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Entering adulthood is never easy. For the 1.8 billion youth in the world today– the most in history– the challenges are particularly daunting. Not only are more than one-fifth of global youth not in employment, education or training, and a quarter affected by violence or armed conflict, but the world itself is facing existential threats to global peace and security. Climate change, economic inequality, and social and political polarization are just a few of the mounting dangers that must be reckoned with in the coming years. To overcome these challenges, the current generation of leaders must better understand, engage, and empower young people as partners– and leaders– in global development efforts.

Better integrating the voices and perspectives of youth in international institutions and initiatives is itself an ambitious task. Young people today remain largely excluded from development programs, ignored in peace negotiations, and denied a voice in most international and domestic decision-making. Yet it is critical and urgent that we do so. Young people today are connected to each other like never before, and are more committed to innovation, social progress, and a sustainable future. They are using and building disruptive new technologies, global social networks, the sharing economy, and clean energy networks. They exemplify the ability of innovation and creativity to transform our world. Investing in these young agents of change is not just essential, it has the potential for a tremendous multiplier effect.

The recently released United Nations Youth Strategy is a step in the right direction, and could serve as a model for countries to begin developing and implementing their own plans. The strategy is the first attempt at an umbrella framework to guide the work of the international body with and for young people, and reaffirms the UN’s message that young people are “an essential asset worth investing in.” Within the strategy, the role of youth is incorporated in the global sustainability agenda via three key pillars: peace and security, human rights, and sustainable development. At its core, the strategy aims to provide a blueprint for joint initiatives and implementation of effective practices before it is too late.

The strategy also outlines the unique position of the UN to challenge and support States to ensure the protection and support for young people, and provides a platform through which their “needs can be addressed, their voice can be amplified, and their engagement can be advanced.” Further, it calls for the coordination, governance and operationalization of a forthcoming action plan that will be applicable through 2030, noting that it will require collaboration between all UN bodies and States in order to ensure its full objectives.

Despite its ambition, the UN’s report is lacking in many ways. The language is often without definitions or even brief substantiations of ideas its presents. It even fails to adopt a single standard age range for “youth”, offering various ranges including 10-24 years, 18-29 years, and 15-24 years. This open-ended approach leaves many more questions than answers, and is not conducive to achieving what it describes as “the realization of sustainable development in the prevention of crises and in the advancement of peace.”

At the end of the day, the UN Youth Strategy is just a first step outlining basic principles for incorporating youth in the global development and sustainability agenda. It is not yet a concrete plan of action that countries can adopt. Substantive explanations and plans for broad concepts must be provided first. For example, the UN should outline mechanisms to include youth in high-level discussions on intercultural and interreligious dialogue, and establish a youth chapter in official negotiations. In addition, the UN should elaborate on the creation and mechanism of youth-specific indicators and how directly applicable they are to pilot projects, initiatives and plans that lead to the goal of achieving the strategy by 2030. One such indicator could be a number of supported and self-sustainable youth initiatives that participate in UN decision-making and consultative bodies, both regionally and globally.

The challenges ahead of us are certainly daunting. The world will need all the innovation and energy it can find if we want to stop climate change, end poverty, and advance social justice. The world’s youth must be empowered to achieve their full potential, and they must have a meaningful role in the global decision-making process. The UN Youth Strategy has set an ambitious objective, but it is up to all of us to get behind it and work to make its vision a reality.

Ally Dunhill is a non-resident fellow working on youth & sustainable peace at TRENDS Research & Advisory, an independent and progressive think tank, based in Abu Dhabi. Emina Osmandzikovic is a researcher at TRENDS working on the intersection of human security and migration.

Ally Dunhill Bio
Ally Dunhill is a researcher, writer and consultant with a wealth of experience gained through teaching, research and leadership roles within the Education sector. She specializes in the study of human rights education, and the participation of children and young people in all aspects that impact upon their lived experiences. She is currently a Non-Resident Fellow of TRENDS Research & Advisory and is currently working as a consultant on a Youth & Sustainable Peace project. She is also an Associate of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE), UK and a Visiting Researcher at the Energy and Environment Institute, University of Hull, UK. Ally was formerly Associate Dean for Student Experience in the Faculty of Arts, Culture and Education, University of Hull. Born in Scotland, Ally has worked for a range of organisations supporting children, young people and their families in the Gulf, Netherlands, Germany and the UK. She has managed and led teams in a range of organisations, including the private sector, mainstream and special schools and multi-agency teams.

Emina Osmandzikovic Bio
Emina Osmandzikovic is an expert on human rights, forced migration and displacement, and big data analysis. She is a researcher at TRENDS Research & Advisory with a focus on the intersection of human security and migration. Previously, she worked for the UNHCR Protection Unit in her home country, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she conducted extensive field research on highly vulnerable refugee communities and returnees. She also had the opportunity to apply her Arabic skills and interview vulnerable refugees in Jordan with UNHCR/IOM. Additionally, she worked for the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (France), the United Nations Headquarters in New York and as a research assistant at New York University in Abu Dhabi on human rights and zones of security in the Middle East. She holds a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) degree in Politics and International Relations from the University of Cambridge and a BA in Political Science with honours from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD). In 2017, she published her work titled “Immigrants’ Integration Experience in the European Union” in the NYUAD Journal of Social Sciences. Her regional focus includes the European Union and the Middle East.

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American writer Andy Griffith once stated, “Whether a man is guilty or innocent, we have to find that out by due process of law.” For anyone who lives in a democratic society, these basic principles are a given but following Israel’s detention of Lara Alqasem, it appears as though the international media pushed those principles aside.
After Israel detained Lara Alqasem at Ben-Gurion Airport, numerous media outlets across the globe were up in arms.

The Huffington Post called the move anti-democratic. Salon Magazine claimed that her detention goes against the “Jewish liberal tradition.” The Independent stated that detaining Alqasem was an attack on her academic freedom.
However, now since the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Alqasem, what do such critics have to say? Do they still view Israel as an anti-democratic state fighting against the Jewish liberal tradition who attacks the academic freedom of any potential critic?

The international media did not behave fairly towards Israel. The Israeli Knesset passed a BDS Law, which barred foreigners active in the BDS Movement from coming to the State of Israel. Israel passed this law because frequently in the past, BDS supporters would come and engage in hostile actions towards the country. It was a law that was passed by a democratic government, who is presently fighting a war against terrorism. When a nation is at war, it is common to pass such laws.

Israel does not ban individuals based on religion and nationality. For Israel, all that mattered was the fact that she served as President of the Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida, which supports BDS. During her tenure, she held an event in support of Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh and promoted the boycott of Sabra Hummus. Given the present political situation in Israel and also the passage of the BDS Law, it was only natural that Alqasem would be detained.

However, even though Israel had every reason in the book to deport her immediately, the State of Israel gave her the right to appeal her deportation all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court and Alqasem was given legal representation. Ultimately, she was successful in her desire to study in Israel because she claimed her support of the BDS Movement was a thing of the past.

According to the Times of Israel, Alqasem erased her social media account in order to hide current support for the BDS Movement. Dr. Dana Barnett, who heads Israel Academia Monitor, a group that monitors anti-Israel activities within academia, also noted how problematic it was for Alqasem’s supporters in the Israeli Supreme Court to argue that the fact that she wished to study in Israel was proof that she was not a supporter of the BDS Movement anymore since BDS Movement co-founder Omar Barghouti studied ethics in the philosophy department at Tel Aviv University. In addition, she proclaimed that Kobi Snitz of BDS from Within, Dr. Neve Gordon, Dr. Rachel Giora and Dr. Anat Matar all advocated in favor of BDS while being part of Israeli universities: “Using Israeli products and services does not stop BDS activists from calling for BDS.”

But these facts were all ignored by the Israeli Supreme Court, who wished to give Alqasem the benefit of the doubt since she was a young student activist and not one of the main leaders of the BDS Movement. This demonstrates that Israel is a democratic country which honors the liberal Jewish tradition and respects the academic freedom of its critics.

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Joint Session on Congress, 2017 (Wikipedia)

United States foreign policy has lacked an aspirational guiding principle for a generation.  One reason might be the historic volatility of political parties, unlike anything in the past century.

United States foreign policy has a record of long-term trends that depend in part on the political parties in power.  During the Cold War, for example, Congressional Democrats were sometimes considered “softer” than “hardline, anti-Communist” Republicans. The President is the primary source of modern U.S. foreign policy.  FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan: these men drove American foreign policy and thereby much of world politics for the half-century during and after World War II.

The Presidency rotated between political parties fairly regularly after World War II. Democrats filled the White House (from 1933) until 1953. Then it was Republicans for eight years, Democrats for eight years, Republicans again for eight years, Democrat Jimmy Carter for four years, and Republicans for the last decade of the Cold War.

But the party caricatures of strong Republicans and soft Democrats were not always complete pictures.  Truman, a Democrat, led the Korean War. Kennedy, a Democrat, (unsuccessfully) invaded Cuba  and (successfully) faced down Soviet premier Khrushchev in the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Meanwhile Nixon, a Republican, initiated détente with the Soviet Union and established diplomatic relations with Communist China.

Presidential administrations came and went with some regularity. From Truman through G.H.W. Bush, the average presidency lasted just over five years.  But Congressional leaders lasted in power for decades.

In the Senate, John Stennis (1947-1989) and Russell Long (1948-1987) served for approximately the entire Cold War.  Warren Magnuson and Milton Young served from the end of World War II into the early 1980s.  Robert Byrd, Daniel Inouye, Strom Thurmond, Edward Kennedy, James Eastland, Quentin Burdick, William Proxmire, and Clairborne Pell each served in the Senate for all or nearly all of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (and in most cases, beyond that).  Richard Russell, Ted Stevens, Ernest Hollings, A. Willis Robertson, Clifford Case, Margaret Chase Smith, Jacob Javits, and Carl Hayden all served for at least 20 years of the Cold War.  Of these 20 Senators, 14 were Democrats.

In the House, Democrats held the majority almost the entire Cold War.  After the 1948 elections, Republicans held the majority only in 1953 and 1954.  At least 46 members of the House of Representatives, mostly Democrats, were in office for at least 30 years between 1947 and 1990.  Another six men make the 30-year mark with combined House-Senate service.

In short, the lack of volatility in the House and Senate during the Cold War contributed to a remarkable continuity in Congress’s membership – and leadership.  The Senate was led by just three Democrats – Lyndon Johnson, Mike Mansfield, and Robert Byrd, for most of the Cold War.  Of the seven Speakers of the House from 1947 to 1990, only one was a Republican, for just two two-year terms, 1947-1949 and 1953-1955.

Historical Volatility

The question of continuity and volatility of political parties can be seen from a longer time frame as well.  The back-and-forth changes of party control in Congress and the White House seen during the past decade are unlike anything in the last hundred years.

From 1914 through 2016, there were 52 presidential-year or mid-term elections.  From 1914 through 1990, a party in control of the White House, Senate, or House of Representatives lost at least one of those in 13 of those 39 elections.  From 1992 to 2016, a party lost control of at least one of these bodies in nine of those 13 elections.  If the Democrats win the House in 2018, as is largely expected, that would be a change in party control in 10 of the last 14 elections.  That is, a change in party control of the presidency, Senate, or House (or a combination) in 33 percent of the elections from 1914 to 1990, and in 70 percent of the elections since 1992.

From 2006 to 2016, a party has lost one of these in five of those six elections (83 percent).  If the House flips to Democrats in 2018, that would be changes in six changes in the last seven elections (86 percent).

There is no comparable volatility in the last hundred years.  The closest comparison is the decade after World War II.  Compared to the results of the previous election, both the House and Senate flipped parties in 1946, 1948, 1952, and 1954 – four out of five elections, and the White House flipped in 1952. In the decade after the 1944 election, World War II ended, the Cold War began, and the Korean War was fought for three years. The Soviets launched a successful nuclear weapons test, Mao turned China communist, and the U.S. was involved in the overthrow of regimes in Iran and Guatemala.  Truman integrated the military, and the Supreme Court decided Brown vs Board of Education.  It was a period of sharp economic swings, with short periods of GDP growth over five and even ten percent, followed by sharp economic contractions.

The electoral volatility since 2006 has some possible explanations as well.  After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Republicans were re-elected in Congress in 2002 (restoring their 2000 Senate victory temporarily lost by the switch of Jim Jeffords to the Democrats) and to the White House in 2004. But the following elections were influenced by increasingly unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the election of the country’s African-American president during an historic financial crisis, and the rise of TEA Party intra-Republican divisions during the subsequent recession.  Immigration and identity politics emerged as important issues.  Candidates Obama and Trump campaigned relatively independent from their national party organizations, and in their own ways were social media innovators.  Party favorites like Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton struggled.  #NeverTrump Republicans and Clinton’s 2016 battle against “outsider” Bernie Sanders revealed prominent intra-party divisions in both parties.  Whichever party wins in November 2018, in January 2019 Congress will have its fourth change in Speaker of the House in 12 years.

