While Egypt has managed to contain the spread of the virus, the economic and political fallout of the pandemic poses a critical challenge to the stability of the country.
The COVID-19 pandemic has reignited the existing political fault lines in Egypt. While the country has managed to contain the spread of the virus, the economic and political fallout of the pandemic poses a critical challenge to the stability of the country. Key political issues involve the throttling of freedom of press and human rights abuse, anchored in emergency laws, and the growing influence of the military in Egypt’s political and economic affairs. Against the backdrop of these churnings, the country’s economy is likely to feel the heat of the drop in international tourism as well as remittances received from expatriate Egyptians.
Compared to the situation in other regional countries, Egypt is relatively less affected by COVID-19. As of June 2, there were more than 26,300 confirmed cases with over 1,000 casualties.1 However, the international media had alleged a cover-up of the actual number of cases. According to a report published in the British daily The Guardian on March 15, the cases of infection in the country could have been higher, given the fact that several of the European tourists returning from Egypt were found positive.2 The Egyptian Government not only denied the allegations but also expelled the British daily’s local correspondent, Ruth Michaelson, apart from threatening the closure of its Cairo bureau.3
The Egyptian Government first undertook measures to mitigate the spread of the virus on March 15 when they suspended all international flights and closed down schools, colleges, universities and cinema halls.4 However, as the infection continued to rise, the demand for increasing social and religious curbs intensified. Meanwhile, the reported death of two high ranking military officers and the illness of the third, and the absence of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi from public view led to speculations about the president being quarantined given his exposure to the deceased military officers.5
Amidst these speculations and growing criticism for mishandling the situation, Sisi attended a public event on March 22. Two days later, the government announced a series of measures to contain the pandemic.6 Accordingly, a night curfew was announced during which all public places, services and transportation were to remain closed. Further, all “malls, gyms, sporting clubs, restaurants and cafes” apart from non-essential government services were also shut down.7 Shops selling essential products had to operate within the reduced working hours. Notably, the ban on public religious gatherings and celebrations was implemented during the holy month of Ramadan.
Determined to tackle the pandemic head-on, Egypt announced a US$ 64 million funding for its health services in addition to a US$ 79.3 million stimulus package.8 To create public health awareness, sanitisation campaigns were organised in cities and villages with the help of youth volunteers.9 Measures were also taken to enhance critical-care capacity apart from stocking up of essential medical supplies. Eight isolation hospitals with a capacity of 2,000 beds including 1,000 ICU beds and 400 ventilators were set up. Nevertheless, some of the healthcare professionals criticised these measures for not being robust enough to protect them from potential exposure to the virus in their line of duty, apart from low medical allowances and skyrocketing prices of masks and sanitisers.10 Overall, despite the shortcomings, the government’s initiatives helped contain the spread of COVID-19.
The Sisi regime, however, has been accused of using the pandemic as an opportunity to intensify the crackdown on media and the opposition. On May 7, the regime amended the 1958 Emergency Law, ostensibly, to enforce public order. The government’s critics underlined that the amended law is designed to expand the military’s judicial power, particularly in the context of Article 4 which allowed the president to authorise prosecution of those found violating the emergency in military courts.11 The critics further pointed out that only five out of the 18 amendments were related to public health and cautioned that the amendments intended to suppress any potential protests that might be triggered by the deteriorating economic situation in the country.
The regime, meanwhile, has taken extraordinarily harsh measures in blocking a dozen news websites for allegedly spreading rumours about the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides expelling the Guardian correspondent in March, a reporter with the Arabic daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, Haisam Mahgoub, was arrested on May 11 for violating the COVID-19 curfew. He was also accused of spreading fake news after one of his reports highlighted the sufferings of those affected by the restrictions amidst the pandemic.12 This follows the growing trend of imposing restrictions on the freedom of press wherein Egypt’s Supreme Council for Media Regulation had taken action against several independent bloggers and social media influencers for views deemed critical of the authorities. Unsurprisingly, Egypt ranks 166 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index 2020.13
Since taking over power in 2013, the Sisi regime has been expanding emergency laws, giving more power to military courts and undermining the independence of the judiciary. This process had gained further traction in the aftermath of the September 2019 anti-regime protests. Today, COVID-19 has provided a renewed opportunity to continue the process of curbing the simmering discontent in the country.
Amidst the political churnings, Egypt faces an uncertain economic future, given the pandemic induced disruption. One of the cornerstones of the Egyptian economy is tourism. It is the third-largest contributor to the nation’s GDP after international remittances and non-oil exports. In 2018-19, the tourism sector contributed US$ 12.2 billion to the economy. In comparison, inward remittances during the financial year 2018-19 stood at US$ 26.4 billion while non-oil exports were to the tune of US$ 17.1 billion.14 For the foreseeable future, Egypt is likely to get a fraction of the over 9,00,000 international tourists it receives annually.15
While the government has announced an economic package worth US$ 6.35 billion to ease the impact on tourism and construction sectors, the economy could still find it difficult to recover from a potential loss of tourism revenue which accounts for five per cent of its GDP.
Moreover, the likely fall in remittances sent by the 4.5 million Egyptian expatriates in the Gulf, constituting around 10 per cent of the GDP, and decline in oil prices can deal the proverbial blow to the country’s economy. The only silver lining is the two per cent increase in revenue of the Suez Canal Authority over the previous year.16 Today, large sections of the urban population, comprising the poor and vulnerable, remain outside the purview of the economic package. This has triggered discontentment among them leading to growing criticism of the regime over the handling of the pandemic.
To conclude, while Egypt has done well to check the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic by bolstering the public health sector and imposing restrictions on the movement of people and gatherings, yet the deepening political and economic fault lines could pose a serious challenge to the Sisi regime.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Role of Political Guidance for Self-Reliance in Defence
Prakash Menon
June 01, 2020
Self-reliance in defence may be better realised if India’s military instrument were to be shaped by political guidance and geopolitical considerations instead of being carried away by the contemporary winds of COVID-19.
During his address to the nation on May 12, the Prime Minister called for a ‘Self-Reliant India’ as the pathway to be adopted as India confronts the COVID-19 pandemic. For the defence sector, ‘self-reliance’ has remained elusive for seven decades and India remains the second largest arms importer on the global stage.1 Import dependence and consequent strategic vulnerability have long been an area of concern. Despite continuous efforts, indigenisation has remained a losing battle and its turnaround will mainly depend on reforms in India’s military-industrial base, which is the supply side. This comment pertains to the demand side and seeks to examine the issue of alignment of national security objectives with arming of the military.
While there is likely to be a positive change in response to the Prime Minister’s call for ‘self-reliance’, one must also be wary of the crisis pushing misinformed ideas to the surface. For a major reform, the Prime Minister needs to address the demand side of the self-reliance problem in defence, which, in essence, is rooted in the inadequacies of civil-military relations. Without doubt, the recent structural reform through the creation of the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), who is also the Permanent Chairman – Chiefs of Staff Committee (PC-COSC) and head of the Department of Military Affairs (DMA), has boosted the possibility of improved civil-military relations.
But first, to answer the question as to why the Prime Minister should take control of the demand side of the problem. It is because the Armed Forces lack political guidance. Ideally, a National Security Strategy (NSS) would have provided the source from which the Ministry of Defence (MoD) could under the Raksha Mantri’s signature provide political guidance to the military. For long, in the absence of a mother document like the NSS, the Armed Forces, through the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS), have formulated the draft of the Raksha Mantri’s operational directive which is then approved by the Raksha Mantri; in reality, the Armed Forces were scripting their own political guidance! The problem was compounded by a lack of expertise within the MoD. That inadequacy has been addressed by the creation of DMA. So, now, while the MoD is better equipped to provide political guidance, it is still severely handicapped in the absence of the NSS.
Two years ago, in April 2018, the task of formulating the NSS was given to the Defence Planning Committee (DPC) headed by the National Security Advisor (NSA), but nothing has been heard about it.2 Among other interactions, the formulation of the NSS will require intense civil-military discussions. The first important step is for the NSS to be crystallised by the National Security Council (NSC) and approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).
The NSS is not the golden key but an essential first step. The MoD should formulate the Raksha Mantri’s political directive, post the interaction between the political, military and civil service leaders. The political directive evolved should be based on the financial support likely to be available. Importantly, how much financial support can be planned for, at a time when it is increasingly challenged by the dire economic circumstances, should not be left to the mandarins in the finance ministry but should instead be driven by political considerations at the highest political level. It would be a strategic misstep if defence allocations are not given their due even as the clouds of geopolitical frictions, characterised by growing great power rivalry and China’s increasing influence in the sub-continent and the Indian Ocean, are getting darker.
So, while the Rs 20 lakh crore economic package announced is the developmental push, there is no room to neglect India’s military preparedness. Asking the military to stop importing, eschewing state of the art weapons and equipment, relaxing General Staff Qualitative Requirements (GSQRs) and severely cutting its budget ignores the nature of military preparedness3; it is short-sighted and ignores national security imperatives. It is a given that military preparations are to be undertaken for application in the future, which is steeped in uncertainty. Choices made under the shadow of the immediate impact on the economy must not jeopardise the long-term trajectory of military preparations. However, it is this trajectory that needs to be altered with the help of the NSS and the Raksha Mantri’s political directive.
Both of India’s adversaries are nuclear powers and, therefore, the utility and application of force will have to be governed by the reality of the nuclear shadow.4 There is a need for the military to embrace the concept of ‘useable military power’ and differentiating it from ‘deterrent military power’.5 The two can merge but it is subject to risks that political leadership is willing to take. In the nuclear era, political leadership has shown due caution and avoided large scale wars, given that the will of the adversary can no longer be subdued by force. It is a lesson that the Indian political leadership has yet to impose on the military leadership. Moreover, the natural proclivity of the military is risk-taking. Bereft of political guidance, the Indian military could tend to prepare for wars under the nuclear shadow that they should not fight and cannot win.
A military strategy that is based on ‘useable military power’ as its prime focus can facilitate the shaping of India’s military instrument in a manner that will align military power to political objectives,be more effective in the continental and maritime realms, strengthen deterrence, and, facilitate greater self-reliance.
Presently, most of India’s military power is weighted towards Pakistan, instead of its bigger adversary, China. This strategic imbalance is rooted in the political obsession with Pakistan, where the nature of the threat is terrorism. Such a threat requires the military capability to strike without posturing, the strike element being embodied in various forms of usable military power. However, what the country has instead is an army largely structured to capture large tracts of territory, a fact reflected in the unusable military power concentrated in the three strike corps. What is hiding in plain sight, is that several military plans and force structures are surviving from an age that is now history
Structuring land power against China must take into account the fact, that China can use India’s vulnerabilities on the Northern border to exercise political pressure through limited land grabs. Countering this, through ‘useable military power’ is a matter of operational virtuosity and within reach. But what is not affordable and also unnecessary is the creation of the Mountain Strike Corps and such behemoths with questionable utility.6 In essence, a shift in operational doctrines on both fronts can relieve some resources for developing our maritime power that has the potential for being useful and can act as the major deterrent against both adversaries.
India’s maritime power must be developed to exploit all the vulnerabilities of China and Pakistan in the Indian Ocean. Here again, it is not so much about fighting ‘big wars’ but about establishing dominance through the exercise of sea control whenever and wherever required. A land grab in the Northern border must also be deterred by India’s ability to apply force against China’s soft targets like fishing, deep-sea mining or survey elements, etc., in the Indian Ocean. What this entails is a matter of professional choices that is tempered with the long-term realities of the defence budget. But the budget must be parsed by the political leadership and not left to be determined only by financial perspectives.
Self-reliance in defence may be better realised than now if India’s military instrument were to be shaped by political guidance and more comprehensive and integrated geopolitical considerations instead of being carried away by the contemporary winds of COVID-19. Security and development are two sides of the same coin. Self-reliance in defence can progress only after rectifying the focus of the military. The political leadership must take ownership of that correction.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
4. See Review of Prakash Menon, The Strategy Trap: India and Pakistan Under the Nuclear Shadow, Wisdom Tree, New Delhi, 2018, by Arjun Subramaniam, in Journal of Defence Studies, 13 (1), January-March 2019, pp. 83-86.
5. The term ‘useable military power’ refers to that form of power that can be applied within the bounds of acceptable political risks. The use of artillery and limited airstrikes (Balakot) are examples. Whereas, ‘deterrent military power’ refers to those elements of power that are threats in being but whose use under the nuclear shadow entails serious political risks. Large scale invasion of the territory by application of strike corps is fraught with risks of nuclear use that can also be caused by misjudgement, misperception and miscommunication. But it supposedly has deterrent power to prevent Pakistan from undertaking major military action.
The movement of the Baloch people is likely to continue because of the strong undercurrent of popular disaffection in the province against the Pakistan state, and the sustained enthusiasm of the people to fight for their freedom, autonomy and rights
On the Eid-ul-Fitr day this year, instead of celebrating and feasting, relatives of Baloch missing persons chose to assemble outside Quetta press club and stage a hunger strike.1 They demanded the early return of those missing so that it could be a happy occasion for them to celebrate. The sad case of missing persons has been going on for decades now. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has over the years condemned the Pakistan state for its dismal record in handling the cases of enforced disappearances in Balochistan and hinted at the involvement of state agencies in such cases. Media personalities taking up this issue have been coerced into silence; the attack on Hamid Mir in 2014, a well-known Pakistani journalist, is a case in point. In August 2019, members of the HRCP lamented that “the Government of Pakistan has always treated Balochistan as a conflict zone” from where truth does not see the light of the day.2 The approach of mainstream media towards the province has been abysmal as they refrain from reporting massive human rights violation for fear of reprisal.
Some years ago, a retired banker, Mama Qadeer, had led a more than 2000 km long protest march from Quetta to Islamabad (October 2013-February 2014) to convey the anguish and angst of the Baloch people.3 The Supreme Court had also sought to intervene in the case. But the number of enforced disappearances continued to mount. The government figures in Pakistan, which are not reliable, point to more than 2178 unresolved cases by March 2019.4 However, HRCP has reported about 47,000 Baloch who have gone missing or disappeared. According to the Hakkpan organisation, a Baloch human rights organisation, 568 persons disappeared and 241 were killed by the Pakistan security forces in 2019 alone. A 2019 report of the group read that “students remained a main target of military and military-backed death squads during the year 2019.”5
Balochistan provides an apt example of how the Pakistan state has failed to accommodate the socio-cultural, political, and economic aspirations and grievances of the Baloch people, which has led to the present state of affairs. The coercive kill-and-dump policy of the army has only resulted in killings and disappearance of hundreds of innocent Baloch people, hardened nationalist sentiment among the people and steeled their nerves to continue with a popular movement that has become a thorn in the flesh of the Pakistan state.
The Case of Missing Persons
In Balochistan, human rights violations have become the norm. The Pakistan state and its security agencies have habitually trampled on the human rights of the Baloch people in the name of security and territorial integrity. The Pakistan state has been extremely sensitive to all expressions of ethnic autonomy and resistance, and more so in the case of Baloch leaders championing their rights. They are often charged with treason, branded as terrorists, and killed in encounters or picked up by security forces at will only to be added to the ever-expanding list of missing persons. In many cases, their dead bodies are either found in a badly mutilated condition by the roadside or their skeletal remains are discovered in mass graves.
In recent months, going by the reports in social media and online portals run by the Baloch diaspora, there has been a spike in military operations in Baloch areas like Kech, Panjgur, and Awaran districts.6 These areas were reportedly shelled by helicopter gunships and massive raids were carried out afterwards. This is all happening amidst the COVID-19 lockdown. In April alone, in the military raids, 16 Baloch were killed and as many as 73 people were picked up by the Pakistani forces, including students, women, children and infants. However, 28 people were later released.
The Baloch have never felt safe inside Balochistan and now they do not feel safe even outside Pakistan. The case of the disappearance of Rashid Hussain Baloch from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in December 2018, and the recent discovery of the dead body of Sajid Hussain Baloch in Sweden after he went missing in March 2020, only serves to demonstrate that the Baloch rights activists are being trailed even when they have quit Pakistan and are meeting the same fate as their ethnic cousins back home. According to Baloch forums worldwide, Pakistan’s intelligence agencies are extending their influence and operations even in distant shores, especially in countries where the Baloch diaspora is actively propounding the case of Baloch marginalisation in Pakistan.
