NATO is Expanding as a Result of the Ukraine War

On 18th-May 2022, Finland, and Sweden both submitted their application for joining NATO. Finland’s seven-decade commitment to no alliance will break when NATO awards it membership. US President Joe Biden showed his full support on 19th May to Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Finland President Sauli Niinisto, expressing America’s full, total and complete backing for their membership.  The Russian President called this a serious problem; Turkey, Italy, and Germany expressed their reservations.

Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia and the 2014 annexation of Crimea, prior to the attack on Ukraine has created a sense of insecurity in both Nordic states. Finland and Sweden have the conventional capability of Ukraine, but without nuclear weapons they have only the option of joining NATO in order to deter Russia. They also contribute to alliance operations and air policing, while their domestic populace is also in favor of membership due to Ukraine conflict.

Turkey claims that both countries are supporting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which are troublemakers in the Kurdistan region and terrorists according to Turkish officials. The United States and Turkey have declared it a terrorist group. A few questions arise 1) how much Turkey can pressurize US and NATO? 2) Is Turkey looking for a grand bargain such as lifting the ban on the weapon purchase from the US, a new kit for the F-16 fighter jet, a new weapon deal, and a financial package?

Turkey can strengthen its case for membership of the European Union. President Erdogan of Turkey has demanded of Swedish Prime Minister Anderson that no financial, political, or arms support be provided to the terrorist group PKK. Now the test for Finland and Sweden is that both will give up support to PKK for their grand security interest.

Russia cannot now play any more energy cards as Europe is seeking new sources for energy; the more prolonged this war, the more it will serve the interest of the Middle East. 10% of Finland’s electricity comes from Russia. The Russian owned company InterRAO threatens Finland, but this will not serve as any major hindrance.

Russia may exercise the six decades old practice of deploying nuclear weapons near US borders in Cuba or on the borders of NATO member states.

As Ukraine is not a treaty ally of the US and NATO, it cannot allow NATO troops on its soil. Now if there is any incursion on the borders of Finland and Sweden, they will respond. Finland shares a long border of 830 miles from where Russia had shifted its troops toward Ukraine. When Finland becomes a member of NATO, Russia will deploy more forces on the Finnish border, which will increase its military spending, and, thereby, its economic vulnerability as well. How will Russia pursue its relationship with Finland as it has good relationships due to nonalignment? Will they continue with the same pace because Russia needs a market for its energy? It remains to be assessed whether Putin can build political pressure on Sweden and Finland, whether it will use the military as was done in Ukraine or whether Putin will just let them go.

If Finland and Sweden have a successful policy of neutrality, then why do they feel the need to join a military alliance that will ensure their security? Only two reasons compel Sweden and Finland to pursue NATO membership 1) the hostile behavior of Russia in the region, and 2) the threat of using nuclear weapons and other unconventional weapons.

The purpose of invading Ukraine was to give a lesson against joining NATO, but this invasion resulted in another 830 miles of NATO forces on the Russian border; moreover, countries which were neutral for seven decades are now seeking membership of NATO to secure themselves against the brutal use of force by Putin. The West has been successful in defaming Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. Finland and Sweden might think it is the right time for the application of NATO membership.

NATO will get access to the Baltic Sea, which will become more militarized. Finland, Russia, and Estonia will face a similar situation to the South China Sea where more than two states claim the waters. The dependence of NATO on the Suwalki Gap will decrease. NATO will check the activities in the Kola Peninsula where Russia has a deployed ballistic missile, and naval activities in the Baltic Sea and Arctic region as well.

The Arctic region is a success story of cooperation between Russia and NATO but now this will open a new front of conflict with the membership of Finland and Sweden. Russia has more than 50 percent of the Arctic Ocean coastline. Sweden and Finland are also members of the Arctic Council along with Russia, Canada, and the United States. After Sweden and Finland get NATO membership, the member state of NATO will increase in Arctic Council. The Arctic Region will become more militarized and the chances of any conflict will also increase between Russia and NATO.

This will not only add land or sea borders against Russia, but it will add military strength. Both aspirant states will exchange the experience from the NATO strategies and military operations. The disadvantages for Sweden and Finland are that their military spending will increase; the threat of war will also increase from Russia, and they will first be victims of a war between NATO and Russia.

Pakistan’s Endeavors to Avert Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan

Since the US-led coalition forces withdrew from Afghanistan in Aug 2021, the country has endured a deepening and increasingly deadly humanitarian crisis. Afghan masses have once again been left destitute and are facing worsening humanitarian, economic, health and governance crises.  According to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy report, 24.4 million Afghans are in need of humanitarian aid which constitutes more than half of the country’s population. Globally, Afghanistan has the highest number of people in emergency food insecurity; 92% of the population faces insufficient food consumption, including around 9.6 million children who are unable to get food daily. Moreover, the recent destruction from the earthquake has further worsened the humanitarian situation that can potentially take the country towards economic collapse. The Taliban administration does not have sufficient money in the banks, joblessness is rampant, and food and medicine supplies are urgently needed. In such circumstances, the Taliban government alone cannot bring out the country out of these dire circumstances.

Pakistan, being an immediate neighbor has remained at the forefront to sensitize the world about the worsening humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and seeking help for them, in addition to initiating measures at the government, semi-government and philanthropic platforms to address the issue on its own. Pakistan has been hosting about three million Afghan refugees for the last four decades despite its economic difficulties and is not in a position to accept a new influx of refugees and economic migrants.  Pakistan’s efforts to mitigate the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan include the announcement of a humanitarian assistance package of five billion rupees for the Afghan people, which contains 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat, medicines / medical treatment, and shelters. Assistance is ongoing under the Pak-Afghan Cooperation Forum (PACF) and till 21st June 2022, about 15,000 tons of humanitarian assistance via 694 trucks and four C-130 flights have been provided.  Establishing a Free Eye Camp in Kabul from 30th May to 5th June 2022 as a joint endeavor with and the support of the Al-Khidmat Foundation and PACF. The camp treated more than four thousand patients and operated on more than one thousand. A similar camp was established in Khost.

