New Delhi: Finnish President Alexander Stubb Thursday highlighted the growing perception of a “wrecking ball” being taken to the international rules-based order, in an indirect reference to US President Donald J. Trump, while commending India’s pragmatic approach to foreign policy at the inauguration of the Raisina Dialogue here.
Stubb also highlighted that the era of Western domination in global politics is over, and that it will take time to sink in within the nations that had long been the major players internationally.
“Without a functioning world order, power vacuums will be filled by raw power. Rogue behaviour and predatory hegemons. We hear assessments that the rules based world is dead. That a wrecking ball has destroyed all the international institutions and rules that have been built since the end of World War II,” Stubb said at the inaugural address of the Raisina Dialogue 2026 organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF).
He added: “Sure the old order is being questioned and attacked. However, I would argue against the binary…India as a major power will be a major, or if not, a the force whether world will tilt to a conflictual multipolarity, where relations are transactional…or whether the world will tilt towards a new fair, cooperative and multilateral world based on rules and international norms.”
Stubb is in India for a four-day visit. He was welcomed to the Rashtrapathi Bhawan Thursday morning, before holding bilateral discussions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Stubb is set to travel to Mumbai Friday to attend a joint business forum and interact with the state government before departing the country.
The meeting between Modi and Stubb focused on the three T’s (trade, technology and talent), explained Sibi George, Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs at a special briefing late Thursday evening.
The India-Finland Joint statement released Thursday made no mention of the situation in West Asia, while a paragraph calling for a comprehensive and just peace in Ukraine was a part of the final statement.
Stubb, however, at the Raisina Dialogue elucidated his views of the ongoing geopolitical crisis—the conflict in Sudan, the Russia-Ukraine war and the escalation in West Asia.
“The world is changing. Much like it did after World War I, World War II and the Cold War…We live in a world of power politics. A time where might seems to make right. Violence seems to be the go-to foreign policy with little constraint,” highlighted the Finnish President.
West Asia has been engulfed in a conflict since last Saturday when the US and Israel launched strikes at Tehran and killed the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran vowed retaliation and has since expanded its strikes across half a dozen countries in the region including Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
As localised conflicts continue to grow around the world, Stubb highlighted that the main disruption in the international order, is the waning power of the West, with the balance of power moving to the Global South.
“The Europeans have been taught a lesson from India. Passivity is not a strategy…We refuse to believe that the future will be decided by two great powers,” said Stubb.
He pointed out India’s long-standing approach of strategic caution, and its ability to work with different organisations such as the European Union (EU), while building its own security apparatus as a blueprint of sorts for the Europeans.
Stubb has become an important conduit for the Europeans in the White House. Trump has repeatedly made his distaste public for the lack of security spending by the European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), while applying pressure on Ukraine to accept Russia’s terms to end the war.
The Finnish President has been involved in hectic parleys to keep the transatlantic alliance intact, while also strengthening the European security apparatus. Finland is a recent member of NATO, having joined the grouping in 2023 following the current phase of full-scale warfare between Russia and Ukraine.
In his address at the Raisina Dialogue, Stubb declared that the resolution to the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv will be one of the precedents set under a new world order, and urged that Moscow not be awarded for its aggression.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)