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  • What Ukraine needs to learn from Afghanistan about proxy wars

    What Ukraine needs to learn from Afghanistan about proxy wars

    The greatest enemy of economic development is war. If the world slips further into global conflict, our economic hopes and our very survival could go up in flames. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock to a mere 90 seconds to midnight. The world’s biggest economic loser in 2022 was Ukraine, where the economy collapsed by 35% according to the International Monetary Fund. The war in Ukraine could end soon, and economic recovery could begin, but this depends on Ukraine understanding its predicament as a victim of a US-Russia proxy war that broke out in 2014.

    The US has been heavily arming and funding Ukraine since 2014 with the goal of expanding Nato and weakening Russia. America’s proxy wars typically rage for years and even decades, leaving battleground countries like Ukraine in rubble.

    Unless the proxy war ends soon, Ukraine faces a dire future. Ukraine needs to learn from the horrible experience of Afghanistan to avoid becoming a long-term disaster. It could also look to the US proxy wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

    Starting in 1979, the US armed the mujahideen (Islamist fighters) to harass the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan. As president Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski later explained, the US objective was to provoke the Soviet Union to intervene, in order to trap the Soviet Union in a costly war. The fact that Afghanistan would be collateral damage was of no concern to US leaders.

    The Soviet military entered Afghanistan in 1979 as the US hoped, and fought through the 1980s. Meanwhile, the US-backed fighters established al-Qaeda in the 1980s, and the Taliban in the early 1990s. The US “trick” on the Soviet Union had boomeranged.

    In 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The US war continued for another 20 years until the US finally left in 2021. Sporadic US military operations in Afghanistan continue.

    Afghanistan lies in ruins. While the US wasted more than $ 2 trillion of US military outlays, Afghanistan is impoverished, with a 2021 GDP below $400 per person! As a parting “gift” to Afghanistan in 2021, the US government seized Afghanistan’s tiny foreign exchange holdings, paralysing the banking system.

    The proxy war in Ukraine began nine years ago when the US government backed the overthrow of Ukraine’s president Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych’s sin from the US viewpoint was his attempt to maintain Ukraine’s neutrality despite the US desire to expand Nato to include Ukraine (and Georgia). America’s objective was for Nato countries to encircle Russia in the Black Sea region. To achieve this goal, the US has been massively arming and funding Ukraine since 2014.

    The American protagonists then and now are the same. The US government’s point person on Ukraine in 2014 was Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who today is Undersecretary of State. Back in 2014, Nuland worked closely with Jake Sullivan, president Joe Biden’s national security adviser, who played the same role for vice president Biden in 2014.

    The US overlooked two harsh political realities in Ukraine. The first is that Ukraine is deeply divided ethnically and politically between Russia-hating nationalists in western Ukraine and ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

    The second is that Nato enlargement to Ukraine crosses a Russian redline. Russia will fight to the end, and escalate as necessary, to prevent the US from incorporating Ukraine into Nato.

    The US repeatedly asserts that Nato is a defensive alliance. Yet Nato bombed Russia’s ally Serbia for 78 days in 1999 in order to break Kosovo away from Serbia, after which the US established a giant military base in Kosovo. Nato forces similarly toppled Russian ally Moammar Qaddafi in 2011, setting off a decade of chaos in Libya. Russia certainly will never accept Nato in Ukraine.

    At the end of 2021, Russian president Vladimir Putin put forward three demands to the US: Ukraine should remain neutral and out of Nato; Crimea should remain part of Russia; and the Donbas should become autonomous in accord with the Minsk II Agreement.

    The Biden-Sullivan-Nuland team rejected negotiations over Nato enlargement, eight years after the same group backed Yanukovych’s overthrow. With Putin’s negotiating demands flatly rejected by the US, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

    In March 2022, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky seemed to understand Ukraine’s dire predicament as a victim of a US-Russia proxy war. He declared publicly that Ukraine would become a neutral country, and asked for security guarantees. He also publicly recognised that Crimea and Donbas would need some kind of special treatment.

    Israel’s prime minister at that time, Naftali Bennett, became involved as a mediator, along with Turkey. Russia and Ukraine came close to reaching an agreement. Yet, as Bennett has recently explained, the US “blocked” the peace process.

    Since then, the war has escalated. According to US investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, US agents blew up the Nord Stream pipelines in September, a claim denied by the White House. More recently, the US and its allies have committed to sending tanks, longer-range missiles, and possibly fighter jets to Ukraine.

    The basis for peace is clear. Ukraine would be a neutral non-Nato country. Crimea would remain home to Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet, as it has been since 1783. A practical solution would be found for the Donbas, such as a territorial division, autonomy, or an armistice line.

    Most importantly, the fighting would stop, Russian troops would leave Ukraine, and Ukraine’s sovereignty would be guaranteed by the UN Security Council and other nations. Such an agreement could have been reached in December 2021 or in March 2022.

    Above all, the government and people of Ukraine would tell Russia and the US that Ukraine refuses any longer to be the battleground of a proxy war. In the face of deep internal divisions, Ukrainians on both sides of the ethnic divide would strive for peace, rather than believing that an outside power will spare them the need to compromise.
    Feature Image Credit: politico.eu

    This article was published earlier in dailymaverick.co.za and is republished with the permission of the author.

  • Role of Merchant Marine in Indian Maritime Security

    Role of Merchant Marine in Indian Maritime Security

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    Introduction:

    The Merchant Marine plays only a modest role in contributing towards securing India’s maritime neighbourhood or for that matter for any nation. On the other hand, its indirect contribution to security- largely through the economic dimension is significant.

    This paper seeks to explore the economic dimension of merchant ships and in doing so, endeavours to bring out the resultant contribution to maritime security.

    With my domain knowledge, I hope to cover global maritime, and its current scenario in India. I have spent 28 years at Sea of which 18 years in Command as Captain and an additional 25 years ashore in Senior Management positions. I have recently relocated back to India after 5 years in Sri Lanka and a year in Seychelles. So, I do consider it a privilege to share my experience.

    Global Maritime:

    Shipping is the life blood of global economy.  Without shipping, intercontinental trade, the bulk transport of raw materials, and the import/export of affordable food and manufactured goods would simply not be possible. The international shipping industry is responsible for the carriage of around 90% of world trade. Seaborne trade continues to expand, bringing benefits for consumers across the world through competitive freight costs. Thanks to the growing efficiency of shipping as a mode of transport and increased economic liberalisation, the prospects for the industry’s further growth continue to be strong.

    There are over 58,000 merchant ships trading internationally, transporting every kind of cargo. The world fleet is registered in over 150 nations, and manned by over 2 million seafarers of virtually every nationality. Ships are technically sophisticated, high value assets (larger hi-tech vessels can cost over US $200 million to build), and the operation of merchant ships generates an estimated annual income of over US $1.2 trillion in freight rates.

