Category Archives: Energy Security

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.                      

The India-Middle East-EU Economic Corridor (IMEC)

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Pipe Dream or a Pathway to Shared Progress

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Vice Admiral (Retd) Vijay Shankar (to be published)

Transcontinental Trade; from Shunya to Infinity

          At the heart of ancient Eurasia was India-a culture that exported its diverse civilisation, creating around it a vast intellectual domain. Vedic mathematics, technology, astronomy, art, religions, music, dance, literature and an irrefutable concept of the nature of creation and Man’s place in a dynamic universe; all put together pioneered a new outlook to the meaning of things. These revelations wove a path around the world through the medium of commerce and communications, which stretched across the Arabian Sea over land and sea to Greece and Rome in the west, to China in the north and to South East Asia in the east. The impact of India’s civilizational evolution stimulated innovation and growth. From the largest temple in the world at Angkor Vat to the Buddhism of China, from trade with Mesopotamia and Greece to the creation of the decimal system that we use today; particularly the sublime understanding of zero and infinity. India transformed the culture and technology of the ancient world (as reconfirmed by recent archaeological finds at Berenike) “…excavations make clear that it’s no longer possible to think of the trans-ocean trade as a ‘Roman’ endeavour. By the first century A.D. India was one of the main powers in these transcontinental trade routes.” -That was till a millennium ago.

Strategic Course of Geopolitics 

       Writing in 1890, Sir Halford Mackinder , suggested that the course of politics is the product of two sets of forces, “Impelling and Guiding. Impetus originates from a nation’s past, from historical stimuli embedded in a people’s character and tradition. The present, Guides politics by economic realities and geographical opportunities. Statesmen and diplomats succeed and fail pretty much as they recognise the irresistible power of these forces.” This discernment of geopolitics and the dynamics that influence it, is far more elegant than some of the more contemporary understandings led by Henry Kissinger,  Hans Morgenthau, Freidrich Ratzel and other advocates of Realpolitik. The latter suggested that geopolitics deals with power of a state and the will for domination; from this standpoint, lesser powers are condemned to the periphery. The governing doctrine was: national interests are best served through skilful manipulation by the State of the changing international balance of power. ‘National Interests’ in realpolitik is central and the art of the statesman is to strike equilibrium amongst competing interests through the instrument of power of the State.

          Clearly, while Mackinder saw the past as a force of stimulation; it was the critical reality of the present and its circumstances that became the prime mover of a nation’s role in geopolitics; Kissinger and his ilk saw “national interests” and the quest for balancing power as the motive force powering geopolitics. Absent was that it also became the catalyst of antagonism amongst nations. The latter perception, left the lesser powers to be mere ‘camp-followers’ with the corollary belief that geopolitics was about antagonistic ‘Blocs’ with irreconcilable differences seeking to dominate each other.

Genesis: IMEC the Multimodal Logistic, Energy & Digital Highway  

        An Intergovernmental Framework Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 10 September, 2023 during the ‘Group of 20 nations’ summit held in New Delhi for a multimodal infrastructural corridor that bound together nations with common equitable purpose. The Project was born of a need for a trusty corridor that did not owe its existence to the control of any one dominant Power. It is driven by three objectives: first, to provide strategic transportation arteries that connect to existing sovereign networks and in turn facilitate uninterruptible movement of global trade and commerce by land and sea. Second, to lay a grid and system of pipelines that facilitates free flow of energy (renewable, fossil and hydrogen). Third, to institute a digital-highway that links the participating nations to national webs for streaming of financial transactions, information and knowledge. What is unmistakable about the enterprise but remains undeclared is its underlying intent as an equitable, dependable and preferable option to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and to provide an alternative to the Suez Canal.  The unique feature of the Corridor is the creation of a vast digital and energy highway in addition to arterial transportation freeways. The need and willingness to create an alternative to the extant and periodically troubled 195 Kilometre long Sea-Line of Communication running through the Suez Canal is a feature that harks back to the pre-First World War era.    

Lesson from History: The Ill Fated Baghdad Bahn  

        In 1903, a concession to construct a railroad was awarded by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909) to Germany. The strategic Berlin-Baghdad Railroad was conceived, designed and financed by Germany to exploit Ottoman pan-Islamism in order to threaten logistic networks from British India and isolate their Colonial possessions. The rail line, planned to connect Berlin with the Ottoman cities of Konya and Baghdad with a new 1,600 kilometres track through modern-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq, from where the German vision to establish a port in the Persian Gulf bypassing the Suez Canal could be realised.                          

        The project was a manifestation of a dramatic growth of Kaiser’s economic clout. It played a role in the British-German trade rivalry, and in promoting hostility between the Entente and Central powers. Ironically the railway, on the one hand, helped unite the Entente powers against Germany; while on the other; led Germany into fear of encirclement and brought on World War I.  

