The National Interest

Political gridlock is often the result of brutal polarization, ineptitude, or a combination of both. Those following Lebanon understand this reality more than most, especially following the Lebanese parliament’s failure to elect a president for the twelfth time since former President Michel Aoun vacated the post at the end of his term in October 2022. The vote, held on June 14, further illuminates in stark terms the small Mediterranean country’s ongoing political nightmare—one that will prove critical to resolving in the near term amidst what can reasonably be described as a fairly modest step forward in the recent vote.

While a “modest step forward” should be expressed with a particularly grainy piece of salt, the advancement of former finance minister and current senior International Monetary Fund official Jihad Azour as a counterweight to the Hezbollah and Amal-backed Suleiman Frangieh marks a crucial moment in the search for a new Lebanese president. The vote resulted in fifty-nine votes for Azour and fifty-one for Frangieh. The remaining votes included blank ballots, protest votes, or votes for smaller candidates such as General Joseph Aoun and Ziad Baroud, ultimately operating as spoilers to any 65-vote threshold required for a second-round victory.

Still, the outcome is significant, even if it did not produce a new president. Azour enjoys the unique and surprising support of every major Lebanese Christian party—a notoriously fractured voting bloc that includes notable heavy-hitters like the anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Forces, the formerly Hezbollah-aligned Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), and the newly pro-reform Kataeb party. These stakeholders, alongside many of the independent members of parliament (MPs) and some smaller parties, form the backbone of Azour’s leading vote total in the parliamentary session. As a result of the final count, the pro-Frangieh camp’s walkout broke the quorum and close the session after the vote.

Kataeb leader Samy Gemayel described the session and walkout in stark terms, arguing “What happened today was a real uprising of Lebanese MPs… who said no to diktats and threats.” He added, “Today it was obvious that those who ran out of parliament after the first round are those who lost.” Unsurprisingly, the Hezbollah/Amal camp aimed to frame the session as a victory for their bloc, with Amal MP Ali Hassan Khalil claiming “any kind of imposition of a candidate on us will not achieve any results. Dialogue is the only way to elect a president. We have emerged politically victorious.”

It should not be lost on any observers that neither bloc will allow a second-round vote or admit they are aiming to dictate the outcome of the presidency on their own terms. Frangieh is a non-starter for the Christian parties, and unrealistic without FPM support. At present, FPM chief Gebran Bassil does not support Frangieh’s candidacy, and his party will mostly follow his lead in this regard. That being said, Bassil has made clear that support for Azour is not entrenched, just as other Christian leaders continue to re-iterate their differences with FPM while citing a “convergence” around the presidency at this time.

Thus, the Christian parties are trying their hand at particularly bold political gamesmanship. The bloc surrounding Azour—and especially FPM—likely view his candidacy as a mechanism for forcing genuine negotiations around a true consensus candidate for the presidency. Bassil gave an interview shortly after endorsing Azour that confirms his thinking in this regard, expressing that “if we are invited to an election session, we can vote for [Azour]. But will this make him president? If the other side does not agree on him, unfortunately, no.” He went on to say that “we should keep having intensive talks to reach a consensus.”

One can be excused for viewing Bassi’s comments as altruistic. The senior politician and former FPM golden boy was once believed to be a shoo-in for the presidency, widely thought to be Aoun’s natural successor given FPM’s political strength before the recent parliamentary elections. Rather, a long career of energy-sector corruption and sanctions, alongside a close and potentially harmful Hezbollah alliance, caught up with him. He is widely regarded as one of the most hated politicians in Lebanon today.

Regardless, Bassil understands the political game being played. He likely expected Hezbollah to support his nomination upon Aoun’s departure—something that was simply never going to happen given the sanctions issue. Rather than risk a political liability in Bassil, Hezbollah opted for what they believe is a less controversial candidate in Frangieh. This ultimately pushed Bassil away, broadening a rift in the alliance that had been developing since last year—largely over the role of the cabinet and government without a presidency.

Bassil could still be aiming for the presidency in his recent moves, although this approach is likely folly for the reasons already stated. Still, his call for talks and signals to the Hezbollah camp expressing his flexibility is probably not lost on the Lebanese armed group. Ultimately, Bassil’s rhetoric is up to interpretation at present—whether he is still gunning for the presidency or trying to play dealmaker to clean up his image with the Lebanese populace and international community remains to be seen.

Ultimately, the makeup of Lebanon’s political system makes it nearly impossible for one political bloc to impose a candidate. This requires true dialogue that either bridges the divide between the two core political blocs or manages to pull in the necessary spoilers needed to reach sixty-five votes, although the latter option fails to address the quorum issue. This dynamic is unlikely to be resolved soon and will probably and unfortunately require international influence to resolve.

Whether or not new regional dynamics play a role here remains to be seen. The French play a major role here, and the Saudi crown prince’s visit to Paris on June 16 included talks on Beirut and calls to resolve the presidential impasse. Additionally, the Iran-Saudi Arabia deal brokered by China is thought to be an opportunity for resolving Beirut’s political impasse. Yet while this is certainly a reasonable analysis of the situation, the deal has yet to foster any noticeable progress in Lebanon today, especially relative to Syria and, to a lesser extent, Yemen. Still, Tehran and Riyadh likely did discuss Lebanon’s political troubles in great detail during the Saudi foreign minister’s historic visit to Iran on June 17.

Should the historic rivals truly hope to expand on their historic deal, all roads could lead to Beirut. But no one should count their bets on this outcome yet, leaving Lebanon and the Lebanese stuck in their ongoing political stalemate for the foreseeable future, even after some consolidation around two core candidates that constitute a small advancement in 2023.

Alexander Langlois is a foreign policy analyst focused on the Middle East and North Africa. He holds an M.A. in International Affairs from American University’s School of International Service. Follow him at @langloisajl.

Image: Shutterstock.

In recent months, the flagship Taiwanese tech firm, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), has been a focus of discussions about a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. For instance, Nikkei published a piece by Jared M. McKinney, a professor at the U.S. Air Force War College. McKinney argues that Taiwan should destroy TSMC’s world-leading chip foundries to prevent them from falling into PRC hands.

After China gets its hands on the advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, McKinney contends, it could then proceed to develop its own alternative chip-making capacity; “Once it got through short-term disruptions, China could emerge as a semiconductor superpower that is essentially self-reliant.” It follows that threatening to destroy the machines would help deter an invasion, and “It is in Taiwan's interest to make clear that China will not gain access to TSMC's EUV machines and semiconductor foundries if it invades.”

However, the truth is simple: TSMC is irrelevant.

Long before TSMC emerged as a semiconductor colossus, Chinese leaders claimed Taiwan as a sovereign territory of the People’s Republic. The claim exists irrespective of Taiwan’s economic prowess. Although McKinney does not argue the TSMC drives the PRC’s annexation dreams, other commentators like Marc Kennis have argued this explicitly. If TSMC disappeared tomorrow, Beijing would go right on pretending Taiwan has always been part of China.

Prior to 1942, as Alan Wachman observed in Why Taiwan? Geostrategic Rationales for China’s Territorial Integrity both the Nationalist (KMT) and Communist (CCP) leaderships were indifferent to Taiwan during the interwar period. Comments from elites, youth publications, and government intelligence reports treated Taiwan as lying outside China’s traditional domain and assumed that the island’s inhabitants would one day form an independent state.

After Japan brought the US into World War II, Chinese elites began considering what territories would be up for grabs following the conflict. The KMT government under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek started to rewrite the history of China to include Taiwan, and the Communists followed suit when they took power in 1949. With a zeal whose strength is as great as its historical foundation is false, the Party leadership has internalized the doctored history behind unification as a key strategic objective. In 2000, long before TSMC had become a household name and the darling of would-be George Kennans on the internet, then Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji snarled on the eve of Taiwan’s presidential election: “no matter who comes to power in Taiwan, Taiwan will never be allowed to be independent.”

TSMC is thus irrelevant to the PRC’s desire to annex Taiwan. It is just as unrelated to Chinese objectives following a hypothetical war and occupation.

First, the advanced lithography machines at TSMC will quickly become useless in the event of war. Should they go offline for even a few days, they will accumulate dust and other contaminants and require extensive cleaning. But any war in the Straits will likely go on for weeks. Once the machines go offline, as electricity, labor, and water systems collapse, they will quickly become useless. Dormant machines will require disassembly, refurbishing, or reconstruction once. I have heard from experts that it is unclear whether TSMC staff could do that without foreign inputs, even in peacetime. The war itself will destroy them without Taiwanese sabotage.

TSMC is dependent on supply chains that stretch across national boundaries. Numerous Japanese firms, such as Resonac, which supplies a compound used to polish the silicon wafers, and Shin-Etsu Chemical, help keep the assembly lines rolling. This flow of material imports would dry up instantly in the event of invasion.

The same would go for the hundreds of smaller firms that populate the upstream and downstream of TSMC’s logistics stream. The skilled workers may be conscripted into the army or flee the island. An exodus of essential foreign technicians and migrant laborers is also on the cards. How many will return to work under the PRC’s authoritarian rule?

If the PLA captures TSMC, its technological advantages will quickly fade as new chip manufacturers emerge elsewhere to meet global demand. China, for years, has been cut off from cutting-edge chip-making technology, and its own attempts to forge a world-beating chip industry have foundered on its strict information controls. Not by coincidence, the world’s leading chip firms have emerged in societies where skilled labor and information circulate freely. Hence, when TSMC becomes Chinese, it will fall out of the mainstream of global chip production.

Moreover, practical issues abound. McKinney and others imagine a world where events will quickly return to normal once the war ends. That is not our world. In recent years Taiwan has suffered from chronic drought. In response, TSMC has acquired a fleet of trucks to supply it with over 150,000 tons of water daily. Though generally ignored in invasion hypotheticals, Taiwan's creaky water system is vulnerable to missile attacks or sabotage on dams, pipes, and reservoirs.

Not only is the water supply to TSMC likely to fail and not be easily restored, but its fleet of trucks will be critical war equipment subject to requisition by the government. “In war,” a local city planner once told me, “there will be no private property.” Nor is China, learning from Ukraine, going to leave Taiwan’s electricity systems in operation. The PLA’s artillery, drones, and missiles would target prime movers of every kind, along with buses, public transport systems, trains, roads, bridges, and tunnels (where Taiwan will likely stash its mobile weapons systems). In occupied Taiwan, transportation infrastructure will be scarred for years.

Beijing is well aware of all this. The truth is that TSMC is leverage, but only for China. As long as Taiwan’s fabs are intact and functioning, the PRC gains from threatening to destroy them (“surrender, or we’ll devastate your economy!”), while Taiwan gains nothing from destroying them. Beijing will simply shrug. Indeed, that their destruction might demoralize Taiwan’s population and hurt its export economy is a good reason Beijing might just go ahead and destroy them. The symbolic meaning of Taiwan’s tech industry as the basis of its free existence makes the island’s chip factories targets as tempting as the former mosques in Xinjiang.

Recall that Beijing does not merely want to annex Taiwan: it wants to annihilate the whole idea of an independent, democratic, high-functioning, free Taiwan. Its democracy is a daily refutation of the CCP’s claim that only the party can rule the people it deems “Chinese.” Behavior ranging from the occupation of Hong Kong to the CCP’s strict controls on Chinese firms—and mandatory party appointees in foreign ones—all show that economic gains are less important to the Party than political dominance.

Want to help the US defend Taiwan? Stop talking about TSMC, and start talking about rebuilding the US defense industrial base, cultivating alliances with Japan and other Asian nations, and, most urgently, putting more vertical launching systems on the water to counter the PRC’s massive navy.

After all, those fabs are hothouse flowers that, one way or another, will die the moment the heat of war scorches Taiwan.

Michael Turton is a columnist for the Taipei Times.

Image: Shutterstock.

On June 14, the U.S. Air Force deployed fifth-generation F-22 Raptors to Syria to deter what U.S. Central Command described as “increasingly unsafe and unprofessional behavior by Russian aircraft in the region.” The Raptor, an advanced air-superiority fighter that is renowned for its stealth capabilities, is intended to increase the U.S. military’s ability to defend the 900 U.S. servicemembers that remain deployed in the war-torn country.

The last time the United States sent F-22 fighters to the Middle East was last year, when the combat jets flew to the United Arab Emirates in a show of force following drone and missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthis. However, it is not the aircraft’s first stint in Syria. In the spring of 2018, the F-22 provided “defensive counterair” capabilities by holding Syrian air defense assets at risk during the U.S.-led, multinational strikes against Syrian military targets in response to Damascus’ suspected chemical weapons attacks. Then, in the fall, the F-22 completed its first “combat surge” in Syria, in which U.S. Raptor pilots flew “deep into Syrian territory, facing both enemy fighters and surface-to-air missile systems” and deterred nearly 600 Syrian, Iranian, and Russian combat aircraft from threatening U.S. military personnel.

The F-22 has its work cut out for it in Syria, whether in deterring the Russian military or aiding the broader U.S. military mission. Indeed, despite these deployments in defense of the years-long U.S. military presence on the ground, the Air Force reports that Russia has stopped adhering to agreed-upon deconfliction agreements in Syria’s busy skies and that Russian aircraft are harassing U.S. personnel with increasing frequency. The United States has long been concerned about Russian harassment of U.S. forces but has recently observed a “significant spike” in Russian aerial aggression in Syria. On the ground, too, U.S. servicemembers face a variety of threats from Russian forces, which have physically harassed and threatened Americans across the country.

Russia maintains over 2,500 military personnel in Syria in support of its ally, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, which for all intents and purposes has won his country’s civil war after more than a decade of conflict. Russia and Syria have long disparaged U.S. troops as “occupiers” and insisted that they leave the country. The U.S. refusal has put Americans in harm’s way, and not just from Moscow and Damascus. Iran, another Syrian and Russian ally, has regularly targeted the U.S. military as well. As recently as last March, for instance, a drone attack of “Iranian origin” killed one U.S. contractor and wounded six others in Syria, raising questions about the logic and sustainability of a U.S. presence that has persisted in Syria since 2015.

