Peace In Ukraine Reduces Geopolitical Conflicts

The resetting of ties between the USA and Russia has reshaped the magnitude of a new geopolitics. It promises to cut differences between them and reduce the risk of nuclear war. In a nuclear world, super and major powers have mixed, not opposed interests. The life of mixed interests over the nationalistic ones spurs interdependence for mutual survival. Still, the weight of the past greatness, however, governs the psychology of the leadership of the USA, China and Russia. Each has to learn to share power, evolve co-leadership and assume global responsibilities. At a time when the UN is unable to protect the security of small states, resolve conflicts and address humanitarian issues, the onus of global governance, security and peace rests on them.  

The USA has raised the credibility of the UN and has posed over three dozen questions to it as to whether it is financing anti-American and anti-democratic forces. The American attack on deep state agencies who determine policies against people’s and national interests is, however, a legitimate one.  But in a multipolar world order, the unilateralism of the US contradicts its own dream of global greatness. Defection from global responsibility infects its credibility to promote global peace.  As the USA has begun arming Ukraine in exchange for the rare earth minerals after a brief respite, it fits well with the European plan to increase its defense expenditure, rearm itself and mobiliee funds for Ukraine’s defensive capabilities to dispel the Russian fear of attack. 

War of attrition 

The war of attrition in Ukraine is one global fault line out of the litany of many others where contesting legitimacy allows the use of force as a tool of world politics.  Russian acceptance of the US-brokered proposal for a ceasefire in the Ukraine is conditional. Russian President Vladimir Putin says that the ceasefire must be aimed at a long-lasting peace and address the root causes of the crisis, implying the expansion of NATO. He suggested that Ukraine should halt the mobilisation and training of its troops while other nations stop supplying weapons to it during the ceasefire. He asked how the ceasefire would be verified in Russia’s western Kursk region occupied by Ukraine. Does a ceasefire mean that everyone who is there will leave without a fight? Should we release them from there even if they have committed crimes against civilians? 

Ukraine had accepted the ceasefire proposal after holding talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia. Trump called Putin’s response “promising” but not complete.  The US has been discussing with Ukraine what land would be kept and lost in any final peace deal and with Russia about the management of the nuclear plant. The “coalition of the willing,” led by Franco-British leadership, is persuading President Trump to keep support for Ukraine, supply it with economic and military aid, exert pressure on Russia for peace negotiations and monitor the ceasefire for enduring peace. The Panama Canal is another fault line. It links the Pacific with the Atlantic Oceans and controls the bulk of the world trade flowing from Asia to America and Latin America.

 The USA wants to regain control of the Panama Canal where China has managed its port. With the rise of China’s global trade, it is improving the world's sea ports. The US perceives the Chinese investment in Panama port a security threat and forced it to withdraw from BRI. America’s imposition of 20 per cent tariffs on Chinese goods has provoked countermeasures. The US-China competition hovers not only in trade but also on security, technology, economic and geopolitical frontiers — land, sea and astropolitics.  Russia-China strategic partnership aims to avert American domination. Beijing’s growing economic and strategic heft, technological innovation and acceptability can weaken American clout in the world including Asia, Africa and Latin America. 

US Defence Secretary of State Peter Hegseth says, “China is a peer competitor with the capability and intent to threaten our core national interests in the Indo-Pacific and the Department prioritises deterring China.” But any attempt to isolate China from world politics does not make any strategic sense.  Another fault line is Greenland. President Trump has requested NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to help him capture Greenland, a strategic zone between the Arctic and Atlantic and rich in vital minerals, in the interest of international security while questioning the claim of another NATO member Denmark’s sovereignty over it and Greenland’s aspiration for independence. 

The US military has been stationed in Greenland since World War II as per accord with Denmark. Now it fears the presence of Russian and Chinese influence in this area. Both Greenland and Denmark oppose the US move while France has shown eagerness to support Denmark. Local power dynamics have a linkage to the rise of geopolitical conflict. Still, another fault line is West Asia. The hostile engagement of the USA and Houthi rebels of Yemen is engulfing Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. The US accuses rebels of choking the movement of ships in the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.  The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor linking Gwadar Port near the Arabian Sea is troubled by Baloch rebels struggling for separatism and Arakan rebels in China-Myanmar Economic Corridor with access to the Bay of Bengal. China’s ports, gas and oil supplies and infrastructural projects in Myanmar help it to endure the Western economic sanctions. 