        The scheme never fully fructified due British sponsored insurgencies in the vital Najd region of Saudi Arabia and technical glitches in the remote Taurus Mountains. Delays meant that by 1915 the railway was 480 kilometres short of completion, severely limiting its strategic utility during the war. The project failed on account of one critical consideration: the idea of strategic domination was not shared by the stake holders.            

        Is there a rude shock awaiting the IMEC? Is its timing so bedevilled that the enterprise may be consigned among the many lofty schemes that litter history, of well-meaning-but-star-crossed endeavours? Or can the project stand as a model for collaborative undertakings that disavow the impulse for domination?    

Uncertainties of the Times  

          A change has occurred. A world that was inclined towards global order driven by growth, interdependence and globalisation, has been replaced by a return of legacy tensions reminiscent of the “Cold War”, quest for military solutions, manipulation of governments into well-disposed pliable regimes; and, paradoxically, growing insularity amongst nations characterise the contemporary milieu.    

          Self-indulgent ‘National Interests’ are at crossroads; while Balance-of-Power advocates find themselves on a limb when faced with eschewal of individual sacrifice in favour of less disruptive sequestered alternatives. A reality well-arranged for over three decades through power and political manipulation is in the process of morphing into a mire of geo-political risks.

Cementing Partnerships & Mobilising Finances

           The Corridor is divided into three major segments India-UAE-Haifa-EU from where it links to the European Global Gateway Initiative (GGI); the aim of the GGI to open up the African continent complements that of the IMEC. The project envisions a two-part shipping and one overland route. Commerce from India would travel by sea to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), continue by rail/road through Saudi Arabia and Jordan to Israel’s Haifa port for onward shipment to destinations across the EU through links provided by the GGI. Bypassing the Suez Canal would substantially reduce time and cost.

Source: https://frontline.thehindu.com/world-affairs/how-the-india-middle-east-europe-economic-corridor-opens-up-a-passage-of-possibilities/article67344064.ece

Improved relations between India and the Gulf countries, particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia as a progression of the Abraham Accords of 2020 and the consolidation of the I2U2 grouping has culminated in strategic partnerships. Shared interests have expanded beyond oil exports from the Gulf and remittances from the 9 million Indian expats; to include food security, fertilisers, renewable energy and the health sector. The signing of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between India and the UAE in 2022 highlights this emerging mutuality. The initiative estimates that the IMEC could cut the time to send goods from India to Europe by 40% and slash transit costs by 30%. The IMEC will also expand digital connectivity on the Arabian Peninsula, and give Europe and India new sources for clean gas and will through the GGI extend the benefits of the corridor to Africa and to trans-Atlantic states.   

          Noting the IMEC’s potential, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are major advocates of the Corridor. The motivation is in part geographical; Saudi Arabia and the UAE form a natural territorial bridge between India and Europe and is in part financial. The Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman has already pledged to invest $20 billion in the initiative.  The IMEC also plans to establish a 20,000 kilometre cable system; the Trans Europe Asia System, to bolster under-sea and over land communication networks. This element of the Corridor is vital for improving the security of international data transmission.  

          The take-off, continuity, and flourishing of the IMEC are contingent upon several factors, the most critical of which is finance, de-risking and diversifying the project . Initial estimates suggest that the cost of each segment in the corridor can range anywhere between US$3 billion to US$8 billion. Securing the funding for this capital expenditure is a complex task as diverse participants are involved. Exploring effective and low-risk strategies for funding is important to attract private investments that are looking for stable risk-adjusted returns. However, the IMEC can lean upon the G7’s June 2023 commitment to mobilise US$600 billion in funding from private and public sources over five years. This initiative seeks to finance infrastructure development in emerging economies, serving as a strategic counter to the BRI. Furthermore, the ambitions of the IMEC to enhance the logistics of hydrogen energy are congruent with the strategic priorities of both the US and the EU, focusing on transitioning Europe’s energy reliance away from Russian fossil energy to clean eco-friendly sources.   

          Notwithstanding the prospective financial pledges, the introduction of Innovative Financing Instruments (IFI) will add to stability of investments and expenditure for the Project. IFIs may include the following five:

  •  Performance Contracting through State guarantees of future savings.
  •  Green Bonds that assure environmental benefits that may be monetised.
  •  Governmental level equity and, hybrid financing.
  •  Financing by linkages to geopolitical concerns such as security anxieties caused by ‘Grey Zone’ disruptions.
  •  Sum and Substance of the project may be summarised by the quintile policy: Productivity-People-Profits-Protection-Planet.   

