EDITORIAL- MARCH 7, 2022

THE HINDU EDITORIAL-MARCH, 7, 2022

 

Quadrilateral queasiness India cannot be forced to pick a side in the conflict, but Russia could test its resolve At a snap virtual meeting of the Quadrilateral security Dialogue or Quad, comprising India, the U.S., Australia and Japan, leaders discussed the crisis of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine along with more traditional topics of interest for the Dialogue, including territorial and maritime security across the Indo-Pacific, in the joint statement, issued after the summit, the four nations reaffirmed their commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, “in which the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states is respected and countries are free from military, economic, and political coercion’. The latest Quad meeting was in part likely motivated by the concern of the U.S., Australia, and Japan that India, in not explicitly condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a ground offensive across the Russia-Ukraine border and to bomb Ukrainian infrastructure, might not be on the same page as the other Quad members vis-à-vis this conflict. They have not only condemned Russia’s aggression but have also slapped Kremlin elites and organizations linked to them with crippling sanction. India, contrarily, has abstained from three UN resolutions condemning Russia. There is also a considerable difference on the Russia-Ukraine issue in terms of the individual readouts of the Quad members. While the U.S., Australia and Japan directly called out Russia’s attempt to unilaterally force changes to the status quo in Ukraine and vowed not to let such action occur anywhere in the Indo-Pacific, India’s readout only referenced Ukraine in passing, in the context of establishing a new humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mechanism for this cause. Russia’s action has obviously posed complex questions for India’s strategic calculus, even as New Delhi continues to be guided by the 21st century variant of its non-alignment paradigm, and by its need to remain close to Moscow, a major defense supplier. South Block is already well versed at playing hardball with mandarins at the U.S. State Department over getting a CAATSA waiver for India’s purchase of $5.43 billion worth of the Russian Triumph missile defense system. While the discussions on the Ukraine crisis will continue at the Quad and across other plurilateral platform where India and the U.S. work together for the greater good of the rules-based international order, the idea that NATO countries or even Russia can force sovereign nations with a proud history of non-alignment to pick a side in a complex geopolitical conflict is quite passé and eminently unviable in today’s interdependent global arena. The Quad, for example, cannot afford to alienate India, a critical partner in the global-strategic plan to balance the rise of China as a potential Asian hegemon. Yet, India may find its resolve and patience with Russia tested should Russian occupying forces begin committing war crimes and human rights violations in contravention of the Geneva Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other applicable global treaties.   Heartland notes As U.P. polls draw to a close, BJP knows a lot more than the immediate rides on outcome Lead actors in Uttar Pradesh were repositioning themselves in the last lap of the Assemble elections that are concluding with the seventh and last phase on March 7. The voter participation across the first five phases was close to the 2017 level despite pandemic-related restrictions on campaigning. In the last week, the war in Ukraine also entered campaign conversations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to reach out to people from the State directly affected by the war. He also acknowledged the serious problem of stray cattle caused by the short-sighted cow protection policy that was implemented by the BJP-government in the State. The party appeared defensive on the question of unemployment while gaining support for better law and order and welfare schemes. If re-elected, it has promised more welfare schemes such as a wedding gift of 1 lakh rupees for girls from BPL families. Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav took note of the potency of welfare schemes for the BJP and sought to counter it by offering more. He has promised five years of free rations to the poor that will include ghee, lentils and other items. He has also striven hard to overcome the labeling – by expanding his social base – that he stood for one caste and one community: the Yadavs and Muslims. The question is whether he has marshalled enough public support to unseat the BJP that has three fourths of the seats in the outgoing Assembly. The burden of the SP’s past regime, perceived as corrupt and protective of criminals, disrupts his momentum. Regardless of who wins, the outcome on March 10 will create ripples beyond the State’s boundaries. The results will influence the course of national politics, particularly the efforts to create a common platform of regional parties opposed to the BJP being spearheaded by Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao. Congress leader Prinyanka Gandhi made a mark in the campaign, though nobody is betting on the fortunes of the Congress in the State. The Bahujan Samaj Party and the BJP had a public show of mutual warmth, and the political meaning of that will become clearer in the post-poll scenario. All these moves will largely depend on whether or not the fundamentals of the BJP politics in its biggest stronghold will challenged. The BJP has not faced a setback in U.P. since 2014, and one-fifth of its sitting Lok Sabha members are elected from this one State. If the SP’s social justice politics upsets the BJP’s Hindutva parade, it will mark a return of the politics of the 1990s in the heartland. This sheer possibility, however indistinct it might be, makes U.P. a very consequential crucible of Indian politics.

