The Peninsula Foundation

Category: International & Transnational Affairs

  • The West’s False Narrative about Russia and China

    The West’s False Narrative about Russia and China

    The relentless Western narrative that the West is noble while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous.

    The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts.  The relentless Western narrative that the West is noble while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous.  It is an attempt to manipulate public opinion, not to deal with very real and pressing diplomacy.

    The essential narrative of the West is built into US national security strategy.  The core US idea is that China and Russia are implacable foes that are “attempting to erode American security and prosperity.”  These countries are, according to the US, “determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.”

    The irony is that since 1980 the US has been in at least 15 overseas wars of choice (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Panama, Serbia, Syria, and Yemen just to name a few), while China has been in none, and Russia only in one (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union.  The US has military bases in 85 countries, China in 3, and Russia in 1 (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union.

    US security strategy is not the work of any single US president but of the US security establishment, which is largely autonomous, and operates behind a wall of secrecy.  

    President Joe Biden has promoted this narrative, declaring that the greatest challenge of our time is the competition with the autocracies, which “seek to advance their own power, export and expand their influence around the world, and justify their repressive policies and practices as a more efficient way to address today’s challenges.”  US security strategy is not the work of any single US president but of the US security establishment, which is largely autonomous, and operates behind a wall of secrecy.

    The overwrought fear of China and Russia is sold to a Western public through manipulation of the facts.  A generation earlier George W. Bush, Jr. sold the public on the idea that America’s greatest threat was Islamic fundamentalism, without mentioning that it was the CIA, with Saudi Arabia and other countries, that had created, funded, and deployed the jihadists in Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere to fight America’s wars.

    Or consider the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, which was painted in the Western media as an act of unprovoked perfidy.  Years later, we learned that the Soviet invasion was actually preceded by a CIA operation designed to provoke the Soviet invasion! The same misinformation occurred vis-à-vis Syria.  The Western press is filled with recriminations against Putin’s military assistance to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad beginning in 2015, without mentioning that the US supported the overthrow of al-Assad beginning in 2011, with the CIA funding a major operation (Timber Sycamore) to overthrow Assad years before Russia arrived.

    Or more recently, when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recklessly flew to Taiwan despite China’s warnings, no G7 foreign minister criticized Pelosi’s provocation, yet the G7 ministers together harshly criticized China’s “overreaction” to Pelosi’s trip.

    The Western narrative about the Ukraine war is that it is an unprovoked attack by Putin in the quest to recreate the Russian empire.  Yet the real history starts with the Western promise to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not enlarge to the East, followed by four waves of NATO aggrandizement: in 1999, incorporating three Central European countries; in 2004, incorporating 7 more, including in the Black Sea and the Baltic States; in 2008, committing to enlarge to Ukraine and Georgia; and in 2022, inviting four Asia-Pacific leaders to NATO to take aim at China.

    Nor do the Western media mention the US role in the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych; the failure of the Governments of France and Germany, guarantors of the Minsk II agreement, to press Ukraine to carry out its commitments; the vast US armaments sent to Ukraine during the Trump and Biden Administrations in the lead-up to war; nor the refusal of the US to negotiate with Putin over NATO enlargement to Ukraine.

    Of course, NATO says that is purely defensive so that Putin should have nothing to fear.  In other words, Putin should take no notice of the CIA operations in Afghanistan and Syria; the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999; the NATO overthrow of Moammar Qaddafi in 2011; the NATO occupation of Afghanistan for 15 years; nor Biden’s “gaffe” calling for Putin’s ouster (which of course was no gaffe at all); nor US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stating that the US war aim in Ukraine is the weakening of Russia.

    The US has a mere 4.2% of the world population, and now a mere 16% of world GDP (measured at international prices).  In fact, the combined GDP of the G7 is now less than that of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), while the G7 population is just 6 per cent of the world compared with 41 per cent in the BRICS. 

    At the core of all of this is the US’s attempt to remain the world’s hegemonic power, by augmenting military alliances around the world to contain or defeat China and Russia.  It’s a dangerous, delusional, and outmoded idea.  The US has a mere 4.2% of the world population, and now a mere 16% of world GDP (measured at international prices).  In fact, the combined GDP of the G7 is now less than that of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), while the G7 population is just 6 per cent of the world compared with 41 per cent in the BRICS.

    There is only one country whose self-declared fantasy is to be the world’s dominant power: the US.  It’s past time that the US recognized the true sources of security: internal social cohesion and responsible cooperation with the rest of the world, rather than the illusion of hegemony.  With such a revised foreign policy, the US and its allies would avoid war with China and Russia, and enable the world to face its myriad environment, energy, food and social crises.

    European leaders should pursue the true source of European security: not US hegemony, but European security arrangements that respect the legitimate security interests of all European nations

    Above all, at this time of extreme danger, European leaders should pursue the true source of European security: not US hegemony, but European security arrangements that respect the legitimate security interests of all European nations, certainly including Ukraine, but also including Russia, which continues to resist NATO enlargements into the Black Sea.  Europe should reflect on the fact that the non-enlargement of NATO and the implementation of the Minsk II agreements would have averted this awful war in Ukraine.  At this stage, diplomacy, not military escalation, is the true path to European and global security.

    Feature Image Credit: Big Stock

    This article was published earlier in Pearls and Irritations.

  • Beyond Unipolarity and the Euro–American Horizons of IR Thought: Reflections on the Emergent World Order

    Beyond Unipolarity and the Euro–American Horizons of IR Thought: Reflections on the Emergent World Order

    Abstract

    Amidst the continuing conflict in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a notable pronouncement of the end of the US-led unipolar world and the rise of multipolar world order. Against this backdrop of the debate on polarity, my research paper seeks to address the following questions. To what extent have global institutions, mainstream IRT (International Relations Theory) and academia as well as policies reflected if not reinforced Euro-American norms and interests? Does this purported shift to multipolarity require a shift in institutional and theoretical practices reflecting the broad concerns of the Global South? Using global and regional case studies like India (especially in regard to the representation within academia and the glass ceiling affecting institutional practices like Young Professionals Programme), I draw from critical and post-colonial theoretical IR frameworks to argue for a comprehensive reform of the prevalent global institutional and theoretical structures. 

    Introduction

    The Euro-American hegemony runs very deep, pervading a range of institutions, norms, global practices, knowledge and even academic teaching practices.

    The month of February this year witnessed one of the most defining moments of the post-Cold war era. Marking a major escalation of the simmering conflict that began with the insurgency in Eastern Ukraine in 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine resulting in thousands of casualties and millions of refugees.[1] This conflict inevitably has given rise to a wide range of debates in the global arena, including global governance, institutions, conflict and security. In this regard, one of the most interesting debates that have seen a resurgence is the question of the future of the world order. 

    The notion of a shift to multipolar world order has emerged as a prominent theme in the wake of this crisis. This is best exemplified by Vladimir Putin in his address to the St Petersburg International Economic Forum Plenary session, “a multipolar system of international relations is now being formed. It is an irreversible process; it is happening before our eyes and is objective in nature.” It is indeed widely recognised that the brief period of unipolarity, dominated by the US, following the end of the Cold War, has given way to the era of multipolar world order, characterised by ‘new powerful and increasingly assertive centres.’ [2] However, even as this shift to multipolarity seems almost deterministic, there persist legitimate questions on the conduciveness of the current world order to the emergence of these multiple power-centres. 

    Against this backdrop, my work shall be organised as follows. I commence with a discussion on the shift towards multipolarity, providing the conceptual capital of notions like power and polarity. This shall be followed by my argument that the current global order, exemplified in its norms, institutions, and intellectual resources, fall severely short of the expectations required of the multipolar world order. To illustrate this point, I draw from the case study of India, in particular. I conclude by providing some prescriptions necessary for the transition to multipolarity to be meaningful. Towards this pursuit, I draw from critical post-colonial theoretical frameworks, employing secondary literature review as the overarching method.

    Shifts towards multipolarity

    Before proceeding to the premise of the shift towards multipolarity, a few conceptual clarifications are in order. Polarity in this context is understood as the modes of distribution of power in the international system. Typically, it is classified as unipolar (e.g. US hegemony in the post-Cold-War era), bipolar (e.g. Russia-US dominance during the Cold War era) and multipolar (e.g. Europe during the pre-World War era). [3] While there are myriad debates on what constitutes power in the global landscape, I draw from the useful typology provided most famously by Joseph Nye – hard, soft, and smart power. Hard power is often described as the typical carrot and stick approach, involving coercion and is often measured in terms of “population size, territory, geography, natural resources, military force, and economic strength.” On the other hand, soft power is described as the ability to influence state preference using intangible attributes like “attractive personality, culture, political values, institutions, and policies” resulting in the perception of legitimacy or moral authority. Smart power is often understood as the instrumental deployment of a combination of both to secure political ends.[4] 

    The end of the Cold War era, prematurely lauded as the end of history by a scholar, resulted in a brief unipolar moment of US hegemony. As Putin puts it, the US was the predominant power with a limited group of allies which resulted in “all business practices and international relations … interpreted solely in the interests of this power.”[2]  However, a range of factors in the twenty-first century led to a crisis in American leadership. The interventionist atrocities carried out in the wake of the September 11 attacks as well as the crisis of global capitalism during the financial crisis of 2008 led to a crisis in American leadership.[5] This period also saw the emergence of new powers like the BRICS nations, who posed a serious challenge to the notion of unipolarity.[3] 

    As Amitav Acharya and Burry Buzan argue, this diffusion of power has resulted in the ‘rise of the rest’ characterised by the absence of a single superpower. Instead, a number of great and regional powers have emerged with their respective institutions and models of growth. Such a world order is also shaped by a greater role accorded to non-state actors including global organisations, corporations, and social movements as well as non-state actors.[6] Thus, the current global landscape is often termed as multipolar, multi-civilizational and multiplex offering myriad opportunities and benefits for states.[7] The crisis in Ukraine has only bolstered this multipolar moment even further. Consider India as a case in point. The likes of the U.S. (and even China) have competed for India’s affection and India’s seemingly pro-Russia stance has not prevented Delhi’s deeper engagement with her counterparts in the West. These initiatives can only enhance India’s great power status, resulting in potentially a higher degree of multipolarity.[8]

    Thus, even as there is an increasing scholarly and policy-based consensus on the shift towards multipolarity, there remain important reservations on whether the current global arena is equipped to deal with the seismic shifts posed by the emergent world order. In other words, does this purported shift to multipolarity require a shift in institutional and theoretical practices reflecting the broad concerns of the Global South? In the next section, I answer in the affirmative, arguing that the dominant norms, institutions, and intellectual resources are broadly skewed towards the preservation of Euro-American hegemony. 

    The maintenance of Euro-American hegemony: norms, institutions, and academia

    The exercise of U.S. hegemonic power involved the projection of a set of norms and their embrace by elites in other nations.

    Drawing from Persaud, I argue that dominant powers forge an “academic/foreign policy/security ‘complex’ dedicated to the maintenance of a hegemonic world order.” [9] Such a complex is constituted by an intricate network of norms, institutions and theoretical/ intellectual practices which seek to uphold the status quo. In this section, I examine each of these aspects in detail.

    Consider norms, in the first instance. Norms can be defined broadly as the “collective expectations for the proper behaviour of actors.”[10] When certain norms which serve certain interests are considered as general interests, it results in hegemony. The dominant powers socialise and hegemonise other countries into an ideological worldview that best serves their interests. In other words, actors have to orient themselves according to a ‘logic of appropriateness’ framed by these intersubjective notions. In the post World War era, the Roosevelt-led US administration projected a series of norms and principles guided by liberal multilateralism, to shape the post-war international order. Such a form of ‘institutional materiality’ posited a clear separation between the political and the economic realm. The embrace of these norms outside the US occurred through various modes of socialisation including external inducement (e.g. Britain and France), direct intervention and internal reconstruction (e.g. Germany and Japan) as well as military and economic dominance.[11] 

    The exercise of U.S. hegemonic power involved the projection of a set of norms and their embrace by elites in other nations. Socialisation did occur since U.S. leaders were largely successful in inducing other nations to buy into this normative order. But the processes through which socialisation occurred varied from nation to nation. In Britain and France, shifts in norms were accomplished primarily by external inducement; in Germany and Japan, they resulted from direct intervention and internal reconstruction. In all cases, the spread of norms of liberal multilateralism was heavily tied to U.S. military and economic dominance. [11]

    Such norms are often manipulated (and flouted) to their advantage. For example, consider the liberal norm of conditional sovereignty, linked to human rights, spearheaded by the likes of the US and many countries in Western Europe. Assuming the primacy of the individual over the state, it has legitimised intervention on ‘humanitarian’ grounds. However, the execution of these norms has been far more uniform as best exemplified in their differential application in the wake of the atrocities in Kosovo and Rwanda. An intra-state conflict resulting in a humanitarian crisis in Kosovo precipitated a successful multilateral intervention. However, the same decisiveness was starkly absent with regard to a similar (if not greater) conflict in Rwanda which resulted in almost 800,000 casualties and more than two million refugees. Multiple studies have traced the rationale of intervention to the “strategic interests in Europe’s future and the NATO alliance.” Rwanda on the other hand was considered peripheral to the national interests of either Western Europe or the US.[12] This substantiates the argument that the norm of ‘humanitarian intervention’ is often tied more to brutal national interests rather than the protection of human rights.

    A range of global norms, ranging from economic norms, dealing with the management of finance, to those dealing with water governance has been shown to be skewed towards the interests of great powers rather than participative in nature.

    Consider another instance. The Liberal International Order (LIO) asserts the concept of ‘conditional sovereignty’ where sovereign nation-states are bound to look after their entire populations. A failure to that end invites interference and comments from other nation-states and external agencies. This norm has been pushed forward and spearheaded by first-world countries like the US and Western Europe, much to their advantage. Contrary to this, the neo-Westphalian order is a proponent of the ‘classical sovereignty’ model where nation-states are sovereign within their own territory to administer in any manner they want, obviously with a necessary reverence to human rights, but others are not authorized to interfere in the same. China and other authoritarian regimes have been advocating for the same. So, while the LIO talks about the equality of every individual, the neo-Westphalian order focuses more on the equality of all nation-states.[13] Similarly, a range of global norms, ranging from economic norms, dealing with the management of finance, to those dealing with water governance has been shown to be skewed towards the interests of great powers rather than participative in nature. 

    Similarly, Cox and Gill have argued how global governance through institutions play a critical role in maintaining hegemony.[14] The multilateral institutions which the US had created both in the political and economic realm have played a critical role in the sustenance of Euro-American (and especially the U.S.) dominance. In other words, even as the international world order shifts to a multipolar one, it has not exactly been accompanied by multilateralism.[15] While multilateralism puts forward the interests of multiple states, most so-called multilateral institutions reflect and reinforce prevailing power configurations. 

    Consider the United Nations, for instance. It cannot be a mere coincidence that the UN has been ineffectual against most of the contemporary global challenges like climate change, the pandemic etc. when it has not been responsive to the reality of the increasing number of power centres in the multipolar world order.[16] The most glaring evidence is the UNSC. Despite an increasing number of voices on the rise of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the P5 includes only one representative from Asia (which is China) and no members from either Africa or Latin America. In addition, while there has been more than a threefold rise in UN membership, the number of non-permanent seats has only risen from 11 to 15. Even at the administrative levels, the lack of non-western representation is indeed a concern. Besides the absence of a UNSC permanent seat, it is also disheartening to see that it has been years since the Young Professionals Program has been held for the likes of India.

