- Record: found
- Abstract: found
- Article: found
Abraham Accords, Indo-Pacific Accord and the US-Led Nexus of Curtailment: Threat to Regional Security, and Joint Counter Strategy
Abstract
The Abraham Accords emerged against a background of a new geostrategic reality of shifting balances of power towards Eurasia. They have served to elevate Israel and cause divisions among Muslims to intensify the Arab-Iran conflict. The Accords also signalled that the US could now direct its focus on China, which it considers an existential threat for its global hegemony. Asia-Pacific region is fast transforming through economic growth led by China, and economists have heralded this phenomenon as the emergence of the 'New Asian Century.' This paper argues that the US might resort to create constructive chaos in the region through its alliance with Israel and India. Washington has put this strategy in place since 2001 and it has been successful in taming the region in the its favor. In continuation to the War on Terror (WoT) policies that targeted Muslim nations, the US reinvigorated its Pivot to Asia' policy which targets China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan. A major threat for Washington is the expansion and recognition of Beijing's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that will transform the global geopolitical landscape, connecting it with 65 countries across the globe. China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) being a major project in the framework of transnational connectivity has huge potential for Pakistan. India is playing a key role as a lynchpin for the US in the region and is perturbed equally from the rise of China, and regional development projects of the latter. China, Russia, Pakistan and Iran need to devise a joint regional strategy to safeguard their collective interests. If the US fails in its objective to contain China and its developing alliances, it will attempt to destabilize the region through the strategy of constructive chaos.
Content
Author and article information
Notes
US Department of State, Government of United States, “The Abraham Accords Declaration,” September 15, 2020, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Abraham-Accords-signed-FINAL-15-Sept-2020-508-1.pdf.
US Department of State, Government of United States, “The Abraham Accords Declaration.”
Antony J. Blinken, “A Foreign Policy for American People” (speech, Washington, DC, March 3, 2021), https://www.state.gov/a-foreign-policy-for-the-american-people/; Antony J. Blinken and Lloyd J. Austin III, “America's Partnerships are ‘Force Multipliers’ in the World,” Washington Post, March 14, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/14/americas-partnerships-are-force-multipliers-world/.
Ibid.
Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, AC, “The Longer Telegram: Toward a New American China Strategy” (paper, Atlantic Council, Washington, DC, 2021), https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The-Longer-Telegram-Toward-A-New-American-China-Strategy.pdf.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997).
Andrew Korybko, “The US Alliance with India: Bipartisan Issue of Strategic Importance” (Montreal: Global Research-Centre for Research on Globalization, 2020), https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-alliance-india-bipartisan-issue-grand-strategic-importance/5728084?pdf=5728084.
Hassan Hosseini, Mohammad Ali Mousavi and Mohammad Khosh Haikal Azad, “Obama's ‘Pivot to Asia’ Policy (2011- 2016): The Case of China,” World Sociopolitical Studies 2, no. 4 (2018): 633-674, http://dx.doi.org/10.22059/wsps.2019.257644.1056.
John Pigler, “Confronting China,” interview by T. J. Coles (Petrolia: Counterpunch, 2016), https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/28/confronting-china-an-interview-with-john-pilger/.
Nick Turse, “Bases, Bases, Everywhere - Except in the Pentagon's Report,” Salon.com, January 11, 2019, https://www.salon.com/2019/01/11/bases-bases-everywhere-except-in-the-pentagons-report_partner/.
David C. Gompert, Astrid Stuth Cevallos and Cristina L. Garafola, War with China: Thinking through the Unthinkable, report (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2016), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1140.html.
Ibid.
Ibid., ix.
Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, The State and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 159-179.
John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001).
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001).
Ibid., 12.
Medea Benjamin, “America Dropped 26,171 Bombs in 2016. What a Bloody End to Obama's Reign,” Guardian, January 9, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy.
Hardt and Negri, Empire.
Scott Ritter, “Biden and Blinken's Unprovoked Attacks on Russia and China Backfire…Because If You Live in a Glass House, Don't Throw Stones,” RT.com, March 19, 2021, https://www.rt.com/op-ed/518651-biden-blinken-china-russia/.