In sanctions bite, Nord Stream 2 in the cross hairs A well chosen target, the massive gas pipeline is one of the key issues central to the Ukraine conflict RANJAN MATHAI Russia’s attack on Ukraine has triggered “unprecedented” economic sanctions by the United States, though how deeply they damage the Russia-Europe energy relationship remains to be seen. The speed with which the U.S. declared the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to be “dead at the bottom of the sea” indicates that this massive gas pipeline is one of the key issues at the bottom of the conflict. Still a critical fuel Despite global efforts to decarbonize energy, natural gas is set to remain one of the principal sources of primary energy till at least 2040. Europe is the world’s second largest market for natural gas, and hence the battleground between the superpowers of hydrocarbon energy, the U.S. and Russia. Germany, despite a decade of “energiewende” (an ‘energy turnaround’ or the ‘ongoing transition to a low carbon, environmentally sound, reliable, and affordable energy supply’), is still one of the world’s largest importers of oil and gas. It is again at the epicenter, as it has been in earlier energy pipeline disputes. The post-war European security order under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact was underpinned by an energy order in which oil was sold to West Europe from West Asian/Middle Eastern fields controlled by U.S. companies; and to East Europe from the giant oilfields of the Soviet Union. West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany or the FRG) and other European countries had “economic miracles” and were drawn into the dollar denominated oil trade cycle, which supports U.S. global dominance to this day. Problems arose in the 1960s when Soviet production expanded rapidly and their planned “Druzhba” pipeline network went beyond integrating East Europe; to offering West Europe both lower prices for oil and large order for specialized pipes and transmission equipment. The FRG found the offer compelling and the U.S. fought to preserve market dominance by pressurinsing NATO partners into an embargo on pipe sales- applied retroactively. The FRG’s then 87-year-old Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, finally acquiesced after a bitter internal debate. The Soviets built the pipeline with a two year lag; however, they only won a large share of the West European oil market after the West Asia/Middle East oil supply crises of the 1970s and fall in U.S. domestic production made it an importer. An energy transition The 1970s European energy transition to natural gas led to the geoeconomic linkage of giant Soviet gas fields to West European markets via pipelines through East Europe, again generating lucrative sales of large diameter pipes for German companies. The synergy of Germany’s Ostpolitik with the Siberian pipeline worked during the U.S.-Soviet détente; but during the 1981-83 crisis over Soviet backed martial law in Poland, there was another showdown when the U.S. tried to stop the completion of the huge Siberian pipeline. The U.S. had no alternative to offer except coal; and the formidable German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, faced down U.S. sanctions, saying bluntly “the pipeline will be built”. Built it was, and the U.S. gave up the sanctions within six months, switching to other tools to win the Cold War. The 1986 oil price crash caused by friendly Saudi Arabia which dented the Soviet economy may have been one. The victorious U.S. then used NATO expansion into Eastern Europe and the Baltic States to create a new European security order in the face of a diminished Russia, and a risk-averse European Union. Breaking up Russia’s good friend Serbia in 1999 after 79 days of NATO bombing, was an early success. Plans to probe further into Georgia and Ukraine have however divided NATO. For the U.S. maintaining leadership in the face of Russia’s determined pushback now requires curtailing the growing EU-Russia gas synergy as a strategic objective, combined with a 1960s style fight over market share. Impact of Putin’s push  Russian President Vladimir Putin revived Russia by leveraging oil and gas production which provide 60% of exports, 25% of government revenue, and have boosted national reserves to $600 billion. It can, and has used gas as an instrument of influence in it’s “near abroad”. However, for the EU (60% of Russia’s gas exports), and its main customer Germany, Russia has been a most reliable supplier right through the Cold War, the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Division of the assets of the pipeline network with Ukraine and other successor states, and economic chaos under Russia’s Boris Yestsin. A new pipeline was built to Germany via Belarus and Poland; and Russia now supplies 35%-40% of the EU’s gas needs, In the early 2000s, the EU noted the stability of Russia’s gas deliveries, However in 2004, political instability in Ukraine began causing problems for gas flow, and thereafter, work on the direct Russia-Germany link via the undersea giant Nord Stream project was planned. The two Nord Stream pipelines are gamechangers as they can meet nearly all of Germany’s import requirements, and are symbols of synergy with Russia. Crucially, however, they