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    Feature Image Credits: Financial Times

  • ‘World War 3 has already started’ between US and Russia/China, argues French scholar

    ‘World War 3 has already started’ between US and Russia/China, argues French scholar

    Ben Norton reviews the interview given by the prominent French Scholar, Emmanuel Todd. The interview was in French and published in the major French newspaper ‘Le Figaro’. Emmanuel Todd argues the Ukraine proxy war is the start of WWIII, and is “existential” for both Russia and the US “imperial system”, which has restricted the sovereignty of Europe, making Brussels into Washington’s “protectorate”. 

    America is fragile. The resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the American imperial system toward the precipice. No one had expected that the Russian economy would hold up against the “economic power” of NATO. I believe that the Russians themselves did not anticipate it –  Emmanuel Todd

    A prominent French intellectual has written a book arguing that the United States is already waging World War Three against Russia and China.

    He also warned that Europe has become a kind of imperial “protectorate”, which has little sovereignty and is essentially controlled by the US.

    Emmanuel Todd is a widely respected anthropologist and historian in France.

    In 2022, Todd published a book titled “The Third World War Has Started” (“La Troisième Guerre mondiale a commencé” in French). At the moment, it is only available in Japan.

    But Todd outlined the main arguments he made in the book in a French-language interview with the major newspaper Le Figaro, conducted by the journalist Alexandre Devecchio.

    According to Todd, the proxy war in Ukraine is “existential” not only for Russia, but also for the United States.

    The US “imperial system” is weakening in much of the world, he observed, but this is leading Washington to “strengthen its hold on its initial protectorates”: Europe and Japan.

    This means that “Germany and France had become minor partners in NATO”, Todd said, and NATO is really a “Washington-London-Warsaw-Kiev” bloc.

    US and EU sanctions have failed to crush Russia, as Western capitals had hoped, he noted. This means that “the resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the American imperial system toward the precipice”, and “the American monetary and financial controls of the world would collapse”.

    The French public intellectual pointed to UN votes concerning Russia, and cautioned that the West is out of touch with the rest of the world.

    “Western newspapers are tragically funny. They don’t stop saying, ‘Russia is isolated, Russia is isolated’. But when we look at the votes of the United Nations, we see that 75% of the world does not follow the West, which then seems very small”, Todd observed.

    He also criticized the GDP metrics used by Western neoclassical economists for downplaying the productive capacity of the Russian economy, while simultaneously exaggerating that of financialized neoliberal economies like in the United States.

    In the Le Figaro interview, Todd argued (all emphasis added):

    This is the reality, World War III has begun. It is true that it started ‘small’ and with two surprises. We went into this war with the idea that the Russian army was very powerful and that its economy was very weak.

    It was thought that Ukraine was going to be crushed militarily and that Russia would be crushed economically by the West. But the reverse happened. Ukraine was not crushed militarily even if it lost 16% of its territory on that date; Russia was not crushed economically. As I speak to you, the ruble has gained 8% against the dollar and 18% against the euro since the day before the start of the war.

    So there was a sort of misunderstanding. But it is obvious that the conflict, passing from a limited territorial war to a global economic confrontation, between the whole of the West on the one hand and Russia backed by China on the other hand, has become a war world. Even if military violence is low compared to that of previous world wars.

    The newspaper asked Todd if he was exaggerating. He replied, “We still provide weapons. We kill Russians, even if we don’t expose ourselves. But it remains true that we Europeans are above all economically engaged. We also feel our true entry into war through the inflation and shortages”.

    Todd understated his case. He didn’t mention the fact that, after the US sponsored the coup that overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected government in 2014, setting off a civil war, the CIA and Pentagon immediately began training Ukrainian forces to fight Russia.

    The New York Times has acknowledged that the CIA and special operations forces from numerous European countries are on the ground in Ukraine. And the CIA and a European NATO ally are even carrying out sabotage attacks inside Russian territory.

    Nevertheless, in the interview, Todd continued:

    Putin made a big mistake early on, which is of immense sociohistorical interest. Those who worked on Ukraine on the eve of the war considered the country not as a fledgling democracy, but as a society in decay and a ‘failed state’ in the making.

    I think the Kremlin’s calculation was that this decaying society would crumble at the first shock, or even say ‘welcome Mom’ to holy Russia. But what we have discovered, on the contrary, is that a society in decomposition, if it is fed by external financial and military resources, can find in war a new type of balance, and even a horizon, a hope. The Russians could not have foreseen it. No one could.

    Todd said he shares the view of Ukraine of US political scientist John Mearsheimer, a realist who has criticized Washington’s hawkish foreign policy.

    Mearsheimer “told us that Ukraine, whose army had been taken over by NATO soldiers (American, British and Polish) since at least 2014, was therefore a de facto member of NATO, and that the Russians had announced that they would never tolerate a NATO member Ukraine,” Todd said.

    For Russia, this is there a war that is “from their point of view defensive and preventative,” he conceded.

    “Mearsheimer added that we would have no reason to rejoice in the eventual difficulties of the Russians because, since this is an existential question for them, the harder it was, the harder they would hit. The analysis seems to hold true.”

    Germany and France had become minor partners in NATO and were not aware of what was going on in Ukraine on the military level. French and German naivety has been criticized because our governments did not believe in the possibility of a Russian invasion. True, but because they did not know that Americans, British and Poles could make Ukraine be able to wage a larger war. The fundamental axis of NATO now is Washington-London-Warsaw-Kiev.

    However, Todd argued that Mearsheimer “does not go far enough” in his analysis. The US political scientist has overlooked how Washington has restricted the sovereignty of Berlin and Paris, Todd said:

    Germany and France had become minor partners in NATO and were not aware of what was going on in Ukraine on the military level. French and German naivety has been criticized because our governments did not believe in the possibility of a Russian invasion. True, but because they did not know that Americans, British and Poles could make Ukraine be able to wage a larger war. The fundamental axis of NATO now is Washington-London-Warsaw-Kiev.

    Mearsheimer, like a good American, overestimates his country. He considers that, if for the Russians the war in Ukraine is existential, for the Americans it is nothing but a power “game” among others. After Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, one debacle more or less… What does it matter?

    The basic axiom of American geopolitics is: ‘We can do whatever we want because we are sheltered, far away, between two oceans, nothing will ever happen to us’. Nothing would be existential for America. Insufficiency of analysis which today leads Biden to a series of reckless actions.

    America is fragile. The resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the American imperial system toward the precipice. No one had expected that the Russian economy would hold up against the “economic power” of NATO. I believe that the Russians themselves did not anticipate it.

