Israel-Iran conflict — how the world will change post-war

The Iran-Israel short war of ballistic missile exchanges and air strikes is over. Yet the context under which this short war was fought had a deep effect on how independent states view the existing international environment. The challenge for the great powers, the regional hegemons and the medium and the ordinary powers that rally around them is simple: can this international environment in which international norms and laws are violated be allowed to endure? Does it need restructuring or can it be left unchanged?

In the case of former there is all the likelihood of another sovereign state being bullied and attacked by a ruthless power; and in the case of latter the setting of a similar event can be prevented and unjust attacks on sovereign states may be stopped from reoccurring.

Contextually, there is a greater realisation in the world that terrorism is being used as a pretext by individual states to further their national interests. Particularly in the case of Israel and India, two states that hold different interpretation on the matter of terrorism from rest of the world. Both states have demonstrated that diplomacy can be set aside, pushed back and unjust military action can be taken to punish states considered weak on flimsy grounds.

Two matters of diplomatic significance, both related to India and Israel, suggest that there is hope that 'Islamophobia' that both these states suffer from may no more be the sickness with which the rest of the world may suffer. The American president's interference in the Indo-Pak conflict and his political preference to host Pakistan's military chief in White House is a clear message to India that Washington doesn't agree with the Indian position and its terrorism context that created the circumstances for its unwarranted aggression against Pakistan.

The victim scale that had long been tilted in India's favour seems to be settling back in the balance and the US may have set the future global trend of no more viewing Pakistan from the Indian position of blaming Pakistan as a terrorist state.

Add to this the recent diplomatic setback that India suffered in the meeting of the Defence Ministers in Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), when the Indian defence minister refused to sign a draft of joint statement which omitted a reference to the 22 April Pahalgam terror attack in occupied Kashmir. If there was evidence that India could share with the rest of the participating countries, surely the Indian position would have been strong in advocating the inclusion of this terrorist attack in the draft of the joint statement.

Pakistan has consistently maintained the absence of such evidence and also maintained a consistent diplomatic posture that encouraged India to hold bilateral dialogue. But India believes more in bullying and subjugating Pakistan rather than treating it as an equal. In case of Israel, no American President has used the language that President Trump used when Israel violated the ceasefire agreement of which he was a guarantor. There is no doubt that President Trump is the most pro-Israel president that America ever had but when it came to the possibility of American interests being hurt, President Trump sounded determined to force Israel to change its behaviour against Iran.

Tested and jolted by recent events, the international environment is not likely to remain the same. Wars are being fought in a manner unknown in previous history and how the nation states will change and adjust will determine what kind of international environment will prevail as we approach 2050. The lead up to 2050 and the pathway that leads the world there cannot be discussed without mentioning the role of the other three great powers in determining how the world travels on this pathway.

Recent events prove that the US has failed to make the world safe. It has failed to construct the rules-based system in which international laws could be respected and it has also failed to ensure that states cooperate and not engage in conflicts. In case of America, it is sufficient to say that its thesis of end of history has not ended. The coming back of history is the new antithesis and under the return of great power competition this antithesis will be written by China and Russia.

How America brought the world to the ending notion of its liberal order of internationalism is a topic that requires detailed answering and needs to be dealt with in a separate space and time. Here I would just like to conclude by giving some of the assumptions on how the world and the international system that runs it may be restructured given the context under which the recent wars have been fought.

Dynastic politics will be on the decline and nation states ideas of freedom and liberty will not remain the same. More and more nationalism will hatch as authoritarianism will mate more frequently with ending civil liberties as more and more military preparedness will demand quashing of domestic dissent as national economies will reorganise to equip their militaries to adjust against the shifting military capabilities between the states and to maintain the fracturing balance of power. Military preparedness will trump political mindsets and create military mindsets and eventually more and more military states.

Russophobia and China-phobia are considered as the greatest geopolitical threat of 21st Century. These two diseases from which the West suffers will contribute to how these great powers will challenge the international system together with the states that will rally around them.

The US will regret mistreating the twenty-six years of unipolarity (1991-2017) by favouring realistic and militaristic foreign policy in promoting the order of liberal internationalism that only backfired. Disastrous foreign policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran is what constituted the current international system of chaos and anarchy and which is hardly what the world deserved as America led it as a sole superpower.

Nation states will no longer tolerate being at the centre of any American intrigue. Autocracies will demand intellectual climate that should support nationalism as guns will be preferred over butter in a national environment in which military preparedness will be expedited. States either grow or decay but in a reordered world fashioned by the Indian and Israeli military aggression most states will neither grow nor decay, they will spend more time, effort and resources to stay where they are as growth of militarism and not socialism will become the order of the day.