It’s election year in India, the US and Russia. How will the world political order take shape, and what message will it send to the world? We look at the four personalities who will be the cynosure of all eyes in the new year,and how they will take their countries forward.
Washington insider: Biden
Few Americans would like to see a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in 2024. But that is the most probable line-up in the next US presidential election. The general reaction to Biden being elected president in 2020 was one of relief. “America is back” became his tagline in the days after becoming president. “Diplomacy is back at the centre of our foreign policy,” he declared. There was rejoice among America’s traditional Western allies at one of the most experienced foreign policy presidents in US history taking over from the impulsive, erratic, and disruptive Trump.
Less than three years later, surprising though it may seem, polls give Trump a slight edge over Biden despite the chaos of his first term and the potential criminal convictions he faces. But the elections are 309 days away; and we know from past electoral history that polls taken this early in the election cycle have almost no predictive value.
US President Joe Biden
Yet Biden’s stubbornly low approval ratings should concern Democratic Party strategists. Support for him is weak among Democratic base voters. Many who voted for him in 2020 think that the 81-year-old Biden has been a fine president, but he is too old and frail to win a second term. There was talk even during the 2020 campaign of Biden publicly pledging that he would serve no more than a single term. The thinking inside the Democratic Party then was that it would placate younger voters on the left, who supported Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party nomination and were unenthusiastic about a Biden candidacy.
Trump at 77 is, of course, not much younger than Biden. But there is a significant enthusiasm gap between supporters of the two candidates; and many fear that it could affect voter turnout, which would impact election results. Many Democratic voters say that they would have liked Biden to stand aside and make room for a younger candidate who could mount a stronger challengeto Trump.
There is no evidence to suggest that foreign policy considerations are behind the reservations about Biden among Democrats. But there are exceptions. In the swing state of Michigan, Biden’s unflinching support for Israel in the Gaza war has sparked anger among the state’s significant Arab-American population, whose overwhelming support for Biden helped him win in 2020.
By and large most American voters are worried about the fastest inflation rates in decades that have eroded living standards and have made many Americans pessimistic about their economic future. At the same time voters are not so enthused by Biden’s multiple proxy wars that pit the country against Russia, China, or Iran, or by Biden’s idea of America as “the essential nation”. They are apprehensive about being drawn into expensive overseas entanglements.
Biden hasn’t followed the typical career pattern of recent US presidents. In 1973 he became the youngest member of the US Senate at age 29. But when he was elected president in 2020, he became the oldest US president in history. Biden ran for president unsuccessfully in 1987 and 2008. Obama chose him as his vice-presidential running mate because he wanted an experienced Washington hand to reassure voters concerned about his inexperience. Biden was then the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and had built a reputation of being a foreign policy wonk. When he decided not to contest the presidential elections in 2016 his political career appeared to be over.
Biden is the ultimate Washington insider. Most recent US presidents before Biden—and not just Donald Trump, but Barack Obama, George W Bush, and Bill Clinton—all ran for president claiming to be outsiders to Washington promising to change things; and they won the presidency in their first try.
“Let’s finish this job”—is the pitch that Biden has made when he announced that he is running for re-election. But what would finishing the job mean when it comes to foreign policy? On ongoing issues such as the war in Ukraine the issue is relatively simple. He would surely like to continue the generous military support to Ukraine for as long as it takes to defeat Russian aggression. But whether he can do that will not depend on him alone. Biden will have to engage in tough negotiations with many Republicans who oppose additional assistance to Ukraine.
This points to an important aspect of the foreign policy that his administration is currently pursuing. Biden has continued Trump’s policies on key areas including Afghanistan, China, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific—a term that began to be commonly used in official narratives only by the Trump administration.
This was underscored most dramatically in July 2022 when Biden travelled to Israel and Saudi Arabia partly to promote the normalisation of ties between Israel, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain under what the Trump administration called the Abraham Accords that is ultimately expected to include Saudi Arabia.
While promoting stronger ties between Israel and its neighbouring Sunni countries around their shared interest in countering Shiite Iran, the Biden administration has given short shrift to the policy of his Democratic predecessors in the White House—Bill Clinton and Barack Obama—of pushing Israel to engage in a real peace process with the Palestinians.