    These same institutions are often undermined by the likes of the US, under the facade of NATO. Consider the harrowing intervention in Libya. The NATO intervention on supposedly ‘humanitarian’ grounds in 2011 led to the death of Muamar Gaddafi, violating the legal structures of the UN charter in the process and resulting in a proxy war. The result has been a prolonged state of near-anarchy characterised by arbitrary detentions, executions, mass killings and kidnappings. [17]

    The WTO is plagued with similar issues. While it ostensibly reflects the ‘global’ norm of neoliberal free trade, it is “structured and ordered to promote monopolistic competition rather than genuine free trade. These institutional roadblocks include the exclusion of developing countries from several informal decision-making sessions, lack of transparency, coercive decision-making in meetings involving developing countries, astronomical costs involved in Dispute settlement Understanding and so on. The result is that the Western countries have an overwhelming advantage against their counterparts from the Global South. [18]

    Lastly, as highlighted earlier, the international policy making apparatus cannot be divorced from the intellectual resources churned by IR academia. Zvobgo, in an insightful piece, has argued how the big three of IR theory – realism, liberalism and constructivism – are built on Eurocentric, raced and racist foundations.[19] The role of imperial policymakers in shaping contemporary IR knowledge has been well acknowledged. Kwaku Danso and Kwesi Aninghave argued about the prevalence of methodological whiteness, which projects White experience as a universal experience.[20] It is no coincidence that the principles of the Westphalian treaty are not significantly different from those underlying the current UN charter. Acharya has argued that racism was integral to the emergence of the US-led world order exemplified in the scant focus on colonialism in UNDHR as well as the “privileging of sovereign equality’ over ‘racial equality.’[21] 

    These forms of methodological whiteness have had devastating impacts across the world. The projection and the forceful projection of the Weberian state as the fundamental unit of security and conflict management has resulted in disastrous policy-level consequences in Africa which have always been characterised by a range of hybrid political systems beyond the nation-state.[20] Similarly, much of the problematic policies carried out today based on the binaries of ‘developed’ v/s ‘developing’ nations have direct continuities with the legacy of empire and race reflected in dichotomies like ‘civilised v/s uncivilised’. 

    There also exists historical amnesia of racism in academia, whether in terms of representation or teaching practices. For example, in the US, only 8% of the faculty identify themselves as Black or Latino. Similarly, the configurations of colonialism and racism in building the modern world order are either glossed over or overlooked in most academia.[19] Indian academia is a case in point. As Behera argues, despite the strong tradition of Indian independent IR thought as well as the long history of colonialism, Indian IR has imbibed a definite set of givens including  “the infallibility of the Indian state modelled after the Westphalian nation-state as well as a thorough internalization of the philosophy of political realism and positivism.[22] Rohan Mukherjee, for instance, has highlighted an unpublished survey of IR faculty within India wherein the majority self-identified as either liberal or realist.[23]

    Thus, the Euro-American hegemony runs very deep, pervading a range of institutions, norms, global practices, knowledge and even academic teaching practices. In the next section, I conclude by outlining certain prescriptions for a future world order which responds to and is far more conducive to the inevitable multipolar shifts. 

    Conclusion

    India has umpteen intellectual resources from Gita and the Sangam literature to stellar modern political philosophers like Gandhi, Tagore and so on, which need to be strategically combined with contemporary IR notions and questions of security, justice and so on.

    This paper first established the backdrop of the shift towards multipolarity within the world order by outlining the myriad modes of power through which the ‘Rest’ has caught up with the ‘West.’ In the succeeding section, I demonstrated how a range of norms, institutions and intellectual practices had been historically constructed to maintain Euro-American hegemony as well as promote the interests of the West. In such a world order, certain parochial interests have masqueraded themselves as common or global interests. In the concluding section, I outline certain prescriptions which have become necessary for a more equitable, multi-civilisational world order. 

    Institutions like the UN require urgent and seismic reforms reflecting the interests of emerging power centres. The number of seats within the Permanent and non-permanent seats must be expanded to include more nation-states from Asia, Africa and Latin America. A revitalisation of the UNGA is highly overdue and requires a focussed and timely debate on the problems of the highest priority at any given time through rationalization of its agenda. [24] Similarly, the proposed WTO reforms, which seeks to move away from multilateralism to impose plurilateralism, should be opposed at all costs. [25]

    As Zvobjo puts it eloquently, how IR is taught perpetuates the inequalities which are detailed above. Besides the dominant IR triumvirate, there needs to be an increased focus on critical perspectives as well as increased engagement with the uncomfortable questions of race, empire, colour, and caste.[19] This should be complemented by more diversity in terms of representation within academia. In India specifically, there needs to be increased efforts to construct Indian or South Asian IR notions. India has umpteen intellectual resources from Gita and the Sangam literature to stellar modern political philosophers like Gandhi, Tagore and so on, which need to be strategically combined with contemporary IR notions and questions of security, justice and so on. However, as Mallavarapu reminds us, care needs to be taken to ensure they can address existing inequities in the world order without succumbing or falling prey to jingoism or nativism.[26]

    References

    [1] Alex Leeds Matthews, Matt Stiles, Tom Nagorski, and Justin Rood, ‘The Ukraine War in data’, Grid, August 4, 2022

    https://www.grid.news/story/global/2022/08/04/the-ukraine-war-in-data-12-million-people-driven-from-their-homes/

    [2] Address to participants of 10th St Petersburg International Legal Forum, President of Russia, June 30, 2022

    http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68785

    [3]Andrea Edoardo Varisco, ’Towards a Multi-Polar International System: Which Prospects for Global Peace?’, E-International Relations, June 3, 2013.

    https://www.e-ir.info/2013/06/03/towards-a-multi-polar-international-system-which-prospects-for-global-peace/

    [4]Aigerim Raimzhanova, ‘Power in IR: hard, soft and smart’, Institute for Cultural Diplomacy and the University of Bucharest, December 2015

    http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/academy/content/pdf/participant-papers/2015-12_annual/Power-In-Ir-By-Raimzhanova,-A.pdf

    [5]Ashraf, N. (2020). Revisiting international relations legacy on hegemony: The decline of American hegemony from comparative perspectives. Review of Economics and Political Science

    [6] Kukreja, Veena. “India in the Emergent Multipolar World Order: Dynamics and Strategic Challenges.” India Quarterly 76, no. 1 (2020): 8-23.

    [7] Ashok Kumar Beheria, ‘Ask an Expert’, IDSA, April 1, 2020. 

    https://idsa.in/askanexpert/world-moving-towards-multipolarity-akbehuria

    [8]Derek Grossman, ‘Modi’s Multipolar Moment Has Arrived’, RAND blog, June 6, 2022

    https://www.rand.org/blog/2022/06/modis-multipolar-moment-has-arrived.html

    [9]Persaud, Randolph B. “Ideology, socialization and hegemony in Disciplinary International Relations.” International Affairs 98, no. 1 (2022): 105-123.

    [10]Shannon, Vaughn P. “International Norms and Foreign Policy.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics (2017).

    [11]Ikenberry, G. John, and Charles A. Kupchan. “Socialization and hegemonic power.” International organization 44, no. 3 (1990): 283-315.

    [12] Tracy Kuperus, ‘Kosovo And Rwanda: Selective Interventionism?’, Centre for Public Justice

    https://www.cpjustice.org/public/page/content/kosovo_and_rwanda

    [13] Falit Sijariya, ‘Democratizing Norms: Jaishankar’s Comments and the Challenge to US Hegemony’, April 22, 2022

    https://thegeopolitics.com/democratizing-norms-jaishankars-comments-and-the-challenge-to-us-hegemony/

    [14] Overbeek, Henk. “Global governance, class, hegemony.” Contending Perspectives on Global Governance: Coherence and Contestation 39 (2005).

    [15] Tourangbam, Monish. “The UN and the Future of Multilateralism in a Multipolar World.” Indian Foreign Affairs Journal 14, no. 4 (2019): 301-308.

    [16] The UN Turns Seventy-Five. Here’s How to Make it Relevant Again, Council on Foreign Relations, Sep 14, 2020.

    https://www.cfr.org/councilofcouncils/global-memos/un-turns-seventy-five-heres-how-make-it-relevant-again

    [17] Ademola Abbas, ‘Assessing NATO’s involvement in Libya’, United Nations University, 27 October 2011

    https://unu.edu/publications/articles/assessing-nato-s-involvement-in-libya.html

    Lansana Gberi, ‘Forgotten war: a crisis deepens in Libya but where are the cameras?’, Africa Renewal, December 2017 – March 2018

    https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/december-2017-march-2018/forgotten-war-crisis-deepens-libya-where-are-cameras

    [18] Ed Yates, ‘The WTO Has Failed as a Multilateral Agency in Promoting International Trade’,E-International Relations, April 29, 2014

    https://www.e-ir.info/2014/04/29/the-wto-has-failed-as-a-multilateral-agency-in-promoting-international-trade/

    [19] Kelebogile Zvobgo, ‘Why Race Matters in International Relations’, Foreign Policy, June 19, 2020

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/19/why-race-matters-international-relations-ir/

    [20]Danso, Kwaku, and Kwesi Aning. “African experiences and alternativity in International Relations theorizing about security.” International Affairs 98, no. 1 (2022): 67-83.

    [21]Acharya, Amitav. “Can Asia lead? Power ambitions and global governance in the twenty-first century.” International affairs 87, no. 4 (2011): 851-869.

    [22]Behera, Navnita Chadha. “Re-imagining IR in India.” In Non-Western international relations theory, pp. 102-126. Routledge, 2009.

    [23]Rohan Mukherjee https://mobile.twitter.com/rohan_mukh/with_replies

    [24]United Nations Reform: Priority Issues for Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan, January 2006

    https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/un/reform/priority.html

    [25]Abhijit Das, ‘Reform the WTO: do not deform it’, the Hindu Business Line, December 1, 2021

    https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/reform-the-wto-do-not-deform-it/article37792701.ece

    [26]Shahi, Deepshikha, and Gennaro Ascione. “Rethinking the absence of post-Western International Relations theory in India:‘Advaitic monism’as an alternative epistemological resource.” European Journal of International Relations 22, no. 2 (2016): 313-334.

    Feature Image Credits: Foreign Affairs

  • Xi is Not Mao

    Xi is Not Mao

    The ongoing conflicts and crises across the world, be it in Ukraine or in the South China Sea, reflect a serious flaw in the current international order and in the politics of relations amongst nations. The singular focus on the demonisation of leaders, aided by perception management through devious media control, reflects a significant danger to global safety and stability. The current hyper noise in US-China relations is driven by hyperbole about Xi and other leaders. It is time to take a step back and review the information holocaust.

    Rebecca E Karl’s perceptive article highlights the vagaries of flawed picture portrayals of China and Xi that can be very far from the truth. This article was published earlier in Dissent Magazine.

    – Editorial Team

    Mao and Xi’s historical projects couldn’t be more different, and it is high time to move beyond the bad history that conflates them.

    Commentary on China these days often presents lazy thinking that leads to some ridiculous historical statements. That President Xi Jinping is a would-be Mao Zedong or that China is facing a “new Cultural Revolution” are examples of this laziness. In a charitable light, such assertions stem from a broad misunderstanding of the logics of contemporary China and its role in the world today. In a less charitable light, they are driven by ideological fealty to some of the most outdated and frankly racist aspects of Cold War Western anti-communism. My premise in the following comments: China today is not Maoist, and Xi is not Mao redux. China today is also not communist in any genuine sense of that term, even though the Communist Party presides over the country with an increasingly iron grip.

    The difference between Mao and now could not be starker. Mao’s twentieth-century anti-capitalist and anti-feudal revolution in politics and culture sought to transform China’s domestic social relations by mobilizing masses of people against the systems of domination that constrained their everyday lives. He sought to demonstrate to the non-capitalist world the superiority of socialism as a mode of material and cultural production. Those experiments must be judged a failure on both counts. Xi’s twenty-first-century goal, by contrast, is to release economic forces from the burden of sustaining socialist relations in order to build China’s global wealth and power. To that end, he has pursued domestic stability and has repressed potentially insurgent political, social, and cultural impulses along with challenges from internal peripheries—all while enhancing the power and privileges of the Communist Party itself. To date, his efforts to redefine and defend capitalist logics in China seem to have found success.

    China today is not Maoist, and Xi is not Mao redux. China today is also not communist in any genuine sense of that term, even though the Communist Party presides over the country with an increasingly iron grip.

    Mao and Xi’s historical projects couldn’t be more different, and it is high time to move beyond the bad history that conflates them. We need to grapple with how the past several decades of social and political realignment, not just in China but around the world, are leading to a global future not yet foretold.

    The “new Cold War” rhetoric that permeates public discourse these days is dangerous, to be sure, yet it appeals to a version of the world that is long gone. Socialism has disappeared, and capitalism has prevailed. The fundamental antagonism between these two irreconcilable social and ideological systems—the antagonism that informed a struggle between two different cultural imaginings of the future—has not existed since at least the mid-1990s, when the post-1989 Chinese capitalist order came into full view and took material and ideological root in China and the world. (And, as anyone in Asia or Africa knows, the concept of the “cold” war was always of questionable utility in places that hosted a continuous series of hot wars.)

    Indeed, the huge dissension within the “West,” the United States included, about how to even specify these problems—or whether to specify them at all—gives the lie to the fiction of unified nation-states facing off across elemental ideological divides.

    We live in a capitalist world, but that doesn’t reduce the stakes of current conflicts. Will we blow each other up in militarized one-upmanship? Will we so pollute our environments that we destroy the natural world’s capacity to sustain life? Will we tear each other and ourselves apart in the attempt to come to human solutions to human-made problems? Will the speed of disease and pathology outstrip our ability to lock down and vaccinate, or will we look the other way as the necropolitical selection of those who live and die proceeds apace? These are apocalyptic stakes, but they do not break down analytically on fundamental lines of systemic antagonism. The definition of and solutions to these problems do not depend on such outmoded analytics as the “West” and the “rest,” or the United States and China. Indeed, the huge dissension within the “West,” the United States included, about how to even specify these problems—or whether to specify them at all—gives the lie to the fiction of unified nation-states facing off across elemental ideological divides.

    We need to confront the possibility that our leaders—whoever they may be, whether so-called democrats or so-called authoritarians, so-called liberals, leftists, or rightists—all are leading us into disaster.

    What we need to confront today is that our accustomed systems of analysis based in the imaginary unities of nation-states are exhausted. We need to confront the possibility that our leaders—whoever they may be, whether so-called democrats or so-called authoritarians, so-called liberals, leftists, or rightists—all are leading us into disaster. Those of us outside China must oppose attempts by our governments and ventriloquist media to create ever more unequal and violent capitalist relations that ratchet up tensions between peoples and nations. At the same time, we must try to support those within China who are opposing their own government’s and ventriloquist media’s commitments to suppressing the critical voices and anti-capitalist practices in their midst. The stakes are high, and now is the time to rise to the occasion of critical engagement rather than sink into facile historical analogies. What we face today are not conflicts between civilizations but conflicts over what kind of civilization we wish to inhabit moving forward. Neither the Chinese state nor Western ones have the kinds of answers that we need these days, but there are activist elements in all of our societies striving to find solutions. It is to such activists that we must look for hope.