    The French public intellectual went on in the interview to argue that, by resisting the full force of Western sanctions, Russia and China pose a threat to “the American monetary and financial controls of the world”.

    This, in turn, challenges the US status as the issuer of the global reserve currency, which gives it the ability to maintain a “huge trade deficit”:

    If the Russian economy resisted the sanctions indefinitely and managed to exhaust the European economy, while it itself remained backed by China, the American monetary and financial controls of the world would collapse, and with them the possibility for United States to fund its huge trade deficit for nothing.

    This war has therefore become existential for the United States. No more than Russia, they cannot withdraw from the conflict, they cannot let go. This is why we are now in an endless war, in a confrontation whose outcome must be the collapse of one or the other.

    Todd warned that, while the United States is weakening in much of the world, its “imperial system” is “strengthening its hold on its initial protectorates”: Europe and Japan.

    He explained:

    Everywhere we see the weakening of the United States, but not in Europe and Japan because one of the effects of the retraction of the imperial system is that the United States strengthens its hold on its initial protectorates.

    If we read [Zbigniew] Brzezinski (The Grand Chessboard), we see that the American empire was formed at the end of the Second World War by the conquest of Germany and Japan, which are still protectorates today. As the American system shrinks, it weighs more and more heavily on the local elites of the protectorates (and I include all of Europe here).

    The first to lose all national autonomy will be (or already are) the English and the Australians. The Internet has produced human interaction with the United States in the Anglosphere of such intensity that its academic, media and artistic elites are, so to speak, annexed. On the European continent we are somewhat protected by our national languages, but the fall in our autonomy is considerable, and rapid.

    As an example of a moment in recent history when Europe was more independent, Todd pointed out, “Let us remember the war in Iraq, when Chirac, Schröder and Putin held joint press conferences against the war” – referring to the former leaders of France (Jacques Chirac) and Germany (Gerhard Schröder).

    The interviewer at Le Figaro newspaper, Alexandre Devecchio, countered Todd asking, “Many observers point out that Russia has the GDP of Spain. Aren’t you overestimating its economic power and resilience?”

    Todd criticized the overreliance on GDP as a metric, calling it a “fictional measure of production” that obscures the real productive forces in an economy:

    War becomes a test of political economy, it is the great revealer. The GDP of Russia and Belarus represents 3.3% of Western GDP (the US, Anglosphere, Europe, Japan, South Korea), practically nothing. One can ask oneself how this insignificant GDP can cope and continue to produce missiles.

    The reason is that GDP is a fictional measure of production. If we take away from the American GDP half of its overbilled health spending, then the “wealth produced” by the activity of its lawyers, by the most filled prisons in the world, then by an entire economy of ill-defined services, including the “production” of its 15 to 20 thousand economists with an average salary of 120,000 dollars, we realize that an important part of this GDP is water vapor.

    War brings us back to the real economy, it allows us to understand what the real wealth of nations is, the capacity for production, and therefore the capacity for war.

    Todd noted that Russia has shown “a real capacity to adapt”. He attributed this to the “very large role for the state” in the Russian economy, in contrast to the US neoliberal economic model:

    If we come back to material variables, we see the Russian economy. In 2014, we put in place the first important sanctions against Russia, but then it increased its wheat production, which went from 40 to 90 million tons in 2020. Meanwhile, thanks to neoliberalism, American wheat production, between 1980 and 2020, went from 80 to 40 million tons.

    …

    Russia has therefore a real capacity to adapt. When we want to make fun of centralized economies, we emphasize their rigidity, and when we glorify capitalism, we praise its flexibility.

    …

    The Russian economy, for its part, has accepted the rules of operation of the market (it is even an obsession of Putin to preserve them), but with a very large role for the state, but it also derives its flexibility from training engineers, who allow the industrial and military adaptations.

    This point is similar to what economist Michael Hudson has argued – that although Moscow’s economy is no longer socialist, like that of the Soviet Union was, the Russian Federation’s state-led industrial capitalism clashes with the financialized model of neoliberal capitalism that the United States has tried to impose on the world.

     

    The Peninsula Foundation is happy to republish this article with the permission of the author, Ben Norton.

    The article was published earlier in geopoliticaleconomy.com

    Feature Image Credit: newstatesman.com

    Portrait Sketch of Emmanuel Todd: Fabien Clairefond

     

  • China’s People Crisis

    China’s People Crisis

    For the first time in sixty years, China’s population has fallen. The population in 2022 – 1.4118 billion – fell by 850,000 from 2021. Its national birth rate has fallen to 6.77 births per thousand people.
    Deaths have also outnumbered births for the first time last year in China. It logged its highest death rate since 1976 – 7.37 deaths per 1,000 people, up from 7.18 the previous year.
    China has now hit an impenetrable economic wall. The People’s Republic has a people crisis – it has now stopped growing and is getting old. The reason is paradoxical. China’s one-child policy worked exceedingly well for it in the past. By preventing almost 400 million births since 1979, it gave the Chinese greater prosperity. It is estimated that between 1980 and 2010, the effect of a favourable population age structure accounted for between 15% and 25% of per capita GDP growth.
    That bonus with the demographic dividend has now ended. China’s population was expected to stabilise in 2030 at 1.391 billion, moving at a slow crawl from 1.330 billion in 2010. But it has hit that spot seven years ahead. In 2050, China is projected to decline to 1.203 billion.
    The flattening population and its somewhat unfavourable demographic profile have been causing concern in China for some years now. In 2013, the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee allowed couples to have a second child if one parent was an only child. But Chinese families have gotten used to one child existence. The demographic wall is not going to be crossed, and China’s workforce is not growing anymore.
    Whereas China added as many as 90 million individuals to its workforce from 2005 to 2015, in the decade from 2015, it will, at present trends, add only 5 million. In 2010, there were 116 million people aged 20 to 24. By 2020, the number will fall by 20% to 94 million. The size of the young population aged 20-24 will only be 67 million by 2030, less than 60% of the figure in 2010.
    One immediate consequence of this slowdown is that by 2030 the cohort aged above 60 years will increase from the present 180 million to 360 million. The other immediate economic consequence is that its savings rate will decline precipitously.
    As a nation climbs the economic ladder, people inevitably live longer. But old age is also more expensive. For instance, in the US, the old actually consume more than the rest due to medical expenses. Either they support themselves or their families have to support them. Apart from low consumption in the first few years of life, consumption is reasonably constant over the life cycle. But while income is earned and output produced, in the working life between 20 and 65 years, it is not so before and after. This ratio of working-age and non-working-age cohorts is called the dependency ratio.
    As Indian, African and (surprise, surprise) American dependency ratios turn increasingly favourable in the coming decades, China’s will go downhill and it will join Europe and Japan as the world’s aged societies.
    In comparison, in 2021, the United States recorded 11.06 births per 1,000 people, and in the United Kingdom, 10.08 births. The birth rate for the same year in India, which is poised to overtake China as the world’s most populous country, was 16.42.
    China’s total fertility rate – the average number of children born to each woman – is among the lowest in the world, at only 1.4. In contrast, the developed world average is 1.7. China’s replacement rate – the rate at which the number of births and deaths are balanced – is 2.1, as against India’s 2.5. At purchasing power parity, China’s per capita income is just a fifth or less of other large economies. At the same time, China’s fertility level is far below that of the US, UK or France (all around 2.0), and is on par with those of Russia, Japan, Germany and Italy – all countries with sharply declining populations. This is a big reason why Germany so readily accepted to take about a million refugees from Syria and Libya.
    Over the next 20 years, China’s ratio of workers to retirees will drop precipitously from roughly 5:1 today to just 2:1. Such a big change implies that the tax burden for each working-age person must rise by more than 150%. This assumes that the government will maintain its current level of tax revenue. In addition, mounting expenditure on pensions and healthcare will put China in a difficult position. If the government demands that taxpayers pay more, the public will demand better scrutiny of how their dollars are collected and spent. This could very well open the floodgates of challenges to the Communist Party.
    Can China succeed to get out of the low growth rate cycle? The conditions now are against it. The cost of rearing a child in China has increased hugely. The state may require more children, but most families will find the costs unaffordable. This is mainly because China is now a predominantly middle-class nation.
    How will this policy reversal pan out for China? Demographers give three scenarios. The highest outcome will mean 1.43 billion in 2050, while the more plausible outcome will be between 1.35- 1.37 billion. Either way, it is not going to alter the future much for China. It will become old before it becomes rich.
    Feature Image Credit: Reuters
    Graph Credit: World Economic Forum
  • Most of the world’s ocean is unprotected: This is why that needs to change

