The National Interest

The Biden administration faces a massive foreign policy vulnerability because it has shown weakness in the face of multiple forms of Communist China’s aggression—and none more serious than espionage.

Chinese espionage and covert influence are likely only to increase as the 2024 presidential campaign heats up, as the U.S. government becomes less and less inclined to take bold action in advance of an election. 

China recruits spies inside the United States, including members of our military. In August, two Navy sailors were arrested for passing sensitive military information to Chinese intelligence.

One of the sailors was still a Chinese citizen when he enlisted in the Navy, making him a prime target for Chinese intelligence officers, who falsely believe that every individual of Chinese ethnic descent owes a duty of loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party.

China also sends operatives to penetrate our military bases. They pose as wayward tourists so they can test security procedures and learn how to circumvent defenses in a future crisis. 

These reports of human espionage come on the heels of news that Chinese hackers have penetrated the networks of U.S. critical infrastructure, giving China the ability to cripple power, water, and communications to American military bases in a time of crisis.

And just a few days earlier, press reports exposed a web of covert Chinese efforts to influence American politics flowing through left-wing activist groups such as Code Pink. 

China’s influence efforts targeting the U.S. are modeled on its successful campaigns in other English-speaking countries.

In Canada, the government has launched an investigation into reports that China’s Ministry of State Security secretly organized campaigns against members of Canada’s Parliament who advocated tough-on-China policies. China funneled money and votes toward Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in advance of the Canada’s 2021 elections. 

And in Australia and New Zealand, China for years has attempted to use its economic clout to influence dozens of politicians and media outlets.

How has the Biden administration reacted? Last year, despite the realities of the espionage threat, Biden’s Justice Department shut down the China Initiative begun during the Trump administration, bowing to pressure from activists who said the initiative was inherently racist and xenophobic.  

At the same time, the Biden administration’s efforts to ban TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app, have stalled. For more than two years, the administration has negotiated with TikTok through the interagency process of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States without reaching an agreement to mitigate the app’s enormous potential to influence American politics and blackmail targets of espionage.

Congress could still act, but TikTok is breathing a sigh of relief as the House and Senate face a jam-packed legislative calendar without a consensus on blocking the app. 

The dithering has extended beyond TikTok, as the White House spun its wheels for months on action to regulate U.S. investment in advanced technology research in China.

When an executive order arrived in August, it merely kicked off the start of a new deliberative process while the Treasury Department writes regulations that cover only a few industries, leaving most of China’s advanced research untouched. The result?  No action before 2025 at the earliest.

All the while, high-ranking U.S. officials have made pilgrimages to Beijing, hoping to secure a change in China’s behavior. Visits by U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and, most recently Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo (whose emails the Chinese hacked earlier this year) all delayed U.S. responses to China’s aggression while obtaining seemingly little in return. 

Through a combination of misguided decisions and inaction, the Biden administration has given up American leadership in the fight against the Chinese Communist Party’s influence. America deserves better.

Michael Ellis is a visiting fellow for law and technology in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

This article was first published by the Daily Signal.

Image: Shutterstock.

The US has received plenty of criticism for acceding to Iran’s policy of hostage-led negotiation for which Tehran has plenty of form. But there are a number of very knowledgeable Middle East hands in President Joe Biden’s administration with significant experience in the demanding theatre of negotiations with Iran. They include Biden himself, who was Barack Obama’s vice president when the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was negotiated and signed. So, they are neither neophytes on this issue nor naive about the risks involved in achieving an obviously humanitarian outcome in this manner. Rather, to understand why the administration took this step it’s necessary to first understand how it viewed the detainee situation as part of its broader Iran policy.

First, the security priorities of both the Obama and the Biden administrations with respect to Iran have focused on counterproliferation. The JCPOA, as flawed as it was, represented the Obama administration’s belief that only a negotiated approach to limiting Tehran’s nuclear development program could work effectively. The unilateral trashing of the agreement under Donald Trump’s presidency provided the proof, if any was needed, of what Iran could do in the absence of any negotiated constraints on its program.

By contrast, Iran’s influence-peddling and military support for regional non- and semi-state actors represents a real, but nevertheless second-order, security priority. The prevailing political and social realities in countries such as Lebanon, Syria and Iraq mean that Iranian-supported groups are significant, if not the dominant political actors, and therefore eliminating Tehran’s influence is essentially impossible. Without changing the political system of the country or the behaviour of actors in that system, constraining Iran’s behaviour, rather than eliminating its influence, becomes the achievable short- and medium-term aim.

Given this, the Biden administration’s decision to secure the hostages’ freedom and to release Iranian funds frozen in South Korea is easier to understand. The release of detainees has been high on Biden’s list of priorities. As he said in March: ‘Returning wrongfully detained and people held hostage—and particularly Americans and their families—is a top priority for this administration. And we’ll continue our work to bring home all Americans held hostage or unjustly detained.’

Nobody begrudges the fact that the detainees have been returned to the United States. Rather, the questions are whether the type of exchange that was undertaken should have been done, the price that was paid and whether this simply reinforces the utility of such a strategy in the eyes of the Iranians. The price paid was probably the least contentious—the difficulty with blanket sanctions against totalitarian regimes is that those who suffer are often the least culpable. The funds frozen in Seoul were for Iranian oil imported by South Korea that hadn’t been paid for by the time Trump imposed his unilateral sanctions.

To the Biden administration, those funds were a casualty of a Trump decision it never agreed with, so it doesn’t feel beholden to. The current agreement also requires that the disbursement of the funds will be overseen by Qatar and they will be used only for humanitarian purposes. Whether that is the case in practice will remain to be seen, but throughout all the years of sanctions against it, Tehran was still able to fund its regional activities and so the release of these funds is no game-changer.

As to whether the exchange will lead to more detentions of US citizens, it’s easy to make that argument because the logic appears straightforward. Yet the jury is out on whether this has been the case in the past (given the current detainee exchange is by no means the first of its kind).

With that in mind, the Biden administration has taken a calculated risk while it continues to warn American citizens about the risks of travelling to Iran and the fact that Washington can’t guarantee their return if they are detained.

On the question of whether this swap should have been done (outside of the obvious benefit for the freed detainees), one must understand it as part of the broader counterproliferation policy of the Obama and now the Biden administrations.

If one accepts that the JCPOA was effective in limiting Iran’s nuclear program and the Trump policy of ‘maximum pressure’ achieved the exact opposite, then a negotiated limit to Iran’s nuclear program is the only real way to achieve meaningful counter-nuclear-proliferation outcomes with Tehran. And to get to the negotiating table, viewing the detainee swap as a preliminary step to such an outcome makes a lot of sense.

There has been media reporting that Iran’s supreme leader has given approval for direct talks with the US on the issue, though both countries have denied this report. Whether the restart of negotiations is possible therefore remains up in the air.

The Biden administration likely thinks the prisoner swap was worth trying as the only way of achieving its broader non-proliferation goal. But if it doesn’t establish the conditions for future negotiations, at least five people are no longer detained in Iranian prisons.

Rodger Shanahan is a former Australian Army officer and Middle East analyst. 

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

Image: Shutterstock.

Back in the summer last week, Iranian officials drew headlines with their claims of being able to detect and track American F-35s flying over the Persian Gulf. This prompted a flood of claims on social media about the $1.7 trillion stealth fighter program no longer offering a strategic edge over the aggressive nation.

“Over the past days, several of these planes were flying over the Persian Gulf and were fully monitored by our radars from the moment they took off,” an unnamed Iranian official was quoted as saying by the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen news, an outlet that is frequently criticized for its bias toward authoritarian regimes in Iran, Syria, and the militant group Hezbollah.

Is this claim true? The truth is… it’s pretty likely – but that wouldn’t have the implications many may think it does. Stealth fighters have long been detectable via certain radar frequencies and that’s neither new nor troubling for military planners. This story, like many that have come before it, is leveraging popular misconceptions about stealth, rather than the science associated with this technology, in an attempt to paint modern 5th generation fighters as less capable than they truly are. And make no mistake, the F-35’s detectability is not unique to its airframe – every 5th-generation fighter regardless of origin can be detected under the right circumstances.

It’s targeting those aircraft that can be tough.

THE CLAIM

According to several Iranian-bases news outlets, Brigadier General Reza Khajeh, the deputy commander of operations of the Iranian Army Air Defense Force, was the first official to come forward with the claim that Iran has been detecting and potentially even tracking F-35s in the region. This claim follows the deployment of about a dozen F-35s to the U.S. Central Command region following a series of aggressive encounters involving Russian aircraft over Syria and Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz.

According to General Khajeh, all flights in the region have been monitored by Iranian air defense systems, bolstered by what he referred to as “eavesdropping systems,” going on to claim that they have yet to detect a sortie via those listening methods that they weren’t also able to track on radar.

And based on the responses we’ve immediately seen popping up on social media, it’s clear that many are convinced, based on these claims, that Iran has cracked the code to peering through the most advanced fighter on the planet’s stealth capabilities.

THESE CLAIMS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT STEALTH FIGHTERS

Stealth aircraft are designed to delay or sometimes even defeat detection via a variety of means, including radar and infrared, but it’s commonly understood that stealth is not invisibility. That is to say that under the right circumstances, these aircraft are often detectable – especially when we’re talking about stealth fighters, in particular.

However, there is a significant difference between being able to detect a stealth fighter and being able to effectively target one, and these claims out of Iran (and subsequent media stories) rely on the average reader’s lack of awareness when it comes to this important distinction.

Modern stealth fighters are designed to delay or prevent detection specifically from high-frequency radar arrays that are capable of providing a “weapons-grade lock” – or radar arrays that can guide a missile to a target. Lower frequency radar arrays are not capable of guiding weapons with this sort of accuracy but are often capable of spotting stealth fighters in the sky. This is neither new nor unusual.

THE IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING ABLE TO DETECT A STEALTH FIGHTER AND BEING ABLE TO TARGET ONE

“The Radar Game: Understanding Stealth and Aircraft Survivability” by Rebecca Grant, Mitchell Institute, 2010

Different radar arrays broadcast in different wavelengths and frequencies for different reasons. The types of design elements that can help delay or prevent detection from one type of radar frequency won’t necessarily help prevent detection from another.

As a result, stealth fighter designs are specifically intended to limit detection from the types of radar arrays that can effectively guide a weapon to its position. While stealth aircraft are still not invisible to radar arrays that work within these bands, the goal is to make their radar returns small enough to delay detection, allowing the stealth fighter to either engage a target or escape without ever being targeted itself.

Radars operate by broadcasting electromagnetic energy (radar waves), usually in the L, S, C, X, or K bands. Each band uses a different wavelength and frequency, with only higher frequency (smaller wavelength) systems providing the image fidelity needed to accurately target an aircraft.

In other words, only certain types of radars can be used to guide a missile toward a target and get it close enough to destroy it. Lower frequency arrays are often capable of spotting stealth fighters in the air, but because of their larger wavelengths, can’t provide accurate enough data to actually lock onto an aircraft with a missile.

Stealth fighter designs only limit detection against higher frequency radar arrays, including parts of the S-band and the C, X, and Ku bands to prevent being targeted. Because these fighters are still visible on lower-frequency radar bands operating on S and C bands, these arrays can be leveraged effectively as early warning systems, notifying defensive forces that stealth fighters are in the area, and allowing for other defensive systems to be oriented in the right direction. But importantly, low-frequency arrays can do little more than point systems toward the area a stealth fighter is in. An effective stealth fighter design remains difficult to target via a high-frequency array even with this head start.

In fact, because most air traffic control towers operate radar arrays in the S-band, they can often spot stealth fighters without much difficulty.

Stealth bombers, on the other hand, are extremely difficult to detect via even lower-frequency arrays, thanks to their lack of common fighter design elements like standing vertical tail surfaces. As a result, when stealth fighters are operating over your nation, air defenses are often aware, but unable to target them. When stealth bombers are overhead, many national air defense systems may never even know at all.

In other words, it’s not particularly unusual to spot an inbound stealth fighter using even quite dated low-frequency radar arrays, but actually shooting them down is another question entirely. Low-frequency arrays aren’t capable of guiding a weapon accurately to a fighter-sized target. They can only point in a general direction and say, “There’s a target somewhere over there.”

STEALTH FIGHTERS HAVE MORE THAN ONE TRICK UP THEIR SLEEVE

It’s not at all uncommon for stealth fighters like the F-35 to fly with radar reflectors on to both render them more detectable and mask their actual radar profiles while operating in regions with enemy air defense systems that are eager to gobble up data about their radar returns. These reflectors, often called Luneburg lenses, aren’t always easy to spot with the naked eye, but they render even the stealthiest aircraft easy to detect on radar.

In other words, it’s entirely possible that American F-35s operating in the Middle East may be flying with these lenses on specifically to make it more difficult for enemy air defense systems to work toward figuring out how to detect these aircraft more readily.

And considering the United States sent these fighters to the region as an intentional message to aggressive Iranian and Russian forces, advertising their presence is an intentional decision. That much was made clear by the Pentagon’s public announcement of their deployment prior to the F-35s even arriving in the region.

“In coordination with our regional allies, partners, and the U.S. Navy, the F-35s will partner with A-10s and F-16s already in theater helping monitor the Strait of Hormuz,” Air Forces Central (AFCENT) spokesman Col. Mike Andrews said in a statement last month.

In other words, there’s a multitude of reasons why Iran might be able to detect F-35s operating over the Persian Gulf, from Luneburg lenses to low-frequency radar arrays. In fact, it would be somewhat damning if they couldn’t. But just as Russia leveraged confusion about the definition of modern hypersonic missiles to claim their Kh47M2 Kinzhal was more than a simple air-launched ballistic missile, Iran is now leveraging confusion around the word stealth in a similar manner.

So, did Iran detect F-35s over the Persian Gulf last week? It’s pretty likely. But is that anything American military planners are sweating?

Almost certainly not.

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

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Image: Shutterstock.

America’s next stealth fighter in active development is going to be very pricey, with some estimates now reaching as high as $300 million per airframe. But while that figure is sure to give plenty of folks a serious case of sticker shock, the truth is, even at that high a price, this fighter may still be a serious bargain.

There’s no denying that Uncle Sam has an affinity for expensive military platforms, with today’s F-35 Lightning II effort currently holding the title for most expensive military program in history at an estimated $1.7 trillion over the jet’s service life. And with the F-35A’s per unit price now floating at around $80 million each, forking over $300 million for another new stealth fighter does sound shocking.

But it’s important to remember that the F-35’s price has come down dramatically thanks to the fact that a whopping 17 countries have placed orders for the advanced fighter and more than 1,000 F-35s have already been delivered to customers. In other words, despite a high operating cost, the F-35 has become one of the most widely operated fighters on the planet, and high volume has a way of bringing down costs.

Conversely, the Air Force intends to purchase just 200 or so fighters from the Next Generation Air Dominance program, with these next-generation jets expected to fly alongside another 300 advanced new Block 4 F-35s and at least 1,000 artificial intelligence-enabled drone wingmen.

This relatively short production run will place the NGAD fighter on fairly equal footing, in terms of total numbers, with the very fighter it’s slated to replace: the F-22 Raptor. And the truth is when comparing the NGAD’s projected cost to fighters like the Raptor, or even the venerable F-14 Tomcat… that sticker shock soon gives way to a sense that NGAD may actually be a pretty good deal, even at $300 million per airframe.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT NGAD FIGHTER AND ITS COST SO FAR?

The Next Generation Air Dominance program has been, until fairly recently, more about developing new aviation technologies than specifically fielding a new fighter platform. These technologies all fell within one of four categories:

1. Propulsion — The Air Force intends to field these new fighters with advanced adaptive cycle engines that will offer more power, more fuel economy, better heat regulation and power production, and greater loiter times than were possible with earlier engine designs.
2. Uncrewed Systems — The NGAD fighter will fly alongside a constellation of AI-enabled drone wingmen to extend sensor reach, increase combat capacity and survivability, and more.
3. Materials — Advances in material science are often among the most secretive elements of stealth aircraft design, as today’s Radar Absorbent materials are rated to absorb as much as 80% of inbound radar waves, but limit fighter performance due to their fragility. Improved RAM could reduce maintenance costs, improve stealth, and allow for greater performance.
4. Sensors — The NGAD program leans further into the F-35’s air combat methodology of detecting and targeting enemy aircraft from greater ranges than ever before, allowing the fighter to engage and destroy enemy jets before they ever even know the fighter was there.

However, as these technologies matured, the focus of the effort transitioned toward combining these new technologies into a single crewed airframe, culminating in a classified contract solicitation released last month for final design proposals. The Air Force now intends to choose a winning design next year, with aggressive plans to begin fielding operational jets by the end of this decade.

At this stage, the Air Force couldn’t offer an accurate projected per-unit cost for this fighter, as a design hasn’t even been chosen yet, but Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has gone on record to say that it will likely cost “multiple hundreds of millions of dollars” per jet.

While technically a separate program being developed under the same Next Generation Air Dominance moniker, the Navy’s forthcoming F/A-XX fighter is expected to share some common modular systems with the Air Force’s new fighter.

Based on renders we’ve seen of this new fighter released by the U.S. Air Force and defense contractors alike, it seems likely that the new jet will omit some traditional fighter control surfaces — namely the standing vertical tails, in favor of an even stealthier profile. The result may be a fighter that isn’t quite as aerobatic as previous top performers like the F-22 Raptor, but will almost certainly be the stealthiest fighter to see the sky to date.

NGAD WON’T NEED TO REPLACE OLDER FIGHTERS AT A 1:1 RATE

Arguably the most important difference between this new NGAD fighter in development and previous top-tier jets like the Raptor or Tomcat is how America’s next air superiority fighter is being designed to operate alongside a bevy of AI-enabled drone wingmen.

These wingmen aircraft will use onboard AI to allow them to complete complex tasks as assigned by the pilot onboard the NGAD fighter. They could extend the aircraft’s sensor range by flying out ahead, its payload capabilities by engaging targets on its behalf, and even its survivability by absorbing missiles on the crewed fighter’s behalf or engaging enemy targets before they have a chance to cause harm.

But importantly, these drone wingmen will also allow a single crewed NGAD fighter, flying alongside two or three drone wingmen, to replace entire formations of older generation jets that each require a pilot of their own. As a result, F-15s and F-22s won’t need to be replaced on a one-to-one basis in order to maintain the same level of combat capability.

Related: Voodoo II: Could a simple patch give us a sneak peek at NGAD?

AVOIDING THE F-35 PROGRAM’S ‘ACQUISITION MALPRACTICE’

The F-35 may be the most technologically advanced fighter in service today, but the budget-busting acquisition boondoggle that got it there is something the Air Force is working hard to avoid doing again. Sandboxx News has covered the poor decisions that led to the F-35’s ballooning development costs and production setbacks at length in previous articles. Among the most glaring issues that led to such costs were, first, giving Lockheed Martin an effective monopoly on aircraft design, production, and sustainment for decades to come with little incentive to come in under — or even at — projected cost; and, second, beginning production long before testing was complete, forcing older jets to undergo expensive refits once issues were identified.

