Daily Times

The title is expected to draw the attention of academics and the likely demand would be to immediately explain what is rivalism and how can it be compared with an age-old and time-tested international relations theory of realism.

Realism stood for power, security, and interests, due to which it has survived in testing times. Realism professed to maximize power to ensure the security needs of the state and further its interests to be able to influence other states to achieve its political objectives. However, realism was never meant to cause unnecessary harm to other states and supported the establishment of international organizations and institutions like the United Nations, and other Human Rights Forums. Unfortunately, due to its selfish nature, realism has failed to bring peace, stability, and security even in an evolved world order. Moreover, this selfish nature of realism has now given birth to what I refer to as rivalism, which directly confronts the neighbouring states even if there is no dispute or active conflict between them.

Rivalism often incentivizes states to conspire against other states to promote one’s interests at the cost of the other.

What rivalism does is entirely against the precepts of realism as defined above. Instead, rivalism prompts the relatively stronger states to undertake negative diplomacy against another state and causes harm to its interests thereby initiating new conflicts. Rivalism often incentivizes states to conspire against other states to promote one’s interests at the cost of the other. If realism is selfish, rivalism is revengeful. If realism professed to maximize power for security, rivalism causes insecurity for the other state to ensure instability in the region. Rivalism promotes the fabrication of chaos instead of inherent chaos.

After this brief definition of rivalism, let me explain it with some contemporary examples. Realism was not at play when the Sudia Arabia-led quartet (UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt) imposed a blockade on its relatively smaller but much richer neighbour, Qatar on June 5, 2017. It was rivalism, particularly between Doha and Dubai. The blockading states made an unnecessary move and that too in the Holy month of Ramadhan, to cause chaos, unrest, and potential uprising against the popular regime of Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Interestingly, the blockading countries raised some 13 demands to lift the blockade, however, Qatar’s leadership and its people remained firm on their principle stand and did not comply with any of the unjust demands. Hence the blockade had to be lifted after three and a half years without any gains, rather the incident made Qatar more confident and self-reliant.

Another example is the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Ukraine had no threat from Russia until Russian troops crossed into Ukrainian territory on February 24, 2022., because the two had a long history of strong socio-cultural bonding. Moreover, Russia has been warning Ukraine against joining NATO so that it does not have to face a stronger military alliance on its western borders. However, Ukraine played in the hands of Russian rivals and insisted on joining NATO, prompting Russia to initiate military action so that its Western allies could bleed militarily and economically.

This is an unnecessary war and should have been stopped a long ago if it was for the rivals to fulfil their aspiration of causing harm to a resurgent Russia and creating chaos in an otherwise peaceful region.

Likewise, in South Asia, India and Pakistan do have historical animosity due to the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, however, this enmity has been further fueled by rivalism. The two neighbouring nuclear states do not have usual state-to-state relations. India continues to oppose Pakistan at every regional and international forum, be it at any sports forum (International Cricket Council) a regional diplomatic forum (SAARC), the United Nations, or the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). India spent millions of dollars in tarnishing the image of Pakistan in the Western capital and the same was exposed by the European watchdog in the India Chronicles in 2020.

The two states do not subscribe to each other and perhaps have decided to oppose at every forum they appear together. Perhaps, this is one reason that the agenda items of their conflicts keep on increasing even if there was only one major dispute at the time of their independence in 1947. The long list of conflicts now reads J&K at the top for obvious reasons, closely followed by Siachen, Sir Creek, Mumbai attacks, Balakot, FATF, SAARC, Cricket, and mutual trade. Unfortunately, there is no effort by the rivals to even resolve the doable, and therefore the peace and stability for over 1.6 billion people remains a far cry.

In my opinion, rivalism has overtaken realism because the latter failed to promote peace, stability, and security across the globe. I will request the academia to discuss the aspects briefly outlined in this short article to further improve upon the concept of rivals so that it is discouraged and the ultimate objective of promoting peace, stability, and security becomes a priority for the states as well as the international organizations, and institutions.

The writer of this article has authored three international books: “Nuclear Deterrence and Conflict Management Between India and Pakistan” “South Asia Needs Hybrid Peace” and “Understanding Sun Tzu and the Art of Hybrid War.”