“Midnight Hammer” and “Epic Fury”: A Macabre Farce

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“…But what I see today, from the frozen solitude where observing the world becomes a torture for the mind, is not a tragedy: it is a farce. A sinister farce, to be sure, but a farce nonetheless, played by second-rate actors on a stage where the scenery is collapsing.”[1]

Over the last one year between 22 June 2025 and 16 June 2026, a grisly farce of a war has been fought between the world’s lone superpower and its ally Israel against a second rate power, the Islamic state of Iran. The latter with neither the technological backing nor the military heft but only it’s civilizational resolve to not succumb. It began with a pre-emptive pummelling of all Iranian nuclear facilities particularly at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.  The conflict was neither a form of a “Great Power” struggle nor was it a brutal act of upbraiding of an errant state failing to fall-in-line with the will of a hegemon; while it was a barbaric act it was also, clearly, a lesser state expressing its will not to subordinate its sovereignty.

Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions

Iran’s nuclear saga long preceded the 1979 revolution and a look back at its tumultuous 20th century-history is fitting.[2] In 1921, Reza Khan, then a military officer serving in Persia’s Cossack Brigade, staged a coup against the government of the ruling Qajar Dynasty. Thereafter, in 1926, he adopted the name Pahlavi and was crowned Shah. Reza Khan Pahlavi’s eldest son, Mohammad Reza, was, in turn, named crown prince. The Shah began a program of modernization and also became increasingly autocratic. In 1935 he renamed Persia as Iran. Iran remained neutral during World War II, but Britain and the Soviet Union occupied Western Iran in August 1941, using the country as a means to secure wartime logistic lines to Moscow. The Allies were unsatisfied with Reza Shah’s cooperation and orchestrated his abdication that same year, placing his son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, on the throne to maintain the façade of Iranian self-rule. Some years after the end of the war, in 1951, Mohammed Mossadegh, long time politician, relation of the Qajars, and member of parliament opposing the Shah, was elected prime minister. To his peril, in a flush of patriotism Mossadegh attempted to challenge the weighted mercantilism being practised by Britain and the US at the time by nationalizing the oil industry and demanding that Iran be the prime beneficiary of its vast oil reserves which had, hitherto, been exclusively controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, British Petroleum (BP). Britain did not take kindly to this act; perceiving the policy to be in defiance of their authority. In order to bring about a regime change more pliable to their wishes, in 1953, they conspired a coup d’état in collaboration with the CIA, urging the latter to embark on one of its first covert operations to topple an existing legitimate government and supplant it with a puppet administration. The CIA and the British first undermined the Iranian government through bribery, libel, a vicious media campaign and then orchestrated riots. Agents posing as communists threatened religious leaders and faked attacks on American nationals. After a short bloody fire fight in the streets of Tehran, Mossadegh was overthrown and sentenced to three years in military prison and thereafter was placed under house arrest till his death in 1967.  

In the wake of the 1953 coup, the United States catalysed Iran’s nuclear program by signing a nuclear cooperation agreement under President Dwight Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace Program in 1957. This program envisaged the provision of a five-megawatt-thermal (MWt) Tehran Research Reactor with plans for building more than 20 nuclear power reactors. Their stated purpose was for power generation; however given the unbounded nature of the ‘Cold War’ there was no telling when nuclear power collaboration would reconstitute to a weapons agenda. For his part, as literature now reveals, the Shah pushed hard for domestic development of the full nuclear cycle, in particular the ability to reprocess spent fuel. The crushing of Iran’s first democratic government led by Mossadegh ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on American policy support, aid and arms. By 1967 a confident Reza Pahlavi donned the twin mantles of Arya mehr (Light-of-the-Aryans) and Shahanshah (King of kings).  

The Shah’s autocratic ways, disregard of the power of the clerics and a misplaced sense of the civilizational reality of his people severely estranged him and his ruling coterie from the citizenry. This led to the popular uprising in 1978–79 that resulted in the collapse of the monarchy and a violent backlash against American political influence. On 11 February 1979, an Islamic Republic was established. It involved the participation of a wide range of Iranians—from the secular left to the religious right. The revolution found expression in the form of Shia Islam, supporters of the faith considered themselves to be the key unifying element of Iranian identity and culture. The popular acceptance of leadership by Ruhollah Khomeini, an accomplished religious scholar critical of the Shah, put in perspective the widespread recognition of his role of Velayat-e-Faqih (Custodian and Protector of the Islamic faith) amongst Shias of Iran. He was responsible (in the absence of the twelfth Prophet), for Islamic order and was the de-facto “Conscience-Keeper” of the government.  

Weaponisation: The Pakistan Connection

After a brief interregnum following the 1979 revolution, the Iranian government resumed its pursuit of the previous regime’s nuclear aspirations, albeit slowly. Criticism of the Shah for having pursued a programme of nuclear development on grounds of “theological” reasons had painted Ayatollah Khomeini in a corner which, apparently, explained his reluctance to progress the nuclear programme more vigorously in his lifetime. Following his death in 1989, the new supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had no such compunctions and he expanded Iran’s nuclear activities. The extent to which the programme had progressed became apparent in 2002 when the AQ Khan affair broke. Iran, with clandestine support from Pakistan through its ‘Nuclear black markets’ (see IISS report titled “Nuclear Black Markets”, a net assessment dossier, 2007, Pgs. 50-54 and 93-94); had built at Natanz a uranium enrichment facility with the capacity to house a cascade of 50,000 centrifuges.

Washington’s ambivalence to the IISS report, and indeed its tacit ‘wink’ to the affaire-AQ Khan, as well as to its outcome and its dubious liaison with Pakistan buttressed accusations of the White House indulging in nuclear hypocrisy of a dangerous kind. The United States offered humiliating and unrealistic ultimatums while dithering in its resolve to enforce nuclear non-proliferation policies, instead of making it clear to the people of Iran that a democratic, law-abiding government could have easily, and at much less cost, achieved the enrichment rights guaranteed under the NPT. Was it because this narrative gave the White House the opportunity to not just mischaracterise, but also create its own “nuclear reality” of the nature and orientation of the Iranian nuclear programme and its shadowy links with Pakistan’s  illicit nuclear programme? The very few prosecutions in the AQ Khan affair, indulgence of the US establishment, lenient punishments, ‘blind-sided’ investigations of the Pakistan establishment and the scale of proliferation have left world opinion alarmed at the duplicity of purpose, and indeed the insincerity of the entire fact-finding process and its intended objectives.

Fallout of the AQ Khan affair and the outward proliferation from Pakistan to Iran took a critical turn in 1987 at the meeting of the chairmen of the Iranian and Pakistani atomic energy commissions. They entered into a clandestine agreement for joint development of centrifuges which included specifications and material to set up a cascade of 2000 centrifuges along with all auxiliaries necessary for the enrichment of weapon grade uranium (see IISS report titled “Nuclear Black Markets” pg. 68). British and American agencies’ suggestion that the deal was struck between Iran and AQ Khan without the knowledge of the Pakistan military is not only preposterous but is inconsistent with what is open knowledge of who commands, administers, holds the purse strings and indeed steers the Pakistan nuclear programme. Not forgetting that General Zia-ul-Haq was Dictator, Chief Martial Law administrator and the President of Pakistan from 1977-1988. It was under his watch that Pakistan performed its first fissile “cold test.” And that Zia famously remarked (in the year under the glass, 1987), that Pakistan possessed the capability to build a (nuclear) weapon. He maintained absolute state and military control over its “clandestine nuclear weapons programme” as did subsequent Army Chiefs and military dictators. This should lay to rest the entire substance of the IISS report on Pakistan’s nuclear black markets and its assertion that the entire enterprise was a “Cash-and-Carry” private handiwork of Abdul Qadeer.