          The IMEC thus seeks to create a comprehensive infrastructure network connecting countries with a combined GDP of US$47 trillion, encompassing shipping lanes, railways, roads, undersea cables, energy pipeline networks and solar grids. This initiative holds great potential to bolster global trade efficiency and ensure energy security. However, significant challenges exist. Building such a vast network requires overcoming political, financial and security hurdles. Regional conflicts and differing priorities create a complex and unsettled landscape. Additionally, competition with China’s BRI adds to insecurity as it may provoke inimical activities in the ‘Grey Zone’.

Political Risks Staring Down the IMEC

        Two on-going wars, the assault on global supply chains, disruption of existing financial order, teetering of world-wide security structures, and the looming emergence of a revisionary and “rejuvenated” China; are all settings of contemporary geo-politics.

Global supply chains have been relentlessly breached by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Prior to the war in Ukraine, projections estimated global economic growth to be around 5%. The war, however, turned post- pandemic optimism to a “crippling economic shock”. A  November 2022 report by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) suggested that it was the main factor that had slowed global economic growth to 2.2% in 2023. The conflict, the report added, had the greatest impact on Europe’s economy; where growth in 2023 was just 0.4% and in 2024 was 0.9%.

        As a direct fall-out of the conflict in Gaza, drone strikes are being launched indiscriminately by rebel Houthis out of South Yemen targeting maritime traffic transiting the Straits of Bab-El Mandeb. The Straits and the Suez Canal are effectively shut to merchant traffic. As animmediate alternative, a ‘Land Corridor’ has been established to transport cargo off-loaded by sea at the UAE then transiting by road and rail across Saudi Arabia to Jordan, and terminating at Haifa in Israel. Use of the route was launched in late 2023. It provides a stand-in, albeit costlier, very limited and slower passageway that avoids the severely disrupted Red Sea route. Referred to as the ‘Land Connectivity by Trucks’ project, the America-backed corridor enables movement of containerised freight that cuts voyage time and cost around the Cape of Good Hope.  

        The long-term viability of the ‘Land Bridge’ depends both on regional stability and iron-clad endorsement from countries hosting sections of the route. Container transporters such as M/S Hapag-Lloyd, stated that the corridor could serve only as a short-term solution to sustain trade flow from ports which “would otherwise be cut off from their normal links to the global economy”. The questions that arise are: is the corridor sustainable? How stable is the region? At what cost and for how long can it be kept alive? What becomes of the cargo standing in queue?

Financial Order

        Policy thinking on global financial order has, in the main, been shaped by whether one is a provider or a beneficiary and whether the beneficiary government is pliable. Since the end of the Second World War, the US centric bloc, both directly and indirectly, has held great influence over the rules and norms by which global finance is governed. However, the rise of China and other powers, the diminishing financial clout of the USA and a global retreat from free trade suggest that America may not have either the means or the remit to deal with global crises as effectively as it once did.  

        A globalised world will have to move beyond a zero sum transactional state if ‘universal prosperity’ is the purpose. The implication is: nations would by law avoid policies that have an adverse effect on countries from events instigated in another state or region. Events include man-made disasters, political crises, conflicts and wars. While it may be unrealistic to expect such “virtue-in-policy”, it remains the only way of managing risks threatening global financial stability.

        IMEC is a complex project and has to be insulated against economic shocks and financial instability that lead to interventions of a nature (conflicts, sanctions and unfair trade practices) that could stifle a global enterprise such as it is.   

Security Order in a Disquieting “Grey-Zone”

        In the past it was the size of a nation, imperious resolve and access to resources that determined its wealth, power and control, particularly so in a closed mercantilist world economy as existed a century ago. In contemporary times the determinants may have changed but at its core it remains (with some exceptions) the same. Despite the importance of economics and diplomacy in the power of a state, traditional military might has not lost sway as the primary consideration of geopolitical heft. It is equally clear that interdependence and globalisation have failed to usher in the mythical future of soft power dominance. Instead, globalisation, as contemporary scenarios indicate, is held ransom by unbridled hard power. To believe otherwise is to succumb to a delusion in which resources are infinite, the quest for power dominance non-existent, warfare in the ‘Grey-Zone’ a fib and rogue states can be trusted to act honourably. ‘Soft’ interdependence has merely added to the list of vulnerabilities for the application of coercive power.

        The ‘Grey-Zone’ describes a set of activities that occur between peace and armed conflict. A multitude of actions fall into this penumbric zone. They include clandestine disruptive economic activities, influence operations, cyber-attacks, mercenary operations and disinformation campaigns. Generally, grey-zone activities are instigated and executed by state actors, non-state actors, fifth columnists or those that abet them; they employ a combination of non-military and quasi-military tools that fall below the threshold of armed conflict. Aim being to thwart, destabilize, attack or persuade an adversary; they are invariably tailored towards the vulnerabilities of the target state.