    Most of the world’s ocean is unprotected: This is why that needs to change

    • More than three billion people rely on the ocean for their livelihoods, most of them in developing countries.
    • Only 7% of the world’s ocean, a vital resource for fighting climate change, is under any protection, and just 3% is highly protected.
    • The ‘Blue Leaders’ campaign urges countries to join international treaties that would protect the ocean and all the benefits it provides to humanity.

    The ocean is a vital life support system for the planet, and we are running out of time to preserve the marine biodiversity that it is home to and upon which we all depend.

    Having played a key role thus far in the mitigation of climate change, our blue ally is quickly running out of steam. With water temperature and sea levels rising, acidification, pollution, unsustainable exploitation of marine resources, depletion of fish stocks, the near disappearance of coral reefs, and the destruction of fragile ecosystems, the ocean is being disproportionately impacted by human activities.

    Now, more than ever, we must consider the possible implications of its demise.

    The ocean plays an indispensable role in providing and regulating resources that are vital to sustaining life on Earth — from rainwater to drinking water, and as a source of our food, weather, and the oxygen we breathe

    Securing our ocean’s future

    Recognizing the key role that the ocean plays for people all over the world, the United Nations has adopted a sustainable development goal focused on conserving the ocean, with targets for action on an array of problems. While some progress has been made, more is yet needed to secure our ocean’s future.

    Scientists have called for securing at least 30% of marine waters as fully or highly protected sanctuaries, free from damaging human activities like bottom trawl fishing and seabed mining. By doing so, we can give the ocean a fighting chance in the face of climate change.

    Today, just 7% of the world’s ocean is under protection, and only 3% is highly protected. Moreover, there is no legal mechanism in place to establish fully protected marine areas in the high seas and deep seabed areas, our shared international waters that constitute nearly two thirds of the global ocean.

    Marine coastlines are home to 2.4 billion people — approximately 40% of the world’s population. More than three billion people rely on the ocean for their livelihoods, most of them in developing countries. Degradation of coastal and marine ecosystems threatens the physical, economic, and food security of communities around the world.

    Continuing along our current path towards ocean destruction will impact human lives and livelihoods.

    The role of the ocean and coastal and marine ecosystems in climate change mitigation is often overlooked. Protecting and restoring ocean habitats such as seagrass beds, salt marshes, and mangroves, and their associated food webs, can sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at rates up to five times greater than tropical forests.

    Choosing not to prioritize the protection of our ocean is depriving us of the tools we desperately need to achieve our climate mitigation goals.

    Commitments are needed

    With multiple high-level ocean negotiations planned in 2022, this year is one filled with opportunity for the preservation of our oceans. Our only hope for a better future lies in the adoption of unprecedentedly bold ocean conservation commitments.

    The science is clear: to maximize the health and resilience of the global ocean, at least 30% of it must be protected through a network of “highly” and “fully” protected Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) by 2030.

    To achieve this goal, a new treaty for the conservation and management of marine life in the high seas must be concluded to ensure that human activities are managed to prevent significant adverse impacts, with robust oversight mechanisms and provisions to establish fully protected MPAs in the high seas.

    Governments who have joined the “Blue Leaders” campaign call on all countries to rally behind these commitments at the upcoming meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CoP15), expected to take place in Kunming, China in August 2022.

    Another key moment is the UN Ocean Conference, which is scheduled to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, from 27 June to 1 July. Each of these meetings offers an opportunity for countries to come together, join the Blue Leaders, and take the action that our ocean desperately needs.

    The ocean knows no boundaries: it unites us all as a physical link between coastal countries, communities, and individuals, and as the source of our food, water, and air. We all face similar challenges and similar opportunities. Let us be bold for the ocean together.

    Feature Image: pewtrusts.org
    This article was published earlier in weforum.org  and is republished under the Creative Commons 4.0 International Public License.
  • Indian Philosophy and religion: Abolishing the caste system as an attempt in Intercultural Philosophy

    Indian Philosophy and religion: Abolishing the caste system as an attempt in Intercultural Philosophy

    We start the year 2023 with an examination of philosophy and society and through it the social evil of caste. The origin of the caste system in Hindu society lies buried in many myths and misconceptions. Caste is often linked by many to the core of Hindu philosophy. This is a deeply flawed understanding. The caste system has been and continues to be a tool of power and economic exploitation by oppressing large segments of the population. It is largely an invention by the clergy to establish their power and domination through rituals and codes and by ascribing to them a forced religious sanctity. As it also becomes convenient to the rulers, caste and class are prevalent in all societies. Philosophy and true religion, as Andreas points out in this working paper,  have had nothing to do with caste or class.                                        – TPF Editorial Team

     

    Introduction

    Intercultural philosophy is absolutely necessary in order to cope with the current and new phase of hybrid globalization, which is dissolving all kinds of traditional identities. Whereas the current reaction to this process is the development of ideologies centred on the idea of “we against the rest”, whoever the “Rest” might be, we need to construct positive concepts of identity, which does not exclude but include the other. These can be based on the mutual recognition of the civilizations of the world and their philosophies. According to Karl Jaspers the godfather of intercultural philosophy, between the sixth and third century BC the development of great cities, and the development in agriculture and sciences led to a growth of the populace that forced humankind to develop new concepts of thinking. He labelled this epoch as the axial age of world history in which everything turned around. He even argued that in this time the particular human being or human thinking was born with which we still live today – my thesis is that all human religions, civilizations and philosophies share the same problems and questions but did find different solutions.

