With the collapse of the erstwhile Soviet Union, Ukraine—a territory that was once known as a bloody borderland between East and West—became an independent country in 1991. Since then, it—a nation with a deeply entrenched division between the Russian-speaking industrialized east and Crimea and the nationalist-minded western part that was once under Poland and Austria-Hungary till 1939—has been experiencing political turmoil, more due to infighting and graft. It is the Orange Revolution of 2004, which, pushing aside Yanukovych, had swept his opponents Yushchenko and Tymoshenko to power, that has sown the seeds for the present crisis.

In 2010, dejected by the poor performance of Yushchenko and his team, Ukraine had elected Yanukovych as its new president. The west felt relieved by this change in leadership. And, of course, this peace was not to last long, for with Yanukovych’s subsequent rejection of the trade agreement with the EU and his going all out for a deal with Russia, unrest started again. Peeved by the rejection of trade agreement with EU, the western powers went all out in support of the Ukrainian nationalists and anti-Semites who seized power by overthrowing Yanukovych. Following this, the new overlords humiliated Russian-speaking fellow natives and also attempted to sack Russia’s naval base in Sebastopol. This has led the ethnic Russians to rush to Putin seeking Moscow’s protection. Duly seizing the opportunity, Russia intervened in the crisis and occupied the Crimean peninsula. Against this illegal annexation of a sovereign country, the US and the EU imposed economic sanctions against Russia.

In this context, the first paper of the issue, “Russo-American Engagement in Ukraine: Geopolitics at Work”, by Ramakrushna Pradhan, narrates how the post-Soviet space has become the playground for testing the regional supremacy of Russia and the global hegemony of the US. The author has traced how after Georgia in 2008, Ukraine has now become the victim of geopolitical engagement between Moscow and Washington. In the process, the author observes that Ukraine became the worst sufferer of the conflict between the superpowers, for it is losing billions of dollars as the fee that it would have earned from Russia for letting its gas transit through Ukraine’s territory. And owing to the fact that Ukraine is being supported by the US and the EU, there is no scope for restoration of normal relations between Russia and Ukraine in the near future, asserts the author. Further, the author avers that Ukraine may also lose Crimea as the referendum results indicate. He also argues that the US and the EU must learn not to intervene in any of the former Soviet states, for Russia under the leadership of Putin has now become more decisive and an energetic power which is eager to regain its past position in the global politics. He also suggests that India must exhibit caution while handling the conflict between Ukraine and Russia for both these countries matter most for India and hence he suggests that India must maintain equidistance from the warring countries.

Moving on to the next paper, “The Role of India in Regionalism: SAARC, ASEAN, EU, BIMSTEC, IOR-ARC, and MGC: Lessons for Nigeria in the ECOWAS”, we have its author, Sharkdam Wapmuk, analyzing India’s role in regionalism, particularly amongst the regional organizations such as SAARC, ASEAN and EU, and also in subregional structures such as BIMSTEC, IOR-ARC and MGC. The author observes that since the end of Cold War and after launching its economic reforms, India has been striving to strengthen partnerships with regional organizations even beyond its extended neighborhood. According to the author, India has further strengthened its trade and investment links as well as security relations with ASEAN countries, which indeed appears to be better than its performance vis-à-vis SAARC countries. Taking a cue from India’s experience in fostering better relations with regional bodies, the author offered certain suggestions to Nigeria for bettering its relations with regional bodies so as to develop itself as one of the top 20 largest economies in the world by 2020.

In the third paper, “Migration Gain: When Migration Means Innovation”, its author, Pierpaolo Giannoccolo, analyzed the underlying linkage between migration and innovation by examining the special role played by the skilled migrants in the innovation process of the countries to which they have migrated. Secondly, the author also observed that skilled workers are highly mobile and different skilled workers contribute to innovation differently impacting the economic growth of the respective countries. The author opines that all these factors play a crucial role in assessing the “migration gain for innovation.” Finally, he offered a theoretical model that betters the understanding of the link between innovation and migration by differentiating different characteristics of migrants as also analyzing the existence of brain competition. The whole exercise, the author claims, will be of use in framing migration policies by the individual countries.

The last paper of the issue, “Control the Oil, Rule the World: The Energy Games Nations Play”, by Anshuman Gupta and Surbhi Arora, analyzes the current geopolitical issues underlying the oil supply in the world. The authors argue that while the US and China are constantly desiring for oil resources to fuel their economies, Iran and Russia on the other hand are clamoring for the oil pipelines passing through their territories for not only claiming transitory fee but also to use pipelines as a political tool to gain power in the global geopolitics. The authors also state that the recent political developments in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and other small Arab countries have brought in a new dimension to the geopolitics of the region. Analyzing the position of India in the changing geopolitical scenario, the authors suggest that India should leverage on its close proximity to oil-rich west Asia for meeting energy requirements of its growing economy.

-- GRK Murty
Consulting Editor