Topic 1 : A war of attrition
Introduction: Earlier this month, Russian forces captured Avdiivka, a key city on the Ukrainian defensive line in the Donetsk region. With the stalemated Russia-Ukraine conflict now entering its third year, this breakthrough comes against the background of a steady turn in the tide of the war in Russia’s favour.
The Russia-Ukraine war has entered into a war of attrition stage
- A war of manoeuvre in its first year, it’s now a war of attrition.
- Exhaustion of the opponent’s political will, economic strength and military capacity is its main objective.
- This works to Russia’s advantage, being the larger country with superior resources.
- A patient Russian leadership and its General Staff have crafted a military strategy that is grinding down Ukrainian capabilities.
- The Russian military has adapted its battlefield tactics; an expanded defence industry has provided the necessary tools to make it a success.
Military help to Ukraine
- Russia’s military advantage is not irreversible, yet.
- Ukraine’s military potential remains substantial.
- More fighting units are dug at the next line of defence — around Kramatorsk and on the route towards Zaporizhzhia.
- The Russian Black Sea fleet has stayed put in port to avoid unmanned marine vehicle attacks.
- Ukraine continues to get substantial NATO support; more may be coming, not only in the form of long-range missiles but also in terms of air defence and electronic warfare, areas in which Russia is slowly gaining the upper hand.
- This conflict has valuable lessons to offer.
- As compared to the slow-moving battlefields, the international context has undergone rapid changes.
- Critically dependent on external support, Ukraine’s position has weakened progressively.
- Ukraine is learning the hard way that in conflicts involving the big powers, the risk of partners being treated as proxies is a real one.
Ukraine’s diminishing importance in the geopolitical calculus of Western nations
- While the EU voted in a $54 billion multi-year assistance package, a $60 billion assistance package for Ukraine has been held up in the US Congress.
- The debate has laid bare deep domestic divisions on America’s international priorities.
- Ukraine enjoyed an uncontested top spot in 2022; now it shares the space with Israel, Gaza, Taiwan and the securing of the US’s southern border.
- There is a growing sentiment in Washington that Europe should grow up and learn to stand on its two feet.
- Stalemate on the battlefield, military leadership changes, and a more pervasive Ukraine fatigue have added to the sense of gloom in Western capitals.
- However, the public rhetoric on war aims has remained consistently shrill — vacation of Ukrainian territory, reparations, and accountability for alleged war crimes.
- Though it is not winning the war, Ukraine’s war aims are based on the expectation that it will do so.
- Whether this is a well-grounded premise or an illusion, only time will tell.
- Russia’s Avdiivka advantage perhaps points to the latter.
President Putin’s mind game
- Sensing the shifting winds in Western capitals, especially in Washington, President Putin timed his widely watched interview with the American journalist Tucker Carlson to once again set out Russia’s historic as well as current perspectives on the Ukraine conflict.
- Russian war aims may not be open-ended but a peace settlement on Ukraine will not be limited to Ukraine.
- Putin’s gambit is not for now, or for this year, but for the next US administration.
- Putin is playing the long game — his eventual goal is a new modus vivendi with the US, for which a decisive breaking of Ukrainian resistance is seen as a prerequisite.
The spillover effect of Russia-Ukraine crisis
- Though this began as a European conflict, it has not remained in Europe.
- Global energy, food and financial linkages have been impacted.
- In retaliation for support for Ukraine, Russia has undercut French influence in the Sahel region of Africa.
- Russia-North Korea relations have rebounded almost entirely in response to the Ukraine conflict.
- North Korea is now an open and aggressive nuclear power.
- Overshadowed by other more immediate crises in the region, Iran’s proto-nuclear capability is left unaddressed.
- With Russia de-ratifying the CTBT, and with traditional arms control almost dead, it will not be long before the malaise infects the broader non-proliferation regime.
- US talks with China on arms control are but small raindrops in an otherwise parched sky.
- A new dark age of unbridled arms competition looms on the horizon.
The prolonged war is serving China’s interest
- With the West locked into a semi-permanent conflict with Russia, and the fraying deterrence equations between the big powers, the consequent disequilibrium on the Eurasian continent is a matter of deep concern.
- It works primarily to China’s advantage as it benefits from the confusion at the heart of America’s global strategy on priorities and sequencing in the allocation of resources.
- A prolonged Russia-Ukraine conflict is not in India’s interests — it weakens Russia, undercuts European security, and immeasurably complicates US global rebalancing.