        Prime Minister Modi, in a meeting with President Putin on 15 September 2022 at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation suggested that “this was not an era for war”. That pithy statement may have many interpretations, however, when viewed in the context of his now oft quoted concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbkam , what may also be inferred is: rather than war and conquest promising an avenue for wealth, it is equitable and secure economic activity that is a more profitable path to economic well-being. Conquest, today, is an uncertain and risky endeavour, as the many wars of the 20th century have underscored.    

Redefining Security

        From this, a new definition of security emerges. National security has moved out of the restraining cocoon of just “defence of sovereignty of the State, its people and institutions”; to a far more nuanced perception that factors growth and development of the State along with the well-being and freedom of its people. And, critically, shielding the State from the impact of hostile Grey-Zone activities, intended to destabilise or strike at the vulnerabilities of the State. It is not as if the grey-zone was not exploited in the past but globalisation, interdependency and proliferation of technologies have made its impact far more severe a disrupter of systems and governments.   

         While there could be several snags to the Project intrinsic to the region, the principal impediments emanate from Beijing, not just because it perceives that “China is at the centre of the West’s war plans” (The hundred Year Marathon, Pillsbury), but because China contests alternatives to the BRI, claims ‘exceptionalism’ and more importantly because the IMEC poses a threat to China’s revisionary dream of a global order on its terms. Our examination will now focus on how the BRI has been weaponised, Beijing’s quest for exceptionalism and its promise of retribution for the “Century of Humiliation”.  

Weaponising the BRI

        The BRI represents a grand strategy conceived to promote a sense of Beijing’s distinctiveness through economic power; which it perceives as means to bring about political alignment of member countries (151) with China’s interests in order to       re-orient the world economy and dependency towards China. Marketing of Beijing’s worldview is concomitant to the operation of Chinese soft power in a setting where the line between hard and soft is indistinct. In this context to employ economic means to subvert pliant dispensations and set “debt traps” is par-for-the-course. In the first ten years (2013-23) since launch of the BRI, China has invested or at least pledged $1trillion, some of which is on exclusive loan from the People’s Bank of China. Over 90% of the loans are to capital starved member countries from the lower income group that have questionable resources to pay back.

        In Pakistan, the China-Pakistan-Economic-Corridor (CPEC) a ‘flag-ship’ part of the BRI infrastructure, loans came on seemingly favourable terms that ruled out competing lenders. Today, the state of the CPEC has had disastrous impact on the economy of that nation to the extent Pakistan minister for Planning has called for  dissolution of the authority in control. Notwithstanding, Beijing views the project not in terms of economic benefit to the host nation, but as a strategic energy corridor to soothe their Malacca Dilemma, since the bulk of China’s insatiable energy demands and 90% of their trade transits through the Straits.

        And so, China’s BRI is not just an instrument of economic heft, but a cudgel that has led to crippling indebtedness of 24 African nations  of which five are significant as their debt is over 30% of government revenue; these include Angola, Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya. While in Asia; Pakistan, Bangla-desh, Sri-Lanka and Myanmar find themselves in circumstances that has forced them to cede concessions in terms of infrastructure, territory and indeed polity. From China’s perspective, investments and possession of strategic locations help diversify China’s logistic network for critical resources. In effect the BRI has been weaponised.    

Chinese Exceptionalism: To be Good & Great

        The dazzling rise of China was fuelled by a misshapen American policy enshrined in the Shanghai Communiqué 1972. The much brandished purpose of this agreement was to upend the Sino-Soviet alliance in the Cold War. The underlying belief was that the recognition of ‘One-China’ and the provision of massive economic, military, science and technology support would irreparably fracture the overwrought Sino-Soviet relations and bring Beijing into the ‘liberal’ western world order. China on its part used and overturned this belief through deception, emulation and exploitation. Since then, not only have China and Russia set aside their differences of the 1960s; but have become more assertive internationally and far more unpredictable. China the more dominant of the two, today stands on the cusp of challenging the acknowledged global hegemon.           

        The growth of China has been accompanied by ‘self-attributed’ virtues of being both “Good” and “Great”. By emphasising these abstract features it seeks to provide Beijing the right to ‘exceptionalism’ in its choice to chart a unique course on the geopolitical map. The manifestations are clear as defined by claims of ‘Rejuvenation’ that would not only bestow justice to Beijing for its ‘century of humiliation’, but also enable a revisionary approach to global governance. China suggests that by comparison, the existing hegemon has an offensive militaristic face intent on control of global economic systems and unquestioned predominance over geopolitical influence. Beijing’s brand of exceptionalism purports to be, more friendly, defensive and benevolent. The problem really is will global audiences concede the value of Beijing’s political norms? And whether the Chinese approach to use its perceived civilizational experience (great as it may be) for defining an alternative global order, finds legitimacy amongst the comity of nations?         

