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Subject: International Relations

  • Why the West should focus on China

    Context

    The Russian offensive on Ukraine on the night of February 23-34 shocked the world. The trigger for the conflict has been the rise of anti-Russia/Putin and pro-Europe lobby in Ukraine, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and with the tacit support of the US and the West.

    Background of the conflict

    • The situation became deeply polarised after battle lines were drawn in 2015, with Ukraine’s breakaway Donbas region seeking a merger with Russia, after Crimea’s unification with the latter.
    • Russia has, over the years, quite correctly questioned the relevance of NATO — a grouping of the Cold War era — and its expansion eastwards. 
    • For instance, NATO included the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries of Georgia and Ukraine, earlier part of the Soviet Union, in its “Partnership for Peace” programme, despite Russian objections.

    Implications of war for geopolitics and role of China

    • Geopolitics will never be the same, especially with Germany and Japan announcing militarisation initiatives, polarisation in Europe and the strengthening of the anti-US nexus of China- Russia-Turkey-Iran.
    • Focus moves away from China: A matter of concern is that once again, the attention of the US and the West has been diverted from China, the main adversary, to a war that should not have taken place.
    • Possibility of annexation of Taiwan: In the current conflict, the ineptitude of the US/NATO to support Ukraine with “boots on the ground” is bound to embolden China in its nefarious design to annex Taiwan.
    • This could also lead to increased hostility by China in the resolution of land disputes with the neighbouring countries, as well as in the South and East China seas.

    Consider the question “With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the geopolitics will never be the same again.”Comment. 

    Conclusion

    For India, the greatest lesson is that it will have to meet the Chinese challenge on its own. There is no likelihood of the US or any other nation getting involved in India’s fight with China. Let us focus on atmanirbharta in all its dimensions.

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  • What Quad can learn from NATO’s blunders

    Context

    The Russian invasion of Ukraine offers several lessons to the Quad countries.

    Negligence on part of NATO

    • This article is admittedly written in hindsight, but there is a continuing thread to the western blunders in the approach to dealing with Moscow, particularly concerning Putin.
    • He has had a dramatic rise in the political hierarchy of Moscow, with many of his successes unexplained but for the strong behind-the-scenes backing of the FSB.
    •  Unfortunately, it was ignored in the West, and particularly in Europe, which was busy with civilianising and militarily downgrading NATO.
    • The western leaders were overcome with hubris and dismantled the military intellectual content of NATO headquarters, reducing NATO forces to a rapid reaction force under the political control of a civilian secretary-general.
    • The West, therefore, failed to connect Putin’s invasion of Georgia with his continuing vision to fight the regime change in Ukraine in 2015.

    What can Quad learn?

    • War in Indo-Pacific will be maritime war:  War in the Indo-Pacific will be a maritime war fought in accordance with maritime strategy and space assets.
    • The greatest difference is that peaceful maritime reconnaissance is a legitimate activity with the help of which situational awareness can be built up, enabling the delivery of a crippling conventional first strike in the first stages of a possible conflict.
    • Avoid making Quad a diplomatic grouping: To call the Quad a “diplomatic grouping” is a catastrophic error.
    • Implication of calling Quad a diplomatic grouping: In actual fact, the Quad, is all about maritime domain awareness, underwater domain awareness, and information sharing — all of them purely naval activities, which need continuous communication (that is catered for), a command organisation and a secretariat, neither of which we have because Quad is a diplomatic grouping.
    • The military is trained to think structurally, cast future scenarios, do contingent planning, find alternatives and plan for victory. Diplomats have no such background.
    • Confusing Beijing by calling it a diplomatic grouping will certainly lead to a misunderstanding of the Quad nations’ resolve and possible Chinese adventurism.

    Way forward

    • The Quad needs to be represented by the owners of the maritime assets used to obtain domain awareness and a staff with command communications and a depth of intellectual planning.
    • The great maritime strength of the Quad is its force of Maritime Patrol Aircraft.
    • Japan and the US are particularly rich in those resources.
    • India’s force of P-81s is substantial and with the help of Australia, a maritime domain awareness can be built up that denies the PLA navy the chance to hide in the vastness of the ocean.
    • The Indo-US communication agreement was presumably established to keep the four-nation search group on a common grid.
    • Quad meetings should be headed by naval officers, with diplomatic support.