    Feature Image Credit: Nikkei Asia

  • Economic Relevance of Quad as a Regional Strategic Forum

    Economic Relevance of Quad as a Regional Strategic Forum

    The QUAD, a grouping of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia, began as a “Tsunami Core Group,” an impromptu group formed in response to the devastating Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. This core group brought together the four nations to swiftly mobilise and coordinate multilateral disaster relief and humanitarian assistance operations. The first meeting of the initial QUAD took place in May 2007 during the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Manila. The meeting was characterised as an “informal grouping” that discussed themes of mutual interest to the dialogue participants (Buchan & Rimland, 2020). The group was established to deal with the immediate challenges posed by the tsunami and was never intended to become permanent. However, early cooperative efforts sparked a debate about QUAD’s overarching goal. When Australia withdrew from the QUAD in 2008, it ceased to exist. It was revived in 2017 against the backdrop of an increasingly assertive Chinese posture, and the emergence of the idea of the Indo-Pacific as a single maritime zone.

    The first QUAD meeting, after its revival, happened on 12 November 2017, when the four ‘like-minded’ partners discussed seven key issues: the rules-based order in Asia; freedom of navigation and overflight in the maritime commons; respect for international law; enhancing connectivity; maritime security; the North Korean threat and non-proliferation; and terrorism (Jain, 2022). The QUAD aims to bring diverse perspectives together in a shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific, and it strives for a region that is free, open, inclusive, healthy, and anchored in democratic values.

    Economic Potential

    There are numerous reasons to increase economic engagement within the QUAD nations—the four countries, with a combined population of over 1.8 billion people, represent a quarter of the world’s population and over $30 trillion in GDP. In 2018, trade between the four countries totalled more than $440 billion, with nearly $6 trillion in trade with the rest of the world. QUAD intends to use both public and private resources to construct high-quality infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific region. According to the MEA’s website, since 2015, QUAD partners have invested more than $48 billion in regional infrastructure development. The commitment of the QUAD to regional infrastructure development can be strengthened by integrating India into the existing ‘Australia-Japan-US Trilateral Infrastructure Partnership’ and by broadening their reach into the Indo-Pacific region (“Fact Sheet: QUAD Leaders’ Summit,” n.d.). Except for India and the United States, the remaining two countries are also Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) members. This shows that, notwithstanding territorial and security differences, trade and commerce are still the primary focus (“Economic Dimension Key to QUAD Success”, 2021). Further, the Covid-19 pandemic has harmed the global economy, including the QUAD nations, in areas ranging from employment to investment. Thus, by bolstering their economic ties for greater freedom and cooperation, the group will facilitate a faster recovery from the pandemic’s effects.

    The Indian Ocean, not the Indo-Pacific, is central to India’s vision. In the short term, India’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific framework will be primarily diplomatic and economic and will be constrained by the Indian Ocean’s strategic primacy and constraints on its sea-power projection

    QUAD and the Indian Economy

    India’s strong economic ties with the QUAD economies are reflected in its bilateral trade volume with each member. During 2019-2020, these three economies accounted for 15% of India’s total trade. The United States contributes the most with 11%, followed by Japan and Australia, with 2.15 and 1.6 per cent, respectively. Further, India already has a free-trade agreement with Japan, which was implemented in 2011, and negotiations with Australia and the United States are ongoing. India can now use this critical multilateral forum to help facilitate trade negotiations and increase economic activity with member economies (“Economic Dimension Key to QUAD Success” 2021).

    According to Lunev and Shavlay (2018), the emergence of China, the expansion of India’s economic and strategic clout, and, most importantly, the growing importance of the Indian Ocean as a strategic trade route carrying nearly two-thirds of global oil shipments and a third of bulk cargo, have entailed a shift in the security architecture from the Asia-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific. These factors have contributed to the rise of regional stakeholders advocating for a free and open Indo-Pacific, resulting in the re-establishment of the QUAD. However, India’s maritime interests and strategies are at odds with those of the other QUAD members. The Indian Ocean, not the Indo-Pacific, is central to India’s vision. In the short term, India’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific framework will be primarily diplomatic and economic and will be constrained by the Indian Ocean’s strategic primacy and constraints on its sea-power projection.

    The South and East China Seas, the Western Pacific, and the Indian Ocean are of particular concern to the United States and Japan. Unless and until these disagreements are resolved, QUAD’s effectiveness as an entity will be called into question

    Tokyo Summit 

    The Tokyo Summit is the QUAD Leaders’ fourth interaction since their first virtual meeting in March 2021, in-person Summit in Washington DC in September 2021, and virtual meeting in March 2022. The Tokyo Summit took place against the backdrop of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and its repercussions. The joint statement issued following the QUAD summit in Tokyo on May 24, 2022, is more comprehensive than the first three summits. It has attempted to clarify the broad framework for cooperation by outlining eight specific areas. These include Peace and Stability; Covid-19 and Global Health Security; Infrastructure; Climate; Cybersecurity; Critical and Emerging Technologies; QUAD Fellowship; Space; and Maritime Domain Awareness and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) (Luthra, n.d.). A comprehensive QUAD joint statement and the launch of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) are key developments of the Tokyo summit. QUAD leaders also announced a maritime initiative to combat illegal fishing at the Tokyo summit, and a pledge to invest $50 billion in infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific to combat China’s growing power (“QUAD Joint Leaders’ Statement”, 2022).

    The QUAD has long been criticised for lacking a common purpose or a substantive agenda. Furthermore, none of the objectives cited as reasons for bringing the four states together are unique to the QUAD. Other actors and institutions in the region already exist for these purposes.  Thus, there is a need for QUAD partners to better articulate their distinct rationale for cooperation and collaborative efforts.

    India is a key player due to its naval power and strategic location, and should thus be an active participant. However, there are differences in areas of interest among the QUAD nations, complicating its effectiveness. The South and East China Seas, the Western Pacific, and the Indian Ocean are of particular concern to the United States and Japan. Unless and until these disagreements are resolved, QUAD’s effectiveness as an entity will be called into question. While India is frequently portrayed as the holdout — and has recently been the most vocal — objections have come from other countries as well. The potential impact on Sino-Australian relations continues to make some in Australia nervous. Beijing’s reaction has factored into American caution as well, as has the preference for a trilateral format (Madan, 2017).  

    India requires investment, attractive financing for infrastructure, technology, and access to key raw materials, particularly rare earth elements, among the QUAD nations. QUAD’s other members are looking for market access and dependable investment destinations. Broadening QUAD’s current strategic focus to strengthen economic ties under the partnership’s auspices would be a win-win situation for all countries involved in such a scenario.

    Bibliography

    Buchan, P., & Rimland, B. (2020). Defining the diamond: The past, present, and future of the quadrilateral security dialogue. Defining the Diamond: The Past, Present, and Future of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue | Center for Strategic and International Studies. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://www.csis.org/analysis/defining-diamond-past-present-and-future-quadrilateral-security-dialogue 

    “Economic Dimension Key to Quad Success.” 2021. The Statesman. February 23, 2021. https://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/economic-dimension-key-quad-success-1502953752.html.

    “Fact Sheet: Quad Leaders’ Summit.” n.d. Www.mea.gov.in. https://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/34319/Fact+Sheet+Quad+Leaders+Summit.

    JAIN, Purnendra. 2022. “India’s Changing Approach to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.” East Asian Policy 14 (01): 56–70. https://doi.org/10.1142/s1793930522000046.

    Lunev, Sergey, and Ellina Shavlay. 2018. “Russia and India in the Indo-Pacific.” Asian Politics & Policy 10 (4): 713–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/aspp.12430.

    Luthra, Girish. n.d. “Forward from the Tokyo Quad Summit and IPEF.” ORF. https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/forward-from-the-tokyo-quad-summit-and-ipef/.

    Madan, Tanvi. 2017. “The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the ‘Quad.’” War on the Rocks. November 16, 2017. https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/rise-fall-rebirth-quad/.

    “Quad Joint Leaders’ Statement.” 2022. The White House. May 24, 2022. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/24/quad-joint-leaders-statement/.

    Rahman, Mohammad Masudur, Chanwahn Kim, and Prabir De. 2020. “Indo-Pacific Cooperation: What Do Trade Simulations Indicate?” Journal of Economic Structures 9 (1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40008-020-00222-4.

    Feature Image Credits: Resilinc

  • Hegemonic Regionalism (Indo-Pacific concept): As opposed to locally based Regional Cooperation (ASEAN and Bay of Bengal)

    Hegemonic Regionalism (Indo-Pacific concept): As opposed to locally based Regional Cooperation (ASEAN and Bay of Bengal)

    The late embracing of the Indo-Pacific concept by the United States further supports the position that it is being employed as a strategic instrument to counter a rising power and a potential challenger to its global quasi-hegemonic power position.

    Based on a consideration of capabilities, the United States is currently the only country that can be described as a potential global hegemon. Certainly, there are a number of other countries that have the potential, based on their capabilities, of being candidates to become regional hegemons. Notably, China is among them, but Japan, India, and Brazil are also potential candidates, though their individual capacities vary widely and one could argue, based on capacities, that China takes the lead among them. With the implication that China becomes the main target of the de facto global hegemon, the other potential contenders must be kept in sight, as well. While most recent academic and non-academic discussions about global power transfer are focusing on rising countries, on potential challengers to the existing global hegemon, China in particular, a focus on how the existing quasi-global hegemon, the United States, is reacting to challenges to its dominance, to preserve its leading position and influence, seems almost completely missing. This lack of emphasis constitutes a rather critical issue, because when we focus on global or regional power competition, what should be of interest to analysts is not only the behaviour and strategy of a rising county, i.e., a potential challenger to an existing hegemon, but also to analyse the response of the existing hegemon, as well. After all, when it comes to issues of global and regional stability, the actions of both the existing hegemon and the potential challenger must be taken into account.

    There is no doubt that an existing hegemon does not just ‘sit back’ and watch when its influence is challenged by a new contender for power. Even a declining hegemon will try to challenge a rising power contender, consequently, the potential for instability within the international system arises not only from a rising power but also from the actions of the country which possesses a quasi-hegemonic position, trying to defend its power position. In one of his earlier and most influential works, Mearsheimer (2001) points out that great powers always aim to maximise their share of power and are in constant competition with other power contenders, with the aim of maximising their own power. Therefore, the rise of a new competitor occurs in a dynamic context between the established and the rising hegemon. Ikenberry (2014) points out that, as the overwhelmingly global power once concentrated within the United States dispersed with the arrival of new power challengers in different parts of the world, new struggles over global rules and institutions are emerging. At the very least, as emphasised by Mearsheimer (2013), great powers do not trust one another, as they worry about other countries’ capabilities and intentions.

    Not without reason, Mearsheimer (2013) argues that the United States did not and does not tolerate peer competitors, adding that the United States has demonstrated this clearly during the twentieth century.

    For these reasons, we cannot expect that a hegemon will stay inactive when watching the rise of potential challengers. An established great power, holding an almost global hegemonic position as the United States does, has the capacity to respond to the challenges arising from power contenders, and there are clear indications, past and present, that it will act to preserve its dominant power position, even within an international system that has become more multilateral in comparison with the Cold War period. Not without reason, Mearsheimer (2013) argues that the United States did not and does not tolerate peer competitors, adding that the United States has demonstrated this clearly during the twentieth century. One just has to remember that in the late 1980s, when Japan was close to economically overtaking the United States. at the global level, various United States administrations actively worked against it, refusing Japan more decision-making rights within international organisations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, even though Japan had become a major donor to both organisations. Obviously, the previous Japanese challenge to the United States’ dominance was only economic. Neither will the United States allow other challengers to succeed in undermining its dominant position, even in distant regional settings. Mearsheimer (2001) reminds us that the dominant power will act at the regional level to ensure that no challenge to its own global position will take place, since the crucial task is to block potential peer competitors, even within distant regional settings.

    When evaluating the influence of a hegemon it is worth remembering that this goes beyond a focus on military capabilities, even though such capabilities are essential, and include the hegemon’s ability to disguise its ambitions and interests by pretending that it provides global public goods, which in reality satisfy primarily its own interests. More importantly, as pointed out by Griffiths, O’Callaghan and Roach (2002), all hegemonic states enjoy ‘structural power’, which permits the hegemon to occupy a central position within its own system, as well as shape other states’ preferences. As emphasised by Kupchan (2014), a hegemon also strives to generate a normative and ideological dominance, in support of its power dominance. Indeed, Gilpin, in his seminal influential work on war and change, emphasises that a major power aims to create social structures to serve its hegemonic interests, consequently supporting its domineering position with rules, institutions, and organisational principles, supporting, indeed screening and protecting, its power position with normative dominance (Gilpin 1981).

    one can also reasonably assume that when a hegemonic country introduces a new geopolitical or regional concept of space, such as the Indo-Pacific framework, will be of foremost importance to its own strategy of dominance. Indeed, the Indo-Pacific framework signals the re-mapping of geopolitical space, with little, if any, historical relevance.

    By considering these arguments describing the behaviour of a typical hegemonic power, it is rather consistent to assume that a country, such as the United States, which holds a nearly global like hegemonic position, will use its position and capabilities to support its own power position in different regional settings so as to ward off any potential competitor. For this reason, one can also reasonably assume that when a hegemonic country introduces a new geopolitical or regional concept of space, such as the Indo-Pacific framework, will be of foremost importance to its own strategy of dominance. Indeed, the Indo-Pacific framework signals the re-mapping of geopolitical space, with little, if any, historical relevance. From a historical perspective, the Indian and Pacific Oceans have been perceived as separate maritime spaces. What marries them into one geopolitical space is an invented geopolitical strategy facilitating the strategic power interests of the existing hegemon. What is more, a hegemon or hegemon-like state will not introduce or favour a new geopolitical concept if it goes against its own strategic interests.

    Indeed, from a United States perspective, the Indo-Pacific strategy not only re-strengthens, at least from a hegemonic perspective, its role within the older geopolitical concept of Asia-Pacific, but now extends this influence, from a conceptual perspective, to include the Indian Ocean, as well. One can further argue that the adoption of the Indo-Pacific approach by the United States comes at a time when we can observe considerable changes in the power configuration within East Asia (which encompasses Northeast and Southeast Asia) and to a lesser extent within South Asia. Certain changes in the regional power configuration, namely the rise of China – not only as an economic but increasingly as a military and especially as a maritime power – generate considerable challenges from the perspective of hegemonic power competition. While the strategic challenge that China, as a rising power, generates to the United States quasi hegemonic position is so far limited to a regional challenge, instead of a global challenge, still, based on hegemony theory, the existing hegemon cannot allow such a challenge to take place.

