Will Additional Global Conflict In Europe & Between China And America Catapult India Forward?

What is the Space-Eye-view of our situation on earth? Or can one only see a golf ball sized planet in just this one galaxy?  

Space is the new frontier. Exploration, intended exploitation of minerals, the search for water, territory fit to inhabit, possible space wars, all loom large. It is shaping up to be much more than sending up satellites to watch the earth and facilitate communications. More than the to-ing and fro-ing of tourists on spaceships and putting in space stations for research.

Are we actually in a space race from the same earthly motivations of power play? That same ‘March of Nations’ postulated by the complex 19th century German thinker and philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831).  His Hegelian Dialectic, about the rubbing against each other, of nations, was a far grander concept than that of the unemployed theoretician Marx. Karl Marx (1818-1883), lifted the concept of the Hegelian Dialectic and corrupted it, into a mere tussle between Labour and Capital.

Hegel said the history of the world is moved forward by different dominant nations at different times. Certainly, we can see how the once mighty Romans did so. And more recently, the British Empire, growing ever more extensive till the sun never set on it. But right within it, at its zenith, the seeds of change were planted. This was in the reign of Queen Victoria.

The royal families of Europe were populated by the several Germanic sons and daughters of Queen Victoria and their cousins. Of these, a notable rivalry grew between her heir-apparent and eldest son Bertie, The Price of Wales (1841-1910), who became Edward VII after her, and the last Kaiser of Germany, Wilhelm II (1859 -1941), who reigned from 1888 to 1918, when he had to abdicate.

Germany wanted dominion over Western Europe and the high seas of the world. And after Queen Victoria died in 1901, at the end of a reign spanning 63 years and 216 days, this rivalry sharpened, as both countries prepared for war.

This rivalry was neither ordinary or harmless. It was reminiscent of that described in the monumental Indian epic, the Mahabharata. The one that destroyed the Kshatriya regal domination forever.

There was enormous jealousy in Germany, and a desire to turn the tables on Britain. This turned into friction in the first decade of the 20^th century when Bertie became Edward VII. WWI came as early as 1914, with the spark ignited at Sarajevo when Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria, was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a 19 year-old member of Young Bosnia.

The events that followed in rapid succession  would change the entire landscape of Europe irrevocably.

Besides the Archduke, the first of the European royals to leave the stage was another cousin of Edward VII, the absolute monarch, Tsar of the Russias, Nicholas II.

Tsar Nicholas II, the last of the Romanovs, ruled from 1894, till he was overthrown (1917), and assassinated with his entire family by the members of the Bolshevik Revolution (1918). This was a profound development, because Imperial Russia was the largest and richest country in Europe.

The fun-loving Bertie, almost forever the Prince of Wales, became Edward VII but not for long. His short reign of just under a decade did not permit him to personally witness the start of WWI, or the deposition and murder of his cousin Nicholas.

The period from the dawn of the 20^th century, saw cataclysmic changes for the old order. It went on right till the end of WWII in 1945. In these 45 years, the world order was altered drastically. Millions of people of all races and creeds from Europe and the Empire were killed in the two world wars. And for both wars, the March of Nations chose Germany as the main protagonist.  

1901-45 witnessed the end of agrarianism as the basis of the world economy. It decimated the ranks of the aristocracy that generally led in war from the front. It ended inflation that had stayed incomprehensibly rock solid at just 4% over a hundred years. It practically finished the gold standard. It buried slavery and colonialism. It heralded the death of Empire and the Imperial Age.

In short, it ushered in the take-over of a much more egalitarian, democratic, industrial and mercantilist era, based on new products and technology seen for the first time. The pulse of the world quickened, and the globe began to grow smaller.

America became the greatest, most powerful, and wealthy country in the world. The post WWII order held for decades, with the Western and Soviet Blocks competing for dominance. This was surely the third coming of the March of Nations, with America emerging as the dominant global power.  

The challenge from the Soviet block eventually proved unequal to the task, as the Warsaw Pact broke down, and the Berlin Wall was demolished, before the USSR itself was dismantled.

Communism revived though, via the rise of China, aided and abetted for decades by America, creating its own Frankenstein monster in the process.

