Being the world’s only superpower also brings with it a certain responsibility, or so the US claimed when it oversaw its global sphere of influence. Over the last decade, as information leaked out of its small analog corners at an ever-increasing rate and spread its effects across the globe, the American deep state lost its shadowiness.

While much of Europe and the United States, out of nostalgia and habit, are reluctant to abandon their anti-Russian rhetoric, democracies have borne the burden of American harshness in particular. Aside from Donald Trump’s rather ineffective trade war with China, the democratic establishment that replaced him not only failed to punish Xi Jinping’s authoritarian regime after the Wuhan crisis, but, as investigations have shown, helped cover up the country’s involvement at the cost of American lives.

Condescension was expressed here and there, but the greatest international threat to American hegemony was treated like a well-tolerated, competitive younger brother. China’s rule-breaking works well as long as the West’s dependence on trade remains and as long as corruption and establishment collusion are embedded in the State Department. It is telling that its famous mouthpiece, the Washington Post, recently discovered that its foreign policy columnist Max Boot is married to a Chinese spy. Moreover, the now-arrested agent, Sue Mi Terry, is a former CIA analyst.

America’s unfocused foreign policy is kept busy by its ever-simmering war machine, and Chinese influence over-emphasizes India’s necessary and historically relevant proximity to Russia. On the other hand, a few words of concern are enough for a much more globally relevant dragon-bear bond. At the same time, India’s neighboring democracy Bangladesh has been constantly harassed at the expense of its peace and constantly threatened with regime change, which has recently been implemented.

U.S. engagement with anti-government organizations that foment protests is technically the opposite of diplomacy. Global diplomacy standards depend on countries engaging with legitimate governments, regardless of the diplomat’s policy preferences. The idea is to build bridges, not to act as a threat. That is why, despite a terrorist government in Afghanistan and military rule in Myanmar, India maintains contacts with the governments currently in power, not those India wants there.

To an audience that uncritically consumes content from CIA-influenced publications, “civil society” reads like an acceptable authority to negotiate with. Except in democracies, civil societies have literally gone out and voted to determine the ruling government. However, it is a government that the US does not like and will do anything it can to overthrow and replace with a puppet regime. This has obviously not worked out well for Ukraine, Afghanistan or Iran.

None of the moral principles are applicable to the most extraordinary country in the modern world. US diplomatic staff consistently urged cooperation with the opposition in India and Bangladesh. Now that the elected Hasina government has been overthrown, a Clinton-friendly American is at the helm of Bangladeshi affairs. Mohammed Yunus has previously been accused of embezzling millions of rupees in a country where the common man barely earns thousands. Norwegian authorities have also suspected financial fraud through his company Grameen Telecom, which works with Norwegian network operator Telenor. He is, however, being decorated with a Nobel Prize.

At the same time, Hasina’s opposition to Chinese ambitions in her country meant that China had a vested interest in seeing another government in power. As prime minister, she had refused to allow China to build the Sonadia deep-sea port. Instead, she invited the Japanese to fund such a port near Chittagong. This is not to say that Bangladesh’s trade or defense partnership with China suffered during Hasina’s tenure. However, China maintains a close relationship with the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), and Jamaat-e-Islami student groups are supported by its satellite state, Pakistan.

Similar to the Maldives, in Bangladesh they funded an “India Out” campaign that was successful by labelling all Awami League supporters and Hindu minorities as “traitors” to India. JeI is a group that violently opposed Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan and regularly committed heinous crimes against minorities. Not surprisingly, after the coup, their student groups desecrated monuments commemorating Bangladesh’s independence and destroyed statues commemorating Pakistan’s surrender to India when they allowed Bangladesh to secede after years of neglect and violence against the Bengali people.

This volatile situation has isolated Awami League-led Bangladesh from the US, affecting its trade and further increasing its dependence on China. At the same time, American tirades and blockades against Hasina’s party have emboldened the extremely radicalised and openly Islamic Shariah-supporting BNP and JeI to plunge the country into chaos. Now that they have succeeded in overthrowing Hasina’s elected government, Hindus are facing another ethnic cleansing – a repeat of the horrors of the 1971 genocide. America’s supporters believe that these lives are of little importance in gaining control of the region. There has been little comment on the situation so far, with the White House saying only that it is “monitoring” the situation, much as it did nothing when the Yazidis and Hazaras were expelled from their land.

With a third front now opening against India – a China-backed BNP and an ISI-backed JeI – India is left with regional instability in a hostile region. The Narendra Modi-led government has shown extreme disinterest in interventionist foreign policy, unlike previous governments that offered military support to neighboring countries or engaged in intelligence operations to favor certain governments. It has acted in a manner that is completely at odds with the U.S. State Department’s approach, and for all its composure and conservatism, it is the only politically stable democracy in a region where communist and military autocracy are the norm.

Undermining democracy is an American addiction. That is not to say that the citizens whose democracies are being undermined did not have legitimate grievances before foreign influence. However, U.S.-backed “color revolutions” and militaries have left each of these countries worse off: economic growth has been destroyed, the media censored, and dictatorships or puppet regimes have been preferred to the triumph of a genuine civil society. Perhaps Bangladesh is a lesson. But history rarely teaches those who do not want to learn.

The author is a columnist with several Indian publications such as NDTV, FirstPost and CNN-News18 and hosts a podcast on geopolitics and culture. She writes about international relations, public policy and history and posts on X under her handle @sagorika_s. The views expressed in the above post are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Firstpost.