Yr2023, Post COVID, Amidst Ukraine War - Whats shaping Western, MidEast, India and Asia

 Its been a while since I blogged. We are now in March 2023, last year we effectively ended Covid in its most virulent shape and form while we deal now with old flu viruses like H3N2 in India and similar flu viruses in Australia. World has had to deal with a Major war when Ukraine was invaded by Russia with both sides blaming each other for triggering the confrontation. Ukraine was tipped into it by NATO promising membership while an assertive Russia decided to call the bluff and attack. Now a real war has started with US and a reluctant Europe supporting Ukraine in its battle. Likely to push the US tax payers to further fund another conflict just as they finished in Middle East with the destruction of Iraq, Syria and resoundly defeated by Taliban in Afghanistan. US as a bully has created just messes and more messes every where it has set foot in the name of democracy, their bad karmas piling up while internally they remain more divided as a nation between the Right the increasingly Woke Leftists. China and India play a calm sideline view of this unfolding mess. A defeated Russia will weaken China's power play standing up to West so you can see that bonhomie continuing while India has used the situation to manage its Oil thirst well while still managing to get the G20 presidency. Well played. How they managed the optics while still ensuring their national interests are served is amazing. Mr Jaishankar has been outstanding and has created a image that was hard for his predecessor and seems to be on equal standing if not exceeding Namo's image with the West, Mid East and the East.     

That aside, what evolving now is an increasingly Inflationary trend that is triggering a run on banks like SVB and possible collapse of some of the weaker nations and banking systems globally. Nations that had accumulated unpayable debt in the past like - Srilanka, Pakistan and many smaller pacific nations have got into a debt trap. Likely to spill into the broader population soon as confidence in the economies globally slides.This trend will increase the weakness of Financial Institutions in US and World over while countries like India resort to non Dollar denominated trade to work around the challenge while trading oil with Russia. As more and more countries figure out alternatives to non swift trading avenues, hegemony of dollar will increasingly be questioned. Trust in $ and buyers of $ denominated debt may be hard to find in the future. 

There is also a change in the anvil in West Asia, as of yesterday what wouldnt have been thought as possible Iran and Saudi Arabia have come to an agreement thanks a deal brokered not by US but by China the emerging Super power which means the influence of US is fast waning while China and India start gearing up to the next race to the top as the next 2 challengers. The clock to WW3 is well and truly ticking but it will not happen while US is still at the top but once the power really starts waning. Test bed will be Taiwan undoubtedly and therein is the next battlefield.

Till my next musings..

End of 2021 and another crisis prone year gone by

Almost at the end of the 2021, its been fun year with 2 variants of Covid creating a global havoc on travel economy and life in general. Delta literally was the Personality of the Year and now Omnicron seems to be usurping the coveted honors with a viral spread 5 times that of delta. Only hope is that it remain less severe than Delta and makes this less damaging over time. 

Lets get back to geopolitics and see where it has evolved.. The hardening of conflict between Democracies and the Rest groupings is making further headway as I had long predicted would happen and the foundation  for middle east falling into the Chinese grouping is now truly underway. 2 changes signify this, first obviously US has lost its protective mantle that it had long kept in the Middle east with its withdrawal from Afghanistan. Now both UAE and Saudi are testing US's role as their protector with overtures to China (Check articles on the Saudi Ballistic missile facility- https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/23/politics/saudi-ballistic-missiles-china/index.html) and the UAE snub ( https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/22/opinions/france-uae-us-arms-deal-andelman/index.html). In a pre Iraq war era this would have been unimaginable to see US being pushed back by normally docile kingdoms who are keen to keep their non democratic oil fueled kingdoms alive through a don who is willing to sell them weapons and protects them in turn.. Now a viable alternative has risen who not just can protect but also help them build their own missile capabilities. This now truly marks a change and rise of Islamic kingdoms who not just have the money and ambition to have a bigger say in world affairs but now have a communist nation supporting them as Russia once meddled as long as Middle east looks away from their own internal issues with Muslim Uighurs.