    A vivid example might be the relationship between happiness and suffering. In the philosophy of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, to achieve eudemonia or happiness in your earthly life was the greatest aim whereas in a popular understanding of Karma, life is characterized by suffering and the aim is to overcome suffering by transcending to Nirvana. You see, the problem is the same, but there are different solutions in various philosophies. Although Jaspers didn’t share the reduction of philosophy and civilization to the European or even German experience and included mainly the Chinese and Indian civilization, he nevertheless excluded the African continent and both Americas, Muslim civilization as well as the much older Egyptian civilization. So, although he enlarged our knowledge and understanding of civilizations his point of reference was still “Western modernity” and within it, the concept of functional differentiation played the major role.

    Another solution is embodied in the belief of the three monotheistic religions, that an omnipotent god is the unifying principle despite all human differentiations and even the differences between the living and the dead, love and hate, between war and peace, men and women, old and young, linear and non-linear understanding of time, beginning and ending, happiness and suffering.  In this belief system, we are inevitably confronted with unsurpassable contrasts, conflicts and contradictions – but an all-powerful and absolute good god is the one who is uniting all these contrasts.

    In principle in Chinese philosophy, we have the same problem – but instead of an all-powerful God, we as humans have the task to live in harmony with the cosmic harmony. So, I really think that we humans share the same philosophical problems – how to explain and overcome death, evil, suffering, and the separation from transcendence. Although Karl Jaspers could be seen as the founding father of intercultural philosophy, I think he put too much emphasis solely on the functional differentiation that an ever-growing populace could live together without violence. In my view, the questions of life and death are running deeper. I would not exclude functional differentiation as one of the driving forces of human development but at least we also need an understanding of human existence that is related to transgressing the contrasts of life.

    In this draft, I would like to give some impressions concerning this same problem based on my limited knowledge of Indian philosophy and religion and try to show that both are opposing the caste system as well as any kind of dogmatism. An Indian student asked me in the run-up to this draft how one could understand Indian philosophy if one had not internalized the idea of rebirth since you are a baby. From her point of view, the whole thinking on the Indian subcontinent is thus determined by the idea of rebirth – this problem will still occupy us in the question of whether the terrible caste system in India is compatible with the original intentions of the Indian religions, whether it can be derived from them or contradicts them. I will try to give a reason for the assumption that Indian philosophy is quite universal and at the same time open to different strands of philosophical thought, retaining its core.

    In its essence, it is about Karma, rebirth, and Moksha. An understanding of Atman and Brahman is essential. Atman is the soul, indestructible, and is part of Brahman (omnipresent God). When Atman continues to reform and refine itself through rebirths aspiring to become one with Brahman, that is Moksha. To attain Moksha is the purpose of each life. Moksha is being one with God…a state where there is no more rebirths. Of course, differences are there in interpreting Atman and Brahman, depending on the Advaita and Dwaita schools of philosophy. Ultimately both narrow down to the same point – Moksha. Karma is the real part. True Karma is about doing your work in life as duty and dispassionately. Understanding that every life form has a purpose, one should go about it dispassionately. Easier said than done. Understanding this is the crux. In an ideal life where one has a full understanding of Karma and performs accordingly, he/she will have no rebirth. Indian philosophy is careful to separate the religious and social practices of the common folks and the high religion.  Hence Caste and hierarchy are not part of the philosophical discourse, although many make the mistake of linking them. Caste, like in any other religion, is a clergy-driven issue for power and economic exploitation.

    Indian Philosophy (or, in Sanskrit, Darshanas), refers to any of several traditions of philosophical thought that originated in the Indian subcontinent, including Hindu philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, and Jain philosophy. It is considered by Indian thinkers to be a practical discipline, and its goal should always be to improve human life. In contrast to the major monotheistic religions, Hinduism does not draw a sharp distinction between God and creation (while there are pantheistic and panentheistic views in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, these are minority positions). Many Hindus believe in a personal God and identify this God as immanent in creation. This view has ramifications for the science and religion debate, in that there is no sharp ontological distinction between creator and creature. Philosophical theology in Hinduism (and other Indic religions) is usually referred to as dharma, and religious traditions originating on the Indian subcontinent, including Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, are referred to as dharmic religions. Philosophical schools within dharma are referred to as darśana.

    Religion and science

    One factor that unites dharmic religions is the importance of foundational texts, which were formulated during the Vedic period, between ca. 1600 and 700 BCE. These include the Véda (Vedas), which contain hymns and prescriptions for performing rituals, Brāhmaṇa, accompanying liturgical texts, and Upaniṣad, metaphysical treatises. The Véda appeals to a wide range of gods who personify and embody natural phenomena such as fire (Agni) and wind (Vāyu). More gods were added in the following centuries (e.g., Gaṇeśa and Sati-Parvati in the fourth century CE). Ancient Vedic rituals encouraged knowledge of diverse sciences, including astronomy, linguistics, and mathematics. Astronomical knowledge was required to determine the timing of rituals and the construction of sacrificial altars. Linguistics developed out of a need to formalize grammatical rules for classical Sanskrit, which was used in rituals. Large public offerings also required the construction of elaborate altars, which posed geometrical problems and thus led to advances in geometry.

    Classic Vedic texts also frequently used very large numbers, for instance, to denote the age of humanity and the Earth, which required a system to represent numbers parsimoniously, giving rise to a 10-base positional system and a symbolic representation for zero as a placeholder, which would later be imported in other mathematical traditions. In this way, ancient Indian dharma encouraged the emergence of the sciences.

    The relationship between science and religion on the Indian subcontinent is complex, in part because the dharmic religions and philosophical schools are so diverse.

