Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine: Strength as the currency of American support

History has a paradoxical affection for small nations that refuse to behave like small nations. 

In the shadow of vast empires and continental powers, three states—Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine—have exercised influence far beyond their demography. Each stands at the frontier of a larger civilisational contest. Each lives beside an adversary that is not merely stronger, but implacable. And each depends on the patronage of the United States.

The sentimental narrative claims that America supports them because they are democracies. The realist reading is less romantic. Great powers do not subsidize virtue; they subsidize utility. Washington’s support has always been contingent on a calculation: do these states enhance American leverage in their respective theatres? If yes, they are fortified. If not, they are liabilities.

An empire does not ask, “Who is right?” It asks, “Who is useful?”

This is not cynicism; it is structural logic. Empires preserve themselves. They align with actors who expand their strategic depth, technological edge, and economic access. Israel is a technological powerhouse embedded in a volatile region; Taiwan is the epicentre of advanced semiconductor manufacturing; Ukraine became a forward buffer against Russian resurgence. Their value is geopolitical capital.

But geopolitical capital must yield returns. The United States will back a partner so long as that partner demonstrates resilience, competence, and the will to prevail. Power respects power. It has little patience for dependency without performance.

In Ukraine’s case, the early months of resistance generated admiration in Western capitals. The narrative was one of heroic defiance. Yet wars are not won by narrative alone. As the conflict dragged on, domestic political fatigue in Washington intensified. Within the Republican Party, influential voices began to question the strategic dividend of continued aid. The moral vocabulary remained, but the arithmetic changed. When support becomes costlier than the advantage it yields, empires reassess.

Support born of interest survives only as long as interest survives. The European Union’s resolutions have not translated into direct military engagement against Russia. That restraint reveals the limits of solidarity when confronted with escalation risk. Moral outrage is abundant; strategic risk appetite is scarce.

Taiwan presents an even starker dilemma. It is indispensable to global technology supply chains, yet defending it against China would require a confrontation between the world’s two largest powers. The ambiguity in Washington’s posture reflects a profound strategic anxiety: can deterrence be sustained without triggering the very war it seeks to prevent? If Beijing were to escalate decisively, the question would not be about democratic values but about the balance of costs in a Sino-American conflict.

Israel, by contrast, has projected unambiguous resolve. Its military campaigns against Hamas have signalled both capacity and political will. In a region defined by volatility, Israel presents itself not as a ward of American power but as a force multiplier. That distinction matters. An ally who demonstrates battlefield dominance enhances the patron’s prestige; an ally who falters imposes reputational and financial burdens.

Empires do not abandon strength; they abandon weakness.

The lesson for small but strategically exposed states is unsentimental. Survival under the American umbrella is not guaranteed by shared ideology. It is guaranteed by sustained strategic relevance and visible competence. To remain indispensable is to remain supported. In geopolitics, virtue may inspire speeches. Victory secures alliances.

Survival with dignity: India’s place in a mercurial American strategy

India does not occupy a permanent seat in America’s grand strategy; it occupies a fluctuating utility. That is the uncomfortable truth beneath decades of rhetorical warmth between New Delhi and Washington. 

From Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi, from Rajiv Gandhi to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and now under Narendra Modi, Indian leaders have proclaimed closeness to Washington. Yet proximity is not centrality. In the architecture of American power, sentiment is incidental; strategic value is decisive.

The United States does not construct its grand strategy around affinities but around interests. Its National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy—whether under Donald Trump or his predecessors—signal reprioritization rather than romantic alignment. 

The Indo-Pacific rises or recedes in importance depending on calculations about trade routes, supply chains, and the balance against China. India matters because of geography, demography, and its capacity to complicate Beijing’s ambitions. It does not matter because it is a democracy that speaks English and holds elections.

India’s democratic identity, often celebrated in joint statements, is strategically secondary. Democracies are unpredictable; they argue with themselves. India is a noisy republic with a free press, coalition pressures, and electoral volatility. For a superpower accustomed to transactional clarity, it is far easier to negotiate with centralized autocracies where leverage can be concentrated at the top. 