Implications of Party Volatility

This sharp – and sustained – rise in volatility among party control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives raises a number of questions for further inquiry.  What causes these periods of volatility – seen after World War II and in the past ten years? Is this a temporary phenomenon, or a “new normal”? What are the implications – including for American foreign policy – of this volatility?  Some of these answers might include analysis that the United States has had difficulty building and advancing a positive, cohesive, big-picture, aspirational foreign policy because it has lacked – among other things, institutional continuity.

Photo: Wikipedia via Speaker.gov

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In recent days, many have been critical of Israel for detaining Palestinian American activist Lara Alqasem. However, such criticism is not justified in any shape or form. Lara Alqassem was the president of the University of Florida’s chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine, a radical group that supports the BDS Movement. According to Im Tirtzu, an Israel-based Zionist organization, during her tenure there, she organized an event in honor of Rasmea Odeh, a convicted Palestinian female terrorist with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who murdered two Hebrew University students. She also bombed the British Consulate.

And on top of that, Gulf News reported that the Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida under Alqassem’s tenure also promoted the boycott of Sabra Hummus. Any country that is at the forefront fighting for its right to exist and is currently engaged in a war against terrorism would think twice before allowing someone associated with such a group to pursue a two-year masters’ program in a university located within its borders.

For many years, Israel has suffered from anti-Israel activists who have used their positions within Israeli universities in order to harm the state. For example, Omar Barghouti, who in the past studied at Tel Aviv University, launched a global campaign calling for a boycott of Israel. Similarly, other academics such as Dr. Neve Gordon, Dr. Anat Matar and Dr. Rachel Geora have exploited their positions at Israeli universities in order to promote the BDS Movement. Should Alqassem study at the Hebrew University, who is to say that she would not become active in the Boycott from Within Movement?

However, as an Israeli citizen living under the shadow of Palestinian terrorism, I have greater concerns than her support for BDS. When I was an MA student at Ben-Gurion University, Dr. Maya Rosenfeld used her position as a professor teaching international students in order to glorify Ghassan Khanafani, a leading terrorist from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. At the same university, Gordon attended a demonstration where Arab students called upon Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to punish (bomb) Tel Aviv. Furthermore, local student activists at BGU brought foreign students to the West Bank, where they attended Land Day riots where stones were thrown at Israeli soldiers. Who is to say that Alqasem would not join one of those violent protests or would use her position as a student at an Israeli university in order to glorify such wanton acts of violence?

While some could argue that given that the atmosphere at Israeli universities already incorporates the anti-Israel narrative in the name of dialogue, why is it so harmful for Lara Alqassem to join the fray? However, what makes the presence of Lara Alqassem so detrimental to Israel’s security is that should she join violent anti-Israel protests, due to her American citizenship, Israel will be restrained regarding what actions that it can take against her. Israel will not be able to penalize her for throwing stones in the same manner that it could a Palestinian rioter or Israeli citizen who joined such protests because any actions that Israel would take against her would blow up in the media, as the recent media coverage has demonstrated. This places Israel in a terrible dilemma. The country can either defend its security knowing it will lead to negative press coverage or it could give her a green light to act against the country, which would only embolden Israel’s enemies to do likewise.

Furthermore, should Alqassem get a masters’ degree from Hebrew University and spend two years living in East Jerusalem, she would return as an Israel expert to the US and could potentially get influential jobs that would influence US policy towards Israel. If she is a supporter of the BDS Movement, it could be detrimental for the US-Israeli relationship for her to hold such a status. This is not the case for a Palestinian anti-Israel activist living in East Jerusalem or a radical left wing Jewish Israeli student studying at the Hebrew University, whose actions against the state would be confined towards influencing the Jewish and Palestinian populations in Jerusalem respectively. Their actions in most cases will not harm Israel internationally. But many people in Israel and abroad do not fully grasp these factors.

So many people are rushing to support Alqassem. Im Tirtzu reported that students active in Standing Together, a group backed by the New Israel Fund, placed signs that stated “Reserved for Lara Alqasem.” Im Tirtzu subsequently crossed out her name and wrote the names of three Israeli terror victims that were murdered recently: Ari Fuld, Kim Levengrond and Ziv Hajbi.

I agree with the actions taken by Im Tirtzu. For the Israeli victims of terrorism, it is abhorrent that a seat would be reserved for an anti-Israel activist that was part of a group that not only supports BDS but also glorifies Palestinian terrorism. I am not the only one who is appalled by this. Peter Goldman, the President of the Swedish Friends of the Hebrew University, is also greatly disturbed how the university is rushing to support Alqassem.

Dana Barnett, who heads Israel Academia Monitor, a group that monitors anti-Israel activities within academia, stated that all of these actions that are being taken on behalf of Alqasem are morally wrong and hypocritical: “According to the BDS Law, anyone who calls for a boycott should be punished. If people are democratic, they should support the legal system.” As the Israeli Court of Appeals proclaimed, “Any self-respecting state defends its own interests and those of its citizens, and has the right to fight against the actions of a boycott as well as any attacks on its image.” Anti-semitism scholar Manfred Gerstenfeld believes that given this, Alqasem should go and study in one of the 191 countries that she has not incited against.

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Yazidi Refugee Ashwaq Haji Hami decided to leave Germany after she was left unprotected from her ISIS captor in her town in Germany.

Nadia Murad was honoured with a Nobel Prize recently for her work with women and genocide survivors. She is Yazidi from Iraq and survived a kidnapping and rape by ISIS, upon her escape she was able to get her story out to the international community. She became a representative for her community in 2016 and worked diligently to bring some light to the genocide of minority people Iraq, Syria and the wider Middle East. Her story is one of a survivor, but many women and girls are still held in captivity by ISIS, even though many ISIS fighters have already started returning to a peaceful life in their countries of origin.

Within Iraq there is a big debate on the benefits of the Nobel Prize given to Nadia Murad for the Yazidi and other minority communities. While minorities communities in Iraq may only exist for one more generation, it is up to the Iraqi government and people on how they wish to address the possible end of some of the oldest communities in the world. While the Nobel Prize serves as much to honour Nadia Murad as it does to bring attention to the struggle she and her community is facing, the kidnapping, rape, torture and organised genocide of Yazidi women and children has been almost wholly ignored by the international community and media. The values and legal precedents set by the trials at Nuremberg have most likely been violated, with Yazidis still being ignored in refugee camps, being helped but placed living with those that have committed genocide against them, and generally being forgotten even with the Nobel Prize being given to their UN representative. If the most basic tenets of the UN Declaration of Human Rights will not be applied by the signatories of the Declaration, then justice will never be served and the lessons of the Nuremberg Trials have truly been lost.

There are some stark cases of injustice outside of the Middle East in dealing with Yazidi survivors having been put living near those that raped and assaulted them. The earliest reported case occurred in Ontario, Canada when two Yazidi women ran into their torturer from Iraq. He might have been a Canadian who returned from fighting with ISIS, and in one case he harassed the Yazidi survivor he himself had a role in torturing. Upon running into him on more than one occasion, she notified those who were helping her resettle in Canada and she was told to keep quiet about the incidents. She is fighting for her story to be heard with little to no media coverage about these incidents in Canada or abroad. Recently the RCMP, Canada’s national police service, said that the government was unaware on how they could charge returning ISIS fighters when they bring them back to Canada. For some reason committing genocide against foreign nationals does not have a legal precedent in Canada, and while the Canadian justice system is based on the British system, including the application of the laws of equity to ensure justice is served in the application of justice in the legal system, the Canadian government will not help the few Yazidi refugees they are assisting be fully protected in Canada itself.

The wider known case of Yazidi survivors not being protected came from Germany when a young Yazidi survivor went to the police and told them of her ISIS torturer from Mosul, Iraq harassing her in the city she settled in in Germany itself. While she reported the incidents to authorities, the police just gave her a number to call in case of emergency and set upon a red tape laden investigation to find and charge her harasser. This widely reported story is just one of many being claimed in Germany and likely all over Europe itself. The lack of security she felt in Germany lead her to decide to end her future there and return to Iraq, where she felt safer in the end. Like with the Canadian incident, she felt local officials would not keep her secure in Germany. With the lacklustre response of many governments to the very recent aftermath of the Yazidi genocide, one that effectively is still taking place and being almost completely ignored, protections for those persecuted in a genocide seems to have no legal application or political will from modern, western governments. While there is an academic debate on how to apply local laws to crimes against humanity, having no application of law or protections is simply contributing to the future persecution of the genocide victims and survivors. Apologizing for past atrocities does nothing if you continue to ignore those of your own generation. Giving a Nobel Prize while ignoring survivors like Nadia Murad does nothing to save the children still in captivity. Those ignored girls are the most brutalised human beings in modern history.

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Kjell Nilsson-Maki via CartoonStoc

In Soviet mythology, the health of a country’s economy, national power, and influence in the world are directly linked to the performance of its oil and gas industries. The famous Russian gas project, Nord Stream 2, threatens to disturb the European Union family, emphasizing the contrasting interests of various EU nations. The Castro 10 vessel has already laid the first pipes off the German shore, spanning a total of 30 kilometers (18.6 miles), a 32 feet deep construction project expected to be completed in 400 days. The case for Nord Stream 2, a project highly touted by Germany, is aimed at rearranging the Ukrainian route of Russian gas pipelines, an uncomfortable situation for Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries that are to lose transit fees and related privileges. Nevertheless, the original relevance of this pipeline is a political one, since it can bring Russian gas to Germany bypassing Ukraine and Poland, and magnifying German energy security and geopolitical influence. There are also economic reasons: with the doubling of Nord Stream’s capacity Eastern European countries such as Hungary or Slovakia which previously held significant influence  in Russia-Western European gas transit, would find its influence dramatically reduced in the European gas game. Apart from the fact that Gazprom is the only supplier and a major shareholder in the $11bn Nord Stream 2 project, it is also headquartered  in Zug, Switzerland which is  known for being one of the most aggressive tax cutters among Switzerland’s 26 cantons. This fresh pipeline extension is being developed by five other Russian-European energy consortia , each of them funding up to 1 billion dollars each: Shell (Anglo-Dutch company), BASF (Germany), E.ON (Germany), Enti (France) and OMV (Austria). Even if Eastern European countries argue that the project contradicts the EU’s aim of diversifying energy sources, Germany is accused of ignoring that and promoting their own interests, as well as the values of a Russian energy addicted Europe. The Nord Stream 2 project calls for the laying of two pipelines with a total capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. Its first deliveries are expected in 2019, which corresponds with the expiration of the current agreements between Russia and Ukraine and in 2022 between Russia and Poland. This project is  assessed as completely neglecting the interests of Poland as well as the unity of the European Union,  especially within the context of Russia’s previous actions in Ukraine.

To this global aspect is added a complex economic process: the Russian energy sector is monopolistic since the denationalization movement initiated by Putin and focused on Gazprom’s extension while the European gas sector was going through market liberalization and opening up to new players. This duality creates a situation that pits the  concept of openness and competition amongst European authorities and the Russian gas giant on the other. The main counterpart that the Kremlin should concede in order to hope to take its share of the pie would then lie in two perspectives: an opening of the national market (hardly conceivable for its leaders) or accepting Russia’s monopolistic influence in a part of the Eurasian sphere, which seems more coherent but which would mean a disturbance by Moscow’s influence. Finding the right equilibrium is all the more challenging as over the next 20 to 30 years, the percentage of the European Union’s energy needs from imports will increase from 50% to 70%.