But the promise of the Communist Internationale and World dominion died early with the demise of the Soviet Union. But does China under Xi Jinping, a revivalist Mao Zedong in temperament, realise it? In this hubris, like that of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler, lie the seeds of its own destruction. The March of Nations has caused China to rub up against the West, but it will be lost at sea because it is not destined to rule the world.

The baton truly passed from a Pax Britannica, after a paroxysm of blood, to a Pax Americana. Both echo a long ago Pax Romana that lasted 200 years between 27 BC and 180 AD centred in Rome in the West, before passing on to Constantinople for another 200 years.

We are now on the brink of a new phase of the Hegelian march, minus China in the ascendant. The nuclear deterrent is still holding since WWII, but the first war in Europe has arrived in over seventy years. This is not with the USSR, as might have been expected, but its rump, the Russian Republic.

This is proving most debilitating for the NATO/EU/allied countries. Inflation is rampant. Growth is down. Unemployment stalks the streets. This even though it is a proxy war via the Ukrainians. The stubborn Russian Federation refuses to yield. The West won’t give it what it wants. But the prolongation of the conflict is drawing Russia ever closer into a Chinese embrace.

The most destabilising and dangerous thing about the war in Ukraine is that it  ostensibly goes  much beyond it. The West is determined to destroy Russian power once and for all. While Russia, a huge country and a formidable military power, in alliance with China, its satellite North Korea and a much-debilitated Pakistan, is doing its best to resist.

Pakistan, long used to being subsidised by America and then China, will be the first of the three to break into pieces, because of its enormous mountain of debt. This could come even before the end of the present decade.

China will lose its proxy partner in its battle for domination of India, weakening it. This, even as its own economy, grown from nothing by its dependence on exports to the West is also reeling under enormous debt. The Chinese economy is destined to keep getting worse as the world no longer trusts it. Its supply chains are moving to other countries, including India.

The resultant economic turmoil amongst the people of China will cause them to challenge the CPC once again. This time it won’t be easy to put down. This unrest could lead to a break up of China as well, starting with all territories beyond the Han heartland. This is likely in the early 2030s.

But perhaps not before China tries to dominate the situation by going to war with America. The spark will probably be lit over its attempted invasion of Taiwan and blockading of the South and East China Seas.   

No nuclear weapons will still be used because of its guaranteed zero-sum game.

China will, of course, lose the conventional war with America and its allies which include the QUAD, AUKUS and NATO.

Russia will descend into a less influential power post this debacle, with the loss of its Chinese ally, just as the West intends.

India meanwhile will develop into a substantial military power over the next decade, and be able to defend its borders against China and Pakistan. The latter may also attempt another war, egged on by China. But this will only hasten its break-up. PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan will return to the Indian fold. America will diplomatically, via its intelligence services, and militarily, back India, along with its Western allies, in taking over PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan. Not only do the territories belong to it in the first place, but America will back India in delivering a body blow to both Pakistan and China. This would be accomplished without America having to put its boots on the ground.

China’s CPEC, already in economic trouble, will fail with the loss of PoK. The Siachen Glacier and Chinese roads to Tibet will be compromised. The damaging of access to Tibet will be the beginning of its eventual liberation in the 2030s.

The shape of things to come is evident, as India is being created into a sophisticated fighting force by the West with its liberal transfer of high technology in defence. It is also being supported in other areas such as semiconductors and Artificial Intelligence. This will certainly strengthen India by filling in the gaps and chinks.  For the West, it will place a formidable fighting force across the bows of a belligerent China that has fought no real wars.

India will participate in and oversee the defence of the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Malacca Straits. It will join hands with the QUAD/AUKUS and France to defend  South Asia  and the Asia-Pacific.

When all this is over in less than a decade from today, India will truly emerge as a legitimate super power. Will it be leading the March of Nations?  It will certainly reach No.3 economy status, or is it No.2, with a vast increase both in GDP and influence. America will retain its position at No.1 and its technological ascendancy in the world.

The intervening period will be dominated by the BJP in power throughout, carried over the threshold in 2024 by the visionary and charismatic Narendra Modi.

Longer term, the present challenges to its emergence as a Hindu Rashtra that carries its minorities with humanity and justice will fall away for good under his successors.

(1,787 words)

July 29^th, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee