We are witnessing a de facto clash of two emerging alliances—an alliance of democracies in the form of Quad 3.0 and the proposed Indo-Pacific Cooperation Organization (IPCO), and another emerging alliance of the authoritarians that includes Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China.
Civilisations don’t die; they commit suicide. Where are the might Mayas and the great Inca civilisations now? Where is the great Persian civilisation of Darius today? Empires came and disappeared. British empire, Dutch empire, French empire, Ottoman empire, Soviet empire are all gone. Why? Before answering these questions, we need to ponder over the geo-political realities. Post-World War II, the balance of power between the US and the Soviet Union lasted till 1991 when the cold war ended. After the end of the cold war, the world witnessed a period of unipolar hyper-power emergence that led to firm determinations on part of the losers to rival the reigning hegemon. Both Russia and China in the 1990s realized that they had lost the geo-political game when the US bombed the de facto torchbearers of the former Republic of Yugoslavia into oblivion. Subsequently, the Madelene’s war in Kosovo led to forcible vivisection of Serbia against all norms. NATO was continuously expanding while the Warsaw Pact had been dissolved earlier on 1 July 1991. Russia could not protect its Orthodox Slavic brothers in Eastern Europe and in Greece. China was deeply humiliated by the bombing of its embassy by the US in Belgrade in 1998. That was the inflection point for Communist China to build its military muscle to confront the US. Despite being a US friend at the time, China feverishly started to build PLA’s offensive capabilities while biding for its time. Meanwhile, America’s perpetual patronage of a perpetually tipsy Boris Yeltsin resulted in the domestic emergence of the KGB spy Vladimir Putin as the Russian strongman who publicly mourned for the loss of the Soviet empire.
This scenario resulted in the enunciation of the Primakov doctrine of the RIC (Russia-India-China) trilateral as a counterbalancing force against the one and the only “Hyperpower”. While the RIC trilateral, an interesting concept, had inherent limitations owing to India-China bilateral problems, we saw the emergence of alliances like the SCO and the economic grouping BRIC as a counter-balancing force against the dominant super-power. A resurgent China manoeuvred enlargement of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) into BRICS by unilaterally inviting South Africa, although it did not qualify by any parameters. China in the process neutered the India-sponsored trilateral IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa). As China’s economic rise started to cast shadows on the US economy following its acceptance into the WTO in 2000, China started to build new international instruments to challenge US supremacy and the Bretton Woods institutions. India did not want BRICS to become a military alliance. Russia started to play as a junior partner to China in the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) mechanism in Central Asia. A shrewd Russia worked hard to bring India into the SCO mechanism to counterbalance China.
In the 21st century, we now witness a de facto military alliance between a resurgent China and declining Russia to counterbalance the middling hegemon, US. The financial crisis of 2008 was another inflection point whereby China felt emboldened to start challenging the US and project its own power in the Asian theatre. Relatively unaffected, the Dragon helped the ASEAN countries in their balance of payment crisis, earning goodwill in the process. During the early 2010s, China proposed forming a G-2 condominium with the US which was rebuffed. China’s imperialistic and expansionist behaviour in the South China Sea, the Sea of Japan and the West Philippines Sea, island building, occupying islands forcibly, acquiring military bases, occupation of land territories belonging to India and Bhutan caused consternation. These aggressive acts also led to India and other Asian countries welcoming back US presence in the Asian theatre to counter-balance China. The Quad 3.0 Avatar has been reincarnated to deal with the growing Chinese military threat in the Indo-Pacific region. There is synergistic alliance between Russia and China and emerging superficial mechanisms like CRIP (China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan), analogous to the BRICS.
What we are witnessing is a de facto clash of two emerging alliances—an alliance of democracies in the form of Quad 3.0 and the proposed Indo-Pacific Cooperation Organization (IPCO) and another emerging alliance of the authoritarians that includes Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China. There is going to be churning of strategic relationships and “Samudra Manthan” leading to newer allies and newer configurations. What Samuel Huntington called the “clash of civilisations” is taking place in front of our own eyes, though the doctrine of wokeness prevents the majority of intellectuals and geo-political experts from acknowledging it. Euphemisms like symphony of civilisations or the concert of civilisations were emptily mouthed to cancel out the concept of clash of civilisations. Huntington predicted a loose alliance of the “West” confronting a resurgent Sinic civilisation in bed with the Islamic civilisation.
