So the Western media was all praise when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi uttered ”this is not an era for war” when meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Samarkand on the sidelines of SCO.
But then the next logical question is if the West is actually interested in halting the conflict and returning to peace talks ? Nope, nothing so far suggests that they have peace talks even remotely on their minds.
Going by the statement of French President Emmanuel Macron, who almost proposed sending European nations’ ground troops to fight by the side of Ukrainian forces against Russia, to now NATO mulling over a 100 billion Euro fund for Ukraine military support over five year term, it appears that the West is counting on yet another round of Russian territorial disintegration even if it means making an Afghanistan out of Ukraine.
But it gets all the more sinister when the two US treasury officials made a trip to India to essentially insist that the world’s largest democracy and one of biggest oil consumer keeps observing the price cap mechanism when buying Russian oil.
In their address to the media, the two US officials maintained that they have not asked the Indians to cut down on Russian oil purchases but only that price cap mechanism must be observed. Now since India Russia have begun trading in rupee ruble mechanism, US might have felt it necessary to remind India to observe price cap mechanism and buy as much as it can coz the real intent is to force the Russians to offer discounts or shut down the oil wells.
It was also clarified that none of the Indian companies have been sanctioned thus far and that once the Russian oil is refined, it no longer remains ‘Russian’, implying that India is free to export it to whoever it wants, make money and then purchase Western arms in the name of countering China.
But while it might look like West is doing India a big favour, what is the long game here? Coz it was said that price cap aims to constrain the revenues of Russia while keeping the global market well supplied.Well, what happens to a big country like Russia (with eleven time zones) when the revenues dry up ? For one the people might revolt and the country might destabilize causing the whole region to be thrown into anarchy.
If and when Russia gets destabilized, what options will the countries in Asia, Africa or even South America have except to agree to West’s dictations coz an aggressive China would still be around.
The vast resources of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus would then be open for the Western block to control and exploit. At that time, how relevant will countries like India, Turkiye or Saudi Arabia be to the West.
Three big essentially ‘white’ countries where people are suffering from economic distress despite an abundance of all kinds of natural resources in addition to long tradition of science and technology. So the West’s problem of manpower and resources get sorted in one go and it can cut the rest of world loose for it no longer would need them.
Who is to say that West Asian oil will then not be sanctioned in the name of lack of ‘democracy’ ? So the rest of world at that time would be ordered to only buy Russian oil (which would be under Western control) no matter what the price. Again, why allow Asian and African people in West when the far right in those countries objects to it ? Also when the manpower is abundantly available from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, why not prefer them.
This looks scary enough scenario for one and all. So the best strategy is that de-dollarisation and neighbourhood trade be promoted big time in the BRICS grouping. BRICS should declare a timeline by when it would have completely done away with the dollar in mutual trade. But the BRICS members, in the next summit meeting, should also draw up a list of countries in the neighbourhood with whom they will go for economic integration (with security assurances).
This would eventually bring about whole regions up and trading by themselves. Defence is another area where different regions of the world need to have parity. So if NATO countries are spending two percent of their GDP on the ‘defence’, other regions of the world also need to collectively match up so that they don’t end up on receiving end one fine day.