    Conclusion

    West failed to read Putin’s ambitions and downgraded NATO. The same mistakes should not be repeated in Indo-Pacific by the Quad.

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  • India and Japan: A special partnership

    Context

    Seventy years after diplomatic relations were established, here in India today, a metro system built with the support of Japanese official development assistance (ODA) is in operation, cars built by Japanese companies run on the streets, and a high-speed rail will make its debut in the future.

    The realisation of new form of capitalism

    • Japan has been concentrating on measures to overcome Covid-19, and working towards the realisation of a “new form of capitalism” that will revive the economy through a virtuous cycle of growth and distribution.
    • As part of such measures, it is focusing on finding solutions to various social challenges, including digital, climate change and economic security in the growth strategy. 
    • For Japan, India is certainly the best partner to have when seeking to realise a “new form of capitalism,” as showcased in India’s contribution in response to the global health crisis as a major manufacturing base, leadership in decarbonisation efforts, including through the International Solar Alliance, engagement in advanced digital society initiatives such as Aadhaar, and the promotion of economic security initiatives, including measures for supply chain resilience.

    Challenges to the global order

    •  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a clear violation of international law as well as an attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force.
    •  Upholding the core principles of the international order is indispensable from the perspective of diplomacy and security in the Indo-Pacific, where the situation has been rapidly worsening.
    •  In the recent Japan-Australia-India-US (Quad) Leaders’ Video Conference, leaders concurred that any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force, such as this time, must not be tolerated in the Indo-Pacific region.
    • There is a challenge of protecting the rules-based international order, building resilient supply chains and reinvigorating the economy.
    • We need strategies to respond to new international challenges like cybersecurity and climate change.
    • Both Japan and India are committed to taking bold measures to tackle such challenges.

    Way forward for India-Japan relations

    • People to people contact: Although the Covid-19 situation remains challenging, people-to-people exchanges between two countries are also being advanced.
    • Cooperation in security: Cooperation has also taken great strides in the area of security, including joint exercises between the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the Indian Armed Forces.
    • Quad: Cooperation is also rapidly developing between Japan, Australia, India and the United States, four countries that share fundamental values, and the next leaders’ summit is under coordination.
    • Cultural bond: As the name “Special Strategic and Global Partnership” suggests, Japan-India relations have evolved into an inclusive and multi-layered relationship based on cultural bonds, firm friendship, and common universal values.

    Conclusion

    As Japan’s prime minister comes on visit to India, his visit to India will open a new chapter in bilateral relations that will deepen the “Japan-India Special Strategic, and Global Partnership” even further.

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  • In news: Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)

     

    In a highly notorious move, the OIC has invited Kashmiri separatist leaders in the Foreign Ministers’ meet in Islamabad.

    What is OIC?

    • The OIC — formerly Organisation of the Islamic Conference — is the world’s second-largest inter-governmental organization after the UN, with a membership of 57 states.
    • The OIC’s stated objective is “to safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony among various people of the world”.
    • OIC has reserved membership for Muslim-majority countries. Russia, Thailand, and a couple of other small countries have Observer status.

    Do you know?

    Guyana and Suriname (from South America) are members of OIC.

    India and OIC: A Backgrounder

    • At the 45th session of the Foreign Ministers’ Summit in 2018, Bangladesh suggested that India, where more than 10% of the world’s Muslims live, should be given Observer status.
    • In 1969, India was dis-invited from the Conference of Islamic Countries in Rabat, Morocco at Pakistan’s behest.
    • Then Agriculture Minister Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was dis-invited upon arrival in Morocco after Pakistan President Yahya Khan lobbied against Indian participation.

    Recent developments

    • In 2019, India made its maiden appearance at the OIC Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Abu Dhabi, as a “guest of honor”.
    • This first-time invitation was seen as a diplomatic victory for New Delhi, especially at a time of heightened tensions with Pakistan following the Pulwama attack.
    • Pakistan had opposed the invitation to Swaraj and it boycotted the plenary after the UAE turned down its demand to rescind the invitation.

