“With the waning of globalization, post-Cold War world is becoming a site of sovereign nationalism.” Elucidate.

Post-Cold War globalization — hyper-integration of trade, capital, people and ideas — peaked around the 2008 financial crisis. Since then 'slowbalisation' has set in, and states are reasserting sovereign control over economics, borders and information.

Manifestations of sovereign nationalism

• Economic: US-China tariff and technology wars, semiconductor export controls, reshoring and friend-shoring, and industrial policy — the US CHIPS Act, Atmanirbhar Bharat, China's dual circulation.
• Political: Brexit, retreat from multilateral commitments, paralysis of the WTO Appellate Body, hardened immigration politics across Europe and the USA.
• Security: weaponization of sanctions and payment systems, energy nationalism after the Ukraine war, vaccine nationalism during COVID-19.
• Digital: data-localization mandates, platform bans and 'splinternet' tendencies asserting cyber sovereignty.
• Identity: civilizational-state narratives and majoritarian nationalism supplying domestic legitimacy to economic closure.

A qualified reading

• Globalization is fragmenting, not ending: regional blocs (RCEP), minilaterals (I2U2), new corridors (IMEC) and expanding digital-services trade point to re-globalization along geopolitical lines — what the IMF calls geoeconomic fragmentation.

For India, the moment validates strategic autonomy: multi-alignment, diversified supply chains and bilateral trade pacts, while continuing to defend the open, rules-based order on which its own growth depends.