The United States government consistently points to the threats posed by the remnants of the Islamic State when it justifies the U.S. presence in Syria. To be sure, even after losing its territorial holdings in Iraq and Syria, the terrorist group’s resiliency continues to pose a complex challenge for the U.S.-led multinational coalition, which carried out 313 anti-ISIS operations in 2022. Yet the United States faces more and direr threats from Russia, Iran, and the Syrian government than ISIS itself, which has lost its once-formidable capability to carry out coordinated offensive operations in the Middle East or farther abroad.

In fact, ISIS cannot be defeated by military action alone: tens of thousands of ISIS prisoners, including many foreign fighters and their families, are languishing in Iraqi and Syrian detention centers and prisons. Until these people are repatriated to their countries of origin, they will be at risk of radicalization and recruitment by jihadists, and ISIS will continue to target the prisons in its efforts to free its comrades. As U.S. policymakers should have learned from the U.S. war efforts against Al Qaeda or the Taliban, ISIS is not a problem that the United States can kill its way out of.

However, much like the Taliban has proven its commitment to fighting ISIS even after the United States left Afghanistan, there is reason to believe that Syria, Iran, and Russia will not tolerate ISIS in the Middle East either. Americans should recall that Iran was instrumental in the U.S.-supported fight against ISIS in Iraq and opposed the same terrorist presence in Afghanistan, while Russia has fought ISIS in its efforts to secure Assad’s rule.

It is additionally worth remembering that when President Donald Trump ordered a snap withdrawal from Syria in 2019, it was Russia who moved its troops into the abandoned U.S. outposts and called for de-escalation between the Kurds and Turkey in the northeast. Moscow’s subsequent, fruitful negotiations with Turkey then led to an agreement that prevented a Turkish military operation against the Kurds in exchange for the latter retreating from the Syrian-Turkish border. Turkey, which was responsible for killing ISIS’s latest leader last month, is committed to combatting the same Syrian Kurds that the United States has been supporting since 2014—greatly straining the U.S.-Turkish relationship. This is just one more Gordian knot that the United States has been trying to untie in Syria—without much success.

The fact of the matter is that the United States is an outsider with few friends in Syria. As an uninvited guest in the country, it remains a target of Syrian, Russian, and Iranian military pressure. Its own allies and partners, from the United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia and the broader Arab League, have begun welcoming Damascus back into the regional fold with open arms. Its policy of regime change, which began under the Obama administration but has continued in different forms, has long failed. Far from Russia being isolated—even after its invasion of Ukraine—Moscow continues to be an indispensable player in Syria, for Damascus and Tehran as much as Jerusalem and Ankara. The countries of the Middle East understand that the United States will not stay in Syria indefinitely, and they are hedging their bets accordingly. But America has not adapted in kind; instead, it has stayed the course, enduring casualties while vainly searching for a way out. But after nine years of war, only one thing is clear: no amount of F-22s can help America defeat the consequences of its own policy failings.

Adam Lammon is a former executive editor at The National Interest and an analyst of Middle Eastern affairs based in Washington, DC. The opinions expressed in this article are his own. Follow him on Twitter @AdamLammon.

Image: Image courtesy of the U.S. Air Force.

After the initial near-euphoria about Large Language Models, or LLMs, that power generative artificial intelligence (AI), the mood has gone sour. The spotlight shines now on doomsday scenarios where LLMs become self-aware, go out of control, and extinguish humanity.

Fear of sentient robots is hardly new. In an 1899 short story, Ambrose Bierce conjured a robot created by an inventor named Moxon. It looked like a person, if a dour one, but it wasn’t smart enough even to beat Moxon at chess. And when it lost, the robot revealed deep wells of uncontrolled emotion: it murdered Moxon.

This fear has maintained its popularity ever since in books, plays, and movies. Some bad robots appeared simply as machine systems, like homicidal HAL in Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some robots look human, like the Terminators. And beyond the murderous robots, there are sometimes big networks of robotic systems, such as in The Matrix, whose aim is to enslave humanity. Even Isaac Asimov, who tried to rein in robots with three laws that forbade doing harm to humans, worried that robots could circumvent such strictures.

ChatGPT and Bard are two prominent examples of LLMs that amaze with sophisticated answers to questions. These systems have sparked a huge wave of investment in new services powered by LLMs. And they have unleashed a torrent of anxiety about how their proneness to “hallucinate” (make stuff up) might create havoc with fake news, stolen elections, massive job losses, undermined trust in business, or even destabilization of national security. The worst fears concern the potential for the machines to become sentient and subjugate or exterminate us. A chorus of leading voices from the worlds of high tech and politics has made a case, best summed up by Henry Kissinger, that current advances in AI have put the world in a “mad race for some catastrophe.”

Our assessment is that the furor over the extinction prophecy has gotten the better of us and is distracting from the important work of learning how to use an extremely valuable but inherently error-prone technology safely.

The core of ChatGPT is a huge artificial neural network of 96 layers and 175 billion parameters, trained on hundreds of gigabytes of text from the Internet. When presented with a query (prompt), it responds with a list of the most probable next words. A post-processor chooses one of the words according to their listed probabilities. That word is appended to the prompt and the cycle repeated. What emerges is a fluent string of words that are statistically associated with the prompt.

These strings of words are drawn from multiple text documents in the training set, but the strings do not appear in any single document. ChatGPT is incapable of verifying whether a response is truthful. Its responses that make no sense are called “hallucinations” when all they are is statistical inference from the training data.

Despite their unreliability, LLMs can be useful for amusement and for initial drafts of documents, speeches, research projects, and code. The smart thing is to use them for these purposes but not in any application where harm can result from invalid answers. In fact, it is not hard to imagine harnessing the machine impartiality of ChatGPT to solve contentious problems. For example, we think a robotic approach to gerrymandering would be a great way to build confidence in AI. Task competing LLMs with designing congressional districts that look like simple geometric forms rather than exotic reptiles. The main guidance would be that the districts would have to be as balanced as possible between the registered voters of the two major parties. Our bet is that bots will succeed wildly where humans have failed.

What about the fears of sentience? Can LLMs eventually absorb so much text that they possess all human knowledge and are smarter than any of us? Are they the end of history? The answer is a clear no. The claim that all human knowledge can eventually be captured into machines makes no sense. We can only put into machines knowledge that can be represented by strings of bits. Performance skills like sports, music, master carpentry, or creative writing are prime examples of knowledge that cannot be precisely described and recorded; descriptions of skill do not confer a capability to perform. Even if it could be represented, performance skill is in forms that are inaccessible for recording—our thoughts and reflections, our neuronal memory states, and our neuro-muscular chemical patterns. The sheer volume of all such nonrecorded—and unrecordable—information goes well beyond what might be possible to store in a machine database. Whatever functions can be performed by LLMs are small compared to human capabilities.

In addition to this, statistical inference is surely not the whole story of human cooperation, creativity, coordination, and competition. Have we become so mesmerized by Large Language Models that we do not see the rest of what we do in language? We build relationships. We take care of each other. We recognize and navigate our moods. We build and exercise power. We make commitments and follow through with them. We build organizations and societies. We create traditions and histories. We take responsibility for actions. We build trust. We cultivate wisdom. We love. We imagine what has never been imagined before. We smell the flowers and celebrate with our loved ones. None of these is statistical. There is a great chasm between the capabilities of LLMs and those of human beings.

And beyond LLMs, there is no sign on the horizon of a more advanced, close to intelligent, technology.

So, let’s take a sober attitude toward LLMs, starting by curbing the sensational talk. What if we use the phrase “statistical model of language” instead of “Large Language Model”? Notice how much less threatening, even silly, the extinction prophecy sounds when expressed as, “Humanity goes extinct because of its inability to control statistical models of language.”

Tamping down unreasonable fears will allow us to attend to the serious matters of the economic and social impacts of the latest advances in artificial intelligence, and of LLMs’ penchant for inaccuracy and unreliability. Let us also address the geopolitical stresses between the United States, China, and Russia, which could be exacerbated by an unbridled military arms race in AI that might make going to war seem more thinkable—and which would actually heighten the risks of nuclear escalation by the side losing a machine-based conflict. In this respect, we concur with Kissinger that advanced AI could catalyze a human catastrophe.

Above all, as with previous periods that featured major technological advances, the challenge now is to chart a wise path around fear and hype.

John Arquilla and Peter Denning are distinguished professors at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. John Arquilla’s latest book is Bitskrieg: The New Challenge of Cyberwarfare (Polity, 2021). Peter Denning most recently co-authored Computational Thinking (MIT Press, 2019).

The views expressed in this article are solely theirs.

Image: Shutterstock.

As the Republican presidential primary intensifies, a burgeoning contingent of right-leaning foreign policy experts has emerged to claim that President Joe Biden’s Ukraine policy is eroding America’s ability to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Consequently, they recommend drastically reducing, if not outright halting, American support for Ukraine’s defense. Politically, this argument is shrewd—it appeals to an increasingly Ukraine-skeptical Republican primary electorate without compromising its proponents’ credibility within mainstream foreign policy circles. Given the widespread consensus that China poses America’s most significant strategic challenge, framing a rollback of current Ukraine policy this way lends the argument an air of hard truth told by sober-minded adults. However, while certainly politically savvy, geopolitically, this line of reasoning is highly unsound.

At its core, the case for reducing U.S. support for Ukraine is based on a supposed policy tradeoff: every dollar or bullet sent to Ukraine is one less for Taiwan’s defense. Because Taiwan’s security is more strategically significant to Washington than Ukraine’s, critics claim the U.S. must realign its policy to match its priorities.

However, this argument overlooks several factors that challenge its fundamental assumptions. Notably, one doesn’t need to accept the view expressed by the Taiwanese, among others, that the United States must support Ukraine to deter China. Even setting aside concerns about U.S. credibility or resolve, there is ample reason to conclude that the critics of Washington’s current Ukraine policy are mistaken. Similarly, while the most compelling argument for assisting Ukraine is arguably the moral one, even within the framework of tradeoffs, the case for the Biden administration’s current policy is strong.

First, the defense budget does not solely consist of spending on Ukraine and Taiwan. Many other programs, some arguably wasteful, could be reduced or eliminated to increase funding for Taiwan’s defense. Furthermore, Russia is China’s most militarily capable partner and would likely be willing to supply weapons to China during any conflict over Taiwan. Therefore, providing Ukraine with the means to destroy Russian military capabilities is possibly the most cost-effective Defense Department program currently in existence, even when one looks at it through the lens of a Taiwan contingency. And while far from guaranteed, if Russia’s poor performance in Ukraine eventually results in Putin’s overthrow and replacement by a more benign Russian government, the gains to U.S. and Taiwanese security would be even more significant.

The radically different nature of the two conflicts further undermines the notion of a sharp tradeoff between arming Ukraine versus Taiwan. The Ukraine conflict is predominantly a land war fought over short distances, while a Taiwan conflict would likely be a primarily naval war fought over long distances. While reports of the depletion of American weapons reserves are worrying, the weapon systems in question are not the submarines, aircraft, anti-ship missiles, sea mines, and torpedoes crucial to Taiwan’s defense.

The U.S. military has also gained valuable information thanks to its support for Ukraine. The war has exposed inefficiencies and gaps in America’s defense industrial base—lessons better learned now than in the middle of a potential conflict with China over Taiwan. The Ukraine mission is also giving the Pentagon a chance to test new equipment and develop the logistical skills necessary for long-distance supply operations, knowledge that would prove invaluable should the United States need to come to Taiwan’s defense.

One might counter that the U.S. commitment to Ukraine will tempt China to strike Taiwan while the United States is tied down in Europe, especially if the conflict drags on for years. But attacking Taiwan while the Ukraine conflict is ongoing would be a strategic disaster for China. Beijing hopes to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States over Taiwan, and as evidenced by recent comments from leaders like French president Emmanuel Macron, they have had some success. However, a Chinese attack on Taiwan amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would torpedo that diplomatic effort and likely result in the two conflicts merging into one global East-West struggle. Under such circumstances, Europe would likely support U.S. efforts to defend Taiwan in return for continued American assistance in Ukraine. In short, attacking Taiwan in the context of the Ukraine war makes the emergence of a pan-Western coalition to counter China more likely, not less.

Lastly, there is an essential distinction between the current conflict in Ukraine and a hypothetical one over Taiwan that makes arguments about potential tradeoffs moot: the role of nuclear weapons. The U.S. has wisely refrained from direct involvement in the Ukraine war to avoid the possibility of a nuclear confrontation with Russia. But a serious conflict over Taiwan would necessitate significant U.S. military involvement, likely involving missile strikes on the Chinese mainland. It is illogical to conclude that Washington is correct to worry that direct military engagement in Ukraine could result in a nuclear war with Russia, but killing significant numbers of Chinese citizens does not also risk a nuclear exchange. Misconceptions about the role of atomic weapons in a Taiwan conflict have likely been reinforced by DC think tanks’ war games, which often take them off the table. But in any real-world conflict over Taiwan, the prospect of nuclear war would immediately loom over the minds of policymakers in both Washington and Beijing.

To be clear, the threat of nuclear war with China is not a reason to abandon Taiwan, just as during the Cold War, the threat of nuclear war was neither a reason to abandon Berlin. Nevertheless, the fact that hypothetical mushroom clouds loom over any U.S.-China conflict constrains the role of conventional weapons in any Taiwan scenario.

Those who worry about tradeoffs for Ukraine make the mistake of believing that the United States must exceed China’s conventional capabilities in the Western Pacific to achieve deterrence. Under this logic, it is understandable why one would be desperate to shift every weapon possible from Ukraine to Taiwan. But attempting to match China’s conventional forces this way is untenable and unnecessary.

To deter a Chinese invasion, the United States simply needs to maintain sufficient military capabilities in the region such that China cannot successfully invade Taiwan without simultaneously attacking America’s Pacific bases, particularly Guam, but conceivably Japan and the Philippines as well. Under these conditions, China will find itself confronting a sort of “Guam trigger.” Given the stated U.S. policy, Beijing must operate under the assumption that Washington would actively assist in Taiwan’s defense. If China launches an invasion without first destroying America’s military assets in the region, its ships will be left vulnerable to attack. However, if it launches a preemptive strike on U.S. forces, especially on American soil in Guam, it will experience the full wrath of a vengeful United States. Given this, China faces a choice between a failed invasion or a major conflict likely ending in atomic annihilation. Given those options, Beijing will presumably choose to maintain the status quo, achieving Washington’s goal of deterrence with limited deployment of conventional arms. China may attempt to escape this bind by adopting more restrained tactics, such as a blockade of Taiwan. But any U.S. attempt to counter such a move would primarily involve diplomatic outreach and air and sea lift, areas that are not hampered by U.S. support for Ukraine.