Take Chinese money and weapons, a supportive Russian influence in Middle east and an increasingly unstable Nuclear islamic neighbour(read Pakistan) keen to get any funds to keep their army & fledgling economy afloat and last not the least a paranoid set of Islamic kingdoms trying to maintain their relevance between the 2 poles, a deeply Nationalistic , cashed up Left and an Increasingly Conservative democratic set of nations. We will see a bonhomie of Islamic nation states hand in glove with a China/Russia combine at its peak. European Union will grow weak , deeply divided and wont mustle any strength to change these dynamics.This will play out over the next few decades before both US and eventually China starts to decline and India rises as the new power. It will be only at the start of the decline of India that the roots of 3rd world war will take seed. All we see now are the build up to those events over the next few decades.

Till my next post.

Another post for 2021.. Seems like its a blog an year routine now

My 2019 post seems to be on the way to becoming true as Taliban took over Kabul yesterday.Ideology wins over Money any day and this is a repeat. You cant change the DNA of a culture that hasnt bent to an external master in centuries to your whim.. Interestingly what Trump managed to cull by ensuring ISIS never rose, Biden has completely failed to do with Taliban. Underlying ideology is the same nevertheless. This creates an unstable neighborhood for India with Pak gaining an upper hand and a country next door to freely train terrorists as a constant supply, a rising super power with funds to  arm the insurgents as long as Islamic countries look away from its own ethnic cleansing of religious minorities. The dog will wag its tail to the new masters who create a sense of we wont mess with how you run your country as long as you supply us with Rare earths and pain our enemies. The scales have truly tilted, all this Ideology needs is one more pawn(Saudi's) to fall in place and you have the perfect storm brewing as Nostradamus predicted.

Leaving that for aside wrote this as my friends reminded me of this blogspace during a chat.. May be in the next one this politics would have moved on with further decline of Western Liberalism, rise of socialist and communist ideologies again and decline of blocs like the EU stressed by financial constraints and rising differences due to immigration and lack of opportunities to the native citizens. What I certainly see is the rise of India as these instabilities continue around it. Tipping point is still away in the future for the final descent in to a global war.. It will not happen with rise of China but with its eventual and gradual fall and rise of Wahhabism around a central figure in West Asia..  

New year, new post - Reminisces on Friday evening..

 Downed the tools for the day and started looking at WW2 history and defeat of Hitler. Trigger was a video of the movie "Downfall" on youtube. As usual i started digging into the rise and fall of Hitler a recap of old history lessons and but more led by my interest in human psychology that led an entire set of nations to go beyond just nationalistic thinking into destroying entire race of people and go on a campaign to conquer the world. As I went into historical aspects of  Hitler's rise - you can clearly see some analogy to rise of characters like Seeman in Tamil politics. In India, particularly in the south of the country in a state called Tamilnadu,  you have 2 types of Nationalism clearly on a upswing in the country 

1)  Indian Hindu Nationalism led by Conservative right wing politics - using Hindutva card clearly to spread to bases beyond the north like Tamilnadu and Kerala where they have never been strong player post independence.

2) Tamil Nationalism - led by a small time failed Cine director , Seeman, who has well utilized his ability to combine strong oratorical skills and art of storytelling(sometime literals bogus stories) to enthuse a young populace clearly dejected by corrupt dravidian parties of the south.

The lack of job opportunities for the youth post demonetization where small scale industries suddenly found themselves at the wrong end of the stick and constant funding from the Christian missionaries has clearly supported the rise of Seeman and Tamil Nationalism in a traditional conservative south that tilted towards dravidian politics , anti hindi struggle combined with the atheistic leaning of the DK organization. Their Hindu conservative rival organization  RSS and VHP never  really took of in the same scale as in the north in the deeply religious south for a strange reason.

So you may ask what is the link between the likes of Seeman and Hitler's rise that i seek to find analogy of. The pattern is very simple

Both play the victim card - 

What is the analogy to Hitler - Well here is the play - He was utter failure in his life , never rose to do anything worthwhile prior to becoming a politician.He wanted to be a artist , then an architect, enrolled in the army during WW1 which ended in German Defeat but was never successful in converting any of these forays into a proper career till he ventured into politics, using his strong oratarical skills filled with his hate for Jews , German Nationalism on the back of a bruising loss in War and an grandeose Aryan ideology that he was able to into a Nazi political outfit. 