    The late embracing of the Indo-Pacific concept by the United States further supports the position that it is being employed as a strategic instrument to counter a rising power and a potential challenger to its global quasi-hegemonic power position. We may remember that the origin of the Indo-Pacific concept is associated with the previous Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ concept. Shinzo Abe mentioned it as early as 2007 when addressing the Indian parliament and began frequently restating it from 2016 onwards. This was part of his intention that Japan should take a more active role in East Asia and beyond. As such, the Indo-Pacific concept was born out of the political-strategic considerations of a regional actor within East Asia. Only later, around 2018, did the United States become considerably interested in the concept, at a time when the potential challenges from rising countries increased – not only from China; one may also consider India’s rise in this context. In 2018, the United States administration even changed the name of its Pacific Command to United States Indo-Pacific Command to highlight its changing geopolitical perspective and to address the increasing regional challenges it faced from a rising China. Not without reason was the replacement of the previous Asia-Pacific concept with the Indo-Pacific concept aimed at integrating India, another rising power in Asia, more firmly with the hegemonic interests of the United States. In academic terms, one could argue that this may represent a strategy of accommodation, in which an existing hegemon accommodates a rising power by offering political and strategic space for that country. It is a strategy the United States followed previously with China until China started to become a too fundamental strategic challenge to the United States hierarchic position. One may wonder if this may also happen to India, once India becomes too powerful to be contained within a United States hegemonic project. However, for the time being, India seems to feel quite comfortable within the geopolitical space it has been offered by the existing quasi-global hegemon. As revealed by Paul T.V (2016) the strategy of accommodation is not only quite a challenging undertaking – as the hegemon has to offer political status, leadership responsibilities, and even a sphere of influence to a rising country – but in the long run the implications are that this will weaken, if not undermine, the hegemon’s own position, thus indicating the limitation of such a strategy. After all, a hegemon is rather unwilling to give up its dominant position voluntarily, though a strategy of accommodation may buy some time and allow it to employ a strategy of divide-and-rule by offering support to a potential weaker power contender when addressing the challenges of a more powerful contender. There can be no less doubt that the ongoing border conflicts between India and China and the emerging regional power competition between them facilitate India’s readiness to become increasingly enveloped in a stronger relationship with the United States which, by the way, contradicts India’s previous entrenched national strategy of non-alignment in global power politics. Consequently, drafting India into its power orbit enhances the United States’ strategic influence in regions where it is not even a resident power, like East, Southeast, or South Asia.

    There can be no less doubt that the ongoing border conflicts between India and China and the emerging regional power competition between them facilitate India’s readiness to become increasingly enveloped in a stronger relationship with the United States which, by the way, contradicts India’s previous entrenched national strategy of non-alignment in global power politics.

    Therefore, a hegemonic state will try to manipulate even distant regional settings in its favour, to arrest the rise of potential challengers to its dominant position, even by facilitating the introduction of a new geopolitical concept, like the Indo-Pacific, which ignores local perceptions of regional cooperation dynamics, the Bay of Bengal approach or ASEAN. While there are some claims that the Indo-Pacific approach does not represent a challenge to ASEAN, a position that is widely disputed, the more specific issue is that the Indo-Pacific approach does not contribute or offer support to those local-based regional cooperation processes from a conceptual perspective. Therefore, while one has to recognise that more recent regional cooperation processes within the Bay of Bengal are less dynamic for the time being, it does not mean that such a regional cooperation process is altogether missing. As stated by Amrith (2013), Asian economic connections led to renewed interest in the Bay of Bengal as a focus for regional cooperation. Indeed, BIMSTEC[1] which was established in 1997, does provide focus on regional cooperation.

    BIMSTEC creates political space for economic cooperation by addressing common challenges like underdevelopment. Consequently, offering a strategic vision for national development to its member countries, a focus fundamentally different from the geopolitical outlook of the Indo-Pacific regional hegemonic project, with its focus on military and especially maritime power distribution. Another crucial difference is that, while the Indo-Pacific strategy is a rather recent invention, regional recognition of the Bay of Bengal as a particular and unique geographic location for regional cooperation, particularly as a centre for trade and cultural migration, goes back centuries, if not millennia. As such, the Bay of Bengal commands a rich history as a historically recognised cultural and trade-inspired region. Yet, with geopolitical concepts based on hegemonic interests, such home-grown sources of regional cooperation are not recognised or supported only if they would fit the interests of the hegemon. It is evident that the Indo-Pacific concept, from a conceptual perspective, also ignores the ASEAN regional cooperation process. As such, the Indo-Pacific approach represents an artificial strategic overlay, not linked with local beads regional cooperation dynamics, even when a regional cooperation process is very well established, as is the case with ASEAN. With regard to the Indo-Pacific concept, ASEAN’s statement on the Indo-Pacific (ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific 2019) clearly indicates that the perception of the Indo-Pacific area is a contiguous geographic space is misleading and not appropriate, even though the two geopolitical spaces are geographically connected. Indeed, while the Bay of Bengal and the ASEAN regional cooperation favour regional cooperation characterised by horizontal relationships, facilitating the cooperation of countries within the region to address common challenges, the Indo-Pacific approach represent a vertical power arrangement, where a dominant power is projecting its influence onto the regional level.

    However, it should not come as too much of a surprise that a hegemon’s regional strategy, which primarily focuses on supporting its own power interests, has little to say about regional cooperation processes initiated by the people living in that region. Indeed, a global acting hegemon has only a limited interest in the empowerment of independent regional cooperation projects, since they could signal the creation of a more independent political sphere. As Mearsheimer (2013) asserts, based on its superior standing and its need to defend this position, a hegemon has always an inclination to interfere in and re-order the political outlook of even distant regions. We may take into consideration what Mearsheimer (2013) made earlier, that the United States will ensure that it will dominate the commanding heights in Asia. For all these reasons, the Indo-Pacific approach should be recognised as the newest geopolitical strategy supporting the United States’ hegemonic position in Asia.

    Bibliography

    Mearsheimer, John J (2001) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), W.W Norton & Company: New York

    Mearsheimer, John J (2013) Structural Realism. In: Dunne T, Kurki M., Smith S (eds) International Relations Theories Discipline and Diversity, 3rd ed., Oxford University Press: Oxford. pp. 77-93

    Ikenberry, G. J. (2014) Introduction: power, order, and change in world politics. In: Ikenberry, G. J. (ed.) Power, order, and change in world politics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp.1-16.

    Griffiths, M, O’Callaghan T, Roach S T (2002) International Relations: The Key Concepts 2nd; Martin Griffiths, Routledge

    Kupchan, C. A. (2014) Unpacking hegemony: the social foundations of hierarchical order. In: Ikenberry, G. J. (ed.) Power, order, and change in world politics. Cambridge, University Press Cambridge, pp. 19-60.

    Gilpin, R. (2010) War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

    Paul T.V. (2016) The accommodation of rising powers in world politics. In: Paul, T. V. (ed.) Accommodating rising powers past, present, and future. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 3 32.

    Amrith, S. S. (2013) Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The furies of nature and the fortunes of migrants By Sunil S. Amrith Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific 2019, available at: https://asean.org/asean-outlook-on-the-indo-pacific/

    Notes

    [1] BIMSTEC has seven members: Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Bhutan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

    Feature Image credit: War on the Rocks

  • TPF Analysis Series on Russia – Ukraine Conflict #2

    TPF Analysis Series on Russia – Ukraine Conflict #2

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    The First Paper of the Series – TPF Analysis Series on Russia – Ukraine Conflict #1
    [/powerkit_button]

    What’s in Ukraine for Russia? 

    In a press conference marking his first year in office, President Biden, on the question of Russia invading Ukraine, remarked that such an event would, “be the most consequential thing that’s happened in the world, in terms of war and peace, since World War Two”. [1] It has now been two months since Russia officially launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine, which the US and its allies consider an unjustified invasion of a sovereign state. The conflict in the Eurasian continent has drawn global attention to Europe and US-Russia tensions have ratcheted to levels that were prevalent during the Cold War. The conflict has also raised pertinent questions on understanding what exactly are Russian stakes in Ukraine and the latter’s role in the evolving security architecture of Europe. The second paper in this series will delve into these questions.

    The current Russian position stems from the experience that Russia, and Putin, gained while dealing with the West on a host of issues, not least of which was NATO expansion.

    The Ties that Bind

    An examination of post-Soviet history reveals that Russian preoccupation with security threats from NATO is not embedded in Russian geopolitics; instead, it has been reported that, early on, Russia was even agreeable to joining the military alliance. The current Russian position stems from the experience that Russia, and Putin, gained while dealing with the West on a host of issues, not least of which was NATO expansion. A line of argument sympathetic to Russia is President Putin’s contention that terms dictated to Russia during the post-Cold War settlements were unfair. The claim is a reference to Secretary of State James Baker’s statement on the expansion of NATO, “not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction”, in 1990 in a candid conversation with Mikhael Gorbachev on the matter of reunification of Germany. [2] It could be argued that it is this commitment and subsequent violation through expansions of NATO is one of the main causes of the current conflict. 

    At the root of the problem was Russia’s security concerns – regarding both traditional and hybrid security – that ultimately led to the centralisation of power after a democratic stint under Yeltsin. Accordingly, Putin had put it in late 1999, “A strong state for Russia is not an anomaly, or something that should be combated, but, on the contrary, the source and guarantor of order, the initiator and the main driving force of any changes”. [3]

    Historically being a land power, Russia has viewed Ukraine as a strategically critical region in its security matrix. However, as the central control of Moscow weakened in the former USSR, the nationalist aspirations of the Ukrainian people began to materialise and Ukraine played a crucial role, along with the Russian Federation and Belarus, in dissolving the former Soviet Union. The two countries found themselves on opposite sides on extremely fundamental issues, such as security, economic partnership, post-Soviet order, and, not least, sovereignty. In Belovezh, in early December of 1991, when Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk and Belarusian leader Stanislav Shushkevich met to dissolve the USSR, major disagreements regarding the transitional phase and future of the republics erupted. Yeltsin expressed his desire for some sort of central control of the republics, whereas Kravchuk was vehemently opposed to any arrangement that might compromise his country’s sovereignty. Later, at the foundational ceremony of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), he stressed a common military, the most potent rejection of which came from Kravchuk. [4]

    Source: Wikimedia Commons

    The elephant in the room, however, was the status of Sevastopol, which housed the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet. Yeltsin was quoted saying that “The Black Sea Fleet was, is and will be Russia’s. No one, not even Kravchuk will take it away from Russia”. [5] Though the issue was soon temporarily resolved –with the two countries dividing the fleet equally amongst themselves, it continued to dominate and sour their relationship. Russia, as the successor state of the USSR, wanted the base and the entire fleet in its navy. Yeltsin even offered gas at concessional rates to Ukraine if it handed over the city and nuclear weapons to Russia. The issue remained unresolved until the 1997 Friendship Treaty under which Ukraine granted Moscow the entire fleet and leased Sevastopol to Russia until 2017 (later extended).

    Ukraine, under Kravchuk and, later, Leonid Kuchma, struggled to tread a tightrope between Russia and the European Union. On one hand, it was economically knit with former Soviet Republics, and on the other, it was actively looking to get economic benefits from the EU. However, soon a slide towards the west was conspicuous. In 1994, it preferred a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with the EU over CIS Customs Union, which was a Russian initiative. Later, in 1996, it declined to join a new group consisting of former Soviet Republics ‘On Deepening Integration’, scuttling the initiative, since its purpose was to bring Ukraine back into the Russian fold. [6] By 1998, the Kuchma government had formulated a ‘Strategy of Integration into the European Union’. [7]

    Nuclear weapons were another point of contention between the two. Ukraine was extremely reluctant to give up its arsenal, citing security threats from Russia. Kravchuk received a verbal ‘security guarantee’ from the US which forced Russia to “respect the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of each nation” [8] in exchange for surrendering Ukraine’s nuclear weapons. 

    Notwithstanding the disputes, there was a great deal of cooperation between the two, especially after Kuchma’s re-election in 1999. Kuchma’s hook-up with authoritarianism distanced Kyiv from Brussels and brought it closer to Moscow. Ukraine agreed to join Russian initiatives of the Eurasian Economic Community as an observer and Common Economic Space as a full member. At home as well, his support in the eastern parts of the country, where ethnic Russians dwelled, increased dramatically, as evident in the 2002 Parliamentary Elections. [9] However, the bonhomie was soon disrupted by a single event.

    The Orange Revolution was Russia’s 9/11. [10] It dramatically altered Russian thinking on democracy and its ties with the West. It raised the prospect in Russia that Ukraine might be lost completely. It further made them believe the colour revolutions in former Soviet republics were CIA toolkits for regime change. More importantly, it made the Russians apprehensive of a similar revolution within their borders. As a result, the distrust between Russia and the West, and Russia and Ukraine grew considerably. As a nationalist, Victor Yushchenko formulated policies that directly hurt Russian interests. The two countries fought ‘Gas Wars’ in 2006 and 2009, which made both the EU and Russia uncomfortable with Ukraine as a gas transit country. Furthermore, Yushchenko bestowed the title of ‘Hero of Ukraine’ upon Stepan Bandera, a Nazi collaborator and perpetrator of the Holocaust, a decision that surely did not go well with Moscow.

    Geoeconomics: Ukraine as a Gas Transit Country

    The current war is the worst in Europe since the Second World War. Still, Ukraine continues to transit Russian gas through its land, Russia continues to pay for it, and Western Europe continues to receive the crucial resource. The war has shattered all the big bets on Russian dependence on Ukraine for delivering gas to Western Europe and has renewed the discourse on reducing European energy dependence on Russia. Since the EU imports 40% of its gas from Russia, almost a quarter of which flows through Ukraine, Kyiv has had leverage in dealing with Russians in the past. It has been able to extract favourable terms by either stopping or diverting gas for its own domestic use at a time of heightened tensions between Ukraine and Russia. As a result, the EU was directly drawn into the conflict between them, infructuating Moscow’s pressure tactics for a long.

    Moscow has made numerous attempts in the past to bypass Ukraine by constructing alternate pipelines. Nord Stream, the most popular of them, was conceived in 1997, as an attempt to decrease the leverage of the transit states. The pipeline was described as the “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pipeline” by Polish Defence Minister Radoslaw Sirkosi for the geoeconomic influence it gave to Russia. [11] Another project – the South Stream – was aimed at providing gas to the Balkans, and through it to Austria and Italy. The pipeline was conceived in the aftermath of the Orange Revolution and its construction was motivated by geoeconomics, rather than economic viability. It would have led to Russia bypassing Ukraine in delivering gas to the Balkans and Central Europe, thus seizing its significant leverage, and relegating it to vulnerable positions in which Moscow could have eliminated the gas subsidies Ukraine was being provided. [12]As a result of economic unviability, the project was abandoned in 2014.

    To a certain extent, the European Union has been complicit in making matters worse for Russia. For instance, during the 2009 ‘Gas War’ – that began due to Ukraine’s non-payment of gas debt to Russia – instead of holding Ukraine accountable, the EU countries blamed Russia for the gas crisis in Europe and asked Russia to resume gas supply to Ukraine. Later, realising the importance of Ukraine as a transit country, it reached an agreement with Kyiv that “recognized the importance of the further expansion and modernization of Ukraine’s gas transit system as an indispensable pillar of the common European energy infrastructure, and the fact that Ukraine is a strategic partner for the EU gas sector”. The agreement excluded Russia as a party, which saw it as undermining the collaboration between itself and Ukraine, and injuring its influence on the country. [13] The Russian grievance becomes even more palpable when we view the significant gas subsidies it has provided to Ukraine for more than two decades. 

    Similarly, the EU countries viewed Nord Stream 2 from a geostrategic and geo-economic perspective. In December last year, German Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck warned Russia of halting Nord Stream 2 if it attacks Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was quoted saying that he would do ‘anything’ to ensure that Ukraine remains a transit country for Russian gas. [14] In fact, the pipeline – that is set to double the capacity of gas delivered to the EU – has faced opposition from almost all Western European countries, the US, the EU as well as Ukraine, which has described it as ‘A dangerous Geopolitical Weapon’. [15] The pipeline had raised concerns amongst Ukrainians of losing a restraining factor on Moscow’s behaviour. [16] However, with the pipeline still inoperable, the Kremlin has already made the restraining factor ineffective.