In the case of Rashid Hussain Baloch, he fled Balochistan after his close relatives were killed by the Pakistan security forces. His cousin, Abdul Majeed, was abducted on October 18, 2010 and his bullet-ridden dead body was found six days later. Two years later, Rashid’s uncle and Majeed’s father, Muhammad Ramzan, was shot dead on February 2, 2012. Rashid had been working in UAE since 2017. While he was travelling to Sharjah in December 2018, his car was intercepted and he was arrested reportedly by the UAE intelligence agencies, and ever since he has gone missing. The online media run by Baloch activists allege that he was handed over to the Pakistani agencies.
Sajid Hussain Baloch had fled Balochistan in September 2012 after he was targeted by the Pakistani establishment for investigating disappearances of the Baloch people. According to reports, some unknown persons broke into his house in Quetta and decamped with his laptop. After passing through different countries to save his life, fate brought Sajid to Sweden in 2018. He was granted asylum in 2019.7 He ran an online newspaper, ‘Balochistan Times’, which sought to raise awareness about Baloch sufferings and lend a voice to the voiceless. On March 2, Sajid boarded a train from Stockholm to Uppsala where he was supposed to check into a new flat. According to Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), he was to collect the keys to his new flat but he did not get off the train in Uppsala. On April 23, Sajid’s body was found in the Fyris River outside Uppsala. The police spokesperson said that the death could be due to an accident or suicide while not ruling out crime. President of the Swedish chapter of RSF, Erik Halkjaer, said that Sajid’s “disappearance might be work related”.8 Observers suspect that he may be a victim of targeted killing as many activists and bloggers of Pakistani origins in Europe claim to be “targeted for speaking up against human rights violations in Pakistan”.
Internal Colonialism and Nationalist Sentiment in Balochistan
Balochistan, almost the size of Germany, constitutes 44 per cent of the total area of Pakistan; however, it is sparsely populated and accounts for only 2.4 per cent of the total population of Pakistan. The Baloch see the dominance and exploitation of the resources from the province as a form of “internal colonialism.” For example, roughly 5.81 per cent of the total gas produced in Balochistan is consumed by it and the rest goes to other provinces, leaving the majority of the province without gas.9 According to the official data, Balochistan contributed gas and oil royalty to the tune of Rs 23.8 billion but it received only Rs 0.09 billion from the year 2013-14 to 2017-18.10
The Baloch fear that the activation of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and development of Gwadar Port will lead to further colonisation of the state by the Punjabis. The Baloch are targeting the Chinese workers as they think that China is colluding with their tormentors to colonise them and exploit their resources. They argue that the Baloch people were not consulted when the decision to build the port was taken, and that a major part of the revenue from it will fill the coffers of the central government while the province will receive only a minor share of it. During the implementation of the CPEC project, the Baloch alleged that the locals were hardly recruited. Sana Baloch of the Balochistan National Part.11
Right from the days of partition, the people of Balochistan have resisted the Pakistan Army’s bid to subjugate them by force. As a mineral-rich area with invaluable resources ranging from copper to natural gas, Balochistan remains a prized possession for the Pakistan state, one that Pakistan has tried to keep under tight control. Beginning with the passing of a resolution for independence in the Kalat National Assembly on August 15, 1947, the aspirations of the Baloch people have oscillated between autonomy and independence. The Pakistan Army has unsuccessfully tried to silence the Baloch voice through the use of overwhelming force, while the ongoing fifth wave of resistance (earlier ones were in 1948, 1958, 1962, and 1973) continues to rage on.
The Pakistan military’s practice of enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention in illegally established military and paramilitary cantonments in and around Balochistan, and innovative methods of torture and torture-killing has continued unabated. Baloch activists, innocent women, children, students, journalists, researchers, and social workers have been put to death indiscriminately. While the world is busy fighting its war on terror in the region, the state terror unleashed on the Baloch people has largely gone unnoticed.
There has also been a proliferation of state-sponsored radical outfits in Balochistan. They operate with impunity and function as de facto para-military arms of the state. The Quetta Shura of the Taliban was also allowed to have its base in Balochistan where it continued to prosper with the active connivance of the Pakistan military. Pakistan’s agencies have unleashed radical Islamist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other non-state actors and collaborators on the Baloch population in their bid to Islamise them. The Baloch people are known to be temperamentally secular and tolerant in their approach to religion.
The world at large has turned a blind eye to the gross human rights violations perpetrated by Pakistan on the innocent Baloch people for the last 73 years, and especially since 2001-02. Pakistan has unleashed a well-crafted plan to crush the people of Balochistan in its brazen quest for the resources of the region. Despite fledgling democratic rule in Pakistan since 2008, there has been hardly any change in the approach of the Pakistan state towards the Baloch people as cases of politically motivated detention and killing and disappearance of Baloch people have increased manifold.
Nevertheless, the movement of the Baloch people to safeguard their rights is likely to continue because of the strong undercurrent of popular disaffection in the province against the Pakistan state, and the sustained enthusiasm of the people to fight for their freedom, autonomy and their rights.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
South Africa has utilised the opportunity provided by the COVID-19 pandemic to consolidate its regional leadership and augment connections with major external partners like India.
South Africa, the most industrialised economy on the continent, has the highest number of coronavirus infections in Africa. As of now, there are more than 23,615 confirmed cases in the country.1 The Western Cape Province, popular with tourists, has reported the maximum number of cases. On March 15, 2020, when the number of infected persons was only 61, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national ‘state of disaster’. The government has since taken several measures to curb the spread of the virus, including the closing of borders and declaring a nation-wide lockdown.2 The pandemic has implications for South Africa’s economy, its armed forces, and the country’s leadership within Africa and also partnership with India.
Economic Impact
Although South Africa is an upper-middle-income country, it is also one of the most unequal countries in the world with a consumption expenditure-based Gini coefficient of 63.3 The country is characterised with high wealth inequality, with top 10 per cent households owning 71 per cent of the nation’s wealth.4 This disparity makes the country particularly vulnerable in times of pandemic.
The South African Reserve Bank predicts that the economy may contract by six per cent in 2020 due to the pandemic.5 This may lead to greater inequality in the country with millions more going under the poverty line. Unfortunately, South Africa’s economy was already in recession prior to the lockdown. Credit rating agencies, Fitch and Moody’s recent downgrading of South Africa’s sovereign credit rating to ‘junk state’ has added to the troubles.6 In a bid to contain the economic fallout, the South African Government announced a $26 billion stimulus plan, worth about 10 per cent of GDP.7 However, a high debt, at 59.6 per cent of GDP, limits country’s ability to fund its proposed package independently, and it will need to rely on external debt from the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF). 8 This will increase South Africa’s debt to GDP ratio, further adding to the post-pandemic economic challenges.
Role of Defence Forces
South Africa has deployed over 75,000 members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in enforcing a countrywide lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus.9 The defence forces were tasked to protect quarantine sites, deliver essential supplies, help police restrict people’s movement and to curtail unrest.
However, questions were raised within the country doubting the capacity of the SANDF to implement some of these tasks.10 Over the years, the SANDF has been neglected by the government. Despite widening of its duties, the budgetary allocation has not increased. For the defence forces to perform their duties appropriately, it is important that adequate budgetary resources are made available for training and equipment. In recent years, the SANDF has been deployed for various activities such as the protection of borders and peacekeeping operations in African hotspots like the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. They have been tasked to take on internal security duties including disaster relief and public policing. As the defence forces were deployed to implement the lockdown, a big concern was that they were not trained in public policing and this could result in the use of excessive force against the civilians.
Some such instances have indeed come to light. Social media in the country is full of accounts of the use of excessive force by the SANDF.11 The most talked-about incident is related to Collins Khoza, a resident of the densely populated Alexandra township, who was killed due to brutal enforcement of the lockdown by the security forces.12 For the older generation, this incident was a cruel reminder of the brutality perpetrated by the security forces in the apartheid-era. The South African High Court has recently ordered the suspension of the soldiers involved in the incident.13 However, displeasure over richer people (who reside in the relatively less dense suburbs) being spared of the harsh treatment by the security forces for deviating from the lockdown norms lingers on.14 Such incidents and the outcry against them within the local communities also suggest that the nation still has a long way to go to reconcile with its discriminatory and violent past.
Regional Leadership
On the external front, the pandemic has provided an opportunity for South Africa to showcase its regional leadership. South Africa has emerged as a key focal point for Africa-wide responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the current chair of the African Union (AU), President Ramaphosa has worked in tandem with Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He also leads the continental level engagement with the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and various international financial institutions.
While attending to a demanding and critical situation domestically, Ramaphosa, as chairperson of the AU, has worked hard towards rallying and consolidating a continental response to COVID-19. He convened a teleconference of the continental organisation on March 26, 2020 to discuss Africa’s response to the pandemic. At the meeting, Ramaphosa noted that a continental coordinated response was more important than ever before in order to arrest the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.15 Through his efforts, the AU has managed to raise $25 billion for the COVID-19 Response Fund and an additional $36.5 million for the African CDC.16 To spearhead the continent’s response, he has appointed special envoys from all five regions of Africa to deal with the crisis.
He also organised a virtual meeting with business leaders from across the continent to come up with a strategy to deal with the economic impact of the pandemic on the AU member states. Ramaphosa has also been successful in drumming up support from the Group of 20 (G20) and major partners of the continent, including India.17
India-South Africa Partnership
India and South Africa share a warm relationship that dates back several centuries and is anchored in a range of common interests and issues. In the past, India supported South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle and raised the issue in several fora including the United Nations (UN), Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Commonwealth. With the emergence of a democratic South Africa, India was quick to sign a strategic partnership with the country in 1997. South Africa is home to the highest number of people of Indian origin in Africa. India and South Africa have worked together in several multilateral organisations and groups such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), G20, the BRICS (a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the IBSA (a grouping of India, Brazil and South Africa). They are also neighbours across the Indian Ocean and cooperate in the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA).
South African President Ramaphosa and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi share an interesting chemistry that was quite evident when the former visited India as chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations in January 2019. During the current pandemic, the two leaders have been in touch. Prime Minister Modi has commended the South African President for his stellar role in coordinating a continent-wide response.18 India has sent medical supplies to South Africa to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. It has also dispatched the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to South Africa, in addition to 20 other African countries to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.19 India’s support during this crisis will further consolidate the friendly ties between the two countries.
Conclusion
While the COVID-19 pandemic has added to South Africa’s woes on the domestic front, nevertheless, the country has utilised the opportunity to consolidate its regional leadership and augment connections with major external partners like India.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.
The uncertainty brought about by the pandemic would at best have a limited and short-term impact on the US-Iran hostilities. For the time being, the chances of escalation may be limited but the rivalry is here to stay.
Both Iran and the United States (US) are among the countries worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, even as they fight their respective battles against the virus, the hostilities between the two continue. Both countries allege each other of violating international law. The tensions between the two countries took a sharp turn last year when, for the first time since the Iran-Iraq war, a series of events resulted in significant deterioration of peace and stability in the Gulf region. It all began after the waiver provided by Washington on purchase of Iranian oil expired in May last year. However, the most recent escalation in the US-Iran tensions at a time when the world is reeling under the COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns in the region.
Continued Hostilities
On April 15, the American ships deployed in the Persian Gulf reported an “unsafe and unprofessional” conduct by 11 Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) vessels.1 In response, American President Donald Trump ordered the United States (US) Navy to “shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our [US] ships.”2 Later, on the eve of IRGC’s launch of its first military satellite – Noor 1 – IRGC commander Salami affirmed, “[that] any [US] move will be responded decisively, effectively and rapidly.” He added that “IRGC is serious in defending the national security, and sea borders, and marine interests of Iran.”3
The recent confrontation between the two countries, which reached unprecedented levels after the killing of IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani in early January 2020, has once again raised concerns about stability in the Persian Gulf. In May 2019, after the expiration of the US waivers on the purchase of Iranian oil, several American tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman for which Washington blamed Tehran and its proxies.4 Iran forthrightly denied these allegations. Later, in June 2019, the tensions further escalated as the IRGC shot down a US drone in the Gulf. Consequently, President Trump ordered a military strike on Iran, which was later called off, citing disproportionality.5 As both sides decided to de-escalate, the situation at the time was brought under control with no significant harm.
Timeline of Key Incidents in Persian Gulf (May 2019-April 2020)
Source: Compiled by the author from various media reports.
Though the recent skirmishes have again revived fears of a renewed escalation in tensions between the two countries, however, based on outcomes of the past incidents, one can discern a de-escalation pattern aimed at avoiding a full-blown war. In May 2019, when things began to spiral, both sides came out with statements repudiating the possibility of war. From the Iranian side, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei insisted that “There won’t be any war.”6 Similarly, the US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo ascertained that Washington “fundamentally” did not seek war with Iran.7
There seems to be an unsaid predisposition to manage the escalation plateau. A full-scale war in the Gulf would have long-term disastrous consequences for all parties involved – US, Iran and regional powers – and not to mention, the frightful impact it will have on the global oil supply. Similarly, when an attack took place on Saudi Aramco facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in September 2019, the escalation was steadily followed by a de-escalation. Last year, both countries also presented their multi-state initiatives to manage escalations. The US-led maritime coalition in the Persian Gulf, known as the International Maritime Security Construct (IMSC), became operational on September 7, 2019.8 Two weeks later, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced a ‘Coalition for Hope’ or Hormuz Peace Endeavour (HOPE) at the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly.9 However, the acceptability of these initiatives remains low, given the scepticism and deep mistrust in the region.
The recent tensions in April could be just another episode in brinkmanship between the two countries. It should be noted that the Iranian Navy’s actions came just a week before IRGC celebrated its 41st foundational day. Thus, the Iranian actions were more of posturing than any attempt at escalation. However, one cannot discount it entirely as semantics. From the IRGC’s perspective, it is believed that there is still a need to reinforce deterrence against the US after Soleimani’s death. In Washington’s viewpoint, it already has deterred Iran from taking bold steps by targeting its top commander in early January this year.
Yet, in the case of the Persian Gulf, sustaining deterrence is extremely difficult for two reasons. First, the deterrence, such as the one created by the US with the killing of Soleimani, is bound to diminish after some time. Second, the deterrence created on land (in Iraq or Syria) is entirely different from deterrence in the Persian Gulf. In Iraq, for instance, the US stakes are not as high as in the Persian Gulf enabling it to pursue risky policy moves. The Persian Gulf, on the other hand, is perceived by the US and Iran as a safe space, where it is relatively easier to project power with minimal risk of any large-scale retribution.
Prognosis
In the above context, it is important to identify potential developments that are most likely to guide the Washington-Tehran rivalry in the region. First, the arms embargo on Iran will be expiring on October 18, 2020. Already, Washington has started pushing for the extension of an arms embargo, but legal technicalities – due to the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – makes it difficult for the US to achieve this easily. Meanwhile, the US Secretary of State Pompeo has made it clear that the US is “not going to let that [lifting of embargo] happen.”10 Washington’s influence at the UN is well-known, which the US is going to leverage to snap back the embargo.
Iran, on the other hand, has been preparing for the lifting of the embargo. In the last two years, it has moved to strengthen its partnership with both Moscow and Beijing that may help Tehran’s cause in October. Last year, in December 2019, Iran conducted a trilateral naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman with Russia and China to further enhance cooperation. Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, Chief of Staff of Iranian General Armed Forces, has made multiple visits to Beijing and Moscow in the last couple of years. Earlier, in November 2016, Tehran signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement with Beijing followed by a military agreement in November.11 Moreover, both have also agreed to set up a joint technical and industrial commission.12 Similarly, Iran’s existing cooperation in Syria puts it in favourable conditions with Moscow. In mid-2015, Tehran had also acquired the S-300 Air Defence System from Moscow.
Furthermore, IRGCN’s ambitions also need to be factored in. The IRGCN, which so far has relied on small vessels to attain its objectives, has expressed its interest in developing a submarine fleet. The IRGCN commander made it apparent in the immediate aftermath of the confrontation with the US Navy on April 15.13 Whether enhanced capabilities will bring about any change in the way Washington views Tehran is something that remains to be seen. Tehran also has high hopes for the lifting of the embargo for which it has toiled hard to develop its partnership with two major powers. However, this partnership is unlikely to be of much assistance to Iran, except in the economic domain. Despite the COVID-19 crisis, Washington is likely to continue with the sanctions under its ‘maximum pressure policy’, something that Iran may find hard to manage given the circumstances.
