The National Interest

On May 17, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro received a delegation group led by Lin Mingxiang, vice minister of the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, and discussed ways to further strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries.

Weeks before this happened, after Maduro met with Chinese ambassador Li Baorong, Bloomberg’s Patricia Laya and Fabiola Zerpa suggested that the two were “re-establishing connections after years of cooling ties, with government contacts resuming.”

While the authors are correct to note that the public nature of these meetings is partly a reaction to intensifying U.S.-China rivalry, calling it a “rapprochement” is far from true.

China’s collaboration with the Maduro regime has been persistent, even when not displayed on TV screens. This is not just because of China’s need for oil; it also has to do with minerals, a sector where Venezuela is quietly expanding—with Beijing’s backing.

According to Freedom House’s Gerardo Berthin in a video conference two years ago, “In this moment, Venezuela is the country in the western hemisphere with the most Chinese investment.” More strikingly, Berthin suggested that according to estimates put forward by civil society organizations, close to $68 billion in loans has been given to Venezuela by China since 2007, plus around 490 agreements have been signed in “diverse areas of investment.” Berthin added that of these known agreements, 65 percent of them contained deal terms that are not publicly known, while another 22 percent contained only partial information.

Considering the evident involvement of the Asian giant in the South American country, the vast natural resources in Venezuelan lands, and the nature of the Maduro regime, it certainly isn’t unfair to posit that China is making moves to secure some of Venezuela’s mineral wealth.

Venezuelan journalists and academics have echoed this belief by claiming that Chinese companies are behind massive investments in Venezuela’s Arco Minero—an area that, according to Venezuela’s former Minister for Ecological Mining Development Roberto Mirabal, has a potential mineral value of $2 trillion.

Moreover, my recent and personal experience confirms that something suspicious is happening. After spending a few weeks in Caracas, I traveled to the world’s tallest uninterrupted waterfall, the Angel Falls, located in the Venezuelan Amazon. Before my plane even touched the ground, one could already see the contrast between the tall trees at the shore of the Caroní River and the nearby artificial mountains of sand. Although initially confused by the phenomenon, from a conversation with a gifted raconteur and private pilot, I learned that those mountains and the radioactive green colors of the nearby waters were a result of the use of mercury in the gold extraction process.

Following this first conversation, I met F.C., who took me to breathtaking falls in a five-hour motorized curiara (the Pemón version of a canoe) ride via the blood-red waters of the Carrao River. Like the pilot, F.C., a proud member of the Pemón tribe, conversed with me about how mining is destroying the place he calls home and who he believes is behind it.

“Young men in Canaima have two options today: mining or tourism,” he explained. “I choose tourism because I love our nature, and I have seen how areas full of green have lost their color.” Still, he understands that mining, even with all of its dangers and abuses, seems like a more reliable source of income to some, as tourism comes in waves, unlike the demand for minerals. He added, “I’ve lost friends, I’ve lost cousins, I’ve lost neighbors who have left to the mines and have never come back. Why? Well, because they encounter nothing but death there.”

Aside from sharing very personal stories, he talked about the changing faces of commerce and tourism in the region, saying that more Chinese and Russian “tourists” started to come to Canaima in the last decades.

Similarly, the pilot claimed that it is not just illegal mining that is plaguing the Venezuelan Amazon. In fact, he suggested that the government and its international partners are behind it. He recounted a time in which he detoured while flying over Canaima. He explained that it was “one of the scariest moments of [his] life,” as his radio was intercepted by a foul-mouthed and aggressive man, demanding that he left the area immediately. “There is prohibited airspace near Canaima that exists to hide mining activity,” he explained, assuring me that “the generals are behind this.”

“Most do not understand how much is being invested in mining in Canaima and in the entire country,” the pilot added.

Although not many talk about mining in Venezuela, as the country is synonymous with oil, it is well known that the country possesses ample mineral wealth, and wishes to exploit it. In 2018, for instance, Venezuela inaugurated its first coltan concentration plant, which also became the largest one in Latin America. Additionally, in June 2019, Maduro announced a national mining plan based on partnerships with national and international companies dedicated to the exploration and exploitation of thirteen minerals. The exact companies the government has partnered up with are not publicly known.

Furthermore, according to Maduro, with the 2019 plan, “gold would reach the international legal certification of 2,236 tons, (about €94 billion), making the country the fifth largest reserve in the world and aspiring to first place.” Likewise, with other minerals like bauxite, the Venezuelan leader added that the country has 321,350,000 thousand tons in certified reserves. In terms of nickel, Maduro claimed that Venezuela has 28,027,980 certified tons, making it the country with the largest reserves in the world.

These details undoubtedly capture the attention of the CCP. It is for this reason that they have been making massive investments in the mining sector throughout the region, as critical minerals are essential in the technological and clean energy worlds, which China hopes to dominate.

Chinese involvement in Venezuela is no different from its broader regional involvement, and the lack of publicly available information should not make us think otherwise. Even more so, it is essential to consider the strings China pulls behind the curtain if we are to properly measure its strength. By presenting Venezuela just as a chaotic nation battling illegal mining, many journalists and academics avoid exploring the various government-led efforts, and others avoid questioning why the state would acquiesce when facing illegality in this sector. Still, the more one looks into it, the more one realizes that the question of legality is not relevant in a country where the rule of law is all but a distant memory.

A more concrete and constructive project is to better assess who benefits from Venezuelan mining, how they benefit, and how these developments affect U.S. national security interests. As Westwin Elements’ Gregory Wischer observes, in our so-called backyard, “the U.S. government has largely been absent, ceding the playing field—or in this case, mineral deposits—to China.” This reality presents a more immediate threat to the United States than ecological catastrophe or foreign corruption. As such, it is time for us to shift the conversation in this direction. China understands it well— to lead the world, you must control its resources. It is a simple equation, have we forgotten it?

Juan P. Villasmil “J.P. Ballard” is a commentator and analyst who often writes about American culture, foreign policy, and political philosophy. He has been featured in The American Spectator, The National Interest, The Wall Street Journal, International Policy Digest, Fox News, Telemundo, MSNBC, and others.

Image: Courtesy of Airpano.

The United States maintains a technological edge in defensive technology and capability, but our Achilles' heel might be our industrial base.

In a recent war game run by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the United States ran out of missiles against China within days of conflict breaking out. This has been echoed in the Ukraine-Russo War, as manufacturers struggle to fill the massive demand. On top of that, defensive firms often fragilely rely on one manufacturing plant. Attempts to revive supply have been slow. Meanwhile, the shipyards can’t build even two destroyers a year, citing supply chain issues and labor shortages. One can be all for developing cutting-edge projects like the B-21 bomber, but there’s something to be said for mass—possessing more than enough quantity of cruise missiles, rockets, and bombs. All this should serve as a warning that we may simply not have the industrial base to support a protracted conflict.

This realization comes at a critical time as China’s single-minded obsession with submerging Taiwan under its rule threatens to cause massive global disruptions. Taiwan is a doorstep to the all-important shipping lanes and is the main producer of semiconductors, which practically every industry relies on. Washington would be under immense pressure to enter the war if China decided to invade.

To prevent this, American diplomacy needs teeth. The lethality of the U.S. military should be unquestioned by our adversaries as generations ahead of their own. Making this possible means that a robust industrial and technology sector is not only an issue of jobs, but of national defense.

Lawmakers are aware of the problem, but so far, their response has been misguided. Much of it has been reactive, seemingly stemming from a panic of watching China spend massive amounts on subsidies. We try to “keep up with the Jones” and mimic their actions to an extent. Earlier this year, Biden signed the $52 billion CHIPS Act into law, providing massive subsidies for the semiconductor industry—certainly an important industry for defense, especially given that the Department of Defense uses 1.9 billion chips a year.

If only it were that simple. As Bloomberg’s editorial board notes, throwing money at the problem won’t solve it. Renowned historical economists like Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman wrote extensively on how subsidies misallocate resources, create distortions, and stymie growth. China, often admired by some for its remarkable growth and development over the past few decades—made possible by subsidies and government policy—now faces deep economic problems. This was entirely predictable. It is not a strategy we should mimic.

What really stifles dynamism in the United States is overregulation—big government, as it were. Clean Air Act permits can take eighteen months. National Environmental Policy reviews take an average of four and a half years. As new technologies continue to quickly develop, this is time companies can’t afford. Tariffs, designed to protect the defense industry, have instead hurt it. President Joe Biden’s hostility towards low-cost, reliable energy only adds to production costs. The Jones Act, designed to protect American shipping, has instead made it incapable of meeting national defense needs. This is all without even including the maze of local “not in my backyard” laws that in 2015 were estimated to cost the U.S. economy at least $1 trillion a year. The list goes on. This overregulation has serious consequences in both time and money.  Producing semiconductors in the United States, for example, takes 25 percent longer and is 50 percent costlier than in Asia.

Then there’s the labor shortage. According to one study, 300,000 more skilled workers were needed just to fill current chip plants, much less start new ones. Addressing this will require immigration reform. This is a thorny political issue, but the simple reality is that ample labor keeps production high and costs low. Attracting the best minds in the world is one of the best and easiest ways to stay competitive. Currently, foreign STEM students receive their graduate degrees in the United States (often at taxpayer expense), but caps on green cards make it hard for them to stay. We literally pay for their education and then kick them out—often to China’s benefit. In fact, Chinese leaders in semiconductors and other technologies were all educated in the United States.  

There are, of course, security risks in expanding visas, which China will try to exploit for espionage purposes. But the upside is too great to ignore, and the downsides can be enormous; educating foreigners and kicking them out seems to be the best way Beijing can piggyback off of U.S. research. The creator of 5G technology, who was sponsored by the Chinese company Huawei, and the father of Chinese missile and space technology were both immigrants forced out of the United States. “The stupidest thing this country has ever done” is what former Secretary of the Navy, Dan Kimball said about the latter. Surely creative ways to strengthen security while tapping into the talent that accompanies visa expansion must exist.

As historian Victor Davis Hanson and others have written, the freer nations are the more powerful their military. Authoritarian regimes don’t have the dynamism to build and adapt. The challenge for Congress and the next president will be to position him or herself as a reformer that can unshackle U.S. industry from the burden of onerous regulation. A nation of liberated innovators, visionaries, and entrepreneurs would put China to shame, full stop.

Daniel Duffy is a Marine veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan that writes on foreign policy. His work is found in several publications.

Image: Official White House Photo/Flickr.

The December 2021 election of Gabriel Boric as President of Chile was hailed by progressive opinion around the world. Here was a new type of Latin leftist—young, untainted by authoritarian tendencies, sensitive not only to longstanding issues of inequality but also to newer ones of climate change, gender, sexuality, and indigenous rights. He would represent a new, impatient generation of Chileans who would supplant the stodgy, timid centrists and implement real change.

Now, a year and a half later, the picture looks very different. Boric’s support has sunk in the polls, hovering around 30 percent. A new constitution drafted by a convention dominated by the political Left was soundly rejected in a referendum. The country’s Right triumphed in a follow-up election to name delegates to a second convention. Issues of crime, terrorism, and illegal immigration dominate the public agenda, while much of Boric’s legislative agenda is stuck in a divided Congress.

Amid Crisis, the Left Triumphs

The saga of the rise and apparent decline of Boric and Chile’s Left began in 2019 with a series of protests, extending for months and throughout the length of the country. The demonstrations were sparked initially by an increase in Santiago’s metro fares. Although many of the protesters, in what was known as the “social explosion,” were peaceful, there was significant violence and destruction of property.

The protests reached a point where it was unclear if then-President Sebastian Piñera could survive in office. Seeking a political solution to the unrest, Piñera and the political establishment agreed to a longstanding leftist demand for a convention to rewrite Chile’s constitution. The document was initially imposed during the dictatorial regime of General Augusto Pinochet but was significantly modified after the restoration of democracy in 1990.

Some on the far left saw the convention as a trap to channel the energies of the protests into normal politics. Boric, a former student leader-turned-congressman for a small, new leftist party (Social Convergence), supported it, giving him new prominence. The legislation authorizing the convention passed and was submitted to a referendum, where it gained extensive support from an exhausted public. In May 2021, an election was held to name delegates to the constitutional convention. To the surprise of many, leftist forces gained over a two-thirds majority.

Meanwhile, with Piñera’s term due to end in March of 2022, Boric, now a prominent national figure, ran for the presidency under the banner of the “Broad Front”—a coalition of relatively new leftist parties together with Chile’s Communist Party, which since the return to democracy had always commanded the support of a hard core of 6 or 7 percent of the population.

The traditional center-left and center-right coalitions nominated lackluster candidates; simultaneously, a new force emerged to their right—the Republican Party, led by Senator José Antonio Kast. The Republicans espoused economic and social conservatism and were prepared to defend the record of the Pinochet years. They have been compared to the new rightist parties which have emerged in Europe, such as Vox in Spain, the National Rally in France, and the Brothers of Italy.

In the first round, the centrist parties which had governed Chile since the return to democracy in 1990 suffered a collapse. The two winners who went on to the second round were Kast with 27.91 percent and Boric with 25.82 percent. No other grouping gained more than 13 percent.  In the second round, the voters decisively broke for Boric, who won with a majority of 55.9 percent.

Between the presidential election and convention delegate selection, it seemed the radical Left had made a remarkable comeback, reaching power not seen since the election of Salvador Allende in 1970. Under the leadership of a new generation of political leaders, Chile was perceived to be on a fast track to major political change. The cautious approach to achieving social progress, as exemplified by the slogans “growth with equity” and “realism without renunciation”—associated with center-left Presidents Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet—was not enough for an impatient public.

Events, however, unfolded very differently. Boric’s administration had to contend with the reality that its majority in the Chamber of Deputies included the center-left parties it sought to replace. In the evenly divided Senate, its position was even more tenuous.

Trying for a New Constitution

While the center-left parties were prepared to cooperate with Boric’s Broad Front coalition, matters were not helped by the measure of patronizing contempt which had emerged from the latter, as demonstrated by the presidential chief of staff who said that the New Left had “different values” from the previous, politically compromised generation.

In that frustrating environment, Boric and his government looked to the constitutional convention to draft a document in which their economic and social views would be permanently inscribed and held off on proposing major new legislation in the meantime. However, the convention, with its clear leftist majority, produced in July 2022 a result that was not palatable to the great majority of Chileans.

Its 388 articles guaranteed a leading role to the state in healthcare, education, and pensions, areas previously dominated by the private sector. Chile would be declared a “plurinational” state, with the indigenous communities exercising unprecedented autonomy, including their own justice systems. The document enshrined strict environmental controls, threatening Chile’s profitable mining, fishery, and forestry sectors. Moreover, the reformed legislature and judiciary gave the Left an unfair structural advantage.

Also, in addition to being radical in its final product, the conduct of many convention delegates offended Chileans. Performative gestures ranged from delegates interrupting the national anthem to the bizarre case of one who dressed up as a Pokemon character. Throughout the year-long convention, the majority lacked interest in accommodating centrist and conservative views. All of this led many voters to feel deep suspicion of the final draft.

Two Resounding Rejections

Although by the time the nationwide referendum on the draft constitution was held in September of 2022, its approval seemed doubtful, the level of rejection was stunning—62 percent of voters opposed it. Given that Boric was closely identified with the convention, his support seemed reduced to his hard-core supporters, a view which was supported by polling on his popularity.