In order to avoid these sorts of setbacks in the future, the Air Force is reshaping how it executes fighter contracts, separating design and production from long-term sustainment to force competition between firms, and perhaps most important of all, ensuring Uncle Sam owns at least a significant portion of the “data rights” or intellectual property associated with the new fighter and its design, rather than allowing a corporation to maintain a monopoly on the fighter going forward.

Of course, even if everything goes exactly as the Air Force plans (which is almost certainly not going to happen), that won’t alleviate the immense cost associated with fielding the most advanced fighter on the planet.

But then, paying a premium to own the skies is something Uncle Sam is already pretty accustomed to…

AN AIR FORCE STUDY SHOWED RESTARTING F-22 PRODUCTION WOULD COST $330 MILLION PER RAPTOR IN 2023 DOLLARS

Many have questioned the wisdom of developing and fielding an entirely new air superiority fighter to replace the F-22 Raptor at all. After all, despite being the first and oldest stealth fighter on the planet, it remains the stealthiest and arguably most dominant of the bunch. Rather than spending a fortune on a new jet, why not just build more F-22s?

Well, the Air Force thought of that. Back in 2017, the Air Force commissioned a secretive study into just how much restarting F-22 production would cost — and the report’s conclusions were bad news for Raptor fans. Because much of the F-22 production line was cannibalized for F-35 production after the Raptor’s cancelation, restarting the production line would mean establishing new production infrastructure practically from scratch.

As a result, with startup costs included, a batch of 194 new F-22 Raptors was projected to cost approximately $50.3 billion, which adjusted to 2023’s inflation, skyrockets up to around $62.5 billion. That averages out to a current cost of about $330 million per new Raptor if the U.S. were to restart production today.

It’s important to remember that the F-22’s first flight came more than 10 years before the first iPhone was released, and much of the aircraft was designed in the early 1990s. In other words, it would likely cost the same or even more to build new old Raptors than it would to simply start from scratch on a 21st-century design.

F-22S COST $270 MILLION APIECE WHEN ADJUSTED TO 2023’S INFLATION

Even when F-22 production was still going at full steam ahead back in 2010, the Congressional Research Service reported that the United States was paying approximately $186 million per aircraft — assuming you don’t roll research and development costs into the per-unit price, as that would skyrocket the Raptor’s price to $369.5 million each in 2010 dollars. However, $186 million in 2010 adjusts to approximately $260.4 million in 2023.

So, even if production had simply paused, rather than halted and we could somehow restart F-22 production today exactly as it left off, new Raptors would still be creeping up on the $300-million-per-airframe mark, especially if systems that were left out of the original Raptor but are now considered necessary, like infrared search and track or helmet-cued targeting, were incorporated into the design to bring it on par with its more modern competition.

Related: America’s F-22 will see serious upgrades before retirement

THE F-35’S ORIGINAL PER-UNIT COST WOULD BE MORE THAN $330 MILLION TODAY

As we discussed earlier, the F-35 Lighting II borne out of the vastly expensive Joint Strike Fighter program has been getting consistently cheaper over the years thanks to a laundry list of customers and high production volume. However, that wasn’t always the case.

Back when the F-35 began its production run in 2007, it was quite a bit more expensive… at approximately $221.1 million per airframe. When adjusted to 2023’s inflation, that comes out to approximately $331.5 million per fighter today.

However, it’s important to note that the F-35’s per-unit cost dropped dramatically in its first years of production, with Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) Lot 2 following that same year at just $161.7 million per aircraft, which shakes out to about $242.3 million per fighter. And by 2012, it had dropped all the way to $107 million per jet, or about $143 million today.

Related: What kind of fighter could the latest military tech really build?

ADJUSTED FOR 2023’S INFLATION, MAVERICK’S F-14 TOMCAT COST $270 MILLION EACH

Air dominance has always been expensive. Nowhere is that more clear than in the Navy’s legendary F-14A Tomcat made famous in 1988’s Top Gun.

In 1973, the U.S. Navy was purchasing these Tomcats at approximately 38 million each, which as compared to the numbers we’ve been throwing around thus far in this article, seems like a downright bargain. But inflation can be tricky, and many have forgotten in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union that the United States was sometimes devoting as much as a whopping 10% of its gross domestic product (GDP) to defense during the Cold War.

For context there, America’s massive 2022 top-line defense budget of $857.9 billion represents a reported 3% of its GDP. If the U.S. were still spending at the rate it did during points of both the Cold War and Vietnam, today’s defense budgets would be closer to $2.5 trillion.

The Tomcat is a perfect example of just how much the U.S. was willing to spend on defense. Adjusted to today’s inflation, each F-14A would ring in at an astonishing $270 million.

AIR DOMINANCE AIN’T CHEAP

We may not know much about America’s next air superiority fighter being developed within the Next Generation Air Dominance program, but one thing we know for sure is… that it won’t be cheap. The United States has long led the world in airpower. From being the first country to field military aircraft; the first to arm aircraft; the first to conduct mid-air refueling; fly bombers around the world; build stealth attack planes, fighters, bombers, and more, America has long been willing to invest in the ability to take the fight to its opponents from the sky, and to do so with such overwhelming power, capability, and volume to dominate the airspace over any fight it’s in.

This approach to warfare is more than a habit, it’s baked into nearly every facet of America’s warfighting doctrine. America’s approach to war splits a conflict into six phases: shaping, deterring, seizing the initiative, dominating, stabilizing, enabling civilian authority, and then a return to shaping.

As Dr. Rebecca Grant, president of IRIS Independent Research, pointed out in Air Force Magazine some 13 years ago, airpower plays a role in each and every phase — and is absolutely vital for a handful of them.

The fact of the matter is, the United States’ way of war doesn’t include dominating the skies… it mandates it. And as we’ve seen from the 1970s straight through to today… dominating the skies is an expensive endeavor.

So, if we do come to learn that the NGAD fighter does indeed cost around $300 million per fighter, we should see that not as an immense leap in price over the jets that came before it, but rather as the going rate for air supremacy.

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

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Image: Mike Mareen / Shutterstock.com

Over a year and a half has passed since the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine, violating international law as enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The core intention of the Charter remains the same today as when it was ratified: the prevention of a third world war and, secondarily, the institutional scaffolding needed to address the underlying causes of war, including systemic poverty, insecurity, and, most interestingly, grudges. 

One need not be an expert on international law to understand how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March of 2022 has violated the laws’ core principles. The Kremlin’s pretexts, the alleged violation of Russia’s “sphere of influence,” cited by, for example, international relations scholar John Mearsheimer, remain inadequate to justify the invasion of an internationally recognized sovereign state. On top of that, in its prosecution of an illegitimate war, Russia continues to practice war crimes—systematically and deliberately attacking noncombatants, including medical personnel and facilities. We may continue to debate whether allowing Russia to reclaim the USSR’s sphere of influence is acceptable as a tradeoff to prevent a global conflict. Still, there can be no question that Russia’s continual rape, torture, and murder of noncombatants is illegal and damages Russia’s reputation on the world stage. 

The question, then, is, what explains Russia’s behavior? 

From Tsar to Commissar  

During the entire rule of Russia’s Tsars—from the very founding of the Russian state until 1917, Russia’s military was no more or no less brutal toward noncombatants than the militaries of any other state or empire. But the Russian Revolution and the horrific civil war that followed changed everything. In place of an aristocratic code of honor, Russia’s surviving officer corps were loyal to the person of Josef Stalin (although in 1938, he had three-quarters of them above the rank of lieutenant executed for treason) and, more broadly, to the international communist movement, which they believed was destined to liberate the world from its capitalist and imperialist chains. There is little difference between this messianic vision and the twelfth-century crusaders or Protestant and Catholic militaries of the Thirty Years War. The same is true of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia from 1972–75 or Iran’s theocracy after 1979. All militaries representing such a “messianic” or “revolutionary” ethos were deeply implicated in the mass killing of noncombatants. 

Operation Barbarossa, Stalingrad, and Berlin 

The logic of the revolutionary’s lack of restraint on the use of armed force is twofold. First, this ideology insists on the dehumanization of opponents: “Our enemies are not actually people. They cannot be bargained with, and will themselves acknowledge no limits in their use of violence against us.” Second, his ideology is self-justifying: “What conduct wouldn’t be justified in the pursuit of an earthly paradise, in which poverty and war are banished?’ 

Until 1941, Russia’s formative military experience had been its civil war (1917–1923), which displayed, to a terrible degree, both aspects of ideological warfare and their impact on civilians. As Vladimir Lenin famously insisted: “It is with absolute frankness that we speak of this struggle of the proletariat; each man must choose between joining our side or the other side.” But on June 22, 1941, 3.8 million German soldiers crossed the Soviet border in Operation Barbarossa, which by December would strike within a few kilometers of Moscow and result in the loss of 4.5 million Soviet soldiers killed or captured. 

In the late Summer of 1942, the Third Reich’s Sixth Army reached Stalingrad. By November 22, the Germans found themselves encircled by the Red Army, and on February 2, they surrendered. The fighting in that storied city on the Volga River remains among history’s most brutal. Given both sides’ commitment to zero-sum, totalizing visions of warfare, the campaign systematically repudiated the very idea of “noncombatant.” 

Revolutionary logic was a core component of Soviet practice as their armed forces advanced toward Berlin. Any Soviet soldiers refusing a suicidal attack or attempting a retreat, even for sound military reasons, were executed by special forces dedicated to that purpose. Soviet leaders did not acknowledge Soviet prisoners of war. Any soldier captured by the enemy must have been a counterrevolutionary, as evidenced by the fact that they still drew breath. There were no Soviet “civilians” in formerly-occupied territories either: any who were not active partisans were labeled “Nazi collaborators” and left to starve or die of exposure as Red Army advanced toward Germany. 

In practice, Soviet soldiers—particularly junior officers—often took pity on civilian survivors of Nazi occupation, even at the very real risk to their own lives. But upon reaching German territory, any pretense of the existence of “noncombatants” vanished. As historian Norman Naimark argues, while in a few formal documents the Red Army was ordered to respect noncombatant immunity, on the ground, Soviet armed forces understood they were in Germany to avenge the rapes, forced starvation, and murders their own citizens had suffered since the German invasion. Retreating German or German-allied soldiers understood that surrender was not an option. At best, a surrendering soldier could expect a stint of lethal hard labor in Siberia (of the 91,000 soldiers of the German Sixth Army taken into captivity by the Soviets at Stalingrad, only 5,000 would survive to return to Germany). And the most savage harm of all would fall on German women and girls: victorious Soviet soldiers raped girls as young as nine and women as old as seventy during their occupation of Berlin. According to one female contemporary of the Soviet occupation, rape was so universal that Berlin’s women lost even their shame at having been victims. 

Soviet to Russian Military Doctrine: Doctrinal Inertia 

It should now be much easier to understand the persistence of targeting noncombatants in Russian military culture. Indeed, the USSR’s last armed conflict—its ten-year effort to keep Afghanistan communist (1979–1989)—only further embedded this principle into Russian military thinking and doctrine. We could call this “doctrinal inertia.” 

Today, Russia’s military, in practice, ignores noncombatant immunity and systematically and deliberately targets medical facilities in areas of operations—a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions of 1948 and 1949, to which Russia remains a signatory. In international law, the Additional Protocols of 1977—which were intended to protect national liberation movements from brutality of the sort for which Russia is now famous—did nothing to protect Chechen nationalists when they sought the independence to which they were entitled by law after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. 

In Syria after 2015, Syrian and Russian armed forces made no distinction between civilians and insurgents in areas of operations (sadly, this is hardly unique to Syria or the Russian Federation). But what is perhaps unique, again, is the deliberate targeting of medical personnel and facilities, the persistent use of starvation as a weapon, and systematic and intentional attacks on civilian infrastructure during combat operations. 

All of this matters as much for Russia’s security as it does for the world because Russia’s barbarism remains profoundly counterproductive. Fans of “taking the gloves off” in combat often forget that winning and losing are not just objective outcomes but are, to some extent, determined via social construction by audiences. So, in a boxing match where one fighter overcomes an adversary with an illegal move, a “win” could only happen if the cheating contender killed the entire audience. Since no one in history has managed that—not the Nazis, not Milosevic’s Serbs, not Rwanda’s Interahamwe—survivors will carry the grudges that, like the dragon’s teeth in Greek mythology, sooner or later sprout into visceral counter-violence. 

An Inconvenient Truth: It’s Not Just Russia 

We are likely to see more, rather than less, military barbarism in the future—not only from Russia, North Korea, Iran, and the PRC but also from the United States and its democratic allies. This is for two reasons. 

First, the world is becoming more urban, and urban environments complicate infantry tactics. Rather than ask soldiers to risk their lives breaching a building, scanning for and potentially engaging hostile troops, commanders yield to the temptation to back away and call in artillery or air support, then sort through the rubble later. Given the traditional proximity of “hostiles” to “civilians” in urban settings, this necessarily means more “collateral damage,” which then evolves into the systematic injury of civilians. 

Second, in the global north, our increasing interactions in cyberspace—including social media algorithms that trade rage for profit—have accelerated a trend toward political polarization—not just in the United States but everywhere. Democracy is, as the British might say, “on the back foot.” That means we’re likely to see more, not fewer, authoritarian states in the near future. To gain and maintain power, authoritarian leaders both require and remain gifted at “othering,” identifying a category of human beings—foreigners, counterrevolutionaries, enemies of the people, LGBTQ+, immigrants, religious minorities, artists, intellectuals, people of color, even women—as subhumans who become the targets of deliberate harm ending in what is known as “cleansing.” 

It’s clear that all militaries—especially in the prolonged conflicts that have become the norm—suffer from the dilemmas of conducting combat operations without harming noncombatants. But for the Russian Federation, whether in Syria or Ukraine (or in cyberspace), respect for noncombatant immunity in war or military occupation isn’t a dilemma; it died in the October Revolution of 1917. 

Ivan Arreguin-Toft, PhD (@imarreguintoft) is the author of How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict. He is a founding member of the Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre at Oxford University’s Martin School, where he served as Associate Director of Dimension 1 (cybersecurity policy and strategy) from 2012 to 2015. He is currently a Visiting Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. 

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With the prisoner swap carried out last week between the United States and Iran after the transfer of $6 billion in Iranian oil revenues, critics of the administration are again voicing their opposition to making deals with Iran’s current government. Alongside the acknowledged terms of the agreement for the prisoner swap and transfer of funds, it also has become clear in recent months that there is a broader effort to incentivize Iran to slow the pace of its uranium enrichment program and reduce tensions in the Middle East. This has aimed to build informal “understandings” with Iran through a combination of communicating U.S. “red lines” and the apparent relaxation of sanctions targeting Iran’s oil exports rather than negotiating a formal agreement, which would be subject to Congressional review under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA). This approach will have little overt support among the Washington political class of either party. However, in the absence of better alternatives, it presents an opportunity for the Biden administration to both prevent an escalating crisis with Iran and offset Saudi moves to raise oil prices, either of which could undermine Biden’s bid for reelection in 2024. 

The results of this effort on Iran’s nuclear trajectory thus far are modest but positive. The latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), circulated in early September in advance of its Board of Governors meeting, showed that they had slowed down their production of 60 percent highly enriched uranium (HEU), just short of weapons-grade, and diluted some of that material to reduce their inventory accumulation. They also have slowed down what had previously been a breakneck pace of installing additional advanced enrichment centrifuges. These actions do not lengthen Iran’s “breakout time” if they choose to enrich weapons-grade uranium, but this pause is a de-escalatory step that, if continued, should prevent an acute crisis. 

Iran also has apparently instructed its proxies in Iraq and Syria to cease attacks on U.S. military personnel deployed there, which had been frequent until last year. There have been no such incidents in Syria in over four months and none in Iraq in over a year. While Iran still opposes the U.S. presence in those countries and could decide to reverse this move, it removes for now another source of friction that could escalate into a crisis. 

On the oil front, it has become increasingly apparent over the summer that the United States has shifted even further toward lax enforcement of the sanctions aimed at Iran’s oil exports, allowing volumes to rise as the broader market has tightened. TankerTrackers.com reported that export loadings of crude and condensate in August averaged 1.9 million barrels per day (BPD), up from 1.5 million BPD in May and a full-year average below 1 million BPD in 2022. While the State Department has officially denied that a policy shift has occurred, U.S. officials have acknowledged on background that they have pursued sanctions enforcement with a “lighter touch.” Critics of the Biden administration’s dealings with Iran have certainly noticed. 

This comes as Saudi Arabia announced in June a 1 million BPD unilateral production cut beginning in July, in addition to the production curtailment as part of the OPEC+ framework, now extended at least through the end of the year. The move was a surprise, showing a very aggressive push to tighten the market and support prices. Crude is up more than 25 percent since the Saudi announcement, with Brent above ninety-four dollars, and OPEC’s own forecast shows a large supply deficit of 3.3 million BPD for 2023’s fourth quarter. While the Biden administration is pursuing a multifaceted deal to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which could improve U.S.-Saudi ties, there is no indication whatsoever that Saudi oil production policy is part of the current U.S.-Saudi discussions. With Wall Street commodities analysts again talking about the potential for $100/barrel oil and a U.S. presidential election approaching next year, it would be difficult for the Biden administration to take a harder enforcement line against Iran, to say the least. 

Thus far, The Biden administration has kept mum on its indirect discussions with Iran and has not acknowledged any deal connecting the apparent Iranian forbearance on enrichment and proxy attacks with the evident U.S. forbearance on sanctions enforcement. This is probably intentional, as a formal agreement would trigger an INARA review by Congress, which would be highly contentious and inevitably partisan in an election year. It also reflects that what seems to have been agreed upon is very narrow compared to any plausible formal follow-up to the JCPOA. 

Efforts by mediators, including Qatar and Oman, to build on this effort continue. Still, it is not likely that we will see any formal agreement before the November 2024 U.S. elections. Rumored efforts to engineer at least an indirect exchange between the United States and Iran during the UN General Assembly meetings in New York last week were apparently unsuccessful. Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian recently mentioned the possibility of taking up European-mediated talks with the United States again, picking up where they left off in September 2022, but this seems unlikely. The United States has clarified that the window for a return to the JCPOA has closed, and Iran’s demands for U.S. “guarantees” at the time seem even more far-fetched as President Joe Biden’s first term approaches its end. At present, trying to avoid disaster in the near term is the best available option. It is unsatisfying, but given the constraints under which they are operating, including the loss of U.S. credibility as a result of President Trump abandoning the JCPOA while Iran complied with it, the Biden administration deserves credit if they have indeed steered Iran away from a nuclear path which would have led quickly to crisis. 

If President Biden wins re-election, there may be room for renewed discussion of a more permanent accommodation. A second-term Biden would arguably reduce Tehran’s concerns about Washington again abrogating an agreement. Still, it is unlikely that the Biden administration can induce Iran to roll back its nuclear program to anywhere near the constrained levels imposed by the JCPOA, let alone the extension of some of those provisions that the United States had hoped for—a “longer and stronger” deal. Unfortunately, Iran is now a threshold nuclear state, a status that cannot be reversed permanently, even in the event of military conflict. A reasonable agenda for a follow-up agreement in a second Biden term would center on restoring transparency and lengthening Iran’s breakout time to allow the world more certainty that Iran remains a threshold state and does not become a nuclear power. 