To conclude, two factors are most likely to impact the current dynamics in US-Iran relations in the coming times. First, the probable consequences of the arms embargo on Iran that is scheduled to expire in October 2020. The ensuing push-and-pull will drive the rivalry further where Iran will attempt to hedge its bets with Russia and China. Furthermore, the uncertainty brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic would at best have a limited and short-term impact on the US-Iran hostilities. This is not to suggest that it would ease the rivalry, but the chances of escalation would remain limited, for the time being.
The author is thankful to Dr. Meena Singh Roy, Coordinator, West Asia Centre, MP-IDSA for her insightful suggestions and comments.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.
4. Interestingly, these attacks on tankers were seen by some as reminiscent of the Tanker War of the 1980s in the Gulf, during which 55 of the 239 petroleum tankers (23 per cent) from various countries were destroyed. This had led to a 25 per cent drop in commercial shipping and a rapid spike in crude oil prices. See “Are we seeing a repeat of the ‘Tanker Wars’ of the 80s in the Gulf?”, TRT World, June 13, 2019 (Accessed May 03, 2020); and “Tanker War”, Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law, August 2008 (Accessed May 03, 2020).
5. President Trump revealed in his statement that the proposed attack would have resulted in around 150 deaths, which he claimed was a disproportionate response to the shooting down of an unmanned drone. See Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America, Twitter Post, June 21, 2019, 6:33 PM (Accessed May 22, 2020).
8. The rise of tensions in the Gulf prompted Washington to stitch a coalition, formally known as the International Maritime Security Construct (IMSC), to provide safe passage to ships sailing through the Persian Gulf. The coalition has opened a command centre in Bahrain, which also houses the US Fifth Fleet. See “Maritime coalition launched to protect Gulf shipping after Iran attacks”, Arab News, November 07, 2019 (Accessed May 20, 2020).
9. Introduced by Iran, this initiative seeks to promote peace, stability and prosperity in the region by maintaining freedom of navigation and energy security for all. The initiative is based on the principles of international law, such as good neighbourliness, respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, and peaceful resolution of disputes, non-aggression and non-intervention, among others. See “President at the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly”, Official Website of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, September 25, 2019 (Accessed May 21, 2020); and “FM Zarif’s Al-Rai Article on Hormuz Peace Endeavour”, Iran Watch, October 10, 2019 (Accessed May 20, 2020).
11. Not many details have been made public, but the partnership is intended to increase cooperation between the two militaries by promoting defence diplomacy. This move is likely to benefit Iran by providing it access to various latest technologies related to defence research and information technology.
Hara-kiri Multilateralism: United Nations Response to COVID-19
Rajeesh Kumar
May 21, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities of the international system, particularly those of multilateral institutions. When the much spoken borderless threat became a reality, the multilateral institutions were found not only unprepared but acting in a self-destructive mode.
In recent years, multilateral cooperation has encountered unprecedented crises. From Brexit to burgeoning populist-nationalism across the globe as well as apathy of the once patron power, the United States (US), a range of issues threatens the very existence of multilateral institutions. While in the United Nations (UN) the crisis has manifested in the form of fund cuts and ever-increasing policy paralysis in its Security Council, other institutions, like Bretton Woods, have faced scepticism of effectiveness.
The COVID-19 pandemic is latest in the list of issues, which pushed the idea and practice of multilateralism into a profound dilemma. For the international community, COVID-19 was an opportunity to reinvigorate multilateral cooperation. The pandemic is the world’s biggest challenge since World War II. The deadly virus is affecting societies at their core, claiming millions of lives and destroying countless livelihoods. As of May 20, 2020, the virus has spread to 213 countries and territories with nearly five million confirmed cases and more than 318,789 casualties.1COVID-19 revealed that pandemic has no national boundaries and such issues require international cooperation and multilateral solutions, not unilateral national responses.
However, the politics of blame game and opportunism have dominated almost all the multilateral deliberations on COVID-19. The UN response to COVID-19, particularly of the Security Council, is a case in point. The primary responsibility of the UN is to maintain international peace and security. Though scholars and practitioners are divided on the question of whether health emergencies constitute a threat to global peace and security, the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic shows that it is one of the gravest dangers the modern nation-states ever faced.2 UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the pandemic “gravest test since the founding of the UN” and noted that it “poses a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security.”3 Guterres has also called for a global ceasefire and submitted a plan to tackle the disastrous consequences of the pandemic.4
The response of the UN Security Council (UNSC) on COVID-19 was not only disappointing but self-defeating as well. The Security Council took almost a month to discuss this pressing matter even after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Estonia initiated the first effort to discuss COVID-19 in the Security Council; however, accusations and counter-charges hindered a positive outcome. In the initial days, it was China and allies like Russia and South Africa who prevented the Security Council’s efforts, and later it was the US that became a stumbling block in producing a joint statement on the pandemic.
Throughout March 2020, China blocked every effort to discuss the pandemic in the Security Council. In Beijing's view, COVID-19 did not constitute a threat to peace and security and should be addressed in institutions like the WHO.5 Ironically, China was holding the presidency of the Security Council during the month. Next month, under the presidency of the Dominican Republic, the efforts were resumed, and on April 9, the UNSC convened a closed-door meeting to discuss COVID-19. At the meeting, the US hit out at China by calling for transparency and timely sharing of public health data.6 China, however, urged the members to reject any acts of stigmatisation and politicisation of the pandemic.7
In the first week of May, a draft resolution co-authored by Tunisia and France that called for a global ceasefire in the context of the pandemic also met the same fate. This time, the US opposed an indirect reference to the WHO in the draft and blocked a vote in the Security Council. A US spokesperson at the UN mission stated that “the council should either proceed with a resolution limited to support for a ceasefire, or a broadened resolution that fully addresses the need for renewed member state commitment to transparency and accountability in the context of Covid-19.”8 The US-China friction in the Security Council was more explicit this time. Beijing dismissed Washington’s concerns and insisted that the resolution should mention and endorse the works of the WHO.
In the latest development, Germany and Estonia submitted a new draft resolution in the Security Council on May 12. The new draft makes no mention of the WHO. The possibility of adopting this compromised resolution is very high since it focuses only on supporting ceasefires. However, if adopted, the resolution will strengthen the criticism that the UNSC is incompetent in solving issues in which interest of the P-5 is involved. COVID-19 is one of the most significant threats that the P-5 members ever faced since the formation of the UN. More than half of the reported cases and casualties are in these five countries.Other non-permanent members of the Council – Germany, Belgium and South Africa as well as the allies of the P-5 nations – Italy, France, Japan, South Korea and the Gulf countries, have also reported a large number of cases and causalities.
The Security Council’s inaction in the context of COVID-19 also marks a stark contrast from its past response to global public health challenges. For instance, during the discussion on HIV/AIDS in July 2000, the Security Council observed that “if unchecked, the pandemic may pose a risk to stability and security” and passed a resolution that called for a coordinated international response to the HIV/AIDS.9 Similarly, in 2014, the Security Council described the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as “a threat to international peace and security.”10
COVID-19 is the ‘exact threat’ that multilateral enthusiasts have been predicting and warning for the last few decades. For instance, since the Millennium Summit in September 2000, almost all the UN General Assembly meetings have emphasised the need for a stronger multilateralism to tackle complex global challenges. In the meetings, leaders warned of issues such as global terrorism, climate change, and pandemics. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO’s consultations for anticipating epidemics and continuous warnings are significant. The 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), an agreement between 196 countries to work together for global health security, is a case in point. The IHR aims to prevent, protect against, control, and provide a public health response through multilateral actions.11
No pandemic in the past led to the collapse of the international economy in a manner that is witnessed today. In the absence of a coordinated multilateral response, it would be difficult for the states to effectively tackle the socio-economic fallout of the pandemic, individually. Similarly, in the absence of a multilateral institution, it will be costlier and difficult for the states to collect information and data on the origin and spread of the pandemic. This would affect not only the vaccine research but the progress of global public health as well. In the past, the global community had successfully mustered a coordinated response to similar crises. It has been aptly observed that the “threats posed by SARS in 2003, H1N1 (swine flu) in 2009, MERS in 2012, Ebola in 2014-2016, and the 2008 global financial crisis were all contained through rapid multilateral action.”12
The COVID-19 pandemic has also exposed vulnerabilities of the international system, particularly those of multilateral institutions. When the much spoken borderless threat became a reality, the multilateral institutions were found not only unprepared but acting in a self-destructive mode. A UNSC resolution could have galvanised the global community towards a collective response, coalesced around international security, against COVID-19. However, what the world is witnessing is self-destructive multilateralism. The conflict over the WHO’s role and subsequent paralysis of the UNSC is the most striking example. By side-lining the role of its health agency, the UNSC is performing nothing but a Hara-kiri. The member states should act before such actions become a contagion and kill other multilateral institutions.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Although the new measures announced to fast-track the defence sector are significant, they do not add up to a comprehensive and overarching reforms package.
There were two main takeaways from the policy reforms in the defence sector announced by the finance minister on May 16, 2020: corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and raising of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cap through the automatic route from 49 per cent to 74 per cent.1
These two measures have been under consideration for long. The debilitating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have seemingly prompted the government into fast-tracking them.
As always, the fine print of these, and other decisions announced by the minister will be crucial for their smooth and expeditious implementation; but more importantly, for them to start showing the anticipated results.
One cannot say whether the OFB’s 41 units will be converted into one mega-corporation or reconstituted into several clusters. But what can be said with near certainty is that mere corporatisation will not be enough to achieve whatever results are expected to coemerge from this attempt.
The decision to corporatise the OFB would require managing numerous other issues, the most pressing of them being to assuage the anxiety of its workforce, including officers.
With the existing system of budgetary support for the OFB’s working capital, in all probability, vanishing with the planned corporatisation, the Board’s overall financial management could also pose an immediate challenge which, in turn, could become tangled in legal wrangling.
With one or more additional corporations to manage, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) will also have to address a larger and more pressing question: how to reform the structure and functioning of the existing and new undertakings/corporations in deference to the persisting adverse criticism – often unwarranted – of their performance.
Further, an increase in the FDI cap to 74 per cent through the automatic route meets a longstanding demand by overseas companies and investors. But how attractive or financially remunerative would it be for them to invest in India’s military-industrial complex would depend on the fine print and conditions predicated to this liberalisation.
It is unknown at this stage whether or not companies willing to invest 74 per cent FDI would be at par with other Indian companies in which the majority stake is held by the local investors.
While similar treatment of all companies with FDI up to 74 per cent will enable them to participate in indigenous production and procurement on an equal footing, the actual inflow of resources would depend to a substantial extent on MoD’s capacity to buy the indigenously made products. The situation is a bit worrisome on this account.
With the three services registering a gap of more than Rs one lakh crore between their projected requirements and the MoD’s allocation, rising committed liabilities and the near certainty of no further additional funding this year, it may take time before the overall situation starts showing financial promise for foreign investors.
Viewed with this background, the decision to provide a separate budget for domestic capital procurement is, to say the least, enigmatic. The MoD is one among several ministries asked to cap expenditure during the first quarter to 20 per cent of its annual budget for this fiscal.
It is quite likely that with a recession predicted due to the pandemic, such restrictions may continue or even intensify over the three subsequent quarters. If so, this would discount the possibility of a separate budget provision being made any time during the current financial year.
A separate budget provision, as proposed by the minister – who was also the defence minister for two years till 2019 – would make sense only if it is by way of additional allocation over and above the current average level of funding for capital expenditure aimed at modernisation and acquiring new materiel.
If it is not, segmentation of the budget outlay into a component meant exclusively for equipment procurement from domestic sources and another for procurement from foreign sources would only end up restricting the flexibility presently available to use the funds, irrespective of the supply source.
The decision to notify – and continuously update – the list of weapons/platforms whose import would be prohibited seems equally restrictive and limiting. In keeping with the procurement policy since 2016, there is no way the MoD can import materiel that is locally available or alternately can be indigenously manufactured.
It is unclear what additional purpose would be served by banning the import of these items. If anything, it will make it procedurally more complex to import any such item, should its induction become operationally necessary.
Other reforms announced by the finance minister include the establishment of a Project Management Unit (PMU) to ensure timely completion of the procurement process, facilitating quicker decision-making, formulation of realistic General Staff Qualitative Requirements (GSQRs) and overhauling the Trial and Testing procedures.
It may be recalled that the former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had once publicly declared that some of the military’s QRs appeared to be out of ‘Marvel comic books’, as the technologies and capabilities they specified were ‘absurd and unrealistic’.2 The April 2012 Defence Parliamentary Committee had also revealed that as many as 41 of the Indian Army’s tenders were scrapped because of the restrictive QRs.3
Meanwhile, allocation of Rs 400 crore to the Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme (DTIS) has been approved by the MoD to create six to eight testing facilities for locally developed defence equipment over the next five years.4
The Scheme envisages setting these test facilities with grants-in-aid from the MoD and corpus private industry and respective state governments. The latter would band together as Special Purpose Vehicles to build the test facilities in the two Defence Industrial Corridors in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh and, possibly, elsewhere.
Although these new measures to fast-track the defence sector are significant, they do not add up to a comprehensive and overarching reforms package. What is also lacking is a professional bespoke organisation capable of steering India’s complex materiel procurement process and managing life cycle support and eventual upgradation.
A committee of military and managerial experts constituted by the MoD some years ago had recommended a slew of measures to deal specifically with this aspect. It is time the committee’s recommendations are given due consideration.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Petersberg Climate Dialogue and Post COVID-19 Green Recovery
Anwesha Mohanty
May 19, 2020
An informed scenario would be to release the weight of unsustainable debts, allowing the developing countries to focus on domestic sustainable development aimed at achieving climate neutrality, instead of developed countries’ over-emphasis on fossil fuel in their economic recovery packages.
“Climate disruption is approaching a point of no return [...] we must act decisively to protect our planet from both the coronavirus and the existential threat of climate disruption,” said the United Nations (UN) Secretary General António Guterres in his message on the International Mother Earth Day on April 22, 2020.1His message assumes significance as it came just a week before the 11th Annual Petersberg Climate Dialogue (PCD), where ministers from over 30 countries met online on April 27-28 to debate climate action. PCD is a forum annually convened by Germany, bringing together a group of countries to discuss ways to advance global climate action. It is also seen as a key milestone in preparation for the annual UN climate change conferences. The country holding the incoming presidency of COP co-hosts the PCD with Germany. As the 26th session of the UN Conference of Parties (COP26), which was to be held in Glasgow, Scotland in November this year, has been postponed to 2021, the high-level ministerial discussions at the 11th PCD provided an opportunity to secure greater support for climate action.
The United Kingdom (UK) Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and designated President of COP26, Alok Sharma, in his remarks made at the 11th PCD exuded gravitas amidst the pandemic when he stated that “We all know that climate risks are growing year by year. And the steps we take now to rebuild our economies can have a profound impact on our societies’ future sustainability, resilience and, ultimately, wellbeing of humans, but of course, nature as well.”2 These observations clearly allude to sustained climate impacts that are only set to get worse if efforts to address climate change are not scaled-up urgently. So far, 2020 has witnessed an intense Pacific typhoon, continued Arctic ice melting and severe drought in parts of the world, among other impending disasters. These impacts are experienced overwhelmingly by the more vulnerable developing countries in the global south that have contributed the least to climate change.
Major Agenda
This year’s PCD took place at a crucial juncture when countries around the world were busy tackling COVID-19 to save lives, overcoming social and economic consequences of the pandemic while also preparing for the implementation phase of the Paris Climate Agreement in the post-2020 period. Despite the current crisis, the German Government decided to host the dialogue digitally. Reiterating the need for continued dialogue, the German Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze observed that “climate change continues to exist, even if it is receiving less attention right now.”3 In this year’s edition of PCD, both the UK and Germany had put a clear focus on “sustainable recovery” in response to the coronavirus crisis.
