The story so far: The world witnessed growing security crises involving great powers in 2023. The Ukraine war, which began on February 24, 2022 with Russia’s invasion of its neighbouring country, continued throughout 2023 with little changes on the frontline. Another major war broke out in West Asia after Hamas’s October 7 crossborder attack that killed at least 1,200 Israelis. As the year winds down, no end is seen to both wars. While Ukraine’s counteroffensive aimed at taking back the territories lost to Russia failed during the year, Israel’s attack on Gaza, which has levelled much of the tiny enclave of 2.3 million people, is still continuing.
How is the Israel conflict impacting the region?
With Israeli leaders claiming that the fighting would go on for months, risks of a wider regional war are rising. As conflicts persist with a large-scale destruction of global security and disruption of supply chains, the Global South, whose focus is on its own developmental challenges, is getting increasingly impatient with the current order and is pushing for alternatives. These trends are likely to continue in 2024.
What does the Ukraine war tell about the global order?
What made the Ukraine war, the largest ground war in Europe since the Second World War, one of the most consequential conflicts of the post-war world was its great power involvement. While the actual fighting is between Russian and Ukrainian soldiers within Ukrainian territories, the source of the conflict is the rivalry between NATO, a Cold War-era trans-Atlantic nuclear alliance, and Russia, an ageing great power.
After the war broke out, NATO members, under the leadership of the U.S., formed a coalition to financially and militarily support Ukraine. Weakening Russia has been one of the declared objectives of this coalition.
The West’s approach was two-fold: it sought to cripple the Russian economy with expansive sanctions and wound Russia in the battlefield by supplying weapons worth billions of dollars to Ukraine. Twenty-two months after the war began, it’s uncertain if the West is meeting any of these objectives. The sanctions have hit the Russian economy (while the reverse impact of the sanctions hit Western economies as well) but did little to stop Vladimir Putin’s war machine, which is telling of how the global economic landscape is changing after the rise of China and India. On the battlefield, Ukrainian soldiers, tens of thousands of them trained in Western bases, fought with some of the West’s most advanced weapons. Still, after the breakthroughs in Kharkiv and Kherson last year, Ukraine failed to make any substantial territorial gain in 2023. Six months after the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russian troops are now on the offensive, seizing the Donbas town of Marinka earlier this week. Ukraine and its allies are facing some reality checks as the war is set to enter the third year.
Where does Israel’s war on Gaza stand now?
If Russia is fighting a long war of attrition in the NATO-supported Ukraine, Israel is fighting a blitzkrieg in defenceless Gaza. Israel’s attacks have practically turned Gaza uninhabitable, but the Jewish state is far from meeting its declared objectives of the war—be it freeing the hostages, dismantling Hamas or taking down the Islamist group’s top leadership. As the war is set to enter its third month, Israeli generals and political leaders show no let-up in fighting. While it’s too early to make a clear assessment of how Israel’s war on Gaza would affect West Asia, there are some signals on the geopolitical fallout of the war. Israel stands almost isolated on the global stage despite its claim that Hamas brought this war upon Gaza after the October 7 attack. Israel’s war also drilled holes into the moral case the West, especially the Biden administration, had built around Russia’s Ukraine invasion to drum up global support. The total number of civilians killed on both sides of the Ukraine war in 22 months is roughly 10,000, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU). The total number of Palestinians’ killed in Gaza in less than three months is 21,000, a vast majority of them women and children, as per the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. The U.S, which is supplying arms and money to Ukraine to fight the Russian invasion, has not even called for a ceasefire in Gaza. In the UN Security Council, the U.S. vetoed two resolutions that called for a humanitarian ceasefire; and in the UN General Assembly, the U.S., Israel and two other countries voted against a resolution that endorsed the Palestinian’s right to self- determination. There is a groundswell of anger towards the U.S.’s unconditional support for Israel in the Arab world. Russia, which the U.S. seeks to isolate and weaken, and China, the U.S.’s primary competitor, on the other side, are trying to channel this anger by offering support for the Palestinian cause.
What’s the Global South’s response?
In the case of Ukraine, most countries in the Global South refused to buy the western narrative that the war was caused by an “unprovoked Russian aggression”, and stayed away from the sanctions regime. They condemned the war and called for upholding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, in this case Ukraine, but called for talks and ceasefire instead of prolonging the fighting. In the case of the Gaza war, they support an immediate ceasefire. While they condemned the October 7 Hamas attack, they also strongly backed the Palestinians’ right to self-determination (meaning, an end to Israel’s continuing occupation of the Palestinian territories). They also see the different positions taken by the West, particularly the U.S., with regard to the two conflicts — if in the case of the Ukraine war, the U.S. stands solidly with Ukraine against the Russian invasion, in the case of the Israel-Palestine crisis, the U.S. stands strongly with Israel, which is the occupying force, and despite Israel’s widespread violence against Palestinian civilians.
How does India look at the conflicts?
India’s positions, which are largely aligned with those of the Global South, are driven by both its specific interests and the larger trends it sees in the global dynamics. In the case of Ukraine, it condemned the war and called for talks and a ceasefire without naming any party. Even under heavy pressure, it was careful not to let the crisis affect its multifaceted strategic partnership with Russia. In the case of Gaza, it repeatedly condemned the Hamas attack on Israel, an important bilateral partner, while also reiterating its traditional position in support of the two-state solution. When civilian casualties mounted in Gaza under Israel’s indiscriminate attacks, India joined the global chorus calling for a ceasefire.
But the larger trends are more consequential. The U.S., the most powerful country in the world, seems less in control of the geopolitical developments unfolding in its spheres of interests — Europe and West Asia. Its efforts to weaken Russia are not immediately rewarding and it is either unwilling or unable to control a vengeful Israel, which is affecting its reputation in the Arab World, and the Global South in general. China is rising but is focused on its immediate periphery and is wary of risks. Russia is a revisionist, risk-taking power but it is the weakest among the three great powers, and it remains to be seen how the war would affect Russian power in the long term, irrespective of the result of the Ukraine war. So India, itself a rising power and a strong proponent of a multipolar world, sees the global order in a flux. It appears to be careful not to align with any great power, while maximising its interest through multi-engagement and trying to be a voice of the Global South.
- The world witnessed growing security crises involving great powers in 2023. The Ukraine war, which began on February 24, 2022 with Russia’s invasion of its neighbouring country, continued throughout 2023 with little changes on the frontline. Another major war broke out in West Asia after Hamas’s October 7 crossborder attack that killed at least 1,200 Israelis.
- What made the Ukraine war, the largest ground war in Europe since the Second World War, one of the most consequential conflicts of the post-war world was its great power involvement.
- In the case of Ukraine, most countries in the Global South refused to buy the western narrative that the war was caused by an “unprovoked Russian aggression”, and stayed away from the sanctions regime.