After the rejection of the draft constitution Boric and the Left insisted that the original mandate from the people to write a new document still had validity and pushed for a second convention. While many on the Right were unenthusiastic, they were trapped by their promise to back a new convention if the first failed.

Ultimately Congress passed legislation authorizing a new convention, but this time with significant constraints on radical ambitions. The first draft would be prepared by a commission of experts named by the Congress; the actual convention (now called a “council”) would have limited authority to change the experts’ draft; and a board of arbitrators would review the final document to assure that it stayed within the fairly limited congressional mandate the council had been given.

Unlike the vote to elect the previous constitutional convention, this time, voters selected delegates from slates nominated by political parties—eliminating the independent intellectuals and civil society activists who had been among the most radical members. The results closely paralleled those of the previous constitutional referendum—leftist delegates made up only 34 percent of the new council.

And within the conservative majority of 66 percent of the delegates, its composition skewed well to the Right, with Jose Antonio Kast’s Republican Party becoming the dominant force with 46 percent of the total seats. This would make it, to judge by this vote at least, the most popular political party in Chile. This was a true earthquake, given the party had emerged recently, and it raised the prospect of a conservative renaissance.

It is worth noting that in both the first constitutional referendum and the election of the delegates to the second constitutional convention, voting was mandatory (it is not in the regular congressional and presidential elections.)  This new element of the electorate, which skews towards older voters, came down decisively on the political Right and had a key role in the final result in both cases.

This outcome, on top of the rejection of the previous draft constitution, has meant that any new constitution is not likely to differ vastly from the existing one. But beyond that, it means Boric, who is in office until 2026, is obliged to trim back his legislative ambitions while keeping his own coalition together. Even before the most recent debacle, he gave senior positions to figures from the old center-left parties while nonetheless claiming to stay true to his radical election platform.

The decline in support for Boric, as evidenced both in polling and in the results of the two votes regarding constitutional reform, has several causes. Certainly, the disastrous management of the first convention had an impact. But also, during his first year in office, other issues came to the forefront of national life: namely urban crime, especially in Santiago; the unprecedented flow of immigrants into Chile from Haiti and Venezuela; and the violence generated by radical indigenous groups in southern Chile.

The Boric administration, which ran on a platform of diversity and social inclusion, was ill-equipped and slow to address these issues. Eventually, it took reluctant steps, such as deploying the military to support the police in the south. It had to swallow hard and accept legislation passed over its objections which limited the liability of the police and army when faced with brutality charges. But at the same time, in what proved to be a highly unpopular step, it reached out to its far left base by pardoning several protesters convicted of violent acts during the social explosion.

Who Will Win the Center?

Faced with low popularity and lacking a solid working majority in Congress, Boric has lowered his sights while still proclaiming fealty to the radical program on which he ran. He has scored some successes—a law increasing royalties on Chile’s crucial mining industry has passed after a downward adjustment. The work week has been reduced from 45 to 40 hours, and the minimum wage raised.

But other elements of his platform, such as a large general tax increase, massive increases in the state’s role in the health and pension systems, and a proposed state-run lithium mining enterprise, will face considerable modification in Congress if they are to have any chance of passing in face of emboldened moderates and conservatives.

Boric, however, should not be written off completely. He retains his appealing, youthful persona. While his fundamental views remain radical, he has taken steps to moderate his message and frustrate his Communist and independent leftist base. Old center-left establishment figures remain in key cabinet positions, and Boric’s legislative agenda is limited to his top priorities.

If he gets some legislation passed, even if it is watered down, and the economy picks up, he may see improvement in his standing. Indeed, his recent address to Congress, which struck a conciliatory tone, has given him a momentary uptick in the polls.

Chile’s center-right and center-left governments had real achievements, making the country a poster child for economic development and poverty reduction over the last thirty years. However, they became complacent, with the same faces cycling through key positions over the years. At the same time, there was a failure of nerve, particularly among the center-left, which seemingly felt guilty about defending the merits of gradualism in the face of the public’s rising expectations.

This opened the way for Boric and the far left. But they erred in assuming that the center’s collapse meant that Chilean public opinion had shifted to the point where they had free rein to implement their vision. This overreaching, in turn, opened the door to Kast and the hard right.

But Chile’s disillusioned centrist voters remain the key battleground. Kast’s Republicans will try hard to permanently capture them and will likely give special attention to those older Chileans who came out for the recent votes on constitutional issues. At the same time, the centrist parties will seek to reconstitute themselves and regain their lost support.

But it is also possible that Boric—now rebranded as a more moderate social democrat—will find a way to once more reclaim the center while retaining much of his hard left support. He is down, but not out, and Chile’s center remains up for grabs.

Richard M. Sanders is Senior Fellow, Western Hemisphere at the Center for the National Interest. He is also a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. A former member of the Senior Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State, he has served as Director of the Office of Brazilian and Southern Cone Affairs and at embassies throughout Latin America.

Image: Shutterstock

Washington DC was completely obscured by smoke on June 8; a consequence of Canadian wildfires occurring several hundred miles away. The situation was uncomfortably symbolic of the importance of foreign policy: something happening far away can still affect the daily lives of people in a separate country, including political leaders and decisionmakers.

But the smoke’s obscuring effect was also symbolic of the state of conservative foreign policy in Washington, best exemplified by, coincidentally happening at the same time, The American Conservative’s tenth foreign policy conference: somewhat unclear, though with a visible goal in the yonder distance.

The magazine’s history is reflective of American conservatives’ own evolution over the past few decades on foreign policy matters: it was founded by disaffected paleoconservatives and others who opposed the mainstream conservative movement’s endorsement of the Iraq war, its well known for consistently critiquing the current state of American foreign policy and related topics (globalization, mass immigration, neoconservative interventions, etc.), it aligned with Donald Trump’s populist movement, and it is now a leading publication—if not the unofficial voice—of the American “New Right.” Its annual conference—with Congressmen (arriving on time!), staffers, foreign policy experts, journalists, political activists, and students attending—is thus a rich opportunity to gauge the state of thinking on the U.S. political Right.

At present, that thinking is broadly critical of Washington’s current approach to foreign policy, along with the principles and ideas that underlie that approach—the universality of liberal (if not progressive) and democratic values, a conviction that illiberalism (in any measure) is an existential threat, a generous interpretation of what constitutes the national interest, an equally generous understanding of what means can be used to pursue said interests, and so on.

In contrast, New Right conservatives lean strongly toward realism—or rather, their values are more congenial to those that underline realism. These include: a conviction on the importance of national sovereignty and non-interventionism in the affairs of foreign countries (unless absolutely necessary, conservatively understood); an appreciation of power politics and the struggle between states; prudence and caution, preferring a stable international environment over pursuing idealistic but potentially risky endeavors that promote liberal values; a strong skepticism of global governance and international institutions; and a conservative understanding of human imperfection and our flawed nature, along with a deep apprehension of any endeavor that would seek to surpass or ignore such.

Much of this was discernible given the various speakers’ comments. “If you think wars end by good defeating evil, you’re not realistic,” declared Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), one of the conference’s featured speakers. Similarly, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), giving a keynote, stated that he identifies as “a constitutional realist” who sees “foreign policy first through the lens of our constitution,” including that Congress must reclaim its power to declare war. “The people who comprise the blob have been badly, consistently wrong,” he went on, calling for the inclusion of alternative viewpoints in the foreign policy discourse.

These views translate into a more realist and restraint-oriented policy. Consider the War in Ukraine. Attendees of this event expressed sympathy towards Ukrainians fighting against Russia’s invasion but do not believe that Kyiv should be given a blank check to “fight authoritarianism” all the way to Moscow. What is the American political objective in this conflict? To what extent are we willing to engage in a proxy war with Russia? When and how will the conflict end? Conservatives here note that such questions are going notably unanswered in the halls of power. Lee critiqued the politics surrounding the Ukraine debate, including that “anyone raising dissent or questions is immediately labeled a Putin apologist.”

Likewise, the topic of China and its challenge featured prominently. This is a particularly interesting issue, given that it was the Trump administration that emphasized the China challenge and forced the Washington foreign policy set to abandon its old approach to Beijing. Curiously, the roles are now somewhat reversed; neoconservatives and the foreign policy establishment, realists believe, are becoming dangerously hawkish. “Adopting a Cold War mindset regarding China would have horrible consequences here at home,” warned Dan Caldwell, the newish vice president of the Center for Renewing America. Meanwhile, Michael Anton, the famous/notorious (depending on your political inclinations) Trump administration staffer and essayist, counseled that “if the anti-Chinese rhetoric remains focused on security instead of economics, we’re going to wind up somewhere really dumb.” Sen. Paul was particular on this topic, acknowledging that if “you come to my Republican caucus and you’ll hear the beating of drums. These are drums for war with whomever, but primarily war with China. Everything is about war with China.” Paul warned against this trend, emphasizing that “strategic ambiguity has kept the peace for fifty years,” and overturning that would be courting disaster.

For realists and those oriented toward realism, this all sounds well and good. The goal of this movement is clear: a more sane, restrained, and cautious foreign policy that places America’s national interests (more strictly defined) first. The problem, however, is that there are two major obstacles to their ambitions.

The first is that conservative realists at this event (and further afield) share an unfortunate trait with their Washington DC blob nemeses: a Western-centrism that blinds them to events unfolding abroad. Outside of the principal spheres and topics of importance—China, Russia, Europe, and Middle Eastern forever wars—very little to nothing was said about what is happening in the rest of the world. Latin America is often mentioned in passing either as a component of the mass immigration question or in the context of having to reinforce the Monroe Doctrine to ward off foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere. Africa is barely talked about. Central and Southeast Asia goes unmentioned. One could retort this is being nitpicky or that these regions do not present a direct or strong challenge to American interests as Russia and China do. Yet the observation does raise a question: how do conservative realists and restrainers intend to dramatically affect U.S. foreign policy if they lack informed views, policies, or even experts on what happens outside of Washington’s typical narrow focus?

Consider, for instance, that in the coming multipolar world, where America jockeys with China and Russia for influence, Central Asia will assume outsized importance given its energy reserves, trade routes, and growing economic strength. U.S. policy toward the region will require knowledgeable individuals who understand Central Asian geopolitical dynamics, speak one or more relevant languages (Russian, Chinese, Kazakh, Uzbekh, etc.), and can articulate why the region merits more attention. Do realists, especially conservatives, have enough qualified people to fill these roles? If they do not, then their political opponents will fill these spots by default, some of whom might very well push non-realist views or enact more culture-war-oriented policies that conservatives are diametrically and virulently opposed to.

This dovetails to the second obstacle bedeviling conservative realists: how will they achieve their goals? The lesson the New Right took from the Trump administration is that even if you control the presidency, policy is ultimately executed by a vast army of staffers, appointees, and more—personnel that the New Right currently lacks. A few of suggestions were thrown up: the utilization of Schedule F to “shatter the deep state” and appoint realists to positions of power or to identify, train, and prepare a new generation of young Americans who can fulfill this role. It’s worth noting that young students and staffers—especially from American Moment, an organization whose explicit goal is to prepare the next generation of realist-oriented conservatives—made up a large proportion of the conference’s attendees. Yet given the vast numbers required to operate the U.S. foreign policy apparatus, fielding this new army of conservative realists will take years of preparation and significant resources.

Conservative realists know this and retort, not unfairly, that the primary focus right now is raising awareness and fighting for greater numbers. Adherents to this worldview, though rising, are still very much in the political minority; fighting to claim greater numbers to be able to properly challenge the pro-interventionist foreign policy establishment takes priority. Perhaps it was recently-elected, casually-dressed, Peter-Zeihan-reading, rather authentic Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) who best captured this sentiment, expressing that the Republican Party has not yet fully grappled with the sheer number of geopolitical and technological changes that have occurred in only a few decades.

This is quite probably true, but not only must the Party grapple with these changes; conservative realists must also grapple with the reality that they face a long, uphill battle. They may have their eyes on the summit, but getting there will be harder than they anticipate.

Carlos Roa is the Executive Editor of The National Interest.

Image: Office of Sen. Rand Paul/Twitter.

The recent flare-up in northern Kosovo between NATO peacekeeping troops and ethnic Serbians has reminded the world that while the brutal war in Ukraine may be the greatest threat to European stability at the moment, it is by no means the only one.

On May 29, Serb protestors clashed with NATO troops after the authorities in Kosovo attempted to escort newly elected mayors into government administration buildings in the Serb-dominated northern municipalities. The ethnically Albanian mayors were elected in November 2022 with a meager voter turnout of 3.5 percent, as ethnic Serbians in the region boycotted the elections as part of their ongoing struggle with Kosovo’s government. This came on the heels of the July 2022 decision in Pristina, the country’s capital, to force Serbs in the region to adopt Kosovo license plates rather than Serbian ones.

Although the matter may seem trivial to outside observers, the move was interpreted by many as simply the latest example of Pristina’s overreach. Though Kosovo officially proclaimed its independence in 2008, it was a contentious move that many countries do not recognize. Although the four Serb-majority northern municipalities compose a relatively small portion of the country, with ethnic Serbs composing only 6 percent of the country’s total population, a 2013 EU-brokered deal was meant to allow for a degree of self-rule in the region. The Serbs living in Kosovo have grown increasingly discouraged by Pristina’s failure to implement the terms of the agreement, a fact that both the United States and the EU have acknowledged.

Back in July, protestors set up a number of roadblocks in northern Kosovo following the initial move to alter licensing and registration. Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić described the gravity of the situation by stating that “we [authorities in Belgrade and Serbs in northern Kosovo] have never been in a more difficult situation”—quite a statement considering the region’s notorious volatility.

Nonetheless, Pristina decided to move forward with the mayoral elections despite calls from both Washington and Brussels to delay the vote. There was further cause for consternation when the Kosovar government then went on to ignore Western pressure to have the mayors conduct government operations from a remote location in order to avoid a potential physical clash with demonstrators obstructing access to municipality centers. This is exactly what happened when Pristina decided to use Kosovo law enforcement to forcibly escort the “elected” representatives into official administrative buildings being blocked by Serb protestors. The subsequent attempt by NATO peacekeeping forces to manage the turmoil resulted in dozens of injuries, including eleven Italians and nineteen Hungarians who were a part of the peacekeeping contingent. Over fifty Serb protestors were additionally injured. Belgrade responded to the incident by raising the combat readiness of Serbia’s armed forces to its highest level.

Both the United States and the European Union were swift in their condemnation of the Kosovo government. U.S. ambassador Jeff Hovenier tweeted out his disapproval of Pristina’s actions, stating that “today’s violent measures should be immediately halted.” On June 2, Secretary of State Antony Blinken further laid the blame at the feet of the country’s leadership and its course of “escalating tensions in the north and increasing instability.” An EU-brokered agreement to hold new mayoral elections in the northern municipalities was subsequently reached at a meeting in Moldova attended by Vučić, Kosovo president Vjosa Osmani, and EU high representative for foreign affairs Josep Borrell. French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Sholz were also present.

It remains to be seen whether the decision to conduct new elections will be enough to lower the tensions in the region. The present situation is a reminder that the United States, for better or worse, remains the ultimate arbiter in guaranteeing Kosovo’s independence and maintaining general stability in the region. This means that the authorities in Pristina must understand the necessity of playing to international audiences, especially those located in the halls of Washington. Prime Minister Albin Kurti has certainly acknowledged as much: the U.S. flag is often seen at his rallies, side by side with Kosovo’s national flag (as well as that of Albania).

