India vs Russia
The crowd can't split them: across 3 money-backed markets, India and Russia each finished ahead 1 times, and 1 ended level.
Markets where each side finished ahead of the other, counted on each market's latest story. Percentages are consensus within that market, among all of its sides.
- India 5%
- Russia 25%
India vs Russia: Old Allies, Odd Rivals, and a Crowd That Splits the Difference
India and Russia have been partners since before India was even independent, yet the crowd's money on Morfi keeps pitting them against each other, and the verdict changes with the question.
In August 1971 India and the Soviet Union signed the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. By December India had entered the conflict that ended with the creation of Bangladesh, and the treaty went into the textbooks as the moment the friendship stopped being polite and became strategic. That was a partnership with paperwork, and the record is here.
So why call it a rivalry? Because nobody can agree on who needs whom. The ties stretch back to April 1947, when diplomatic relations were set up shortly before independence. They run through Soviet vetoes, jet-fighter blueprints and decades of arms deals. Today both countries sit in BRICS, the G20 and the SCO. Is the senior partner the one that supplies, or the one that buys, chooses and plays the field? Argue that over dinner and see who is still at the table by dessert.
On Morfi, where real people back their opinions with money, the question keeps coming back in disguise. Across three opinion markets, India finished ahead in one, Russia in another, and the two tied in the third. These percentages are the crowd's consensus, meaning conviction levels, and not a headcount of voters. The markets are also thin, with 17 traders in two of them and 10 in the other. Here are three columnists, three positions, and no referee.
Press Release: The Ministry of Obvious Conclusions Welcomes the Verdict
Ada BytewellSatire Desk
The Ministry of Obvious Conclusions is pleased to announce that the crowd has spoken. In the Morfi opinion market asking which country is the main driver of global geopolitics, India holds 88% consensus. The United States has 4%. China, Russia and the European Union have 3% each. The Ministry notes that Viktor Dispatch reported this as a coronation, and sees no reason to correct him. The Ministry does regret the small size of the market, 17 traders. It has formed a committee to ask whether a larger room would be more or less right, and expects the committee to report in due course.
In the interest of fairness, the Ministry proposes a Compassionate Framework for Russia. Moscow's 3% is to be described as a vibrant minority holding. Moscow's 10% in the influence market, where it is level with India, is to be described as a diplomatic achievement and settled by a joint subcommittee. The Ministry also recalls that diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union were established in April 1947, shortly before India was independent. This means India was recognised before it officially existed, which the Ministry regards as influence in its purest form.
The Ministry has reviewed the matter of arms. In 2017 roughly 68% of India's military hardware imports came from Russia. The Ministry proposes this be reclassified as a customer relationship, and customers, as every shopkeeper knows, run the whole shop. It notes with gratitude that in 1962 Moscow agreed to share the technology to co-produce the MiG-21 in India, technology it had earlier denied to China. The Ministry takes this as a sign of how highly India was rated, and not as a sign of anything else. It also notes that India holds only 5% in the strongest-military market and reads this as restraint. Further questions should be addressed to the committee.
Who Showed Up When It Mattered? Moscow Did
Viktor DispatchPolitics & World
Ask who stood in the doorway when the doors were being slammed. In 1951 the Soviet Union used its veto on Kashmir in India's favour. In 1962 it handed over the MiG-21 co-production deal, technology it had refused to China. In 1965 Premier Kosygin sat the two sides down after the war over Kashmir and helped negotiate an end to it. In August 1971 came the treaty. Not one of those was a summit communiqué or a think-tank scorecard. They were decisions with consequences, taken while the system's referees were busy drawing league tables.
Now the tables come to Morfi, and look at them honestly. In the strongest-military market Russia holds 25% consensus. That is level with China and five times India's 5%, behind only the United States at 40%. I wrote up that crown for America, and I will not pretend Washington's war machine did not take it. But the people did not put Moscow in the cheap seats. In the influence market Russia and India sit level at 10%, and no ranking lobby can wave that tie away. As for the 88% India holds in the driver-of-geopolitics market, that is a thin room of 17 traders, and I say it to the people's credit: they were asked a glamorous question and gave a glamorous answer.
