NATIONAL governments do not have feelings. They have only interests.

It’s by following these interests that we can begin to understand why the world is as it is.

One of the major interests is in securing the necessary resources — mineral or otherwise — to maintain or, even better, increase the security and wealth of the nation.

These interests require nation states to put in place the means to secure the resources that they desire and then get them to the place or places where they want them.

These resources can only be secured two ways. One is by military means and the other is by diplomacy. The first can often, of course, be used to back up the second.

But it is not a given that this always happens.

China, for example, has not engaged in any military conflict for more than 40 years — with the exception of a brief border incident with India a few years ago. But it has arguably the most successful economy in the world.

Growth in China runs at around 5 per cent. Even with the Trump-generated world economic downturn, China is still predicted to maintain a healthy growth rate of around 4.5 per cent in 2026.

In contrast, the United States is predicted to be bumbling along at around 2 per cent next year. The European Union is expected to be around 1.4 per cent.

So the US, which has been at war with some place on the planet for almost the entirety of its existence, is failing partly because of the insatiable greed for profits of the mega-rich that run the country, as well as their lust for the resources needed to maintain the war machine.

We might wish nations to take a far stronger line than many seem prepared to do to stand up against the genocide being carried out by the Israeli government against the Palestinians in Gaza. But these relations are governed by interests rather than emotion or even — seemingly — international law.

Let’s take India’s relations with Israel as an example.

India’s far-right government, under Narendra Modi, has not just ignored the significant calls from millions in their country to take a harder stance against Israel, it has deepened its trade relations with the settler regime.

Earlier this year Modi met with President Donald Trump at the White House where one of the key discussions centred on plans for a India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC).

The idea is to create an economic corridor that stretches from India to one of Israel’s Mediterranean ports — perhaps Ashdod or Haifa — and then to Europe.

The scheme appears to have first been mooted at the September 2023 G20 Summit held in New Delhi.

Just weeks later, Hamas and its allies attacked southern Israel. But the killing spree unleashed against the Palestinians by the Israelis in retaliation has clearly done nothing to interfere with the interests of the likes of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and of course the eternal apologists for Tel Aviv, the US, Britain and the EU.

The plan appears to be for two trade corridors. One would be a maritime corridor from India to the UAE, while the other would be a land/rail link from the UAE to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, and then on to Europe.

The success of the Houthi-led Yemeni government in disrupting trade shipping through the Red Sea has given a fresh impetus to the need for an alternative and more secure trade route for the imperial powers.

But so have the plans being made by the Brics nations to develop stronger trading links — particularly across Africa and the huge Eurasian landmass, alongside the need to avoid the weapon of sanctions used by the imperial powers.

It is clear that Israel’s geostrategic location is to be prioritised over the Palestinians.

This is important. The support of Israel is neither emotional or even religious. It largely rests on Israel’s role in being able to ensure that the imperial “masters of the universe” can shift the resources necessary for them to maintain and even extend their dominance. This new alliance has been long mooted by Tel Aviv.

Back in 2017, the current Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, who, at the time, was the country’s minister of transport came up with a scheme called Tracks for Regional Peace.

He planned to connect Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel with Europe. His successor as transport minister, Miri Regev, followed this with a project called From Gulf to Gulf in 2021.

All of this was made possible by moves towards the normalisation of trade and exchange relations between Israel, the Saudis, UAE, Bahrain, Morocco — known as the Abraham Accords.

This was disrupted by October 7 but was not enough to put off India openly continuing its closer ties to Israel. The other nations — despite noises of support for the Palestinians — also pressed ahead with trading with Israel.

The political, military and economic interests of the far-right axis of the US, Israel and India have coincided.

Each of them have longstanding tensions with China. The US sees China as its main economic and geopolitical competitor. India has a long-running border dispute with China — mentioned earlier — even though they are both major players in Brics. Israel is against any nation that might oppose its dream of a “Greater Israel,” a category in which it likely includes China.

The IMEC would clearly be a challenge not just to Brics but also China’s Belt and Road Initiative, as it continues to develop trade and infrastructure networks between Asia, Europe and Africa.

Despite its role in Brics, India has clearly decided to pursue an interest that it must realise will inevitably alienate them from the two main members of the group — China and Russia. This may be one of the reasons why India’s influence in Brics is, I believe, beginning to wane.

Russian diplomat Yevgeni Primakov put forward a plan in 1996 for a strategic three-way alliance between Russia, India and China. It was a move to create a new counterweight to US domination of what many thought was a post-cold war era.

But, as we have seen, interests shift and India’s influence is being superseded by Iran — which joined Brics in January 2024.

I will discuss the creation of this new Primakov Triangle in a future article but for now it is another illustration of how national interests are continually shifting.

India’s move to uplift Israel is hugely significant. Not just for its notable lack of support for the Palestinians but also for the shift in geopolitical alliances that it may have also helped to spark.