It is undoubtedly correct that U.S. national security officials must recognize tradeoffs, but it is equally true that they must also recognize false tradeoffs when they emerge. The idea that Washington must choose between defending Taiwan and defending Ukraine is one such false choice, and the Biden administration is wise to ignore such criticisms.

Robert Nelson is a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University studying U.S. foreign policy. He previously served as a national security aide to Senator Chris Murphy. His Twitter handle is @RW_Nelson.

Image: Shutterstock.

Beijing is now the world’s largest holder of international port assets. Through a network of dozens of state-owned port operators, contractors, investment firms, and banks, the Chinese state has invested upwards of $110 billion in foreign port operation and development projects across eighty port states, a value equivalent to the total outward foreign direct investment (ODFI) stock of Israel.

Figure 1. Locations of port investments by Chinese state-owned enterprises.

Figure 2. Chinese state-owned enterprises investing in foreign ports.

These investments were mostly made in the wake of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, when demand for capital was high and the rehabilitative and mutually beneficial effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) were presumed.

However, the emergence of several troubled Chinese state-led port investments has diminished this optimism. Contentious contract renegotiations, threatened project cancellations, or outright bans on Chinese FDI signal growing unease about “handing over the keys” of one’s critical infrastructure to a foreign government. Such concerns are not unfounded. In a recently published article in the journal Marine Policy (available open access) my co-authors and I argue that the political nature of these investments vis-à-vis Chinese state ownership of the investing firms carries a unique array of economic, strategic, and political risks for the recipient port states.

First, Chinese state-led investments are uniquely susceptible to commercial failure. Overcapacity is a systemic problem in China’s industrial economy, driven by national subsidies and poor internal controls on state-led industrial development. Since 2013, Beijing’s policy on correcting overcapacity has been to offshore it to developing economies through large-scale overseas infrastructure development projects. The result has been several “white elephant”-type port development projects, driven by China’s need to relieve pressure on bloated domestic industries rather than projected commercial benefits for the recipient port state. The most well-known of these is Hambantota Port, whose annual losses of $60 million meant that Sri Lankan authorities were only able to repay the $1.5 billion in Chinese loans used to finance its development by awarding a ninety-nine-year lease to a Chinese state-owned port operator.

Second, Chinese state-led investments risk the host state becoming entrapped in China’s military disputes. As Chinese state control over foreign port assets has grown, Chinese military strategists have increasingly been positioning these assets within Beijing’s naval doctrine. Specifically, these strategists argue that foreign port assets, despite being procured under commercial pretenses, may be appropriated for military missions, ranging from general reconnaissance to serving as logistics and replenishment hubs for Chinese naval vessels. If such military uses were attempted, the host port state would be in the invidious position of either accepting Chinese military operations in its territorial waters and risking retaliation from China’s military rivals, or rejecting Chinese military operations in its territorial waters and risking retaliation from China.

Third, port states hosting Chinese state-led investments risk becoming targets for espionage. Ports are rich targets in this case, both in military and commercial terms. Militarily, espionage can reveal the movement of military hardware through the port as well as the operational characteristics of foreign or domestic navies using the port; for example, resupply and materiel requirements, personnel identities, and origins and onward destinations. Commercially, espionage can provide commercial intelligence on traded consignments and port services which can be mined to provide a competitive advantage to competing firms or identify chokepoints in the industrial strategies of port states. Chinese state actors may, working through Chinese state-owned firms controlling foreign port assets, embed surveillance equipment and personnel into those assets to pursue these military and commercial dividends.

And fourth, Chinese state-led port investments may become vehicles for economic coercion. In times of political conflict between Beijing and the port state, Beijing may instruct its state-owned port investors operating in that state to disrupt port operations, such as by diverting port traffic, halting terminal operations, withholding follow-on funding, initiating vexatious litigation, or terminating the contract. This creates pressure on port states to avoid political conflicts with Beijing to maintain the economic well-being of its Chinese-controlled ports, potentially limiting the port state’s autonomy when dealing with issues sensitive to Beijing. For example, observers have credited Greece’s 2017 veto of a European Union statement on human rights in China on China’s state-owned port operator COSCO taking a controlling stake in Greece’s busiest port the year prior.

While China’s port investments should be encouraged to the extent that they help close the international infrastructure gap, increase legitimate competition among international shipping and logistics providers, and further integrate China into the global economy, port states must remain attentive to the multifaceted risks posed by China’s unique state-led OFDI program.

Dr. Christopher J. Watterson is a Research Fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London.

Image: Shutterstock.

Public opinion of China has shifted drastically in the past decade. A recent Pew poll found that 83 percent of Americans now hold a negative view of the People’s Republic. That’s understandable given China’s long history of predatory trade against U.S. manufacturers. But there’s also the uptick in threats against Taiwan and the recent spy balloon let loose over the continental United States. As troubling as these military and espionage threats are, however, Americans are particularly bothered by the ugly human rights abuses that Beijing continues to mete out in western China. Forced labor in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is deeply disturbing, and Congress must now apply maximum pressure on Beijing to rescue thousands of indigenous people pressed into virtual slavery.

Americans might be surprised to learn that some of the world’s top brands—including Apple, BMW, Gap, Nike, Samsung, Sony, and Volkswagen—utilize supply chains linked to the forced labor of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in western China. It’s estimated that more than one million people in the XUAR have already been shipped to detention camps. And tens of thousands have also been transferred to factories throughout China.

Who exactly is benefiting from this forced labor? The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) recently published a list of 50 Chinese enterprises with links to forced labor in China. This includes companies that are publicly traded in China and Hong Kong as well as in global markets.

Many of these Chinese entities are also tied to U.S. capital markets and American investors. As a result, these companies expose tens of millions of American retail investors to the financial risks and moral hazards of corporate “bad actors.”

Some of the Chinese firms tied to forced labor are now included in major financial indices, including MSCI, FTSE-Russell, and Dow S&P. However, because they are publicly traded companies, these companies are also interwoven with Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs) and index funds included in the investment products of BlackRock, Vanguard, and other large Wall Street firms. As a result, millions of everyday American investors are unwittingly investing in pensions, mutual funds, and other retirement products tied to Chinese companies with links to labor abuse.

A typical example is Huafu Fashion—which sources cotton from Xinjiang. More than 20 percent of the world’s cotton is produced in Xinjiang, and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has identified cotton as a high-risk sector for China’s forced labor products. Huafu Fashion is a subcontractor for Adidas, GAP, Lululemon, and Target, among other notable brands.

In December 2021, President Biden signed the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). Since then, the United States has blocked more goods from Xinjiang based on a presumption of forced labor. But while the UFLPA has increased the tools required to stop such importation, Beijing remains unmoved. That means Congress must now increase efforts to target the investor capital that funds these Chinese companies.

This is where the United States possesses enormous leverage. America’s financial markets are the single greatest means for Chinese firms to attract investment. As such, Congress could demand that the Treasury Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the National Economic Council identify the specific financial risks for millions of American retail investors exposed to Chinese companies traded in U.S. capital markets.

What Congress can do is set criteria for thoroughly identifying companies that source goods through forced labor. Any company that does not completely disassociate from forced labor would be excised from trading and investing in U.S. markets. This would also include any exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds containing such entities.

Essentially, global brands will face a choice: sever ties with Chinese companies tied to forced labor or be removed from U.S. financial markets.

This is a stark, necessary effort since publicly traded companies continue to knowingly engage in forced labor through their financing and direct business operations. This is abhorrent, and they should not be permitted to raise funds or trade in U.S. markets. Congress must apply leverage and force global brands to finally divest from such brutality—or have the world divest from them.

Michael Stumo is CEO of the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA). Follow him at @michael_stumo.

Image: Shutterstock.

When the five Central Asian presidents appeared before President Xi Jinping at the first China-Central Asia Summit, one suspects that Xi would not need to consider his “dear friend” Vladimir Putin anymore. With the Russian army bogged down in its invasion of Ukraine, which has been going on for well more than eighteen months, Beijing has taken initiatives to fill in the power vacuum in the post-Soviet region. This summit is just one of China’s geopolitical moves.

Indeed, China and Russia are no longer the China and Russia of a few years ago. Previously, Beijing still needed to pay lip service to Moscow by connecting its massive cash cow Belt and Road Initiative with the Russia-led but financially poor Eurasian Economic Union in Central Asia. This was somewhat moot since any major agreements between China and Central Asian countries have mostly been happening on a bilateral basis anyway. But nowadays, Beijing doesn’t even need to pretend it cares about Russia’s traditional influence in its backyard.

Consider that the port city of Vladivostok, formerly part of the Qing dynasty Chinese Empire, was recently allowed by Kremlin to be used as a transit port for Chinese domestic trade, thus making it a Chinese port (kind of) for the second time. The city has long symbolized China’s century of humiliation, as its name directly translates as “control the East.”

Beijing knows how to massage the sentiments and feelings of its own people. When the grandiose Tang dynasty-style ceremony was performed at the summit, the re-emergence of China’s glorious history echoes the Chinese people’s national pride. The message being telegraphed is that China has restored its historical position, at least in the eye of the domestic public, which directly targets the party’s ultimate goal: the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. As economist Branko Milanovic posited, “being active internationally is a matter of domestic political survival and arises because of potential domestic weakness.” After all, for any and all political entities, their continuing existence is always and naturally of the utmost priority.

However, Beijing’s return to historical grandeur will not be so smooth. Putting aside the fact that Europe is moving in a similar direction as the United States in hardening its stance against China, as shown at the recent G7 meeting, changing Sino-Russian relations, which have increasingly favored China, may not be dealt with as easily as Beijing expects. Sino-Russian expert Alexander Lukin has noted that China and Russia “were historically great and independent centers of power and should not tolerate hegemonic dictate of a foreign power.” This tenet includes each other. In the long run, it may be fundamentally unacceptable to the Russian psyche and domestic nationalist sentiment if Russia were to be subjugated as the junior partner in the alliance with China.

Russia’s fear of China’s demographic expansion in the Far East is yet another issue, although research before the Ukraine invasion has largely demonstrated it is presently just a myth. Nonetheless, as Europe shuts its door on Russia’s western side and other Asian powers also unwillingly engage, China’s economic support could play a leading role in facilitating the prosperity of Russia’s eastern border areas. It is possible that if ethnic Han Chinese grow in influence in the Far East, Putin might have to consider finding ways of tightening control over there.

This may also be the fundamental, albeit concealed, reason why Kazakhstan relocated its capital from Almaty to Astana—many ethnic Russians live in northern Kazakhstan, where Astana is located, while Almaty closely borders China’s sparsely populated Xinjiang area. Ironically, Putin employed ethnic Russians to hold referendums as an excuse to invade Ukraine. In the future, the Kremlin may be alert to similar tactics from China on its own land.

That said, global influence is the natural extension of domestic strength. There are warning bells ringing for China too. Confidence in the Chinese economy from within and outside China is faltering. In addition to the country’s widely reported population decline, the unemployment rate of Chinese people aged between sixteen and twenty-four rose to 20.4 percent this April, which is much higher than in the pre-coronavirus period. As Ruchir Sharma, chairman of Rockefeller International, bluntly pointed out: “something is rotten in the Chinese economy.” Without the underpinning of economic vigor, China’s expanding external power may not be sustainable in the long term.

Dr. Jon Yuan Jiang is an independent scholar, and Mandarin and Russian speaker. He has published over seventy articles in media, think tanks, and academic journals such as South China Morning Post, The Diplomat, Lowy Institute, The Jamestown Foundation, The Canberra Times, Media International Australia, and Area Development and Policy.

Image: Photo courtesy of the Office of the President of Kazakhstan.

This week’s visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Riyadh has rekindled an ongoing conversation over the Middle East, civil nuclear power, and the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). The debate has been around for decades. Every administration for the last twenty years has sought to address concerns over WMDs while wrestling with the conundrum that civil nuclear power programs can provide abundant, low-carbon energy yet also potentially lead to a nuclear weapons program.

As we come upon the twentieth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, which was driven by false intelligence of WMDs, it is time to take stock of our policies, decisions, and any false predicates that threaten stability in this strategic region of the world. In doing so, the central question we must ask is: do current U.S. civil nuclear power policies strengthen or weaken our ability to deliver on our nonproliferation responsibilities? Our answer must be clear-eyed and strategically empathetic. We must be clear-eyed in that the United States is not the sole or dominant civil nuclear partner in the twenty-first century. We must also be strategically empathetic in that U.S. diplomacy and statecraft should account for the realistic security constraints confronting those countries pursuing civil nuclear programs.

Dictators and WMDs

This should begin with context and recent history. American forces invaded Iraq vowing to destroy Iraqi WMDs and end the dictatorial rule of Saddam Hussein. If you are Saddam Hussein, you were the one person who knew there was no nuclear WMD program. Yet you said nothing, ultimately losing your country and your life. Why did he do that? One guess is he could not let Iran know he didn’t have a WMD program. “If Iran has a weapon, I must have a weapon,” is a statement we have heard for the last ten years (particularly from Saudi Arabia), yet we do not seem to understand why this statement is made.

We have a blind spot to this mindset, and this appears to have been lost on U.S. policymakers since the invasion and to this today.

On December 19, 2003, long-time Libyan president Muammar el-Qaddafi stunned much of the world by renouncing his county’s WMD programs and welcoming international inspectors to verify that Tripoli would follow through on its commitment. Unlike Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi actually had a program, but after seeing the United States invade Iraq, he more than likely thought he would be next.

This actually would have been a positive for our nonproliferation goals had Qaddafi not been captured and killed on October 20, 2011. Whether there is a direct correlation between the United States and his death is up for debate. It was then Secretary of State Hilary Clinton who famously stated following the dictator’s death, with a laugh, “We came, we saw, he died.” Notwithstanding Qaddafi and how he died (at the hands of rebel forces, supported by a NATO-led no-fly zone), the message that was sent to the world was clear: never give up your WMD program.

