Space as a geopolitical environment
Dear Reader,
I hope you are doing well. Over the past week, our work included a research document on space as a geopolitical environment, India’s stance on Afghanistan, Upskilling India, and much more.
Space As A Geopolitical Environment
Aditya Ramanathan and Aditya Pareek authored a research document on space as a geopolitical environment. Using space for commercial, military and scientific purposes has become a vital determinant of national power. Yet, space is a novel domain for human activity, and the strategic implications of using it are poorly understood.
The document seeks to understand how space functions as a geopolitical environment and provides useful ideas for scholars and practitioners. Focusing on orbital space, it looks at space as both a physical and strategic geography and a potential arena for military operations. It examines strategic theories of space, the structure and logic of space warfare, and the potential for putting in place legal and normative arrangements for space activity.
India Must Stand Up For Afghan Resistance
In his weekly column in ThePrint, Lt. Gen. Prakash Menon argues that India must support Afghan resistance against the Taliban despite the fall of Panjshir. He writes:
India must seek to delegitimise the Taliban for their violation of the covenants of the United Nations, according to which the group remains designated as a terrorist organisation. As part of the UNSC, it should push for condemning the illegitimate use of force to overthrow a government that had been legitimately elected. It must highlight Pakistan’s role and call for sanctions against it. None of these moves is likely to succeed, but it will matter where the real war will be fought in the long run – in the minds of the Afghan people.
The Taliban cannot retain power, Gen. Menon argues, unless they maintain an authoritarian disposition. This runs counter to the aspirations of most Afghans, and the Taliban have to seek legitimacy internally and externally.
India must lead the charge on both fronts, and it is well equipped to do so as it requires mainly the crafting of narratives that resonates with the Afghans and the global community fighting the scourge of extremism. India’s foreign policy choices must uphold the principles of international law and refuse to acknowledge that might is always right, and, more importantly, it is encumbered by a shelf life.
Upskilling India
Sridhar Krishna and Aarushi Kataria wrote a blog about the changing nature of work and the need for upskilling. They write:
Our estimates tell us that India needs to create at least 20 million new jobs every year. Eighteen million people reach job seeking age, and there is a need to move at least 8 million people out of agriculture every year. This is a huge jump from the best estimates that show we create 4.3 million jobs each year currently. Other estimates show that we create less than a million jobs each year. Jobs that are being created today are increasingly technical and tend to require some degree of specialised skill; without these skills, even the ‘created’ jobs will remain vacant. It is estimated that over a million jobs are vacant in the Central Government, and one of the biggest reasons for these vacancies is a skill shortage.
They analyse the merits of career impact bonds (CIBs) in financing the upskilling required for workers. Stressing the difference between CIBs and student loans, they write:
A person gains skills in college but if they take a student loan for this, they are expected to repay the loan irrespective of how much they earn. These loans also require the student to provide a collateral for the loan. CIBs on the other hand depend on a tangible outcome in the form of increased wages to require repayment of the loan. The repayment risk, especially due to difficulties in tracing the income of the beneficiary and the lack of collateral, can be solved by utilising accounts that are connected to a person’s unique identification.
The US versus Facebook
In a renewed antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has alleged that Facebook used anticompetitive acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp to further its monopoly power. It also alleges that Facebook unfairly blocked rivals from accessing its application programming interface or API. On the September 7th episode of All Things Policy, Rohan Seth spoke to Sapni G Krishna and Prateek Waghre about the lawsuit and what it could mean for Facebook.
India-Russia-Japan Partnership
In an oped in Hindustan Times, Aditya Pareek wrote about how India can mediate a relationship between Japan and Russia and reap benefits in the process. A key factor in the India-Russia-Japan trilateral is that India enjoys better relations with both countries than they enjoy with each other. He writes:
Engagement with Russia in its pacific territory will help India look beyond the Quad grouping, and also pursue its goals of economic partnerships in Russia’s Far East.
It helps that India has strong ties with both Russia and Japan. Delhi shares common security and economic interests with Tokyo, and the two Quad members face a common adversary in China.
India has a relationship with Russia that is often described as “all weather” and “time tested” that is largely underpinned today by defence ties. However, India and Russia have not always been on the same page in recent times. The Quad may have emerged as a fulcrum of security for India, Japan and Australia, but for Russia, it remains a United States (US)-led bulwark against China, which, at the moment, is a concept contrary to its own strategic interests.
Ethical Reasoning For Public Policy
Our short credit course in ethical reasoning for public policy is now accepting applications. The cohort begins on September 25th.
Think about the policy issues that bother you the most: poverty, corruption, climate change, subversion of democratic values, etc. Inherent in each of these is an ethical question. Every rupee spent by a state on policy A is at the cost of something else that the state could have done with that one rupee. Often these decisions are not a straightforward economic calculation because the welfare of real people depends on them.
Ethical reasoning is thus crucial to the practice of policy-making and public policy analysis. The ethics of a policy, and indeed our own expectations from the state, must go beyond that policy's stated, often noble, intention. But that is a far easier thing to say than do. That is where the Takshashila Institution comes in.
Our Special Credit Course in Ethical Reasoning is a short 6-week course that will introduce you to concepts, frameworks and case studies from moral philosophy that you can apply to public policy analysis.
What We Have Been Reading
The last book we recommended was Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives by Michael Heller & James Salzman. I hope you have been enjoying reading it. This week’s book, recommended by Ruturaj Gowaikar, is Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan. He says:
Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan is part travelogue, part war correspondence, and part human-interest stories. Christina Lamb writes about the common Afghans trapped between decades-long conflict. But what makes this book special is that she manages to highlight the spirit of resilience of common Afghans, be it in the form of running secret libraries or painters trying to preserve art forms. Evocatively written, the book is insightful and compassionate in equal measure.
Read now!
That’s it from us this week. Take care and stay safe!
Regards,
Atish Padhy,
Assistant Manager, Digital Properties,
Takshashila Institution