Major wars have significant consequences for the internal and international politics of the combatant nations. The 1971 war between India and Pakistan, for example, not only liberated Bangladesh but also altered the balance of power between Delhi and Islamabad. In Pakistan, it produced a major effort — in the form of the 1973 constitution — to democratise a nation that was dominated by the Army.
Neither of those outcomes, however, survived the 1970s; in Pakistan, the army made a decisive comeback when General Zia-ul-Haq seized power from Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977 and executed him in 1979. Zia also accelerated Pakistan’s nuclear weapon programme that neutralised India’s conventional superiority and restored the balance of power in the Subcontinent. He also leveraged nuclear impunity to institutionalise a strategy of cross-border terrorism against India.
Wars between great powers are far more consequential. The Napoleonic wars at the turn of the 19th century, the First and Second World Wars and the Cold War in the 20th century had a lasting impact on the international system.
The Napoleonic wars unleashed the prospect of radical internal transformation in Europe, but Napoleon’s defeat helped the conservative forces to restore the old order. But it also produced the Concert of Europe that limited local conflicts and sustained a regional balance of power for a century.
The First World War saw the collapse of the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian empires, created new nations in Europe and boosted nationalism in the non-Western world. The Second World War saw the defeat of fascism and the rise of the US and USSR. The diminution of European power helped accelerate the decolonisation of the global South. The Cold War ended with the defeat of Communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union and set the political stage for economic globalisation.
At the same time, Biden has said that the US will not fight Russia in Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron has said that Europe is “not at war” with Russia. Moscow, however, sees America and Europe as major parties in its war against Ukraine — given the military assistance they have provided to the resistance and the unprecedented Western sanctions on Russia.
Over the weekend, Russia has begun to bombard the western part of Ukraine that borders NATO. Its targets include bases and facilities that help coordinate the Western military assistance to the resistance. Unless there is an early diplomatic breakthrough, the conflict between Russia and the West is likely to sharpen in the coming days. Whether we are already into a Third World War or not, Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine is triggering some major geopolitical changes across the world. At least five trends stand out. Not all of them might endure, but they help assess the current geopolitical flux.
First is the new dynamism in the great power triangle between the US, Russia, and China. Last June, Biden met Putin to explore the possibility of a reasonable relationship with Moscow. Biden hoped to distance Russia from China and focus all of America’s energies on the Indo-Pacific. But Putin chose to align with China and confront the US and Europe with an impossible set of demands including a sphere of influence in Central Europe and turning Ukraine into Moscow’s protectorate. As the Ukraine crisis unfolded, Washington has reached out to China — to restrain Russia before the invasion — and warn against supporting Moscow after the aggression. China’s public articulation has underlined “rock-solid” support for Moscow but it is under some pressure to balance between its Russian alliance “without limits” and its deep economic interdependence with the US and Europe. Whichever way this plays out, the current crisis has revealed America’s pole position in the great strategic triangle.
Second, the US primacy amongst the great powers has been reinforced by the restoration of strategic unity within the West. If President Putin and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping were taken in by their own propaganda on “American decline and Western disarray”, they might be surprised by the swift coming together of the West. While many trans-Atlantic differences remain on the nature and extent of sanctions against Russia, the crisis has revealed the enduring sources of Western unity.
Third is the American disciplining of Europe, especially Germany, where illusions of normative soft power and the faith in mercantilism had blinded the continent to geopolitical challenges presented by Russia and China. Europe’s belief that it can enrich itself in the Russian and Chinese markets while expecting Washington to do all the heavy lifting on security is no longer sustainable. The German decision on rearmament announced in the wake of the Russian aggression marks a definitive geopolitical turn in Europe.
Fourth, nowhere is the EU’s Russian dilemma more visible than in the energy domain where Europe is deeply tied to Russian imports of oil, natural gas, and coal. The EU pays $110 billion a year to Moscow for these imports. That the EU cannot boost Russian revenues while Moscow wages war in Europe is beginning to dawn on European chancelleries. While stepping up pressure on Europe to drastically reduce energy imports from Russia, Washington is reaching out to Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Iran to fill the gap created by the planned blockade of Russian energy supplies. With the American mind concentrated on Russia, no petro-state is a political “pariah” anymore for the Biden Administration. When it comes to war, “values” necessarily yield to “interests”.
Finally, Asia is beginning to adapt rapidly to the new US confrontation with Russia and China. Tokyo, which actively wooed a hard-to-get Moscow for more than a decade, has returned to a hawkish line. Sensing the dangers from a Sino-Russian axis and fearing that Europe could distract America, Japan is rethinking its nuclear abstinence.
Meanwhile, developments in Europe reinforce Tokyo’s determination to strengthen its conventional military capabilities and deepen the alliance with the US. South Korea’s president-elect, Yoon Suk-Yeol wants to strengthen ties with the US, and explore potential cooperation with the Quad — the forum that brings together America, Australia, India, and Japan. In convening a quick virtual summit of the Quad earlier this month, Washington signalled that there will be no dilution of its commitment to the Indo-Pacific. While the ASEAN remains torn between the US and China, many in the region are waking up to the dangers of betting that Beijing’s rise is irreversible, and that the Western decline is terminal.
The first major conflict amongst the great powers in the 21st century has presented India with multiple challenges, including its long-standing reliance on Russian military supplies. But this hinge moment in world politics is also an opportunity for Delhi to increase its heft in the changing global balance. More immediately, the crisis in Ukraine demands that Delhi move on a war-footing towards a rapid modernisation and expansion of its domestic defence industrial base that is so critical for sustaining India’s strategic autonomy.
This column first appeared in the print edition on March 15, 2022 under the title ‘The great geopolitical reset’. The writer is a Senior Fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute, Delhi and contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express