Besides this, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the University of Lahore and Muhammad Ali Jinnah Hospital in Kabul on 14th June 2022, for upgrading the health facilities at the hospital to bring them up to global standards. The hospital has currently been transformed into a teaching hospital. Pakistan, in recent years, had also funded two more hospitals, namely Najib Aminullah Khan Logari Hospital in Logar and Nishtar Kidney Centre Hospital in Jalalabad.  Moreover, Pakistan dispatched relief goods for the earthquake affectees of Afghanistan on 23rd June 2022. The consignment arranged by the National Disaster Management Authority consists of family tents, tarpaulins, blankets, and emergency medicines. The Taliban have also requested international assistance as the country deals with the aftermath of a devastating 6.1 magnitude earthquake. Over 1,000 people have been killed, and at least 1,500 have been injured. Unknown numbers of people are buried beneath the rubble of ruined, often mud-brick homes.

In addition to the above, Pakistan also allowed India to send wheat to Afghanistan through the Pakistani border and proffered air and land routes to international donors for transporting humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan. Pakistan has hosted the 17th extraordinary session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) of OIC in Islamabad to draw the world’s community’s attention to the looming situation and attract humanitarian assistance. The effort was achieved by setting up a humanitarian trust fund with the Islamic Development Bank.  Afghanistan’s exports to Pakistan have surged and plans are in the offing to establish two new ports with Afghanistan for trade. Very recently, approval was issued by the Government of Pakistan for a new policy of transit visa on arrival for Afghan immigrant citizens.

In brief, Pakistan has provided the world with a global public good by supporting the Afghan brothers to help them address looming humanitarian crises, and it is time for the international community to assume its responsibilities as well while keeping aside their differences with the Taliban regime. The international humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan must go beyond recognizing the Taliban government based on humanity and peace of the world, because to leave Afghanistan unsupported and isolated would lead it into chaos and disorder.

Baluchistan Local Body Elections

The strategic significance of Baluchistan is in perpetuum. The peace, security, and law-and-order situation impacts the social development of any region. Unfortunately, the law-and-order situation of Baluchistan continues to remain uncertain, and the province has been facing security issues and political instability for decades. A number of factors and actors that include international and regional players, nationalist insurgents, sectarian and religious extremists, and political elements have been involved in instigating the conflict.

The haphazard response to the conflict in Baluchistan paved the way for further fragmentation. Consecutive governments have been trying to resolve the Baluchistan issue, as is the current government which is working on a reconciliation process in the province. For this purpose, it is of paramount importance to understand the root cause of Baloch grievances. These are mainly political and can only be addressed through political processes; they must neither be suppressed coercively nor be manipulated.

In this vein, it is necessary to uphold the sanctity of political processes that give representation to the ordinary Baloch people. Recently, after a gap of almost 10 years, the peaceful local body elections in Baluchistan held on 28th May 2022 clearly indicated that the people desire change and leadership. Given the chance, they have chosen leaders that they feel have their best interests at heart. The credit for the peaceful elections in Baluchistan goes to the law enforcement agencies. Secondly, these elections are befitting response to external actors like India and all other negative forces in the region who continue their failing efforts to undermine peace and stability in Baluchistan.

The local body elections observed a significant number of people standing for election (over 17,000 candidates contested some 4,556 seats). In the Turbat division alone, the turnout remained 61%, which was equivalent to that of any large city in the country. The voter turnout was estimated to be the highest in the province since the year 1988. Another positive development was the participation of women candidates. This participation of women candidates in these local body elections is unprecedented and not only did women participate in the electoral process as candidates, but the turnout of women voters also remained encouraging. But what is extremely surprising is that independent candidates have won almost 1,300 seats in municipal corporations. The next party which secured the most seats is JUI-F with a win of 98 seats and the ruling party Baluchistan Awami Party (BAP) has secured almost 70 seats.

Sr.NoPolitical PartySeats Won
1Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUIF)362
2Balochistan Awami Party (BAP)257
3National Party (NP)128
4Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP)125
5Balochistan National Party (BNP92
6BNP Awami49
7Awami National Party (ANP)32
8Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP)19

The statistics shows that the leading political parties like PMLN, PPP or PTI also secured seats, with PTI having the lowest number among these three contemporary parties. These results raise questions that is their political activism restricted to the urban cities only? The results

The public apolitical participation in Baluchistan’s local body elections is another aspect that has been clearly demonstrated on the ground. The victory of ‘Gwadar ko Haq Do’campaign is demonstrated in the election in Baluchistan. The campaign in Gwadar began in November 2021 with the local community demanding rights and livelihood. Thousands of women, men, and children marched on the city’s main highways, raising slogans against the province administration. However, in December 2021, the government acknowledged and agreed to some of their demands. The people of Gwadar eventually elected their representatives in local bodies. The same party leadership will now work within the constitutional framework to settle people’s grievances and establish the foundations of democracy in Baluchistan. It has also demonstrated how people may get their rights without resorting to rioting or bloodshed.

Baluchistan holds the key to the future of Pakistan. Following measures can be adopted for peaceful Baluchistan:

  • By addressing the grievances of locals and building the lost trust we can hope for a sustainable situation and move forward on the road to development.
  • To attract the foreign investors and international development agencies, the security situation must be improved. To encourage the foreign investment the provincial government should work on the adequate security, particularly at development sites.
  • The 18th Amendment gives the provinces financial educational, and political autonomy. The recent electoral process for local body elections in Baluchistan indicates that people are finally accepting to bring change through the legal and legitimate processes. The same could be replicated in Kashmir as well. The people of Kashmir must also be given the same choice.
  • Both the federal and provincial governments must streamline religious madrassas in the provincial and national educational framework, by taking complete ownership and responsibility of these institutions. The purpose of teaching students’ Islamic knowledge can be achieved in normal schools as well. The streamlining of madrassas will also help eliminate any potential religious extremist elements.
  • Furthermore, resources such as copper and gold deposits should be used to strengthen Baluchistan’s economy, and the federal government should integrate the Baloch in the CPEC project more readily. Therefore, Baluchistan’s security will improve.
  • The Baluchistan government should build an institute where they are trained and create a workforce which can be utilized in different development projects and different industries in the province. This will create employment opportunities for the civilians of Baluchistan.
  • For advancement in the education sector, the government should create educational and research institutes to enhance livestock management skills and capacity.
  • Confidence building measures are one of the favourable factors to empower the Baloch people. Engaging the local civilians of Baluchistan in the development projects will generate the feeling of the empowerment.

