Why Putins need to be deterred?

Prem Dhakal

A native of a land-locked country situated on the lap of Himalayas may be interested to know what is happening in the Crimean peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea almost 5,000 kilometers away but should not necessarily worry about the developments there. Vladimir Putin’s latest adventure in Crimea is highly unlikely to trigger the World War III or a suicidal nuclear war with the West. Nepal need not worry much about what happens there also because bilateral trade with Ukraine is less than US$ 100 million a year, and the developments there are unlikely to have any direct impact on Nepal. But Nepal and other seemingly vulnerable countries cannot turn a blind eye to what Russia is doing in Crimea, and what the West chooses to do or not do about it.

Put Nepal in place of Ukraine and the southern neighbor India in place of bullying Russia, and the Nepalese people have a big reason to worry. What happens if India decides to use a fictitious reason of defending Hindi-speaking populace in Nepal, like Putin has done now and what Adolf Hitler did during the World War II, and invades Nepal? India is a relatively mature democracy in comparison to Russia which is practically an autocracy under the iron fist of Putin, and may not do so. India also does not need to do so as Delhi does not have to depend on a single Viktor Yanukovych like Putin had to, with all the political parties and leaders in Nepal queuing up to outdo each other in pleasing India. But we have a chilling example in our own backyard less than four decades ago when India, coincidentally, used a referendum, like the one Putin is planning for Crimea, to annex Sikkim after invading it. Having a strong China next door may be a deterrent, but what if China decides that having another 1,200 kilometers of border with India does not make much of a difference when it already shares over 3,000 kilometers of border with India. What if China were to value a flourishing trade with a rising India enough to not go to war with the nuclear-armed state over a tiny country?

China itself does not have an unblemished history with the case of Tibet an uncomfortable reminder. China may have changed today, but its bellicose attitude toward Japan over claims for the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands shows that it may still not be averse to expanding its territory. What if China decides to correct the mistake made by Mao Zedong in relinquishing the claims over Mt Everest to Nepal just like Putin is trying to correct that of Nikita Khruschev in transferring Crimea to Ukraine from Russia within the Soviet Union? There does not seem to be any way out for Nepal if China were to decide, God forbid, to go the Putin way and hop across the Himalayas to annex Nepal to control water flowing downstream to India, if not for anything else. China may be a deterrent against invasion of Nepal by India but the reverse, sadly for Nepal, is not true. It will be foolhardy to hope that India, which has to silently ignore frequent excursions by the Chinese army deep into the Indian territory, will stand up for Nepal.

How the United States of America (USA) and the other Western European countries respond to the latest transgression by Putin, therefore, matters for peace of mind of the Nepalese people and citizens of other such vulnerable countries. The USA may deserve criticism for unnecessarily meddling in Iraq and elsewhere, but the smaller countries still need the USA to flex its muscles to stop a Saddam Hussein from invading Kuwait, Putin in Ukraine and elsewhere, and other wannabe Putins across the world. The inaction in Syria may be excused for unwillingness to interfere in the internal matter of a sovereign state but the current situation in Crimea is blatant violation of international law and sovereignty of an independent country. There must be some mechanism in place to deter the powerful countries from invading their tiny neighbors, especially as the option for the emasculated United Nations is negated further if the transgressor happens to be a permanent member of the Security Council with the power of veto. It does not necessarily have to be military offensive — it does not seem to be a rational option in Crimea anyway — but deterred the expansionists of the world must be.

It may be too far-fetched to imagine invasion of Nepal by India or China, but the invasion of Crimea by Russia has made citizens of smaller countries across the world frightened like a kid wary to look out of the window while sleeping during the night for fear of a monster. The kid, however, sleeps soundly despite knowing very well that the parents are not strong enough to fight the monster due to the unwavering faith on God and angels. Putin has showed that there are indeed monsters out there and helplessness of the Ukrainian government in the matter has proved that the parents cannot do anything. It is now up to the West to assure the kid that the monster can be controlled.

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