    Around the sixth–fifth century BCE, the northern part of the Indian subcontinent experienced extensive urbanization. In this context, medicine became standardized (āyurveda). This period also gave rise to a wide range of philosophical schools, including Buddhism, Jainism, and Cārvāka. The latter defended a form of metaphysical naturalism, denying the existence of gods or karma. The relationship between science and religion on the Indian subcontinent is complex, in part because the dharmic religions and philosophical schools are so diverse. For example, Cārvāka proponents had a strong suspicion of inferential beliefs, and rejected Vedic revelation and supernaturalism in general, instead favouring direct observation as a source of knowledge. Such views were close to philosophical naturalism in modern science, but this school disappeared in the twelfth century. Nevertheless, already in classical Indian religions, there was a close relationship between religion and the sciences.

    Opposing dogmatism: the role of colonial rule

    The word “Hinduism” emerged in the nineteenth century, and some scholars have argued that the religion did so, too. They say that British colonials, taken aback by what they experienced as the pagan profusion of cults and gods, sought to compact a religious diversity into a single, subsuming entity. Being literate Christians, they looked for sacred texts that might underlay this imputed tradition, enlisting the assistance of the Sanskrit-reading Brahmins. A canon and an attendant ideology were extracted, and with it, Hinduism. Other scholars question this history, insisting that a self-conscious sense of Hindu identity preceded this era, defined in no small part by contrast to Islam.  A similar story could be told about other world religions. We shouldn’t expect to resolve this dispute, which involves the weightings we give to points of similarity and points of difference. And scholars on both sides of this divide acknowledge the vast pluralism that characterized, and still characterizes, the beliefs, rituals, and forms of worship among the South Asians who have come to identify as Hindu.

    Here I would like to mention some of the scriptures in Hinduism: The longest of these is the religious epic, the Mahabharata, which clocks in at some 180000 thousand words, which is ten times the size of the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer combined. Then there’s the Ramayana, which recounts the heroic attempts of Prince Rama to rescue his wife from a demon king. It has as many verses as the Hebrew bible. The Vedas which are the oldest Sanskrit scriptures include hymns and other magical and liturgical; and the Rig-Veda, the oldest, consists of nearly 11 000 lines of hymns of praise to the gods.

    But the Rig Veda does not only contain hymns of praise of God but a philosophical exposition which can be compared with Hegel’s conceptualization of the beginning in his “Logic”, which is not just about logic in the narrow sense but about being and non-being:

    In the Rig Veda we find the following hymn:

    Nasadiya Sukta (10. 129)

    There was neither non-existence nor existence then;
    Neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond;
    What stirred? Where? In whose protection?

    There was neither death nor immortality then;
    No distinguishing sign of night nor of day;
    That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse;
    Other than that there was nothing beyond.

    Darkness there was at first, by darkness hidden;
    Without distinctive marks, this all was water;
    That which, becoming, by the void was covered;
    That One by force of heat came into being.

    Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it?
    Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?
    Gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
    Who then knows whence it has arisen?

    Whether God’s will created it, or whether He was mute;
    Perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not;
    Only He who is its overseer in highest heaven knows,

    Only He knows, or perhaps He does not know.

    —Rigveda 10.129 (Abridged, Tr: Kramer / Christian)

    Nasadiya Sukta begins rather interestingly, with the statement – “Then, there was neither existence nor non-existence.” It ponders over the when, why and by whom of creation in a very sincere contemplative tone and provides no definite answers. Rather, it concludes that the gods too may not know, as they came after creation. And maybe the supervisor of creation in the highest heaven knows, or maybe even he does not know.

    The philosophical character of this hymn becomes obvious when stating that there was something or someone who created even the gods. This question might be similar to the one that created the big bang thirteen billion years ago. In my view, the Rigveda is the most elaborate Veda opposing any kind of dogmatism, any ideology. Instead, it gives reason for the assumption which is of paramount importance in an ever-changing world, that there is no absolute knowledge, there is an increasing sense of unsureness, and we can’t rely on fixed rules – but that we are responsible for our actions.

    Müller made the term central to his criticism of Western theological and religious exceptionalism (relative to Eastern religions) focusing on a cultural dogma which held “monotheism” to be both fundamentally well-defined and inherently superior to differing conceptions of God.

    The second problem is related to the question of whether this hymn should be interpreted as monotheistic, dualistic or polytheistic. Some scholars like Frederik Schelling have invented the term Henotheism (from, greek ἑνός θεοῦ (henos theou), meaning ‘of one god’) is the worship of a single god while not denying the existence or possible existence of other deities. Schelling coined the word, and Frederik Welcker (1784–1868) used it to depict primitive monotheism in ancient Greeks. Max Müller (1823–1900), a German philologist and orientalist, brought the term into wider usage in his scholarship on the Indian religions, particularly Hinduism whose scriptures mention and praise numerous deities as if they are one ultimate unitary divine essence.  Müller made the term central to his criticism of Western theological and religious exceptionalism (relative to Eastern religions) focusing on a cultural dogma which held “monotheism” to be both fundamentally well-defined and inherently superior to differing conceptions of God.

    Mueller in the end emphasizes that henotheism is not a primitive form of monotheism but a different conceptualization. We find a similar passage in the gospel of John in which it is stated:

    1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him, nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

    It is clearly written that in the beginning there was the word – not God. In the original Greek version of this gospel, the term logos is used, and Hegel made this passage the foundation of his whole philosophy. Closely related to the Rig Veda is the concept of Atman. Ātman (Atma, आत्मा, आत्मन्) is a Sanskrit word which means “essence, breath, soul” and which is for the first time discussed in the Rig-Veda.  Nevertheless, this concept is most cherished in the Upanishads, which are written precisely between the 8th to 5th centuries B.C., the period in which according to Jaspers the axial age began. Again, this concept is an attempt to reconcile the various differentiations which were necessary for the function of a society with an ever-increasing population.

    I want to highlight that Hinduism – in its Vedic and classic variants – did not support the caste system; but that it rigorously opposed it in practice and principle. Even after the emergence of the caste system, Hindu society still saw considerable occupational and social mobility. Moreover, Hinduism created legends to impress on the popular mind the invalidity of the caste system – a fact further reinforced by the constant efflorescence of reform movements throughout history. The caste system survived despite this because of factors that ranged from the socio-economic to the ecological sphere, which helped sustain and preserve the balance among communities in a non-modern world.

    It would be absolutely necessary to demolish the myth that the caste system is an intrinsic part of Hinduism as a religion as well as a philosophy.  Although, there is a historically explainable link between both but not one which I would label a necessary or logical connection. Of course, the proponents of the caste system tried to legitimize the caste system by using references from the ancient scriptures – but as we maintain we must not understand Hinduism just in relation to Dharma if we would understand it just as jati or birth-based social division.

    The myth of the caste system being an intrinsic part of Hinduism is a discourse in the meaning in which Foucault has used this concept as just exercising power.

