Diplomacy & Crisis News

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Resuming trade with India is a chance to escape spiraling crises.

Rich-world advocates are pushing outlandish green scenarios that will keep Africans poor.

And that isn’t bad news for the United States.

Drones made the president’s son-in-law a household name. His techno-nationalism and popular appeal could make him the country’s next leader.

Why America doesn’t need more missiles.

How a foreign pollution fee can protect the environment—and help America stand up to China.

Washington sanctioned 25 Chinese individuals and entities for trafficking fentanyl-laced drugs.

Why it matters, and how worried we should be about it.

As the curtains fell on the UN’s annual high-level meetings last week, the world was left with an unsettling message: the international order is crumbling, and no one can agree on what comes next.

The focus of the week—the one time of the year that most of the world’s leaders are all in the same place—was meant to be on urgently accelerating global action on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Yet, against a backdrop of intensifying geopolitical tensions, the war in Ukraine, coups in Africa, the escalating climate crisis and the ongoing pandemic, a different theme emerged: the fracturing and fragmenting of the global order, and the urgent need to reform the United Nations before it’s too late.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s opening address to the UN General Assembly was both a rallying cry and a stark warning: ‘Our world is becoming unhinged. Geopolitical tensions are rising. Global challenges are mounting. And we seem incapable of coming together to respond.’

Describing a world rapidly moving towards multipolarity while lamenting that global governance is ‘stuck in time’, Guterres warned that the world is heading for a ‘great fracture’. Urging the renewal of multilateral institutions based on 21st-century realities, he left no illusions about what will happen if this doesn’t happen: ‘It is reform or rupture.’

Unsurprisingly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky echoed this in a powerful address to a special UN Security Council high-level open debate later in the week. He warned that the gridlock over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the UN meant that humankind could no longer pin any hopes on it to maintain peace and security. He then called for meaningful reform—including on the use of the veto in the UN Security Council.

It’s a sentiment shared by Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong. In her address to the UN Security Council, she called for urgent reform, including ‘constraints on the use of the veto’. She condemned Russia’s use of its position as a permanent member of the Security Council to veto any action ‘as a flagrant violation of the UN charter’, and later told the media that ‘across many issues, the UN system is falling short of where we want it to be and where the world needs it to be, but what we want to do is to work with others to ensure that the United Nations evolves’.

While the existence of the veto prevents any Security Council action from being taken against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine (or against the other four permanent members), the UN charter more broadly—by design—makes any reform of the UN incredibly difficult and extremely unlikely. And given that US President Joe Biden was the only leader of a P5 country to actually show up to the UN for leaders’ week, it’s not clear that even Western countries like the UK and France are committed to the UN—the bedrock of the international system since World War II.

Where does all this leave a multipolar world teetering on the brink? With the existing order already so divided, how do we reimagine and agree on a global system that can meet the challenges of the 21st century?

After all, if, despite being a blatant breach of international law and the UN charter, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hasn’t caused any meaningful reform to yet take place, what will?

Indeed, the fact that the broader international community is relatively ambivalent about holding Russia to account for its ongoing atrocities in Ukraine is a testament to Russia’s and China’s efforts to dilute multilateral institutions and create an alternative world order that’s more accommodating of autocracies.

Confronted with these dynamics, the international community stands at a pivotal juncture. The decisions made now will determine the trajectory of the global order for decades to come. As Guterres said in his opening address, the international community is presented with a stark choice: reform and rally behind a renewed vision of multilateralism, crafted collaboratively to meet the multifaceted existential challenges of our times; or continue to pursue self-interest above all else, and prepare for a rupture.

By the looks of things, in this rapidly changing landscape marked by division and lack of consensus, we must steel ourselves for what lies ahead: an era of ‘unhinged’ global disorder.

Mercedes Page is a senior fellow at ASPI.

This article was first published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Image: Reuters. 

Western efforts to choke Russia’s oil profits are failing as production cuts agreed with Saudi Arabia push the market price towards US$100 a barrel and Russia’s biggest customers—China and India—start paying close to full market price.

Russia is successfully evading the Western effort to impose a price cap of US$60 a barrel on a large share of its oil sales.

The price cap, devised by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and in place since December 2022, demands that Western insurance companies only provide coverage of Russian oil shipments if they can be certified as being sold at no more than the upper limit.

The aim was to curb Russia’s profits while allowing its oil to keep flowing to world markets. An absolute ban on Russian oil sales, as the US imposed on Iran and Venezuela, would have sent the global price rocketing and was, in any case, seen to be impractical with such a large supplier as Russia.

Since Western insurance companies covered around 90% of the world’s shipping, it was expected to be successful. The agreement on the price cap binds all European Union and G7 members, except Japan. Australia is also party to the arrangement. Japan secured an exemption, which was recently extended to the middle of next year, because of its extensive involvement in Russia’s Sakhalin-2 oil and liquefied natural gas project, in which Japanese trading companies have invested and which supplies 10% of Japan’s LNG imports.

Estimates by French trade data consultancy Kpler show that, in August, only 24 million barrels of Russian oil were delivered by ships carrying insurance, while no insurance could be identified for tankers carrying 67 million barrels. The share with identifiable insurance has dropped from 47% to 26% since May.

According to energy pricing company Argus Media, Russian oil was selling for US$87 a barrel on 22 September, only a few dollars short of the North Sea benchmark price of US$94, and far above the level set by the cap. Russia had been forced to accept discounts of as much as US$35 a barrel until April this year.

Yellen acknowledged last weekend that the prices being fetched by Russian oil showed the price cap wasn’t working as hoped. ‘It does point to some reduction in the effectiveness of the price cap,’ she said.

‘Russia has spent a great deal of money and time and effort to provide services for the export of its oil. They have added to their shadow fleet, provided more insurance and that kind of trade is not prohibited by the price cap,’ she said.

The ‘shadow fleet’ Yellen referred to is understood to comprise almost 500 tankers, often with obscure ownership and insurance details that can change monthly. Shipments are sometimes made in small tankers and then transferred to larger vessels in the Mediterranean for the journey to Asia.

Lloyds List analyst Michelle Wiese Bockman says prices for nearly all grades of Russian crude oil and refined products are now between 28% and 50% above the G7 price cap. She said a significant portion of Russia’s oil shipments were still using Western insurance, implying they were complying with the cap.

She suggested that false attestation documentation by the Russian sellers could explain how Russia was exceeding the limit. ‘There’s no suggestion sanctions are being breached by those ships, but I can’t see how so many volumes could be compliant. These documents aren’t publicly available, but would be available to regulators upon request. Perhaps enforcement needs to be stepped up to find out how these deals are being structured so they can remain below the cap.’