deprive Ukraine and East European transit countries of revenues and leave them dependent on Russia for continued supplies. Some have had to get Russian gas via eastward flows from Germany! Hence, their strident opposition to the Nord Stream project from the outset, and with U.S. support they have launched the Three Seas Initiative to develop north-south gas connectivity using liquefied natural gas (LNG) imported via maritime terminals on the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas. The U.S. strategy                                                                  As in the 1950s, the U.S. can now deliver energy – LNG – to buttress its security umbrella. The shale gas revolution has made the U.S. the world’s largest producer of gas; and as production surpassed the peak set in 1973, it has become a major exporter of LNG. The strategy of reducing Russia’s grip on the lucrative EU gas market is thus being pursued ruthlessly for both strategic and commercial reasons. U.S. LNG exports to the EU have grown rapidly to 22 billion cubic meters (BCM) worth $12 billion in 2021; and will go up sharply, if Nord Stream 2 remains non-functional and Germany has to set up LNG terminals instead. In case “green” activism curbs U.S. shale gas expansion, the geopolitically risk-laden effort to create a long-term Europe-Mideast gas nexus using the enormous gas reserves of Iran (and Qatar) could be revived. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s support for Nord Stream 2 has been threatened since his assumption of office last December, which coincided with U.S. intelligence leaks about the imminent invasion of Ukraine. The beleaguered leader was ambivalent even in early February when U.S. President Joe Biden audaciously announced in Mr. Scholz’s presence, that in case of an invasion of Ukraine “there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2… We will bring an end to it “. His hand has now been forced and regulatory certification of pipeline is suspended; and Mr. Scholz announced a U-turn away from Ostpolitik to closer coordination with NATO. Key reasons, looking ahead                                                   Nord Stream 2 is a well chosen target as the recently completed €10 billion asset is wholly owned by Russia’s Gazprom unlike Nord Stream 1 (functional for a decade) which is jointly owned with European companies. Mr. Scholz’s Green coalition partners are also skeptical about it. The Nord Stream project has larger capacity than all of Russia’s current and planned gas pipelines to China; so it remains of great importance for Moscow. Nord Stream 1 survives, as Europe will suffer without it, but preserving market share in the EU requires Russia to keep gas also flowing through Ukraine. The implications for the U.S.’s Indo-Pacific strategy, of the current focus on Europe are presently unclear. Much will depend on how Mr. Putin’s gamble plays out: i.e. of a pre-emptive strike against Ukraine itself, rather than a “minor incursion”, perhaps in Donbass, which Mr. Biden said would divide NATO over how to respond. Whether the EU, now sans the fervently NATO-inclined U.K., is actually jolted enough to take on a military dimension is question for the future. For the present, the U.S. aims to maintain preponderance at the western end of Eurasia with energy included in its arsenal.   Conflict and a ‘settings change’ for social media A clear protocol governs such platforms is a must given their intersection with global public life in critical situations SAPNI G.K. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has brought multiple questions to the fore on the validity of international law. Fingers have been pointed at the accepted norms of state behavior. Cyberspace is no alien to these questions, where ad hoc standard setting has been practiced as a norm for decades now. Cover of ‘tech neutrality’ The challenges specific to the case now- the Ukraine conflict, where Russia is clearly the aggressor state – are not new either. Armed conflicts within and between states have played out in cyberspace for years. It is no surprise then to see the same dynamics play out on social media platforms. The increased attention is undoubtedly a function of the location of the conflict – Europe. The struggles of the Ukrainian population facing Russian aggression are by no means to be ignored, but the world outside Europe and North America has seen more than its share of conflicts, materializing and exacerbating the troubles of kinetic conflict through cyberspace. Social media platforms have gone by the mantra of “tech neutrality” to avoid taking decisions that may be considered political for too long. The years that have passed have seen an active ignoring of the concerns around social media platforms during a conflict. It does not help that the harbingers of a free and open world did little to create norms for social media as a new dimension of conflicts. This worrying but unaddressed concern has been a looming threat since the world learned about its use by the Islamic State in the early 2010s, and continues to complicate our understanding of the limits of warfare. The lack of clear systems within social media companies that claim to connect the world is appalling. It is time that they should have learned from multiple instances, as recent