PCD’s stated goal for 2020 is to focus on organising green economic recovery, post the pandemic, so that the countries can proceed with ambitious climate action despite the postponement of COP26. The prime objective is green recovery.4 This means not only creating new jobs but also advancing climate action in ways that would make the entire world more resilient. It also includes designing of stimulus programmes that will facilitate a more committed climate policy in the future.
Two areas of significant importance are the power and transport sectors. Energy transition and accelerating the move to zero-emission road transport are two of the five key campaigns that the UK is going to be focusing on, in the lead up to COP26. The challenge is how to speed up the ongoing efforts aimed at building a zero-emission and climate-resilient global economy, whilst at the same time creating jobs and supporting communities through the transition.5 To meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, the international community first needs to decarbonise the global economy about three to five times faster over the next decade than it did over the last two decades. This would require increased use of cheap and clean power; scaling up of batteries and fuel cells in road transport; and opening up of new pathways to decarbonisation in the industrial, construction, aviation and shipping sectors.
Reverting to Fossil Fuel
Interestingly, while PCD is emphasising zero-emission and green recovery, many developed countries that are among the highest carbon emitters are planning to make huge investments in fossil fuel industries as part of their economic recovery packages, in the post COVID-19 period. For instance, the US is set to bail out its airline industry without conditions attached to emissions. The US administration has moved to weaken a raft of environmental regulations.6 In China, subsidies for fossil fuel vehicles and easing of permits for coal-mining could raise emissions.7 Similarly, other big economies like Canada, South Africa, Brazil, etc., have taken an anti-renewable energy stance. While greenhouse gas emissions are set to fall nearly eight per cent this year,8 any beneficial impact on the climate is likely to be short-lived and could quickly be outweighed by increased emissions if the economic recovery resumes on a high-carbon path. An informed scenario would be to release the weight of unsustainable debts, through debt cancellation and restructuring, allowing the developing countries to focus on their domestic sustainable development aimed at climate neutrality, instead of developed countries’ over-emphasis on fossil fuel in their economic recovery packages.
PCD and India
Representing India in the first virtual PCD, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar stated: “As the World is unitedly engaged in finding a vaccine for novel Coronavirus, likewise we should have climate technology as open source which must be available at an affordable cost.”9 He stressed the importance of grants to the developing world vis-à-vis climate finance and highlighted the opportunity the world has today to accelerate renewable energy deployment and creating new jobs in that sector. He also observed that COVID-19 has taught the world how to survive on less. This echoes with the spirit of PCD. Reinforcing India’s stance, UN Secretary General Guterres called upon the developed countries to commit $100 billion a year, a longstanding goal under the global climate negotiations, to help developing countries curb emissions and cope with the impacts of climate breakdown. He also hinted at moves to reduce the debt on many developing countries, which has been mooted as a way to help them deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.10
Conclusion
The volatile mix of two crises – climate change and COVID-19 – could act as a multiplier of shocks to societies and economies. What is clear is that the developing countries in the global south would continue to experience climate impacts, amid the struggle to strengthen their fragile and overburdened healthcare systems to deal with the pandemic, and at the same time keeping their economies afloat. Increasing debts and decreasing revenues due to the economic downturn will have a deleterious impact on the developing countries that remain largely unprepared to deal with rising climate, health and economic challenges.11 Besides, re-emphasis on fossil fuel in the economic recovery packages of the developed countries, tied with their non-committal approach to the Paris Climate Agreement, will only neutralise the little progress made towards mitigating climate change.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
4. Globally, the cost of solar power has fallen by 85 per cent and that of wind power by 49 per cent since 2010. Renewables are already cheaper than the new coal power in two-thirds of all countries in the world. And before long, it will be cheaper to build new renewables than to continue to operate existing coal plants. Another promising sector viz. Green Recovery is cheap and clean electricity, with feasible cheaper and cleaner technology in road transport, whereby electric vehicles are cheaper to run than fossil fuel cars and are expected to be cheaper to buy by the early 2020s.
6. On May 02, 2019, the Trump administration announced that they will roll back safety measures that regulate offshore drilling operations. On April 09, 2019, President Trump signed two executive orders that will smoothen the path for companies to build oil and gas pipelines and limit the tools states have to block them. The Trump administration, as part of their “Energy Dominance” initiative, has consistently sought to streamline the domestic energy production process. See Michael Greshko, et al., “A running list of how President Trump is changing environmental policy”, National Geographic, May 03, 2019.
7. China remains the single biggest provider of international public finance for coal, and the promised transition has focused on coal chemicals rather than abandoning coal, counter to national and international trends, to move away from coal. See Han Chen and Ipek Gençsü, “China: G20 Coal Subsidies”, ODI.
10. All developed countries at the PCD must commit to achieving the collective commitment to provide US$ 100 billion in climate finance annually by 2020 and agree to go beyond this target after 2020. A clear priority is scaling-up finance for measures to adapt to climate change, which is severely underfunded, and creating a process to mobilise finance to address loss and damage caused by extreme climatic impacts – all of which must be new and additional. See “Petersberg Climate Dialogue & other topics - Daily Briefing (28 April 2020)”, Noon Briefing by Stephane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General of the United Nations, United Nations, April 28, 2020.
11. Many vulnerable countries are bound to deal with increasing debt service payments, in addition to trying to tackle climate change at the same time as addressing the current pandemic. As such, grants and concessional loans could be prioritised and provided using a gender-responsive approach.
Driven by the Covid-19 pandemic, the economic challenges for India emanating from the Gulf region are highly imminent and discernible.
The spread of COVID-19 pandemic in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is a cause of concern for India. It stems from the fact that India has large and varied interests in the region, which would be affected if the situation in the GCC countries continues to worsen. On its part, India has extended support to the countries in the region by providing Hydroxychloroquine tablets to Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE); sending a 15-member medical team to Kuwait at the request of its government; and another team of 88 medical and healthcare professionals to the UAE to help the country fight against the pandemic. By quickly providing medical aid and expertise to the GCC countries, India has reinforced its image of a strong and reliable friend standing alongside in an hour of crisis. However, given the close economic link it has with the GCC countries, it will be difficult for India to insulate itself from the economic fallouts of the spread of COVID-19 in the Gulf.
GCC is a key trade partner of India with annual bilateral trade of around US$ 121 billion in 2018-19.1 Among the GCC countries, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are the two key trade partners of India with annual bilateral trade of US$ 60 billion and US$ 34 billion, respectively.2 The disruption of industrial and commercial activities in the GCC countries would, therefore, impact the bilateral trade and commerce with India. The GCC countries have started feeling the early impact of the pandemic on their economy and are adopting several austerity measures. Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadaan stated that the kingdom has lost 50 per cent of its oil revenues because of the fall in oil prices. He added that the country is prepared to take painful financial measures including delaying projects and reducing expenditures to tackle the economic fallouts of the pandemic.3 The Saudi Government has also allowed the private sector to cut the salaries of its employees by 40 per cent for a period of six months and thereafter the contract can also be terminated.4 Along with the slump in the oil prices, the closure of pilgrimage has also affected government’s revenues.
In April, Dubai decided to cut administrative and general expenses by at least 20 per cent and freeze spending on construction projects.5 The tourism sector which contributes 11.9 per cent to the UAE’s GDP and creates around 745,000 jobs in the country has been badly affected.6 Qatar has also postponed several projects worth US$ 8.2 billion.7 The spread of COVID-19 in the Gulf at the time of falling oil prices further constrains their capacity to deal with the situation.
In the current scenario, a large number of the nine million strong Indian expatriate workers are at the risk of losing their jobs in the GCC countries. Many of them want to return to India at the earliest. In April, India began the registration process for its nationals who wanted to come back to India. In response, a large number of Indians in different Gulf countries have registered themselves to fly back to the country. More than 150,000 Indian nationals have registered in the UAE alone, with 25 per cent of them wanting to come back as they have lost their jobs.8 Absorbing them in the local job market would remain a challenge for the respective state governments in the months to come. The fate of those choosing to stay back in the Gulf, in the hope that they will continue with their jobs after the worst phase is over, will depend on the state of the economy of the host countries in the post-pandemic period. As a large number of Indians work in the private sector, their chances of continuing with their employment would depend upon the capability and resilience of this sector in the Gulf region.
India has been the biggest recipient of remittances in the world, receiving US$ 79 billion in 2018.9 More than half of its total remittances come from the GCC countries alone.10 Disruption of economic activities and loss of employment in the Gulf will affect the inflow of remittances to India. The World Bank has already made a prediction that global remittances are going to witness sharpest decline in recent years as a result of the disruptions created by the COVID-19 pandemic.11In the event of thousands of Indians coming back from the Gulf, the inflow of remittances to India will be significantly affected.
Prolonged pandemic situation might lead the GCC countries to strictly implement their workforce nationalisation policies. This would further affect the Indian workers in the region. Oman, for instance, has called for replacing all the expatriate workers with the locals in the government sector amidst the pandemic.12 Although this move is not specifically aimed at the Indian workers, it would potentially affect the number of Indians working in Oman.
Thus, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic challenges for India emanating from the Gulf region are highly imminent and discernible. Although the magnitude of it remains to be seen, India will need to be prepared to face the economic challenges coming from the Gulf region.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
1. Export-Import Data Bank, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India.
Virus As Bio-Weapon: Contested Origins of Novel Coronavirus
A. Vinod Kumar
May 12, 2020
It might be difficult to prove any weaponisation intent or man-made origins to the SARS-CoV-2. Yet, the mass deaths and disruption caused by the virus forebodes imminent exploitation of biological agents for political ends.
“Someone doesn’t have to weaponise the bird flu. The birds are doing that,” says Ellis Cheever of Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in the 2011 movie, Contagion, when asked by the United States Homeland Security whether someone had weaponised the flu instead of deploying explosives to ‘launch an attack’ at a crowded marketplace. As prophetic the movie turned out to be, the scene visualised the peculiar nature and manifestations of this threat: an invisible organism that is hatched in nature, but, incidentally, can also be appropriated by humans for destructive ends.
The spectre of a microbial pathogen ploughing through every habitable land on Earth infecting close to four million and killing more than two and a half lakh can spawn disbelief on the kind of mass disruption and deaths a single-source microbe can unleash.1 With little resistance put up by a humbled human race and no reliable cure in sight,2 the question whether the SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2) was nature’s retort to encroaching mankind or it was a man-made assault on humanity continues to hang as a mystery.
While most reports pointed to Wuhan’s wet markets and its wild livestock as source of a zoonotic (animal-to-human) transmission, a parallel narrative of the virus having originated in or spilling out of a laboratory, intentionally or by accident, has again gained traction. With global opinion being mobilised against China to make it accountable for the virus outbreak, the resultant geopolitical firestorm does not appear to be a mere fleeting affair. Rather, the omnipotent imprint of the pandemic is likely to generate new interest on the exploitation of biological agents for political ends which, in turn, could necessitate greater normative impulses to mitigate the consequent dangers.
The Whodunit
Even before US President Donald Trump described the CoV-2 as the ‘China Virus’, sections of the American media had run stories on the presence of a virology institute in Wuhan and insinuating the lab’s linkage with the outbreak. Subsequently, they picked up murmurs in sections of the Mandarin press (and social media), based outside the mainland, on the possibilities of the virus having leaked from a Wuhan lab, where it was claimed that the security was enhanced after the outbreak.3 That Wuhan has China’s only BSL-4 (Bio-Safety Level-4 being the highest grade) lab4 – the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) with its National Biosafety Laboratory reportedly being Asia’s only repository of the SARS-CoV and Ebola specimens – was good enough to buttress these theories.5 Pacing up the spotlight on WIV was a leaked report quoting earlier US Embassy cables from Beijing highlighting lax security at the Wuhan lab.6
Among the surmises include claims that the virus, going by its aggressively virulent nature, could have been engineered in Wuhan lab as a bio-weapon (or with ulterior commercial motives including a vaccination project), or that an experimental sample could have ejected out by accident through an infected employee or an animal specimen. In fact, despite initial reports that the first human transmission could have occurred at the Wuhan market, subsequent conjectures veered around various theories including that the patient zero was a WIV researcher and that animal specimens used for experiments were sold out to the local wet market.
The Chinese attitude too has been unhelpful: concealing information on the virus origins and deaths, and restricting research on these matters on the one hand, and indulging in aggressive diplomatic battles on the other. Having countered the initial negativity by casting aspersions on the US military as having planted the virus during a joint-exercise and pointing to corona traces in influenza already prevalent in the US, the Chinese officialdom was belligerent towards countries that sought international investigation on the outbreak and Chinese complicity in it.7 While Trump putting the spotlight on China might be to cover up his lax domestic management of the COVID-19 spread, the call for international investigations, the World Health Organisation’s credibility deficit apart, is necessitated by global concerns on the lack of transparency regarding the initial Wuhan imprints and wildlife trade in virus-prone wet markets despite they being causal for many outbreaks.8
Hatched in Nature or Lab?
Notwithstanding the many inferences made about the Wuhan origin of the CoV-2, the global health science community has, by and large, been unanimous in dismissing the possibility of the CoV-2 being a lab-engineered pathogen. The authoritative medical journal, Lancet, published a joint statement expressing solidarity with the Chinese scientists and “condemning all ‘conspiracy theories’ that suggest COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”9 The scientific consensus against a lab-origin of the virus is based on results of a handful of genome-sequencing of the COVID samples undertaken by various collaborative ventures. The foremost among them has been a multinational study which concluded that the backbone of the SARS-CoV-2 was not based on the previous seven CoV versions,10 thus rejecting the possibility of a lab output. The study concludes:
While the analyses suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may bind human ACE2 with high affinity, computational analyses predict that the interaction is not ideal and that the RBD sequence is different from those shown in SARS-CoV to be optimal for receptor binding. Thus, the high-affinity binding …is most likely the result of natural selection on a human...This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation...improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation…the genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone.11
While this study infers that the natural selection happened in an animal host through zoonotic transfer, other studies also echo the contention that the CoV-2 has its origin in a natural host (bats) before their zoonotic transfer, possibly through an animal intermediary.12 Another study postulates that the “RNA sequences closely resemble those of viruses that silently circulate in bats, and… implicates a bat-origin virus infecting unidentified animal species sold in China’s live-animal markets.” These assessments validate the prevalent thinking about intermediaries being the transfer host for the CoV-2, like (civet) cats being transfer hosts in the 2002 SARS outbreak, though the transmitter in the latest outbreak is yet to be established notwithstanding numerous references about pangolins being a possible one.13
A Bio-Conflict in Making
Notwithstanding the global calls for investigation into the coronavirus origin and occasional banter on the lab linkages, ongoing assessments including by the US intelligence community has ruled out the possibility of the virus being a lab-developed bio-weapon. However, China’s actions continue to be suspect, particularly its intellectual espionage14 and the surreptitious inroads it had made into Western research ventures.15 Irrespective of where the truth lies, many feel that the contagion was the closest manifestation of a bio-weapon being unleashed on a global scale. The UN chief, Antonio Guterres, for instance, had described the pandemic as providing “a window onto how a bioterrorist attack might unfold.”16 Though alluding only to threats from non-state actors “gaining access to virulent strains,” between the lines are clear pointers on the likely intentions and capabilities of states in this domain.
In fact, how CoV-2 has brought nations to a calamitous halt – impeding all ways of lives and impairing public health systems world over – propels the need to contemplate the potential implications if states decide to ‘weaponise’ biological organisms as a means to covertly wreak havoc on competitor economies and societies. That such organisms can be developed on frugal budgets in state-owned labs and deployed stealthily, makes them an attractive option when asymmetry and subversions are sought against rivals. Quite similar to the cyber domain turning into a proxy conflict zone, the use of biological means to trigger large-scale disruptions and deaths in rival nations is an eventuality that has potent strategic imminence. Furthermore, the cut-throat race to monopolise vaccine pathways also aggravates the risks inherent in many of the state-supported research and development forays that evade public scrutiny.
