New BFFs
A meeting scheduled for February 14th between the foreign ministers of Russia, China and India are proposing a trilateral alliance that would seek to exclude the west from dominating the Asian geopolitical theater by the end of the decade. If their new alliance succeeds, their efforts will be mirrored in Africa and South America by codify principles that limit Western influence.
All of this antagonism comes at the end of a violent US Presidency that saw the deployment of half a million US troops around the world. As pointed out by M.D. Nalapat, UPI's outside view commentator, historically European powers have won their advantages over non Europeans through conquest and is the reason soldiers play a bigger role than diplomats in world diplomacy. This behavior, he notes, continues even today. In the Indonesian sphere of control Australia is perceived as a European power as it projects it power over Indonesia, and is why its neighboring countries distance themselves from "countries that seems determined to rule the territory by the gun". He goes on to illustrate his point in Africa as "armed intervention by France, always to protect the local, France-dominated elite’s from accountability and loss of power [...]Similarly, in Iraq, U.S. and British forces routinely arrest even ministers in the elected government of Iraq and diplomats who should be protected from such arbitrary action according to international law and practice".
In relation to Russia, Nalapat points out that they are not completely European, giving evidence of their separate culture, "mindset, traditions and values, hence will always be opposed, silently or overtly, by continental European powers such as Germany and France, which recognize Russia as not only different, but with the potential to overshadow both of them". He points out that Russia has therefore forged ties with Asia with far better results opening the door for this tri-alliance.
Nalapat suggests that the alliance will take a three phase approach, the first would consist of a alliance between China, Russia and India; phase two would see the entry of Iran and Indonesia into the alliance opposing European involvement; while phase three would include Southeast Asia, the middle East and perhaps a nuclear-armed unified Korea.
The genesis of this new alliance brings together 40 percent of the world's population, and came about because of western powers military operations and their biased dealings with non European countries. This has created this tri-alliance necessity.
source: spaceware.com [link]
(Professor M.D. Nalapat is director of the School of Geopolitics at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India.)