This message was and is not lost on Kim Jong-un of North Korea or the mullahs of Iran. Again, we need to strategically empathize with these nations and their leaders—not to accept them or agree with them, but to understand their mindset so we can counter them effectively.

The Inconsistency of U.S. Nuclear Nonproliferation

By 2008, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) kicked off its civil nuclear program after several years of consultations with U.S. experts. A key component of any nuclear deal with the United States is the signing of a nuclear nonproliferation agreement, a Section 123 Agreement. Much has been written about the 123 Agreement in general, but recent attention has focused on what has been characterized as the “Gold Standard” 123 Agreement—the type of agreement signed by the UAE. It’s important to note that this agreement was signed by UAE after the requests for proposals (RFPs) had gone out to U.S., Korean, and French vendors, but it wasn’t required as a precondition for U.S. vendors to respond. The agreement was finalized and signed by both countries in December of 2009—the same month Korea was selected as the winner of the $20 billion bid.

A couple of key points in this process are misunderstood today and require clarification. First, a signed 123 Agreement is not a prerequisite to bid or compete on a project, nor does a signed agreement guarantee the United States wins the work. There’s limited, if any, incentive for a country to consider signing a 123 Agreement if there is no viable commercial offer by a U.S. vendor. Second, the signing of a Gold Standard 123 Agreement, which is now being demanded by U.S. nonproliferation policymakers, has severely constrained our ability to compete in civil nuclear power throughout key regions of the world. The reason is that while the Gold Standard 123 (like a standard 123) prohibits uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing, it goes beyond the legitimate intent of the original agreement, which wasn’t designed to challenge a country’s sovereignty with respect to the pursuit of civil nuclear power as granted by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

This is highly relevant because shortly after signing the Gold Standard 123 with UAE came the announcement that the Obama administration had started negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. This produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed in 2015. Touted by the administration as the strongest nonproliferation agreement ever struck, it essentially gave Iran the right to enrich uranium (which they had been doing in violation of the NPT) and in many respects allowed Tehran a legitimate and legal path to a weapons program. That is precisely what our nonproliferation policies are designed to stop.

It is fundamentally inconsistent for us to condition nuclear collaboration with our allies on their commitment to not enrich uranium in perpetuity, yet give to Iran, this region’s greatest threat to the United States, Israel, and Sunni Arabs, the right to enrich uranium. The argument will be that the JCPOA gave us unfettered access to what Iran is doing with its nuclear program, yet this has proven to be false. Furthermore, the United States also handed the entire Iranian civil nuclear program to Russia and China. And now China is also aggressively offering Saudi a complete package of nuclear collaboration. In an almost undefendable explanation by U.S. nonproliferation experts as to why we did this, the response is that a 123 Agreement with Iran is unnecessary because the United States is not providing the civil nuclear power program. This sums up precisely the principled inconsistency of our policies and why we need real statecraft.

Working with Allies

Since the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, we have heard a consistent message from our Sunni allies: “If Iran gets a weapon, I must have a weapon.” We must understand this is not only their right to take such a stance, it is the unintended and unfortunate position that policymakers have forced them into.

In June 2022, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) released a solicitation for two large-scale nuclear power plants. France, Korea, Russia, and China all were invited—the United States was not. Why not?

While the Biden administration has offered many explanations, one that is patently inaccurate and devoid of strategic empathy is that the Saudis have refused to sign a 123 Agreement—specifically, a Gold Standard 123 Agreement. Again, to empathize with KSA, their geopolitical context, and their recent history, their position is that they can’t sign such an agreement given the backdrop of the Iranian JCPOA and Iran’s legitimate pathway to a nuclear weapons program. Moreover, the United States has maintained that Westinghouse, a U.S. nuclear power company, didn’t receive a KSA offer to bid due to the absence of a 123 Agreement. However, this explanation is weak and insufficient because, as pointed out in the UAE case, 123 Agreements follow a viable commercial offer—not the other way around.

Currently, the Saudis are working to bring the United States into a legitimate conversation about their pursuit of civil nuclear power. We have been called the “preferred nation” to work with by KSA. That’s a bold statement considering we haven’t offered a viable solution, our track record in nuclear new build is uninspiring, and we continue to watch Iran inch closer to a weapons program. But it demonstrates that we have a chance to recover and get back on track.

First, understand why KSA says what it must about its nuclear program and offer them a better deal; one that brings in commitments to allow KSA to fully utilize their natural resources in uranium, enrichment, reprocessing, etc., a standard 123 with caveats around their peaceful pursuits. In short, a security guarantee that in essence would say to Gulf Cooperation Council nations, “we will come to your collective defense if you are ever threatened by a nation or entity with a WMD capability”—a NATO Article 5 type agreement around WMD threats which is more powerful and strategic than going hands off the wheel as we do now.

The KSA deserves credit for continuing to search for a more strategic alliance with the United States. Let’s not push them into the hands of Russia and China. Instead, let’s empathize with their geopolitical position while considering our own security interests in that region of the world and look for the elusive strategic statecraft in WMD once and for all.

We should not let 123 Agreements be the sole policy agreement that defines our civil nuclear program in the Middle East when the entire kit bag of statecraft and diplomacy could be deployed.

RDML (ret.) Michael Hewitt, U.S. Navy, is co-founder and CEO of IP3 Corporation and CEO of Allied Nuclear Partners. IP3 is the lead U.S. integrator for the development and operations of peaceful and secure civil nuclear power in the global marketplace. IP3’s vision is to create thriving, peaceful environments in critical world markets through the development of sustainable energy and security infrastructure via public/private initiatives and industry-led partnerships.

Image: Shutterstock.

Lebanon’s parliamentary rival camps are set to convene a new session on June 14 to try once again to elect a new president. This would be the twelfth attempt to find someone who can forge a consensus among all the parties who are divided into different factions. Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri declared he would open the chamber’s doors for a session, provided there were two serious candidates. The names that will receive the most votes are Jihad Azour and Suleiman Frangieh.

The atmosphere feels like a high-stakes showdown between two diametrically opposing visions for Lebanon. In some way, it is. The crucial question is: will the seven-month-long presidential paralysis finally be broken?

It is difficult to say. But Azour’s chances of entering Baabda (the presidential residence) are higher than those who came before him. One example is Michel Moawad, who had the support of multiple parties like the Lebanese Forces (LF), Kataeb, and “Change” members of Parliament. Moawad, who is also a member of Parliament, held a press conference on June 4 announcing his withdrawal and endorsement of Azour after momentum began building behind him.

“I decided to contribute to reaching this intersection that led to the nomination of Jihad Azour, and we shall relentlessly continue our battle,” he said.

For Moawad, a viable rescue plan to bring Lebanon out of its current economic problems had taken precedence over his political ambitions.

Nevertheless, his campaign for the presidency had hit a wall. The support Moawad rallied behind him was not enough to meet the threshold to become former President Michel Aoun’s successor. The negotiations began to proceed in search of a compromise. Azour is not new in Lebanese politics. He has a history of serving in government as finance minister (2005-2008), but also as a senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) official. The cabinet he served in was led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Added to his political experience, the reputation Azour obtained as a competent global finance expert strengthened the argument that he can lead Lebanon out of its current economic crisis.

Mark Daou, a member of the Parliament of the Taqaddom Party, spoke to The National Interest about why he is casting his ballot for Azour.

“It’s his financial prowess. He knows the international community and can open doors for Lebanon. He has spent time in Lebanon’s archaic system and has broad experience through his IMF days in dealing with crisis ridden states.”

Daou made another point by addressing the fact that he is not Suleiman Frangieh—Hezbollah’s candidate. Hezbollah publicly endorsed the Christian Marada Movement leader early on. Frangieh, who hails from the northern region of Zgharta (same as Moawad), has not received any support from Christian parties. The presidential seat is reserved for a Maronite Christian in Lebanon’s confessional system. So far, the opposition in Parliament is holding the line on their rejection of Frangieh’s ascendency. In fact, it has grown to attract unexpected support.

In an unexpected convergence, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and its leader, Gebran Bassil, announced their intention to vote for Azour. From the beginning of the presidential race, the FPM and Hezbollah (traditionally allies) did not agree on a candidate for the presidency. Hezbollah made it clear that its candidate was Frangieh and has not shown signals of wavering on its position.

This caused a falling out between the two parties who are now at cross purposes on this issue. Bassil has said to the international press that although he has joined with the opposition in supporting Azour, his position is not “entrenched” and the possibility to find other names remains open.

“If we support a name, it doesn't mean we refuse all others. We are always available and ready for dialogue to agree on a consensual name.”

Others have taken a more nuanced view on why they have chosen to rally their support around Azour. One source from the Lebanese Forces told The National Interest what the reasons are for selecting Azour after many months of standing by Moawad.

“First, we did not choose to support Mr. Jihad Azour, as he is not our candidate, nor the candidate of any party. Yet, there was a convergence of several groups over his name.”

Lebanon’s complicated system makes it almost impossible for one side to push their candidate of choice without a political deal. This has held Lebanon back from making substantial progress on reforms, even despite opportunities to save the country.

The LF also believes that Azour’s history in the financial sector both in government and abroad gives him the necessary legitimacy to start the IMF bailout plan. The LF as part of the “Strong Republic” parliamentarian bloc released a statement explaining its official position and praised Azour for his willingness to have a dialogue with all political components and partners.

“Mr. Azour’s records being employed by an internationally renowned institution is credit enough for his integrity, and the quasi unanimity of the opposition group builds on that by opting to endorse his candidacy.”

The importance of tomorrow’s election cannot be understated. Either a president will be chosen who can work constructively with domestic and regional partners to break the cycle of Lebanon’s depression, or more time and the country’s future will continue to be wasted.

Adnan Nasser is an independent foreign policy analyst and journalist with a focus on Middle East affairs. Follow him on Twitter @Adnansoutlook29.

Image: Shutterstock.

When Lewis and Clark began their journey across the United States to the Pacific Ocean, they carried maps, a compass, and used the stars to navigate. Now, humans have a chance to settle among the stars, with several prototype Moon settlements being tested and the cost of space launches continuing to fall. However, just like Lewis and Clark, engineers will need to accurately map and survey the Moon in order to make human settlement a possibility. Technology that can replicate our Global-Positioning System (GPS) on the Moon will be the fastest way to map the surface of the Moon and lay the groundwork for future settlement. This would allow space crews to determine their precise location on the surface of the Moon, and easily navigate around the celestial body. But most importantly, it would put the United States in the driver’s seat to use the Moon’s resources and explore other celestial bodies.

GPS as we know it on Earth uses a system of satellites to determine the location of objects on Earth’s surface. It’s made up of a constellation of twenty-four satellites that all orbit Earth in a precise path, making a full orbit around the Earth in twelve hours. While orbiting Earth, these satellites constantly send out radio signals to receivers on the ground, which then can be used to determine a location on the Earth’s surface based on the time it takes for the signal to reach the receiver. 

The U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has previously mapped the Moon before the Apollo missions, but is currently working with space industry stakeholders to develop a version of the World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS 84), a standard coordinate reference chart for determining latitude and longitude on Earth, for the Moon. Having the ability to apply a reference frame to the Moon will allow astronauts and crewed space missions to easily identify where they are in relation to other points on the Moon. Establishing transmission stations on the Moon may be the long-term solution, but navigating spacecraft to the Moon’s surface to determine the best location for these stations remains a problem. The U.S. Space Force and NASA have determined that some existing technology could be repurposed for Moon navigation. 

Scientists from NASA’s jet propulsion lab in California have determined that existing satellites—eighty-one in total—have the capabilities to allow other satellites and spacecraft to determine their position above the Moon’s surface. When satellites receive radio signals from Earth’s surface, those same signals radiate into space. With the Moon being an average of 238,855 miles away from Earth, these signals are able to help spacecraft navigate to specific positions above the Moon within 200-300 meters. Existing satellites could also help astronauts navigate where they are on the Moon’s surface, with the exception of the lunar poles, as geologic barriers like craters could block the signal from these satellites. However, satellites like the Lunar Renaissance Orbiter (LRO) can form the basis of a Moon satellite network at a low price.

The cost to manufacture smaller satellites has been dropping alongside space launch costs. Today, some satellites are able to be mass-produced, greatly reducing the cost of launching them into orbit. By pairing smaller satellites in lunar orbit alongside the LRO, we could begin establishing a satellite network for future lunar navigation. 

The United States stands to reap enormous benefits from being the nation that underpins lunar infrastructure and science services. Not only will these systems benefit our astronauts and ability to place a permanent settlement on the Moon, but it will also deter other actors from setting up their own lunar systems which could have military applications. The Moon is currently up for grabs, and the first nation to establish basic navigational infrastructure will have a massive advantage when it comes to establishing and maintaining a settlement on the Moon. The U.S. should be the one in control of these crucial lunar settlement building blocks.

Roy Mathews is an Innovation Fellow at Young Voices. He is a graduate of Bates College and former Fulbright Fellow in Indonesia. He has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Boston Herald, and National Review.

Image: Image courtesy of NASA.

French president Emmanuel Macron recently declared that, while the West must ensure Ukraine’s security, “it must also envisage non-confrontation with Russia and rebuild a sustainable balance of forces.” Many foreign policy commentators lambasted Macron for his supposedly naïve and delusional remarks. Better, the counterargument goes, to simply give Ukraine what it needs to achieve total victory and cripple Russia’s military such that it cannot threaten its neighbors again anytime soon. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky himself, in an interview with the Washington Post, rejected any possibility of talks with Russia, saying, “I think it makes no sense for Ukraine to negotiate with the collective with the name ‘Putin.’”

But what if total victory proves militarily unattainable? What if the only alternative to negotiations is a bloody, protracted, frozen conflict?

The general aversion to negotiations would suggest that, if talks do occur, they should be limited in scope to avoid “rewarding” Russian aggression. This, I argue, gets the strategic calculus backward. Instead of narrow negotiations, the United States and its allies should take the broadest possible approach to any eventual talks with Russia. This promises to both maximize the West’s short-term leverage resulting from Russian weakness and could facilitate peace by allowing someone other than Ukraine to give Vladimir Putin a face-saving “win” at home.