    The Security Objective

    The Russian Federation is a country which spreads from the European Continent to Asia. In this giant nation, the hospitable region where people live is mainly on the European side, which also comprises main cities like St. Petersburg, Volgograd and the Capital City Moscow. Throughout history, Russia has seen invasions by Napoleon as well as Hitler, and the main area through which these invasions and wars happened was through Ukrainian land which gave them direct access to Russia – due to the lack of any geographical barriers. It was certainly a contributing factor towards the initial success of these invasions. Today, we might understand these events as Russia’s sense of vulnerability and insecurity if history is any indicator. 

    The Russian Federation also follows a similar approach to ensuring its security, survival and territorial integrity. Russia’s interest in Ukraine is as much geopolitical as cultural. Since Russians and Ukrainians were intrinsically linked through their culture and language, Ukraine quickly came to be seen as Russian land, with Ukrainians being recognized as ‘Little Russians’ (Kubicek, 2008), as compared to the “Great Russians”. They were consequently denied the formation of a distinct Ukrainian identity. Putin gave substance to this sentiment as, according to a US diplomatic cable leak, he had “implicitly challenged the territorial integrity of Ukraine, suggesting that Ukraine was an artificial creation sewn together from the territory of Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and especially Russia in the aftermath of the Second World War” during a Russia-NATO Council meeting. [17]

    Crimea and much of eastern Ukraine are ethnically Russian and desire closer ties with Russia. But moving further west, the people become increasingly cosmopolitan and it is mostly this population that seeks greater linkage with the Western European countries and membership into the EU and NATO. This in addition to the Euro Maidan protests is what Putin has used to justify the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The other security consideration was the threat it faced from the likelihood of NATO establishing a base in Crimea given its own presence in Sevastopol in the Black Sea. 

    In the current scenario, the second phase of Russian Military operation in the East and South has shown us the larger vulnerabilities Moscow has which are being countered through control of certain points in the region. By liberating the Donbass region in the east, Russia plans to create a buffer zone between itself and the west to stop future aggression and keep enemies at bay. But the extension of this buffer zone all the way to Odessa is indicative of other strategic considerations. Mariupol in the south of Ukraine is one of the many extended strategic points Russia now controls leading us to ask just why Mariupol is a game-changer in this conflict?

    The port city of Mariupol is a small area geographically, but it provides the land bridge for the Russian forces in the Crimean Peninsula to join the Military operation in the Donbas region. Moreover, it gives Russia a land bridge to Crimea from the Russian Mainland. According to General Sir Richard Barrons, former Commander of UK Joint Forces Command, Mariupol is crucial to Russia’s offensive movement, – “When the Russians feel they have successfully concluded that battle, they will have completed a land bridge from Russia to Crimea and they will see this a major strategic success.” [18]

    Source: ISW (Assessment on 09 May, 2022)

    If the port city of Mariupol is important for the creation of a land corridor, then the Sea of Azov which is adjacent to it is even more important due to its strategic position. [19] The three geopolitical reasons why this sea is important are as follows:

    1. The Sea of Azov is a major point for the economic and military well-being of Ukraine. Proximity to the frontlines of the Donbass region where the fighting between Ukrainian forces and Pro-Russian separatists is taking place makes the control of this sea vital to the Russian military as it helps weaken Ukrainian defence in the region via control of the Kerch Strait.
    2. Controlling the Sea of Azov is strategically important for Russia, to maintain its control in the Crimean Peninsula, which allows Moscow to resupply its forces through the Strait of Kerch.
    3. Finally, it also involves Eurasian politics into why Russia needs to control this region and here the discussion of the Volga-Don canal which links the Caspian Sea with the Sea of Azov comes to the fore. Russia has always used this canal to move warships between the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea and project its power in both regions. Moreover, Russia sees this connection as a significant strategic advantage in any future crisis.

    If Mariupol and the Sea of Azov are considered the most important strategically valuable features by Russia, there also exists the crucial points of Kherson and Odessa which will give Russia complete dominance of the Ukrainian coast line, thus giving larger access and control in the Black Sea region that has the potential to be militarised in the future in conflicts with the West. Moreover, it gives Russia a land corridor to Transnistria which is a Pro-Russian separatist area in Moldova and an opening into the Romanian border through Odessa, thus balancing the build-up of NATO forces in the region. 

    Conclusion

    The Ukrainian crisis is as much the West’s doing as Russia’s and an ear sympathetic to the Russian narrative might even say that the West took advantage of Russia when it was vulnerable immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union in negotiations regarding the German state reunification and NATO enlargement.

    The bottom line is that, presently, Putin views NATO as an existential security threat to the Russian state and sees the US and its allies’ support of Ukraine as a challenge. Ukraine’s membership in the EU and NATO is a non-starter for Russia and pitting a Ukraine, that has a symbiotic relationship with Russia at all levels, against a slightly diminished but still formidable great power will have consequences for the security architecture and geopolitics of the region.  The Ukrainian crisis is as much the West’s doing as Russia’s and an ear sympathetic to the Russian narrative might even say that the West took advantage of Russia when it was vulnerable immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union in negotiations regarding the German state reunification and NATO enlargement. On some level, NATO countries recognize the fact that Ukraine and Georgia can never be allowed membership into the North Atlantic alliance because the alternative of wilfully ignoring Russia’s security and national interests is just a recipe for disaster and might just launch the region into the single biggest armed conflict since World War 2. 

    References:

    [1] The White House. (2022, January 20). Remarks by president Biden in the press conference. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/01/19/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference-6/

    [2] Savranskaya, S., Blanton, T. S., & Zubok, V. (2010). Masterpieces of history: The peaceful end of the Cold War in Europe, 1989. Central European University Press.

    [3] Putin, Vladimir. “Rossiya na Rubezhe Tysyacheletii,” Nesavisimaya Gazeta, December 30, 1999, quoted in D’Anieri, Paul (2019). Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War. Cambridge University Press.

    [4] Ibid

    [5] Rettie, J. and James Meek, “Battle for Soviet Navy,” The Guardian, January 10, 1992

    [6] Ibid, no. iii

    [7] Solchanyk, R., Ukraine and Russia: The Post-Soviet Transition. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. 2000.

    [8] Goldgeier, J. and Michael McFaul. “Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia after the Cold War”, Brookings Institution Press, 2003

    [9] Ibid, no. iii

    [10]  The comment was made by Gleb Pavlovskii, a Russian Political Scientist. quoted in Ben Judah (2013), Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, p. 85.

    [11] Ibid, no. iii

    [12] Wigell, M. and  A. Vihma, Geopolitics versus geoeconomics: the case of Russia’s geostrategy and its effects on the EU. International Affairs, 92: 605-627. May 6, 2016

    [13] Ibid, no. iii

    [14] Harper, J. (2021, December 23). Nord stream 2: Who wins, who loses? Deutsche Welle. https://www.dw.com/en/nord-stream-2-who-wins-who-loses/a-60223801

    [15] Ukraine: Nord stream 2 a ‘dangerous geopolitical weapon’. (2021, August 22). DW.COM. https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-nord-stream-2-a-dangerous-geopolitical-weapon/a-58950076

    [16] Pifer, S. “Nord Stream 2: Background, Objectives and Possible Outcomes”, Brookings, April 2021 https://www.brookings.edu/research/nord-stream-2-background-objections-and-possible-outcomes/

    [17] WikiLeaks. (2008, August 14). UKRAINE, MAP, AND THE GEORGIA-RUSSIA CONFLICT, Canonical ID:08USNATO290_a. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08USNATO290_a.html

    [18] Gardner, F. (2022, March 21). Mariupol: Why Mariupol is so important to Russia’s plan. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60825226

    [19] Blank, S. (2018, November 6). Why is the Sea of Azov so important? Atlantic Council. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/why-is-the-sea-of-azov-so-important/

    Featured Image Credits: Financial Times

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  • Towards a New Movement of Non-Alignment: Politics of John Mearsheimer and Alexander Dugin

    Towards a New Movement of Non-Alignment: Politics of John Mearsheimer and Alexander Dugin

    Only last August, the U.S. had to leave Afghanistan in disgrace, leaving behind a destroyed country – and now they suddenly appear as the guardians of freedom, human rights and as the leading power of the West?

    Without equating Russia and the USA, they are very similar in their foreign policy behaviour. Despite all the problems under Trump, the U.S. is and remains a democracy in which human rights can be litigated. Russia is only formally an (electoral) democracy, as Putin himself once put it, a managed democracy in which human rights can hardly be claimed. Despite this fundamental difference, it is quite astonishing how the past 20 years have been forgotten in the West. Were the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya always and in every respect legitimate? Weren’t hundreds of thousands of people killed in them and by no means always only the soldiers? Only last August, the U.S. had to leave Afghanistan in disgrace, leaving behind a destroyed country – and now they suddenly appear as the guardians of freedom, human rights and as the leading power of the West? Conversely, we need to realize that while the U.S. would advocate regime change in Russia as well, does this legitimize all the actions of the Russian leadership and the Russian army?

    It is not only questionable whether Mearsheimer had the ear of the U.S. government – much more decisive is that he not only presents an analysis but in a sense naturalizes the struggle for spheres of influence and large areas. 

    And in essence, Mearsheimer can hardly hide the fact that neo-realism has models in the large-area policy of the Nazis and at least that of Carl Schmitt.

    To find an explanation for the conflict over Ukraine, two theorists are very often referred to, John Mearsheimer from the U.S. and Alexander Dugin from Russia. The defenders of Russia resort to the line of thought of the neo-realists, which was significantly influenced by Mearsheimer. And Mearsheimer argues that Ukraine is not the issue at all, but rather a global political showdown between the United States and Russia over spheres of influence. He attests that the Russian side under Putin is only reacting to a covert war of the USA – with the means at their disposal. And with countries like Sweden, Finland and even Switzerland soon to join NATO, the U.S. strategy – if the government in Washington had stuck to Mearsheimer’s indirect script – would have been extremely successful. The unity of the West under U.S. leadership has also been restored overnight. Mearsheimer is always used in this context as evidence of the true intentions of the U.S. and the real culprit in this war. However, it is not only questionable whether Mearsheimer had the ear of the U.S. government – much more decisive is that he not only presents an analysis but in a sense naturalizes the struggle for spheres of influence and large areas. For the next step, if one were to share his views, one would have to concede such a policy to the US as well? And in essence, Mearsheimer can hardly hide the fact that neo-realism has models in the large-area policy of the Nazis and at least that of Carl Schmitt.

    Dugin’s vision of Eurasia, on the other hand, is ideologically determined. But from his writings can be read the will to reconquer the Baltic states and large parts of the former Soviet Union and the Warsaw Treaty after Ukraine and to achieve at least Russian hegemony in Europe.

    The same applies to the dreams of Alexander Dugin, a neo-fascist ideologue who has at times been said to be particularly close to Vladimir Putin. Just as with Mearsheimer, the government action of Russia cannot be traced to his ideologue, but there are similarities here as well. Dugin, too, starts from large spaces and, like Putin, includes in his considerations the great Eurasian project, the political-ideological linking of Asia and Europe under Russian leadership. And indeed, this perspective already exists in the Chinese New Silk Road and is being built up economically by President Xi and the Chinese leadership with billions of Yuan. Dugin’s vision of Eurasia, on the other hand, is ideologically determined. But from his writings can be read the will to reconquer the Baltic states and large parts of the former Soviet Union and the Warsaw Treaty after Ukraine and to achieve at least Russian hegemony in Europe.

    What seems progressive here at first glance is the rejection of human equality – at its core, Dugin is concerned with a strictly hierarchical, estates-based society in which “white, male Europeans” are at the top.

    In this way, Dugin positioned himself as an outstanding representative of geopolitical thought as well as a mastermind of a “Eurasian” – as opposed to “Atlantic” – cultural space. This corresponds to the “fourth political theory” he postulates, which, after liberalism, fascism and communism, is most likely to ensure the survival of mankind in the age of globalization in his view. Dugin’s theoretical advisers, besides Heidegger, is the French founder of the “Nouvelle Droite,” Alain de Benoist.  All political systems of modernity are accordingly the results of three ideologies: The first and oldest, he says, is liberal democracy, the second is Marxism, and the third is fascism. The latter has long since failed, banished from history; the first no longer functions as an ideology, but as something taken for granted. The world today is on the brink of a post-political reality in which the values of liberalism are so deeply ingrained that the average person is not even aware of the effect of an ideology in his environment. Thus, liberalism threatens to monopolize political discourse, to flood the world with a universalistic sameness, and to destroy everything that makes different cultures and peoples unique. What seems progressive here at first glance is the rejection of human equality – at its core, Dugin is concerned with a strictly hierarchical, estates-based society in which “white, male Europeans” are at the top.

    a new policy of the Non-Aligned Movement is necessary, because as understandable as partisanship may be due to the suffering in Ukraine, we should not allow ourselves to be instrumentalized by either side.

    At their core, Mearsheimer and equally Dugin are representatives of a neo-colonial policy, in that they want to divide the whole world into their spheres of influence. This is what the U.S. has been trying to do since 2001 and now Russia as well. Still unclear is the role of China, which has not yet made a final decision and sees itself equally threatened by both visions. Instead of taking sides for one of the two positions, a new policy of the Non-Aligned Movement is necessary, because as understandable as partisanship may be due to the suffering in Ukraine, we should not allow ourselves to be instrumentalized by either side. Foreign Minister Lavrov had spoken of the need for a balanced world order during his visit to New Delhi. It would be of fundamental importance if Russia were to adhere to this itself. The real actors in such a balanced world order, however, would be the middle powers in a new movement of non-aligned states.

    Feature Image Credit: ipis.ir

  • The Military Situation in Ukraine

    The Military Situation in Ukraine

    Understanding the war in Ukraine is a challenge as all the available information is mired in Western Propaganda. However, there are sane voices of scholars like John Mearsheimer and a small group of excellent professionals and military veterans who provide extremely accurate analysis to ensure we get the true picture of this geopolitical contest between Russia and the US and NATO. Jacques Baud is a former Colonel of the General Staff, intelligence expert in NATO, and ex-member of the Swiss intelligence, and specialist on Eastern countries.

    In this excellent analysis, Jacques Baud brings out how the US and NATO have created conditions for the war and are using Ukraine as the sacrificial pawn in their proxy war against Russia. Jacques Baud demolishes the West’s propaganda about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb 24th and traces the start of the war to Feb 16th by the US and NATO.  Contrary to the American propaganda, he sees Putin as the master strategist. The end of this conflict will usher in a new multi-polar world order, in which the West may cease to be the rule maker.

    TPF is immensely happy to republish this article through the gracious courtesy of Centre Francaise de Recherche sure le Renseignement. 

    Capitulation – 1946 painting by Soviet Artist Pyotr Aleksandrovich Krivonogov, a veteran of The Great Patriotic War

     

    PART ONE: ON THE ROAD TO WAR

    For years, from Mali to Afghanistan, I worked for peace and risked my life for it. It is therefore not a question of justifying the war, but of understanding what led us to it. I note that the “experts” who take turns on the television sets analyze the situation based on dubious information, most often hypotheses turned into facts, and therefore we no longer manage to understand what is happening. That’s how you create panic.

    The problem is not so much who is right in this conflict, but how our leaders make their decisions.

    Let’s try to examine the roots of the conflict. It starts with those who for the past eight years have been talking to us about “separatists” or “independence” from the Donbas. It’s wrong. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in May 2014 were not ”  independence ” (независимость) referendums, as some unscrupulous journalists claimed, but ”  self-determination  ” or ”  autonomy (самостоятельность). The term “pro-Russian” suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term “Russian speakers” would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin.

