Tag: Geopolitics

What If Trump Becomes Next US President!

What Will Become of the World if Donald Trump is the Next US Prez?

By Sanjoy Narayan

The focus in India, for the moment at least, is on the outcome of the elections in five states. Many believe that the results of the assembly elections this month in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Mizoram can indicate what could happen in the parliamentary elections in May 2024 when the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (along with a few allies), which is completing its second term in government, will aim to win a third term at the Centre. Predicting elections can be a mug’s game because they can be unpredictable but 2024 is not just about elections in India. It is a year full of elections around the world, and the outcomes of some of them could have a profound impact across the world, India included.

In 2024, according to the Economist, there will be more than 70 elections in countries, which together have a population of 4.2 billion. That is more than half of the 8.04 billion that the United Nations estimates live on our planet. Of all of those elections, the one in America will probably have the biggest impact on the rest of the world.

The US presidential election is scheduled for November 5, 2024, which is nearly a year away but speculation and predictions about who could be the next person in the White House already abound. According to the latest polls and betting odds, former President Donald Trump is the favorite to win the Republican nomination and has a competitive chance of defeating President Joe Biden in a hypothetical 2024 rematch. Trump leads by small margins in battleground states and nationally, despite facing two impeachments and legal drama. There are several ongoing legal battles that he has to fight but this does not seem to bother his staunch supporters.

Among the Republican hopefuls, Trump has the highest approval rating among Republican voters, with more than 50% support in the national primary polls. His closest competitor, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, has fallen below 20% nationally. No other contender for the Republican nomination is at or above 10%.

On the other side, President Joe Biden will be running for reelection as the Democrat candidate but his chances are quite uncertain. Biden will turn 82 next year. His approval rating has been low. He has faced criticism on his handling of various issues: the Coronavirus pandemic, which America dealt with quite sloppily; the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, which led to a resurgence of the Taliban and the deterioration of human rights, especially for women and minorities; and logjams hindering lawmaking in the legislative process in the US legislature.

Biden also has to contend with the age factor that acts against him. Trump, who will be 78 next year, is not young either but there have been rumblings in the media and even in the Democratic Party that question Biden’s fitness–both physical and mental. Some Democrats would probably want to go with a fresh, and perhaps, younger candidate but there has been no alternative and with the campaigning on both sides already well underway, it may be too late to switch horses.

What then if Trump is indeed back in the White House for the second time as President of the US? It’s a complex question because he could impact America and the rest of the world in several ways. The world is witnessing several issues of critical importance. There is a war on between Russia and Ukraine for nearly two years since the former attacked the latter in February 2002; since October, Israel and the militant group, Hamas, have been at a war with the most horrific manifestations in Gaza; China has been consistently and steadily trying to put in place a “new global order” that aims at challenging the US and the West’s dominance in geopolitics; and an alignment of China with Russia, Iran, and other Arab world nations is emerging.

Against this landscape if a Trump regime is back in America, it could have a critical impact on the state of the world.

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Trump is widely expected to further continue his America First strategy of foreign policy, diplomacy, and trade. What that means is he will focus on reducing US trade deficits by raising tariffs on imports; his policies could make America more unilateral and confrontational; and he could be more transactional rather than be driven by other objectives in dealing with foreign countries. This means America, which does the heavy lifting in alliances such as NATO, and organisations such as the UN, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), could reduce its commitments to them and, thereby weaken them. As it could by retreating from its commitments to the Paris climate accord.

If a Trump regime (or for that matter any Republican regime that might be elected to power) reduces the commitment to NATO, it could jeopardise the future stability of Europe. Here’s how. According to Article 5 of its agreement, if a NATO country is attacked, it means that it is an attack on all members. This means that all NATO members will consider the attack as an act of self-defence and will take actions to assist the country attacked, including the use of armed force if necessary. Trump’s position on Article 5 of NATO has been unclear and inconsistent.

In March 2016, before he became President, he said that NATO was obsolete and that Russia no longer posed the threat the Soviet Union did. He also questioned whether he would protect smaller states from Russia if they did not pay their fair share.

Trump’s support for Article 5 is conditional and dependent on his perception of NATO’s relevance and performance. He has not consistently expressed his commitment to the alliance and its core tenet, which could undermine its credibility and deterrence. He has, however, publicly stated that that the war in Ukraine “must end” but that “this fight is far more important for Europe than it is for the US”.

If Trump scales down US’ commitment to NATO he could further damage the trans-Atlantic relationship by imposing trade tariffs, sanctions, and, importantly, by recalling US troops from Europe. These could play into the hands of Russia, which could get emboldened to attack other former Soviet territories. It would also weaken NATO and threaten the stability in Europe.