A Financial Times investigation found that on the Russia-to-India trade, oil was being loaded at Russia’s Baltic ports at a price below the cap, but was arriving in India at prices US$18 a barrel higher, which is about double the freight cost.

Russia’s most potent counter to the Western price cap is the deal it struck with Saudi Arabia 12 months ago to cut oil production, with combined OPEC and Russian output falling by two million barrels a day. The cut was supposed to expire last month, but Saudi Arabia and Russia recently agreed to extend it to the end of the year.

The International Energy Agency, which represents oil-consuming nations, commented, ‘The Saudi–Russian alliance is proving a formidable challenge for oil markets.’ It predicts demand will rise by 1.5 million barrels a day over the remainder of the year, with most of the increase coming from China, and says supplies will run short.

It’s a seller’s market for oil and this favours Russia getting the prices it wants. Shipping is too fragmented an industry—with its flags of convenience, tax-haven ownerships and a multitude of shippers who can operate from a post office box—to be corralled reliably by the G7 price cap, particularly when the biggest buyers of Russian oil—China, India and Turkey—are not parties to it.

Yellen is a formidable economist. She chaired the US Federal Reserve and the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, and has held significant academic appointments. However, the price cap may have been too clever, overestimating the power of financial regulators to dictate the terms of trade to the oil market.

There have been concerns that Russia may use the tight state of markets to generate a further global energy crisis over the coming northern winter, with suggestions that Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen to make life for US President Joe Biden as uncomfortable as possible in the lead-up to next year’s US election. Russia recently banned the export of diesel and petrol, claiming it faced a domestic shortage, which added to global anxiety about energy supplies.

While an energy crisis may suit Russia, it is not in the interest of Saudi Arabia. The alliance between the two is just one of convenience. The Saudis want to keep the oil price high, but not so elevated that it leads to either a global recession or a fresh surge of US shale oil production. It was only three years ago that a disagreement between Saudi  Arabia and Russia over production cuts in the face of the pandemic descended into an all-out price war which at one point sent the global oil price negative.

David Uren is a senior fellow at ASPI.

This article was first published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Image: Shutterstock.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un met for their second summit last month in the Russian Far East, there was much discussion about the military consequences, including North Korean weapon sales to Moscow, as the war in Ukraine grinds on and a truce remains out of the question.

Since the end of the Cold War, contact between Moscow and Pyongyang has diminished. Still, the relationship between the two countries should be briefly revisited for context—and to understand how we “got here.”

We can perhaps start on October 14, 1945, when a young ethnic Korean man stepped out before a crowd assembled at Kirimri Stadium in Pyongyang. It was here that Kim Il-sung, a former trainee of the Soviet Red Army, was presented to the Koreans as an “outstanding guerrilla leader.” Kim’s appearance drew public skepticism, but the Russians were determined to position the 33-year-old man as their appointee on the Korean peninsula. To get the job done, they launched a relentless propaganda campaign that blurred the line between fiction and reality. To this day, propaganda plays an instrumental role in bringing the North Korean nation to life. Without Soviet propaganda, the current leader’s grandfather may have been relegated to the ash heap of history.

Kim Il-sung died in 1994, but across the decades of his rule, he leveraged the impact of images and their unlimited reproducibility in the modern age to strengthen his grip on power. He called filmmakers and other artists “engineers of the soul.” His son, Kim Jong-il, shared his father’s passion for the moving image. Kim Jong-il regarded cinema as an essential channel for ideological indoctrination. He instructed North Korean writers to “grasp the seed which fires [their] heart with an unquenchable flame.”

As an educated public, we must understand North Korea’s nuclear weapons stand for many things. They are obviously symbols of the nation’s defense policy. Still, given the regime’s historically heavy reliance on visual representation, we also must consider that they are a form of cultural expenditure that’s taking front and center at a time when the state has diminished its role. Increased marketization is generating change—spurring North Korean migration and movement in the twenty-first century.

Judging by the accounts of most North Korean defectors in the South, the state has achieved very little for its people following a widespread and preventable famine. Weapons of mass destruction have surged in significance for the leadership while grassroots changes continue to spread in the country. Unless the North Korean military loses its domestic role as a symbol of regime solidarity or its international role as a source of persuasive spectacle for the outside world, we should not expect any willingness to give up weapons.

As we have observed over the years, it is through the many apparatuses of postmodern globalization, including online platforms, that North Korea does not so much capture its enemies as captivate them. In doing so, the leadership is again successfully blurring the lines between the real and the imaginary.

Elizabeth Shim is an author and former journalist based in New York City and currently a principal at Haven Tower Group, a strategic communications consultancy. Shim’s forthcoming book, North Korea’s Nuclear Cinema: Simulation and Neoliberal Politics in the Two Koreas (Bloomsbury 2024), is the culmination of nearly a decade of journalism. She has reported for United Press International, Associated Press, and South China Morning Post.

Image: Reuters. 

The wages of hubris are dear. Four months into Ukraine’s vaunted counteroffensive—which, at a massive cost in men and materiel, has made minimal territorial gain—support for Kyiv is openly eroding. Frustration flows from the growing economic burden of war and continuing corruption scandals in Ukraine. But it is aggravated by the backlash against the overconfidence and arrogance of the Western, especially American, foreign-policy establishment. For months, skeptical voices were sidelined while the media contrasted Western military-technological prowess with Russian backwardness and disarray. NATO brains would defeat Russian brawn, experts confidently predicted in June, thus making the disillusion and distrust of October all the greater.

Who isn’t aghast at over 20,000 casualties for a gain of 100 sq. miles, evoking the carnage of WWI? Since Russia occupies 40,000 sq. miles of Ukrainian land, the unsustainability of such a campaign is evident. Yet officials in Brussels and Washington insist that Kyiv’s counteroffensive is succeeding, cheering minor advances and illusory breakthroughs. At the same time, a chorus of retired military officers exaggerate Russian weakness and see victory as just one more “game-changing” weapons transfer away. Why haven’t NATO-supplied armaments, including hundreds of modern tanks, worked as expected? Because of minefields and trenches, they lament, neglecting to admit that Russia is fighting fiercely with both tactical and technological prowess—from devious electronic warfare to devastating anti-tank drones. But weren’t we told that Russian technology lagged far behind the West’s? And that Ukraine had an army of drones while Russia’s demoralized draftees were poorly armed, poorly led, and perpetually on the brink of desertion? 

