[Ambassador-designate Sergio Gor and the PM]
The Tashkent-born, Sergey Gorokhovsky, rechristened Sergio Gor, is seen by many in the MEA and in the Modi government as a deus ex machina that will put the derailed bilateral relations wih the United States back on track. They are apparently as unfamiliar with the Washington reality and the relative standing of people in Trump’s vicinity as the Indian media and commentariat.
Gor has the usual chequered history of a foreign-born trying desperately to fit in any which way and to find his place in the American society. Gor’s Jewish parents left the disintegrating Soviet Union for Israel in 1994 before relocating to the US five years later. Along the way, the young Uzbek got Catholic schooling and converted to Catholicism. Predictably, he chose rightwing anti-Communist Republican party political channels to make a mark and serve his ambition. Gor is like any of a host of Indian-origin Americans, some of whom latched on to the liberal Democratic party ideology and followed a similar path to visibility in the political realm.
Essentially, the Russian-speaking Gor, a publicist and pamphleteer, who worked with the late Senator John McCain before tacking to the Trumpian wind that took Washington by storm, was rewarded with a not too important line job as head of personnel appointments at the White House. This designation sounds grander than is actually the case because most senior appointees in the current US Administration represent different constituencies and had their separate lines to Trump. Indeed, Gor began canvassing for the ambassadorship to India, perhaps, after realising that he was losing out in the race for an influential policy-making job as assistant to the US President that Stephen Miller was closing in on. The Delhi embassy was an attractive consolation prize, considering he would enjoy four years of vice-regal life, of being fawned over by the Indian government, its functionaries at his beck and call, genuflecting before him at Roosevelt House.
Yes, it is the same Miller who fleshed out the US designs for Venezuela by saying, in effect, that America had a greater right to Venezuelan natural resources (mainly oil) than Russia and China which had heretofore hogged them, and who, with condescension dripping from his lips, explained to CNN the Hobbesian world Trump is shaping. “We live in a world, in the real world… that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power”, which he said defined “the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
Misreading of Gor’s relative importance in the Washington hierarchy by the Indian Establishment is of a piece with Jaishankar and his MEA cohort believing that Trump’s second term as President would herald the Golden Age of India-US cooperation! Op Sindoor saw the dunking of such expectations in a tank of ice-cold water. It occasioned Trump’s show of utter contempt for Modi and for India because of his conviction that he had read the Indian PM well enough to know that slapping him down would not lead to Delhi reacting adversely, and that he could personally insult Modi and put India’s economic nose out of joint with the imposition of tariffs that no other country faced, as long as Trump now and then salved the Indian PM’s ego by calling him a “good friend” and, as Gor did, talking of India as “essential” to peace in the Indo-Pacific, and just so long as America continued to draw benefits from the four foundational accords — General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Intelligence (BECA).
Thus, the offer of membership in the Pax Silica, conceived to counter China’s advances in the microchip field and to firm up a stable supply chain, as a curtain-raiser to Gor’s ambassadorial tenure was counterpoised the very next day by Trump musing about a 25% tariff for any country with economic links with Iran atop the 50% tariffs Indian exports already face, with the threat held out of the tariffs being increased to the 500% level when all trade becomes nonsense. In like vein, the US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick dismissed the free trade agreement under negotiation as of little account and asked the Indian government to get to the back of the line of countries seeking FTAs, just because, as he revealed, Modi failed to call Trump when the latter expected him to!
So much for India’s essentiality and Modi’s closeness to Trump! But Modi’s and India’s being treated as doormat is acceptable to the PM’s advisers, who have been counselling restraint and still more restraint in dealing with Trump, who knows a punching bag when he sees it. This when the evidence clearly shows that a display of self-respect as reflected in a coldish reception to Gor, graduated standoffishness, and dilution of the foundational accords, combined with showy assertions of common interest with the EU and the leading European states and with Russia, would have had a tremendous impact, conveying to Washington the costs of taking Delhi for granted, and daring Trump to seek some other counterweight to China in Asia, which is not there.
But back to Gor, and his supposed access to Trump, and how it is expected to benefit India. If he was as valuable to Trump as people here make him out to be, why would the American President let him go, cart him off to distant Delhi? The fact is Gor cannot just pick up the phone, call Trump, and get some wrinkle or the other the Modi regime wants ironed out, to be done in a jiffy. With regard to Trump and Gor, it is more a case of a servitor being accommodated. But out of sight, out of mind, really matters where a US president like Trump is concerned, whose attention span is as short as his impulsiveness is electric. Gor did little in policy terms whilst in Washington, and can do even less from Delhi other than to snuffle Trump’s insults
Security Wise 
I don’t see India staying on in the Quad. What are we doing in that alliance whose last meeting was held in Beijing?
