Geopolitical Entities – How many?

Neither am I a political scientist nor a geographer. Yet, I am intrigued by what I keep hearing about the current brouhaha (I don’t want to take sides, calling it what the west wants to call it or how Russians mention it – the situation in Ukraine).

The geopolitical entities that are in operation are Ukraine, Russia, the west, China and some sundry players like Australia.

Who have been left out? The nations that make up much of Central and South America, the Indian sub-continent, Africa, Polynesian islands, other nations of Asia, like Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore, Arab nations, and the shit-hole countries (as Donald Trump called them) of the Caribbean. Pardon me for not mentioning Antarctica as while it is indeed a geographically interesting part of the world, there is no exclusive national politics associated with it.

These nations, check that, the citizens and leaders of these nations (did you notice how grovelling Scott Morrison’s statement was; the External Affairs Minister of India, Mr. Jaishankar was at his slimiest best) do not count in any discussion on what is happening in the hot-spot of the moment. Indian foreign policy clan is tying itself up in knots trying to placate both sides.

So, to answer the question in the title of this post, I say, there are four geopolitical entities – Russia, the west, Ukraine, and China. The heft of this set is about 40-45% of world population.

Now, to the war perspective. What we now call World War was so named only after its successor World War II perhaps ended; till then it was called the Great War!

Then, if it did indeed happen that the skirmish in Ukraine developed into a full-scale war around the world, what would we call them?

The above begs the question that we would survive such a war. Putin seemed to have given the ultimatum that his enemies have not yet even imagined what he would do. If that is not a threat of a nuclear conflict, what is? We have to discard the MAD defence scenario – Mutually Assured Destruction – that is rendered ineffective within the scenario!

The question is, who would be affected first. Will there, indeed, be a first and the last to go extinct as implied by MAD? If, say, Saudi Arabia is one of the first to go (Iran is in the war is an assumption here), who will they take along with them? What if it is Pakistan? India? Sri Lanka? Israel? South Africa? Venezuela? Brazil? Definitely not Antarctica!

World War III is a copycat name, and it is most inappropriate. Why? There would be nobody to call anything. MAD’s assurance has been realized!

Looking at the past forty odd years, we can get a glimpse that while Russia is the proximate aggressor, the west, with its aggressive eastward expansion of NATO is the Ur aggressor. Why is the west, the supposed cradle of liberal thinking, is so illiberal when it comes to the current issue?

Blame neo-liberal economics currently in vogue in the west; yes, the same west, the self-defined geopolitical entity, that is in the news. Its power. Its demand for consumption in unsustainable forms and amounts.

Panting and ranting … You read it at your own risk!

Raghuram Ekambaram