Anatol Lieven, “Stay Calm About China,” Foreign Policy, August 26, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/26/china-existential-threat-united-states-xi-jinping/.
“America Has Been at War 93% of the Time – 222 out of 239 Years – since 1776” (Montreal: Global Research-Centre for Research on Globalization, 2019), https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-has-been-at-war-93-of-the-time-222-out-of-239-years-since-1776/5565946.
PSSIA, “Former Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff Talks Candidly About Strategic Intelligence” (Penn State School of International Affairs, 2015).
Sarah Zheng, “Why Is the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance in Beijing's Cross Hairs?” South China Morning Post, June 20, 2020, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3089564/why-five-eyes-intelligence-alliance-beijings-cross-hairs.
James Cox, “Canada and the Five Eyes Intelligence Community” (paper, Canadian International Council, Toronto, 2012), https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.357.5576&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
“Coronavirus: Trump Stands by China Lab Origin Theory for Virus,” BBC News, May 1, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52496098.
Hamid Dabashi, “How Israel-UAE Deal Obliterates the Illusion of Arab Unity,” Middle East Eye, August 26, 2020, https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-israel-uae-deal-obliterates-illusion-arab-unity.
Aarti Nagraj, “Abu Dhabi's Group 42 Becomes First UAE Company to Announce International Office in Israel,” Gulf Business, September 10, 2020, https://gulfbusiness.com/abu-dhabis-group-42-becomes-first-uae-company-to-announce-international-office-in-israel/.
Sondoss Al Assad, “Bahrain's Mounting Anger over the Monarchy's Official Formalization of Ties with Tel Aviv,” AltWorld, October 20, 2020, https://thealtworld.com/sondoss_alassad/bahrains-mounting-anger-over-the-monarchys-official-formalization-of-ties-with-tel-aviv.
Jonathan Cook, “The Planet Cannot Begin to Heal until We Rip the Mask Off the West's War Machine,” The Jonathan Cook Blog, November 27, 2020, https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-11-27/us-war-machine/.
Jonathan Cook, “How the Israel-UAE Deal Puts the Bogus Peace Industry Back in Business,” Middle East Eye, August 15, 2020, https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-israel-uae-deal-put-bogus-peace-industry-back-business.
Shaul Chorev, Douglas J. Feith, Seth Cropsey, Jack Dorsett and Gary Roughead, The Eastern Mediterranean in the New Era of Major-Power Competition: Prospects for U.S.-Israeli Cooperation, report (Washington, DC: Hudson Institute, 2019), https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.hudson.org/Feith_The%20Eastern%20Mediterranean%20in%20the%20New%20Era%20of%20Major-Power%20Competition.pdf.
Ibid., 8.
Connie Bruck, “Friends of Israel,” New Yorker, August 25, 2014, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/01/friends-israel.
Jonathan Cook, “Why Israel is Joining the Pentagon's ‘Arab NATO’,” Middle East Eye, February 2, 2021, https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/why-israel-joining-pentagon-arab-nato.
Trevor Hunnicutt and Maayan Lubell, “Biden and Israeli PM Set to Discuss Iran Strategy at Meeting Next Week,” Reuters, August 18, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-pm-expects-meet-biden-this-month-discuss-iran-2021-08-18/.
“UAE Honours PM Modi with Highest Civilian Award,” Hindu Business Line, August 24, 2019, https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/uae-honours-pm-modi-with-highest-civilian-award/article29243453.ece?__cf_chl_captcha_tk__=pmd_z_83gPUU3kAW.R_i0gsLm6m74z46Zk0wqm2kYKXGNcA-1631606460-0-gqNtZGzNAxCjcnBszQjR.
Tyler Durden, “Biden's Last Throw of Geopolitical Dice,” Zero Hedge, March 26, 2021, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/bidens-last-throw-geopolitical-dice.
