Sanctions, sieges, and soft power

While you may not be immediately impacted by the Russia-Ukraine war since the two countries are thousands of miles away from where you sit, be it in Bengaluru or Delhi, I am sure the long-term implications of the war are bound to affect you. The crucial roles played by fungible geopolitical alliances, race, and the interdependence of countries on essential goods such as energy supplies and IT in the current war, when extrapolated, provide adequate clues on what to expect in the future.

In his farewell radio and television address to America on January 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower made the following prescient comment: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” Were he alive today, he would probably have said, “...military-industrial and information technology complex…”, and he would be correct.

The global North, including Russia, Japan and South Korea, accounts for a fourth of the world’s population but controls 80% of the global income. Also, 90% of the manufacturing industries are owned by and located in the North. Eight of the top 10 oil and gas companies are all in the North, while the top eight IT companies are all in the US. This includes Alphabet (Google), Apple, Amazon, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft and Tesla. These oligopolistic oil and IT companies, either directly or indirectly through sanctions imposed by their governments, are in a unique position to blackmail countries and select individuals, especially in the global South, by selectively cutting off access to their services during economic and political crises. Just ask Germany, the Russian oligarchs, or Ukraine’s IT army which made hacking very respectable.

Sieges destroy the physical infrastructure of a country, sanctions destroy its soul, but software can do both. Big Oil or Big Data – take your pick.

In a US News & World Report (USNWR) article titled ‘Is India the Next Great U.S. Dependency?’ which appeared a year ago, one of the leading think-tanks on science and technology policy in America stated that US political and business leaders had to be wary of relying too much on India for information technology. Whereas US dependence on China was limited to manufacturing industries, just about every US industry sector relied on India for IT support. The article posited a nightmare scenario in which an India-China partnership involving China’s manufacturing prowess and India’s IT services would shift the world’s economic centre of gravity decisively to the East.

The nightmare scenario will not come to pass in the near future for one simple reason -- India’s IT capabilities are nowhere near what is being touted in the press. Over the past 30 years, China developed its own search engines, social media, AI, and e-commerce companies. India has created none of these in any meaningful way. China spurned Microsoft, Facebook and Google. India, on the other hand, rolled out the red carpet. Is India ready to have the rug pulled from under its feet in the IT sector? I don’t think so.

My version of a nightmare scenario is different from the one posited in the USNWR article. During the Second World War, the US and Russia combined forces to defeat Germany. If China were to stay neutral in the Russia-Ukraine war, in an ever-expanding NATO, Russia may well join forces with the European Union, the UK, and the all-too-willing US to contain China. After all, the northern powers, excluding Japan and South Korea, do share a cultural, religious, genealogical, and historical relationship.

Countries that have gotten fat on a steady diet of natural resources brought about by regime changes should consider changing their regimen. India is, as always, ready to provide back-office support.

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