New Delhi, Nov. 3 -- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's recent visit to India came at a moment of uncertainty about the future of US-India relations-and the wider international order. As New Delhi carefully navigates ties with Washington, Beijing, and Moscow, how can it preserve its freedom of action while advancing its interests? And does India have the capabilities to match its global ambitions? Ambassador Pankaj Saran addressed these and other questions on a recent episode of "Grand Tamasha," a weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced by HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Saran is a former diplomat with forty years of experience in foreign policy, strategic affairs, and national security. From 2018 to 2021, he served as India's Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Affairs. He also served as India's Ambassador to Russia and India's High Commissioner to Bangladesh. Saran is currently Convenor of NatStrat, a Delhi-based independent centre for research on strategic and security issues. Saran spoke with host Milan Vaishnav about the significance of Rubio's visit, the structural shifts in America's strategic orientation, and what the West misunderstands about Brics. "I think it's a very interesting move by Rubio to come back to India the second time this year, especially because... it was preceded by a lot of chatter and points of friction in the India-US relationship," said Saran. "I think this time he has been more forthcoming about the American commitment to the relationship than he was a few months ago in India, and I think it has helped a lot to address some of the concerns." Saran called the visit "a good balm to soothe raw nerves." Saran added that many of the shifts in US foreign policy under President Donald Trump are likely to persist beyond his tenure. "Trump reflects more a symptom of the internal changes within American society rather than a symbol of those changes. He has been thrown up because of certain structural, fundamental changes and adjustments going on within American society," Saran said. "For American policy overseas, there seems to be an irreversible trend to pursue a less internationalist, more inward-looking approach to regroup American power, to cut your losses or to retrench from an overstretched American global footprint." He added that these shifts also shape America's dealings with its friends and partners, and that many of them predate Trump. "This is a long-term trend that Trump has exaggerated," explained Saran. Saran also discussed India's participation in the Brics grouping, an entity he believes the West does not fully understand. "If you see it at a minimal level, it has a set of countries which are non-Western.It is a reminder that there is a whole section of humanity which is not the West," he said. "While each one of them has significant relationships with individual Western countries or the Western world, there is something which brings them all together." Saran said this collaboration continues despite the disputes between India and China and the fact that the Brics economies are not always complementary. The Brics will continue, he argued, because its members share a desire for "an equal place in the world order."...