What India did the London Metal Exchange earlier, has brought the West to call for an emergency G7 meeting. The UAE ably supported us India and the UAE walked out of the Exchange 7500 tonnes of the Metal. Last year India alone bought 8000 tonnes. Right enough the BIS in a notification issued last night monetised gold and silver under the Basel 3 norms, and insisted every Bank should hold physical gold and Silver as TierI capital.
We need to be part of BRICS and develop friendships based on mutual interests.The next day India dumped $50 billion of US Treasuries. China knew who was doing it and it dumped another $50 billion of US Treasuries. Both countries were waiting for payment and there were no buyers in the market for $100 billion of US Treasuries whose yield was set at 5% Even at this rate, there were no buyers! We waited and as expected it happened. The Federal Reserve handed out crisp new bills to India and China.
Mission accomplished! India and China had just got the Federal Reserve to debase its own currency .For that 75% tariff seems worth it. Any tariff above 50% on product makes it invisible to export. So our SME went knocking from country to country and found new markets. That’s what we need to do. As we were doing this, Putin landed in New Delhi and handed out 27 long term fishing licenses. And Australia which has strict QC on food called back our exporters to tell them their prawn quality was very good and they would like to buy them on a regular basis. We lost the US market but we found a country which bought our yearly supply of prawns at one go with no complaints.
Dump USA, exit Quad , walkout agreements and as the US to F.O. Focus on our economy and watch our country grow. Enough of Jai Shanker and his advice.Good bye Modiji,
Quote: ‘he (Trump) had read the Indian PM well enough to know that slapping him down would not lead to Delhi reacting adversely, and that he could personally insult Modi and put India’s economic nose out of joint with the imposition of tariffs that no other country faced, as long as Trump now and then salved the Indian PM’s ego by calling him a “good friend” ‘Unquote.
These words put nicely that PM Modi does not know diplomacy and is unaware of what Lord Palmerston, the British PM said in 1860s “Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
Henry Kissinger simplified above by saying, “America has no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, America has only permanent interests” (could be some words here and there). Modi with his Himalayan ego thinks he can charm the world leaders and hug and laugh loud to present himself as a statesman, intelligence agencies of other countries, friends and foes, have deciphered him properly and advised their heads of state as Modi is someone who needs ego massaging and optics to impress people back home to get votes, and their policies have been custom tailored accordingly to extract most out of him.
Trump, mercurial or shallow he may be but his business background has ingrained in him that friendship is one thing and business is another thing and he knows this applies in diplomacy as well and he has done that effectively.
Hope Modi/Jaishanker team has learned something that acting the way they do they look like Johar/Mehmood team of the 1960s.
@BharatKarnad This blog post of yours is a good one. I hope that at least, Ajit Kumar Doval, who in your previous blog post’s comment reply said was your acquaintance, not friend, at least sees and reads this and tries to bring some sense into his boss, Narendra Damodardas Modi, and thereby, by, extension, into the GOI.
This might seem wishful thinking or even daydreaming, but, no harm in wishing and dreaming, at least, that might lay the ground for this to be converted into action/reality.
I like your use of words like doormat, punching bag, self-respect in this blog post of yours.
I don’t know whether you’ve noticed this or not, as a long-time and regular reader and commentator of your personal website-cum-blog, I’ve often stated in my comments on your blog posts, that the GOI and Modi don’t seem to have any self-respect, which leads to India being treated like a doormat on which anyone can walkover and as a punching bag, which anyone can punch, and in both these cases, expect to go away scot-free.
I’ll reinforce this belief of mine. The MEA spokesman, Randhir Jaiswal termed China’s recent comments about the Shaksgam Valley not being a part of India’s Jammu & Kashmir as so-called. This is good, because this Chinese comment coincided, almost at the same time as the CPC visit to the RSS and the BJP HQs and a 30-minutes closed-door meeting at the RSS HQ was termed just as a courtesy call, as per reporting by the Indian media of this visit. Pawan Khera of Congress is now asking the BJP as to what positions of India were compromised during this CPC-RSS-BJP meeting. Politics and allegations aside, this proves the BJP is no good/as bad as the Congress whom it accused of signing a MOU with the CPC. Such is the pathetic and hypocritical state of affairs in India and the GOI.
Terming the Chinese comments as so-called is good, but, is that enough? I don’t think so. I think the Parliament of India has a resolution which aims to take back POK, I believe this implicitly involves taking back China Occupied Kashmir [COK] which China got from POK. It’s been 12 years of the Modi Administration in total from 2014 onwards, and except for a statement in the Parliament about taking this back by Amit Shah, the GOI has done nothing to back this up with action!