    I’m not sure whether this interpretation represents the major understanding in India, but I think it might be essential in a globalized world to debunk this only seemingly close relation, which has just a historical dimension and would therefore be a vivid example just of a discursive practice. The myth of the caste system being an intrinsic part of Hinduism is a discourse in the meaning in which Foucault has used this concept as just exercising power.

    This discourse is believed by orthodox elements in Hinduism as well as propagated by elements outside of Hinduism who are trying to proselyte Hindus. I would like to treat this problem a little bit more extensively because it might be used for other religions and civilizations, too, in which suppression and dominance are seemingly legitimized by holy scriptures but by taking a closer look this relation is just a discourse of power.

     Nevertheless, there is a very old text of Hinduism in which the caste system is legitimized. It is called  Manusmṛiti (Sanskrit: मनुस्मृति), also spelt as Manusmruti, is an ancient legal text. It was one of the first Sanskrit texts to have been translated into English in 1794, by Sir William Jones, and was used to formulate the Hindu law by the British colonial government.

    Over fifty manuscripts of the Manusmriti are now known, but the earliest discovered, most translated and presumed authentic version since the 18th century has been the “Calcutta manuscript with Kulluka Bhatta commentary”.

    How did caste come about?

    Manusmriti, widely regarded to be the most important and authoritative book on Hindu law and dating back to at least 1,000 years before Christ was born, seems to “acknowledge and justify the caste system as the basis of order and regularity of society”. The caste system divides Hindus into four main categories – Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras. Many believe that the groups originated from Brahma, the Hindu God of creation.

    At the top of the hierarchy were the Brahmins who were mainly teachers and intellectuals and are believed to have come from Brahma’s head. Then came the Kshatriyas, or the warriors and rulers, supposedly from his arms. The third slot went to the Vaishyas, or the traders, who were created from his thighs. At the bottom of the heap were the Shudras, who came from Brahma’s feet and did all the menial jobs. The main castes were further divided into about 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes, each based on their specific occupation. Outside of this Hindu caste system were the achhoots – the Dalits or the untouchables.

    How does caste work?

    For centuries, caste has dictated almost every aspect of Hindu religious and social life, with each group occupying a specific place in this complex hierarchy. Rural communities have long been arranged on the basis of castes – the upper and lower castes almost always lived in segregated colonies, the water wells were not shared, Brahmins would not accept food or drink from the Shudras, and one could marry only within one’s caste. The system bestowed many privileges on the upper castes while sanctioning repression of the lower castes by privileged groups.

    New research shows that hard boundaries between the social groups were only set by British colonial rulers who made caste India’s defining social feature when they used censuses to simplify the system, primarily to create a single society with a common law that could be easily governed.

    Often criticized for being unjust and regressive, it remained virtually unchanged for centuries, trapping people into fixed social orders from which it was impossible to escape. Despite the obstacles, however, some Dalits and other low-caste Indians, such as BR Ambedkar who authored the Indian constitution, and KR Narayanan who became the nation’s first Dalit president, have risen to hold prestigious positions in the country. Historians, though, say that until the 18th Century, the formal distinctions of caste were of limited importance to Indians, social identities were much more flexible, and people could move easily from one caste to another. New research shows that hard boundaries between the social groups were only set by British colonial rulers who made caste India’s defining social feature when they used censuses to simplify the system, primarily to create a single society with a common law that could be easily governed.

    So, the caste system in its strict interpretation is an invention of British rules – of course, it existed already in some form around three thousand years ago. However, it is disputed whether in ancient times it was more of a kind of functional differentiation in the meaning of Karl Jaspers, whereas since colonial times it became a separation boundary between the various groups. I assume that the colonial rulers transformed an existing variety of functional differentiations of identities into strictly separated castes for reasons of securing their rule. As in other colonial rules like in Africa, the colonizers were puzzled by the plurality of social groups, their ability to change from one group to the other and transformed social groups based on functional differentiation into castes and classes to facilitate their own rule. Overcoming the caste system thus involves overcoming colonialism.

  • Challenges of the Indian Economy and Banking Under the Sway of Global Capital

    Challenges of the Indian Economy and Banking Under the Sway of Global Capital

    Introduction

    In a modern day capitalist society, finance (vitta) is of crucial importance. It can help the individuals but also marginalize them since finance is not only complex but becoming more so and even educated people barely understand it. So, most people follow the herd mentality and often that leads to mistakes.

    Any analysis of the world of finance in India requires one to understand the nature of the current Indian Economy and its changing philosophical moorings. The problem is compounded by the rapidly changing technology in the world which is hard to keep track of, even for the experts, much less for the common person. Before one has understood the implications of a technology a new one arrives. For instance, in India, the advent of plastic cards has been quickly overtaken by electronic transactions and now the cryptos are threatening banks and even Central Banks.

    Thus, the financial sector itself faces unprecedented challenges with new financial instruments appearing in rapid succession. Since their impact on the financial system is little understood, risk has increased and that is leading to growing instability. To take care of the risks in the system newer instruments have emerged and they add to the instability. For instance, the global financial crisis of 2007-09 was triggered by the sub-prime crisis, growth of shadow banking, Credit Default Swaps, etc.

    So, the issues facing the world of finance today need to be understood in both the global context and historically.

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  • On China and Economy, Dialogue Is the Need of the Hour

    On China and Economy, Dialogue Is the Need of the Hour

    The strength of democracy is that debate and dialogue provide society with a self-corrective mechanism.

    The news of Chinese transgression in Tawang on December 9 is disturbing. The opposition has repeatedly demanded a discussion in the parliament but the government has not agreed. The government’s stock reply is that the matter should not be politicised and that we should have full faith in our army and our brave soldiers.

    This is diversionary since no one is saying that our soldiers are at fault or are not fighting valiantly. The issue is about policy and India’s political stance vis-à-vis China because of which the brave soldiers are suffering. A full discussion in parliament will help clear the air in this regard.

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  • Bihar’s Prohibition is Not Working. Historically it Seldom Does

    Bihar’s Prohibition is Not Working. Historically it Seldom Does

    Many states in India have introduced and then rescinded prohibition after struggling with the aftermath of such an action, including the ravages of death and various instantaneous ailments due to the consumption of illicit liquor.

    The recent illicit liquor tragedy in Bihar has proved, if proof is needed yet again, that banning alcohol has seldom had the desired results. Besides, historically, delusional zeal and overwhelming optimism embedded in false notions of success, by themselves, have never yielded any positive returns as regards the banning of alcoholic drinks.

    The catastrophe in the present case linked to the consumption of hooch (derived from hoochinoo, a word used by the Tlingit, a native ethnic group from Alaska) is not an isolated incident nor is it uncommon in India. Many hooch-related deaths have occurred in quite a widespread way through the length and breadth of India, particularly so in states where sale and, by extension, drinking alcohol, is forbidden by law.

