Review of World Affairs (RWA)

By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

Nepal: PM Deuba’s Domestic Travails & Weak Foreign Policy

Because of the shackles put on him by his coalition partners, PM Sher Bahadur Deuba, the “Tiger of Dadeldhura” has not been able to move ahead in both his domestic agenda and foreign policy.

Deuba has been made a laughing stock with regard to the MCC compact.

Nepal is supposed to follow a foreign policy of equidistance between Beijing and New Delhi, but Deuba is perceived – above all by the Chinese themselves – to lean towards India. He, therefore, leaves a terrible legacy for his successor.

For all intents and purposes, this is going to be his last innings. It was already clear beforehand, but now he has definitely deepened his reputation as a very weak political tactician and strategist. His fall in the next round of elections at the local, provincial and national levels can be taken as given. It is not a question of “if”, but “by how much”? With his personal downfall will also come the degeneration of the Nepali Congress (NC).

Deuba is unwilling and/or unable to free himself from the tentacles of the Communists in his coalition, and the Communists see their only hope of surviving by hanging on to Deuba’s coattails. They have not only become strange bedfellows, but their cohabitation is indeed a weird symbiosis!

With Deuba hanging on to party power and blocking the new generation, he has done a great disservice to the Nepali Congress and its chances in the upcoming elections.

With the Nepali Congress in disarray and the Communist vote being hopelessly divided, it does present an unique opportunity for the rising smaller parties, like the Rashtriya Prajatantra Party (RPP/National Democratic Party), the Sajha Biveksheel Party to make considerable inroads in the political terrain.

Final MCC Ultimatum?

The Millennium Challenge Corporation-Nepal Compact (MCC) has now served notice that Nepal will have to ratify the grant agreement by February 28. Otherwise, the MCC’s partnership with Nepal will effectively end (TKP/The Kathmandu Post, Feb. 6).

Such an outcome will definitely have negative ramifications for the future:

1. Nepal’s bilateral relations with the United States will definitely be disturbed at the political, economic and geopolitical levels.
2. The haphazard way(s) the various Nepalese governments have treated such a negotiated agreement will have a negative impact on the country’s diplomatic credentials. Nepal’s diplomacy in Kathmandu and abroad will suffer. In future, Nepalese diplomats will have enormous difficulty in convincing their counterparts.
3. There will be serious consequences like cuts in development aid, private financing, as well as foreign direct investments not only from the United States but also from other countries.

The MCC-fiasco will also have demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that Nepal’s political system is beyond repair, thanks to the colossal corruption, machinations and utter incompetence of our so-called leaders. Then, there is the inherent weakness of civil society and the other smaller non-established parties – which have not been able to undertake anything substantial, most probably due to the debilitating effects of the planetary pandemic.

The worst offenders have been the Communists of all colours and hues. They were united by the good offices of the Chinese, but soon broke asunder in their inner contradictions.

They have shown that they are incapable of putting the national interest above their own petty, selfish personal and party interests. However, this is not only a leftist phenomenon; the rightist Trump Republican Party in the U.S. is showing the same behavior.

This has become so prominent that it can be said that they have been taken hostage by a foreign power, and thus cannot act otherwise. There can be no hope (from them) or redemption (for them). They are no better than traitors and renegades.

They used all the tricks of their dirty trade to delay the coming into operation of the MCC-compact. They acted as if they were only concerned about the country’s ‘sovereignty’ and ‘territorial integrity’ – whereas this had nothing at all to do with this development aid project. Dahal’s shenanigans have been exposed fully by The Kathmandu Post and termed full of mendacity, double-dealing and subterfuge (Feb. 7).

They also gave the impression that they were actually for the compact, which needed only minor adjustments. The task force formed to clarify matters was, in fact, the means to delay the matter. Behind the scenes, they mounted a disinformation campaign to poison the minds of ordinary, right-thinking Nepalese. In the end, their machinations will indeed succeed.

The lesson for us Nepalese is to consign these quislings and fifth-columnists to the dustbin of history – at the ballot box. This Communist rogues gallery consists of [but not only]: 1. : Pushpa Kamal Dahal, self-styled as ‘Prachanda; 2. Madhav Kumar Nepal, aka ‘Makune’; 3. Jhalanath Khanal, aka ‘Jhallu Bhai’; 4. K.P. Sharma Oli, the progenitor of the fraudulent ‘Oli-garchy’; 5. Krishna Bahadur Mahara and 6. Agni Prasad Sapkota, both speakers of parliament and past masters in scheming and blocking the MCC.

Needless to say, all could also be branded as ‘foreign agents’.

French Initiative in Ukraine

French President Emmanuel Macron has said he thinks a negotiated deal to avoid full-scale war in Ukraine is within reach and that it is legitimate for Russia to raise its own security concerns (BBC, Feb. 7).

Before talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he called for a “new balance” to protect European states and also conciliate Russia.

Ukraine Conflict: Russia Well-Shielded from Sanctions?