Iran and the NPT: Hear no Evil

By 1970 Iran had not only signed the NPT but had also ratified it, agreeing not to seek nuclear weapons in exchange for the promised technologies that were concomitant to the Treaty. While this obligation remained a foundational precept even after the Iranian revolution of 1979 that deposed the Shah, the country initiated a uranium enrichment program and the creation of underground nuclear facilities. These critical infrastructures were developed at Natanz, Fordo and Arak. Iran maintained that they were intended to play a role in civilian nuclear power generation and were within the purview of the NPT in terms of Article IV that govern inalienable rights of signatories to“…research, develop and use nuclear energy for non-nuclear weapon purposes.” However, in 2005 and 2006, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors alleged that Iran’s covert development of nuclear facilities and concealment of nuclear material violated its NPT Safeguards Agreement. In the meantime the White House, that had persistently repudiated and suspected Iran’s intentions of nurturing a secret programme to weaponise their nuclear wherewithal, also questioned critically the grounds for why an oil and gas rich country needed the frame of reference sanctified in Article IV; declaring maleficent intent to use the Article as a cover for developing nuclear weapons.

The sum and substance of Pakistan’s involvement with the Iran’s nuclear weapons programme was that the latter were enabled to establish underground manufacturing facilities through the AQ Khan Black market network at Natanz for 54,000 advanced centrifuges along with all requisite auxiliaries. The critical factor was that from 2003 onwards Iran had the “potential” of producing enough Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) for twenty nuclear bombs of 20Kt yield per year; if it chose to break out of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) Agreement of which it was a signatory nation since 1968 (see IISS Report ibid pgs. 70-71). 

By January 2007, Washington’s “hear-no-evil policy” had one unanticipated salutary effect; The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, solemnly, pushed the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight, the symbolic end of civilization. Eighteen Nobel laureates declared “the danger of apocalypse is closer now than at any time since Hiroshima and Nagasaki”.     

Unremitting Retribution

The complexity of the Iranian case stems from the fact that it inflames the right to nuclear energy and the extent to which this “right” can be expanded. Some states point out that fuel-enrichment activities, which are at the centre of the Iranian crisis, are not forbidden by the NPT, and should be considered as part of the “inalienable right” stated by Article IV of the treaty. While others suggest that Article IV puts the emphasis on the need to demonstrate the “peaceful purposes” of nuclear activities, which the IAEA cannot confirm for Iran’s nuclear program. Underlying the many circumscriptions and debilitating restrictions that were piled upon Iran over the years is the embarrassment that Washington suffered for the 444 day hostage crisis (Nov 1979-Jan 1981) which included the mortifying debacle of the bungled rescue mission. The crux of the Iran nuclear quandary and Washington’s obsessive quest for unremitting retribution is centred on the loss of national pride that the USA suffered in the crisis as its foreign policy was seen as weak and its leadership in a state of paralysis. It also became the central cause for the Carter administration not being elected for a second term.  

Over the next three decades Israel and the USA systematically indulged in clandestine activities to paralyse Iran’s nuclear programme. Measures included assassination of Iran’s nuclear scientists and the use of computer malware to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme.  All this was in addition to the sweeping and economically crippling sanctions that had been imposed on Iran since 1979.   

Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)

Hassan Rouhani was elected president of Iran in 2013. He inherited a country in financial recession and an economy that was shrinking by 1.9%. The nations heavy reliance on oil revenues was strangled by Washington led sanctions enforced during the previous four decades which had pushed the economy over the precipice. More than 50% of its oil exports had been embargoed while the currency had lost more than 200% of its value against the dollar. In these circumstances, Rouhani was forced to find a solution to reduce the burden of sanctions on his collapsing nation. He began negotiations with the United States and other countries to find a solution to resuscitate the economy.

There was a belief amongst the five permanent members of the UN Security Council along with Germany that not only were the sanctions and economic restraints, hitherto imposed on Tehran, having ruinous impact on the economy but was devastating the very viability of that nation (despite being oil-rich). Add to this the conviction that President Rouhani was more moderate in his political outlook than his predecessors. It was seen as an opportune moment to not just capitalise on the dire condition of the failing state, but also to ensure that Iran did not break out of its restraints and achieve a rogue nuclear weapon status. It was also feared that strategic desperation may push it irredeemably into the embrace of China and Russia. The JCPOA was conceived as an instrument that capped Iran’s nuclear programme, assured transparency and verifications of nuclear activities and in return provided the much needed, sanction relief to the financial, banking, commerce and trade sectors. There was the unwritten assumption that in the middle term, conditional removal of sanctions coupled with the ‘pressure-push and carrot’ policy would entice Iran into the Western fold.   

The JCPOA was signed in Vienna on 14 July 2015 between Iran, on one side, and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, UK and US) plus the EU and Germany, on the other. It included reciprocal commitments regarding the lifting of all UN, multilateral and national sanctions together with limitations and monitoring of Iran’s military nuclear programme. At the time, JCPOA was hailed internationally; at least notionally as a deal between (near) equals, as a great diplomatic coup. The objective to limit capabilities of Iran’s military nuclear programme through periodic inspection and verification reinforced security in West Asia was in exchange for the Iranian government’s pressing need to rid itself of the crippling sanctions. The integrity of the Agreement, it was felt, was assured by the indigent nature of the dispensation in Tehran. Between July 2015 and May 2018, for over two years, the IAEA routinely verified in quarterly reports that Iran remained in full compliance with all of its JCPOA obligations. However the ‘Iran Deal’ did not take into account the capricious nature of the new occupant of the White House.

Untimely Burial of the JCPOA 

President Trump in May 2018, following through on a campaign pledge, made more out of a visceral aversion of his predecessor’s policies, withdrew unilaterally from the JCPOA. European allies who so recently had greeted and touted the Plan, stood submissively-by. The US Supreme Commander declared “this was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.” He re-imposed heavy sanctions on Iran and turned Obama’s “pressure-push and carrot” policy to a “maximum-pressure” campaign. Relations between White House and Tehran plunged to a new low as military escalation was ramped-up. The harsher and less discerning of humanitarian considerations of the additional sanctions targeted Iran’s financial, oil, petrochemical, and shipping sectors to further cripple the economy. Supplementary embargoes were coupled with a series of provocative maritime incidents in the Persian Gulf, attacks on shore installations, assassinations which included General Soleimani head of the IRGC and key nuclear scientists involved in their nuclear programme in addition to other vital figures in the Iranian Command hierarchy. The grisly deaths were planned, coordinated and executed between Israel and Washington.

Without access to economic relief enabled by the JCPOA, Iran on its part, reneged on the matter of re-starting nuclear operations. It did so with less noise and more substantively. It first obstructed and then circumscribed IAEA access to nuclear infrastructure, engaged in non-compliance of the terms of the Nuclear Agreement while stepping up enrichment of uranium at its facilities in Fordo and Natanz. UN sanctions on ballistic missile production and acquisition, UNSC Resolution 2231 were unilaterally overturned. The JCPOA’s short lived mortality only served to underscore the fickle nature of Washington’s Iran policy. By overturning the framework of the Agreement, Washington lost regulatory oversight of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, ability to influence decision making and gutted diplomatic channels for addressing regional security. These events, as it rapidly turned out, were to escalate to open conflict and disrupt energy security world-wide with its consequent fallout on the global economy. 

 Between 2018 and 2024, US-Iran relations transformed from diplomatic collapse into direct military action, as a part of Washington’s “maximum pressure” policy. But, if at all there was a pivotal moment during the conflict it was the regional fallout of the 07 October 2023 Hamas assault on Israel which was followed by the Israeli saturation bombing of Gaza, a series of missile exchanges with Iran and the largest ever direct Israeli strikes targeting Iranian air-defences and ballistic missile production infrastructure. Intensification of combat operations was clearly intended to bring Tehran to the table not as an equal, as the terms of the now dead JCPOA suggested, but as a vanquished supplicant.