Greg Priddy is a Senior Fellow for the Middle East at the Center for the National Interest.

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The rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its growing influence on the global stage has become a central theme in contemporary international relations, challenging the longstanding dominance of the United States and the Western world. This global rivalry spans multiple dimensions and is characterized by a complex interplay of economic, technological, geopolitical, and ideological factors. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is an exciting development in this context. It represents an alternative economic integration and connectivity vision that could counterbalance China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The corridor could offer countries an alternative path to economic integration and development by connecting regions across Asia and Europe. However, it remains to be seen whether it can effectively challenge the scale and scope of China’s BRI.

The IMEC vision’s potential as a counterbalance to the BRI framework is rooted in its strategic positioning and objectives. The IMEC carries significant global geopolitical significance, reflecting Washington’s ambition to be more prominent in shaping connectivity, trade, and economic integration worldwide in the twenty-first century. By aligning the United States with the interests of India, Gulf states, and European nations, this initiative creates a global strategic partnership that has the potential to challenge the PRC’s dominance in the Eurasian landmass. Moreover, Eurasian countries concerned about over-reliance on China’s BRI can view the IMEC as an attractive connectivity, trade, and economic integration net alternative. Thus, the IMEC could emerge as a formidable initiative with the potential to alter the global economic and geopolitical landscape significantly. Nevertheless, IMEC’s potential as a game changer and counterbalance to the BRI remains contingent on Washington’s ability to manage and implement this ambitious project effectively. 

The BRI and IMEC: Comparative Analysis

On the sidelines of the G20 Summit in New Delhi 2023, the United States, India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy, and the European Union signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). IMEC aims to bolster economic development by fostering connectivity and economic integration between Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. It consists of two separate corridors: the east corridor connecting India to the Gulf region and the northern corridor connecting the Gulf region to Europe. This project aims to establish commercial hubs, expand access to clean energy, enhance telecommunication lines, and ensure secure and stable internet connections.

The IMEC, if executed, will have significant implications for Asia, the Middle East, and Europe’s political, economic, and energy dynamics. Economically, the corridor has the potential to transform the nature of international trade and transportation, ushering in a new era of inter-regional cooperation. The project will boost economic growth by strengthening regional connectivity, commerce, investment, innovation, logistics, and competitiveness, ultimately leading to sustained prosperity throughout the corridor. It could create new opportunities for economic growth, development, and stability in the participating states and regions outside of them (job creation, increased investment, financial improvement, and enhanced access to markets). According to estimates, the IMEC has the potential to make India-Europe cargo flows significantly faster (will reduce the transit time from eighteen to ten days) by a 40 percent reduction in travel time and a 30 percent reduction in transportation costs for goods. 

Energy, the corridor is set to play a vital role in facilitating the trade of renewable energy sources, including hydrogen, through its networks of pipelines. The IMEC aims to link the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel by railway and connect them to India by port, cutting shipping times and costs and reducing fuel usage. IMEC’s focus on sustainability and clean energy is consistent with the worldwide trend to develop environmentally friendly and sustainable infrastructure that addresses environmental issues.

Political, the IMEC can change and forge new alliances to transform world power relations amid a rising regional and global rivalry for economic integration and transportation corridors. The corridor allows member countries to diversify their economic partnerships and lessen reliance on powerful international entities. This change in power relations may impact traditional alliances and alignments, leading to a rebalancing of influence. Further, it holds significant potential to create complex interdependence among rival states (e.g., connecting Haifa port in Israel with the rail line passing through Saudi Arabia), which would be mutually beneficial and strengthen ties. More importantly, the corridor directly challenges China’s BRI by providing BRI member countries with an alternative for infrastructure development and economic cooperation. The planned transport corridor will shorten the supply chain and reduce the dependence of developing countries on China.

The PRC launched the BRI, a massive infrastructure project, in 2013 and has signed BRI-MoUs with nearly 150 countries (75 percent of the world’s population.) and over thirty international organizations, mobilizing almost $1 trillion and creating over 3,000 projects (financed and built roads, power plants, ports, railways, and digital infrastructure). However, there are signs that China is slowing down on BRI because of its flagging economy and the global economic slowdown, which coincides with rising interest rates and inflation. Recent reports indicate that China plans to introduce BRI 2.0, a revised version that aims to exercise greater control over project expenditures and implement stricter scrutiny when announcing new projects. Thus, the question inevitably arises as to whether the IMEC would complement or compete with China’s BRI.

While the IMEC and the BRI share similarities (they feature some of the same keywords such as “connectivity,” “integration,” and “development”) in promoting connectivity, trade, and economic integration, there are significant differences in terms of scale, funding, transparency, and objectives. First, The BRI is much more prominent in scale, the world’s largest global infrastructure undertaking, with nearly 150 member countries, thirty international organizations, and thousands of projects. At the same time, the IMEC includes several dozen countries (mainly from the Middle East and Europe) but does not include African, Central Asian, Southeast Asian, or other South Asian countries besides India. Second, the BRI has been operational since 2013, giving it a decade-long head start over IMEC. 

Third, China has funneled $1 trillion to BRI, and this number may grow to $8 trillion, dwarfing IMEC’s estimated cost of $20 billion. This IMEC is part of the Build Back Better World (B3W), now rebranded as the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment (PGII), including the G7 nations. PGII aims to channel private capital to invest in four areas: climate and energy, ICT, gender equity, and health. Hence, the BRI is centrally designed and opaque, with its funding coming from just China. The IMEC corridor is based on consultations with all concerned for a while, and its focus is on viability backed by funding from multiple sources, primarily through public-private partnerships.

Fourth, the BRI has since outgrown its original corridors, becoming global in scope, and has always kept its participants from any state or region. The IMEC, in contrast, is aimed at linking India, the Middle Eastern nations, and Europe. Several IMEC member countries, including Italy, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, are concurrently involved in the BRI. While still technically part of the BRI, Italy strongly desires to withdraw from the initiative. Finally, unlike the BRI, which aims at securing the PRC’s access to natural resources, the IMEC intends to serve the common benefit of all the participants while offering an alternative model of development based on shared values, transparency, sustainability, and respect for sovereignty.

Game-changer or Dud?

We can view the IMEC as Washington’s strategic response to Beijing’s growing influence across Eurasian through the BRI. By cultivating stronger bonds between these critical geopolitical zones, the corridor has the potential to offer an alternative pathway for states seeking to diversify their economic ties and reduce dependency on China. While complicated and multifaceted, the IMEC initiative has the potential to alter regional and global dynamics. The corridor is not only an economic project but also a political and strategic one that reflects the aspirations and values of its partners. Washington supports the IMEC to counter the PRC’s influence and challenge its BRI framework (as part of the PGII), threatening its interests and values. It also sees the corridor as a way to reshape global connectivity, enhance trade and investment opportunities, address common challenges such as climate change, terrorism, and pandemics, and strengthen its strategic partnerships with India, Europe, and the Middle Eastern countries.

Nevertheless, the future of the IMEC is uncertain, and it is premature to call this a severe counterweight to China’s BRI. The corridor is still in its early stages, and it is unclear how it will be implemented. The IMEC can be a major game-changer in global connectivity and economic integration by serving as an alternative option for states cautious about over-dependence on China. This would be contingent on IMEC’s ability to present a more sustainable and transparent model for infrastructure development, effectively addressing some of the criticisms directed at the BRI (debt concerns, lack of transparency, environmental issues, and geopolitical tensions).

The realization of IMEC (expected to take over a decade) hinges on many factors, including a significant Western commitment, navigating geopolitical tensions, addressing environmental concerns, ensuring security and stability along the corridor, regional cooperation, financial viability, and technological advancements. Therefore, while IMEC holds immense promise, its successful implementation necessitates meticulous planning, robust governance mechanisms, and unwavering commitment from all participating countries. Additionally, the corridor’s multimodal nature, spanning land and sea, will cost tens of billions of dollars and face substantial logistical challenges. The corridor’s potential as a game changer and counterbalance to the BRI remains contingent on the United States’ ability to manage and implement this ambitious project effectively. This endeavor holds far-reaching implications for the economic and geopolitical dynamics of the regions it encompasses.

In short, while the IMEC concept appears attractive as a vision or idea, much remains to be done to see it through to completion—a result that, with previous announcements concerning the B3W and the PGII schemes, leaves some skepticism as concerns the United States’ ability to make the corridor proposal a working reality.

Dr. Mordechai Chaziza is a senior lecturer at the Department of Politics and Governance and the Multidisciplinary Studies in Social Science division at Ashkelon Academic College (Israel) and a Research Fellow at the Asian Studies Department, University of Haifa, specializing in Chinese foreign and strategic relations.

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Russia is spent. Foreign investors and some of the country’s best minds have fled, the economy is hobbled by sanctions, and its military is bogged down in Ukraine, with many of its elite soldiers dead and best equipment destroyed. The revolt of Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group in June 2023 seemed a final humiliation, revealing a once-feared dictator reduced to bargaining with individual commanders. This weakness is real: if Russian president Vladimir Putin could turn back the clock, it is hard to imagine he would again choose to invade Ukraine. 

Russia’s massive losses will probably make Putin cautious about conventional military operations in the foreseeable future. Even if Putin were tempted, the United States has increased the number of its ground forces in Europe to their highest level in nearly two decades, and NATO’s conventional and nuclear deterrence is robust. Nor would the Russian people and elite be eager to support an invasion of a NATO country and risk escalation to nuclear war.

Yet Putin shows no sign of leaving power. He continues to harbor revisionist aims and expresses admiration for Russian conquerors like Peter the Great. Russia still seeks influence in Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. As long as Putin is in power, he will undermine any future Ukrainian government and attempt to deter and punish Western countries that support Kyiv. The expansion of NATO to include Finland and eventually Sweden, the military build-up of NATO forces in Eastern Europe, and continuing military aid to Ukraine are particular affronts to Putin, even though they are justified as necessary responses to Russian aggression. Putin sees the United States, which he refers to as the “main enemy” (or glavny vrag), engaged in both hard and soft power actions to encircle and overthrow his regime.

There is a way for Russia to square this circle of maximal ambitions and weak conventional capabilities: gray zone warfare, which we define as covert operations, disinformation, subversion, sabotage, cyber-attacks, and other methods that advance a state’s security objectives but fall short of conventional warfare. Russia has numerous skilled intelligence officers, paramilitary forces, elite hackers, and other personnel who enable it to excel in this arena. Moreover, Russia’s track record in gray zone warfare is impressive, in contrast to its poor performance on the battlefield.

Russia’s future gray zone warfare will likely take many forms. European countries could suffer clandestine attacks against oil and gas pipelines and underwater fiber-optic cables. Border states like Poland, Finland, and Estonia could face a flood of illegal immigrants massing on their borders. Central Asian and African leaders who stand up to Moscow might find local insurgents awash in Russian weapons and trained by Russian special operations forces. Local critics of Moscow might suddenly suffer a series of suspicious accidents, including poisonings. Cyber attacks might take down financial systems and other critical infrastructure. Disinformation on social media platforms might be used to divide the West, while propaganda explains away Russian misdeeds, with artificial intelligence (AI) being used for even more creative mischief.

Despite Russia’s impressive gray zone capabilities, however, it has significant weaknesses. Moscow’s gray zone efforts are often uncoordinated, and the country’s technical talent is limited compared with that of the United States and Europe. Its private military companies, like Wagner, may face many additional restrictions as Putin questions their loyalty.

Bolstering U.S. and allied cyber and border defenses, sharing intelligence, and providing training and advice to local militaries can reduce the danger of gray zone warfare. But the West does not only have to play defense. Russia is also vulnerable to gray zone tactics by the United States and its European allies in Belarus, the Middle East, Africa, and even Russia itself.

Russia’s Gray Zone Toolbox 

Russia’s gray zone warfare draws on a long and robust history. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union excelled at conducting covert intelligence operations and subverting its enemies, tarnishing global views of the United States and at times creating opportunities for near-bloodless communist takeovers of governments. KGB active measures included creating front organizations, backing friendly political movements, covertly funding political parties, provoking domestic unrest, and churning out forgeries and other types of disinformation.

These operations continued after the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia’s support for separatists in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria; assassinations of dissidents; cyber and information campaigns in the Baltic states; and use of private military companies in Africa and the Middle East to project its influence all are experiences on which Russia will build as it pursues an aggressive foreign policy while seeking to avoid all-out war. Such organizations as the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Foreign Security Service (FSB), and Spetsnaz have a robust history of gray zone warfare.

Gray zone warfare also fits Moscow’s worldview. Russian security elites, not just Putin, see the world as full of secret threats and have an operational culture that considers the best defense as a good offense. As former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper contends, Russians “are almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever.”

Consequently, Russia poses a multifaceted threat through its use of covert action, cyber operations, disinformation, and political subversion. These components of gray zone warfare are not mutually exclusive. Moscow frequently uses a combination of them to weaken its adversaries and expand its influence.

Covert Action

Moscow has long conducted covert action to deter or punish defectors and opposition leaders, subvert U.S. and NATO policies, and expand Russian influence. During the Cold War, the KGB assassinated several foreign leaders, such as Afghan president Hafizullah Amin, in pursuit of Russian foreign policy interests. The KGB’s 13th Department was particularly notorious for targeted assassinations abroad, including the killing of Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940.

Moscow targets political opponents abroad for two major reasons. The first is to exact revenge on Russian spies, diplomats, soldiers, and even journalists and academics who flee the country, criticize the Kremlin, and aid Moscow’s enemies. A second goal is to deter future betrayals and send an unambiguous message that defectors will be hunted down. In March 2006, Russian agents poisoned Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer who defected to the United Kingdom, at a London hotel. In March 2018, Russian agents poisoned Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer that defected to the UK, who Putin called a “scumbag” and a “traitor to the motherland.”

Russia’s war in Ukraine triggered an exodus of technocrats, soldiers, spies, oligarchs, and journalists who fled to the West, disenchanted with Putin’s authoritarianism and strategic blunders. Those who cooperate with Western governments or publicly speak out against the Kremlin could become targets of Russian intimidation and even assassination.

Russian security agencies have also conducted paramilitary activity abroad to further Russian foreign policy interests and undermine its adversaries, including the United States. Perhaps the quintessential example was in Crimea in 2014. The Kremlin effectively used masked special operations forces, or “little green men,” to seize Crimea from Ukraine without firing a shot. Russia also conducted sabotage operations in Europe, including planting bombs at two weapons depots in 2014 in the Czech Republic that were allegedly storing arms headed to the Syrian opposition, which Moscow opposed. In March 2023, Polish authorities uncovered a GRU operation to bomb rail lines that transported weapons and other aid to Ukraine. Russian actors with ties to Russian intelligence also plotted to organize protests in Moldova in 2023 as a pretext for mounting an insurrection against the Moldovan government, which Moscow viewed as too pro-Western.

U.S. and European critical infrastructure are potential targets of paramilitary activity. One example is the underwater fiber-optic cables that connect Europe with North America and link European countries with each other. There are currently sixteen cables running under the Atlantic that link the United States with mainland Europe, which are critical for global communication and account for roughly 95 percent of all transatlantic data traffic. Russia has already signaled that it could target these cables with special operations forces, intelligence units, and submarines. In January 2022, the Russian Navy allegedly mapped out the undersea cables off the coast of Ireland and carried out maneuvers, raising serious concerns in Europe and the United States about Russian sabotage.

Other potential Russian gray zone activities include weaponizing immigrants and targeting Europe’s intricate network of gas and oil pipelines, which serve as the lifeblood of European energy. Migration, especially from Africa and Muslim countries, is an emotional issue in Europe. In 2021, Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko threatened to “flood” the European Union with “drugs and migrants.” His government then sent thousands of migrants from Iraq, Syria, Myanmar, and Afghanistan to the borders of Latvia, Lithuania, and especially Poland. In August 2023, leaders from Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia warned that they were seeing growing tensions on their borders with Belarus and threatened to seal their borders if Lukashenko weaponized immigration. The Italian government claimed in 2023 that the Wagner Group was behind a surge in migrants from Libya, where Wagner is active.

Despite Prigozhin’s death, the Kremlin could also use private military companies in the Middle East, Africa, and other regions to increase Russian influence, undercut U.S. leadership, present itself as a security partner, and gain military access and economic opportunities. Russia could also work with partners like Iran to covertly target U.S. or other NATO forces overseas. During the war in Syria, Russia and Iran worked closely with Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi militias to retake territory for the Bashar al-Assad government. These covert tools give Moscow numerous options to hit back at the West.

Cyber Operations

Russian security agencies, such as the GRU, SVR, and FSB, have increasingly conducted cyber attacks to target critical infrastructure, undermine democratic institutions, steal government and corporate secrets, and sow disorder within or between Western allies. In some cases, Russia has conducted cyber attacks in tandem with military or paramilitary operations.

One frequent tactic is to sabotage adversaries’ critical infrastructure or to plant malware in critical infrastructure for use in a future war. Russian malware is designed to do a range of malicious activities, such as overwriting data and rendering machines unbootable, deleting data, and destroying critical infrastructure, such as industrial production and processes. Russia and Russian-linked hackers use a range of common intrusion techniques, such as exploiting public-facing web-based applications, sending spear-phishing e-mails with attachments or links, and stealing credentials and using valid e-mail accounts.

In 2017, for example, the GRU deployed NotPetya, a data-destroying malware that proliferated across multiple networks before executing a disk encryption program, which destroyed all data on targeted computers. NotPetya’s global impact was massive, disabling an estimated 500,000 computers in Ukraine, decreasing Ukraine’s GDP by 0.5 percent in 2017, and affecting organizations across sixty-five countries. Global victims included U.S. multinational companies FedEx and Merck, which lost millions of dollars because of technology cleanup and disrupted business.

In 2022, Russia conducted multiple cyber operations against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. A day before the invasion, Russian attackers launched destructive wiper attacks on hundreds of systems in Ukraine’s energy, information technology, media, and financial sectors. Russia’s goal was likely to undermine Ukraine’s political will, weaken Ukraine’s ability to fight, and collect intelligence that Russia could use to gain tactical, operational, and strategic advantages. Over the next several weeks, Russian actors linked to the GRU, FSB, and SVR conducted numerous cyber attacks utilizing such malware families as WhisperGate and FoxBlade.

The West is also a target. In 2020, the SVR orchestrated a brazen attack against dozens of U.S. companies and government agencies by attaching malware to a software update from SolarWinds, a company based in Austin, Texas, that makes network monitoring software. The DarkSide, a hacking group operating in part from Russian soil, conducted a ransomware attack against the U.S. company Colonial Pipeline, which led executives to shut down a major pipeline for several days and created fuel shortages across the southeastern United States.

In 2023, Polish intelligence services claimed that Russia hacked the country’s railways in an attempt to disrupt rail traffic in the country, some of which are used to transport weapons to Ukraine. According to U.S. government assessments, Russia has targeted the computer systems of underwater cables and industrial control systems in the United States and allied countries. Compromising such infrastructure facilitates and demonstrates Russia’s ability to damage infrastructure during a crisis.

