How Donald Trump's America can create a new global power axis

It is easy to misread Donald Trump's victory in the United States presidential election as a win for nativist forces. Brexit was similarly misread.

Neither presages anti-globalisation. Post Brexit Britain will emerge a stronger international player, not an isolationist island. Initial fears over the British economy sliding into recession have already been allayed by strong growth numbers in the July-September quarter. The pound is recovering.

In America, paranoia over a Trump presidency heralding economic isolationism and racial armageddon has been fed by a discredited, out-of-touch media.

The real takeaway from Trump's win is that it could fashion a new global power axis.

One pivot of that axis will be a burgeoning partnership between the US, India, Japan and Russia on nuclear security, counterterrorism, trade and technology.

The second pivot in this emerging quadrilateral world order is China with its rogue allies North Korea and Pakistan.

The third pivot is Western Europe, sclerotic and ageing but economically advanced and, with NATO, militarily powerful.

The fourth and most unstable pivot is the Middle East, a breeding ground for Islamist terrorism and despotic governments.

The outcome of the geopolitical contest between these four pivots will determine the winners and losers in the second quarter of this century.

The US-India-Russia-Japan alliance could emerge as the world's most powerful if its components play their cards well.

The Narendra Modi-Shinzo Abe bilateral summit in Tokyo over the weekend is a pointer in this direction. It was reported that "India and Japan agreed to explore the possibility of cooperation in developing the strategic Chabahar port in Iran that will help India access Afghanistan and Central Asia by bypassing Pakistan.

"The Chabahar project's strategic importance is also enhanced by it being seen as a counter to China's development of Gwadar port in Pakistan which is to be linked to the Chinese province of Xinjiang by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

"The decision by India and Japan to deepen their strategic cooperation despite China's unease was further reflected by the reiteration that international law should prevail in settled claims and disputes in the South China Sea.

"The reference, which reflects Japan's concerns over China's muscle-flexing, was reciprocated by direct reference to Pakistan in the context of the 26/11 and Pathankot terror attacks.

"Despite China warning India and Japan against any dalliance over the South China Sea, the subject found specific mention in the joint statement issued after PM Narendra Modi's summit meeting with his counterpart Shinzo Abe."

War on ISIS

Trump's major foreign policy challenge meanwhile is the war on ISIS, now entering its decisive phase in Mosul and Raqqa. Mosul is the last major Iraqi city held by ISIS. Its fall will turn US and Russian attention to Raqqa in Syria.

Raqqa is the de facto capital of ISIS. Most of its senior commanders have gathered there to defend the pincer assault from the Syrian army, backed by Russian air strikes, from the south and the surge of Syrian rebels, backed by American air power and Kurdish Peshmerga, from the north.

The other major Syrian city Aleppo, partially held by ISIS, is under attack by the Syrian army and Russian forces. It could fall any day.

According to the Barack Obama doctrine, which Hillary Clinton co-authored as secretary of state in 2011, the priority in Syria was to evict President Bashar al-Assad from power.

Towards this end Syrian rebels fighting Assad were trained, armed and funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in flagrant violation of Syria's sovereignty.

By 2014, ISIS had seized a third of Syrian and Iraqi territory, taking advantage of a Syrian army weakened by US air strikes and an Iraqi army similarly devastated by the earlier US invasion of that country.

When Obama's legacy is examined by history, his role in Syria will be seen as among the most pernicious aspects of his eight-year presidency.

Not only did Obama's obsession with removing Assad from power in Syria create space for ISIS, it turned the Middle East into a cauldron of sectarian strife.

Even when ISIS is finally defeated in Mosul and Raqqa, its last two major territorial possessions, Syria will likely never fully regain its sovereignty. The Kurds will carve out the north. The Turks have already occupied a broad swathe of Syrian territory on the border.

New world order

The US-Russian relationship is at its worst since the early phase of the Cold War in the 1950s. The key reason is not only Russia's annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine but conflicting interests in Syria.

Vladimir Putin's Russia backs Assad. Obama's America despises him. That is about to change.

Trump's America will not seek Assad's ouster. The real enemy, as Trump said throughout the presidential campaign, is the Islamic State caliphate of terror, not Assad.

The chances of the US and Russia working together in Syria to defeat ISIS have brightened. It will be Trump's first foreign policy test when he takes office in January 2017.

Where do India and Japan fit in? As a rising regional power, India has excellent relations with the US, Russia and Japan. It now has civil nuclear deals with all three.

Japan is protected by America's nuclear umbrella. Trump may ask Tokyo to bear some of that cost.

But with China emerging as Washington's principal rival, Trump will be careful to keep Tokyo on his side, given Japan's ongoing dispute with Beijing in the East China Sea.

Western Europe, the weakest of the four pivots in an emerging new world order, has been paralysed by its Arab refugee crisis, slow economic growth, ageing population and the threat of lone wolf terror attacks on its cities even after ISIS is evicted from Syria and Iraq.

Next year could prove a geopolitical inflection point. Four of the world's largest economies (the US, Japan, Russia and India) with strong leaders are poised to form a new power axis that could reorder the world in 2017.

Trump, Putin, Modi and Abe form a formidable quartet to take on the threat of Islamist terror on the one hand and the rise of an aggressive China on the other.

Also read - Modi's nuclear deal flip-flop with Japan will prove costly for India