Geo-politics – Page 2 – Air Marshal's Perspective

April 3, 2026

796: THE RULES-BASED INTERNATIONAL ORDER: AN ANALYTICAL OVERVIEW

The Rules-Based International Order (RBIO) refers to the framework of multilateral institutions. It includes legal norms, treaties, and agreed principles that govern interstate relations. Its foundational architecture was constructed between 1944 and 1948 (at Bretton Woods, San Francisco, and Geneva). It rests on several interlocking pillars, namely, the United Nations system and its Charter, the Bretton Woods financial institutions (IMF and World Bank), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (later the WTO), international humanitarian law, the Geneva Conventions, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and a constellation of specialised agencies addressing everything from civil aviation to maritime law.

RBIO: Core Principle and Architecture. The core logic of the RBIO is that states conduct their international relations according to agreed-upon rules, irrespective of their relative power. Sovereignty of every nation is respected. Disputes are resolved through negotiation, arbitration, or settlement rather than force. The architecture has four distinct dimensions.

- The security dimension is embedded in the UN Charter. It prohibits the use of force except in self-defence or with Security Council authorisation.

- The economic dimension is based on open trade. The IMF and the World Bank provided financial stability and development assistance.

- The legal dimension encompasses international humanitarian law, the law of the sea (UNCLOS), diplomatic immunity conventions, and the human rights law.

- The normative dimension consists of shared expectations about sovereignty, non-interference in internal affairs, and the illegitimacy of territorial conquest by force.

Strengths and Achievements. The RBIO’s achievements between 1945 and roughly 2000 were genuinely significant. It presided over the longest period without a great-power war in modern history. It managed the decolonisation of Asia and Africa without a general war. It provided the framework within which the Cold War was conducted without becoming a hot war. The NPT successfully limited nuclear proliferation far below what analysts predicted in the 1960s. The WTO oversaw the greatest expansion of international trade and the associated reduction in poverty in human history. The UN system provided a forum for diplomatic management of crises. For smaller states, the RBIO provided something particularly valuable: the principle of sovereign equality. A small state in the RBIO has the same legal standing as a large one, the same right to vote in the General Assembly, the same protection from invasion under the UN Charter, and the same access to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. This was not merely formal; it genuinely constrained the behaviour of large states in ways that pure power politics would not have.

Erosion and Challenges. The RBIO has been under sustained pressure since at least the early 2000s, and that pressure has intensified dramatically in the past decade. Several forces are driving its erosion simultaneously.

- Great-power revisionism is the most fundamental challenge. China and Russia (both permanent Security Council members) have concluded that the order serves American interests more than those of the others. Both powers have made clear that they regard the RBIO as an American instrument of hegemonic management rather than a genuinely neutral framework of rules.

- American ambivalence has further eroded its credibility. The United States has repeatedly violated RBIO in pursuit of its interests. It has been invading countries without Security Council authorisation. The Trump administration’s explicit scepticism of multilateral institutions, its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, and UNESCO, and its transactional approach to alliances have all signalled American willingness to instrumentalise or abandon the RBIO framework.

- Institutional dysfunction has made the order less capable of responding to its own violations. The UN Security Council’s veto mechanism, designed as a great-power concert that would enforce collective security, has been paralysed by great-power competition: Russia and China routinely block action on issues where Western powers seek Council authorisation. In contrast, Western powers do the same in reverse.

The RBIO and India

India’s relationship with the RBIO is historically complex and strategically consequential. India benefited to some extent from the RBIO in the process of decolonisation. India has also been a persistent critic of it, particularly during the Cold War, when the “rules” appeared to serve the interests of the superpowers more than those of the newly independent Global South.

India’s founding foreign policy framework (non-alignment) was, in significant part, a rejection of the Cold War RBIO’s demand that states choose sides. India insisted on the right to conduct its foreign policy according to its own interests rather than as a subordinate within one of the blocs. This instinct has evolved into the contemporary period as “strategic autonomy”, i.e., India’s resistance to formal alliances, its simultaneous maintenance of relationships with multiple powers, and its selective engagement with multilateral institutions.

India’s current RBIO stance is sophisticated and deliberately ambiguous. India rhetorically endorses the RBIO — particularly its sovereignty and non-interference norms, which protect smaller states from great-power coercion — while simultaneously resisting specific RBIO rules that constrain its own behaviour or that it regards as serving others’ interests. India’s approach is therefore not revisionist in the Chinese or Russian sense. It is not seeking to dismantle the order.

The erosion of RBIO creates specific dilemmas for India. On the one hand, the weakening of sovereignty norms and the normalisation of great-power unilateralism expose India to greater pressure from China. China’s revisionist approach to the LAC boundary and its behaviour in the South China Sea both challenge the RBIO norms. On the other hand, India is uncomfortable with the RBIO in its current American-led form, which it regards as selectively enforced and structurally weighted toward Western interests.