You have mentioned in this blog post of yours, showy assertions of common interest with the EU and the leading European states. This again validates my belief of the GOI and Modi having no self-respect. The Indo-Russian JV company, Nayara Energy became a permanent victim and at the same time a temporary victim of the EU’s 19th round of EU sanctions against Russia for the Russia-Ukraine War. This was due to Microsoft temporarily denying access to Microsoft products used by Nayara Energy and then restoring the access to these after sometime. Microsoft isn’t even an EU company and even as a US company, it’s just another private company, yet it acted like a government, lawmaker and an elected representative of people with powers to impose sanctions on others. India didn’t take any action, as far as I know against Microsoft for what was done to Nayara Energy temporarily.
If the GOI and Modi have any self-respect left, they should declare all agreements with the US and EU null and void and declare their missions in India Persona Non Grata and withdraw our missions from there.
A final point, you say, Sergio Gor isn’t important for Donald Trump, then, why has he also been appointed as US Special Envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs?
You have previously in your blog posts said that Putin is nobody’s fool and if Trump thinks that by assigning the Russian-speaking Gor responsibility for Central Asian Affairs which Putin thinks is Russia’s sphere of influence, Trump can weaken Putin or make Putin friendly to him, then, Trump is mistaken.
The Israelis too did a similar thing, when in 2022, the-then Israeli PM, Naftali Bennett spoke to President Putin in Russian through the Israeli Housing Minister Ze’ev Elkin acting as an interpreter due to him knowing Russia. A similar thing happened in the past when the-then Deputy PM and FM of Israel in 2009, Avigdor Lieberman spoke in Russian to President Putin. Whether these resulted in benefits for either parties and their respective interests is something not well-known to me and subject to interpretation as per their respective perceptions of it.
So the IAF and import bahadurs won they defeated Tejas just like they defeated Marut.Impressive!
Prof Karnad,
The Indian government is going to pay Rs 3.25 Lakh Crore = US$36 billion for 114 Rafale Aircraft without source code or without local radar. So each fighter = US$316 million or Rs 2851 crore. Calculations are based on the last deal done with Dassault.
This is a significant blow to India’s fighter aircraft industry, whose Rs. 15,000 crore for the AMCA project was delayed for five years.
Instead of holding all foreign fighter aircraft purchases for five years to allow domestic programs to achieve completion and populate IAF inventories with Indian-produced fighters, this government is now going to invest all these funds in the French military industrial complex.
Sure shot way to remain a supplicant in fighter aircraft ecosystem!! Pathetic !!
On a different toppic : do you believe that failure of pslv c62 which was carrying critical defense setllite was part of sabotagged by CIA ?
Can’t put it beyond the US. There are enough American moles — from the highest levels to the lowest in our strategic programmes– to screw things up whenever necessary
Prof, it seems you’ve exaggerated the anticipated genuflection behaviour of the babus here. I recall in the 1990s a certain US woman diplomat (whose names escapes me at this moment) had all the babus in the PMO and South Block in her thrall and they would be at her beck and call to fulfill her various demands. The US-India power equation is not as adverse to India now as it was then. For anything, the Indian babudom, notwithstanding their strings being tied to the US (on which you’ve elaborated on in your books), respect gravitas in a foreigner; and this Gor person seems to be a lightweight and not a power-player. He might be treated to the same indifference and froideur that Richard Holbrooke, the infamous “Af-Pak ambassador” was subjected to in Delhi, not so long ago.
Dear Sir, India should align with Russia and China. China is not trustworthy seeing the past track record over several decades but US is even worse.Somehow we need to make a long term non aggression deal with China but be prepared for war in case of Chinese misadventure. With actions on Venezuela and Iran, Chinese influence on world is declining fast limited to manufacturing hub,rare earth and supply chain dependence. So Chinese are more inclined to have at least workable relationship with India even though no likely concessions on LAC and support to Pakistan.
US wants to annex Greenland which is already a NATO territory, interfere in internal politics of every country and take whatever natural resources country has,also pressure them to make one sided trade deals.
US is currently like a British empire of 21st century. Trump is Hitler of 21st century. We should better avoid any military alliance and dependence on US weapons. We should build technology on our own with minimal help from Russia.We need to completely reduce dependence on US exports.
US was never a friend or partner to India and it never will be friend or partner based on mutual interest . US ally means US vassal state.
If China and Russia collapses completely then it will be even more uni polar world with US as a sole sovereign state and all other countries its vassal states.
