Tag: The Hindu Explains

Is a future Palestine state possible? | Explained

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PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as U.S. President Bill Clinton stands between them after the signing of the Israel-PLO peace accord at the White House in Washington on September 13, 1993.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The story so far: Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack in Israel and the latter’s continuing war on Gaza have brought the Palestine question back to the fore of West Asia. As the war has destroyed much of Gaza and killed 36,000 of its people, the world has also seen more countries voicing strong support for a future Palestine state. Recently, three European countries, Spain, Ireland and Norway, recognised the Palestine state. Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, say there wouldn’t be lasting peace in the region unless the Palestine question is resolved. An internationally recognised solution to the crisis is what’s called the two-state solution.

What’s the two-state solution?

The short answer is simple: divide historical Palestine, the land between the Jordan River on the east and the Mediterranean Sea in the west, into an Arab state and a Jewish state. But the long answer is complicated. Israel, a Jewish state, was created in Palestine in 1948. But a Palestine state is not yet a reality. Palestinian territories have been under Israeli occupation since 1967. So, a two-state solution today means the creation of a legitimate, sovereign Palestine state, which enjoys the full rights like any other nation state under the UN Charter.

What are the origins?

The roots of the two-state solution go back to the 1930s when the British ruled over Palestine. In 1936, the British government appointed a commission headed by Lord William Robert Peel (known as the Peel Commission) to investigate the causes of Arab-Jewish clashes in Palestine. A year later, the commission proposed a partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. At that time, Jews accounted for some 28% of Palestine’s population. According to the Peel Commission proposal, the West Bank, Gaza and Negev desert would make up the Arab state, while much of Palestine’s coast and the fertile Galilee region would be part of the Jewish state. Arabs rejected the proposal.

After the Second World War, the U.N. Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) put forward another partition plan. It proposed that Palestine be divided into three territories — a Jewish state, an Arab state and an international territory (Jerusalem). Jews, who made up roughly 32% of Palestine’s population, were to have 56% of the Palestine land as per the UNSCOP plan. The partition plan was adopted in the U.N. General Assembly (Resolution 181). Arabs rejected the plan (India voted against it), while the Zionist leadership of Israeli settlers in Palestine accepted it. And on May 14, 1948, Zionists unilaterally declared the state of Israel. This triggered the first Arab-Israeli war. And by the time an armistice agreement was achieved in 1949, Israel had captured some 22% more territories than what the U.N. had proposed.

Source: United Nations

Source: United Nations

How did it get international legitimacy?

In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria (Israel continues to control all territories except the Sinai which it returned to Egypt after the 1978 Camp David Accords). Palestine nationalism emerged stronger in the 1960s, under the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The PLO initially demanded the “liberation” of the whole of Palestine, but later recognised the two-state solution based on the 1967 border. Israel initially rejected any Palestinian claim to the land and continued to term the PLO as a “terrorist” organisation. But in the Camp David Accords, which followed the 1973 Yom Kippur War in which Egypt and Syria surprised Israel with an attack, it agreed to the Framework for Peace in the Middle East agreement. As part of the Framework, Israel agreed to establish an autonomous self-governing Palestinian authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and implement the U.N. Resolution 242, which has demanded Israel pull back from all the territories it captured in 1967. The Framework laid the foundation for the Oslo Accords, which, signed in 1993 and 1995, formalised the two-state solution. As part of the Oslo process, a Palestinian National Authority, a self-governing body, was formed in the West Bank and Gaza and the PLO was internationally recognised as a representative body of the Palestinians. The promise of Oslo was the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state which would live next to the Israeli state in peace. However, this promise has never been materialised.

A video on the Yom Kippur war that happened 50 years ago 

What are the hurdles to achieving the two-state solution?

The first setback for the Oslo process was the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister who signed the accords, in November 1995 by a Jewish extremist. Rabin’s Labour party was defeated in the subsequent elections and the right-wing Likud, under Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, came to power. The rise of Hamas, the Islamist militant group that opposed the Oslo Accords saying the PLO made huge concessions to the Israelis, also contributed to the derailment of the peace process. After the collapse of the Oslo process in the 1990s, there were multiple diplomatic efforts to revive the two-state plan, but none of these made progress towards achieving the goal.

Multiple reasons could be identified for this failure. But there are specific structural factors that make the two-state solution unachievable, at least for now. One is the boundary. Israel doesn’t have a clearly demarcated border. It is essentially an expansionist state. In 1948, it captured more territories than it was promised by the UN. In 1967, it expanded further by taking the whole of historical Palestine under its control. From the 1970s, Israel has been building illegal Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories. While Palestinians say their future state should be based on the 1967 border, Israel is not willing to make any commitments.

Two, the status of settlers. Roughly 7,00,000 Jewish settlers are now living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. If Israel is to withdraw to the 1967 border, they will have to pull back the settlers. The settlers are now a powerful political class in Israeli society and no Prime Minister can pull them back without facing political consequences. Three, the status of Jerusalem. Palestinians say East Jerusalem, which hosts Al Aqsa, Islam’s third holiest mosque, should be the capital of their future Palestinian state, while Israel says the whole of Jerusalem, which hosts the Western Wall, the holiest place in Judaism, is Israel’s “eternal capital”. Four, the right of refugees to return to their homes. Some 7,00,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in 1948 when the state of Israel was declared. According to international law, they have a right to return to their homes. Israel says it won’t allow the Palestinian refugees to return.

While these are the structural factors that make the two-state solution complicated, on the ground, Israel’s rightwing leadership shows no willingness to make any concessions. Israel wants to continue the status quo — the status quo of occupation. The Palestinians want to break that status quo.

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How bad is the humanitarian crisis in Gaza? | Explained

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Humanitarian aid parcels attached to parachutes are airdropped from a military aircraft over the Gaza Strip on March 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The story so far: As Israel’s war on Gaza is reaching its sixth month, the Palestinian enclave has become the world’s “largest open-air graveyard”, as the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell put it. The U.N. has warned that a famine in the tiny strip of land with 2.3 million people is “imminent”. Despite growing international calls for a ceasefire, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows that it would continue its military operation until “Hamas is dismantled”.

What is the situation in Gaza?

The war, which started after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel in which at least 1,200 people were killed, has already destroyed much of Gaza and pushed most of the enclave’s population to the southern town of Rafah. According to Gaza’s health authorities, the over five months of Israeli attacks has killed at least 32,000 Palestinians, a vast majority of them women and children. More than 74,000 people have been injured. Gaza lacks enough hospitals, medical professionals, medicines, clean water and other healthcare facilities to treat the wounded. “We see patients trying to recover from life-saving surgeries and losses of limbs, or sick with cancer or diabetes, mothers who have just given birth, or newborn babies, all suffering from hunger and the diseases that stalk it,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

Most of the internally displaced people, roughly two million, are living in make-shift camps in the south. According to the UN, at the schools that shelter refugees, each toilet and shower are shared by hundreds of people. Diseases associated with poor sanitation such as hepatitis A, diarrhoea and other infections are rampant. As per the latest report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the situation in Gaza is “catastrophic”. Before the war, there was enough food in Gaza to feed its population and malnutrition was rare. Now, “over a million people are expected to face catastrophic hunger unless significantly more food is allowed to enter Gaza,” WHO Director- General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Why is there a severe hunger crisis?