India’s preferred outcome — a reformed, more genuinely multipolar RBIO in which India has a larger voice commensurate with its growing power and population — is articulated through its push for permanent UN Security Council membership, its leadership of the Global South within forums like the G20 and BRICS, and its consistent advocacy for “development-first” norms within multilateral economic institutions. Whether this reformist vision is achievable in the current environment of great-power competition and norm erosion is one of the central strategic questions India will face in the decade to 2037.

The RBIO and the Pre-emption Paradigm

The US-Israel strikes on Iran illustrate the RBIO’s erosion in its most acute form. The strikes bypassed the UN Security Council, the NPT verification mechanism, and the IAEA inspection framework — three of the order’s most important institutions for managing nuclear proliferation. They were conducted without Security Council authorisation. They targeted a sovereign state’s domestic infrastructure. And they were widely accepted by the Western strategic community as legitimate, demonstrating that the gap between formal RBIO rules and the actual standards that major powers apply to their own behaviour has become operationally significant.

For India, this creates a specific doctrinal implication. If the RBIO’s formal rules no longer reliably constrain great-power behaviour in the nuclear domain, India cannot base its security planning on the assumption that those rules will protect its own nuclear infrastructure from pre-emptive attack. For that matter, they will also not prevent adversaries from conducting sub-conventional operations against Indian interests. The RBIO cannot substitute credible deterrence, but remains valuable as a diplomatic framework.

Repercussions.

The RBIO is neither dead nor fully effective. It is structurally weakened and being selectively enforced. It is still functioning in domains where great-power interests converge sufficiently to sustain it. What has changed is the normative credibility of the order, i.e. the shared expectation that rules apply equally to the powerful and the weak. That expectation, never fully realised, has been further eroded by a decade of great-power unilateral action. The result is an international environment in which rules provide guidance and legitimacy only to the major powers, when convenient.

For India, navigating this environment requires exactly the combination of strategic autonomy, credible conventional deterrence, selective multilateral engagement, and coalition-building that its foreign policy has historically pursued — but pursued now with greater urgency, greater resources, and greater strategic coherence than the drift of recent years has always provided.

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Disclaimer:

Information and data included in the blog are for educational & non-commercial purposes only and have been carefully adapted, excerpted, or edited from reliable and accurate sources. All copyrighted material belongs to respective owners and is provided only for wider dissemination.

References:

Ruggie, J. G. (1982). International regimes, transactions, and change: Embedded liberalism in the postwar economic order. International Organisation, 36(2), 379–415.

Bailey, S. D., & Daws, S. (1998). The procedure of the UN Security Council (3rd ed.). Clarendon Press.

Steil, B. (2013). The battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the making of a new world order. Princeton University Press.

United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. (1968). Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Mearsheimer, J. J. (2019). Bound to fail: The rise and fall of the liberal international order. International Security, 43(4), 7–50.

Kagan, R. (2017). The twilight of the liberal world order. Brookings Institution.

Haass, R. (2017). A world in disarray: American foreign policy and the crisis of the old order. Penguin Press.

Narlikar, A. (2013). India Rising: Responsible to whom? International Affairs, 89(3), 595–614.

Tellis, A. J. (2001). India’s emerging nuclear posture: Between recessed deterrent and ready arsenal. RAND Corporation.

March 22, 2026March 21, 2026

793: IRAN WAR: MANY QUESTIONS, DIVERSE PERCEPTIONS (PART 3)

The answers are collated from open sources. Information warfare and propaganda are generally active, as in any other war. Bias in the answers cannot be ruled out.

GEOPOLITICAL & STRATEGIC

How did the conflict affect US relations with Gulf Arab states?

Iran’s decision to strike across nine countries — including previously neutral Gulf states such as Oman and Qatar — has had the paradoxical effect of pushing Gulf governments into closer alignment with the US-Israeli security architecture, even as they publicly demand restraint. Iran’s widening of attacks to encompass all GCC states has demonstrated that passive neutrality offers no protection, underscoring that regional threats are better countered collectively. Intelligence-sharing and covert security cooperation between Israel and Gulf neighbours would deepen.

Did the conflict accelerate or derail Israel-Saudi normalisation?

The conflict has deepened covert alignment but left formal normalisation frozen. The Palestinian issue — dramatically amplified in the Arab public sphere by the Gaza war — remains a fundamental political obstacle that shared threat perception of Iran cannot simply override. Arab governments already obtain meaningful security benefits from covert cooperation with Israel without assuming the domestic political risk of formal recognition. US officials, including Senator Graham, have publicly framed the post-war period as a “historic opportunity” to revive normalisation once Iranian pressure recedes, but the structural obstacles remain formidable.