Pakistan Army Cost Effective Defense Modernizations and Procurements

Hans J. Morgenthau asserted in his renowned work Politics among Nations that the desire for power on the part of various nations, each striving to maintain or overturn the status quo and the policies designed to protect it, necessitates a balance of power. The terms ‘strategic stability’ and ‘arms race’ were established in response to the competing states’ aim of maintaining balance and stability.

Prior to the overt nuclearization of South Asia in 1998, three major wars between India and Pakistan highlighted the latter’s inability to bridge the conventional gap. Pakistan’s covert nuclear weapons served as an effective deterrent to India’s conventional and nuclear threats at that time. However, twenty years after India and Pakistan joined the nuclear club, conventional deterrence remains crucial to maintaining strategic stability in South Asia. The delicate balance of power in the region has been impacted due to Indian expansion and build-up of forces, which could result in a new arms race among regional powers. Pakistan’s armed forces have a lower defense budget in comparison to other contemporary armies; this, however, has not translated into a compromise on professional standards and they rank as the 9th most powerful military in the world. To offset the Indian differential of defense budget and quantitative edge in defense forces, the Pakistan Army has undertaken qualitative enhancement in conventional fighting capability, which counters Indian hegemonic designs and desire to achieve conventional asymmetry over Pakistan.

The unprecedented challenges both on the western and eastern fronts as well as hybrid warfare challenges, have not translated into a demand for an increase in the defense budget.  Over the past fifty years, Pakistan’s defense budget as a percentage of the GDP has gone down from 6.50% of the GDP in the 1970s to 2.54% in 2021. In Budget 2021-22, ‘Defense Services’ was allocated Rs 1,370 billion out of total budgetary resources of Rs 8,487 billion which is 16% of the total budgetary resources.  Out of this 16% allocation, the Pakistan Army gets Rs 594 billion or 7% of the total budgetary resources. A recent report of SIPRI places Pakistan at 23rd in the list of world’s top 40 countries with the highest military expenditure, one position below where it was in 2020.

As per the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database and The Military Balance from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the countries that spend more on defense in comparison to Pakistan (2.54 GDP) include Oman (12% of GDP), Lebanon (10.5%), Saudi Arabia (8%), Kuwait (7.1%), Algeria (6.7%), Iraq (5.8%), UAE (5.6%), Azerbaijan (4%), Turkey (2.77%),  Morocco (5.3%), Israel (5.2%), Jordan (4.9%), Armenia (4.8%), Mali (4.5%), Qatar (4.4%), Russia (3.9%), the United States (3.4%) and India (3.1%). While Pakistan has the 7th largest military in the world, its expenses are one of the lowest. Per soldier, the US spends $392,000, Saudi Arabia spends $371,000, India spends $42,000, Iran spends $23,000, and Pakistan spends $12,500 per year.

Even though Pakistan’s Full-Spectrum Deterrence Doctrine has already succeeded in preventing a full-scale military attack by India, Pakistan has been pushed to modernize its conventional capabilities by the persistent conventional imbalance and India’s revisions to its conventional doctrines. The following table highlights the Pakistan Conventional Weapon Modernization.

Conventional Weapon Modernization
VT-4 TankModern Tank having defensive responses and offn punch of Pakistan Armed forces land mnvr through enhanced rgs, protective measures and all weather, all terrain, comprehensive night fighting cap
HIMADLong range Air Defense weapon system
SH-15 Med Artillery howitzerSelf-propelled arty system which has boosted the reach and lethality of Pakistan Army’s fire power
J-10 CFighter aircraft with long range missiles
ATAK T-129     Turkish-origin attack helicopter
Mi-35   Russian-origin attack helicopter
LY-80  Chinese-origin air defense system

Due to the conventional asymmetry vis- à-vis India, the Pakistan Army must invest in force multiplier platforms, long-range and deep strike capable weapon systems including strategic and cruise missiles along with developing redundant and survivable command, control, communications, computer, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C5ISR) systems. To gain strategic advantage against Indian hegemonic ambitions and maintain strategic balance in the South Asian region, Pakistan Army is also focusing on enhancing indigenous capabilities, investing in research and development, upgrading human resources in emerging technologies and enhancing bilateral cooperation with allies in various sectors. Statements from the military leadership also point to the realization of the necessity of modernization, not of conventional systems only but also of emerging technologies. As stated by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) in 2021, the army will focus on enhancing its capabilities in ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) and cyber domains. Once can predict that the future will hold added and tangible efforts to that effect. A foundational step in that direction was the inauguration of the National Cyber Security Academy at Air University, Islamabad which should create a domino effect military modernization using emerging technologies leading to an RMA in Pakistan.

The developments mentioned above suggest that Pakistan Army is undertaking a two-way military modernization program aimed at establishing a conventional deterrent capable of countering India’s denial techniques as well as its limited warfare objectives. In the South Asian strategic environment, reliable conventional deterrence will reduce the possibilities of conventional warfare.

Enigma of the Underdog in Asymmetric War

“War has allegedly now been transformed from a regular, conventional, purportedly symmetric exercise into an irregular, unconventional, asymmetric event, which must be understood anew”.

