Geopolitics/Geoeconomics Thread - June 2015

[Cyrano]

Great power competition is not bad but great power collaboration is definitely bad because then it will squeeze the rest of us out. - Dr SJ.

This is such a profound statement.

[bala]

x-Posting:

EAM: Raisina Dialogue Panel - A Tapestry of Truths: Can the Two Hemispheres Agree

Feb 22, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60fxwrYpZMo

Africa thinks that India can shape world leadership, UN does not work! The current UN Security Council does not work for them and frankly does not deliver what the world needs. UAE also believes that UN does not work.

[Cyrano]

Like someone said here in brf India will get the UNSC seat when it either becomes irrelevant or when we don't need it

[drnayar]

Like someone said here in brf India will get the UNSC seat when it either becomes irrelevant or when we don't need it

Quite so, the worthies at the UNSC will cling on to their illusions of grandeur till they become soo irrelevant., the rise of the middle powers in the economic power hierarchy will lead directly to such an event. In 2050 3 of the top 5 economies will be in Asia, what's the relevance of UK and France in such a scenario., come 2075 , UK would be 10th and France at a new high of 15th in the global economic pecking order!

[Cyrano]

^^^That's very unconvincing. Indonesia, Pakistan?!!

[Pratyush]

Indonesia, being one of the largest economies is understandable. It's a well educated population, with moderate Islamic leanings. So if, it continues with the current trends, no reason why it should not become one of larger economies in future.

Pakistan, nice joke. What do they have, or will have that will turn them into a top 10 economic power in 2075. Second, will it even exist by 2075.

[bala]

This is a chat with desi interviewers both in Angrez and Hindi and EAM S. Jaishankar who answers in both languages with ease. A range of questions were asked - rise of India, added responsibilities in the world, global south, China, Kaneda/Khalistanis and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uj07MEhnu4

[Manish_P]

...

Quite so, the worthies at the UNSC will cling on to their illusions of grandeur till they become soo irrelevant., the rise of the middle powers in the economic power hierarchy will lead directly to such an event. In 2050 3 of the top 5 economies will be in Asia, what's the relevance of UK and France in such a scenario., come 2075 , UK would be 10th and France at a new high of 15th in the global economic pecking order!
...

Is this for real ?

Pakistan is nowhere in the list till 2050 and then in 2075 they jump straight to number 6

Must be all due to Jazba

EDIT- is it because between now and 2070 Pakistan will have turned into a desert. By 2071 they will discover oil.

Seriously though i guess that maybe the calculations are factored in terms of population. The jihadi beggars will have grown exponentially so much that even with very low per capita their total GDP will be put them high on the list.

[disha]

The chart is from Goldman Suchs.

The past is pure data and future is only projection. China, S. Korea and Japan will go through a bust in next decade or two. Starting with S. Korea, followed by China.

Bakistan will not exist even by 2030. Demographics do not matter. The sudden jump in the chart is someone doing a humour to favour somebody up in the chain at Goldman Suchs.

Just rely on data on the past and see that India jumped ahead in between 2000 to 2020. More so between 2014 to 2024. Since that is real data.

[Manish_P]

The chart is from Goldman Suchs.

The past is pure data and future is only projection. ...

Is the data reliable? China is known to fudge data.... less said about bakistan sialkoti statistics the better

Bakistan will not exist even by 2030.
...

Jihadistan was created to keep a check on Bharat. It will be kept propped up until Bharat chooses to destroy it. It's shape and form may change. But it will be there

Demographics do not matter

Demographics is destiny.

[disha]

Jihadistan was created to keep a check on Bharat. It will be kept propped up until Bharat chooses to destroy it. It's shape and form may change. But it will be there

Looking at Ukraine, 10 years back, nobody thought that it will now exist as a moth-eaten rump state. Looking at Bakistan, and what is happening in Lawhore, Bakistan will exist only in memory.

Demographics is destiny.

Pure numbers by itself is useless. By that token, Bakistan has lot of demographics and all TFTA. Still ineffective. So demographics is destiny only when you have a good leader at the top.