Operation Midnight Hammer

Operation “Midnight Hammer” was Washington’s military operation to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities launched on 21 June 2025 amidst the on-going Israeli strikes on Iran. It involved over 125 U.S. aircraft, including seven B-2 Spirit bombers, and the use of approximately 75 precision guided weapons including 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) over the course of 25 minutes. The MOPs were deployed against underground nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordo. U.S. submarines launched over two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at the nuclear facility at Isfahan. In announcing the outcome of strikes, President Trump asserted that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated” and that Iran “must make peace,” saying, “If peace does not come quickly, we will go after … other targets.”

Despite Washington’s declaration of “total obliteration,” experts continue to debate the extent to which the operation set back Iran’s nuclear program. Contradictions, concerning damage assessment and indeed, the very purpose of Iran’s nuclear programme, abound. To add confusion to the muddle, in the run-up to the Operation, American intelligence assessed that Iran “is not building a nuclear weapon” (as of 25 March 2025) and that the Supreme leader, Khamenei “has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.” World leaders had urged restraint and de-escalation while underscoring the grave potential for escalation spiralling out of control.

Iran’s kinetic retaliation to Washington’s air-strikes was, in a sense, largely low-key in destructive impact but it signalled a disturbing willingness to enlarge the scope of conflict while severely damaging the credibility of the security umbrella that the USA had promised the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. It, first, announced to the IAEA that the air strikes on nuclear facilities had in no way destabilised external radiation levels at Natanz, Fordo and Isfahan before formally suspending key cooperation and oversight of the Agency (IAEA); suggesting that critical elements of their nuclear programme were intact, particularly their stockpile of highly enriched uranium ( 60% +). Retaliatory strikes were launched in the form of drone and missile strikes to inflict damage on Israel together with kinetic attacks on the US base at Al-Udeid in Qatar to underscore its resolve to all stake holders particularly the regional players of the GCC states.

Targeting Qatar had left the GCC nations in a state of great anxiety; they had and continue to express formal statements of alarm in the wake of continued combat operations. Concerns have centred on the collapse of the principle of territorial sovereignty as enshrined in the UN Charter. All GCC states ironically, are clear that they do not condone US military strikes despite the prevalent hostility of Iran; while there is the strategic dilemma in attempting to balance this with the reality of their reliance on US security guarantees. But perhaps the most impactful fallout was Iran’s move to close the Strait of Hormuz.

The total Iranian casualties of the 12-day war (13 to 25 June 2025) included 1,190 killed and 4,475 injured, of these there were 35 assassinations of Iranian Commanders and 11 nuclear scientists.[3] While social scientists have underscored that the most pressing and, indeed, disturbing behavioural problem of our times is aggression and warfare; assassination continues to remain an unlawful murder or potential war crime in international law.

The Strategic Perspective

From a strategic point of view the conflict had global ramifications. Significant to our study is the impact on India and China. For India, which imports nearly 2 million barrels of oil daily through the Strait of Hormuz, instability translates to supply shortages, spiralling energy costs, rising inflation, uncertainties in markets and the commercial environment all having a detrimental fall-out on economic growth. 

India is highly vulnerable to global oil price volatility; a sustained surge in the conflict could trigger higher inflation, strain the fiscal balance, retard economic activity and shift investor sentiment towards more fungibles such as bonds and gold that not only offer more stability by serving as a hedge against inflation but also retains liquidity.

Demographically over 66% of India’s 1.34 crore non-resident Indians live in West Asia, mainly in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain. The large population could face hazards from regional tensions, making their safety a key priority for New Delhi. India’s key connectivity projects like the Chabahar port in Iran, which provides links to Afghanistan and Central Asia, is adversely affected by regional turmoil.

The India-Middle East-Economic Corridor (IMEC)  a visionary project faces risks from the conflict, threatening its progress and impacting global trade and regional economic dynamics. Additionally, disruptions and insecurity of the sea lines of communications cause delays, run-a-way insurance premiums, higher shipping costs and lead to instability in global trade. India has built robust relations with Israel, especially in areas like defence, technology, and innovation. However, as tensions escalate, India could find itself in a challenging position, facing pressure to take sides –an outcome it would prefer to avoid. 

 China as the largest purchaser of Iranian oil provides it with a vital economic lifeline amidst international sanctions. With the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, that supply line was severed leaving China to search for alternate sources; secondly the credibility of Beijing’s recently launched Global Security Initiative (GSI) that announced with much fanfare the normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran now appeared rather fragile as Iran retaliated to the 25 June bombings by missile and drone attacks on American bases in the Persian Gulf including those in the Saudi kingdom. China’s aspirations for greater international leadership, central to the GSI, will remain an important feature of their diplomacy, at least as long as Xi Jinping remains in power. Although its vision of security governance, much less a future ‘world order’, remains vague and in many cases quite situational, its broad and flexible scope may have allowed Beijing to be opportunistic in finding ways to link it with the BRI. However this grand plan did not reckon with the White House’s intentions in West Asia. “Midnight Hammer” not only underscored Washington’s predominant influence in West Asia but it also put-paid to the GSI and very firmly left Beijing in the side lines.

There was to be no rapid end to the economic woes of the world caused by the conflict. For no intelligible reason (that has so far emerged), Washington, on 28 February 2026, launched Operation “Epic Fury” initially intended to bring about a rapid “regime change” in Iran.  

Operation Epic Fury: A War of Capricious Aims

On 28 February 2026 the United States of America along with Israel unleashed a massive military strike on Iran. Both allied Presidents of America and Israel called it a “pre-emptive strike”; what was being pre-empted and to what reasons has not so far been declared other than that the USA was pre-empting a strike by Israel on Iran  that would provoke an attack on US military installations in the Persian Gulf region (?). But to the world at large there neither was any compelling cause for the rapidly escalating carnage nor was there any apparent motivation for the scale of disruption and devastation being meted out to the entire region. Particularly so considering the magnitude and intensity of the joint military exertion that the two brought to bear on Iran. Within a matter of a week the inconceivable conflagration spread to the entire West Asian region shutting down, completely the flow of over 20% of the world’s energy demands. The Islamic Republican Guard Corps (IRGC) immediate response was closure of the Strait of Hormuz and persistent missile and drone strikes on American military bases in the hitherto neutral Gulf States. This foreseen yet unexpected development confounded Washington and Israel, while the global community was astounded at its ramifications; this despite American security guarantees to the Gulf Cooperation Council . Notwithstanding the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a host of targeted members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, Military and Security leadership; the Regime did not fall. Washington then sought to justify the conflict as a ‘jus ad bellum’ a Just War, by calling to attention of the world community of the incidents when the Iranian regime over the previous four decades “engaged in a clear pattern of unprovoked aggression and direct and proxy attacks against Israel and the United States, while spending billions of dollars to operationalize its promise to destroy the former and continuously calling for death to the latter”; that conduct established the basis and operative context for combat operations Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury. But the Regime refused to fall; so the war aims were quickly altered, it now reads “to destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy [Iran’s] navy and other security infrastructure,” and, finally, ensure that Iran “will never have nuclear weapons” (but had not Iran’s nuclear capability been totally obliterated in operation Midnight Hammer?)

