Whichever way you look at it, foreign policy wonks will be forced to consider the month of November 2024 as a crucial time. First and foremost, there is the all-important American presidential election on November 5. The US may be in relative decline, but even a geopolitical greenhorn will concede that the election outcome will have implications far beyond American shores. Soon thereafter, the COP 29 meeting on Climate Change will take place from November 11 to 22 in Azerbaijan. And then to top it all, the G 20 Summit will happen in Rio on November 18/19. The APEC Summit is scheduled to take place in the first week of November and unless the organizers want it to be a non-event, they would be well advised to postpone it after the American elections.
In democracies, there is supposed to be continuity, especially in foreign policy, when elections happen and power is transferred peacefully from one government to another. The American elections scheduled to take place in November may bust both of the above assumptions. First, you may anticipate some kind of continuity if Kamala Harris makes it as President, but one would have to be naive to expect any continuity at all if Trump makes it. This applies particularly to issues like climate change and to the conflict in Ukraine. Countries have tried to “Trump-proof” their foreign policy, but really there is only so much you can do. This is already beginning to make an impact on the preparations for the COP and G20 Summits. The COP meeting in Azerbaijan hopes to be a “truce COP” (?) and is expected to call for a one month long truce to all military conflicts based on the calculus that military activities contribute to 5 to 6 per cent of all global CO2 emissions. The COP is already having a curious run with meetings now being held in fossil fuel capitals of the world. There was UAE and now there is Azerbaijan. Perhaps there is logic to this. No matter what the COP 29 seeks to do, or not do, everything kind of depends on the outcome in the American elections.
If COP organizers are looking wearily at the election dynamics in the US, the Brazilians who are organizing the G 20 summit in Rio may be petrified at the prospect of Trump coming back. Can you even attempt a consensus document on Ukraine with Trump at the helm of affairs? Two months ago, Trump winning the election was, to use an American expression, a “slam dunk” affair. The entry of Kamala Harris has changed everything; the race is so tight it is anybody’s guess from here. Like many others, I was wrong in thinking that it was too late for a democratic candidate to replace Biden and create momentum. Kamala Harris has changed the game.
A more worrying thing would be if Trump lost the election and the MAGA crowd does not accept the outcome, questioning the second assumption that in democracies, power changes peacefully. That would lead the US into uncharted territory. For the sake of the US, its well wishers, here is hoping that does not happen.
Like other countries, India will wait out the American election, even while dousing fires in its neighborhood. It is somewhat ironic that while Indian foreign policy is going great guns everywhere else, problems in its neighborhood show no sign of abating. We may not have been fundamentally responsible for the problems that arise, but we have no choice but to shield ourselves from the negative repercussions.
At the risk of stating the obvious, a lot is riding on the American election on November 5. At the risk of hyperbole, geopolitics may change significantly after the results are known in the American elections.
Diplomacy and Geopolitics 