US Department of State, GoUS, A Free and Open Indo-Pacific: Advancing a Shared Vision, report (Government of United States, 2019), https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Free-and-Open-Indo-Pacific-4Nov2019.pdf.
Miranda Priebe, Bryan Rooney, Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Jeffrey Martini and Stephanie Pezard, Implementing Restraint: Changes in U.S. Regional Security Policies to Operationalize a Realist Grand Strategy of Restraint, report (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2021), https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA700/RRA739-1/RAND_RRA739-1.pdf.
Park Joshua, “Why the US-Led Quad Alliance won't Realise its ‘Asian NATO’ Ambition against China,” South China Morning Post, October 30, 2020, https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3107469/why-us-led-quad-alliance-wont-realise-its-asian-nato-ambition.
Shinvshankar Menon, “India's Foreign Affairs Strategy,” Brookings India Impact Series (paper, Brookings Institution India Center, New Delhi, 2020), https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/India27s-foreign-affairs-strategy.pdf.
Indrani Bagchi, “In a Show of Intent, External Affairs Ministry Sets up Indo-Pacific Wing,” Times of India, April 15, 2019, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/in-a-show-of-intent-external-affairs-ministry-sets-up-indo-pacific-wing/articleshow/68880720.cms.
Poulomi Bhattacharya and Aruna Kumar Dash, “Drivers of Blue Economy in Asia and Pacific Island Countries: An Empirical Investigation of Tourism and Fisheries Sectors” (paper, Asian Development Bank Institute, Tokyo, 2020), https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/623236/adbi-wp1161.pdf.
Felix Heiduk and Gudrun Wacker, “From Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific: Significance, Implementation, and Challenges” (paper, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik [German Institute for International and Security Affairs], Berlin, 2020), https://doi.org/10.18449/2020RP09.
Lieven, “Stay Calm About China.”
Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.
David J. Berteau, Michael J. Green and Zack Cooper, Assessing the Asia-Pacific Rebalance, report (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2014), https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/150105_Berteau_AssessingAsiaPacificRebal_Web.pdf.
Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, 197.
IMI, “Amnesty International India Halts Its Work on Upholding Human Rights-Amnesty International” (Kyiv: Institute of Mass Information, 2020), https://imi.org.ua/en/news/amnesty-international-india-halts-its-work-on-upholding-human-rights-amnesty-international-i35378.
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, GoA, “2017 Foreign Policy White Paper” (Government of Australia, 2017), https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/2017-foreign-policy-white-paper.pdf.
Rajat Pandit, “2nd Biggest Arms Importer, India 23rd On Exporters' List,” Times of India, March 10, 2020, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/74559063.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst.
Dinakar Peri, “LEMOA Fully Operational Now,” Hindu, September 8, 2018, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/lemoa-already-fully-operational/article24904359.ece?__cf_chl_captcha_tk__=pmd_fFgILyLCXio450aa8t7IAox9hMkPOaAAGqBaRFPtOt8-1631692426-0-gqNtZGzNAvujcnBszQgR.
Gompert, Cevallos and Garafola, War with China: Thinking through the Unthinkable.
Ibid., ix.
Reuven Glick and Alan M. Taylor, “Collateral Damage: Trade Disruption and the Economic Impact of War,” The Review of Economics and Statistics 92, no. 1 (2010): 102-127 (109), https://www.jstor.org/stable/25651393.
Wesley Clark, “Global Warfare: We're Going to Take out 7 Countries in 5 Years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan & Iran..,” interview by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, 2007, (Montreal: Global Research-Centre for Research on Globalization, 2020), https://www.globalresearch.ca/we-re-going-to-take-out-7-countries-in-5-years-iraq-syria-lebanon-libya-somalia-sudan-iran/5166, quoted in Brandon Turbeville, “‘7 Countries in 5 Years’:” 2007 Wesley Clark Interview Reveals US Plan To Go To War With Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Somalia, And Sudan,” Activist Post, May 23, 2018, https://www.activistpost.com/2018/05/7-countries-in-5-years-2007-wesley-clark-interview-reveals-us-plan-to-go-to-war-with-iraq-iran-syria-libya-lebanon-somalia-and-sudan.html.