The brutality of war sparks passions—admiration for Ukraine, hatred and derision of Russia—that inflame public debate and impede objective analysis. The latter, by definition, must be dispassionate. If think tanks become partisan and the media act as cheerleaders, then we see only what we want to see. With Ukraine, the cheerleading mirrors that of our Iraq and Afghanistan debacles. As a result, we underestimated the adversary, leading to flawed tactics, failed operations, and now flagging public support. What next? As always, the default choice is escalation—providing Kyiv with more armaments and munitions. But will a few squadrons of F-16s and a few hundred ATACMS be enough to defeat Russia? 

Underestimating Russia

One morning in mid-June, Russian president Vladimir Putin awoke to bad news. In a pre-dawn raid, Ukraine struck the bridge linking Crimea and the Russian mainland. If he had followed U.S. media, Putin would have been truly distressed; experts described how the attack dealt a severe blow to Russia’s war because the bridge was the vital supply line for the front. But while pundits hailed this as a triumph for Kyiv, Putin merely shrugged while predicting Moscow’s victory. Was he in denial, or did he know something crucial about Russian resilience? In fact, notwithstanding initial hyperbole, only road traffic was disrupted while supply trains continued unimpeded. Moreover, Ukraine attacked the same bridge in 2022, and repairs quickly restored full operation despite similar predictions of doom. Indeed, the Crimean Bridge has symbolized Russian resourcefulness in the face of Western scorn for a decade; many initially sneered that Russia lacked the know-how to build Europe’s longest bridge, with some even predicting that it would collapse under its own weight. As such, this sturdy engineering marvel invites us to reconsider our stereotypes. 

“Russia is running out of ammunition.” A Google search of this phrase yields almost ten million hits, as versions of it appeared in Western headlines for a year. CNN, Newsweek, The Economist, Forbes, and Foreign Policy all joined the chorus, echoing assessments from U.S. and UK defense officials. In June 2022, the Washington Post predicted that Russian munitions would soon be depleted and Russia would “exhaust its combat capability” within months. Yet by June of 2023, all of these outlets reported that it was actually Ukraine that was critically low on missiles and artillery. How low? Russia now fires over 10,000 artillery rounds per day, while Ukraine manages just 5,000. It takes the United States weeks to produce what Ukraine expends in a few days, while NATO allies have reached “the bottom of the barrel” in donating their reserves to Kyiv. Meanwhile, Russia is still outproducing the West despite “crippling” sanctions that were supposed to strangle its war effort. Likewise, Russian missiles continued to strike Ukraine a year after reports that production would soon halt because arms manufacturers were reduced to cannibalizing computer chips from home appliances. And still, we scoff at Russia’s claim that it will increase tank production by 1,500 next year—three times the number of Western tanks provided to Ukraine. 

“So what if Russia makes more tanks? Ukraine will just destroy them with missiles and drones.” This follows the narrative of how Kyiv nullifies Russian quantity with superior quality, especially their hi-tech “army of drones.” Thus, we pay scant attention to news that belies this narrative, namely Russia’s adoption of new systems and tactics. Ukraine now loses up to 10,000 drones per month to Russian counter-drone weapons and electronic warfare. Russia also jams GPS signals to sabotage the guidance systems of U.S.-supplied armaments such as JDAM glide bombs and HIMARS artillery. And Russia is deploying a new line of unmanned aerial vehicles, such as the Lancent “kamikaze” drone, that have destroyed or disabled dozens of just-delivered Western tanks and armored vehicles—thereby thwarting the rapid breakthrough that was supposed to follow billions in NATO armor and months of NATO training. 

The Fog of War 

The Ukrainian battlefield is broad, flat farmland criss-crossed by strips of forest. It is covered by extensive air defenses, continually monitored by both Russian and Ukrainian ground and air-based systems, and blanketed by both sides’ surveillance drones. With night-vision capabilities as well, the “fog of war” has finally lifted—at least within a band of fifteen kilometers along the battlefront. Little can move far without being detected, and to be detected is to be targeted—by attack drones, by artillery, by rockets (such as the HIMARS), and by air-to-surface missiles (such as Russia’s LMUR). The Russians experienced this in the war’s first phase, suffering grievous losses as their drive on Kyiv was repulsed. Moscow’s last major advance, capturing the city of Bakhmut in May, came at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. But now Kyiv is suffering as its counteroffensive—meant as a blitzkrieg through Russian lines—instead advances at a bloody crawl. 

It’s true that the Ukrainians and their NATO advisers underestimated the density of Russian minefields. But while mines take a direct toll, they also work indirectly by restricting vehicles to secured routes and narrow paths where they are easier targets for Russian artillery and drones. In June, Russia decimated an entire column of Ukrainian armor—including just-acquired German Leopard tanks and American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles—in a clash on the Zaporizhzhia front. This morale-boosting victory for Moscow saw the site memorialized as “Bradley Square.” The lesson is that any large concentration of armor is quickly detected, and any major convoy of troops is similarly seen and targeted. 

With layers of surveillance, including swarms of drones providing real-time detection and targeting to Russian artillery, a grand Desert Storm-style offensive became impossible. Another problem is Ukraine’s inferiority to Russia in the air and its consequent inability to pave the way for its armor and infantry units by pounding Russian defenses from the skies. Even battalion-sized operations are problematic, much less the brigade-level blitzkriegs that many imagined. Ukrainian activity confines itself to company or platoon-level operations where a few dozen troops, supported by a handful of vehicles, advance stealthily under the cover of forest lines. Backed by drones—and supported by artillery fire—they seek to degrade the enemy enough to storm Russian trenches. 

Clumsy, Cowardly Russians?

Sometimes, they succeed. Sometimes, the Ukrainians are detected early, and the Russians ambush them with artillery fire. Snipers and stormtroopers contest every trench, with deadly drones buzzing above. The Ukrainians press on, their courage under fire reverently detailed in the media. But that of the Russians—also fighting fiercely and taking heavy losses—is nowhere to be seen. After numerous stories about disarray in command and desertion in the ranks, the fact that the Russians are fighting with discipline and cohesion has left those who predicted otherwise silent. The first direct acknowledgment of dogged Russian resistance in major U.S. media came only recently from CNN. This admission did not come from Western experts but from Ukrainian soldiers themselves. Frustrated that their NATO backers had faulted their meager progress, they lamented, “We expected less resistance. They are holding. They have leadership. It is not often you say that about the enemy.” 