    What is the OIC’s stand on Kashmir?

    • It has been generally supportive of Pakistan’s stand on Kashmir and has issued statements criticizing India.
    • Last year, after India revoked Article 370 in Kashmir, Pakistan lobbied with the OIC for their condemnation of the move.
    • To Pakistan’s surprise, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — both top leaders among the Muslim countries — issued nuanced statements, and were not as harshly critical of New Delhi as Islamabad had hoped.
    • Since then, Islamabad has tried to rouse sentiments among the Islamic countries, but only a handful of them — Turkey and Malaysia — publicly criticized India.

    A group of hippocrats

    • The OIC has been making factually incorrect and unwarranted references to Jammu and Kashmir.
    • The so-called religious group is covertly silent over the persecution of Rohingyas, Uighurs, Kurds etc.

    How has India been responding?

    • India has consistently underlined that J&K is an integral part of India and is a matter strictly internal to India.
    • The strength with which India has made this assertion has varied slightly at times, but never the core message.
    • It has maintained its “consistent and well known” stand that the OIC had no locus standi.
    • This time, India went a step ahead and said the grouping continues to allow itself to be used by a certain country “which has a record on religious tolerance, radicalism, and persecution of minorities”.

    OIC members and India

    • Individually, India has good relations with almost all member nations. Ties with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, especially, have looked up significantly in recent years.
    • The OIC includes two of India’s close neighbors, Bangladesh and Maldives.
    • Indian diplomats say both countries privately admit they do not want to complicate their bilateral ties with India on Kashmir but play along with OIC.

    Way ahead

    • India sees the duality of the OIC as untenable, since many of these countries have good bilateral ties and convey to India to ignore OIC statements.
    • But these countries sign off on the joint statements which are largely drafted by Pakistan.
    • India feels it important to challenge the double-speak since Pakistan’s campaign and currency on the Kashmir issue has hardly any takers in the international community.

     

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  • Western sanctions on Russia are like none the world has seen

    Context

    Economic measures to cut Russia off from the world’s financial arteries are the most powerful implements a West unwilling to meet a nuclear adversary on the battlefield has dared wield in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

    Use of sanctions

    • The use of sanction has boomed over the past few decades.
    • Since 2000 the number of individuals and entities on America’s sanctions list has risen more than tenfold to 10,000.
    • Ever more governments, keen to punish military aggression or human-rights abuses but reluctant to go to war over them, have embraced the tactic.

    Sanctions against Russia

    •  After debating whether to make it much harder for Russian banks to process international payments by shutting them out of SWIFT—some European countries feared it would hurt their own banks, too—Western allies agreed to try targeting seven of them, though it has steered clear of Sberbank, Russia’s largest by assets, which plays a big role in processing energy payments. 
    • The most potent financial sanctions, though, have been aimed not at Russia’s commercial banks but at its central bank.
    • In the eight years since annexing Crimea made Russia the target of a first wave of sanctions, Russia has built up reserves (they now total $630bn) and shifted their composition away from dollars to help insulate the economy from further punishment.
    • But reserves become moot, whatever the currency in which they are held, if they cannot be used.
    • America, acting with Europe, has banned a range of parties from transactions with Russia’s central bank.
    • The West has also frozen most of the bank’s assets outside Russia.

    How it will affect Russian economy

    • Within hours of the sanctions taking effect, Russia’s central bank raised its main interest rate from 9.5% to 20% in an attempt to shore up the currency.
    •  Export controls will limit the components Russia can buy for its military and high-tech sectors, denying it goodies ranging from cutting-edge machinery to microchips.
    • The measures apply not just to goods made in America, but to those containing American technology that are made in and shipped from third countries, such as China.
    • For now, consumer goods dear to ordinary Russians like smartphones and home appliances are exempted from such measures.
    • But Apple is no longer selling iPhones or other kit in Russia. It is one of a fast-growing number of Western companies getting out.

