Over to Trump

THE SUDDEN FALL of Bashar al-Assad in Syria— nearly 14 years after the first protests erupted in Daraa in March 2011 at the height of the Arab Spring—demonstrates the connectedness geo­politics imposes on the world even as it lays bare how intricately entangled one thing is with an­other in the Middle East. Political decisions rather than geographical determinism ensured Assad had no help when he needed it most. Russia was caught up in Ukraine in a war of its own making. Iran, which need­ed Syria as much as Damascus needed Tehran, left Assad’s fate in the “hands of God” after recovering from the shock of the Islamists-led lightning rebel advance to order a withdrawal of its troops and an abandonment of its Syrian facilities—military bases, missile factories, arms depots.

While Assad’s retirement plan, temporarily in Moscow, was neatly executed, the big loser is Iran. Without Syria, it cannot sup­ply its proxies. As 2023 ended, Tehran and those proxies had encir­cled Israel and threatened US interests and those of the rest of the world. The Houthis in Yemen were targeting the shipping lanes at the mouth of the Red Sea. Hezbollah was firing rockets into northern Israel from southern Lebanon while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chased Hamas in a retributive war in Gaza. A year later—a year that saw Israel and Iran dance around a full-fledged conventional war—the ‘Iranosphere’ (not meant in the sense of Greater Iran/Persia) is nearly decimated, although the embers will burn long as neither Hezbollah nor the Houthis have retreated. Israel bombed the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus in April, killing seven Revolutionary Guard officers. Tehran retali­ated with a wave of drones and other projectiles to make a point. Then its president, Ebrahim Raisi, died in a helicopter crash in May. In October Iran sent 180-odd missiles over Israel, this time to hurt, which were again mostly intercepted. Over the year, Israel wiped out the top Hamas leadership—Ismail Haniyeh in July in Tehran itself—culminating with Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7 attack. In September, the world was captivated by the near-simultaneous explosion of pagers in Hezbollah pockets, hands and homes. A few days later its chief Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated. As 2024 ends, the view from Tehran is dark. Israel and its new Arab friends, who couldn’t complain about the pre­dicament of Iranian clients Hezbollah and Hamas, know that Iran is weaker than it has been in decades. The return of Donald Trump only makes matters worse for the Ayatollah’s regime.

Assad’s fall is a blow to Rus­sian prestige but the down­sizing of Iran is a practical setback. Russia has, to date, captured and retaken almost 2,500 square kilometres of terri­tory in eastern Ukraine and its own western Kursk. While its so-called “meat-grinder” tactics have made gains on the ground, Russia has been losing more than 50 men per sq km of captured territory as estimated by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The BBC’s estimate of Russian soldiers and contractors killed by mid-November 2024 was upwards of 170,000 at the higher end and above 120,000 at the lower. ISW’s own figure is 125,800 for the autumn offensives. So, the war con­tinues to be very costly for Moscow. Before Trump takes office, the Biden administration wants to quickly alter the course of the war by allowing Ukraine to not only cross the border but also fire long-range ATACMS deep into Russian territory. Perhaps Biden’s cyni­cal motive is Trump’s promise of quickly ending the war rather than the presence of North Korean troops. But Russia has lowered the threshold for its use of nuclear weapons. Trump’s nominee for special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, has co-authored a paper detailing his ideas, not necessarily Trump’s, for a speedy ceasefire where he conditions continuation of US aid to Ukraine on Kyiv coming to the negotiation table but also endorses increasing that aid should Moscow stay away.

The Botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and the removal of Sheikh Hasina wrap up the Biden administration’s legacy viewed from New Delhi

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For the Ukrainians, a ceasefire is more welcome now than a few months ago because they are exhausted and running out of resources. For the first time, Volodymyr Zelensky has released figures for Ukrainian soldiers killed. At 43,000, if correct, it may be lower than an earlier American estimate of 80,000, but given the scale of devastation and the struggle to keep essentials like electric­ity grids running under Russian missile attacks, it is difficult to see Kyiv pulling much longer. On the Russian side, the war economy Vladimir Putin had hoped would take care of his problems at home is fast running out of fuel. Inflation and interest rates are rising, commodities disappearing, and businesses not engaged in war production are failing to find credit to make investments. Instead of losing its nerve, Ukraine is thus looking forward to Trump and his promise of “fixing it”, which Zelensky and his advisers see as a clever tactic of defining the ends without specifying the means. Putin, more guarded in welcoming Trump this time, might not be unwilling to settle either while he still holds the advantage.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has upset China’s plans more than any­body else’s—it has practically killed off the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Europe—and Beijing has had to quietly bear it. It cannot condemn the invasion nor desert Moscow, its biggest friend and dependent. But Xi Jinping’s regime should be most concerned about the Chinese economy, driven downwards by the real estate sector and a failed recovery from the pandemic against a backdrop of financial market turmoil. The problem is that everything in China is built on speculation. Nothing exemplifies this more than constructing homes for 3 billion with a population of 1.4 billion. Property investment in China has fallen more than 10 per cent year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2024 while the number of Chinese billionaires has shrunk to 427 from 520 in 2023, according to a UBS report, while home prices have been declining at their fastest in a decade at 5.3 per cent since last year. Despite China being the biggest car exporter, its auto dealers have lost almost $20 billion due to sluggish demand. In October itself, Chinese indus­trial profits shrank by 10 per cent. Xi’s refusal to continue with the strategy of hiding China’s strength while biding its time has boo­meranged as China loses friends in the West, Latin America and Africa. He, therefore, needs to keep other fires burning, whether the Uighurs in Xinjiang or Taiwan. Ironically, the geopolitical turn with Ukraine and the return of Trump combined with domestic crises has compelled Xi to seek a rapprochement of sorts with India in the prolonged aftermath of the 2020 Galwan clashes, met half­way no doubt by India’s own worries about the damage the Biden administration can still do in its last days. Trump for his part may be more eager to use punitive tariffs should Beijing try to grab Taiwan instead of military force. But that’s the realm of known unknowns.

