Ukraine has suffered greatly, in the way proxies usually do. In similar fashion, Pakistan is being used as a proxy against India.
On February 24, 2022 the Russian army entered the borders of that part of Ukraine that had not effectively seceded to Russia in 2014. When that took place, the US during the Biden Presidency saw an opportunity to wage a proxy war on Russia through the Ukrainian military. Since 2014, skilful manipulation of messaging and changes in official school curricula have resulted in a growing Russophobia within the population of Ukraine. Both the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as well as even Ukrainian names were de-Russified in order to carve out an identity different in such particulars from their Russian counterparts. In a way, the history and composition of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) showcases why Ukrainians began to regard themselves as being not just different but superior to Russians. For much of its post-World War II history, the CPSU was headed by Ukrainians who each became General Secretary of the CPSU, the supreme authority in a party that during its reign was the party of governance in the Soviet Union.
Small wonder that large tracts of land that previously belonged to the Russian SSR were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR. This includes the lands abutting the Black Sea and those tracts in East Ukraine which were almost entirely Russian-speaking. Given that it was from precisely such territory from which an outside power could mount a land invasion of Russia from Ukraine, it is possible to discern why NATO as an entirety wanted a unified Ukraine that got back all the territory that had seceded in 2014. Or why the Russian Federation was clear that not only should such a development not take place, but the additional lands seized by Russia in its Special Military Operations in Ukraine should be retained as well as fresh land of the eastern territories of Lugansk and Donetsk as well as the Black Sea coast, including Odessa. It is a measure of the diminished potential of the Russian Federation as a consequence of economic travail brought about by the cost of the war with Ukraine that the objective of recovering the entire territory transferred to Ukraine from Russia during the Soviet Union has yet to be achieved by Russian forces despite three years of war. Once again the disclaimer needs to be put out that it is not the Chinese people as an entirety that is being featured in the succeeding part of this column but the highest rung of the CCP, for it is only at that level that policy gets made.
The point is that what we were witnessing during the Pahalgam terror attack on India a short while ago was a war by proxies of the CCP leadership against India. Just as the Ukraine war has been a proxy war of NATO (now minus the US) on the Russian Federation, the present situation with Pakistan represents a proxy war being waged by the CCP leadership on India through Pakistan. To keep its own perceived interests safe, the CCP leadership wishes to see the Ukraine war continue, in order to further weaken and drag closer to China the Russian Federation. Should the US under Donald Trump succeed in ending that conflict, the CCP leadership would be dismayed, while publicly expressing happiness at such an outcome. Pakistan was used by the US in the past to conduct a proxy war (mainly through the use of terror as the preferred weapon of combat) designed to weaken the resilience and development of India. The 21st century has witnessed the shifting of Pakistan from being a self-confessed US proxy to becoming an auxiliary of the PLA.
For reasons which remain obscure, Apple was publicly ordered by President Trump to shift from China not to India but to the US itself, a move which would have made its prices way too high to face the competition its products are now getting from China. Tim Cook was forthright in stating that his plans for India remain, no matter what has been uttered from within the White House. Other tech manufacturers are likely to follow suit and stick to their resolve to shift more production from China to India. As the Golden Dome Missile Defence system of the US indicates, a kinetic conflict between China and the US cannot be ruled out. It needs to be added that for the past four years, albeit in secrecy, China has been developing what may be called a Bamboo Dome missile shield. It may have been knowledge of this that impelled the US to now follow suit with its own Golden Dome project. Pakistan has been invaluable to China as a means to lessen the attraction of India as the ideal location (given its pool of talent) for tech and other US companies seeking to decouple from China. Given that Pakistan itself is at a multiplying risk of splintering into Pashtunistan, Balochistan, Sindh and other independent states on the 1971 Bangladesh model, the country is on track to have nothing of value to offer to China. Even where the post coup situation of alignment with its former ravager Pakistan is concerned, the Bangladesh military is finally showing signs of restiveness at the disastrous course the country has been following under the nominal leadership of Nobel Prizeman Yunus. Should the Bangladesh military act to protect the country through ousting the present lot in authority in Dhaka, it would not be a surprise.
A putative CCP proxy of a proxy would for its own sake shift gears from what Beijing wants. During Modi 3.0, we are seeing action designed to reassure investors that the reports are false that profits rather than prosecution await them. A stick should be kept big, but should be used sparingly rather than frequently, and such is what is being increasingly witnessed during Modi 3.0 as it moves towards the 2019 polls. President Zelenskyy was willing to sign a ceasefire agreement with Russia in April 2022 itself, just weeks after the war with Russia began. He was dissuaded from doing so mainly by the leaderships of the US and the UK at the time, and since then has allowed his country to be used as a proxy by NATO to conduct a war against Russia designed to weaken that former superpower. In the process, Ukraine has suffered greatly, in the way proxies usually do. In similar fashion, Pakistan is being used as a proxy against India. The only workable escape from such a pitiable state would be the speedy evolution of Pakistan into independent states that would do what is wise for their people and befriend rather than alienate India. The aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack is leading to an acceleration of such a process within Pakistan, thanks to the intensity and strategic thinking underpinning the response of India to the Pahalgam terror attack.
