Fear has been the dominating underlying feature of global geopolitics ever since the growing struggle for power between the US and China started drifting increasingly from competition to confrontation. Some political scientists have explained the structural design of the clash of interests between a rising China and a relatively declining US as the ‘Thucydides’s Trap’. The analogy is drawn from the Greek historian Thucydides’ book The History of the Peloponnesian War, wherein Sparta, the dominant power, and Athens, the rising challenger, went to war. He concluded that “what made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta”.
The resemblance of the US to Sparta and China to Athens is evident. But the analogy of the situation leading to a war in contemporary times has to surmount the fact that both sides along with some of their allies are nuclear weapon powers. The question that arises is, what sort of wars could be fought under the nuclear shadow? For sure, both sides are fully aware that even starting a nuclear exchange at the lowest level has the potential to pose, through escalation, even an existential threat to humanity. So despite the US, Russia and China expanding their conventional and nuclear arsenals and the wielding of nuclear threats by Russia, political rationale should hopefully prevail and nuclear weapons should very likely be not brought into play.
The strategic landscape of geopolitical confrontation in the contemporary world is also fundamentally different because the economic systems of the US and its allies and China, along with its strategic partners like Russia, are enmeshed to a considerable extent. Though efforts are ongoing to delink some strands of the economic systems, which are reflected in trade wars and denial of technology, the deep interconnectedness makes the disentangling process extremely time-consuming and would result in hurting one’s own self interests in several domains. But this gives hope that the major powers might avoid directly resorting to military force.
It is a structural guardrail that political rationale on both sides would hopefully recognise and respect. It could be breached if one or both sides decide that the stakes are worth the risks and geopolitical rationale may thus trump geo-economic logic.
Wars, however, have the propensity to adapt to forms demanded of them by the situation at hand. During the Cold War, the form taken was one of proxy wars that except for the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Suez Crisis prevented direct confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union. In contemporary times, direct clashes have thus far been avoided. The ongoing Ukraine War and the South China Sea/Taiwan tensions too carry such potential.
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A challenging task
The international guardrails instituted following World War II and the Cold War have frayed and the basic structure created by the United Nations can no longer be expected to prevent wars between the major powers or between a major power and the proxy of another. It is now left to the major powers directly or indirectly involved to chart the pathways to prevent war. This is a challenging task that demands cooperation, which ironically is low in supply, hard to realise and more importantly, extremely difficult to sustain.
In the geopolitical confrontation, which is unfolding as a power struggle, the basic stakes and their manifestations are about the control of geographic spaces. For China, it is pivoted in the maritime spaces of the Indo-Pacific and includes the South China Sea, East Asia, and the Indian Ocean where the USA has been and is still the predominant power. China has ongoing maritime boundary disputes with Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. These are in addition to China’s claims to Taiwan. All these nations are located off the Eastern seaboard of China and are astride the major maritime trade routes that connect the African continent, West Asia, and many South Asian nations with China and stretch up to the Western coasts of the Americas.
As part of the strategic threat perception, China must be justifiably apprehending that the US acting in collusion especially with powers like Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, and Australia could interrupt its trade routes that traverse the Indo-Pacific. A possibility China seeks to check by developing its own maritime power and seeking bases in several countries. It has been in the process of establishing bases for nearly two decades and has successfully done that in Djibouti, Pakistan, and Cambodia.
In addition, China has initiated moves for gaining access to ports through the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Fiji, and Solomon Islands. But China’s attempt at establishing bases pale in comparison to the already established bases of the US in Japan, South Korea, Guam, Hawaii, Australia, the Philippines, Diego Garcia, Bahrain, Oman, the UAE, and Qatar. In addition, the US has logistic and refuelling arrangements with India.
For Russia, the other major power, it is about its western periphery that borders its European flank where NATO has been the predominant power. The Ukraine War is the current manifestation of the power struggle for control of a geographic space that in Russia’s strategic calculations could pose a major threat if controlled by NATO. The US and its European allies are now involved in preventing Ukraine from falling under Russian control.
In the Gaza war, which will complete a year in October, Israel is leading the fight and receiving support from the US. Israel is in confrontation with Hamas that is supported by Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis of Yemen. The war has severely impacted shipping trade through the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden. Iran is also playing a role in the Ukraine War through the supply of drones to Russia. China has been playing an increasingly greater role in West Asia and had nearly brought the Arab states and Iran together until it was upended by Hamas’ assault on Israel.
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India as peacemaker
Apart from Ukraine, Gaza, and the Indo-Pacific, the US is also involved in dealing with tensions prevailing between China and Taiwan. Trade wars and technology denial are a form of coercion being practised wherein China is in direct confrontation with the US and its allies. Seemingly, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have established an axis of cooperation to confront the US and its allies.
India’s political relations with China have worsened since the 2020 aggression in Ladakh, though economic trade has grown. India’s posture with respect to the Ukraine War has brought it closer to Russia. Simultaneously, India has managed to strengthen its relations with the US and its allies, a feat that reflects India’s growing global clout. It is a consequence of India being thus far able to walk the tightrope between the nations of the global geopolitical divide. How long India’s tightrope walk will maintain its balance is the challenge for India’s diplomatic power and political manoeuvring.
As long as both sides of the global geopolitical divide covet, to varying degrees, India’s cooperation, New Delhi may not make any major change to the political posture it has practised. If the nightmares of the ‘Thucydides Trap’ ever come to pass and a major war threatens to break out between the major powers, could India possibly play the peacemaker’s role especially since it is not part of any military alliance? India’s ongoing confrontation with China could be a spoiler but given the realisation that major wars between nuclear powers would be a war that both sides do not want to fight, it need not be a show stopper.
With the Kursk incursion by Ukraine, the still awaited Iranian threat of retaliating to the killing of the Hamas leader in Tehran, and Israel and Hezbollah trading blows, perhaps it is time that India seriously considers donning the peacemaker’s garb. The Ukraine war could present such an opportunity.
It would be an uphill task indeed for India. But considering the stakes at large, it would certainly be worth attempting to make the initial moves to position itself by increasing bilateral interactions with the adversarial nations at war. This could be leveraged if and when war weariness opens the pathways to peace. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Poland and Ukraine, following the earlier visit to Russia, perhaps offers a glimpse to the role India could play.
Lt Gen (Dr) Prakash Menon (retd) is Director, Strategic Studies Programme, Takshashila Institution; former military adviser, National Security Council Secretariat. He tweets @prakashmenon51. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)