by Naresh Jotwani

India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is planned as a major transportation and communication corridor, a multinational, collaborative infrastructure project with potentially enormous economic potential. ln the words of its website (here), it is ‘ … a transformative initiative aimed at boosting connectivity, trade, and sustainability across three regions’.

As seen below, the route of the corridor is nearly a straight line between the western coast of India and ports on the Mediterranean in Greece, Italy and France (not shown in the map).

Sea-faring routes existed in the ancient world between the western coast of India and ports in western Asia and eastern Africa. Wooden sail-boats known as dhows plied the routes, staying fairly close to the coast. Greece and Rome also traded with India using the Middle-East as a hub. 

[Dhows are still used. The title image of the post shows a dhow against Dubai skyline.]

IMEC, as proposed, is a modern avatar of that ancient route. The technology used would of course be modern, but the aims are ancient, indeed timeless — prosperity through trade.

IMEC would compete with with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — and competition is good for trade. For India, IMEC would be the shortest route to and from Europe, but presumably portions of BRI would also be available to India. Competition is good for business, are we not taught in every text-book of basic economics?

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Iran is a country rich in resources and talented people. As seen in the map, the IMEC trajectory gets to almost within shouting distance of Iran. But then why does IMEC not have one or a few branches into Iran? Would that not further enhance prosperity through trade?

It would, of course — except that factors other than prosperity through trade kick into play. These are factors which text-books on economics scrupulously avoid mentioning — but which one can easily deduce, based on ample available evidence.

One factor is Biblical: ‘divine’ promises made thousands of years ago about ‘the end of times’ and the grant of lands to certain people. Another factor is the hubris and ignorance of the so-called ‘US empire’ — which wants tributes and dominated trade, rather than the free trade of text-books. Desperation to distract public attention from past crimes also seems to be at work.

Yet another factor vitiating prosperity through trade is the drive of giant banking cartels to ‘legally own’ resources rather than trade them. The reason is that, in a very highly leveraged economy, ‘legal ownership’ of resources allows the creation of credit many times larger than the value of the resources. In comparison, earning margins on trade is a pittance. In this drive, the banking cartel ropes in ‘the US empire’.

So there are several major psychological, political and financial factors which vitiate the historically proven way of achieving prosperity through trade. Trade flourishes best in times of peace and stability. In times of war, resources are channeled to destruction rather than social well-being. The overall wealth of economies declines, even as some segments — finance, arms industry et cetera — mint money.

In any case, a major war has broken out, and a victory of ‘the US empire’ is not in sight. The world faces a huge economic crisis, and the IMEC project would, at the very least, be delayed. UAE, a key IMEC node and ‘close ally of the empire’, is within easy range of Iranian ammunition, missiles and drones. 

What would have proved a huge boon to Indian economy, and a great achievement of modern technology, would become unattainable due to the war caused by the hubris, ignorance and excessive greed of ‘the empire’.

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The following characteristics are often erroneously associated with ‘smart’ and ‘successful’ people:

aggressive behaviour, projection of power, air of superiority, eagerness to make deals, glib talk, name-dropping, bluff and bluster, expensive clothes & accessories, flaunting of wealth.

We suggest that, usually, underneath this type of behaviour, a person hides stupidity of a special kind, a crazed stupidity. Such a person must necessarily disguise his true intentions; indeed, truth recedes beyond reach. Whichever story comes to mind first is thrown out, almost like throwing dust in someone’s eyes, as though listeners will not see through the nonsense. Sycophants and lackeys pretend not to see through the nonsense, and therefore are well rewarded for their complicity.

[Sincere acknowledgement is due here to Donald Trump, for exhibiting clearly the psychological hangups at work, through his totally unrestrained ways of expressing himself.]

In the old days, brave warriors had a code: Get out of my land or be ready to fight to death. Simple. 

Today’s leading lights of ‘the US empire’ lie constantly about democracy, freedom, liberal values, women’s rights, human rights … blah blah blah. It takes two lies to cover the first one, and then more lies to cover them … and so on. The giant heap of entangled lies cannot ever be cleared up; so a crash must occur, with widespread collateral damage. 

As a rule of thumb, if a person makes a glib, slick, aggressive and insistent show of being ‘very smart’, one should believe the opposite. That kind of behaviour is a cover for a con; once the con is recognized, the stupidity is laid bare.

Today such ‘smart’, ‘pushy’ behaviour is stylized, made fashionable, publcized and normalized. Old-fashioned virtues are driven out from the public arena — just as Gresham’s law states that bad money drives good money out of the market.

Does ‘education’ play a corrective role in this process?

NO. Unfortunately, the western model of ‘education’ feeds the beast. Being with a so-called ‘top western university’ seems to block out certain fundamental ground truths from a person’s mind. That ‘education’ no longer opens the student’s mind to the world — but rather limits that mind into a tiny, pre-defined and ‘acceptable’ social/political pigeon-hole.

Question: Where does all the money come from, which allows ‘the US empire’ to strut about globally?

Answer: The global circus act of ‘the US empire’ is financed mainly by fiat currency which is either (a) freely printed or (b) globally borrowed!

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One may concede that a quick and easy victory of ‘the empire’ in the current war would have been great for IMEC and for Indian trade. That argument is plausible — except that a quick and easy victory did not happen!

Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent every year by ‘the empire’ on intelligence gathering and surveillance. Could the latest technology deployed, on land and in space, not reveal that an easy victory was a pipe-dream? What went wrong? Where is the return on the hundreds of billions of dollars invested? Is anybody accountable around there?

Clearly, the latest intelligence gathering technology did not guard against hubris and stupidity. Can it ever? Sadly, the expensive technology seems only to fuel more hubris and stupidity amongst ‘the leaders’, on full display.

Such are the self-proclaimed ‘leaders of the free world’, who are not themselves free of ignorance and hubris. No doubt these people are dangerous and vindictive, who may at times have to be placated, but their vanity and folly are unpleasant facts of life which cannot be ignored.

Postscript:

Today the thought of his campaign donors and his political opponents seems to deter Trump from ending the war he has started. That the entire world would thereby breathe a sigh of relief counts for ZILCH to ‘the Epstein class’! Why must people have to plead with him for something as simple as not crashing the world economy? What kind of a ‘leader’ is that?

People in India seem not to grasp clearly the true nature of geopolitics. Centuries of colonization seems to block clarity on current global events; but misjudgement is costly. We hope that our policy makers will recognize the predatory nature of ‘the wolves of Wall Street’, and not see them as our saviours.