On August 15, 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood atop the Red Fort and declared the launch of Mission Sudarshan Chakra, a bold pledge to deploy an indigenous, next-generation defense shield to protect India’s vital infrastructure and strategic nodes. The metaphor was deliberate. Just as Lord Krishna’s Sudarshan Chakra symbolized precision, agility and multidirectional power, India’s statecraft in today’s fractured world order must embody those very qualities: defensive yet assertive, rooted yet adaptive, protective yet forward-looking.

Yet, even as India articulates its own grand strategy, the global chessboard is shaped not only by Delhi’s choices but also by the personalities Washington dispatches to Delhi. The nomination of Sergio Gor, a Soviet-born, Trump-loyalist political operative as U.S. Ambassador to India and Special Envoy for South and Central Asia encapsulates the tension between India’s civilizationally anchored long game and America’s volatile, personality-driven diplomacy.

Misreading the Future: India’s Strategic Compass

The certainties of the Cold War have faded and the unipolar moment of U.S. dominance has passed. What the world inhabits currently is a messy multipolar transition, shaped by U.S.–China rivalry, Russia’s persistence despite Ukraine and the growing agency of middle powers.

India’s rise cannot be built on illusions: China is not destined for unchallenged supremacy, nor is America in irreversible decline. Washington retains unmatched advantages in technology, finance, alliances and power projection, while Beijing faces demographic, economic and geopolitical headwinds. For India, the challenge is to avoid camp-following or premature alignment and instead, to act as a middle power wielding its Sudarshan Chakra on its own terms.

The U.S.–Russia–China Triangle and India’s Middle Path

India cannot extricate itself from the Washington–Moscow–Beijing triangle. Our historic defense ties with Russia, growing engagement with the U.S., and calibrated competition with China coexist simultaneously. The art of Indian diplomacy lies in balancing these contradictions without being subsumed by any.

This is not “non-alignment” but strategic autonomy: engaging with all, without becoming proxy to any. With Washington, India seeks technology and trade partnerships; with Moscow, a check against over-dependence on Beijing; with China, managed competition alongside selective cooperation on trade and climate.

In this flux, India’s leverage comes from holding the middle not as neutral ground, but as commanding ground.

Enter Sergio Gor: Trump’s Loyalist in Delhi

Into this geopolitical theater steps Sergio Gor, born Sergey Gorokhovsky in Tashkent in 1986, now Trump’s nominee as Ambassador to India and Special Envoy for South and Central Asia. Gor’s biography is unusual: a Soviet-born immigrant, raised partly in Malta, with a father who was an aviation engineer tied to Soviet aircraft design and a mother of Israeli origin. This family pedigree brings technical awareness and multicultural exposure, though it may also evoke bureaucratic caution in Delhi.

Gor’s career is defined less by diplomacy than by political loyalty. From conservative activism at George Washington University to serving as Senator Rand Paul’s deputy chief of staff, to directing Trump’s White House Personnel Office in 2024, he rose by mastering networks, messaging and loyalty to power. His appointment signals that India’s next interlocutor in Washington is not a career diplomat but a trusted emissary of Trump himself.

The Sudarshan Chakra Strategy vs. Trump’s Transactionalism

India’s “Sudarshan Chakra” spins across four axes—economic defense; technological sovereignty; strategic diplomacy and civilization confidence. In economic defense, India is looking at protecting supply chains, energy access and growth. It is investing in semiconductors, AI, space and cyber that will help in achieving technological sovereignty. New Delhi’s strategic diplomacy can be witnessed by its position in multilateral platforms such as in BRICS, QUAD, SCO and G20 that helps in shaping coalition. India’s civilizational confidence helps in projecting pluralism and strategic thought to the Global South.

The question is whether Gor’s arrival in Delhi sharpens or blunts this chakra. His proximity to Trump could open direct channels that bypass State Department inertia as a potential advantage for India in securing tariff relief, defense technology transfers, or clarity on energy policy. Yet his loyalty may also make him the enforcer of Trump’s most coercive instincts: using tariffs, oil leverage and trade penalties to bend India’s choices, including ties with Russia or defense procurement.

Scenarios for the India–U.S. Axis

Two scenarios can be imagined with Gor’s arrival to India. From an optimistic scenario, India can look at the diplomat’s assignment as a bridge rather than a gatekeeper, leveraging his access to stabilize tariffs, expand defense cooperation and align Indo-Pacific strategies. India, in turn, deepens trust-based defense and technology ties with Washington. However, from a pessimistic scenario, Gor amplifies Trump’s transactionalism, treating India as bargaining partner rather than strategic ally. The relationship devolves into episodic skirmishes over trade and oil, pushing Delhi to hedge harder with BRICS+, SCO, Europe and the Gulf.

Conclusion: Strategy vs. Personality

India’s civilizational strategy is designed for continuity with the spinning Sudarshan Chakra of autonomy, agility and leverage. America’s approach, by contrast, is increasingly personalized, embodied in Trump’s loyal emissaries like Sergio Gor.

The next 18–24 months will determine whether U.S.–India relations evolve into a durable strategic axis or revert to transactional chess. For New Delhi, the task is to wield its Sudarshan Chakra with balance: using Gor’s direct channel as opportunity but never allowing personality-driven diplomacy to dictate India’s destiny. In the end, India’s middle path is not a compromise; it is strategy.

Author

Shri Sumeer Bhasin

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