Although divergent positions are relevant in the debate within the EU, European rules and laws seem to vary when it comes to the energy issue. The Nord Stream 2 project, in addition to the non-applicability of EU rules on free market and price transparency, goes against the European Energy Security Strategy presented by the European Commission in 2014, which primarily focused on gas security and the desire to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas. The legal component of the European Council believe that the EU could violate the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea if it decides to apply its own rules to offshore pipelines. Additionally, as this is an underwater project, the legality of this project is  completely determined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, known as the Montego Bay Convention and in particular Article 79 pertaining to Submarine Cables and Pipelines on the Continental Shelf. The European Commission proposed last year to amend their EU gas directives so that an import gas pipeline cannot be owned directly by gas producers, that it doesn’t apply discriminatory tariffs and that it can be used by third parties. The Nord Stream 2 project, fully controlled by Gazprom’s monopoly, is far from respecting these different rules. By undermining incentives to develop new interconnectors and terminals, Nord Stream 2 will also make it more difficult for the EU to meet one of the main Energy Union objectives of completing the single market in gas. Trying to create endless diversification pipelines is anachronistic given the development of EU energy law and an increasingly integrated European gas market. Gazprom as a gas supplier cannot expect to control pipeline routes and isolate markets as it did a decade ago in a now increasingly liberalized European market. The legal framework is therefore perfectly clear and discordant to the European Commission’s claims. The European Union must respect the choices of its Member States with regard to their energy supply requirements. Whatever the legal aspect envisaged, the principle of subsidiarity is applicable. Consequently, the legal matter, concerning the regulatory aspects applying to the Nord Stream 2, can become, through its instrumentalization into the agenda-building process, an element of soft power for Poland. However, we must think in the long term. From the gas reserves on the Cyprus side, there will now be a European gas supply from the south. Turkey is likely to come forward, but it will rebalance Gazprom’s pre-eminence in the European energy supply market. It should also not be forgotten that 50 to 60 billion cubic meters of natural gas is produced annually in Algeria and Tunisia . We must find a fine balance between being able to ensure agreements with  major turbulent neighbors such as Russia, rather than leave it isolated and uncontrollable, while ensuring European energy independence.

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2017 Protests in South Africa (Reuters)

New hope is blowing across the African continent against the backdrop of toppled heads of government and state in South Africa and Zimbabwe and a rejuvenated government that is pursuing ambitious reforms in Ethiopia. Other recent examples of transitions from long-sitting governments have also played out in Burkina Faso and The Gambia where the sitting presidents’ ambitions to remain in power (beyond their constitutional mandates) sparked a popular uprising in the former, and a military intervention by regional forces in the latter.

However, with this new dawn comes growing risks of instability and conflict which threaten to derail any attempts at moving the region towards more inclusive democracy and lasting peace; gains which could eventually facilitate better development prospects for the ordinary population, most of whom were not even born when their presidents took office.

Angola, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Uganda are all countries where the incumbents have held power since at least the 1980s. All of their leaders oversee authoritarian regimes; two of them took power by force, while the other two succeeded governments with dictatorial tendencies.

Aristide Zolberg, an influential U.S.-based academic on migration, who passed away in 2013, warned early on, in the post-colonial context, that liberation struggles could quickly translate into civil conflict. This was due to the inability of new governments to move their countries in the direction of national unity and integration and ensure a trajectory of progressive socioeconomic development. Instead, local elites have in many places across post-colonial Africa simply replaced the former patronage networks that were in place under European colonial powers.

A number of aged leaders across Sub-Saharan Africa are now nearing their natural end. In addition, all four governments are dependent on rents and revenue from crude oil and gas extraction. Although Angola holds the second-largest proven commercial reserves on the continent after Nigeria, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea together produce almost 400,000 barrels per day (bpd). To join the club, Uganda discovered commercially viable oil reserves in 2006 and is expected to produce 230,000 bpd when production is at full capacity, likely after 2020. Despite their natural resource wealth, their societies remain highly unequal.

In Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos stepped down as head of state and relinquished his chairmanship of the ruling party earlier. In his departing speech, he admitted to making ‘mistakes’ during his rule of almost 40 years, a tenure which has been characterized by the centralization of power and national wealth. This fact underscores dos Santos clan’s control of the country’s wealth and political power. His successor, former general João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, has promised to clamp down on corruption. At the same time, Lourenço has hit out at Portugal in relation to accusations since 2012 by Portuguese prosecutors that Manuel Vicente, a former vice president and current advisor to the incumbent president, has committed acts of bribery and money laundering.

Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya (in office since 1982) is increasingly under pressure to bring back stability to the far-northern regions, where the Nigerian Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, has terrorized the local population for years, as well as to the south-western Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest, where a secessionist political movement last year took up arms against the central government. Accusing the Francophone authorities in the capital Yaoundé of ethnic discrimination and attempting at reducing their cultural autonomy within the federation, the Anglophone  ‘Ambazonia’ (a term used locally to describe what was formerly known as the Southern Cameroons) independence movement could be one of Biya’s toughest tests so far.

With Biya being the only candidate with a realistic chance of winning the presidential election in October—thanks to his patronage networks and the continued dominance of his ruling RDPC party—the prospect of instability once Biya eventually vacates office can only increase. While it is pretty clear that Biya will still be Cameroon’s leader, the lack of apparent successor and the likely power vacuum that will emerge means there is a real stability risk in Cameroon.

Although the quality of GDP data across Sub-Saharan Africa is often limited, Biya’s Angolan and Equatoguinean counterparts will leave behind a somewhat better legacy. In Equatorial Guinea, per capita GDP has increased from USD208 in 1979 to USD8,333 (compared to Cameroon’s GDP per capita which has remained stagnant at just over USD1,000), making it the highest income country of the continent. But despite this apparent success, 76.8% of Equatorial Guinea’s population continues to live in poverty, while political elite figures such as the president’s son and vice president, Teodoro ‘Teodorin’ Nguema Obiang Mangue, lives in opulence. Obiang Mangue has been investigated by both U.S. and French authorities for embezzlement and money laundering; and last October, a court in Paris sentenced the vice president in absentia to 3 years in prison, with EUR30 million in fines for laundering EUR150 million between 1997 and 2011.

Finally, in Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni is entering his 34th year in office and has removed a 75-year age limit on presidents in the constitution, which means that he could run for another term in 2021. Meanwhile, many are suspicious that he is slowly promoting his son to be his heir, particularly after he was promoted as a special advisor last January. However, Museveni’s authority has also come under increased pressure from musician-turned-politician, Robert Kyagulanyi (more commonly known by his stage name Bobi Wine) who is appealing to Uganda’s young population, which is increasingly frustrated by Museveni’s regime and possibly, dynastic ambitions.

Angola, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Uganda are now approaching critical inflection points where the liberalization of strategic sectors of the economy could bring about new opportunities for better wealth distribution. However, this also carries significant risks of fueling corruption in some of the world’s worst-ranking countries, according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (2017). Equatorial Guinea ranks at 171 (out of 180); Angola at 167; Cameroon at 153; and Uganda is the best ranked at 151.

The longevity of these governments means that local elites have benefitted from patronage for many years, and the end to such revenue streams is likely to motivate some actors into more unpredictable actions, such as taking power by force. This could, in turn, fuel local armed strife between competing groups, exacerbating the security situation in the various jurisdictions.

As tired old post-colonial local elites leave the stage one by one, the question to be asked is what will replace them? Will it simply be new local elites, equally focused on self-aggrandizement and creating networks of patronage? Or will it be a new breed of leaders, young, charismatic and genuinely committed to inclusivity and socioeconomic development?

While staunch criticism has been directed against all these four governments, one cannot but admit they have all emerged out of extremely challenging contexts. Most of their experiences carry similarities, but the mixed performance of their recent governments should also be taken into account when attempting to understand their countries’ future trajectory. Where power networks have been more opportunistic, and where wealth has been spent carelessly, instability risks are likely to continue growing.

While maintaining sustainable growth is problematic, it is likely that more diversified economies will be more resilient to short-term shocks, most likely as a result of regime changes. This is the challenge facing many parts of western Africa’s Atlantic coast. Its outcome will determine whether the region embraces new hope or descends deeper into instability and conflict.

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Egyptian SA-6 Units from the 1973 War

The 1973 Sinai War was likely the most precarious conflict in the Arab-Israeli Wars. Much of the battle was supplemented by American and Soviet Cold War technology that matured in the Vietnam War and was used to brutal effect over the deserts of Sinai. Weapons systems like the stationary SA-2 missile and SA-3 missile kept a line of defense for Egypt along the Suez Canal. US Forces were very familiar with the SA-2 as it has caused tremendous damage to American aircraft in the Vietnam War. In Egypt in 1973, ground forces were heavily defended by a new SA-6 missile system, one that was mobile, more technologically advanced and carried more projectiles linked to a mobile radar network. The SA-6s lead Egypt through some of its biggest gains in battle until it was unable to cover ground forces while expanding into the Sinai desert.

The following years lead to techniques and technical improvements in defeating Anti-Aircraft systems, especially the SA-6. Drone technology and other methods to confuse tracking radars overwhelmed many radar system operators and allowed for successful strikes into opposing territories. Various techniques may have recently lead to a Syrian SA-5 missile battery firing on a friendly Russian IL-20 in error as the dated radar system on the SA-5 could not determine the origin of a friendly Russian reconnaissance plane in that incident. More modern systems like the SA-11 BUK that shot down a Malaysian Airlines flight over Ukraine a few short years ago seems to have unintentionally targeted the airliner, and it is still not clear whether or not it was due to an unsophisticated radar or extreme negligence by the crew of the SA-11. With the loss of the 15 member crew of the IL-20, the Russian military in Syria has finally decided to install the S-300 missile system in Syria, a similar system that was sold recently to Iran after many years of sanctions blocking the sale of the advanced missile system to the Iranians.

While the S-300 seems to be under lock and key of Russian forces at the moment, the 49 piece weapons system that include radar units will be up and running in Syria by the end of October according to Russian sources. This means that there will be a few active radars as well as several batteries of missiles, 4 missiles on each unit including equipment to rearm units, linked to the networks of mobile radar units. The effectiveness of the S-300 is a great improvement on that of the SA-5 and SA-6, and it is more likely that the radar would have been able to determine with more accuracy the origin of the IL-20. While a sensible and trained crew is required to avoid another incident like one that occurred with the SA-11 BUK, the use and application of the S-300 units as a political tool could have severe consequences in the region.

One notable effect of the S-300 is that in the wrong hands it could track and likely shoot at aircraft coming from many Israeli air bases, and may even be able to target Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport as well. The S-300 radar could likely track and shoot into the Mediterranean where many commercial air routes pass through to the Middle East and over Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. While stable relations between all parties in the region and Russia being an assumed inevitability at the moment, it is hoped that more radical elements would not be able to use an S-300 system to increase the likelihood of conflict in the region, especially acts that would target civilians. Memories of the Korean Airlines flight that was shot down in the 80s over Eastern Russia as well as the very fresh memories of the Malaysian Airlines flight shot down by a SA-11 over Ukraine would assume Russian responsibility for any tragic results with these systems in the region. While Mutually Assured Defense may decrease conflict in a region with the application of advanced defense systems, it could also become a tool of horror in the wrong hands.

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Vice President Mike Pence’s Remarks on the Administration’s Policy Towards China. Hudson Institute

Recently, Vice President Pence unveiled a litany of concerns with China, ranging from alleged Chinese interference in U.S. elections, to continued trade frictions, to persecution of minority religious groups within China, to cyber concerns, to provocative military encounters in the South China Sea.  Whichever refrain is used, “The gauntlet has been thrown down.” (medieval) or “The Rubicon has been crossed.” (ancient), there is no turning back from this point in U.S.-China strategic relations. Many in China will simply view Pence’s speech as mere confirmation of the U.S.’s desire to safeguard its global hegemony by containing China outright through a new Cold War. Unfortunately, this containment will also extend to the wisdom and sagacity of the American people.

Yet More Political Interference?

Pence’s sermon was short on actual U.S. policy towards China, much less strategy. Perhaps the highlights were allegations of Chinese interference in U.S. elections. Really? Where have we seen this before? Placing a paid advertisement in a local newspaper outlining how a U.S.-China trade war will be detrimental to all parties concerned (similar to placements by U.S. allies) does not constitute a “whole-of-government” approach by China to influence U.S. elections a month, two years, or even twenty years from now. If China, a country recognized globally for its historical strategic culture, were to truly adopt a “whole-of-government” approach on anything, the results would not be so mediocre as a paid advertisement in a local newspaper.

Additionally, the U.S. can not claim Russian (and now Chinese) interference in U.S. domestic political affairs while at the same time frowning upon the diplomatic choices of sovereign Latin American states within its own backyard, namely to recognize Beijing and not Taipei as the sole legitimate government of China. This hypocrisy is even more pronounced given that the U.S. is now criticizing others for the very same decision that it made itself years ago.

A Heart Attack Isn’t That Bad

Publicly, China has stated that it is open to further talks with the U.S. to resolve the trade dispute. However, realistically (and certainly according to more hard-line elements within China) China really has zero incentive to negotiate with the U.S. right now on any one issue since it knows that the U.S. really has problems with China on a myriad number of other issues. Seeming progress on any one issue will be immediately torpedoed due to perceived intransigence by China on the other issues. This is a “whole-of-issue” approach by the U.S., a.k.a., containment.