Means: The Thirty Six Stratagems

        The “Thirty-Six Stratagems” is a Chinese collation of maxims that outline artifices for use in politics, war, and civil relations. Its focus is on beguiling an adversary. Compiled as a corpus of proverbs during the Ming era in China (1368-1644); the aphorisms are bereft of scruples and provide a template for success through ruthlessness, subterfuge and an antiquated sense of civilizational order.  

        Many of the ‘thirty-six’ are disquieting in their significance. Take for example the following: “kill with borrowed knife”; “loot a burning house” or even “hide a knife behind a smile”; suggest treachery in dealings. While others such as “befriend a distant state and strike a neighbouring one”; “replace the beams with rotten timbers”; “feign madness but keep your balance”; “remove the ladder when the enemy has ascended to the roof” all ring a note of chicanery in international relations.   

        The society that Beijing has moulded is collectivist in character; wherein the Party is morally, politically and economically the master of the individual and therefore the sway of the ‘Thirty Six’. This is not hard to understand given the CCP’s abstract views on national prestige, interests and the ability to differentiate between the State and its citizenry that accommodates the existence of a chasm between elitist constructs of domination and the reality of trials that the citizen may face. Collectivism promotes the idea that the individual is an appendage of a larger and more critical entity, the CCP.  The ‘Stratagems’ may advocate an archaic text for villainy; but what is disturbing is that Beijing has employed several of the ‘thirty-six’ in their international transactions with “friends” and adversaries alike. Conventional wisdom suggests clichés from old patterns of warfare are out of harmony with modern perspectives on conflict. And yet paradoxically, Beijing persists with their usage. In the run-up to the Sino-Indian war, they lulled PM Nehru into believing that their relationship was fraternal before they invaded in 1962; during the cold-war they manipulated the Americans and the Soviets, as tools for their own advancement and global ambitions. After the USSR collapsed, they deceived the USA that partnership with them was to their mutual benefit, till they attained adequate power today to contest them. On the commercial front they have ensnared nations in debt traps through their brand of predatory economics.  

Nudging the South China Sea to the Brink 

        In the South China Sea (SCS), Beijing’s aggressiveness has resulted in heightened tensions with all the littorals, particularly Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Their sweeping claims of sovereignty over the SCS within its contrived ‘Nine-Dash-Line’ and arrogating rights to the sea’s estimated reserves of 11 billion barrels of untapped oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas have antagonized legitimate claimants Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam; who under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), not only have freedom of navigation, but also the license to exploit their EEZs. In July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled in favour of the Philippines, rubbishing the Nine Dash Line entitlement. China, however, despite having ratified the UNCLOS; rejects the Court’s authority.   

        In recent years, imagery has exposed China’s efforts to reclaim land in the SCS and even creating artificial ones. It has constructed ports, military installations, and airstrips—particularly in the Paracel and Spratly Islands. In the Woody Island it has deployed fighter jets, cruise missiles, and surveillance systems. Beijing’s claim to the SCS portends control over commerce and energy flow; an eventuality intolerable to not just the littorals, but to the world. To protect their interests in the region, nations have challenged China’s aggressive territorial claims and land reclamation policies. Amid rising tensions, claims, bullying, hindering legitimate economic activities and establishing unlawful Air Defence Identification Zones; there is a rapid military build-up in the region that has pushed the Indo-Pacific closer to the brink.  

Nature of Potential Conflict

        Three features of Beijing’s revisionary aspirations are potentially in conflict with the IMEC. As mentioned earlier these are: China’s quest for exceptionalism; weaponising of the BRI and aggressive militarism in the SCS. Exceptionalism pressures a posture that places the claimant above laws, conventions and agreements; it is backed by power and a willingness to undermine any resistance to its order of things. Beijing repudiates alternatives to its perspective through means that play out in the ‘Grey-Zone’ and counts on its exceptionalism to make legal their domestic and international politics. For, legitimacy confers on the CCP the exclusive right to enforce policy both internally and externally. However, centralized control also places sole responsibility on leadership when outcomes digress from rhetoric. Legitimacy is the CCP’s “Centre of Gravity”; mismanagement of narratives and a failure to sustain prosperity coupled with simmering discontent, as witnessed during the Zero-COVID policy, will strike at their Centre of gravity and severely impact the Party and its vision of exceptionalism.  