Russian agencies also use cyber attacks during elections to undermine faith in democracy by influencing public sentiment during an election campaign and raising questions about the democratic process. Moscow has targeted specific candidates by stealing or forging documents and then leaking them on public websites or social media platforms. Often referred to as “hack-and-leak operations,” the objective is to undermine faith in political candidates. Another tactic is to disrupt the voting or counting process by targeting computer systems. In addition, Russia has conducted cyber attacks during elections in an attempt to influence issues of importance to Moscow. For example, Russian security agencies have conducted cyber attacks during multiple European elections to weaken support for the European Union, NATO, and the United States.

The breadth of Russian activity is impressive. Russian cyber campaigns have attempted to disrupt elections in the United States, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Austria, and dozens of other countries, according to the Dyadic Cyber Incident Database compiled by U.S. academics. These attacks are likely to continue, including during the 2024 U.S. presidential election campaign.

Disinformation

Russia has long used disinformation, often more effectively than its rivals, to supplement other tools and as a weapon by itself. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union successfully promoted the falsehood that the CIA was linked to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and that U.S. scientists invented the AIDS virus, a campaign referred to as Operation Denver.

Russia uses information campaigns abroad to make the Putin regime look good at home. By highlighting pro-Russian sentiment in Europe, the corruption of Russia’s enemies, and unpopular European policies on immigration, Moscow tries to make its own regime more popular as well as discredit its enemies. Similarly, Russia has tried to create an image of itself as a muscular Christian nation, contrasting its policies with LGBTQ+ and immigrant-friendly Europe and the United States.

Beyond bolstering Putin, disinformation is a way to weaken and divide Russia’s enemies. Famously, the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm, used disinformation in an attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. election, seeking to discredit Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and promote Donald Trump. On YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms, trolls pushed propaganda on immigration, race, and gun rights to conservative accounts while other parts of the Russian effort encouraged Black Americans to protest, inflaming tension among Americans.

In subsequent years, Russia has spread disinformation related to COVID-19 and other conspiracies, used a false news site in 2020 to get legitimate U.S. journalists to write stories on social disruption in the United States, and magnified the potential side effects of COVID-19 vaccines to decrease support for the Biden administration.

Ukraine is both a subject and a target of disinformation. In the years between Russia’s 2014 proxy war and 2022 invasion, Russian propaganda stressed that Ukraine was a failed, Nazi-led state, whose army was brutal to the local population. After Russia invaded Ukraine, the disinformation machine kicked into overdrive, both to justify the invasion at home and to undermine support for helping Ukraine abroad. To European audiences hosting large numbers of refugees like Poland, Russian propaganda claimed that the government was helping refugees over their own citizens. In Africa and other parts of the developing world, Moscow pushed the idea that the EU had banned Russian agricultural products while keeping Ukraine’s grain, causing a global food crisis.

Russia exploits overt and covert information sources, ranging from official government media to disinformation via government agencies, often in combination. Russia’s Foreign Ministry, for example, has played up false reports from Russian media of immigrants raping a thirteen-year-old Russian-German girl to stir up divisions in Germany and accusing the German government of not doing enough to protect its people, a sentiment that undermined German confidence in government and bolstered Russia’s image as tough on criminal immigrants. Even the Russian Orthodox Church, whose patriarch is staunchly pro-Putin, is involved. The church spreads propaganda while allowing its facilities to be used as safe houses for Russian priests to work with Russian intelligence agents.

Social media offers numerous, and cheap, additional ways to spread disinformation. Moscow uses fake accounts, anonymous websites, bots, and other means to spread its message, often using these sources to spread RT and Sputnik propaganda and to provide “evidence” for further lies from official media. Some of this involves troll accounts monitored by humans. Moscow also uses bots to try to amplify content and tries to exploit social media company algorithms to target particular audiences. At times, Russia will create innocuous accounts focused on health, fitness, or sports and then later, when they have a substantial following, begin to introduce political messages.

The wide array of actors each has its own audience. In addition, they amplify each other, with state voices and seemingly independent ones validating each other. Halting some are more difficult than others: it is one thing to block Russian state television or take down fake accounts, but it is another to block the Orthodox Church with millions of adherents outside Russia.

Generative AI offers a new means of disinformation. At the outset of the Ukraine war, Russia attempted to use a deepfake of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that led it to appear that he had fled the country and was urging troops to lay down their arms. Less dramatically, Russia spread deepfakes on Facebook and Reddit that showed Ukrainian teachers praising Putin. The technology has improved by leaps and bounds since then. Deepfakes will be increasingly cheap and easy to produce, and this can be done at scale, allowing Russia to flood the zone with convincing falsehoods.

There are myriad potential uses of deepfakes. Russia’s attempt to blame Ukraine for instigating the 2022 invasion could be more convincing in the future by “leaking” deepfakes of Ukrainian generals planning an attack on Russian territory. Moscow can spread scurrilous rumors about anti-Russian leaders and undermine their political support by releasing fake videos of them in compromising situations or saying offensive remarks. Moscow could try to further polarize the United States or other countries, worsening existing racial tension by releasing videos of supposedly violent Black Lives Matter rallies or of police abuses of members of minority communities. In Europe, variations of this might play out with anti-migrant videos showing migrants committing rape and murder, often mixing genuine crimes and violence with false information.

Such efforts might not sway people to Russia’s position. However, they are likely to sow discord and decrease confidence in government in general. All information, even the truth, would be suspect.

Political Subversion

In the Soviet days, Moscow aggressively subverted unfriendly governments, and these efforts helped it install Communist regimes in several Eastern European states at the end of World War II. In the 1950s, the Soviet Union infiltrated trade union movements in Africa, encouraged radical nationalist parties, and otherwise tried to shape the politics of countries it sought to influence.

Although Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and disinformation related to the Brexit vote that year correctly gathered considerable attention, Russia has also subsequently interfered in elections throughout Europe. In 2017, Russia pushed conspiracy theories and other radical ideas into the Czech Republic, played up migrant crime in the March 2018 Italian election, and used fake news, social media trolls, and other means to target Emmanuel Macron’s campaign in France. In Sweden, Russia spread disinformation about a joint military exercise with NATO. Russian disinformation also heated up during large-scale protests, such as pro-independence ones in Catalonia in 2017 and “yellow vest” demonstrations in France in 2018-2019. Russian propaganda regularly questioned the legitimacy of the European Union, blaming it for problems with migrants, and used disinformation to try to depress turnout in the May 2019 EU elections. Indeed, data from the University of Toronto suggests that almost every European country was targeted in one way or another. 

At times, Russia supports political parties that share its interests. Some of these are anti-establishment parties, like the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany or Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, the latter of which also received a loan from a Russian bank. In Greece, Russia backed both far-left and far-right parties, as both were Euro-skeptical. A 2020 study by the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy found at least sixty cases of Moscow supporting political campaigns outside Russia, although the evidence on some cases is weaker than others. As of August 24, 2023, the figure was 199 cases of interference overall, with techniques including “malign finance,” information operations, and civil society disruption.

Russia also seeks to create, and then exploit, economic dependencies. Russia uses its extensive energy sector to create links to its oil and natural sectors with leaders in other countries, giving them a personal and financial interest in having a country with a strong relationship with Russia. Moscow also has developed close relationships with smuggler networks in neighboring states.

Instigating protests is another way of shaping perceptions and increasing support for Russia in preparation for more aggressive measures. In Ukraine, Russia originally sought to use its agitators to create extreme right-wing anti-Russian protests, infiltrating them with paid criminals and agent provocateurs who would then attack the police. Russia would then use these protests as proof of a “far-right coup” to justify its invasion. Indeed, Russia intended to defeat Ukraine quickly in 2022 in part by fomenting instability and chaos in Ukraine itself and, in so doing, undermining trust in government, tarnishing Ukraine as an ally for potential partners, and promoting pro-Russian voices in the country.

Russia sees such subversive operations in part as a tit-for-tat response to Western pressure. Moscow viewed the various color revolutions in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine as fomented by the West, and it also blames the United States and the West for anti-government street protests in Moscow, such as those that occurred in 2011 and 2012. U.S. efforts to promote democracy and build the rule of law are viewed as transparent attempts to undermine Moscow and its allies.

Russian Weaknesses

Gray zone warfare is a necessity for Russia in part due to its weaknesses. Russia’s military is a shell of the Red Army that posed a serious threat to Western Europe during the Cold War. Its economy is stagnant, even without the impact of Western sanctions, and is roughly the size of Canada. The threat from Russia is not a return to the Cold War when two superpowers wrestled over control of the world. Instead, Russia is a weak challenger trying to play a bad hand to its advantage.

Although numerous Russian actors are involved in gray zone activities, they are generally uncoordinated. These actors include military intelligence, domestic and foreign intelligence services, state-owned enterprises, official media, private military companies, self-proclaimed patriotic groups in Russia including biker gangs, various oligarchs, co-opted hackers, the Russian Orthodox Church, and many others. This broad set of actors allows more opportunism and creativity, but it makes unity of effort harder. Many of Russia’s front groups and local allies are also of limited loyalty, especially in a crisis. In Ukraine, Wagner Group contractors and the Russian military clashed over high casualty rates and a shortage of ammunition. Even some structures created by Russian intelligence in Ukraine, such as organizations composed of retired KGB special forces, stayed loyal to Ukraine when the invasion occurred.

Although Russian cyber attacks can be disruptive, Moscow’s capabilities are limited if countries can build a strong defense. Ukraine successfully blunted Russia’s cyber attacks during its 2022 invasion, thanks to help from the United States, the United Kingdom, and private companies such as Microsoft. Russia is at best middling in its AI capabilities and comparable to Canada, rather than to the United States or China. The exodus of much of Russia’s tech talent following the 2022 invasion and subsequent conscription only worsens Moscow’s problems.

Russia itself is also vulnerable to gray zone activity. Views of Russia across the globe are highly negative, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center poll that covered twenty-four countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. A median of 82 percent of respondents had an unfavorable view of Russia, and 87 percent had little or no confidence in Vladimir Putin. These sentiments create opportunities for subverting Russian diplomatic, military, and other actions.

The same is true of Russian private military companies, which are active in Africa, the Middle East, and even Latin America. Prigozhin was instrumental in expanding Russia’s influence by using his Wagner Group to train foreign forces, conduct military operations, extract resources, and help coup-proof local regimes. But Prigozhin’s death in August 2023, almost certainly at Putin’s instruction, is likely to undermine the morale, leadership, and effectiveness of some Russian private military companies. Social media channels linked to Wagner blamed Putin and other Russian officials for orchestrating Prigozhin’s death and threatened retaliatory action against Moscow. Leaders in the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, Sudan, and other countries may opt to break ties with Wagner and consider alternatives to improve security.

Recommendations

Training and aid packages must focus not only on stopping Russian conventional aggression but also on fighting gray zone warfare. Russia’s efforts are most successful when a country has weak border controls, poor counterintelligence, internal divisions, is awash in firearms, and is unprepared for Russian machinations, according to a RAND study. All these conditions can be countered or at least reduced.

The specifics will vary by country and area. Efforts to combat corruption, improve border security, fight low-level insurgencies, and encourage political reform are vital for reducing Moscow’s influence in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. In Europe, assistance should focus on intelligence coordination, cyber defense, and border control measures. Europe must prepare for a surge of migrants facilitated by Russia, especially in such frontline states as Finland, Poland, the Baltics, and Romania. Finland is building a three-meter-high fence made of steel mesh and barbed wire in case Russia attempts to flood its 1,343-kilometer border with illegal immigrants. But it could use additional assistance in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance collection from drones and other systems. The Baltic states’ military leaders warned that they would shoot any “little green men” and otherwise quickly respond to covert Russian military attacks.

Moscow’s cyber and AI skills, while impressive, are far less than those of the United States and its European allies, and bolstering cyber defenses will reduce some dangers. Intelligence sharing and training of allied militaries can diminish the impact of Russian support for insurgency and terrorism. Public exposure of Russian election manipulation can, in some cases, reduce its impact, and U.S. influence operations may prove more effective given the shaken condition of the Russian regime today. Most of all, the United States and its allies should link sanctions relief and other current punishments to Moscow’s gray zone meddling as well as its invasion of Ukraine.

The United States and its allies should also prepare efforts to discredit Russian private military companies around the world and counter Russian propaganda that promotes Putin as a successful leader. This would involve highlighting increases in terrorism in areas where groups like Wagner are used in Africa, the corruption of Russian officials, and videos that highlight the challenges for ordinary Russians due to Putin’s rule. More specific information efforts may target Russian elites that help hold up the regime: this may decrease their support for Putin or at the very least increase mistrust within elite circles.

Allies need to stand firm against Russian gray zone warfare—and Washington must back them. Moscow may be economically weak, and its conventional military is a far cry from the feared Red Army of the Cold War. But Russia is not down and out. The most effective way to contain Putin is to limit his ability to operate in the gray zone.

Daniel Byman is a professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and a senior fellow with the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His latest book is Spreading Hate: The Global Rise of White Supremacist Terrorism.

Seth G. Jones is senior vice president, Harold Brown Chair, and director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He was a plans officer and adviser to the commanding general, U.S. Special Operations Forces, in Afghanistan, as well as the author of In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (W.W. Norton).

Image: Shutterstock.

In mid-September, Vietnam bypassed the intermediate strategic partnership tier and elevated the United States directly to a comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP). The unprecedented upgrade not only manifests a striking rise in trust between the two partners but also offers pivotal opportunities for the two to fortify their relations, one of which is new technology collaboration. Leaders on both sides have recently emphasized that the CSP centers on technology, innovation, and investment.

The United States is working to deepen ties with Vietnam because of its critical role within its strategic blueprint to safeguard the semiconductor supply chain from potential dangers posed by China’s dogged pursuit of technological dominance. During a July visit to Hanoi, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen underlined that “Vietnam has emerged as a critical node in the global semiconductor supply chain.” To fortify technology cooperation, the United States has pledged to help Vietnam develop its own semiconductor industry and provide training in semiconductor assembly, testing, and packaging (ATP). American companies such as Amkor, Onsemi, and Intel Corporation are also deepening their engagement in Vietnam, especially by expanding chip assembly and test manufacturing facilities. 

On the occasion of U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Hanoi, the United States lauded Vietnam for its potential “as a partner in ensuring the semiconductor supply chain is diverse and resilient.” The two countries highlighted the importance of discovering fresh avenues that could “attract industry investments and expand the technical workforces in both countries.” Biden also announced numerous business deals in semiconductor, aerospace, and infrastructure, heralding a “new stage” in the economic relationship between the United States and Vietnam. The Biden administration also pledged that Vietnamese technology companies would be listed on the U.S. stock market while picking “new semiconductor partnership” as the new pillar for collaboration in the first portion of the CSP’s statement. The two countries recently inked a Memorandum of Cooperation on Semiconductor Supply Chains, Workforce, and Ecosystem Development, which would help Vietnam utilize the American International Technology Security and Innovation (ITSI) Fund to develop workforce and infrastructure needs and expand its semiconductor capacity ecosystem, particularly in semiconductor design centers and training.

Vietnam, for its part, has sought to bolster its technological industry while entangling itself in Southeast Asia’s supply networks, particularly in electronics. The country has advanced digital transformation and invested heavily in its digital sector, with the dual goals of strengthening domestic technology capabilities and attracting foreign investment. The Vietnamese government also offers a preferential corporate income tax rate of 10 percent for fifteen years and 17 percent for ten years for large manufacturing ventures, especially those in the high-tech industry. Moreover, Vietnam is now home to Intel Technology Group’s largest chip assembly and testing plant and ranks third in chip sales to the U.S. market, behind Malaysia and Taiwan. A significant chunk (10 percent) of the United States’ entire chip import volume comes from Vietnam, making Hanoi a crucial partner in Washington’s “friend-shoring” policy for semiconductors. Moreover, through collaboration in the Developing Electronics & Leading Technology Advancement Partnerships (DELTA) Network, Vietnam is well-positioned to collaborate with the United States and like-minded regional partners to build a robust technology supply chain.

Vietnam would be sensible to join forces with the United States to benefit from the superpower’s technological edge and highly skilled professionals. The Southeast Asian country has been implementing a series of reform policies, commonly referred to as “renovation” or “Đổi mới” in Vietnamese, since 1986. The country’s economy has gradually restructured and transitioned from a centralized to a more open market system. Now more than ever, policies centered on technology and innovation are needed to revitalize Vietnam’s economic growth. Pham Minh Chinh, the Prime Minister of Vietnam, has recently underscored that bolstering supply chains and expanding semiconductor chip production are at the heart of the country’s economic development. As a result, Vietnam requires both state-of-the-art equipment and skilled workers to operate it.

While enhancing its ties with the United States in emerging technologies, Vietnam has also attempted to cut down on its technological dependency on China. In 2017, Vietnam offered an open welcome to Chinese corporations to participate in the country’s burgeoning high-technology industry. Nevertheless, after six years, this overture is conspicuously absent from economic deliberations between Hanoi and Beijing. Instead, Vietnam has made concern-driven attempts to attract high-quality American investments while proactively seeking engagement with Washington’s semiconductor ecosystem through high-tech collaborative frameworks outlined in the CSP’s agenda. For Vietnam, investment and technological support are essential to assisting the nation in escaping the foreseen middle-income trap.

This discernible shift indicates Vietnam’s growing preference for the United States over China as a destination for high-tech investment at a time when the technological chasm between Washington and Beijing on supply chains is widening. Given the current sanctions and constraints imposed by the United States and Western countries on China’s high-tech sector, Vietnam is in danger if it decides to engage closely with China. Not to mention maritime tensions between the two neighbors in the South China Sea, Vietnam is also cognizant of China’s sway over trade and technology. These concerns prompt Hanoi to decide who will be its crucial partner in promoting high-tech economic development.

However, due to Vietnam’s reliance on China for imported components, pundits hold a gloomy view of Hanoi’s ability to disengage from Beijing economically. However, by making this statement, the significance of Vietnam’s endeavors to enhance the synergy of its supply chain is undermined. Instead of conceptualizing Vietnam’s ongoing strategy as “decoupling” from China, it is more prudent to recognize that the country is actively pursuing a “de-risking” strategy. This strategy involves a discerning process of mitigating economic vulnerabilities stemming from excessive reliance on the Chinese market rather than giving Beijing a wide berth or turning inwards. This process also involves efforts to diversify Vietnam’s supply chain market while at the same time avoiding severing ties with the economic giant. Having the highest level of diplomatic relations with the world’s two largest economies, China (since 2008) and the United States (since 2023), is a nuanced indicator of Vietnam’s efforts to pursue a two-pronged strategy that is strengthening economic security and bolstering its regional stature.

Vietnam has risen to be Washington’s “friend-shoring base” and “key production site for semiconductors and other high-tech products.” Accordingly, the country stands to gain access to American cutting-edge technology and investment. Yet, Vietnam has grappled with a talent shortage and over-reliance on raw materials and components from Beijing. Nonetheless, the United States is not immune to these difficulties. There will be a shortfall of roughly 67,000 skilled workers in Washington’s semiconductor industry by 2030. In addition, one-third of essential components used in manufacturing American-made technological products come from China.