Forcing states to choose between competing trade agreements was a contributing factor in the Ukraine Crisis, with the choice being laid out for Ukraine as either EU membership or EEU membership, but not both. Instead of figuring out a way for the U.S.’ new BUILD initiative to work alongside China’s BRI to satisfy the infrastructure demands of the Indo-Pacific region, the stage is set for a new Cold War here as well. Lost in the current allegations of BRI projects being a form of “debt diplomacy” are the previous insistent demands by the U.S. that China become a “responsible stakeholder” and help shoulder the burden of global economic stability and growth.

The global economy is a highly complex, fluid, and interdependent system, much like the human body. Even at this stage of medical development, no doctor can truly claim to know exactly how the human body works. The only certain effect of any disruptions to the heart of this international trading system (the Asia-Pacific, not North America) is that it will be both wide-reaching and catastrophic. Yes, a heart attack is survivable in theory. That doesn’t mean that one should knowingly take actions to increase the risk of having one.

“Unsafe, unprofessional, and aggressive”

Deliberate conflation of military versus civilian “freedom of navigation” maneuvers aside, it’s plainly not in China’s interests to disrupt civilian trade flows in the South China Sea, as the U.S. claims. Any disruption here would hamper China’s own economic growth, thereby endangering the true source of legitimacy China’s government has with its own people. Whether by Chinese design or not, any attack on China will, in effect, be an attack on the entire global economy. China’s not going to back down, just like the DPRK didn’t back down over its missile development amidst regional U.S. military exercises.

The U.S. has, on numerous occasions, stated its intent to “Fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows and our national interests demand.” The problem here is that the U.S. is not the only state with legitimate national interests and the Russian s-400 system illustrates this vividly. Hypocrisy over sanctioning China for the purchase of this system, but not India, is self-evident. At least India has not been sanctioned yet, as the deal was just only recently finalized.

India has a long tradition of non-alignment, whether it’s called strategic autonomy or having a multi-vectored foreign policy, and will pursue its interests as a great power as it sees fit, especially within its own region. Right now, it’s in its interests to hedge against China and this latest weapons acquisition is symbolic of that desire. Moreover, it’s in both the U.S.’ and Russia’s national interests to have India serve in a balancing capacity against China in the eventuality of worsened (or in the U.S.’ case, much worsened) relations with China. The point is that states, especially great powers, are going to have their own proprietary interests whether the U.S. recognizes them as legitimate or not. This rule is also going to apply whether a state is a democracy or not.

“Love me when I’m gone.”

Americans are presently being conditioned (manipulated) to accept a long-term deterioration in U.S.-Chinese ties, with increasing concordant political, economic, and military risks as well. However, three modern examples illustrate why this may not be the best course of action.

The U.S. has only ever come to blows with China in the Korean War. Here, the U.S. miscalculated and underestimated Chinese resolve when it came to their territorial integrity, literally right on their border. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world was witness to how an outside superpower military presence interfered with a local superpower’s regional hegemony. Even in this instance only sound judgment, prudence, and coolheadedness helped avert nuclear catastrophe.

Granted, Iraq is only a regional power, not a global superpower like China or the Former Soviet Union. Additionally, Iraq’s neighborhood hasn’t been the locus of global economic activity for about two thousand years, whereas the Asia-Pacific (with China at its core) is poised to hold this spot not only now, but for the foreseeable future as well. However, the U.S. is still dealing with the unintended consequences of The Iraq War, namely the formation of ISIS  and the relative strengthening of Iraq’s rival, Iran. What, pray tell, might be the unintended consequences of the new Cold War with China?

Cue the music video.

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TOPSHOT – US President Donald Trump arrives for a political rally at Charleston Civic Center in Charleston, West Virginia, on August 21, 2018. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP)MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

Many Americans feel that the Arab world has a negative opinion of US President Donald Trump and would very much like for the Democrats to succeed in the upcoming US mid-term elections. However, this perception of the Arab world is very misleading and does not tell the whole story for there are Arabs who do support Trump and wish for a Republican victory.

It is true that the Arab Youth Survey that was conducted after Trump was elected claimed that 49% of young Arabs consider the US under President Trump to be an enemy. However, if one speaks to the Arab elites and Arab pro-democracy activists that are not hostile towards the State of Israel, one gets the impression that there are a number of Arabs who in fact support President Trump. For example, both Egyptian President Abdul Fattah El Sisi and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia consider Trump to be a “true friend of the Muslims.” Furthermore, neither Sisi nor Bin Salman are the only Arabs who feel this way.

Massad Abu Toameh, an expert on Palestinian affairs in Jerusalem, is supporting the Republicans in the upcoming mid-term elections for he considers Trump’s deal of the century to be the only proposal of its kind that brings innovative and creative ideas to the table for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “There is a one-time opportunity to create peace in the region between Israel, the Arabs and its surrounding neighbors. I believe that it is best that the Americans stick with this president. They are the ones supporting the people and not the so-called Palestinian and Arab leadership. Now, we have a future to look forward to.”

While Abu Mazen and Jordan’s king do not like Trump’s deal of the century, the majority of the descendants of Palestinian refugees prefer to stay where they are. Abu Toameh noted that there are Palestinians who are even selling their UNRWA refugee cards so that Syrians can get admitted into Europe: “You cannot be a refugee living in Palm Beach, Florida. This whole thing with UNRWA has to stop.” In Abu Toameh’s view, the fact that UNRWA has not rebuilt Gaza is a huge scandal and Jerusalem is not such a big deal. He noted that many East Jerusalemites are anyways applying for Israeli citizenship because they witness the corruption that occurs on a daily basis within the Palestinian Authority. Abu Toameh claimed that only Trump had the courage to recognize this reality: “We need someone strong like Donald Trump.”

Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid believes that at the end of the day, only Israelis and Palestinians can make peace with one another. In his view, the Americans cannot really affect the final outcome of a peace deal. However, at this critical juncture in history, right before Trump is about to announce his deal of the century, Eid very much does not want for Trump to be weakened following the results of these mid-term elections: “I am supporting the Republicans so that there is stability and that things can step forward.”

However, not all Arab pro-democracy advocates are pro-Republican. Syrian human rights activist Aboud Dandachi is not taking a side in these mid-term elections. However, he hopes whichever US political party takes over the US Congress will continue to apply pressure on the Palestinian Authority: “The Palestinians should know that this time there is no waiting for an American president in the hopes that the next one will fulfill their fantasies of a right of return and other hardline positions.”

Furthermore, Lebanese Christian writer Fred Maroun is greatly concerned about the anti-Israel positions taken by some Democratic candidates and how the Republican Party has moved to the far right, which has led to a rise of more than one Neo-Nazi candidate: “It is very surprising to me as a non-American that a country as large and diverse as the US would only have two parties. This model worked fairly well when both parties were moderate but as both parties become extreme, we are missing the stability and consistency that the US used to provide in terms of world leadership.”

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. Some people think there’s a special place in hell for him.

Canada is the United States’ second largest trade partner after China. While issues exist, it is not a problematic partner. President Trump, however, has imposed economic sanctions on it, has threatened more sanctions, and singled it out for special condemnation in his rhetoric. A high point in the latter regard came when Peter Navarro, the president’s trade adviser, claimed there was “a special place in hell” for people like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Navarro, of course, later apologized for this, presumably because it sounded so silly.

“National security” is the stated reason for these sanctions, as it is for sanctions the administration has imposed on other countries. The principal reason for invoking national security is that it permits the administration to bypass the World Trade Organization and its complex rules, procedures, and standards for fairness. (In the process, the administration threatens to undermine the trade system that the United States helped forge to strengthen global growth and stability, but that is a separate topic.) The administration faces no real need to justify that decision, and so it has made no real effort to do so. Could such an argument be made?

A National Security Argument for Not Relying on Allies

The national security reference has been met with considerable derision because allies, by definition, do not pose a threat, but that, in and of itself, is not really a complete answer. There can be valid reasons for not relying on allies for goods that would be required in times of war.

For argument’s sake, let’s say we rely on South Korea for a substantial portion of steel. Steel is something that we would need to produce airplanes, tanks, howitzers, cartridges, etc. in time of war. We would not expect South Korea to cut off our steel supply for malicious reasons, but:

• What if the war in question occurs in Korea? Then the supply would be cut off despite Seoul’s intentions.

• What if the war occurs between the United States and China, and China fills the Pacific Ocean with submarines capable of sinking ships arriving from South Korea? That would also be a substantial threat to supply.

• What if ships are simply not available in adequate supply when they are most needed? During World War II, the United States rationed sugar, among other items. This curtailment of the civilian sugar supply did not occur because it was a vital war material needed for troops in combat. Just the opposite. It was curtailed because it was a low priority. While some sugar from cane growers in places like Louisiana and Florida and from sugar beet growers mostly in midwestern and western states was available, other normal supplies from places like Hawaii, Cuba, and Brazil required ships for transport and the ships were being commandeered for convoy duty (where, in many cases, they were sunk by submarines). Steel today would be a much higher priority than sugar was then, but keep in mind as well that the number of U.S.-flagged ships is infinitely smaller now than it was in the 1940s and there would be competing claims on them.

Yes, a national security argument can be made for avoiding reliance on overseas allies for the supply of vital war materials. To be sure, this would not be not without costs and could be considered misguided in terms of value trade-offs. Despite what Trump thinks, trade policy and treaties do not affect trade deficits as much as this country’s high spending rate, its low saving rate, its ability to attract foreign capital, and the role of the dollar as an international currency do. The anticipated increases in the budget deficit resulting from recent tax cuts and spending hikes will likely lead to worsened—not improved—trade deficits regardless of Trump actions on trade. Moreover, trade barriers worsen competitiveness, favor producers over consumers, and create jobs in some sectors of the economy only by destroying them in other sectors. Still, an argument could be made on the basis of national security if that is your priority.

But Canada?

Yet none of the national security argument applies to Canada, our Number 1 supplier of foreign steel! Canada is no more inaccessible than Minnesota or Upstate New York. Supply routes from Canada are no more vulnerable to disruption than any route within the United States. Canadians are highly unlikely to cut off supplies for malicious reasons—as long as we do not keep kicking them in the shins for no good reason. Overall, the administration’s reliance on national security to justify its trade policy is specious, but with regard to Canada it is downright absurd.

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People walk past a statue of Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin during celebration of his 145th birthday at the Lenin Hut Museum at Razliv lake, outside St.Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, April 22, 2015. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism. By Charles Clover. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.

 

The Gumilev Mystique: Biopolitics, Eurasianism, and the Construction of Community in Modern Russia. By Mark Bassin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016.

 

Eurasianism and the European Far Right: Reshaping the Europe-Russia Relationship. Edited by Marlene Laruelle. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015.

 

Russia and the Western Far Right: Tango Noir. By Anton Shekhovtsov. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2017.

 

“The ideas of [Lev] Gumilev are today capturing the masses.”

President Vladimir Putin, at Astana, in June 2004[1]

 

Cas Mudde recently observed that “[p]opulist radical right parties are the most studied party family in political science.”[2] While the interest of social researchers for ultra-nationalist political groups and networks – not only parties – in the West has indeed risen markedly during the last quarter of century, this cannot be said, to the same degree, about the East-Central European and especially post-Soviet far right. There exists, to be sure, a certain body of scholarly literature on these objects now too.[3] Yet, many details and circumstances of the emergence and development of relevant extremely right-wing groupings in such countries as Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Romania as well as especially Serbia and Ukraine still remain to be explored, contextualized, and interpreted.[4]  This is in spite of the fact that some of these parties were temporarily included in their countries’ coalition governments.[5]

With regard to the largest post-Soviet country, the situation is somewhat better, but essentially similar. Whereas Russian contemporary ultra-nationalism was an understudied field in the 1990s, there is today a formidable circle of Russian and Western researchers studying the various permutations of Russia’s extreme right.[6] But even this growing community’s rising output is so far insufficiently differentiated, voluminous and balanced to cover the whole variety of radically anti-Western tendencies in Russian politics, intellectual life, mass media, youth culture, and society at large. Worse, Russian right-wing extremism studies has, during the last 25 years, been dominated by non-tenured researchers[7] – above all, Marlene Laruelle, Aleksandr Verkhovskii and the late Vladimir Pribylovskii – who managed to produce the sub-discipline’s seminal texts while being busy with raising the funds to do so.[8] Various donors, among them the Norway Research Council at Oslo or Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs at New York, have recently provided grants to more deeply investigate Russia’s escalating nationalism. A number of tenured and non-tenured scholars across the world have decided to devote parts of their time to following the Russian extreme right. Yet, there appears to be no major political science chair or think-tank program – apart from Verkhovskii’s small SOVA monitoring center in Moscow[9] – that has post-Soviet Russian ultra-nationalism among its main designated research fields.[10]

As the four studies under review here illustrate,[11] the institutional under-development of Russian right-wing extremism studies is unfortunate. Certain Manichean ideas, informal extremist networks and industrious agents of the radical right – among them those calling themselves “Eurasianists” including, for instance, Vladimir Putin’s (b. 1952) official advisor Sergei Glaz’ev (b. 1961)[12] – have infiltrated Russian mainstream politics, ministerial bureaucracy, foreign affairs, higher education, Orthodox churches, think-tanks, mass media, (un)civil society and cultural diplomacy.[13] In view of Russia’s role in world politics, nuclear arsenal, military adventurism, challenging geography and declining economy, the political and social impact of the post-Soviet far right should thus be of concern to the West (and other world regions). Yet, the sub-field has so far – to significant degree – been driven by publications emerging from short-term grants, hobby research, and side jobs of academics and journalists also concerned with other duties than investigating the Russian far right. The condition of the sub-discipline Post-Soviet Russian Right-Wing Extremism Studies (postsowjetische russlandbezogene Rechtsextremismusforschung) is better than it was twenty years ago, when its state of play was reviewed, for the first time in English.[14] Yet, it is still not adequate to the increasingly broad variety, growing political impact, and rising international interconnectedness of its objects.