This alliance of authoritarians does involve periodic alignments and realignments of Islamic countries both within and outside the WANA (West Asia North Africa) region. The now infamous so-called Arab Spring contributed to the SUSHI (Sunni-Shia) strife and Iran’s claim to leadership of the Islamic world against the Saudi Arabia-led Sunni bloc. It was the SUSHI strife that led to Sunni Turkey and a predominantly Sunni Syria led by Alawite (Shia) strongman Bashar-Al Assad parting ways in the early 2000s. A secularized Turkey following the fall of Ottoman Empire and under Kemal Ataturk, was being integrated into NATO and EU. The re-Islamization of Turkey under Erdogan has rekindled the Caliphatic ambitions of Turkey as the true inheritor of the Ottoman empire. Of course, the power game in the OIC members has resulted in the virtual fragmentation of the Islamic bloc into the Saudi-led versus Turkey-led groups of countries, with Malaysia and Pakistan veering away from Saudi Arabia and seeking solace in Turkey’s claim to the Caliphate. Turkey’s days in the NATO alliance are being counted as it pursues a foreign policy independent from NATO. Saudi Arabia, after having promoted Wahhabi extremism and jihadi terrorism in conjunction with Pakistan for decades is trying to de-Wahhabize its governing institutions under the leadership of the new prince Mohammad Bin Salman. The Wahhabi movement has become so entrenched that Saudi Arabia will find it difficult to shed the deeply internalized Wahhabi doctrine. We are witnessing the more deeply Wahhabized countries like Turkey, Pakistan and possibly Malaysia siding with the alliance of authoritarians, whereas the cradle of Wahhabi civilisation, Saudi Arabia, is trying to come out of the shackles of Wahhabism in a very slow and controlled manner. Since the Islamic nations remain under geo-political flux, who will be the torchbearer of the Wahhabi extremism remains an open question. What is certain is that the alliance of authoritarians is wooing Wahhabi extremism in a loose knit marriage of convenience against the alliance of democracies.
Loyalties are shifting in Southeast Asia rapidly based on geo-political interests. The Philippines was traditionally a US ally that flirted with Xi Jinping’s China under Duterte’s rule. The same Philippines under the same President has realized the gravity of its mistakes and is trying to come back to the US led democratic alliance. Members of the ASEAN are too traumatized and overwhelmed by China’s display of dragon dance and are unable to take a stand on a Code of Conduct (COC) for South China Sea. Loose economic groupings and alphabet soups are the special de jour on the menu. TTP became CPTTP, the dragon gave up APFTA and embraced the RCEP, while India shunned the tighter economic embrace of the Dragon in the RCEP. US decided to keep out of TTP, RCEP and also the CPTTP under the mercurial Trump.
Once the geopolitical churning is over, we are likely to witness another vision of the bipolar world, an alliance of democracies (AOD) in the Indo-Pacific region with the supporting pillars of the Quad 3.0, IPCO, ASEAN, ARF, ANZUS, CPTPP and perhaps, RCEP, while an alliance of authoritarians led by China with Russia as a junior partner and the more Wahhabized Islamic nations in bed with the alliance of authoritarians (AOA). There is bound to be a clash of interests in these two competing visions of the world. Make no mistakes. History never ceases. There is never a power vacuum in strategic space. The Westphalian nations will continue to play geo-political games. Clash of civilisations will metamorphose into a clash of geopolitical alliances providing a fig-leaf to the wokes of the world. Cartographic changes will be seen as a result of this hot and simmering clash of alliances. Transitional states like former Republic of Yugoslavia disappeared in the 1990s following the end of the cold war. Now the turn will be for Pakistan as we know it to disappear, and the possible bifurcation of Afghanistan into a greater Pakhtoonistan and a Northern Shia dominant rump of Afghanistan. New nations like Balochistan, Kurdistan, Sindhu-Desh, Tibet and East Turkistan may become viable independent entities along with Taiwan, Manchuria and greater Mongolia, while the federation of Malaysia disintegrates into independent Sabah and Sarawak on the Borneo Island with the Peninsular rump of the Malay nation remaining. Myanmar may not survive as a nation in its current topography with ethnic statelets emerging. The UK might disintegrate into a little England, an independent Scotland and merger of Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic to form a United Ireland. The end result of this clash of alliances will result into military over-extension of the Dragon. Burdened with 4-2-1 problem, ageing population, lack of young workers, and very high debt to GDP ratio, will eventually result in the disintegration of the Chinese empire. Once bereft of their Chinese godfathers, the Kim dynasty will go into oblivion, resulting in a unified Korean peninsula. Fall of the Chinese empire will see the emergence of a stronger and united Korean nation, following the fall of the Kim dynasty. The end result of the clash of alliances will be a defeat of Wahhabism, political Islam and jihadi terrorism. Is that too much of wishful thinking or a pragmatic geo-political prediction? Only time will tell.
Dr A. Adityanjee is President, Council for Strategic Affairs.