The decision by the Biden administration to arm Ukraine with long range missiles, hitherto not supplied to the latter, would undoubtedly further escalate and compound the Ukraine conflict. The move is likely to receive a like reaction from the Russian authorities, provided effective measures are taken by the world community to resolve the bloodletting in the Ukraine through a negotiated settlement.

US long range missiles would go some distance in meeting Ukraine’s defence needs but considering that the bolstering of Ukraine’s military capability would not bring any short or medium term relief to the suffering people of the Ukraine, it is open to question whether the Biden administration did right at this juncture through its decision on long range missile supplies.

Besides, the measure would not help in deescalating international tensions stemming from the Ukraine war, since we are bound to see a further intensification of the spiraling violence in Ukraine and its adjacent region.

However, it should be also plain to see that the Ukraine situation has worldwide security implications in view of comments by the Russian authorities to the effect that the decision on long range missiles would represent NATO’s ‘direct participation’ in the Ukraine conflict. Considering that the provision of the missiles could be seen by the Russian side as a ‘direct participation’ of NATO in the war, the world has no option at present but to merely hope fervently that further indiscretions would not be committed by the West and Russia in the Ukraine theatre that would raise the possibility of a full-blown regional war. Needless to say, in such a case international security would be further compromised.

There is an urgent need for good sense on the part of both sides to the conflict. Even as this is being written, the news is that Ukraine has unleashed some of the missiles into Russian territory. Ukraine could very well be motivated to use the missiles as a deterrent measure but given that Russia is unlikely to step back any time soon from the divisive course it has adopted in the Ukraine, the security situation in Eastern Europe could be seen as heading for increasing volatility and uncertainty.

The incoming Donald Trump administration has indicated that it would be working towards a kind of win-win solution in the Ukraine but the challenge before it would be to concede some of Russia’s territorial demands while ensuring Ukraine’s total sovereignty and self-respect. This would prove a Gordian Knot of sorts considering Russia’s obduracy thus far.

Besides, Ukraine’s security would need to be guaranteed. How would Trump assure Ukraine on this score and withhold from it vital weaponry which the latter sees as essential for its future security? This too would prove a knotty negotiating point.

Even on the Middle Eastern front, such dilemmas loom for the incoming Trump administration. A carefully worded statement by a UN Special Committee on the Middle East quite rightly states that the violence inflicted by the Israeli state on the Gaza is ‘consistent with characteristics of genocide’ and no time should be lost by pro-peace sections to bring the blood-letting to an immediate halt.

However, total peace and stability cannot be achieved in the Middle East without ensuring Israel’s continued security. This requirement is usually overlooked or does not come in for sufficient mention by those sections of the international community that take on themselves to scrutinize and comment on the Middle East situation. Going forward, the Trump administration would need to take on this complex challenge of meeting the needs of the Palestinian people while ensuring Israel’s legitimate right to survive and thrive as an inviolable state. Besides, the administration would need to breathe new life into the ‘Two State’ solution and render it workable.

It would accrue to the benefit of the Ukraine and the Middle East if Trump could convince the Putin regime of the need to help de-escalate the relevant conflicts and work towards negotiated solutions in both theatres. The ideal situation would be for the total membership of the UN Security Council to be united in working towards a de-escalation of the mentioned wasting conflicts. However, at present, the major states within the UNSC do not see eye-to-eye on these questions and this renders peace-making difficult.

In this exacting situation the global South would need to examine the possibility of exerting itself to the maximum to bring about an end to the wasting conflicts in focus. Right now, the global South is both wide ranging and fluid. Some decades back, this was not the case. Formations such as NAM and the G77 gave it a more or less definitive identity. Today, the mentioned bodies are almost non-existent.

However, in a vital sense the South exists because the causes which were espoused by organizations such as NAM are by no means irrelevant. For example, the challenge of keeping an equidistance between conflicting major powers, remains for the world’s powerless.

Likewise, poverty is continuing to be widespread in the South. It is true that one cannot find a country today that has not gone in for market reforms but even in the ‘success stories’ of the South, such as India, poverty remains starkly. For the majority of the South’s countries, market reforms have not ended poverty. On the contrary, the chasm between the rich few and the poor many has widened alarmingly.

Accordingly, the causes that gave the global South an identity and a mission remain. The challenge at hand for the South is to urgently regroup and to continue to champion the causes it once did. Although in a traditional sense Non-alignment does not exist, to consider one issue area, the need grows by the day for the poor to continue to steer clear of the big powers but to exist with them with cordiality. Such cordiality is Non-alignment creatively re-interpreted.

Accordingly, the Non-aligned Movement needs to be revived because its relevance has not eroded fundamentally. Major powers of the South, such as India, South Africa and Indonesia, for example, need to consider coming together and giving leadership to the world’s poor and powerless.

The voice of a vigorously regrouped and revived South cannot be ignored in international politics because it possesses the numbers. Such numbers would continue to carry weight in the forums of the world that count in the vital matter of ushering a measure of international peace and security.

These are seemingly ambitious enterprises for the South but they need to be undertaken because a Non-aligned Southern bloc would carry more credibility in the world’s theatres of conflict and war and be accepted as a genuine peace maker in contrast to the big powers of the East and West and their alliances, who would be distrusted by conflicting sides on account of their partialities and divisive agendas.

Clarification

By an inadvertent error it was mentioned in this column last week, (See ‘Timely theatrical exploration of Middle East Conflict’, The Island of November 14th, 2024, page 4), that the Rohingyas were driven out of their land by ‘Bangladesh’s military rulers’. The statement should stand corrected to read: by ‘Myanmar’s military rulers.’ The error is regretted.