- World Order: Conflict is the New Normal
- Putin’s Ukraine War: Now in the Third Year
- The Israel-Palestine Conflict
- India: — Farmers Rebellion
— Great Power Ambitions
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Conflict is the New Normal in International Relations
Looking at the crises proliferating around the world, it is clear that we are in an age of geopolitical tension that resembles the Cold War – a time of constant, continual threats to international order”, Fareed Zakaria writes for CNN Opinion.
“But this time, the West is treating each of these threats as one-offs to be dealt with separately in the hope that normalcy will soon return. But conflict is the new normal.”
Ukraine is struggling in its war against Russia’s invading army, Israel is waging a devastating war in Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’ horrific October 7 massacres, and another conflict simmers with Hezbollah from Lebanon on Israel’s northern border.
Given all that, Zakaria writes, it’s lamentable that the West hasn’t put itself on better footing.
Europe needs a better military-industrial base to meet the challenge from Russia, Zakaria writes.
And in the U.S.: “congressional Republicans have decided to return to isolationism, hoping that they can bury their heads in the sand and the problems will somehow go away.”
Putin’s Ukraine War: Two Years On
Two years ago, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Now, The Economist suggests, Ukrainians are a bit more pessimistic than they were after the initial, successful defence – still hopeful about victory, but expecting it to take longer.
One good reason for pessimism is the faltering of US military assistance, which has stalled under opposition from congressional Republicans – a major concern at last weekend’s Munich Security Conference (MSC).
As for the current battlefield status, CNN National Security analyst Peter Bergen hears from retired Gen. David Petraeus in a CNN Opinion interview: “I’m not sure that either side is winning incremental gains, and the Russians do have the initiative right now, having just forced the Ukrainians to withdraw from Avdiivka in the southeast…One question, of course, is: might there come a point where the Russian people, particularly Russian mothers and fathers and wives, say, ‘Not my son, not my husband’! And there have been modest demonstrations to bring the boys home, although that has certainly not reached substantial quantity nor been particularly influential.”
Keen war observer and British military historian Lawrence Freedman writes for Foreign Affairs: “Ukraine certainly faces steep challenges. Given how stretched the country’s warfighting resources are now, there will be few opportunities for major operational moves against Russia in the year ahead. And if a major new package of U.S. aid dies in Congress, it could drastically impede Ukraine’s ability to cope and leave too much of the initiative with Moscow.
But the West knows far less about the pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin faces and how that might intensify…If Russia cannot find a way to quickly take a large chunk of new territory without incurring huge losses in the process, it will be harder to hide the futility of the whole enterprise. As the West reassesses the extent and nature of its backing for Kyiv, it needs to recognize that this remains an incredibly difficult war for Putin to win, and one he might even lose.”
Putin Has Plunged Russia Ever Deeper Into Darkness
Two years ago, few could fathom why Vladimir Putin, Russia’s calculating leader, would embark on such a risky military adventure, especially when the mere threat of a Russian invasion was already yielding results (CNN/Mathew Chance, Feb. 24).
In June the previous year, as Russian forces massed near Ukraine, US President Joe Biden met Putin at a superpower-style summit, describing the US and Russia as “two great powers” elevating the Russian leader after previous US administrations had sought to downplay Russia’s influence.
What Moscow still euphemistically calls a Special Military Operation has been a bloodbath of catastrophic proportions, unseen in Europe for generations.
And the past two years of brutal war have twisted and distorted Russia internally too.
It’s not just that Putin miscalculated in his ambition to conquer Ukraine, although what was meant as a limited campaign is very much an open-ended war.
“Rather, his full-scale invasion of Ukraine was the moment Putin finally abandoned all semblance of cooperation with the West, and all pretence that dissent and criticism inside this great nation would be tolerated” (CNN/Chance).
The Hero Rising From Navalny’s Shadow & Gunning for Putin
And now – whether by omission or commission – Putin’s most vocal critic Alexey Navalny is dead.
Amid a broader crackdown on dissent, Russia has plunged further into isolation and darkness.
But “Hope springs eternal in the human breast” and many Russians remain hopeful there will, one day, be a change in course.