In case of Seeman he uses the Tamil genocide at the hand of Srilankan govt in 2009 which supported both a left of Center, Congress party in power at the Federal govt and an opportunistic DMK at the state which remained a spectator if not a active perpetrator in the genocide.  What he hides behind the rhetoric is his complete failure to be able to do anything worthwhile in his life before a chance opportunity to speak at Cine event boosted his standing as a noteworthy orator with Tamil nationalistic leanings. He clearly used the absence of a strong political leadership in the state to make sure he is not bracketed with the rest of the dravidian parties and create his own following taking over similar minded youth from splintered organizations. His influence is visible. BJP at the center clearly sees him as someone with the potential to make inroads in the dravidian plank creating a weakness that is useful to push forward rising Hindu Nationalism within the southern state so it hasnt really tried to curtail him. With the return of the Rajapaksa brothers in Srilanka who brought down the LTTE leading to the genocide, you will clearly see this rhetoric grow more in Tamilnadu politics.   

Is this the only reason - well No - there are others which I can write about but in subsequent blogs.

Till my next musing...

Turned 41 - Reminiscing our common past.. and current day politics

Its my Birthday and time to Remember - JWB massacre, Impending BREXIT and some potential fall outs..

Had a good birthday today. Kid and I went to the Lego Brick show at Penrith today and had a good time. Its amazing to see what you can do with Legos and a bit of imagination. Great memories that Nikhil  and I will have forever in our lives.

Its however also the time for remembrance for Indians and those who are history buffs. In 5 days and 12 hours from the time I am writing this blog , UK is inching towards a mess with BREXIT on 13th April 2019. Its uncanny that exactly 100 years ago on 13th of April 1919, sepoys led by Reginald Dyer fired indiscriminately on innocent peaceful citizens who had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh. This event triggered a series of events leading to British getting kicked out off India and end of their Empire worldwide forever. Its uncanny in the sense that now with BREXIT one of most enduring tie-ups post World War 2 is coming to an end and potentially will sink UK and European Nations further into doldrums.

I would like to spend scribbling  in the next few paras what I see is probably going to happen in the coming years. Its quite apparent the British exit from European Union will further sow the seeds of more Nationalist fervor. British economy will hit certainly hit its nadir as it struggles to adapt to the status quo post exit. The split of these nations will however result in states with different extremist ideologies which is a great concern. FRANCE , SPAIN and ITALY seem to be easy targets to such ideologies due to their struggling economies. With  increasing Muslim immigrants from West Asia and Africa there is a major increase in nationalist fervor and rise of anti immigrant political ideologies in most of these nations gaining ground. This will very well rise in Britain as well post Brexit. Even in countries like Germany and even Australia , rise of One Nation kinda of parties is very embodiment of unrest among a certain demography - Predominantly White - Blue Collars - Religious Conservatives( to be interpreted as Christian Right). 

One of the biggest reason for the fall of fascist, communist and extreme rightist/leftist ideologies was the formation of democracies and economic growth of democratic nations with better cooperation and world trade driven by tax agreements and common legal systems. Concepts like NATO, European union, WTO despite their inadequacies have kept the hegemonic and extremist ideologies at bay. Rise of  Conservative quirks like Trump in US , a Nation which has kept the beacon of Democracy for the last 80 years post the world war is turning to extreme right. Anti Immigrant , White Supremacist politics is replacing Conservative politics. Rise of Trump sort of characters feeds power and support to such right wing ideologies every where take as an example Marine Le Pen in France, 

BREXIT will accelerate the fall of democratic, centrist politics globally. I see Russia rising in stature meddling with politics in every region some of it through covert political influence like what they have done by helping Trump rise in US. China will have their chance at the head of the table in the new Cold war between the Democratic but struggling nations and the rising mix of extremist ideologies. US, Canada, UK, India, Australia and a few European nations like Germany will be on one side with only commonality being the Democratic character of the nations tying them together.

As US power and influence decreases globally, China will challenge it at every front with its money power - You can see it at best play in Argentina for instance or the Leftist states in South America.

China will use its money to influence thinking within the democracies easily - Lobby groups already do this today. Australia is a good example how they have infiltrated both Labor and Liberal politics making it difficult to avoid China in any of their political calculations.Chinese will feed the dissent within the democracies with their money power as they build their pearls globally across Asia, Africa and South America. They already have allied with Saudi Arabia, Turkey,  Russia and Pakistan. 

I cant but help think about Nostradamus's predictions at this moment. During 2001 around the 9/11 timeline I started looking at his writings seriously. One of the interpretations mentioned the rise of China and Islamic nations along with Russia in the build up to the 3rd World War. Till recently I wouldn't have considered this to happen seriously but now it seems quite real. One of the worst things that I see happening is the collaboration among Islamic nations building their common army aligning to Sunni ideology trying to pull like Shia nations like Yemen and Iran. Its a matter of time before this army  is led by a thinking that turns against other nations that can challenge such extremist thinking. If it ever happens, I think the democratic world order will struggle to match against such strong combination of Communist + Islamic armies bounded by extremist thinking, systems and can probably be taken very well be control by the next SATAN :) Nostradamus even mentioned a traitor running one of these democracies who appears to be a turncoat. Who could that be i ponder!! Whoa... is HE really who that is pointed to in that quatrain.

Funny all of  this is just my imagination running wild on  a Sunday evening but you never know ;) 

Lets see how these things evolve over the next few years and decades..

Sunday nite scribbles

Checking in after a Very long Sunday. These days tend to hate my weekends. They are the most draining days in the week having to work my ass off at home and outside with drops/pick ups. Managed to do 12500 steps which is not bad and a couple of rounds in Bunnings and Westfield Parramatta. Felt a bit of a chest pain today. May be some gas from all the fried stuff. Gotto to start again my running routines. Rains have put these plans off a bit. Not a great spring this time.

Balcony gardening during spring is fully on with Tomatoes. Okra and lettuce/colorful salad seedlings now starting to emerge. Couple of tomato plants which grew during the winter from some throwaways have started flowering which is a pretty good news. Off to a hectic week from tomorrow as the new Tech roadmaps starts getting drafted with plans and timelines being drafted out for the new strategy and solution roadmaps. Expect this to be one hell of a challenging time before things calm down for the Christmas break.

Good nite. Have a great week ahead.

Kirukals in May..

What a week. Had to miss my Sydney marathon last week, as I was down with flu with body temparature climbing almost to 102 degrees fahrenheit. It was however an opportunity for me to relax a bit over the week, spend more time with family and catch up on some good movies. Currently watching a nice movie "Septembers of Shiraz" on how post Revolution IRAN had a major impact on their minorities like Jews -  with great performances by Adrien Brody and Salma Hayek. 

As someone who faced discrimination in the Indian system of governance due to post independence "Never Ending Reservations" in Educational system, I can quite relate to the alienation felt by Jews and horrors they had to go through the change during their times. This feeling that I want my kids to have a level playing field where they get what they deserve depending on their effort, Knowledge and skills was driving factor in me migrating out of India in the first place. I am sure there will be a time when people will realize beyond a certain time the positive benefits of reservations have dwindled into nepotism and political corruption creating creamy layers within segments. Right approach would be affirmative reservation targeted at financially excluded sections of the population giving them opportunities to get out traditional non paying menial jobs. Best way to ensure this by ensuring these jobs are replaced by Automation while ensuring they move up their educational and social value chains. Its not an easy task to achieve but I firmly believe Mr.Modi and his ministers have the right outcomes in mind while going about the transformation in India despite all the cacophony in the secular, liberal media about their intentions.  Time will tell what's gonna happen.

Letting you know, have started my AWS course on Solution Architecting for Cloud and hopefully will complete the certification as well this year. Its a far shot though. 

Meanwhile had the opportunity to catch up on some nice music.Particularly have started following Mr.Prasanna, a great guitarist based in US. He keeps cooking up some amazing music which I regularly follow on Facebook. If you come across this blog - checkout his page on https://www.facebook.com/guitarprasanna/ , You will be hooked I promise. 

Wanted to restart my blogging again and hope to keep doing this regularly. 

Have a great week guyz..!! Keep Rocking.