The war has devastated Russia. Its military is decimated. Its economy, while surprisingly resilient to sanctions, will continue atrophying due to international divestment and internal corruption. These effects are compounded by an aging population and the widespread emigration of young, educated Russians.

This is a (self-inflicted) tragedy for Russia. It is also an opportunity for the West. Taking a broad view of eventual negotiations with Russia promises numerous advantages and opportunities.

First, Russia today is at its weakest point in decades. This gives Ukraine, the United States, and the West more broadly unprecedented leverage and freedom of action. Seizing this opportunity to negotiate on the broadest possible terms will maximize that tremendous, but temporary, bargaining advantage. Far from rewarding Russia, negotiating now would be exploiting its massive vulnerability. And while Ukraine’s security is a key priority, the United States should also seek to use that leverage more broadly in forging a more durable and stable regional security architecture.

Second, a broader scope for negotiations offers potentially important advantages for ending the war in Ukraine on favorable terms. Neither Kiev nor Moscow look prepared to make significant territorial concessions at present. Absent total military victory, this portends a protracted frozen conflict that serves no one’s interests. Broader negotiations would allow Washington or NATO to offer incentives that make peace more attractive to Russia, so Ukraine does not have to.

Russia’s temporary weakness allows for such flexibility without seriously undermining Western security. When negotiating with peer competitors, even small margins can matter. A fine balance often works against compromise. Negotiating with a greatly weakened adversary, however, can allow for greater flexibility without giving the other side a potentially decisive advantage. There is simply a larger margin for error and lower costs to taking risks in pursuit of a stable regional order.

To be clear, I am suggesting that the United States and its allies consider, over the long term and only in response to a significant Russian withdrawal from Ukraine, offering concessions beyond what Russia’s power warrants, much less what it deserves. This might include, for instance, a moratorium on NATO expansion. This seems morally repugnant, considering Russia’s egregious and unprovoked aggression. But in the might-makes-right realm of international politics, moralizing in the face of battlefield realities can be dangerous and counterproductive. What’s more, further NATO expansion beyond Finland and Sweden seems extremely unlikely for now, so such concessions wouldn’t really be conceding much.

The more important and realistic concern is that concessions would “reward” Russia’s atrocious behavior and encourage aggression elsewhere. On balance, however, rewards would be far outweighed by the costs Russia has already suffered in this war. Indeed, the main reason the United States should consider broad-based talks is precisely because the war has been so devastating to Russia. Negotiating while Russia is weak reduces the concessions it can hope to extract, further ensuring that the massive costs of its aggression will far outweigh the benefits.

Russia, like it or not, has a big say in the viability of any European security order. Macron is, therefore, largely right: a purely punitive approach that doesn’t consider Russia’s place in the regional order will further weaken Russia but drive it closer to China and ensure that whatever capabilities Moscow can muster will be aimed against us. A peace that achieves Russian buy-in offers better prospects for a durable, stable regional order. Renegotiating the broader regional order offers at least a chance of achieving this stability. Russia’s temporary weakness creates an opportunity to do so at a significantly reduced cost.

In sum, Russia’s weakness presents a unique opportunity to work toward a regional security order that is broadly favorable to the US, its allies, and Ukraine, but still attractive to Russia given its weakness and vulnerability. We should be prepared to grasp this opportunity if it arises.

Kyle Haynes is an associate professor of political science at Purdue University and a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities.

One of the more interesting developments over the past decade has been the “return” of realism in U.S. foreign policy and international relations. The framework was (popularly) considered to have been overthrown by liberalism, which in the eyes of many was destined to reign eternally over a perpetual age of peace and progress. History, though, had other plans.

Yet realism’s “return” has not gone over well. In fact, despite strong grounds for success—especially after neoconservatives’ failures in the Middle East and the significant pushback against neoliberals by populist and nationalist forces—realists mostly remain outside the halls of power. At this point, it is not unreasonable to suspect that something is wrong with realists themselves. This is increasingly manifesting in foreign policy discourse.

Take, for instance, a withering-but-well-intentioned critique put out late last week by Malcom Kyeyune, an essayist and columnist at Compact magazine. In his article, Kyeyune goes after realism through Elbridge Colby: the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development (2017–2018), a central figure in the development of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, and perhaps Washington’s foremost realist (at least, in terms of public influence and direct political influence). Both the critique, and the response to it by Colby himself, illustrate how American realists struggle to grasp the current historical circumstances in which we live.

From Promised Land to Crusader State

Kyeyune’s critique is composed of two arguments, which must be examined in turn.

The first is his contention, expanding upon John Mearsheimer’s recurring axiom that “America is not a realist nation,” is that “America is a country that cannot run on, legitimate itself by, understand itself through, or inspire a sense of genuine national cohesion through realism.” It should be noted that Kyeyune does not think that the realist framework is itself incorrect; if anything, he asserts that it is “better equipped to explain today’s world than liberal internationalism ever was or could hope to be,” and expresses a great deal of sympathy (if not admiration and praise) for Colby. But his point remains: America cannot function with realism as its underlying ideological basis.

Colby disagrees, stating that while the United States “may not legitimate or understand itself through Morenthau-style realism” (emphasis his), it can run on it. As evidence, Colby draws upon America’s long and proud history of realist policies: leveraging foreign powers to assist in the revolution, the formation of the federal government, Washington’s Farewell Address, its relationships with Europe and its own hemisphere throughout the late eighteenth and must of the nineteenth century, and so on, all the way through the Cold War. In short, Colby summarizes:

…the biggest deviation from this tradition of practical, actual American statecraft has been the last thirty years. Why? The realist in me says we have been spoiled and made hubristic by unipolarity. But it does not need to be this way! American political culture will demand a more elevated rhetoric. But this does not require forfeiting an actually realist foreign policy. There is a tension, to be sure, but I think American history shows it can be reconciled.

Colby certainly has a point that America has a noble and proud realist tradition. But this defense is built on a notable assumption: that one can separate the underlying ideological basis and self-conception of a country from how it’s run.

This is where problems occur, and what Kyeyune is alluding to: you cannot separate the two.

Instrumental in understanding this is are the arguments put forward by Walter A. McDougall in his magisterial 1997 book, Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter With the World Since 1776. In brief, McDougall contends that, for much of its history, the United States understood itself as a promised land—a new nation of new beginnings and unbound aspirations, uniquely blessed, and destined towards the maintenance of liberty and greater triumphs. Traces of this can be seen as early as 1783, only weeks after the Revolutionary War had been won, with the preacher Ezra Stiles proclaiming in a sermon—notably named “The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor”— that “the Lord shall have made his american Israel, high above all nations which he hath made, in numbers, and in praise, and in name, and in honor!” (emphasis his). As McDougall observes, “In short, Americans were a chosen people delivered from bondage to a Promise Land, and can’t get more exceptional than that.”

This early American self-conception of a promised land was congenial towards the realist framework; when you, as a people, understand your nation as a promised holy land that is at risk from foreign enemies and must never be lost, you are far more inclined to take its protection seriously. This means making judicious use of limited power and resources, entering deals with foreign powers, compromising here and there, and the like. In other words, the application of a realist foreign policy.

This national self-understanding, however, evolved over time towards that of a crusader state; a nation that purposely goes out to the world and seeks to change it. Consider, in contrast to Stiles’ sermon, a speech given by Senator Albert J. Beveridge (R-IN) in 1898—notably named “March of the Flag”—to defend the annexation of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Hawaii:

Fellow citizens–It is a noble land that God has given us; a land that can feed and clothe the world; a land whose coast lines would inclose half the countries of Europe; a land set like a sentinel between the two imperial oceans of the globe; a greater England with a nobler destiny. It is a mighty people that He has planted on this soil; a people sprung from the most masterful blood of history; a people perpetually revitalized by the virile workingfolk of all the earth; a people imperial by virtue of their power, by right of their institutions, by authority of their heaven-directed purposes, the propagandists and not the misers of liberty.

The shift in tone is unmistakable. While elements of the old self-understanding (a promised land) are still present, America was now a nation that could go forward and materially help the world, with a “heaven-directed purpose” to serve as “the propagandist of liberty.” And fulfilling this greater mission, obviously, requires a new foreign policy approach: one that is certainly not as congenial towards realism, and is more oriented towards liberal internationalism.

It is here that Colby’s defense runs dry: the (liberal internationalist) flaws with America’s foreign policy are not limited to the last thirty years. Rather, the foreign policy of the last thirty years is both the culmination and the inevitable political outcome of a shift in how America sees and understands itself dating back more than a century. While elements of the old realist approach to foreign policy still remain (as was evident in the Cold War), it is, to borrow McDougall’s usage of religious references, the Old Testament. Today, it is the New Testament of liberal internationalism that reigns.

This is the real thrust of Kyeyune’s first argument: that a number of realists—at least, a number of the more politically active ones—do not understand this seismic shift is an indictment. How can supposed realists, who formulate policy by evaluating the world as it is, not as they wish it to be, have a hard time grasping the changed political and cultural environment in which they find themselves? Do they not see that they are in the cultural minority, and are therefore hard-pressed to make change happen?

Colby, by all measures a good strategist and thoughtful thinker, is certainly aware of this. What then explains the gap?

The Magic Runs Out

It is Kyeyune’s second argument, which Colby notably does not reply to, that is perhaps the stronger and the more significant of the two, and illuminates the real problem realists face.

States, Kyeyune explains, run on “magic,” which if lost results in the eventual collapse of the state in question. The term can thus be understood as a shorthand for political legitimacy, yet it is more than that. It can also be described, perhaps, as the sort of transcendental and metaphysical belief upon which human societies are built. Rome existed through the mos maiorum. The European kingdoms depended upon divine right. Chinese dynasties lived and died by the will of heaven (天, tian). The dynamic, one could argue, also exists in religion: Christ’s eternal and universal empire runs on love and the promise of eternal salvation, for which millions are willing to die for to this very day. This is, after all, why an institution like the Catholic Church has been able to outlast kings, empires, revolutions, schisms, technological upheavals, and more.

Kyeyune’s “magic” critique thus has two layers. On the political legitimacy layer, he means that realist attempts to reform U.S. foreign policy—and perhaps, more broadly, the country’s government—are doomed to fail. This is simply because a broad swathe of the population no longer regards Washington DC as being “legitimate”—not an unreasonable charge given historically low levels of public trust in government, institutions, contemporary political leadership, and so forth. Talk of “national divorce” and even civil war appear in the mainstream. These are symptoms of a country where the center, both in the political and the institutional sense, is weak.

But on the more abstract, possibly metaphysical layer, Kyeyune is indicating that attempts to invoke America’s transcendental purpose and self-conception—that of a promised land that takes care of itself through realist means—are at odds with realist assessments of the current situation. How can America be, or return to be, a self-focused promised land with a realist foreign policy if it is so fundamentally dysfunctional and internally divided now, at the supposed height of its political, military, economic, and ideological power? Attempting to invoke the “magic” of America to justify the defense of Taiwan, as Colby does, falls flat: a not-insignificant number of Americans will not see—and more importantly, not feel—how fighting China an ocean away will help in that regard. Just as how Berlin Wall soldiers couldn’t be roused to defend the checkpoints, for the whole Soviet system was an open farce at that point, Americans won’t be roused to man the trenches of Taipei; they don’t believe in the supposed holy mission of America anymore.

Kyeyune is very pessimistic and fatalistic about the United States’ prospects—a doomer, to use the popular online term. But his assessment of America’s present material circumstances is not exaggerated. How can the United States, for example, pretend that it will be able to reorient its political and military might toward confronting China in Asia—an entire ocean away—if it can’t even audit its existing military assets, its Navy is in dire straits, defense supply chains are a bloody mess, and there are still other concerns in Ukraine, the Middle East, Africa, and so on, to say nothing of America’s southern border? This is without factoring in the country’s fragile and recession-bound economy, worrisome debt situation (especially in commercial real estate, which will hit the financial system hard through banks), and more.

Reality Comes for the Realists

In the Amazon television series Foundation (loosely based on the Foundation series of stories by Isaac Asimov), a genius mathematician, Hari Seldon, uses hyper-advanced statistics and modeling to foresee the collapse of the Galactic Empire. Emperor Cleon and his security forces consider Seldon’s proclamations to be a direct threat to the empire’s security and stability, putting a hard-won peace at risk. The empire’s fears are only heightened after a dramatic and devastating terrorist attack—totally not an allusion to the 9/11 attacks, what are you talking about—which results in the emperor exiling Seldon and his followers to the far side of the galaxy. Yet in the years that follow, signs of imperial decline become apparent: mounting costs, domestic insurrection, religious exhortations, and rebelling vassal states. Cleon turns to his own mathematicians for reassurance:

Head Mathematician: “We believe the predictive models of Hari Seldon to be counterfactual.”

Emperor Cleon, after clapping his hands, seeming relieved: “And you believe this… why?”

Head Mathematician: “In the thirty-five years since Seldon uttered his heretical proclamations, the Imperium has expanded, rather than contracted, by every critical metric.”

The mathematicians, in short, are less than helpful: they simply cannot understand Seldon’s math, his modeling, his worldview, and insist that everything is fine despite blatantly obvious evidence to the contrary. Moreover, they are afraid to admit their failure to the emperor and are visibly intimidated (if not terrified) of him. Cleon is left immensely frustrated; he senses his empire is slowly collapsing, but can’t quite grasp why, or accept—as Seldon argued—that he himself is part of the problem.

Contemporary American realists—or at least those realists that are vocal and politically active right now—are not quite the imperial mathematicians, but are equally afraid of uttering “heretical proclamations” that could see them exiled from the imperial capital. After all, exile means a loss of power and influence, and then who would be left to do what must be done? Certainly not the internationalists who got us into this mess. But it is practically impossible to tackle the critical and mounting problems of the day without openly addressing the reality that the empire, such as it is, is not what it once was.

