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  • International Relations in a Topsy-Turvy Era

By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

International Relations started taking a bad shape after Donald J. Trump was inaugurated to his first term.

The so-called ‘adults in the room’ were able to control his worst instincts and much damage was avoided.

However, his hard-line acolytes were biding their time. 

Biden Interregnum

Joe Biden and his closest advisers did recognize the acute danger to American democracy posed by Trump and his gang, but were not resolute and determined enough.

The Biden administration took off to a very bad start with the haphazard and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The groundwork for the withdrawal had been laid by the Trump administration, but Biden was under no obligation to follow through and that also so hastily. This left a very bad taste in the mouth, but also hampered much of his later work.

The U.S. should also have held on to the sprawling Bagram Air Base, 30 km north of the capital Kabul. It could have been a major pressure point for domestic and international affairs.

The Biden administration and the democratic forces did try to rein in Trump, but were not successful against the populist tide.

Trump and his grassroots “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) swept to power.

Trump 2.0

This time around Trump was very well prepared to cause havoc in both the domestic and international spheres.

It is very difficult to gauge what motivates Trump.

Trump’s father was a self-made real estate tycoon and Trump slipped into his shoes effortlessly.

He was not particularly highly educated, but still somehow managed to complete a business degree at a posh college and became a wheeler-dealer in the real estate business of New York City.

He rose to prominence in the TV-series “The Apprentice”, but was not a member of high-class New York society.

But neither was he involved in high-class national politics. But he was able to outwit his Republican opponents, who were not of a very high calibre.

In the presidential elections of 2016, Hillary Clinton was the more outstanding candidate, but luck and skulduggery was on Trump’s side.

Trump utterly lacks vision, and in less than a year, he has succeeded in ruining both the American polity and economy.

Trump considers himself a “Tariff Man”, but is completely devoid of the basic knowledge of Economics, and above all of the market forces of ‘supply and demand’.

His world-wide uncoordinated tariff policy has taken international trade into a tailspin and made domestic markets everywhere unreliable.

The global economy hangs in the balance as the leaders of the two super-powers hold talks on Thursday in Seoul.

At every opportunity possible, Trump rails against Biden and Obama about how terrible their policies were, but the American economy is in the worst possible shape.

Trump’s attack on American democracy is unprecedented.

And he has also managed to turn U.S. foreign policy upside down. Even U.S. foreign policy experts are flabbergasted.

For no rhyme nor reason, Trump has

  • Downgraded and down-scaled the Department of State (DoS)
  • Not only abolished the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), but also needlessly terminated vital health and food-aid programmes throughout the world
  • Drastically reduced U.S. engagement with the United Nations, including in the crucial Peace Keeping Operations
  • Revoked its support for the Paris Climate Accord
  • Scrapped U.S. membership and any support for the World Health Organization (WHO)

Consequently, Trump and his cohorts have changed the face of the world completely.

The ‘Rules-Based International Order’ that came into being after World War II now lies in tatters.

It seems that the world is now trending towards an unstable bipolar system – where two powerful super-powers are slogging it out in an unpredictable trade war and intense competition in advanced technologies, artificial intelligence, and production of very advanced microchips and cornering vital rare earths.

Other would be great powers – Russia, India, Japan and the European Union – as well as regional powers like Turkeye, wait in the wings, hoping that the world becomes more multipolar and they have a greater role to play.

In the meantime, the European countries France and the United Kingdom are no longer great powers and their veto-wielding rights in the UN Security Council a mere distraction.

The UNSC has become stymied because of the indiscriminate use of the veto by the so-called ‘Big Five’, but reform discussions will get nowhere considering the present chaotic state of the world.

In regional and world affairs, Israel is punching far above its weight, thanks to unqualified U.S. support.

Two other nuclear-armed states – North Korea and Pakistan are considered spoilers and a menace in their respective regions – by South Korea and Japan in North-East Asia and by India, Afghanistan and Iran in South and West Asia.