Riposte to the Challenge Posed by China

        The most substantial vulnerability is the CCP’s legitimacy and its inconsistent narrative, particularly on the international stage. Idealistic phrases like ‘harmony, peaceful coexistence and non-interference with Chinese characteristics’ employed by the Party to portray China as a benevolent power, stand in stark contrast to the reality of their predatory economic practises and usurping of sovereign territories. Beijing’s actions in the SCS provide a glaring example of simultaneously professing adherence to international law while deliberately subverting it.  

        The second vulnerability is Beijing’s ideology which perceives international laws, conventions and protocols to be no more than contrivances for consolidating power and justifying its arbitrary use. The masses are often willing to endure repressive control if their living standards remain reasonable, especially when those standards continue to rise, as has been the case in recent years. As noted in the context of China being ‘good, great and exceptional,’ once a pattern of upward mobility becomes the norm, economic growth is expected. Susceptibilities arise when growth declines or encounters setbacks. Moreover, inconsistencies in ideology serve to undermine it. In the CCP, clear class distinctions between the affluence of the Party and the proletariat are a contradiction that cannot be bridged and in times of crises neither will the proscription of the individual in favour of the Party be tolerated beyond a limit. Such discrepancies erode the foundations of control and when coupled with simmering discontent, as witnessed during the Zero-COVID policy protests, can fracture the nation.

        Beijing understands power and how to leverage it. The CCP’s natural fear lies in the fact that nations recognise its ambitions for what it is; of revisionism and exceptionalism. So measures taken to show willingness to face up to the challenge of Beijing through groupings that provide alternatives, such as the IMEC, will give pause to temper their bellicose approach to the abuse of either economic or military muscle.

The Strength of Banding Connectivity

        In the conviction that the world is facing an existential threat from China, the lone hegemon has brought together a consortium of nations that are opposed to the idea of a revisionary disruption to the current global order. Thus far several groupings such as the QUAD and the AUKUS, are in place to contend with the strategic posture adopted by China. While there intent may appear reminiscent of the policy of ‘Containment’ from the Cold War era, they must be perceived as “what they signify and add up to, rather than who they oppose”. 

        At the strategic level, the IMEC aims for a vast region of the world to band closer together through economic connectivity and partnerships. Simultaneously, the corridor would provide a boost to India and the region’s strategy for growth. The UAE and Saudi Arabia embrace IMEC as part of their push to become an economic bridge between East and West. The EU stands to gain from this enterprise to wean itself away from dependence on China and re-engage with the nations of the African continent. While the world at large will benefit from a more efficient and less vulnerable trade, energy and digital corridor than the Suez.  For the IMEC to fulfil its potential, the participants will need to coalesce around implementation plans that can reconcile the Projects many goals. They will also need to overcome internal and external obstacles to the corridor.

Conclusion

        Historically, growth and prosperity were linked to a distinctive military culture that stressed on discipline, mercenary practices and exploitation. Particularly so, when conquest fetched territory, resources and colonies. The problem in the modern era with such a notion is that the same beliefs usher destruction, loot and strife; leaving protagonists exhausted and bereft of a blueprint for either reconciliation or growth. On the contrary, they are left with a legacy of unresolved conflicts. Wars of the 20th and now the 21st centuries stand in mute testimony to this.

        The failure of the Berlin-Baghdad Rail link has been attributed to many reasons these include confrontational politics of that time, poor management and technological challenges. However most significant was the weaponising of what was intended to be a transnational infrastructural project and the design to mix economics with domination. 

        At the heart of realising success in the IMEC project is neither military power nor control nor even domination; but of advancement of a political ethos that harmonises the needs of the many collaborators and assurance of equitability and security. Underpinning precept is that ‘more the stakeholders, more the thrust for stability. To put it succinctly: “Productivity-People-Profits-Protection-Planet”.

Unfortunately strategic planners rarely occupy themselves with the higher problems of growth and international relations; rather, are content with the narrow outcome of either fulfilment of a political directive; attainment of a tactical goal or even realisation of a self-seeking purpose, blind to the validity that success is a function of sculpting a holistic strategy that elevates various instruments of power alongside traditional military deterrence.    

The Putin Interview; Stoking of a Nuclear War

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Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar (To be Published)

Putin’s History Lesson

On 06 February, 2024, Vladimir Putin breached his self-imposed hiatus on the Western media and offered a sitting to a Mr Tucker Carlson.  The reason and timing of the interview, the Western media will have the world believe, was an attempt to influence the forthcoming American presidential elections. ‘Naked and provocative propaganda against President Joe Biden’s Ukraine Policy,  claimed the detractors which included the so called “liberal” media. And yet, the session comes at a time when NATO is suffering from pangs of ‘Ukraine Fatigue’, burden of the conflict has globally stressed economies, drain on military resources of the West hollowing out their own preparedness, anxiety of nuclear escalation and indeed the third year of war and loss of lives has left the Ukrainian citizenry with fading appetite for the conflict.

