PAXIndica-IR

Alberta province of Canada #location Article link 🔗 https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/canadian-unity-or-separation-why-did-alberta-province-hold-a-referendum/article71606263.ece/amp/

#locations Yemen Houthi Crisis For prelims — focus on key locations, like Bab al-Mandab, Gulf of Aden etc. @iasexamcongress

Seasoned diplomat Kishore Mahbubani explains the "sphere of influence" doctrine through the examples of Russia-ukraine and Cuban Missile Crisis. A realist take on why encroaching on great-power security perimeters triggers conflict.

Article by Prof Happymon Jacob on Middle Power Geopolitics: ➡️Canadian Prime Minister (PM) Mark Carney told the WEF in Davos that the world was going through a rupture rather than a transition, and urged countries like his  essentially, middle powers to close ranks . ➡️Recently on the margins of the UNGA , the European Union, Brazil, Canada, Kenya, Australia, Barbados and India launched Partners for Multilateralism (P4M), a platform to defend an order under strain. ➡️India resists a bipolar order or a great-power condominium ("G2") where Washington and Beijing unilaterally settle systemic questions. ➡️S. Jaishankar articulated India's preferred US-China relationship dynamic: neither too hot nor too good, but calibrated at an intermediate "right temperature" to preserve maneuvering room.  ➡️India views itself as a rising major power, a "great power in waiting," and an independent pole.  ➡️It resists a catch-all "middle power" label shared by European micro-states (San Marino, Liechtenstein) or traditional middle-tier actors.  ➡️Historically, middle powers (e.g., Canada, Australia) operated as compliant "rule-takers" managing the margins of a US-designed hegemony.  ➡️By contrast, India’s core diplomatic thrust—exemplified by "reformed multilateralism" and the UNSC bid—demands agency as an authentic systemic rule-maker. ➡️India deliberately synthesizes the nomenclature by invoking "emerging and middle powers," preserving India’s status trajectory while harnessing the collective weight of second-rung states.  ➡️India will navigate the middle-power architecture pragmatically—utilizing its diplomatic vocabulary, sitting in the room, and signing communiqués whenever strategically advantageous.  ➡️India is a middle power that wants to be a pole, and until it gets there, it will behave like a middle power whenever that is useful. Article link 🔗 https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/the-middle-power-question-that-new-delhi-faces-today-101791746755502.html

Article on India’s role as peacemaker by Prof Sreeram Chaulia: ➡️Recently EAM S Jaishankar's said that India has gone "beyond advocacy" to bring about a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and an agreement on the safety of shipping in the Black Sea  ➡️During the sidelines of recent BRICS Summit India facilitated high-level direct engagement between the UAE and Iran, with the aim of easing tensions between the two States.  ➡️Major powers always project themselves as problem-solvers and solution-providers in order to accumulate soft power, gain acceptance as responsible players, and compete with rivals in multiple corners of the world. ➡️India is not yet a superpower and hence is not going to replicate exactly what the US and China are doing in name of peacemaking.  ➡️But the fact that India is not a camp-follower of either the US or China and is steadily rising as an independent power centre, with strategic autonomy of its own, lends it credibility as a peace mediator or messenger.  ➡️India can appoint Special peace envoys, representatives from a wider pool of parliamentarians, lawyers, judges, academicians, and domain experts, alongside career diplomats. ➡️India has carved out a distinct identity for itself as a bridge-builder between the geopolitical antipodes of East and West, North and South.  Article link 🔗 https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/a-rising-india-needs-to-play-peacemaker-101791492614063.html

Article on recent US-China Rapprochement: ➡️Bilateral engagement has shifted from a decade of estrangement to intensive leader-level summits across four venues Beijing, Washington, Shenzhen, and Miami fueling outside speculation about an emergent "G-2" condominium. ➡️Diplomatic pomp and rhetoric mask an enduring structural reality: both powers remain locked in an all-pervasive strategic competition over systemic hegemony in the Indo-Pacific and globally. ➡️The contest spans military balance, technological supremacy, economic hegemony, and an underlying ideological clash between democratic capitalism and China's alternative authoritarian model.  ➡️Rather than eliminating rivalry, the two states are constructing an imperfect bilateral management mechanism to agree on operational rules of the road and mitigate the risk of accidental escalation or war.  ➡️Beijing’s "Constructive Strategic Stability" Schema: China has formulated a tripartite framework: maximizing "cooperation", keeping "competition within defined bounds", and managing "strategic differences" (diplomatic code for Taiwan).  ➡️While Washington has mirrored the terminology in official readouts, it appends caveats demanding that any framework be strictly "fair and reciprocal". ➡️Characterizing the thaw as a global strategic condominium is unfounded, tactical accommodations in trade do not alter the zero-sum structural rivalry, highlighted by zero-sum competition over frontier technology As Trump said "Whoever wins in AI, wins".  Article link 🔗 https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-china-us-rapprochement/article71552672.ece