Such observations are notably absent in U.S. media. Yet, is the aim of war reporting to celebrate one’s allies? Or is it to present a balanced assessment, regardless of whether the good or bad guys have the upper hand? This partisanship over the prowess of soldiers is also seen in coverage of the weapons they wield. Following the narrative of “Ukrainian brains over Russian brawn,” a succession of upgrades to Kyiv’s arsenal have been touted as wonder weapons. These include HIMARS artillery, Leopard tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Storm Shadow missiles, and DPICM cluster munitions—“game changers” all. But these high hopes have been frustrated, in large part because of the weapons the Russians use to counter them. Moscow’s arsenal includes electronic warfare (EW) systems that down Ukrainian drones by the dozens and GPS jamming of U.S.-made HIMARS artillery and JDAM glide bombs. Untested on such a vast scale, their effectiveness has been a nasty surprise. Also unexpected was Russia’s introduction of new systems, such as the Lancet drone, which wreaks havoc on Ukrainian armor thanks to its expanded range, payload, and anti-jamming features. Others include new FAB glide bombs and the improved LMUR missile, whose range puts the helicopters launching it beyond the reach of Ukrainian air defense. These Russian weapons are blunting Ukraine’s advance, yet mainstream analyses rarely mention them. After all, Russia was said to be running out of precision munitions, not developing and deploying new ones. 

Instead of asking why they badly underestimated Russia’s resilience and innovation, the excuse for Kyiv’s failures is that “Moscow had months to prepare defensive lines.” Media experts—often the same ones who predicted rapid progress—now explain why progress could never have been rapid in any case. This is an incomplete and self-serving answer; the Russians clearly excel at building defenses more complex than just minefields and trenches, and proper appreciation of that is essential to analyzing Ukraine’s prospects and possible endpoints for this war. 

The Ever-Imminent “Collapse” of Russia

Many analysts remain bullish on Ukraine’s eventual victory, yet now see it resulting from a Russian collapse—whether of the Russian army or the entire Putin regime. In other words, these military experts base their prognoses not on analysis of military operations per se but on hunches about the perseverance and patriotism of Russian soldiers and citizens. Some, like General Mark Milley, say that the Russians “...lack leadership, they lack will, their morale is poor, and their discipline is eroding.” Others, like ex-CIA Director General David Petraeus, believe that Russian resolve might “crumble” in response to Ukraine’s drone attacks on Moscow. Such strikes “bring the war to the Russian people” and may convince them that, like the USSR’s 1980s quagmire in Afghanistan, today’s war in Ukraine is “ultimately unsustainable.” Even a largely sober analysis by Warographics concludes with a scenario based on hope; a Ukrainian reconquest of Bakhmut could deliver “a devastating psychological blow” perhaps sufficient to cause a Russian collapse. 

Wishful thinking is no basis for policy, nor is there reason to hope that a Ukrainian reconquest of Bakhmut would deliver a “devastating psychological blow” sufficient to cause a Russian collapse.  In fact, such a blow was already absorbed by the Ukrainians, who lost the indispensable cream of their army (to hordes of dispensable Russian criminals-turned-stormtroopers) in the doomed defense of a city that President Zelensky had vowed would not fall.  As seen, Ukrainian soldiers themselves rebut Milley’s claim that Russian forces lack leadership, will, and discipline. Petraeus is correct that Kyiv’s drone strikes unnerve Muscovites, and evidence from Russian social media reveals distress over high casualties. But these have not translated into broad anti-Putin, anti-war attitudes. On the contrary, support for Putin remains strong, and an anti-Western, rally-round-the-flag effect intensifies as Russia finds itself in a proxy war with all of NATO, per Kremlin propaganda. 

Petraeus’ hope that Russia’s elite will reject the Ukraine war as “unsustainable”—as the Soviet elite supposedly did with the Afghan war in the 1980s—is based on a flawed analogy. The old Soviet ruling elite did not see the Afghan war as unsustainable or worry much about public opinion. It took a new leader who prioritized improving ties with the West, China, and the Muslim world—all of whom made leaving Afghanistan a precondition of detente—to start working toward an exit. The point is not that war isn’t costly; the Afghan war was, and the Ukraine war is even more so. Accepting defeat in a major war—especially one that is justified in terms of “vital national interests”—is unlikely until there is both a new leader and elite turnover. For Putin and his political-military elite, the geopolitical implosion that followed Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and other outposts—particularly Central Europe—is precisely why they believe that Russia must stand firm in Ukraine today. 

Putin is Now Weaker/Stronger than Ever

Yet, if the media and its commentators are correct, that leadership transition is coming soon. For months—especially since the abortive June mutiny led by Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin—consensus has reigned on Putin’s weakness and potential ouster. Per one former KGB officer on CNN, Putin’s hold on power is now “almost nonexistent,” and state authority “is in free fall.” Another CNN guest—a top Ukrainian official—agreed about Putin’s waning authority and said, “The power he used to have is just crumbling down.” Further, this hastens Ukrainian victory because it has “greatly affected Russian power on the battlefield.” These predictions were wrong: Putin’s grip is stronger now than before; the mutiny failed to rally support; Wagner has been tamed, and its boss eliminated; and Putin has sidelined officials who echoed Prigozhin’s criticism of him or his top brass. As for the war in Ukraine, Russian resistance has actually stiffened since June. Who was this Ukrainian official who claimed that Putin’s army, like his authority, was “crumbling?” None other than Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. 

With all due respect to Zelensky and his office, a journalist’s duty is to push back against spin and insist on evidence for extravagant claims. Instead, the media meekly accepts arguments from officials—then repeated by commentators and pundits—because they fit our narratives of Putin the loser, of a collapsing Russia, or of Western superiority. In other words, because they feed our hubris. Consider the claim by UK intelligence chief Richard Moore that Putin was compelled to “cut a deal to save his skin.” In fact, it was the opposite. Prigozhin—to temporarily save his own skin since he faced summary execution for treason—was forced to accept Putin’s terms. Ridiculing Putin as the one who backed down in fear for his life has little to do with intelligence. It plays well in the moment, but people eventually notice the accumulation of flawed assessments and failed predictions. 

When the Going Gets Tough…Spin? 

This helps explain a recent poll showing that a majority of Americans now oppose more military aid to Ukraine. Here, they join EU countries where majorities already believed—even before Ukraine’s recent failures—that sending more weapons only prolongs an unwinnable war and delays negotiations for peace. The polls cannot tell exactly what measure of concerns lie behind such opinions—be it general “Ukraine fatigue,” loss of faith in Kyiv’s chances of victory, concern at the heavy burden borne by taxpayers, distress at the news of Ukrainian corruption, or alarm at the cost of assimilating millions of Ukrainian refugees. Yet underlying all is a broader loss of faith in their leaders and the NATO-EU elite still promising to fight for “as long as it takes” to achieve “decisive victory.” 

