Shifting Power

On March 11, 2022, President Joe Biden announced that Russia, due to its war against Ukraine, would no longer have a most favored nation trade status with the US and that he would ban Russian seafood, diamond, and alcohol imports. This action has added to the long and dramatic list of American and allied sanctions on Russia: like America’s ban on Russian oil and gas. What is notable here is who has not gone along with the United States in levying sanctions against Russia and what this could signify for the future of international relations. Charles Krauthammer’s famous 1990 article cited the Soviet transfer of Eastern Germany to the West as the beginning of what he saw as a brief unipolar moment. This unipolar moment was marked by world power being now so firmly concentrated in the West that the Cold War division of power between the United States and the Soviet Union was no longer the predominant force in international politics. Krauthammer noted that other states had rushed to the West in general and America in particular as “the sole allocator of geopolitical goods”. Assuming that this unipolar moment had lasted, the limited reaction by the international community, and the emerging great powers in particular, to America’s demand for sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine have in essence signaled the end of American unipolarity.

Possibly due to crowded journalistic headlines on the ongoing war in the Ukraine, acts of “communal violence”, India’s coined term for religious clashes mostly between the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority, in India have been given only sporadic coverage as they escalated since last year and continue into 2022.

Since the onset of his invasion, Vladimir Putin’s forces have lost a staggering 595 tanks, 2,323 vehicles, 301 artillery and AA systems, 64 planes and helicopters, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, 15,000 dead, and, as of last month's figures, upwards of 45,000 casualties. With losses on par with the entire 10-year Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and perhaps a quarter of their pre-war combat strength, the Russian army has been forced to retreat from Kyiv and their anticipated war goal of decapitating the Ukrainian government by creating a puppet government in some whole or dissected form.

After 2 very long years of COVID-19, society has begun to open up and many pre-COVID activities, such as sports, air travel and enjoying large gatherings and events, have resumed. Although society has been exhibiting encouraging signs to “go back to normal”, by reducing restrictions on public recreation, there are still certain COVID policies which are pointless and out of touch at this point, but remain public policy for many governments and corporations.