Geopolitics: plain and simple
Understanding the world without the moral panic
Foreign policy surrounds us everyday. Whether in the news cycles, Twitter. This is even more true if you live in US and foreign policy just becomes an integral part of one’s political existence either consciously or against one’s will. There is always some enemy, bad guys somewhere and we get bombarded with information (or propaganda) molding our opinions on countries we have never visited. This is by no means specific to US. Every country on the earth has their own villains, good guys and narratives. However what has always worried me on it is the implications for these narratives are far-reaching and consequential. While domestically disputes and conflicts of interest are settled by a court of law, internationally no such system is implementable so these narratives often tend nations to use much more violent measures in order to enforce their ideologies, leading to massive destruction of human life and economic property. That’s why I would like to deconstruct some of the narratives, and try to parse the signal from the noise- often most narrative-building in international issues is simplistic, treats the world like a theater of Harry Potter with good guys and bad guys.
However with deeper scrutiny almost no one stands to their proclamations of being good, and narratives often exist to serve as enforcing mechanisms for achieving geopolitical goals and expanding or defending their national interests. If I have a bias, it’s this- where while not completely ruling out morality, I will try to dig into nations and conflicts from the perspective of identity, influence and history as opposed to good and evil. Ideally I wouldn’t dive down too deep into history- mostly last 100 years or so. My first analysis will happen on the conflict which has consumed our contemporary life, having just finished 1-year mark: Russian invasion of Ukraine. I will study this as a 3-part series, where my first part will focus neither on Russian imperialism, nor on NATO expansion but rather doing a deep-dive inside the country which has been impacted the most- Ukraine, understanding the population dynamics, fault lines and how things got here.
Who am I, and why Substack?
I am glad you have found this small-corner of the internet. Most of you wouldn’t know who I am (except if you followed me from Quora). Born in India, immigrated to US in 2013, been here since. I am no Glenn Greenwald, Heather Cox or Seymour Hersh but rather just another guy. Back in 2011-15, I was writing a bit on Quora and ended up gaining 27,000 followers just to be unfortunately hit with writers block with a huge pile of drafts, never able to hit the publish button. However I have figured the Q&A format is best left for gamification, and an open blogging platform like Substack is best for me to discuss my thoughts in a free-format.
What kind of community do we have here?
This space is for people who have heard about some foreign-policy issue already, but want to explore deeper into multiple perspectives, the interests of different factions and some morality- although generally relative rather than absolute. Sometimes it wouldn’t be concerns of war, but more basic incidents like social media censorship. While I would like to getting deep into US partisan scene, sometimes it might just be unavoidable. I am not an investigative reporter, although some work I produce with a lot of research and will take a week or more. Other works are slightly more opinionated and can be produced within a day.
Do follow me and subscribe to my Substack for exciting alternative views (and I mean it, not just counter-narrative to mainstream) and geopolitical/ historical analysis of many current day situations. It’s free and I don’t have intention of paid subscription in the near future.
Conclusion
I do want to leave my readers and myself with a reminder- as we debate and understand some of these issues with an intellectual distance, the suffering of millions is very real. Apart from trying to read, understand history I also like travelling a lot, and some of my more memorable ghastly experiences have been places like War Remnants Museum in Vietnam or Killing Fields in Cambodia. Indeed a lot of my thinking/ writing is biased to the understand of how to promote peace, avert hostilities and avoid falling into simplistic narratives demonizing others.
Opinions are completely my own and do not reflect at all my employers or anyone else’s.
#foreignpolicy #geopolitics #peace #deconstruct #narrative