Though the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) has established norms against the weaponisation of biological agents, the Convention innately provides the loopholes for misuse and diversion by enabling the scope for their prophylactic and peaceful applications.17 Furthermore, the failure of state-parties to finalise a credible verification mechanism and a weak oversight framework,18 dependent on the declaration by states, is a significant reminder that the shield against the weaponisation of biological weapons remains fragile and vulnerable to the contingencies of the international system, particularly the great power politics.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
1. Viruses are not considered a living organism as they do not meet the general definition of life: they do not respond to changes in the environment, cannot reproduce on own and do so by infecting a host cell. Nonetheless, there is a greater description now of viruses being microorganisms or microbes. For a debate, see “What are microorganisms?”, Centre for Geobiology, University of Bergen, January 11, 2010.
2. The quest for a cure to the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) is an ongoing endeavour. While at least three dozen ventures are running in different parts of the world to develop a vaccine against the SARS-Cov-2 virus, the more critical mission is the pursuit of a suitable treatment for the COVID infected patients.
Various existing anti-virals like Lopinavir/ritonavir - generic drugs used for HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS treatment – were used in combinations on COVID-19 patients. While nodal public health bodies in the US, India and other countries have approved the use of these drugs, the efficacy of such combo-treatments is seen as marginal. See Jienchi Dorward and Kome Gbinigie, “Lopinavir/ritonavir: A rapid review of effectiveness in COVID-19”, The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford, April 14, 2020.
Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, was widely sought after for a brief period with the US President Donald Trump staunchly backing the drug for COVID-19 treatment. Many sections in the global health community, however, cast aspersions on it as a proven remedy. Nonetheless, the drug is extensively being administered as a precautionary dose for health workers in many affected sectors. See Joshua Geleris, et.al., “Observational Study of Hydroxychloroquine in Hospitalized Patients with Covid-19”, The New England Journal of Medicine, May 07, 2020.
The anti-viral drug that has now found greater acceptance is Remdesivir, developed by Gilead Sciences. Described as a broad-spectrum drug, Remdesivir has been developed to treat various respiratory viruses and was tested earlier on Ebola, SARS and MERS patients. While researchers are not yet conclusive about its efficacy for the COVID-19 treatment, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved its use based on Gilead’s claim of improved recovery time seen in its patient trials. As part of the WHO solidarity trials, India also received over 1000 doses of the drug for testing in COVID-19 patients. For a scientific assessment, See Yeming Wang, et.al., “Redmesivir in adults with severe COVID:19: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial”, The Lancet, April 29, 2020.
3. One of the mentioned indications was a directive from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology titled: “Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus.” See Stephen W. Mosher, “Don’t buy China’s story: The coronavirus may have leaked from a lab”, New York Post, February 22, 2020.
5. Matching its BSL-4 grading, the WIV is considered as having an exemplary record on animal-origin pathogens with its researchers credited with breakthrough work in tracing coronavirus legacies to horse-shoe bats. For a detailed report, see Jane Qiu, “How China’s ‘Bat Woman’ Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus”, Scientific American, April 27, 2020.
7. While Zhao Lijian, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, quoted a CDC testimony and a Canadian study (since removed) for his claims of March 12, Hua Chunying, another spokeswoman, responded on May 06 to Mike Pompeo’s statement of the virus originating in a Chinese laboratory by claiming that the US had shut down research last August at its military germ lab at Fort Detrick over biosecurity issues. Instances of diplomatic aggression include warning Australia of an economic backlash, Chinese envoy in Paris making snide comments about France’s response to COVID-19, among others.
10. Among the seven versions, the SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are supposed to cause severe illnesses while the other versions, namely, HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E, display milder symptoms. See Kristian G. Andersen, et.al., “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2”, Nature Medicine, No. 26, March 17, 2020.
12. The WIV team had in their SARS-origin quest found out that the bat-borne coronavirus comes with incredible genetic diversity, and that the pathogen presence in them was ephemeral and seasonal. They had concluded that the spike proteins of the new coronavirus are so effective in targeting specific receptors on human cells that it is hard to imagine humans manufacturing them, and that this feature could have evolved naturally. See no.5.
18. The BWC does not have an international verification regime or its own international organisation to facilitate its effective implementation. Activities pertaining to BWC are managed by an Implementation Support Unit functioning at the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, with just seven staffers in its roll.
While Egypt has managed to contain the spread of the virus, the economic and political fallout of the pandemic poses a critical challenge to the stability of the country.
The COVID-19 pandemic has reignited the existing political fault lines in Egypt. While the country has managed to contain the spread of the virus, the economic and political fallout of the pandemic poses a critical challenge to the stability of the country. Key political issues involve the throttling of freedom of press and human rights abuse, anchored in emergency laws, and the growing influence of the military in Egypt’s political and economic affairs. Against the backdrop of these churnings, the country’s economy is likely to feel the heat of the drop in international tourism as well as remittances received from expatriate Egyptians.
Compared to the situation in other regional countries, Egypt is relatively less affected by COVID-19. As of June 2, there were more than 26,300 confirmed cases with over 1,000 casualties.1 However, the international media had alleged a cover-up of the actual number of cases. According to a report published in the British daily The Guardian on March 15, the cases of infection in the country could have been higher, given the fact that several of the European tourists returning from Egypt were found positive.2 The Egyptian Government not only denied the allegations but also expelled the British daily’s local correspondent, Ruth Michaelson, apart from threatening the closure of its Cairo bureau.3
The Egyptian Government first undertook measures to mitigate the spread of the virus on March 15 when they suspended all international flights and closed down schools, colleges, universities and cinema halls.4 However, as the infection continued to rise, the demand for increasing social and religious curbs intensified. Meanwhile, the reported death of two high ranking military officers and the illness of the third, and the absence of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi from public view led to speculations about the president being quarantined given his exposure to the deceased military officers.5
Amidst these speculations and growing criticism for mishandling the situation, Sisi attended a public event on March 22. Two days later, the government announced a series of measures to contain the pandemic.6 Accordingly, a night curfew was announced during which all public places, services and transportation were to remain closed. Further, all “malls, gyms, sporting clubs, restaurants and cafes” apart from non-essential government services were also shut down.7 Shops selling essential products had to operate within the reduced working hours. Notably, the ban on public religious gatherings and celebrations was implemented during the holy month of Ramadan.
Determined to tackle the pandemic head-on, Egypt announced a US$ 64 million funding for its health services in addition to a US$ 79.3 million stimulus package.8 To create public health awareness, sanitisation campaigns were organised in cities and villages with the help of youth volunteers.9 Measures were also taken to enhance critical-care capacity apart from stocking up of essential medical supplies. Eight isolation hospitals with a capacity of 2,000 beds including 1,000 ICU beds and 400 ventilators were set up. Nevertheless, some of the healthcare professionals criticised these measures for not being robust enough to protect them from potential exposure to the virus in their line of duty, apart from low medical allowances and skyrocketing prices of masks and sanitisers.10 Overall, despite the shortcomings, the government’s initiatives helped contain the spread of COVID-19.
The Sisi regime, however, has been accused of using the pandemic as an opportunity to intensify the crackdown on media and the opposition. On May 7, the regime amended the 1958 Emergency Law, ostensibly, to enforce public order. The government’s critics underlined that the amended law is designed to expand the military’s judicial power, particularly in the context of Article 4 which allowed the president to authorise prosecution of those found violating the emergency in military courts.11 The critics further pointed out that only five out of the 18 amendments were related to public health and cautioned that the amendments intended to suppress any potential protests that might be triggered by the deteriorating economic situation in the country.
The regime, meanwhile, has taken extraordinarily harsh measures in blocking a dozen news websites for allegedly spreading rumours about the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides expelling the Guardian correspondent in March, a reporter with the Arabic daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, Haisam Mahgoub, was arrested on May 11 for violating the COVID-19 curfew. He was also accused of spreading fake news after one of his reports highlighted the sufferings of those affected by the restrictions amidst the pandemic.12 This follows the growing trend of imposing restrictions on the freedom of press wherein Egypt’s Supreme Council for Media Regulation had taken action against several independent bloggers and social media influencers for views deemed critical of the authorities. Unsurprisingly, Egypt ranks 166 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index 2020.13
Since taking over power in 2013, the Sisi regime has been expanding emergency laws, giving more power to military courts and undermining the independence of the judiciary. This process had gained further traction in the aftermath of the September 2019 anti-regime protests. Today, COVID-19 has provided a renewed opportunity to continue the process of curbing the simmering discontent in the country.
Amidst the political churnings, Egypt faces an uncertain economic future, given the pandemic induced disruption. One of the cornerstones of the Egyptian economy is tourism. It is the third-largest contributor to the nation’s GDP after international remittances and non-oil exports. In 2018-19, the tourism sector contributed US$ 12.2 billion to the economy. In comparison, inward remittances during the financial year 2018-19 stood at US$ 26.4 billion while non-oil exports were to the tune of US$ 17.1 billion.14 For the foreseeable future, Egypt is likely to get a fraction of the over 9,00,000 international tourists it receives annually.15
While the government has announced an economic package worth US$ 6.35 billion to ease the impact on tourism and construction sectors, the economy could still find it difficult to recover from a potential loss of tourism revenue which accounts for five per cent of its GDP.
Moreover, the likely fall in remittances sent by the 4.5 million Egyptian expatriates in the Gulf, constituting around 10 per cent of the GDP, and decline in oil prices can deal the proverbial blow to the country’s economy. The only silver lining is the two per cent increase in revenue of the Suez Canal Authority over the previous year.16 Today, large sections of the urban population, comprising the poor and vulnerable, remain outside the purview of the economic package. This has triggered discontentment among them leading to growing criticism of the regime over the handling of the pandemic.
To conclude, while Egypt has done well to check the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic by bolstering the public health sector and imposing restrictions on the movement of people and gatherings, yet the deepening political and economic fault lines could pose a serious challenge to the Sisi regime.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Self-reliance in defence may be better realised if India’s military instrument were to be shaped by political guidance and geopolitical considerations instead of being carried away by the contemporary winds of COVID-19.
During his address to the nation on May 12, the Prime Minister called for a ‘Self-Reliant India’ as the pathway to be adopted as India confronts the COVID-19 pandemic. For the defence sector, ‘self-reliance’ has remained elusive for seven decades and India remains the second largest arms importer on the global stage.1 Import dependence and consequent strategic vulnerability have long been an area of concern. Despite continuous efforts, indigenisation has remained a losing battle and its turnaround will mainly depend on reforms in India’s military-industrial base, which is the supply side. This comment pertains to the demand side and seeks to examine the issue of alignment of national security objectives with arming of the military.
While there is likely to be a positive change in response to the Prime Minister’s call for ‘self-reliance’, one must also be wary of the crisis pushing misinformed ideas to the surface. For a major reform, the Prime Minister needs to address the demand side of the self-reliance problem in defence, which, in essence, is rooted in the inadequacies of civil-military relations. Without doubt, the recent structural reform through the creation of the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), who is also the Permanent Chairman – Chiefs of Staff Committee (PC-COSC) and head of the Department of Military Affairs (DMA), has boosted the possibility of improved civil-military relations.
But first, to answer the question as to why the Prime Minister should take control of the demand side of the problem. It is because the Armed Forces lack political guidance. Ideally, a National Security Strategy (NSS) would have provided the source from which the Ministry of Defence (MoD) could under the Raksha Mantri’s signature provide political guidance to the military. For long, in the absence of a mother document like the NSS, the Armed Forces, through the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS), have formulated the draft of the Raksha Mantri’s operational directive which is then approved by the Raksha Mantri; in reality, the Armed Forces were scripting their own political guidance! The problem was compounded by a lack of expertise within the MoD. That inadequacy has been addressed by the creation of DMA. So, now, while the MoD is better equipped to provide political guidance, it is still severely handicapped in the absence of the NSS.
Two years ago, in April 2018, the task of formulating the NSS was given to the Defence Planning Committee (DPC) headed by the National Security Advisor (NSA), but nothing has been heard about it.2 Among other interactions, the formulation of the NSS will require intense civil-military discussions. The first important step is for the NSS to be crystallised by the National Security Council (NSC) and approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).
The NSS is not the golden key but an essential first step. The MoD should formulate the Raksha Mantri’s political directive, post the interaction between the political, military and civil service leaders. The political directive evolved should be based on the financial support likely to be available. Importantly, how much financial support can be planned for, at a time when it is increasingly challenged by the dire economic circumstances, should not be left to the mandarins in the finance ministry but should instead be driven by political considerations at the highest political level. It would be a strategic misstep if defence allocations are not given their due even as the clouds of geopolitical frictions, characterised by growing great power rivalry and China’s increasing influence in the sub-continent and the Indian Ocean, are getting darker.
So, while the Rs 20 lakh crore economic package announced is the developmental push, there is no room to neglect India’s military preparedness. Asking the military to stop importing, eschewing state of the art weapons and equipment, relaxing General Staff Qualitative Requirements (GSQRs) and severely cutting its budget ignores the nature of military preparedness3; it is short-sighted and ignores national security imperatives. It is a given that military preparations are to be undertaken for application in the future, which is steeped in uncertainty. Choices made under the shadow of the immediate impact on the economy must not jeopardise the long-term trajectory of military preparations. However, it is this trajectory that needs to be altered with the help of the NSS and the Raksha Mantri’s political directive.
Both of India’s adversaries are nuclear powers and, therefore, the utility and application of force will have to be governed by the reality of the nuclear shadow.4 There is a need for the military to embrace the concept of ‘useable military power’ and differentiating it from ‘deterrent military power’.5 The two can merge but it is subject to risks that political leadership is willing to take. In the nuclear era, political leadership has shown due caution and avoided large scale wars, given that the will of the adversary can no longer be subdued by force. It is a lesson that the Indian political leadership has yet to impose on the military leadership. Moreover, the natural proclivity of the military is risk-taking. Bereft of political guidance, the Indian military could tend to prepare for wars under the nuclear shadow that they should not fight and cannot win.
A military strategy that is based on ‘useable military power’ as its prime focus can facilitate the shaping of India’s military instrument in a manner that will align military power to political objectives, be more effective in the continental and maritime realms, strengthen deterrence, and, facilitate greater self-reliance.
Presently, most of India’s military power is weighted towards Pakistan, instead of its bigger adversary, China. This strategic imbalance is rooted in the political obsession with Pakistan, where the nature of the threat is terrorism. Such a threat requires the military capability to strike without posturing, the strike element being embodied in various forms of usable military power. However, what the country has instead is an army largely structured to capture large tracts of territory, a fact reflected in the unusable military power concentrated in the three strike corps. What is hiding in plain sight, is that several military plans and force structures are surviving from an age that is now history
Structuring land power against China must take into account the fact, that China can use India’s vulnerabilities on the Northern border to exercise political pressure through limited land grabs. Countering this, through ‘useable military power’ is a matter of operational virtuosity and within reach. But what is not affordable and also unnecessary is the creation of the Mountain Strike Corps and such behemoths with questionable utility.6 In essence, a shift in operational doctrines on both fronts can relieve some resources for developing our maritime power that has the potential for being useful and can act as the major deterrent against both adversaries.
India’s maritime power must be developed to exploit all the vulnerabilities of China and Pakistan in the Indian Ocean. Here again, it is not so much about fighting ‘big wars’ but about establishing dominance through the exercise of sea control whenever and wherever required. A land grab in the Northern border must also be deterred by India’s ability to apply force against China’s soft targets like fishing, deep-sea mining or survey elements, etc., in the Indian Ocean. What this entails is a matter of professional choices that is tempered with the long-term realities of the defence budget. But the budget must be parsed by the political leadership and not left to be determined only by financial perspectives.
Self-reliance in defence may be better realised than now if India’s military instrument were to be shaped by political guidance and more comprehensive and integrated geopolitical considerations instead of being carried away by the contemporary winds of COVID-19. Security and development are two sides of the same coin. Self-reliance in defence can progress only after rectifying the focus of the military. The political leadership must take ownership of that correction.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
The movement of the Baloch people is likely to continue because of the strong undercurrent of popular disaffection in the province against the Pakistan state, and the sustained enthusiasm of the people to fight for their freedom, autonomy and rights
On the Eid-ul-Fitr day this year, instead of celebrating and feasting, relatives of Baloch missing persons chose to assemble outside Quetta press club and stage a hunger strike.1 They demanded the early return of those missing so that it could be a happy occasion for them to celebrate. The sad case of missing persons has been going on for decades now. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has over the years condemned the Pakistan state for its dismal record in handling the cases of enforced disappearances in Balochistan and hinted at the involvement of state agencies in such cases. Media personalities taking up this issue have been coerced into silence; the attack on Hamid Mir in 2014, a well-known Pakistani journalist, is a case in point. In August 2019, members of the HRCP lamented that “the Government of Pakistan has always treated Balochistan as a conflict zone” from where truth does not see the light of the day.2 The approach of mainstream media towards the province has been abysmal as they refrain from reporting massive human rights violation for fear of reprisal.