Democracy is morally admired in Washington, but autocracy is often administratively convenient. That paradox has shaped American conduct across regions. American power operates most smoothly where institutional friction is minimal. India, by contrast, insists on friction. It negotiates, hedges, delays, and recalibrates. This is sovereignty in action—but it also limits India’s elevation within any American grand design.

Yet India cannot afford strategic estrangement from the world’s preeminent military and financial power. Moral indignation is not a substitute for geopolitical leverage. Surrounded by nuclear rivals, burdened by internal development gaps, and dependent on global capital flows, India must ensure it is not positioned as an adversary in Washington’s worldview. 

American presidents can afford mercurial rhetoric; they command alliances, reserve currencies, and expeditionary forces. India commands resilience, not dominance.

If a U.S. administration adopts abrasive trade policies or unpredictable diplomatic tones, New Delhi’s response must be calibrated endurance. States do not have the luxury of emotional reactions. They have interests. India’s strategic task is survival with dignity, not posturing with defiance. 

In a hierarchy of powers, prudence is the first virtue of the rising state.

Equally important is intellectual honesty. Many of India’s constraints are domestic: regulatory inertia, infrastructure deficits, uneven education outcomes, episodic strategic incoherence. Externalizing blame onto Washington obscures internal reform. A nation that aspires to shape the Indo-Pacific must first discipline its own political economy.

The end of elite journalism: Why The Washington Post’s reckoning was inevitable

The early-February 2026 layoffs at The Washington Post, reportedly affecting more than 300 journalists, have been read by many as a tragedy for a venerable institution. I read them differently: as a belated recognition that an old compact between media power and political power has collapsed. 

Institutions survive not by sentiment but by relevance, and relevance is never guaranteed by pedigree alone.

Ownership matters. When Jeff Bezos acquired the Post in 2013, from the Graham family, the transaction was widely romanticised as a benevolent rescue of journalism by a visionary technologist. That narrative obscured a harder truth: elite media has rarely been sustained by profit alone. It has been sustained by access to policymakers, opinion-shapers, donors, regulators, and the cultural prestige that circulates within ruling coalitions. 

For a time, the Post was a central node in a global ecosystem of progressive power. Its newsroom was not merely reporting on the world; it was embedded in the ideological grammar of a world that believed itself permanent. That world is gone.

The 2010s were an era in which liberal-progressive consensus appeared hegemonic across Washington, Brussels, London, and even New Delhi. In that context, elite newsrooms could plausibly claim to ‘speak for democracy’ while addressing a narrow audience of the already convinced. The Post’s journalism often conflated moral certainty with explanatory depth, advocacy with analysis, and globalism with inevitability. What was lost was the discipline of persuading readers outside the ideological circle.

The political realignment of the 2020s shattered this arrangement. In the United States, the return of Donald Trump and the consolidation of an ultraconservative MAGA movement did not merely change electoral outcomes; they delegitimised an entire epistemic class that had treated dissent as pathology. Across Europe, conservative and nationalist movements have gained power by rejecting the language and priorities of progressive transnationalism. In India, Narendra Modi has normalised an assertive, unapologetic nationalism that no longer seeks validation from Western liberal opinion.

In this new environment, the Post’s ideological utility for its owner diminished sharply. A media organisation that once functioned as a passport to elite consensus now offers diminishing strategic value. Maintaining a large, highly paid newsroom that produces content misaligned with prevailing political realities is not patronage; it is indulgence. Capital eventually asks a brutal question: what purpose is being served?

This is not an argument against journalism as a craft. It is an argument against journalism as a self-regarding class. A press that speaks only to power will eventually be judged by power. The layoffs puncture the myth that elite newsrooms are indispensable regardless of performance. They expose a deeper failure: the inability of a once-great institution to re-imagine its audience beyond a shrinking progressive enclave.

Bezos’s decision, stripped of sentiment, is therefore rational. He did not buy the Post to underwrite a permanent opposition salon; he bought it at a moment when elite alignment promised influence. Influence has migrated. The cost structures remained. The correction was inevitable.