Mahdi D. Nazemroaya, “Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a ‘New Middle East‘” (Montreal: Global Research-Centre for Research on Globalization, 2006), https://www.globalresearch.ca/plans-for-redrawing-the-middle-east-the-project-for-a-new-middle-east/3882.
Anthony Cartalucci, “US Seeks to Destroy Myanmar just as it Destroyed Libya in 2011,” AltWorld, April 1, 2021, https://thealtworld.com/anthony_cartalucci/us-seeks-to-destroy-myanmar-just-as-it-destroyed-libya-in-2011; and Brian Berletic, “Myanmar, Libya, and Syria: Dangerous Parallels,” New Eastern Outlook, March 31, 2021, https://journal-neo.org/2021/03/31/myanmar-libya-and-syria-dangerous-parallels/.
Cartalucci, “US Seeks to Destroy Myanmar just as it Destroyed Libya in 2011.”
Steve Clemons, “The Arab Spring: ‘A Virus That Will Attack Moscow and Beijing’,” Atlantic, November 19, 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/the-arab-spring-a-virus-that-will-attack-moscow-and-beijing/248762/.
Ibid.
Ibid.
“Forty-Five Arrested for Having Links with Davis,” Dawn, February 28, 2011, https://www.dawn.com/news/609610/investigation-scope-broadened-in-davis-case-45-arrested.
Andrew Korybko, “Why America Couldn't Win Its War in Afghanistan,” Express Tribune, April 15, 2021, https://tribune.com.pk/article/97359/why-america-couldnt-win-its-war-in-afghanistan.
Douglas T. Stuart, The Pivot to Asia: Can it Serve as the Foundation for American Grand Strategy in the 21st Century? (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press, 2016), https://scholar.dickinson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1571&context=faculty_publications.
Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography: What The Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and The Battle Against Fate (New York: Random House, 2012).
Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar, “In Quest of a Multi-Polar World,” Consortium News, March 26, 2021, https://consortiumnews.com/2021/03/26/in-quest-of-a-multi-polar-world/.
“Korybko: 25-Year Contract Message to US; Iran and China not to be ‘Restrained’,” Tahlilbazaar.com, April 16, 2021, https://www.tahlilbazaar.com/news/81847/Korybko-25-year-contract-message-to-US-Iran-China-not-to.
Priebe, Rooney, Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Martini and Pezard, Implementing Restraint: Changes in U.S. Regional Security Policies to Operationalize a Realist Grand Strategy of Restraint.
Orla Guerin, “US Drone Strike Victims in Pakistan Plan Legal Action,” BBC News, November 1, 2011, https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-south-asia-15532916.
“Raw Agent Reveals More Spies Present to Destabilize Pakistan,” Geo News, March 26, 2016, https://www.geo.tv/latest/102925-From-Kul-Bashan-Yadav-to-Mubarak-Patel-The-journey-of-a-RAW-agent.
“Govt Airs Video of Indian Spy Admitting Involvement in Balochistan Insurgency,” Dawn, March 29, 2016, https://www.dawn.com/news/1248669.
“Time to End US ‘Drama’ over Xinjiang Rumors,” Global Times, March 26, 2021, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1219553.shtml.
US Department of State, GoUS, A Free and Open Indo-Pacific: Advancing a Shared Vision.
Scott W. Harold, Tanvi Madan and Natalie Sambhi, U.S.–Japan Alliance Conference: Regional Perspectives on the Quadrilateral Dialogue and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific, report (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2020), https://doi.org/10.7249/CF414.
Amrita Jash, “India in the Indo-Pacific: Reining in China in the New Theatre of Great Power Rivalry,” Think China, September 18, 2020, https://www.thinkchina.sg/india-indo-pacific-reining-china-new-theatre-great-power-rivalry.
Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.