    Effectiveness of sanctions

    • Measuring sanctions’ success is hard, not least because of the difficulty of disentangling their effects from other economic, and on occasion military, forces, but there have been few outright successes.
    • A recent success was the squeeze on Libya by America and allies in the 1990s and early 2000s.
    • A mix of sanctions and financial inducements persuaded Muammar Qaddafi to end his wmd programme and stop funding terrorism.
    • The apparent failures of sanctions are many.
    • Sometimes this is because they are fundamentally symbolic, or weakened by interest groups in the countries imposing them.
    • Though the point of sanctions is to exploit asymmetries, doing much more harm to the adversary than to yourself, there are always burdens to be borne by some.
    • There is also a loss to the economy as a whole.
    • The cost of compliance with sanctions for banks and companies has rocketed over the past decade.
    • Financial institutions alone spent over $50bn worldwide in 2020 on screening clients for sanctions risks, according to LexisNexis, a data firm.
    • One thing which weakens sanctions is leakiness. Despite America’s maximum-pressure measures, Iran manages to export an estimated 1m barrels of oil per day as middlemen find ways to disguise the origin of shipments.

    Risks associated with sanctions

    • Collateral damage: The more powerful sanctions are, the greater the risk of collateral damage, particularly when targeted regimes are indifferent to the suffering of citizens.
    • Work in favour of regime: Increasing the harm done can work at least in part in the government’s favour.
    • In Venezuela, a significant number of those opposed to President Nicolás Maduro and his henchmen also oppose the American sanctions putatively aimed at dislodging them.
    • Increase the closeness between countries: Sanctions can also push countries they target into each other’s arms.
    • Russia and China—hit with American sanctions over its mistreatment of Uyghurs as well as its suspected tech-spying—are enjoying their friendliest relations for decades.
    • Alternative infrastructure: It encourages those who fear them to develop alternative financial and technological infrastructures.
    • China is pushing hard in that direction.
    • As well as trying to boost its chip-making, it is creating its own version of swift, called cips, which simplifies cross-border payments in yuan, and developing a digital currency.
    • It has a long way to go.
    • Though usage of the yuan as a currency for international payments is at an all-time high, at just over 3% of the total it still pales beside the dollar, at 40%.
    • As the world economy reels from financial crises, nationalism, trade wars and a global pandemic, sanctions are aggravating existing tensions within globalisation.

    Conclusion

    When used in earnest, sanctions can inflict heavy economic costs on both sides on top of the deprivation inflicted in targeted countries. Even then, they do not always work.

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  • A missile misfiring and its trail of poor strategic stability

    Context

    The accidental firing of an Indian missile into Pakistan highlights the sorry state of bilateral mechanisms for crisis management between the two nuclear adversaries where there is a missile flight time of barely a few minutes.

    Balance response from both side

    • The Pakistani response to the accidental firing of the missile was a balanced one.
    • While New Delhi maintained a silence over the issue until it was brought up on March 11, the Indian response was also far from denial.
    • In that sense then, the Indian and Pakistani responses to the missile (mis)firing were the best possible outcome under the circumstances given that there is little bilateral mechanism for crisis management.
    • The two sides do not have high commissioners on the other side, there is no structured bilateral dialogue, and, most importantly, the two sides have not held ‘Expert Level Talks on Nuclear Confidence Building Measures’ or ‘Expert Level Talks on Conventional Confidence Building Measures’ for several years now.

    Lack of strategic stability regime

    Following are the reasons why the strategic stability regime in South Asia is hardly prepared for dealing with accidents such as the one that just happened, or enhancing effective crisis management and deterrence stability.

    1] Pre-notification agreement does not include cruise missiles

    • For one, although India and Pakistan signed a ‘Pre-Notification of Flight Testing of Ballistic Missiles’ agreement in October 2005, it does not include cruise missiles.
    • Notably, the missile that was misfired by the Indian side earlier this month, suspected to be the BrahMos, was a cruise missile (even though it was a misfire, and not a flight test).
    • Way forward: Given the many sophisticated cruise missiles that are now a part of each side’s arsenal, it is important to include them in the pre-notification regime.