Now his wife Yulia Navalnaya has stepped into the breach. She went onto the stage normally reserved for senior politicians, diplomats and experts at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) and vowed that Putin and his allies would be brought to justice.
“By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul,” she said. “But I still have the other half, and it tells me that I have no right to give up” (AP).
The Israel-Palestine Conflict: The Death & Life of the ‘Two State’ Solution
Almost since October 7, and at least since Israel began its retaliation against Hamas in full, international commentators have argued Palestinian statehood is the best to end this war.
The scale of the brutality and devastation were matched, in a way, by the scale of the grand-bargain solution some observers proposed.
The two-state solution may have come up recently due to a lack of alternatives, veteran former US diplomat Martin Indyk writes in a Foreign Affairs essay, arguing it could be propelled into reality by a new UN resolution.
It’s effectively dead, Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami argue in another Foreign Affairs essay.
The US should stop pretending otherwise and instead hold Israel accountable to international norms and laws regarding the war in Gaza and the occupation of Palestinian territories, they write. “The principal effect of talking again about two states is to mask a one-state reality that will almost surely become even more entrenched in the war’s aftermath.”
Others, like Indyk, see it differently.
Soliciting a host of expert views, Foreign Affairs finds split opinions on whether October 7 and the Gaza war have nixed the two-state solution for good.
Among those views, Aluf Benn, editor-in-chief of the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz writes somewhat hopefully that effecting a two-state solution “demands local, regional, and American support and willingness to confront its opponents, and Israeli and Palestinian readiness to forgo parts of the national ethos and compromise for better coexistence. The basic framework remains as it was in 2000, when President Bill Clinton laid out his parameters, and in 2002 when the Arab League accepted its peace plan.”
India: Angry Farmers Brace for Long, Dangerous
Indian farmers say they feel cheated by the Modi government after waiting years for their demands on minimum pricing to be met.
For many of the protesters, this feels like deja vu – just a few years ago, they had staged massive rallies against the government’s pricing policy, calling for a legal guarantee of the Minimum Support Price (MSP), which will allow the farming community a safety net against price fluctuations (DW/Deutsche Welle, Midhat Fatimah, Feb. 23).
The protest was called off near the end of 2021 after the government assured them that their demands would be met fully.
However, two years have passed with absolutely no change, and
Two umbrella farmers’ bodies – the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) – representing more than 200 farmers’ unions, called a new march toward New Delhi earlier this month.
But the marchers soon discovered that the roads to the Indian capital had once again been blocked.
Tens of thousands of farmers of all ages are now stuck at a highway in Shambhu village which lies at the border of the north-west farming states of Punjab and Haryana after driving there in tractors and trucks.
They say they have been met with massive injustice at the hands of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Narendra Modi government.
Harpreet Singh, 34, a farmer from the Tarn Taran district of Punjab says farmers would not be able to survive if their voices are not heard.
“It hurts a lot that we have to sit here away from our families,” he told DW from inside his tractor trolley.
“We are facing huge losses in our fields but we will have to continue our protest to save our future generations, to save farmers,” he said.
But even with the losses due to protests, “the government not providing a legal guarantee of MSP will hurt us more.”
Singh added he and other protesters have brought months worth of provisions and are ready for a prolonged standoff.
Years of patient waiting
The farmers are also demanding loan waivers and the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations. The commission was formed in 2006 by the then ruling Indian National Congress, the rivals of Narendra Modi’s BJP, and turning their conclusions into law would mean farmers would get a MSP of 1.5 times of the weighted average cost of production.
The BJP promised to implement these policies after coming to power in 2014, but this pledge has not been fulfilled.
Moreover, many of the farmers are resentful over the government’s tactics in quelling the protests, accusing the BJP of using brute force.
Bitterness & Anger Against the Government
A protester told DW that the government “cheated” the farmers who believed its promises in 2021.
“We have been labelled as terrorists but this is our country which we say is a democracy but does not feel like one,” he said, with his eyes still red and watery from tear gas.
Earlier last week, police used drones to drop tear gas and fired several rounds of the gas to disperse the crowd. Many farmers were injured, and some had to be hospitalized.