The geopolitics of Artificial Intelligence: How India, the US and China compete

Artificial intelligence has moved decisively from being a technology domain to becoming an instrument of statecraft. 

For India, the United States, and China, AI is no longer only about productivity gains or commercial advantage; it is about power, resilience, and long-term geopolitical positioning. The differing strategies adopted by these three countries reveal not just contrasting policy choices, but deeper philosophies about how states relate to markets, citizens, and the international order.

The United States approaches AI primarily as an extension of its innovation ecosystem and industrial strength. Its dominance rests on an unparalleled concentration of frontier research, venture capital, cloud infrastructure, and semiconductor capability. The American state plays an enabling role rather than a commanding one, focusing on sustaining the conditions under which private innovation can scale rapidly. 

Recent policy shifts suggest an increasing willingness to prioritise speed and global adoption over precaution. The emphasis is on ensuring that US-designed chips, models, platforms, and standards become the default global stack. 

In geopolitical terms, this is a strategy of technological entrenchment: if the world runs on American AI, American influence follows. Export controls and supply-chain interventions are deployed selectively, less as tools of global governance and more as instruments to deny adversaries strategic advantage.

China’s approach is structurally different. AI development there is embedded within a broader vision of state-led modernisation and national security. Long-term planning, coordinated investment, and regulatory control are tightly integrated. The Chinese state treats AI as a dual-use technology from the outset, one that must simultaneously drive economic growth and reinforce political stability. 

Governance frameworks are explicit, statute-driven, and enforcement-oriented, ensuring that algorithmic systems remain aligned with state priorities. Internationally, China seeks to export not just AI products but entire digital ecosystems—cloud infrastructure, surveillance technologies, data standards, and financing mechanisms—particularly to developing countries. 

This model positions China as a provider of turnkey digital sovereignty, albeit one that deepens dependence on Chinese technology and norms. AI, for Beijing, is both a domestic control mechanism and a vehicle for reshaping global technological governance.

India occupies a more complex and intermediate position. Unlike the United States, it does not possess first-mover dominance in frontier AI research or hardware. Unlike China, it does not deploy AI primarily through a command-and-control framework. Instead, India’s strategy reflects its experience with digital public infrastructure: build shared foundations, enable wide participation, and regulate progressively. 

The emphasis is on access rather than exclusivity—shared compute, open datasets, interoperable platforms, and language inclusion. This approach is shaped by India’s scale and diversity, where the political legitimacy of technology depends on its social reach. AI is framed less as an instrument of surveillance or dominance, and more as a multiplier for governance capacity, service delivery, and economic inclusion.

Geopolitically, these divergent strategies have significant implications. The United States is betting that innovation leadership will translate into normative power, allowing it to shape global standards informally through market dominance. China is pursuing a more explicit contest over governance models, offering an alternative digital order that prioritises state authority and security. 

India’s pathway suggests a third possibility: that AI leadership in the coming decades may not be defined solely by who builds the largest models, but by who demonstrates scalable, trustworthy use at population level. This has particular resonance for the Global South, where the challenge is less about frontier research and more about applying AI to development, administration, and inclusion.

Yet India’s position is not without constraints. Limited high-end compute capacity, uneven data availability, and shortages of advanced research talent remain binding challenges. Without sustained investment and institutional reform, India risks becoming a sophisticated user rather than a shaper of global AI trajectories. At the same time, its relatively open, democratic approach to AI governance offers strategic credibility. In an era of growing distrust around technology, legitimacy itself becomes a geopolitical asset.

What emerges from this comparison is that AI is reinforcing a multipolar technological order. The United States seeks supremacy through innovation velocity, China through scale and state coordination, and India through systemic inclusion and governance design. 

None of these strategies is fully sufficient on its own. The geopolitical contest around AI will therefore not be decided by capability alone, but by which model proves resilient, exportable, and politically sustainable. In that sense, AI is not merely transforming geopolitics; it is revealing how different states understand power itself.