To be sure, the nature of the “Putin System” can still not be informatively classified as “fascist,” as some observers – with typically over-stretched concepts of generic fascism – have suggested.[15] While being nationalistic, anti-liberal and leader-oriented, the current Russian regime lacks a sufficiently palingenetic drive towards a political, cultural and anthropological revolution to be meaningfully equated to Mussolini’s or Hitler’s reigns.[16] So far, Putin’s rule remains similar to that of other so-called “oligarchic” (and not ideocratic) orders of most post-Soviet countries. In political science terms, this means that, while Russia’s current regime has become less hybrid and more authoritarian, its functioning remains determined by patron-client relationships, machine politics, nepotistic dynasties, clan-like networks and informal exchanges rather than ideological prescriptions. The main purpose of its patronalistic or neopatrimonial mechanisms is rent-extraction, preservation of power as well as privileges, and sometimes plain theft instead of pursuing transcendental goals.[17] However, to the degree that Putin’s government is, because of various economic factors, losing its earlier performance-based legitimacy, it is increasingly turning to charismatic and ideological forms of self-legitimation. At this point, Russia’s rich tradition of illiberal nationalist thought enters the stage.[18] Although it plays, so far, an instrumental rather fundamental role for the “Putin System,” elements of right radical rhetoric – i.e. conspiracy theories, leader-cult, anti-Americanism, messianism, nativism, irredentism, clericalism, homophobia, fortress-mentality, law-and-order slogans etc. – have become part and parcel of Russian official statements, foreign policies and public discourse.[19] Arguably, they are starting to assume a life of their own.

Two particularly intriguing bodies of thought within the larger assembly of modern Russian anti-Western ideas are classical Eurasianism, as developed in the 1920s and 1930s,[20] and post-Soviet so-called “neo-Eurasianism.” In fact, the latter is, to some degree, a misnomer. It contains some theoretical similarities with, and partly constitutes a functional equivalent to, classical Eurasianism. Yet, post-Soviet neo-Eurasianism, partly inspired by Lev Gumilev (1912-1992), and principally shaped by Aleksandr Dugin (b. 1962), is not a continuation or elaboration, but rather a reformulation and sometimes falsification of older Eurasianist outlooks.[21] Both classical and neo-Eurasianism build upon 19th-century Russian anti-Westernism including the Slavophiles of the 1840s-1850s, Nikolai Danilevskii (1822-1885) and Konstantin Leont’ev (1831-1891). Yet, their main inspirations, geographic foci and eventual aims differ. Classical Eurasianism was a sophisticated ideological, cultural and theoretic construct developed by some of the most remarkable Russian émigré  scholars after the October Revolution, among them, Nikolai Trubetskoi (1890-1938), Petr Savitskii (1895-1968), Lev Karsavin (1882-1952), Roman Iakobson (1896-1982), Georgii Vernadskii (1887-1973), Georgii Florovskii (1883-1979), and Petr Suvchinskii (1892-1985).[22] Based on a variety of academic approaches and considerable empirical research, the Eurasianists believed that they had located a third continent between Europe and Asia that is neither European nor Asian. They were actively seeking and thought to have found various historical, geographical, linguistic and other characteristics of the territory of the Tsarist and Soviet empires that led them to allege the existence of a separate Eurasian civilization different from – what they saw as – the “Romano-Germanic” culture of Central and Western Europe. Eurasian civilization is illiberal, non-democratic and anti-individualistic, the Eurasianists asserted; it should thus be kept separate from both European civilization and supposedly universal-humanistic ideas. With such a vision, classical Eurasianism was remarkably similar to the concurrently emerging so-called Conservative Revolution of the Weimar Republic.[23]

 

While Duginite neo-Eurasianism is also outspokenly ideocratic and particularistic, it has far less academic clout than classical Eurasianism, is heavily conspirological, and often simply plagiarizes ideas from international anti-Western thought.[24] Rather than developing classical Eurasianism, neo-Eurasianism is a hybrid, drawing primarily on 19th and early 20th century mystical geopolitics, the German Conservative Revolution, European National-Bolshevism, British Satanism, the French New Right, Italian neo-Fascism, Integral Traditionalism, and some other non-Russian radical intellectual as well as political movements.[25] To readers of Western anti-liberal thought, Dugin’s basic idea may thus sound familiar: World history’s basic conflict is that between collectivistic and traditionalist Eurasian land-powers (tellurocracies), on the one hand, and individualistic and liberal Atlantic sea-powers (thalassocracies), on the other. The hidden war of their contemporary leaders – Russia vs. America – is currently entering its Endkampf (final battle) and will involve a Russian domestic as well as the world’s geopolitical revolution. In Dugin’s fluctuating outlook (recently re-labelled, by him, as “the fourth political theory”[26]), the extension of “Eurasia” is less clear than in classical Eurasianism, and may also embrace other territories than the former Tsarist/Soviet empire, including continental Central and Western Europe, various Asian countries, or even entirely different parts of the world, if they decide to adhere to tellurocratic and traditional values. Both the largely Western sources of neo-Eurasianism and its geographic flexibility became major reasons that Dugin and his various organizations were well-positioned to participate not only in interconnecting the EU’s and Russia’s radically nationalist scenes, but also in linking some representatives of Putin’s regime to the Western far right.

Each of the four studies reviewed here breaks new ground in one way or another, and will become basic reading for those interested in the post-Soviet Russian extreme right. While they sometimes contain flaws in terms of conceptualization, terminology and composition, all of them are rich on empirical detail, do close process-tracing, and conduct pertinent comparisons. They complement well some older important monographs and collected volumes on post-Soviet Russian ultra-nationalism by, for instance, in chronological order, Wayne Allensworth, Peter Duncan, Stephen Shenfield, Viacheslav Likhachev, Vadim Rossman, Vladimir Shnirel’man, Thomas Parland, Anastasia Mitrofanova, Marlene Laruelle, Alexander Höllwerth, Stefan Wiederkehr, Verkhovskii, and Galina Kozhevnikova et al.[27]

Charles Clover, formerly Financial Times correspondent at Moscow, has produced, with his Black Wind, White Snow, a very readable descriptive survey of classical and neo-Eurasianism. His study combines results of several years of archival research, participant observation and in-depth interviews in Russia with an enviable literary talent. Clover’s gripping story of the zigzags in the development of Russian Eurasianism reads often like a novel. Based on a broad variety of primary sources (manuscripts, letter, conversations), he tells numerous revealing episodes and empirical details not yet outlined in the scholarly literature. Clover brilliantly sketches the transmutation of Eurasianism from an obscure intellectual movement among Russian emigres in interwar Europe into a major paradigm of post-Soviet international relations, intellectual discourse and political interpretation, as expressed in the name of the recently established “Eurasian Economic Union.”[28] This book is, perhaps, unique to the discipline in that it manages to be a well-written general overview of, and excellent introduction to, Eurasianism, yet also constitutes – because of the various fascinating short stories it contains – profitable reading for the specialist.

Such an outstanding text could have been brought though to its readership in a less confusing set-up. Its publication with a top university press suggests that it is an academic study – which it is not. It may have been more effective and reached a wider readership as a paperback with a major commercial publisher. Also, the book’s subtitle does not reveal the text’s focus on classical and neo-Eurasianism. Instead, it suggests that it deals with some “new” Russian nationalism while it is, in fact, about a familiar variety of the old imperial Russian tradition. “New nationalism” has been a phrase recently used, within the scholarly community, to designate non- or, at least, less expansionist Russian far right trends that are more ethnocentric, introverted, exclusive as well as partly racist – and thus often, at least, implicitly anti-Eurasian.[29] Still, Clover’s investigation stands out, because of its comprehensiveness and insights, as a major publishing event in contemporary Russian area studies.

The same can be said, for different reasons, about Mark Bassin’s in-depth exploration of The Gumilev Mystique. Whereas Clover sheds novel light on some already researched episodes in contemporary Russian nationalism, Bassin opens an entirely new chapter in the study of the Russian far right, with his magisterial monograph on one of the insufficiently appreciated, yet important trends in the post-Soviet history of social thought and public discourse. His book is not the first academic text on its topic,[30] but it provides the first comprehensive account of the intellectual biography, social impact, international reception and political significance of the controversial historian and self-ascribed “Eurasianist” Lev Gumilev (1912-1992), son to the famous Russian poets Nikolai Gumilev (1886-1921) and Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966). Filling a glaring gap in post-Stalinist Russian area studies, Bassin has written the definitive investigation into one of the most prolific and consequential Soviet writers on pre-modern Russian as well as Central Asian history, and Russia’s major theorist of ethnogenesis.

The classical Eurasianists referred, in the rationalization of their political theory, to social, cultural and geographical research. In contrast, Gumilev boldly mixes in his writings arguments from the humanities with questionable insights from the natural sciences, above all biology. Gumilev’s often fancy ideas and novitistic (or pseudo-innovative) concepts about the natural character of ethnoses (or ethnic groups) had and have considerable influence on the worldview of late and post-Soviet students, intellectuals and researchers, especially in such disciplines as history, anthropology, geography and international relations. His voluminous writings have contributed to the emergence of such specifically Russian social science sub-disciplines as political anthropology, civilizational studies, ethno-politology, geopolitics, and culturology.[31] After the break-up of the USSR, Gumilev’s influence has been rising constantly in spite of his fantastic assertions about the course and laws of human history.

Gumilev presents world history as a cyclical process of the birth, rise, fall and disappearance of ethnoses. Being naturally secluded groups, ethnoses enter alliances with similar other ethnic groups and form larger unions called “super-ethnoses.” At the same time, according to Gumilev, ethnoses are in constant danger of becoming “chimeras,” if they are infiltrated, subverted and eventually destroyed by alien, parasitic groups – not the least, by Jews. Most infamously, Gumilev has speculated, in pseudo-scientific fashion, about the role of cosmic energy or solar emissions (as well as resulting micro-mutations in human beings!) in the outbreak of – what he calls – “passionarity,” within ethnic groups under such impact from outer space. Passionarnost’ is, perhaps, Gumilev’s most popular ear worm frequently used in post-Soviet intellectual discourse nowadays. It means something like certain human beings’ heightened ability to absorb energy and their resulting drive towards transformative action undertaken by the passionarii (“passionarians”), on behalf of their native communities.

Bassin not only deals extensively and brilliantly with Gumilev’s quixotic theories, but outlines also the various confrontations, adaptations, interpretations and utilizations they have encountered in the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods, in- and, sometimes also, outside Russia. He deals especially revealingly with Gumilev’s various quarrels with Soviet social scientists and Russian ultra-nationalists. While both were initially rather skeptical, these two groups eventually adopted large parts of the Gumilevian conceptual framework, with this or that caveat.

