Four critical issues, creating geopolitical tensions and shaping international relations, are on the global radar for everyone to see. Not following any order of priority, they are: War in Ukraine; War in Gaza and Lebanon; Sino-US standoff; and a likely US-Iran conflict. The dynamics of any change in the fate of these critical issues is related to which side of the scale the weight of the global hegemon, the US, shifts.
Seeing how the Trump administration is handling all these critical issues, I am reminded of the strategy of polarity described in Robert Greene’s book, 33 Strategies of War. The strategy is designed to expose your enemies by provoking them by creating pressures, tensions, arguments and conflict. That way enemy’s behaviour is truly polarised, and a clear distinction can be made between those who are willing to become friends and those who choose to become your enemy.
The end goal of the polarity strategy seems to create clarity and not paranoia, but that is exactly what the world is facing. All four critical issues have the capability of transforming into a bigger war, and if the past is a prologue, then any fear of a widespread or uncontrollable war is not unfounded. The Trump administration is making some critical decisions as many American administrations have made over the last 100 years or so in which the world at the global level has fought at least four wars – WWI, WWII, CW (Cold War), WOT (War on Terror). Peace in the past came at a cost. Will peace in the future also come at a cost?
Russia, the archrival and the Cold War opponent of the US, is no more its enemy. American global dominance and control is what leads the international order forward, and that dominance and control is being negatively affected only partially by Russia, but in a big way and collectively by all the four critical issues mentioned above.
How would the US contain the damage to the world order? It did it before, during the Cold War, by employing the grand strategy of containment of communism in which it succeeded and which ended in the eventual dismemberment of the Soviet Union. There was only one war front, and the ideological frontier was what divided the world more during the Cold War.
Today, it is nationalism, sovereignty, geoeconomics and, in the case of Gaza, asymmetric warfare born out of the womb of human indignity. What will guide the nations – great, medium or ordinary – to take a stand on these four critical issues? How will they fight back? What strategies will they employ?
Today, China is being pushed back by the US. So, all Sino-US interactions are a product of the strategy of engagement or disengagement. China, opting for global engagement under PM Deng Xiaoping, opened itself up to foreign investment, brought down and restructured state-owned enterprises, firing millions of Chinese workers.
Under Deng Xiaoping, China created a space for the private sector, and the liberalisation of the economy led to over 600 million people lifting their lives over the poverty line. The US believed in engaging with China as long as economic liberalisation would lead to political liberalisation which would lead to the end of communist China and the beginning of democratic China. However, that never happened. That is the root of the current American policy of disengagement with China. If the American-led process of globalisation lifted over one billion people out of poverty, then 600 million of them were Chinese. And then happened due to the Chinese policy of liberal economisation.
China fights a trade war with the US. One example of how China dominates tomorrow’s trade world is how Chinese electric vehicles are 50% less expensive than those of the US and account for 60% of all global electric vehicles. China will compete, and not confront, the US.
In President Trump’s words, the US is “down to the final moments with Iran”. For a very long time, Iran has believed in its core strategy of defiance. But now, under the current US brinkmanship and an ultimatum of two months to embrace a war or squeeze a nuclear deal, would Iran side-step from its strategy of defiance and pursue a less provocative strategy of engagement with the US? Iran has seen it all before and would read in this US ultimatum a desire to continue to create maximum pressure for the strategic effort that it wants to build and pursue against Iran. If the past is a prologue, Iran will not be forced to agree to a dialogue. It will declare its readiness to engage but not under duress, ultimatums or threats.
Both the US and Israel are partners in employing the strong-arm strategy to find a solution to the Palestinian problem. That strategy does not allow room to cease fire and wants to create enough fear for the natives to move away from their land. Israel’s commencement of aerial bombing and the collateral damage that follows shows the immoral world that we live in.
Even students protesting in the US universities on this continued Israeli policy of genocide are being charged with ‘Campus-anti-Semitism’ and being jailed. Immigrant students face threats of deportation if they are found to be critical of the US policy on Israel. The US tried to strong-arm its ally Jordan to accept the refugees from Gaza, considered by many as a joint US-Israel plan to make Jordan a Palestinian state. Gaza lives with a stalemate strategy – one that will always force Israel to settle for a draw.
Ukraine’s dependency on the US for its economic and military aid is no longer guaranteed. Ukraine needs to prioritise its dependency now, and the big question it faces is: can Europe replace the US as its security provider? Ukraine faces a question of life and death; it faces the humiliation of losing a large amount of territory and the possibility of mass surrender.
One small example explains Ukraine’s military dilemma. In 2023, Ukraine received 1.6 million rounds of 155mm Howitzer Artillery guns from international partners. They received 1.5 million in 2024. Military analysts believe that to stop further Russian advance, Ukraine needs 2.5 million rounds in 2025 and, thereafter, every year. Without the artillery support, the Ukraine infantry and mechanised forces will not be able to stop the Russian advance.
In the absence of military aid and the suicidal nature of the future battlefield that Ukraine is now exposed to and confronts, there is no battlefield strategy but only a strategy to submit and agree to hold a dialogue mediated by the US. Of all the four critical issues, the war in Ukraine seems to be the only one likely to be resolved soon, only if Europe decides to back off and not become an arms supplier and deliverer of critical battle fighting arms and equipment to Ukraine.
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