To address these challenges, the United States should support projects and initiatives that could help cultivate talent in Vietnam’s high-tech sectors through funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), universities, institutions, organizations, and foundations. Additionally, the Fulbright University Vietnam, sponsored by the United States and renowned for its science and engineering, economics, mathematics, and computing programs, should serve as the vanguard of Vietnam’s efforts to train a skilled workforce in this sector. To sum up, Washington’s promise to help Vietnam acquire technological capabilities and address the country’s lack of experienced technicians depends on the synergy of financial and human resources support.

De-risking supply chains is gaining ground as geopolitical clashes may entail far-reaching geoeconomic ramifications, and this is precisely what Washington and Hanoi are adopting to shield the high-tech supply chain from China’s rising power and influence. In an era of geopolitical uncertainty, friend-shoring with like-minded partners has become an indicator of economic friendship, and the United States and Vietnam are working together to develop technological ties that will help solidify the Indo-Pacific region’s supply chains. If the U.S.-Vietnam CSP is to reach its full potential, collaboration on new and cutting-edge technologies should become its cornerstone and perhaps even the “signature” of the U.S.-Vietnam alignment.

Huynh Tam Sang is a Lecturer at the Faculty of International Relations, Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, a Young Leaders Program member of the Pacific Forum, and a Research Fellow at the Taiwan NextGen Foundation. He tweets at @huynhtamsang2.

Vo Thi Thuy An is a Research Assistant at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities and a Research Associate at Social Life Research Institute.

Image: Shutterstock.

China’s Huawei, a technology giant that has been facing Western-led sanctions for years, has unveiled its Huawei Mate 60 Promade, a breakthrough development in the ongoing chip war between the United States and China, According to the analysis of TechInsights, the smartphone is powered with a 5G chip Kirin 9000S processor based on the 7nm (N+2) technology. The chip is designed by Huawei’s division HiSilicon and is developed with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation’s (SMIC) N+2 technology. 

Both Huawei and SMIC are Entity List companies. The U.S. Bureau of Industry Standards (BIS) in October 2022 updated the U.S. Entity list that names companies that are scrutinized. For American companies to do business with the listed companies requires a prior license by U.S. government authorities. Experts anticipated a sharp cut in the flow of technology and equipment from the United States to China that will effectively limit China’s growth in the chip industry and throw Chinese chip capability decades behind the United States’ advanced chip capabilities. However, Huawei’s resurgence with a 7nm chip capability raises doubts about the efficacy of Western sanctions among those who discounted China’s capability in microchip manufacturing and now wonder how China has been able to mass produce 7nm leading-edge semiconductor technology despite embargos.

The 2022 October regulations introduced by the BIS clearly stated that “No company should be assisting Chinese companies with below 14-nanometer using American technology.” Huawei’s resurgence with 7nm chip-making capability marks a failure of America’s entity list and licensing regime. One, the companies on the entity list are not the only companies that ensure the flow of equipment to China. Say, if ten companies are enlisted, ten new companies would emerge to ensure an unhindered flow of business with the American suppliers and vendors, which are also looking forward to running a profitable business with Chinese buyers. A host of shell companies have been set up in China to trade with American equipment makers to bypass the sanctions. Second, several companies dealing with American sellers are ultimately routed to SMIC, especially in the wake of October 2023 licensing requirements. In many cases, these companies will attain licenses just to ensure final shipping to SMIC. According to an industry expert, Dylan Patel, licenses are being handed out as candy, and the entity list is not really bulletproof. 

Another loophole lies in understanding the chip development capability within various thresholds on the nanometer scale. American shortsightedness lies in underestimating the capability of Chinese ways of acquiring high-tech with clandestine means. The ban on equipment sales used only for the production of high-end chips never banned the business in equipment and technology used in producing lower-end chips. The Chinese strategy lies in producing the leading-edge chips by repurposing the lagging-edge tools and equipment. For example, a metal disposition tool that is used for a 28 nm chip can also be used in a 10 nm chip.

Also, it is not possible for China today to make 7nm or 14nm chips without external support. Since China’s semiconductor industry is developed sporadically with no company providing end-to-end solutions to producing even lagging-end chips, it's impossible to build a 7nm capability without the support of Western tools, machinery, and software provided collectively by the global players in the value chain. TechInsights in their hardware analysis also revealed that SMIC has access to sophisticated EDA tools that they are not supposed to have. The anticipation that banning China’s access to Dutch ASML’s advanced lithography tools would render China with no facility to implant circuits on silicon wafers turned ineffective. The DUV tool 1980i was used by both TSMC and Intel in their production of 7nm chips. The same tool can be shipped to China which can be used by the Chinese manufacturers for 7nm or even 5nm chips. Equipment distribution companies like Applied Materials, Tokyo Electronics, Kokusai, Lam Research, ASM International, etc. have been selling equipment for 28nm chips to China, which can also be used for the production of 7nm chips.

Huawei’s Kirin 9000S processor is similar to Intel 10 which was renamed to Intel 7. According to American experts, the technological equipment that was used in the production of Intel 7 was not restricted from being shipped to China under the export control regime. Also, specific restrictions are built around equipment devices that lie under a particular threshold. For example, restrictions of EDA (a chip designing software) tools are imposed only for 3nm chips. That means specific equipment used for above 5nm chips can still be accessible to the Chinese, and especially to various Chinese shell companies that have proliferated to skirt sanctions. The Chinese have exploited the grey areas in the export control measures that hardly considered that the equipment being sold to the lagging-edge buyers can also be used by the leading-edge manufacturers. This policy loophole is very clear and having this ignored by regulators clearly reflects a lack of policy insight.

Also, there’s doubt about how deep political will is among allies like Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, and South Korea to restrict the flow of their instruments to China, which is one of their largest markets. If the Netherlands is selling spare machine parts to China, will they not retrograde an outdated tool with a better tool to bypass the rules and carry on their business with China? Thus, blind negligence to regulatory restrictions or the support provided by other countries has also contributed to China getting material supplies.

China’s successful launch of a 5G-powered device with 7nm technology reveals that Western regulators have failed to understand the intricacies of semiconductor manufacturing and simply anticipated a completely restricted flow of technology to China with a bunch of export control regulations. It was a strategic mistake of policymakers and pundits who underestimated China’s perseverance in pursuing trial-and-error methods and well-known competence of acquiring talent, technology, and tools through back channels. As the applied rules were practically irrelevant, Huawei’s 7nm capability is not even a breakthrough, rather it came as a surprise due to the repeated lack of determination by American policymakers to see it through. The stated loopholes in the regulations not only enabled the Chinese manufacturers to source exactly what America did not intend to but rather helped in spurring a wave of indigenous manufacturing capability in the chip segment.

Megha Shrivastava is a Dr. TMA Pai Fellow and a Doctoral Research Scholar at the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India. Her work focuses on China’s ICT industry. She also writes on the semiconductor industry and the U.S.-China technology conflict.

Image: Karlis Dambrans / Shutterstock.com

Although demographic policy has long been discussed at an international level, family policy has typically been viewed as a domestic policy concern. Yet it is becoming clear that this field—a way of orienting national legislation toward fostering and defending family life—provides an alternative value basis that is drawing increasing interest in international relations. Indeed, elements of a quiet consensus on family policy are beginning to take hold among countries that want to strengthen their societies.

Family Policy as a National Interest

In recent years there have been two alternative approaches to managing demographic challenges within countries. One approach emphasizes the free movement of peoples as an overall win-win: “Rich, aging countries need workers,” as a 2010 New York Times report put it, while “people in poor countries need jobs.” A few countries, however, have begun to follow the other approach of family policy, whereby national governments incentivize domestic population growth and encourage talent retention.

Family policy has not typically been viewed as a matter of international affairs. Contemporary international institutions have been largely oriented toward advancing a liberal understanding of sexual freedom, particularly through international norms such as the Beijing Declaration and the Istanbul Convention. The Biden administration has trumpeted its global prioritization of LGBTQ issues “through U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance,” and EU institutions have done the same.

Developments in family life have reflected the same shift in recent decades. During the second half of the twentieth century, global birth rates fell while expectations around industrial capacity increased. International efforts at managing population growth were common, especially through promoting the use of birth control. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the theme of global discussions shifted toward breaking down international barriers—from borders to glass ceilings to norms around marriage and family.

In retrospect, it is clear that the post-1990 consensus had a demographic thesis embedded in its foreign policy; one of global mobility under a soft regime of social liberalism. With the advent of the Schengen Area, Europe became a model of how free-trade areas and shared economic zones could lead to the free movement of peoples. It no longer mattered where things were made. Classical family structures were likewise viewed as restrictive.

But the traditional family has returned to international discussion. First, economists such as Charles Goodhart and Manoj Pradhan have pointed out that societies with low birth rates are aging societies. Aging societies tend to become industrially sclerotic and experience intergenerational tensions. Industry must shift toward medical care, and economies can become inflation-prone. Yet declines in family formation seem to be common across all industrial societies, outside of certain highly-religious subgroups. For this reason, measures supportive of family life ought to have broad consideration in international discourse.

Second, the values that promote family formation are no longer taken for granted. Western societies have steadily moved away from a classical definition of the family. Western governments, as well as popular culture, have also placed greater emphasis on defending and even celebrating alternative lifestyles than on the classical definition of the family.

With each passing year, it becomes clearer that demographic challenges lie at the heart of international affairs as well. A report from the New York Times this summer highlighted the fact that, “By 2050, people age 65 and older will make up nearly 40 percent of the population in some parts of East Asia and Europe.” In these aging societies, working-age populations will shrink, while “the best-balanced work forces will mostly be in South and Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East.” The geopolitical and geoeconomic consequences of this shift are only beginning to be envisioned.

In light of reports like this one, at the European Council meeting this past summer heads of state requested that the European Commission develop a “Demographic Toolbox,” citing in particular the relationship between demographic strength and economic competitiveness. The reason is fairly simple: governments around the world are beginning to realize—both individually and in common—that demographic challenges won’t be helped by putting further pressure on traditional family structures or by further encouragement of mass migration.

It is in this context that, in recent years, “family policy” has emerged as a nationally oriented approach to managing demographic challenges. In my view, family policy is built on three pillars: 1) a state support system linked to the family and incentivizing family life; 2) protection of and promotion of the traditional family as integral to the functioning of society; 3) rejection of mass migration and emphasis on the integrity of borders and an orderly approach to immigration. Together, these three elements are aimed at bolstering the role of the family within society.

All large economic structures have the ability to, and are designed to, shift incentives around life choices. When state support and welfare systems are not tied to family structures, the system itself can come to take the place of fathers. Contrast this with Hungary, where the family support system built since 2015 is designed to make the choice to start a family more financially beneficial than the alternative. Mothers receive their full salary for an extended period after the birth of their child, parents can apply for large loans and grants to cover the cost of setting up a household, and a variety of other financial incentives are in place to encourage family formation. This suite of policies has drawn broad foreign attention: the recently concluded fifth Budapest Demographic Summit included official representation from the governments of Italy, Bulgaria, Serbia, Tanzania, Kazakhstan, Türkiye, Qatar, Bahrain, Tunisia, and Ecuador. In recent years, former U.S. vice president Mike Pence as well as official representatives from Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, and Latvia and elsewhere have also attended. The Polish government has also introduced family support policies in recent years, as well.

The International Implications of Family Policy

Although family policy is currently pursued at a national level, each element of family policy has potential international repercussions. For this reason, it has all the elements of an alternative international consensus. But because existing international structures are oriented against strong border policies and interpret human rights institutions against domestic pro-family policies, this phenomenon has not fully reached international visibility.

Will the global geopolitical order shift in such a way as to allow the emergence of international mechanisms for promoting family policy on these lines? The post-1990s global order was built on a unitary package of American-led military security, economic opportunity (through expanding free-trade facilities), and a liberal interpretation of ever-expanding human rights. But with the rise of non-Western-led economic organizations and with an ever more aggressive Western approach on sexual lifestyles, the incentives for a “multi-vector” foreign policy are rising. In that environment, states have a stronger mutual rationale for sharing good practices with regard to the promotion of stable family life, even where they differ in other respects.

The reality is that the overall package of a country’s demographic policies is now of immense importance in the international context, given that many states are facing similar challenges. But instead of waiting for the European Union to create a “Demographic Toolkit,” the basic elements of family policy already exist—and are needed in different respects in different parts of the world.

In Europe, the mass migration experienced since 2015 has not been followed by increasing social cohesion; meanwhile, the key elements of strong family life have continued to decline. Since the turn of the century, illegitimacy rates have risen by nearly 70 percent, so that 42 percent of births in Europe are now outside wedlock. During the height of the migration crisis in 2015, EU leaders confidently predicted that the arrival of three million migrants would bring an economic benefit to Europe. Instead, the European economy now looks more sclerotic than at any point in recent years.

While the United States—itself unique due a long history of processing and assimilating immigrants, along with well-developed immigration-related institutions—has maintained population growth through immigration, current circumstances with millions of border crossers per year seem unsustainable. At the same time, cultural and economic pressures on American families have made family life less attractive for the young.

Even among the rising countries that will soon lead the world in working-age population—like South Africa, India, or the Philippines—family policy will be necessary to maintain a strong social structure and avoid following the path of aging Western societies.

Now that the “package” of the post-1990s global order is becoming unbundled, it is no surprise that the world is becoming more polarized, not more liberal, in terms of attitudes toward socially liberal family structures. As Western societies have progressed beyond twentieth-century norms to become more aggressive in promoting alternative lifestyles, even through diplomatic channels, some governments have quietly grown more skeptical. Many countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Latin America benefit from Chinese investment yet, from the Western side, feel only pressure to change their fundamental cultural values.

The arrival of demographic policy as foreign policy is also a sign that the “values” identified at the heart of the existing global order are considered by many global actors to be insufficient to power it. With the West trying to step back from fully integrated global markets—sanctioning its geopolitical opponents and “de-risking” from trade with China—the reasons for accepting the “values” part of the Western package have also begun to decline. Countries will have to evaluate whether their demographic position requires economic development to meet a rising population, financial incentives to rescue a falling population and, in conjunction with this, other types of cultural and legal support for traditional family structures.

A Turning Point?

The most interesting question concerning the international aspect of family policy is whether it could constitute a new element for a “values-based” international policy. Is public support for robust family life sufficient to bring countries together that otherwise diverge? From the standpoint of classical geopolitics, where conflict over resources and territory defines international relations, the answer is “No.” Countless wars and conflicts have occurred between countries with robust demography.

Yet stable family life can no longer be taken for granted in international relations. In modern societies, family life is not simply an assumed input into social strength, economic growth and military readiness, but an output of favorable culture, protective legislation and sound policy. With global markets still highly integrated, a steady collapse in demography in one area—either through aging, family collapse, or mass migration—can cause immediate problems in another. And if a country’s economy becomes more sclerotic through demographic decline, its value as an export market or industrial provider is likely to fall, as well.

Finally, there is another reason that a strong, values-oriented family policy can go along with a flexible or more pragmatic interests-based foreign policy: a strong family policy enables economic growth and increases overall confidence, which together provide more room for maneuver in foreign policy. A country with a strong national culture and growing families need not fear that economic exchange and partnerships will undermine it.

How could a new consensus favoring family policy as a core element of international affairs come into being? Looked at from the standpoint of existing international institutions, the situation might seem rather challenging. But global institutions are also now at an inflection point. With new economic arrangements like the BRICS+ coming into view, it remains to be seen what set of values might be attached to institutions eventually built out of them. Yet it is entirely likely that values will return to international institutions in unexpected ways. As countries face many upcoming demographic challenges, there will be strong incentives for them to create new platforms through which to hash out good policy practices. In the meantime, the tight bundle of post-Cold War international policy will likely have fallen further apart. When that moment comes, it won’t be surprising if attention turns toward family policy. In the coming decades, family policy will not merely be an answer to domestic demographic challenges, but a core part of a functioning global order.

Gladden Pappin is president of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices,” wrote Adam Smith in 1776. That’s why it’s unsurprising that the cattle industry association R-Calf USA has a petition calling for tariffs on Australian and New Zealand sheep products.

The proposed tariffs would violate the free-trade agreement (FTA) between the United States and Australia. It has no chance of succeeding against Australia and would also raise lamb prices for American consumers. The petition makes baseless claims that Australia has inferior environmental and production standards despite Australia’s very stringent standards.

American lamb is expensive because the U.S. government has restricted poisonous bait for predators, disastrously affecting the domestic sheep population. Sheep farmers can blame their government and the environmental lobby for prioritizing the welfare of coyotes and foxes over ranchers and sheep. 

As the petition states, “The use of sodium fluoroacetate (compound 1080), a chemical compound once widely and effectively used as a poisonous bait in the United States by the sheep industry to control predators and thus reduce predation, was prohibited in 1972 (by the EPA) and later reauthorized with severe restriction in 1985.”

According to Meat & Livestock Australia:

 Lethal baiting is considered to be the most effective available method of controlling foxes and is cost effective over large areas. Ground baiting tends to be more effective and has a decreased risk of baiting non-target species than aerial baiting. There are strict restrictions on the availability and use of 1080 and persons using 1080 must ensure they meet appropriate state requirements and follow instructions.

If R-Calf USA felt they had a genuine legal dispute against Australian entities, they could seek to resolve their dispute through consultation as called for by Article 21.5 of the U.S.-Australia FTA. Failing that, according to Article 21.7, “where consultations are not effective in resolving a dispute, the Agreement provides for an arbitral panel to consider the matter.”

This option has been available since 2005, but the trade association has chosen not to pursue it because they are on weak legal ground. Instead, R-Calf USA has misrepresented the situation to Hill staffers and Members of Congress while obscuring the existence of the FTA and its parameters.

The petition presents a distorted view of free-trade agreements in general and even makes erroneous claims about other FTAs, such as NAFTA.

Instead of attacking popular imports from our closest allies, R-Calf USA should encourage the American sheep industry to innovate and lobby for changes to regulations concerning the necessary culling of predators of American sheep.

R-Calf USA should recognize that the Biden administration is no friend of animal farming. The extreme environmental and Net Zero policies that have taken hold in the West are declaring war on everything from sheep and cattle to fossil fuels. If the Net Zero extremists get their way, they will cull all sheep and cattle to achieve their unobtainable targets.

The Biden administration is now attacking agriculture in this new green war, following the examples of the Netherlands and Belgium. Biden’s Special Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, said concerning Net Zero at the U.S. Department for Agriculture, “We don’t get this job done unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution.” The attack on emissions is taking its toll on food.

The Australian and New Zealand agricultural interests have been far more resourceful in capturing foreign markets for their sheep products. For example, lamb is a favored food product in Muslim-majority countries. Australia and New Zealand have effectively produced Halal-compliant food products in these markets. American producers could learn from this example, innovate, and compete in the international export market.