    2] No structured meetings on nuclear confidence-building measures (CBMs)

    • The two sides have not held their structured meetings on nuclear confidence building measures (CBMs) and conventional CBMs for several years now.
    • Given the nature of the India-Pakistan relationship — adversarial, nuclear-armed, crisis prone, and suffering from trust deficit — there is an urgent need, especially in the wake of the recent incident, to revive these two dialogue mechanisms.

    3] China has so far refused to engage in strategic stability discussions with India

    • The third state with nuclear weapons in the region, China, has so far refused to engage in strategic stability discussions with India even though China today is involved in the India-Pakistan conflict more than ever before, apart from being in a military standoff with India.

    Way forward: Mechanisms for communicating sensitive information during crisis periods

    • India and Pakistan should consider setting up mechanisms such as nuclear risk reduction centres (NRRCs), established between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
    • The primary objective of NRRCs, or similar structures that can be set up on either side, is risk reduction by providing a structured mechanism for timely communication of messages and proper implementation of already agreed-upon confidence-building measures.
    • Such a body could routinely exchange messages, provide timely clarifications, and review compliance to agreements, among others.

    Consider the question “The incident of the accidental firing of a missile by India highlights the issues with the strategic stability regime in South Asia. Discuss the issues and suggest the measures needed? 

    Conclusion

    New Delhi should provide assurances to Pakistan that efforts will be made to avoid such mistakes in the future. And both sides should use risk reduction mechanisms.

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  • Fragmenting world order, untied nations

    Context

    The outcome that should worry us apart from the devastating consequences for the Ukrainian nation, is the impact the Ukraine crisis is having on the global world order, which is fragmenting in every respect of global interconnectedness — in terms of international cooperation, security, military use, economic order, and even cultural ties.

    Implications of war for global order

    1] Question mark on the relevance of the UN and Security Council

    • Russia’s actions in Ukraine may, in terms of refusing to seek an international mandate, seem no different from the war by the United States in Iraq in 2003, Israel’s bombing of Lebanon in 2006 and the Saudi-coalition’s attacks of Yemen in 2015.
    • But Ukraine is in fact a bigger blow to the post-World War order than any other.
    • It run counter to the UN Charter preamble, i.e. “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…”, “to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours”, as well as Articles 1 and 2 of the ‘Purposes and Principles’ of the United Nations (Chapter 1).
    • Meanwhile, in their responses, other P-5 members such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France did not seek to strengthen the global order either, imposing sanctions unilaterally rather than attempting to bring them to the UN.

    2] Declining nuclear safeguards

    • Russian military’s moves to target areas near Chernobyl and shell buildings near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant show an alarming nonchalance towards safeguards in place over several decades.
    • The world must also consider the cost to the nuclear non-proliferation regime’s credibility: Ukraine and Libya that willingly gave up nuclear programmes have been invaded, while regimes such as Iran and North Korea can defy the global order because they have held on to their nuclear deterrents.

    3] Use of non-state actors

    • There are also the covenants agreed upon during the global war on terrorism, which have been degraded, with the use of non-state actors in the Ukraine crisis.
    • For years, pro-Russia armed militia operated in the Donbas regions, challenging the writ of the government in Kyiv.
    • With the arrival of Russian troops, the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has invited all foreign fighters to support his forces to the country.

    4] Fragmentation of global financial order

    • While analysts have pointed out that the sanctions announced so far do not include some of Russia’s biggest banks in order to avoid the disruption of oil and gas from Russia, the intent to cut Russia out of all monetary and financial systems remains.
    • The arbitrary and unilateral nature of western sanctions rub against the international financial order set up under the World Trade Organization (that replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT).
    • The obvious fallout of this “economic cancel culture” will, without doubt, be a reaction — a pushback from Russia and an exploration of alternative trading arrangements with countries such as China, India and much of the Eastern Hemisphere which continue to trade with Moscow.
    • For the S-400 missile defence deal, for example, New Delhi used a rupee-rouble mechanism and banks that were immunised from the U.S.’s CAATSA sanctions (or Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) for advance payments.