DIPLOMACY & CEASEFIRE

What diplomatic efforts were made to prevent full-scale war, and why did they fail?

Oman led indirect nuclear negotiations in Geneva in February 2026, with Iran reportedly agreeing to forgo stockpiling enriched uranium and accept permanent, full IAEA verification — significant concessions that represented a near-breakthrough. Oman’s Foreign Minister publicly declared peace “within reach.” The US and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury regardless, with Oman’s mediator expressing he was “dismayed” that active negotiations had been overridden by military action. The deeper failure of diplomacy traces to accumulated mistrust, Iran’s reconstitution of its programme after the 2025 setback, the IAEA’s discovery of hidden HEU in February 2026, and an Israeli/US assessment that a narrow preemption window was closing.

What were the terms of any ceasefire agreements, and what role did mediators play?

The June 2025 Twelve-Day War ended in a US-brokered ceasefire on 24 June 2025. No comparable agreement has been reached in the ongoing 2026 conflict. Khamenei’s assassination has shattered the established rules of engagement, leaving the conflict without clear diplomatic off-ramps and deepening into a war of attrition. Oman served as the primary channel for both the 2025 ceasefire and the aborted 2026 nuclear talks. Qatar hosted US military assets while simultaneously coming under Iranian attack — a contradictory position that constrained its mediating role. Egypt maintained a relative distance. China is positioning itself as the primary post-conflict stabiliser, dispatching diplomatic envoys while warning publicly against spreading “flames of war.”

CONSEQUENCES & LONG-TERM OUTLOOK

How significantly has Iran’s military capability been degraded?

Severely. Israel claims approximately 60–90% of Iran’s estimated 500 ballistic missile launchers have been destroyed or disabled. Over 100 air defence systems and 120 detection systems were eliminated in the opening 24 hours. More than 1,700 military industrial assets have been struck, with the campaign working systematically through Iran’s missile production chain. Over 50 naval vessels have been destroyed, effectively decimating Iran’s navy. Nuclear infrastructure is severely damaged. IRGC command nodes and leadership have been targeted. Iran retains core enrichment knowledge, some dispersed material, and the institutional will to reconstitute — but its conventional military power has been fundamentally degraded.

What is the long-term trajectory of Iran-Israel relations?

Persistent, entrenched hostility is the most probable outcome. Iran perceives the conflict as existential and has shown no interest in an off-ramp, calculating that a prolonged war of attrition may eventually favour it. The appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei — widely described as more hardline than his father and closely tied to the IRGC — signals continuity of confrontational posture rather than moderation. The most dangerous near-term risks are an Iranian nuclear dash to weaponise as the ultimate deterrent, or asymmetric revenge operations through reconstituted proxy networks or cyber means. A long-term “new normal” of uneasy, diminished-Iran deterrence is possible if the regime survives in weakened form; outright regime collapse would open a different and highly unpredictable set of outcomes.

Has the conflict changed the doctrine of deterrence in the Middle East?

Profoundly. The killing of a sitting Supreme Leader has shattered red lines that were previously considered inviolable, signalling that no leader or asset is beyond reach for a sufficiently capable and determined adversary. The conflict has validated the superiority of offensive preemption combined with layered defence over passive deterrence-by-denial, and has demonstrated that proxy networks are unreliable against determined state-on-state military action. The perverse global signal, noted by RAND analysts, is that states without nuclear weapons remain existentially vulnerable to decapitation strikes, which may accelerate proliferation among states watching the outcome and drawing their own conclusions.

What are the military lessons for nations like India from this conflict?

The conflict carries direct and urgent lessons for Mission Sudarshan Chakra and India’s broader defence doctrine. First, layered, integrated air defence, combining short-, medium-, and long-range systems with real-time intelligence, is essential against mixed salvos of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones — validating India’s multi-layered architecture. Second, interceptor stockpile depth is as critical as interception technology itself; saturation rapidly depletes inventories, making directed-energy weapons an operational necessity for economically defeating cheap drone swarms. Third, offensive counter-strikes on launcher and C2 infrastructure are force multipliers — pure defence is strategically and financially unsustainable against a determined adversary, validating the offensive-defensive integration at the heart of Mission Sudarshan Chakra. Fourth, space-based early warning and AI-driven command and control are now operational necessities, not aspirational future capabilities. Fifth, allied interoperability — the US-Israeli model — multiplies system effectiveness in ways that no single national architecture can replicate, underscoring the importance of India deepening defence technology partnerships with the US and Israel in particular.