Nowhere has the outgoing Biden administration, from start to finish, messed up more than in South Asia and it is India that has been paying the price notwithstanding the unidirectional nature of its strategic partnership with the US. The botched withdrawal in August 2021 from Afghanistan, which the US counts as part of the Middle East, and Washington’s intrigues behind the removal of Sheikh Hasina in Bangla­desh look like a package deal wrapping up the Biden admin­istration’s legacy in New Delhi. While tempers had cooled over Khalistani activities and alleged Indian retaliation, at least where the US was concerned, Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s penchant for preaching all too often had always irked Delhi. But the state in which Biden is leaving Bangla­desh—with a looming genocide of Hindus and a deaf ear turned in Western capitals to their plight even as the mob-military-mario­nette regime purportedly led by Muhammad Yunus is all too eager to erase the country’s identity and history and turn it into an Islamic republic—is India’s immediate worry. China certainly stands to gain in its jostle for influence from India’s reversal in Bangladesh while, across the Himalayan frontier, Nepal has just signed on to the BRI, ignoring the threat of Chinese debt traps and the recent col­lapse of the Sri Lankan economy. Among the smaller but strategi­cally important neighbours, Mohamed Muizzu’s Maldives has had a slight change of heart in reconnecting with Delhi after a half-year of solving Chinese puzzles and not totally trusting the solutions.

Iran is suddenly weaker than it has been in decades. Assad’s fall is a blow to Russian prestige but the downsizing of Tehran is a practical setback

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India has its work cut out in South Asia and must make the most of challenges and opportunities in the Indo-Pacific. Talking to China was a well-timed move as it created a little room for ma­noeuvre in a tightening space. But Beijing never has been nor will ever be Delhi’s friend. India’s short and long-term interests lie with allies like Australia and Japan as well as France, still a big strategic player in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and historically Delhi’s most dependable and steadfast defence and security partner. If and when conflict comes, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), the trilateral AUKUS, and the French, will have to enforce a choke­hold on the Malacca Strait. Given the strategic setback of a BRI that has bombed—even leftist Lula’s Brazil has recently pulled out of it as have Italy and Portugal, the only EU nations to have signed up earlier—and the non-event of the arrival of the ‘Chinese Century’, Xi Jinping is bound to break out somewhere with his army and navy. Taiwan, which again sounded an alert as China launched 90 ships on December 9 for a drill, is merely the most likely casus belli. What has changed is that Beijing now looks at the island not with ambition but increasing frustration. A coalition of democracies guarding the Indo-Pacific was never a pipe dream. South Korea’s short-lived brush with martial law last week didn’t give Beijing even a few hours’ respite from its unhappiness about Seoul and Tokyo quietly crawling towards a normalisation of relations and burying history.

In 2024, the UK went left, France lurched farther to the right, and the far-right won a significant victory in the state of Thuringia in eastern Germany while Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition col­lapsed. French President Emmanuel Macron’s balancing act in choosing Michel Barnier as prime minister lasted exactly three months. Romania’s constitutional court has just cancelled a presi­dential election that might have put a Viktor Orbán-lite in office in an allegedly Moscow-med­dled mandate. While the conti­nental far-right has been rising for some time—and evidently governing responsibly only in Italy—it is in America that the right has exacted its revenge to the fullest. Since November 5, Trump has been the overarching theme of geopolitical speculation. As if the window till January 20 doesn’t matter. It has allowed Biden to be brazen at home and irresponsible abroad. But then Trump isn’t a president like another. Will he deliver on the extreme end of his isolationist threat and take America out of NATO? Unlikely. Is it still a bargaining chip to get the Europeans to pay up? Probably. Will he raise tariffs on BRICS to 100 per cent if they pursue a rival currency? At least India has clarified that it has never been in favour of de-dollarisation. How soon can he end the Ukraine war and the Middle East conflict? What’s certain is something different, some­thing new, whether it’s hot air or hard work.

The only constant is the combined threat of the misapplica­tion of AI and cyber crime to global financial well-being. Going into 2025, these carry over as the biggest concerns of businesses. There’s more reason to be anxious about climate change action once Trump is in office. He has never bought into ‘American de­cline’ despite vowing to Make America Great Again and promis­ing non-intervention. But it’s not known how well he appreciates the role of climate disasters in geopolitics, if at all. With Trump, what he says can be far from what he thinks. And what he thinks need not be what he does. He can fix things or smash them.

About The Author

Sudeep Paul

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