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken recently defended Ukraine’s counteroffensive by arguing that, thanks to last year’s campaign, “They (Russia) have already lost,” and “(Ukraine) has already taken back about 50 percent of what was initially seized.” Yet the entire point of this year’s campaign is to retake the other 50 percent. Similar spin comes from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a highly regarded think tank but one whose pro-Ukrainian partisanship complicates its objectivity. ISW claimed that Ukraine regained more territory in under six weeks than Russia in the previous six months. Instead of assessing Kyiv’s campaign by its stated objective—a rapid thrust to sever Russia’s land bridge with Crimea—ISW relativizes its failures by comparing them with Russia’s. But even this doesn’t convince because Russia’s recent gains refer to the conquest of Bakhmut, a large and heavily fortified city (prewar population 73,000). By contrast, Ukraine’s recent gains consist of open fields and small villages like Robotnye (prewar population: 500). 

Maintaining public support for the war is tougher than in the early 2000s following the 9/11 attacks. The sense of outrage and the White House’s pledges of quick and remorseless victory convinced many to back ill-fated ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only is the “hubris and mendacity” of those recent debacles still fresh in the public mind, but today, we have many more sources of critical information—from expert journals and websites to specialized analysts offering detailed, current information and independent critiques on the conflict. They subject the claims of our political-military leaders to close scrutiny, and unless there is a sharp reversal of fortunes in Ukraine, that scrutiny will be harsh.

Preparing for the Horrors Ahead

But is a sharp reversal of fortunes likely? After so many failed forecasts, many now doubt the assurances of Washington, Brussels, and Kyiv. And it’s not just the quantity of failed predictions that diminish faith in a Russian collapse. It’s also their quality, or the way those predictions have failed, that raises doubt about their authors’ insights into the system about which they prognosticate. Analysts who foresaw that economic sanctions would cripple Russia’s war effort have had to admit that they misunderstood key aspects of Russia’s economic resourcefulness. Others underestimated Russia’s military resilience—as detailed above—due to flawed assumptions about Russian ineptitude or Western military-technological superiority. 

Some fall victim to confirmation bias—finding evidence of Russian weakness because their assumptions told them to seek it. When attention focuses on disorganization and dissent in the Russian army—trumpeting incidents of soldiers’ and officers’ complaints, even desertion—it suggests imminent collapse. But how many Russian soldiers and officers are not complaining, and how common is disorganization or dissent in the Ukrainian military? And where is the analysis of why regular soldiers spurned the Wagner mutiny? A related problem is that of selective coverage. Among many examples was recent media coverage of Moscow’s “desperation” in seeking an arms deal with North Korea. Yet they simultaneously ignored signs of “desperation” in Kyiv, such as lowering fitness standards for military service or seeking to deport back to Ukraine men who are ducking conscription in countries of the EU. 

Ukraine could be closer to collapse than Russia. There may indeed be an “asymmetrical attrition gradient”—another way of saying that Russia is taking more casualties than Ukraine—but even some Kyiv officials admit that Russia can sustain them better than Ukraine. By late autumn, when weather slows the fighting and campaigns usually end, Ukraine may have clawed back another 100 sq. miles—but at what cost? Looking to 2024, Russia will draw on a manpower base far larger than Ukraine’s. Ukraine will receive more NATO missiles, but they are unlikely to “change the game” any more than HIMARS and Storm Shadows did before them. Kyiv will also receive a few dozen F-16 fighters, but their hastily trained pilots—confronting a dense and sophisticated belt of air defenses—may suffer severe losses with no major impact on the war. 

Faced with an asymmetrical armaments gradient—the inability or unwillingness of NATO states to continue providing Ukraine with sufficient munitions to keep pace with Russia—Ukraine will seek to change the equation. This means more drone strikes on Moscow and other Russian cities, raids on Russian border towns, and a ferocious battle over Crimea. Ukraine will expand attacks on Russia’s Black Sea ships and ports, perhaps finally destroying the Crimean Bridge. And Russia will do likewise, improving its drone and missile force (including reverse engineering of captured NATO weapons) to hit airfields, railroads, ports, and other infrastructure harder than ever. Civilian casualties will soar, as will the danger of chemical or nuclear “accidents.” 

Cheerleading that “Ukraine must win decisively, and with superior NATO armaments, it surely will” supports neither sensible military strategy nor responsible policy debate. Those who argue thus recall Britain’s WWII leader, Winston Churchill, who stiffened a nation’s resolve through its darkest hour and led it to triumph. Rarely do they recall Britain’s WWI commander Douglas Haig, whose insistence that Germany would collapse if only the Allies mounted just one more offensive ultimately prolonged a grueling war of attrition at the cost of a million lives. Hubris is not only our enemy but Ukraine’s too.

Robert English, a former Pentagon policy analyst, is the Director of Central European Studies at the University of Southern California. He is the author of various works on the Cold War’s end and aftermath, including Russia and the Idea of the West.

Image: Reuters.

Lasers may be the cure for whatever ails you in science fiction, but if America is looking for a real solution to the myriad problems posed by modern hypersonic weapons, lasers – or directed energy weapons – won’t be able to provide the magic bullet that we’re looking for.

Modern hypersonic missiles, which combine flying at speeds in excess of Mach 5 with the ability to change course unpredictably, pose a unique challenge for even today’s most advanced integrated air defense systems. While the air defense enterprise is an incredibly complex one, the job itself is somewhat simple: Air defense systems identify and track inbound weapons using sensors, like radar, and then use computers to calculate the remainder of the weapon’s inbound flight path. With its course determined, air defense systems, like America’s MIM-104 Patriot, then launch a missile of their own, known as an interceptor, to fly toward a point further along the inbound weapon’s flight path to intercept it.

It’s the same basic principle as a quarterback leading a receiver: you don’t throw the ball to where the receiver is, but rather, to where the receiver will be by the time the ball gets there.

This approach to missile defense has proven very effective against ballistic missiles, which do travel at hypersonic speeds, but along a fairly predictable ballistic flight path. Cruise missiles pose a different type of risk, as they fly at much lower altitudes under power, more like an aircraft or suicide drone, which makes them less predictable. However, because of their lower relative speeds, air defense systems are often capable of intercepting cruise missiles using the same sort of arithmetic.

But modern hypersonic missiles complicate matters a great deal. Rather than achieving hypersonic speeds by flying along a predictable ballistic flight path, hypersonic boost-glide weapons and hypersonic cruise missiles both change course unpredictably while flying at these extreme speeds. As a result, an air defense system’s calculations to predict the remainder of the weapon’s flight path are rendered more or less moot, and because of their high closing speed, there’s little to no time left to attempt a recalculation to launch another interceptor.