Between 28 February and 05 May 2026, operation Epic Fury was prosecuted with great combat vigour by USA and Israel. Air-power and to a much lesser extent Sea power were committed to pulverize hundreds of command, leadership, military, strategic and economic targets all across Iran. While the IRGC responded with intensive drone and missile strikes on American logistic and operating bases in the Gulf region, West Asia and Israel. Operations were conducted in four phases:

  • Phase I (28 Feb to 08 March 2026) was dedicated to “assassinate top government and military leaders to bring about a situation when the regime would collapse,  eliminate once and for all Iran’s ambitions to obtain a nuclear weapon, to destroy its ballistic missile infrastructure and its offensive war-making potential.
  • Phase II (08 Mar to 23 Mar 2026) Efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz unconditionally to free maritime passage. This objective was never there initially since the Strait had never been closed, but soon after combat operations were launched control of the Strait became the primary aim of operations.
  • Phase III (23 Mar to 07 Apr 2026) The “Stop-Box-On” campaign. On 23 March USA announced that “war aims having been achieved discussions were on to end the conflict. Iran was given five days to reopen the Strait and was offered a 14-point plan to end the war.” Awkwardly neither was Israel included in the peace process nor was termination of on-going operations in Gaza and Lebanon a part of the Deal. Iran had till 07 April to accede and conform. In the event Iran did neither and came up with a deal of its own.
  •  Phase IV (07 Apr to 05 May). The end of a civilization-declaration, an unreal blockade and a chimeric peace. Washington’s 14 point agreement presented on 23 March included terms to lift all sanctions, reopening the Strait and re-building the nation.  The deadline for accession was to expire on 07 April. On that day peeved at the lack of response, Mr Trump declared on social media to the people of Iran “a whole civilisation will die tonight”. This declaration by any interpretation is an ‘incitement to genocide and as history has shown, words directed at the destruction of a people carry criminal weight’. In response Iran generated a counter agreement that dealt with three salient; lifting of all sanctions, war damage compensation of $300b and release of all frozen assets. As to the opening of the Strait, Iran’s position was that it was never closed prior to the conflict; closure was a function of America’s hollow distant blockade of Iranian ports. Notwithstanding, sporadic strikes and counter strikes continue.     

Wagging the Dog: Madness of this War

Although an attempt has been made to frame the furtherance of the conflict within four chronological phases of operations, clearly there were no such distinct boxes. The fact is that the conflict seems to be been driven not by the most dominant antagonist but by Israel. The aims of the allies differ in scope, geography and intensity. To Israel it was a continuation of what started on 07 Oct 2023 when the terrorist group Hamas carried a deadly assault on Israel  and therefore the scope of conflict included all of Iran’s proxies and the geographies of operations where they had moved into; portentously their nomadic concept of combat involve practically all sovereigns of West Asia.  On the other-hand for Washington it was payback-time for the strategic humiliation of the past and its consistent failure to bring Tehran to heel. Wisely, none of Washington’s traditional allies wanted any part of this war. Far too many such anomalies existed to find common cause when trying to make-sense of this on-going conflict.

To begin with what was Washington’s aim? And who was pre-empting who, not amongst the antagonists, but between the allies; Israel and the USA? If Iran’s nuclear capability had been obliterated on 21 June 2025, during Operation “Midnight Hammer” why had it become central to the conflict in February 2026? Opening of the Strait of Hormuz and its control was never a part of the strategic aim, since it was never closed at the start of the conflict; so why is its control dominating the course of combat today? Why was the girl’s school at Minab struck in the horrific aerial bombardment of 28 February, it caused the massacre of over one hundred and fifty six children and staff, was this an accident? Particularly since it was the result of deliberate planning, preparation, intelligence gathering and targeting; it was significantly to be hit in the first wave of strikes.

An F-15 E fighter aircraft was shot down on 03 April in the vicinity of Isfahan; during the next two days, a massive “supposedly rescue” operation was launched which involved the loss of 2x Special Forces C-130 each with troop carrying capacity of up to 92 combat troops each, 4x combat rescue helicopters. A total of 155 aircrafts participated in the operation which included fighters, bombers and surveillance aircrafts; what is not clear is the size and disproportionate make-up of the force for a rescue mission particularly since the mission on 03 April by the F-15 E remains a mystery.

Casualties in the on-going operations include over 3,500 Iranians dead and about 26,500 injured and on the American side as of July 2026, seventeen military personnel killed and 420 injured.[4] While material and economic losses on the Iran side exceeds $270 billion which includes military and civilian infrastructure the bulk of their Navy and Air Force; while America lost over $30 billion in terms of military hardware including 42 combat aircrafts and excessive damage to 17 military Bases in West Asia valued at approximately $800m. Israel on the other hand has suffered structural losses to infrastructure of close to $11.52b. On a global scale, world GDP has reduced roughly by 0.3%. Worst hit are oil dependent nations whose growth is powered by consistent supply lines and stable oil markets such as China, India, Brazil and the European economies.

While speaking to reporters on 05 May 2026, amidst children, President Trump ranted, “We would have had Iran with a nuclear weapon, and maybe we wouldn’t all be here right now, I can tell you, the Middle East would have been gone. Israel would have been gone, and they would have trained their sights on Europe first and then us, because they’re sick people. These are sick people, and we’re not going to let lunatics have a nuclear weapon. The power of a nuclear weapon is something I don’t even want to talk about. It’s not going to happen. And we have beaten them badly.” Surely then, the 07 April “promise that a whole civilization will die tonight” must equally be the words of lunacy.       

 Logic of Limited Wars: Unfortunate Conclusion of King Pyrrhus

The logic of a limited war is the use of military force to bring about a change in specific behaviour, seize control of action in a specific domain, all in a limited time period, using limited resources and waging the war within restraints of intensity. All five considerations have either not been met or just partially in the on-going war and awkwardly White House leadership cannot make up its mind whether the war is over or not. The seemingly aimless nature of the sporadic yet intense conflict may have left the observer in awe, but facts suggest to the dominant protagonist that the conflict is going in no controllable direction and the motivation to pursue the engagement is fast fading.

Can this be a modern day variant of the battle of Asculum (279 BCE) which has been immortalised in the phrase a ’Pyrrhic’ victory? In which case it is time for POTUS to realise, at least now, as the Greek King, Pyrrhus put it so lamely “If we win another (victory) like this, we will be ruined.” That ‘another-such-victory-like-this’ for Washington, will bring about not just a fall in its standing; but also a collapse in its economy and the nation’s will. Perhaps it is time to once again declare victory and bring about a closure to this conflict (the efforts to a ceasefire are heading nowhere). The alternative being a redux of yet another endless, futile and a wasteful war such as was in Vietnam, Iraq and more recently in Afghanistan.  

And what of Iran? Will it fall into the dystopian Political Geography of 1984?  Into the grips of Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia? A region of perpetual low grade warfare to feed into Orwell’s Newspeak narrative of ‘permanent peace’? Or will it stand-up as a true civilizational state and lift itself from this self-destructive morass and find its destiny in an era of reconciliation and progress?                            

[1] This quote is from French foreign affairs analyst Joël-François Dumont, writing in the online journal https://european-security.com/. The writing here is in the style and “orientation” of Charles de Gaulle. Of this quote Dumont writes, “This text was put into perspective for our series “Great Witnesses of History.” It is intended as a synthetic restitution of Gaullist thought applied to current issues, developed from the memoirs and landmark speeches of General de Gaulle.” For more see https://european-security.com/en/the-twilight-of-nations-memoirs-of-a-foretold-disaster-2/ 

[2] See here for a concise timeline of events: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/middle_east-jan-june10-timeline

[3] These numbers are from HRANA, Human Rights Activists in Iran, a “non-political and non-governmental organization comprised of advocates who defend human rights in Iran.” HRAI was founded in 2005. https://www.en-hrana.org/twelve-days-under-fire-a-comprehensive-report-on-the-iran-israel-war/

[4] See Al Jazeera report on casualites https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/20/what-we-know-about-us-soldiers-killed-in-iran-war-and-iranian-casualties

Return to a World Ordered by the Elite

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By Vice Admiral (Retd) Vijay Shankar

Regression to Social Darwinism

The pomaded Secretary of war, on 02 March 2026, took to the dais and declared “…this is not a war for regime change in Iran, but a necessary, long-overdue retribution for decades of Iranian hostility”; Peter Hegseth the US Secretary for War directly referred to the 1979 hostage crisis stating, in grandiloquent words, that their (Iran’s) 47 year war on the American people has become “our retribution”.

The Secretary’s words harked back to eighteenth century bloody competition, reminding the world of an age when war was an act of ‘Social Darwinism’ and a ‘civilizing imperative’ that justified  the right to loot of combat and economic nationalism (later termed mercantilism).  The booty included territorial conquests, markets, monopolies and slaves. Such wars were sanctified by exclusive agreements amongst the ‘elite’ of the period by reprehensible instruments such as the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) by which Britain seized territory in North America and awarded itself the ‘privilege-of-access’ by British slave traders to traffic and sell their human cargoes to Spanish America. But, to pursue ‘privilege-of-access’ under some self-endowed rules-based-order; borders upon geo-political perversion in the extreme, and that too in the in the 21st century. Whatever became of ‘Just’ war theorists, authorization of the UN Security Council or even endorsement by the recently cobbled “Board of Peace”? (Governance model is explicitly authoritarian). 

Rapine Influence of Elites on Politics; Emergence of the Deep State

 The most corrupt, Robert Clive is no stranger to Indian colonial history nor was his fraudulent ways. In the 18th Century, the magnitude and extent of British plunder in India can be measured by the impact it had on establishing the East India Company and sustaining Empire. The Company conceived, financed, and governed overseas expansion, making claims over territory and peoples while ensuring that British society remained invested, quite literally, in their ventures. Thomas Paine the 18th Century American revolutionary philosopher and statesman summed up how the riches Robert Clive wrested through “murder and rapine” in India had enveloped him in the “sunshine of sovereign favour” at home, allowing him to enter into further “schemes of war and intrigue” to amass an “unbounded fortune.”

Across four centuries, from India, the Americas to Africa and Australia, British colonialism was above all a rapacious business enterprise that used armed might to compel trade on its terms. The company was well-suited to overseas expansion not because there was inevitability about its motives, but because like empire itself, it neither carried ethical baggage nor was it answerable to any society; centralised yet diffused, it was a “legal fiction with very real brutal power”, a penchant for intrigues and an immoral self-ordained license to wage war for profit. It was not just as if the Company was the Sovereign’s ‘deep state’ and was simply in search of mercantile monopoly but it, in reality, spearheaded exploitation and conquest of territories. Its legacy was to leave a model for the oligarch and corporate entities of the day, to wield political influence, spin narratives of the greater ‘civilizing mission’ and usurp the very trappings of state power. It is as relevant today as it was four centuries ago (An Era of Darkness, Tharoor, Aleph Book Company and Empire Incorporated, Stern, Harvard University Press).

In 1953 an Anglo-US conspiracy to topple the elected Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh was hatched. The PM planned to nationalise Iran’s vast oil reserves and therefore a coup was deemed necessary (the license to steal was in jeopardy) by a small caucus led by the CIA . Mossadegh was to be replaced by the pliable Shah of Iran. “Operation Ajax” was launched by the CIA director Kermit Roosevelt. In 1953, a paltry 8 cents for every Dollar oil revenue was going to Iran’s Treasury. Surprisingly, the coup was successful and became the American Deep State’s template to replace unyielding regimes to this day.

The Charade of History 

The task of recording geo-politics of the day has become an effort in sieving and stitching together reams of editorial quasi-fiction or, at worst, the product of theoretical academic study shorn of the processes of decisions made and the subtleties of human behaviour. The purveyors of the latter, very often, faux chronicles convince themselves that in memoirs, reports and interviews there lay the underpinning facts needed for the writing of political history. Certainly the, study of memoirs and of current events has its value for discovering what was believed and the ideas which policy makers entertained about circumstances, geography and nations for understanding  settings and eventualities; but they rarely go into the decision making mechanisms and discernments that precipitate action. Historical analysis, as Polybius suggested in 150 BC, is based on a one sided description or narrative posing as credible history. To persuade oneself that the resources of documentary research alone can equip one to write an adequate account of recent events is naive. It is as though “a man who has seen the works of ancient painters fancies himself to be a capable painter and a master of that art merely by virtue of having looked at the works of the past.” (Polybius 12.25e). Tolstoy, in his novel War and Peace even suggested that “events may certainly be caused by the decisions of individuals, but they’re caused by so many individuals that you cannot single anybody out as being particularly important; furthermore, those individuals are not in any meaningful sense planning – they just react, or respond to their emotions. As far as history goes, there’s no free will”.  

  A historian’s interests or objectives normally influence the topics or problems he handles or investigates. Some key limitations of history have invariably created a situation in which historians tend to emphasise some aspects of society or of world history to the neglect of others altogether. Closer home is the recording of Indian colonial history through creation of myths such as its civilizing influence, the deceit of free trade and development while all the time draining it of its economic wealth, destroying of its indigenous industry and suggesting that the superimposed laws, infrastructure and education systems were instruments of progress which in reality were tools to brutally subjugate, exploit and generate generations of servile petty Babus.  

In more recent times, wars such as the Suez Canal crisis of 1956, the 20 year Vietnam War 1955-75, the Iraq war of 2003-11 and the on-going US-Iran war of 2026 have comprehensively underscored the inabilities of formidable power to translate military action to positive and sustainable political outcomes, irrespective of ‘first hand’ accounts and proximal history suggesting a “mission accomplished”.  This really is the problem of recorded history; how then to lift the system from being a ‘Charade’ or the work of the Victor influenced often by the hubris of the elites that benefited from the outcome? The key perhaps lies in a balanced review of political events that precede and supplant the event.   

Who are the Elites?

Aristocracies were common in most ancient civilisations. They were characterised by the political power that they wielded and the imperious weight of their social status which, typically, was passed down through family lines. Feudal systems such as existed in India from the 3rd century CE were based on the idea that controlling land meant holding power. Unlike giving out simple cash payments, rulers started rewarding allegiance and subservience with large tranches of land. This practice, which intensified after the Gupta period, led to the rise of many powerful, local lords, known as “Samantas”. They acted like kings in their dominions. In later years it was the Mansabdari system followed by the Zamindars modelled on the hierarchical societal-structures existent in Central Asia and feudal Europe. These privileged groups formed the “Ruling Elites”, their power was in the land that they were endowed with which they governed sometimes with sagacity while for most, misgoverned more by whim than wisdom.  Succession was dynastic irrespective of the competence or otherwise of the progeny. Membership in the ruling class was an ‘entitlement’ determined by birth and exclusivity.

The power of the Elites began to decline following societal disruption caused by industrialization, education and emergence of republics that introduced land reforms.  Over time, the nimble ones were able to liquidate their land holdings and invest it in resources, skill-development, financial infrastructure and technology adaption to ensure that the ability to influence political power was never lost. Oligarchy is the corrupted form, where Elite rule is driven by avarice and self-interests.  

Oligarchy represents a form of governance focused on preserving the political and economic influence of the Elites by securing the approval of the rest of the population. It suffers from a fundamental delusion; that most of society is ill-qualified to deliberate, legislate or even participate in the democratic process. There is the conviction that extreme wealth is equated to intellectual fitness across all domains, including governance. What truly sets an oligarch apart is the political power that wealth can command. Modern oligarchy operates through persuasion by “enticing rather than commanding citizens and maintaining what seems like egalitarian political authority. Their tools are control of the means of state surveillance and through the media exerting sway over the citizenry.  The strategic irony is the manner in which the oligarch is not only yielded political power but is also given the license to abuse it. The way in which raw power is used to coerce favourable political outcomes, trample over international laws and conventions and brazenly manipulate narratives that serve to win the mind of people almost as if debasement of power has seemingly become the norm.