Perhaps the only foreign policy area where Biden has differed markedly from Trump is in his return to multilateralism. He has rejoined the Paris Climate Accords and has renewed US support for the World Health Organization. He has also invested significant time and energy in theNATO alliance.
Should Biden win a second term we can expect more of the same. Behind the continuities with Trump lie the civil unravelling of the United States and the country’s increasingly fractious politics. In the prescient words of Richard N Haas, who was until recently the president of the Council of Foreign Relations, the question is whether the changes in America are temporary or long-term. Will Trump turn out to be a historical blip? Or are Trump and Trumpism the new America?
— Sanjib Baruah is the Andy Matsui Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the Asian Universityfor Women inChattogram, Bangladesh
Trumpis a ‘good guy’
Vamsee Juluri
In 2016, my fourth-grader nephew picked up a “silly song” at school in California. It went:Donald Trump is a good guy! It was easy to see it as a playground chant than a political statement. But in retrospect, considering all that’s associated with that name… No one could have imagined a few decades ago that the world’s most powerful, culturally influential, largely hospitable and pleasant nation would one day decide to crumble into ignominious, smouldering self-destruction because of a man the kids had no problem making songs about.
Earlier, Americans worried about the future in the imagery of Christian apocalypse or atomic annihilation. Even the intrusion into American invulnerability on September 11, 2001, did not inspire the kind of “end of the world” fervour, pessimistic suggestibility, and moral megalomania, as Trump has done.
Until he declared his intent to run for president, Trump was only a name that evoked a disdainful laugh. Today, he is seen as something worse by many. And yet, for some, he is a phenomenon. A beleaguered phenomenon, for sure, facing mounting legal troubles, including the incredible slight of being removed from state ballots. But, with all this, he has become even more of a symbol of America. A land where what starts as a joke could become serious, and then, an actual triumph. And now, even as loss after loss faces him, his supporters stick to him, seeing in him the innocence of a quintessential American story likeMr. Smith Goes to Washington, but suitably updated.
Now, for the other half of America.
In California, I saw people weeping in classrooms after Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. After the disappointment subsided, the storm began. America declared war on itself. I remember that afternoon well. A river of angry voices poured out from the nearby school and into the street. Bay Area schools decided that Trump’s election was so outrageous the children had to cut class to go and protest. Since then, the protest has become a part of the climate. First, it was Trump. Then, BLM. Now, Palestine.
The American half that was the target of this anger was not my half. But then, I could not buy into the propaganda either. The rapid decline in objectivity and even decency was happening on social media all around, especially in the wealthy, educated, Democrat-loyal Indian-Americans. Friends turned on anyone who did not demonstrate their principled outrage against not just Trump but all the “deplorables” who dared vote for him. “Off to the re-education camps with them,” they wrote on each other’s walls.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Former US President Donald Trump
From that time, from 2016 to 2020, the “people like us” protested, about Putin and about Trump, about gender and science, and threatened to move back to India. Their terror peaked on January 6, 2021. Some Democrats even said it was “worse than 9/11”. But what seemed to many a bizarre overreach in censoring a former president on live TV and erasing him from social media only seemed commendable to them.
Since then, they have moved on from their anger. Partially. They whisper fearfully about Trump’s possible return, after what they believe was an idyllic four years of civilised rule under the Democrats. But then, the civilised utopia that exists in performative gestures on social media is contradicted by real life. In San Francisco, cars are smashed, stores are robbed, elderly Asian grannies are beaten violently; quite often, with no consequence for criminals. And then, of course, there is the problem specifically for Indians, consulates burnt, temples vandalised, children terrorised in schools and colleges into performing atonement for alleged ancestral sin.
Elsewhere, the war is even more about children. School meetings turn into nasty attacks on parents who question premature sexualisation of children. Reason, science, merit, all become outdated constructs of oppression in the new vision of education.
For some, this intrusion into American freedoms is what seems relevant. But to others, the fear is still just Trump. Trump, and the conceptual architecture of The Evil they call “White Supremacy,” which increasingly, includes Asians, Hindus, and Jews. Who is the man, in the end?