    In fact, these republics did not seek to separate from Ukraine, but to have a statute of autonomy guaranteeing them the use of the Russian language as an official language. Because the first legislative act of the new government resulting from the overthrow of President Yanukovych, was the abolition, on February 23, 2014, of the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law of 2012 which made Russian an official language. A bit as if putschists decided that French and Italian would no longer be official languages ​​in Switzerland.

    This decision causes a storm in the Russian-speaking population. This resulted in fierce repression against the Russian-speaking regions (Odesa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Lugansk and Donetsk) which began in February 2014 and led to a militarization of the situation and a few massacres (in Odesa and Mariupol, for the most important). At the end of summer 2014, only the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk remained.

    At this stage, too rigid and stuck in a doctrinaire approach to the operational art, the Ukrainian staff suffered the enemy without succeeding in imposing themselves. Examination of the course of the fighting in 2014-2016 in the Donbas shows that the Ukrainian general staff systematically and mechanically applied the same operational plans. However, the war waged by the autonomists was then very close to what we observed in the Sahel: very mobile operations carried out with light means. With a more flexible and less doctrinaire approach, the rebels were able to exploit the inertia of the Ukrainian forces to “trap” them repeatedly.

    In 2014, I am at NATO, responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms, and we are trying to detect Russian arms deliveries to the rebels in order to see if Moscow is involved. The information that we receive then comes practically all from the Polish intelligence services and does not “match” with the information from the OSCE: in spite of rather crude allegations, we do not observe any delivery of arms and materials Russian military.

    The rebels are armed thanks to the defections of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units which cross over to the rebel side. As the Ukrainian failures progressed, the entire tank, artillery or anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what drives the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Accords.

    But, just after signing the Minsk 1 Accords, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko launched a vast anti-terrorist operation (ATO/Антитерористична операція) against Donbas. Bis repetita placent: poorly advised by NATO officers, the Ukrainians suffered a crushing defeat at Debaltsevo which forced them to commit to the Minsk 2 Agreements…

    It is essential to recall here that the Minsk 1 (September 2014) and Minsk 2 (February 2015) Agreements provided for neither the separation nor the independence of the Republics, but their autonomy within the framework of Ukraine. Those who have read the Accords (they are very, very, very few) will find that it is written in full that the status of the republics was to be negotiated between Kyiv and the representatives of the republics, for an internal solution in Ukraine.

    This is why since 2014, Russia has systematically demanded their application while refusing to be a party to the negotiations, because it was an internal matter for Ukraine. On the other side, the Westerners – led by France – have systematically tried to replace the Minsk Accords with the “Normandy format”, which put Russians and Ukrainians face to face. However, let us remember, there were never any Russian troops in the Donbas before February 23-24, 2022. Moreover, OSCE observers have never observed the slightest trace of Russian units operating in the Donbas. Thus, the US intelligence map published by the Washington Post on December 3, 2021, does not show Russian troops in Donbas.

    In October 2015, Vasyl Hrytsak, director of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), confessed that only 56 Russian fighters had been observed in the Donbas. It was even comparable to that of the Swiss going to fight in Bosnia during the weekends, in the 1990s, or the French who are going to fight in Ukraine today.

    The Ukrainian army was then in a deplorable state. In October 2018, after four years of war, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor Anatoly Matios said that Ukraine had lost 2,700 men in the Donbas: 891 from disease, 318 from traffic accidents, 177 from other accidents, 175 from poisoning (alcohol, drugs), 172 from careless handling of weapons, 101 from breaches of safety rules, 228 from murder and 615 from suicide.

    In fact, the army is undermined by the corruption of its cadres and no longer enjoys the support of the population. According to a UK Home Office report, when reservists were called up in March-April 2014, 70% did not show up for the first session, 80% for the second, 90% for the third and 95% for the fourth. In October/November 2017, 70% of callers did not show up during the “  Autumn 2017  ” callback campaign. This does not include suicides and desertions(often for the benefit of the autonomists) which reach up to 30% of the workforce in the ATO zone. Young Ukrainians refuse to go and fight in the Donbas and prefer emigration, which also explains, at least partially, the country’s demographic deficit.

    The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense then turned to NATO to help it make its armed forces more “attractive”. Having already worked on similar projects within the framework of the United Nations, I was asked by NATO to participate in a program intended to restore the image of the Ukrainian armed forces. But it’s a long process and the Ukrainians want to go quickly.

    Thus, to compensate for the lack of soldiers, the Ukrainian government resorted to paramilitary militias. They are essentially made up of foreign mercenaries, often far-right activists. As of 2020, they constitute around 40% of Ukraine’s forces and number around 102,000 men according to Reuters. They are armed, financed and trained by the United States, Great Britain, Canada and France. There are more than 19 nationalities – including Swiss.

    Western countries have therefore clearly created and supported Ukrainian far-right militias. In October 2021, the Jerusalem Post sounded the alarm by denouncing the Centuria project. These militias have been operating in the Donbas since 2014, with Western support. Even if we can discuss the term “Nazi”, the fact remains that these militias are violent, convey a nauseating ideology and are virulently anti-Semitic. Their anti-Semitism is more cultural than political, which is why the adjective “Nazi” is not really appropriate. Their hatred of the Jew comes from the great famines of the years 1920-1930 in Ukraine, resulting from the confiscation of crops by Stalin in order to finance the modernization of the Red Army. However, this genocide – known in Ukraine as the Holodomor – was perpetrated by the NKVD (predecessor of the KGB) whose upper echelons of leadership were mainly made up of Jews. That is why, today, Ukrainian extremists are asking Israel to apologize for the crimes of communism, as the Jerusalem Post reports. We are therefore a long way from a “  rewriting of history  ” by Vladimir Putin.

    These militias, stemming from the far-right groups that led the Euromaidan revolution in 2014, are made up of fanatical and brutal individuals. The best known of these is the Azov regiment, whose emblem is reminiscent of that of the 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer Division, which is the object of real veneration in Ukraine, for having liberated Kharkov from the Soviets in 1943, before perpetrating the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane in 1944, in France.

    Among the famous figures of the Azov regiment was the opponent Roman Protassevich, arrested in 2021 by the Belarusian authorities following the case of RyanAir flight FR4978. On May 23, 2021, there is talk of the deliberate hijacking of an airliner by a MiG-29 – with Putin’s agreement, of course – to arrest Protassevich, although the information then available does not confirm this scenario in any way.

    But it must then be shown that President Lukashenko is a thug and Protassevich a “journalist” in love with democracy. However, a rather edifying investigation produced by an American NGO in 2020, highlighted Protassevich’s far-right militant activities. Western conspiracy then sets in motion and unscrupulous media “groom” his biography. Finally, in January 2022, the ICAO report is published and shows that despite some procedural errors, Belarus acted in accordance with the rules in force and that the MiG-29 took off 15 minutes after the RyanAir pilot decided to land in Minsk. So no Belarus plot and even less with Putin. Ah!… One more detail: Protassevich,cruelly tortured by Belarusian police, is now free. Those who would like to correspond with him can go to his Twitter account.

    The labelling of “Nazi” or “neo-Nazi” given to Ukrainian paramilitaries is considered Russian propaganda. Perhaps; but that is not the opinion of The Times of Israel, the Simon Wiesenthal Center or the Counterterrorism Center at West Point Academy. But this remains debatable, because, in 2014, Newsweek magazine seemed to associate them with… the Islamic State. A choice!

    So the West supports and continues to arm militias that have been guilty of numerous crimes against civilian populations since 2014: rape, torture and massacres. But while the Swiss government has been very quick to impose sanctions against Russia, it has not adopted any against Ukraine, which has been slaughtering its own population since 2014. In fact, those who defend the rights of the men in Ukraine have long condemned the actions of these groups, but have not been followed by our governments. Because, in reality, we are not trying to help Ukraine, but to fight Russia.

    The integration of these paramilitary forces into the National Guard was not at all accompanied by a “denazification”, as some claim. Among the many examples, that of the insignia of the Azov Regiment is edifying:

     

    In 2022, very schematically, the Ukrainian armed forces fighting the Russian offensive are structured as:

    – Army, subordinate to the Ministry of Defence: it is articulated in 3 army corps and composed of manoeuvre formations (tanks, heavy artillery, missiles, etc.).

    – National Guard, which depends on the Ministry of the Interior and is articulated in 5 territorial commands.

    The National Guard is therefore a territorial defence force that is not part of the Ukrainian army. It includes paramilitary militias, called ”  volunteer battalions” (добровольчі батальйоні), also known by the evocative name of ”  retaliatory battalions  “, composed of infantry. Mainly trained for urban combat, they now ensure the defence of cities such as Kharkov, Mariupol, Odesa, Kyiv, etc.

    PART II: THE WAR

    The former head of the Warsaw Pact forces in the Swiss strategic intelligence service, I observe with sadness – but not astonishment – ​​that our services are no longer in a position to understand the military situation in Ukraine. The self-proclaimed “experts” who parade across our screens wirelessly relay the same information modulated by the assertion that Russia – and Vladimir Putin – is irrational. Let’s take a step back.

    • THE OUTBREAK OF WAR

    Since November 2021, the Americans have constantly brandished the threat of a Russian invasion against Ukraine. However, the Ukrainians do not seem to agree. Why?

    We have to go back to March 24, 2021. On that day, Volodymyr Zelensky issued a decree for the reconquest of Crimea and began to deploy his forces towards the south of the country. Simultaneously, several NATO exercises were conducted between the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, accompanied by a significant increase in reconnaissance flights along the Russian border. Russia then conducts a few exercises to test the operational readiness of its troops and show that it is following the evolution of the situation.

    Things calm down until October-November with the end of the ZAPAD 21 exercises, whose troop movements are interpreted as a reinforcement for an offensive against Ukraine. However, even the Ukrainian authorities refute the idea of ​​Russian preparations for a war and Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukrainian Minister of Defense declares that there has been no change on its border since the spring.

    In violation of the Minsk Accords, Ukraine is conducting aerial operations in Donbas using drones, including at least one strike against a fuel depot in Donetsk in October 2021. The American press points this out, but not the Europeans and no one condemns these violations.

    In February 2022, events rush. On February 7, during his visit to Moscow, Emmanuel Macron reaffirms to Vladimir Putin his attachment to the Minsk Accords, a commitment he will repeat after his interview with Volodymyr Zelensky the next day. But on February 11, in Berlin, after 9 hours of work, the meeting of the political advisers of the leaders of the ”  Normandy format  “ ends, without a concrete result: the Ukrainians still and always refuse to apply the Accordsof Minsk, apparently under pressure from the United States. Vladimir Putin then notes that Macron has made empty promises to him and that the West is not ready to enforce the Accords, as they have been doing for eight years.

    Ukrainian preparations in the contact zone continue. The Russian Parliament is alarmed and on February 15 asks Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the Republics, which he refuses.

    On February 17, President Joe Biden announces that Russia will attack Ukraine in the coming days. How does he know? Mystery… But since the 16th, the artillery shelling of the populations of Donbas has increased dramatically, as shown by the daily reports of OSCE observers. Naturally, neither the media, nor the European Union, nor NATO, nor any Western government reacts and intervenes. We will say later that this is Russian disinformation. In fact, it seems that the European Union and some countries purposely glossed over the massacre of the people of Donbas, knowing that it would provoke Russian intervention.

    At the same time, there are reports of acts of sabotage in the Donbas. On January 18, Donbas fighters intercept saboteurs equipped with Western equipment and speaking Polish seeking to create chemical incidents in Gorlivka. They could be CIA mercenaries, led or “advised” by Americans and made up of Ukrainian or European fighters, to carry out sabotage actions in the Donbas Republics.

    In fact, as early as February 16, Joe Biden knows that the Ukrainians have begun to shell the civilian populations of Donbas, putting Vladimir Putin in front of a difficult choice: to help Donbas militarily and create an international problem or to sit idly by and watch the Russian speakers. from the Donbas being run over.

    If he decides to intervene, Vladimir Putin can invoke the international obligation of “  Responsibility To Protect  ” (R2P). But he knows that whatever its nature or scale, the intervention will trigger a shower of sanctions. Therefore, whether its intervention is limited to the Donbas or whether it goes further to put pressure on the West for the status of Ukraine, the price to be paid will be the same. This is what he explains in his speech on February 21.

    That day, he acceded to the request of the Duma and recognized the independence of the two Republics of Donbas and, in the process, he signed treaties of friendship and assistance with them.

    The Ukrainian artillery bombardments on the populations of Donbas continued and, on February 23, the two Republics requested military aid from Russia. On the 24th, Vladimir Putin invokes Article 51 of the United Nations Charter which provides for mutual military assistance within the framework of a defensive alliance.

    In order to make the Russian intervention totally illegal in the eyes of the public, we deliberately obscure the fact that the war actually started on February 16th. The Ukrainian army was preparing to attack the Donbas as early as 2021, as certain Russian and European intelligence services were well aware… The lawyers will judge.

    In his speech on February 24, Vladimir Putin stated the two objectives of his operation: to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine. It is therefore not a question of seizing Ukraine, nor even, in all likelihood, of occupying it and certainly not of destroying it.

    From there, our visibility on the progress of the operation is limited: the Russians have excellent security of operations (OPSEC) and the detail of their planning is not known. But fairly quickly, the course of operations makes it possible to understand how the strategic objectives were translated into the operational plan.

    – Demilitarization:

    . ground destruction of Ukrainian aviation, air defence systems and reconnaissance assets;

    . neutralization of command and intelligence structures (C3I), as well as the main logistics routes in the depth of the territory;

    . encirclement of the bulk of the Ukrainian army massed in the southeast of the country.

    – Denazification:

    . destruction or neutralization of volunteer battalions operating in the cities of Odesa, Kharkov and Mariupol, as well as in various facilities on the territory.

    • THE “DEMILITARIZATION”

    The Russian offensive proceeds in a very “classic” manner. At first – as the Israelis had done in 1967 – with the destruction on the ground of the air forces in the very first hours. Then, we witness a simultaneous progression on several axes according to the principle of “flowing water”: we advance wherever resistance is weak and we leave the cities (very voracious in troops) for later. To the north, the Chernobyl plant is occupied immediately to prevent acts of sabotage. The images of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers jointly guarding the plant are naturally not shown…

    The idea that Russia is trying to take over Kyiv, the capital, to eliminate Zelensky, typically comes from the West: this is what they did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and what they wanted to do in Syria with the help of the Islamic State. But Vladimir Putin never intended to take down or overthrow Zelensky. On the contrary, Russia seeks to keep him in power by pushing him to negotiate by encircling Kyiv. He had refused to do so far to apply the Minsk Accords, but now the Russians want to obtain Ukraine’s neutrality.

    Many Western commentators marvelled that the Russians continued to seek a negotiated solution while conducting military operations. The explanation is in the Russian strategic conception, since Soviet times. For Westerners, war begins when politics ceases. However, the Russian approach follows a Clausewitzian inspiration: war is the continuity of politics and one can pass fluidly from one to the other, even during combat. This creates pressure on the opponent and pushes him to negotiate.

    From an operational point of view, the Russian offensive was an example of its kind: in six days, the Russians seized a territory as vast as the United Kingdom, with a speed of advance greater than what the Wehrmacht made in 1940.

    The bulk of the Ukrainian army was deployed in the south of the country for a major operation against Donbas. This is why the Russian forces were able to encircle it from the beginning of March in the “cauldron” between Slavyansk, Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk, by a thrust coming from the east via Kharkov and another coming from the south from the Crimea. The troops of the Republics of Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (RPL) complete the action of the Russian forces with a push from the East.