Both Clover’s and Bassin’s revelations about Gumilev’s connections to the late and post-Soviet Russian elite, like the indirect link to the temporary “prime-minister” of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic Aleksandr Borodai (b. 1972), are especially fascinating.[32] Like Clover, Bassin points out the important role of Gumilev’s friendship to the last speaker of the Soviet parliament and August 1991 putsch supporter Anatolii Luk’ianov (b. 1930).[33] On the other hand, Bassin does not mention, also like Clover, the writings, role and impact of the political theorist Aleksandr Panarin (1940-2003). A once prominent professor at Moscow State University’s Faculty of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Social and Philosophical Studies of the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Philosophy, Panarin was one of the few Russian experts on the French New Right, helped making, in the late 1990s, both classical and neo-Eurasianism acceptable within Russian academia, and, towards the end of this life, joined Dugin’s abortive Eurasia Party.[34]

A more general omission in Bassin’s otherwise comprehensive and flawless survey concerns Gumilev’s role in, and impact on, the post-Soviet history and social studies teaching of teenagers and students on the secondary, under-graduate and post-graduate levels. At several points, Bassin indirectly mentions the issue, for instance in connection with the new Eurasian University named after Lev Gumilev in Astana, or when pointing out that one of Gumilev’s major books – Ot Rusi k Rossii (From the Rus to Russia) – was recommended by the Ministry of Education as a text for the high school curriculum of the Russian Federation (p. 222). Yet, he does not treat Gumilev’s pedagogic influence as deeply as, for instance, the debates around Gumilev among Soviet academics. That is unfortunate for two reasons. First, the use of certain books and articles by Gumilev in universities and even high schools is presumably one of the main reasons for the surprising respect that the anti-Western, often amateurish and sometimes anti-Semitic texts of Gumilev enjoy among the Russian public. Gumilev’s high visibility and social rank distinguish him from, for instance, the also anti-Semitic writer and renowned mathematician Igor Shafarevich (b. 1923).[35] Second, there exists already a nascent sub-direction, within Russian nationalism studies, that focuses on the social impact of anti-Western and extremely right-wing ideas via post-Soviet higher education.[36] It would have been intriguing to see what relative role Gumilev’s writings play in social science and humanities curricula of various secondary and tertiary education institutions in Russia and other countries.[37]

The increasing relevance of the latter is illustrated by Vadim Rossman’s informative paper “Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology and the Climate of Opinion in Post-Soviet Russia” in Laruelle’s original collective volume Eurasianism and the European Far Right. Rossman deals here above all with Aleksandr Dugin’s activities at Russia’s most prestigious higher education institution – the capital’s Lomonosov University. Like almost all contributions to Laruelle’s new paper collection, Rossman’s detailed chapter deals with a hitherto largely neglected, yet important new topic in post-Soviet studies.

Laruelle contextualizes her collected volume’s purpose in an introductory essay called “Dangerous Liaisons: Eurasianism, the European Far Right, and Putin’s Russia.” The book’s empirical part starts with Anton Shekhovtsov’s outline of the beginnings of Dugin’s relationship to the West European New Right in 1989-1994 and ends with Shekhovtsov’s report on Western far right election observation missions in the service of the Kremlin. Jean-Ives Camus illustrates Dugin’s close relationship to France. Giovanni Savino revealingly surveys Dugin’s various connections in Italy. Nicolas Lebourg outlines the “difficult establishment of neo-Eurasianism in Spain.” Vügar İmanbeyli sketches the fascinating rise and temporary fall of Dugin’s networks in Turkey. Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali provide glimpses into Hungary’s flirtation with Eurasianism. Sofia Tipaldou details the Greek Golden Dawn’s transnational links.

Laruelle’s edited volume is best read in combination with Anton Shekhovtsov’s forthcoming study Russia and the Western Far Right.[38] This voluminous monograph deals not only with post-Soviet affairs, but also the Soviet period – namely the 1920s and 1950s when the Kremlin already had some secret contacts with West European right-wing extremists. While Laruelle’s volume details primarily connections between Russia’s extremely anti-Western Eurasianists and the Western far right, the principal focus of Shekhovtsov’s volume is the paradoxical collaboration of the Soviet and Putin regimes with various Western ultra-nationalists, and especially, during the last years, with those in Austria, Italy and France. While Moscow was after World War II and today still is loudly “anti-fascist,” it has – in a variety of situations – not hesitated to contact, support and utilize extremely right-wing extremists for various foreign and domestic purposes. Recently, this has included employing far-right commentators for propaganda and disinformation purposes in Kremlin-controlled mass media, or engaging Western fringe politicians as guests to manipulated elections in the role of foreign observers who legitimize, for Russia’s domestic audience, engineered polls, including pseudo-referenda, with affirmative public statements.

Shekhovtsov underlines the motivational ambivalence of the intensifying collaboration of the Kremlin with the Western far right – a dualism that reflects the Janus-like character of Putin’s cynical and postmodern, yet also sometimes fanatical and archaic regime. On the one hand, Moscow behaves pragmatically when, in its capacity as a kleptocracy, it tries to establish as many as possible links to influential Western mainstream politicians and businesspeople, without regard to their political views or ideologies. The Kremlin only turns to various radicals in the West to the degree that it cannot build close relationships within the establishment in the respective countries, and when it can instead get access – sometimes via middlemen like Dugin – to alternative political circles. Moscow then also supports these often populist and nationalist forces as its allies and as troublemakers in the EU and Atlantic alliance.

On the other hand, however, Moscow’s growing international isolation and intensifying contacts with the far right, within and outside Russia, are also ideologically driven, and feed back into the self-definition of the regime. As an autocracy in need of  consolidation, Putin’s regime is being naturally drawn – both domestically and internationally – to groups whose ideologies support illiberal policies and undemocratic practices. The far right groups, in turn, profit from public alignment to the world’s territorially largest country and a nuclear superpower. The result have been, as Shekhovtsov outlines, constantly deepening relationships between Russian officials and Western far right activists since the mid-2000s.

One reason that Russian society, in spite of its deep-seated anti-fascism, accepts the growing interpenetration between the far right and Russian government is the spread, authority and discourse of neo-Eurasianism. Some elements of this pan-national, yet also ethno-centrist ideology of radical anti-Westernism – above all, its Russian exceptionalism and geopolitical Manicheanism – have made deep inroads into Russian intellectual life, higher education and mass media, over the last 25 years, i.e. already before Putin came to power in summer 1999.[39] The idea that Russia is a civilization that is not only separate, but also opposed to the West has today approached something close to cultural hegemony in Russian society. Dugin – who entered Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers list in 2014[40] – has played his role in that war for the minds of the Russians.[41] Yet his impact is, as Shekhovtsov indicated elsewhere,[42] sometimes overestimated, while that of Gumilev is, as Clover’s and Bassin’s studies illustrate, not sufficiently appreciated, in the West.

To be sure, Gumilev died shortly after the break-up of the Soviet Union whereas Dugin then only began his political career by way of making far right acquaintances in the West, and impressing his Russian fellow ultra-nationalists with ideas and concepts borrowed from abroad. Although Dugin is today a member of Russia’s establishment, he remains nevertheless an odd figure, because of, among other eccentric announcements, the explicitly pro-Nazi positions he voiced in the 1990s, when still being part of, and mainly addressing, Russia’s lunatic fringe.[43] In contrast, Gumilev’s post-mortem acclaim and the enormous print-runs of his books developed against the background of his broad acceptance as one of Russia’s major historic thinkers of the 20th century. Moreover, as Bassin notes, “[c]ontemporary theoreticians of the European New Right such as [two of Dugin’s major interlocutors in the West] Alain de Benoist [b. 1943] and Robert Steuker [b. 1956] are well aware of Gumilev’s ethnos theory and clearly appreciate its resonance with their own views […].” (p. 313)

 

Clover’s and Bassin’s deep explorations of Eurasianism, Gumilev and neo-Eurasianism highlight some of the historical-ideational background of the Putin regime’s turn to the right after Ukraine’s Orange Revolution of 2004.[44] Laruelle’s and Shekhovtov’s volumes detail various expressions, mechanisms and implications of this momentous shift. These four books illustrate that – at least, in the context of research into Russian intellectual life, party politics, public discourse and foreign policy – investigations into contemporary far right ideas and actors are not any longer a niche activity within political science. Rather, Russian right-wing extremism has become a topic central to the study of post-Soviet domestic politics, international relations, and security affairs.

 

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Leonid Luks and Jeffrey C. Isaac provided useful feedback on a draft of this article. It was first published in Perspectives on Politics.

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[1] Rossiiskaia gazeta, 18 June 2014, https://rg.ru/2004/06/18/astana-anons.html (accessed December 7th, 2016).

[2] Mudde 2016.

[3] E.g.: Mudde 2005; Minkenberg 2010, 2015.

[4] Umland 2015.

[5] Minkenberg 2017.

[6] Umland 2009d.

[7] Some of the main tenured scholars in the field were or are John B. Dunlop (Hoover Institution), Alexander Yanov (City University of New York), Valerii Solovei (MGIMO), Pal Kolsto (University of Oslo), Peter J.S. Duncan (University College London), Stephen Hanson (College of William & Mary), Veljko Vujačić (European University of St. Petersburg) and Mark Bassin (Södertörn University at Stockholm).

[8] See, among other publications: Lariuel’ 2004, 2007a, 2007b, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c, 2009d, 2015; Laruelle 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008a, 2008b, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2016a, 2016b; Kozhevnikova, Shekhovtsov & Verkhovskii 2009; Mikhailovskaia, Pribylovskii & Verkhovskii 1998, 1999; Papp, Pribylovskii & Verkhovskii 1996; Pribylovskii & Verkhovskii 1995 & 1997; Verkhovskii 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2014; Verkhovsky 2000, 2002; Pribylovskii 1995a, 1995b, 1995c; Likhachev & Pribylovskii 2005.

[9] Arnold 2010; Umland 2012.

[10] For a while, the Chair for Central and East European Contemporary History of the Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt in Bavaria focused, under Professor Leonid Luks, on the study of, and publishing about, Russian radical right-wing tendencies. During the last years, it produced, among other publications of such kind, eleven special issues of the Russian-language journal Forum for Contemporary East European History and Culture, on pre-revolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet anti-Westernism (Antizapadnye… 2009-2015). Yet, this Eichstaett Chair was closed in summer 2014.

[11] Important recent monographs or collected volumes not included in this review are, in alphabetical order: Arnold 2016; Bassin et al. 2015; Bassin & Suslov 2016; Blakkisrud & Kolsto 2016; Brown & Sheiko 2014; Griffiths 2017; Kriza 2014; Ostbo 2015; Suslov 2016; Verkhovskii 2014; and Zakharov 2015.

[12] Aslund 2013. Some recently leaked telephone conversation records demonstrate that Glaz’ev played a central role in organizing secessionist unrest in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, as well as in preparing Russia’s annexation of Crimea, in February-March 2014. See Umland 2016. Glaz’ev is linked to Russia’s extreme right via – among other connections – the Izborsk Club of rabidly anti-Western intellectuals. See Laruelle 2016b.

[13] Various illustrations may be found in the above and below listed texts, and in, among others: Arnold & Romanova 2013; Gorenburg, Pain & Umland 2012a, 2012b; Hagemeister 2004; Mathyl 2000, 2011; Mey 2004; Moroz 2005; Rogachevskii 2004; Stepanov 2011; Torbakov 2015; Umland 2002a, 2002b, 2006, 2008, 2009b.

[14] Umland 1997. See also Umland 2002b.

[15] E.g. Motyl 2016. For a critique of Motyl’s earlier similar statements, see, among others, Umland 2009d, 2015.

[16] On how to define and interpret fascism, see the extensive discussion by various comparativists and further references in: Griffin et al. 2006.

[17] Dawisha 2014; Hale 2015; Gel’man 2016.

[18] See, for instance, on Putin’s rediscovery of the Russian proto-fascist émigré thinker Ivan Il’in (1883-1954): Barbashin & Thoburn 2015; Snyder 2016.

[19] E.g. Eltchaninoff 2016.

[20] Bassin et al. 2015; Lariul’ 2004; Laruelle 2008a; Liuks 2009a; Schlacks & Vinkovetsky 1996; Shnirel’man 1996; Wiederkehr 2007.

[21] Viderker 2010.

[22] Some of them, to be sure, after participating in its formulation, later retracted from Eurasianism – perhaps, most explicitly so Georgii Florovskii in his 1928 essay “The Eurasian Seduction” in Sovremennye zapiski 34: 312-346. I am grateful to Leonid Luks for pointing this out to me.

[23] Baissvenger 2009; Liuks 2009b; Luks 1986. Although both intellectual movements were developing at the same time in inter-war continental Europe, there was only little interaction between them.

[24] Among the early treatments of Dugin in Western languages were: Allensworth 1998; Hielscher 1992, 1993a, 1993b; Laqueur 1993; Mathyl 1997/1998; Tsygankov 1998; Umland 1995; Yanov 1995.

