Godfather Geopolitics: America’s ‘Offer’ They Cannot Refuse

From India’s oil choices to Venezuela’s sovereignty, America’s return to coercive diplomacy shows that power, not principle, still governs the global order.

In international affairs, an old Hindi proverb captures a stubborn truth with disarming bluntness: jiski lathi, uski bhains - he who wields the stick owns the buffalo. Strip away the rhetoric of norms, values and institutions and power still decides outcomes. The modern world likes to pretend it has outgrown jungle law.  However, recent American conduct under President Donald Trump suggests otherwise.

The United States has, in quick succession, cast itself as global peacemaker and global enforcer. One week it claims credit for ceasefires and stability across continents; the next it issues blunt “offers” to allies and threats to adversaries in Asia, Europe and Latin America.

The method is familiar to legions of readers of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. Don Vito Corleone does not begin with violence. He begins with an offer which is generous on the surface, laden with implied consequences beneath. Refusal is tolerated only briefly. Those who persist are made examples of, their families, businesses and allies erased to reinforce the lesson. The brilliance of the Don’s rule lies not in brute force alone but in the theatre of inevitability: resistance appears futile long before it is crushed.

Coercive Diplomacy

Something similar is visible today in the conduct of the world’s most powerful democracy. The United Nations and the International Court of Justice, meant to arbitrate disputes and restrain excess, increasingly resemble the feeble law-enforcement agencies in Puzo’s novel. They merely admonish and pass resolutions, but their writ rarely runs where power truly resides.

India now finds itself on the receiving end of Washington’s ‘friendly pressure. President Trump has spoken warmly of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him “a very good man” even as he publicly hints at punitive tariffs should New Delhi fail to accommodate American preferences on energy. India’s purchases of discounted Russian oil have long irritated Washington. In August 2025, American tariffs on Indian goods were doubled to 50 percent with Russian energy ties cited as a key grievance.

Trump has claimed that Modi privately assured him India would halt such purchases, a claim New Delhi has firmly denied. India, the world’s fastest-growing large economy, is being asked to rearrange its energy security to suit Washington’s geopolitical objectives, chiefly the isolation of Russia.

Oil has always been central to great-power politics. Control of supply confers leverage, and leverage is the currency of coercion. India today is Russia’s largest oil customer, buying crude at discounted rates that cushion domestic inflation and support growth. Washington argues that these revenues help finance Moscow’s war in Ukraine. The blunt message is that either align with American sanctions or face economic consequences.

Iraq once rebuffed similar pressure. It was invaded in 2003, its leader Saddam Hussein captured and executed under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction that never existed. That Baghdad had enjoyed cordial ties with Moscow was no coincidence. By contrast, Saudi Arabia, home to most of the 9/11 hijackers, and Pakistan, which sheltered Osama bin Laden, were spared comparable retribution. Oil and strategic convenience, and not justice, it seems, determines US priorities.

The pattern is repeating elsewhere. Venezuela, sitting atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, has long irked Washington with its ties to Russia and China. American forces recently seized President Nicolás Maduro in a dramatic overnight operation, with Mr Trump announcing that he would face trial and a 99-year sentence in the United States for alleged narcotics and arms offences. Sovereignty, it seemed, was optional. Soon after, American authorities halted Chinese and Russian oil shipments from Venezuelan ports, provoking angry protests from Moscow.

Conduct Unbecoming

Since the 1960s the United States has intervened militarily across Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Panama, Haiti and Angola, among others. Each episode came wrapped in the language of democracy, stability or counter-terrorism. Few delivered any of these in lasting form. Many left shattered societies in their wake. That numerous American allies remain conspicuously undemocratic has never proved an obstacle when strategic interests were at stake.

South Asia offers a particularly sharp illustration. In Bangladesh, a US-backed political realignment has coincided with a disturbing surge in communal violence, including attacks on Hindus and widespread lawlessness. In Kashmir, India has long complained of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Indian officials allege that such groups benefit indirectly from American intelligence tolerance, if not assistance. When India launched Operation Sindoor in retaliation to the Pahalgam massacre with the aim to dismantle Pakistan-sponsored terror infrastructure across the border, pressure from Washington and Riyadh helped force an early halt. Shortly thereafter, Pakistan army chief Asim Munir was feted in Washington even as senior Pakistani officials were photographed attending funerals of known militants.

India’s discomfort does not end there. New Delhi is aware of foreign funding networks actively encouraging radical groups to foment trouble within the country, along with the US-led bankrolling of ‘sympathetic’ political movements and the amplification (by the elite Western press) of international criticism of the Modi government on religious freedom and human rights. The tariffs imposed by Trump are merely the sharpest end of a broader toolkit in this case.

And Trump’s enthusiasm for tariffs has only intensified in the past few months. On his social-media platform Truth Social, he boasted that levies imposed by his administration have already generated “hundreds of billions of dollars” for America, soon to exceed $600 billion. They have, he insists, made the country “stronger and more respected than ever before.”

But the reality is less flattering. Tariffs function as taxes on consumers, raising prices and distorting supply chains. They fuel trade wars that sap global growth. The benefits to domestic industry are uneven at best. Small wonder that Trump’s authority to impose such sweeping measures now faces scrutiny in the Supreme Court. His warning that any judicial rollback would endanger national security betrays a striking disdain for checks and balances. A ruling expected in 2026 could define the limits of presidential economic power.

Here again the Godfather analogy intrudes. Don Corleone does not recognise any authority above his own. Laws exist to be bent or broken if they obstruct his interests. The end justifies the means. When courts, institutions or allies resist, they are pressured until compliance becomes the rational choice.

Iran provides the latest example. Having failed to extract concessions from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Washington backed Israeli strikes under the codename ‘Midnight Hammer’ and openly signalled support for regime change by encouraging protests. Tehran’s sovereignty counted for little. Similar rhetoric has been directed at Cuba and Colombia. Even Greenland has found itself the subject of unsolicited American interest.

For India, the message is unsettling. The ‘offer’ on the table, which is to shift energy purchases away from Russia towards America and its allies, at higher cost, comes wrapped in friendship but enforced by threat. Accept, and all is well. Refuse, and tariffs, diplomatic pressure and strategic isolation will follow. Trump has made India an offer it cannot refuse.

The tragedy is that such behaviour corrodes the very order America once championed. Rules-based systems survive only if the strong accept restraint. When power is exercised nakedly in this fashion, institutions hollow out and cynicism flourishes. Smaller states learn that morality is ornamental and alignment transactional. Even large states like India are reminded of the limits of its autonomy.

In geopolitics, the white shirt and tie of civilised diplomacy conceal a clenched fist beneath the table. The stick remains decisive. The buffalo, as ever, follows whoever holds it.