Since the fall of the Soviet Union however, with the resulting massive increases in trade and overall interdependence between nations, and the advent of the internet, with its electronic banking and finance, all this has completely changed.
But it is also an almost magical tool for stabilising a whole continent, creating new markets and letting free trade and free movement build ties of interdependence.
China has already overtaken the US as India's most important trading partner, and economic interdependence will create common cause in trade negotiations with advanced economies.