[25] Griffin et al. 2006; Höllwerth 2007, 2010; Ingram 2001; Lariul’ 2009c; Laruelle 2006, 2008a, 2015; Luks 2000, 2002, 2004; Sedgwick 2004; Senderov 2009a, 2009b; Shekhovtsov 2009a, 2009b; Shekhovtsov & Umland 2009; Sokolov 2010a, 2010b; Umland 2004, 2009a, 2009e, 2014; Vafin 2010.

[26] Cucută 2015.

[27] In order of their publication: Allensworth 1998; Duncan 2000; Shenfield 2001; Likhachev 2002; Rossman 2002; Shnirel’man 2004; Parland 2005; Mitrofanova 2005; Laruelle 2008a, 2008b, 2009a, 2009c, 2012; Höllwerth 2007; Wiederkehr 2007; Verkhovskii 2005, 2006, 2007, 2014; Kozhevnikova et al. 2009.

[28] On the distinction between Dugin’s and Putin’s Eurasianisms, see Umland 2014.

[29] Laruelle 2010; Blakkisrud & Kolsto 2016.

[30] E.g.: Ignatow 2002; Kochanek 1998; Lariul’ 2009b; Naarden 1996; Shnirel’man 2009; Shnirelman & Panarin 2001; Viderker 2012.

[31] Scherrer 2002.

[32] On the context of Borodai’s activities in Eastern Ukraine, see Mitrokhin 2015; Laruelle 2016a.

[33] On the context of Gumilev’s friendship with Luk’ianov, see O’Connor 2006.

[34] Lariul’ 2009d; Ostbo 2015, 112; Peunova 2009; Tsygankov 2013.

[35] On Shafarevich, see Dunlop 1994; Znamenski 1996; Horvath 1998; Berglund 2002.

[36] E.g.: Tsygankov 1998; Scherrer 2002; Müller 2008; Sokolov 2010; Miuller & Trotsuk 2011; Sainakov & Iablokov 2011; Umland 2011; Mäkinen 2014.

[37] Clover deals in his book with Dugin’s lectures at the Russian General Staff Academy already in the 1990s, i.e. before Dugin entered Russia’s political establishment and “systemic radical right.” On the distinction between the systemic and non-systemic radical right under Putin, see Arnold & Umland 2017.

[38] Published within the “Fascism & the Far Right” book series edited by Nigel Copsey and Graham Macklin. See also Khokk 2015 and Polyakova et al. 2016.

[39] Dunlop 2010; Höllwerth 2010; Laruelle 2004, 2009b; Mathyl 2002, 2003; Mitrofanova 2005, 2009; Pakhlevsa 2011a, 2011b; Parland 2005; Shekhovtsov 2009a, 2014; Stepanov 2009; Umland 2002a, 2009c, 2010;

[40] Above-mentioned Aleksandr Borodai – a disciple of Gumilev – also made it, along with Putin, into this list’s Agitators section. See “A World Disrupted: The Leading Global Thinkers of 2014.” Foreign Policy. http://globalthinkers.foreignpolicy.com/ (accessed December 7th, 2016).

[41] Yanov 1995.

[42] Shekhovtsov 2014.

[43] Umland 2006, 2009e. See also Khel’vert 2013.

[44] Horvath 2012.

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Imran Khan, elected on his good looks and apparent disagreement with the status quo, was going to bring with him sweeping change, transforming the country into what he called “Naya Pakistan,” or “New Pakistan”. His two-decade-long journey to the premier house in Pakistan has not gone unnoticed. After losing the last national elections in 2013, he becried the rigged elections until a week before the current elections. His party sued everyone imaginable, held long drawn-out demonstrations that drained the country, both economically and emotionally..

This election cycle was different. While foreign media covered his ties with the Pakistan Army, media in Pakistan was banned from covering anything that hinted towards these ties, or spoke against Khan’s policies (and used the Fake News Trumpism). While he famously has appealed to the youth of Pakistan based on his previous life as a playboy turned cricket superstar, he has also appeased the militant-right and joined forces with them to establish his government. An example of his washy manifesto are the blasphemy laws, a topic of controvery in Pakistan any given day of the week, but something that is played on most during election cycles. Khan has famously backed the laws, which have been used as a tool to further opress minorities, especially Christians and Ahmedis.

Ahmedis are a minority in Pakistan, whom the government had declared “non-Muslim” in 1974. Since, their community has silently served in the Pakistani army without the hope of promotion or overt praise, they have built our economy without the appreciation that should come with it and have won Pakistan its only Nobel Prize in physics, without as much as a nod. Yet, they continued to live in the land that is their home, and continue to serve selflessly. One such individual is Dr. Atif R. Mian, an economist and professor at Princeton University. He was recently asked to serve on an economic advisory council for Khan, which he gracefully accepted. The right wing extremist factions within Pakistan immediately criticized Khan for appointing a “non-Muslim” and wanted him removed. To their credit, Khan and his party stuck with their decision – for a whole two days.

Dr. Mian has since been “asked” to remove himself from the council, which he has done. Khan and his government have given no further explanation for their action. His avid supporters believe this would not be a battle worth fighting, as religious extremists had threatened violence. In his inaugural address, Khan made a strong statement about Pakistan being the country of the poor and the weak and that he would stand with them. He mentioned the women, children and minorities that needed specific protection and opportunities, and that his government would provide those. Yet, two days into a decision that would prove beneficial for the country, the govenrment has given into the threats of out-lawed factions, sending a clear signal as to who is in charge.

While his govenrment may be on a path to planting ten billion trees, it has already established a rule by terrorists. What’s so naya about this Pakistan?

 

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http://www.quiz-maker.com/QINY3IR

 

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Russian President Vladimir Putin visits a polling station during a parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, September 18, 2016. REUTERS/Grigory Dukor – RTSO8SI

Western comments on Russian domestic and foreign affairs have, during the last years, become more and more gloomy. Among other topics, this pessimistic discourse (to which I too have contributed) features Putin’s neo-imperial plans for the post-Soviet area, the many varieties of post-Soviet Russian ultra-nationalism, the fragility of the geopolitical grey zone between the Kremlin-dominated sphere on the one side and NATO in the other, Moscow’s subversion of the foundations of the world’s nuclear non-proliferation regime (via its attack on the nuclear-weapons-free NPT signatory Ukraine), the catastrophic scenario of a full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, the grave repercussions of such a new escalation for the whole of East-Central Europe, and the continuing Western naivety with regard to the origins, nature, functioning and aims of the current regime in Moscow.

To be sure, arguments like these have been and are still necessary to be made as they are, so far, insufficiently salient in Western mass media. Yet, it may also be time for developing in parallel a different approach to Russia’s future. At least that is what recent history and the aftermath of the Cold War’s end suggests.

How we lost Russia

In 1991, the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union opened an unexpected window of opportunity for the creation of a comprehensive, cooperative and stable European security and economic order. A major reason that this fortunate chance has been missed was that the Western community of experts on Eastern Europe had, even as Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika was slowly turning into a full-scale revolution, not foreseen such an outcome. Most observers kept focusing on the USSR’s remaining imperfections – until the Soviet state did not exist anymore.

The West had, before this event, not developed a clear understanding of, and coherent plan for, a situation in which the Russian communist regime would disappear, and an independent Russia would embark on the road to gradual Westernization. Most analysts would have regarded such a scenario as idle fantasy before 1991. As a result, during the 1990s, Western policies towards the new Russian Federation were formulated ad hoc, largely uncoordinated between the various actors involved, and without a clear vision of what Eastern Europe’s future structure should eventually look like.

It is true that various steps towards a rapprochement with Russia and cooperation with the newly independent states were taken by this or that national Western government and international organization, such as the IMF, G7, Council of Europe or NATO. Yet, there was little appreciation of the uniqueness of the world-historic opportunity on the table, and the enormous stakes involved in getting this critical moment right. Instead of being guided by historic sensitivity, coherent strategy and appealing teleology, Western approaches towards the post-Soviet world were characterized by spontaneity, complacency and hesitancy. The more sustained approaches, like the EU’s Strategic and Modernization Partnerships with Russia, were only introduced, in in 2003 and 2008 respectively, i.e. after the “Putin System” had started to take shape – and when it was thus already too late. We are now paying the price for this grave geopolitical omission of Brussels, Berlin and Washington.

This was in contrast to the West’s behavior vis-a-vis post-fascist West Germany, in the 1950s, that was treated remarkably differently from the post-imperial Weimar Republic in the 1920s. Although the Germans had, only a few years before, to be defeated, in a world war, and remained for many years excluded from the United Nations, the Federal Republic that emerged in 1949 was swiftly integrated into the major new Western institutions. In 1951, West Germany became a member of the European Coal and Steel Community, in 1955 of NATO, in 1957 of the European Economic and Atomic Energy Communities, and in 1958 of the European Parliamentary Assembly. In spite of much good will on the side of the EU and US towards Boris Yeltsin’s Russia, nothing even remotely reminiscent of this course of action vis-à-vis the young FRG happened in Western policies towards the young Russian Federation after the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. Somewhat predictably, Russia – reminding the decline of German democracy after World War I – eventually returned to its imperial and autocratic traditions, under Putin.

Today, there are reasons to believe that we may, nevertheless, sooner or later again be offered a chance to draw Russia into the Western community of states, and that it may make sense to already now prepare for such an optimistic turn of events. A positive agenda for a post-Putinist Russia could itself become a factor of its realization, and get us away from permanent repetition of doomsday scenarios. Moreover, for a prophecy getting the chance to become self-fulfilling, it needs to be stated, in the first place. A vision of how a future non-imperialist and democratic Russia could be gradually integrated into the Western community of states could, as such, become an instrument for Russian democrats, European diplomats, Western politicians and international civil society in their furthering of such a scenario.

Yet, there is, so far, little thinking about a completely different Russia and how to bring it about, in the West. As in the 1980s, the recent past is seen as the prime or even only analytically sound guide to the future. Anything beyond either mere extrapolation of the present, or some even more grim prediction for the future appears as day-dreaming. Putin’s regime as well as its drummers in and outside Russia are themselves setting this agenda: All we can get from Moscow, so the story goes, is either accommodation or confrontation. At worst, instead of the current aggressive kleptocracy, a still more dangerous Russian fascist ideocracy could be in the wings. The Kremlin’s projection of Russian power, intransigence and unpredictability is finding fertile ground in a Western analytical culture characterized by cautiousness, skepticism and pessimism. Yet, how likely are a continuation or escalation rather than relaxation or dissipation of the current tensions in Russian-Western relations?

Why a new window of opportunity may open again

To be sure, Moscow’s relations with the West may have to get first worse before they get better. Before it eventually self-destroys, Russia’s unviable kleptocratic order might have to go through big convulsions and a period that would be very risky for everybody involved – perhaps, even for the whole of humanity. Yet, chances are that sooner or later Russia will turn again to the West and be ready not only for resumption of its pre-Putinist political course and relationships to the West. There may even emerge the chance for a start of Russia’s all-out integration into Western economic and security structures. Such a turn of events may not only mean a second future opportunity to create a “common European home,” as once envisaged by Gorbachev. The very prospect of such a fundamental redefinition of Russian-Western relations and the transcendence of Europe’s current division via Russia’s gradual inclusion into the West can and should be itself seen as a mean to bring about that future.

The fundamental challenge to the continuing existence of Russia’s domestically kleptocratic and internationally aggressive regime, during the coming years, is a toxic combination of two trends that even clever leadership in the Kremlin may not be able to handle at once. First, unless the price of crude oil shoots up again, the non-competitiveness and underperformance of Russia’s current socio-economic order will become ever more obvious. With every year, the pie that can be divided between Russia’s various rent-seekers will get smaller. The concurrent loss of Russia’s relative economic dynamism, international weight and foreign influence will become ever more visible and depressing to Russia’s elite. The Eurasian Economic Union may become either irrelevant or even collapse. The financial burden of sustaining Russia’s various formally or informally annexed territories and satellite regimes may become unbearable. Unless a major non-Western economic power like Japan or China starts perceiving Russia not merely as a trading partner and raw materials provider, but as a close political friend to be actively supported and integrated with, the lack of Russia’s economic prospects on its own will become increasingly obvious to educated Russians.

A resolute, charismatic and widely accepted ruler may, to be sure, be able to compensate, during a long period of time, for the various problems this creates for the stability of the current Russian polity. Yet, for biological, constitutional and political reasons, it is not entirely clear how long Putin will be able to provide such leadership, and whether his patronalistic regime can arrange for an orderly transfer of power to a suitable successor. Until 2024, the end of Putin’s fourth term as president, the leadership issue may not yet become urgent. But already today, the question that everybody in Russia’s clientelist system is asking her- or himself is: What comes afterwards?

