India, like the rest of Asia is in a dilemma regarding regional economic security, in the midst of internationally encircling gloom. Two of Asia’s largest economies, China and Japan, not only have their years of savings of over four trillions dollars caught in the United States’ (US) debt-trap, but are also enmeshed, almost irretrievably, within the paradigm of “armament protected consumerism”. This, translated into the emerging reality, means an ever expanding financial sector, growing indebtedness and high unemployment as well as instigated disorders, terrorism and high intensity, high casualty small wars—all to maintain the status quo. Not only are the production, consumption and financial systems breaking down, but the very role-model which has brought the entire world to this stage is withering away. The options are few and shrinking.
The globalising control model is evolving into regional coalitions as safetynets. Latin America is well on this path in spite of external pressures and interventions. Europe, which is sticking together so far, is also seeking a way out. This however, is an illusion, as the European Union’s economic and security interests have been merged with those of the US’s, but the prospects for its economy, energy supplies, market interests and raw materials are pulling it towards Russia and Asia. The irrevocable commitment to “sink or swim” with the US and its complex economic and defence integration architecture leaves little scope to switch friends, interests and loyalties. Russia, like many other countries is in an economic bind with the financial oligarchies of the West, but its defence capabilities, resources and Soviet era experience provide latent potential for escape.
Therefore, until a new “social order” emerges, there is an urgent need to erect a bulwark in the form of continental coalitions. This is the time to escape the patterns of the past, because the urge for domination with the changing equations is increasingly being channelled on destructive paths. Russia and other regions of Asia hold some hope for a move to stem the decline of Europe and connect it to the vast resources and markets of Eurasia in a new and harmonious synthesis of diverse cultures, for a just and humane social order. This combination could muster the best of East and West in science, spirituality and tradition. The time for the achievement of material superiority at the cost of other human attributes and the power to exploit and dominate through financial control and by instigating cultural violence and terrorism are passing. The shining Titanic has already hit the iceberg. The poor of the world are becoming wise to the techniques of exploitation. Russia and Asia could possibly phase out from under the shadow of an arbitrary monetary means of exchange before it is too late. There is no time or potential for compromise and those who continue to seek it will only be buying themselves tickets on the sinking Titanic.
This is the environment in which Asia—particularly China, India and Japan—must find its bearings. The powers that be are trying again to put together their own models for the future, led by a combine of the US, Japan and China, three of the world’s largest conomies, within a financial regime intended to exhume the US from the bottomless ebt-trap. Other possibilities are also being explored, so that the old world of superpower domination may be made sustainable in the midst of conflicting egos and interests. For this Japan directly and China and the rest of the world indirectly are being warned not to seek economic prosperity and security outside the power orbit of the one and only superpower, even if it is to save themselves from damage to their own economic interests.
Therefore to checkmate such trends, it is imperative to create a cooperative arrangement of continental Europe and Asia—from Lisbon to Vladivostok—to escape the threats of North America, helped by whatever allies the latter still has in Asia and the West. Yet such alliances will neither advance economic development nor security, as greater resources will be used to enhance the potential for disorder and promote the arms race. No new order will emerge in this environment. All permutations and combinations of alliances between diverse resources and interests will only have short-term potential for stability and security and that too if there are elements of complementarity within the system. Protective cooperation for economic domination or security within a larger system on a background of mass poverty and unemployment will be only a prelude to ever widening conflict. The restructuring of a new paradigm will require sacrifice and consensus through dialogue. The use of financial pressure and military force will only lead to the breakdown of all systems with a holocaust as a possible consequence.