Trump’s stance on China is less predictable. He could pursue a more aggressive approach by imposing further tariffs and restrictions on Chinese ownership and investment in the US, as well as challenging China’s actions in the South China Sea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang. This could escalate the trade and technology war between the two countries, as well as increase the risk of a military conflict or a new cold war.

Some of what the stance could be towards China could be influenced by Trump’s close relationship with Russia and President Vladimir Putin. Trump had once said that he believed Putin rather than the US Intelligence agencies about Russia’s alleged interference in US elections, which Putin had denied. A benign approach to Russia would further fan its expansionist actions such as the attack on Ukraine. And with China an avowed supporter of Russia it could influence Trump’s stance against China itself.

In the Middle East, Trump could resume his “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran by withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal, which restricts Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons and one to which Iran’s compliance has been questioned. If Trump opts for more sanctions instead of a mutually agreed deal (between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—China, France, Russia, UK, US, plus Germany, together with the European Union), tensions could flare up further in the region and Iran could resume its nuclear activities. In the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, Iran, which has a history of backing militant groups opposed to Israel, could get involved more overtly than it has till now.

What could a Trump regime mean for India? One possibility is that Trump would continue to elevate America’s ties with India and the growing partnership between the two countries, especially in the areas of defence, security, and trade. Trump has been supportive of India’s role in the Indo-Pacific region and has recognised India as a major defence partner. He has also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his policies, such as the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir and the Citizenship Amendment Act. Trump and Modi have also developed a personal rapport and have held several joint rallies, such as the “Howdy Modi” event in Houston and the “Namaste Trump” event in Ahmedabad.

Yet, a Trump administration could also create more challenges and uncertainties for India, particularly in immigration, climate change, and regional stability. In the past, Trump has imposed tariffs on some Indian goods, such as steel and aluminum. He has also threatened to revoke India’s preferential trade status under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP).

Trump has also tightened the visa rules for skilled workers and students, which could affect the prospects of many Indians who seek to work or study in the US.

He withdrew from the Paris climate accord and accused India of being one of the world’s biggest polluters. Trump has also been inconsistent and unpredictable in his approach to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and China, which could have implications for India’s security and interests in the region.

To sum up, a Trump in the White House could be like a bull in a china shop (pardon the pun).

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Jaishankar Discusses Grain Initiative, nuclear Concerns With Ukrainian FM

By LokMarg

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday met his counterparts on the sidelines of the 19th ASEAN-India Summit, including Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, and discussed the grain initiative and nuclear concerns amid the Russia-Ukraine war.

“Pleasure to meet FM @DmytroKuleba of Ukraine. Our discussions covered recent developments in the conflict, the grain initiative, and nuclear concerns,” tweeted Jaishankar.
Notably, Russia had declared that it was putting its involvement in the deal on hold, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin later stated that Moscow would suspend, but not end, its involvement in the deal.

The deal provides for a safe humanitarian corridor for the export of Ukrainian grains through the Black Sea, to tackle rising food prices due to the geopolitical conflict grappling the ‘breadbasket.’

Meanwhile, Putin ramped up the nuclear rhetoric this fall, raising the specter that he could use such a weapon in Ukraine.

Russia has as many as 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons, lower-yield devices designed to defeat conventional forces on the battlefield. A tactical nuclear weapon has never been used in combat, but one could be deployed in a number of ways, including by missile or artillery shell.

Jaishankar also met Singapore FM Vivian Balakrishnan and Indonesia’s FM Retno Marsudi.

“Great to see my friend FM Vivian Balakrishnan of Singapore. Always nice to exchange notes,” tweeted Jaishankar.

“Good to catch up with my dear colleague FM Retno Marsudi of Indonesia. Wish her all the best for the upcoming G20 Bali Summit,” added Jaishankar.

The External Affairs Minister is accompanying Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar who arrived in Cambodia on Friday to participate in the ASEAN India Commemorative Summit and the 17th East Asia Summit.

This Summit is being hosted by Cambodia under the theme A.C.T (Addressing, Challenging, Together). This theme is aiming to counter regional issues, seeking prosperity, growth, and stability among the states, in accordance with the main theme of ASEAN. Cambodia has played an important role in India-ASEAN engagements, the 1st India-ASEAN Summit took place in 2002 during the first chairship of Cambodia. (ANI)

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Kissinger’s Attempt To Airbrush Nixon’s Fallacies

By Kunal Bose

The scholar, diplomat and public intellectual that the 99-year old Henry Kissinger is, has unwittingly done himself an injustice by including the disgraced US President Richard Nixon on more than one count in his recently released 528-page tome Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy. Nixon and Donald Trump will remain engaged in a competition as to who was the worst President in modern history of the United States of America. If featuring Nixon in a select group of world leaders is not a bad judgement in itself, the exacerbation of the scholar diplomat becomes complete by giving the besmirched President under whose charge happened the break-in at the Democratic Party’s National Committee headquarters a lot more space in the book than the other five leaders.