I think there is something in Trump that puts off his haters in part at least because of a lack of cultural competence. He is the “white male” of a slightly earlier time undecipherable to the new hi-tech immigrants (and, many Americans of his own grandchildren’s generation). He is loud and fun, maybe even mean at times. But then, there is also what he’s not. To a growing constituency of former progressives and anti-war activists, Trump is not a professional warmonger. He is not any of the crimes being waged on Americans by faceless corporations and megalomaniacal billionaires and their stooges in American politics. In the wake of Trump, a wave of truth-tellers rose, at least to the extent of being heard if not voted in. Tulsi Gabbard. Robert Kennedy Jr.
And Vivek Ramaswamy, who calls Trump the greatest president of this century. Trump and ‘truth-telling’, yet another seeming contradiction.
Trump represents the last stand of a particular American disposition – someone so honest about his selfishness and grandiose tendency to exaggerate, he can actually be ‘trusted’ to take everybody along. “Divisive” Donald, taking everyone along? An image to remember. In 2016, New Jersey Hindus hosted a Trump event. In the crowd were a smattering of non-Indian faces. Americans, possibly worried about immigrants and more, but still seeing an America with new eyes. Bollywood-style Hindus for Trump eyes. And not just Hindus. There are Latinos for Trump. Blacks. And Jews. Trump holds in his hands an America that is so sure of being post-racist, his “fringe friends”, or the outcry about them, do not matter.
In early 2020, before the elections, he was still holding his own. America had been told to close shops and businesses, wear masks, and stay home. And then, a few days later, America was told to go out and burn everything down because of racism. The use of the riot as a domestic regime change tool. The pushing of buttons on a frightened populace too alienated from its own neighbours, fellow citizens of less privileged classes, to even stop to understand the depth of the divide, the psychosis they had been induced into.
In November 2020, when Trump lost, celebrations spilled out onto the streets in upscale neighbourhoods and islands of privilege. Not so celebratory, perhaps for the rest of Americans, for whom, let’s face it, Trump ‘is’ a good guy. Donald Trump, a good guy? The greatest president of this century? President again and at Rajpath on January 26, 2025? In a country divided, some might say betrayed, the most unimaginable, and unpalatable things might prove to be true. Sometimes, they say, the only way to run an asylum is to give the keys to the maddest of them all.
— Vamsee Juluri isProfessor of media studies, University of San Francisco, and authorof several books
Modi& Mission 400
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay
In 2014, there was a sense of political certainty across India, when it was widely believed that the Bharatiya Janata Party led by Narendra Modi would wrest power. The only question mark was over the final tally, and if the BJP will cross the magic mark of 272 that had eluded every party since 1984. That would decide the nature of the coalition and tilt in favour of Modi. The BJP’s final tally of 282 was not just a surprise, it even made this calculation redundant. In the years since, the National Democratic Alliance has existed in name only, resurrected on election eve if the going appeared rough.
As we step into 2024, a similar mood prevails—not just in India, but even among Indophiles and those professionally engaged with the country. In a piece written after interacting with Modi in the third week of December, three journalists from London’sFinancial Times, including its editor Roula Khilaf and Delhi bureau chief John Reed, wrote: “Many Indians and global leaders alike are now preparing for what they expect to be five more years of Modi… He insists that he is ‘very confident of victory’ thanks to a record of ‘solid change’ in the common man’s life.”
Prime Minister addressing the Nation on the occasion of 77th Independence Day from the ramparts of Red Fort, in New Delhi on August 15, 2023.
Modi’s claim of catalysingbadlaofor the betterment of the commoner can certainly be disputed. Even in his display of chutzpah lurks the fact that the loudness of the victorious roar would depend on the victory margin. And on that, would depend how 2024 will be for Modi personally and the character of the narrative in India in various sectors. Will the BJP’s Lok Sabha tally be more than the 303 seats it won in 2019 or less? If it is higher, will the total score be anywhere near the target set by Mission 400+, one of the numerical goals being bandied about, although not formally. Effectively, this claim suggests the BJP will go past the Congress’s 414 tally in 1984.
Even if the BJP fails to cross this mark, but betters its 2019 performance, its supporters shall be a triumphalist lot. This sense of having ‘pulverised’ the ‘other’, as the BJP classifies adversaries—from the extreme Left to religious minorities—will be their dominant mood. This will directly affect inter-community relations within India which, in turn, will impact internal security and the extent of political risk for attracting investments in businesses. In further turn, this will impact the nation’s growth and development narrative, which shall cast a shadow on the global image, of the country as well as Modi.
