India in the Era of Pax Trumpicana | Lt. Gen. R. Shankar (Retd.) A/Prof. Salvatore Babones | TFP #95

Is India still a strategic partner of the United States — or is it becoming an independent pole in a rapidly shifting global order? In this high-level panel discussion, Dr. John Bruni is joined by Lt. General Ravi Shankar (Retd.), former Director General of Artillery of the Indian Army, and Professor Salvatore Babones, political economist at the University of Sydney, to examine India’s evolving role in global geopolitics. 🎙️ Serious geopolitics. 🔔 Subscribe for weekly conversations on global affairs. Producers - Neil Smart & Lin Siah *🎧 Watch now on The Focus with John Bruni* *Subscribe and Support our Channel* / https://www.youtube.com/@thefocus_SAGEIntl *The Focus Social & Website* X: https://x.com/TheFocus_SAGE IG: https://www.instagram.com/thefocus_sage/ LinkedIn: sage-international Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFocus.SAGEInt/ Website: https://sageinternational.com.au/ *You can also listen to our podcasts on* iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-focus/id1579317546 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5SsaNdoLkIgbO6oVCFOseu?si=yp_mRnXTReW8I2_DJm1i5A Auscast Network: https://auscastnetwork.com/shows/news-politics-shows/the-focus/ *Show Notes* Guests Lt. General Ravi Shankar (Retd.) is the former Director General of Artillery of the Indian Army and currently serves as Professor of Practice in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Madras. With a distinguished military career spanning decades, he is a respected commentator on India’s defence posture, China–India dynamics, Pakistan, and broader strategic affairs. The Gunner’s Shot (YouTube Channel): https://www.youtube.com/@gunnersshot General Shankar regularly publishes strategic and military analyses through his channel. Professor Salvatore Babones is a Political Economist and Globalisation Scholar at the University of Sydney. His work focuses on great-power competition, global inequality, and the structural dynamics shaping U.S.–China–India relations. Recent Books by Salvatore Babones: The Global Political Economy of the Indo-Pacific (2024) American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power, and the End of History (2023) The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism, and the Tyranny of Experts (2022) *Image Credits* 1. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivering remarks at the U.S.–India Strategic Partnership Forum, Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., June 23, 2023. Photo by James Pan/The U.S. Department of State (public domain). 2. President Donald J. Trump and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, 24 September 2019. Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead (public domain). 3. President Donald J. Trump signing an executive order and displaying a “reciprocal tariffs” chart at a “Make America Wealthy Again” event in the White House Rose Garden, Washington, D.C., 2 April 2025. Official White House photo by Daniel Torok (public domain). 4. “Glimpses of the New Parliament Building, in New Delhi” — the new Sansad Bhavan, the Parliament building of India, at New Delhi, India, originally published by the Press Information Bureau on behalf of the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs (licensed under Government Open Data License – India). 5. Various cryptocurrency logos (including Bitcoin and others) — a compilation of different cryptocurrency logos, depicting a metaphor of exchange in the Bitcoin logo at the centre. Original image by voytek pavlik, made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication (public domain). 6. Screenshot of the 20 January 2017 swearing-in of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States, showing Trump with his family and Chief Justice John Roberts administering the oath, Washington, D.C. Official U.S. Government image (public domain). 7. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance being sworn in on 20 January 2025, with his wife Usha Vance holding the Bible and their children watching the ceremony. Official photograph by the Office of the Vice President of the United States (public domain). 8. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio aboard “Air Force Three” (a U.S. government aircraft) en route to the 2025 Munich Security Conference and a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Germany, 13 February 2025. Official image by the Embassy of the United States of America to Italy, in the public domain as a work of the U.S. federal government. 9. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, addressing Chinese and foreign journalists at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, 23 October 2022. Photo by China News Service, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0). 10. Chat GPT image Zhang.