Developments in Russia-Ukraine War
As the Trump administration gains the levers of the United States administration signaling the end of the Russia-Ukraine war as one of its key priorities, the momentum towards starting negotiations is increasingly building up. There are several factors which have propelled a general outlook towards a settlement:
First, the rise of Trump in the US: The uncertainty brought about by the ascendance of Trump and his knee-jerk policies has put Europe on the edge. With Trump threatening tariff wars and portending a hawkish attitude towards European security visa-a-vis Russia, the realization in Europe is that the free flow of money that has aided the war machinery will now be diluted. In Europe, this has led to a realization that negotiating channels with Russia must be re-opened and the war ended. Major European countries like Germany have signaled as much. Europe also continues to procure LNG via Russia, and its companies continue to service the Russian ships.
Second, the turning tide of public opinion in Russia: While Putin continues to hold sway over the Russian public opinion, increasingly, the Russian public is also turning in favour of ending the war. According to a survey from the Russian Field Sociological Service, 60 percent of Russians favored an agreement to end the war, and only 30 percent favored continuing it. This is a significant change from 2022 when the war had started, and majority of Russians were in favour of it.
Third, insecurities of symbolic geopolitics: Developments in Syria in December culminating in the unceremonious fall of the decades old Assad regime has created a sense of deep insecurity in Putin. There is a general thinking within Kremlin that any kind of favourable settlement with Ukraine will just be a mirage and will not really end the war. The same is the thinking in Ukraine. Both parties assume that the interim peace period will merely enable the adversary to re-group its military and proxy fighters. In Russia’s case, this is especially so as the country now occupies vast swathes of Donbass region. For Ukraine, any peace will be illusory without some form of legal guarantees from the West and from Russia as an important part of the settlement. While such insecurities on both sides will make a smooth and early settlement difficult, it will also ensure that any settlement that finally takes place is foolproof.
Fourth, deteriorating Russian economic situation: The latest data bears out the deplorable state of the Russian economic and military situation. Between 2021 and 2024 – shortly after the start of the war – Russia’s arms exports dropped by 92 percent due to redirected resources for the war against Ukraine, the effects of sanctions, and inflation. Even buyers like India have substantially reduced imports of Russian arms and have instead shifted to other markets. China has also emerged as a significant top exporter of arms and already challenging Russia by cornering many of its markets.
Developments in Israel-Hamas War: The Ceasefire
With the coming of the Trump administration, Israel-Hamas war is witnessing an expected closure, rekindling hopes of regional peace in the Middle east. Trump’s threats to annihilate Hamas appears to have worked as an effective trigger to bring it to the table and make a successful ceasefire negotiation possible. Thus, even before Trump assumed office, his potential Middle east envoy worked with the Biden administration’s envoy along with negotiators from Egypt and Qatar to broker peace between Israel and Hamas.
The phased ceasefire deal consists of three phases. During a 42-day first phase, Hamas decided to release 33 hostages, while Israel committed to release between 900 to 1650 prisoners. The deal also mandated Israeli withdrawal from areas like central Gaza and the Netzarim Corridor. This would be followed by withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor which constitutes the buffer zone along the Gaza-Egypt border.
The second phase was deemed as leading to full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip and the release of all remaining hostage by the Hamas in exchange for a substantial number of prisoners held by Israel.
The third phase is expected to facilitate the full reopening of border crossings and the commencement of reconstruction in Gaza.
It is notable that despite the ceasefire deal in place and despite the military victories achieved by Israel against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran over the past year, it has not been able to completely wipe-out Hamas. Recent statements by the US officials indicate that Hamas has been able to recruit as many members as it had lost to Israel since the start of the hostilities. These trends indicate that ceasefire is merely a temporary arrangement and that the western and middle eastern countries need to find a permanent solution to the Palestine question. With Israel abandoning the two-state solution, no easy path to resolution seems likely.
Technological Horizon
In the last few weeks, the world of big tech has been shaken by the rise of a new generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) model, Deep Seek. The model was created by a Chinese company at a relatively cheap cost compared to similar AI models – like Chat GPT, Grok and others – created by American tech companies. Further, the methodology and process followed in creating Deep Seek has also been posted in an open-source format online for anyone to use and replicate similar AI models.
The introduction of Deep Seek into the AI market has come on the heels of Trump administration’s green light to the Stargate initiative – amongst the largest AI initiatives based on a collaboration between Open AI, SoftBank and Oracle.
