There is a massive paradigm shift underway in the geopolitical, geostrategic, and geoeconomic dimensions of the world. The global power and economic structures are undergoing massive reorientation to meet the strong challenges of an evolving, new world order. US’ unipolar moment is long gone. Its pre-eminence as the sole, assertive, global hegemon is being increasingly nullified by a meteorically rising China and a resurgent, defiant Russia. Their challenge to the fading geopolitical status quo is real, emphatic and epitomized by the emergence of BRICS and SCO, two formidable centres of power and influence at the regional-global levels. The West’s unilateral domination and supremacy at the world level is progressively waning while the East appears ever more ascendant. Multipolarity is bound to define geopolitical dynamics henceforth while multi-alignment is fast becoming the new normal.

The SCO, in particular, needs to recognize the dynamics of the new world order it might have helped precipitate itself. Of necessity, it must reinvent itself to not only meet the consequent geopolitical-geostrategic challenges but to overwhelm them as well. It must therefore, reposition and realign itself to emerge as the inevitable, dominant centre of power and influence it is destined to be!

The SCO comprises of ten states today; Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China, India, Pakistan and Iran. It forms a single contiguous, geographical bloc in Eurasia. Currently, its western flank is defined by Belarus and Russia bordering the East European frontier of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, including Ukraine etc. It touches the Arctic in the north while its eastern flank lies in the Pacific Ocean. The Indian Ocean-Arabian Sea-Persian Gulf complex makes up its southern borders. (SCO and the Heartland Theory, by this scribe, The Nation, 13 July 2024).

President Gorbachev only allowed the unification of Germany on the express assurances of the US and UK that NATO would not expand eastwards - not even by an inch! However, the US and UK reneged on their promise. NATO moved aggressively eastwards, signed up the traditionally peace-loving states of Sweden and Finland, and ominously made a move to enrol Ukraine too. The Ukraine war was Russia’s response to this audacious, strategic maneuver by the US-led West to bring NATO, in all its imperial power, might and glory bang onto Russia’s and Belarus’ borders - and portentously onto SCO’s western flank! Ukraine’s accession to NATO would have allowed it to invoke Article 5 of NATO’s charter that specifies “collective defence”. That would have potentially pitched NATO directly against Russia, precipitated a potentially regional-world war and raised the specters of a probable nuclear holocaust! Nevertheless, a furious conventional war continues unabated on SCO’s western flank - oblivious to its crippling effects on European economies!

Furthermore, the US-led West has ordained global ambitions for NATO setting its sights on the Indo-Pacific theatre of war, too. Germany, France, Italy, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, etc are already taking part in military exercises there. Some even plan to pre-position forces there. It is obvious that after Europe (Ukraine) and the Middle East (Gaza, West Bank/Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran), NATO along with QUAD, AUKUS, and the customary regional coalitions will be mustered to the Indo-Pacific to potentially confront China over the Taiwan issue. With the US in full support, even the Europeans and Indians are now acquiring a strategic reach that goes much beyond their own rather limited spheres of influence and military capabilities and capacities to project power. The strategy of the US-led West-NATO is quite simple. BRICS and SCO are recognized as the main threats to their global hegemony. They have to be neutralized. To that end, the Sino-Russia Combine needs to be weakened sufficiently to cause these organizations to implode, collapse, and become redundant. Wars, as is well known, are the quickest ways to destroy a country’s economy. No surprises, therefore, that Russia has already been deliberately embroiled in a war in Ukraine and China is being threatened with one over Taiwan! US’ renowned Strategy of Offshore Balancing is being successfully implemented in the Ukraine-Russian war and is most likely to be replicated in the Indo-Pacific as well. The US-led West will continue fighting the Russians to the last Ukrainian - without getting physically involved itself! It will keep fuelling Ukraine’s war effort through enormous economic and military aid packages as long as it weakens Russia militarily, and economically and mitigates the challenges it poses to its supremacy in global affairs!

These maneuvers by the US-led West-NATO have critical implications for the SCO in general and the Sino-Russia Combine in particular. Through this massive strategic maneuver, they and their allies are attacking the Sino-Russia Combine in Eastern Europe and the Indo-Pacific; and by implication, the SCO’s western and eastern flanks, respectively. This is a virtual double envelopment of the SCO at the grand strategic level! However, it is being done piecemeal. In phase one, they intend to weaken Russia (and the Sino-Russia Combine) through the war in Ukraine. In Phase 2, they plan to tackle the supposedly already weakened Sino-Russia Combine in the Indo-Pacific, by engaging China over Taiwan. A debilitated Sino-Russia Combine would ostensibly mean an enfeebled, crumbling SCO too. Can the Sino-Russia Combine consider a pre-emptive maneuver to deter/stop the US-led West-NATO’s audacious double envelopment in its tracks? Can it take the initiative in the Indo-Pacific and Himalayan sub-theatres of war and force the US-led West-NATO and its allies to fight prematurely or at a time and place not of their own choosing? Can it compel them to fight in two widely divergent theatres of war (Europe and Indo-Pacific) simultaneously, seriously dividing their forces, resources, and efforts?

The SCO is being enveloped/encircled militarily and quite emphatically; can it pre-empt it?

(To be continued)

Imran Malik
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at im.k846@gmail.com and tweets @K846Im.