[vimal]

^^ "Bakistan will exist only in memory nightmares"

[Manish_P]

Looking at Bakistan, and what is happening in Lawhore, Bakistan will exist only in memory.

It's not new... has happened for a long time. Lahore was once part of Bharat.

Pure numbers by itself is useless. By that token, Bakistan has lot of demographics and all TFTA. Still ineffective. So demographics is destiny only when you have a good leader at the top.

It will not be jihadistan which will need to have a good leader. 50+ years ago we helped dismember Bakistan, defeated their military, created Bangladesh. And we still have a huge problem there. Good leader or not, one cannot just dismiss demographics.

[bala]

Dr Ankit Shah has a lot to say about Modi 3.0. He has some interesting observations to make in the geo political sphere.

Printing of dollars and the petro dollar has caused some huge side affects - radicalization and excessive consumption in the world. The China story is well known wherein funds were indiscriminately shoveled into break-neck building. Now China has ghost cities, buildings are vacant with no tenants, large cities with gleaming buildings with no-one occupying them. Its stellar high speed railway system is dropping in clientele usage, most labor in china has disappeared back to their villages. Excessive and blind growth has led to a huge loss for China. He thinks that the cheap production of various products for western consumption has led China into this abyss and he feels it is a good thing for China that there is stop to export driven behavior. China needs to re-calibrate its entire thinking and re-adjust its living norms.

Similar things have happened in the west. The average home size has ballooned from 1000 sq ft to well over 3000 sq ft. People have empty bedrooms, the family unit is broken and almost all of them have pets like dogs and cats to make up for their loneliness caused by family breakup. On a average they consume too many things 4-5 TVs, 4-5 cars, huge electricity consumption per person, wastage of packaging/plastics, food and resources of gigantic proportions. Consumption has gone awry, yet the people feel lonelier than ever, very empty.

He says this is not the Sanatani system. India has respect for the environment and its resources. The family unit ensures people can sanely live their lives with support. The excessive build up of multi-stories is causing a western way of life and many couples/singles are living an empty life. The sense of family support is fast disappearing and excessive consumption is on the horizon for Bharat. He cautions against this.

Shifting of manufacturing to India is not going to yield lower costs for products, in fact could be much higher. Over time, the dollar reigning supreme is going to disappear and a barter system which involves good/services will evolve. The shift will be profound and major adjustments will happen worldwide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJl3EFYrIR8

[bala]

S Jaishankar takes on the moronic policies of Neverwho. How many blunders by Neverwho - Tibet, Security Council seat, Kashmore, Aksai Chin 1962 war with poor equipment for the army and did not use the Indian airforce to smash the Chinese, adopted Britshit imposed constitution, judiciary, babucracy, stunted the growth of India with socialist/communist policy. Essentially got both China and Pakistan wrong.

This is the short take on Neverwho...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LfDst-OxG0

Longer interview (at around 17:00 on Neverwho)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhzfdYYhKEY

[ricky_v]

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/tom-f ... raq-syria/

Among their whistlestops were U.S. installations in Syria. About 900 American troops are there, distributed in penny packets among seven bases. Some of these protect oil fields that supply U.S.-backed Kurdish authorities; others are in the far northeast, where they assist Kurdish units, help secure and supply the cluster of camps that house ISIS prisoners and their families and continue to hunt ISIS fighters; and still others in the southeast, at a road junction where the Iraqi, Syrian and Jordanian borders meet. This base was set up to interdict Iranian-backed forces attempting to entrench themselves in Syria and transport supplies to Lebanon.

In Friedman’s recap of this visit, he explained that the importance of these U.S. deployments lay in the need to fight the terrorists over there so we would not have to fight them over here.

Let’s say, for the moment, that there are several other rationales for maintaining troops in Syria. Iran, for example, does seek to use Syria as a land corridor to Lebanon and the Israeli-Syrian border, from which it can carry the fight to its enemy. Iran is 1,200 kilometers from Israel, so if it wants to reach out and touch someone without using ballistic missiles, it needs to be on Israel’s borders. Rendering this a bit more difficult than it might otherwise be makes a regional blow-up marginally less likely.