The two developments appear to have triggered an AI race – akin to the arms race – with US and China emerging as two poles of competition. The insecurity triggered within the US with the launch of Chinese Deep Seek was visible through the massive crash in the AI stocks in the US market, as investors perceived that generative AI was losing its value if it could be replicated at a much lower cost as was done with China and would now be done in many other countries. Deep Seek was developed in less than two years with merely 200 employees and less than $10 million in capital, compared to Open AI’s use of 4500 employees and $6.6 billion in capital. Nvidia – which is the largest manufacturer and supplier of chips used in producing advanced AI models – saw a huge wipeout of its stocks in the American market crash. It is notable that the Chinese Deep Seek had used cheaper and older versions of Nvidia chips – imported during COVID pandemic – to produce an AI model that was much more advanced than its American competitors like Chat GPT and others. That China was able to do so despite the export restrictions placed on exports of chips and other technologies by the previous Biden administration shows the failure of the US in preventing the rise of China in this field.
With the AI race now emerging as a decisive factor that will shape the future of world politics, India appears to be readying itself as a close third to the US and China. Presently, India has 420,000 AI professionals – a number larger than the service professionals in many countries’ entire tech sector – and a $17 billion market potential. The country also has a 92 percent AI adoption rate among companies, which is again the highest in the world. India’s developer community is also the second largest in the world, after the US, with more than 240 generative AI start-ups already catering to a host of industries spanning education, healthcare, agriculture etc. To mobilize these resources, the Indian government has also launched its India-AI Mission.
With these developments, AI has been firmly cemented as the new permanent frontier in the field of technology. The mad race towards technological superiority, driven by motives of utilitarian comfort, commercial interest and national insecurities, has captured collective psychology in an irreversible manner. The changing scenario portends further deterioration in collective psychology.
Trump’s String of Executive Orders
As soon as he assumed office, Trump has started implementing his policy agenda by bypassing the Congress and passing a string of executive orders, some of whom are now facing challenges in the courts. This included revoking many unique mandates imposed by the previous Biden administration, such as promoting equity, enforcing COVID-19 vaccine mandates, climate initiatives, and protections for homosexual couples.
Security-focused:
Many of the executive orders appeal to the security narrative of American nationalism that appeals to Trump’s core vote base. These include:
- Ending Birthright Citizenship: An attempt to deny citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants, despite constitutional challenges. This has particularly created unease among the Indian Americans. For, many immigrants come to US in the hope that even if they do not get citizenship here, their children born on American soil will get American citizenship. In their old age, the same children will bring their parents and families to the US. Many Indian professionals who travel to US for skilled work on H1b visas avail of such loopholes in the system. They are now facing a backlash from white Americans for cornering their jobs through cheap, skilled labour by exploiting the system of ‘legal immigration’. The issue of birthright citizenship closely adds to this volatile mixture, thereby making it an important issue for Americans. If Trump succeeds in implementing this, it will curb substantial immigration into America.
- Designating Cartels as Terrorist Organizations: This initiative targeted Mexican drug cartels for sanctions and military action. It is another notable initiative which will impact the commerce of drugs across the US borders.
- Creating the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): The department, outside the realm of formal administration, functioning under Elon Musk, has already set about bringing more leanness to the federal departments. Among its most notable steps is paralyzing the formerly independent USAID (United States Agency for International Development) by bringing it under the control of the state department and axing its funding. Much of the USAID funds have allegedly been channelized for interference in domestic politics of other countries. It has been revealed by DOGE that at least $21 million was earmarked for “elections in India”. USAID has also been linked to the anti-Hasina protests in Bangladesh.
- Energy and Environment: In terms of energy and environment, one of the first things that Trump did was to withdraw from the Paris Agreement which is a central climate treaty, and which mandates the emissions reductions and other rules that countries to the agreement need to follow to combat climate change. Since US is one of the biggest historical emitters and a large current emitter, its withdrawal will make the agreement useless for all practical purposes. There is also a strategic reason behind the withdrawal of the US. With the launch of the Stargate initiative, as the US now starts building massive data centres and AI infrastructure, it is set to consume a lot more energy. US’s energy emissions have, thus, started increasing. It would be diplomatically and politically penalizing for the US to remain in the agreement. Other countries will likely follow suit. It is also notable that the agreement, in its current voluntary form, has been reduced to a eyewash even as the global emissions have continued to consistently increase. Apart from withdrawing from the agreement, Trump has also ended the Electric Vehicle mandate and the incentives to transition to clean energy.
With this start to his administration, Trump has already signalled the structural changes that will be seen within America and in its relations with the world.