China feels that rebels’ violence in both places is aimed at blocking its commerce and energy supply through seaports. Former Bangladesh President Sheikh Hasina Wazed blamed the US for her removal from power for denying it to use St. Martin’s island in the Bay of Bengal as a military base to contain China. India holds the key to the flow of China’s huge oil imports from the Straits of Malacca, connecting the Andaman Sea and the South China Sea. In case India drifts to the USA, its Andaman and Nicobar Islands may pose a barrier to China's sea trade.

India favours cooperation with Russia, the USA and China for its strategic autonomy but is caught in the arc of instability surrounding it including Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The USA is shifting its policy from Europe and the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific region. China is filling the vacuum of power by rising ties with the Islamic world, pouring investment and easing the flow of oil for its industrial growth. Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the major pillars of strategic cooperation in critical areas and building connectivity to the Middle East and Europe. The Sino-Saudi Comprehensive Partnership is founded on the economic edifice and the latter’s policy to diversify defence supplies from America to China, Russia and Turkey.

 China and Russia have urged the US to end sanctions against Iran and start nuclear talks respecting its sovereignty. Fed up with the US pressure, Iran reacted, “We are capable of countermeasures.” The USA’s animus toward the BRICS nations has roots in the projection of an alternative world order. It has threatened to impose 150 per cent tariffs for its de-dollarisation agenda and building common currency and financial systems. The rising geopolitical rivalry between the two is deemed zero-sum. The US-China ties are tension-prone arising out of tariff hikes and containment. China’s economy is growing faster, and so is its military and technological strength. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, sensing fear from China’s unusual rise, has stated to curtail its influence in the Western hemisphere. 

But both the USA and China have vested interests in resolving faultline conflicts spiralling out of control. The Brazilian government, like Australia and India, would not retaliate against American 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium but favour free trade as per WTO rules. China has adopted countermeasures while India is thinking of substituting Chinese with American imports. South Africa, after assuming the presidency of G20 hopes to use its leadership to help the poor nations through debt relief and financing the impact of climate change. It is enhancing ties with the EU in promoting the economy, trade and investments. Holding a critical attitude towards South Africa, the US has ceased its funding and accused it of human rights abuse of white minorities and supporting Hamas and Iran.

Common ground among the USA, China and Russia exists in areas of pandemics, sharing of artificial intelligence, nuclear non-proliferation, governing outer space and management of global commons. All the nations, big and small, benefit from the stable world order. China’s rise cannot be taken as the decline of the West or the USA-Russia setting a game of free-riding on an ad hoc global order. Responsible leadership can shift confrontational politics into areas of mutual conversation about peace and engage in crisis management. The resolution of Ukraine’s war requires all stakeholders to become a part of the negotiation. The war of attrition, misperception and conflicting goals has marred the progress in peace. 

Global consensus 

The other area is easing dialogue and communication. It can reduce misperceptions of each other and miscalculations of each other’s intentions and actions. A global consensus is necessary to reduce poverty, reform global institutions such as the UN, the World Bank and IMF, and increase financial pledges to realise livelihood needs. In the winds of global geopolitical change, small nations like Nepal have to adapt to it by keeping abreast with the new developments.  The proactive stance of small states can serve as bridges across various geopolitical divides, prepare grounds for reconciliation between rival powers and live in peace with the neighbours and great powers. 

The strategic geography of Nepal matters for its neighbours India and China to keep their security, development and peace. The dissimilar political systems and their rival aspirations for global power status entail Nepal to keep its freedom of manoeuvre, secure its independent identity and utilise their and other international cooperation to increase national viability, stability and progress. Viability is critical to realising the livelihood needs of its people and immunising the nation from the penetration of predators. 

For Nepal social cohesion and political stability are equally vital to building an interface between its economy, people and the state and mobilising centripetal forces of society so that it can pursue better public diplomacy. And sustainable progress enables the nation to exercise national self-determination in foreign affairs unconditioned by competitive geopolitical trends that weaken its pursuit of a balance. 

(Former Reader at the Department of Political Science, TU, Dahal writes on political and social issues.)