Regulations, inefficiency, and a lack of innovation and infrastructure are miring the U.S. sheep industry. Australia and New Zealand, two of our closest allies, should not be blamed for these failures, especially when we need their cooperation in national security matters relating to Chinese aggression, as exemplified in the recent AUKUS agreement.

Most importantly, the petition is correct to highlight the harmful effects of inflation on the U.S. sheep industry and the increased price of American sheep products. But blame for that should be leveled squarely at the Biden administration’s reckless overspending that has caused the inflation and the complacency of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors Chairman Jerome Powell, who declared that inflation was transitory. 

Inflation hit a forty-year high in 2022, affecting all businesses and shoppers. The production-cost spikes, including nearly a 23 percent increase in fuel costs and a 13.5 percent increase in feed costs during 2021, have burdened sheep producers with mounting expenses. You can’t blame Australia and New Zealand for that, but you should blame Joe Biden.

Merchants always incentivize blocking competition to keep prices high and stifle innovation, but Congress should not fall for this petition. In these inflationary times, Americans need low-cost meat. Both trade policy and regulatory changes can help them get it.

Andrew Hale is the Jay Van Andel Senior Trade Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

Image: Shutterstock.

Ever since December 2, 1823, the United States has been committed to the independence of Latin America. While the precise interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine and its implications have varied over the past 200 years, the core interests of the United States have not. South and Central America is one of the few areas that could actually threaten the U.S. heartland, and American statesmen have long recognized this fact.

However, this recognition has been lost on recent administrations. A mix of regional populism and sheer American ineptitude allows American adversaries to gain footholds that could quickly turn into regional power. 

While much attention has been paid to Wagner mercenaries in Haiti, offering a coherent security force in a nation without a functioning government, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has leveraged its economic might to gain valuable influence in the region. China’s use of its credit to entice vulnerable countries into Faustian bargains with the CCP is nothing new. Since launching the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) 10 years ago, China has used its economic investment capabilities to further its strategic interests across Africa and Asia. This “debt-trap diplomacy” has come at a severe cost for several of China’s partners, with Sri Lanka being the most notable and tragic example. What is new is the extension of these lines of credit to the Western hemisphere and the deafening lack of a serious response from Washington. Historically, any intrusion into the region by any great power would have elicited swift action under the Monroe Doctrine.

Now, it is important to note significant differences between the current moment and the close of World War II, the last time the United States found itself as a power center in a multipolar world. Back then, most third parties were either poor or in ruins. Lines of demarcation were quickly drawn. This time, the emergence of multiple power centers across the globe has been gradual. As such, it is only reasonable for nations to seek a policy of strategic nonalignment to extract as many benefits as possible through cooperation with other powers. Jorge Heine of Boston University’s Active Nonalignment outline is perhaps the most noted example of this in Latin America. At the same time, Modi’s noncommittal stances in India over the past year show the potential value of maintaining strategic autonomy in this new environment.

It is striking that instead of playing all sides off each other for concessions, most Latin American nations are only ever offered deals from one side, and it’s not the democratic West. Latin America is desperate for investment, and many nations prefer alignment with the United States, but their pleas too often fall on deaf ears in Washington. Uruguay has been begging for a free trade deal with the United States for more than a decade. Still, the isolationist and anti-free trade sentiment currently in fashion in both the Democratic and Republican parties means few are enthusiastic about a trade deal with a “low-priority” country in South America. The lack of progress toward an agreement has left Uruguay with no option other than Beijing.

What’s more infuriating is the case of Ecuador. Due to the previous administration's irresponsible spending policies, the country was crippled by its obligations to repay Chinese debt. What’s worse, much of the loans were required to be paid back in long-term oil contracts, preventing the country from benefiting from the global spike in oil prices after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions that followed. Ecuador sold its oil to China at a discount. With his back against a wall, President Guillermo Lasso reached a deal restructuring the country’s $6.5 billion debt last year. However, as that country's political instability worsens, its economic dependence on China will only increase in the coming years.

Moreover, Chinese investment is often incredibly destabilizing for nations that receive loans. Beijing has a history of offering money without any conditions regarding how it is spent. Such negligence opens the door to elite capture, exacerbating corruption and weakening the rule of law, ultimately rolling back democratic institutions and sliding the region towards autocracy. Additionally, most Latin American nations have little experience with these types of deals, only strengthening Beijing’s hand in negotiations.

Ultimately, the best tool the United States has is trade. Its greatest asset is its economic might, the depth of its capital markets, and its ability to borrow and lend at rates unreachable by other nations. Increased trade between the United States, U.S. allies, and Latin America increases the region’s ties to the United States and reduces its dependence on Chinese credit.

Too often, American politicians and intellectuals, in deriding free trade dogmatism, have retreated to a quasi-mercantilist stance. On one level, post-liberals have an ounce of truth in their grievance. At the same time, the basic math behind Ricardian equivalence remains true, the potentially severe social and political repercussions of such policies require proactive management. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) made all parties wealthier and more economically integrated. It also had the unfortunate side-effect of wiping out Mexico’s agriculture industry and U.S. manufacturing in the upper Midwest. The long-term effects of these developments are still felt across North America. What is needed is a proper understanding of the level of trade necessary for our current situation—a level above autarchy and below free trade dogmatism. On a concrete level, that means a large number of narrow trade deals targeting specific industries. 

The Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has also found balancing developmental assistance with foreign policy objectives challenging. Additionally, it has a distinct “America First” economic orientation, meaning that its investment in developing nations is intended to benefit American firms. The problem with this approach is that the United States is not the best source of the kind of investment that these countries need most. For instance, the United States hasn’t built a new deep-water port in decades, so the goal of U.S. policymakers needs to be connecting Latin American nations with firms from friendly countries that are not beholden to the CCP and can best meet their development needs. 

On a practical level, this means identifying nations that are receptive to U.S. interests and investment and focusing on turning them into regional leaders as well as U.S. allies. The Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Chile, and Guatemala are all potential candidates. Once identified nations show progress towards stability and prosperity, it will entice other countries towards a similar course of action.

What is perhaps most important for American diplomats to do is avoid making our Latin American policy a strictly anti-China strategy. Latin American leaders aren’t stupid, and they don’t enjoy seeing themselves as being used as chess pieces in a “New Great Game.” Instead, America should approach investment deals as primarily profit-seeking enterprises or on humanitarian grounds, not as geopolitical moves. Anti-American fears are an easy specter for populist Latin American leaders to invoke when politically convenient. U.S. policymakers need to be aware of these tendencies so as not to exacerbate them.

Additionally, the potential of sending migrants to the southern U.S. border severely limits American maneuverability in Central America. Any interference in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, the so-called Northern Triangle, could trigger ever larger exoduses of migrants, something those nations’ leaders have been quick to capitalize on. 

The Plan Colombia initiative (2000–2015) was a major triumph of diplomacy, in which American intelligence and coordination successfully broke up the Marxist FARC rebels and increased control of the legitimate government of Bogotá over the countryside. Such a plan should serve as a blueprint for further action in fragile regimes. At a time when major U.S. presidential candidates are calling for military action against the cartels in northern Mexico, such a move would be a much narrower and more prudent alternative. The Merida Initiative (2007–2021) was supposed to act as just that. Still, it was never managed well, and its replacement, the Bicentennial Framework, is too focused on social programs to achieve American strategic objectives. A focused, well-planned initiative with an emphasis on security needs to be a priority of American foreign policy, with a stick-and-carrot approach to bring a reluctant Mexican government on board.

Finally, the United States should look for easy psychological victories demonstrating its commitment to Latin America. “Illegal, Unregulated, and Unrestricted” (IUU) fishing is an excellent place to start. Such practices have devastated the environment, with fishing populations stripped bare and whole ecosystems irreparably harmed. When an armada of Chinese fishing vessels appeared off the Galapagos Islands in 2020, Ecuador begged for international assistance. A show of American force, as little as a few frigates dispatched to the region to disperse the illegal fishing fleet, would have sent a clear message. Better yet, a joint action by the Organization of American States (OAS) spearheaded by the United States and regional navies would have shown solidarity in an area where China was clearly in the wrong.

If the United States does not wish to cede any more ground in a region vital to its interests, it must rethink its regional policies. Washington needs to demonstrate a credible commitment to the area in such ways that increase Western economic interdependence, don’t ferment populist sentiment, and prevent further CCP intrusion. It’s a tall order, but one for which the United States must rise to the occasion.

Haydon N. Parham works in mortgage finance. He was a Spring 2023 New Whiggery Fellow at the Institute on Religion and Democracy and a 2024 Public Policy Fellow at the Fund for American Studies. His interests include Philosophy, Economics, and History, and he lives in Washington, DC.

Image: Shutterstock

President Joe Biden’s approach toward the People’s Republic of China carefully balances on a knife’s edge. On the one hand, Beijing is the pacing threat for national defense and a long-term strategic competitor. On the other, it is an essential partner for tackling existential global challenges like climate change. The White House has paradoxically positioned itself to embrace Beijing in a narrow set of cooperative areas while simultaneously preparing for a protracted security contest because the future is clear as mud.

The United States and China have never “solved” their differences, but they always found ways to manage them. This system no longer operates because China has lost interest in playing, exposing the relationship to increased turmoil and uncertainty. The White House is trying to make the best of a very bad situation and remain flexible to prepare for any scenario that strategic competition may yield, up to and including war.

Diplomacy is the bedrock of international relations. Washington is thus prioritizing strengthening communication channels with Beijing in a bid to help stabilize their turbulent relationship. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s initial March 2021 summit with China was more akin to a verbal fighting match than a diplomatic meeting, ominously setting very low expectations for how relations would unfold over the coming years. Biden’s lone meeting in office with Chinese President Xi Jinping in November 2022 similarly did little to alter this bleak outlook.

Washington confronts the harsh truth that conducting meaningful diplomacy is difficult when the other party does not return the favor. Quite the contrary, Beijing has persistently weaponized high-level talks to signal its displeasure. The Chinese “great wall of pettiness” serves as an imposing barrier to achieving diplomatic breakthroughs. Nevertheless, the White House has put forth an honest effort.

In May, Washington offered for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to meet his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Beijing declined, opting instead for a brief handshake. In June, Blinken traveled to Beijing to meet with Xi. Both sides paid lip service to the urgent need for stability, but the trip failed to achieve its core objective—a resumption of military-to-military talks. In July, special climate envoy John Kerry visited Beijing to attempt and broker a climate agreement between the world’s two largest emitters. This too, resulted in failure.

Despite all this talking, China has yet to reciprocate by sending even a single envoy to Washington. White House Press Secretary Jake Sullivan succinctly captured this unfortunate mismatch of effort and results by stating, “[we]… do not view these trips as about deliverables or particular policy outcomes.”

While Beijing’s cold shoulder has frozen diplomatic progress, its malign actions abroad have heated up the U.S.-China security contest and pushed several key actors to Washington’s side. In August, Biden participated in the first-ever trilateral stand-alone summit with the leaders of Japan and the Republic of Korea. The three sides issued joint remarks critical of Beijing and vowed to expand and deepen security cooperation. Notably, they also reaffirmed their commitment to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, widely viewed as the region’s most likely flash point.

The Biden White House has given special focus toward Taiwan as it faces the grim prospect of annexation by China, which claims the self-governing island democracy as a renegade province. On multiple occasions, Biden publicly declared the United States would defend Taiwan if attacked, in contravention of decades of established protocol to remain ambiguous on the matter. Though not a formal change in policy, these statements underscore that a future potential conflict over Taiwan weighs on the President’s thoughts. With this scenario in mind, Washington approved Taiwan for the Foreign Military Finance program, usually used by sovereign states to finance American arms purchases, to go along with a $345 million arms package.

Red Shift Theory posits the universe is expanding in all directions—just like China’s territorial claims, which have brought India, Vietnam, and the Philippines closer to Washington. In June, the United States and India reaffirmed a burgeoning security relationship declaring themselves “among the closest partners in the world.” Pivotally, Washington secured Prime Minister Modi’s commitment to uphold the international rules-based maritime order paving the way for India’s contribution to push back against growing Chinese coercion in the South China Sea.

This September, Vietnam and the United States are expected to upgrade their diplomatic ties to a “strategic partnership” in a classic case of “ the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This decision is undoubtedly motivated by Hanoi’s desire to retain its political and security autonomy from China. Vietnam is steadily building links with the U.S.-led regional security architecture as indicated by Hanoi’s upgraded ties with the Republic of Korea and announced plans to do so with Australia later this year.

U.S.-Philippine security ties have undergone a fundamental reset in the best way possible. Washinton gained access to nine new bases for joint training with the Philippine Armed Forces and hosted the largest-ever annual combined U.S.-Philippine military exercise this year. In a thinly veiled shot at China’s growing preference for using coercion to enforce its disputed maritime claims with Manila, Washington reaffirmed its commitment to Article V of the 1951 U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty.

However, Washington’s gains in the competition space are not limited to the Indo-Pacific. European attitudes toward China have soured amidst Beijing’s support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, creating opportunities for the United States. In July, all thirty-one NATO member states echoed Washington’s long-stated criticisms of Beijing in a sharp statement condemning Chinese political, economic, and military coercion targeting European allies. China’s failed attempt to portray itself as a neutral party in the Ukraine War also helped push the European Union’s pledge to join the United States in countering Chinese disinformation and anti-market trade practices.

The Biden administration’s approach toward China, while not universally successful, skillfully takes into account the fact that Beijing gets a vote. Leaving the door cracked open for diplomacy provides Beijing an off-ramp to deescalate tensions, but the decision to take it ultimately rests with Xi. The U.S. has led the horse to water but cannot force it to drink. Similarly in the security realm, Xi could easily choose to initiate a conflict over Taiwan or accidentally trigger one over a disputed South China Sea claim.

Strategic competition with China does not mean presupposing war is inevitable, but it does mean doing everything possible to prevent it by acting responsibly and being prepared should it occur. Steering the U.S.-China relations to greener pastures is beyond the control of the White House, Pentagon, or Congress. Until Beijing reciprocates Washington’s diplomatic gestures, strategic competition will lack clearly defined boundaries and the risk of instability will remain ever-present. Given a lack of clear alternatives, Washington’s best bet is to continue hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

Ryan Bercaw is a Marine Corps veteran with a decade of public service in the U.S. government focused primarily on Indo-Pacific regional security. He completed his Bachelor's degree in International Studies at the American University in Washington D.C. His published works have also appeared in the Marine Corps Gazette and the International Policy Digest. He also speaks Mandarin Chinese.

The views/statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this piece are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) or U.S. government. This essay does not imply DoD or U.S. government endorsement or factual, accuracy or opinion.

Washington and Beijing have been taking steps to resume normal diplomatic engagement, which had been largely suspended for several months after the “spy balloon” incident in February. A potential meeting between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping at the APEC summit in San Francisco in November is widely viewed as the next opportunity to restore some positive momentum to the relationship. To that end, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan recently met with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, and Secretary of State Blinken met with Chinese vice president Han Zheng on the margins of the UN General Assembly. 

However, frankly, it is getting increasingly difficult to anticipate any scenario for substantial rapprochement between the United States and China in the near term, if not the foreseeable future. This is because of the structural and historical forces driving their strategic rivalry, the adversarial dynamic of their interactions, and the domestic politics on both sides that thwart mutual understanding and accommodation. These drivers keep pushing both sides—despite their rhetoric about getting bilateral relations back on track—to exchange harsh rhetoric and pursue antagonistic and retributive policies toward each other, fueling competitive tensions and hindering progress toward détente.

The historical context is fundamental. The United States spent most of the past seventy-five years as the preeminent power in the world and got used to taking that position for granted and taking advantage of it. But the end of the Cold War, coinciding as it did with China’s economic rise, began an incremental realignment of the balance of global power and influence that was accelerated by 9/11 and the Global Financial Crisis. The United States has resisted and even sought to deny its relative decline due to these developments. Washington continues to claim global preeminence—especially relative to China’s accumulation of wealth, power, and influence. The Biden Administration’s National Security Strategy states, “The United States remains the world’s leading power.”

For its part, China has been the primary beneficiary of the historical shifts in the balance of power since the Cold War (even though it remains behind the United States in absolute terms by most development metrics). Beijing’s foreign policy for the past generation has aimed to claim what the Chinese see as their rightful place in the world and promote the “reform of global governance” toward a “community of common destiny” that more accurately reflects the twenty-first-century balance of power. This is the agenda for Xi Jinping’s signature “Global Security Initiative,” “Global Development Initiative,” and “Global Civilization Initiative.” Contrary to much commentary, this agenda does not intend to establish Chinese global hegemony—only to maximize China’s international influence and legitimacy and bring global attention to its interests and security. However, it is also intended to move the world beyond U.S. global hegemony. As China’s former top diplomat famously said during the Biden Administration’s first high-level exchange with senior Chinese officials, “the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.”

This is essentially the basis for the strategic rivalry and “intense competition” between China and the United States, thus, the backdrop for U.S.-China diplomatic interaction. The Brookings Institution recently hosted an insightful seminar addressing whether this rivalry constitutes a “new cold war.” That depends on how one defines the term and assesses the relevance of the example of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War and whether we view China and the United States as “existential” threats to each other (accurately or otherwise). My own view is that it doesn’t matter whether we call it a “cold war” or not because the strategic rivalry will persist and probably intensify regardless of the semantics.

This dynamic is further exacerbated by domestic insecurities in both China and the United States, which are reinforcing and even inflating perceptions of the threat from the other side. In America, political polarization and dysfunction, racial and ethnic tensions, and the erosion of economic competitiveness have increased a sense of national vulnerability that has fueled the exaggeration of the China threat. In China itself, the economic slowdown and accompanying risk of domestic unrest have heightened Communist Party leaders’ fears of regime instability and foreign subversion—especially from the United States. Both Washington and Beijing now talk increasingly about the growing risks to “national security,” and are expanding their definition of it and their requirements for maintaining it. It is now routine for both sides to perceive and characterize the other as an “existential” threat.

Given these mindsets and mutual suspicions, it is not surprising that both Washington and Beijing are so automatically antagonistic and even adversarial in their approaches and responses to each other. This was amply reflected during the “spy balloon” episode, during which both sides presumed the worst about each other’s actions and intentions and reacted accordingly—at the expense of mutual understanding and de-escalation. 

It continues to characterize and hinder most efforts at resuming constructive bilateral ties. Both sides now routinely blame each other exclusively for the poor state of the relationship. Wang Yi, during his meeting with Blinken in Beijing in June, reiterated Beijing’s view that “the root cause” of U.S.-China tensions is “U.S. misperceptions toward China, which have led to misguided China policies” in Washington. Similarly, the United States generally holds Beijing wholly accountable because of its authoritarianism and its coercive and predatory international behavior. Each side accuses the other of harboring hostile intentions, partly by exaggerating its strategic ambitions. Both sides also accuse each other of not being seriously interested in constructive engagement—perhaps as an excuse for not pursuing the kind of accommodative policies that rapprochement would probably require.