Does India wants to be US vassal to counter China which will help US more than India in its ambition to become unchallenged superpower.
What is your take on this. who is really India’s number 1 adversary US or China?
Number one adversary is China; and the US is the power to be extremely wary of
@BharatKarnad
Excellent Article sir but may i please bring your focus on this sir
The proposed “114 Rafale” circus exposes everything that is rotten in India’s defence decision-making. This is not about capability gaps or national security it is about the IAF’s chronic import addiction, the MoD’s risk-averse babudom, and a deeply entrenched lobby that is allergic to indigenous control.
We will(Our nation)be the biggest idiots existing on this planet if this deal happens. The french are tearing us apart. They can literally fund their R&D for decades with this 3.25 lakh crores.
The IAF behaves less like a national air force and more like a showroom customer always demanding the “best in the world” but refusing to invest in building that capability at home. Source codes? Not needed. Design authority? Too hard. Long-term self-reliance? Someone else’s problem. As long as a foreign OEM provides a ready-made jet with foreign support, the IAF seems perfectly comfortable outsourcing India’s future airpower.
The MoD bureaucracy is no better. It hides behind procedure, committees, and “urgency” clauses to justify imports while systematically starving DRDO and HAL of funding, numbers, and confidence. Indigenous programs are micromanaged, second-guessed, and endlessly delayed while imports sail through with waived requirements and diluted conditions.
DRDO’s Tejas has survived despite the system, not because of it. And now, just when Tejas Mk1A is stabilizing and Mk2/AMCA should be the national focus, this massive Rafale import is floated to suck out budgets, manpower, and political attention. This is HF-24 Marut déjà vu kill the indigenous fighter quietly by declaring it “insufficient” and drowning it under imports.
What exactly does India gain from 114 Rafales without source code access or real ToT? We won’t control upgrades. We won’t control electronic warfare changes. We won’t control weapons integration timelines. In wartime, we will still be dependent on a foreign government and a foreign company’s approval pipeline. That is not airpower sovereignty this is classic strategic servitude.
Atmanirbhar Bharat becomes a joke when the biggest defence deals reinforce dependence. No serious power builds a future air force by permanently renting technology. China didn’t. The US didn’t. Even Europe didn’t. Only India seems proud of remaining a buyer.
This issue cannot be waved away with PR talking points and airshow flypasts. Prof. Bharat Karnad, this is an urgent national issue. A detailed blog post tearing into the strategic, doctrinal, and industrial consequences of this deal is desperately needed. If voices like yours stay silent, the import lobby wins by default and India’s aerospace future is mortgaged yet again. So Its a request please spare some time from your busy schedule to address this 114 Rafale Scam
Look back to all the posts on the ‘Indian Air Force’ in this blog and in my books over the last 15-odd years, and all I have done is hammer away at the points you and other correspondents have raised.
Slight modification to earlier comment!
Now, IAF is looking to eventually buy 200 Rafale fighter aircraft worth US$63.2 billion dollars or RS 5.72 lakh crores. They will be the imported backbone of India’s Air Force in long run !
Speechless, literally !!!
@BharatKarnad Sergio Gor has posted 10 hours ago the invitation from Trump to Modi to join Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza on X at https://x.com/USAmbIndia/status/2012933840566649201.
The Hindu on Sunday, January 18, 2026 reported about this at https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-invited-to-sit-on-trumps-board-of-peace-for-gaza/article70523013.ece/amp/.
The Hindu’s above-mentioned report also mentions that Pakistan too has been invited to join this Board of Peace for Gaza.
So, is this invitation Dead On Arrival [DOA] for India, because this would lead to India being hyphenated with Pakistan?
Will this invitation also be DOA [also due to India-Israel relationship] due to Israel objecting to the U.S. announcement of leaders who will help oversee next steps in Gaza, as reported by The Hindu on Sunday, January 18, 2026 at https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/israel-objects-to-us-announcement-of-leaders-who-will-help-oversee-next-steps-in-gaza/article70520170.ece.
Will this lead to some kind of coordination between India and Israel due to their dashed hopes and expectations about Trump 2.0 and both now being treated like a frenemy [friend and enemy] by the U.S.?
Modi should not touch this with a barge pole.
@BharatKarnad What do you make of this, https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/india-absent-trump-rolls-out-board-of-peace-19-countries-israel-palestine-hamas/article70539432.ece/amp/, implicit rejection or dilly-dallying and wondering whether to join this where an unrecognised nation like Kosovo too is a member, Kosovo’s President, Ms. Vjosa Osmani is seen in the photograph used in this news report by The Hindu – from India and the Modi Administration point of view?