    At this stage, the Russian forces are slowly tightening the noose, but are no longer under time pressure. Their objective of demilitarization is practically achieved and the residual Ukrainian forces no longer have an operational and strategic command structure.

    The “slowdown” that our “experts” attribute to poor logistics is only the consequence of having achieved the objectives set. Russia does not seem to want to engage in an occupation of the whole Ukrainian territory. In fact, it seems rather that Russia is trying to limit its advance to the country’s linguistic border.

    Our media speak of indiscriminate bombardments against civilian populations, particularly in Kharkov, and Dantesque images are broadcast on a loop. However, Gonzalo Lira, a Latin American who lives there, presents us with a calm city on March 10, and on March 11. Admittedly, it’s a big city and you can’t see everything, but that seems to indicate that we are not in the total war that we are being served continuously on our screens.

    As for the Republics of Donbas, they have “liberated” their own territories and are fighting in the city of Mariupol.

    • “DENAZIFICATION”

    In cities like Kharkov, Mariupol and Odesa, defence is provided by paramilitary militias. They know that the objective of “denazification” is aimed primarily at them.

    For an attacker in an urbanized area, civilians are a problem. This is why Russia seeks to create humanitarian corridors to empty the cities of civilians and leave only the militias in order to fight them more easily.

    Conversely, these militias seek to keep civilians in the cities in order to dissuade the Russian army from coming to fight there. This is why they are reluctant to implement these corridors and do everything so that Russian efforts are in vain: they can thus use the civilian population as “human shields”. Videos showing civilians trying to leave Mariupol and being beaten up by fighters from the Azov regiment are naturally carefully censored here.

    On Facebook, the Azov group was considered in the same category as the Islamic State and subject to the platform’s ”  dangerous individuals and organizations policy  “. It was therefore forbidden to glorify him, and the “posts” that were favourable to him were systematically banned. But on February 24, Facebook changed its policy and allowed posts favourable to the militia. In the same spirit, in March, the platform authorizes, in the former Eastern European countries, calls for the murder of Russian soldiers and leaders. So much for the values ​​that inspire our leaders, as we will see.

    Our media propagate a romantic image of popular resistance. It is this image that has led the European Union to finance the distribution of arms to the civilian population. It is a criminal act. In my role as chief of doctrine for peacekeeping operations at the UN, I worked on the issue of the protection of civilians. We then saw that violence against civilians took place in very specific contexts. Especially when weapons abound and there are no command structures.

    Now, these command structures are the essence of armies: their function is to channel the use of force according to an objective. By arming citizens in a haphazard fashion as is currently the case, the EU turns them into combatants, with the attendant consequences: potential targets. Moreover, without command, without operational goals, the distribution of arms inevitably leads to settling of scores, banditry and actions that are more deadly than effective. War becomes a matter of emotions. Force becomes violence. This is what happened in Tawarga (Libya) from August 11 to 13, 2011, where 30,000 black Africans were massacred with weapons parachuted (illegally) by France. Moreover, the British Royal Institute for Strategic Studies(RUSI) sees no added value in these arms deliveries.

    Moreover, by delivering arms to a country at war, one exposes oneself to being considered as a belligerent. The Russian strikes on March 13, 2022, against the Mykolaiv airbase follow Russian warnings that weapons transports would be treated as hostile targets.

    The EU repeats the disastrous experience of the Third Reich in the last hours of the Battle of Berlin. War should be left to the military and when one side has lost, it should be admitted. And if there is to be resistance, it must imperatively be led and structured. However, we are doing exactly the opposite: we are pushing citizens to go and fight and at the same time, Facebook is allowing calls for the murder of Russian soldiers and leaders. So much for the values ​​that inspire us.

    In some intelligence services, this irresponsible decision is seen as a way of using the Ukrainian population as cannon fodder to fight Vladimir Putin’s Russia. This kind of murderous decision had to be left to the colleagues of Ursula von der Leyen’s grandfather. It would have been wiser to engage in negotiations and thus obtain guarantees for the civilian populations than to add fuel to the fire. It’s easy to be combative with other people’s blood…

    • MARIUPOL MATERNITY

    It is important to understand beforehand that it is not the Ukrainian army that ensures the defence of Mariupol, but the Azov militia, composed of foreign mercenaries.

    In its summary of the situation on March 7, 2022, the Russian UN mission in New York states that ”  Residents report that the Ukrainian armed forces have expelled the personnel of the Natal Hospital No. 1 from the city of Mariupol and have installed a shooting station inside the establishment. »

    On March 8, the independent Russian media Lenta.ru published the testimony of civilians from Mariupol who said that the maternity hospital was taken over by the militias of the Azov regiment, and chased out the civilian occupants, threatening them with their weapons. They thus confirm the statements of the Russian ambassador a few hours earlier.

    The Mariupol hospital occupies a dominant position, perfectly adequate for installing anti-tank weapons and for observation. On March 9, Russian forces hit the building. According to CNN, there are 17 injured, but the footage shows no casualties on the premises and there is no evidence that the reported casualties are related to this strike. We talk about children, but in reality, we see nothing. It may be true, but it may be false… Which does not prevent EU leaders from seeing it as a war crime … Which allows Zelensky, just afterwards, to claim a no-fly zone over Ukraine…

    In reality, we don’t know exactly what happened. But the sequence of events tends to confirm that the Russian forces struck a position of the Azov regiment and that the maternity ward was then free of all civilians.

    The problem is that the paramilitary militias that ensure the defence of cities are encouraged by the international community not to respect the customs of war. It seems that the Ukrainians have re-enacted the scenario of the maternity hospital in Kuwait City in 1990, which had been completely staged by the firm Hill & Knowlton for the amount of 10.7 million dollars in order to convince the United Nations Security Council to intervene in Iraq for Operation Desert Shield/Storm.

    Western politicians have also accepted strikes against civilians in Donbas for eight years, without adopting any sanctions against the Ukrainian government. We have long since entered into a dynamic where Western politicians have agreed to sacrifice international law to their objective of weakening Russia .

    PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS

     As a former intelligence professional, the first thing that strikes me is the total absence of Western intelligence services in representing the situation for a year. In Switzerland, the services have been criticized for not having provided a correct picture of the situation. In fact, it seems that all over the Western world, the services have been overwhelmed by the politicians. The problem is that it is the politicians who decide: the best intelligence service in the world is useless if the decision-maker does not listen to it. This is what happened during this crisis.

    That said, while some intelligence services had a very precise and rational image of the situation, others clearly had the same image as that propagated by our media. In this crisis, the services of the countries of the “new Europe” played an important role. The problem is that, by experience, I found that they were extremely bad on the analytical level: doctrinaire, they do not have the intellectual and political independence necessary to appreciate a situation with a military “quality”. It is better to have them as enemies than as friends.

    Then, it seems that in some European countries, politicians have deliberately ignored their services to respond ideologically to the situation. This is why this crisis has been irrational from the start. It will be observed that all the documents that have been presented to the public during this crisis have been presented by politicians on the basis of commercial sources…

    Some Western politicians obviously wanted there to be a conflict. In the United States, the attack scenarios presented by Anthony Blinken to the Security Council were only the fruit of the imagination of a Tiger Team working for him  : he did exactly like Donald Rumsfeld in 2002, who thus “bypassed” the CIA and other intelligence services that were far less assertive about Iraqi chemical weapons.

    The dramatic developments we are witnessing today have causes we knew about, but refused to see:

    – on the strategic level, the expansion of NATO (which we have not dealt with here);

    – on the political level, the Western refusal to implement the Minsk Agreements;

    – and on the operational level, the continuous and repeated attacks on the civilian populations of Donbass for years and the dramatic increase at the end of February 2022.

    In other words, we can naturally deplore and condemn the Russian attack. But WE (that is to say: the United States, France and the European Union in the lead) have created the conditions for a conflict to break out. We show compassion for the Ukrainian people and the two million refugees . It’s good. But if we had had a modicum of compassion for the same number of refugees from the Ukrainian populations of Donbass massacred by their own government and who have been accumulating in Russia for eight years, none of this would probably have happened.

     

    Whether the term “genocide” applies to the abuses suffered by the populations of Donbass is an open question. This term is generally reserved for larger cases (Holocaust, etc.), however, the definition given by the Genocide Convention is probably broad enough to apply. Lawyers will appreciate.

    Clearly, this conflict has led us into hysteria. Sanctions seem to have become the preferred tool of our foreign policies. If we had insisted that Ukraine respect the Minsk Accords, which we negotiated and endorsed, none of this would have happened. The condemnation of Vladimir Putin is also ours. There is no point in whining after the fact, we had to act before. However, neither Emmanuel Macron (as guarantor and as a member of the UN Security Council), nor Olaf Scholz, nor Volodymyr Zelensky have respected their commitments. Ultimately, the real defeat is that of those who have no voice.

    The European Union was unable to promote the implementation of the Minsk agreements, on the contrary, it did not react when Ukraine bombarded its own population in the Donbass. Had she done so, Vladimir Putin would not have needed to react. Absent from the diplomatic phase, the EU distinguished itself by fueling the conflict. On February 27, the Ukrainian government agrees to start negotiations with Russia. But a few hours later, the European Union voted a budget of 450 million euros to supply arms to Ukraine, adding fuel to the fire. From there, the Ukrainians feel that they will not need to come to an agreement. The resistance of the Azov militias in Mariupol will even causea raise of 500 million euros for weapons .

    In Ukraine, with the blessing of Western countries, those who are in favor of a negotiation are eliminated. This is the case of Denis Kireyev, one of the Ukrainian negotiators, assassinated on March 5 by the Ukrainian secret service (SBU) because he is too favorable to Russia and is considered a traitor. The same fate is reserved for Dmitry Demyanenko, former deputy head of the main directorate of the SBU for Kiev and its region, assassinated on March 10 , because too favorable to an agreement with Russia: he is killed by the Mirotvorets militia (”  Peacemaker  “). This militia is associated with the Mirotvorets website which lists the ”  enemies of Ukraine”, with their personal data, address and telephone numbers, so that they can be harassed or even eliminated  ; a punishable practice in many countries, but not in Ukraine . The UN and some European countries have demanded its closure… refused by the Rada.

    Eventually, the price will be high, but Vladimir Putin will likely achieve the goals he set for himself. Its ties with Beijing have solidified. China emerges as a mediator of the conflict, while Switzerland enters the list of enemies of Russia. The Americans must ask Venezuela and Iran for oil to get out of the energy impasse in which they have gotten themselves: Juan Guaido leaves the scene definitively and the United States must pitifully reverse the sanctions imposed on their enemies.

    Western ministers who seek to collapse the Russian economy and make the Russian people suffer , even calling for the assassination of Putin, show (even if they partially reversed the form of their remarks, but not on bottom!) that our leaders are no better than those we hate. Because, sanctioning Russian athletes from the Para-Olympic Games or Russian artists has absolutely nothing to do with a fight against Putin.

    So, therefore, we recognize that Russia is a democracy since we consider that the Russian people are responsible for the war. If not, then why are we trying to punish an entire population for the fault of one? Remember that collective punishment is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions…

    The lesson to be drawn from this conflict is our sense of variable geometry humanity. If we were so attached to peace and to Ukraine, why didn’t we encourage her more to respect the agreements that she had signed and that the members of the Security Council had approved?

    Media integrity is measured by their willingness to work under the terms of the Munich Charter. They had succeeded in propagating hatred of the Chinese during the Covid crisis and their polarized message leads to the same effects against the Russians . Journalism is stripping itself more and more of professionalism to become militant…

    As Goethe said: “  The greater the light, the darker the shadow  ”. The more the sanctions against Russia are excessive, the more the cases where we have done nothing highlight our racism and our servility. Why has no Western politician reacted to the strikes against the civilian populations of Donbass for eight years?

    After all, what makes the conflict in Ukraine more blameworthy than the war in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya? What sanctions have we adopted against those who have deliberately lied before the international community to wage unjust, unjustified, unjustifiable and murderous wars? Did we try to “make suffer” the American people who had lied to us (because it is a democracy!) before the war in Iraq? Have we even adopted a single sanction against the countries, companies or politicians who are fueling the conflict in Yemen, considered the ”  worst humanitarian disaster in the world  “? Have we sanctioned the countries of the European Union who practice the most abject torture on their territory for the benefit of the United States?

    To ask the question is to answer it… and the answer is not glorious.

     

    Feature Image Credit: Raising the Flag over Reichstag – iconic photo in 1945 by Yevegny Khaldei – kosmofoto.com 

     

  • America defeats Germany for the third time in a century

    America defeats Germany for the third time in a century

    This is a very profound article by Michael Hudson, wherein he exposes the real drivers of the conflict in Ukraine – the American Military Industrial Complex; Oil, Gas and Mining Industry; and the FIRE (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) – the three oligarchs who form the deep state or the national security state that conducts the American foreign policy. To this we can add the fourth – the Big Tech. Clearly, as Paul Kennedy identified more than three decades ago, like all empires of the past, the American Empire has entered an irretrievable imperial overstretch and the consequent decline that would accelerate post the war in Ukraine.

    TPF is happy to republish this excellently analysed article by Michael Hudson under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License. It was published earlier in MRonline.

    The MIC, OGAM and FIRE Sectors Conquer NATO

    My old boss Herman Kahn, with whom I worked at the Hudson Institute in the 1970s, had a set speech that he would give at public meetings. He said that back in high school in Los Angeles, his teachers would say what most liberals were saying in the 1940s and 50s: “Wars never solved anything.” It was as if they never changed anything—and therefore shouldn’t be fought.

    Herman disagreed, and made lists of all sorts of things that wars had solved in world history, or at least changed. He was right, and of course that is the aim of both sides in today’s New Cold War confrontation in Ukraine.

    The question to ask is what today’s New Cold War is trying to change or “solve.” To answer this question, it helps to ask who initiates the war. There always are two sides—the attacker and the attacked. The attacker intends certain consequences, and the attacked looks for unintended consequences of which they can take advantage. In this case, both sides have their dueling sets of intended consequences and special interests.

    the U.S. policy executed by the Clinton and subsequent administrations to wage a new military expansion via NATO has paid a 30-year dividend in the form of shifting the foreign policy of Western Europe and other American allies out of their domestic political sphere into their own U.S.-oriented “national security” blob. NATO has become Europe’s foreign policy-making body, even to the point of dominating domestic economic interests.

    The active military force and aggression since 1991 has been the United States. Rejecting mutual disarmament of the Warsaw Pact countries and NATO, there was no “peace dividend.” Instead, the U.S. policy executed by the Clinton and subsequent administrations to wage a new military expansion via NATO has paid a 30-year dividend in the form of shifting the foreign policy of Western Europe and other American allies out of their domestic political sphere into their own U.S.-oriented “national security” blob (the word for special interests that must not be named). NATO has become Europe’s foreign policy-making body, even to the point of dominating domestic economic interests.

    The recent prodding of Russia by expanding Ukrainian anti-Russian ethnic violence by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi post-2014 Maidan regime was aimed at (and has succeeded in) forcing a showdown in response the fear by U.S. interests that they are losing their economic and political hold on their NATO allies and other Dollar Area satellites as these countries have seen their major opportunities for gain to lie in increasing trade and investment with China and Russia.

    To understand just what U.S. aims and interests are threatened, it is necessary to understand U.S. politics and “the blob,” that is, the government central planning that cannot be explained by looking at ostensibly democratic politics. This is not the politics of U.S. senators and representatives representing their congressional voting districts or states.

