As Ambassadors, we were required to send a end-of-year cable just to recount what happened during the year and to see if any geopolitical inferences can be drawn. Not an easy task in this age of instant communication, soundbite-based analysis and super-quick assessments. Nevertheless, old diplomatic habits die hard, so here goes.
War in Ukraine has certainly upended both geopolitics and geoeconomics. Just when all of us believed big land wars are a thing of the past in Europe (even if it happened in Yemen and Syria), Ukraine has proved us all wrong. Use of tanks, thousands of soldiers dying, missiles and anti-missile systems colliding and the threat of nuclear weapons. It all seemed like a James Bond movie, except this was all terribly real and very tragic in consequences. Europe was of course the worst affected; but the war had its worst impact on the poorest of the poor countries in terms of food security and poverty. And even emerging countries like India were not spared.
China started the year with a bang but ended it with a whimper. Xi Jinping may have been crowned as the modern-day Emperor of China but politics, even in China, moves in mysterious ways. The anti-COVID protests dented Xi Jinping’s authority for sure. China doubled down on its “no-limits partnership” with Russia, but will this split the world into two blocs? China is holding out an olive branch to the US. But this may be a tactical move more about gaining time, rather than signalling a genuine change of heart. China was guided by nationalism and parochialism.
EU has been stirred and shaken by the war in Ukraine. It will have to cope with issues of energy security, internal differences and a Franco-German alliance which shows signs of weakening. Either way, EU has a challenge on its hands.
Russia could not have had a worse year in retrospect. It has had less than expected military success, lost considerable military hardware (not to mention loss of life) and its economy seems to be in a tailspin. Ukraine has serious problems of its own; but it seems buoyed by Western economic and security assistance and even its worst critics will concede that the people of Ukraine have shown enormous spunk.
All things considered, India managed things pretty well in 2022. It has maintained channels of communication with all parties, avoided a breakdown in relations with any power and most important, has not sacrificed its vital national interests. It did face a major security challenge from China at its borders, but it is fair to say India put up solid resistance. Not enough can be said to praise the commendable effort of India to vaccinate almost its entire population. You only have to see what is happening in China now, to admire what has been accomplished here.
As the year drew to a close, India took over the G 20 presidency from Indonesia and has thus a huge opportunity to prove its diplomatic mettle.
2022 was an annus horribilis in international relations, no question about that. It cannot possibly get worse, can it?
Diplomacy and Geopolitics 