    5] Isolation of Russia

    • While several governments including the U.S., the U.K. and Germany have persistently said that their quarrel is not with Russian citizens but with their leadership, it is clear that most of their actions will hurt the average Russian citizen.
    • Some of this isolation of its citizens will work to the favour of an increasingly authoritarian Kremlin.
    • Mr. Putin’s response to the banning of Russian channels in Europe and its allies has been to use the western media ban as a pretext to ban opposition-friendly Russian channels as well.

    Takeaways for India

    • India’s abstentionist responses and its desire not to be critical of any of the actions taken by the big powers might keep Indians safe in the short term.
    • But in the long term, it is only those nations that move proactively to uphold, strengthen and reinvent the global order that will make the world a safer place.

    Conclusion

    The events over the past two weeks, set in motion by Russia’s declaration of war on Ukraine, have no doubt reversed many of the ideas of 1945 and 1990, fragmenting the international order established with the UN, ushering in an era of deglobalisation and bringing down another Iron Curtain.

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  • Ukraine invasion and the great geopolitical reset

    Context

    Major wars have significant consequences for the internal and international politics of the combatant nations. Wars between great powers are far more consequential.

    Geopolitical changes triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

    1] New dynamism in great power triangle

    •  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.
    • 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.

    2] Reinforced US primacy amongst the great powers

    • The US primacy amongst the great powers has been reinforced by the restoration of strategic unity within 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.

    3] Disciplining of Europe

    • 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.

    4] EU’s dilemma in energy domain

    • 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.
    • 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.

    5] Asia is adapting to the change

    • Sensing the dangers from a Sino-Russian axis and fearing that Europe could distract America, Japan is rethinking its nuclear abstinence.
    • South Korea’s president-elect, Yoon Suk-Yeol wants to strengthen ties with the US, and explore potential cooperation with the Quad.
    •  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.

    Lessons for India

    • 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.
    •  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.

    Conclusion

    Unless there is an early diplomatic breakthrough, the conflict between Russia and the West is likely to sharpen in the coming days. But this hinge moment in world politics is also an opportunity for Delhi to increase its heft in the changing global balance.

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  • Analysing India’s stand on the war on Ukraine

    Context

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has placed considerable moral responsibility on India. However, at the United Nations (UN), India has refused to condemn the violation of the rights of the Ukrainians.

    Issues involved in India’s vote

    1] Commitment to principles

    • National interest: One of the arguments justifying India’s stance is that in international affairs, a country must be guided by its national interest and not some abstract principles.
    • It is pointed out that due to the very high dependence of India on the Soviet Union for defence equipment and the likely need of support on the Pakistan issue in the Security Council, India must not offend Russia by condemning the invasion.
    • Why India should condemn Russia: If a people’s principles are their most deeply held beliefs about how the world must be ordered, then their interest lies in ensuring that their principles prevail in international relations.
    • Thus, if India does not want to see itself to be the victim of territorial aggression in the future, it must communicate strongly on the world stage that it condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    2] India-West relations

    • In the 1950s the West was clearly unsympathetic to India, playing its card openly on the Kashmir issue at the UN as early as 1947.
    • On the other hand, the Soviet Union, the precursor to the present-day Russian state, had rescued India several times by exercising its veto in the UN Security Council.
    • Now, close to 75 years later, the situation has changed.
    • Public opinion in the West does not favour unconditional support of Pakistan vis-à-vis India while Russia encourages Pakistan.
    • Moreover, we know by now that some limited support at the UN matters little, as taking the Kashmir issue to the UN Security Council has not got Pakistan to withdraw from the territory it occupied.

    3] India’s dependence on Russia for defence supplies

    •  It is indeed correct that India relies on the Russians for such equipment and their spare parts.
    • At the same time there is a global market for arms. It is not evident that anything withheld by the Russians cannot be sourced from that market.
    •  For India to base its public stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the assured supply of armaments is to really drag ourselves down to the bottom of the pit in terms of ethics.

    4] East-West conflict argument

    • Another argument is that this is a conflict between the east and the west, and India should stay out of it.
    • To say that this is just another east-west conflict from which India should stay out is tantamount to seeing the Russian invasion and the brave defence of their country by the Ukrainians as a mere marital squabble.
    • India had refused in 1956 to condemn the Soviet invasion of Hungary, its action today is much worse.

