Non-aligned and Aatma Nirbharta can ensure global stability

A few hours ago, the Polish government offered to "transfer its 28 MiG-29 fighter planes to the US" at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany for use by Ukraine. However, the US quickly rejected the Polish Foreign Ministry proposal, calling it untenable.

The NATO and world bodies have shown limited resolve to participate in the ongoing Russian-Ukraine conflict militarily. Instead, their response has centred around sanctions against Russia, strongly worded condemnation, and commitment to offer indirect support to the Ukraine government.

While NATO is playing 'passing the ball game', President Putin is playing chess with one hand and a 'game of roulette' with the other.

The Ukraine conflict has made amply clear; countries are each to themselves when it comes to the national interest. Leaders cannot squander military & diplomatic advantage to groupings, hoping that these power blocks will ensure the security of participating countries. Instead, nations should learn from India's Aatma Nirbhar doctrine while building their military deterrence and shaping respective diplomacy.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has done it all from addressing the UK House of Commons to appealing at the European Parliament, wearing military fatigues in support of his troops and calling for volunteers from across the globe to defend his country. But, with each passing day, Ukraine and its people are paying the price of the war that probably could have been avoided, by Kyiv, through a diplomatic balancing act between Putin's fears and NATO's warmongering.

President Zelensky, at a great cost to his people and country, must have learnt a lesson or two about international relations when he said, "the alliance is afraid of controversial things and confrontation with Russia." He must have grudgingly "announced that Ukraine will no longer be seeking NATO membership" and "he is open to "compromise" over the status of two breakaway pro-Russian territories that Putin recognised as independent just before the invasion." The Ukraine saga is a lesson for leaders of smaller and developing nations that falling into the warmonger trap of the West is never in their interest.

Ukraine's quagmire should push peace-loving nations with ongoing territorial conflicts to do a reality check on finding non-military solutions to their disputes. It is time to devise practical solutions rooted in diplomacy rather than military conflict as the first option.

Because it is for everyone to see that developed countries, especially the US and EU, will do everything to avoid war coming to their territory. Instead, they would provide logistics and moral support as long as - the war remains away from their lands and people.

This ongoing Russia-Ukraine war will rewrite new rules of military and diplomatic engagements and may end up shaping another playbook for countries engaged in territorial disputes. India's vision of Aatma Nirbhar, in having the military capability, creditable strategic deterrence and diplomatic positions, is in the right place where it does not depend on one nation or block of countries.

For smaller and developing nations, the temptations to invest in regional alliances and power blocks seem practical. However, having a credible military deterrence and a nonaligned diplomatic position is the need of the hour as the world is being restructured from a unipolar to a multipolar one.

While India is spot-on with its diplomacy and shaping military deterrence, its Achilles heel is its military-industrial complex that needs to be fixed before the end of this decade. Hence, Indo-US collaboration needs to be given a fresh push with renewed force. It is as much in the interest of the US as is in India's - that Bharat modernises its defence manufacturing capabilities.

Before King Ghidorah ( a fictional monster character from the Godzilla series) raises its head in the South-china sea to challenge smaller nations such as Taiwan, Brunei, Indonesia, Vietnam and others, there needs to be a counterbalancing Godzilla that can restore the order.

The bottom line is global stability can be ensured by following a non-alliance foreign policy and becoming aatma nirbhar in defence capabilities.

(The author is Founder, MyStartup TV)