Foreign Policy Research Center Journal interview with Sanjay Upadhya
That persistent incongruity would certainly rank among today’s most glaring ironies. Countries that have spent untold precious billions defending themselves against one another have been now left cowering under this collective threat to humanity. We may debate endlessly whether even the most arduous and educated preparations could have minimized the scale of the calamity COVID-19 has inflicted on us. Still, the obsession of countries – big and small –with ever-modern weapons to defeat and deter real and perceived adversaries diverted vital resources and energies away from civil defense, first responders, hospitals, clinics and other essential services and facilities.
Sadly enough, though, our thoughts and actions are unlikely to change significantly. If anything, the pandemic has sharpened rivalries among great and medium-sized powers alike at a time when there is still so much we do not know about the origins and implications of Covid-19, much less about the most effective ways of emerging out of the crisis.
2. Do you believe the efficacy of international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization is at stake in the light of COVID-19?
The World Health Organization and the wider United Nations system are symptomatic of the paralysis that had crept into international organizations long before the pandemic broke out. The White House has buttressed its serious allegations that China’s failure to disclose the origin and extent of the outbreak of the virus in Wuhan with equally grave accusations that Beijing pressured the WHO to take Chinese claims at face value, thereby contributing to the current scale of the pandemic. The fact that the United States has dissociated itself with the WHO and pulled funding from the premier international health organization at such a crucial time is telling. The deadlock in the UN Security Council that has prevented meaningful action against what is by all accounts such an egregious threat to international peace and security has exposed the failure of world powers to act collectively even where such action is so obviously warranted. In that sense, the pandemic is a political crisis as much as it is one related to health.
The general trust deficit has trickled down and manifested itself locally in the lackluster response to the UN Secretary-General’s appeal for a global cease-fire. Where other international and regional organizations have mustered the determination to act, their responses have fallen far short of the challenge faced. The case for reforming international organizations to better reflect the realities of the modern world has now been bolstered by the urgency of such restructuring in the interest of effective and sustained collective action.
3. COVID-19 and the environment: Is there a relationship? What issues deserve urgent attention?
The pandemic has underscored humanity’s inextricable links to the environment in the broadest sense of the term. The onset, seriousness and cost of COVID-19 have been tied, one way or another, to people’s relationship with one another and to the environment they share. A healthy and durable human-environment relationship will have to progress in more diverse ways and at different levels. Cities, towns and smaller population centers alike will need room for greater autonomy to act in line with their specific contexts and circumstances. As provincial and national authorities seek broader integration of action, nations-states, too, must cooperate more effectively on sharing information, resources and technical capabilities.
More broadly, our discourse on the environment must break out of the destructively politicized medium- to long-term framework of climate change to encompass everyday solutions that would help to preserve and perpetuate the secure and stable environment so vital to our shared existence. Our challenge will certainly mount commensurately as we start fostering collective action amid a simultaneous dilution of authority and approaches. Yet it is a challenge we can ignore at our collective peril.
4. How do you visualize the shape of future world geopolitics – bipolar or multipolar? How will the pandemic impact the US-China rivalry?
The multifaceted US-China rivalry that has been sharpening over the years would likely exacerbate amid today’s heightening passions, anxieties and misperceptions. This would indicate an ever more unstable bipolar paradigm of conflict, confrontation and cooperation. With the United States increasingly likely to be preoccupied domestically and China showing signs of having emerged more resilient than the rest, it would be tempting to foresee a clear-cut scenario. However, the United States will continue to retain its other forms of power and influence such as language, religion and religious heritage, arts and literature, pattern of political and social life that would fortify its economic and military preponderance. China, needless to say, would find it difficult to compete in many of these areas. Still, the world has become too integrated for a complete decoupling of its two preponderant economies. Amid this dichotomy, other powers like Russia, United Kingdom, India, Japan, Brazil and South Africa as well as key member states of the European Union have their own comparative advantages in distinct areas and would continue to leverage them. Each would have an incentive to exercise greater independence in cooperating with both Washington and Beijing as they would see fit. How much space smaller states can enjoy to make choices independent of the major protagonists as well as the middle-sized powers would go on to determine the stability or otherwise of the emerging global order.
Ideally, the pandemic should have taught nations and peoples the virtues of cooperation. However, human nature, political systems, economic constraints, social and cultural diversity, among other things, would continue to present a multiplicity of values, attitudes, needs and expectations that must be reconciled with the imperative of collaboration.
5. Do you see an enhanced role for India in the post-COVID-19 world order?
The post-COVID-19 imperatives of repositioning the international manufacturing base and ensuring secure and stable global supply chains, among others, anticipate an enhanced role for India. More significantly, India’s historical experiences, geographical expanse, political pluralism, economic robustness, scientific and technological capabilities, ethnic diversity and military prowess are all invaluable assets in the quest to drive the kind of global cooperation the world is going to need ideally to overcome the current challenge and meet similar ones in the future. That vision must, however, contend with realities as they exist today. One area that is likely to come in sharper focus is India’s vision and practice of strategic autonomy. As it aspires for and assert its claims to a broader and more beneficial international leadership role, New Delhi may also find itself under growing pressure to ‘hedge’ and ‘bandwagon’ between the principal global protagonists. Enlightened self-interest would have to contend with sheer pragmatism based on issue and context.
How significant and advantageous a role India can play would depend on the level of freedom it can enjoy from its traditional security-defense preoccupations. In that sense, the deliberate as well as fortuitous actions of other key global actors as events unfold would be major determinants.
