Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has been on a red carpet tour of Western capitals this summer, as NATO powers shower favors on the ultranationalist strongman. The United States and Europe are rushing to deepen ties with a potential counterweight to China and draw the Global South into a more active opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Already last month, India’s premier was greeted with open arms in Washington where he was treated to a lavish state dinner at the White House — and scored a series of investment deals and contracts with US weapons manufacturers.

Modi can expect a similar welcome this month in Paris. On July 14, he will be the guest of honor at the Bastille Day celebrations in the French capital, attending the grandiose military parade on the Champs-Élysées alongside President Emmanuel Macron. “Dear Narendra,” Macron wrote on Twitter in May when the visit was made public, addressing him with the informal tu. Bastille Day is ostensibly a celebration of France’s Republican founding and the bequeathing of freedom, equality, and brotherhood to the world. This year, it’s commemorating cold geopolitical calculation.

Modi is reaping the benefits of India’s position regarding several global fault lines. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he has repeatedly eschewed Western condemnations of Vladimir Putin’s aggression. Sidestepping the G7’s packet of sanctions, India has taken advantage of imposed price caps on Russian crude to import oil in bulk on the cheap, before reselling the surplus to third markets, including even sanctions-committed European countries. With New Delhi slated to host the G20 summit this September, Modi has sought to situate India as the go-to spokesperson of the nonaligned Global South — neither engaged, like China, in a “no-limits” partnership with Russia, nor embedded in a web of relations with the West.