All of this is further reinforced by the paradox that both Washington and Beijing appear to calculate that they have the hard power upper hand and the moral high ground in the relationship. This is because both sides overestimate their relative leverage and underestimate the other side’s. Washington, confident in its relative strengths and its global influence, sees no need to make substantial concessions to Beijing. However, Beijing, weighing its own emerging strengths, relative U.S. vulnerabilities, and the hedging of much of the rest of the world, is not inclined to cede ground. Hence, a contest of wills.

Both sides thus appear inclined to disregard each other’s strategic perspectives. In Beijing’s view, Washington has shown little readiness to acknowledge any legitimate Chinese interests and concerns or to show any empathy for Chinese views of the bilateral relationship. For example, American observers routinely deride Xi Jinping’s statement earlier this year that the United States seeks to “suppress, encircle, and contain” China—without examining how Beijing might get that impression from a wide range of Washington’s actions. These would include export and investment restrictions clearly aimed at hindering China’s economic development; several United States-led multilateral initiatives in the Indo-Pacific (such as the “Quad,” “AUKUS,” and the recent Trilateral summit at Camp David) aimed at pressuring China across its periphery; and explicit calls by many in Washington for “containment” of China.

Also, from Beijing’s perspective, Washington appears disinclined to acknowledge that bilateral tensions are in any way attributable to American actions. An emerging theme in Washington is that the United States moved toward strategic competition with China only because Beijing had become more aggressive and expansive in its ambitions under Xi’s leadership. In a recent interview, scholar David McCourt—who examined the community of American China experts and their impact on U.S. policy over the past decade—deduced that Washington shifted from engagement to competition because of an assessment that changes in China necessitated a different American response. He concluded that the United States is unlikely to return to engagement because “the Chinese seem to have no real interest in changing any of the major actions and things that they are doing that prompted the shift to strategic competition in the first place.” This overlooks both the extent to which Chinese policy shifts responded to American policies and that Washington seems to have no real interest in changing any of its relevant policies or actions.

Beijing, of course, makes it hard to be sympathetic to its perspective. It similarly shows little empathy for the views of the United States and denies any culpability for bilateral tensions. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) acts and reacts in ruthless and offensive ways that both reinforce other countries’ resistance to Beijing’s agenda and undermine their willingness to engage with it. Indeed, Chinese leaders often appear either oblivious or indifferent to how China is perceived internationally. Like Washington’s rejection of the idea that it is engaged in encirclement or containment of China, Beijing appears dismissive of the reputation it has earned with its coercive international behavior, mercantilist trade practices, heavy-handed influence operations, acquiescence to atrocious behavior by other autocratic regimes, and brutal human rights practices at home. The CCP may calculate that it needs to act offensively in pursuit of its interests and security in a hostile international environment or that China has sufficient economic clout that it can afford to alienate other countries. However, its behavior is nonetheless counterproductive to Beijing’s efforts to win global hearts and minds in its pursuit of a “community of common destiny.”

Perhaps most importantly, domestic politics in both China and the United States are making it increasingly difficult to undertake the kind of constructive engagement policies that could avert an escalation of the strategic rivalry to more hostile levels. In Washington, the very notion of “engagement” with Beijing is denounced by those who equate it with a strategy aimed at liberalizing China, which they say has irrevocably failed in ways that compromised U.S. interests and security. In a recent article, scholar Michael Beckley warned against “reengagement” as perhaps “the most dangerous [approach] of all because it neither satisfies Chinese demands nor deters Beijing from taking what it wants by force.” This prematurely dismisses the possibility that it might actually accomplish both. Moreover, despite making a rhetorical distinction between engagement and “appeasement,” Beckley comes close to equating them with each other and with “capitulation” to China. In any event, it is misleading to characterize and reject engagement as a strategy; it is instead best understood simply as a tactic—synonymous with diplomatic interaction—and a necessary mechanism for pursuing American interests.

Yet, it has become politically risky for anyone in Washington to advocate for normal diplomatic interaction with Beijing on the grounds that it is inimical to U.S. interests and rewards Chinese bad behavior. Moreover, China is widely portrayed as a fundamental ideological and systemic challenger to the United States, requiring U.S. policy to adopt an adversarial, “all-of-government” and even “all-of-society” response to confronting the threat it poses. Although this mindset is helping to fuel the antagonism in U.S.-China relations, the delicate electoral balance and political volatility in the United States make it unlikely that any American leader of either party will be prepared in the foreseeable future to assume the political risks of significantly diverging from this approach toward China.

On the Chinese side, Xi faces no comparable electoral constraints. However, historically, Chinese elite politics has been even more potentially volatile, and a growing accumulation of domestic and foreign policy challenges has reportedly left Xi vulnerable to internal criticism, if not latent challenges to his authority or at least his policy direction. Moreover, given the intensity and centrality of nationalism in Chinese politics and the prevailing belief that the United States poses the most significant external threat to China, Xi can ill afford to risk being perceived as “soft” in confronting or responding to that threat. Accordingly, it would be neither politically easy nor personally instinctual for him to advocate an accommodative approach to Washington.

The Taiwan issue is a perfect illustration of all these systemic elements of the U.S.-China strategic rivalry. Historically, it was the linchpin of establishing relations between the United States and the PRC. Now, because of profound changes in the strategic environment and the balance of power in East Asia over the past forty years, the Taiwan issue has become the fulcrum of the U.S.-China competition in the region. Both sides have deemed it a vital interest, and each side blames the other exclusively for heightening the risk of conflict that now prevails across the Taiwan Strait. Furthermore, domestic politics in both Washington and Beijing have proscribed a more flexible approach. This stalemate only increases the potential for escalation to a serious crisis or conflict.

So, this is the bilateral strategic context in which Washington and Beijing are ostensibly seeking to build a relationship that will not “veer into conflict.” Both sides see themselves in a zero-sum competition and an existential ideological struggle. The pursuit of détente is considered illusory and a sign of weakness. The United States and China have inflated perceptions about the other side’s strategic intentions. They find it easier to exaggerate the threat, accuse the other side of subverting constructive engagement, and blame the other for self-inflicted vulnerabilities than to consider accommodation or compromise seriously. In any event, domestic politics leaves little room for successfully advocating the latter. Instead, girding for intense competition across-the-board appears to be the only reasonable and viable option. Neither Washington nor Beijing seems able to recognize or be willing to acknowledge all of these symmetries.

It is hard to see the exit ramp that will allow the United States and China to escape this current path toward an adversarial relationship and instead find a way toward reciprocal accommodation and peaceful coexistence. The circumstances are reminiscent of the famous line in the classic film Cool Hand Luke, “What we’ve got here is…failure to communicate.” What can break the cycle of miscommunication, mutual miscomprehension, and mutual recrimination between the United States and China? What could?

Paul Heer is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He served as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia from 2007 to 2015. He is the author of Mr. X and the Pacific: George F. Kennan and American Policy in East Asia (Cornell University Press, 2018).

The Horn of Africa has long been synonymous with instability and insecurity, and for good reason. The region has endured numerous conflicts, including the Somali Civil War, the Eritrean War of Independence, the South Sudan War of Independence, intermittent disputes between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and ongoing internal unrest within Sudan and Ethiopia. Eritrea remains the only country in the region that has yet to experience an internal civil war, thanks to the iron grip of its dictator, President Isaias Afewerki, who has ruled for over three decades. However, his reign cannot last forever, and in this region, a succession crisis boiling into a civil war is the norm rather than an exception.

The Horn of Africa has emerged as a magnet for insecurity, with Sudan and Ethiopia currently grappling with significant civil unrest. Somalia, too, faces non-state actors and a lack of centralized authority, while South Sudan is held together by a fragile peace agreement. Surprisingly, the most stable country in the region is Eritrea, a rigid Marxist dictatorship nicknamed the “North Korea of Africa.” The Horn of Africa stands at a crossroads, and the prospect of prolonged internal ethnic, political, and military conflicts in Ethiopia, with a population of 123 million, and Sudan, with a population of 46 million, threatens to engulf the region in perpetual instability. The Horn of Africa can ill afford another failed state like Somalia, and the notion of Sudan or Ethiopia joining the ranks of failed states in East Africa could plunge the region into a lasting quagmire of political, economic, social, and military unrest.

Sudan’s Two Lions

The likelihood of a negotiated cease-fire settlement and a pathway to peace negotiations in Sudan appears slim. The conflict between two key actors, General Abdel Fattah Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, informally known as “Hemedti,” has become a zero-sum game. In the quest for peace, stability, and security, one dominant Nubian lion must rule over Khartoum with an iron fist, relegating idealistic political agendas to the background. If the conflict persists, Sudan’s trajectory could mirror that of Libya, leading it to join the ranks of Africa’s “Mad Max” states, such as Somalia, Libya, Chad, and the Congo.

Military coups in Sudan are as customary as democratic elections in the West, with the country experiencing a staggering thirty-five military coups since gaining independence in 1956. The most successful Sudanese dictator, Omar Al-Bashir, maintained his grip on power for nearly three decades, from 1989 to 2019, by excelling in the art of authoritarian leadership. Al-Bashir manipulated the political landscape through the co-optation of the security apparatus, brutal repression, and the strategic utilization of two opposing organizations: the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF, a paramilitary force, was created by the Sudanese intelligence sector in 2013, evolving from the Janjaweed militias with the primary aim of brutalizing and subduing the inhabitants of the Darfur region. Consequently, despite lacking formal military training, Hemedti emerged as the de facto commander of Sudan’s most formidable paramilitary force. 

Astute dictators like Al-Bashir do not maintain power for nearly three decades without political and military acumen. He intentionally designed the RSF as a bulwark against potential threats from the SAF. Yet, Al-Bashir made a critical mistake in the coup-proofing structure of his regime. He assumed that an individual like Hemedti, a power-hungry, morally bankrupt paramilitary leader and a product of the intelligence services, would not survive without the invisible hand of Al-Bashir’s regime, and the web of orchestrated state corruption that sustained both Al-Bashir, the RSF, and the SAF.

Contrary to popular belief, the RSF and SAF collaborated and orchestrated a coup in 2019, not to topple Al-Bashir’s regime or stabilize Sudan’s precarious political, social, and economic landscape but to squelch the nascent democratic movement and eradicate the non-violent political activism that had been gaining momentum since 2013. Dictators and the state apparatus organizations that enable and prolong their rule tend to be paranoid about grassroots democratic movements, especially when compounded by state oppression and economic crises, which can lead to a state’s terminal illness. Consequently, the RSF and SAR preemptively aligned with the populace as part of a power-sharing deal, not to address legitimate grievances but to co-opt, destabilize, and ultimately normalize institutionalized subversion.

The civil war in Sudan diverges significantly from other African civil conflicts due to the size of the SAF, boasting 200,000 military personnel. They are pitted against the RSF, numbering between 70,000 and 150,000. Both factions vie for control of the state, with the vast natural resources of Sudan serving as a critical battleground. The RSF is not only a paramilitary organization; it is a highly profitable illicit business, with its economic reach extending into sectors such as banking, mercenary services, mining (particularly gold smuggling), media, and illegal cross-border trade, enriching Hemedti and his cohorts. Meanwhile, more than a formal military organization, the SAF manages over 200 commercial enterprises, including farming, gold mining, rubber production, and livestock processing. Thus, both belligerent actors are engaged in a resource competition stemming from institutionalized corruption. The multifaceted civil war has seen the breakdown of sixteen attempted cease-fires, resulting in the displacement of 3.7 million people, with more than 15 million individuals facing acute hunger.

As the crisis in Sudan continues to smolder, the likely outcome is a protracted conflict between the two factions. The absence of a dominant actor in both the political and military structure, as well as the lack of a monopoly on violence, creates a window of opportunity for external and non-state actors to exert their power, pushing Sudan in the direction of Somalia and Libya.

Ethnic Regional Militias and the Uncertain Future of Ethiopia

The ongoing ethnic and regional conflict in Ethiopia, involving Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s regime, the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF), and the Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups seemingly found resolution on paper with the signing of the highly fragile Nairobi Agreement on November 12, 2022. However, the resolution failed to bring about much-needed stability,. The enduring ethnic and regional strife among the Amharas, Oromos, and Tigrayans, combined with the resurgent Islamist militant group al-Shabaab and the uncertain actions of Egypt regarding the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam, portend increasing political, economic, and social instability in Ethiopia.

Since coming to power in 2018 following the resignation of his predecessor, Hailemariam Desalegn, Abiy Ahmed has consolidated his authority. While he has managed to forestall the balkanization of Ethiopia through the cessation of hostilities with the TPLF, ethnic hatreds continue to simmer. Failed peace negotiations between the Ethiopian government and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLA) exacerbate this threat, particularly given the Oromo population’s substantial size, comprising 36 percent of Ethiopia’s populace. Meanwhile, Abiy Ahmed’s administration grapples with the Amhara militia, Fano, The Amharas constitute the second largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, comprising 24.1 percent of the population.

Somalia has languished without a central government for three decades, with al-Shabaab staging a worrisome insurgency. This poses a significant concern for both Somalia and Ethiopia, as they share a 1,024-mile border. The African Transition Mission in Somalia (ATIMS) will withdraw from the country by December 31, 2024, with 2,000 forces already pulled out in June and an additional 3,000 scheduled to withdraw by September 30. Ethiopia’s precarious situation is further compounded by its proximity to three countries in varying states of instability: Sudan, Somalia, and South Sudan. Ethiopia shares borders with all three of these nations, and should they devolve into failed states, the region’s stability will be at grave risk. Adding to these challenges is the potential for Egyptian military actions if Ethiopia’s stability deteriorates further. Egypt may exploit such an opportunity, especially after Ethiopia announced its filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) reservoir.

Ethiopia has long projected an image of unity characterized by a single flag, language, and people. However, beneath this veneer lies a nation historically marred by divisions along ethnic, religious, and linguistic lines. If left unaddressed, these lingering rifts hold the potential to fracture the country from within. To forge a more harmonious future, both the Ethiopian state and its people must confront the difficult history of the Abyssinian Empire and its communist successor state. The path forward demands a transformative approach that prioritizes inclusivity for all Ethiopians while dismantling the remnants of historical ethnic hegemony. Only through such endeavors can Ethiopia hope to cultivate a more unified and equitable society.

The Horn of Africa: Perilous Pathways to Stability

The Horn of Africa teeters on the precipice of prolonged instability. Should Sudan and Ethiopia succumb to this fate, the region faces the grim prospect of decades-long instability. The potential collapse of these two nations, collectively housing a population of over 170 million, carries profound implications for the international economic corridor along the Red Sea, impacting the Middle East and Europe and intensifying migration crises in East and North Africa. Within the Horn of Africa, the situation is markedly fragile. Among the eight countries—Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda—that comprise East Africa, only Kenya stands as a relatively democratic and stable entity. Dictators lead Uganda, Djibouti, and Ethiopia, while Eritrea operates under a unique Marxist regime, and South Sudan navigates a perilous path characterized by extreme instability.

Furthermore, the presence of Islamic non-state actors in Somalia, sharing a border with Ethiopia, and Libya, sharing a border with Sudan, adds complexity to an already delicate situation. Neither country can afford the turmoil of an internal civil war. The crises unfolding in Sudan and Ethiopia are not issues that the international community can afford to overlook.

Daniel B. Haile is a writer and East African geopolitical specialist currently serving as an active-duty U.S. Army CBRN Officer. He holds an MA in International Affairs from the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M and an MA and BA in International Studies from Texas State University. 

The ideas in this essay are solely those of the author and do not represent the official position of the U.S. Army or Department of Defense.

Mistaken beliefs in foreign affairs, including ones that are widely held and drive major policies, can persist for a long time. Contrary events sometimes force a re-evaluation of such beliefs, of course, but that depends on the nature and salience of the events. Dramatic, attention-grabbing happenings can suddenly overturn whole ways of thinking, such as how the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor turned many isolationists into internationalists overnight.

Developments that are less dramatic, less sudden, and less salient are unlikely to have much effect on popular beliefs even if their probative value is just as great as some of the more dramatic ones. They simply do not get enough public and political attention to change minds.

This is especially true of parts of the evidentiary record that involve things that do not happen, even though non-events can disprove some beliefs as much as things that do happen. Most people do not have the focus of Sherlock Holmes to draw appropriate conclusions from dogs that do not bark.

So it is with the role of Afghanistan in international terrorism. Americans have had etched in their minds—as a result of the 9/11 attack, one of those highly salient, attitude-changing events—the belief that the status and political future of Afghanistan is a major determinant of whether more Americans will fall victim to terrorism. That belief sustained support for what became America’s longest war, which cost more than $2 trillion and the lives of more than 6,000 Americans, both military and civilian.

Most of whatever that two-decade-long U.S. effort accomplished was accomplished in the first few weeks, with the rousting of the group that perpetrated 9/11 and the ousting from power of the Taliban regime that had been its host. What followed was a long, mission-creeping effort at nationbuilding, the fecklessness of which was demonstrated by the rapidity with which what was built collapsed in August 2021.

Over time, other issues were raised as reasons to continue a fight against a return of the Taliban to power—such as the group’s medieval attitudes regarding the role of women. But terrorism was the issue that, more than any other, sustained support for an ultimately unsuccessful war. The logic was that we needed to fight the bad guys over there so we do not have to fight them at home.

Based on that thought, much of the criticism when Joe Biden’s administration finally pulled the plug on the war in 2021 centered on terrorism. Nathan Sales, who was the State Department counterterrorism coordinator in the Trump administration, declared that the terrorism risk to the United States was going to be “dramatically worse” because “it is virtually certain that Al Qaeda will reestablish a safe haven in Afghanistan and use it to plot terrorism against the United States and others.’’ Republican critics charged that the withdrawal was turning Afghanistan into a “hotbed of terrorists.”

Partisan criticism then was as contrived as such criticism usually is, and in this case, conveniently overlooked that Biden was implementing a withdrawal agreement that the Trump administration had negotiated. But the criticism resonated with many Americans, beyond party affiliation. Polling at the time showed that the great majority of Americans believed that Taliban control of Afghanistan posed a security threat to the United States, with nearly half of those polled believing it to be a “major” threat.

Such a belief had two principal components. The first was that having a geographic safe haven similar to what the Al Qaeda leadership once had is a critical component of whether a group poses a significant terrorist threat. The second was that Afghanistan has a special status as a terrorist haven above all others.

Both of those components are false. As I wrote at the time of the withdrawal:

Of all the factors affecting the ability and willingness of any group to attack the United States, having a place to set up camp in a land thousands of miles away is one of the less important ones. The 9/11 operation itself is an example, having been prepared at least as much in apartments in Hamburg, resorts in Spain, flight schools in the United States, and cyberspace as it was in Afghanistan.

Moreover, I continued, “To the extent that an overseas physical safe haven matters at all, there is nothing unique about Afghanistan. If a group needs some unstable country for a place to pitch its tent, there are numerous other options,” with the closest calls in post-9/11 anti-U.S. terrorism originating in other countries such as Yemen.

