Introduction
Every nation experiences its share of turmoil someday or the other; however, the root causes of instability are not often internal instability, but they often stem from complex political dynamics.
Understanding how political decisions, social movements, economic factors, and geopolitical factors interlink can provide fuel to the weakness of national governance. This article will explore the mechanisms behind political destabilization, examining the roles of corruption, social unrest, foreign intervention, and the spread of misinformation while offering examples from various countries.
However, before discussing the abovementioned mechanisms, we will examine the political motives at play that drive destabilizing any country.
Motives behind destabilizing the country –
Removing someone else’s political access
If a country wants to prevent a third country from accessing another country’s political environment, it destabilizes the country that is providing access to the third country.
By destabilizing the country, its government fails on multiple fronts creating a false image of the government in the civilians. The government falls, and a destabilizing country tries to bring its ally or pro-government, denying that third country access to the political environment.
If you look closely, you will see such examples: The third country mentioned above may have already done tons of favours, but the destabilizing country makes it forget everything and believe in itself.
The best current example is Bangladesh. All know who has destabilized this country. Now Bangladesh has stopped India’s political access to it. The remarkable thing is the existence of Bangladesh is because of India. Had India not fought the 1971 war, all would have remained under Pakistani jihadist mentality and lost complete control over their wealth, women, kids and even souls.
Destabilizing Third country
If we consider the same above example, where some country has a plan to destabilize India by destabilizing Bangladesh. Wonder how?
Bangladesh is nowadays full of a jihadist mentality. Pakistani weapons, terrorists and soldiers have entered Bangladesh. There is civil unrest and religious unrest, too. All know that jihadists and terrorists are killing minority communities, especially Hindus. India has Hindus in the majority, and there is already a voice being raised against such a terror mentality.
So, India could have a two-front war situation. One front is Bangladesh in the east, and another is Pakistan in the west.
The religious restlessness in India is the two reasons for such a Bangladesh-supporting country to destabilize India.
However, whoever destabilizes Bangladesh does not consider India’s strong political hold and regional and international power. The ability to play the same game with them in retaliation has already begun. Slowly, Bangladesh will be put on the back foot, and so will the destabilizing country.
Gaining access to the political and social environment and resources
The destabilizing country destabilizes the other country to gain access to the political and social environment and its resources. The main motive is to access natural resources like natural gas, oil, gold, metal, radioactive material, trade routes, etc.
The best example is China. What are your thoughts on why China has an expansionist policy? Most of China is situated on the eastern side of its entire territory, and more than 50% of China is empty, so it aims to extract natural resources from its territories. Another aim is to claim land and establish trade routes. China’s ambitious program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is the aim I mentioned above.
Securing tranquility within one’s own country.
We will understand this directly with an example.
- Israel – Israel is a country surrounded by enemies all the time. Every country in the Middle East, except Saudi Arabia, is Israel’s enemy. All those countries want to conquer Israel and follow Hitler.
But it is Israel who fights back bravely. There are 56 Muslim-majority countries, but all take the help of rebels and terror organizations’ help to attack Israel. No one dares to attack Israel directly, knowing the devastating consequences.
Recently, in war, Israel broke the backbone of Hamas and Hezbollah terror organizations. Where did they get weapons and money from? It is Iran. The whole media is pointing out Iran. Iran was sending the weapons to both the terror outfits to fight against Israel via countries Iraq and Syria.
If you see current geo-political news, native rebels are attacking Syria. President of Syria Bashar-Al-Asad has fled the country to Russia. It was a plan by three countries who have openly stated it. USA, Israel and Turkey. By destabilizing Syria, Israel has captured some more land of Syria apart from the ‘Golan Heights’ to keep Syrian rebels and army away from Israel. Now, the weapon supply from Iran is not possible because the supply will be captured and used by Syrian rebels against the Syrian army and the Iran-Russian army as well. So, Hamas and Hezbollah will not get weapon supplies, and there could be some peace maintained in Israel.
- Turkey – Turkey wants destabilize Syria because some sub-caste of Syrian Islamic civilians do exist in Turkey with notable significant numbers. If both groups join hands, it will be a civil war situation for Turkey as well. So, Turkey has decided to support the rebels and destabilize Syria so that Turkey will remain peaceful, and all the instability will remain out of the door of Turkey.
- Game of politics – This is how the game of politics works. War, killings, assassinations, coup d’etat (overthrowing the government/king), military taking over the government, threatening, warning, peace talks, bi-lateral/multi-lateral relations, joining hands, separations, exits, and government-to-government business are all political tactics.
Forcing the country to accept the terms and conditions
If a country wants another country to accept its terms and conditions, and if that country doesn’t accept them, it affects the relationship between the two countries. Some retaliate immediately; some retaliate at some intervals when they have a chance to retaliate. In this case, some powerful countries go for destabilizing that country that is not accepting the terms.
The terms could include tariffs, taxes, non-alignment with a particular country or group, or stopping supporting a particular group or country. They could also be as simple as asking to maintain peace in the region.
For example – The USA has put sanctions on North Korea because they believe NK is a dangerous country in the world. It has nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles that can carry such nuclear weapons.
The same USA and the Western countries have put sanctions on Russia to stop the war.
However, the same countries, even after knowing that Pakistan is a terrorist nation, never put any sanctions but only supported financially and arms-wise. Why? The reason is simple: destabilizing India.
Religious reasons and intention to capture territory
A simple reason for destabilising another country is religion and capturing the territory. Let’s understand this with an example.
Pakistan’s existence is based on religion, Islam. India has its own state, Kashmir.
Kashmir’s majority of people belong to the Islamic religion. However, there was another major religion, Kashmiri Pundits. During the first 70 years of independent India, the Pakistani army trained militants and made them terrorists and helped them infiltrate Kashmir.
With the help of local Islamic people who supported terrorists, Pakistan tried to destabilise India. Locals and terrorists killed thousands of Kashmiri Pundits and captured their assets, lands, and even females.
They committed major genocide and openly and falsely claimed that the Indian army was killing locals. Many Kashmiri Pundits left Kashmir forever.
All because Kashmir has the majority of Islamic people (earlier, there was a mixed majority), and Pakistan wanted to capture it.
This is a perfect example of destabilizing India where the aim is to foster religion and capture territory.
Conclusion
A country can explore all of its capabilities to achieve its motive to any extent. All it needs is motive and power. In the modern era, the flow of information is very quick, infrastructure development is faster, and geopolitical dimensions are different and more selfish than ever. All it takes is a few days to bring our motives into reality.
However, sometimes, when a country gets such an opponent, it realises that someone smarter and equally powerful does exist. Simply, that country slowly goes on the back foot.
Remember, even if technology is evolving and information is flowing faster than ever, smarter political moves and accurate, on-time action can overcome all geopolitical tension. All you need is the flow of accurate information, reach, and influence, plus the ability to adequately supply anything for the plans to overcome the destabilization.