Asymmetric war can simply be defined as “conflicts between nations or groups that have disparate military capabilities and strategies”. Conventional wisdom asserts that if there is a war between two individuals, the stronger is sure of his victory. But historically, there have been instances when the weaker overpowered the stronger. The famous case of David and Goliath comes to mind, where Goliath was so sure of his ability to crush his opponent that took off his helmet before battle; whereupon David, with a single blow of his slingshot, downed the gigantic Goliath and finished him off. Another example of an asymmetric battle is that of the Scythian nomads and the Persian army in the early 6th BC. Robert D. Kaplan in The Art of Avoiding War narrates how the Scythians, nomadic tribes of the Pontic steppe north of the Black Sea (Ukraine today), faced Darius’s infantry near the sea of Azov. “Darius sent the Scythian king, Idanthyrsus, a challenge:If you think yourself stronger, stand and fight; if not, submit.” Idanthyrsus replied to Darius “since his people had neither cities nor cultivated lands for an enemy to destroy, they had nothing to defend, and thus no reason to give battle.” Scythians in small groups skirmished with the Persian army and then quickly withdrew, over and over again. Darius’ army had to retreat from Scythia without having a proper chance to fight. Kaplan asserts that “Killing the enemy is easy, in other words; it is finding him that is difficult.”

Asymmetric war has existed for centuries but in the last half-century there have been conflicts that were initiated by weak states, such as Egypt’s attack against Israel (1973), Saddam Hussain’s attempt to annex Kuwait (1990) and NATO’s response, Argentina’s attempt to get back the Falkland Islands, and Uganda’s invasion of Tanzania (1978) are some of the examples among many.

War is a phenomenon which requires flawless planning, a shrewd strategy, as well as a well-trained and equipped military to execute the commander’s intent. If the above-mentioned components have been worked out, then, despite the obvious disparity between weak and strong militaries, there still are chances that the underdog may prevail over the strong adversary.

Arash H. Pashakhanlou in The Underdog Model: The Theory of Asymmetric Airpower put forth six factors i.e. (i) creativity, (ii) sufficiency and external support, (iii) commitment, (iv) intelligence, (v) dispersion and concentration, and (vi) the engagement of vulnerable military targets. If a careful analysis of any military conflict is drawn between two contenders, one can find that all of these six factors are part of their strategy, with the only missing component being belief. Belief is a powerful weapon but does not reside in every military. An underdog, who has a belief that no power can undo it, is more likely to believe that his survival is sine qua non for staying as a unique entity. This very rationale is highly applicable to the case of David and Goliath, where David believed he had Divine support to help him defeat Goliath.

Basically, a powerful state may have better standards of creativity than the weak adversary. Actually, the threat perception of the weak is different from the stronger and therefore this becomes a war of survival versus a war of policy goals. Survival is the ultimate objective for any nation, group, ethnicity, or tribe and therefore, it favours the underdog during any war.

Another factor that has not frequently been mentioned in war studies literature is that the war stamina of an underdog may be longer than that of the strong adversary. The reason for this prolonged stamina is the decentralization of leadership. In case of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S. and allied troops continued a military campaign for 20 years and there were no chances of the Taliban’s survival. Contrary to the US spy agency’s classified assessment about the prospective Taliban’s take over, President Joe Biden assured his people that Kabul was unlikely to fall. But the Taliban put up fierce resistance and wrested control of Kabul within weeks after the pull-out of US and allied troops. In such an asymmetric war, the will to lose fighters on the Taliban side was stronger than on the other side. The Taliban had a belief that they would not be finished by US troops and that turned out to be true. The US used air power extensively, including drone strikes to destroy safe havens, but even without any air force the Taliban were able to inflict heavy losses to the US Air Force (USAF). America and its allies lost a total of 274 aircrafts in the Afghanistan war. It included 96 UAVs,27 contract aircrafts,118 rotary-wing and 33 fixed-wing aircrafts. This loss of aircraft includes accidents as well.

Another glaring example of asymmetric airpower is found in the Vietnam war. The theory of asymmetric airpower in the case of the Vietnam war caused a loss of about 8,000 US aircrafts. One of the reasons included the deployment of US ground forces. They needed emergency close air support plus air interdiction to seek enemy strongholds and vehicles. Operations were poorly planned and executed, underestimating the impact of guerilla warriors. The literature has extensively been published by the proponents of airpower but, the influential theories of airpower by Giulio Douhet, John Boyd, John Warden, and Robert Pape do not focus on the crucial issue of asymmetry.

Inferring some lessons from the Vietnam war, Saddam Hussain, during Operation Desert Storm, believed that thousands of casualties of American soldiers would be unacceptable to the US public and would erode public support for the war. He knew that “The U.S. relied on its air force but the bloody ground action would be the ultimate determinant of any war with Iraq”. He boasted that American society would not accept 10,000 dead in one battle but Iraq surely could. The reason for the underdog not to prevail in Operation Desert Storm was the extensive use of airpower. President Bush had promised his people that “Operation Desert Storm would not be another high casualty operation like Vietnam”. Otherwise, what Saddam had planned in case of a ground battle could turn the table on U.S. forces.

Countries with an established democratic system and over-extended commitments overseas at least cannot afford casualties of their troops in overseas battles. An increase in the number of casualties creates resentment among government quarters that such a campaign is counter-productive and should be called off. It can be concluded that asymmetry in some cases favors the underdog who has strong belief and nothing to lose against a stronger adversary.

On Western Media and Palestine

This year has been similar to the last one for both Palestine and the mainstream Western media’s coverage of Israel’s ethnic cleansing and settler-colonial apartheid project against Palestinians. In May 2021, major Western media outlets continued to omit important historical and political context from their coverage of the 11-day Gaza Crisis in the occupied West Bank. Western media outlets including America’s most influential newspaper of record, the New York Times, continued to reject the idea of the Palestinians’ existence as a nation, decontextualized the Palestinian resistance, and pushed alternative interpretations to the margins, generally, absolving Israel of responsibility. This year was similar to the last year, the year before that, and so on.

That the American media treats Israel with “kid gloves” is a continuing discourse in academic circles and alternative media, especially in the context of Palestine. For instance, some studies have taken a critical account of pro-Israel reporting, mapping, and referencing strategies being used in Western media, and it shows a consistent pattern of selection, exclusion, and inclusion that, by and large, approves of Israeli rationales and expressions. For example, the construction of the first Palestinian intifada (1987-1991) in the US media was such that it was devoid of meaningful context integral to understanding the conflict dynamics.