The rise of provocative exuberance post the victory in 2019 is fresh in our minds. In less than six months, the BJP sequentially secured amendments to UAPA, passage of the Triple Talaq Bill, abrogation of Article 370, the Supreme Court’s Ayodhya verdict, and passage of the Citizens Amendment Act. The resulting anti-CAA stir merged with the communal clashes in Delhi in February 2020, and had the pandemic not forced an end to the stir, social tensions would not only have worsened, but would also have impinged on the economy and investments.
Few can deny the BJP’s avowed pursuit of majoritarianism. As a consequence, a clear majority will only augment belligerence across the ranks. In that situation, there is no knowing when small groups or even a lone wolf decides that the ‘other’ must be further ‘sorted out’ on the tip of the bayonet. Already, one of the major fallouts of nine and a half years of the BJP being in power is the steep fall in India’s ranking on various indices reflecting social tranquility, quality of democracy and autonomy of constitutional authorities and institutions.
Any further decline will push India perilously close to a point where civil societies in western nations will pressure their governments into imposing sanctions. However mild these are, India knows the lasting impact of such exclusions, imposed in the wake of the nuclear tests ordered by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1998.
India’s political chakra for the year will soon get a huge push with the consecration of Ayodhya’s Ram temple. The Hindutva bandwagon now has a ballistic trajectory and no authority or institution has complete command of the situation. Court cases claiming Hindu control and demanding demolition of the Gyanvapi Masjid and Shahi Idgah in Varanasi and Mathura, respectively, are ongoing everywhere—in district court, high court and the apex court. Fresh demands await patronage and in the event of an emphatic Modi victory, expect swift escalation in the pace of developments, first in the dispute over the Varanasi shrines and subsequently the sites in Mathura. Undeniably, it is merely a matter of time before these events become ‘trailers’ of episodes to follow. Indians in their thirties have no memory of the euphoric slogan that echoed in the course of the Ayodhya agitation, especially after the Babri Masjid’s demolition— “yeh to bas jhanki hai, Mathura-Kashibaaki hai”. In the event of the BJP’s victory and another term for Modi, the slogan is certain to be recast with a different set of city names.
In a television debate in 2014, I had argued that in a way Modi as PM with the BJP’s tally limited to the 200-230 band would be ‘good’ for the country because the premier’s office would be driven by Modi’s administrative dynamism and not corrosive ideology. Indians, however, got swayed by calls for a ‘stable government’ and ‘decisive leader’, and in bargain were saddled with several add-ons with much of the core values of the Indian republic lost.
In less than a decade, greater number of people now endorse the Hindutva idea. They are unlikely to be pushed out of the arena in the event of the BJP’s returns being below par compared to 2019, but they will be forced to the back seats. Modi as PM without a majority of his own would not just have to allocate crucial ministries to coalition partners, but also allow them great functional autonomy.
A weakened Modi will give Indian federalism a new lease of life and disempowered institutions will rediscover the spine within themselves to stand up to political authority. Already, Modi has been forced to tone down his instinctive support for Israel. The government would also have to be more forthright on the conflict with China and the situation in Ladakh. A more effective coalition mechanism will also mean greater deliberation and elimination of unilateralism within government. The single-window system which Modi showcased from Gandhinagar weakened India’s cabinet style of functioning. The nature of mandate for the BJP -led alliance will determine if it will remain in terminal decline or not. No wonder the PM has run down coalitions and alliances and not acknowledged that he, too, would turn to partners and allies if the need arose.
—Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is a journalist and author ofNarendra Modi: The Man, The Times, among other books
Putinthe prevailer
Nandan Unnikrishnan
The battlefield gains and resilience of the economy shown in 2023 must boost the conviction of Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country and people are capable of meeting whatever challenges arise in the coming year.
The Russian armed forces in the past year have reversed some of the setbacks of 2022, regaining the initiative on the battlefield, while stymieing Ukraine’s much-vaunted counteroffensive—the Ukrainian “spring offensive”, that got delayed till June, has failed to regain any territory. The performance of Russian forces on the battlefield has also raised doubts about the perception of superiority of Western military equipment.
