REFLECTIONS 2022 & NEW YEAR GREETINGS 2023

 

“In the natural order of things the need of the Lion cannot be equated with the wants of an Antelope, and the right to life of the weak is enmeshed into the right of the strong to survive.

Today’s comity of nations too reflects this law of the jungle where the strong rightfully prey on the weak, but behind the façade of a just world order!” – Col RS Sidhu 

 

Dear Readers,

The open belligerence by China against India, Taiwan, Japan and host of its maritime neighbours, Russian ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, and factional hostilities in whole of West Asia, mirror the ‘Law of the Jungle’ even while highlighting the multitude of probabilities for engulfing the world in a global conflagration. But the jungle, where the female partner the male as an equal in the hunt for the prey, compares favourably to the ‘human civil society’ in its treatment of the female, when viewed against the brutal crackdown on ‘Burqa protests’ in Iran, the enslavement and trafficking of women in ‘ISIL’ dominated territories, and the virtual banning of women from public life in Afghanistan, with the world as a mute spectator.

The lack of definitive consensus amongst powerful nations that matter, on the distinctly felt climatic disaster imperiling the very life on planet Earth, continues to underscore misplaced priorities of the powerful elites of the world.

But it is the ongoing Russian ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine that is undoubtedly the geopolitical event nonpareil of the year gone by. This single event has ensured that the ‘Pursuit of Power’ emerges as the principal drumbeat of ‘The Year of 2022’. The ongoing slow motion but destructive farce of a military battle in Ukraine is a camouflage for the real struggle for global supremacy, with Russia and China together arrayed against the Western led international monetary, financial and trade systems that form the backbone of the latter’s geopolitical dominance.

This fight to the economic finish shall continue far into ‘The Year of 2023’ and may result in one of the largest ever scale of humanitarian disaster. But as the chaos spreads from the epicenter, the existing geopolitical alliances too shall be severely strained. From this chaos may emerge the beginning of a new economic and geopolitical world order, not necessarily dominated by the rival factions, and not necessarily more just.

‘The Year of 2023’, on the global stage, opens to a resurgence of the COVID 19 pandemic. But the event with maximum long term impact of this new year will be the beginning of the emergence of ‘supranational-corporations’ with near sovereign influence and whose acts of omissions and commissions shall have greater impact on life on Earth than even the more powerful states.

For India, the push for investment and infrastructure development in UP and the NE states shall be the success story in a year otherwise destined for greater uncertainties and orchestrated strife, both externally and internally, exacerbated by the twin factors of looming general elections on the horizon of 2024, and the onslaught of China sponsored hybrid warfare within and in the near abroad.   

Wishing you, and those you hold dear, equanimity to face the turbulent year ahead and, more important, a safe harbour to ride out the coming geopolitical and economic storms.

Best wishes,

Col RS Sidhu 

#reflections2022 #wishes2023