India’s energy diplomacy amid sanctions: systemic friction between US geopolitics and global oil markets
Original framing: “India asks US for Russian oil waiver extension as Iran war drags on, Bloomberg News reports - Reuters” — Reuters (via Google News)
Economic sanctions reduce GDP growth by 2–5% annually in targeted countries and increase income inequality by disproportionately affecting rural and marginalised populations, per IMF and World Bank studies. Secondary sanctions (e.g., on third-party nations trading with Iran/Russia) create ‘collateral damage’ in global supply chains, as seen in India’s inflation spikes post-2022. The dollar’s dominance in oil trade (80% of global transactions) creates systemic fragility, as non-Western nations face liquidity crises when excluded from SWIFT or US financial systems.
The India-US-Russia oil waiver saga is a microcosm of a deeper systemic conflict: the clash between a unipolar, sanctions-driven global order and the Global South’s quest for energy sovereignty.
Historically, US sanctions have been a tool of economic warfare since the 19th century, but their modern iteration—secondary sanctions targeting third parties like India—exposes the fragility of a dollar-dependent trade system that treats oil as a weapon rather than a shared necessity. The narrative’s omission of marginalised voices (e.g., Niger Delta communities, Kurdish traders) and Indigenous alternatives (e.g., Gandhian swadeshi) reinforces a binary that obscures viable solutions, such as regional currency blocs or renewable energy sovereignty. Meanwhile, the trickster’s lens (Hermes/Bakhtin) reveals the absurdity of sanctions: a policy that purports to ‘punish’ elites but starves the poor, enriches smugglers, and destabilises entire regions. The path forward requires decoupling oil trade from the dollar, centring marginalised voices in sanctions design, and investing in renewable energy systems that align with communal and ecological values—moves that would not only mitigate geopolitical friction but also address the root causes of energy insecurity.