Article by Prof Harsh V Pant: The Washington summit shows that the US and China can manage their rivalry without resolving their differences. The 60-day trade truce offers temporary relief, while talks on AI and other areas establish guardrails around an increasingly competitive relationship. This brief explains why understanding and adapting to this new equilibrium will be key for India and the international system: https://www.orfonline.org/research/the-us-versus-china-an-era-of-managed-competition

Article on reforming veto powers of the UNSC: ➡️France has advocated that the use of the veto in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) must be "regulated" rather than treated as an unfettered entitlement, especially concerning mass atrocities, genocide, and humanitarian crises (e.g., Sudan, Lebanon). ➡️The proposal revives French-Mexican initiative, first launched in 2015, under which permanent members of the SC would voluntarily refrain from using the veto in situations involving genocide, crimes against humanity, and large-scale war crimes. ➡️The UK has joined France in accepting the principle, marking the first time two of the five permanent members have formally committed to voluntary restraint.  ➡️France and the UK are not the primary heavyweights among the P5 taking high-ground principled positions is strategically easier for them than for the US, China, or Russia, whose geopolitical rivalries drive Council paralysis. ➡️Prof Swaran Singh notes that while the UN normative ideal presumes sovereign equality, international organisations cannot survive—let alone remain effective—if they adopt decisions that directly contravene the fundamental interests of major powers.  ➡️Prof Amitabh Mattoo distinguishes three conflated reform debates: the regulation of veto use, political accountability for exercising it, and the broader structural overhaul/expansion of the UNSC. ➡️There was an earlier Liechtenstein initiative adopted by the UNGA in 2022, it operationalises accountability by mandating that whenever a veto is cast, the General Assembly convenes within 10 working days, forcing the vetoing P5 member to publicly justify and defend its action before the global assembly.  ➡️While voluntary restraint and UNGA debates cannot override vital national self-interest, they construct political costs, impose normative accountability, and induce caution, offering an actionable reformist middle path between rigid retention and unattainable abolition.  Article link 🔗 https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/should-permanent-membership-and-veto-powers-of-the-unsc-be-abolished/article71505505.ece

This can be used as an introduction or conclusion for a question on the UN #Quote

Sub-schools of Realism through a sketch #PSIR #IR

Article by Stanly Johny and Varghese K. George on why BRICS and other Multilateral fora are important for Indian Interests: Differing views on BRICS: ➡️While optimists argue that BRICS could function as an institution capable of multipolarising the global order, or expediting that transition. ➡️Sceptics highlight the grouping’s internal divisions and worry about its possible domination by Russia and China.  ➡️A third group writes off BRICS altogether, dismissing it as little more than an annual gathering that generates strategic noise. They argue that India should focus on its partnership with the United States, which, in their view, is the only viable path to India’s rise(like Economist Surjit Bhalla).  Success of recent BRICS Summit: ➡️New Delhi could forge a consensus among the 11 member-countries, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iran. ➡️Second, while there is no immediate resolution to the border problems with China, which continue to simmer, there is momentum in efforts to reset ties. ➡️Third, Convergence on all the major global issues of the present — artificial intelligence regulation, global trade and finance, climate change, border conflicts, and the role and status of multilateral bodies. How these platforms helps India in maximizing it's National Interest: ➡️Multilateral platforms such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and BRICS provided New Delhi with space to restore that balancing posture without causing strategic damage to its bilateral relationships(Iran-Israel).  ➡️Lack of engagement between competing major powers can only deepen mistrust, while deepening mistrust, combined with the security dilemma stemming from their competition, could have dangerous consequences (like in case of Russia-Ukraine). Important from India China perspective creating guardrails for Competitive existence. ➡️The strategic partnership with Washington is extremely important for India’s progress and development, but what India must not allow itself to become, at any cost, is a frontline in the U.S.-China competition.  ➡️Their might be Internal contradictions within the grouping external convergence that the post-war international system is unfair and that a more representative order should be built could hold the group together as it lays the foundations and builds the blocks of a new order.  Article link🔗  https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/india-and-the-plausible-multilateralism-of-brics/article71500715.ece

Comments made by EAM S Jaishankar on UN Reforms: ➡️Global "Order Under Stress" due to extreme geopolitical competition, actual conflicts, and escalating systemic tensions. ➡️Geopolitical weaponisation has triggered acute vulnerabilities in the "4F crisis"—fuel, food, fertiliser, and finance—necessitating urgent multilateral frameworks and regulatory guardrails.  ➡️Jaishankar led the first-ever foreign ministers' meeting with the V4 (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia), securing concrete commitments for military, economic, and energy cooperation.  ➡️The V4 bloc collectively endorsed India’s induction as a permanent UNSC member, highlighted by Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár affirming that India "must be at the table".  Article link 🔗 https://indianexpress.com/article/india/jaishankar-united-nations-fuel-food-guardrails-global-order-10888684/