When the COVID-19 pandemic cast its shadow on the global arena, the fuss was about healthcare, crisis-mobility and supply chains. Each among them held a threat to the existing polit-bureau of international politics, from international organisations coming under fire to the rise of right-wing politics over the globe, could be seen as a precursor to the summer of 2025, which has seen 5 countries go into a direct war with one another. And the cursed thing about wars is they breed quickly like a festering infection. While the theory is that the pandemic might have been the trigger for these global skirmishes, I posit that it was only a catalyst in the larger political cycle.
While the 2000s had seen massive army deployments around the globe, the 2010s were a calmer decade. Led by the democrats in the US, and the rise of liberal politics around the EU. And as we have now been made more aware of, those were a decade of political correctness, DEI and more so of anti-inequality. The pockets of this oppression were identified as third-world nations, which had become a favourite of the MNCs to outsource human-intensive production. And the arguments were true, the conditions for working were sub-human, the wages were dirt cheap, and none of the benefits were passed on to the consumers in the richer nations. In a true Marxian fashion, it was a case of the bourgeois kidnapping the surplus.
While the protests were well-intended, the target became globalisation; in fact, there were well-optimised supply chains. And the only thing that held these supply chains together was the profits they made. Since the politicians on the far right had also grown very sceptical of the jobs that were being lost to other nations. In this moment of tussle, the pandemic arrived. Several of the supply chains were severed, throwing the MNCs into a frenzy for alternatives. While the pandemics were contained in 2 years, the redundancy in supply chains is still an organisational strategy.
Nations have therefore used bureaucracy as a weapon to coerce these firms into diversifying parts of he supply chain into their own land. While the story so far has been all about trade and economics, the ugly face has begun to rise. With that dependency no longer around, global nations can now be disposed of with little impact on trade. In other words, we are back to semi-feudal days of global fist fights over land, routes, and trades. Perhaps each of the wars, Israel-Iran, Russia-Ukraine, India-Pakistan, and Syria, has its idiosyncratic origins, but the political current that has pushed them to it seems very cyclical.
While the protests were well-intended, the target became globalisation; in fact, there were well-optimised supply chains. And the only thing that held these supply chains together was the profits they made. Since the politicians on the far right had also grown very sceptical of the jobs that were being lost to other nations. In this moment of tussle, the pandemic arrived. Several of the supply chains were severed, throwing the MNCs into a frenzy for alternatives. While the pandemics were contained in 2 years, the redundancy in supply chains is still an organisational strategy.
The silver lining, however, is that in a true cyclical fashion, this should set off currents of liberal and peace political around the globe. As was in the aftermath of the Cold War and World Wars. But for that to work, the democratic institutions have to persist against the current onslaught. As current top leaders ride high on the populist wave, will the electorate be permanently polarised, leading to further civil wars?