The solution to this problem may be directed energy weapons or lasers. Rather than launching a missile to close with a target at supersonic speeds, lasers travel at the speed of light, and while a Patriot launch station may only carry four interceptors… you don’t run out of lasers unless you run out of energy.

In theory, it’s a perfect solution. But in practice… things get more complicated.

THE CURRENT STATE OF LASERS IN THE US MILITARY

While massive and powerful chemical lasers were all the rage in the 1980s, in recent years, the vast majority of developmental efforts have been focused on the comparably smaller, safer, and less powerful solid-state laser approach.

Chemical lasers work by sending an electric current through a gas to generate light through a process known as population inversion. In other words, operating a chemical laser means toting a bunch of hazardous chemicals around with you and adding size, weight, and danger to operators. 

Solid-state lasers, on the other hand, use a solid crystalline material, rather than a gas or liquid, as the “lasing medium.” This makes them far smaller and far safer to operate – but until fairly recently, they were simply unable to produce enough consistent power for weapons applications. 

Today, solid-state lasers are an increasingly promising technology, with numerous developmental efforts ongoing and a number of laser systems already deployed on U.S. Navy vessels.

The U.S. Navy first installed a laser on one of its warships in 2014 in the 33-kilowatt AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System (LaWS), with the stronger 60-kilowatt HELIOS, or High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance system, following in 2019. The Navy believes HELIOS will eventually be able to output as much as 150 kilowatts. It wants to begin testing the 300-kW HELCAP, short for High Energy Laser Counter Anti-ship Cruise missile Program, next year. 

In September of last year, Lockheed Martin delivered the most powerful tactical laser fielded to date, the 300-kW-class Indirect Fires Protection Capability-High Energy Laser (IFPC-HEL), to the U.S. Army. This system delivers only about 1/3 of the power output provided by the massive MIRACL from the 1980s, but is compact enough to be carried by a single truck or inside the fuselage of a variety of aircraft.

In late July, Lockheed Martin announced plans to field a 500kW-class laser which will offer a number of new defense possibilities but will still fall well short of being able to stop an inbound hypersonic missile.

THE BIG PROBLEMS WITH USING LASERS TO SHOOT DOWN HYPERSONIC MISSILES

While lasers are already becoming extremely useful close-range weapons and air defense systems, there are several serious technological limitations that prevent them from being used to take down incoming hypersonic, or even ballistic, missiles.

Power Output

According to Pentagon assessments, power output is the first limiting factor. While a clear consensus on power requirements for different types of targets doesn’t exist, the DoD does have a general rule of thumb for the power output by a system and its potential applications:

• 100kW-Range Weapons: Can engage unmanned aircraft, small boats, rockets, artillery, or mortars
• 300kW-Range Weapons: Can engage the side of a cruise missile fuselage to destroy it or knock it off course
• 1MW (1,000kW)-Range Weapons: Can engage ballistic or hypersonic missiles, but may be limited to burning through the side of the fuselage

As you can tell by looking at those figures, the systems currently deployed on U.S. Navy ships can engage slow-moving drones and even small boats by concentrating a laser beam on the target for an extended period of time and eventually burning through them to damage internal systems. The more powerful 300kW IFPC-HEL and HELCAP, on the other hand, are powerful enough to burn through the side of a cruise missile in flight to destroy it or send it off course, but again, in order to do so, they must keep the beam pointed at the exact same spot on the fuselage as the missile flies by. In 2020, it took 15 seconds of sustained fire from a 150kW-class weapon to destroy an airborne drone.

This approach, some contend, could be easily countered by designing missiles to roll during their flight path, making it impossible to focus the beam on one singular point.

In order to stop a hypersonic missile from reaching its target, the DoD estimates that they’d need at least a 1 megawatt (or 1,000 kilowatt) laser. That’s more than three times the power output of today’s most advanced tactical laser system… but even such a laser would likely struggle to burn through the nosecone of a hypersonic missile. After all, these weapons are designed to withstand temperatures in excess of 1,700 degrees. 

And as the Navy has pointed out, it’s cheaper to build missiles with more heat shielding than it is to field lasers with more power output – so as laser defenses become more commonplace, missiles will almost certainly be better shielded and thus, less susceptible to laser engagement. 

Line of Sight

Unlike interceptors, which can be launched at targets identified beyond the horizon, the very nature of lasers limits them to line of sight. This presents problems when the laser needs time to burn through a target. Hypersonic weapons like China’s DF-ZF may be traveling at 2 miles per second or even faster, meaning there would be precious little time to actually destroy the weapon by the time it appeared in the lasers’ line of sight. 

Atmospheric Scattering

We tend to think of lasers as a thin beam of energy that continues onward forever, but that’s really not the case at all. Water vapor, sand, salt, smoke, air pollution, and other substances found in the atmosphere can all have a scattering effect on laser beams. This atmospheric turbulence is a serious problem – to the point where the Pentagon currently sees lasers as a viable weapon system only at ranges of less than a mile. And even optimistic projections for the near future still only think lasers will be viable at ranges of less than five miles. 

Again, when we’re talking about countering a missile that’s designed to manage heat and traveling at more than 2 miles per second, this leaves almost no time for intercept. 

Thermal Blooming

As a laser continues to fire in the exact same direction for an extended period, it heats up the air it passes through, which ultimately defocuses the laser beam. This isn’t a real issue when engaging a missile from the side or at an angle as the missile flies through the sky, but it becomes a huge problem with engaging a missile that’s flying straight at you. 

As a result, lasers will not be an effective means of self-defense until the amount of power they produce is so immense that they can destroy a target in a split second. 

Beam control

Of course, thermal blooming is only a problem if you can keep your laser pointed in the same direction while riding a warship moving at high speeds on the open ocean. In order to be effective, a laser needs to stay focused on a single point on the target as it heats up and burns through it – and there are multiple programs aimed at doing just that like Position Sensing Devices (PSD), Fiber Optic Gyros (FOG), Fast Steering Mirrors (FSM). However, as of 2018, Deputy Director of the Missile Defense Agency Jon Hill stated in no uncertain terms all of these efforts were still working with margins “thousands of times wider” than those required for missile defense. 