This, I would hazard, is Kyeyune’s real critique of Colby and other realists: that not only is the United States collapsing as an imperial power, with all that implies, but her realists are not recognizing it. This is either because they don’t see it or because they fear doing so openly is an act of political suicide in Washington DC. Not only that, but accepting the premise of imperial collapse—i.e., the end of the Western-led liberal international order—means that a great number of contemporary policy debates are rendered moot. The life’s work of too many academics, theoreticians, think tank wonks, writers, and others are at stake.

Yet if Kyeyune’s diagnosis—and he is far from the only one who holds this view—is correct, or is anywhere close to correct, then realists ought to be the ones grappling with it. This will require confronting diabolically hard and politically sensitive questions. How do we communicate to the American people that they could be facing a permanent increase in the cost of living? What items can and must be cut from a significantly reduced national budget? Which of America’s strategic interests—those that are strictly necessary to preserve and enhance the well-being of American citizens in a free, democratic, and secure republic—take priority over others? Which international alliances and partnerships can be maintained, and which can’t?

None of these questions, and others like them, have easy answers. But realists are the best placed to tackle them. They should probably start doing so.

Carlos Roa is the Executive Editor of The National Interest.

Image: Shutterstock.

The federal indictment of Donald Trump is of significance in multiple ways.

For one, it is a matter of accountability for the willful, flagrant violation of the law and sustained attempts to obstruct efforts by authorities to enforce the law. In short, the concern is with the rule of law and the consistent application of it.

At another level, the importance of secrecy of the documents that Trump so cavalierly mishandled—and the possible damage to national security from such mishandling—must be considered. Despite discussions about overclassification that often arise in the wake of major leaks or other compromises of classified information, there is a good reason for why the type of materials described in the indictment are kept classified. Exposure would make U.S. plans, capabilities, and sources of vital information vulnerable to hostile foreign powers. It may be hard for individual citizens to see how any of this relates to their daily lives, but it is integral to the security of anyone living in the United States. Harmful exposure could result from the sheer carelessness of Trump’s handling of the documents, or from anything Trump himself might do with them, given his own foreign connections.

More broadly, as David Rothkopf elaborates, the case is but one of the most recently and thoroughly documented facets of the larger danger that Trump has posed to the nation in the past and will do so again in the future if he is put in a position to do so. That danger has included—as in the subject of his second impeachment—no less than the attempted overthrow, including through incitement of violence, of the American democratic system of choosing leaders through free elections and respecting the results of those elections.

An even broader level extends beyond Trump himself and includes reactions to the indictment from many of his supporters or those attempting to appeal to his base of support. Those reactions reflect how many citizens of this country do not identify their interests with the United States of America but rather with a narrower, largely party-based, subset of America. Such sentiment does not uphold the national interest and is often contrary to the national interest. The bluntest way to describe this pattern is in terms of loyalties—of having primary loyalty not to the United States but rather to a party or to some demographic group—although speaking of someone’s loyalties risks sounding like some kind of latter-day McCarthyism.

A safer terminology is that of nationalism—in the non-pejorative sense of strong identification with, and love for, one’s nation. Trump has called himself a nationalist, and in doing so was endeavoring to ride a wave of nationalist sentiment that in recent years has extended to many other countries besides the United States. But in his highly divisive rhetoric and entire political approach, Trump is anything but an American nationalist. He is appealing to only one part of America while fomenting hatred toward other parts. Many of his supporters exhibit an extreme form of political sectarianism, in which Americans of other political persuasions are regarded as enemies every bit as much as foreign adversaries are. Differences across party lines are perceived less as differences of opinion over the best way to pursue a national interest than as a fundamental conflict between adversaries who are not part of the same community of interests.

In interpreting reactions to the case at hand, consider that even before the recent indictment was unsealed, enough was publicly known about Trump’s actions and the Mar-a-Lago documents for legal experts to opine that prosecutors would have a very strong case. Now with the indictment—replete with details of Trump’s own words and actions, his aides’ shuffling of boxes between bathrooms and storerooms and ballroom stages, and duped lawyers being set up to make false statements about the documents—the case is one where, as one former Bush administration official and federal prosecutor put it, “If this were a normal person and a normal case, you’d be talking to your client about pleading guilty.” This prosecution, and seeing it through to a full administration of justice, is unquestionably in the U.S. national interest. It would have been a dereliction of duty by the Department of Justice to have done otherwise.

And yet some politicians, especially concentrated among Republicans in the House of Representatives, are voicing reactions to the indictment, calling it a “brazen weaponization of power” (Speaker Kevin McCarthy), “a sham indictment” (Majority Leader Steve Scalise), and “We have now reached a war phase. Eye for an eye” (Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona). One hears nothing in any of this caustic rhetoric about the nature of Trump’s actions or of the implications for the rule of law and for national security if law enforcement officials did not do their duty and instead gave this sort of conduct a pass.

Nor is there, among all the accusations about supposed weaponization and political persecution, the slightest shred of evidence that federal investigators and prosecutors have acted on this case out of anything other than a sense of duty to enforce the law. If one were to speculate about the innermost thoughts of Special Counsel Jack Smith, they probably would be—beyond a strong sense of duty in doing his current job—that his life would have been much simpler and less unpleasant if he had remained at The Hague prosecuting Balkan war criminals, where he would not be subject to the months of partisan abuse that he now will have to endure.

In the weakening or outright absence of a sense of national interest that is part of extreme political sectarianism, the sectarians have no place for the concept of nonpolitical civil servants whose job is to serve that interest. This exclusion underlies the often-heard nonsense about a “deep state.” It is not clear to what extent politicians who employ such rhetoric really believe that there is no such thing as an apolitical public servant, or if this is merely part of their attempt to appeal to what they see as their constituency. Either way, the willingness to cripple and discredit essential national functions of security and law enforcement—all just to try to shield their party’s man from the consequences of his own misconduct—shows the extent to which some Americans, including powerful members of Congress, have abandoned whatever dedication they may have once had in serving the national interest. The unfounded accusations about the motives of dedicated and honest public servants constitute a new form of McCarthyism.

The damage extends beyond FBI agents and Department of Justice prosecutors. Trump tried to destroy the entire upper reaches of the federal civil service with his “Schedule F” scheme. He certainly would try again if returned to office, and other Republican presidential aspirants are also attracted to the idea as a campaign plank. If such destruction were to occur, the consequences would be severe. Internationally, the United States would present a fractured, inconsistent, and ineffective face to the rest of the world, with no one speaking on behalf of all Americans. Domestically, it would bring the United States a couple of steps closer to a Hobbesian state of nature in which the nasty and brutish aspects would flow from government no longer being populated with officials working in the interests of the entire nation, but only with partisan warriors.

Paul Pillar retired in 2005 from a twenty-eight-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, in which his last position was as a 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. Professor Pillar also served in the National Intelligence Council as one of the original members of its Analytic Group. He is also a contributing editor for this publication.

Image: Shutterstock.

Late last month, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva held a summit for the leaders of twelve South American countries with the view of pushing regional integration. The meeting was well-attended with presidents from every country except Peru, whose leader was unable to attend for legal reasons pertaining to an investigation. While the effort to promote greater economic integration was generally appreciated, the Brazilian president’s warm embrace of Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro one day before the summit set an ideological tone for the event. Indeed, Lula’s efforts to restart some type of South American unity left more questions than answers.

Changes in Brazilian Foreign Policy under Lula

Since his return to office in January 2023, Lula has shifted Brazil’s foreign policy from a generally pro-U.S. stance under right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022) to a return to nonalignment—broadly defined as a preference for a multipolar world—which allows Latin America’s largest country to pursue its own path, reduce the role of the United States (and the West), and work through global South organizations, such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). Another plank in this policy is for Brazil to lead in continental unity, which would give Latin America greater leverage in global affairs.

Lula’s nonaligned policy also means leaning toward Moscow in the Russo-Ukrainian War and maintaining close economic relations with China. The national interest dimension is evident in that Russia is important as it is a major supplier of fertilizer for Brazil’s agricultural exports, while China is the South American country’s primary export market and has invested $66 billion in its economy between 2007 and 2020, according to the Brazil-China Business Council. As Oliver Stuenkel, professor of international relations at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo observed: “Non-alignment is seen as a safe bet in a world where great power competition will increase. From the Brazilian point of view, the rise of China and re-emergence of Russia is not actually bad…that is why Brasilia has no interest in joining a western coalition against Russia.”

The Beijing and Moscow tilt is reflected in Lula sending a delegation to Chinese and Russian ally Venezuela in March, refusing to send weapons to Ukraine, and hosting Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in April. In April, at the BRICS summit, the Brazilian leader also called upon BRICS to come up with an alternative to replace the U.S. dollar in foreign trade. In addition to these China and Russia-related developments, Brazil refused to sign a UN resolution condemning Nicaragua’s human rights abuses; Managua has devolved into a pro-Russia and Chinese leftist dictatorship. Brazil allowed Iranian warships to dock in Rio de Janeiro, despite pressure from Washington to bar them.

The Venezuela Factor

Considering the “nonaligned” stance of Brazil’s foreign policy, the May 2023 Brasilia summit sought to promote the creation of a regional trade currency to challenge the hegemony of the U.S. dollar and to pull Latin American countries closer together under the flag of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). The single currency would initially apply to the Mercosur trade bloc (composed of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay). In his opening address, the Brazilian president proposed to “strengthen the South American identity in monetary policy, through better compensation mechanisms and the creation of a shared unit of transaction for trading”, instead of being dependent on external currencies, in particular the U.S. dollar.

This idea has kicked around since the early 1990s, but has never gained much support and is likely to go anywhere. There are considerable differences in monetary policy across the region; it is questionable that South America’s major trade partners would be willing to trade in a Mercosur currency (like Argentina’s volatile peso), and any such development would require a broader regional economic foundation based on customs unions and a common market (as done in the European Union over several decades). No doubt the idea was greeted with polite applause, but in the aftermath of the summit there is no rush of willing participants.

What made a bigger splash at the summit was Lula’s embrace of Maduro. Thematically, the meeting of Lula and Maduro prior to the summit was meant to set the tone of conciliation and integration. Lula, however, was strident that the charges against Maduro of human and civil rights abuses were part of a political “narrative” by the West and he condemned U.S. sanctions on the Venezuelan government as “worse than war.” He also noted that it was “absurd” for some governments not to recognize Maduro as the duly elected leader.

The reaction to Lula’s “welcome back, Maduro” stance is seen in two ways. On the pragmatic side, warmer Brazilian-Venezuelan relations reflect the failure of the West’s efforts to dislodge Maduro, and, like it or not, the Venezuelan strongman is here to stay. In that respect, other Latin American leaders like Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador recognize this and want to move on. Even the Biden administration has softened its stance on Venezuela (though with little to show for its efforts). Another point of consideration for Lula’s determination to mend relations with Venezuela, severed by his predecessor, right-wing Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022) made it much more difficult to address issues related to a shared border, climate change, and the need to deal with Venezuelan refugees.

The other reaction is more negative and related to human rights. Lula worked with Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez in the creation of UNASUR in 2008, which the Venezuelan leader started to counteract U.S. influence in South America. Perhaps some nostalgia for that era remains very much in Lula’s thinking on bringing Maduro in from the diplomatic cold and returning him to the international fold through a regional organization.

But the Brazilian leader’s intentional blind eye to the gross human rights abuses in Venezuela made some of the other South American leaders uncomfortable. While most made no comment, Chile’s center-left President Gabriel Boric stated, “We are glad that Venezuela is returning to multilateral bodies…This, however, cannot mean sweeping under the rug principles that are important to us. The human rights situation is not a narrative construction, it is a serious reality.” According to Uruguay’s center-right President Luis Lacalle Pou, “the worst thing we can do” is pretend there are no significant human rights problems in Venezuela.

Winners and Losers

Looking ahead, the biggest winner from Lula’s South American summit was Venezuela’s Maduro. The summit raised his profile and helped launder him as a national leader deserving of respect, despite his presiding over the largest migration crisis in the Western Hemisphere, the creation of a narco-state, and a disregard for democratic rule and human rights. Consequently, the summit was given an ideological stamp (a willingness to accept dictators), which is likely to complicate any future efforts for deeper economic integration, especially considering that elections could result in political shifts. Currently, South America is dominated by center-left governments, but that could change over the medium term. Argentina’s elections are scheduled for October this year.

While Lula got his summit, asserted Brazil’s growing importance as part of the Global South, and brought in a political pariah from the cold, little is likely to come from it in terms of concrete policies. If nothing else, it comes across as so much background noise from a region that cannot yet exert major leverage on global affairs. Lula and his cadre of foreign policy advisors are right that for Latin America to carry more weight in international affairs it needs greater unity. However, more summits like May’s are not going to do the trick, as ideological indulgences for dictators do not make for economic integration. The European Union was able to proceed on the path to economic integration, but has worked hard to keep its membership a democratic club, something Brazil’s president should have given greater thought to.

Dr. Scott B. MacDonald is the Chief Economist for Smith’s Research & Gradings, a Fellow with the Caribbean Policy Consortium, and a Research fellow with Global Americans. Prior to those positions, he worked for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Credit Suisse, Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette, KWR International, and Mitsubishi Corporation. His most recent book is The New Cold War, China and the Caribbean (Palgrave Macmillan 2022).

Image: Unsplash.

The unfortunate narrative that has defined Lebanon for much of its existence is one of corruption and conflict, culminating in the country’s current (and worst) economic and political crisis. France’s May 16 decision to issue an arrest warrant, followed by a similar May 23 German arrest warrant, for the embattled Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh and two associates offers no exception to this dynamic—hitting the small eastern Mediterranean country’s former financial paragon with money laundering and fraud charges just months before he steps down after nearly thirty years at the helm of the Banque Du Liban.

Yet Paris and Berlin’s decision is hardly the end of the road for Salameh or Beirut’s deeply rooted corruption problem. Rather, the move represents an ever-growing skepticism amongst the international community of Lebanon’s elites and its capacity to govern in a technocratic and effective manner.

France and Germany are only two of many other states currently investigating the central bank chief. Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Luxembourg are also investigating Salameh for similar concerns related to money laundering and fraud. Each case focuses on some or all aspects of roughly $300 million in transfers to European banks from Lebanon via the central bank, which was used to buy various properties and other assets. Investigators and other anti-corruption experts assert the funds likely belong to the Lebanese people. In line with these investigations, France, Germany, and Luxembourg seized assets worth $130 million in early March 2022. Swiss media has reported up to $300 to $500 million in assets embezzled into twelve Swiss banks.

