Beyond Kyiv

Trump’s attitude to Ukrainian sovereignty holds a worrying message for India, given its neighbourhood

Trump’s brutish treatment of the idea of Ukrainian sovereignty – televised across the world as he and his deputy harangued Zelenskyy – has larger implications. India especially should take note. Trump seems agreeable to Putin’s doctrine of  limited sovereignty for countries that were part of USSR. But what’s okay for Putin can’t be the rule democracies conduct themselves by. Therefore, when Trump’s America, the world’s most powerful democracy, coddles border-breaching aggression, the dangerous message is that there may be no adverse fallout of one nation simply rolling into its neighbour’s territory. India has had to tackle expansionist strategies of its eastern neighbour, and respond to state-sponsored terrorism on its western border. So, a Trumpian worldview is not one it can get comfortable with. 

Consequences of aggressive leaders breaching territorial sovereignty of other nations are multifold – the highest cost is borne by people. History shows a ceasefire isn’t peace. And peace between warring nations cannot be brokered when a victim state’s assertion to its independence and borders is pooh-poohed. Brokering then is just tyranny, not a negotiation. Its heft allows Washington to arrogate to itself the right to intervene – it wields the power to change the course of events. But as history reminds us periodically, stability in any region and at any border lies in knowing when to stop. It is in such restraint that peace can survive. Given this, being offhand about nations being invaded, being partitioned, allowing their right to sovereignty to be eroded, is akin to supporting the law of the jungle – might is right. Europe’s eastern border has always been a shifting entity; in the 21st century it is a clutch of states that bank on restraint of the big powers to maintain independence, autonomy and stability.

Trump’s now-sort-of-withdrawn Gaza Plan was an affront – peace-making subordinated to real estate deal-broking. It’s still early days for his play in Ukraine, although the prognosis looks bad. If his administration remains cavalier about breach of national sovereignty, New Delhi must remain alive to the fallout of what Trump is doing and what he’s likely to do.

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