War of Capricious Aims

On 28 February 2026 the United States of America along with Israel unleashed a massive military strike on Iran. Both the President of America and Israel called it a “pre-emptive strike”; what it was that was being pre-empted and for what reasons has not so far been declared other than that the USA was pre-empting a strike by Israel on Iran  that would provoke an attack on US military installations in the Persian Gulf region (?) But to the world at large there neither is any compelling cause for the rapidly escalating carnage nor is there any apparent motivation for the scale of disruption and devastation being meted out to the entire region. Particularly so considering the size and scale of the joint military exertion that the two are bringing to bear on Iran. Within a matter of a week the inconceivable conflagration spread to the entire West Asian region shutting down the flow of over 20% of the world’s energy demands. The Islamic Republican Guard Corps responded with persistent and massive missile and drone strikes on the hitherto neutral Gulf States; this despite American security guarantees to the Gulf Cooperation Council .

It will be recalled that the GCC states were not just aligned with Washington in strategic terms, but were bound to it; this illusion has been shattered. All the while the strategic aim of the joint operation remains mystifying. It has fluctuated between “the goal to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon (what then is the truth of the June 2025 air strike on their nuclear facilities that was declared to have obliterated the very same programme?); to bring about a regime change; to obliterate ballistic missile capability and more recently to destroy Iran’s war waging capacity” and now, to control of the Strait of Hormuz. The ferocity of the bombing campaign on Iran may be gauged by the stockpile of munitions that had been expended in the first 96 hours of “Operation Epic Fury”. The first casualty of the war was the assassination of Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the lamentable death of 165 girls in an airstrike on a school.  During the first 40 days of hostilities over 14000 air strikes were conducted causing more than 3600 deaths and over 20,000 injuries. The war took a primal turn when on 07 April 2026, President Trump in a genocidal warning, threatened the Iranian people with extermination when he declared that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again”. The cost of the war to America and Israel is close to $2 Billion a day, while the world economy has suffered incalculable loss in terms of the energy shock and supply chain disruptions; the hit to global GDP growth is close to 1%.  

Use of Military Power

Indeed, in many ways, Trump’s use of force is the antithesis of the ‘Powell Doctrine’ the American policy extant for use of military power. Developed during the Gulf War (1990–91) by General Colin Powell (later secretary of state), the Doctrine held that force should be employed only as a last resort; after all nonviolent means have been exhausted. If war is necessary, however, it should proceed in pursuit of a clear objective, with a clear exit strategy and with public support. It should employ decisive force to defeat the enemy using every resource—military, economic, political, social—available. Derived from the lessons of Vietnam, the approach was designed to avoid protracted conflicts, high death tolls, financial losses, and domestic divisions. As Powell later wrote, military leaders could not “quietly acquiesce in half-hearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not (half) understand or support.”

Supporters of the doctrine perceived continued interventions such as those undertaken by the Clinton administration in Somalia, Haiti, and the former Yugoslavia, as a misuse of military power that risked failure or being stranded in a quagmire.  

The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 were key tests of the approach. The George W. Bush administration sought to apply the Powell Doctrine in both cases. It declared war only after the Taliban and Iraqi leaders, respectively, ignored U.S. demands and after the President spent considerable political capital to persuade Americans that the decisions to go to war were wise. The administration’s stated objectives were clear: to eliminate the safe haven the Afghan government was providing al-Qaeda and to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, respectively. It also sought and received congressional authorization in both cases. In Afghanistan, U.S. forces combined a lean on-the-ground presence with withering air attacks and support for fighters in the Northern Alliance, which entered Kabul and overthrew the Taliban. In Iraq, 160,000 U.S. troops launched a ground invasion to topple the regime.

In both instances, the strategy expanded in a bizarre way that it not only entertained an unremitting “mission creep” but at its core fake assumptions such as the imminent use of WMD, a lack of resolve, an all-together faulty assessment of the nature of conflict and misreading dynamics within the citizenry ended in a strategic debacle for the occupying US forces. Both campaigns, as it ironically turned out, ended in a bloody quagmire and a hail back to the mortifying flight from Vietnam. The undistinguished yet fatal thread that was shared by these campaigns can be summarised by the truancy of four strategic principles: 

  • Lack of understanding of the nature of the war that was to be prosecuted. Specifically the intensity of motivation involved, for the defender the war was existential; while for the invader it was a matter of rapidly diminishing motivation.  
  • Absence of clarity in selection and maintenance of an achievable strategic aim.
  • The desired end-state of the war or its fallout on the larger global community was given scant consideration.
  • Lastly, the inability to arouse world opinion in favour of the strategic effort, which was seen to be more an exertion to benefit an eclectic few rather than in the larger global and indeed, national interest.

Strategy, in its broadest sense (grand) is statesmanship. It has to convince and mobilise all elements that make for the comprehensive power of the nation for war; it includes building willing coalitions and persuading neutral entities of the legitimacy of the nation’s cause; it cannot be left to the wisdom or, indeed, the lack of it to an Elitist group whose motivations are dubious, methods visceral and concerns shorn of perspicacity.   

World Order; Concept and Reality

The idea of Order is intrinsic to the edifice of a universal framework to manage global affairs. Where the smallest building block is the ‘nation’, challenges of assuring equitability and abhorring profit-making are foundational if the structure is not to be hollowed out. The essence of Order is the provision of fair, just and unprejudiced governance regardless of size, wealth or power of the individual State. Reality, however, suggests that the concept is illusory. After all avarice, competition, conflict and clutch for resources are factors that are innately interwoven with money-power and the insatiability of human nature.  

 Power in the hands of Economic Elites has, since World War II, built and put in place institutions that primarily promote and nurture strategic self-benefits. This has skewed any notion of a shared future amongst nations. When private businesses get intertwined with political institutions, the profit motif often pushes to the background national interests and as for the concept of international Order, it is consigned to oblivion. Today’s political systems are industries that have incentive to strive for immediate benefits. The question of who the real beneficiaries are remains shrouded in economic theories such as the “trickle-down effect”, “rent seeking theory” or even “deviant globalisation”.  The first posits that “benefits provided to the elites or businesses will eventually trickle-down to the lower classes in the form of job creation, investment, and economic growth” while the latter two principles suggest entities gain added wealth without creating any new value, by manipulating the social, political or military environment or even by gaining access to markets without international oversight allowing rampant and unregulated global trafficking of illicit products. The very same principles were institutionalised in the 18thth century by the industrial philosophy of “Laissez faire, Laissez passer” that in turn created oversized and elitist colonial free-trade areas. The apprehension that these instruments, in fact, presage and, indeed legitimised the exploitative face of trade relations to this very day, persists.

These theories, in the hands of the politico-industrial cabal, provide it incentive to increase civil spending on massive projects, invest in gigantic dubious commercial enterprises and importantly, build oversized military projects through inflated defence budgets. The awkward irony is, the more the intangibility factor and dysfunction; the more the incentive for spending.  The primary factor for the failure of such theorising is the total belief in the uprightness and fair-play of the Economic Elites. The indubitable reality is that “at the apex when the goblet spills-over then the overrun ought to fill goblets below; but if the size of the goblet at the apex continually expands, then, very little spills over!” This is the truth of an Elitist World Order.  

Insolvent Phantoms of Tomorrow

Surprisingly it was an American President who at his farewell speech in 1961 said “We, you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.” These sage words belong to General Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President of the USA. We cannot, today, fail to note a similar situation unfold with the portents of global disaster looming over the Strait of Hormuz; threatening to, so wantonly garrotte an energy lifeline of the world.

America, in the wake of their illegal abduction of President Maduro of Venezuela and the strategic hubris that it engendered, are hoping for an encore and control of the Strait of Hormuz without a serious understanding of the nature of war that they alongside Israel have undertaken against a resilient Iran. The magnitude of incompetence in planning, formulating strategic aims and the cavalier attitude towards the disruptive fallout of war and crack-up of global economics is stunning. Are we to be left with “insolvent phantoms tomorrow”?   