Ahead of his becoming national security adviser to President Nixon in 1969 (followed by many other assignments under Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan), Kissinger graduated summa cum laude from Harvard where he was also a faculty member. Perhaps he didn’t care, but Kissinger has never been liked by liberal Harvard professors and woke students there for his political views.

At the same time, Kissinger will not be unaware that many in the Republican Party agree with the late British author and journalist Christopher Hitchens’ description of Nixon as “duplicitous, gloating, insecure”… and “a small man who claimed to be for the little guy, but was at the service of the fat cats.” But that doesn’t stop him from confirming himself as a hagiographer as he gloats over Nixon’s “wealth of foreign policy experience,”… “his enormous appetite for information”… and his “long view.”

Such is his deference to Nixon – is it because the President’s foreign policy ideas were a mirror image of his own espousal – that Kissinger will staunchly argue to exonerate the President, on occasions going to the extent of putting the blame on his underlings, for all the wrong doings. Let’s take Watergate where the President was found complicit in break-ins in a rival party’s headquarters and all the transgressions that followed. Kissinger would say all these deserved “censure; they did not require removal from office.” Never mind, there would never be a buyer for such arguments.

Using his unique argumentative skills, Kissinger makes attempts in the book and also in a long interview with his biographer Niall Ferguson in Sunday Times to make the President appear like a victim in the Watergate case. You have Kissinger quoting Brycle Harlow, Nixon’s liaison man with Congress, in the book: “Some damn fool got into the Oval Office and did as he was told.” Developing on the point, Kissinger says: “As a general proposition, assistants owe their principals in politics not to be held to emotional statements (about) things you know they wouldn’t do on further reflection.”

Ferguson was given to understand there would be times, in the heat of the moment, or to impress present company, Nixon would give “intemperate verbal orders. But Kissinger learnt quickly not to act every time Nixon ordered him to ‘bomb the hell’ out of someone.” Kissinger’s apologia for shenanigans during Nixon Administration will be no exoneration for the President, for he alone was finally responsible for the doings of his underlings.

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The unravelling of Watergate put paid to the foreign policy ambition of Nixon-Kissinger to bring to an end the conflict in Vietnam on honourable terms, give the Atlantic alliance a new strategic direction, avoid a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union through arms control policy and highly innovatively bring the US closer to China and Russia than they were to each other. Domestic standing of the national leader will underpin foreign policy success of a government. Ferguson writes that “the Nixon that emerges from Kissinger’s Leadership” is nothing less than a “tragic figure.”

Watergate “destroyed not only his presidency but also doomed South Vietnam to destruction… It was defeat in Vietnam… that set the US on a downward spiral of political polarisation.” At this stage, it will only be pertinent to ask if a President who invited charges of perfidy should find a place in a book on role model national leaders of the last century. More appropriately, as Ferguson asks: “Isn’t he (President Nixon) a case study in how not to lead?”

Whatever that is, there has always been an intense dislike for Nixon in India for his role in the 1971 India-Pakistan war that led to the creation of Bangladesh and all the bad words he mouthed in the presence of Kissinger against prime minister Indira Gandhi, unable to withstand her regal dignity and independence. But to be fair to Kissinger, he wrote about Gandhi long after the Nixon-Gandhi frosty encounter that “Mrs Gandhi was a strong personality relentlessly pursuing India’s national interest with single-mindedness and finesse. I respected her strength even when her policies were hurtful to our national interest.” Why only India, during his Presidency, Nixon courted the wrath of liberals all over the world for his brutish foreign policies in respect of Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

The other five global leaders who walked tall in the second half of last century to find places in the book are: Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, Anwar Sadat, Lee Kuan Yew and Margaret Thatcher. The world is aware of the heroic role played by Adenauer and de Gaulle in reconstructing Germany and France, respectively, from the Second World War rubbles. Sadat, on his part, performed the task of erasing the humiliation that Egypt suffered in the 1967 Six-Day War with Israel. The mighty city state Singapore is the result of Lee’s vision. The spell that Thatcher cast upon Britain didn’t wear thin even when Tony Blair’s New Labour government was elected in 1997, seven years after Thatcher had to quit rather ingloriously. Both Blair and his successor Gordon Brown hosted Thatcher to tea at 10 Downing Street. In the UK, a former PM could not ask for anything more. It is well known that Kissinger and Thatcher formed a mutual admiration group well before she became PM for the first time in 1979 that ended only at her passing in April 2013.