Another would-be nuclear armed state Iran has been reduced to shambles by the machinations of America and Israel combined.

Two other continents Africa and Central & South America are attempting to go their separate ways but are hampered by internal structural deficiencies and external interference.

Russia’s Aggression in Ukraine

Russia’s aggression in Ukraine started way back in 2014 when it invaded parts of the former Soviet satellite with irregular soldiers and complete overtook the Crimean Peninsula.

The use of armed force in territorial aggression was completely against the UN Charter, but the Western powers did nothing to ruffle the feathers of a permanent member of the UNSC.

After Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, Vladimir Putin was emboldened to do more and again invade Ukraine, but he badly miscalculated.

Putin carelessly underestimated the Ukrainians and was overconfident in the prowess of the Russian army. One week’s ‘special military operation’ has now stretched to nearly four years.

Putin would have had to face the dust, were it not for his bosom pal Trump, who he considers a kindred spirit.

Trump has succeeded not only in fooling the Ukrainian president, but the whole of NATO.

He always find excuses for Putin for not coming to the negotiating table, and each time his so-called allies fall for it.

Trump always gives Putin the benefit of the doubt. He makes grand gestures – calling Putin in hour-long telephone talks or a bilateral summit meeting like in Alaska – but nothing comes of them.

Trump always brags of how powerful militarily the U.S. is, but when it comes to aiding Ukraine, he shirks in his duty, also as a decisive member of NATO.

Lately, he speculated whether the U.S. would supply long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine in order to turn the tide, but soon backtracked!

He was also supposed to meet Putin in Budapest in order to get the ball rolling in bilateral and/or trilateral negotiations, but this has now also been kept on hold.

With Trump directing and Putin supporting/producing, the Ukraine war is not ending any time soon.

The international community must also find ways and means to counter and deter Putin and his henchman, former president Medvedev from threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine – a disgusting ploy.

Gaza & the Middle East

In the two-year Gaza war, a breakthrough was achieved because of great international pressure to finally stop Israel’s atrocities in the enclave.

Biden and Trump were highly reluctant to put pressure on Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who himself was highly susceptible to intense pressure from his extreme right-wing ministers in his cabinet.

However, the last straw broke the camel’s back and Trump’s close aides, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Steve Witcoff came up with the 20-point programme for a temporary Gaza ceasefire.

This resulted in the release of the living Israeli hostages and some bodies of the deceased – including that of the Nepali Bipin Joshi.

We are, of course, far away from a comprehensive Middle East peace. This will not be achieved unless and until:

  • Hamas is pacified
  • There is an international security-maintaining force within Gaza
  • There is a Palestinian technocratic interim government in Gaza
  • A Palestinian state comprising the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is finally established, and its sovereignty and territorial integrity is attested to by the United Nations.   

What Next?

Trump holds court at the Oval Office of the presidential residence, and the leaders of the world consider it a great honour to be invited and mainly pay him fulsome praise.

In spite of his bombast, Trump is basically ‘a sheep in wolf’s clothing’.

Still, he must be tamed domestically by the Democrats and other progressive forces. Trump and his MAGA movement must be cut down to size.

Domestically, Trump should be challenged at every turn. The Democrats should leave no stone unturned to capture Congress again in the midterm elections in November 2026, so that he is reduced to a lame duck president.

Internationally, leaders may rise to challenge him. He must be recognized for what he is: a braggart and megalomaniac, and corrupt to the core.

He is not at all a statesman, but nothing more, and nothing less than a tin-pot autocrat from a third-rate country.

As his domestic policies continue to fail, he will be exposed as a pompous windbag.

He should on no account be allowed to further his pet international projects:

  • Make Canada the 51st American State
  • Annex Greenland
  • Retake the Panama Canal
  • Reduce Central and South America to a U.S. Sphere of Influence, apply a modern version of the Monroe Doctrine, and interfere in the various states’ internal affairs with impunity.

The writer can be reached at:

shashimalla125@gmail.com