Media is, therefore, the most significant marketplace of ideas and the notion of objectivity attached to it gives it the legitimacy to perpetuate ideologies and perceptions that are either deliberately or unconsciously in line with the interests of the ruling class i.e., the state. For example, the role the media plays in negative portrayals of the Palestinian resistance against Israel has produced a decontextualized image of the Palestinian struggle. The ideas that politically uninformed people are being socialized into regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict are those that benefit the political elite to maintain support for the US foreign policy on Israel.

March of 2022 and Shireen Abu Aqleh’s assassination in May 2022 by Israeli forces witnessed a similar pattern in the Western media. The language used to interpret and represent the conflict depicted a clear bias in favor of Israel. Below, I analyze three articles published in The New York Times in March 2022 that have contributed to the knowledge being disseminated across the globe in order to legitimize the Israeli apartheid and settler-colonial ambitions.

1st March 2022: Palestinians Threatened With Eviction Can Stay in Their Homes — for Now, by Isabel Kershner in The New York Times

In this report, Isabel Kershner rightfully recognizes that the Israeli legal institutions are a part of a “wider Israeli effort to displace Palestinians from East Jerusalem in order to cement Israel’s claim to sovereignty there.” But at the same time, the author fails to acknowledge the political and colonial dimensions of the evictions by positing that “the land has powerful attachments to Palestinians and Jews.” Through this ignorance toward Israel’s settler-colonial ambitions in the Sheikh Jarrah evictions, Isabel Kershner is contributing to the knowledge designed to legitimize Israeli colonialism, thereby, helping proliferate epistemic violence against the Palestinians. The heedful use of language depicts violence through knowledge.

Kershner’s credibility is further weakened considering that her son served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and her father is a communication strategist for the Israeli regime. Apart from the fact that she never disclosed her son’s service in The New York Times, she shared an article last year by her husband, Hirsh Goodman, where he debunked the Human Rights Watch’s “claims” of Palestinian persecution by the IDF; he is also an ex-serviceman of IDF.

While Kershner highlighted a “legal double standard” that Palestinians have “no similar legal recourse to reclaim homes” but Israeli settlers can reclaim land, she reduced the eviction case to a “legalistic property dispute” between two parties, ignoring the political and colonial contexts again. Moreover, frequent use of words like “clashes” disregards the fact that if on one side, there are unarmed civilians with tiny rocks, and on the other side, there is a heavily equipped military funded by the US, it cannot be termed as a clash between two parties. If violence against devout worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Ramadan of 2021 and 2022 is any indication, terming it as “clashes” makes no sense; instead, it exposes her unethical bias. Furthermore, Kershner fails to problematize the notion that an occupying power cannot evict the native population from their land, nor can it transfer its own population into the occupying land.

23rd March 2022: U.N. Investigator Accuses Israel of Apartheid, Citing Permanence of Occupation by Patrick Kingsley in The New York Times

This article by Patrick Kingsley, The New York Times Bureau Chief in Jerusalem, on the United Nations special rapporteur’s report on Israeli apartheid in Palestine, is more like a statement brief of several Israeli officials’ response to the report. After introducing the report in one sentence, Kingsley brings up the ‘strong’ denial by “Israel and its supporters” of the United Nations report. The author further mentions several statements from the Israeli foreign ministry and government terming the UN report as “biased and baseless.” While a clear Israeli agency is referenced, there is no reference or source from the Palestinian side except “many Palestinians” that have appreciated the special rapporteur Michael Lynk’s efforts.

Moreover, Kingsley ignores some of the key aspects of Lynk’s advanced unedited version of the report where he explicitly lamented in the introduction that he was not granted access to the occupied territories, “nor have his requests to meet with the Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations been accepted.” It is also strange to note that the 18-page report was only worth two quotes in Kingsley’s article while the reactions from “Israel and its supporters” took most of the article’s space and attention. The erasure of Palestinian voices and frequent mentions of Israel’s official rationale indicates The New York Times’ media bias and deliberate strategy to serve the Zionist cause, as Noam Chomsky and Edward Said argued. This analysis is further strengthened if we look at Patrick Kingsley’s 27th April 2021 article in The New York Times where he used a similar strategy by referencing one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s advisors, followed by the Israeli ambassador to Washington, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the ex-head of Israel’s administration in the West Bank, and the president of a right-wing Israeli think tank. All of these sources denounced the apartheid accusations against Israel. However, unsurprisingly, at the end of the article, Kingsley labeled Amnesty International’s report “accusing Israel of apartheid” as an “outlier” which is inaccurate as many human rights organizations, intellectuals, activists and journalists acknowledged the Amnesty report.

23rd March 2022: Ukraine War Ignites Israeli Debate Over Purpose of a Jewish State by Isabel Kershner in The New York Times

In this article, Isabel Kershner writes about Ukrainians seeking refuge in Israel and how it has stirred up a debate on whether allowing these refugees would threaten Israel’s Jewish character. Throughout the article, Kershner sings about Israeli values and morals, and how Ukrainian refugees feel safe in Israel. What is striking, even for authors like Kershner, is the absolute absence of Palestinians in the article. Not even once does the author mention the Palestinians living in areas occupied by Israel. While Israel might be safe for Ukrainians as Kershner claims, around 7 million Palestinian refugees are denied the right of returning to their homes under legal laws put forward by Israel.

The language that is used to represent the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shows that the consensus of media groups such as The New York Times and journalists like Isabel Kershner and Patrick Kingsley is based on denying the existence of the Palestinians as a nation, decontextualizing their resistance as terrorism, and using various media strategies to apparently ‘debunk’ the “accusations” of crimes committed by Israel against the native Palestinian population.  