Kissinger writes: “For Thatcher, there were no sacred cows, much less insurmountable obstacles. Every policy was up for scrutiny. It was not sufficient, she argued, for conservatives to sand down the rough edges of socialism; they had to roll back the state before Britain’s economy collapsed in catastrophic fashion… Thatcher’s economic reforms changed Britain irrevocably.” In his estimate, nothing would confirm Thatcher revolution “more than Blair’s program.” This left Thatcher immensely happy for she told her friend: “I think your analysis is the correct one, but to make one’s political opponent electable and then elected was not quite the strategy I had in mind.” No denying the fact that Thatcher lifted the British economy from morass and gave it an altogether new direction.

At the same time, she gave little space to the opposition and trade unions remained an anathema to her. No wonder intellectuals treading the middle path left of centre across the democratic world never had any love lost for the US’ most gilded diplomat and they will, therefore, have reasons to demur that Kissinger is recommending Thatcher and Lee, who would never tolerate dissent within his own party and outside as role models for the present and future leaders. Democracy prospers in an environment of healthy debate and where people in power will have no hesitation in listening to saner words of the opposition. India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru would make it a point to be present in Parliament when stalwarts from the opposition would speak. He also loved to host them over a meal.

Kissinger rightly says: “Leaders think and act at the intersection of two axes: the first between the past and the future; the second between the abiding values and aspirations of those they lead. They must balance what they know, which is necessarily drawn from the past, with what they intuit about the future, which is inherently conjectural and uncertain. It is this intuitive grasp and direction that enables leaders to set objectives and lay down strategy.” The tragedy, however, is Kissinger could not drive home this message to President Nixon.

Trump’s India Visit: Geopolitics & Strategy

By Dr. Krishnendra Meena

US President Donald Trump’s India visit in the month of February 2020 clearly indicates that India’s alignment with the US is now complete. India’s Foreign Policy approach for the last many decades has been of multi-alignment with major partners in the most geopolitically important regions of the world. This particular visit with the visible camaraderie between the two leaders, President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, proves to be a landmark. The defining feature has been the signing and announcement of the ‘Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership’ at the end of Trump’s visit. The much-touted trade deal between the two countries, however, remains a task to be completed over the coming years.

In terms of geostrategy of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), it marks the final acceptance of the US Indo-Pacific Region strategy for India. The practical framework or background of the Indo-Pacific strategy was already established when the US and India signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) and Communications, Compatibility Security Agreement (COMCASA) were signed in 2016 and 2018 respectively. The LEMOA facilitates the US with using Indian military bases in the region certain conditionalities and case by case basis. The COMCASA on the other hand, allows India to access and purchase the military communications systems of US origin like the C-17, C-130 and P8Is. A combination of these arrangements leads to increasing interoperability between the militaries of the United States and India.

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Since the Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership has been signed, it accords India status of a Major US ally and this has ramifications for India in the larger international system. India’s clear and overt tilt towards the US may cause concerns in the Russian strategic circles but the trend clearly indicates that Indian military and weapons imports from the Russia are declining and India’s recent purchases have been from France, Israel and the United States. China has gradually emerged as a major partner for Russia, because of its multiple collaborative arrangements in the field of trade, transport, industry and finance.

For Beijing, the hope to draw India into its fold through Russia and multilateral agreements like the BRICS and SCO, will eventually fade with the increasing bonhomie between the two leaders (Trump and Modi). The resultant security and strategic apparatus in the IOR or the larger Indo-Pacific under the US leadership and India as a junior partner is directed towards the Chinese is no secret either.

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With its subscription and eventual promotion of the terminology of the Indo-Pacific, a certain deviation from the Asia-Pacific of the Cold War years, India also has become part of the multilateral arrangements like the QUAD which provide tangible flesh and bone for the furtherance of the encirclement/containment of the Chinese. The leadership for the QUAD, again, comes from the United States, the other partners being Japan and Australia. The geographic location of Japan and Australia, which have been US allies since the Second World War and now India, indicates towards a certain geostrategic encirclement of China. Some international commentators have argued that the New Cold War has begun, and such new geopolitical alignments need to be factored in to make sense of the international system with Beijing as a major actor.

To conclude, the Trump visit, with all the pomp and glory aside, finally is a declaration from both New Delhi and Washington that US-India partnership is going to be a long-term affair. An important marker for South Asia from the visit is the de-hyphenation of the India-Pakistan connection from the US strategic mindset.

Indian efforts to make the international community realize that Pakistan’s support for the terrorism infrastructure in the subcontinent and outside have borne results. Donald Trump is perhaps the first president of the US to not visit both India and Pakistan on the same tour. The focus during the visit was solely on New Delhi and with that a clear signal that India is the only partner of importance for the US in the region. The expected outcome for Pakistan is that it will have to be content with the Chinese alliance, whereas India can still leverage its economic prowess and markets to maintain harmonious relations with China.

The benefits for India and US with the Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership will be manifold and will be decisive in the affairs of the Indo-Pacific as well as the Indian Ocean Region.