Maintaining a garrison at the oil fields is meant to secure them from capture by either ISIS or the Assad regime, against which the U.S. maintains heavy sanctions. Reserving the oil for use by Kurds, both for sale and consumption, reflects a longstanding policy that favors Kurdish autonomy in Syria. This policy preference, which owes in part to a romanticized image of Kurds as daring fighters fending off terrorist hordes to spare the U.S. an onerous burden, also dictates the use of U.S. forces in northeast Syria as a tripwire deterrent against Turkish attempts to suppress Syrian Kurds.

One can have this or that view on the validity of these rationales or the salience of these objectives for core U.S. strategic interests. If the Turks and their radical Arab militias rip into the Kurds to get at the PKK, as they have done twice already, U.S. strategic interest is unlikely to suffer very much. If ISIS fighters escape the camps in Syria, Iraqi forces with U.S. help could probably limit the threat to Iraqi stability. The U.S. installation at al-Tanf in the southeast can be bypassed by Iran-backed militias via an Assad-controlled base at al bu-Kamal, a bit northeast of al-Tanf, so the U.S. base there might have outlived its usefulness.

Of course, on any given day there are about 30,000 U.S. military personnel in the region, as there have been for decades, so 900 isn’t a particularly impressive number. It’s a good example of limited interests served by a commensurately limited commitment. Whether to stay or go comes down to a narrow judgment call.

But of all the factors to consider there is one that does not merit concern: the idea of fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. It’s a vacuous meme trotted out to defend the controversial commitment and use of forward deployed forces and creation of distant security perimeters.

[bala]

Another dialog with Palki Sharma and John Mersheimer centering on the four powers are discussed - US, Russia, China and India. This is an often discussed topic and there are no clear answers. We can model all possibilities but as they say, "you have to play the game" to get any clarity. You need chanakya thinking to play this multi-dimensional game.

Around 23:00 in YT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZOmpl00Ihk

One of the points that J Mersheimer makes on China is not correct, he thinks they will become a "Blue Water" Navy and they will get wealthier. Both of these are not true. The US withdrawing from China in terms of manufacturing has put a dagger in the heart of economic wealth of China. Their Navy is a completely useless entity, just look at their clout in the red sea area, having huge numbers of everything is not the point. Their aircraft carriers have never gone on independent expedition outside their border areas and I heard their carriers have cracked their tops and a fully loaded aircraft has never taken of from their deck. Their submarines are noisy as hell. All they have are missiles galore but their missile commander was sacked and a non-missile man is in charge. So effectively China is on a downward slide. J Mersheimer does observe that China will have a tough time to take on Taiwan. He thinks the quagmire would be the South China sea and conflicts with Philippines, Japan and South Korea could escalate quite quickly. India is helping the Philippines with Brahmos and other weapons.

One of the side outcomes in the discussion, is that India has to shore up its defense prowess, make the Navy a "Blue Water" navy by augmenting carriers, submarines and various classes of ships while simultaneously the Airforce and Army have to be thoroughly modernized and augmented in numbers. Lots of work ahead.

[sanman]

Can industrial output decide US v China war?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9qL83M3ebk

[NRao]

I found this 1.5 hrs podcast to be fascinating.

[vijayk]

https://archive.is/92FIe
Germany Arrests Dozens Suspected of Planning to Overthrow Government
Many the police detained had military training and were believed to belong to a recently formed group that operated on the conviction that the country was ruled by the so-called deep state.

[chanakyaa]

Chip manufacturing is being moved out of Taiwan at a rapid pace, based on a roadmap which was established few years ago. #Taiwan #ChipsEmbargo ??

Taiwan Semi (TSM) to get up to $6.6 billion in direct funding for its Arizona plant

[Pratyush]

I found this 1.5 hrs podcast to be fascinating.

I watched it. It was an educational session. Clearly bringing out the weakness of the Indian business houses. Why it was a weakness . Along with priscription for a solution.

[ramana]

Chatham House has two articles on India
Will post links.

One link

https://twitter.com/ramana_brf/status/1 ... oa-WA&s=19