as the Israeli use of force in Palestine. Corporations and problems                                 In the context of conflict, social media platforms have multiple challenges that go unaddressed. Content moderation remains a core area of concern, where essentially, information warfare can be operationalised and throttled. These corporations do not have the obligation to act responsibly as is expected of a state. Yet, their sheer magnitude and narrative-building abilities place a degree of undeniable onus on them. After years of facing and acknowledging these challenges, most social media giants are yet to create institutional capacity to deal with such situation. Ad hoc responses too many predictable scenarios do not create an image of responsible action from such corporations. Additionally, they also act as a conduit for further amplification of content on other platforms. Major social medial platforms such as Face book, Instagram, and Twitter also provide space for extremist views from fringe platforms, where the degree of direct relation to the user generating such content is blurred. Even though these big platforms create special teams to handle such content, the magnitude overwhelms the teams that are sparingly staffed. It is also a concern that the mascots of the liberal world where such fringe social media platforms are registered do little to regulate them. Technology falls short Misinformation and disinformation are thorny challenges to these platforms. Algorithmic solutions are widely put to use to address them. These include identification of content violative of their terms, reducing the visibility of content deemed inappropriate by the algorithm and in the determination of instances reported to be violative of the terms by other users. More often than not in critical cases, these algorithmic solutions have misfired, harming the already resource-scarce party. This reiterates human ingenuity and sensitivity to context. It is an essential ingredient to thwarting nefarious activity on social media platforms that cannot be outsourced to technology. Instances such as these are an opportunity for these corporations to demonstrate their commitment to the values they profess. They should not stop at the point of creating small-over-worked teams with minimal understanding of the geographical and cultural dimensions of problems. The operational realities of these platforms require that the safety of users be prioritized to address pressing concerns, even at the cost of profits. There was no unpredictability over conflicts in the information age spilling over to social media platforms. It did not even require pre-emption, since these have been recurrent events in the past decade. The international community and the liberal world order had to be proactive but failed to do so. We have missed the chance to have established a clear protocol on balancing the business interests of social media platforms and their intersection with global public life in critical situations. Though late, it would be valuable to have insights and clear frameworks to guide the behavior of states and these corporations in cases of conflict, which will inevitably spill over to social media platforms in today’s information age. India has a role For India, there are many lessons. India’s strategic position I the global order appear to be diminishing. The time is ripe to set that right and gain currency in the developing world order. The ruling party seems to be adept at using social media platforms to set a domestic narrative to its liking. However, India is yet to demonstrate any such aptitude before the international community. It will be useful to add that to the India agenda on all matters international. The lack of coherent norms on state behavior in cyberspace as well as the intersection of business, cyberspace, and state activity is an opportunity for India. Indian diplomats can initiate a new track of conversations here which can benefit the international community at large. India should ensure that it initiates these conversations through well-informed diplomats. Ultimately, this will contribute to maintaining a rule-based word order that can greatly benefit India. Transparency, accountability Finally, it is necessary to reassess the domestic regulatory frame-work on social media platforms. Transparency and accountability need to be foundational to the regulation of social media platforms in the information age. The moral standing for initiating any change to the global order must stem from a domestic policy that reflects the protection of the interests of the people over that of the political masters. We must stay away from the trend of regulatory norms that are deeply infringing on the rights accorded in a democracy. Uncertainties of conflict overwhelm people and institutions. The dangerous conflation of social media as the civilian public square and site of international conflict will not bode well. A protocol that outlines the norms of behavior on social media during such situations can help in addressing the multitude of evolving factors It is in our national interest and that of a rule-based global polity that social media platforms be dealt with more attention across spheres than with a range of reactionary measures addressing immediate concerns alone.