I further explained why, considering the Taliban’s history and objectives, a re-establishment of anything like their previous arrangement with Al Qaeda was unlikely. The Taliban’s earlier hosting of Al Qaeda came amid an Afghan civil war in which the Taliban were dependent on what Osama bin Laden’s group could contribute to the fight—a circumstance no longer existent as of 2021. The Taliban is one of the most insular ruling groups in the world, with no interest in international terrorism. The biggest setback the Taliban ever suffered—its ouster from power when the U.S. military intervened in late 2001—was a direct result of a terrorist attack by a group with a presence in Afghanistan. Now back in power, the Taliban have every reason to combat—not to condone—anything that looks like an international terrorist operation brewing on Afghan soil.

More than two years later, it is the scenario I described, not the alarmist one pitched by critics of the U.S. withdrawal, that has turned out to be true. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius recently addressed this subject with a report, partly based on official sources, that describes how the Taliban regime has become a counterterrorism partner “as a matter of self-interest for the mullahs.” Ignatius quotes the head of the National Counterterrorism Center as stating that Al Qaeda “is at its historical nadir in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and its revival is unlikely,” with the group’s ability to threaten the United States from Afghanistan “at its lowest point” since the group moved there in 1998.

Ignatius describes how the Taliban have not only “suppressed any foreign operations” of the small, aging remnants of Al Qaeda in the country but also conducted “a brutal but effective campaign” against the Islamic State branch in Afghanistan, also known as ISIS-K. In the words of former National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter, “We’re lucky, our interest and the Taliban’s interest align” as far as counterterrorism is concerned.

If the alternative, alarmist scenario about terrorism and Afghanistan had come to pass—especially if punctuated by an Afghanistan-originated terrorist attack against an American target—the public and political attention would have been great, no doubt accompanied by “I told you so” declarations from those who in 2021 were talking about Afghanistan becoming a hotbed of terrorists and about the supposed certainty of Al Qaeda mounting anti-U.S. operations from that country.

But the actual situation, offering no single dramatic event, has gone largely unnoticed. As Ignatius aptly puts it, “The villains just seem to have slipped off into irrelevance, with people paying little attention to their apparent demise…The calamitous story appears to be over, but we missed the ending.”

Thus, mistaken beliefs about Afghanistan and terrorism will persist. Those who badly misanalyzed the situation as of August 2021 are not forced to admit their mistakes, and their mistaken beliefs will continue to color much discussion about policy toward Afghanistan today and about how to think of the U.S. withdrawal two years ago. The denouement of the Ashraf Ghani regime at that time exhibited a fragility that would have made messy any withdrawal, however carefully managed. The plug should have been pulled much earlier.

The mistaken beliefs also will infect discussion about counterterrorist policy generally, which is unfortunate in that international terrorist threats to U.S. interests certainly continue.

Paul R. Pillar retired in 2005 from a twenty-eight-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, in which his last position was as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. Earlier he served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units at the CIA covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. His most recent book is Beyond the Water’s Edge: How Partisanship Corrupts U.S. Foreign Policy. He is also a contributing editor for this publication.

Image: Shutterstock.

In the race for control over the world’s energy market, China has set its sights on an unlikely target. Vast discoveries of offshore oil deposits in Guyana have turned the country of barely 800,000 into a global treasure. Given China’s current dominance in the region, the United States would be wise to combat the spread of authoritarian corruption by collaborating with the Guyanese government and investing in the region’s economic development.

Since 2015, a consortium of companies, including ExxonMobil and Hess, began to finance large energy projects that seek to tap into a projected 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil in Guyana. The former British colony’s economy is projected to grow by 23 percent in 2023 thanks to the oil boom and companies like ExxonMobil, which are developing most of the oil platforms.

To get in on this explosive growth, both foreign companies and governments—including China—have stepped up to provide loans for major infrastructure projects. Washington cannot allow China to secure another oil-rich ally in the region by buying up strategic assets in the country. Existing U.S. engagement in Guyana is minimal outside of public health programs. To combat China’s subversive influence, we must work together with established energy companies in the region to build ties with the Guyanese government.

Chinese investment in Guyana stands to yield major dividends for Beijing. China Railway Group, a state-controlled company, is currently building and funding the Amaila Falls hydroelectric plant, expected to produce 1,047 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity. China has also taken the lead in funding bridges, roads, and projects in Guyana’s interior to bolster its energy infrastructure. This is the largest roadblock to its economic development, but with Chinese help, it won’t be for long. Multiple Chinese state-owned enterprises have received contracts in the coastal capital of Georgetown to build a new harbor and expand the Cheddi Jagan International Airport. The Guyanese government is even working with Huawei on a smart cities surveillance plan.

It’s no wonder that Guyana’s politicians support Chinese expansionist projects in their country. Guyanese President Mohamed Irfaan Ali expressed support for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Global Development Initiative (GDI), as well as for greater collaboration in the mining, energy, and manufacturing sectors.

However, working with China involves hidden costs in the form of mounting foreign debt for Guyana. Recognizing this, the country’s former Auditor General––Anand Goolsarran––cautioned against accumulating too much debt with China due to the high cost of the harbor and airport projects.

These fears are well-founded: next door in Suriname, a Chinese state bank seized funds when the country could not keep up with debt payments. Opaque clauses and additional interest rates have caused some countries, most notably Sri Lanka, to be unable to pay back Chinese loans, having to exchange crucial strategic or economic assets for debt forgiveness.

While China, Venezuela, and Russia are already deeply involved in Guyana, U.S. engagement is almost nonexistent outside private energy companies. Even worse, the projects that American companies have invested in are mired in geo-political conflict. ExxonMobil just announced its sixth Guyanese project, worth $12.9 billion and projected to produce 250,000 barrels of oil per day. Yet the country’s hundred-year-old dispute with Venezuela threatens to undermine the project.

Though Venezuela has claimed more than 62,000 square miles of Guyanese territory since the nineteenth century, the Maduro regime has recently reignited these claims, which affect thirty of Exxon Mobil’s oil wells. Due to a collapse in oil production from Maduro’s socialist policies, Venezuela needs an economic lifeline to uplift its economy in the face of U.S. sanctions for human rights abuses. Maduro is visiting China this month to try and win economic support; Russia has already provided Caracas with security and economic aid, along with joint military exercises.

Greater collaboration between China, Russia, and Venezuela poses a direct threat to the United States. China has made its intentions clear by sponsoring an intelligence base in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s closest historical allies. Russia has repeatedly helped shore up Venezuela’s regime as well as Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua. If Venezuela were to capitalize on Guyana’s oil boom, then the Russian-backed regime of Maduro could encourage greater drug trafficking in the region, to the detriment of the United States.

The Venezuelan regime already allows cocaine growers and traffickers to operate within the country with impunity. Allowing Venezuela to access Guyanese oil profits via a Chinese state-owned bank or through collaborations with Chinese companies regarding economic development in Guyana would create a strong, anti-American front in South America.

To counter this authoritarian dominance, the U.S. government must build stronger ties with Guyana by ensuring that U.S. energy companies invest the profits gained from this oil boom into the nation’s economy, public education, and standard of living. In this way, the United States can keep Guyanese profits from getting tied up in Chinese debt schemes and ensure that they are instead used to improve the standard of living in Guyana. Championing anti-corruption and closer collaboration with Guyana’s government will benefit both Guyana’s future and America’s diplomatic and security interests.

Roy Mathews is a Writer for Young Voices. He is a graduate of Bates College and a 2023 Publius Fellow at The Claremont Institute. He has been published in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, and Law & Liberty.

Image: Shutterstock.

In June, the European Union issued its first-ever European Economic Security Strategy, and this week, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen delivered a powerful State of the Union address. Simply put, the world’s largest trading bloc has a new economic compass and has charted an ambitious new course.  

Considering these developments, it’s hard to fathom that just over two-and-a-half years ago, the EU was on the precipice of launching into its EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment. After seven years of negotiations, and having been championed by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the agreement was wisely frozen by the European Parliament. After an examination of the new economic security strategy and the detailed points in von der Leyen’s State of the Union speech, it is clear the EU is on a very different course.

In our geopolitical world, nothing is static. With the EU being well known for its bureaucracy and deliberate methods for administering the business of the union, it is interesting how fast the EU has responded to a plethora of new challenges. The thematics behind both the security strategy and the State of the Union speech are complimentary and outline a pragmatic view of the EU’s required responses to today’s economic and geopolitical challenges. The State of the Union address was notably short on diplomatic ambiguity and remarkably high on pragmatism.

Perhaps more than any other event, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been an awakening for the EU. Efforts to wish away the inconvenient truth of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and half-hearted sanctions only encouraged the bully in Vladimir Putin. The ominous clouds of war preceding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were equally dismissed with the desperate hope that it would be a bluff designed to gain some type of concessions. At the same time, China’s role in supporting Russia was recognized for what it was—a threat to the world order, and specifically to the EU. The state of denial is now over. An indisputable change in the global order has been accepted, demanding the EU navigate a new and very different course.

In a changing global economy, the EU’s focus on strengthening competitiveness is inherently related to economic security. Yet to be competitive, it is essential that de-risking be part of the formula. Ensuring resilience across all supply chains to achieve greater diversity in types and sources of critical needs will be a foundational element for moving forward. Promoting technological supremacy while seeking to maintain open markets will not be easy. As a result, a new initiative will be led by former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi to make Europe competitive globally.

The weight of the European market in the global economy has shrunk in the last twenty years from 20 percent in 2001 to 14.5 percent in 2023, while the Chinese economy has grown from 7 percent to 19 percent. Boosting competitiveness is key as the EU economy is forecasted to grow less than 1 percent in 2023, compared to almost 4 percent last year. As von der Leyen acknowledged, there is a critical need for policy changes to improve the ease of doing business for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The true backbone of the European economy, SMEs make up more than 99 percent of businesses and employ around 100 million people.

Tacking the issue of competitiveness will require actions to address the skills shortages that 74 percent of the SMEs are facing. Only by investing in programs that develop human talent can innovation be achieved and sustained. Research and development (R&D) is another area needing immediate attention. Compared to the United States and China, which spend 3.45 percent and 2.4 percent of their respective GDP on R&D, the EU only spends 2.2 percent or $328 billion. Chinese spending in R&D has increased eleven-fold since the early 2000s, reaching $439 billion in 2022. New European investments in automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence will prove to be cost-effective in the long term by providing security and prosperity within the community. However, investment in R&D needs to be structured as a proprietary investment for the benefit of the EU. In this regard, de-risking R&D activities requires a zero-based review of all ongoing R&D agreements between China and EU member states to protect the EU’s competitiveness.

When it comes to de-risking supply chains vis-à-vis China, there is a clear alignment between the Biden administration’s new economic doctrine and the EU’s proposals to establish export controls on specific technologies. Especially in fields such as cleantech, solar industry, and electric vehicles, these controls are based on the U.S. model. While the EU’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) regulation was established to make the European economies better equipped to identify and mitigate the risks of foreign investment to security and public order, it was a direct response to China’s increased influence in the European market using unfair practices and state subsidies. It remains to be seen whether the EU will also follow the lead of the United States in establishing an outbound investment screening mechanism, as it did for the inward FDI screening mechanism. In 2022, we witnessed a sudden increase of European FDI toward the Chinese market, despite slowing overall FDI in China, as EU investment grew by a staggering 92 percent.

While laying out an economic security strategy and a speech may be timely, there are other challenges affecting the state of the union—some acute. The impact of illegal migration in Italy and Greece has been neglected for far too long and needs a quantifiable solution. Without a doubt, the Western Balkans are the soft underbelly of Europe and a flashpoint for nefarious bad actors to cause problems. It’s time for the EU to amplify its efforts and serve as a forcing function to resolve disputes in the Western Balkans. The EU has the expertise and capacity to help advance aspirant countries’ compliance with achieving accession protocols and fast-track their entry into the EU. At the same time, the EU has unlimited tools to promote the rule of law and hold leadership accountable for not taking action that supports their people.

Von der Leyen pointed out that a new generation of voters is entering the stage. This new generation, guided by the wisdom and experience of the current generation of leaders, can achieve great things. This might be a defining point for the EU. Challenging and exciting times lie ahead.

Dr. Valbona Zeneli is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Visiting Scholar at the Minda de Gunzburg Center of European Studies at Harvard University.

Joseph Vann is a National Security expert and former Deputy Assistant Director of NCIS.

Image: Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock.com

The United States finds itself in a precarious position as tensions escalate between Canada and India. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s startling accusation that India may have played a role in the death of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil triggered the diplomatic row. The unanimous condemnation of this alleged violation of Canadian sovereignty by the Canadian government and opposition parties prompted Ottawa to expel a senior Indian diplomat, Pavan Kumar Rai, whom Canada claims heads the Canadian branch of India’s foreign spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). India vehemently denied the allegations, countering that Canada was diverting attention from separatist terrorism and extremism. New Delhi also expelled a Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move.

The diplomatic tensions were apparent during Prime Minister Trudeau’s visit to New Delhi for the 2023 G20 Summit. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi expressed grave concerns about Sikh “Khalistan” protests in Canada, which he perceived as threatening India’s territorial sovereignty and integrity. Canada has the largest Sikh diaspora population outside Punjab, India. A segment of this diaspora advocates for an independent Sikh majority state known as Khalistan. Prime Minister Trudeau defended these protests as exercises of freedom of expression, assembly, and peaceful protest. He raised the alleged Indian involvement in Nijjar’s killing directly with Indian Prime Minister Modi during the G20 sideline meeting. Furthermore, Trudeau discussed this issue with President Joe Biden, British prime minister Rishi Sunak, and French president Emmanuel Macron at the G20 Summit. It complicates efforts by Canada and its allies to strengthen relations with India to counterbalance China’s rise.

Strategic Partnerships with India

For geostrategic reasons, India has long been considered an indispensable partner for Canada and its allies in their Indo-Pacific strategies. The United States, under the Bush Administration, recognized the strategic significance of India and initiated efforts to build a strategic partnership. One significant milestone in this partnership was the signing of the landmark 2005 India-U.S. nuclear deal. Washington agreed to lift all sanctions imposed on India after its nuclear tests in 1998. This strategic partnership is celebrated as a relationship between the “world’s largest democracy” and the “world’s oldest democracy.” India’s democratic foundations, diverse population, and growing economy are critical for strategic and economic considerations. India’s shared democratic values also serve as a pivotal asset in the ideological competition against authoritarian regimes like China. India’s perception of China as an antagonistic neighbor is vindicated by frequent Chinese incursions into disputed border regions. This threat perception prompts India to participate in Washington’s rebalancing policy actively. In this equation, America relies on India to counterbalance China’s growing assertiveness, while India looks to Washington to bolster its position vis-à-vis Beijing.

Additionally, India is a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), comprising the United States, Japan, and Australia. This group of democratic nations serves as a forum for cooperation in countering Chinese authoritarianism. China has vehemently criticized this group, labeling it as Washington’s attempt to encircle and contain China’s rise and calling it an “Indo-Pacific version of NATO.” Concurrently, China seeks to expand its influence in the Southeast Asian and South Asian regions through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

India also holds a pivotal role in Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategic vision unveiled in 2022. In this official document, Ottawa designates China as a “disruptive power” and commits to strengthening relations with Indo-Pacific regional states, specifically focusing on India. The strategy acknowledges “India’s growing strategic, economic, and demographic importance” in pursuing Canada’s geostrategic objectives. Canada committed to negotiating a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with India as part of this strategy. However, following Canada’s allegations, diplomatic tensions have halted negotiations, and Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng canceled her planned visit to India.

Response of Canada’s Allies

Canada has brought India’s alleged violations of Canadian sovereignty to its closest allies: the United States, Britain, and Australia. It is unlikely that these allies will openly condemn India due to concerns about the impact on their respective relationships with India. The United States expressed concerns over these allegations and called for India’s cooperation with investigations. It was also reported in media that the intelligence for this case is not exclusively sourced from Canada but has been corroborated and shared by fellow members of the Five Eyes alliance, comprising the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These intelligence sources encompass both human intelligence and intercepted communications of Indian diplomats.

President Biden, in his address to the United Nations General Assembly, emphasized the importance of the “Quad partnership with India, Japan, and Australia to deliver concrete progress for the people of the region on everything from vaccines to maritime security.” Should diplomatic tensions between Canada and India escalate further, it will become increasingly challenging for Washington, D.C., to maintain a delicate balance between a NATO ally and an Indo-Pacific strategic partner.

The United Kingdom has announced its intention to continue free trade negotiations with India despite the “serious allegations” made by Canada. Australian Foreign Minister Wong announced that Canberra is “deeply concerned by these allegations” and “We have conveyed our concerns at senior levels to India.” These are all sympathetic but non-committal statements. London, Washington, and Canberra have prioritized forging stronger ties with India, recognizing its strategic significance in the Indo-Pacific region. These states are unlikely to align exclusively with Canada, given India’s continued strategic importance in the context of their Indo-Pacific interests.

The World’s Largest Democracy

India shares democratic values with Western countries, providing common ground for a strategic partnership against authoritarian China. However, in recent years, India’s democratic credentials have come under scrutiny. The Modi government’s pursuit of Hindu nationalism, allegations of minority rights violations, human rights abuses, and restrictions on free media and civil society have raised concerns among Western nations. During Prime Minister Modi’s state visit to the United States in June, the Biden administration faced pressure from lawmakers to address human rights concerns publicly. Seventy-five U.S. senators and members of the House of Representatives wrote a letter to President Biden, urging him to discuss human rights violations with Modi openly. Additionally, during Modi’s address to the U.S. Congress, several left-wing Democrats boycotted the event. The Biden administration opted not to publicly raise these human rights issues due to concerns about their negative impact on bilateral relations.

India’s recent reclassification from a “free” to a “partly free” country by Freedom House carries significant implications. Instead of serving as a champion of democracy to counterbalance authoritarian regimes like China, the Modi government’s policies appear to push India toward authoritarianism. The United States has been building its strategic partnership with India based on shared democratic values. If India continues on this trajectory towards authoritarianism, the very foundation of this partnership could become shaky. Given India’s status as the world’s most populous country, the fifth-largest economy, and possessing one of the most powerful militaries, such a shift could weaken the global order. The United States should hold India accountable for its deviations from democratic values and must not sacrifice its commitment to democratic values for short-term strategic interests.

Looking Ahead

Managing and containing the diplomatic tensions between Canada and India is crucial. Prime Minister Trudeau has clarified that Canada is not “provoking” India and expects full cooperation in the ongoing investigation. However, it is unlikely that New Delhi will readily cooperate with Ottawa. It is important to note that it is equally in India’s interest to improve its relations with Canada and its allies to counter China’s threat. India relies on Western countries as much as they rely on New Delhi. India’s response should ideally involve cooperation in the investigations if it believes it has nothing to hide. Unfortunately, India has chosen an escalatory route, issuing a travel advisory to its citizens in Canada and suspending visa services after vehemently denying Canada’s allegations. In this context, the United States must mediate to ensure that relations between its closest ally and strategic partner remain stable.

Saira Bano is an Assistant Professor of Politics at Thompson Rivers University. Her primary research interests are International Relations theories, great power politics, security issues, the nuclear non-proliferation regime, nuclear weapons concerns in South Asia, and the intersection of domestic politics and foreign policy. She received her PhD from the Centre for Military, Security, and Strategic Studies (CMSS) at the University of Calgary.

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