In his quest to find a way out of the on-going war in Iran, the US President’s 07 April apocalyptic fore-cast of “a whole civilization being exterminated”, was read by the world at large as maniacal desperation; words of an unhinged mind, prompting members of the US Congress to demand his removal on grounds of incompetence. A woeful testimony from a nation that once styled itself as a global force for stability, donned the self-ordained mantle of exceptionalism now uprooting the very foundation of the international order that it once steered. Is the world to stand a voiceless spectator to this mindless and distressing disruption? Or as in 1956, are we witness to the reality of the collapse of yet another empire?         

Capture by the Elites

Great economic powers in their time exerted disproportionate sway, if not control, over their respective geography of influence. This was true of the Persian, Indic, Sinic, Greco-Roman and indeed Western Civilizations. But the heart of control to this day is captive to a dominant minority that hold the strings of power and purse, these comprise: Sovereigns, media Moghuls, bankers. Technocrats and power-brokers.

While the former four entities majorly manipulate public perception and use financial- clout to seduce decision making processes; the last comprise individuals or vested interest groups that leverage connections, resources and information sub-rosa to achieve the same purpose staying, guardedly, out of public view. Henry Kissinger was long considered a political power broker who used his access to presidents and foreign leaders long after he demitted his formal administrative role. His continued influence in world politics was apparent in the Helsinki accord of 1975 and his nuclear non-proliferation efforts (some suggest selectively) to hinder the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons across the globe. His preferred instruments included instigating sanctions to be imposed, contriving the offer of incentives as inducements and engineering threats to remove U.S. military protective treaties.  Notwithstanding his earlier posture on nuclear proliferation during Kissinger’s days in office, in later years he emphasised the danger posed by nuclear weapons and that they must not be “integrated into strategy as simply another, more efficient, explosive”. After he left government service in 1977 he founded Kissinger Associated, a geopolitical consulting firm; his new model of foreign policy advised accommodation of interests and actions of powers like Russia and China; values of democracy and human rights had no role in an international system driven by Elites and economics he stressed.    

The Case against Elite Control

Statistically the accumulated world GDP from the turn of the 20thcentury to 2022 increased 56 fold from $1.7Tr in 1900 to $100Tr in 2022. This dramatic rate of world economic growth in an environment of uncertainty, inequity, predatory economic practices, wars, and market forces controlled by a few is the dilemma that faces nations today; how best to strike a balance between power and profit and yet sustain the levels of growth? Confounding this problem are four contradictory challenges that militate against Elite control:

  • Firstly, to raise a fifth of the world population out of poverty and to establish an alternative to the global financial system biased towards the dollar as the primary reserve currency (despite not being pegged to the gold standard) while dominating global banking holding nearly 45% of all assets giving it world-wide reach to impose sanctions suggesting the development of an Alternate Financial System (AFS).
  • Emerging powers and groupings like the BRICS pursue AFS to assert control over financial flows and reduce the potential of the Dollar to cause financial disruptions. Direct fall-out is increasing number of nations who settle bi-lateral trade in common currency 
  •  Lastly, to accelerate the spread of technology without environmental degradation, depletion of non-renewable resources or control by a few

A broader transformation in the structure of world order is apparent today. In an era where global capital is mobile but political loyalty is coerced, power lies not in markets alone but in the ability to navigate, subvert, or capture the legal and institutional structures that enable subjugation of global wealth. This may mark the future of global governance; one not defined by cooperative rulemaking, but by establishing self-interest driven linkages between state power and Elite control. This would imply that top leaders in the military, corporate, and political sectors are so linked that they not only share interests but, institutionally, discharge public and private roles. The case of the current US administration is particularly significant where not only is the President’s cabinet staffed by a caucus of Elites, but he announced that he and his sons would enter the crypto currency marketplace with a new venture called “World Liberty Financial (WLF)”. One of his chief financiers, a Justin Sun a crypto tycoon, sued the Trump family’s venture, accusing WLF of “criminal extortion” for freezing valuable digital tokens over his refusal to invest more money with the company. In the meantime in January 2026, Pakistan led by their Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir signed an agreement with WLF to incorporate crypto currency into Pakistan’s financial system.

Even global financial markets have, allegedly, been manipulated for profits through insider information of politico-military decisions that could have been known to very few in the White House during the peak of US ‘Operation Epic Fury’ the 2026 U.S-Iran conflict. Significant concerns emerged regarding oil futures, wagering platforms and insider trading by well-positioned individuals within or, at least, close to the US War Cabinet within minutes of the decisions being made public. Over 150 entities placed bets totalling millions on the night of February 27/28, just five minutes before Trump’s announcement of commencement of bombing, 500 futures worth $1.5 billion were bought, while oil futures worth $192 million were sold; approximately $760 million in Brent crude oil futures were traded 20 minutes before a major announcement regarding the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz on April 17, 2026. Bankers have seen their profits boosted by the war,  JP Morgan Chase and Co an American banking institution which provides critical financial infrastructure to the US Government and is even considered the Banker to the US Administration made a record $11.6bn of revenue in the first three months of 2026, helping the bank overall to its second biggest ever quarterly profit. All suggesting the extent to which Political, Economic and Military Elites have not only held captive state policy to favour their own financial interests and profited enormously but have established control of the media as a co-conspirator of how people perceive issues that dominate war, politics, finances, justice and humanity itself. The current wars in Iran and Ukraine will remain case studies of how Oligarchic influences can, not just disrupt Global Order through wars-on-call; but also mock, amass profits and beggar it to a state of primal anarchy.  

A Conclusion

No structure of international stability, which emerged in the wake of the Second World War that provided the world with a sense of Order, Justice and Humanity, has been spared by the covetousness of the Elite. The writ of the UN has been trampled over every so often, whether it was the Israel-Palestine conflict 2023-25 that exposed the wanton genocide of people, the continuing carnage of the Russia-Ukraine war of 2022 that has caused the death or maiming of over a million casualties for the benefit of energy tycoons, military-industrial complexes and Technocrats. The on-going civil war in Sudan against the RSF (2023) has displaced over 11 million refugees within and outside the country; casualties figures are not known, but it has only benefited the arms lobby operating from UAE, mining Czars who now control the gold fields and other minerals of Darfur and logistic conduit and power broker such as Wagner Group  that provide discreet control and profit from the war. While China exposed the lack of resolve in the Security Council as it upheld its own claim to most of the South China Sea rubbishing the arbitration of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). An earlier US administration had even converted a sovereign nation, the Honduras into a primary base for the conduct of global counter-terrorism though the instruments of “worthy terrorism” (Reagan Doctrine 1984); despite condemnation by the ICJ.

Contemporary wars are being waged against a geopolitical backdrop of a world withdrawing from globalisation, disregard of humanitarian laws and the appalling impotence of the UN. As has been noted, leadership of dominant groups have dismissed international laws and treaties with disdain. Frequency and spread of such short sightedness in the interest of hegemony and profit is justified on grounds of geopolitical leverage and an abstract urge for control. The on-going war in the Persian Gulf region typifies just such a logic; and as Noam Chomsky suggests calculations of this nature become rational on “the assumption that human survival is not particularly significant in comparison with short-term power and wealth”(!)

Since the curtains came down on the Second World War, America moved into the role of global hegemon. It not only transcended circumscription, but also sought control of world order conjointly with the wheels that moved global economics. Post the collapse of the USSR in 1992, whatever checks the Kremlin represented no longer existed. Now with neither accountability for outcomes nor any legal restraint on America’s use of military force, Washington unabashedly donned the mantle of self-ordained exceptionalism; the concept has not been seriously challenged over the last half-a-century. However, experience gained from wars of the 21st Century have exposed the weakness and vulnerability of the notion particularly  when the USA left stranded nations that had entrusted it with  their security.