HOW LASERS REALLY CAN AID IN THE MISSILE DEFENSE EFFORT

Technology has advanced so rapidly throughout the 20th and 21st centuries that it seems irresponsible to ever count a concept out. Overcoming engineering challenges is, more often than not, simply a question of time, resources, and investment – and the U.S. Defense Department is exceedingly good at giving contractors at least two of those things. But, from where laser technology sits today, it has far more likely applications as a supplement to close-range defenses like the close-in weapon system (CIWS) than it does for taking down hypersonic missiles. 

However, that doesn’t mean lasers don’t offer a significant (and growing) benefit to defense. Eventually, high-powered lasers will likely exceed the capabilities of systems like the 20mm CIWS, reducing the costs associated with close-in defense and offering a wide variety of new applications for close-in defensive systems. (Because laser power can be adjusted, such systems would even allow for more escalating options in limited engagements). Over time, the range of these systems will likely grow to many miles and they’ll be incorporated into other systems to supplement targeting data for battle networks and more. 

But, at the end of the day, lasers in the real world are limited by physics in ways they never were in the science fiction we’ve grown up with. Will lasers ever become the all-purpose solution they’re often perceived to be? Maybe… but I wouldn’t bet against kinetic options any time soon.

Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Someone has some explaining to do at the U.S. Embassy in Türkiye. Maybe it was US Ambassador Jeffry L. Flake, or perhaps it was just some lowly consular official. Either way, someone in the State Department issued a visa to Ersin Tatar, the separatist leader of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (TRNC), the puppet regime that the Turkish General Staff and Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization established following Turkey’s 1974 invasion of the island. Tatar, who styles himself president but in reality acts as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s governor on Cyprus, used a Turkish passport to attend the UN General Assembly. 

This raises a number of questions:

If the United States does not recognize occupied Cyprus as a second country and, indeed, believes its pretensions of statehood threaten the peace, why did it issue its leader the visa on a Turkish passport?

More specifically, since the Republic of Cyprus allows Turkish Cypriots to obtain passports, why should the United States issue any Cypriot a visa on anything other than a Republic of Cyprus passport?

While the State Department is obliged to issue visas to leaders from countries like Cuba and Iran, “The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” is no more legitimate than Luhansk and Donetsk, the two states Russia carved out of Ukrainian territory. By enabling Tatar entrance to the United States, the State Department is bestowing legitimacy on a colonial project that deserves no such courtesy. Put another way, if Sergey Kozlov, the prime minister of the Luhansk People’s Republic, wished to attend the UN General Assembly, would the US Ambassador in Moscow issue him a visa on a Russian passport or instead demand he present a Ukrainian passport since, after all, Luhansk is part of Ukraine?

If the State Department owes Cyprus an apology, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres owes far more, for Guterres’ interactions at the UN General Assembly betrayed Cyprus and undermined peace. 

One month before Guterres hosted Tatar, the Turkish Cypriot leader’s militias attacked UN peacekeepers in the worst incident in years. Several UN peacekeepers still recover from injuries sustained when Tatar’s forces beat them and rammed UN vehicles with bulldozers. For Guterres to meet with a man who sought to leverage violence against the United Nations for political gain was poor judgment. There would have been merit in Guterres telling off Tatar, but he did no such thing. Perhaps misguided etiquette trumps the protection of men and women who serve the UN as peacekeepers.

Guterres further enabled his own humiliation. 

Returning to the Turkish-occupied airport in northern Cyprus from his meetings in New York (and shopping in its luxury boutiques), Tatar bragged about putting Guterres in his place. “I told [UN Secretary-General Antonio] Guterres that we are very opposed to the appointment of the special representative to implement Security Council decisions, to make reports, and to impose a federal solution onto us,” he said. His press conference apparently substituted for any official response.

It gets worse: While Guterres made time for Tatar, the Turkish delegation at the last minute shuffled their date cards. Instead of Guterres meeting Erdogan, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan came in his place. In effect, Erdogan signaled to his supporters that he was too important for the Secretary-General and stood above Tatar and Guterres. Perhaps such symbolism matters little in Guterres’ home state of Portugal, but they resonate in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. To complete the coup de grâce, Erdogan then proceeded to slam the United Nations’ mediation on the island. “The realities of the island are obvious and the TRNC [Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus] is the most concrete reality of Cyprus,” Erdogan declared.

Guterres may not be an exceptionally talented secretary-general, but State Department negligence compounded the problem and enabled Erdogan to both empower himself and bolster Tatar before the cameras. Erdogan’s proxies do not deserve such respect or the trappings of legitimacy. They certainly do not deserve visas. If Ambassador Flake will not explain how and why Tatar got through, it is time for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to compel Secretary of State Antony Blinken to do so.

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he specializes in Iran, Turkey, and the broader Middle East.

Image: Shutterstock.

Picking five of the many excellent service rifles the United States military used was tough. There are so many excellent firearms that the U.S. military has used throughout its history. But the five choices that made this list are both excellent and revolutionary weapons.

I hope you enjoy what I think are the five best service rifles the United States has ever fielded in some capacity.

THE KENTUCKY LONG RIFLE

This rifle existed before the United States did, but it served with the Continental Army in the American Revolution. The Kentucky Long Rifle, also known as the Pennsylvania rifle or American Long Rifle, is a muzzle-loading weapon with a fairly long barrel that shot a relatively small caliber.

German gunsmiths brought rifling to the United States and began producing these rifles for hunters and frontiersmen. The rifling made them accurate, and the long barrels allowed their lead balls to fly at higher speeds. The smaller caliber was an unusual but clever choice. Hunters and frontiersmen went into the wild on foot and having smaller bullets meant they could carry more of them.

These accurate rifles allowed soldiers to hit the enemy from greater distances and the smaller projectiles meant they carried more ammo into battle. These service rifles were not general issue rifles but were often brought by members of militias. Occasionally, whole outfits carried rifles, and these outfits were pivotal in the Battle of Saratoga, the Battle of Cowpens, and the Battle of New Orleans.

M1861 SPRINGFIELD

In the midst of the Civil War, the Union troops were armed with one of the finest rifle muskets ever made, the Springfield Model 1861. This large .58 caliber rifled musket utilized a Minie ball, which allowed for the general issue of rifled muskets over smoothbore muskets. The M1861 was the first general-issue rifled firearm. It had a 40-inch barrel and weighed nine pounds, which was not too heavy, especially for that era.

The Model 1861 wasn’t necessarily revolutionary as far as service rifles go but was more a culmination of good ideas developed over decades of rifled muskets. One of the rifle’s biggest advantages was that it was soldier-proof: Its sights were simple, with settings for 100, 300, and 500 yards, and could be used quickly and easily by the masses of conscripts.

