MODI-PUTIN SUMMIT A WIN-WIN FOR EU AND TRUMP-VANCE

What merits attention is the potential for igniting a process that within 90 days of the summit will lead to the cessation of conflict in Ukraine.

- M.D. NALAPAT

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet in New Delhi just days from now. Such a meeting of longtime friends is not a snub to the European Union (EU) and the United States, but could have the potential of helping them pull back from several economic woes and place them on the path to recovery. Whatever be the public expressions of politicians, there is little doubt that the majority of the (voting) public regard themselves as being less well off than they were in 2022. Much of the gloom is owing to the climbing costs of keeping the Ukrainian regime on the path of war rather than choosing peace. Presidents and Prime Ministers of the Atlantic Alliance ought to visit grocery stores to find out why. Inflation is a reality of the times, while supply disruptions are multiplying. While the Trump-Vance team has understood the folly of bearing the cross—the costs—of an unwinnable war, barring a few European leaders such as Prime Minister Orban of Hungary, very few of the rest have. Marjorie Taylor Greene may be wrong on some issues, but she is right to speak of the Political-Industrial complex driving countries to war and to consequent economic problems. In the past, no less a military personage than President Dwight David Eisenhower warned of the “MilitaryIndustrial” complex keeping the desire for military solutions high so the latter in particular profits from the same. Alfred P. Sloan claimed that “What was good for General Motors was good for the US”. Sometimes it was, but often it was not. The model of low prices and high wages was first set by Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford in his Model T, cheap enough to be close to being every person's car in terms of affordability, not by General Motors or Alfred Sloan. The Model T set off a boom in road building— a