The global theatre seems to be becoming more of a talk show than the theatre of action. US is losing its charm across all Diplomatic business, thanks to China Rising and Russian threat. Europe is busy with its finances and the African crisis continues; West Asia and South East Asia providing their share of tensions to the world.
The so called ‘flashpoints’ have begun shifting from the traditional backyards of India-Pakistan, Israel-Palestine, Korean Peninsula and South & East China Sea to Ukraine, Syria, Somalia, Iran and Afghanistan.
The new flashpoints, present to the world, an arena of confrontations, accusations, encroachments and above all an opportunity for a new Global world order.
The US war on terrorism begun post 9/11. Previous to that incident, any radical move (even if violent) was a clash of ‘old’ and ‘new ideologies’. This was perhaps the reason why a militant attack in India was often termed ‘a struggle for independence’ by the same hypocrite nation. An attack at the WTC was enough for the nation to change its ‘ideology’ and describe such acts as acts of terror. As the ‘head of the Global world’, it vowed to eliminate terrorism from the world map, once and for all. In this attempt, it cleverly used its European Thugs to join its plan to invade countries in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. The message was loud and clear to the world – Who is your daddy?
The first decade of the 21st century saw the Asian Tigers roar. The South-East Asian economies were growing at a rate that attracted enough investments that at one time, it appeared almost all of Global investments sank in Asia altogether. Asia, though growing fast, had its own problems. South Asia poses a challenge to the world security as two Nuclear Rivals share Word and Bullet exchanges almost every other day. Chinese intentions of growth remained unnoticed until US could look back to see a ‘Dragon’ rise and rise enough to challenge its hegemony in Asia. Well Daddy was meeting a hostile enemy years after having seen Soviet Russia disintegrating.
The second decade brought new issues – Global economy was at haywire, West Asia and Africa had their own problems, Russia and China stood up to confront NATO led by US and the Asian Tigers seemed to have run out of steam.
The Syria could have been the next ‘playground’ for US but for China and Russia which resisted bowing down at UN under US pressure. Ukraine becomes an all new flashpoint after the two traditional arch-rivals take to the ground perhaps Cold war 2.0.
What surprisingly makes things look different is a change in stance of the nations with regards to issues. The divide between the first world, second world and the third world seems to be drifting towards an action vs. Talks world. While the NATO prefers actions on grounds of ‘proofs’ apparently supplied by agencies in their indirect control, Asia seems to prefer the route of diplomatic talks.
In the whole Syrian, Ukrainian, Iranian and Afghan issue, the Diplomatic game changed. From the classical diplomacy of secretly taking up talks and meetings, the ‘war or words’ was out in the open with Media paying attention to each and every word clearly spelt out by leaders (taking reference from Obama and Kerry’s remarks and Putin’s remarks on the other hand on the different issues). The war of words blurred any prospects of a solution in the near past as back-channel diplomacy was out of question. Things got ugly when countries tried to shield themselves within their own created groupings as if clearing indicating to the ‘rival’ camp a ‘show of strength (taking reference from creating of Eurasian Union formation and US+ Kicking Russia off the G8 to make it G7).
The failure of Classical diplomacy indicates 2 things – either a new era diplomacy is the need of the hour or it is understood among nations that Classical diplomacy cannot bring the results out they desire in a given time period. Experts were quick to term this new era diplomacy as a new beginning of Cold war which ended as Soviet Union collapsed.
The OECD GDP combined still dominates the Global economy. A deep analysis can spell out clearly the fact that the rise in Asian voice has primarily been backed by the rise in Indian and Chinese economy and an almost absent Europe from the Realpolitik in a bid to save its economy from implosion.
The new age diplomacy continues to make a solution to the Global crisis a distant dream. In the whole picture, the world continues to ignore massive killings, refuge, atrocities and sufferings Humanity is facing in one of the corners of the world.
Chirag Goel's Blog 