The IPC report states that Gaza is now experiencing the most severe hunger crisis anywhere in the world. If before October 7, 0.8% of children under five were acutely malnourished, that figure went up to 12.4% to 16.5% in February. Gaza needs an immediate increase in supplies of food, water and other essential supplies, it said. Children are dying from the combined effects of malnutrition and disease. And the situation has gradually worsened over the past five months. If the percentage of Gaza’s population experiencing famine was roughly 30% in February, it went up to 50% by mid-March. In northern Gaza alone, at least 27 Palestinians, mostly children, have died due to malnutrition and dehydration, according to authorities. The north, where around 3,00,000 people are still living, has been mostly cut off from supplies as Israel has sealed off the border (except one checkpoint that was opened). Most of the aid that enters Gaza passes through two checkpoints in the south.

Experts usually look at three criteria to determine a famine — extreme lack of access to food, high levels of acute malnutrition and child deaths. Northern Gaza is already facing extreme lack of access to food and malnutrition levels and child deaths are steadily on the rise, which prompted the U.N. and several global powers to issue urgent calls for a ceasefire and more supplies for Gaza’s population.

What led Gaza to the brink?

Before October 7, around 600 trucks entered Gaza daily, of which roughly 150 carried food. Since then, Gaza’s economy has been destroyed by the war. According to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, half of croplands in the north, the breadbasket of the Strip, had been damaged in the war. Israel’s incessant bombing has also damaged Gaza city’s port, which practically destroyed the fishing sector, a major source of income for Gazans. Government institutions are not working and construction and other activities came to a grinding halt. This pushed almost all of the population to be dependent on aid, which means the demand for supplies went up many times. But the average number of trucks entering Gaza has come down from 600 in October to 200 today, according to the U.N., which accentuated the crisis that was already unfolding because of the destruction of Gaza’s economy. In February-end, Israel forces opened fire at a crowd that had gathered near an aid convoy, triggering a stampede and killing over 100 Palestinians.

To help alleviate the crisis, the U.S. and some European and Arab countries ramped up airdrops on Gaza. In one incident, a pallet crashed on to people waiting for food as its parachute failed to open, crushing at least five to death. As the crisis worsened with Israel’s refusal to let more aid into the enclave, World Central Kitchen, a charity, sent supplies via the sea. The U.S. is planning to build a pier on the coast of Gaza to send aid, but it will take months for this plan to be operational. The U.N. said last week that Israel’s refusal to let more aid in could be tantamount to using starvation as a “weapon of war”. “The situation of hunger, starvation and famine is a result of Israel’s extensive restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid and commercial goods,” said U.N. Human Rights chief Volker Turk.

Is there a solution in the offing?

Various U.N. agencies have made it clear that to quickly improve the situation, the war should be brought to an end. Gaza is going through its worst humanitarian tragedy. Its economy has been destroyed; population battered; aid supplies have fallen; and even the limited quantities of aid that reach the enclave are not being distributed properly because of hurdles that were created by ongoing fighting. The U.N., which also lost over 100 employees, is understaffed and U.N. workers are also starving.

Israel allies in the West have acknowledged the seriousness of the situation. Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, said last week that all of Gaza’s population “are experiencing severe levels of acute food insecurity”. But their solution to the crisis is to find alternative ways to ramp up supplies without forcing Israel to open the border, which is unlikely to alleviate the crisis. What Gaza needs is an immediate ceasefire. But after over five months of fighting, Israel has barely achieved its declared objectives such as freeing hostages or dismantling Hamas. Negotiations are ongoing under the mediation of Qatar, Egypt and the U.S., but Israel and Hamas have not reached an agreement. Israel appears to be ready for a short-term pause in fighting in return for the release of hostages, but Hamas seeks a lasting ceasefire and has also demanded the release of some high-profile Palestinian prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah leader who has been in Israeli jails for over two decades. As both sides reach no common ground, Israel, which continues to get weapons from the U.S., continues the war, for now.

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The Italian court ruling against returning sea migrants to Libya | Explained

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The story so far: Libya is not a safe harbour, and it is “unlawful” to force migrants rescued from the sea to return to a territory where their fundamental rights are at risk, Italy’s highest court held in a landmark ruling in February.

Rights agencies have drawn attention to human rights abuses in Libyan territory, particularly in coastal prisons run by coastguards and armed militias, which become grounds for vast human trafficking networks. Unprotected refugees and asylum seekers are reportedly facing violence, torture, and inhumane conditions. “Now there is also a judicial precedent that confirms what we have been saying for years: Libya is not a safe country,” rescue group Mediterranea Saving Humans wrote on X.

The court verdict against ‘pushing back’ migrants also diverges from the stance of Italy and several other European countries, where right-wing parties are capitalising on anti-immigration pledges. Groups like UpRights and StraLi welcomed the “landmark” ruling, urging “Italy to comply with international human rights standards and end its complicity with violations of migrants’ rights.”

File photo: Rescuers searching for survivors in the aftermath of a deadly migrant shipwreck in Steccato di Cutro near Crotone Italy on February 28, 2023.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

The court case

The case in question is a 2018 incident. On July 30, while supplying to oil platforms 105 kilometres off the coast of Libya, the ship Asso 28 picked up 101 migrants, including five pregnant women and five minors, from a dinghy and returned them to the Libyan coastguard at the Tripoli port. A lower Italian court prosecuted the ship’s captain in 2021, finding him guilty of violating international humanitarian and refugee laws. The principle of non-refoulement forbids the forced return of people to countries where their lives or rights are at risk. Per international law, Libya is currently not a port of safety.

The Italian Court of Cassation in the present verdict reiterated this stance. It upheld the captain’s conviction and sentenced him to one year’s imprisonment for the crime of “abandonment in a state of danger of minors or incapacitated people and arbitrary disembarkation and abandonment of people,” as the ruling, dated February 1, notes.

The court said that once picked up, the migrants were under the captain’s charge, and in ‘abandoning’ them, the captain violated directives of the International Maritime Organization and the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). Moreover, these actions translated into a “collective refoulement to a port deemed unsafe like Libya.” The migrants faced a “high risk” of being subjected to “inhuman and degrading treatment in the detention centres… in Libyan territory, with the impossibility of seeing their fundamental rights protected.”

In 2009, owing to similar push-back policies, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Italy for intercepting asylum seekers at sea and returning them to Libya, saying that the practice violated the principle of non-refoulement, in addition to multiple articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.

What are the legal obligation in handling rescues at sea?

The expanse of the Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy is among the most dangerous albeit oft-used passage for migrants from sub-Saharan Africa fleeing ethnic conflict, war and famine. The crossing has become infamous for the way smugglers overload unseaworthy vessels with hundreds of people, , providing limited fuel and water,, and assuring them they will be rescued within a few hours of being at sea, as multiple reports, including this one by Time magazine, have noted.

More than 2,500 people died or went missing while trying to make the trip between January and September 2023, an almost 48% increase from the previous year, according to UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) data. The number of refugee arrivals doubled from 70,000 in 2022 to at least 1,30,000 last year, according to the International Office for Migration. Overall, Human Rights Watch estimates at least 25,313 people have died in the Mediterranean Sea since 2014.

Under Article 98 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, every shipmaster is required “to render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being lost.” International maritime law also requires coastal states to conduct search and rescue services, and if needed, coordinate with other nations during these operations. Still, countries like Italy and Malta have previously refused to open their ports, delayed ships’ arrivals or ignored requests for disembarking altogether. More than 24,000 people were intercepted and forced to go back to Libya in 2022, according to HRW.

What’s happening in Libya?

A UN Human Rights Council fact-finding mission last year said there are “reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed against Libyans and migrants throughout Libya,” with crimes, including torture and sexual slavery, committed in detention centres under the control of authorities including Libyan coastguards. The IOM estimates at least 3,5000 refugees are detained in official centres across western and eastern Libya; even more may be detained in unofficial camps, of which it is impossible to ascertain the exact number.

War-torn Libya has been under militia rule since 2011 after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. Humans rights groups notes that this has allowed the proliferation of human trafficking especially in detention centres, where commanders “could be running their own militias and profiteering from picking up migrants at sea, sending them to be detained, and then demanding more money from the detained migrants,” according to a report. An Al Jazeera report documented instances where people were “flogged”, beaten, raped, and tortured in these detention centres “just to get money” from desperate family members.

The “vicious cycle” makes them “attempt the sea crossing, be intercepted, kept in arbitrary detention, systematically subjected to torture, sexual and gender-based violence and exploitation until they pay the guards to be released to attempt the sea crossing again, and again, and again,” Michela Pugliese, Migration Researcher at Euro-Med Monitor, noted in 2021. “EU is knowingly and directly involved in this climate of impunity and this cycle of extreme abuse,” she said.

The same Libyan authorities have received funding, vessels, aerial surveillance and training from Italy and the European Union. Italy and Libya signed a memorandum in 2017 — renewed for a second time in 2023 — under which the Italian Government gifted commercial vessels to Libya, trained crew in conducting these operations and invested $10.8 million in Libya’s maritime infrastructure. There was a “direct causal link between Italy’s cooperation activities with the Libyan coastguard and the exposure of people intercepted at sea to serious human rights violations,” said Dunja Mijatović, Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights.

Last year, the EU also sent more search and rescue vessels to Libya to “stop the illegal migration to Europe” from North Africa, according to the European Commissioner’s Office. These indirect aids allow the EU and Italy to focus on “enabling the Libyan authorities to do the dirty job” of returning people to Libya, Matteo de Bellis, Amnesty International’s migration researcher, told The New Humanitarian in 2020. “By doing so, they would argue that they have not breached international European law because they have never assumed control… over the people who have then been subjected to human rights violations [in Libya].”

“The Italian coastguard and government have long known that returning migrants to Libya would be unlawful… Instead, they looked for ways around those restrictions…”Matteo de Bellis, Amnesty International’s migration researcher, to Al Jazeera

In December last year, Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told a media outlet that collaborations with Libyan and Tunisian authorities have “made it possible to stop many tens of thousands of other arrivals” of refugees. “Even more would have arrived if we had not adopted the measures launched in recent months, which have already yielded concrete results,” he said.

Notably, in 2022, Mr. Piantedosi received flak from rights groups when he called migrants who are denied permission to disembark from humanitarian ships “residual cargo.”

Why is the ruling important?

U.N. agencies have previously acknowledged that Libya cannot be considered a “place of safety” for disembarking people rescued at sea due to proven human rights abuses at detention centres. Italy’s Court of Cassation added weight to this warning with its ruling.

The verdict also holds legal relevance amid ongoing legal disputes between human rights organisations and the European government over ‘push-and pull-back’ operations. One such case was filed in 2017 in the European Court of Human Rights by the Global Legal Action Network, after reports emerged of survivors being sold, beaten, raped, and electrocuted. The NGO alleged that Italy is complicit in these crimes by supporting Libyan authorities.

Maritime experts and rights groups note Italy’s far-right government led by Giorgia Meloni may double down on anti-immigration policies and obstruct the work of search and rescue NGOs. This would further escalate the likelihood of death, disappearances and detention for migrants.

In response to the verdict, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said, “Italy has never coordinated and handed over to Libya migrants rescued in operations coordinated or directly carried out by Italy.” He added that the court’s sentences “should never be interpreted in a political or ideological manner.”

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Is Russia testing a new anti-satellite weapon? | Explained

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Chairman of the Intelligence Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Turner speaks to reporters at the Capitol Hill on February 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The story so far: On February 14, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Turner, called the media’s attention to “information concerning a serious national security threat” and urged President Joe Biden to declassify it so more experts could be recruited to mitigate the danger it allegedly posed. A flurry of news reports followed, quoting various sources and referring to some kind of Russian space-based weapon.

What do we know about the ‘weapon’?

On February 15, a day after Mr. Turner’s statement, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby confirmed the claims referred to a space-based “anti-satellite weapon” of Russian provenance. Mr. Kirby also said Russia hadn’t yet deployed the ‘capability’ in question — meaning the object wasn’t yet in orbit — and that it would violate the Outer Space Treaty (OST), a multilateral agreement that prohibits the placement of weapons of mass destruction in earth’s orbit. By this time, some news reports had also quoted anonymous sources saying that the Russian capability was either nuclear in nature or that the satellite bearing the capability would be nuclear-powered. Mr. Kirby’s statements didn’t directly address these concerns. However, since he said the capability would violate the OST, the nuclear concern isn’t out of the question yet. (The OST is against nuclear weapons in space, not nuclear-powered satellites.)

On February 16, President Biden confirmed Mr. Turner had referred “to a new Russian nuclear anti-satellite capability” and added there were no indications what Russia had decided to do with it. However, the White House has refused to declassify information about it.

What are anti-satellite weapons?

Anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons are designed to debilitate and/or destroy satellites that are already in orbit and operational. ASAT weapons violate the OST through the latter’s Article VII, which holds parties to the treaty liable for damaging satellites belonging to other parties, and Article IX, which asks parties to refrain from the “harmful contamination” of space.

Russia, in the form of the erstwhile Soviet Union, has had ASAT capabilities since at least 1968. While the Cold War motivated ASAT weapon tests on either side of the Atlantic, the respective programmes refused to dwindle once relations thawed. Most of these weapons are kinetic, meaning they destroy satellites in orbit by rocketing into them or detonating an explosive near them, and blowing them to pieces. Because of the low gravity and lack of an atmosphere, the resulting debris can stay in orbit for a long time depending on their size. This result violates Article IX of the OST.

Are there space-based nuclear weapons?

In a high-altitude test in 1962 called Starfish Prime, the U.S. detonated a thermonuclear bomb 400 km above ground. It remains the largest nuclear test conducted in space. A Thor rocket launched the warhead to a point west of Hawaii, where its detonation had a yield of 1.4 megatonnes. More importantly, it set off an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) much larger than physicists had expected, damaging a few hundred street-lights in Hawaii, 1,500 km away. The charged particles and radiation emitted by the blast became ensnared in and accelerated by the earth’s magnetic field, distorting the ionosphere and resulting in bright aurorae.

Starfish Prime was part of the U.S.’s high-altitude nuclear tests in 1962. The Soviet Union also conducted such tests around then with similar effects. For example, Test 184 on October 22, 1962, detonated a 300-kilotonne warhead 290 km above ground. The resulting EMP induced a very high current in more than 500 km of electric cables and eventually triggered a fire that burned down a power plant.

How will a nuclear weapon affect satellites?

The principal threats to other satellites from a space-based nuclear weapon are the EMP and the release of charged particles.

Starfish Prime itself temporarily knocked out roughly a third of all satellites in orbit at the time – and illustrates a failing relevant to the current context. An EMP from a nuclear weapon in space will affect all satellites around the point of detonation, including Russian satellites, those of its strategic allies (such as China), and of countries not involved in a particular conflict. It would also grossly violate the OST. Depending on the strength, location, and directedness of the explosion, it could also blow a large number of satellites to pieces, more than what a ‘conventional’ kinetic ASAT weapon might.

Scott Tilley, an amateur radio operator with a name for tracking down ‘lost’ satellites, wrote on X that “the damage is not immediate to most [satellites] but rather caused by new and intensified radiation belts”. (However, researchers have been working on tamping down disturbances caused by space-based nuclear explosions in radiation belts around the earth through a process called radiation-belt remediation). Eventually, the result is more dud satellites and debris, raising concerns of the Kessler effect: when there is a certain level of debris in low-earth orbit, collisions among themselves as well as with other satellites could produce more debris, leading to a “collisional cascade” that rapidly increases the amount of debris in orbit. There is one more possibility. In 1987, the Soviet Union launched a rocket bearing a high-power laser that could target and destroy other satellites. The launch failed. But Marco Langbroek, a lecturer at Delft Technical University, the Netherlands, raised the possibility of the Russians launching a similar laser powered by a nuclear energy source.

What do the U.S.’s claims imply?

Modern civilisation depends heavily on satellites, which means they can be assets or vulnerabilities. But the inability to target a nuclear weapon in space — at certain satellites over others — mitigates its usefulness. This is why some security researchers have suggested that if the Russian capability is nuclear, it will be a weapon of last resort. Some others have said the ‘nuclear’ component is likely to be limited to the power source. “That Russia is developing a system powered by a nuclear source… that has electronic warfare capabilities once in orbit is more likely than the theory that Russia is developing a weapon that carries a nuclear explosive warhead,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association advocacy group, told Reuters.

This said, Mr. Turner’s comment, which alerted the world to the possibility, provoked sharp reactions in the U.S. His peers in the Republican Party accused him of attempting to drum up support for Ukraine and that he wished to have an “unreformed” version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed, CNN reported. After the U.S. had warned its allies in Europe of the potential threat, the Kremlin called the claim a “malicious fabrication” and a ruse to allocate more funds for Ukraine.



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Is Russia testing a new anti-satellite weapon? | Explained

Post By World , ,

The story so far: On February 14, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Turner, called the media’s attention to “information concerning a serious national security threat” and urged President Joe Biden to declassify it so more experts could be recruited to mitigate the danger it allegedly posed. A flurry of news reports followed, quoting various sources and referring to some kind of Russian space-based weapon.

What do we know about the ‘weapon’?

On February 15, a day after Mr. Turner’s statement, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby confirmed the claims referred to a space-based “anti-satellite weapon” of Russian provenance. Mr. Kirby also said Russia hadn’t yet deployed the ‘capability’ in question — meaning the object wasn’t yet in orbit — and that it would violate the Outer Space Treaty (OST), a multilateral agreement that prohibits the placement of weapons of mass destruction in earth’s orbit.

By this time, some news reports had also quoted anonymous sources saying that the Russian capability was either nuclear in nature or that the satellite bearing the capability would be nuclear-powered. Mr. Kirby’s statements didn’t directly address these concerns. However, since he said the capability would violate the OST, the nuclear concern isn’t out of the question yet. (The OST is against nuclear weapons in space, not nuclear-powered satellites.)

On February 16, President Biden confirmed Mr. Turner had referred “to a new Russian nuclear anti-satellite capability” and added there were no indications what Russia had decided to do with it. However, the White House has refused to declassify information about it.

What are anti-satellite weapons?

Anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons are designed to debilitate and/or destroy satellites that are already in orbit and operational. ASAT weapons violate the OST through the latter’s Article VII, which holds parties to the treaty liable for damaging satellites belonging to other parties, and Article IX, which asks parties to refrain from the “harmful contamination” of space.

Russia, in the form of the erstwhile Soviet Union, has had ASAT capabilities since at least 1968. While the Cold War motivated ASAT weapon tests on either side of the Atlantic, the respective programmes refused to dwindle once relations thawed. Most of these weapons are kinetic, meaning they destroy satellites in orbit by rocketing into them or detonating an explosive near them, and blowing them to pieces. Because of the low gravity and lack of an atmosphere, the resulting debris can stay in orbit for a long time depending on their size. This result violates Article IX of the OST.

Are there space-based nuclear weapons?

In a high-altitude test in 1962 called Starfish Prime, the U.S. detonated a thermonuclear bomb 400 km above ground. It remains the largest nuclear test conducted in space.

A Thor rocket launched the warhead to a point west of Hawaii, where its detonation had a yield of 1.4 megatonnes. More importantly, it set off an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) much larger than physicists had expected, damaging a few hundred street-lights in Hawaii, 1,500 km away. The charged particles and radiation emitted by the blast became ensnared in and accelerated by the earth’s magnetic field, distorting the ionosphere and resulting in bright aurorae.

Starfish Prime was part of the U.S.’s high-altitude nuclear tests in 1962. The Soviet Union also conducted such tests around then with similar effects. For example, Test 184 on October 22, 1962, detonated a 300-kilotonne warhead 290 km above ground. The resulting EMP induced a very high current in more than 500 km of electric cables and eventually triggered a fire that burned down a power plant.

How will a nuclear weapon affect satellites?

The principal threats to other satellites from a space-based nuclear weapon are the EMP and the release of charged particles.

Starfish Prime itself temporarily knocked out roughly a third of all satellites in orbit at the time – and illustrates a failing relevant to the current context. An EMP from a nuclear weapon in space will affect all satellites around the point of detonation, including Russian satellites, those of its strategic allies (such as China), and of countries not involved in a particular conflict. It would also grossly violate the OST. Depending on the strength, location, and directedness of the explosion, it could also blow a large number of satellites to pieces, more than what a ‘conventional’ kinetic ASAT weapon might.

Scott Tilley, an amateur radio operator with a name for tracking down ‘lost’ satellites, wrote on X that “the damage is not immediate to most [satellites] but rather caused by new and intensified radiation belts”. (However, researchers have been working on tamping down disturbances caused by space-based nuclear explosions in radiation belts around the earth through a process called radiation-belt remediation).

Eventually, the result is more dud satellites and debris, raising concerns of the Kessler effect: when there is a certain level of debris in low-earth orbit, collisions among themselves as well as with other satellites could produce more debris, leading to a “collisional cascade” that rapidly increases the amount of debris in orbit.

There is one more possibility. In 1987, the Soviet Union launched a rocket bearing a high-power laser that could target and destroy other satellites. The launch failed. But Marco Langbroek, a lecturer at Delft Technical University, the Netherlands, raised the possibility of the Russians launching a similar laser powered by a nuclear energy source.

What do the U.S.’s claims imply?

Modern civilisation depends heavily on satellites, which means they can be assets or vulnerabilities. But the inability to target a nuclear weapon in space — at certain satellites over others — mitigates its usefulness. This is why some security researchers have suggested that if the Russian capability is nuclear, it will be a weapon of last resort. Some others have said the ‘nuclear’ component is likely to be limited to the power source. “That Russia is developing a system powered by a nuclear source… that has electronic warfare capabilities once in orbit is more likely than the theory that Russia is developing a weapon that carries a nuclear explosive warhead,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association advocacy group, told Reuters.

This said, Mr. Turner’s comment, which alerted the world to the possibility, provoked sharp reactions in the U.S. His peers in the Republican Party accused him of attempting to drum up support for Ukraine and that he wished to have an “unreformed” version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed, CNN reported. After the U.S. had warned its allies in Europe of the potential threat, the Kremlin called the claim a “malicious fabrication” and a ruse to allocate more funds for the war effort in Ukraine.



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Why are conflicts spreading in West Asia? | Explained

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The story so far: West Asia is in flux. What started as a direct military confrontation between Israel and Hamas has snowballed into a regional security crisis. Hezbollah, Kataib Hezbollah, Hashad al-Shabi, Houthis, Iran, Pakistan and the United States are all now part of an expanding conflict theatre. As Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 24,000 people in 100 days, is continuing with no foreseeable end, the related security crisis in the region is widening.

How has the Israel-Hamas war spilled over?

When Israel launched its war on Gaza, after Hamas’s October 7 cross-border attack in which at least 1,200 Israelis were killed, there were fears that the conflict could spill over beyond Palestine. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia group that’s backed by Iran, fired rockets at Israeli forces in the Shebaa Farms, an Israeli-controlled territory which Lebanon claims as its own, in solidarity with the Palestinians. Ever since, Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged fire many times, though both were careful not to let tensions escalate into a full-blown war. While Arab countries, upset with Israel’s indiscriminate bombing, stuck to the path of diplomacy to turn up pressure on the Jewish state, Iran-backed militias elsewhere opened new fronts. Houthis, the Shia militias of Yemen, started attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea from mid-November, again in “solidarity with the Palestinians”. Houthis, who control much of Yemen, including its Red Sea coast, has used sea denial tactics to target dozens of ships ever since, forcing several shipping giants to suspend operations in the Red Sea, which connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Arabian Sea (and the Indian Ocean) through the Suez Canal and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

When Houthi attacks imperilled the Red Sea traffic, the U.S., which continues to support Israel’s war on Gaza, started carrying out airstrikes in Yemen, targeting Houthi positions. Hashad al-Shabi, the Shia Mobilisation Forces of Iraq and Syria, who are also backed by Iran, launched more than 100 attacks against U.S. troops deployed in the two countries. In retaliation, the U.S. carried out attacks in Syria, and killed a commander of Hashad al-Shabi in a hit in Baghdad, which led to protests by Iraq. Israel has carried out multiple strikes inside Syria and Lebanon, killing Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian commanders. As instability spread, the Islamic State terror group attacked a memorial event for Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general assassinated by the U.S. in January 2020, in Kerman, southeastern Iran. As it was coming under growing regional and domestic pressure, Iran carried out strikes on January 16, in Iraq’s Kurdistan, Syria and Pakistan, claiming to have hit a Mossad operational centre and Sunni Islamist militants. In retaliation, Pakistan carried out air strikes in Iran on January 18.

Who are the main players in the crisis?

While multiple players are present in the crisis, there are three major operational centres — Israel, Iran and the U.S. Israel says it has the right to attack Gaza until it meets its objectives — dismantling Hamas and releasing hostages; Iran is the main backer of all anti-Israel non-state actors in West Asia, be it Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Houthis or the Shia militias of Iraq and Syria. The U.S., which has a widespread military presence in the region, has three objectives — to ensure the security of Israel, the security of America’s troops and assets deployed in the region and the perseverance of the U.S.-led order in the region. So, the bottomline is that Israel is fighting a vengeful war on the Palestinians with full U.S. support; Iran-backed proxies are attacking Israel and American interests in the region in retaliation, while Iran seeks to strengthen its deterrence; and the U.S. is attacking these proxies to meet its objectives.

What does this mean for regional security?

This is an unstable situation. West Asia has seen conflicts in the past, between nation states (Iran and Iraq; and Israel and Arab nations) and states and non-state actors (Israel’s wars with Hezbollah and Hamas). But currently, the region is witnessing a widespread security crisis, involving both powerful states and non-state actors.


Editorial | Regional turmoil: On the West Asia situation

Last time West Asia faced a major transnational war was in 1967 when Israel launched attacks on surrounding Arab countries. But the 1967 war concluded within six days, with Israel’s decisive victory against the Arabs. Today, even after 100 days, the conflict is only escalating and widening.

In the past, the U.S. had retained a domineering presence in West Asia, shaping its geopolitical outcomes, and America’s rivals were wary of breaching certain red lines. This was the backbone of the U.S.-led order in West Asia. Though Iran stayed out of it since 1979, it never risked a direct war with the U.S. or Israel. The current crisis suggests that the old order is in tatters. Iran-backed proxies are directly attacking both Israeli and American positions, while Iran is flexing its military muscle through cross-border attacks. The Houthis have challenged the U.S.’s ability to provide security to one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Arab countries remain America’s allies, but are increasingly frustrated with Washington’s unconditional support for Israel’s war on Gaza. The U.S., despite its support for Israel, seems unable or unwilling to push Israel to end its disastrous war and bring back some stability.

Being unable to end the war and having picked a fight with Shia militias, the world’s most powerful country is acting like one of the several disruptors in West Asia, and not as a guarantor of peace, stability and deterrence.

What’s next?

There is no clear way-out from this polycentric crisis. After more than 100 days of war, Israel has achieved little in Gaza, given the targets it set for itself. It is unlikely to wind down the offensive in the near term.

As long as Israel continues the war, Hezbollah and Houthis will continue their attacks. It’s to be seen whether the U.S. air strikes on Houthis, who survived Saudi bombing for seven years, would have any real deterring effect other than symbolic values. The U.S. strikes on the Shia units in Iraq and Syria have not stopped them from launching new attacks. If instability spreads further, the Islamic State and other jihadists would seek to exploit the situation. Iraq and Syria remain vulnerable to internal and external challenges. Iran has sought to project force, but Pakistan’s response has underscored Iran’s limitations. The U.S., once a shaper of outcomes in West Asia, watches the region plunge into chaos.

The only silver lining amid this spiral of crisis, as of now, is that the Saudi-Iran detente, and the associated Saudi-Houthi peace, is holding.

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What is the global fallout of two warfronts? | Explained

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Smoke rises from the battlefield in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel on December 30, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

The story so far: The world witnessed growing security crises involving great powers in 2023. The Ukraine war, which began on February 24, 2022 with Russia’s invasion of its neighbouring country, continued throughout 2023 with little changes on the frontline. Another major war broke out in West Asia after Hamas’s October 7 crossborder attack that killed at least 1,200 Israelis. As the year winds down, no end is seen to both wars. While Ukraine’s counteroffensive aimed at taking back the territories lost to Russia failed during the year, Israel’s attack on Gaza, which has levelled much of the tiny enclave of 2.3 million people, is still continuing.

How is the Israel conflict impacting the region?

With Israeli leaders claiming that the fighting would go on for months, risks of a wider regional war are rising. As conflicts persist with a large-scale destruction of global security and disruption of supply chains, the Global South, whose focus is on its own developmental challenges, is getting increasingly impatient with the current order and is pushing for alternatives. These trends are likely to continue in 2024.

What does the Ukraine war tell about the global order?

What made the Ukraine war, the largest ground war in Europe since the Second World War, one of the most consequential conflicts of the post-war world was its great power involvement. While the actual fighting is between Russian and Ukrainian soldiers within Ukrainian territories, the source of the conflict is the rivalry between NATO, a Cold War-era trans-Atlantic nuclear alliance, and Russia, an ageing great power. After the war broke out, NATO members, under the leadership of the U.S., formed a coalition to financially and militarily support Ukraine. Weakening Russia has been one of the declared objectives of this coalition.

The West’s approach was two-fold: it sought to cripple the Russian economy with expansive sanctions and wound Russia in the battlefield by supplying weapons worth billions of dollars to Ukraine. Twenty-two months after the war began, it’s uncertain if the West is meeting any of these objectives. The sanctions have hit the Russian economy (while the reverse impact of the sanctions hit Western economies as well) but did little to stop Vladimir Putin’s war machine, which is telling of how the global economic landscape is changing after the rise of China and India. On the battlefield, Ukrainian soldiers, tens of thousands of them trained in Western bases, fought with some of the West’s most advanced weapons. Still, after the breakthroughs in Kharkiv and Kherson last year, Ukraine failed to make any substantial territorial gain in 2023. Six months after the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russian troops are now on the offensive, seizing the Donbas town of Marinka earlier this week. Ukraine and its allies are facing some reality checks as the war is set to enter the third year.

Where does Israel’s war on Gaza stand now?

If Russia is fighting a long war of attrition in the NATO-supported Ukraine, Israel is fighting a blitzkrieg in defenceless Gaza. Israel’s attacks have practically turned Gaza uninhabitable, but the Jewish state is far from meeting its declared objectives of the war—be it freeing the hostages, dismantling Hamas or taking down the Islamist group’s top leadership. As the war is set to enter its third month, Israeli generals and political leaders show no let-up in fighting. While it’s too early to make a clear assessment of how Israel’s war on Gaza would affect West Asia, there are some signals on the geopolitical fallout of the war. Israel stands almost isolated on the global stage despite its claim that Hamas brought this war upon Gaza after the October 7 attack. Israel’s war also drilled holes into the moral case the West, especially the Biden administration, had built around Russia’s Ukraine invasion to drum up global support. The total number of civilians killed on both sides of the Ukraine war in 22 months is roughly 10,000, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU). The total number of Palestinians’ killed in Gaza in less than three months is 21,000, a vast majority of them women and children, as per the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. The U.S, which is supplying arms and money to Ukraine to fight the Russian invasion, has not even called for a ceasefire in Gaza. In the UN Security Council, the U.S. vetoed two resolutions that called for a humanitarian ceasefire; and in the UN General Assembly, the U.S., Israel and two other countries voted against a resolution that endorsed the Palestinian’s right to self- determination. There is a groundswell of anger towards the U.S.’s unconditional support for Israel in the Arab world. Russia, which the U.S. seeks to isolate and weaken, and China, the U.S.’s primary competitor, on the other side, are trying to channel this anger by offering support for the Palestinian cause.

What’s the Global South’s response?

In the case of Ukraine, most countries in the Global South refused to buy the western narrative that the war was caused by an “unprovoked Russian aggression”, and stayed away from the sanctions regime. They condemned the war and called for upholding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, in this case Ukraine, but called for talks and ceasefire instead of prolonging the fighting. In the case of the Gaza war, they support an immediate ceasefire. While they condemned the October 7 Hamas attack, they also strongly backed the Palestinians’ right to self-determination (meaning, an end to Israel’s continuing occupation of the Palestinian territories). They also see the different positions taken by the West, particularly the U.S., with regard to the two conflicts — if in the case of the Ukraine war, the U.S. stands solidly with Ukraine against the Russian invasion, in the case of the Israel-Palestine crisis, the U.S. stands strongly with Israel, which is the occupying force, and despite Israel’s widespread violence against Palestinian civilians.

How does India look at the conflicts?

India’s positions, which are largely aligned with those of the Global South, are driven by both its specific interests and the larger trends it sees in the global dynamics. In the case of Ukraine, it condemned the war and called for talks and a ceasefire without naming any party. Even under heavy pressure, it was careful not to let the crisis affect its multifaceted strategic partnership with Russia. In the case of Gaza, it repeatedly condemned the Hamas attack on Israel, an important bilateral partner, while also reiterating its traditional position in support of the two-state solution. When civilian casualties mounted in Gaza under Israel’s indiscriminate attacks, India joined the global chorus calling for a ceasefire.

But the larger trends are more consequential. The U.S., the most powerful country in the world, seems less in control of the geopolitical developments unfolding in its spheres of interests — Europe and West Asia. Its efforts to weaken Russia are not immediately rewarding and it is either unwilling or unable to control a vengeful Israel, which is affecting its reputation in the Arab World, and the Global South in general. China is rising but is focused on its immediate periphery and is wary of risks. Russia is a revisionist, risk-taking power but it is the weakest among the three great powers, and it remains to be seen how the war would affect Russian power in the long term, irrespective of the result of the Ukraine war. So India, itself a rising power and a strong proponent of a multipolar world, sees the global order in a flux. It appears to be careful not to align with any great power, while maximising its interest through multi-engagement and trying to be a voice of the Global South.

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What’s the latest blip in India-Maldives ties? | Explained

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu during the COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai on December 1, 2023. Photo: X/@narendramodi

The story so far: Earlier this month, the Maldives Cabinet decided against renewing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with India for cooperation in hydrography. The agreement, which was signed in 2019, is due to expire in 2024. Coming soon after newly elected President Mohamed Muizzu’s pledge to send back Indian troops currently stationed in the Indian Ocean archipelago, the move was yet another indication of his government’s intention to reverse the former Ibrahim Mohamed Solih administration’s ‘India first’ policy.

What is hydrography?

It is the science of studying oceans, seas, and other water bodies, by compiling and analysing data, maps, and charts. Branching off from applied sciences, it looks at measuring and describing the physical attributes of water bodies and predicting how they might change over time. While it is said to be undertaken primarily for safety of navigation, it also supports other activities, such as economic development, security and defence, scientific research, and environmental protection. Hydrographical measurements include tidal, current and wave information.

What is India’s expertise?

India has been an active member of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) since 1955. The Indian Naval Hydrographic Department (INHD), or the Marine Survey of India earlier, was established in 1874 in Kolkata. It is the nodal agency for hydrographic surveys and has a fleet of indigenously built modern survey ships. India partners with many countries in the Indian Ocean Region and African and East Asian countries such as Mauritius, Seychelles, Tanzania, Maldives, Mozambique, Vietnam, Myanmar, Kenya, and Sri Lanka. According to the INHD, its role has broadened over time, owing to the heightening global character of hydrography and “its growing potential as a force multiplier” in terms of maritime diplomacy. Personnel from 39 countries have trained at the National Institute of Hydrography, functioning under the INHD.

Why was the 2019 MoU significant?

The MoU was signed in June 2019, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the Maldives. It was Mr. Modi’s first overseas visit after assuming office for his second term, and  his second visit to the Maldives since he participated at President Solih’s swearing-in ceremony in 2018. Months before the time the MoU was inked, President Solih and the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) had secured a landslide win in the general elections. The two Indian Ocean neighbours, and their leaders, backed by a decisive majority, committed to close cooperation in development, defence and maritime security. The first meeting of the Joint Commission on Hydrography was held in the Maldives in September 2019. Following the agreement, the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) and the Indian Navy have carried out three joint hydrographic surveys in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Why has the Cabinet decided against renewing the agreement?

While President Muizzu has not made a statement specifically on the MoU on the joint hydrographic survey, a senior official told Maldivian media that the decision was aligned to the current administration’s pledge to terminate all agreements with foreign parties that are detrimental to or endanger the national security of the Maldives. “It is in the best interest of Maldivian sovereignty that this capacity is improved within our own military, entrusting them with the responsibilities of surveilling and policing our waters, and excluding the participation of any foreign party in such an endeavour,” Under Secretary for Public Policy Mohamed Firzul told a media conference.

 Muizzu’s win | How will it impact India-Maldives relations?

The message appeared to be in line with Mr. Muizzu’s broad election campaign, pledging to remove Indian troops from the country and “restoring the Maldives’s sovereignty”. Once he assumed charge, the core demand of the ‘India Out’ campaign led by former President Abdulla Yameen, found mention in President Muizzu’s first set of official announcements.

How has India responded?

In its first response yet to the Cabinet decision, the Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday said India had a “proven track record” in the field. “Let me just say that India has a proven track record in the field of hydrography. And we have also been cooperating with many countries in the Indian Ocean region on hydrography and various elements related to that. The benefits to partner countries are visible, I would like to just leave it at that,” spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told the weekly media conference.

What does this mean for India-Maldives ties?

Going by recent developments, it appears as if New Delhi will have to brace for a challenging phase of its Male partnership. Maldives is a member of the Colombo Security Conclave, an initiative aimed at enhancing Indian Ocean maritime security, that includes India, Sri Lanka, and Mauritius. However, earlier this month, the Maldives skipped the latest round of the Conclave’s NSA-level meet held in Mauritius. Notably, it coincided with Maldivian Vice-President Hussain Mohamed Latheef’s visit to China, to attend the China-Indian Ocean Region Forum on Development Cooperation, where he said the Maldives was “eager to explore novel avenues of collaboration and cooperation with China”. The MEA’s response to the termination of the Maldives’s joint hydrographic initiative with India, pointed to New Delhi’s belief that its neighbours should tap the “benefits” of India’s expertise. How it will navigate the choppy waters connecting its southern neighbour will be closely watched.

  • The Maldives Cabinet has decided against renewing a MoU with India for cooperation in hydrography. The agreement, which was signed in 2019, is due to expire in 2024.
  • In its first response yet to the Cabinet decision, the Ministry of External Affairs said India had a “proven track record” in the field.
  • Going by recent developments, it appears as if New Delhi will have to brace for a challenging phase of its Male partnership.

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Where does India stand on the Israel-Hamas war? | Explained

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Palestinians leave the north walk through the Salaheddine road in the Zeitoun district on the southern outskirts of Gaza City on November 25, 2023, on the second day of a truce between Israel and Hamas.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The story so far: Over the past weeks, India has expressed itself in statements, joint statements, and votes at the United Nations on the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, that saw a temporary pause for the exchange of hostages which began on Friday, November 24. Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted two separate virtual summits, the concluding session of India’s G-20 and the second edition of the ‘Voice of Global South’ Summit, and spoke about the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, as well as the importance of heeding the concerns of the developing world. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar travelled to the U.K. for talks, held along with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh “2+2” dialogues with their counterparts from the U.S. and Australia where joint statements reflected the West’s position much more.

What is the position India has articulated?

India’s position, as articulated since the October 7 terror attacks along the Israel-Gaza border by Hamas that killed more than 1,200 people, and then on the bombardment of Gaza by Israel where more than 13,000 have been killed, has been multi-layered. The Modi government has condemned terrorism in the strongest language and stood with Israel over the attack, although it hasn’t thus far designated Hamas as a terror group. The government has called on Israel for restraint, dialogue and diplomacy and condemned the death of civilians, and along with the U.S. and Australia, called for “humanitarian pauses” in bombardment, but has not so far called for a “ceasefire”. At the same time, India has reaffirmed its support for a “two-state solution” including a sovereign, viable state of Palestine existing in peace alongside Israel, supported the “socio-economic welfare” of the Palestinian people, and has sent 70 tonnes of humanitarian assistance including 16.5 tonnes of medicines and medical supplies via Egypt to Gaza in the past month, Mr. Jaishankar said at the BRICS emergency meeting chaired by South Africa this week.

Mr. Modi, however, skipped the BRICS plus summit attended by all other leaders of the 11-nation grouping, indicating a discomfort with the tough line taken by South Africa that has asked for the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel for alleged “war crimes” in Gaza. Meanwhile, at the United Nations, India abstained at a UNGA vote on October 26 that called on Israel for a ceasefire, but voted in favour of other draft resolutions at the UNGA’s “Fourth Committee” on November 9 against Israel’s settler policies in the occupied territories including the West Bank and Syrian Golan.

What do the latest votes at the UN mean?

India’s decision to vote in favour of five out of six draft resolutions critical of Israel was explained by officials as a repeat of its earlier stance and “routine”. However, while India abstained on the October 26 vote because it said there was no explicit reference to the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas, it made no such caveat during the draft resolution votes, which will be cleared in the UNGA in December. The five draft resolutions India voted for dealt with the operations of the UNRWA, the UN agency that deals with Palestinians; assistance to Palestinian refugees; the issue of Palestine refugee properties; the area of Syrian Golan occupied by Israel; and Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem and the occupied Syrian Golan. India, however, abstained from the resolution titled ‘Work of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories’. Of most significance was the vote criticising ‘Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan’ (A/C.4/78/L.15) that “condemns” Israeli demolitions of Palestinian villages and calls the occupation of those villages by Israeli settlers “illegal”, which India voted in favour of.

Is India’s position closer to the West or the Global South?

Traditionally, since its leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement, India’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict has always aligned with the Global South, offering full support for the Palestinian cause. It has called for talks to end the conflict, while building a stronger strategic, defence, counter-terrorism cooperation and trade ties with Israel since 1992, after they established full diplomatic ties. Since the Kargil war, where Israel provided India crucial and timely shipments of weapons and ammunition, a study of India’s statements at the UN showed a softening of language against Israel, including toning down “condemnation” of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, although it voted regularly with the developing world to stop the violence. India’s vote on October 26, however, was a departure from that, where it lined up alongside 45 abstentions, mostly from European countries, rather than the 120 countries, mostly from the Global South, which included nearly all the countries of West Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa and South America that voted for the resolution. India also joined the U.S.-led formulation of total condemnation of the October 7 terror attacks and for “humanitarian pauses”, ostensibly to allow food, fuel and water into Gaza in between periods of Israeli bombardment, language that appeared in both its joint statements after the 2+2 dialogues with the U.S. and Australia.


Also read | India reiterates call for ‘sovereign, independent, viable state of Palestine’

India has stood apart from Western countries in that it has not thus far banned Hamas, or designated it a terror organisation as the U.S., U.K., Switzerland and Germany have moved to do. In an effort perhaps to push India to do so, Israel this week announced it was banning the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group responsible for the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks that included Israeli victims, 15 years later.

How will this impact ties in West Asia?

While India’s relations with Israel have been increasingly “de-hyphenated” from its ties with Palestine, many experts have suggested that any change in its stance favouring Israel over all other ties with the Gulf and Arab world, will be watched closely. Each country has a rich history of ties with India. For several years, India has built special ties with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, calculating that the normalisation of ties between them and Israel is only a matter of time, as the Abraham Accords showed. As a result, the India-Israel-UAE-U.S. (I2U2) trade initiative and the recently launched India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor hinging on this normalisation could be one casualty of the Israel-Hamas conflict which has led to a strong reaction from the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. When asked this week, the U.S. Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, accepted that the conflict could pause infrastructure initiatives, but that in the long term, the logic of such plans would prevail.

India’s ties with Iran, Israel’s chief enemy, that have been strengthened by initiatives like the Chabahar port and the International North-South Transport Corridor to Central Asia and Russia could also be affected, if it seems that the Modi government is choosing one side more clearly than the other. Israeli companies have expressed interest in bringing in nearly a lakh of Indian workers to replace Palestinian workforce in the construction industry; New Delhi has thus far not jumped at the idea, keeping in mind the more than eight million Indians working in Gulf countries that could be impacted as well.

The Modi government, that is engaged in sensitive negotiations with Qatar over the fate of eight former naval officers sentenced to death for alleged espionage, will also avoid being overly critical of Qatari support to Hamas, where much of the group’s leadership is based. Qatar is also a key player in the negotiations with Israel over the hostage release and ceasefire in Gaza.

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Why are people fleeing Myanmar for Mizoram? | Explained

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The story so far: In a spillover of the civil war in Myanmar, 1,500 nationals of India’s neighbouring country, took refuge in Mizoram’s Champhai district early on November 13 following an intense gunfight between the Myanmar Army, and pro-democracy militias in the country’s western Chin State abutting Mizoram. Reports indicate that the attacks on the ruling military junta (or the Tatmadaw) involving the Chin National Army (CNA), Chin Defense Force among others led to the capture of two bases — the Khawmawi and Rihkhawdar military camps — by the rebels. In all, 39 soldiers of the junta had also fled to Mizoram and were later sent back by Indian defence authorities.


Editorial | War in Myanmar: On the junta and restoring democracy

What is the situation in Myanmar?

The attacks in Chin State coincidentally followed a major coordinated attack on regime forces by three ethnic armed groups – the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA) in Myanmar’s north Shan State abutting China. The coordinated attacks, termed “Operation 1027” denoting the date of operations, October 27, by the Three Brotherhood Alliance as the three groups called their collective, led to serious setbacks for the junta’s forces in Shan State and brought about a sequence of other rebel attacks – including those in Chin State in the following days.

Scores of military outposts and bases were either abandoned by the junta forces or were captured by the rebels, with the UN stating that 60,000 people in Shan State and 2,00,000 overall in the country have been displaced following the current hostilities taking the total number of civilian displacements to more than two million since the coup.

What led to the current civil war in Myanmar?

In February 2021, a new junta, the State Administration Council (SAC) dominated by the Myanmar armed forces organised a military coup that ousted the civilian National League for Democracy-government and detained (and later imprisoned) its leader Aung San Suu Kyi among many other legislators and party officials. The junta said that it captured power because of irregularities in the November 2020 elections, even though international observers called the elections fair. The coup led to the collapse of the country’s democratic phase that opened up after the 2008 Constitution.

This Constitution allowed for reserving 25% of the Parliament of Myanmar for serving military officers, and control over home, border affairs and defence to be retained by the military, thereby limiting civilian powers and in essence, heralding a hybrid democratic regime.

While the Tatmadaw-supported Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) was installed in power in 2010, it soon lost power to the NLD in elections held in 2015 with Ms Suu Kyi assuming the role of “State counsellor of Myanmar”. The NLD was elected with a landslide victory in the 2015 elections – it had won 86% of the seats.

Following the coup in February 2021, a series of nationwide protests, a general strike and civil disobedience campaigns including those led by civil servants occurred, leading to what was called the “Spring Revolution”. Members of the deposed NLD and other elected ethnic lawmakers formed a new political body called the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (or National Parliament in Burmese), which along with other civil society actors, ethnic party representatives and others later formed the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) — a dialogue platform seeking to unite pro-democratic forces.

The NUCC then agreed upon a “federal democratic charter” (FDC) that sought to come up with a future constitution, and a political roadmap to a “federal democratic” country to be led by a National Unity Government (NUG) that was announced in April 2021. A final publication of the FDC happened in March 2022, after incorporating ethnic demands of recognition of non-Bamar minority identities and equality. The United States Institute of Peace argues that the resistance is now “led by the most inclusive political coalition in Myanmar’s history”.

The junta, meanwhile, responded by violently and heavily cracking down on the largely peaceful movement leading to the NUG announcing the creation of People’s Defense Forces (PDF), militias that were seeking to emerge near the border and central Burmese areas and in September 2021, explicitly gave the call for the PDF and other rebels to attack the junta, launching a civil war.

The junta reacted by attacking the resistance through a counter-insurgency strategy that targeted civilians and resistance forces by the use of state terror – the burning of entire villages, schools and small towns besides using aerial attacks against its own population.

What has been the ethnic organisations’ response to the coup and its aftermath?

Even prior to Burmese independence, various non-Bamar ethnic groups had been striving for varying degrees of federal autonomy among other arrangements vis-a-vis the Burma government. Following military seizure of power in 1962, however, the junta put in place a military controlled structure across the country which soon led to several ethnic-group insurrections that lasted decades. By the mid-70s, the administrative functions of the Burmese government were effectively centralised and sought to remove any ethnic distinctions in federal arrangements, leading to the intensifying of the ethnic insurgencies.

The ethnic armed actors, despite coming under severe attack over the years from the Tatmadaw, managed to establish autonomous enclaves in their areas. With the Tatmadaw unable to defeat them entirely, it signed ceasefires with groups that allowed them to retain arms and some autonomy in minority areas, a situation that persisted during the “democratic” years after the 2008 Constitution and even today.

The ethnic armed groups’ responses to the insurrection call by the NUG have been varied. A paper by Paul Vrieze in Asian Survey journal last year pointed to three divergent responses. Groups such as the Karen (Karen National Union), Kachin (Kachin Independence Organization), Chin (Chin National Front) and Karenni (Karenni National Progressive Party) rebels supported the NUG, fighting the army and helping forming anti-coup militias. They did so while rejecting a NUG proposal for a single “Federal Army’‘ under unified NUG command.

It is noteworthy to point out that the junta’s first punitive action against ethnic armed organisations was targeted at those in Chin State in October 2021, an initiative that failed but resulted in several refugees fleeing to Mizoram and Manipur in India. While New Delhi passed strictures not to open camps or provide assistance, the Mizoram government defied the Union government’s order to deport the refugees and allowed them to take shelter. The Mizo people regard those from the Chin community as ethnic brethren. The influx of refugees in Manipur has heightened the ethnic conflict between the Kuki-Zo community and the majority Meiteis in the State.

Eight groups including the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), New Mon State Party (NMSP), Pa-O National Liberation Organization (PNLO) initially joined the NUCC dialogue, but after the junta’s crackdown, decided to retain their ceasefire status with the junta.

The TNLA, the Kokang-based MNDAA, and other northern groups in Shan State, besides the Rakhine state based AA used the post-coup situation to strengthen themselves without provoking the junta. These groups are also loosely allied with the United Wa State Army (UWSA), which has repudiated any ties with the NUG and retains its pre-coup relationship with the junta.

The Brotherhood Alliance between the MNDAA, AA and the TNLA and its attack on the junta forces since late October has changed the equations suddenly, in effect increasing the number of battlefields for the junta and stretching it thin.

An article published in the International Crisis Group by ICG expert Richard Horsey argues that this escalation by the three ethnic groups has more to do with their own particular interests.

The MNDAA seeks to “right what it sees as a historical wrong [its expulsion from “Kokang Self-Administered Zone” by the junta who installed border guards from a rival faction in its place] as well as to regain lucrative assets [gambling and other illicit industries included]”. The TNLA seeks control of an autonomous Ta’ang region, to connect it to the Chinese border for strategic and economic reasons while the Rakhine-based AA’s leadership operates from rebel-held areas near the Chinese border and has vital economic interests there. The AA also launched a series of attacks on 13 November in Rakhine State renewing a conflict and creating another battlefield for the junta to tackle during the civil war.

What has been the effect of the new attacks on the junta?

The net effect of “Operation 1027” and its aftermath has been a greater consolidation of post-coup rebel forces in attacking junta units making the civil war into a multi-front battle. The junta has promised a counter-offensive to regain areas that are crucial to cross-border trade with China and the ICG points out that “it is a well trained and well-equipped force, which has been continuously battling various insurgencies since World War II.. and its staying power cannot be underestimated”. It also suggests that the “regime will double down” on scorched earth, indiscriminate bombing and shelling to gain the upper hand, leading to an even more violent phase of the civil war.

How have international actors like China reacted?

Myanmar’s closest ally, China has leverage over some of the northern ethnic armed forces that are now engaged against the junta. While Beijing has publicly called for a cessation in hostilities, experts aver that the Chinese are willing to tolerate the actions as the rebels have evinced interest in reining in illicit activities such as “telecom scam centres” in the Kokang zone for example.

The MNDAA announced that it is planning to attack Laukkai township in Kokang and which is controlled by junta-affiliated militias and is also host to many cybercrime compounds. These illicit centres have trapped thousands of Chinese nationals besides many from South East Asia in forcing them to carry out internet fraud, theft and cybercrime activities targeting Chinese citizens and others. The ICG, however, suggests that China might rein in the groups once the “conflict drags on and threatens an extended period of instability”, especially since it has economic interests tied to the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor as part of the Belt and Road project.


Also read | 40,000 Kukis from Myanmar in Mizoram since 2021, never created any problem: Mizoram MP counters Amit Shah 

There are differences in the ASEAN grouping over the coup and the pro-democracy movement while India supports the restoration of democracy in principle but has not favoured any particular actor in the civil war.

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