Modi’s Modituva: A Corollary of Hindutva Ideology

The arrival of Narendra Modi in Indian politics has added another chapter to New Delhi’s political history, which mainly revolves around the confrontational approach of Hindu ideology against the non-Hindu communities of the subcontinent. The prevalence of fanatical trends of Hindu ideology in Indian politics caused various unforgettable developments in India during and after the partition of the subcontinent. The British colonial retreat from the subcontinent let Pakistan become a reality without preventing an unprecedented growth of Hindu ideology against the non-Hindu communities in general and against Muslims in particular. Instead of ending the unparalleled growth of the fanatical version of Hindu ideology, the end of the colonial era in the subcontinent caused massive bloodshed during the migration of Muslim communities in the secured areas of Pakistan. The overwhelming wave of extremist Hindu ideology under different political administrations captured the Muslim majority areas of Kashmir and started violating fundamental human rights through various belligerent means. Thus, a brief overview of the subcontinent’s history presents an awful picture of various human rights violations against the non-Hindu communities living inside and outside India. Apart from targeting the Muslim population of the subcontinent, the Sikh and various other religious groups remained victims of New Delhi’s belligerent behaviour. The change of government in India in 2014 started recalling the history of the subcontinent when the quest for acquiring regional dominance became a gravitational point of Indian politics and shaped various violent domestic policies of New Delhi.
Modi assumed the Prime Minister’s office in 2014 and became the fourteenth Prime Minister of India while having a strong association with right-wing Hindu nationalist parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtirya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The genesis of Modi’s association with right-wing Hindu nationalist parties can be traced in his political background when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2001 and was prominently involved in the Gujarat communal riots of 2002. Even the Supreme Court of India created a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the involvement of Narendra Modi in a brief period of massive bloodshed against the Muslim population. The findings of the SIT respectfully separated Modi from the 2002 Gujarat riots and satisfied the Indian Hindu population. In contrast, Modi’s disconnection from the communal bloodshed remained a prime concern of the international community and raised serious concerns of different states. The leading proponents of human rights in the world rationally examined Modi’s active involvement in the inter-communal violence of Gujarat and banned Modi’s entry into their countries. The United States had banned the entry of Modi into the US while considering him ineligible for an American visa due to his failure of preventing the series of bloody incidents against Muslims in 2002. The start of his tenure as the Indian Prime Minister in 2014 changed the American decision of not granting a visa to Modi. The change of Modi’s position in Indian politics just upgraded his standing in domestic politics while augmenting New Delhi’s existing antipathy towards non-Hindu communities. The change of Modi’s status from Chief Minister to Prime Minister in domestic Indian politics altered the conventional patterns of Hindu nationalism in India while redefining the conceptual foundations of Hindutva ideology. The transformation of Hindutva’s ideology under the influences of the Modi government brought significant changes in Indian politics and reshaped New Delhi’s formal interaction with the non-Hindu communities.
This conceptual reconstruction of Indian religious ideology is internationally dubbed as the Modituva ideology, which reflects Modi’s version of Hindutva and its political practices. A thin layer of the international intellectual circles has defined the concept of Modituva as Modi’s way of empowering the extremist Hindu population of India against the non-Hindu communities while mainly targeting the Muslim and Sikh communities. In other words, the political manifestations of the Hindutva ideology have been revised under the BJP’s rule in India, in which Prime Minister Modi has introduced his own demonstrations of the Hindutva ideology by revolutionizing the conventional foundations of this ideology. While rationally keeping in view various ideological reorientations of Hindu nationalist ideology under Modi, it is more appropriate to pragmatically call it Modituva ideology, which has augmented the traditional hated sentiments of the Indian Hindu population against non-Hindu communities. The spread of this updated version of Hindu ideology across India has formalized communal violence in India by integrating Hindu fanatical thoughts into the socio-political culture of India.
There are many pieces of evidence to validate the association of Modituva ideology with contemporary Indian politics, where the issues of communal violence have become normal incidents for the Indian government. On practical grounds, the formal positions of the mainstream Hindu authorities of the Modi government are actively involved in supporting extremist Hindu sentiments through various direct and indirect means. Recent derogatory remarks of BJP’s two leaders against the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) are appropriate examples to legitimate the argument that the Modi regime is determined to promote an anti-Muslim narrative across the Indian society. Akin to Nupur Sharma and Naveen Jindal’s Islamophobic remarks, an official meeting of the right-wing Hindu leaders have formally declared the need for Muslim genocide to make India a Hindu-only nation. This call for starting a widespread killing of the Muslim population appeared during a three-day conference that tried to instruct the BJP’s supporters to defend their religion with weapons.
In the debate on the Islamophobic agenda of the Modi regime, the positions of various individual political leaders and religious authorities on the anti-Muslim agenda cannot be overlooked under the BJP rule. Yogi Adityanath, a former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and a prominent Hindu monk, is an appropriate example in this regard. Adiyanath is prominent in BJP’s current government only due to his famous anti-Muslim stance and violent anti-Muslim campaigns. An international survey has mentioned the thirty-four public anti-Muslim statements of Adiyanath, along with various other hate speeches of different Hindu extremist politicians. Other prominent BJP leaders include Dinesh Kushwaha, Haribhushan Thakur Bachaul, Ashwini Upadhyay, Mayankeshwar Singh, Raghvendra Pratap Singh, T. Raja Singh, and Nand Kishor Gurjar, who have supported the Hodituva ideology of Modi through issuing an antipathy towards Muslims publicly. Additionally, the women’s wing of the BJP (Mahila Morcha) passed various communal statements in different public gatherings. Udita Tyagi from Mahila Morcha is famous for her anti-minority stance in Indian politics. In this way, the continuation of the anti-minority agenda of the Modi regime has promoted a right-wing Hindu nationalist agenda in Indian politics.
Based on the scenario mentioned above, it can easily be maintained that the transformation of Hindu ideology into Modi’s connotation has launched a new era of communal violence in India. The spillover effects of Modi’s version of Hindutva ideology have disturbed the religious sentiments of the whole Muslim world because the Muslims from different corners of the world have started conveying their disappointment to the international community on the promotion of the anti-Muslim narrative by New Delhi under the BJP rule. In short, the prevalence of extremist Hindu ideology in Indian politics has marginalized the presence of the non-Hindu community in India, where the Muslim population, after Sikhs, is becoming the prime victim of Modituva ideology. The Muslim-ness or Muslim identity has become a serious issue in India, and the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu Kashmir (IIOJK). Therefore, the greater responsibility now lies on the western world, which has strong economic and strategic ties with New Delhi. In response to the recent wave of anti-Muslim remarks by two BJP politicians, the Muslim countries have decided to raise their voices against Modi’s Modituva ideology. Apart from positively considering the reaction of the Muslim world to the BJP’s extremist rule against Muslims, the advocators of fundamental human rights need to pay serious attention towards New Delhi under Modi’s rule. In this way, an active and unanimous position of the international community, beyond the divisions of the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds, could be helpful in restoring the forces of peace and harmony in South Asia.

