure that determines which civilization builds ASI first.
Everyone is saying 2030.
Your government.
The UN.
The World Bank.
The WEF.
Your central bank.
All of them.
Same year.
Same urgency.
Have you ever wondered why?
You were told it is about climate goals.
Sustainable development.
Clean energy targets.
A better world by 2030.
That is the part they rehearsed.
Now let me show you what is underneath.
The Arctic is melting.
Precisely on schedule.
By 2030, a shipping route opens that changes everything.
A vessel from China to Europe saves 15 days per voyage.
15 days × Thousands of voyages.
Hundreds of billions repriced.
Overnight.
The Suez Canal becomes a secondary option.
The Strait of Malacca loses its leverage.
The Strait of Hormuz weakens its grip.
Every chokepoint the west championed.
Quietly made obsolete.
In October 2025.
Russia and China signed the deal.
Jointly develop this new Arctic highway.
Jointly commercialize it.
China officially declared its target.
Polar great power by 2030.
Moscow builds the route.
Beijing finances it.
And Washington?
Washington was still debating whether to buy Greenland.
But here is what nobody is covering.
A third country made its move.
Quietly.
Surgically.
December 2025.
India signed RELOS with Russia.
Naval access to 40 Russian Arctic and Pacific bases.
Two corridors activated simultaneously.
1) The Chennai - Vladivostok.
A direct eastern maritime lane.
India to Russia's Pacific coast.
Four Arctic-class vessels under joint construction.
5 million tonnes of cargo committed.
To the Northern Sea Route.
Indian seafarers now training for polar navigation.
2) The INSTC.
7,200 km of road, rail and ship.
Mumbai to Moscow.
Through Iran.
Through the Caspian.
Into Europe.
Which explains everything you are watching on your news.
Ukraine.
Gaza.
Iran.
Red Sea.
Hormuz.
Energy.
Fertilizer.
These are not separate crises.
They are pressure points.
Carefully activated.
To protect a dying Western order.
Ukraine bleeds Russia.
Gaza consumes the Middle East.
Iran gets sanctioned into irrelevance.
The Red Sea burns so the old shipping lanes.
Every fire you see has a landlord.
Every war has a balance sheet.
The old world order does not go quietly.
It goes expensively.
And someone else always pays.
But here is what the noise is designed to hide.
The INSTC bypasses every one of those pressure points.
The Northern Sea Route bypasses every one of those chokepoints.
The Chennai-Vladivostok corridor opens a lane the West cannot sanction.
The architecture of the new world order is already built.
And sitting at the intersection of every single new corridor.
Energy.
Maritime.
Arctic.
Eurasia.
Is one country.
Not loud.
Not declaring victory.
Just there.
At every table.
On every route.
In every corridor the new world runs through.
BHARAT.
Now turn off the news channel.
Stop watching the fire.
Watch who is building while the fire burns.
The reader who understands this today.
Is not reading headlines tomorrow.
India and the UAE have signed a series of landmark agreements covering strategic petroleum reserves, long-term LPG supply, and defence cooperation. The pacts were inked following high-level talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi held amid the ongoing West Asia conflict. The UAE has also pledged investments worth 5 billion US dollars in India. Prime Minister Modi reached UAE yesterday on first leg of his five-nation tour.
One of the pacts include strategic collaboration agreement signed between Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company to strengthen India’s energy security, including cooperation in petroleum reserves and possible collaboration on liquid natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) storage facilities. The Ministry of External Affairs in a statement said, the agreement will enhance the UAE’s participation in India’s strategic petroleum reserves to 30 million barrels and set up strategic gas reserves in India. The two sides also signed a separate strategic collaboration pact on LPG, which is supposed to ensure long-term supply of the cooking fuel widely used in India.
imo the wider open geo trade and liberalisation of the world trade order is coming to a close. The main thing to break this is what i would term technically as "retard tax". There are only 2 ways to avoid this hefty penalty of retard tax that is imposed without rhyme or reason and is subject to change with any passing whim of the retard-in-chief, it should not matter that the incumbent will change, the institutions of the world order are forever altered and everyone should be taking steps to ensure that the strategic plans of the long-term are not subject to short-term schizophrenia.
The 2 ways are:
1) to publicly declare your vassalage and willingly put the golden fetters of servitude and push for taxation With representation as opposed to without currently
2) to form blocs with 101% super duper reliables to contain every means of production to sustain the population in the blocs in matters of production, agri products, water, chips - the current basic global necessities. This will also mean that the shipping routes between these blocs will need to be policed as the current self-appointed guardsman is more apt to resort to piracy and outright robbery.
This would lead to smaller nations getting shafted and to resorting to either of the above 2 moves
What began as geopolitical alignment has evolved into structural dependence, where global energy flows, shipping insurance, payment systems, and even access to critical commodities are increasingly vulnerable to political decisions made in Washington.
With an energy crisis already unfolding, the aftershocks are now sweeping across multiple sectors, most critically fertilisers, especially nitrogen-based fertilisers whose production depends heavily on natural gas.
The US-Israel-Iran war is proving to be a double-edged sword for the fertiliser sector.
The Strait of Hormuz is not merely an oil chokepoint, it is also one of the world's most critical fertiliser arteries. Around 16 million tonnes of fertilisers moved by sea from the Gulf region in 2024. Russia and Saudi are the largest supplier of Urea to the world, while the Middle East accounts for nearly 45% of global sulphur trade, a vital raw material for fertilisers, industrial chemicals and metal processing.
Now the disruption is spreading.
Since Iranian leverage against shipping intensified, vessels carrying ammonia, nitrogen and sulphur through Hormuz have slowed to a trickle. Qatar's QAFCO, the world's largest single-site urea export facility supplying roughly 14% of global urea exports, has remained offline after Qatar shut gas facilities following Iranian strikes. Doha has no viable alternative export route outside Hormuz.
This is where the crisis becomes far more dangerous than oil prices alone.
Roughly half of global food production depends on synthetic nitrogen fertilisers. Without them, crop yields collapse sharply. The impact would not remain confined to farms, it would cascade directly into the prices of wheat, rice, vegetables, livestock feed and eventually nearly every staple consumed by ordinary households.
The poorest nations would be hit first and hardest.
Unlike oil shocks, fertiliser shocks operate with delayed violence. The damage emerges during planting and harvest cycles months later, making the crisis slower, quieter and potentially more destabilising politically.
And looming behind this entire crisis is another potential disaster waiting on the horizon, a possible "Super El Nino".
Climate agencies and forecasting models are increasingly warning that the Pacific Ocean is rapidly warming toward what could become one of the strongest El Nino events in modern history. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the World Meteorological Organization now estimate a very high probability of El Nino conditions emerging and persisting through late 2026 into 2027. Some forecasts are even drawing comparisons to the catastrophic 1877-78 Super El Nino, one of the deadliest climate events ever recorded, which reportedly killed 50 million people through famine, or 3% of the world's population at the time. Although modern technology has transformed the social, political and economic landscape since the devastating 1877-78 El Nino, the coming event could still pose a profound threat to global food, water and economic security, since our atmosphere and oceans are substantially warmer than they were in the 1870s, which means the associated extremes could be more extreme.
One crisis attacks agricultural inputs such as ammonia, urea and sulphur. The other attacks the environmental conditions necessary for crops to grow in the first place.
Tied together with a mounting fuel and fertiliser crisis, the world is entering very dangerous waters.
