Geopolitics Review Extra - 14th November 2024
The Middle-East, India-China Border Deals, and Zelenskyy's Victory Plan
Contents
Introduction
Middle East Updates
India-China Border Deal
Zelenskyy’s Victory Plan
Concluding Remarks
Bitesize Edition
Sometimes, geopolitics moves so fast that I don’t have enough time to discuss many issues. This week, this edition of the Geopolitics Review Extra is providing an opportunity to catch up on many of these key issues.
A few weeks ago, I wrote updates on the Middle East and the India-China border deal. I then more recently added comments on the Russia-Ukraine War now that we know Trump will be seated in the White House in January. In each geopolitical event, I’ll explore likely scenarios that we could see moving forward, and other countries that could benefit or suffer as a secondary consequence of these geopolitical stories.
Introduction
A few weeks ago, I wrote some comments providing updates on the Middle East and the India-China border deal. I haven’t yet released these comments, but today seemed a great opportunity. I’m leaving the UK to travel around Europe and Asia on Sunday for a few months, and adding a small update to these comments I’d already written saved me time as I look forward to carrying my life on my back for six months! I hope these comments can prove useful.
Keep an eye out for the second part of my series on Myanmar which will be released on Monday! For now, let’s once again discuss the Middle East.
Middle East Updates
We saw a high-level intelligence leak in the United States disclosing details of Israel’s expected response against Iran’s missile attack at the start of October. The biggest conclusion from the leak was the expectation that the attack would occur before the U.S. election. This did end up being the reality, with Israel attacking Iranian military assets on October 26th.
On the other side, Iran stated via back channels that they would respond to an Israeli response. However, after the attacks had occurred, Iran were downplaying the Israeli attack, saying they caused little damage. Is this another attempt at de-escalation from the Iranians? Will they once again be “forced” into a response to not look weak, as occurred after the Haniyeh and Nasrallah deaths?
With the Middle East, there is the possibility this was another batch of geopolitical theatre just as we saw in April, where Iran and the United States communicated via the Swiss and Iran’s attack caused minimal damage. This time that wasn’t the case, when Iranian missiles hitting targets at the start of October. The American support remains for Israel, with the THAAD battery and 100-troop deployment indicating this.
Even though US support remains, we are seeing some tension rising in Israel’s approaches to the conflict in the region. The Italians have seen enough in this escalating conflict, and have enforced a full weapons embargo on Israel. Israel is also still blocking aid to Northern Gaza after a 30-day ultimatum issued by the United States, which will soon expire. I’m very interested to see if this ultimatum is brushed under the rug if Israel hasnt let aid into the Northern Gaza Strip, or if the United States increases pressure on Israel. Outside of not allowing aid into Gaza, the IDF has also been firing tanks at UNIFIL positions. These are UN peacekeepers in Lebanon. But still, the United States continues support, even after the State Department spoke about opposing the Beirut air campaign, and the many other aspects of this war that the United States has opposed. They just don’t oppose it enough to do anything about it. This has occurred in the same week as Israel attacking a Christian town in Northern Lebanon killing 20, and Netanyahu’s finance minister calling for Israel to extend its borders to Damascus.
There are many indications of Israeli aggression in the surrounding geography of the Middle East. It states the most important element of its actions is to ensure security. Does threatening regional security bring Israel national security? With rising instability, I’d argue not.
To the North, the conflict with Hezbollah continues. The IDF released where Hezbollah keeps its cash and gold, which in a country where citizens are poor and struggle for necessities, could lead to internal tension. Hezbollah also elected a new secretary general, who was announced to be killed in an air strike. The group in response launched a drone attack on Benjamin Netanyahu’s home.
Netanyahu stated after the death of Hamas leader Sinwar, that it’s the “beginning of the end”. Do you know when he also said this? In May. After the Rafah assault, which had previously been stated as a red flag by the United States. Where are we now? Still fighting this conflict at an escalated level. As I stated in my update in July, Netanyahu needs a war to remain in power and avoid his corruption trial, even if that means declining support for Israel on the global stage. If any trend is going to change here, the United States need to make a clear move to demonstrate disagreement with Israel’s strategies outside of their rhetoric that has no real effect. A US-stated “red line” needs to be enforced, or we continue down the path of escalation.
I wrote these comments above many weeks ago. Adding to my earlier comments, we now know that Trump will return to the White House. Trump pushed heavily for the Abraham Accords, especially for a deal with Saudi Arabia. A rumoured policy of an agreement of normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be a security guarantee for the Saudis. Does this lead to further US involvement in the Middle East, and hence lead to a greater probability of escalation with Iran? Remember, in Trump’s first term, he pulled out of the JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran, and launched heavy sanction on the country.
Or does Saudi Arabia act as a peacekeeper in the Middle East? The Saudis and Iranians agreed to peace via a China-brokered deal in 2023 and even partook in naval exercises a few weeks ago. As for the other side of this conflict, Saudi Arabia has stated a normalization deal with Israel is conditional on the establishment of a Palestinian state. Currently, Israeli political leaders are in pursuit of the opposite of this, seeking to expand influence in the West Bank through the building of Israeli settlements, and in the Gaza Strip with a resettlement campaign that emerged via a conference a few weeks ago. Worryingly, this conference was attended by some government ministers.
Saudi Arabia as the Middle East peacekeeper is a potential scenario that could stop this current Israel-Iran conflict. But, the first move that has to occur is an end to the conflict in Gaza, and the establishment of a Palestinian State. During Trump’s previous presidency, he moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and referred to a united Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. He also published a less-than-favourable peace proposal for the Palestinians. Based on Trump’s first presidency, his ascension into office could well see Trump lean towards the Israelis, not specifically providing greater support, but ensuring they receive a favourable deal in any ending to the conflict here. That’s, of course, if it ends at all. Pressure is rising to establish a Palestinian State, but as I’ve discussed before, a more powerful actor has to step in. This is the United States. If Israel will listen to anybody, it’s the Americans, even though they haven’t been recently. More pressure is needed on the Israelis to end the conflict because, in the current direction of travel, the conflict is benefitting them. They need to be incentivised to scale back.
One path is the current status quo continues. Is the other path a unprecedented pivot towards greater stability in the Middle East?
India-China Border Deal
A few weeks ago, we received the news that China and India had come to an agreement to de-escalate their border crisis in the Himalayas. An all-out conflict occurred in 1962, but tensions after this only simmered until recent years. In 2020, at least 20 Indian soldiers and 4 Chinese soldiers were killed in the Galdan Valley in Northern India. India also then scrutinised and banned certain Chinese investments and apps. February 2022 marked the further banning of Chinese apps in India and December 2022 saw another border scuffle in India’s north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, a state which China claims as its own.
In August 2023 at the BRICS summit, a meeting between Xi and Modi started us along this path towards de-escalation, although both provided different recollections of the meeting. The month after, Xi didn’t attend the G20 in India, which signalled relations could be trending towards cold once again.
The latest iteration of the pursuit of de-escalation came from a meeting of the Indian and Chinese foreign ministers at an SCO meeting earlier this year.
This month, India’s army chief stated the “low-hanging fruit” had been addressed and now more difficult issues had to be worked on. Diplomats on both sides have provided options to move forward with these difficult issues, but they had to be finalised and implemented. Where does this leave us on the overall border issue? What other countries could be affected, whether positively or negatively, by a finalized deal here?
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