There are many aspects to Russia’s current confrontational/argumentative role in Ukraine, an independent and sovereign nation, which was indeed part of the Soviet Union until its implosion.

Nonetheless, it was a founding member of the United Nations [although it was not fully sovereign, just like Belarus]. It is an irony of history that the Soviet Union blocked Nepal’s own membership for many years under the trumped-up charges that it was part of the British Empire, fully ignoring Nepal’s major war effort against the Fascist Powers in WW II. At the same time, it was also a major failure of the Rana regime’s foreign policy.

Any neutral and independently-thinking savant of the discipline of international relations must recognize that Russia has pursued an aggressive policy vis-à-vis Ukraine. It has forcefully annexed the Crimean peninsula and supported violent separatists in Ukraine’s eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. This is against the principles and purposes of the United Nations and against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a member state. It is also not becoming a major power and permanent member of the UN Security Council.

What Russia is pursuing in Ukraine is, therefore, comes under the theme of ‘might is right’. It has, more or less, surrounded Ukraine with more than 130,000 troops and heavy armaments, fighter planes and ships (in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov) and argues [cynically] that it should not be a matter of concern – either to Ukraine itself, or to the neighbouring countries [which happen to be members of the European Union and/or NATO, or to the United States [which has provided the nuclear security umbrella to Western Europe since the outbreak of the Cold War after WW II].

The burning question in the minds of policymakers, media experts, and security pundits is whether Vladimir Putin of Russia will actually order the invasion of Ukraine; and if so when?

In such a scenario, the U.S. and the Western powers have openly announced that they would immediately initiate crippling economic sanctions.

However, Western experts are not at all clear that whatever economic/financial measures the West undertakes, these may not be sufficient to bring Russia to its knees. After 2014, Putin has successfully restructured Russia’s economy for the specific purpose of withstanding Western financial pressure. This may also be the reason why Putin appears so defiant, and that there may be more behind his broad confidence than raw military power or empty bravado (Max Fisher/NYT, Feb. 5-6).

Russia has bolstered its economic defences in various ways:

1. It has drastically reduced its use of US dollars, and therefore Washington’s leverage.
2. Its central bank has stockpiled enormous foreign currency reserves in euros, China’s renminbi and gold [which it also mines], to the equivalent of a staggering US $ Dollar 631 billion!

The once-dominant dollar now accounts for only 16 percent of Russia’s foreign currency reserves. This “de-dollarization” has effectively reduced Washington’s ability to choke off Russia’s economy.

3. Trimmed its budgets, to keep its economy and government services going even when it is ‘isolated’ (but China would come to its aid).
4. Reoriented trade and sought to replace Western imports.

This all equips Putin with his freedom of “strategic maneuver”, according to Adam Tooze, the economic historian at Columbia University.

In addition, Russia has shifted some trade to Asia.

It has also replaced lost Western imports with homegrown alternatives.

Putin has also learned how to keep Russia’s all-important political and business elites loyal, even under sanctions and recompensed them after their loss of foreign investments after 2014. After all, they keep him in power in a similar fashion that voters keep democratic leaders in power.

These political insiders and oligarchs, who have been the target of Western sanctions now have no option to go back to normal with the West. The sanctions aimed at the elite have thus actually strengthened regime coherence.

In addition, according to Emma Ashford who studies European security at the Atlantic Council, Europe has not resolved its dependence on Russian gas. It is a point of Russian leverage. In conjunction with Russian ‘economic fortifications’, Russia’s currency reserves could displace the loss of energy exports to Europe for “several years”, Ashford estimated. In contrast, Europe’s energy stockpiles may last only a few months (NYT).

Russia is also a leading global exporter of copper, aluminum and other commodities on which global industries rely. With extremely severe Western measures, shocks to an economy as large and globally integrated as Russia’s, would also damage Western countries already under economic stress. It is the classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your (own) face.

Moscow may thus believe that the world needs it more than it needs the world. This is also the reason why German chancellor Olaf Scholz – in contrast to other hot-headed European and U.S. leaders – is treading very carefully – discretion is the better part of valour [which could also apply to Putin].

Fundamental Question

Ukraine as a sovereign nation and a full-fledged member of the United Nations faces a fundamental question. Ukraine’s fragile situation is part of a broader worldwide crisis and cannot be seen in isolation. It is of vital concern whether individual nations have the chance to choose their own political destiny or whether they must live in the sphere of influence of a greater, hostile power [Ukraine/Russia; Taiwan/China; Nepal/India].

And in a period of fluid international relations, where there is the perception of rising/declining superpowers [China/U.S.] and rising/declining great powers [India/Russia, U.K.], the major issue of the day is whether the U.S. as the pre-eminent power still has the endurance and capacity to serve as the security guarantor of Europe nearly a century after the extreme political madness that caused World War II and forged the modern world, now itself under collapse with self-inflicted wounds. If Planet Earth is to survive, the need of the hour is all-around cooperation, not conflict, especially among the great powers.

The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com

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