By Karan Bhatia

NEW DELHI, India: The decision by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Narendra Modi, and Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to publicly press President Vladimir Putin for a swift resolution to the conflict in Ukraine marks a disappointing display of diplomatic submission. 

Subjected to relentless pressure from Washington and its European allies, these three leaders appear to have calculated that offering public critiques of Moscow would earn them relief from Western secondary sanctions, trade restrictions, and diplomatic hostility. 

Rather than projecting strength or independent statesmanship, their coordinated capitulation reveals a fundamental vulnerability, compromising their standing as sovereign power brokers in an increasingly multipolar world.

Miscalculations, Ambitions, and Short-Sighted Strategies

A closer look at the trajectories of all three leaders highlights a pattern of strategic errors driven by short-sighted political calculations and misplaced faith in Western goodwill.

In India, Narendra Modi systematically curtailed the country's historic energy ties with Tehran and pivoted toward Western-backed Gulf alternatives in an effort to appease Washington. This strategic alignment proved deeply flawed when the escalation in West Asia culminated in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz—a crisis that crippled India’s energy security, triggered severe domestic fuel shortages, and dramatically exposed the risks of accommodating Western geopolitical demands at the expense of regional partners.

Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long pursued a contradictory foreign policy driven by neo-Ottoman ambitions. While presenting himself as an independent regional mediator capable of bridging the gap between East and West, Erdogan’s military interventions across Syria, Iraq, and Kurdish-inhabited regions—coupled with his transactional approach to his NATO commitments—have left Turkey economically vulnerable and diplomatically isolated. His willingness to act as a mouthpiece for Western talking points on Ukraine exposes an opportunistic strategy devoid of coherent anti-imperialist principles.

In Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev presents perhaps the most striking example of strategic amnesia. Tokayev owes the very survival of his presidency to Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation forces, which intervened to stabilize Kazakhstan during the violent regime-change attempt of January 2022. For Tokayev to echo Western diplomatic pressure against Moscow demonstrates a troubling disregard for regional security commitments and the explicit defense guarantees that preserved his government.

Propping Up a Fading Hegemony

By attempting to balance Western demands against their own long-term national interests, Erdogan, Modi, and Tokayev are actively undermining the development of a balanced global architecture. 

Their willingness to assist Washington in pressuring Moscow serves only to prolong the dominance of a unipolar global order that routinely weaponizes financial clearinghouses, secondary sanctions, and unilateral diplomatic pressure against non-aligned nations.

True strategic autonomy cannot be achieved by yielding to coercion from Washington. Rather than propping up a declining Western hegemony, Turkey, India, and Kazakhstan would far better serve their national interests by strengthening pragmatic economic, security, and diplomatic partnerships with Russia and China. 

Continuing to accommodate Western pressure only delays the transition toward a genuinely multipolar world order, leaving these leaders looking less like sovereign global statesmen and more like compliant instruments of American foreign policy.

*Karan Bhatia is a political observer of South Asian and Indo-Pacific affairs based in New Delhi.*