Some years ago, a retired banker, Mama Qadeer, had led a more than 2000 km long protest march from Quetta to Islamabad (October 2013-February 2014) to convey the anguish and angst of the Baloch people.3 The Supreme Court had also sought to intervene in the case. But the number of enforced disappearances continued to mount. The government figures in Pakistan, which are not reliable, point to more than 2178 unresolved cases by March 2019.4 However, HRCP has reported about 47,000 Baloch who have gone missing or disappeared. According to the Hakkpan organisation, a Baloch human rights organisation, 568 persons disappeared and 241 were killed by the Pakistan security forces in 2019 alone. A 2019 report of the group read that “students remained a main target of military and military-backed death squads during the year 2019.”5
Balochistan provides an apt example of how the Pakistan state has failed to accommodate the socio-cultural, political, and economic aspirations and grievances of the Baloch people, which has led to the present state of affairs. The coercive kill-and-dump policy of the army has only resulted in killings and disappearance of hundreds of innocent Baloch people, hardened nationalist sentiment among the people and steeled their nerves to continue with a popular movement that has become a thorn in the flesh of the Pakistan state.
The Case of Missing Persons
In Balochistan, human rights violations have become the norm. The Pakistan state and its security agencies have habitually trampled on the human rights of the Baloch people in the name of security and territorial integrity. The Pakistan state has been extremely sensitive to all expressions of ethnic autonomy and resistance, and more so in the case of Baloch leaders championing their rights. They are often charged with treason, branded as terrorists, and killed in encounters or picked up by security forces at will only to be added to the ever-expanding list of missing persons. In many cases, their dead bodies are either found in a badly mutilated condition by the roadside or their skeletal remains are discovered in mass graves.
In recent months, going by the reports in social media and online portals run by the Baloch diaspora, there has been a spike in military operations in Baloch areas like Kech, Panjgur, and Awaran districts.6 These areas were reportedly shelled by helicopter gunships and massive raids were carried out afterwards. This is all happening amidst the COVID-19 lockdown. In April alone, in the military raids, 16 Baloch were killed and as many as 73 people were picked up by the Pakistani forces, including students, women, children and infants. However, 28 people were later released.
The Baloch have never felt safe inside Balochistan and now they do not feel safe even outside Pakistan. The case of the disappearance of Rashid Hussain Baloch from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in December 2018, and the recent discovery of the dead body of Sajid Hussain Baloch in Sweden after he went missing in March 2020, only serves to demonstrate that the Baloch rights activists are being trailed even when they have quit Pakistan and are meeting the same fate as their ethnic cousins back home. According to Baloch forums worldwide, Pakistan’s intelligence agencies are extending their influence and operations even in distant shores, especially in countries where the Baloch diaspora is actively propounding the case of Baloch marginalisation in Pakistan.
In the case of Rashid Hussain Baloch, he fled Balochistan after his close relatives were killed by the Pakistan security forces. His cousin, Abdul Majeed, was abducted on October 18, 2010 and his bullet-ridden dead body was found six days later. Two years later, Rashid’s uncle and Majeed’s father, Muhammad Ramzan, was shot dead on February 2, 2012. Rashid had been working in UAE since 2017. While he was travelling to Sharjah in December 2018, his car was intercepted and he was arrested reportedly by the UAE intelligence agencies, and ever since he has gone missing. The online media run by Baloch activists allege that he was handed over to the Pakistani agencies.
Sajid Hussain Baloch had fled Balochistan in September 2012 after he was targeted by the Pakistani establishment for investigating disappearances of the Baloch people. According to reports, some unknown persons broke into his house in Quetta and decamped with his laptop. After passing through different countries to save his life, fate brought Sajid to Sweden in 2018. He was granted asylum in 2019.7 He ran an online newspaper, ‘Balochistan Times’, which sought to raise awareness about Baloch sufferings and lend a voice to the voiceless. On March 2, Sajid boarded a train from Stockholm to Uppsala where he was supposed to check into a new flat. According to Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), he was to collect the keys to his new flat but he did not get off the train in Uppsala. On April 23, Sajid’s body was found in the Fyris River outside Uppsala. The police spokesperson said that the death could be due to an accident or suicide while not ruling out crime. President of the Swedish chapter of RSF, Erik Halkjaer, said that Sajid’s “disappearance might be work related”.8 Observers suspect that he may be a victim of targeted killing as many activists and bloggers of Pakistani origins in Europe claim to be “targeted for speaking up against human rights violations in Pakistan”.
Internal Colonialism and Nationalist Sentiment in Balochistan
Balochistan, almost the size of Germany, constitutes 44 per cent of the total area of Pakistan; however, it is sparsely populated and accounts for only 2.4 per cent of the total population of Pakistan. The Baloch see the dominance and exploitation of the resources from the province as a form of “internal colonialism.” For example, roughly 5.81 per cent of the total gas produced in Balochistan is consumed by it and the rest goes to other provinces, leaving the majority of the province without gas.9 According to the official data, Balochistan contributed gas and oil royalty to the tune of Rs 23.8 billion but it received only Rs 0.09 billion from the year 2013-14 to 2017-18.10
The Baloch fear that the activation of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and development of Gwadar Port will lead to further colonisation of the state by the Punjabis. The Baloch are targeting the Chinese workers as they think that China is colluding with their tormentors to colonise them and exploit their resources. They argue that the Baloch people were not consulted when the decision to build the port was taken, and that a major part of the revenue from it will fill the coffers of the central government while the province will receive only a minor share of it. During the implementation of the CPEC project, the Baloch alleged that the locals were hardly recruited. Sana Baloch of the Balochistan National Part.11
Right from the days of partition, the people of Balochistan have resisted the Pakistan Army’s bid to subjugate them by force. As a mineral-rich area with invaluable resources ranging from copper to natural gas, Balochistan remains a prized possession for the Pakistan state, one that Pakistan has tried to keep under tight control. Beginning with the passing of a resolution for independence in the Kalat National Assembly on August 15, 1947, the aspirations of the Baloch people have oscillated between autonomy and independence. The Pakistan Army has unsuccessfully tried to silence the Baloch voice through the use of overwhelming force, while the ongoing fifth wave of resistance (earlier ones were in 1948, 1958, 1962, and 1973) continues to rage on.
The Pakistan military’s practice of enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention in illegally established military and paramilitary cantonments in and around Balochistan, and innovative methods of torture and torture-killing has continued unabated. Baloch activists, innocent women, children, students, journalists, researchers, and social workers have been put to death indiscriminately. While the world is busy fighting its war on terror in the region, the state terror unleashed on the Baloch people has largely gone unnoticed.
There has also been a proliferation of state-sponsored radical outfits in Balochistan. They operate with impunity and function as de facto para-military arms of the state. The Quetta Shura of the Taliban was also allowed to have its base in Balochistan where it continued to prosper with the active connivance of the Pakistan military. Pakistan’s agencies have unleashed radical Islamist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other non-state actors and collaborators on the Baloch population in their bid to Islamise them. The Baloch people are known to be temperamentally secular and tolerant in their approach to religion.
The world at large has turned a blind eye to the gross human rights violations perpetrated by Pakistan on the innocent Baloch people for the last 73 years, and especially since 2001-02. Pakistan has unleashed a well-crafted plan to crush the people of Balochistan in its brazen quest for the resources of the region. Despite fledgling democratic rule in Pakistan since 2008, there has been hardly any change in the approach of the Pakistan state towards the Baloch people as cases of politically motivated detention and killing and disappearance of Baloch people have increased manifold.
Nevertheless, the movement of the Baloch people to safeguard their rights is likely to continue because of the strong undercurrent of popular disaffection in the province against the Pakistan state, and the sustained enthusiasm of the people to fight for their freedom, autonomy and their rights.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
South Africa has utilised the opportunity provided by the COVID-19 pandemic to consolidate its regional leadership and augment connections with major external partners like India.
South Africa, the most industrialised economy on the continent, has the highest number of coronavirus infections in Africa. As of now, there are more than 23,615 confirmed cases in the country.1 The Western Cape Province, popular with tourists, has reported the maximum number of cases. On March 15, 2020, when the number of infected persons was only 61, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national ‘state of disaster’. The government has since taken several measures to curb the spread of the virus, including the closing of borders and declaring a nation-wide lockdown.2 The pandemic has implications for South Africa’s economy, its armed forces, and the country’s leadership within Africa and also partnership with India.
Economic Impact
Although South Africa is an upper-middle-income country, it is also one of the most unequal countries in the world with a consumption expenditure-based Gini coefficient of 63.3 The country is characterised with high wealth inequality, with top 10 per cent households owning 71 per cent of the nation’s wealth.4 This disparity makes the country particularly vulnerable in times of pandemic.
The South African Reserve Bank predicts that the economy may contract by six per cent in 2020 due to the pandemic.5 This may lead to greater inequality in the country with millions more going under the poverty line. Unfortunately, South Africa’s economy was already in recession prior to the lockdown. Credit rating agencies, Fitch and Moody’s recent downgrading of South Africa’s sovereign credit rating to ‘junk state’ has added to the troubles.6 In a bid to contain the economic fallout, the South African Government announced a $26 billion stimulus plan, worth about 10 per cent of GDP.7 However, a high debt, at 59.6 per cent of GDP, limits country’s ability to fund its proposed package independently, and it will need to rely on external debt from the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF). 8 This will increase South Africa’s debt to GDP ratio, further adding to the post-pandemic economic challenges.
Role of Defence Forces
South Africa has deployed over 75,000 members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in enforcing a countrywide lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus.9 The defence forces were tasked to protect quarantine sites, deliver essential supplies, help police restrict people’s movement and to curtail unrest.
However, questions were raised within the country doubting the capacity of the SANDF to implement some of these tasks.10 Over the years, the SANDF has been neglected by the government. Despite widening of its duties, the budgetary allocation has not increased. For the defence forces to perform their duties appropriately, it is important that adequate budgetary resources are made available for training and equipment. In recent years, the SANDF has been deployed for various activities such as the protection of borders and peacekeeping operations in African hotspots like the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. They have been tasked to take on internal security duties including disaster relief and public policing. As the defence forces were deployed to implement the lockdown, a big concern was that they were not trained in public policing and this could result in the use of excessive force against the civilians.
Some such instances have indeed come to light. Social media in the country is full of accounts of the use of excessive force by the SANDF.11 The most talked-about incident is related to Collins Khoza, a resident of the densely populated Alexandra township, who was killed due to brutal enforcement of the lockdown by the security forces.12 For the older generation, this incident was a cruel reminder of the brutality perpetrated by the security forces in the apartheid-era. The South African High Court has recently ordered the suspension of the soldiers involved in the incident.13 However, displeasure over richer people (who reside in the relatively less dense suburbs) being spared of the harsh treatment by the security forces for deviating from the lockdown norms lingers on.14 Such incidents and the outcry against them within the local communities also suggest that the nation still has a long way to go to reconcile with its discriminatory and violent past.
Regional Leadership
On the external front, the pandemic has provided an opportunity for South Africa to showcase its regional leadership. South Africa has emerged as a key focal point for Africa-wide responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the current chair of the African Union (AU), President Ramaphosa has worked in tandem with Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He also leads the continental level engagement with the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and various international financial institutions.
While attending to a demanding and critical situation domestically, Ramaphosa, as chairperson of the AU, has worked hard towards rallying and consolidating a continental response to COVID-19. He convened a teleconference of the continental organisation on March 26, 2020 to discuss Africa’s response to the pandemic. At the meeting, Ramaphosa noted that a continental coordinated response was more important than ever before in order to arrest the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.15 Through his efforts, the AU has managed to raise $25 billion for the COVID-19 Response Fund and an additional $36.5 million for the African CDC.16 To spearhead the continent’s response, he has appointed special envoys from all five regions of Africa to deal with the crisis.
He also organised a virtual meeting with business leaders from across the continent to come up with a strategy to deal with the economic impact of the pandemic on the AU member states. Ramaphosa has also been successful in drumming up support from the Group of 20 (G20) and major partners of the continent, including India.17
India-South Africa Partnership
India and South Africa share a warm relationship that dates back several centuries and is anchored in a range of common interests and issues. In the past, India supported South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle and raised the issue in several fora including the United Nations (UN), Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Commonwealth. With the emergence of a democratic South Africa, India was quick to sign a strategic partnership with the country in 1997. South Africa is home to the highest number of people of Indian origin in Africa. India and South Africa have worked together in several multilateral organisations and groups such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), G20, the BRICS (a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the IBSA (a grouping of India, Brazil and South Africa). They are also neighbours across the Indian Ocean and cooperate in the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA).
South African President Ramaphosa and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi share an interesting chemistry that was quite evident when the former visited India as chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations in January 2019. During the current pandemic, the two leaders have been in touch. Prime Minister Modi has commended the South African President for his stellar role in coordinating a continent-wide response.18 India has sent medical supplies to South Africa to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. It has also dispatched the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to South Africa, in addition to 20 other African countries to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.19 India’s support during this crisis will further consolidate the friendly ties between the two countries.
Conclusion
While the COVID-19 pandemic has added to South Africa’s woes on the domestic front, nevertheless, the country has utilised the opportunity to consolidate its regional leadership and augment connections with major external partners like India.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.
The uncertainty brought about by the pandemic would at best have a limited and short-term impact on the US-Iran hostilities. For the time being, the chances of escalation may be limited but the rivalry is here to stay.
Both Iran and the United States (US) are among the countries worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, even as they fight their respective battles against the virus, the hostilities between the two continue. Both countries allege each other of violating international law. The tensions between the two countries took a sharp turn last year when, for the first time since the Iran-Iraq war, a series of events resulted in significant deterioration of peace and stability in the Gulf region. It all began after the waiver provided by Washington on purchase of Iranian oil expired in May last year. However, the most recent escalation in the US-Iran tensions at a time when the world is reeling under the COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns in the region.
Continued Hostilities
On April 15, the American ships deployed in the Persian Gulf reported an “unsafe and unprofessional” conduct by 11 Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) vessels.1 In response, American President Donald Trump ordered the United States (US) Navy to “shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our [US] ships.”2 Later, on the eve of IRGC’s launch of its first military satellite – Noor 1 – IRGC commander Salami affirmed, “[that] any [US] move will be responded decisively, effectively and rapidly.” He added that “IRGC is serious in defending the national security, and sea borders, and marine interests of Iran.”3
The recent confrontation between the two countries, which reached unprecedented levels after the killing of IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani in early January 2020, has once again raised concerns about stability in the Persian Gulf. In May 2019, after the expiration of the US waivers on the purchase of Iranian oil, several American tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman for which Washington blamed Tehran and its proxies.4 Iran forthrightly denied these allegations. Later, in June 2019, the tensions further escalated as the IRGC shot down a US drone in the Gulf. Consequently, President Trump ordered a military strike on Iran, which was later called off, citing disproportionality.5 As both sides decided to de-escalate, the situation at the time was brought under control with no significant harm.
Source: Compiled by the author from various media reports.
Though the recent skirmishes have again revived fears of a renewed escalation in tensions between the two countries, however, based on outcomes of the past incidents, one can discern a de-escalation pattern aimed at avoiding a full-blown war. In May 2019, when things began to spiral, both sides came out with statements repudiating the possibility of war. From the Iranian side, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei insisted that “There won’t be any war.”6 Similarly, the US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo ascertained that Washington “fundamentally” did not seek war with Iran.7
There seems to be an unsaid predisposition to manage the escalation plateau. A full-scale war in the Gulf would have long-term disastrous consequences for all parties involved – US, Iran and regional powers – and not to mention, the frightful impact it will have on the global oil supply. Similarly, when an attack took place on Saudi Aramco facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in September 2019, the escalation was steadily followed by a de-escalation. Last year, both countries also presented their multi-state initiatives to manage escalations. The US-led maritime coalition in the Persian Gulf, known as the International Maritime Security Construct (IMSC), became operational on September 7, 2019.8 Two weeks later, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced a ‘Coalition for Hope’ or Hormuz Peace Endeavour (HOPE) at the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly.9 However, the acceptability of these initiatives remains low, given the scepticism and deep mistrust in the region.