“Is the government meant to bombard unarmed people?” Sawaranjit Singh, a farmer from Ludhiana asked while explosions from the tear gas canisters kept rocking the protest site (DW).
“It’s the murder of democracy.”
Farmers injured, falling sick; one killed
Last week Monday, it was reported that a 24-year-old farmer died, allegedly by a bullet injury, at Khaunari border where another group of farmers were protesting.
Injuries and health issues are also common at the Shambhu camp, with multiple medical teams trying to aid farmers who complain of diarrhea, fever, shortness of breath, skin rashes and other problems linked to persistent teat gas shelling and poor hygienic conditions.
Farmers have also alleged that the Haryana state authorities are using pellets and rubber bullets along with the tear gas.
India the World’s Emerging Democratic Superpower?
Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has heaped praise on India, calling the country the world’s emerging democratic superpower and saying that India, right now, is roaring down the runway to a full economic takeoff (ANI/Asian News International).
Abbott said that the relationship between India and Australia is a very strong one, and added that the great thing about doing business with India is that no one is going to suddenly stop the trade for capricious reasons.
The great thing about investing in India is no one is going to suddenly nationalize your investment or prevent you from taking profits from out the country, Abbott told ANI.
“India is a wonderful place to do business. Today, India is a far more business-friendly place than it was a decade ago…,” he said.
Notably, India and Australia have several commonalities, which serve as a foundation for closer cooperation and multifaceted interaction.
The two countries cooperate in various multilateral forums, including defence cooperation. There is the much vaunted ‘Quad’, together with the United States and Japan.
“India’s Feet of Clay”
But for all the domestic support and the gushing foreign plaudits for the BJP and its maestro Modi, India’s leading historian and distinguished professor, Ramachandra Guha has exposed its Achilles Heel: “The very nature of Modi’s authority, the aggressive control sought by the prime minister and his party over a staggeringly diverse and complicated country, threatens to scupper India’s great-power ambitions” (Foreign Affairs, Feb. 20).
Modi may be dominant at home and immune from criticism from abroad, but Prof. Guha argues powerfully and persuasively that future generations will judge his political and personal legacy less favourably than his current supreme position might suggest.
- For one thing, he came into office in 2014 pledging to deliver a strong economy, but his economic record is at best mixed.
Economic inequalities have soared, unemployment rates are high, particularly among young Indians, and women’s labour participation rates are low.
Regional disparities are large and growing.
- The rampant environmental degradation across the country further threatens the sustainability of economic growth.
Even in the absence of climate change, India would be an environmental disaster zone.
- Guha forcefully writes that “future generations of Indians will also have to bear the costs of the dismantling of democratic institutions overseen by Modi and his party.”
Under fierce attack are a free press, independent regulatory institutions, and an impartial and fearless judiciary – all vital for political freedoms, for acting as a check on the abuse of state power, and for nurturing an atmosphere of trust among citizens.
- Guha warns that if the BJP achieves a third successive electoral victory in May, “the creeping majoritarianism under Modi could turn into galloping majoritarianism, a trend that poses a fundamental challenge to Indian nationhood.”
- Modi and the BJP have put great strains on Indian federalism, which may boil over in 2026, when parliamentary seats are scheduled to be reallocated according to the next census.
- Already today, democratic- and pluralistic-minded Indians warn of the dangers of India becoming a country like Pakistan, defined by religious identity.
- However, for Guha, a more salient cautionary tale might be Sri Lanka’s.
In the 1970s Sri Lanka was poised to join Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan as one of the so-called Asian Tigers.
Unfortunately, “a deadly mix of religious and linguistic majoritarianism reared its [ugly] head”. The Sinhala-speaking Buddhist majority chose to consolidate itself against the Tamil-speaking [largely] Hindu minority.
Three decades of bloody civil war ensued until 2009. Sri Lanka has still not remotely recovered in social, economic, political, or psychological terms.
India may not go the way of Pakistan or Sri Lanka, but the Modi government is definitely jeopardizing a key source of Indian strength: its varied forms of pluralism.
Guha does not accept Modi’s image as India’s redeemer, nor of the country becoming the Vishwa Guru, the teacher to the world. He emphasizes that such triumphalism cannot mask the deep fault lines underneath – and these will only widen even much more.
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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