• Nepal’s latest Political Soap Opera • ukraine’s Endgame in Sight

Nepal-US Military Cooperation & the Ludicrous Storm in a Tea Cup

Nepal’s military cooperation with the army of the British East India Company goes back way back to after the (in)famous Treaty of Sugauli, 1816.

Nepali Gurkha soldiers serve even today in the British and Indian armies and have been engaged in their various armed conflicts and wars. These include the Crimean War, the Afghan campaigns, the two World Wars, the Falkland War and the SinoIndian Border War.

These did not amount to Nepal having military alliances with either the U.K. or India.

In fact, in recent times Nepal could pursue its policy of nonalignment unhampered. There have been no objections from China and Pakistan on the deployment of Nepali Gurkha soldiers on their respective borders.

It is, therefore, very difficult to understand why our experienced and sophisticated politicians, media and academic pundits are making so much sound and fury of a very normal cooperation between the armies of two extremely friendly countries – like Nepal and the United States -- with over seven decades of diplomatic relations.

The State Partnership Programme (SPP) -- a very normal and innocent military cooperation between two armies – especially the very important sector of disaster management – has now been ‘upgraded’ into a military pact!

The poor prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has been pushed into a corner and made a scapegoat – even by his so-called alliance partners, but especially the opposition CPN-UML – to defend a chimera!

All the leaders of the major parties when in government were aware of the agreement, and now they are washing their hands off it.

And into the bargain, they are now making Deuba and the Nepal Army culpable, the latter for overstepping its authority! Comments by Foreign Policy Experts, National Security Pundits

There have been many scintillating and perspicacious comments by Nepali luminaries. Leading the pack of bad apples are:

- Ramesh Nath Pandey, a former foreign minister pontificated:

“This SSP episode is a national tragedy and this is an utter failure of the country’s diplomatic machinery.”

“The poor handling of the SSP issue has created a crisis of confidence. The big question is who to trust in this country” (TKP/The Kathmandu Post, June 18). [one thing is clear: we cannot trust this former minister!]. - Barsha Man Pun, CPNMaoist Centre leader: Said it is unfortunate that the SPP proposal came through the Nepal Army. The comrade comes from an outfit that butchered thousands of innocent Nepalese, and has a track record of being trained and sustained by our southern neighbor; therefore being traitors at heart. He has clearly an axe to grind. - Indra Adhikari, a security expert:

Is of the opinion “While there is complete failure of military diplomacy, political leaders are devoid of responsibility.”

The would-be theoretician has introduced the new concept of military diplomacy [which in fact is illogical], while at the same time ‘lamenting the practice that the Nepal Army often tends to behave like a parallel government, forgetting the fact that it is an institution under the civilian government’.

Just for the record: the Nepal Army has always respected the primacy of the civilian authority. It was Prachande and the Maoists who attempted to undermine the legitimate functioning of the Army and make it an instrument to seize political power in toto. If not in the domestic sphere, in the international arena the Nepal Army enjoys great respect, as proven by its impeccable record in UN Peace-Keeping Operations! One can only conclude that these ‘personalities’ are prompted not by vital national interests, but that of personal, party, vested and foreign interests. That is why they are making a mountain out of a molehill!

At the same time, there is definitely something wrong with our decision-making process at the national level.

This has been proved once again by the decision of Deuba and his cabinet to withdraw unilaterally from the SPP bilateral cooperation with the U.S. Army [in fact the US National Guards in the state of Utah].

In fact, Deuba has succumbed to the pressures and commotion of the political mob and demonstrated that he is spineless! With what face does he expect to make his official visit to the U.S.? He will definitely have his tail between his legs!

As an old friend, the US government should help him out of his muddle and politely indicate that he should come when the stars are better aligned, perhaps after his resounding victory in the next general elections!

Putin’s Aggressive War: Ukraine Will Win

In a brilliant opinion piece in the prestigious Foreign Affairs magazine (June 17), Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has laid out his country’s case against Putin’s Russia in a cogent, compelling and powerful manner.

After all, he is defending his country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity enshrined in the Charta of the United Nations. After all, there should not be an iota of doubt that Putin and his henchmen have violated all the valid norms of International Law. At the outset, he lambasts the growing and alarming tendency to call for “dangerous deals” with the aggressor.

It is but natural that as the war drags on far away at a place previously difficult to locate on the map “fatigue grows and attention wanders”.

However, Kuleba laments that more and more “Kremlin-leaning commentators are proposing to sell out Ukraine for the sake of peace and economic stability in their own countries.”

These international security pundits want ‘to give peace a chance’ and pose as “pacifists” and “realists”, but to the core they are better understood as appeasers and enablers of Russian neo-imperialism.

It is natural that people and governments lose interest in conflicts as they drag on – as in Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, to name only a few – but it is important to recapitulate that Russia already committed aggression in 2014, and the world went over to business as usual. The difference between then and now was that eight years back Putin employed covert means to occupy parts of Eastern Ukraine in the provinces Luhansk and Donetsk (collectively called the Donbas) and annex the Crimean Peninsula outright.

Because the world had looked away then, Putin was emboldened to use overt means to unleash a war of blatant aggression, but even now Putin is too cowardly and calls it “a special military operation”.

This time around, Putin has overshot the mark from every direction and tread on the toes of friend and foe alike.

His aggression has impinged on the security interests not only of Europe and the United States, but the wider world, and must be taken very seriously, and above all acted on.

Putin’s predatory actions are so morally wrong, criminal and nefarious – both domestically and internationally – that a compromise with him at the present stage is completely out of the question.

With regard to Ukraine, Putin does not simple want to occupy just more territory, or even seize the entire country [which now seems to be thwarted], but to completely obliterate Ukrainian nationhood and destroy the Ukrainian people wholesale – nothing less than a campaign of genocide – worthy of an Adolf Hitler.

Kuleba spells out succinctly Ukraine’s short term tactics and long haul strategy of defeating the invading Russian forces. First, it is essential that Ukraine’s friends and allies do not fall for “misleading narratives”. They have to comprehend exactly how Ukraine can actually win. The people and leaders of Ukraine have understood that Putin’s war is existential for them, an important transition, indeed a Zeitenwende [a historical turning point].

The entire people and the armed forces are motivated to fight the brutal invaders.

In contrast, Putin’s hordes are already exhausted and at the breaking point. The Russian supreme commander-in-chief will be on the horns of a dilemma if Ukrainian forces attack simultaneously on two fronts within their own territory – the East, as well as, the South.

Putin will be nonplussed and realize that he has miscalculated enormously, that he has bitten off much more than he could chew. Just like would-be conquerors of Russia like Napoleon and Hitler who had to retreat from Moscow, now it would be Putin himself who would have to retreat ignominiously [some European statesmen can attempt to make it less dishonourable!].

However, considering the indubitable fact that Ukraine is ‘out-gunned’ and ‘out-maned’, the United States and its European allies, need secondly to achieve various imperative goals:

1. Swiftly supply Ukraine with the indispensable numbers of advanced heavy weapons;

2. Maintain and increase sanctions against Russia and those countries abetting it;

3. Ignore calls for diplomatic settlements that could help Putin before he makes serious concessions. After all, Ukraine is the injured party and the cart must not be placed before the horse.

“Peace with Honour” can only mean one thing [also for Russia in the long term]: “a complete and total Ukrainian victory” (Kuleba).

Last Sunday in CNN’s highly charged TV show with the astute Fareed Zakaria as the anchor, two of America’s most brilliant military minds – retired 4-star Admiral James Stravidis (former supreme allied commander of NATO) and retired 4-star General David Petraeus (former supreme allied commander in Afghanistan and former CIA director) both commented that Ukraine was headed for victory. Among other things, Ukraine was highly motivated, while Putin had isolated himself and cut himself off from the reality on the ground – a commander’s most grievous mistake. Add to the mix, the Churchillian figure of President Zelenskiy.

Western Military Aid Crucial

To effectively stop Putin’s expansionism, Western military aid is proving to be decisive. However, to maintain the momentum of pressure on Putin’s forces, it has to be cranked up ‘qualitatively’ and ‘quantitatively’. At the same time, some military strategists are of the opinion that ‘quantity has a quality of its own’ and this is also affecting the turn of events.

Bancruptcy of the Global South It is most unfortunate that many leaders of developing countries – including Nepal and South Asia – have chosen to sit on the fence. After all, the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine can:

between Autocracy and Democracy [which can be discomforting for many in the Global South]

it can also be described as a blatant attempt of a neoimperialist power to impose its own interests on a smaller sovereign, independent state struggling to preserve its territorial integrity. Unfortunately, many decisionmakers in African, Arabian and Asian states have been unable to signal any sympathy for Ukraine’s travails.

Instead – horror of horrors – they are suggesting that Ukraine stop resisting, compromise with Russia and make free the grain trapped in Ukrainian silos and ports – to avoid famine in their countries!

It is a misguided perspective. Instead they should realize that Russia is the dominant part of the problem [it is the disrupter], and also the fundamental component of the solution [it should end hostilities or accede to a temporary ceasefire].

In the meantime, the European Union has categorically declared that blockading Ukrainian grain at Black Sea ports is a ‘real war crime’.

The Menace of a Putin Victory

It just seems that the Russian political and military elite have a generalized, deep-seated loathing of others.

Translated to the war in Ukraine, a Western appeasement of Russia would mean, Kuleba insists that:

1. many more thousands of innocent Ukrainians would be tortured, raped and brutally murdered [like in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv];

2. it would definitely undermine liberal democratic values;

3. it would open the path for Russia to intimidate Eastern and Central Europe;

4. indeed, it would allow Russia to threaten the Western world at large.

The bottom line: Ukraine’s defeat would denote its complete extirpation and with it the loss of prosperity and security in Europe as a whole. This is behind the grudge and machinations of the diabolical Putin.

Wider Implications

Kuleba has marshalled enough cogent reasons to illustrate that “Russia is a revanchist country bent on remaking the entire world.”

Russia’s slippery slide into non-significance [from the previous pre-eminence] has rattled Putin, but is a process of his own,

1. already holding the poorest nations of the Global South hostage by weaponizing and blockading Ukrain’s grain exports.

2. he has meddled with impunity in American and European domestic politics before; he could amplify this;

3. he could even march deeper into the European continent by also invading Moldova, where Russian proxies already control a slice of territory [as in Georgia];

4. he is also capable of triggering a new war in the western Balkans.

Western Angst of Putin & Nuclear Blackmail

Some Western decision-makers have become wary of helping Ukraine too much because they have deadly Angst [fear] of what a mortally wounded Putin might further undertake if he is roundly defeated on the battlefield.

The imagined escalatory ladder or spiral could presage:

1. an angry, isolated Russian president starting new campaigns of international aggression [actually Putin is already at the end of his tether; his resources are not unlimited and he has over-extended on many fronts, not only military];

2. he could “generally become more dangerous and difficult to deal with”. Such imagined dangers must be confronted when the time is ripe or to use another metaphor ‘cross the bridge when you come to it’.

3. Some go to the terrible extent of having Angst [fear] that Putin might even use his country’s formidable nuclear arsenal.

However, Kuleba is an astute observer of Russia and world affairs.

He makes the case that Putin himself is not suicidal and that a Ukrainian victory would not lead to atomic warfare, much less to a nuclear Armageddon. Moreover, the Kremlin has been too clever by half and has been deviously fueling such misguided propaganda.

Actual experience makes clear that “whenever Putin faces a failure he opts to downplay and conceal it, not to double down.” Currently, there is much talk of war fatigue all around. But an Ukraine victory would once and for all “eliminate the uncertainty in the long-term strategies of the United States and Europe toward Russia”, besides making the US pivot to Asia more sustainable.

“Any war ends with diplomacy”, but the time is not yet ripe for serious statecraft, “Putin’s path to the negotiating table lies solely through battleground defeats.”

Lessons for China?

Insightful and the statesman that he is, Kuleba did not mention China with one word, not wanting to provoke the world’s Number Two power, whose stance in the unprovoked armed conflict has been ambivalent at best.

Most Western security pundits are of the opinion that a decisive Russian defeat in Ukraine – even when it has been made possible by massive Western financial and military aid – will definitely deter China from attempting the liberation of Taiwan, at least for the time being.

Thus, another major world crisis will have been averted.