The recent tensions in April could be just another episode in brinkmanship between the two countries. It should be noted that the Iranian Navy’s actions came just a week before IRGC celebrated its 41st foundational day. Thus, the Iranian actions were more of posturing than any attempt at escalation. However, one cannot discount it entirely as semantics. From the IRGC’s perspective, it is believed that there is still a need to reinforce deterrence against the US after Soleimani’s death. In Washington’s viewpoint, it already has deterred Iran from taking bold steps by targeting its top commander in early January this year.
Yet, in the case of the Persian Gulf, sustaining deterrence is extremely difficult for two reasons. First, the deterrence, such as the one created by the US with the killing of Soleimani, is bound to diminish after some time. Second, the deterrence created on land (in Iraq or Syria) is entirely different from deterrence in the Persian Gulf. In Iraq, for instance, the US stakes are not as high as in the Persian Gulf enabling it to pursue risky policy moves. The Persian Gulf, on the other hand, is perceived by the US and Iran as a safe space, where it is relatively easier to project power with minimal risk of any large-scale retribution.
Prognosis
In the above context, it is important to identify potential developments that are most likely to guide the Washington-Tehran rivalry in the region. First, the arms embargo on Iran will be expiring on October 18, 2020. Already, Washington has started pushing for the extension of an arms embargo, but legal technicalities – due to the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – makes it difficult for the US to achieve this easily. Meanwhile, the US Secretary of State Pompeo has made it clear that the US is “not going to let that [lifting of embargo] happen.”10 Washington’s influence at the UN is well-known, which the US is going to leverage to snap back the embargo.
Iran, on the other hand, has been preparing for the lifting of the embargo. In the last two years, it has moved to strengthen its partnership with both Moscow and Beijing that may help Tehran’s cause in October. Last year, in December 2019, Iran conducted a trilateral naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman with Russia and China to further enhance cooperation. Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, Chief of Staff of Iranian General Armed Forces, has made multiple visits to Beijing and Moscow in the last couple of years. Earlier, in November 2016, Tehran signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement with Beijing followed by a military agreement in November.11 Moreover, both have also agreed to set up a joint technical and industrial commission.12 Similarly, Iran’s existing cooperation in Syria puts it in favourable conditions with Moscow. In mid-2015, Tehran had also acquired the S-300 Air Defence System from Moscow.
Furthermore, IRGCN’s ambitions also need to be factored in. The IRGCN, which so far has relied on small vessels to attain its objectives, has expressed its interest in developing a submarine fleet. The IRGCN commander made it apparent in the immediate aftermath of the confrontation with the US Navy on April 15.13 Whether enhanced capabilities will bring about any change in the way Washington views Tehran is something that remains to be seen. Tehran also has high hopes for the lifting of the embargo for which it has toiled hard to develop its partnership with two major powers. However, this partnership is unlikely to be of much assistance to Iran, except in the economic domain. Despite the COVID-19 crisis, Washington is likely to continue with the sanctions under its ‘maximum pressure policy’, something that Iran may find hard to manage given the circumstances.
To conclude, two factors are most likely to impact the current dynamics in US-Iran relations in the coming times. First, the probable consequences of the arms embargo on Iran that is scheduled to expire in October 2020. The ensuing push-and-pull will drive the rivalry further where Iran will attempt to hedge its bets with Russia and China. Furthermore, the uncertainty brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic would at best have a limited and short-term impact on the US-Iran hostilities. This is not to suggest that it would ease the rivalry, but the chances of escalation would remain limited, for the time being.
The author is thankful to Dr. Meena Singh Roy, Coordinator, West Asia Centre, MP-IDSA for her insightful suggestions and comments.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities of the international system, particularly those of multilateral institutions. When the much spoken borderless threat became a reality, the multilateral institutions were found not only unprepared but acting in a self-destructive mode.
In recent years, multilateral cooperation has encountered unprecedented crises. From Brexit to burgeoning populist-nationalism across the globe as well as apathy of the once patron power, the United States (US), a range of issues threatens the very existence of multilateral institutions. While in the United Nations (UN) the crisis has manifested in the form of fund cuts and ever-increasing policy paralysis in its Security Council, other institutions, like Bretton Woods, have faced scepticism of effectiveness.
The COVID-19 pandemic is latest in the list of issues, which pushed the idea and practice of multilateralism into a profound dilemma. For the international community, COVID-19 was an opportunity to reinvigorate multilateral cooperation. The pandemic is the world’s biggest challenge since World War II. The deadly virus is affecting societies at their core, claiming millions of lives and destroying countless livelihoods. As of May 20, 2020, the virus has spread to 213 countries and territories with nearly five million confirmed cases and more than 318,789 casualties.1 COVID-19 revealed that pandemic has no national boundaries and such issues require international cooperation and multilateral solutions, not unilateral national responses.
However, the politics of blame game and opportunism have dominated almost all the multilateral deliberations on COVID-19. The UN response to COVID-19, particularly of the Security Council, is a case in point. The primary responsibility of the UN is to maintain international peace and security. Though scholars and practitioners are divided on the question of whether health emergencies constitute a threat to global peace and security, the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic shows that it is one of the gravest dangers the modern nation-states ever faced.2 UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the pandemic “gravest test since the founding of the UN” and noted that it “poses a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security.”3 Guterres has also called for a global ceasefire and submitted a plan to tackle the disastrous consequences of the pandemic.4
The response of the UN Security Council (UNSC) on COVID-19 was not only disappointing but self-defeating as well. The Security Council took almost a month to discuss this pressing matter even after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Estonia initiated the first effort to discuss COVID-19 in the Security Council; however, accusations and counter-charges hindered a positive outcome. In the initial days, it was China and allies like Russia and South Africa who prevented the Security Council’s efforts, and later it was the US that became a stumbling block in producing a joint statement on the pandemic.
Throughout March 2020, China blocked every effort to discuss the pandemic in the Security Council. In Beijing's view, COVID-19 did not constitute a threat to peace and security and should be addressed in institutions like the WHO.5 Ironically, China was holding the presidency of the Security Council during the month. Next month, under the presidency of the Dominican Republic, the efforts were resumed, and on April 9, the UNSC convened a closed-door meeting to discuss COVID-19. At the meeting, the US hit out at China by calling for transparency and timely sharing of public health data.6 China, however, urged the members to reject any acts of stigmatisation and politicisation of the pandemic.7
In the first week of May, a draft resolution co-authored by Tunisia and France that called for a global ceasefire in the context of the pandemic also met the same fate. This time, the US opposed an indirect reference to the WHO in the draft and blocked a vote in the Security Council. A US spokesperson at the UN mission stated that “the council should either proceed with a resolution limited to support for a ceasefire, or a broadened resolution that fully addresses the need for renewed member state commitment to transparency and accountability in the context of Covid-19.”8 The US-China friction in the Security Council was more explicit this time. Beijing dismissed Washington’s concerns and insisted that the resolution should mention and endorse the works of the WHO.
In the latest development, Germany and Estonia submitted a new draft resolution in the Security Council on May 12. The new draft makes no mention of the WHO. The possibility of adopting this compromised resolution is very high since it focuses only on supporting ceasefires. However, if adopted, the resolution will strengthen the criticism that the UNSC is incompetent in solving issues in which interest of the P-5 is involved. COVID-19 is one of the most significant threats that the P-5 members ever faced since the formation of the UN. More than half of the reported cases and casualties are in these five countries. Other non-permanent members of the Council – Germany, Belgium and South Africa as well as the allies of the P-5 nations – Italy, France, Japan, South Korea and the Gulf countries, have also reported a large number of cases and causalities.
The Security Council’s inaction in the context of COVID-19 also marks a stark contrast from its past response to global public health challenges. For instance, during the discussion on HIV/AIDS in July 2000, the Security Council observed that “if unchecked, the pandemic may pose a risk to stability and security” and passed a resolution that called for a coordinated international response to the HIV/AIDS.9 Similarly, in 2014, the Security Council described the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as “a threat to international peace and security.”10
COVID-19 is the ‘exact threat’ that multilateral enthusiasts have been predicting and warning for the last few decades. For instance, since the Millennium Summit in September 2000, almost all the UN General Assembly meetings have emphasised the need for a stronger multilateralism to tackle complex global challenges. In the meetings, leaders warned of issues such as global terrorism, climate change, and pandemics. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO’s consultations for anticipating epidemics and continuous warnings are significant. The 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), an agreement between 196 countries to work together for global health security, is a case in point. The IHR aims to prevent, protect against, control, and provide a public health response through multilateral actions.11
No pandemic in the past led to the collapse of the international economy in a manner that is witnessed today. In the absence of a coordinated multilateral response, it would be difficult for the states to effectively tackle the socio-economic fallout of the pandemic, individually. Similarly, in the absence of a multilateral institution, it will be costlier and difficult for the states to collect information and data on the origin and spread of the pandemic. This would affect not only the vaccine research but the progress of global public health as well. In the past, the global community had successfully mustered a coordinated response to similar crises. It has been aptly observed that the “threats posed by SARS in 2003, H1N1 (swine flu) in 2009, MERS in 2012, Ebola in 2014-2016, and the 2008 global financial crisis were all contained through rapid multilateral action.”12
The COVID-19 pandemic has also exposed vulnerabilities of the international system, particularly those of multilateral institutions. When the much spoken borderless threat became a reality, the multilateral institutions were found not only unprepared but acting in a self-destructive mode. A UNSC resolution could have galvanised the global community towards a collective response, coalesced around international security, against COVID-19. However, what the world is witnessing is self-destructive multilateralism. The conflict over the WHO’s role and subsequent paralysis of the UNSC is the most striking example. By side-lining the role of its health agency, the UNSC is performing nothing but a Hara-kiri. The member states should act before such actions become a contagion and kill other multilateral institutions.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Although the new measures announced to fast-track the defence sector are significant, they do not add up to a comprehensive and overarching reforms package.
There were two main takeaways from the policy reforms in the defence sector announced by the finance minister on May 16, 2020: corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and raising of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cap through the automatic route from 49 per cent to 74 per cent.1
These two measures have been under consideration for long. The debilitating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have seemingly prompted the government into fast-tracking them.
As always, the fine print of these, and other decisions announced by the minister will be crucial for their smooth and expeditious implementation; but more importantly, for them to start showing the anticipated results.
One cannot say whether the OFB’s 41 units will be converted into one mega-corporation or reconstituted into several clusters. But what can be said with near certainty is that mere corporatisation will not be enough to achieve whatever results are expected to coemerge from this attempt.
The decision to corporatise the OFB would require managing numerous other issues, the most pressing of them being to assuage the anxiety of its workforce, including officers.
With the existing system of budgetary support for the OFB’s working capital, in all probability, vanishing with the planned corporatisation, the Board’s overall financial management could also pose an immediate challenge which, in turn, could become tangled in legal wrangling.
With one or more additional corporations to manage, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) will also have to address a larger and more pressing question: how to reform the structure and functioning of the existing and new undertakings/corporations in deference to the persisting adverse criticism – often unwarranted – of their performance.
Further, an increase in the FDI cap to 74 per cent through the automatic route meets a longstanding demand by overseas companies and investors. But how attractive or financially remunerative would it be for them to invest in India’s military-industrial complex would depend on the fine print and conditions predicated to this liberalisation.
It is unknown at this stage whether or not companies willing to invest 74 per cent FDI would be at par with other Indian companies in which the majority stake is held by the local investors.
While similar treatment of all companies with FDI up to 74 per cent will enable them to participate in indigenous production and procurement on an equal footing, the actual inflow of resources would depend to a substantial extent on MoD’s capacity to buy the indigenously made products. The situation is a bit worrisome on this account.
With the three services registering a gap of more than Rs one lakh crore between their projected requirements and the MoD’s allocation, rising committed liabilities and the near certainty of no further additional funding this year, it may take time before the overall situation starts showing financial promise for foreign investors.
Viewed with this background, the decision to provide a separate budget for domestic capital procurement is, to say the least, enigmatic. The MoD is one among several ministries asked to cap expenditure during the first quarter to 20 per cent of its annual budget for this fiscal.
It is quite likely that with a recession predicted due to the pandemic, such restrictions may continue or even intensify over the three subsequent quarters. If so, this would discount the possibility of a separate budget provision being made any time during the current financial year.
A separate budget provision, as proposed by the minister – who was also the defence minister for two years till 2019 – would make sense only if it is by way of additional allocation over and above the current average level of funding for capital expenditure aimed at modernisation and acquiring new materiel.
If it is not, segmentation of the budget outlay into a component meant exclusively for equipment procurement from domestic sources and another for procurement from foreign sources would only end up restricting the flexibility presently available to use the funds, irrespective of the supply source.
The decision to notify – and continuously update – the list of weapons/platforms whose import would be prohibited seems equally restrictive and limiting. In keeping with the procurement policy since 2016, there is no way the MoD can import materiel that is locally available or alternately can be indigenously manufactured.
It is unclear what additional purpose would be served by banning the import of these items. If anything, it will make it procedurally more complex to import any such item, should its induction become operationally necessary.
Other reforms announced by the finance minister include the establishment of a Project Management Unit (PMU) to ensure timely completion of the procurement process, facilitating quicker decision-making, formulation of realistic General Staff Qualitative Requirements (GSQRs) and overhauling the Trial and Testing procedures.
It may be recalled that the former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had once publicly declared that some of the military’s QRs appeared to be out of ‘Marvel comic books’, as the technologies and capabilities they specified were ‘absurd and unrealistic’.2 The April 2012 Defence Parliamentary Committee had also revealed that as many as 41 of the Indian Army’s tenders were scrapped because of the restrictive QRs.3
Meanwhile, allocation of Rs 400 crore to the Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme (DTIS) has been approved by the MoD to create six to eight testing facilities for locally developed defence equipment over the next five years.4
The Scheme envisages setting these test facilities with grants-in-aid from the MoD and corpus private industry and respective state governments. The latter would band together as Special Purpose Vehicles to build the test facilities in the two Defence Industrial Corridors in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh and, possibly, elsewhere.
Although these new measures to fast-track the defence sector are significant, they do not add up to a comprehensive and overarching reforms package. What is also lacking is a professional bespoke organisation capable of steering India’s complex materiel procurement process and managing life cycle support and eventual upgradation.
A committee of military and managerial experts constituted by the MoD some years ago had recommended a slew of measures to deal specifically with this aspect. It is time the committee’s recommendations are given due consideration.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
An informed scenario would be to release the weight of unsustainable debts, allowing the developing countries to focus on domestic sustainable development aimed at achieving climate neutrality, instead of developed countries’ over-emphasis on fossil fuel in their economic recovery packages.
“Climate disruption is approaching a point of no return [...] we must act decisively to protect our planet from both the coronavirus and the existential threat of climate disruption,” said the United Nations (UN) Secretary General António Guterres in his message on the International Mother Earth Day on April 22, 2020.1His message assumes significance as it came just a week before the 11th Annual Petersberg Climate Dialogue (PCD), where ministers from over 30 countries met online on April 27-28 to debate climate action. PCD is a forum annually convened by Germany, bringing together a group of countries to discuss ways to advance global climate action. It is also seen as a key milestone in preparation for the annual UN climate change conferences. The country holding the incoming presidency of COP co-hosts the PCD with Germany. As the 26th session of the UN Conference of Parties (COP26), which was to be held in Glasgow, Scotland in November this year, has been postponed to 2021, the high-level ministerial discussions at the 11th PCD provided an opportunity to secure greater support for climate action.
The United Kingdom (UK) Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and designated President of COP26, Alok Sharma, in his remarks made at the 11th PCD exuded gravitas amidst the pandemic when he stated that “We all know that climate risks are growing year by year. And the steps we take now to rebuild our economies can have a profound impact on our societies’ future sustainability, resilience and, ultimately, wellbeing of humans, but of course, nature as well.”2 These observations clearly allude to sustained climate impacts that are only set to get worse if efforts to address climate change are not scaled-up urgently. So far, 2020 has witnessed an intense Pacific typhoon, continued Arctic ice melting and severe drought in parts of the world, among other impending disasters. These impacts are experienced overwhelmingly by the more vulnerable developing countries in the global south that have contributed the least to climate change.
Major Agenda
This year’s PCD took place at a crucial juncture when countries around the world were busy tackling COVID-19 to save lives, overcoming social and economic consequences of the pandemic while also preparing for the implementation phase of the Paris Climate Agreement in the post-2020 period. Despite the current crisis, the German Government decided to host the dialogue digitally. Reiterating the need for continued dialogue, the German Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze observed that “climate change continues to exist, even if it is receiving less attention right now.”3 In this year’s edition of PCD, both the UK and Germany had put a clear focus on “sustainable recovery” in response to the coronavirus crisis.
PCD’s stated goal for 2020 is to focus on organising green economic recovery, post the pandemic, so that the countries can proceed with ambitious climate action despite the postponement of COP26. The prime objective is green recovery.4 This means not only creating new jobs but also advancing climate action in ways that would make the entire world more resilient. It also includes designing of stimulus programmes that will facilitate a more committed climate policy in the future.
Two areas of significant importance are the power and transport sectors. Energy transition and accelerating the move to zero-emission road transport are two of the five key campaigns that the UK is going to be focusing on, in the lead up to COP26. The challenge is how to speed up the ongoing efforts aimed at building a zero-emission and climate-resilient global economy, whilst at the same time creating jobs and supporting communities through the transition.5 To meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, the international community first needs to decarbonise the global economy about three to five times faster over the next decade than it did over the last two decades. This would require increased use of cheap and clean power; scaling up of batteries and fuel cells in road transport; and opening up of new pathways to decarbonisation in the industrial, construction, aviation and shipping sectors.
Reverting to Fossil Fuel
Interestingly, while PCD is emphasising zero-emission and green recovery, many developed countries that are among the highest carbon emitters are planning to make huge investments in fossil fuel industries as part of their economic recovery packages, in the post COVID-19 period. For instance, the US is set to bail out its airline industry without conditions attached to emissions. The US administration has moved to weaken a raft of environmental regulations.6 In China, subsidies for fossil fuel vehicles and easing of permits for coal-mining could raise emissions.7 Similarly, other big economies like Canada, South Africa, Brazil, etc., have taken an anti-renewable energy stance. While greenhouse gas emissions are set to fall nearly eight per cent this year,8 any beneficial impact on the climate is likely to be short-lived and could quickly be outweighed by increased emissions if the economic recovery resumes on a high-carbon path. An informed scenario would be to release the weight of unsustainable debts, through debt cancellation and restructuring, allowing the developing countries to focus on their domestic sustainable development aimed at climate neutrality, instead of developed countries’ over-emphasis on fossil fuel in their economic recovery packages.
PCD and India
Representing India in the first virtual PCD, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar stated: “As the World is unitedly engaged in finding a vaccine for novel Coronavirus, likewise we should have climate technology as open source which must be available at an affordable cost.”9 He stressed the importance of grants to the developing world vis-à-vis climate finance and highlighted the opportunity the world has today to accelerate renewable energy deployment and creating new jobs in that sector. He also observed that COVID-19 has taught the world how to survive on less. This echoes with the spirit of PCD. Reinforcing India’s stance, UN Secretary General Guterres called upon the developed countries to commit $100 billion a year, a longstanding goal under the global climate negotiations, to help developing countries curb emissions and cope with the impacts of climate breakdown. He also hinted at moves to reduce the debt on many developing countries, which has been mooted as a way to help them deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.10
Conclusion
The volatile mix of two crises – climate change and COVID-19 – could act as a multiplier of shocks to societies and economies. What is clear is that the developing countries in the global south would continue to experience climate impacts, amid the struggle to strengthen their fragile and overburdened healthcare systems to deal with the pandemic, and at the same time keeping their economies afloat. Increasing debts and decreasing revenues due to the economic downturn will have a deleterious impact on the developing countries that remain largely unprepared to deal with rising climate, health and economic challenges.11 Besides, re-emphasis on fossil fuel in the economic recovery packages of the developed countries, tied with their non-committal approach to the Paris Climate Agreement, will only neutralise the little progress made towards mitigating climate change.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Driven by the Covid-19 pandemic, the economic challenges for India emanating from the Gulf region are highly imminent and discernible.
The spread of COVID-19 pandemic in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is a cause of concern for India. It stems from the fact that India has large and varied interests in the region, which would be affected if the situation in the GCC countries continues to worsen. On its part, India has extended support to the countries in the region by providing Hydroxychloroquine tablets to Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE); sending a 15-member medical team to Kuwait at the request of its government; and another team of 88 medical and healthcare professionals to the UAE to help the country fight against the pandemic. By quickly providing medical aid and expertise to the GCC countries, India has reinforced its image of a strong and reliable friend standing alongside in an hour of crisis. However, given the close economic link it has with the GCC countries, it will be difficult for India to insulate itself from the economic fallouts of the spread of COVID-19 in the Gulf.
GCC is a key trade partner of India with annual bilateral trade of around US$ 121 billion in 2018-19.1 Among the GCC countries, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are the two key trade partners of India with annual bilateral trade of US$ 60 billion and US$ 34 billion, respectively.2 The disruption of industrial and commercial activities in the GCC countries would, therefore, impact the bilateral trade and commerce with India. The GCC countries have started feeling the early impact of the pandemic on their economy and are adopting several austerity measures. Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadaan stated that the kingdom has lost 50 per cent of its oil revenues because of the fall in oil prices. He added that the country is prepared to take painful financial measures including delaying projects and reducing expenditures to tackle the economic fallouts of the pandemic.3 The Saudi Government has also allowed the private sector to cut the salaries of its employees by 40 per cent for a period of six months and thereafter the contract can also be terminated.4 Along with the slump in the oil prices, the closure of pilgrimage has also affected government’s revenues.
In April, Dubai decided to cut administrative and general expenses by at least 20 per cent and freeze spending on construction projects.5 The tourism sector which contributes 11.9 per cent to the UAE’s GDP and creates around 745,000 jobs in the country has been badly affected.6 Qatar has also postponed several projects worth US$ 8.2 billion.7 The spread of COVID-19 in the Gulf at the time of falling oil prices further constrains their capacity to deal with the situation.
In the current scenario, a large number of the nine million strong Indian expatriate workers are at the risk of losing their jobs in the GCC countries. Many of them want to return to India at the earliest. In April, India began the registration process for its nationals who wanted to come back to India. In response, a large number of Indians in different Gulf countries have registered themselves to fly back to the country. More than 150,000 Indian nationals have registered in the UAE alone, with 25 per cent of them wanting to come back as they have lost their jobs.8 Absorbing them in the local job market would remain a challenge for the respective state governments in the months to come. The fate of those choosing to stay back in the Gulf, in the hope that they will continue with their jobs after the worst phase is over, will depend on the state of the economy of the host countries in the post-pandemic period. As a large number of Indians work in the private sector, their chances of continuing with their employment would depend upon the capability and resilience of this sector in the Gulf region.
India has been the biggest recipient of remittances in the world, receiving US$ 79 billion in 2018.9 More than half of its total remittances come from the GCC countries alone.10 Disruption of economic activities and loss of employment in the Gulf will affect the inflow of remittances to India. The World Bank has already made a prediction that global remittances are going to witness sharpest decline in recent years as a result of the disruptions created by the COVID-19 pandemic.11 In the event of thousands of Indians coming back from the Gulf, the inflow of remittances to India will be significantly affected.
Prolonged pandemic situation might lead the GCC countries to strictly implement their workforce nationalisation policies. This would further affect the Indian workers in the region. Oman, for instance, has called for replacing all the expatriate workers with the locals in the government sector amidst the pandemic.12 Although this move is not specifically aimed at the Indian workers, it would potentially affect the number of Indians working in Oman.
Thus, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic challenges for India emanating from the Gulf region are highly imminent and discernible. Although the magnitude of it remains to be seen, India will need to be prepared to face the economic challenges coming from the Gulf region.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
It might be difficult to prove any weaponisation intent or man-made origins to the SARS-CoV-2. Yet, the mass deaths and disruption caused by the virus forebodes imminent exploitation of biological agents for political ends.
“Someone doesn’t have to weaponise the bird flu. The birds are doing that,” says Ellis Cheever of Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in the 2011 movie, Contagion, when asked by the United States Homeland Security whether someone had weaponised the flu instead of deploying explosives to ‘launch an attack’ at a crowded marketplace. As prophetic the movie turned out to be, the scene visualised the peculiar nature and manifestations of this threat: an invisible organism that is hatched in nature, but, incidentally, can also be appropriated by humans for destructive ends.
The spectre of a microbial pathogen ploughing through every habitable land on Earth infecting close to four million and killing more than two and a half lakh can spawn disbelief on the kind of mass disruption and deaths a single-source microbe can unleash.1 With little resistance put up by a humbled human race and no reliable cure in sight,2 the question whether the SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2) was nature’s retort to encroaching mankind or it was a man-made assault on humanity continues to hang as a mystery.
While most reports pointed to Wuhan’s wet markets and its wild livestock as source of a zoonotic (animal-to-human) transmission, a parallel narrative of the virus having originated in or spilling out of a laboratory, intentionally or by accident, has again gained traction. With global opinion being mobilised against China to make it accountable for the virus outbreak, the resultant geopolitical firestorm does not appear to be a mere fleeting affair. Rather, the omnipotent imprint of the pandemic is likely to generate new interest on the exploitation of biological agents for political ends which, in turn, could necessitate greater normative impulses to mitigate the consequent dangers.
The Whodunit
Even before US President Donald Trump described the CoV-2 as the ‘China Virus’, sections of the American media had run stories on the presence of a virology institute in Wuhan and insinuating the lab’s linkage with the outbreak. Subsequently, they picked up murmurs in sections of the Mandarin press (and social media), based outside the mainland, on the possibilities of the virus having leaked from a Wuhan lab, where it was claimed that the security was enhanced after the outbreak.3 That Wuhan has China’s only BSL-4 (Bio-Safety Level-4 being the highest grade) lab4 – the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) with its National Biosafety Laboratory reportedly being Asia’s only repository of the SARS-CoV and Ebola specimens – was good enough to buttress these theories.5 Pacing up the spotlight on WIV was a leaked report quoting earlier US Embassy cables from Beijing highlighting lax security at the Wuhan lab.6
Among the surmises include claims that the virus, going by its aggressively virulent nature, could have been engineered in Wuhan lab as a bio-weapon (or with ulterior commercial motives including a vaccination project), or that an experimental sample could have ejected out by accident through an infected employee or an animal specimen. In fact, despite initial reports that the first human transmission could have occurred at the Wuhan market, subsequent conjectures veered around various theories including that the patient zero was a WIV researcher and that animal specimens used for experiments were sold out to the local wet market.
The Chinese attitude too has been unhelpful: concealing information on the virus origins and deaths, and restricting research on these matters on the one hand, and indulging in aggressive diplomatic battles on the other. Having countered the initial negativity by casting aspersions on the US military as having planted the virus during a joint-exercise and pointing to corona traces in influenza already prevalent in the US, the Chinese officialdom was belligerent towards countries that sought international investigation on the outbreak and Chinese complicity in it.7 While Trump putting the spotlight on China might be to cover up his lax domestic management of the COVID-19 spread, the call for international investigations, the World Health Organisation’s credibility deficit apart, is necessitated by global concerns on the lack of transparency regarding the initial Wuhan imprints and wildlife trade in virus-prone wet markets despite they being causal for many outbreaks.8
Hatched in Nature or Lab?
Notwithstanding the many inferences made about the Wuhan origin of the CoV-2, the global health science community has, by and large, been unanimous in dismissing the possibility of the CoV-2 being a lab-engineered pathogen. The authoritative medical journal, Lancet, published a joint statement expressing solidarity with the Chinese scientists and “condemning all ‘conspiracy theories’ that suggest COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”9 The scientific consensus against a lab-origin of the virus is based on results of a handful of genome-sequencing of the COVID samples undertaken by various collaborative ventures. The foremost among them has been a multinational study which concluded that the backbone of the SARS-CoV-2 was not based on the previous seven CoV versions,10 thus rejecting the possibility of a lab output. The study concludes:
While this study infers that the natural selection happened in an animal host through zoonotic transfer, other studies also echo the contention that the CoV-2 has its origin in a natural host (bats) before their zoonotic transfer, possibly through an animal intermediary.12 Another study postulates that the “RNA sequences closely resemble those of viruses that silently circulate in bats, and… implicates a bat-origin virus infecting unidentified animal species sold in China’s live-animal markets.” These assessments validate the prevalent thinking about intermediaries being the transfer host for the CoV-2, like (civet) cats being transfer hosts in the 2002 SARS outbreak, though the transmitter in the latest outbreak is yet to be established notwithstanding numerous references about pangolins being a possible one.13
A Bio-Conflict in Making
Notwithstanding the global calls for investigation into the coronavirus origin and occasional banter on the lab linkages, ongoing assessments including by the US intelligence community has ruled out the possibility of the virus being a lab-developed bio-weapon. However, China’s actions continue to be suspect, particularly its intellectual espionage14 and the surreptitious inroads it had made into Western research ventures.15 Irrespective of where the truth lies, many feel that the contagion was the closest manifestation of a bio-weapon being unleashed on a global scale. The UN chief, Antonio Guterres, for instance, had described the pandemic as providing “a window onto how a bioterrorist attack might unfold.”16 Though alluding only to threats from non-state actors “gaining access to virulent strains,” between the lines are clear pointers on the likely intentions and capabilities of states in this domain.
In fact, how CoV-2 has brought nations to a calamitous halt – impeding all ways of lives and impairing public health systems world over – propels the need to contemplate the potential implications if states decide to ‘weaponise’ biological organisms as a means to covertly wreak havoc on competitor economies and societies. That such organisms can be developed on frugal budgets in state-owned labs and deployed stealthily, makes them an attractive option when asymmetry and subversions are sought against rivals. Quite similar to the cyber domain turning into a proxy conflict zone, the use of biological means to trigger large-scale disruptions and deaths in rival nations is an eventuality that has potent strategic imminence. Furthermore, the cut-throat race to monopolise vaccine pathways also aggravates the risks inherent in many of the state-supported research and development forays that evade public scrutiny.
Though the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) has established norms against the weaponisation of biological agents, the Convention innately provides the loopholes for misuse and diversion by enabling the scope for their prophylactic and peaceful applications.17 Furthermore, the failure of state-parties to finalise a credible verification mechanism and a weak oversight framework,18 dependent on the declaration by states, is a significant reminder that the shield against the weaponisation of biological weapons remains fragile and vulnerable to the contingencies of the international system, particularly the great power politics.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Various existing anti-virals like Lopinavir/ritonavir - generic drugs used for HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS treatment – were used in combinations on COVID-19 patients. While nodal public health bodies in the US, India and other countries have approved the use of these drugs, the efficacy of such combo-treatments is seen as marginal. See Jienchi Dorward and Kome Gbinigie, “Lopinavir/ritonavir: A rapid review of effectiveness in COVID-19”, The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford, April 14, 2020.
Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, was widely sought after for a brief period with the US President Donald Trump staunchly backing the drug for COVID-19 treatment. Many sections in the global health community, however, cast aspersions on it as a proven remedy. Nonetheless, the drug is extensively being administered as a precautionary dose for health workers in many affected sectors. See Joshua Geleris, et.al., “Observational Study of Hydroxychloroquine in Hospitalized Patients with Covid-19”, The New England Journal of Medicine, May 07, 2020.
The anti-viral drug that has now found greater acceptance is Remdesivir, developed by Gilead Sciences. Described as a broad-spectrum drug, Remdesivir has been developed to treat various respiratory viruses and was tested earlier on Ebola, SARS and MERS patients. While researchers are not yet conclusive about its efficacy for the COVID-19 treatment, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved its use based on Gilead’s claim of improved recovery time seen in its patient trials. As part of the WHO solidarity trials, India also received over 1000 doses of the drug for testing in COVID-19 patients. For a scientific assessment, See Yeming Wang, et.al., “Redmesivir in adults with severe COVID:19: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial”, The Lancet, April 29, 2020.
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