(More to follow)

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March 21, 2026

792: IRAN WAR: MANY QUESTIONS, DIVERSE PERCEPTIONS (PART 2)

The answers are collated from open sources. Information warfare and propaganda are generally active, as in any other war. Bias in the answers cannot be ruled out.

MILITARY OPERATIONS

What were the major Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel, and how effective were they?

Iran launched multiple large-scale barrages across 2024–2026. The June 2025 Twelve-Day War saw Iran fire over 550 ballistic missiles and more than 1,000 suicide drones. In the ongoing 2026 campaign, Iran has shifted to wider but smaller barrages targeting Israel, US bases, and infrastructure across Gulf states simultaneously. Israeli forces claim that their overall effectiveness has been low: the vast majority of strikes were intercepted, and physical damage and casualties were limited relative to the scale of launches. Saturation tactics strained interceptor inventories but failed to overwhelm allied defences due to Israeli pre-emptive strikes on launchers and continuous US augmentation.

What was the nature and scale of Israel’s retaliatory strikes inside Iran?

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has been the largest operation in IAF history. On day one alone, approximately 1,200 strike sorties were flown. Israel has struck over 1,700 military industrial assets across Iran, with thousands more remaining on target lists. The campaign has systematically worked through Iran’s entire missile production chain — from large IRGC-linked assembly facilities to smaller component manufacturers — alongside nuclear sites, air defence infrastructure, naval assets, and leadership targets, including Khamenei himself. Israel claims to have destroyed or disabled approximately 60–90% of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers and has achieved air superiority over most of Iran’s airspace within 24 hours of operations beginning.

What role did the US military play?

The US played a dual role — defensive and offensive. On the defensive side, US THAAD and Patriot batteries across Israel and Gulf states, alongside Aegis-equipped destroyers in the region, provided critical intercept capacity that prevented Israeli systems from being overwhelmed by volume. On the offensive side, the US struck three Iranian nuclear sites on 22 June 2025 and launched over 900 strikes in the opening phase of Operation Epic Fury on 28 February 2026. US tanker and intelligence support were essential enablers of Israel’s deep-strike campaign inside Iranian airspace.

What damage did Israeli strikes inflict on Iran’s air defence and nuclear infrastructure?

Reportedly, in the 2026 campaign, over 100 air defence systems and 120 detection systems were taken out within the first 24 hours, giving Israel air superiority over much of Iranian territory. Nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan, and the covert Minzadehei site have all sustained significant damage, with key facilities rendered inoperable; survivable elements remain, but reconstitution capacity is being systematically targeted.

AIR DEFENCE: TECHNOLOGY & LESSONS

What does the conflict reveal about large-scale ballistic missile attacks against layered air defence?

Several clear lessons have emerged. First, layered integration with ally support is highly effective but extraordinarily expensive — interceptor depletion is a genuine strategic vulnerability against an adversary willing to launch at scale. Second, offensive counter-strikes against launchers and command infrastructure are force multipliers that reduce the volume of incoming strikes more efficiently than additional interceptors alone. Third, early warning and space-based detection are operationally decisive — the side that detects first wins the intercept race. Fourth, directed energy weapons are now operationally necessary to address cheap drone swarms economically, as engaging low-cost drones with high-cost interceptors at scale is financially unsustainable.

How did Israel’s multi-layered air defence system perform against Iranian strikes?

As claimed by Israel, the performance has been outstanding by any historical standard — the combined system achieved interception rates of approximately 80–95% across successive Iranian barrages. The Arrow system engaged ballistic missiles at high altitudes, David’s Sling handled medium-range threats, including MRBMs, at the edge of its design envelope, and the Iron Dome addressed shorter-range rockets and drones. Both David’s Sling and Arrow exceeded their design parameters in operational performance. Some ballistic missiles and drones penetrated — causing fatalities, including in Beit Shemesh — but damage and casualties were dramatically lower than the volume of attacks would suggest. The critical vulnerability exposed is not interception technology but the depth of the interceptor stockpile: Iran’s ambition to grow its ballistic missile inventory from approximately 2,000 to 10,000 poses a potential saturation threat that no allied interceptor stockpile can sustainably address without directed-energy alternatives.

How did the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow systems perform, and what role did US THAAD and Patriot play?

All three Israeli systems performed well against the threat categories they were designed for, collectively achieving approximately 95% interception rates under sustained multi-wave attack. David’s Sling and Arrow both operated at or beyond their design envelopes against Iranian MRBMs. US THAAD and Patriot systems provided essential additional intercept depth; THAAD alone is reported to have expended approximately 25% of its available stockpile in the 2025 phase, continuing heavy use in 2026. Without US augmentation, Israeli interceptor inventories would have been depleted far more rapidly.

(More to follow)

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