Edwin Mora, “Modi Government Declares Chinese Kashmir Part of India,” BreitBart News, August 7, 2019, https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/08/07/modi-government-declares-chinese-kashmir-part-of-india/.
Antony J. Blinken, “A Foreign Policy for American People” (speech, Washington, DC, March 3, 2021), https://www.state.gov/a-foreign-policy-for-the-american-people/.
M. K. Bhadrakumar, “Whither India-Russia Ties?” Indian Punchline, April 7, 2021, https://www.indianpunchline.com/whither-india-russia-ties/.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Editor's note: While this article was being finalized, the Taliban took over Kabul on August 15 and the US withdrew its forces after waging its longest war in Afghanistan.
Meghann Myers, “‘We're Going to Stay in Iraq,‘ Says Top US Middle East Commander,” Military Times, April 23, 2021, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/04/22/were-going-to-say-in-iraq-says-top-us-middle-east-commander/.
Tim Craig, “‘The United States is in Crisis’: Report Tracks Thousands of Summer Protests, Most Nonviolent,” Washington Post, September 3, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-united-states-is-in-crisis-report-tracks-thousands-of-summer-protests-most-nonviolent/2020/09/03/b43c359a-edec-11ea-99a1-71343d03bc29_story.html.
Enrique Mendizabal, “Think Tank Accountability: Are They Really Just Hired Guns or is it Slightly More Complicated Than That?” On Think Tanks, September 10, 2014, https://onthinktanks.org/articles/think-tank-accountability-are-they-really-just-hired-guns-or-is-it-slightly-more-complicated-than-that/.
Andrew Korybko, “The Anti-Imperialist Struggle is Alive and Well in the 21st Century,” CGTN, April 5, 2021, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04-05/The-anti-imperialist-struggle-is-alive-and-well-in-the-21st-century-Zdx7Vn92Uw/index.html.
Alastair Crooke, “China and Russia Launch a 'Global Resistance Economy” (Quito: Latin American Information Agency, 2021), https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/211729.
Ibid.
Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.
Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Andrew Osborn, “Russia's Top Diplomat Starts China Visit with Call to Reduce U.S. Dollar Use,” Reuters, March 22, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-china-usa-idUSKBN2BE0XH.
Ibid.
Alasdair Macleod, “Biden's Last Throw of Geo-Political Dice,” Goldmoney.com, March 25, 2021, https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/biden-s-last-throw-of-geopolitical-dice.
Tony Kevin, “Russia and China Tell Biden: The Old Days are Over,” Asia Times, March 26, 2021, https://asiatimes.com/2021/03/russia-and-china-tell-biden-the-old-days-are-over/.
Mike Harrison and Kevin Liffey, eds., “Iran and China Sign 25-Year Cooperation Agreement,” Reuters, March 27, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-china-idUSKBN2BJ0AD.
William N. Shepherd and Thomas D. Smith, “Sun Tzu and the Art of Trial,” Litigation 39, no. 1 (2013): 24-27, https://www.jstor.org/stable/ 24396780.
Andrew Korybko, “The Atlantic Council's Anti-China Containment Strategy” (Montreal: Global Research-Centre for Research on Globalization, 2021), https://www.globalresearch.ca/atlantic-council-anti-chinese-containment-strategy-fail/5736087.
Durden, “Biden's Last Throw of Geopolitical Dice.”
David Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare (Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, 1999), https://www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdf.
Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College de France, 1975-76, eds. Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana, trans. David Macey (New York: Picador, 2003), https://archive.org/stream/01.MichelFoucaultSocietyMustBeDefended/01.%20Michel%20Foucault%20-%20Society%20must%20be%20defended_djvu.txt.
James C. McConville, “Army Multi-Domain Transformation: Ready to Win in Competition and Conflict” (paper, US Department of Army, Washington, DC, 2021), https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1143195.pdf.
Anwar Iqbal, “India, Pakistan may Stumble into Large-Scale War, Warns US Intel Report,” Dawn, April 9, 2021, https://www.dawn.com/news/1617288.
Korybko, “Why America Couldn't Win its War in Afghanistan.”