Lebanon is also actively investigating Salameh in spite of strong political resistance from the country’s thoroughly co-opted judicial system. Led for some time by Judge Ghada Aoun—who has become renowned within anti-corruption circles for her brave attempts to hold Lebanon’s banking sector accountable—charged Salameh with illicit enrichment in early 2022. Following a year of back-and-forth questioning and obstruction, the Lebanese judiciary’s disciplinary council removed Aoun from office. She is currently appealing the decision, allowing her to remain in office today.

Salameh continues to deny all charges against him, both in Lebanon and abroad. His brother Raja and a former assistant also deny charges that they aided the governor in efforts to transfer and hide funds in Europe. While all three of these individuals have attended rounds of questioning in Europe and Lebanon with investigators, they have actively delayed the investigation numerous times with the help of Lebanese officials. For example, Lebanon’s Court of Cassation granted Salameh and every central bank employee sweeping legal immunities in September 2022, protecting them from Lebanon’s already poorly enforced banking regulations.

Salameh and associates have also regularly cited health problems or violations of Lebanese sovereignty to avoid hearings and depositions, culminating in his refusal to attend a May 15 hearing or recognize the rights of the investigators that led to the French and German arrest warrants. Rather than cooperate with the Interpol red notice released, however, Lebanese officials instituted a travel ban on Salameh.

Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati has previously defended the bank chief, recently arguing alongside Salameh that he will complete his term that ends in July, given there is no serious replacement. It should be noted that Mikati and his brother, Taha, have deep ties to Lebanon’s banking system and connections to specific bank transfers facilitated by Raja Salameh between Lebanon and Europe—a point of investigation by the government of Monaco. That said, others in Lebanon—such as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah—have openly called for his resignation. Critically, Lebanese law makes it illegal to extradite Lebanese citizens.

Thus, Salameh finds himself in a bind but is still largely protected by Lebanon’s ruling class. For figures like Nasrallah, the central bank governor represents low-hanging fruit and is easy to criticize publicly—especially to distract from Hezbollah’s corrupt actions and participation in a government that is increasingly understood to sit at the core of the country’s rot. Other politicians may increasingly concur that Salameh represents an easy target and scapegoat. The question is whether this effectively distracts from the Beirut government’s broader failures inside the country, especially as the international community already understands the country’s elites to be the root cause of Lebanon’s slow collapse.

While unlikely, it would be a mistake for the international community to view Salameh as the sole source of Lebanon’s corruption problem or an easy win to push addressing root issues to the future. While he likely is a key architect of Beirut’s currency exchange Ponzi scheme, his removal from the central bank will not cure the country’s vast corruption problems as he is simply one actor amongst many robbing the Lebanese people. Ultimately, broader political issues—namely banking secrecy, capital controls, and judicial independence reforms—will play a much more transformative role in solving Lebanon’s long-running issues. That being said, accountability measures must be implemented in parallel with such reforms.

For this reason, Salameh can and should be made an example of Lebanon’s near-term future—namely, one that holds corrupt officials to account for crimes that plunder the country at the expense of the average Lebanese citizen. But Salameh cannot be the beginning and end of such efforts. World leaders can support such efforts if they give the Lebanon file a higher priority. This includes supporting the International Monetary Fund’s reform plan through a combination of carrots and sticks that entice Beirut’s leaders and empower the independent opposition. More important, although less realistic anytime soon, should be a broader effort to combat the international kleptocracy that has come to define the neoliberal order and bolstered corrupt actors across the globe.

Alexander Langlois is a foreign policy analyst focused on the Middle East and North Africa. He holds an M.A. in International Affairs from American University’s School of International Service. Follow him at @langloisajl.

Image: Shutterstock.

Since the United States decided to go all-in with a focus on the great power competitions, terms such as irregular warfare, counterinsurgency, and small wars have lost vogue. However, while military theorists would like to return to a more conventional mindset, it is important to understand that a new era of “dirty wars” is on the horizon. This is relatively intuitive for those who understand the causes of unrest leading to instability and insurgency, but it is not clear that the geopolitical or military strategists who could make a difference see it coming.

The majority of insurgencies over the past century were rooted in societal discord in countries that were unable to effectively evolve from the agrarian age to the industrial age. The next such evolution is ongoing—and this one promises more of the same—but much faster and wider.

The metaverse, block chain, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, machine learning, augmented/virtual reality, and quantum, cloud, edge, and spatial computing are foundational elements of the emergent global world order. The possibilities are limitless, but not all are positive. With one foot in the industrial age and one in the virtual age, the risks are daunting. There is much debate about the risks of technologies such as AI eventually outsmarting and overtaking humans, but the risk addressed herein is more comparable to concerns during the Cold War that nuclear weapons would take the world back to the “stone ages.”

Technology is changing (virtually) everything. The traditional constraints of human labor are no longer a limiting factor in the global market. Corporations and governments are the benefactors of cost-cutting and labor-reducing innovations. Rapid technological advances will continue to reduce the demand for jobs. Thousands of people are losing their jobs every week—not because they failed to perform—but because the skills they developed through education, training, and experience are no longer relevant. Labor statistics are not just numbers—they are “hearts and minds.”

These dynamics will force even “skilled” workers down the economic ladder and will disproportionately impact labor markets at the lower end of the skills (and economic) spectrum. With this trend toward large-scale joblessness comes increased economic inequality. As we have seen throughout history, when the divide between the (relatively few) “haves” and the (relatively many) “have nots” is in a perpetual state of growth, a breaking point is inevitably reached. Perhaps more unsettling is that such divides are currently developing, simultaneously within national societies and on a global basis with nation-states landing on either end of the spectrum. This is a domestic and global national security issue.

The Unites States’ recent misadventures in Iraq demonstrated how a people deprived of their economic well-being and social identities will take up rudimentary arms against the world’s most technologically-advanced military force. And while this was more so a case of one nation imposing its will over another, it demonstrated how people react when they are being left behind. As was the experience after the “haves” transitioned into the industrial age, the transition to the virtual age is likely to leave the most needy in the world behind, in much greater numbers.

Fiction becomes fact. As the world pushes faster and further into the virtual age, those being left behind will eventually “rise against the machines.” Then we will see how the relatively small number of “haves” with their keyboards and virtual reality headsets as weapon systems, fare when the masses of “have nots” arm themselves with the weapons of their age—the only ones they have ever known.

Aden Magee is a career intelligence professional. He has performed as a senior advisor in support of the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy, and the FBI. He has most recently performed as an advisor to USCYBERCOM, and USSOCOM. He is a retired U.S. Army officer and a veteran of foreign wars. His most recent book is titled The Cold War Wilderness of Mirrors: Counterintelligence and the U.S. and Soviet Military Liaison Missions 1947–1990.

Image: Shutterstock.

Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency proved to be an unmitigated disaster for Brazil. During his four-year term, Bolsonaro pushed competent ministers to resign, likely to shield family members from corruption investigations. He mismanaged the Covid-19 pandemic, replacing health ministers at an alarming pace, toyed with his authoritarian inclinations, and neglected Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, allowing it to burn. He fomented fake news of electoral fraud during the electoral campaign and, after losing to his opponent, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, he incited his supporters to storm Brazil’s presidential palace, Congress, and the Supreme Court in Brasilia. These seditious riots mirror the events that led to Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, solidifying Bolsonaro’s reputation as an even more idiosyncratic version of Trump, earning him the nickname “Tropical Trump.”

Brazil was in dire need of change, and Lula delivered that change when he was elected president in October 2022. Understandably, U.S. president Joe Biden embraced the newly elected Lula as Brazil’s anti-Trump, believing him to be a more reliable strategic partner. 

However, the question remains: is Lula truly a dependable ally? The two presidents may align on climate change; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and a commitment to nipping the forces of right-wing populism in the bud. But when it comes to the great power competition in the region, Lula is not a friend. He is the proverbial cure that kills the patient. 

Since taking office in January, Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2010 and spent time in jail on corruption charges before being released (but not acquitted) on a technicality, has articulated a foreign policy that corresponds with the visions of China, Russia, and other authoritarians—a multipolar world aimed at challenging American dominance. Rather than confront Washington’s adversaries, which do not uphold environmental standards or champion the rights of marginalized communities, Lula appears inclined to align with them. While a democrat at home, on the world stage, there is no tyrant he will not call his friend.

The discrepancy between Biden’s friendliness and Lula’s commitment to policies antithetical to U.S. interests emerged as early as the two leaders’ first meeting in Washington this past February, barely weeks after Lula was sworn in. 

In their joint statement, Biden and Lula “underscored that strengthening democracy, promoting respect for human rights, and addressing the climate crisis remains at the center of their common agenda.” They identified areas of mutual concern and promised cooperation that included “social inclusion and labor rights, gender equality, racial equity and justice, and the protection of the rights of LGBTQI+ persons,” fighting hate speech and disinformation, and empowering “marginalized racial, ethnic and indigenous communities.” 

However, Lula is at odds with Washington on China. He views China as a check on American power. He believes that a multipolar world is a good thing. It’s not just about trade: it’s about eroding America’s leverage.

Shortly after meeting Biden, Lula traveled to China along with a large business delegation to deepen commercial ties with Beijing (during his Washington visit, no trade delegation accompanied him). The trip yielded multi-billion-dollar agreements in strategic areas, including cyber and semiconductor technology. Lula was explicit that it was his intention to expand Chinese investment in sensitive areas: during his visit to a Huawei factory, he described it as “a demonstration that we want to tell the world we don’t have prejudices in our relations with the Chinese.”

Blunting China’s aggressive purchase of agricultural commodities and across-the-board strategic investments in Brazil is not on his agenda. Opening up to China to balance American influence is.

While in Shanghai, Lula attended the swearing-in of his protege, Dilma Rousseff, as the president of the New Development Bank. One of the bank’s explicit objectives is to promote the de-dollarization of South-to-South trade, directly challenging U.S. dominance. Lula stated publicly, “I ask myself why all countries have to base their trade on the dollar.” 

Following his trip,  Lula endorsed trade denominated in the Chinese yuan between Brazil and China. Furthermore, he has thrown his political weight behind the establishment of a common Latin American currency and a currency for the BRICS nations, aiming to challenge the supremacy of the dollar in global trade. This move extends beyond expanding bilateral trade; as Lula stated, by strengthening Brazil’s partnership with China, he wants “to balance geopolitics,” i.e., weaken U.S. leadership, even if it means Brazil becomes more dependent on China.

China was not the only area of disagreement. In January 2023, in an unprecedented visit designed to boost Iran’s outreach to Latin America, Brazil was preparing to welcome Iranian warships. Under U.S. pressure, Lula’s government postponed the visit—but later allowed the ships to dock after his meeting with Biden. In his first stint as president, Lula attempted to involve himself in nuclear negotiations with Iran and aimed to broker a nuclear deal. However, his efforts did not yield any significant progress. Now that he is back in office, he is once again opening the door to Iran, this time through the BRICS framework. Iran, known for advocating a form of multilateralism that seeks to reduce America’s global influence, is already taking advantage of this opportunity.

On Russia too, Lula has made choices that have led to strained relations with the White House. Last March, he secretly dispatched his closest diplomatic advisor, Celso Amorim, to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin (but not to Kiyv), with the intention of positioning himself as a peace mediator between Russia and Ukraine. Such a move was far from being a credible step toward fair mediation. It took a deluge of criticism against Brazil’s one-sided approach for Lula to send Amorim to meet Ukraine’s President Volodymir Zelenskyy a month later—but not before Brazil welcomed Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, on a state visit that gave Russia a podium to spread the kind of disinformation Lula and Biden jointly agreed to fight at their February meeting.

Subsequent Brazilian stances on Russia and Ukraine have only solidified Lula’s pro-Russian posture. He urged Ukraine to give up Crimea for the sake of “world tranquility,” claimed there was no point in determining who was in the right, accused Washington of “incentivizing conflict” by supporting Kyiv, and blamed Russia and Ukraine equally for the war. His advisor, Amorim, added that Russia’s “legitimate” concerns should be considered so as to avoid Russia’s total defeat.

Lula’s flirting with Russia—which includes Brazil’s refusal to transfer German-made weapons to Ukraine and the rejection of sanctions against Moscow—is not his only challenge to Washington’s sponsored global order. 

Last week, Brazil hosted a summit of South American leaders, providing an opportunity for Lula to whitewash Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuelan regime. By then, Lula had already re-established diplomatic relations with Maduro and permitted Conviasa, the U.S.-sanctioned Venezuela airline, to restart direct flights between Brazil and Venezuela. During the summit, Lula warmly welcomed Maduro, pushed back against U.S. sanctions, downplayed criticism of Maduro’s dictatorship as a mere “narrative problem” that led to misrepresentation and misunderstanding of Venezuela, and supported Venezuela’s bid to join the BRICS. He further declined to put Maduro on the spot for large-scale human rights violations, corruption, and ecocide, despite strong pushback from Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric. and Uruguay’s president, Luis Lacalle Pou. But his broader point was clear: the West had no right to interfere in Venezuela’s internal affairs, a position that China, Russia, and Iran share. As a gloating Maduro told the press, unity among South American nations should be based “on a new multipolar world.” i.e., one where American influence is blunted in favor of other rising powers, whose authoritarian inclinations leave Lula unfazed.

The progressive agenda that Biden is prioritizing for Latin America is finding favor among the political allies of America’s strategic adversaries in the region. Rest assured, those in Latin America, like Lula, most inclined to embrace Biden’s priorities—noble as they may be—are also the least likely to act as a bulwark against Chinese, Iranian, and Russian penetration. In fact, as Lula’s case shows, they will welcome it. To keep the Biden White House on side, all they need to do is go along with its green transition and its diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda. 

In the meantime, China will continue to invest in agricultural commodities, mining concessions, public surveillance equipment contracts, equipment supplies to local police forces, and infrastructure projects, gaining heightened influence all along. Russia will keep backing authoritarian regimes in the region and benefiting from their nostalgia for a socialist counterweight to the gringos. And other authoritarian states, like Iran, will piggyback on this sentiment, while America is occupied elsewhere with its humanitarian and ecological agendas.