The limited damage caused by the precision missiles supplied by NATO to Ukraine—ATACMS, HARMS, JDAMS, GMLRS fired from HIMARS, cruise missiles (Storm Shadow and SCALP)—suggests that Russian air defence systems are intercepting most of these weapons. Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu said recently: “We are using air defence systems in a comprehensive manner during the special military operation. .. Over the last six months, we have shot down 1,062 of NATO’s HIMARS rockets, short-range and cruise missiles, and guided bombs.” The ease with which Russian missiles are able to strike military bases and airfields deep inside Ukraine, it appears they have also identified the weaknesses of Western air defence systems supplied to Ukraine. Combined with the overall performance of other Russian equipment on the battlefield these assessments could have profound implications for the future of the global arms market.
Meanwhile, the Russian economy showed an unexpected ability to withstand the all-encompassing Western sanctions regime while transforming itself into an efficient ‘war economy’, thus belying hopes that Russia’s war in Ukraine will falter. Russia’s economy far from contracting has actually grown in the past year exceeding estimations of contraction by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank—Q3 saw a growth rate of 5.5%. Impact of Western sanctions on day-to-day consumption patterns has, so far, been negligible. Russia has been able to leverage its ties with the non-western world to ensure import of essentials. The economy was further aided by Moscow’s ability to circumvent the $60 oil price cap set by the West. But, the challenge of tackling inflation, currently at a little over 7%, remains real, and Russia’s Central Banksees this as a primary challenge in the coming year.
But despite all this confidence boosting news, Putin should be aware that the challenges Russia will face in 2024are formidable.
For Putin the easiest of these will probably be winning the March presidential elections. Given the considerable advantages Putin enjoys it appears unlikely that any candidate capable of unseating him will emerge. Of interest in this election is not whether Putin will win but rather with what margin he is likely to secure victory. The higher the percentage of votes he gathers, the greater the credibility of his rule.
The more difficult challenge in 2024 will be finding a way to end hostilities in Ukraine, while protecting not only territorial gains but securing the objectives of stopping NATO’s eastwards expansion and Ukraine’s neutrality. Agreeing to a non-NATO Ukraine will be the condition the West will find most difficult to accept, given that it provoked the 2022 conflict in the hope of Ukraine eventually becoming a NATO member. But the burden of funding Ukraine becoming heavier each day may force the US-led West to push Kyiv into negotiations with Moscow. When hostilities cease, the Russian authorities will face their most difficult challenge of transiting a ‘war economy’, with all its peculiarities, into a normal one. The first problem they will face is employment. Today, Russia’s unemployment is at a historical low at around 3% with the military-industrial sector sucking up all the available skilled and semi-skilled labour. This is causing severe shortages in the civilian sectors of the economy that are unable to give wages comparable to what the state-sponsored military sector does. This may not be evident immediately on cessation of the conflict. Poor relations with the West will compel Russia to rearm its armed forces and build up their inventory for the future. This will keep the military sector operating at full capacity for a couple of years after hostilities end, but eventually the state will have to manage the transition of excess labour to the civiliansector, which may not beable to absorb all of it. Thisin turn will lead togrowing unemploymentand a probable drop inliving standards.
The Russian state will have to deal with two contradictory challenges—continue to deal with the existing problem of inflation as well as continue with welfare measures to soften the hardships of transiting back to a civil-sector driven economy.
So far, economic policy makers have proved to be adept at balancing these contradictory policies but they have been helped substantially by Russia’s large financial reserves and earnings from high energy prices. But reserves are dwindling and energy prices are falling. An additional set of problems Putin will have to deal with will be geopolitical. Russia will have to tackle the perception that because of the distraction of the war with Ukraine it is losing out in some traditional areas of influence like Southern Caucuses and Central Asia.
In the Southern Caucuses it’s traditional ally Armenia has been militarily defeated by a resurgent Azerbaijan, which is backed by Turkey. In Central Asia the speculation is that multiple players, including China and the West, are benefiting at Russia’s expense. Also, Russia will have to consolidate its ties with partners like China, knowing that Beijing is unlikely to take any steps that would adversely affect its already tense relationship with the West. Similarly, Russia’s efforts to strengthen ties with India will have to consider Delhi’s growing ties with Washington. But on the positive side, Russia can derive satisfaction that it stands undefeated in its confrontation with the West—the dominant force in geopolitics. The inability of the West to impose its will on Russia or isolate it, will call for serious reassessment of worldviews held by foreign policymakers across the world.
—Nandan Unnikrishnanis Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation