Death of mediation: Statesmen as showmen
Mediation is the message. Whenever a conflict arises, politicians seeking the tag of statesmen rush in and claim credit. When Donald Trump boomed into the headlines in June 2025 claiming to have brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, the only thing louder than his announcement was the silence from New Delhi—until it was shattered by a phone call.
Narendra Modi, with the practised precision of a man who has heard it all before, reportedly spent 35 minutes dismantling Trump's fantasy. The prime minister made it clear that the ceasefire was a result of direct military-to-military understanding rooted in the 1972 Simla Agreement. 'India has never accepted third-party mediation, nor will it ever,' Modi declared, according to sources familiar with the call. His disdain was unmistakable. This sharp exchange exposes a deeper crisis—that in a world fractured by wars like Iran-Israel, Israel-Hamas, Russia-Ukraine and India-Pakistan, there is total absence of credible, universally-accepted mediators. This has paralysed diplomacy, leaving violence unchecked.
Going back to the 1970s, Henry Kissinger's secret diplomacy with Mao Zedong during the Cold War to check the Soviet Union exemplified the kind of strategic mediation absent in today's conflicts. Unlike today's self-promoting dealmakers, Kissinger operated with Cold War gravitas, using realpolitik to reshape global alliance. It's a stark contrast to the opportunistic mediation attempts plaguing 2025's fractured world order.
If Trump fancied himself a reincarnation of Kissinger, Modi responded like a man unwilling to share the stage with a meddler playing diplomat in his own campaign circus. But behind this diplomatic snub lies a more troubling truth: we live in an age without credible mediators. The global landscape of June 2025 is a tinderbox of conflicts, each defying resolution due to the lack of a trusted peacemaker. The era of diplomatic giants like Franklin Roosevelt, who shaped post-World War II peace, or Jimmy Carter, who brokered the 1978 Camp David Accords, is a distant memory.
The world in mid-2025 resembles a geopolitical powder-keg, with Israel and Iran exchanging missiles, Ukraine and Russia locked in a trench war stretching over a decade, Hamas and Israel in a perpetual loop of bloodshed, and India-Pakistan tensions now simmering dangerously post-Sindoor. What's missing isn't just resolution. It's trust. Gone are the days of Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy or handshakes of détente like that between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin.
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