    America’s three oligarchies in control of U.S. foreign policy

    It is more realistic to view U.S. economic and foreign policy in terms of the military-industrial complex, the oil and gas (and mining) complex, and the banking and real estate complex than in terms of the political policy of Republicans and Democrats. The key senators and congressional representatives do not represent their states and districts as much as the economic and financial interests of their major political campaign contributors.

    It is more realistic to view U.S. economic and foreign policy in terms of the military-industrial complex, the oil and gas (and mining) complex, and the banking and real estate complex than in terms of the political policy of Republicans and Democrats. The key senators and congressional representatives do not represent their states and districts as much as the economic and financial interests of their major political campaign contributors. A Venn diagram would show that in today’s post-Citizens United world, U.S. politicians represent their campaign contributors, not voters. And these contributors fall basically into three main blocs.
    Three main oligarchic groups that have bought control of the Senate and Congress to put their own policy makers in the State Department and Defense Department.

    First is the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC)—arms manufacturers such as Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, have broadly diversified their factories and employment in nearly every state, and especially in the Congressional districts where key Congressional committee heads are elected. Their economic base is monopoly rent, obtained above all from their arms sales to NATO, to Near Eastern oil exporters and to other countries with a balance of payments surplus. Stocks for these companies soared immediately upon news of the Russian attack, leading a two-day stock market surge as investors recognized that war in a world of cost-plus “Pentagon capitalism” (as Seymour Melman described it) will provide a guaranteed national security umbrella for monopoly profits for war industries. Senators and Congressional representatives from California and Washington traditionally have represented the MIC, along with the solid pro-military South. The past week’s military escalation promises soaring arms sales to NATO and other U.S. allies, enriching the actual constituents of these politicians. Germany quickly agreed to raise its arms spending to over 2% of GDP.

    Monopolizing the Dollar Area’s oil market and isolating it from Russian oil and gas has been a major U.S. priority for over a year now, as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline threatened to link the Western European and Russian economies more tightly together.

    The second major oligarchic bloc is the rent-extracting oil and gas sector, joined by mining (OGAM), riding America’s special tax favoritism granted to companies emptying natural resources out of the ground and putting them mostly into the atmosphere, oceans and water supply. Like the banking and real estate sector seeking to maximize economic rent and maximizing capital gains for housing and other assets, the aim of this OGAM sector is to maximize the price of its energy and raw materials so as to maximize its natural resource rent. Monopolizing the Dollar Area’s oil market and isolating it from Russian oil and gas has been a major U.S. priority for over a year now, as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline threatened to link the Western European and Russian economies more tightly together.

    If oil, gas and mining operations are not situated in every U.S. voting district, at least their investors are. Senators from Texas and other Western oil-producing and mining states are the leading OGAM lobbyists, and the State Department has a heavy oil sector influence providing a national security umbrella for the sector’s special tax breaks. The ancillary political aim is to ignore and reject environmental drives to replace oil, gas and coal with alternative sources of energy. The Biden administration accordingly has backed the expansion of offshore drilling, supported the Canadian pipeline to the world’s dirtiest petroleum source in the Athabasca tar sands, and celebrated the revival of U.S. fracking.

    The foreign policy extension is to prevent foreign countries not leaving control of their oil, gas and mining to U.S. OGAM companies from competing in world markets with U.S. suppliers. Isolating Russia (and Iran) from Western markets will reduce the supply of oil and gas, pushing up prices and corporate profits accordingly.

    The third major oligarchic group is the symbiotic Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which is the modern finance-capitalist successor to Europe’s old post-feudal landed aristocracy living by land rents. With most housing in today’s world having become owner-occupied (although with sharply rising rates of absentee landlordship since the post-2008 wave of Obama Evictions), land rent is paid largely to the banking sector in the form of mortgage interest and debt amortization (on rising debt/equity ratios as bank lending inflates housing prices). About 80 percent of U.S. and British bank loans are to the real estate sector, inflating land prices to create capital gains—which are effectively tax exempt for absentee owners.

    Internationally, the FIRE sector’s aim is to privatize foreign economies (above all to secure the privilege of credit creation in U.S. hands), so as to turn government infrastructure and public utilities into rent seeking monopolies to provide basic services (such as health care, education, transportation, communications and information technology) at maximum prices instead of at subsidized prices to reduce the cost of living and doing business.

    This Wall Street-centered banking and real estate bloc is even more broadly based on a district-by-district basis than the MIC. Its New York senator from Wall Street, Chuck Schumer, heads the Senate, long supported by Delaware’s former Senator from the credit card industry Joe Biden, and Connecticut’s senators from the insurance sector centered in that state. Domestically, the aim of this sector is to maximize land rent and the “capital’ gains resulting from rising land rent. Internationally, the FIRE sector’s aim is to privatize foreign economies (above all to secure the privilege of credit creation in U.S. hands), so as to turn government infrastructure and public utilities into rent seeking monopolies to provide basic services (such as health care, education, transportation, communications and information technology) at maximum prices instead of at subsidized prices to reduce the cost of living and doing business. And Wall Street always has been closely merged with the oil and gas industry (viz. the Rockefeller-dominated Citigroup and Chase Manhattan banking conglomerates).

    The FIRE, MIC and OGAM sectors are the three rentier sectors that dominate today’s post-industrial finance capitalism. Their mutual fortunes have soared as MIC and OGAM stocks have increased. And moves to exclude Russia from the Western financial system (and partially now from SWIFT), coupled with the adverse effects of isolating European economies from Russian energy, promise to spur an inflow into dollarized financial securities

    As mentioned at the outset, it is more helpful to view U.S. economic and foreign policy in terms of the complexes based on these three rentier sectors than in terms of the political policy of Republicans and Democrats. The key senators and congressional representatives are not representing their states and districts as much as the economic and financial interests of their major donors. That is why neither manufacturing nor agriculture play the dominant role in U.S. foreign policy today. The convergence of the policy aims of America’s three dominant rentier groups overwhelms the interests of labor and even of industrial capital beyond the MIC. That convergence is the defining characteristic of today’s post-industrial finance capitalism. It is basically a reversion to economic rent-seeking, which is independent of the politics of labor and industrial capital.

    The dynamic that needs to be traced today is why this oligarchic blob has found its interest in prodding Russia into what Russia evidently viewed as a do-or-die stance to resist the increasingly violent attacks on Ukraine’s eastern Russian-speaking provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, along with the broader Western threats against Russia.

    The rentier “blob’s” expected consequences of the New Cold War

    As President Biden explained, the current U.S.-orchestrated military escalation (“Prodding the Bear”) is not really about Ukraine. Biden promised at the outset that no U.S. troops would be involved. But he has been demanding for over a year that Germany prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from supplying its industry and housing with low-priced gas and turn to the much higher-priced U.S. suppliers.

    U.S. officials first tried to stop construction of the pipeline from being completed. Firms aiding in its construction were sanctioned, but finally Russia itself completed the pipeline. U.S. pressure then turned on the traditionally pliant German politicians, claiming that Germany and the rest of Europe faced a National Security threat from Russia turning off the gas, presumably to extract some political or economic concessions. No specific Russian demands could be thought up, and so their nature was left obscure and blob-like. Germany refused to authorize Nord Stream 2 from officially going into operation.

    A major aim of today’s New Cold War is to monopolize the market for U.S. shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG)

    A major aim of today’s New Cold War is to monopolize the market for U.S. shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG). Already under Donald Trump’s administration, Angela Merkel was bullied into promising to spend $1 billion building new port facilities for U.S. tanker ships to unload natural gas for German use. The Democratic election victory in November 2020, followed by Ms. Merkel’s retirement from Germany’s political scene, led to cancellation of this port investment, leaving Germany really without much alternative to importing Russian gas to heat its homes, power its electric utilities, and to provide raw material for its fertilizer industry and hence the maintenance of its farm productivity.

    So the most pressing U.S. strategic aim of NATO confrontation with Russia is soaring oil and gas prices, above all to the detriment of Germany. In addition to creating profits and stock market gains for U.S. oil companies, higher energy prices will take much of the steam out of the German economy. That looms as the third time in a century that the United States has defeated Germany—each time increasing its control over a German economy increasingly dependent on the United States for imports and policy leadership, with NATO being the effective check against any domestic nationalist resistance.

    Higher gasoline, heating and other energy prices also will hurt U.S. consumers and those of other nations (especially Global South energy-deficit economies) and leave less of the U.S. family budget for spending on domestic goods and services. This could squeeze marginalized homeowners and investors, leading to further concentration of absentee ownership of housing and commercial property in the United States, along with buyouts of distressed real estate owners in other countries faced with soaring heating and energy costs. But that is deemed collateral damage by the post-industrial blob.

    Food prices also will rise, headed by wheat. (Russia and Ukraine account for 25 percent of world wheat exports.) This will squeeze many Near Eastern and Global South food-deficit countries, worsening their balance of payments and threatening foreign debt defaults.

    Russian raw materials exports may be blocked by Russia in response to the currency and SWIFT sanctions. This threatens to cause breaks in supply chains for key materials, including cobalt, palladium, nickel and aluminum (the production of which consumes much electricity as its major cost—which will make that metal more expensive). If China decides to see itself as the next nation being threatened and joins Russia in a common protest against the U.S. trade and financial warfare, the Western economies are in for a serious shock.

    The long-term dream of U.S. New Cold Warriors is to break up Russia, or at least to restore its Yeltsin/Harvard Boys managerial kleptocracy, with oligarchs seeking to cash in their privatizations in Western stock markets

    The long-term dream of U.S. New Cold Warriors is to break up Russia, or at least to restore its Yeltsin/Harvard Boys managerial kleptocracy, with oligarchs seeking to cash in their privatizations in Western stock markets. OGAM still dreams of buying majority control of Yukos and Gazprom. Wall Street would love to recreate a Russian stock market boom. And MIC investors at happily anticipating the prospect of selling more weapons to help bring all this about.

    Russia’s intentions to benefit from America’s unintended consequences

    What does Russia want? Most immediately, to remove the neo-Nazi anti-Russian core that the Maidan massacre and coup put in place in 2014. Ukraine is to be neutralized, which to Russia means basically pro-Russian, dominated by Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. The aim is to prevent Ukraine from becoming a staging ground of U.S.-orchestrated anti-Russian moves a la Chechnya and Georgia.

    Russia’s aim is to dissolve NATO altogether, and then to promote the broad disarmament and denuclearization policies that Russia has been pushing for. Not only will this cut back foreign purchases of U.S. arms, but it may end up leading to sanctions against future U.S. military adventurism

    Russia’s longer term aim is to pry Europe away from NATO and U.S. dominance—and in the process, create with China a new multipolar world order centered on an economically integrated Eurasia. The aim is to dissolve NATO altogether, and then to promote the broad disarmament and denuclearization policies that Russia has been pushing for. Not only will this cut back foreign purchases of U.S. arms, but it may end up leading to sanctions against future U.S. military adventurism. That would leave America with less ability to fund its military operations as de-dollarization accelerates.

    Now that it should be obvious to any informed observer that (1) NATO’s purpose is aggression, not defense, and (2) there is no further territory for it to conquer from the remains of the old Soviet Union, what does Europe get out of continued membership? It is obvious that Russia never again will invade Europe. It has nothing to gain—and had nothing to gain by fighting Ukraine, except to roll back NATO’s proxy expansion into that country and the NATO-backed attacks on Novorossiya.

    Will European nationalist leaders (the left is largely pro-US) ask why their countries should pay for U.S. arms that only put them in danger, pay higher prices for U.S. LNG and energy, pay more for grain and Russian-produced raw materials, all while losing the option of making export sales and profits on peaceful investment in Russia—and perhaps losing China as well?

    The U.S. confiscation of Russian monetary reserves, following the recent theft of Afghanistan’s reserves (and England’s seizure of Venezuela’s gold stocks held there) threatens every country’s adherence to the Dollar Standard, and hence the dollar’s role as the vehicle for foreign exchange savings by the world’s central banks. This will accelerate the international de-dollarization process already started by Russia and China relying on mutual holdings of each other’s currencies.

    Over the longer term, Russia is likely to join China in forming an alternative to the U.S.-dominated IMF and World Bank. Russia’s announcement that it wants to arrest the Ukrainian Nazis and hold a war crimes trial seems to imply an alternative to the Hague court will be established following Russia’s military victory in Ukraine. Only a new international court could try war criminals extending from Ukraine’s neo-Nazi leadership all the way up to U.S. officials responsible for crimes against humanity as defined by the Nuremberg laws.

    Did the American blob actually think through the consequences of NATO’s war?

    It is almost black humor to look at U.S. attempts to convince China that it should join the United States in denouncing Russia’s moves into Ukraine. The most enormous unintended consequence of U.S. foreign policy has been to drive Russia and China together, along with Iran, Central Asia and other countries along the Belt and Road initiative.

    Russia dreamed of creating a new world order, but it was U.S. adventurism that has driven the world into an entirely new order—one that looks to be dominated by China as the default winner

    Russia dreamed of creating a new world order, but it was U.S. adventurism that has driven the world into an entirely new order—one that looks to be dominated by China as the default winner now that the European economy is essentially torn apart and America is left with what it has grabbed from Russia and Afghanistan, but without the ability to gain future support.

    And everything that I have written above may already be obsolete as Russia and the U.S. have gone on atomic alert. My only hope is that Putin and Biden can agree that if Russia hydrogen bombs Britain and Brussels, that there will be a devil’s (not gentleman’s) agreement not to bomb each other.

    With such talk I’m brought back to my discussions with Herman Kahn 50 years ago. He became quite unpopular for writing Thinking about the Unthinkable, meaning atomic war. As he was parodied in Dr. Strangelove, he did indeed say that there would indeed be survivors. But he added that for himself, he hoped to be right under the atom bomb, because it was not a world in which he wanted to survive.

  • Authoritarian Persistence in West Asia and North Africa

    Authoritarian Persistence in West Asia and North Africa

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    Abstract:

    The robustness of coercive apparatus in West Asia and North Africa has been a result of a culmination of factors over the years. The paper looks at three such arguments – those based on cultural and religious exceptionalism which look at Islam’s inhospitality towards democratization. Here, the author contends that such arguments overlook the fact that Islam is not monolithic, and varies too widely by context and time to remain a static, uniformed religious obstacle to democratic transition. Second, the paper looks at the framework of the rentier theory where the argument has been supported by looking at three primary features of the framework – first, the lack of taxation and the subsequent absence of democratic obligation; second, the presence of heavy security apparatus; and lastly, the lack of any credible political opposition. Finally, the paper looks at the institutional and political systems in the region where the presence of strong patron-client networks and the loyalty of the elite groups towards the regime present a considerable obstacle to the realization of democratic reforms.

    Introduction:

    The robustness of coercive apparatus in West Asia and North Africa has been a result of restrictive political participation and the lack of representative institutions. Two primary features that have come to characterize the authoritarian regimes of the region are the nature of states’ rent economy and the rampant patrimonialism and the associated patron-client networks.

    Over the years, single-party regimes in the region have been seen as more capable of containing elite fragmentation and surviving challenges caused by the economic crisis and political difficulties. Patronage-based economic liberalization in various countries, including Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia have further provided the resources necessary for authoritarian incumbents to create new bases for support. The states have witnessed the emergence of electoral and political party laws, particularly designed to undermine democracy, accompanied by limited press freedom and widespread electoral fraud. In Egypt and Iraq, democratic instincts were thwarted in the post-colonial period by the refusal of the states’ elite class to address the societies’ social needs, leading to declining standards of living and the subsequent violent protests.

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