The Springfield offered a very robust and reliable rifle with excellent accuracy. Well-trained troops could fire three shots a minute on targets out to 500 yards. The rifle was so robust and stout that it would become the basis for the next generation of both rifled muskets and breach-loading cartridge rifles.

THE HENRY RIFLE

The Civil War also saw the Union troops wielding the Henry Rifle. The Henry Rifle is a lever-action firearm and the first practical and successful repeating rifle. These rifles were issued by the Union forces in small numbers and for special assignments as they were too expensive to be issued en masse compared to a rifled musket and ball. They also had a relatively low effective range compared to a proper rifle.

Union soldiers used these rifles in small numbers and some soldiers even purchased their own. The Henry Rifles found themselves in the hands of scouts, skirmishers, flank guards, and raiding parties as these men had to be quick and nimble.

The key to the rifle’s success was its use of brass cartridges. The lever-action rifle held 16 rounds which allowed a soldier to fire it quickly. One Henry Rifle provided the firepower of a squad of muskets. It became such a fearsome weapon that one Confederate exclaimed, “that damned Yankee rifle that they load on Sunday and shoot all week!”

M1 GARAND

The years between the Civil War and World War II saw a number of revolutionary weapons, but in hindsight, they lost out to the M1 Garand. The M1 Garand was the first time the United States ever issued semi-auto service rifles to the bulk of the armed forces. At that time, the world carried bolt-action rifles, but the Americans made an impressive leap forward with the M1 Garand. Other countries struggled to keep up and produce their own autoloading battle rifles.

This .30-06 autoloader used a gas-operating system and integral magazine fed by En Bloc clips. It gave riflemen eight rounds of firepower and an effective range of 500 yards with standard iron sights. The impact of the shoulder-fired, man-portable rifle was immediate in World War II. It was extremely capable, and the higher rate of fire proved important for infantry fighting forces.

The M1 Garand would go on to also serve as a sniper rifle and would arm forces until after the Korean War. General Patton once called the M1 Garand “the greatest battle implement ever devised.”

M16

Last but not least is the M16. The M16 was a weapon the Army wanted to hate and nearly sabotaged during its trial by fire in Vietnam. The goal of its predecessor, the M14, was to replace the BAR, the Grease Gun, and M1 Garand all at once. However, it spectacularly failed to do so. The M16, on the other hand, proved to be light, easily controlled, and well-suited for tight jungle warfare.

The platform proved modular and, over the decades, evolved alongside technology. Some evolutions, like the A2 variant, weren’t great, but most were excellent, and rifles like the M4 and Mk 12 have been derived from it. The M16 served from Vietnam into Afghanistan and only now seems to be on the way out. Even so, it will likely serve for decades more in the hands of various forces around the world.

Generations of young men and women have carried one in every clime and place you can bring a gun. It’s a fantastic rifle and will likely go down in history as one of the greatest rifles of all time.

I’ve expressed what I think are America’s best service rifles, but what say you, fine folks? We all have opinions, and I’d love to hear yours below! Tell us what you think America’s best rifles are. Do you think the M27 or XM5 will join the list one day?

Travis Pike is a former Marine Machine gunner who served with 2nd Bn 2nd Marines for 5 years. He deployed in 2009 to Afghanistan and again in 2011 with the 22nd MEU(SOC) during a record-setting 11 months at sea. He’s trained with the Romanian Army, the Spanish Marines, the Emirate Marines, and the Afghan National Army. He serves as an NRA certified pistol instructor and teaches concealed carry classes.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Image: Shutterstock.

With the world slowly gathering speed again to the pre-COVID pace, 2023 is proving to be a year of fast-paced changes in world politics as leaders regain the momentum for face-to-face meetings, including Kim Jong-un. Leaders met and produced joint statements, marking the beginning of a possible epochal shift in the regional security order that could lock in North Korea’s current security outlook. South Korea and Japan agreed to move on from historical issues in March. Subsequently, Japan, South Korea, and the US proclaimed the beginning of a new chapter of trilateral relations as they performed their friendship at the Camp David Summit in August, marking the beginning of new (or renewed) tensions as China accused the trio of starting a “new” Cold War. The other “camp” of the new Cold War—China, Russia, and North Korea—has also put on their performance of comradeship, beginning with North Korea’s hosting of a Chinese delegation in commemoration of the end of the Korean War in July to the recent summit between Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin.

North Korea also “normalized” its missile launches and tests but at a quicker pace—its missile test frequency in 2022 hit more than 70, making 2022 the year of greatest frequency. The DPRK strives to perfect its missile delivery capabilities in 2023 by conducting strategic cruise missile tests and launching a solid-fueled ICBM in July. Some of these tests and launches are purportedly in response to US-South Korea’s military exercises, which have been conducted in response to North Korea’s missile tests and launches, resulting in a tit-for-tat, action-reaction. However, this tit-for-tat pattern alone does not indicate North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons.

A more pertinent indicator of North Korea’s unwillingness to relinquish its nuclear weapons is the domestic institutionalization of its nuclear power status, as reflected in two recent moves.

First, Kim Jong Un formally introduced his daughter, Kim Ju Ae, to the world in November 2022 as they visited a missile test launch site. Whether she is his successor is uncertain, given that the North Korean leader allegedly has an older child. What matters is that her public appearance is not only propaganda but is part of Chairman Kim’s effort to pass down the “family-institutional” memory of the Kim regime and the centrality of nuclear weapons and missiles to its longevity. By educating his daughter on North Korea’s achievements, Kim may hope his efforts and those of his ancestors to achieve nuclear power status live on with his children.

Second, in September, North Korea enshrined its nuclear power status in its constitution, further institutionalizing its nuclear state status proclaimed in 2013. Kim justified the institutionalization by securitizing the trilateral military cooperation between Japan, South Korea, and the United States, calling it the “worst actual threat.” This comes after institutionalizing the use of nuclear weapons for preemptive purposes last year. With the enshrinement and gradual elevation of its self-recognition would come North Korea’s demands for international recognition of its nuclear power, not its nuclear weapons.

All these recent movements do not negate the efforts to re-engage North Korea. The nuclear anxiety of 2017 dissipated with efforts to thaw in 2018–2019. During this period of liminality, North Korea flirted with the idea of denuclearization and diplomatic normalization with the United States, leaving the world holding its breath at the crossroads between peace and a nuclear war. The world was close to a relatively more peaceful era. A return to this liminal period remains possible, as 2017 has proven. But as the clock ticks, the bar for getting North Korea to start a dialogue will only rise.

Minseon Ku is a Rosenwald postdoctoral fellow at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College.

Image: Reuters.