Certainly, Putin can, in 2024, put again a seat-holder in place, like he did with Dmitry Medvedev who was his palliative regent in 2008-2012. Yet, the chances of Putin coming, in 2030, back as a fully accepted leader at the age of 77 are unclear. Russia had, in its Soviet incarnation, already once experienced a gerontocracy during Leonid Brezhnev’s, Konstantin Chernenko’s and Yuri Andropov’s rule in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Russian people only know too well what such rule by old men eventually leads to.

Therefore, the likely change in the presidential office in 2024 (or before) may, by many within Russia’s leadership, be already regarded as a rather consequential one. The president to be put in place after Putin’s fourth term could be also his long-term successor as Russia’s real future leader. With Putin likely to start his gradual departure from politics already in 2024, if not earlier, the stakes of this profound change will thus be much higher than the transfer of the presidency to Medvedev in 2008.

At least, such calculations and speculations are probably now being made by many holders of power, privilege and property in Moscow. They probably, even more so than Western observers, wonder what Putin’s slowly approaching departure means for their future and security, and how they should behave to survive this switch – both metaphorically and literally. The spectacular bizarre arrest, unfair trial and eventual long-term imprisonment of Minister of Economic Development Aleksei Ulyukaev in 2016-2017 has increased the stakes of the upcoming leadership succession. It has turned the question of who will be Russia’s next ruler and how stable this new regime will be into an existential issue even for the members of Putin’s innermost circle.

All this creates already now volatility in the system – a tendency that will likely increase and may turn into a serious, potentially democratizing conflict between various factions of Russia’s elite. A smooth succession from Putin to a new leader and preservation of the current authoritarian order would, perhaps, be possible under conditions of dynamic socio-economic development, as Russia was experiencing during the early and mid-2000s. Yet, the simultaneity of economic stagnation and momentous political transition makes the task of replacing – without meaningful and open-ended democratic elections – the current charismatic leader with a sufficiently accepted alternative figure difficult. Accumulating repercussions of past blunders by the Russian leadership, such as the accidental shooting of a Malaysian passenger plane over Eastern Ukraine in July 2014, or the effects of future mistakes of a Kremlin increasingly cornered by various pressures from within and outside Russia, such as new sanctions measures by the US, may further increase the speed of decline of the current regime.

What the sooner or later resulting destabilization of Russia’s political regime implies internationally is difficult to predict. Most analysts tend to foresee either a nevertheless high continuity and reconstitution of the current order, with a new leader, or a worsening of the situation via, for instance, a further radicalization and even fascisticization of the current system. Yet, both of these scenarios would leave the current Russian socio-economic contradictions and imperfections in place or make them even more salient as a result, for instance, of an escalating trade war with the West.

Given Russia’s far-going inclusion into the world economy, inability to become autarkic, and continuing close economic ties with the West, a course or regime change in Moscow may thus eventually lead to a renewal of the rapprochement with the West started in the late 1980s. While it is so far unclear how and when exactly a Russian pro-Western turn would come about, it is – at least, in the long run, if not already in the mid-term future – not unlikely. Both the unavailability of other sustainable geoeconomic options for Russia as well as the cultural affinity of most Russians with European traditions will sooner or later drive the Kremlin back into the arms of the West. Once that happens, the West should – unlike in 1991 – already have a comprehensive plan of action in the drawer.

How the West can further a pro-Western Russia

A crucial precondition for Russian-Western reconciliation will be Russia’s disengagement from its various expansionist adventures in Eastern Europe and the Southern Caucasus as well as its cooperation in other world regions, such as the Middle East. The Kremlin would have to abolish its proxy regimes in Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and the Donets Basin as well as reverse the annexation of the Crimean peninsula – the later issue being the thorniest one. Russia’s redefinition as a liberal democratic and territorially saturated nation-state rather than revanchist imperial and paranoid anti-Western power would have to start from inside. Yet it can, should and may even have to be supported from outside, in order to be successful.

In particular, the EU and US could indicate to the Russians the advantages of giving up their irredentist claims in the former USSR. The West should thus already now announce a comprehensive agenda for a far-going association with, and partial incorporation of, Russia that would go beyond mere restoration of previous cooperation schemes under former Russian Presidents Yeltsin and Medvedev. Such a plan could be part of a larger package for a novel type of partnership that would link a withdrawal of Russian regular troops and irregular units (agents, mercenaries, volunteers, adventurers et al.) from currently occupied territories, on the one side, with an offer of gradual Western integration tackling humanitarian, economic and security issues, on the other.

Not only could a re-democratizing and post-imperial Russia re-enter the G7 turning it into the G8 again, reset its Strategic and Modernization Partnerships with the EU, reestablish fully its joint council with NATO, and resume its OECD accession negotiations interrupted in 2014. The EU’s current projects within its Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative could become templates for a far more intense and much deeper affiliation between Brussels and Moscow than before 2014. Depending on whether the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) survives or not, the EU could propose either the Russian state alone or all members of the EEU a number of partial integration schemes that would include them into a Wider Europe and let them participate to one degree or another in Western political processes as well as non-political life.

In particular, modified versions of the Visa Liberalization Action Plans and Association Agreements that the EU has been implementing, over the last years, with Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova could be also offered to Russia and its current allies. After Moscow’s adoption of a number of necessary laws and implementation of preparatory regulations, Russian citizens could, in a first step, be granted the right to travel visa-free within the Schengen Area. The US could consider to offer Russia, after adequate preparation, an inclusion in its visa waiver program, and Electronic System of Travel Authorization.

The conclusion, in a second step, of an EaP-type Association Agreement that includes a deep and comprehensive free-trade area (DCFTA) with Moscow could do two things at once. First, it would lay out a concrete path for how Russia can gradually become part and parcel of the EU’s economic and legal space. Second, such an Agreement would reconnect with each other the post-Soviet economies of Russia (and possibly other EEU members) with those of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova who are already implementing DCFTAs with the EU. It would thereby address a major point of critique regarding the current integration into the EU of the associated Eastern Partnership economies – namely, that they are being thereby gradually disconnected from their traditional markets and partners in the former Soviet Union.

The geopolitically most far-reaching proposition that Brussels and Washington should make to Moscow already now is to jointly start implementing a Membership Action Plan leading Russia eventually towards an accession to NATO, as a full member state. Russia’s gradual preparation for, and eventual inclusion into, the North-Atlantic alliance would, as in the case of an EU Association Agreement, help to solve two salient issues simultaneously. It would, first, locate Russia in the world’s most powerful security alliance and thereby help to alleviate the historically deep-seated angst of foreign invasion, in the Russian collective soul – a major reason for the current instability in world politics. It would, second, erase the Russian-Western quarrel around previous NATO enlargements and the possible accession of further post-Soviet countries to the Alliance.

Russia’s eventual entry into the North-Atlantic alliance could be part of a grand bargain for Eastern Europe and the Southern Caucasus that combines a full Russian denouncement of irredentism, with a resolute Western embrace of Moscow. One could imagine a major international act within which NATO would sign concurrent accession treaties with Russia, Ukraine and Georgia, as well as, perhaps, other post-Soviet countries. Abkhazia and South Ossetia would return under Tbilisi’s official control, Crimea and the Donets Basin, if it continues to remain occupied, under Kyiv’s official control. Within such a scheme, some of the currently illegal Russian troops and agencies on Georgian and Ukrainian soil may be even able to remain in the previously formally or informally occupied territories of Ukraine and Georgia. Via Russia’s accession to NATO they would turn into allied structures supporting rather than threating Georgian and Ukrainian security.

No question: Fancy schemes like this may look now like wild speculations. Some will regard them as unserious fantasy. Yet, the geopolitical constellation of the post-Soviet space has become unusually complicated. It may be impossible to overcome them without designing, publishing and implementing some unheard-off plan.

A self-fulfilling prophecy?

The usefulness of a new visionary Western agenda for “another Russia” – such has been the name of one of Russia’s main opposition associations – would not only lie in the fact that it may become possible to be implemented should a radically different constellation in Eastern Europe eventually emerge. Developing such plan today would provide an instrument to promote such a post-Putinist change itself. One of the reasons for Moscow’s increasingly aggressive posture in world politics and current erratic search for foreign allies is the deadlock in the development of Russia’s international embeddedness, after the annexation of Crimea.

In spite of the Kremlin’s eager promotion of the idea of a “multipolarity,” Russia is economically too weak to become itself a self-sustaining pole in a competitive multi-polar world and instable geopolitical environment. Its current partnering with China, Turkey, Iran and other non-Western powers will remain of a limited nature as it will only occasionally lead to win-win situations for all sides involved. The Russian cultural affinity with, and geopolitical orientation towards, Europe will not only remain latent, but sooner or later become prevalent again.

As times goes by, Ukraine’s and other post-Soviet republics’ continuing integration into the West will become an increasingly attractive role model for Russians too. The unsustainability of Russia’s kleptocratic order and illiberal policies at home as well as the overreach of its revanchist behavior and neo-imperial posturing abroad will become more and more visible to the Russian elite and population. By formulating and publicizing an alternative view of Russia’s geopolitical future, the West can help to hasten a change of course in Moscow, and should prepare itself for the moment when the tipping point is finally reached.

[These ideas was first presented, as a brief statement, at the “Europe’s Strategic Choices” conference organized by Chatham House and the Kiel Institute for Security Policy in Berlin, on 7 December 2017 Various versions of the article were earlier published in, among other outlets, Focus Online, Open Democracy, The European, Raam op Rusland, Eurasia Review, Gefter.ru, Zerkalo nedeli and Die Welt.]

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Russian IL-20 four engine aircraft

A Russian four engine IL-20 naval reconnaissance aircraft was shot down seemingly by accident over Syria by Syrian air defense. While initial reports lack significant details, early information seem to point out that due to a possible Israeli missile attack, Syrian air defense was targeting incoming missiles or planes and locked on the IL-20 by radar. Information suggests that an S-200 missile brought down the plane, known to NATO as a SA-5 Gammon, the S-200 while effective, is a system developed during the Cold War era and has limited capabilities due to its age. From the 14 or 15 member crew, there were no survivors.

While newer missile system like the Pantsir and TOR have more advanced equipment to correctly determine the origin and design of aircraft being targeted, systems like the S-200 may be linked with radar systems that could date as far back as the 80s or even 70s era systems. While more modern systems like the BUK-M1 have shot down planes that were misidentified as recently as the Malaysia Airline flight over Ukraine a few short years ago, the coordination and training of several forces operating over Syria along with Western allied and Russian and Syrian air arms was established in order to avoid incidents like those that took place with the downing of the IL-20. Why an old S-200 missile can accidentally down an older IL-20 airplane with modern radar and a coordinated air defense system is puzzling, a tragedy for all involved.

The origin of the IL-20 is an innocent one, being developed as a 1950s era Soviet airliner, the IL-18. The IL-20 likely was in the area working as an airborne radar and detection system or perhaps was the IL-22 or IL-38 version that track naval and submarine activity. With an aircraft such as the IL-20 operating as a known radar and early warning system asset, a coordinated air defense with Russia and Syrian forces and systems should have been keenly aware of the IL-20, as the IL-20 would have been in direct and constant contact with all air assets in the area.

The IL-20 having its origins as a 1950s airliner also possesses some characteristics that should have made it evident on radar that it was not a missile or even a fighter plane. The IL-20 has four propeller or turboprop driven engines, is somewhat large and would have been moving fairly slowly. The radar for the S-200 likely would have been able to determine that it was not a plane that offered significant threats to its target and should have been cautious as it looked more like an airliner or other civilian aircraft.

Using the S-200 to target missiles also deserves some analysis. While an S-200 was able to shoot down one Israeli aircraft this year, to use a rather large and heavy anti-aircraft missile like the S-200 to target incoming cruise missiles seems like it would be quite ineffective. With most of the strikes coming into Syria being cruise or other air-to-ground missiles, an S-200 would likely have not hit any of the main missile threats, despite claims about the performance of the S-200. With most of the actual aircraft being at a fair distance from the targets, an S-200 would be best used on targets that are lower risk than threats it needs to handle. So while a fighter jet might be shot down and an IL-20 certainly would have no protection, individual missiles would require a more effective system and missile than the S-200.

The loss of lives is certainly a tragedy, and almost certainly an error or a malfunction. It is only hoped that a peaceful resolution in Syria can remove the situation where errors like these can ever occur again.

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