When the dust settles, the consequences of Lula’s approach will serve neither American interests nor Brazil’s. It will be China, and Russia, hardly the defenders of minorities and the patrons of the environment, who reap the benefits of America’s power eclipse.

Emanuele Ottolenghi is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan research foundation based in Washington DC. Follow him on Twitter @eottolenghi.

Image: Shutterstock.

Sixty years ago, in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy gave probably the greatest speech on nuclear arms ever given by an American President. Speaking only months after the crisis, Kennedy could have lashed out at the Soviet Union’s reckless behavior in putting missiles in Cuba. Or he could have taken a triumphal tone, highlighting his success in forcing the Soviets to pull the missiles out (with the public then in the dark on his secret promise to pull similar U.S. missiles out of Turkey).

Instead, in a June 10 commencement address at American University, Kennedy made the case that the horrors of a potential nuclear holocaust made it urgent to find a path to peace and that doing so required both sides of the Cold War to change. He announced that the United States would unilaterally stop testing its nuclear weapons until a treaty banning such tests could be reached. “Some say that it is useless to speak of peace,” Kennedy noted, “until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it.”

World response was immediate. The NATO allies hailed the speech. The Manchester Guardian ranked it “among the great state papers of American history.” The Soviets turned off their giant radio jammers so that Soviet citizens could hear the speech on Voice of America, and they printed the full text in both Pravda and Izvestia. (The Soviets had some warning: Kennedy’s team had consulted with them informally before he gave his speech.)

Although the Soviets made no formal announcement of a testing halt, they, too, paused nuclear testing. Less than ten days after Kennedy’s speech, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to the creation of a “hotline” between the two governments. In a month and a half, the Limited Test Ban Treaty had been completed, putting an end to the constant explosions that were spewing radiation across the world, contaminating even mothers’ milk. Kennedy called the treaty “a victory for mankind,” and said that even if the journey to peace was a thousand miles, “let history record that we, in this land, at this time, took the first step.” Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev hailed the treaty in similar terms.

In the months that followed, the two sides each announced unilateral cutbacks in the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons; reductions in their military spending; and modest pullbacks of troops from the front lines in Central Europe. None of these initiatives were negotiated in detail ahead of time, or verified, though there were informal consultations on each one before they were announced. Khrushchev called it “a policy of reciprocal example in the matter of reducing the armaments race.”

At the UN, the sides also managed to reach an agreement on the Outer Space Treaty, banning nuclear weapons in orbit. The atmosphere of heated Cold War confrontation changed markedly, paving the way for the start of negotiations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and then strategic arms talks.

Kennedy’s initiative—sometimes called “the Kennedy Experiment”—drew on the ideas of psychologist Charles E. Osgood, who had published a paper on a strategy he called “Graduated Reciprocation in Tension-Reduction,” or GRIT. The concept was that with two sides in a high state of tension, one side could unilaterally take a tension-reducing step—large enough to be noticed, but small enough not to endanger its security—and challenge the other side to take a step of its own. Osgood argued that the challenge should not be a specific demand, because, in such a state of high tension, the other side would likely see a specific demand as asking too much. Osgood proposed that the first step be accompanied by an unambiguous statement of a new, peaceful policy—exactly what Kennedy did in his American University address.

Osgood went further and argued that even if the other side did not reciprocate—perhaps not fully accepting that its adversary was genuinely trying to reduce the temperature—the side trying to reduce tension should continue with additional small steps, to make the changed approach impossible to deny. It is that idea of continuing even without any positive response that most justifies the GRIT acronym. If the other side did reciprocate, then the initiating side could take a somewhat larger step and see if that was also reciprocated. Osgood hoped to “run the arms race in reverse.”

Osgood suggested that if the opponent makes a warlike move, there should be a “measured response”: enough to show the opponent that the new strategy did not indicate weakness, but not so much as to close the door to further progress.

Decades after Kennedy’s initiative, this approach worked again. In 1991, as the Soviet Union hurtled toward collapse, President George H.W. Bush announced a dramatic set of unilateral initiatives, pulling back U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from around the world (except for a small force that remained in Europe) and destroying most of them; eliminating nuclear weapons from surface ships; and taking strategic bombers off alert. The Soviet Union, and then Russia, reciprocated with similarly sweeping (though not identical) reductions. These “Presidential Nuclear Initiatives” resulted in the fastest nuclear arms reductions that have ever taken place.

Today, tensions between Washington and Moscow are higher than they have been since Kennedy spoke, after Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and repeated nuclear threats. Hostility between the United States and China is growing—and North Korea’s dictator keeps up a relentless pace of missile testing and reckless nuclear rhetoric. These tensions between nuclear-armed states matter: the more hostile two states are, the more likely it is that a crisis will occur, that the crisis will escalate to conflict, and that conflict will escalate to the use of nuclear weapons. Hence, in each of these cases, it is time for new action to bring down the temperature.

President Joe Biden has taken a few small initial steps. The Biden team announced that the United States would unilaterally pledge not to conduct direct-ascent antisatellite (ASAT) weapon tests that would create showers of space debris, endangering other satellites. And they put forward a set of political commitments on “responsible” military use of artificial intelligence—including a commitment that the decision to use nuclear weapons would always be made by a human, not a machine. Scores of other countries have signed on to the ASAT initiative—though not, so far, Russia or China.

Unfortunately, Biden faces obstacles to doing more that President Kennedy did not. In particular, Kennedy spoke when the Cuban Missile Crisis was over: the Soviets had withdrawn their missiles. Today, Russia’s war on Ukraine continues, with new violations of the laws of war almost every day.

Nevertheless, the need for reducing tensions is urgent, and there is more Biden could do. He could announce that a portion of U.S. nuclear missiles would be taken off alert: surely not all of them need to be ready for immediate launch. He could commit that the United States would never use nuclear weapons first unless the very survival of our country or one of our treaty allies was at stake. He could commit that the United States would never deploy its missiles where they could reach Moscow or Beijing in just a few minutes. He could offer to let Chinese or Russian experts monitor U.S. weapons-maintenance experiments to confirm American compliance with the nuclear test ban. He could commit that all U.S. nuclear enrichment and plutonium reprocessing activities would be available for international inspection to confirm they were not being used to make new material for nuclear weapons.

None of those steps would endanger U.S. security. If reciprocated, each of them would improve security significantly. They might be a first step toward new arms restraints that could take the place of New START—the last remaining treaty limiting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear force numbers—when it expires in early 2026.

The world today is very different from the world of six decades ago. But the need to manage hostility among nuclear-armed states is no less. Biden should draw on Kennedy’s example and pursue new steps to reduce nuclear dangers.

Matthew Bunn is the James R. Schlesinger Professor of the Practice of Energy, National Security, and Foreign Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Co-Principal Investigator for the Project on Managing the Atom at the Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Image: Courtesy of the JFK Library.

Earlier this year, on March 19, the Montenegrin electorate went to the polls to elect a new president. The people delivered a seismic political upset by finally dislodging long-time President Milo Đukanović from the seat of power he held for thirty-three years. During that time, by constantly switching between the offices of prime minister and president, he built a system where he effectively became the state itself.

But that system was riddled with corruption and the influence of organized crime to such an extent that criminality had become all but legitimized. The tiny NATO member state has served as a backdoor into Europe for smugglers and money launderers for the past three decades. Western security and intelligence agencies spend billions of dollars countering the drugs and dirty cash that flow into Europe through the Adriatic statelet. A corrupt political class enables this by helping criminals avoid prosecution in exchange for bribes and other favors. So when Đukanović finally fell in March, Montenegro was presented with a historic opportunity for change.

But deposing “Milo” is only the first step in a long reform process. The system he created will outlast him unless the new government aggressively uproots it. This means the upcoming parliamentary elections on June 11 will serve as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to overhaul the country’s political system. For this reason, the eyes of the world—and specifically the U.S.—should be fixed upon events in Montenegro.

Out with the Old Guard, In with the New

Đukanović’s replacement as president is the fresh-faced, thirty-six-year-old reformer Jakov Milatović. He previously served as the minister for economic development in the short-lived government of Zdravko Krivokapić between 2020 and 2022. Standing on a moderate, economy-focused platform, Milatović is a technocratic centrist who hopes to lead his country into the European Union. But, to achieve this, he must first tackle the corruption and organized crime that have embedded themselves within the Montenegrin state and act as the main barrier to EU membership. Following the upcoming vote, the country’s new prime minister and parliamentary makeup will greatly affect Milatović’s ability to pursue his agenda.

Although Đukanović’s career is likely over forever, political forces with ties to organized crime have not simply disappeared. Indeed, they are ready and waiting to fill the void left by Milo and perpetuate the crooked status quo. The former mayor of Budva, Milo Božović, though recently arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking and other crimes, is one example of a politician who could maintain the Đukanović nexus. While Božović is not running in June, he was considered a rising star before his arrest in April. Milojko “Mickey” Spajić, Milatović’s one-time ally, could be another such example.

Spajić is the co-founder of Evropa Sad (Europe Now): the party he and Milatović are members of. The pair served together in the 2020–22 government before jointly establishing their own party a year ago. Spajić currently serves as party president and was originally the party’s intended candidate for national president against Đukanović in March. But his candidacy was rejected by the State Electoral Commission after it found he lied about possessing Serbian citizenship.

As in many countries, Montenegro’s constitution bars dual citizens from running for elected office due to concerns about split loyalties. Serbian citizenship is also particularly problematic due to the historical influence of Montenegro’s larger neighbor over the country’s affairs. Both nations were part of socialist Yugoslavia and remained together after that federation fell apart. In a referendum held in 2006, Montenegro voted for independence. However, around a third of Montenegro’s population identifies as ethnically Serb. The Serbian Orthodox Church is a significant property owner in the country and continues to hold considerable sway in national politics.

This history means Spajić’s Serbian citizenship badly damaged his image. But his botched attempts to cover it up only poured further fuel on the fire. First, Spajić sidestepped questions regarding his dual citizenship. But then he backtracked and claimed he obtained a Serbian passport to travel to Japan without a visa. Later, it emerged that Spajić owned significant real estate in Serbia registered in the name of his Serbian partner. This, combined with his unedifying flip-flopping, made his candidacy unviable, forcing Milatović to step in and take his place as their party’s standard bearer.

Scandals and Cryptocurrencies

Milatović’s historic victory in March may have stolen the limelight, but that doesn’t mean Spajić has left the stage entirely. He is still a household name, and, more importantly, his ambitions remain undimmed: Spajić is angling for the premiership after the parliamentary election, in which Evropa Sad may emerge as the largest party.

The president ultimately appoints the prime minister and, as the president of Milatović’s party, Spajić can make a convincing argument that he is the “natural” choice for prime minister. But the Montenegrin constitution does not specify that the president and the premier must come from the same party nor that the largest party in parliament is entitled to the premiership.

Although there will be a degree of behind-the-scenes pressure for Milatović to appoint Spajić as premier, this is not inevitable. A rift has formed between the two following the citizenship scandal because Spajić is embittered that Milatović got to lead the party into victory over Milo. But there are also serious concerns about Spajić’s character.

There have been well-publicized reports in the Montenegrin press on Spajiić’s links to the Russian crypto-tycoon Vitalik Buterin, who founded the cryptocurrency platform Ethereum. This has drawn significant public attention since Ethereum is the second-most prominent cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. Then, on Tuesday, Spajić was also forced to deny his alleged links to the crypto fraudster, Do Kwon. Kwon claimed in a letter sent to the outgoing prime minister, Dritan Abazović, that he enjoyed close ties with Spajić and even helped finance his party’s recent local election and presidential campaigns.

A U.S. federal grand jury has charged Do Kwon with securities fraud, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to defraud investors for his role in Terra/Luna, one of the most infamous crypto Ponzi schemes ever. The links between crypto, money laundering, and organized crime are well known, and it is also well known that Spajić holds a particular interest in digital currencies. According to news reports published last year, Spajić had invited a group of global crypto experts to visit Montenegro, believing they could contribute to developing the country’s economy by attracting investments and creating new, high-paying jobs.

Spajić’s political opponents fear that, should he become prime minister, the tech-savvy thirty-five-year-old could use crypto to help entrench criminality in the country even further.  The vast patronage networks and clientelism built during the Milo years haven’t been dismantled, which means that anybody with enough political influence and desire could simply step in and fill the shoes that Đukanović left behind. If this were to happen, change in Montenegro would be merely cosmetic, with new faces replacing the old ones in a system where the ethos remains largely the same.

The Future is Decided on Election Day

It is impossible to know which path Spajić would take if he became premier. Still, there is increasingly substantial circumstantial evidence to believe that the direction could be the wrong one. This places the new president in a peculiar situation where he might hope that votes drift towards other reform-minded parties with an appetite for change. A heterogenous parliament would allow alternative candidates to emerge and arrange the deck in such a way that would create the cover for Milatović to choose a less prominent figure from a smaller party as his prime minister and pinning the blame for sidelining Spajić on coalition-building parliamentary arithmetic to avoid a political confrontation.

This could be good for the country because it would place someone who appears to be a genuine reformer in a position of power. But it would also benefit the president by marginalizing a political rival with serious question marks hanging over his character. Several alternatives might be a better choice for this position: the aforementioned former prime minister, Dritan Abazović, is one. During his time in office, he made serious attempts to tackle organized crime like cigarette trafficking. Similarly, his election running mate, Aleksa Bečić—a long-standing political opponent of the Đukanović regime—is another. A more outsider option is Vladimir Leposavic, the leader of Pravda za sve (Justice for All.)

A U.S.-educated lawyer who served in the Ministry of Justice and Human and Minority Rights and also in the 2020–22 cabinet, Leposavic has a reputation for decency and honesty. Like Milatović, he is a new, technocratic face and a clean break from the Đukanović years.

Because the fact is that Đukanović’s defeat was a beginning, not an end. And that, by removing him, Montenegro simply gained an opportunity to change course. But this is the moment when that opportunity is at its most fragile, and the battle for change could be over before it even gets a chance to begin if results go the wrong way on June 11.

Aleks Eror is a freelance journalist whose works have been published by Politico, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, and other publications.