In early September 2025, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi strode onto the stage at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin. What might once have been a routine multilateral gathering became a much-watched spectacle.
After years of frosty relations following deadly border clashes in Ladakh, Modi exchanged a warm handshake with Chinese President Xi Jinping and shared notably cordial moments with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He later joined Putin in a limousine ride that Putin himself recounted with satisfaction. Modi reaffirmed India’s “special and privileged” relationship with Russia, while also showing his willingness to foster a pragmatic cooperation with China based on “mutual trust, respect and sensitivity.”
This choreography was no accident. It was, in part, a response to Washington. President Donald Trump’s punitive tariff barrage on Indian goods signaled to New Delhi that economic ties with the United States were less stable than many had hoped. The United States, which long courted India as an indispensable partner in balancing China, suddenly looked a less reliable suitor. Modi’s SCO diplomacy, then, was not an abandonment of the West, but a rational hedge: a signal that India would not put all its chips on Washington.
To understand this shift, game theory is instructive. A model known as the “Truel,” or three-person duel, captures the logic of coalition in multipolar contests.
In a Truel, or more generally an n-person duel, gunfighters face off, taking turns shooting at each other till there is one last man standing. Counterintuitively, the strongest marksman does not always win. The weaker players, fearing the strongest, coordinate their fire on him first. The strongest can deter such a coalition (and improve his chance of winning) only if he can credibly assure some of the rivals that they will not be the next target once the second-strongest falls. Applied to world politics, this means a dominant power must be able to commit credibly to reassure weaker states.
For decades, the United States managed this feat. It was never perfectly reliable – Vietnam, Iraq, and other episodes prove otherwise – but in relative terms, Washington was more dependable than Moscow or Beijing. Through NATO, it convinced Europeans its power would remain harnessed to their defense. Through the World Trade Organization and Bretton Woods institutions, smaller economies trusted U.S. trade leadership as rule-bound rather than opportunistic. This relative credibility was the United States’ stabilizing asset, dissuading weaker players from banding together against it.
Donald Trump has disrupted that equilibrium. By reimagining alliances as protection rackets, imposing tariffs on allies as well as adversaries, and weakening multilateral institutions, Trump eroded the credibility premium that had sustained U.S. primacy.
Analysts note two immediate consequences. First, dismantling established systems creates high transaction costs. Supply chains, training, and diplomatic routines are expensive to replace. Second, transactional bargaining breeds uncertainty: states cannot know if today’s deal is final or contingent on tomorrow’s bargain with someone else. Both costs and uncertainty are destabilizing.
But a third consequence is more strategically significant: the erosion of U.S. credibility makes coalitions against the U.S. more likely. Once the strongest player loses the ability to commit, the Truel dynamic takes hold – others have a rational incentive to align against the dominant power.
India’s behavior at the SCO illustrates this logic. New Delhi has no illusions about China. Border disputes and competition in the Indian Ocean remain intense. Yet India hedges by engaging China and Russia together in forums such as BRICS and the SCO. Modi’s gestures of cordiality with Xi and Putin, framed as an “elephant and dragon dance,” signaled that India will not tie itself exclusively to an unreliable United States.
This does not mean India is choosing China. It means India is responding rationally in a (cruel) Truel world. When the strongest power cannot commit, weaker players – despite their rivalries – prefer to coordinate rather than stand alone. India’s hedging is strategic arithmetic, not sentiment.
Other states are moving similarly. Russia and China, despite asymmetries, have deepened their cooperation. Middle powers like Brazil, South Africa, and Turkiye explore alternatives to Western institutions. Even European allies experiment with defense autonomy and financial diversification. The common thread is not anti-Americanism, but recalibration driven by declining U.S. credibility.
The irony is that U.S. material dominance will make it the focal target once credibility erodes. The Truel shows that strength without credible commitment is vulnerability. Washington risks isolation not because others seek to overthrow it outright, but because its unreliability makes hedging rational.
India’s SCO diplomacy is therefore not a diplomatic anomaly. It is a warning. the United States’ credibility, once its most valuable strategic asset, is fraying. Trump and his advisers underestimated the way loss of credibility accelerates coalition-building against the hegemon.
For the U.S. to remain the preferred partner, it must restore its commitment capacity. That means anchoring power once more in rules, reasserting predictability in alliances, and reestablishing institutions as trusted channels for cooperation. Credibility is difficult to rebuild – but without it, the Truel’s outcome is predictable: the strongest falls first.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.