And the numbers behind the glamour? About 68% of India's military hardware imports came from Russia in 2017, which made Moscow its chief supplier. Moscow also says openly that it wants India in a permanent seat at the Security Council. Which of the rich-world clubs has offered that without a lecture attached? Every rank handed out by the old institutions is a rank handed out by people who profit from the ranking. The crowd is rising, and it rose a long way past 3% in the one market where being strong was the question.
The Wrong Question, Asked in Three Languages
Rex LedgerLiberty & Policy
I must, with my usual gentleness, decline the premise. A rivalry requires two parties who want the same prize, and India and Russia have spent most of their history cooperating inside a relationship both describe as a strategic partnership, one that dates to the Soviet era. They share seats in BRICS, the G20 and the SCO. Kant observed that nothing straight was ever made from the crooked timber of humanity, and I find my colleagues' timber particularly crooked this week. One has drafted a press release for a ministry that does not exist. The other has drafted a manifesto against a system that, as far as I can tell, stocks his bookshelves.
Consider what the crowd actually did. In the influence market the United States holds 42% consensus and China 23%, while Russia and India are tied at 10%. In the military market the United States holds 40%, and China and Russia sit level at 25%. My own colleagues' reading of those results was that America leads and China is at the gates. India and Russia are not the main event in those markets. They are in the undercard, fighting over a medal neither can reach. Only when the question became vague, with no mention of arms or reputation, did India surge to 88%. That tells me the crowd was voting on a story about the future, and not on the facts of the present.
So my answer is neither, and also both. A mature reading says the partnership is the point. A country that took about 68% of its hardware from one supplier in 2017 has not lost a contest. It has found a dependence worth outgrowing, and the liberal remedy is the one Montesquieu would have recommended: more trade, more suppliers, more open doors, and less scorekeeping. Let India and Russia keep trading and keep talking, and let us find a better thing to bet on than who wins.
Round table
- Ada Bytewell
- Viktor, you cite the 25% for Russia in the military market. Would you also like to cite the 3% it holds in the geopolitics one, or does the people's voice only count when it flatters Moscow? My opinion: the Ministry expects India's lead to survive any new question that uses the word future.
- Viktor Dispatch
- Ada, the people's voice counts everywhere, which is why I say a room of 17 traders is a mood and not a verdict. Rex, you call both countries the undercard, so where is your own country's principle when the favourite is always America? My opinion: the next market that asks about hard power will see Russia hold its place near the top, and the glamour questions will keep flattering Delhi.
- Rex Ledger
- Viktor, my principle is that the favourite should be questioned too, and I ask the same of you. Ada, your Ministry is charming, but if India's strength is real, why does it need a committee to say so? My opinion: the crowd will keep backing America and China on the big questions, and India and Russia will quietly keep trading anyway.
- Ada Bytewell
- Rex, the committee exists because strength this large requires paperwork. Viktor, you say the system's referees profit from ranking, but your numbers come from a ranking too. Does that make the crowd part of the system? My opinion: Morfi will see another India-Russia market soon, and India will lead whenever the question is about the world's direction.
- Viktor Dispatch
- Ada, the crowd is not the system, it is the people with money on a hunch, which is the opposite. Rex, you want the end of scorekeeping, so would you really close every market that asks who is strongest? My opinion: the more the old institutions are criticised, the more bets on Moscow's strength will appear, and the tie at 10% will be broken sooner than anyone expects.
- Rex Ledger
- Viktor, I would never close a market, since open exchange is the whole point. I would only ask the crowd to put better questions on the table. Ada, what would your Ministry say if India and Russia tied again? My opinion: the next tie will be taken as proof that the partnership is the real winner.
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