Indian Acquisition of S-400 and US Sanctions: To Be or Not to Be

Given India’s acquisition of the S-400 air defense system from Russia, one may argue that it might complicate Indo-US strategic relations, especially against the backdrop of prospective sanctions by the United States (US). For instance, when in late 2021, several Indian and Russian media outlets reported that India was all set to receive the first of five units of the S-400 system under a deal worth USD 5.4 billion, finalized back in October 2018, Washington was not happy at all. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman termed the sale ‘dangerous’ and ‘not in anybody’s interest’, and the Pentagon was also concerned about the development. Since the system is all set to become operational, it is important to analyze the likelihood of US sanctions on India, especially since the acquisition is also crucial in light of future Indo-US strategic relations as well.

Many in India have feared that India may face US sanctions under its Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), just like Turkey; the latter, despite being a NATO ally, was sanctioned by the US when it acquired the same system from Russia. According to a study, the Turkish defense industry had suffered due to US sanctions. For instance, as a result of these sanctions, a USD 1.5 billion deal with Pakistan for the sale of 30 T-129 helicopters has been disrupted due to export license issues and the deal remains uncertain to date.  

Under CAATSA, the US can impose sanctions on any country which opts for a deal involving financial transactions with Iran, North Korea, and Russia. In this regard, since India purchased Russian military hardware, the Biden administration can impose sanctions. However, this has not happened, possibly due to the relevance of New Delhi for their shared objective of countering China in the Asia-Pacific region. This was evident following a recent testimony titled ‘World Wide Threat Assessment’ of the US Senate’s Armed Services Committee, in which Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, Director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, maintained that India intends to operationalize the S-400 against Pakistan and China by June this year in consideration of threats from both countries. Instead of reprimanding New Delhi, he acknowledged its threat perception vis-à-vis both states. The testimony also considered other Indian military developments, such as hypersonic and cruise missiles, space capabilities, and its role in ensuring stability and promoting prosperity in the Asia-Pacific.

Furthermore, it would be pertinent to highlight yet another recent and especially important development in this regard. The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also asserted during the latest 2+2 ministerial meeting between both countries that the US has yet to decide whether to sanction India or not. He specifically cited that regardless of the long history of New Delhi’s relations with Moscow, the US and India were security partners now. This implies that policymakers in the US realize India’s strategic significance while being careful not to harm their strategic relations.

Over the years, both the US and India, have increased their cooperation on a diverse range of issues including diplomatic, security, trade, defense, regional cooperation, non-proliferation, democratic values, climate change, counterterrorism, energy, education, and science and technology, among others. The US appears unwilling to compromise on this growing strategic cooperation.       

In the same vein, in late 2021, two US Senators – John Cornyn, a Republican, and Mark Warner, a Democrat – wrote a letter to President Biden urging him not to impose sanctions on India for its purchase of the S-400 system, claiming that this was in the US national security interest and for broader cooperation between the two countries. Both senators are co-chairs of the India Caucus – a powerful and the only country-specific lobbying group – and maintained that the imposition of CAATSA could impact the strategic partnership. Indian lobbying is evident here as the Senators carefully asserted that even though India has remained heavily dependent on Russian military hardware, it has significantly reduced its dependence on the latter. They went to on to claim that Indian intent to purchase the US military hardware has considerably increased in recent years. So, imposing sanctions at this time might result in disruption of increasing US-India cooperation in various domains. This indicates that India clearly holds immense significance and enjoys considerable influence in US policy circles through efficient and timely lobbying.

At the political level, as of now, there appears to be no chance of US sanctions on India since it has emerged as an important defence market and partner in pursuit of the latter’s regional agenda in the Asia-Pacific.

While Islamabad may not be in a strong position to balance New Delhi’s political clout in D.C.’s power corridors, it needs to focus on developing plausible and cost-effective countermeasures to the S-400.

The Intractable Kashmir Conflict:  International Law Perspective

The Kashmir dispute has remained one of the main agendas of the UN Security Council. The abrogation of articles 370 and 35A of the Indian constitution by the Modi government has intensified tensions in the disputed region that have severe repercussions for global peace and security. At a time when the rules-based international system is under threat from populist regimes and non-state actors, the need to endorse basic principles of international law becomes imperative. The above action by India in IIIOJK is incompatible with international law, bilateral treaties, and even its domestic law. Therefore, Kashmir is a test case for the efficacy of the international rules-based order, requiring all states to uphold the sanctity of international law as a legal and moral obligation.

India is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 6 of the ICCPR expressly prohibits derogation from the right to life. Thus, even during the time of emergency, “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” Articles 4 and 7 of the ICCPR explicitly ban torture, even in times of national emergency or when the security of the state is threatened. The Indian army, Special Task Force, Border Security Force, and state-sponsored paramilitary groups and village defense committees-the principal government forces operating in Jammu and Kashmir have systematically violated these fundamental norms of international human rights law. Under international law, India’s state-sponsored militias are state agents and therefore must abide by international human rights and humanitarian law. The government of India is ultimately responsible for its actions in IIOJK.

It is sad to say that the even UN could not protect the basic human rights of oppressed Kashmiris, hold India accountable, and deliver the promise of a plebiscite to the Kashmiri people.  Although, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru approached the UN Security Council (UNSC) in December 1947, to seek its help to settle the Kashmir dispute. India portrayed the matter as a territorial issue, Pakistan stressed that it was rather about the right to self-determination of the people of Kashmir. Pakistan’s viewpoint was later endorsed in the UN’s resolution that declared Kashmir as a disputed territory whose future should be decided through a free and fair plebiscite.