The war in Ukraine and the persistent threats by Russia to escalate to the nuclear dimension has left NATO allies to re-evaluate their dependence on the US “extended nuclear deterrence” since the response from Washington to formulating a winning military strategy has been far from reassuring. While it can hardly be comforting for Japan and Taiwan to note America’s anaemic stand on the nuclear postures of Russia, China and North Korea. Leaving little choice to Middle Powers other than to devise strategies of their own, form new arrangements for order and cooperative defence. In this new vicissitude that the world finds itself in, the need is to withhold acknowledgement of any form of exceptionalism on grounds of its malfeasance and its inability to embrace a world of diverse power dynamics that will be dominated by an Elite-driven hegemon.

“…all carpenters, blacksmiths and other artificers are prohibited being employed in the building of boats…”

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Shipbuilding and its Professional Patron

By Vice Admiral (Retd.) Vijay Shankar

Death of Private Indian Shipbuilding—An Improbable Preamble

In November 1788 an intriguing order was passed by the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India Company. On the one hand it sounded the death knell for private shipbuilding activities in Bengal; while on the other, it underscored the strategic linkage between economic power as a function of British colonial venture, and the challenges that an opposing maritime capability may pose to it.[i] Specifically, it prohibited ship construction of any nature on pain of physical punishment and forfeiture of properties; but far more insidious was the systematic obliteration of a vocation and the skills intrinsic to it by targeting blacksmiths, carpenters and artificers who were singled out for special retribution.[ii] The shipbuilding industry, through this instrument passed into the hands of the colonists, worked to its bidding and grew under its decree. Whether it was the shipyard at Bombay or Calcutta, their purpose was to service The Company’s enterprise, and in time the Crown’s imperial ambitions.

Ancient India was one of the leading maritime nations of the day. The tidal dock at Lothal which dates to 2300 BCE stands in testimony to the vibrancy of the tradition. It had colonies in Cambodia, Java, Sumatra, Borneo and Socotra. Indian traders had established settlements in Southern China, in the Malayan Peninsula, in Arabia and in Egypt. Through the Persians and Arabs, India had cultivated trade relations with the Roman Empire. There is also a treatise named Yukti Kalpa Taru,[iii] offering a technocratic exposition on the art of shipbuilding. It sets forth minute details about the various types of ships, their sizes and the materials from which they were built. Such a vast undertaking could never have occurred without a close union between a deliberate imperial policy and a nautical strategy to realise it.[iv]

Significant to early Indian maritime endeavour was the mercantile pursuit that drove shipbuilding. The nature of hulls—deep and bulkhead free—was designed for carriage of cargo rather than for survival in action damage. Even the colonisation of South East Asia was more on account of a migratory stimulus than one urged by conquest. This outlook changed with the coming of Vasco da Gama and his fleet of four small vessels. The difference was the Papal Bull that he carried and the cannons onboard that sought to enforce the edict that it proclaimed. [v]

Linkage between Policy and Strategy

The events mentioned above (The Papal Bull and the Regulation of 1788) are sinister in intent. But, from the colonizer’s perspective the first event articulates the critical prerequisite to link and formulate Strategy around Policy; while the second is symptomatic of strategic suppression of a potential adversary. Nations develop power in all its dimensions to assure the well being of the State, security of the Nation and the development of its people. If this be, in the broadest of terms, the existential theory of a State, then national strategies are formulated to chart a long term course in order to seize and exploit (peacefully in the main) the opportunities that the global environment offers and, where perceived distortions to their concept of sovereignty exists, to iron out and bring about a favourable outcome. In this context the nation’s strategic posture is a declaration, more by deed than words, of its orientation, will and intent. The strategic posture purports to mould and shape a future that would benefit its larger objectives of development. The process is always fraught with the hazards of conflicting interests and therefore it demands the weight of the nation’s comprehensive power, both soft and hard, to uphold posture.

It was Clausewitz who first noted an area of darkness when it came to characterizing the complex relationship between national strategy and the military resources that were needed to muscle and enable that strategy. He perceived this region of obscurity as one caused by a lack of an understanding of the nature of power and the need to sculpt it in a manner that it promoted national strategy. Specifically within the framework of the military as a tool he identified this as a failure to distinguish between the maintenance of armed forces and their use in pursuit of larger objectives.[vi] This quandary was not unique to Clausewitz’s period as the dilemma continues to contemporary times when the momentum that propels the development of armed forces builds logic of growth that defies purpose and is often self fulfilling.

Strategic Poise

The absence of a cogent theory which integrates the promotion, nurturing and maintenance of force (and indeed naval forces) with a convincing contract for use is one of the first imperatives that the State must seek to reconcile. From this resolution emerges the concept of ‘Strategic Poise’. India’s armed forces have traditionally evolved to cope with operational scenarios. At genesis this may have been attributed to the military’s role in creation and upholding colonial empire, however post independence to have deliberately brought about a separation between the armed forces and the strategic decision making process was a paradox that defied norms of nation building progression. The operational canvas (inexplicable not to have been apparent), is a transient that abhors futuristic force planning. So it was year-after-every-five-year the planner was condemned to an exercise that perceived possible threats and acquiring/building force structures that attempted to cope with those threats. It was, therefore, the immediate intimidation of the changing global scenario that drove plans and consequently resulted in the accretion of forces. Unfortunately, this inspiration of the instantaneous intimidation was the pretender that served to fill the strategic space. The significant pitfall that plagued the operational perspective was the continuous struggle to catch up and keep pace with a future that the planner neither sought to shape nor forecast and contend with. The malaise of our current strategic situation is the emerging time, technology and planning gap in the materialization of appropriate force structures that work to shape the future. The case of our strategic maritime posture and the resources needed to promote it as a function of declared policy is the study in point. Such a strategic approach, primarily, derives from two critical characteristics of the international system. The first of these is the endemic instability of protagonists involved in the system; whether it is their politics, national interests, alliances or even their historical antagonisms which when interacts with the larger global settings causes’ friction, a sense of deprivation and generates a chemistry of volatility. The second is the function of a state as a sovereign entity that is charged with guardianship of certain specific and at times unique set of values sometimes contrary and at others in opposition to the macro system.

Conclusion

In bringing this section of our debate to a conclusion, the words of the Admiral of the Russian Fleet, S.G. Gorshkov, when addressing the issue of linking Policy with Strategy of building a powerful oceanic fleet, are particularly significant. “A most important factor that was taken into consideration was a firm recognition of the alignment of forces in the world arena, the strategic situation existing in the oceanic theatres… the prospects of developing naval technology and weapons and also the economic potential of our country.”[vii]

[i] Ibid

[ii] Ibid Clause four of the original document.

[iii] An 11th Century AD compilation by Bhoja Narapati.

[iv] Kautilya. Arthashastra. Translation by Rangarajan L.N. Penguin Classics, India 1990, p 53, 87, 546-548.

[v] The Aeterni regis Papal Bull of 21 June 1481 by Pope Sixtus IV granted the Canary Islands to Spain and further discoveries in Africa to Portugal. The Inter Caetera Papal Bull of 04 May 1493 granted most New World discoveries to Spain. Problems cropped up over time with these arrangements, and the Treaty of Tordesillas of 07 June 1494 attempted to settle some of these difficulties, formalizing some of the implicit understandings of the earlier Papal Bulls. The Treaty of Tordesillas settled on what came to be called the Tordesillas Meridian running through the Atlantic and separating it into the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, giving rights of  exploitation of these regions to Spain and Portugal.

[vi] Howard, Michael.Causes of War Pg 102. Harvard University Press 1980.

[vii] Gorshkov S.G. The Sea Power of the State. Pergamon Press Ltd., Oxford, England 1979, p179.