In the meantime Putin, in his inimitably sardonic style, set about delivering a primer to Tucker on Russian history. Beginning with the first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus, that arose in the 9th century; through the influence of the Byzantine Church that gave to the state Orthodox Christianity, he arrived at the rule of Oleg the Wise (879 CE), a Varangian Prince who founded an empire which  over three centuries spread to cover the modern State of Belarus, Slavonic-Norse Russia and significantly, Ukraine. Putin appeared to emphasize that the unit of historical understanding was neither nations nor epochs but societies such as that which bound the Orthodox Christians together. This historical narrative, to Putin, established the civilizational connect with Ukraine and set the stage for Tucker’s and obliquely the West’s discernment of Russia’s title to territories inhabited by cultural brethren.

In dragging Tucker through the common attributes of shared civilizational institutions, what really was Putin’s aim? Was it to educate his viewers through Mr Carlson or was it to show conviction that the West and NATO could do little to alter the new reality of Ukraine other than to accept it. Intervention, as Putin warned recently, would lead to nuclear war.

The Perilous Balance of Terror

Even after the many threats of nuclear escalation during the course of conflict, few in the West subscribe to the view that Mr Putin will make an irrational decision to attack NATO states with nuclear weapons in retaliation for support to Ukraine. And yet, everything about this conflict whether it was the abrogation of the Minsk Agreements, President Yanukovych’s ouster, Zelensky’s bid to enter NATO, the purposeless sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, the self-blow to Western economies or even the stubborn support to a proxy war; are irrational in character and illogical in progression. The final astonishing contradiction is what the Western allies consider likely; Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons. Yet, they persist with supporting the war with munitions and training in the entrenched strategic belief that tactical nuclear weapons are far less damaging than city-destroying high-yield nuclear weapons and therefore (outrageously), more “usable.” In this disordered ambience, is there mass insanity in the belief that the risk of escalation by Western allies is not a certainty?

The hostile detonation of a nuclear weapon, of any yield, would be an unprecedented denial of the dogma of deterrence, a theory that has underwritten military policy for the past 75 years. The idea stipulates that adversaries are deterred from launching a nuclear attack because by doing so they risk an overwhelming counterattack. Possessing nuclear weapons isn’t about winning a nuclear war, the theory goes, it is about preventing one. It hinges, perilously, upon a balance of terror. But, one is at a loss to explain the brinkmanship that has persistently stimulated this line of thinking that the provocation for nuclear use in some absurd way advances the war-aims. The danger of nuclear use in Ukraine fluctuates. It waned after Ukraine’s counter offensive of the summer of 2023 proved a fizzle. But, if Kremlin feels threatened by increased NATO intervention or conflict losses, it could create more dependency on Russia’s nuclear arsenal; the threat could rise exponentially.

Back to the Putin Hearing; Mounting Logic for Nuclear War

Coming to the central issue of termination of the war in Ukraine, Putin made a revelation. A few weeks into the conflict, he disclosed that Ukraine was ready to sign a deal with Russia during peace talks in Istanbul (April 2022), until Western powers, led by the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, ordered Kyiv to scrap the deal. Negotiators had tentatively agreed on the outlines of an interim settlement: “Russia would withdraw to its position on 23 February 2022, when it controlled part of the Donbas region (Donetsk and Luhansk), and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.” Putin then highlighted the impact of Boris Johnson’s surprise visit to Kiev on 09 April 2022; its purpose, he alleged, was to break off from talks and scuttle the deal for two key reasons “Putin cannot be negotiated with, and the West was not ready for the war to end.”