Therefore, the UNSC passed resolutions in 1948/49, which asked for the cease-fire and holding a plebiscite under its supervision, to enable the people of Jammu and Kashmir to decide through their vote whether they wanted the state to join Pakistan or India. Soon after the resolution, the conditions for holding a plebiscite were also laid. However, the implementation of the resolution has been lingering ever since as India has consistently found ways for its delay. In the 1950s, the Indian government renounced plebiscite calling the UN resolution non-binding as it was made under Section 6; and started calling Kashmir it’s an integral part.

The resolutions passed on Kashmir from 1947 to 1957 cannot be termed as recommendatory only. What we need to be clear about is that, in its initial years, the practice of the UNSC was not to mention the title of the chapter under which it was passing the resolution.  During this time, it was the content and the substance of the resolution that would determine the nature of implementation. If one looks at the UNSC’s practice in its first decade of existence, only a handful of resolutions mention the title of the chapter, whereas the majority of resolutions that were acted upon by the member states did not mention any reference to a chapter of the UN Charter.

Interestingly, when the Indian tactic did not bore fruit, India tried to bypass the UN resolution by calling the dispute a bilateral issue and not an international one. Kashmir is an unresolved issue and the existence of UN observers at the Line of Control (LOC) verifies this claim. Therefore, India ought to accept this reality instead of trying to make it look ambiguous by raising petty issues. While India calls it a territorial issue, to Pakistan it’s a humanitarian issue where the population of 1.3 million is being denied the right to self-determination.

Currently, India maintains almost 1 million troops in Kashmir, making it the most militarized zone in the world, which has been involved in crimes against humanity. The entire freedom struggle in Indian-occupied Kashmir is fundamentally indigenous with their 5th generation now fighting the war.  The US and its allies have failed to press India to resolve the Kashmir dispute at the UN forum because of the strategic convergence of Indo-US interests. The US deems India as a crucial player in its China-containment strategy. Hence, India acts with impunity in IIOJ&K and the region.

The UN must not become a tool in the hands of great powers; instead, it must go back to its primary responsibility as mentioned in the UN charter.  After the passing of the Kashmir resolution, the UN now is also a party to the issue; and even without the resolution, it is the UN’s primary job to resolve such disputes, and the continued human rights violations in Indian-held Kashmir must be addressed as a matter of priority. The UN cannot keep itself aloof from human rights violations in Kashmir. The UN has failed to resolve the Kashmir dispute; therefore, its credibility as a viable international institution has become dubious.

In short, India’s gross violations of human rights in Kashmir have internationalized the Kashmir issue. It is the UNSC’s ‘obligation’ to ‘enforce’ its resolutions regarding the plebiscite in Occupied Kashmir. Priya Pillai, an international lawyer also stresses that Pakistan to approach the ICJ via the route of a treaty violation.

Modi’s Delimitation In IIOJK: Possible Motivations

Amid the world’s undivided attention towards the Ukraine crisis, Kashmir remains under an unprecedented wave of violence and an environment of suppression manifested by the Indian forces. The ongoing human rights violations, domicile rules in the aftermath of abrogation of Kashmir’s special status and the massive crackdown on the innocent Kashmiris, have raised serious questions on the state of affairs in the self-proclaimed world’s largest democracy. The current situation in Kashmir has the ingredients needed for an inadvertent escalation in the region. Emerging dynamics demonstrate the reality of Modi’s anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim policy, which is not merely an electoral strategy but also linked with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and BJP’s extremist vision of Hindu nationalism.

The delimitation is an act of redrawing the boundaries of an assembly to represent changes in population over time. The decision of redrawing these boundaries in Jammu and Kashmir was carried out by the Delimitation Commission which came into being on 6th March 2020, only six months after the abrogation of Kashmir’s special status on 5th August 2019. The redefining of electoral boundaries by the Commission is a tragedy in itself. The Commission recently issued a list increasing the number of seats in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) from 83 to 90. This includes 6 constituencies which will be in the Hindu-majority Jammu region and one in the Muslim-majority Kashmir region. It is tragic as Jammu has 37 seats and Kashmir holds 46 seats. The Commission proposed increasing the number of seats to 43 and 47 respectively. In addition, it also aimed for the removal of distinction between Jammu and Kashmir, considering it as one constituency. The same pattern was reflected in the combining of Anantnag region in Kashmir with Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu to bring about a combined Anantnag-Rajouri as a Parliamentary constituency. The upcoming assembly elections on the basis of the Delimitation Commission’s proposals will thus end up electing a Hindu chief minister for the India’s only Muslim-majority territory. Hence, it will be a trump card for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 parliamentary elections.

Voting rights in the region were initially reserved for the permanent residents of Kashmir, which was annulled after the 5th August move. Now, this unconstitutional move has also revived fears among the Kashmiris that the local population would be barred from the local legislatures, thus disempowering them systematically. The delimitation will not only save the BJP from people traditionally opposed to it, but also alienate the ethnic Kashmiri Muslims. It is evident that such moves are meant to institutionalize the Hindu-majority rule and reinforce the demographic changes in the occupied region. The process was hinted at when the Jammu and Kashmir Grant of Domicile Certificate (Procedure) Rules was passed in 2020, allowing the issuance of domicile certificates to non-Kashmiris. The move stands in clear violation of Article 49 of Geneva Convention 4 which states that “the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Modi’s government has once again disregarded the Constitution by reinstating the Delimitation Commission to turn an electoral majority into a minority. It testifies to the ultimate goal of demographic change in Kashmir, the heinous design behind the abrogation of Article 370 and 35(A). The BJP government is focusing on a strategy to settle Hindu migrants in the occupied region where Muslims make up almost 95% of the total population.

Some other strategies for bringing demographic changes include land allotment for Pandits, Hindu shrines and establishing cantonments. It is a fact that such an environment of massive suppression, systematic alienation and human rights violations is not conducive to peace in the region. The world holds a moral obligation to force India to implement the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) Resolutions. Based on UN resolutions, Pakistan also needs to develop a strong counter narrative focusing on legal aspects of the Kashmir issue. Use of proactive diplomacy by Pakistan is also required for an effective strategy by the policymakers to project India’s human rights violations on all international forums.