    Conclusion

    India must take a long view of how it wants to engage with it. Its actions so far leave it in the company of Russia and China.

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  • Geneva Conventions and the Russia-Ukraine War

    As the evidence of casualties in the civilian population continues to mount, the world will increasingly look to the Geneva Conventions in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

    Geneva Conventions Guidelines for Wartime

    • These are a set of four treaties, formalized in 1949, and three additional protocols, which codify widely accepted ethical and legal international standards for humanitarian treatment of those impacted by war.
    • The focus of the Conventions is the:
    1. Treatment of non-combatants and prisoners of war, and
    2. Not the use of conventional or biological and chemical weapons

    What are the four Geneva Conventions?

    (1) First Geneva Convention: Health and Medical Issues

    • It protects wounded and sick soldiers on land during war.
    • This convention extends to medical and religious personnel, medical units, and medical transport.
    • It has two annexes containing a draft agreement relating to hospital zones and a model identity card for medical and religious personnel.

    (2) Second Geneva Convention:  Offshore Protection

    • It protects wounded, sick and shipwrecked military personnel at sea during war.
    • This convention also extends to hospital ships and medical transports by sea, with specific commentary on the treatment and protections for their personnel.

    (3) Third Geneva Convention: Treatment of Prisoners of War (PoW)

    It applies to prisoners of war, including a wide range of general protections such as humane treatment, maintenance and equality across prisoners, conditions of captivity, questioning and evacuation of prisoners, transit camps, food, clothing, medicines, hygiene and right to religious, intellectual, and physical activities of prisoners.

    (4) Fourth Geneva Convention: Civilian protection of occupied territory ***

    • It particularly applies to the invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces.
    • It protects civilians, including those in occupied territory.
    • Comprising 159 articles, it outlines the norms for this critical dimension of conflict.

    Extent of the Fourth Geneva Convention amid the Ukraine-Russia War

    • Along with the Additional Protocols of 1977, the Fourth Convention expounds upon the:
    1. General protection of populations against certain consequences of war
    2. Conduct of hostilities and the status and
    3. Treatment of protected persons
    4. Distinguishing between the situation of foreigners on the territory of one of the parties to the conflict and that of civilians in occupied territory
    • This convention also spells out the obligations of the occupying power vis-à-vis the civilian population and outlines detailed provisions on humanitarian relief for populations in occupied territory.

    Which countries are signatories?

    • The Geneva Conventions have been ratified by 196 states, including all UN member states.
    • The three Protocols have been ratified by 174, 169 and 79 states respectively.

    Russia and these conventions

    • In 2019, perhaps anticipating the possibility of its invading Ukraine in the near future, Russia withdrew its declaration under Article 90 of Protocol 1.
    • By withdrawing this declaration, Russia has pre-emptively left itself with the option to refuse access by any international fact-finding missions to Russian entities.
    • Not withdrawing could have find Russia responsible for violations of the Geneva Conventions standards.
    • Further, the four conventions and first two protocols of the Geneva Conventions were ratified by the Soviet Union, not Russia.
    • Hence there is a risk of the Russian government of the day disavowing any responsibility under the Conventions.

    What would be the steps for potential prosecution under the Conventions?

    • Under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the ICC, it is the ICC that has jurisdiction in respect of war crimes, in particular “when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes.”

    To what extent have Geneva Conventions been upheld worldwide in recent years?

    • Amnesty International notes that there has been a blatant disregard for civilian protection and international humanitarian law in armed conflicts where four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are parties.
    • Specifically, Amnesty cited:
    1. US-led coalition’s bombing of Raqqa in Syria, which left more than 1,600 civilians dead
    2. Destruction of civilian infrastructure and lives in Aleppo and Idlib by Russian forces
    3. Leading to mass displacement of millions
    4. War in Yemen where the Saudi Arabia and the UAE-led coalition, backed by the West, killed and injured thousands of civilians, fuelling a full-blown humanitarian crisis

     

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