Efforts to obtain authentic facts on details of the Johnson-Zelensky meeting through Britain’s “Freedom of Information Act 2000” have thus far met with bureaucratic chicanery. While on ground, the British government has encouraged the continuation of the war through huge arms shipments and incendiary rhetoric. When read in conjunction with the US Secretary for Defence statement of the same period; that the Biden administration’s objective in arming Ukrainian forces is to “see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine”; lends credence to Putin’s revelation. In the meantime, the European Union goes into strategic dither as France turns Hawk from a Dovish posture of the past. French President Macron’s stance toward the war in Ukraine is at best, inconsistent. He has argued that Europe “must get prepared for a long war” in order to put Ukraine in the best possible position for negotiations. He also defended his decision to keep talking with Putin, arguing that “we must do everything to make a negotiated peace possible.” Differences over the response to the war have deepened between Paris and Berlin in recent weeks, after the German chancellor said long-range Taurus missiles would need German soldiers on the ground in Ukraine to look after them and that was a limit that he was not prepared to cross. President Macron has angered his NATO partners by suggesting that sending Western troops could not be ruled out. In this ambience of contrariety what may be deduced is the absence of resolve to either fuel the conflict towards a decision point or to sue for a negotiated peace. Macron’s logic for peace appears skewed when he warned that Russia was seeking to extend its power and would not stop now: “if we let Ukraine lose this war, then for sure Russia will threaten Romania, Poland and Moldavia;” forgetting that NATO is bound to defend the former two being members, while public opinion in Moldavia (over 60%) is against NATO membership.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, further muddied the waters when he warned recently that Ukrainians were “not running out of courage, they are running out of ammunition”. He said the shortage was one of the reasons why Russia had made recent advances on the battlefield, and he called on the allies to provide Ukraine with what it needed. He even suggested the possibility of deploying troops in Ukraine much to the astonishment of some allies. In the backdrop, the Trump-Biden tangle in the looming American general elections, has put on notice the (hither to) trusty US security umbrella.

What is becoming increasingly apparent is the lack of strategic solidarity in NATO’s approach to the conflict; but more importantly the inability to note that it is to the Kremlin’s advantage to make this a conflict against NATO; for it frees Putin’s strategic options. As the veil on the West’s proxy war falls away, the West’s rhetoric and discordant postures suggest the possibility of a  mounting logic for a full blown nuclear clash.  

Reopening Peace Talks

Putin’s exposé is the cause for several misgivings: Why did Western leaders want to stop Kyiv from signing a seemingly reasonable deal with Moscow? Did they consider the conflict a proxy war whose aim was the emaciation of Kremlin’s power? Why is the NATO rhetoric suggesting a more robust intervention in the war? And, most importantly, what would it take to get back to the table?

To restore peace talks is, debatably, very challenging. Particularly so, given that both Ukraine and Russia have (at least publicly) hardened their negotiating positions significantly in recent months. But there are some indications that could help in piecing together a deal. One possible track back to the negotiating table is to resurrect the “Black Sea Grain Agreement” of July 2022, in which Kyiv, Moscow, Turkiye and the UN agreed to restart wheat exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. The deal had held strong despite continued hostilities, allowing more than one million metric tons of grain to enter the world’s “insecure food markets”. This accord broke down in July 2023. Today it is replaced by a precarious under-the-counter shipping corridor. The passageway is guaranteed by no nation other than a notional humanitarian acceptance by both belligerents of the embarrassing impact of the war on deprived neutrals. This common position if enlarged provides an opening to a more all-embracing peace talks.

The second track to a detente is centred on the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power complex that continues to be threatened by artillery shelling from both sides. A monitoring committee of the IAEA has been tasked to ensure that the plant remains safe condition. Kyiv and Moscow have both shown by this concession that they want to diminish the co-lateral impact of the conflict, and are amenable to negotiate on this score. But, as long as this conflict does not find a truce, the spectre of a catastrophic event — whether through an unintended strike on the Zaporizhzhia complex or a deliberate escalation to nuclear war — will continue to loom. It’s time for Russia, Ukraine, and the West to recognize that there’s only one way to put an end to these risks; come to the negotiating table. Unfortunately, Putin is in no mood to make the first move ever since Boris Johnson’s ill-advised ‘April visit’.

The state of the conflict and loss of lives and resources, economic fatigue of western donors, the ebbing enthusiasm coupled with frustration of the Proxy and crucially, the looming danger of an unintended nuclear clash, all add up to and seem to advocate an urgent return to the Table.

Ramification on Nuclear Arms Control Structures as a Conclusion

Russia blocked a UN agreement aimed at shoring up the much delayed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review in August 2022, citing concerns about clauses related to the situation at the Zaporizhzhia. The move highlights the negative effect that the conflict has had on the non-proliferation cause. But despite the failure of the NPT Review there is a glimmer of hope in the endorsement of a framework for strategic arms limitation: “The framework for a U.S.-Russian arms control arrangement is not perfect and will require concessions from both Washington and Moscow. But this is part of the arms control bargain, and the benefits, like the non-use of nuclear weapons in warfare since 1945, have consistently outweighed the perceived costs” and indeed, geopolitical markdowns.

 The awkward strategic irony in all this is the status of Russian Uranium exports to The USA. A program, ironically, dubbed Megatons to Megawatts was part of a raft of non-proliferation efforts undertaken ‘cooperatively’ at one time by Moscow and Washington to sequester and dilute stocks of nuclear weapons and materials. The Program continues unabated, conflict or no conflict.