Walking the Strategic Tightrope

The Indian trade team’s visit to Washington, scheduled for February 23-25, has been postponed. The Commerce Ministry on February 22 said that the meeting will be rescheduled “at a mutually convenient date”. Though China, India, and Brazil are among the major winners after the US court blocks Trump Tariffs, India has already succumbed to the US pressure and decided to align with the US-led initiatives like ‘Pax Silica’ and ‘Trump’s Board of Peace’ by ditching BRICS’ partner nations - Russia, Iran and China. India has already reduced imports of cheap Russian oil and agreed to buy more expensive Venezuelan heavy crude. The fate of much hyped Indo-Russian defence deal is also at stake as India is showing more inclination towards long-term defence deals with Israel. India has reportedly seized three US-sanctioned oil tankers linked to Iran this month.

On February 20, at the AI Impact Summit held in Delhi, India, formally joined the US-initiated Pax Silica coalition - a strategic alliance of ten nations committed to building strong supply chains for critical minerals as well as robust artificial intelligence. In addition to the USA and India, the other members are: Australia, Israel, Japan, Qatar, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. More nations are expected to join. The Pax Silica coalition is explicitly designed to reduce dependence on China, which controls the global rare earth elements (REE) essential for the production of semiconductors and electric vehicles. It emerged in late 2025 as a pillar of President Donald Trump’s new national security strategy, designed to restructure global supply chains in critical minerals, semiconductors, and advanced technologies around a tightly knit circle of trusted allies.

India’s induction in this US-led alliance will definitely strengthen an alternative supply chain to the existing one developed by China. But the implications for India due to this new alliance could be grave, including potential economic retaliation from its largest neighbour, China. It can lead to trade friction with India’s largest trade partner, slower market access, or pressure on upstream inputs from China, such as minerals and active pharmaceutical ingredients. Moreover, a gradual inclination towards developed nations will isolate India among the BRICS members of emerging economies and developing nations of the global south.

On November 17, 2025, the UN Security Council approved the US’s ceasefire plan for Gaza, backing the creation and deployment of an international stabilisation force. While Hamas has rejected the resolution, saying it “imposes an international guardianship mechanism on the Gaza Strip”, the Palestinian Authority said it stood fully ready to cooperate with the Trump administration and ensure the implementation of the document. Russia and China have abstained from the vote, expressing concern over Palestinian participation and the lack of a clear role for the UN in the future of Gaza. Human rights group Al-Haq has also warned that the resolution undermines Palestinians’ right to self-determination and that it authorises the US to establish itself as an occupying power. Al-Haq also warned that the creation of the Board of Peace and the temporary international stabilisation force (ISF) “indicates the wholesale abandonment of international law and the utter undermining of the UN Charter system”. Daniel Forti, a senior UN analyst, said the Security Council has authorised organisations that are not the UN, including coalitions such as NATO, to launch military intervention with its legal blessings. “And that was the basic concept of what the US put forward for the ISF,” he told Al Jazeera. The US resolution for Gaza that was adopted by the UN Security Council was based on Trump’s 20-point peace plan. The resolution says the Board of Peace will coordinate reconstruction efforts in Gaza and will also establish the temporary International Stabilisation Force (ISF) for the territory. At least 72,063 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, with 603 killed since the October 11, 2025, “ceasefire” went into effect. Nearly the entire population of 2.1 million has been displaced, with more than 80 per cent of buildings destroyed.

Within a period of three months, since the UN resolution on the Gaza cease-fire on November 17, US President Donald Trump inaugurated his “Board of Peace” on February 19, 2026. Officials from nearly 50 countries participated in the first meeting at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. Of these, 27 countries, including Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE, and Vietnam, are part of the board while the rest, including India and the European Union, participated as observers. The Board of Peace had been rolled out by Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, where he insisted that “everyone wants to be a part” of the body, which could eventually rival the United Nations. Though India stayed away from its launch in Davos, and on February 12, the Ministry of External Affairs said the proposal to join the BoP was under consideration; India participated in the first meeting of the Board of Peace (BoP) on February 19 and was represented by its Charge d’Affaires at the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C., Namgya C Khampa. As of the inaugural meeting, the board has no representation from Palestinians. The eight-member executive board of BoP, chaired by Donald Trump, comprises real estate developers, businessmen, and politicians. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank, is also an executive member of BoP. It limits membership to the invited states and imposes a USD 1 billion fee for a permanent seat. In the inaugural meeting, Trump said that member states “have committed thousands of personnel to the International Stabilisation Force and Local Police to maintain Security and Peace for Gazans.”Ahead of the meeting, some key U.S. allies had raised concern that Trump might hope to challenge the United Nations with his broader ambition of using the board to help resolve global conflicts.

Trump, who had previously envisioned turning Gaza into a “Middle East Riviera”, appointed his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as one of the executive members of the board and named his son-in-law as a special peace envoy. The plan laid out by Kushner for the reconstruction of the 25-mile-long and about 4 -7 miles wide Gaza Strip includes: loft-style apartments with floor-to-ceiling windows, an offshore oil and gas rig, advanced industrial zones and park-lined neighbourhoods. Kushner, a billionaire American Jew by birth, has been working ad hoc for the administration for much of the last year, focusing largely on Gaza and, more recently, Russia-Ukraine and Iran.

Though it is claimed, by a few analysts, that India’s decision to attend the Board of Peace meeting as an observer was an attempt to maintain a circumspect level of engagement with a controversial body while not shutting the door on a country with whom it has just agreed a trade pact framework, Indian PM’s address at the Knesset on February 25, condemning the “barbaric terrorist attack” by Hamas on October 7, 2023 without mentioning Zionist’s genocide in Gaza, indicates to a deeper emotional connect between India, governed by a Hindu nationalist party, and the Zionist state of Israel. “India stands with Israel firmly with full conviction,” the Indian Prime Minister’s assurance to the Israeli Parliament, implies a major strategic shift in India’s Middle East policy.

Views expressed are personal. The writer is a professor of Business Administration who primarily writes on political economy, global trade, and sustainable development