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  • Ukraine War Tolls Death Knell for NATO

    Ukraine War Tolls Death Knell for NATO

    President Vladimir Putin addressed an expanded meeting of the Russian Defence Ministry Board, Moscow on Dec. 21, 2022

    The defining moment in US President Joe Biden’s press conference at the White House last Wednesday, during President Zelensky’s visit, was his virtual admission that he is constrained in the proxy war in Ukraine, as European allies don’t want a war with Russia.

    To quote Biden, “Now, you say, ‘Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give?’  Well, for two reasons. One, there’s an entire Alliance that is critical to stay with Ukraine.  And the idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and breaking up the European Union and the rest of the world… I’ve spent several hundred hours face-to-face with our European allies and the heads of state of those countries, making the case as to why it was overwhelmingly in their interest that they continue to support Ukraine… They understand it fully, but they’re not looking to go to war with Russia.  They’re not looking for a third World War.”

    Biden realised at that point that “I probably already said too much” and abruptly ended the press conference. He probably forgot that he was dwelling on the fragility of Western unity.

    The whole point is that the western commentariat largely forgets that Russia’s core agenda is not about territorial conquest — much as Ukraine is vital to Russian interests —but about NATO expansion. And that has not changed.

    Every now and then President Putin revisits the fundamental theme that the US consistently aimed to weaken and dismember Russia. As recently as last Wednesday, Putin invoked the Chechen war in the 1990s — “the use of international terrorists in the Caucasus, to finish off Russia and to split the Russian Federation… They [US]claimed to condemn al-Qaeda and other criminals, yet they considered using them on the territory of Russia as acceptable and provided all kinds of assistance to them, including material, information, political and any other support, notably military support, to encourage them to continue fighting against Russia.”

    Putin has a phenomenal memory and would have been alluding to Biden’s careful choice of William Burns as his CIA chief. Burns was Moscow Embassy’s point person for Chechnya in the 1990s! Putin has now ordered a nationwide campaign to root out the vast tentacles that the US intelligence planted on Russian soil for internal subversion. Carnegie, once headed by Burns, has since shut down its Moscow office, and the Russian staff fled to the West!

    The leitmotif of the expanded meeting of the Board of the Defence Ministry in Moscow on Wednesday, which Putin addressed, was the profound reality that Russia’s confrontation with the US is not going to end with the Ukraine war. Putin exhorted the Russian top brass to “carefully analyse” the lessons of the Ukraine and Syrian conflicts.

    Importantly, Putin said, “We will continue maintaining and improving the combat readiness of the nuclear triad. It is the main guarantee that our sovereignty and territorial integrity, strategic parity and the general balance of forces in the world are preserved. This year, the level of modern armaments in the strategic nuclear forces has already exceeded 91 per cent. We continue rearming the regiments of our strategic missile forces with modern missile systems with Avangard hypersonic warheads.”

    Equally, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu proposed at Wednesday’s meeting a military build-up “to bolster Russia’s security,” including:

    • Creation of a corresponding group of forces in Russia’s northwest to counter Finland and Sweden’s induction as NATO members;
    • Creation of two new motorised infantry divisions in the Kherson and Zaporozhya regions, as well as an army corps in Karelia, facing the Finnish border;
    • Upgrade of 7 motorised infantry brigades into motorised infantry divisions in the Western, Central and Eastern military districts, and in the Northern Fleet;
    • Addition of two more air assault divisions in the Airborne Forces;
    • Provision of a composite aviation division and an army aviation brigade with 80-100 combat helicopters within each combined arms (tank) army;
    • Creation of 3 additional air division commands, eight bomber aviation regiments, one fighter aviation regiment, and six army aviation brigades;
    • Creation of 5 district artillery divisions, as well as super-heavy artillery brigades for building artillery reserves along the so-called strategic axis;
    • Creation of 5 naval infantry brigades for the Navy’s coastal troops based on the existing naval infantry brigades;
    • Increase in the size of the Armed Forces to 1.5 million service personnel, with 695,000 people serving under contract.

    Putin summed up: “We will not repeat the mistakes of the past… We are not going to militarise our country or militarise the economy… and we will not do things we do not really need, to the detriment of our people and the economy, the social sphere. We will improve the Russian Armed Forces and the entire military component. We will do it calmly, routinely and consistently, without haste.”

    If the neocons in the driving seat in the Beltway wanted an arms race, they have it now. The paradox, however, is that this is going to be different from the bipolar Cold War era arms race.

    If the US intention was to weaken Russia before confronting China, things aren’t working that way. Instead, the US is getting locked into a confrontation with Russia and the ties between the two big powers are at a breaking point. Russia expects the US to roll back NATO’s expansion, as promised to the Soviet leadership in 1989.

    The neocons had expected a “win-win” in Ukraine: Russian defeat and a disgraceful end to Putin’s presidency; a weakened Russia, as in the 1990s, groping for a new start; consolidation of western unity under a triumphant America; a massive boost in the upcoming struggle with China for supremacy in the world order; and a New American Century under the “rules-based world order”.

    But instead, this is turning out to be a classic Zugzwang in the endgame — to borrow from German chess literature — where the US is under obligation to make a move on Ukraine but whichever move it makes will only worsen its geopolitical position.

    Biden has understood that Russia cannot be defeated in Ukraine; nor are Russian people in any mood for an insurrection. Putin’s popularity is soaring high, as Russian objectives in Ukraine are being steadily realised. Thus, Biden is getting a vague sense, perhaps, that Russia isn’t exactly seeing things in Ukraine as a binary of victory and defeat, but is gearing up for the long haul to sort out NATO once and for all.

    The transformation of Belarus as a “nuclear-capable” state carries a profound message from Moscow to Brussels and Washington. Biden cannot miss it. (See my blog NATO nuclear compass rendered unavailing, Indian Punchline, Dec. 21, 2022

    Logically, the option open to the US at this point would be to disengage. But that becomes an abject admission of defeat and will mean the death knell for NATO, and Washington’s transatlantic leadership goes kaput. And, worse still, major west European powers — Germany, France and Italy — may start looking for a modus vivendi with Russia. Above all, how can NATO possibly survive without an “enemy”?

    Clearly, neither the US nor its allies are in a position to fight a continental war. But even if they are, what about the emerging scenario in the Asia-Pacific, where the “no limits” partnership between China and Russia has added an intriguing layer to the geopolitics?

    The neocons in the Beltway have bitten more than what they could chew. Their last card will be to push for a direct US military intervention in the Ukraine war under the banner of a “coalition of the willing.”

    This commentary was published earlier on the author’s website – indianpunchline.com

    Feature Image Credit: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation