1. It is one of the great ironies of history that Soviet President Gorbachov's Globalist ''New Thlnking" has ultimately resulted in consequences disastrously contrary to what he had intended; there is less security in the world than before; there is a new sense of helplessness on the part of the powerless; the prospect of a world without war has receded further; the victims of injustice have no strong champion of their cause any more; the world has become more miserable than ever before since the second world war. The Gulf War, alas, is as much a consequence of Soviet New Thinking as of anything else.
2. This asymmetric, short-duration, super-high-tech war has achieved more than the liberation of Kuwait from frail aggression and occupation. It seems to have been even more effective in achieving six or seven of the covert goals of USA and her allies:
a. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Kuwait and Syria all wanted the rising power of Iraq to be curbed; this was also in the Allied interest, but it would have been counter-productive (strong Arab reaction) if Israel had been allowed to do the job on her own as she wanted to; now it has been done, with minimum cost to Israel and with maximum winning over of the Arabs into the allied camp. If the USA and Iraq had really negotiated, such a war would have been impossible, because the Americans knew that Saddam Hussein was willing to withdraw his troops from Kuwait if he had been treated with dignity and offered some small compromises on the Palestinian question and a little financial contribution from Kuwait. Without a war, Iraq could not have been crushed so brutally.
b. Ever since the collapse of the soviet Threat' in 1988, there was no justification for stationing American troops in an outpost like Western Europe. The Gulf War gave the Allies a pretext for a new military outpost in the Middle East, so essential to Allied imperialist interests.
c. KSA and Allies have been looking for an opportunity to field-test and demonstrate the prowess of their new post SDI high-tech weapons; a first class sales patch has been made for western armaments. and the Soviet Union and others can no longer compete in the arms market. The important thing is that the human cost of the test is borne by the Two-third world people of Iraq and Kuwait.
d. The UN has been a major force in the World resisting Allied hegemony in the world. It has now been captured arid domesticated.
e. A real boost has been given to the waning arms industry on which the market economy's health is now based. The big corporations, the ''death dealers, have now been helped enough so that they can continue to contribute liberally to the political process that sustains the market economy.
f. The USA has been enabled to assert its uncontested global leadership, to test friends, and to severely warn any would-be challengers to that global authority.
g. The cost of the operation has been largely paid by Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia and others, and the new contracts for reconstruction of Kuwait and possibly of Iraq, along with a few mammoth arms sales already effected, will more than compensate for the rest of the expenditure. Overall the war has been a ''good deal'' for the West, money-wise.
3. The short Gulf far has radically altered the power configuration in the world; categories of yesterday no longer fit. It is not profitable to keep on talking about superpowers or unipolar versus multipolar or bipolar world. What we have is a global market economy which now comprehends almost all countries in the world including USSR, China and Vietnam, and the USA has emerged as the General Manager of the New Global Order, assisted by her White Allies as assistant managers. The latter do not always agree with everything the General Manager does; but to disagree with him openly may have rather catastrophic consequences; so they can only go along, hoping some day the GM will make a major faux pas when they can oust him from power and take his place.
4. For the powerless, especially for a country like India, the question arises: where to look for some countervailing power to offset the power of the GM? Economically the two most powerful Assistant Managers are Germany (or the European Community, if you like and if you believe in it) and Japan.
But they have to play the GM's game, at least for the time being, for their very survival. And there is a private game played by the GM and the two most powerful Assistant Managers. The GM knows these two are rivals who have to be fixed before they manage to overthrow him and take his place. But he also knows that he has to keep them as allies until later he would have strength enough to crush them.
5. Gone are the days when Mrs. Gandhi, threatened by the present GM during the Bangladesh War, could send her personal envoy and get an Indo-Soviet Treaty in the bag in three days. The collapse of the Soviet Economy and of its Policy of the Defense of Socialism, has also led, it would appear, to the collapse of the effectiveness of India's foreign policy.
Without soviet Military power willing to confront western Allied power, can India sustain a foreign policy based on international morality?
6. The other bastion of a principled global policy was the united Nations. It was a force to be reckoned both, till the Gulf War. It could stand up to the highhandedness of the USA and allies on many occasions. But now the USA has shown remarkable skills in capturing and castrating the UN. The UN Resolution gave carte blanche to member nations to ''use all necessary means'' to get Iraq out of Kuwait, while Israel was still occupying Arab lands for decades, Syria was occupying part of Lebanon, and Turkey part of Cyprus; this was a blatant betrayal of all that the UN stood for; it was a rape and violation of its own charter. It is common knowledge that the UN Resolution was bought by bribe and cajolement. It is an unconstitutional resolution, but it has served the USA's purpose.
7. Now it seems the USA is interested in solving the Middle East problem under its own aegis, again bringing in the UN in so far as it suits American policy aims. It will take a lot of doing to bring back a semblance of real power to the UN. The UN System will also come under the GM, unless someone sees the danger and does something drastic about it, like breaking the power of the Five Permanent members of the Security Council by amending the Charter itself.
8. Two-third World countries will need to wake up, and see the new global power configuration picture with fresh eyes. Not much use hanging on to old and obsolete structures like the NAM or even to more creative but largely ineffective ideas like SAARC and South-south Co-operation. The Two-third world is far from united, and the GM is interested in keeping it that way. It is unrealistic to suppose that even an India-China alliance could bring the Two-third world together on a common platform. But China is an important player in the new power game, and India's interests are certainly in mending fences with China and An forging a common policy with other Two-third World countries.
9. The Two-third World will need the friendship and support of all progressive elements both in the West as well as in ex-socialist countries. A new international will need to be conceived and a platform formulated, to counter the new power structure and to seek together dignity, freedom, justice, peace and a life-sustaining environment for all humanity. If by next June, India has some vigorous leadership, a highly unlikely prospect, as of now - it could take the initiative to create such a progressive global forum, not necessarily anti-west or anti-American, but basically committed to democratic freedom, justice, peace and a healthy environment. Without some government support, it will be difficult to make such a global forum effective: but it is not inconceivable that the initiative comes from institutes, informal groups, and non-governmental organizations.
10. It seems beyond doubt that the countervailing power we need is not military, but economic and social-cultural; the power of the people, the power of more than 4000 million dispossessed and marginalised people: but people's power organised and mobilized. The sense of outrage at the presence and arrogant manifestation of non-responsible technological- military power seems widespread, but still remains faltering in expression. To give unmistakable expression to that sense of deep moral outrage, and to demand a more responsible, democratic control of global power seems the priority of the day.
11. India certainly needs a new foreign policy; that policy, if not based on some measure of economic independence, both at home and in international relational will be based more on expediency than on principle. In fact India's foreign policy in the Gulf Conflict has been depressingly based on short- term expediency; it seems clearly our responsibility as citizens to demand that the next election struggle among our political parties be based on more substance than just a stable government. Without an enlightened vision of the new global situation, neither stability nor economic prosperity with some measure of justice can be attained in our chaotic "stable".
12. The process of reflection on our foreign policy need not await the outcome of the next general elections. It can begin now.