Conclusion: Trans-Atlantic security cannot be built on the ashes of global insecurity. To get out of this awful mess, if competence on matters of grand strategy is asking for too much, then common sense should do the job.
Topic 2 : Big uncle Xi
Introduction: People in China have just returned to work after a week-long annual Spring Festival celebration that started on February 10, marking the beginning of the Lunar New Year. This year is the ‘year of dragon (prosperity)’ for China, but many problems are looking at China as of now.
Significance of ‘Year of Dragon’
- In the Chinese zodiac, the incoming year is that of the dragon — it symbolises fire and fury and is the quintessence of hard power and ferocity.
- China has long identified with those qualities of dominance and authority.
- But Xi insisted that the Chinese dragon is “strong, fearless and benevolent” and embodies the spirit of pursuit of “self-improvement, hard work and enterprise of the Chinese nation for five thousand years”.
- Many ordinary Chinese believe that the year of the dragon, which comes once in 12 years, is auspicious, and the children born that year will have better prospects in life.
- Many women plan to have deliveries during the dragon year.
China’s rising demographic challenge
- China is currently facing a serious demographic challenge with the median age going above 39 years as against India’s 29.
- The devastating effects of the “one-child norm”, introduced in the 1980s, continue to haunt China.
- In 2011, it had 13.27 births for every 1,000 population.
- Ten years later, that dwindled to 6.39 births.
- The government was compelled to revise the population policy in 2015 to allow two children, and in 2021, to three children per family.
- It is hoping that the dragon year will see a boom in childbirths in the country.
President Xi is now ‘Head of everything’ in China
- Xi wears many hats today.
- He is the head of the state, head of military and also head of the Party.
- Inside the party, he heads many important committees, including those dealing with foreign policy, Taiwan, internet control, government restructuring, national security, police, secret police and even judiciary.
- He proved himself adept at successfully administering most of these departments.
- But, to his chagrin, one department is proving to be a disaster — the economy.
- The Chinese economy, which experienced three decades of unrelenting GDP growth of above 10 per cent, is today struggling to maintain even half of it.
- Predicted not long ago by the IMF to overtake America by 2028, it is stuck in the spiral of deflation, shrinking markets, dwindling exports, and staggering bad debts.
President Xi’s blunders on economic and foreign policy fronts
- Many experts blame Xi for this debacle.
- His paranoia about an imminent conflict with the West drove him to prioritise national security over the economy.
- A heady cocktail of economic inexperience and ideological overdrive resulted in reckless actions against big-tech companies, both domestic and international.
- Episodes involving real estate giant China Evergrande Group and Jack Ma of the successful Alibaba Group are examples of Xi’s malicious ways of functioning.
China’s rising economic woes
- Premier Li Qiang, who led a big delegation to Davos earlier this month, claimed that China’s economy was growing at 5.2 per cent.
- But the situation on the streets of Shanghai, Beijing and other cities tells a different story.
- Shops and business establishments are empty as fears about economic downturn led to the world’s largest and most prosperous middle class shying away from domestic spending.
- Tens of thousands of employees heading home for the Spring Festival were told by their employers not to return.
- Unemployment rates are at an all-time high.
- All these indicate that the actual GDP growth may not be more than 1.2 — 1.5 per cent.
President Xi can adopt Mao’s policies as desperate measures
- As the economic woes grow, Xi appears to be turning increasingly to Mao.
- When things were not going right, Mao decided to experiment with fanciful ideas like the Great Leap Forward in 1958, followed eight years later by the Cultural Revolution, resulting in disastrous consequences for the economy and humongous human suffering.
- As people suffer from the economic decline, Xi too is resorting to clumsy rhetoric.
- Xi is doing one thing right though — continuing his iron grip over the party and the country.
- The Soviet communist leader Vladimir Lenin had once advised that “for the centre to actually direct the orchestra, it needs to know who plays the violin and where, who plays a false note and why”.
Concerns regarding Xi’s total control in China
- Xi has gained such absolute control — the kind that never happened, even during Mao’s era.
- All the seven members of the Chinese Communist Party’s Standing Committee are loyalists of the leader.
- Xi assumes that all this is his strength.
- But tragically, it could be his weakness too.
- With no leader in the party and government to differ with him and offer valuable suggestions, this self-absorption may precipitate an economic collapse, leading to the same disastrous consequences that Mao had inflicted on the hapless citizens in the form of famines, plagues and purges seven decades ago.
Conclusion: As the economic woes grow, Xi appears to be turning increasingly to Mao. As people suffer from the economic decline, Xi too is resorting to clumsy rhetoric.