Kurti has also attempted to defend his government’s actions by utilizing the current lexicon of U.S. domestic politics. He has continually equated the protestors in northern Kosovo to “right-wing extremist groups,” and took to Twitter to state that “in a democracy there is no place for fascist violence”—language eerily similar to U.S. president Joe Biden’s multiple references to political opposition that still support former president Donald Trump as “semi-fascists.” The protestors, according to Kurti, are “extremists and militias,” and do not represent “the people.” In the past, the prime minister notably feuded with Trump-appointed special envoy for Serbia and Kosovo Richard Grenell, and eagerly endorsed Biden for president in 2020.

For her part, Osmani has also recognized the importance of political narratives and curating the proper international image. She has presented her country as a besieged nation in a similar situation to that of Ukraine and its ongoing war with Russia. Meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on June 1 at the EU summit in Moldova, she later tweeted that “No one understands Ukraine’s pain, struggle and resilience better than the people of Kosovo.” She concluded with the statement that “nothing can stand in the way of a people’s will to be free.”

Outside the government administrative buildings in the northern Kosovo municipality of Zvecan, Serb protestors carried signs displaying a similar message: “We are not criminals, we just want freedom,” as well as “You will not drive us out of our homes.” In fact, the political dynamics of the situation in northern Kosovo are in many ways similar to that of eastern Ukraine. Much like Ukraine, Kosovo is a historically disputed territory that’s secession from its former arbiter of political control has not been accepted by a significant portion of the citizens in the country which it seceded from. Ethnic Serbs who found themselves in the newly independent Kosovo (exacerbated after its official independence in 2008) felt displaced from their rightful political home, much like some Russians in the Donbas felt in relation to Moscow, particularly after 2014.

It is no coincidence then that Kurti would claim that the Serb protestors in northern Kosovo are Moscow sympathizers. In an attempt to tie his own struggle to that of Kyiv against the destructive war waged by Vladimir Putin, Kurti also made specific reference to the fact that many protestors displayed the “Z of Russian aggression in Ukraine.” He would go on to state that “the pro-Russian elements in Serbia and the north of Kosovo want to destabilize everything that has been agreed so far.” Many Serbs in the region have been seen displaying their solidarity with Putin and Russia in general, ostensibly as a means for appealing to Moscow for support in the current situation.

Regarding the Kremlin’s stance, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov commented on the situation in Kosovo to Russian state media, saying that “a huge explosion is being prepared in the center of Europe, in the place where, in 1999, NATO attacked Yugoslavia, violating every imaginable (international) principle.”

This is an analysis shared by many ethnic Serbs. The potential for a wider conflagration is certainly a real possibility. However, the relative strength of the United States and the broader transatlantic alliance which it controls is a powerful incentive for Serbia to remain within the bounds of Western-dictated behavior.

The war in Ukraine may very well end up as a type of frozen conflict similar to the situation between Kosovo and Serbia. And much like the latter situation, the United States will almost certainly end up as the ultimate guarantor of the Ukrainian situation as it is for Kosovo. Policymakers should keep this fact in mind as they try to reach a settlement that accounts for the much more significant security implications surrounding a direct military challenge with Russia.

Dominick Sansone is a Ph.D. student at the Hillsdale College Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship. Previously a Fulbright recipient to Bulgaria, his writing on politics in the Black Sea region has been published by The National Interest, the Euromaidan Press, The American Conservative, and RealClear Defense, among other publications. He also previously wrote as a contributing columnist focusing on Russia-China relations at The Epoch Times.

Image: Shutterstock.

The post-Western, multipolar international order is coming to pass. As the world grapples with the implications of this shift in power, the foundations of a great reckoning are taking shape. This reckoning will challenge the long-held beliefs and structures that have sustained Western dominance of the world for the past few hundred years, exposing along the way the nature of the West’s perceived entitlement to lead the global pecking order. The end result will be a significant re-evaluation of international relations as we know it.

This great reckoning will be driven by five major trends, which are compelling Western nations to confront and adapt to a future where power must be shared with the rest in a multipolar world. A failure to recognize, or attempting to strongly resist, these trends could pose significant risks not only to the West itself but also to global stability. Yet future conflicts can be avoided if this period of change is viewed as an opportunity to build a more equitable world, rather than as a crisis that threatens preferred and entrenched privileges.

Five Trends to Consider

What future awaits the West—a smooth transition toward multipolarity or a period of instability and potential conflict—will largely depend on how policymakers respond to the following five trends.

First is the unravelling of the hitherto telling of history. The West, across its colonial history, has practiced and perfected the selective interpretation and telling of events, choosing to portray itself as the originator of modern civilization and a benevolent guiding force. This is now changing; information technologies, such as the Internet and social media, have broken the monopoly over information and history once held by Western gatekeeping institutions (media companies, universities, book publishers, and more). As a consequence, people around the world are recognizing that history is no longer confined to Western interpretation—including its projection of benevolence.

A significant component of this has been the West’s frequent failure to acknowledge its own imperfect past. Despite amplifying the perceived wrongdoings of others, it has been silent about its own unsavory moments, such as early American pioneers’ destruction of First Nation cultures, European exploitation of the African continent, or Australia’s treatment of aboriginal peoples. Addressing these historical episodes matters all the more because they affect current behavior; Western nations also have problems admitting to contemporary mistakes and intentions. 

Non-Western nations can now make clear that their own countries and communities have long histories that not only exist despite Western interpretation, but these histories need to be explored, understood, and told. The West must grapple with this trend and its implications, rather than continue to obscure it in denial. Consider the ongoing diplomatic efforts of the Indian government to compel Great Britain to return the treasure stolen from India, including some of the crown jewels.

The second trend is the re-evaluation of the” rules-based” international order. Policymakers in Washington may not like hearing it, but the concept is the subject of much derision around the world and is widely regarded as a tool used by the West to control global affairs and maintain hegemony. There is ample resentment growing against Western nations given the repeated breaching of their own rules, meaning that the legitimacy of this order is being questioned despite its positive aspects.

Coinciding with this growing frustration is the reality that the distribution of power across more nations is transforming the current world order and creating new opportunities and challenges. China has assumed a more prominent position, offering global public goods such as peacemaking and addressing climate change in a manner Western nations are not willing, or able, to do. Similarly, India is beginning to assert itself, as are other smaller nations, like the UAE and Indonesia.

As more countries determine their own trajectories in the twenty-first century, the West must recognize that the international balance of power has shifted. It cannot continue to impose its will on others—the rise of China and other nations is evidence of such. The West must come to terms with this new reality and recognize that a new, more pragmatic, and multipolar approach is needed, where nations pursue foreign policies committed to co-existence, driven by their own best interests rather than aligning themselves with “one side” or the other.

Third is the unmasking of Western “peacekeeping.” Despite portraying itself as the guarantor of global security, much of the world now views the United States‚ and Europe to a lesser extent, as profiting from war rather than being interested in promoting authentic peace. The Western military-industrial complex—particularly the United States’—is so powerful that it is now well-known to drive U.S. foreign policy to the extent that it perpetuates conflicts to thus profit from war.

At present, the United States and its NATO allies are driving the rise in global military spending, with America spending more on defense than the next ten countries combined. It is similarly well known that almost half of the Pentagon’s budget goes to private contractors each year, and the military-industrial complex donates millions of dollars to U.S. Congressional races, resulting in state capture and significant increases in defense budgets.

The rest of the world has realized that the West alone cannot be trusted to lead global peace efforts, especially if a significant portion of their economies are geared to profit from conflict. In light of this, a positive change is occurring, with China brokering ground-breaking peace agreements—between Saudi Arabia and Iran, for example—while world leaders like Indonesia’s Joko Widodo, India’s Narendra Modi, and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pitch peaceful resolutions to modern conflicts.

The fourth trend underway is the dethroning of the Western financial superstructure. That the West makes ample use of its financial might for geopolitical advantage and purposes is no great secret—policymakers and experts openly talk about the “weaponization of finance” and applying sanctions on countries that do not comply with Western intentions. Likewise, the ability of the United States and its allies to freeze and even confiscate the reserves of sovereign states—Afghanistan, Venezuela, Russia—sent shock waves across the world.

Because of this and the West’s own track record of financial greed and impropriety—which resulted in devastating crises such as the 2007–2008 financial crisis and the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which has had global reverberations—distrust in and a rejection of Western financial structures is growing.

Efforts are now underway to dismantle the exorbitant privilege bestowed on the United States via its currency. De-dollarization is very much happening, with the currency’s share of global reserves falling to 47 percent last year, down from 73 percent in 2001. Additionally, countries are seeking alternatives to the SWIFT system, which also has been used in aid of Western-based sanctions and thus alarmed the global majority. As countries with stable currencies gain influence, a more multipolar economic order emerges, reshaping geopolitical alliances, economic diplomacy, and the balance of power within international institutions. This change may grant developing nations greater flexibility in managing their currencies and monetary policies and limit the West’s capacity to unilaterally impose sanctions. Moreover, BRICS nations have recently surpassed the G7 in terms of GDP, signaling a redistribution of economic power and hinting at a future of cooperation in trade, investment, infrastructure, and development assistance.

Fifth and finally, there is the notable collapse of the Western press’ credibility. This comes at a critical juncture, as repeated shortcomings in the last few years have heightened global awareness of Western media’s role in perpetuating the West’s preferred aspects of the current world order—often to the detriment of other countries.

For instance, persistent China-bashing in Western headlines has perpetuated an unproductive and fear-mongering narrative of Beijing as a threat to its own citizens and the world at large. The geopolitical contexts of Hong Kong and Taiwan, though complicated affairs, have been particularly and selectively drummed up to push an “us vs. them” narrative, rather than encouraging understanding between the West and China.

Similarly, overwhelmingly one-sided coverage of the Ukrainian conflict regularly overlooks national and regional geopolitical complexities in the long-standing Russian-Ukrainian relationship and the history of NATO expansion in Europe. A lack of reporting on the Nord Stream bombing, which many believe was perpetrated by a Western nation—with reporting to back this claim up—is a glaring hole that has contributed to the lack of trust in Western media from both non-Western and Western readers alike. Only months later is the Western press quietly admitting potential Western culpability, or at the very least, knowledge.

Moreover, inadequate, and biased coverage of non-Western conflicts, such as those in Yemen, Myanmar, and Palestine, has led to global accusations of neglect, bias, and even racism.

The Writing on the Wall

Western governments operating in an echo chamber of denial need to reach out to their friends across the world and realize what is obvious to everyone except to themselves: that the world is not like what it was in the post-Cold War era. The old ways are finished, and the West simply does not have the political and financial power, not to mention the international legitimacy, it once did. Western nations must adapt to this changing international environment, rather than stubbornly insisting upon business as usual. Failure to do so will make the world a more dangerous place and erode the credibility and influence of the West even further.

Chandran Nair is the founder and CEO of the Global Institute For Tomorrow (GIFT). He is the author of Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World.

Image: Shutterstock.

Russian efforts to manipulate American elections have made headlines in recent years. But China’s attempts at such have achieved more—largely because they have been overwhelmingly conducted via WeChat, an application popular among Chinese-Americans. As the 2024 presidential election heats up, campaigns, voters, and the federal government must be vigilant against CCP efforts to use the platform to influence American elections.

In February 2016, Chinese-Americans erupted in nationwide protests in support of Peter Liang, a Chinese-American cop convicted of manslaughter following the fatal shooting of an unarmed man in a dark stairwell in Brooklyn. The Los Angeles Times noted that the protests were organized through WeChat and reflected “a rare instance of collective political action by Chinese Americans.”

But far from being organic expressions of anger, significant evidence suggests Beijing’s involvement. David Tian Wang, one of the principal protest organizers, is a Chinese green card holder and activist who has long been associated with people and groups affiliated with the Chinese government. In February 2016, Wang used WeChat to help organize protests in dozens of American cities within one week, taking the lead in rallying as many as 100,000 people from, he claimed, forty-eight different states. “This is how powerful WeChat is,” said Wang. The fact that Chinese state-backed media outlets such as the Global Times and the United Front-linked China Qiaowang promoted Wang’s efforts suggests a relationship with Beijing.

Later that year, whether out of concern over the consequences of a Hillary Clinton presidency for China, or a belief that Donald Trump could be bribed or manipulated, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) threw its weight behind Trump’s candidacy. In March, Wang converted the numerous pro-Peter Liang WeChat groups into pro-Donald Trump groups. In the process, he established what would become the largest pro-Trump Chinese-American organization, Chinese Americans for Trump (CAFT). This group, which would eventually grow to over 8,000 registered members, started canvassing for the future president in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Ohio as early as March 2016, eventually reaching 10,000 to 15,000 households in each of these states. Other groups, similarly organized on WeChat, sprouted up in places such as Missouri, where 300 Chinese-Americans canvassed for Trump. CAFT and these other Chinese-Americans groups also spent significant sums of money on the race.

Meanwhile, WeChat and Chinese internet sites were flooded with pro-Trump (and anti-Hillary) posts praising his wealth, business acumen, and unconventional style. Pro-Clinton material was consistently demoted, and websites such as the Asian American Democratic Club for Hillary were banned from the platform. The context for all this activity is that Beijing does not permit content on WeChat that runs against its interests.

The result of Beijing’s apparent influence seems evident in the Chinese-Americans community’s 2016 voting patterns. Whereas Chinese-Americans have historically leaned Democratic in previous elections, and almost all Asian-American groups increased their support for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016 compared to 2012, Chinese-Americans moved in the opposite direction. Trump captured 24 percent of the vote, up from Mitt Romney’s 17 percent, meaning that 150,000–200,000 Chinese-Americans, roughly one-tenth of that community’s voting population, switched parties due to CCP efforts to influence American politics through WeChat.

However, the Chinese government badly misjudged Trump. He was a very different president than they had expected, confronting Beijing on many issues. The CCP thus changed course midway through his term and started promoting Democratic candidates. The CCP’s pro-Biden strategy was evident in influential WeChat public accounts, moderated chat rooms, and influential personal accounts, all of which flipped their narratives. For example, College Daily, Global Times, and Weinsight, among the largest public accounts focused on news, changed from pro-Trump to pro-Biden. WeChat promoted organizations such as Chinese Americans for Biden and enabled them to use the app in ways Democratic groups could not in 2016.

Meanwhile, group administrators bullied, ostracized, or banned pro-Trump voices. Sites run by progressives that previously had few viewers, such as Chinese-Americans, gained traction in a way that was previously not possible, with certain sites’ viewership levels growing by a factor of ten or even one hundred within a relatively short time. Groups that continued to support Trump, such as the Chinese American Alliance, Civil Rights, and Rainier Store, were banned. As Sam Ni, administrator of the pro-GOP “This Is the Way” account, told me, “WeChat and the arm behind it are too long. Despite focusing only on American issues, I am still under their crackdown. I don't know how to adapt to this and what rules we should follow. It's like a black hole.”

The result of WeChat’s pro-Biden tilt was evident in the 2020 Chinese-American presidential vote. Trump made significant gains among Asian-Americans, increasing his share of votes dramatically from 18 percent in 2016 to 30 percent in 2020. This increase in support included an especially large boost among Korean-, Vietnamese-, and Indian-American voters (twenty-eight, twenty-five, and thirteen percentage points, respectively). However, his increase in support among Chinese-Americans, which includes Taiwanese, was noticeably smaller: seven percentage points. While some may argue this dampening was due to the Trump administration’s proposed WeChat ban, the 5:1 ratio of petition signatories supporting the ban to those opposing it suggests that a significant part of the Chinese community was sympathetic.

Countering the CCP’s influence tactics in a free society like the United States will always be difficult. By leveraging a wide range of non-state individuals and organizations, the Chinese party-state penetrates society in ways that our democratic culture finds hard to grasp, much less confront. WeChat adds a powerful lever to this mix by enabling the Chinese party-state’s propaganda machine to manage the Chinese-speaking public square in America. Given the difficulties of divesting, fixing, and monitoring the app, Washington should simply ban it.

Dr. Seth Kaplan is a professorial lecturer in the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He lived in China for seven years.

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Situated between Iran and Saudi Arabia, who are not threatening one another for the moment, Oman tries hard to remain neutral, walking a fine line, not overtly taking sides. The country’s foreign policy is to be a friend to all, an enemy to none. To that end, Muscat bends over backward to avoid any provocative actions or diplomatic initiatives that can get them into political hot water.

Yet this foreign policy approach has some inconsistencies, to the detriment of not just Oman but others as well. Consider, for example, that last week Oman signed a new “Strategic Document for Enhanced Bilateral Cooperation” with Iran, trying to appease their neighbor while advancing its economic interests. Muscat is particularly keen on maintaining good relations with the Islamic Republic, which is almost in view from its coast in the Persian Gulf. This new agreement, unfortunately, supports Iran’s resistance economy against American sanctions, which also benefits China and Russia, who have filled the American-created vacuum in the Middle East. One could argue that for a nation that doesn’t take sides, this could be interpreted to be such a case.

Such views don’t hold up, however, because Oman also maintains warm relations with the United States and its allies. Most notably, like many of the Arab states before they joined the Abraham Accords, Muscat is (discretely) conducting business with Israel, Washington’s premier partner in the Middle East.

This is where recent developments come into play. Unlike the nations that joined the Accords—the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, which have all seen dramatic growth in trade with Israel, benefiting their economies and their people—Oman has opted to stay on the sidelines. This is despite the fact that Oman needs the economic investment and joint projects that Israel could offer. More broadly, the Gulf region would benefit from Oman serving as a trusted mediator between both sides. For the sake of such, both Washington and Jerusalem have an interest in facilitating the normalization of relations between Oman and Israel.

Explaining Omani Hesitancy

Ultimately, what truly matters to every Arab nation is what economic benefit they will derive from doing business with Israel. Secretly, Israel has done business with many Arab countries, often having to do with what the latter need most: expertise in water management, agriculture, technology, and security. In the Gulf today, over twelve hundred Israeli companies are doing business. Even the Qataris, whose government supports the anti-Israel Al Jazeera media empire, have an Israeli anti-drone system installed around Doha airport. A Qatari major-general [and] military and security advisor for defense affairs confirmed this to me.

So why did Oman, which would stand to benefit greatly, not join the Abraham Accords in 2020?

One reason was then Sultan Qaboos was dying, and the new sultan had yet to consolidate his power base. Oman under Qaboos was known to be, if not friendly, then politely neutral with Israel. During his reign, the sultan hosted not one but two Israeli prime ministers—Yitzhak Rabin in 1994 and Benjamin Netanyahu in 2018. Having recently been in the country now that the new sultan has established himself, I took the opportunity to meet with various Omani officials and believe they hold no hostility towards Jews or Israel. But given who their neighbor across the Gulf is, they are not in a position to join the Abraham Accords until the Saudis go first.

Another potential reason is that, like the Qataris and Saudis, the Omanis are sensitive to the Palestinian plight. According to Minister of Information Abdulla al Harrasi, who I met in Muscat, “ We hear the suffering of daily Palestinian indignations, but Israel doesn’t show any willingness to show good signs.” He said Oman won’t get involved until Israelis and Palestinians make the first gestures toward each other. Yet he also mentioned that the previous Omani minister of foreign affairs said, “We, the Arab world, must make Israel feel secure.” Unfortunately, he is personally in favor of a one-state solution, which means, in effect, no Israel.

Although Oman is proud to claim it talks to all sides, when I asked how it could not speak to Israel, the other party in the dispute, they danced around the subject, saying the time is not right. The Head of the Omani Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs told me, “Knowledge is not enough, we must get to know the other person, but not Israelis yet.” He said this not with animus but with a level of respect for Jewish people, if not the Jewish nation.

Moving Toward Normalization

The path for Omani normalization with Israel, which would greatly benefit them, is one of the small steps to lay the groundwork for further cooperation and diplomatic initiatives. The path to ruffle the least feathers is for Oman to champion trilateral projects between Oman, the Palestinian Authority, and Israel on issues that transcend politics, like water-related issues. Oman has a research center on desalination, while Israel is the world’s desalination expert.

A common complaint of the Palestinians is that they don’t have sufficient water resources for the future. This could be a way to help Palestinians on the ground and allow Oman to host Israelis and Palestinians to talk face-to-face with one another.

An additional option is for Oman to be actively involved in the Negev Forum of Arab nations and Israel, putting forward projects at the conference that would benefit them and could be financed by the United States and the more prosperous Gulf nations. The latter don’t trust the Palestinians as fiduciary stewards of their philanthropy. If Oman is more directly involved in monitoring the money, those nations may feel more confident that their resources don’t end up in the Palestinian kleptocracy.

The Omanis, Israelis, and the rest of the Gulf states know that trust is needed before friendship and normalization begin. This is where Washington’s assistance in shepherding new relationships is required. Unlike other Gulf nations, the Omanis practice a version of Islam that is neither Shiite nor Sunni but Ibadi, a moderate sect that holds freedom of religion dear.

A combined U.S.-Saudi initiative to cover Omani cooperation with Israel is in the interests of all the nations involved, as well as the Palestinian people. But that will take political capital to happen. Perhaps, if America cannot convince Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman to normalize relations with Israel at this time, involving the Omanis could be an intermediary step—Washington could provide economic incentives and security guarantees to alleviate Omani worries. This would be in America’s and its Gulf allies’ interests, as anything that stabilizes the region is a benefit for all.

Dr. Eric Mandel is the Director of MEPIN (Middle East Political Information Network). He regularly briefs members of Congress and their foreign policy aides. He is the Senior Security Editor for the Jerusalem Report. He is a regular contributor to The Hill and the Jerusalem Post. He has been published in The National Interest, Must Reads-Foundation for Democracies, RealClearWorld, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, National Cyber Security News, MSN, the Forward, the Messenger, JNS, i24, Rudow (Iraq), The NY Sun, Moment Magazine, The Times of Israel, Jewish Week, Kurdistan24, IsraelNationalNews, JTA, Algemeiner, WorldJewishNews, Israel Hayom, Thinc., Defense News, and other publications.

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While it will take years, if not decades, to sort through the wreckage of the Ukraine War to come to any kind of consensus, it does seem clear that the maximalist claims of alliance networks have an immensely destabilizing role in the international system. The failure to set up buffer states— nations that agree not to join the alliance network of any nearby power blocs—between NATO and Russia might have led to the outbreak of war. Often situated at places where potential contention could arise, these countries keep rival power poles from having direct contact with each other. The reasoning is that if two powers can agree that neither dominates a particular smaller country, they can accept that the lessened risk of a hand-off approach to that particular state is the best way to de-escalate rivalry in that region.

The concept of buffer states has been used many times in history, though with admittedly mixed results. The idea is quite rare in modern international relations discourse, however. When it is mentioned, it is often done so in a disparaging manner. This is not only because the most famous example of a buffer state in the modern mind is the extremely ineffective invasion highway known as Belgium in the early twentieth century, but also because alliance networks have become increasingly burdened with values-laden assumptions that they did not have before. NATO, infused with democratist ideology, cannot accept that a country that wishes to join and become part of its network might be better left outside for reasons of geographic cohesiveness and avoiding more potential flashpoints with Russia. Russia, on the other hand, was ostensibly supportive of a neutral Ukraine but probably expected to dominate it indirectly in some capacity. The inability of these outside parties to stay out of the country resulted in a significant conflict that could have been avoided. Diplomats should learn from this and get more serious about the concept of buffer states.

Despite famous failures, there have in fact been numerous successful buffer states in history; places that for long periods of time (geopolitically speaking) served as effective points of no-contact between otherwise rival powers. Some exploited natural geography to further reinforce the natural borders already in place. Nepal, between the British and Qing empires and now modern China and India, is an example of this. Austria in the Cold War, with the victorious powers of World War II all agreeing to a mutual military withdrawal, is another. Perhaps the longest and most surprising of such states to modern observers is that of late-nineteenth through mid-twentieth-century Afghanistan. Not wanting to rule the unprofitable and warlike territory itself, the British Raj nevertheless was consumed by the specter of a Russian invasion through the territory during the height of Anglo-Russian rivalry in Central Asia, often referred to as “The Great Game.” After a succession of fruitless wars there, it was agreed to draw the boundaries of Afghanistan in such a way that Russian and British imperial interests would not directly collide with each other. The arrangement would bring a surprising amount of stability for the tribalistic nation, and only collapse when a series of coups and internal upheavals opened the way for a Soviet invasion in 1979 and subsequent Pakistani and U.S. intervention.

Lest it be assumed that a long-term successful stint as a buffer nation can only come about from circumstances of comparative stability, the experience of Uruguay offers one of the more remarkable transformations from instability to long-term success. Contested for centuries between the Portuguese and Spanish empires, the early independence of Uruguay was rocked with trouble. Both Argentina and Brazil attempted to dominate the country, and internal factions fought each other on the domestic front, sometimes in open civil war. These contests even helped spark South America’s deadliest war, the War of the Triple Alliance, which further seemed to relegate the region's smaller countries to domination by their larger neighbors. And yet it was the cost of that war, coupled with the desire to maintain some kind of balance in the region, that ensured Uruguay would be able to harness its natural agrarian bounty and access to ports in order to become one of the most developed and, eventually, peaceful Latin American countries. When Brazil and Argentina could both openly admit that they feared the space between them being dominated by the other, it became possible for them to mutually agree that neither would absorb the country into its security arrangements.

In today’s world, there are clearly regions that would benefit from taking a second look at the concept of buffer zones. Improving relations between Tehran and Riyadh could mean a new Saudi-Iranian understanding of Iraq that would have the potential to bring much-needed stability to that war-torn country. Myanmar’s precarious position between India and China already seems to be going for some degree of distance from each. Indonesia’s location as a large country right at the edges of U.S. and Chinese spheres of influence also implies the potential for it to exploit an independent niche between the two superpowers while reducing places where clashes could break out.

The history of buffer states is too complex to be an ultimate solution for every clashing great frontier, but it cannot be dismissed either as it often is in contemporary foreign policy commentary. Political geography can be shaped by policy to reduce conflict points between competing spheres of influence. With even the possibility of such policies creating opportunities for peace, it is worth giving the buffer state at least consideration in many troubled parts of the world.

Christopher Mott (@chrisdmott) is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy and the author of the book The Formless Empire: A Short History of Diplomacy and Warfare in Central Asia.

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At the same time that the U.S. Congress deliberated on legislation to counter China, it remained gridlocked over national debt limits. The current political acrimony adds to persistent American problems of wavering economic growth, bitter partisan feuding, and record levels of gun violence, among other long-standing issues. Meanwhile, Beijing’s demands that the United States “correct” its policies regarding China occurred alongside news that its own economy is faltering amid slowing global demand. China also continues to grapple with a worsening debt problem, a bleak demographic outlook, and high levels of violent crime. Relative political and economic weakness stands out as a striking and disturbing feature of the current U.S.-China rivalry.

The weakened state of the rival powers ill-fits the pattern set not only by the Cold War but also by all great power rivalries over the past two centuries, including the two World Wars and even the conflicts of the Napoleonic era. The state of technologies differed dramatically, of course, but they shared key social, political, and economic features. Those epic contests involved centralized, unitary states with a high degree of internal cohesion and robust patriotic popular support. Governments enjoyed strong legitimacy partly due to expanding opportunities for political participation and economic advancement. Broad popular support for the governments also owed to industrialization, which took off in the late 1700s and yielded dramatic gains in the material standard of living for many people, especially after 1850. Industrial-age warfare typically centered on strategies of mass mobilization that permitted the fielding of vast armies consisting of citizen-soldiers equipped with standardized uniforms and equipment. When these nation-states fought, they demonstrated an impressive ability to mobilize resources, involve the population, and sustain a war footing for years on end. Their militaries frequently engaged in blood-soaked set-piece battles that generated staggering casualties. The wars often wrought immense destruction and typically ended with unconditional surrender by one side or the other.

The current U.S.-China rivalry contrasts sharply with these historical experiences. Unlike their predecessors, the two countries contend amid a complex and overlapping array of threats, labor under severe resource constraints, and manifest distressing signs of domestic weakness. With a diminishing ability to meet the needs of their citizens, the U.S. and Chinese governments have inspired little patriotic enthusiasm. Neither side has mobilized their citizenry against the other, nor do strategies of mass mobilization appear plausible for the foreseeable future. Instead, the principal mode of military recruitment consists of professional volunteers and contractors. China indeed continues to rely on conscription for perhaps a third of its military manpower, but that is because it cannot attract enough qualified volunteers. Far from a minor hindrance, transnational threats and episodes of domestic upheaval appear highly menacing and routinely vie with traditional threats for the attention of policymakers. For example, U.S. military forces have struggled to counter non-state actors in the Middle East and control outbursts of domestic turmoil. Meanwhile, the People’s Liberation Arm has scrambled to protect Chinese citizens abroad from serious harm, and the country’s security forces struggle to ensure domestic control in Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang.

Grasping that the current situation bears little resemblance to twentieth-century precedents, experts have fiercely debated its meaning. Some have insisted that past patterns will hold and that the two countries are bound for conflict. Others disagree, arguing that war is unlikely and the two countries will carry out a distinct type of competition. Still others question the wisdom of competition at all given the magnitude of domestic problems confronting each rival and urge greater cooperation on shared concerns instead.

Neomedievalism

A starting point for making sense of the U.S.-China rivalry’s unusual features is recognizing that our world is experiencing an epochal transformation. In a recently published RAND Corporation report, I present evidence that the international community entered a new epoch, which I call “neomedievalism,” beginning around 2000. This new period is characterized by the attenuation or regression of the political, social, and economic dimensions of the modern era.

Politically, the centralized nation-state is in steep decline. Although what might succeed it remains intensely disputed. The decline of the nation-state has already spurred severe political crises in many countries, and the problems of a weakened state will persist even following the consolidation of new sources of legitimacy. The relatively high level of social solidarity that predominated in nation-states has atrophied, and competing sets of identities have grown more salient. Economically, neomedieval states are experiencing slowing and imbalanced growth, primarily benefiting a small minority. Neomedieval economies are also experiencing disparate growth rates, the return of entrenched inequalities, and expanding illicit economies. The nature of security threats has undergone significant change as well. Reversing trends that predominated in the past two centuries, non-military dangers such as natural disasters, pandemics, and violent non-state actors rival or outpace traditional state militaries as principal security concerns. While many of these risks are not new, they are especially menacing due to neomedieval states' weakened legitimacy and capacity. Warfare in the neomedieval age has experienced a revival of pre-industrial practices, including the privatization of militaries, the prevalence of siege warfare, the prominence of intrastate war, and the formation of informal coalitions consisting of diverse state and non-state actors.

These trends represent a “meta-history,” in the sense that they extend beyond the experiences of individual countries or leaders. As trends that define the general arc of human experience, they are unlikely to be reversed and can, at best, be delayed or mitigated. Their effects will also likely overshadow the impact of particular technologies and weapons. This is because technologies, no matter how advanced or sophisticated, cannot always solve problems that are fundamentally political, societal, and economic. The limits of advanced technology were well illustrated by the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. American forces possessed the most sophisticated equipment available to any military throughout history. However, this proved inadequate against the realities of a weak Kabul regime, an impoverished and fragmented Afghan society, a tenuous commitment from Washington, and a poorly-equipped yet resolute Taliban-led insurgency.

Why is the world experiencing such attenuation and regression? The most fundamental driver owes to the declining strength of the advanced industrial economies that created the modern industrial era in the first place. Before 1800, no industrial nation-state existed. As Western countries developed into industrial nation-states, their immense concentration of power and wealth excited admiration, resentment, and envy in states worldwide. The appeal and influence of Western nation-states reached their apogee in the 1950s and 1960s when their economies experienced a “golden age” of prosperity that fueled rising incomes across virtually all social classes. However, the situation began to change in the 1970s when the same economies deindustrialized as rising wages rendered manufacturing less competitive. Growth rates slowed, economies experienced stagnation, and inequality grew. Analysts noted a concomitant decay of key social and political institutions dating from this period.

Consequently, U.S. decisionmakers and planners should be wary of resorting to strategies and methods drawn from industrial age wars with which contemporary militaries bear a superficial resemblance. The U.S. military, in particular, will face the temptation to prescribe industrial nation-state solutions for neomedieval problems. Focusing on conventional military challenges both validates the importance of such forces and frames issues in terms that existing interests find comfortable. But policymakers should resist this temptation. The Russian military’s disastrous performance in Ukraine and America’s painful experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq provide examples of what can happen when outdated thinking dominates approaches to warfare. To avoid potentially disastrous misjudgments and miscalculations, U.S. decisionmakers and planners should consider several key points about the neomedieval era.

First, the reality of weakening states will likely be a defining feature of the U.S.-China rivalry. Nation-states are experiencing a decline in political legitimacy and governance capacity. This weakness afflicts both the United States and China, as well as virtually all countries around the world. As economic growth decelerates, the debilitation of modern states will likely worsen over time, and efforts to fully reverse the trends are unlikely to work. This does not mean strengthening state capacity is futile. Finding ways to improve state capacity and rebuild the state’s legitimacy will become central tasks in the contest. But even in the best case, the United States and China will be weaker and less cohesive than they were in the past century. All defense planning should begin with an awareness of this vulnerability and the constraints that it imposes. Weakening state capacity restricts options for building military power and waging conflict. It introduces new vulnerabilities that must be accounted for in defensive preparations as well as opportunities for offensive operations against rival powers.

Second, conventional war between the United States and China is improbable owing to their political, economic, and societal weaknesses. Despite the potential for heightened tensions, neomedieval trends render total war between the United States and China unlikely. The persistent fragility of public support, the inability to carry out a mass mobilization, and the exceeding risks and difficulties of sustaining intensive conflict have made “total war” in the mold of World War II almost impossible to wage. Moreover, war requires the rapid depletion of scarce military resources that will be difficult and costly to replace. This is an especially important consideration given the competing fiscal demands of the welfare state. That said, some sort of conflict cannot be ruled out. Should the U.S.-China rivalry escalate to hostilities, the two sides might instead fight through proxy conflicts or by provoking political unrest in the rival’s homeland. Amid such friction, the two may find their contest frequently interrupted by the imperative to reallocate scarce resources to address various domestic and transnational threats, resulting in a chronic low-intensity conflict. Under such conditions, conventional combat between U.S.-China forces, if it occurs at all, could consist of sporadic clashes between relatively modest-sized formations in different parts of the world. As ambitions of total victory over the adversary prove infeasible, political goals may instead focus on securing minor gains through temporary settlements while leaving broader issues unresolved.

Third, controlling domestic and transnational threats is becoming a higher priority than deterring conventional military attacks. Compared to the modern industrial period, states are more secure from external threats and more vulnerable to internal threats. They are more secure in the sense that weakened rivals generally lack the political will and resource base to subjugate other countries. Thus, most countries continue to face a lower threat of invasion and conquest. However, the perpetually fragile public legitimacy for governments will leave domestic politics volatile. The principal danger to states will come from internal rather than external sources. These include pandemics, terrorism, transnational crime, and political violence. Because failure to ensure domestic security directly implicates the state's legitimacy, controlling such dangers will become an urgent priority. States should allocate resources accordingly.

The great powers who most effectively grasp and adapt to the neomedieval reality may gain a crucial advantage over rivals who continue to exhaust increasingly scarce treasure in futile efforts to recreate the past. Which country is best positioned to do this?  Paradoxically, China’s more limited experience with modernity may prove a valuable asset. Beijing might grasp neomedieval trends more intuitively than Western countries, whose principal point of reference rests in a recent past in which they predominated. Yet there are compelling reasons to believe America can adjust effectively. The most important one is the country’s innate dynamism and innovation. A key reason America has succeeded so well as a nation-state has been its willingness and ability to experiment and adapt. If the United States is to maintain its position, developing strategies to lead as a neomedieval great power will be a critical step in that direction.

Dr. Timothy R. Heath is a senior international defense researcher with the RAND Corporation.

Image: Shutterstock.

It would not be unfair to label the prevailing nature of the U.S.-Sino relationship as one of “mutual distrust and recrimination.” While 2022 ended with both Washington and Beijing reiterating in official meetings—such as Joe Biden and Xi Jinping’s Bali meeting on November 14—their shared desire to keep channels of communication open, there were few practical signs of improvement in relations. In fact, both sides are pursuing policies that will deepen competition and confrontation. Although there has been sporadic talk of new “guardrails” that would establish a form of strategic stability, this aim appears diminishingly small due to each side’s perception of what is driving their competition and how that perception frames foreign policy choices and domestic politics.

For Washington, competition with China is driven by the latter’s challenge to American power and leadership, along and its (perceived) desire to change the international order. For Beijing, competition with the United States is rooted in continued American “hegemonic” pretensions to “contain” China amidst its inevitable “decline.” This fundamental impasse makes both sides increasingly perceive their relationship in zero-sum terms. Moreover, the premium placed on competition is negatively impacting both Chinese and American broader foreign and domestic policy agendas.

In this context, is there any hope for an amelioration of bilateral tensions and competition?

“Competing,” but Not Leading?

A core problem for the Biden administration is that measures taken to ensure the United States can “out-compete” China are likely to undermine the former’s capacity to achieve its objective of revitalizing American global leadership of the current rules-based international order.

For all the administration’s use of orthodox liberal internationalist rhetoric—the 2022 National Security Strategy’s assertion, for instance, of America’s continued commitment to, and reliance on, “fair and open trade” and a liberal “international economic system”—such objectives are increasingly being sacrificed on the altar of strategic competition with Beijing.

The administration’s concrete actions reflect a “security first” approach to bolster and burden-share with existing allies, such as Japan and Australia (including through the Quad and the AUKUS agreement), and attempts to forge deeper ties with like-minded actors like India and Taiwan. Simultaneously, Washington has pursued a decoupling of high-tech trade with China, including implementing overtly protectionist trade and industrial policies (such as the CHIPS Act) intended to boost American competitiveness in the context of bilateral U.S.-Sino relations.

This latter trend was reinforced by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s April 27, 2023 speech at the Brookings Institution. Explicitly billed as focused on the president’s “core commitment … to more deeply integrate domestic policy and foreign policy,” the speech effectively made the case for “national security” concerns to guide economic policy. Sullivan argued that the guiding assumption of post-1945 U.S. policy (“that markets always allocate capital productively and efficiently—no matter what our competitors did”) no longer applies as the integration of a “non-market economy” (China) into the global economy has produced “dependencies” that can be “exploited for economic or geopolitical leverage” as “entire supply chains of strategic goods—along with the industries and jobs that made them—moved overseas” in the “name of oversimplified market efficiency.”.

This constitutes an effort to ensure the United States can guide the invisible hand of the market in directions amenable to geopolitical competition with China. The objective of the administration’s new policy is to identify “specific sectors that are foundational to economic growth, strategic from a national security perspective, and where private industry on its own isn’t poised to make the investments needed to secure our national ambitions,” and to apply “targeted public investments in these areas that unlock the power and ingenuity of private markets, capitalism, and competition to lay a foundation for long-term growth.”

Although this may align with the White House’s domestic political agenda of “renewing” American prosperity, it remains to be seen how this approach will enable the United States to achieve its associated objective of rallying allies and like-minded partners to the cause of combating China. This is especially important in Asia and the Pacific, where many observers have noted the shortcomings of U.S. economic and trade policy for at least the past decade. This has been especially visible around the failure to match the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as well the lack of U.S. participation in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP. American schemes around investment in the region have also been long on aspiration and short on delivery. That includes both the Trump administration’s Blue Dot Network and Biden’s Build Back Better World.

The irony, as Susan Shirk has noted, is that the Biden administration’s focus on “competition” with China as the organizing principle of its foreign policy is making the United States become more like its adversary: “nationalist, fixated on security, and politicizing the market economy.” Such dynamic risks making the administration’s claims to be reclaiming a liberal internationalist vision of American global leadership based on a “rules-based order” increasingly hollow.

Preparing for “Choppy Waters” and “Dangerous Storms”

China may be more ideologically girded for such zero-sum competition, but overt competition with the United States is exacerbating existing pathologies in both its foreign and domestic policy, resulting in a variety of self-inflicted wounds. It is perhaps no surprise, for instance, that U.S.-Sino strategic competition has coincided with the rabidly jingoistic wolf warrior diplomacy that has damaged China’s standing throughout the world. Such assertive, nationalistic posturing at the very least undermined some of Beijing’s previous gains in posing as an advocate of economic globalization and “interconnectivity” during the Trump era of American foreign policy.

Of greater significance is the impact of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) greater explicit focus under Xi on security both in an international and domestic setting. This has been markedly sharpened in the past two years as U.S.-Sino ties have deteriorated. The party-state’s linkage of increased pressure in China’s external environment and its domestic security was highlighted in Xi’s report to the 20th Party Congress in November 2022, where he warned that the country was entering “a period of development in which strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent” and the Party “must therefore be more mindful of potential dangers, be prepared to deal with worst-case scenarios, and be ready to withstand high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms.” To withstand such high winds, the continued application of a “holistic approach to national security” was necessary, in which the party would have “the people's security as our ultimate goal, political security as our fundamental task, economic security as our foundation, military, technological, cultural, and social security as important pillars, and international security as a support.”

While not entirely new, this framing is notable for its explicit connection of the CCP’s “political security,” domestic “stability,” and the achievement of Xi’s great objective of “national rejuvenation.” This fundamental focus on regime security has been felt since the Party Congress in several ways.

First, the sharp about-face on Xi’s signature “zero-Covid” approach to pandemic control responded to two dynamics—increased societal dissatisfaction with draconian lockdowns and concerns of coronavirus-induced economic stagnation—that impinged directly on regime security. The about-face on zero-Covid killed two birds with one stone by removing a policy that had placed Xi “in the firing line of anti-government or anti-party movements” and creating the conditions to kick-start the Chinese economy.

Second, on the international stage, Beijing has adopted more explicit language that points the finger of blame squarely at the United States for China’s current challenges. In a discussion with Chinese commerce and industry representatives on March 3, Xi described China’s international environment as full of “uncertainties and unpredictable factors,” foremost of which is that “the Western countries led by the United States have carried out all-round containment and suppression of China.”

Third, the shift in language points toward the party’s “darker assessment of humanity’s historical trajectory” and the “hidden risks and open dangers’ posed to China’s quest for ‘national rejuvenation.”

Significantly, it has not only been the downward trajectory of U.S.-Sino relations—from U.S. efforts at high-tech “decoupling” from Chinese supply chains to the Chinese spy balloon incident that has driven this pessimistic assessment, but also Chinese perceptions of the global repercussions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The war in Ukraine, as an analyst from the Centre for Strategy and Security at Tsinghua University argues, has not only “accelerated and intensified” American “strategic deployment” against China, but also “binds China and Russia together.”

This helps explains Beijing’s recent flurry of Ukraine-related diplomatic activities including Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s late February tour through European capitals, the release of China’s twelve-point “road map” for a negotiated peace in Ukraine, Xi’s long-delayed phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on April 26, and the May 17 visit of China’s special representative for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, to Kyiv.

None of these activities have achieved tangible progress toward China’s stated objective of facilitating a negotiated settlement to the conflict. However, they have served Beijing’s goal of portraying itself, in Xi’s words, as a “responsible major country” that—in a less than subtle jibe at Washington—“would not sit idly by, nor would it add oil to the fire, still less exploit the situation” for its own gains.

Despite the recent resumption of high-level contact between Beijing and Washington, including face-to-face discussions between Yi and Sullivan in Vienna on May 10–11, Beijing’s perspective remains unchanged as to who is to blame for the “downward spiral” of bilateral relations.

“The United States,” as a Xinhua commentary on the Wang-Sullivan talks stated, “claims that it is not seeking to decouple from China and has no intention of obstructing China's development” but simultaneously “squeezes” China by “imposing many rounds of chip bans on Chinese firms under the pretext of national security” and “rushing to encircle China in the Asia-Pacific by mustering such Cold-War style groupings as the AUKUS and the Quad alliances.” Ultimately, the commentary concludes, this is driven by the belief of U.S. decisionmakers that “China must be brought down in order to keep America ahead.”

The Messy World of Strategic Competition

Both Washington and Beijing, then, are firmly set on trajectories that lock in rather than ameliorate bilateral tension and competition. This poses challenges and risks for both country’s domestic and foreign policies.

In Washington, competing with China has become a partisan political sport. Amidst tense administration negotiations with Republicans to raise the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo all fronted the Senate Appropriations Committee to support the president’s FY2024 budget request. Each argued the case that it was vital for the United States to “out compete” China. The implication, as Democratic Chair of the Appropriations Committee Senator Patty Murray made clear, is that “China isn’t debating whether to pay its debts, or wreck its economy. China isn’t debating whether to invest in its future, or cut and cap the investments that keep it competitive.” While this may be a classic example of wedge politics to paint Republicans as hamstringing U.S. efforts to out-compete China, it remains to be seen whether it produces better policy outcomes.

Xi Jinping, meanwhile, continues to consolidate his revision of the Dengist paradigm of the post-Mao era by privileging security over the economy. This is apparent in China’s recent “counter-espionage” crackdown which has targeted a range of foreign companies and individuals for alleged “leaking” of information related to “national security or interests” to foreign governments or entities. This came even as Premier Li Qiang attempted to reassure foreign companies and investors that Beijing was committed to building a “first class business environment.” However, the fact that the “counter-espionage” crackdown has been tasked to Ministry of State Security head Chen Yixin leaves little doubt that this constitutes a top priority for China’s leader.

In the realm of foreign policy, too, the Sino-American fracture continues apace. At the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Biden succeeded in forging a common, in-principle aspiration amongst the grouping to ensure “economic resilience” through “de-risking and diversifying” as a means of resisting “economic coercion” by Beijing. Meanwhile, Xi’s hosting of the first China-Central Asia summit in Xi’an sought to achieve several objectives that can be seen as necessary to girding China further for competition with the United States: to kick-start the BRI after Covid-19 slowdown; to cement further economic and strategic partnerships with the Central Asian states; and to further embellish China’s posturing as an alternative source of global leadership.

The self-reinforcing logic of great power competition is one of the closest things to an empirical law in international politics, and the increasing divide between China and the United States should not come as a surprise. But the apparent embedding of such competition raises the stakes not only for Beijing and Washington themselves but also for other key actors in the Indo-Pacific—many of whom have deep strategic ties with the United States and economic interdependencies with China.

It is likely that at some stage both Beijing and Washington will have an incentive to establish some guardrails in the relationship: after all, a collision course is costly and difficult to sustain for any length of time. Yet those tend to entail trade-offs and compacts, which tend to have more fundamental impacts on smaller states. Under those circumstances, it is vital that all players in the messy strategic landscape plan for unexpected outcomes, and simultaneously seek to identify what the contours of Indo-Pacific strategic stability might look like.

Dr. Michael Clarke and Dr. Matthew Sussex are Senior Fellows at the Centre for Defence Research at Australian Defence College.

Image: Shutterstock

In discussions of artificial intelligence, commentary often focuses on how this technology may automate jobs, revolutionize war, or even lead to the collapse of humanity. However, a more immediate issue deserves serious consideration from national security policymakers. This is the potential for AI advancements—specifically generative AI—to turbocharge disinformation and flood our information ecosystem with untruths.

On the one hand, a new era of AI-powered disinformation could allow malign actors—particularly foreign adversaries—to manipulate the information environment and shape public discourse more easily, as Russia did successfully in the 2016 U.S. election. On the other hand, and perhaps more concerningly, the proliferation of content produced using this technology could erode public trust in the information we consume entirely, undermining the social fabric that holds societies together.

National security policymakers in the United States must recognize the threat these advancements pose to national and international security and prioritize addressing it. Given America’s role as a global leader in the development of AI, U.S. policymakers have a responsibility to coordinate an international response to the coming era of disinformation and work with partners to prevent the further breakdown of our shared reality that this technology threatens.

At the heart of this challenge is generative artificial intelligence. This type of AI helps create hyperrealistic content—including text, images, audio, and video—by learning from large datasets. Interest in generative AI has spiked in recent months largely because of its application in ChatGPT, a sophisticated chatbot developed by OpenAI that has exploded in popularity since its public release in late 2022.

Many people have found value in these AI tools. However, as a dual-use technology, generative AI can easily be abused. The potential harm that this technology poses, particularly to our information environment, is becoming increasingly clear. Researchers have raised the alarm for years about the risks of “deepfakes”—highly realistic, AI-generated depictions of real people doing or saying something that did not occur. Until recently, however, this technology was fairly primitive and not accessible to the general public. Today, with the proliferation of generative AI tools, it is becoming cheaper and easier to create synthetic media that seems authentic, lowering the barriers to entry for anyone who wants to spread disinformation.

This emerging crisis is closely linked with the market-driven arms race that is taking place in the AI industry. Many companies are moving aggressively to develop AI in pursuit of market dominance, despite concerns about how this technology could be abused.

With the rapid public deployment of these tools, AI-assisted disinformation is already beginning to appear online. While some cases have been good-spirited, there are multiple examples of politically motivated actors using AI technology to deceive and manipulate. AI-generated content has appeared in pro-Chinese influence operations and, more recently, in fictitious reports of an explosion at the Pentagon spread by Russian state media.

It is not hard to imagine how this technology could fuel genuine geopolitical crises and instability should it continue to advance and be publicly deployed without constraint. Consider, for instance, how the proliferation of deepfake audio and video content of U.S. political candidates during the 2024 presidential election could lead to the complete breakdown of trust in the political process and its outcome and, in turn, widespread civil unrest.

A future with AI-powered disinformation may be inevitable, but there is still time to mitigate the disruption that this technology causes.

The policymaking community in the United States is already somewhat aware of the issue. In 2021, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence reported that AI could “increase the magnitude, precision, and persistence of adversarial information operations.” Additionally, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued guidance for developing responsible AI systems earlier this year. More recently, the White House has taken steps toward developing a national AI strategy. To date, however, no enforceable action has been taken to shape or regulate the future of AI.

Although leaders like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Google’s Sundar Pichai have called for regulation, some AI experts believe it is not feasible due to coordination problems. However, this position discounts the cases where norms and regulations born out of safety and ethical concerns have successfully regulated the development of emerging technologies. For example, the Asilomar Conference in 1975 produced guidelines for the safe development of gene editing technology, while international non-proliferation pacts have largely halted the spread of nuclear weapons around the world.

Another concern, particularly in the national security community, is whether regulating AI could harm the interests of the United States and its allies in the new era of strategic competition with China. According to some analyses, anxieties around AI are overblown and it is essential to do what it takes to win the AI arms race.

That said, safeguarding against the unfettered proliferation of AI technology would not necessarily undermine U.S. or allied interests but could, in fact, advance those interests. China reportedly relies heavily on overseas workers and technology transfer in its efforts to develop AI. Thus, regulatory or normative efforts to slow AI advances by the United States could slow those made by China as well.

In addition to recognizing the threats that AI poses to public discourse and, in turn, collective security, the national security community in the United States should consider a few specific actions.

First, the United States must address the issue at home. In the immediate term, Congress should ensure the responsible development and public deployment of generative AI tools, specifically those that empower next-generation disinformation. While compelling, a lot of what generative AI produces today is still clunky or flawed in some way. However, recent advancements are making these flaws increasingly difficult to spot. In the absence of action, AI tools capable of producing synthetic media that is indistinguishable from the real thing could soon be publicly available. Thus, enforceable standards for companies developing this technology should be put in place, building on the NIST framework, before the horse leaves the proverbial barn.

U.S. policymakers and social media companies should also work more closely together on addressing AI-powered disinformation through technical mitigations. Most importantly, the federal government should explore ways to help social media companies detect and remove synthetic audio-visual media as well as synthetic text. The U.S. Department of Defense has already started to fund technology to defend against AI-enabled disinformation, but more action is needed. Additional government funding could help develop new detection capabilities, while the development of common technical standards for companies would allow for greater transparency across platforms.

Alongside these measures, the federal government should work to increase awareness of and resilience against AI-powered disinformation among the general public. Just as cybersecurity largely hinges on individual behavior and proper cyber hygiene, strong media literacy is important for resisting disinformation. As some researchers have suggested, one way to improve resilience is to provide communities most vulnerable to information manipulation—such as members of historically marginalized groups—with tools to identify fake content. This could be done by partnering with state and local governments and by coordinating with foreign partners on best practices.

Finally, the United States must lead an effort alongside close allies to develop international standards and norms to regulate the safe development, deployment, and use of generative AI. Ideally, these would follow standards agreed upon domestically but necessarily require alignment with the international community. The European Union would be a natural partner here, having already indicated its own concern for this technology through its Artificial Intelligence Act.

Given its concerns over generative AI, there may even be potential to gain China’s buy-in on an international agreement. In recent months, the Chinese government has pursued efforts to regulate deepfake technology and require chatbots like ChatGPT to toe the party line due to concern over the chatbot’s uncensored replies.

In any case, the need for urgent action cannot be ignored. We are already seeing how this technology is accelerating the erosion of our shared reality. With generative AI expected to advance exponentially in the coming years, this trend will only get worse. And if policymakers wait too long to act, the consequences could be dire. For that reason, leaders in the United States must take this issue seriously to protect American national security as well as the security of the international system.

Tristan Paci is a research intern for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Washington, DC. He is a recent master’s graduate of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he focused on technology policy and security in the Indo-Pacific.

Image: Shutterstock.

Now at 100, Henry Kissinger remains a larger-than-life statesman, strategist, and scholar. Alongside intellectual titans such as George Kennan and Zbigniew Brzezinski, his story intertwines with post-World War II American foreign policy. A recent flurry of articles and editorials that spanned news outlets, think tanks, and policy platforms were put out to celebrate Kissinger’s centennial and commemorate his legacy.

Kissinger, despite now being a hundred, is still known for his unending intellectual curiosity and scholarly pursuits, and he constantly demonstrates his exceptional ability to adapt and delve into new subjects, keeping himself dynamically engaged with the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in his most recent book, The Age of AI: And Our Human Future. In it, Kissinger teamed up with Eric Schmidt, the former executive chairman of Google, and Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of MIT’s College of Computing, to grapple with the latest challenge to our conventional lives: artificial intelligence, or AI as it is more commonly known.

Kissinger’s expertise in global politics and security lend credibility to the book’s analysis. Overall, the tome is an attempt to articulate a framework for the transformative nature of AI and its potential to reshape the dynamics of military engagements beyond merely augmenting existing capabilities, as AI itself fundamentally alters the strategies, tactics, and doctrines employed by armed forces worldwide.

However, what distinguishes The Age of AI is its profound exploration of how AI shapes human understanding and perception. Kissinger and his co-authors propose that AI’s capacity to access realms of reality beyond human comprehension carries significant implications for our traditional notions of reason, knowledge, and choice. They contend that the technology’s subtle influence on these foundational aspects of human cognition challenges the established worldview of the Enlightenment era and necessitates a reevaluation of our philosophical and ethical frameworks.

Some critics might contend that The Age of AI is merely an attempt by Kissinger to insert himself into one of the most trending topics of our time. Such assumptions would be incorrect; in a testament to his enduring intellectual vigor, Kissinger demonstrates a remarkable capacity to understand the broader implications of profound technological development upon multiple spheres of human and political life. He regularly works with Schmidt and Huttenlocher to elucidate the transformative impact that AI-derived technologies, like ChatGPT, will have on our lives. Together, they make a compelling case, rooted in the ideals of the Enlightenment era, for comprehending and embracing the immense changes that lie ahead.

For example, in a joint Wall Street Journal piece written in February of this year, the three co-authors claim that “the essential difference between the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of AI is thus not technological but cognitive.” They go on to explain that, “after the Enlightenment, philosophy accompanied science. Bewildering new data and often counterintuitive conclusions, doubts, and insecurities were allayed by comprehensive explanations of the human experience. Generative AI is similarly poised to generate a new form of human consciousness.” Similar to their previous work, Kissinger and his co-authors conclude their essay with a poignant reminder that AI poses numerous unanswered questions, and as humans, we have yet to adapt adequately and fast enough to the challenges of this new age.

As Kissinger crosses his centennial milestone, the world finds itself in a position to evaluate and contemplate the legacy of one of the most influential American statesmen of the twentieth century. Yet, true to his nature as a scholar and deep thinker, he has refused to stay behind in the twentieth century and has instead demonstrated a commitment to staying at the forefront of contemporary conversations. Kissinger’s willingness to delve into the complex and rapidly evolving realm of AI highlights his continued intellectual vitality and his dedication to understanding and grappling with the profound challenges and opportunities presented by this transformative technology. By engaging with the AI conversation, Kissinger exemplifies his enduring commitment to knowledge, growth, and tackling the most relevant intellectual topics in our ever-changing world.

Mohammed Soliman is the director of the Cyber Security and Emerging Technology Program at the Middle East Institute. You can find him on Twitter at @Thisissoliman.

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Launched in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—a global infrastructure and development strategy that aims to connect Asia, Africa, and Europe through a network of land and maritime trade routes—was a significant turning point in China’s foreign policy and has become one of the most ambitious and far-reaching development initiatives in history. It is also regarded by many in the West, the United States especially, as a not-so-subtle attempt by Beijing to reshape regional political orders in its favor.

In this light of this, it is worth considering the BRI’s impact in the Middle East. The region, home to a growing middle class, is home to several key international energy and sea trade routes. China’s heavy investment in the Middle East in recent years, including through the BRI, is thus of particular concern to Washington. Reviewing how such efforts have fared over the past decade may yield some interesting insights.

Why BRI Matters to the Middle East

The BRI is primarily a series of projects (comprising both traditional physical and digital infrastructure) designed to connect and integrate cooperating partners—cities, markets, and countries—across regions. Given this, a particular partner’s degree of connectivity plays a larger role than other factors, such as regime type or market share.

For Middle East countries, favorable geopolitical location and integration into key facets of the global economy play an essential role in China’s BRI framework. Consequently, China has developed a deep commercial presence in port cities and industrial parks that link the Persian Gulf to the Arabian, Red, and Mediterranean Seas. Myriad observers regard this presence as a way for China to secure its energy supplies, expand its trade, and gain a foothold in the region.

China’s engagement in the Middle East can be attributed to two primary drivers. First, it seeks to be recognized as a great power status domestically and by other states. The Middle East is a strategically important region, and China’s engagement is seen as a way to increase its influence and stake in the global order. Second, it aimed to secure its economic interests in the region through the BRI framework and continued access to energy resources on which it is heavily dependent. The BRI is thus a means for China to increase its channels for exporting goods, reduce trade friction, improve access to natural resources, build supply chains, and generate opportunities for Chinese companies to invest overseas and sell goods and services. To that end, over the past ten years, it has integrated the BRI framework with the Middle East countries’ national development strategies.

As the BRI is a long-term initiative that will continue to evolve in the coming years, Beijing will need to carefully assess the success and impact of its projects in the Middle East to make informed decisions on how to proceed. The success of the framework in the Middle East depends on several factors, including the economic and political stability of the region, the quality of the BRI projects, and the willingness of host countries to cooperate with China. More importantly, BRI projects are essential for underdeveloped Middle East states dependent on external creditors to establish critical physical and digital infrastructures. These projects are already in operation or are entering the second and third phases of development. Unless alternative creditors support further development, countries in the Middle East will continue to depend on and work with China.

Assessing BRI Projects in the Middle East

Currently, BRI projects span fifteen Middle East nations and include major infrastructural and digital projects on land and sea. The status of these projects varies, with some being planned, ongoing, completed, halted, or canceled, providing insight into the present overall situation of BRI. Developing a deeper understanding can be challenging, however, due to 1) deliberate opacity surrounding BRI projects on both the Chinese and host regional countries’ sides and 2) the sheer scale of the initiative, which spans large swathes of continents.

This lack of transparency is a major challenge for researchers and policymakers trying to understand BRI and its implications. Nonetheless, there is still a great amount of information available to consider. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) China Connects database, for example, provides a valuable overview of China's BRI investment and lending in the Middle East. The database also includes information on  Digital Silk Road (DSR) investments, which can be understood to be the BRI’s technological component—a digital bridge-building project intended to promote a new type of globalization via digital trade, digital infrastructure, cross-border e-commerce, mobile financial tools, Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies (big data, digital currencies, cloud computing, and so on).

In any case, the IISS China Connects data demonstrates that China is investing heavily in the Middle East, with 266 BRI projects between 2005 and 2022 (see Table 1). Most of those are either ongoing or have been completed, and there are only a few projects that have been canceled or halted (see Table 2). This is a positive sign for China, showing that the initiative is gaining traction in the region.

Of note is what is being funded. The data shows that China is investing heavily in digital infrastructure in the region, which will likely continue in the coming years as Beijing seeks to expand its global reach. Chinese companies invested in 202 DSR projects (76 percent of the total investment) compared to 64 traditional physical infrastructure projects (24 percent). These investments are likely to have a major impact on the region’s economies and societies, and it will be important to monitor the impact of these investments in the coming years.

Breaking down by category, we see varying levels of progress. In regards to traditional physical infrastructure endeavors, out of 64 BRI projects, there are 4 planned projects, 20 projects ongoing, 37 projects completed, and 3 projects canceled (see Table 3).

In regards to digital infrastructure efforts, out of 202 DSR projects, there are 29 planned projects, 49 projects ongoing, 122 projects completed, and 2 projects halted (see Table 4).

Looking closer at what types of digital infrastructure projects are being supported reveals that China’s most significant investment involves transferring technology, telecom, fiber optic cables, security information system, and financial technology (see Table 5).

As for physical infrastructure, China's most significant investments are in ports, railways, Special Economic Zones, trade agreements, and Health Silk Road projects—i.e., projects related to improving public health. (see Table 6).

Drawing Conclusions

What the IISS China Connects database shows is that, out of the billions of dollars in loans and investments that China has to Middle Eastern countries since the launch of the BRI, most of these have been for digital infrastructure projects, such as telecommunications and broadband networks. This illustrates that contrary to the popular conception that BRI is wholly focused on physical infrastructure projects, there is significant demand for digital infrastructure.

That is not to say there isn’t any physical construction going on: roads, railways, and ports are certainly being built

At the same time though, the IISS database also shows that Chinese lending and investments in the Middle East have declined in recent years. This decline is likely due to several factors, including the global economic slowdown and the coronavirus pandemic.

Ultimately though, the IISS database is probably incomplete. Despite the BRI’s ambitious goals, there is little reliable information about how it unfolds. This is partly because there is no agreed-upon definition for what qualifies as a BRI project. As a result, projects that started years earlier are often counted, and the BRI banner hangs over a comprehensive and ever-expanding list of activities. By design, the BRI is more a loose brand than a program with strict criteria. This lack of clarity has made it difficult to accurately understand the BRI’s impact accurately. The result is competing interpretations of its effects: some have argued that the BRI is a major driver of economic growth and development, while others have warned that it leads to debt traps and environmental degradation.

What is certain, however, is that China is still the largest foreign investor in the Middle East, and it is likely to continue to play a critical role in the region’s development. The emphasis on digital infrastructure is something that most Western observers are perhaps unaware of and would do well to consider. In the meantime, as the BRI’s tenth anniversary passes by, China will take stock of its original agenda and make necessary adjustments to align with its current domestic and global priorities. The Middle East will remain a key region for the BRI, and it is evident that Beijing will continue its engagement for years to come.

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

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How time flies in the Middle East, where a regional alliance can be formed at sunrise and then—surprise!—break up at sunset.

From that perspective, the relative durability of what became known as the “alliance of the periphery,” an informal strategic alliance between four non-Arab states in the Greater Middle East—Iran, Turkey, Ethiopia, and Israel—during much of the Cold War was significant. However, the grouping is now eclipsed by Israel’s thawing relations with its formerly most implacable foes, the Arab states.

In particular, Iran and Turkey, two prominent Muslim states, were willing to cooperate with the Jewish State when the Arab-Muslim countries and most of the Islamic world refused to recognize that Israel’s existence was quite remarkable.

Historians have suggested that Israel’s success in establishing close military ties with Iran, Turkey, and Ethiopia derived from the implementation of the so-called “periphery doctrine.” The idea was the joint brainchild of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, and his advisor Eliahu Sassoon, himself the first Israeli diplomatic representative in Ankara.

The two believed in forming alliances with non-Arab states and forces with which Israel had no direct conflict. This not only included Turkey, Iran, and Ethiopia, but also religious minorities, like the Christian Maronites in Lebanon, and non-Arab ethnic groups, such as the Kurds in Iraq. Cultivating a cohort of partners with shared interests would allow the Jewish State to emerge from its regional isolation.

Indeed, offsetting the diplomatic and economic boycott of the Arab World could be seen as part of a traditional balance of power strategy aimed at countering Egyptian Pan-Arabism, which had dominated the region since the mid-1950s.

Hence, while the Arabs saw Israel as a foreign intrusion dividing the Arab Middle East, the periphery doctrine promoted the notion of the Middle East as a mosaic of national, ethnic, and religious groups, including Israel.

Moreover, the fact of Turkey’s NATO membership and Iran and Ethiopia’s close relations with Washington and the West in the context of the Cold War dovetailed with Israel’s goal of thawing ties with the United States, which until the early 1960s imposed an arms embargo on the Jewish State.

Although Turkey and Iran initially sided with the Arabs and voted against the 1947 United Nations partition plan, they soon saw the Arab-Israeli conflict as limited to Israel and the Arab states rather than a pan-Islamic one. Ankara and Tehran had territorial disputes with the Arab states and considered them rivals for regional dominance.

Ethiopia, led by the “Lion of Judah” Emperor Haile Selassie (who, according to legend, was a descendant of King Solomon and Queen Sheba), established diplomatic relations with Israel that helped his country in its fight against Eritrean rebels.

Turkey recognized the State of Israel in 1949, and Iran later became the second Muslim state to do so in 1950. Before these dates, the two had even established low-level diplomatic relations with the Jewish State.

Much cooperation between Israel, Iran, Turkey, and Ethiopia occurred behind the scenes between the respective militaries and the security services that dominated politics and policymaking in Tehran, Ankara, and Addis Ababa. Nevertheless, the nexus of ties never amounted to a genuine “strategic alliance.”

Iran and Turkey regarded their relationship with Israel as a way of hedging their bets and providing them with additional diplomatic and military resources to resist the pressure from aggressive Arab nationalist states. Nonetheless, geographical proximity, economic dependence on, and religious connections to the Arab World significantly constrained the ability of Tehran and Ankara to upgrade their ties with Israel, especially during the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars.

At the same time, Gurion and his successors regarded the periphery doctrine as a temporary strategy that needed to be sustained as long as the Arab nations refused to make peace with Israel. However, the periphery could not substitute for the central tenet in Israeli policy: peace with Arab Israel’s neighbors. Nor could it be an alternative to a strategic relationship with a global power like the United States.

The periphery doctrine proved, at best, a cost-effective form of realpolitik for Israel and eventually as a strategic illusion. Israel’s close relationship with Ethiopia and Iran collapsed after the fall of their ancien régimes and the ensuing political turmoil that engulfed each country.

Nor did the occasional military cooperation with the Maronites in Lebanon or the Kurds help terraform Israel’s position in the Middle East. If anything, in the case of Lebanon, it led to the catastrophe of the Israeli invasion of that country in 1982.

In the case of Turkey and Israel, the end of the Cold War, the democratization process in Turkey, and the strengthening of the alliance with the United States after the first Gulf War opened the door to improving the ties between Ankara and Jerusalem.

But contrary to the high expectations of neoconservative strategists, the relationship between the two countries didn’t evolve into a strategic alliance.

In fact, demonstrating the continuing sensitivity of Tukey to its ties with Arab World, it was the positive atmosphere in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the early 1990s (the Oslo Accords) that made it possible to raise the mutual diplomatic relations to the ambassadorial level. A Turkish ambassador presented his credentials to President Chaim Herzog, on March 23, 1992, in Tel Aviv. The Israeli embassy is located in the capital city of Ankara.

However, the 2002 landslide victory of the conservative Islamist Justice and Development Party and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan marked a turning point in the ties between Israel and Turkey. Erdogan insisted that his policies toward the Jewish State would be directly affected by its policies toward the Palestinians.

Interestingly enough, the collapse of the alliance of the periphery was taking place just as Israel’s relationship with the Arab World was beginning to change, starting with the Israeli-Egypt peace agreement and followed by the Oslo Process and the peace treaty with Jordan.

Indeed, one of the reasons for the effort made by the United States to accelerate the Arab-Israeli peace process has been the loss of Iran and Ethiopia as strategic allies and the threat facing the Arab oil-producing states following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

From that perspective, solidifying the Arab-Israeli core to counterbalance the Iranian threat and the challenge of an assertive Turkey created the strategic environment for the signing of the Abraham Accords. Israel has expanded its ties with four more Arab countries, along with reports about the possible normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

These changes in the balance of power in the Arab-Israeli core may explain why Erdogan is seeking to improve relations with Israel. In the long run, the current Saudi-Iranian détente could encourage the Iranians to reassess their relationship with Israel.

Israel may have established the periphery alliance in the 1950s as a tool against its Arab rivals. But it seems that today a return to that alliance goes through reconciliation with the Arab World. Or, to put it differently, to reach the second circle in the Middle East, Israel has to make peace with the first.

Dr. Leon Hadar, a contributing editor at The National Interest, has taught international relations at American University and was a research fellow with the Cato Institute. A former UN correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, he currently covers Washington for the Business Times of Singapore and is a columnist/blogger with Israel’s Haaretz.

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One could be forgiven for throwing up hands in despair at the multitude, severity, complexity, and convergence of threats the United States and its allies now face. From China, Russia, and Iran striving together to subvert the world order, to the worldwide rise of authoritarianism, human rights abuses and religious persecution, to fast-growing nuclear and missile threats, to a deluge of propaganda targeting the West, challenges to the Free World are formidable. Add to all this the malign acts and actors in the domains of cyber, energy, and space, along with the menace of transnational terrorism and trafficking, and the picture becomes more concerning. Renewed great power rivalry, heightened grey zone warfare, and escalating hostilities and atrocities in global hotspots call for a resolute, principled, and wise American foreign policy.

Metastasizing threats expose both the erosion of the post-World War II American foreign policy framework and the inadequacies of post-Cold War policies. Reeling from the horrors and devastation of fascism and total war, America resolved to stop expansionist aggression in its tracks and counter extremist ideologies with ideas of political liberty and human rights. During the Cold War, inspiring presidential speeches for freedom, the Voice of America radio broadcast, and U.S. leadership in democracy initiatives and international organizations existed alongside robust military alliances. But, after the Cold War, democracies let down their guard while enemies of freedom seized the day. Insufficient deterrence and resolve; modern relativism and uncertainty about what the Free World stands for and why; and the susceptibility of open, digital age societies to demagoguery and disinformation created openings for anti-democratic powers.

Today, the ideas that we will “never again” ignore intensifying dangers to our humanity and our security and that a Pax Americana will preserve the rules-based international order have been overtaken by reality. Russia’s success (along with Iran and Hezbollah) in saving murderous Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, its war of conquest in Ukraine, and China’s rapid and massive military build-up and planned subjugation of Taiwan, are among the indicators that we live in a very different world from the one envisioned when the Berlin Wall collapsed. The fact that there are now prison camps in China, North Korea, and Russia to rival those under twentieth-century totalitarianism adds to the disheartening picture. So does the fact that China is steadfastly increasing its nuclear and missile arsenal while North Korean and Iranian nuclear and missile programs are progressing alarmingly.

Furthermore, China’s seat on the UN Human Rights Council and Iran’s leadership of the Council’s Social Forum are glaring reminders of the UN’s deviation from its stated ideals. So too is the way authoritarian regimes succeed in obstructing UN penalties for each other’s extreme human rights violations and breaches of international protocols.

Authoritarian Defense Cooperation

China, Russia, and Iran provide diplomatic cover for the foreign policy misdeeds of each other and constitute an anti-Western axis. Their expansive partnerships enhance the power of all three and impair U.S. influence. They benefit from trade, weapon and technology transfers, joint military exercises, and sanctions breaches. Their militaries recently participated in a third trilateral drill in the Gulf of Oman and the North Arabian Sea. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian recently announced that the comprehensive strategic accord forged last year between Iran and China has entered into force. China and Russia implicitly support Iran’s brutal crackdown on brave protestors, and China provides Iran with technology for repression.

Iran supplies attack drones and munitions, while China provides dual-use rifles, body armor, drones, and financial support, for Russia’s ferocious assault on Ukraine. The only “peace” China wants in Ukraine will advantage Russia and strengthen Chinese influence over Europe. Trade between China and Russia rose to $190 billion last year, and China’s imports of Russian energy have increased to $88 billion since Russia launched a full-scale war. Building on Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s “unlimited partnership,” Chinese defense minister Li Shangfu recently pronounced that China and Russia would “expand military ties, military-technical ties and arms trade.”

Moreover, Pentagon officials have warned that Russia is providing highly enriched uranium for China’s rapidly expanding nuclear program, that Russia and China are producing space weapons to attack U.S. satellites and bypass U.S. missile defense systems, and that China’s overall military might is on a trajectory to surpass the United States.

Russia and China’s Growing Influence in the Middle East

In backing anti-democratic forces and dictators across the region, worst among them Syria’s murderous Bashar al-Assad, Russia and Iran have pushed the Middle East backward. China, until recently, acted behind the scenes to capitalize on the growing vacuum of U.S. influence. Now it energetically concludes commercial and strategic deals across the Middle East. The recent strengthening of energy, defense, economic and technological partnerships between China and Saudi Arabia and the détente between Saudi Arabia and Iran negotiated by Beijing are on everyone’s mind. Especially bad for human rights, the Saudi-led Arab League member states agreed to a statement endorsing China’s “efforts” and “position” in Hong Kong and “rejecting Taiwan’s independence in all its forms.”

China’s peacemaker status gives it another wedge against America’s hard and soft power and another step forward in creating a China-oriented world order. China’s trade with the Middle East now exceeds that of the United States.

The deterioration of U.S. relations with regional partners and allies like Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Iran’s brazen regional provocations and steadily advancing nuclear program are signs of the times. The United States must, on the one hand, stand firmly against aggressors and atrocity committers and, on the other, cultivate partnerships with countries that, while less than ideal partners from our democratic perspective, can help deter the Free World’s gravest threats. Developing these partnerships need not preclude applying behind-the-scenes pressure regarding human rights nor making arms deals contingent upon basic alignment with American priorities.

Recalling how disparate malign forces capitalized on the conflict in Syria is helpful as we consider how to deal with emerging and converging threats today: Obama administration officials and Arab and European leaders sat idle and quiet as Assad’s brutal crackdown on peaceful protests turned into a war on civilians. They continued to do and say little after Iran and Russia entered the war on Assad’s side and Damascus’ terrible hostilities and atrocities escalated. The White House even entertained Russia’s supposed “peace plans,” which only bought Assad time and cover for more aggression.

Neglect by the United States and the international community under the Obama administration allowed Iran, Russia, and extremist groups, such as al-Nusra Front, Hezbollah, and ISIS, to grow in influence. The Trump administration focused on defeating ISIS but not on the whole confluence of threats. Instead, President Donald Trump continued the moral and strategic retreat trajectory emphasized by the simplistic mantras of avoiding “endless war” and “America First.” Thus, Russia attained power broker status in Syria and military bases from which it tested weapons now used against Ukraine. Iranian militias wreaked endless havoc in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere. Terror groups and drug traffickers gained new footholds. Today, Syria is not just a playground for extremists; it is a narco-state.

The appalling move of many Arab League countries and some Western countries toward normalizing relations with Assad, and President Joe Biden’s apparent acceptance of that trend, reveals an ongoing deficit of U.S. leadership. Making matters worse, the Biden administration failed to build on the Abraham Accords negotiated by the Trump administration and enacted the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. Pivots from one region to another that forget the worldwide interconnectedness of modern threats, simplistic equations of hard power with “boots on the ground” and soft power with “cultural appropriation” gave enemies vacuums to fill.

Global Infiltration

Iran, Russia, and China are not only united against the Free World: they’ve created worldwide partnerships with dictatorships and radical forces. Take Iran’s tangled web: Putin’s Belarusan ally Alexander Lukashenko recently visited Iran, where he and President Ebrahim Raisi signed a “cooperation roadmap document.” Iran arms and sponsors Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Shia militias in Iraq. To add to the complex inter-connectedness, Iran uses Syria as a hub for weapons proliferation, relies on bad actors in the UN to relieve pressure on its nuclear program, and benefits from a flourishing arms trade with North Korea.

China’s global network, combined with China’s formidable power, is particularly alarming. Having focused more on mutually profitable economic interaction than on the dramatic rise of China’s military might and geopolitical clout, the West now faces a significant threat to the Free World’s security and way of life. Western dependence on Chinese goods and supply chains and China’s major commercial agreements and loans on every continent augment Chinese power. China has spent over $900 billion on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure, transportation, and mining projects in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and beyond into Europe and the Americas. Despite setbacks, the BRI has led not only to new security agreements and ports and docking rights for China’s fast-expanding navy but also to the insidious expansion of Chinese information and surveillance technology. The China-Myanmar Economic Corridor and Cambodia’s Ream military base are among new avenues for China’s imperialistic drive.

With minimal pushback until recently, China embedded influencers in Western universities who advanced anti-American goals through Confucius Institutes, sinology programs, and joint scientific research. China has benefited from decades of aggressive espionage and intellectual property theft. Thus, another hazardous confluence we must address is that between certain Western elites and the Chinese government.

Russia, China, and Iran have all dramatically increased their footprint in South America with commercial investments, arms sales, and leasing deals that may lead to military installations. They, along with Cuba, support the extremist socialist dictatorships of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Russian militias and Iranian drones have helped Venezuela stamp out dissent. Venezuela even hosted Iranian, Russian, and Chinese war games in 2022. Honduras’s decision to drop diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Brazil’s enthusiasm for “deepening ties” with Beijing, and the spread of Confucius Institutes across the region, speak to China’s growing influence.

The alignment of diverse actors working against U.S. interests and the various methods they deploy compound the current challenge. Aggressors see proxy battles, cyber-attacks, energy blackmail, financial exploitation, political corruption, and criminal activity as weapons cooperating with military power. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea pose the world’s biggest cybersecurity threats, with relentless attacks on democracies. Russia is particularly adept at using paramilitary organizations and disinformation campaigns to destabilize, divide and dominate. China plays an especially strong hand in international organizations and fora. In addition to seeking predominance in, and corrupting, the UN, the WHO, the World Bank, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean states, Xi recently formed “Global Development,” “Global Security,” and “Global Civilization” initiatives.

The United States must capitalize on cases where China, Russia, and Iran have proven dangerous and duplicitous partners. Although more and more governments have sided with China, the Chinese people are usually leery of authoritarian power. America must again become a voice for the oppressed, a beacon of freedom, and a steadfast ally. China’s human rights abuses, especially its genocide of Uyghurs, are horrific. U.S. leaders should stress to non-aligned countries the dire human rights implications for their citizens and others of aligning with the Chinese Communist Party. The United States and its allies must accelerate defense spending, modernization, and military-strategic cooperation. They must demonstrate willingness and capacity to fight for Taiwan if necessary while at the same time working feverishly to deter and preempt China and avoid war.

NATO’s 2022 Annual Report, released this March, cites “the gravest threat to Euro-Atlantic security in decades” and “a more complex and volatile security environment.” The Baltic and Balkan states, in addition to the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea zones, will be further vulnerable if Russia prevails in Ukraine. The Russian military has indeed suffered major setbacks and rejuvenated NATO, but Moscow and its allies see that Western military assistance was incremental. Moreover, the war in Ukraine has not stopped Russia from cyberattacks, information warfare, energy blackmail, and the cultivation of compromised leaders around Europe.

The Need for American Resolve

Adversaries have tested the U.S. resolve and found it lacking. Counting on Washington’s vacillation, they think they can outlast Washington. Indeed, the American response to fast-growing, often interconnected challenges to our security and way of life is too often lumbering, insufficient and unimaginative. Since the end of the Cold War, too few U.S. leaders can or do articulate what the Free World stands for and why. Too few accept the contingencies of hard power or appreciate the wisdom of “peace through strength.” Measures to deter Russia did not prevent hostilities, atrocities, and devastation. That should inform the American and allied deterrence of China and support for Taiwan.

China is pushing the idea of a new world order, and countless countries, international organizations, groups, and entities have, in one way or another, to a smaller or larger extent, signed on. In the meantime, the United States has lost momentum while remaining a great power. America too often appears uncertain or caught off guard. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and increasing global human rights violations and aggression call for American foreign policy that prioritizes national security, global stability, defense alliances, economic initiatives, and human rights all at once.

It is tempting to ignore some threats for others, pivot away from some regions, or give adversaries the benefit of the doubt. But the Free World lacks that luxury, for enemies of freedom are separately and collectively relentless. Some wonder whether ambivalent and weary America has what it takes to rise to the current challenge. Post-Cold War American foreign policy has generally been reactive rather than preemptive, lacking grand strategy or inspiring rhetoric. The world suffers when American foreign policy is unwise or unreliable and would benefit from a foreign policy revival, one that builds upon America’s best post-World War II traditions and, at the same time, finds new-age solutions for post-Cold War challenges.

Anne R. Pierce is an author, commentator, and scholar of the American presidency, foreign policy, and society. With a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, Pierce is an appointed member of Princeton University’s James Madison Society and was a Political Science Series Editor for Transaction Publishers. Pierce has written three books and contributed to three others. Her articles have been published in The National Interest, USA Today, US News, The Hill, Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, Providence Magazine, Society, Fox News, Ricochet, World and I,  USEmbassy.gov, and elsewhere.

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Spare satellites are critical for national security—or so the Defense Department believes. In recent months, space policymakers have explored creating a reserve space fleet. They argue that owning backup satellites, rockets, and remote sensing equipment—what economists call “excess capacity”—is a prudent response to growing space threats, especially from China. “It is better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it,” as the old maxim goes. However, it’s far from certain these policies achieve their desired results.

The idea behind excess capacity is simple: governments take steps to maintain larger stocks of important assets than private parties alone would create. For example, the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program, established by Washington after the Berlin airlift, allows the U.S. government to use planes owned by participating commercial airlines during a crisis. The government pays to use the aircraft and gives airlines preferential status when bidding for contracts. Undoubtedly, the program means there are more unused planes than otherwise. For those who fled on those planes during the Afghanistan evacuation, that’s a feature, not a bug.

Historically, excess capacity considerations featured prominently in naval policy. The British Navigation Acts of the seventeenth century are a prime example. A pillar of the imperial-mercantilist regime, the Acts required British goods to be shipped on British ships with British crews. This undoubtedly resulted in excess profits for shipowners at the expense of reduced trade and higher prices for consumers—including the American colonists, who eventually took such great umbrage at these policies (among others) that they separated from the mother country. But it also meant the government could prepare the navy for war faster. Given frequent conflicts with the Dutch, another great maritime power, policies ensuring an ample stock of seaworthy vessels and experienced sailors were prudent for national security.

Adam Smith, the godfather of modern economics, did the world a service by debunking the mercantilist argument that maintaining a favorable trade balance was the key to national wealth. But even he could not totally condemn the Navigation Acts. Although he recognized these protectionist measures were hotbeds of cronyism, he also believed they weakened the Dutch, making British shipping safer. Defense is “of much more importance than opulence,” Smith counseled in The Wealth of Nations. The logic of his argument is the same today as it was 250 years ago.

Similar to the Navigation Acts, the Jones Act in the U.S. reserves trade between American ports to American-made, American-owned, and American-crewed ships. There is no question this makes shipping more costly than otherwise. The justification for the law is maintaining a healthy domestic shipbuilding industry and a robust merchant marine to augment regular naval forces.

Most economists think the Jones Act is a lousy piece of legislation. But not all. Joshua Hendrickson, chair of the economics department at the University of Mississippi, has a contrarian perspective on U.S. maritime policy. Hendrickson finds merit in the classic argument that shipbuilders and the merchant marine, which “can be used for sealift and otherwise diverted or requisitioned for defense purposes,” provide a valuable service during conflicts. Hence the Jones Act should thus be interpreted as a strategic bargain between the government and maritime sectors to maintain national readiness.

Hendrickson claims Jones Act critics overestimate the costs of the law because they get the counterfactual wrong. Repealing the Act would require foreign-flagged ships to “be subject to the same tax, labor, and immigration laws as U.S.-flagged ships.” In a world of second-best policies, government-protected profits for the maritime sector are an adaptive response to the social benefits of having a ready naval auxiliary.

But many trade policy analysts deny this works in practice. Writing for the Cato Institute, Colin Grabow contends the Jones Act has instead caused “dwindling numbers of ships, mariners, and shipyards.” In other words, he claims that the law cannot be justified even on national security grounds. In place of the Jones Act, Grabow recommends establishing a civilian merchant marine reserve, subsidizing wages for merchant mariners, and using foreign mariners during wartime.

All of this is relevant to space policy. There’s growing consensus that space is a warfighting domain. Accordingly, the U.S. Space Force is considering a program called the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserves to ensure an adequate supply of space materiel. America’s armed forces increasingly rely on space-based assets, such as satellite communications networks, for force coordination and projection. What once was the realm of science fiction is now a live concern, as the importance of Starlink satellite internet to Ukraine’s defense recently showed. International rivals such as China and Russia are becoming increasingly adept at targeting space assets; as conflict looms, it’s more important than ever to ensure replacements can be mobilized quickly.

But investments in excess capacity might not be the right approach. Such investments may seem like an obviously desirable insurance policy. The problem is that humans are fallible, and sometimes policymakers act out of self-interest. Private businesses, too, regularly game the system to secure political profits. All excess-capacity policies ultimately grant such profits to privileged suppliers, who will not easily relinquish them even when required by the national interest. If the attempt to bolster supplies hollows out the industries it’s meant to protect, as Jones Act critics contend, we will get the worst of both worlds.

Government-created excess capacity has been a fact of economic and political life for centuries. It isn’t going away anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean we can wash our hands of the debate. As America confronts rising hostile powers and revanchist nations across the globe, we must determine whether these policies actually make us safer and freer.

Alexander William Salter is the Georgie G. Snyder Associate Professor of Economics in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University, a research fellow at TTU’s Free Market Institute, and a Young Voices contributor.

Image: Shutterstock.

There is one thing on which seemingly every observer of the war in Ukraine can agree: this war isn’t ending anytime soon.

Russia’s hope—and much of the world’s expectation—of a swift victory was dashed by the stunning repulse outside Kyiv last winter. Despite combined casualties of perhaps 300,000 soldiers, both countries are still seeking victory. It doesn’t appear to be imminent for either side. Russia’s vaunted winter push was a bloody failure, while the recent Department of Defense intelligence leak included U.S. doubts about the prospects for Ukraine’s impending offensive. Vladimir Putin and Volodomyr Zelensky, politically hemmed in by their own ultra-nationalists, are both unable to make major concessions for peace right now, should either even want to.

But Ukrainian endurance for a long war relies almost entirely on outside aid. The majority of military aid—$47 billion of a total of $69 billion to date—comes from the United States. This situation is neither desirable nor sustainable for America, Europe, or Ukraine.

After fifteen months of fighting, Americans are increasingly divided about picking up the bill for this war. A Reuters/Ipsos poll has tracked a year-long decline in American public support for providing military aid to Ukraine, from 73 percent to 58 percent. With the stubborn persistence of inflation, the growing challenge of China, and a federal debt showdown in progress, American wariness about a major, long-term aid commitment to Ukraine is warranted.

President Joe Biden has provided calibrated but consistent support for Ukraine. His potential opponents in 2024 are unlikely to be as steadfast. Both of the leading Republican contenders, Donald Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, view the war as a “territorial dispute” and seek speedy resolution. 

For the United States, Ukraine is not a vital national interest. Even liberal internationalists like the Brookings Institution’s Robert Kagan have conceded that the conflict “does not pose a direct threat to the ‘national interest.’” The Biden administration’s National Defense Strategy rightly labels China, not Russia, as the United States’ most “consequential strategic competitor.” For America, defeating Putin’s invasion is the right thing to do, but it is not an essential thing to do.

Ukraine is far more important to Europe, even if Russia’s manifest military incompetence means that the immediate threat to the rest of the continent is minimal. Four NATO members border Ukraine; the largest, Poland, has already seen ordnance land on its territory. But European nations remain unwilling and unable to check Russia on their own.

Although they contribute an almost identical percentage to global GDP as the United States and boast an additional 100 million citizens, European countries have struggled, collectively and individually, to meet the material demands of the Ukrainian war effort. Decades-long defense neglect has resulted in paltry munitions stockpiles. Germany and Great Britain, with two of the biggest defense budgets on the continent, face dire ammunition shortages for their own forces: each has about enough ammunition for a week of high-intensity combat.

Though total European Union defense spending surpassed €200 billion this past year, EU policymakers quickly learned that funding is moot without production capacity. The European defense industrial base comprises several dozen large firms and 2,500 smaller firms—tens of thousands fewer than the United States. The continent’s defense industrial base is shallow, unable to produce sophisticated equipment at scale. Europe, as the Ukrainians quickly learned, operates up to five times as many different versions of key weapons systems, like tanks and artillery pieces, as the United States. Europe’s target for a revitalized defense industrial base is 2030, but this is an extremely optimistic goal.

The U.S. defense industrial base has also struggled to meet Ukrainian needs, but America’s armaments producers are in better shape than Europe’s. The U.S. Army’s multi-year acquisitional contract model has driven upsurge efforts, creating a steady, augmentable, production stream. The United States entered 2023 producing 14,000 155mm artillery shells a month— 236,000 shells short of Ukraine’s monthly request. Changes in procurement policy have enabled a major expansion: 155mm shell production will increase six-fold within five years.

In the meantime, the United States has drawn on its stockpiles. While this induces a limited degree of strategic risk, the majority of these weapons and munitions were set aside for a potential war against the USSR and then Russia. If they can cripple the Russian military in Ukrainian hands, they are doing what they were meant to do.

While Europe’s defense industries begin the slow and painful path to sufficiency, European money can fill the gap, via American arms and ammunition. For example, Ukrainian tankers will soon begin training on the American M1 Abrams main battle tank. The United States has over 3,000 M1s in storage, far more than it will ever conceivably need, especially as Russia resorts to pulling T-54s and T-55s out of storage to equip its battered brigades. When Ukraine inevitably needs more tanks after the attrition from this coming offensive, European NATO members could purchase a chunk of America’s mothballed M1s and pay for their delivery to Ukraine.

For more squeamish alliance members, paying for most of the non-military aid, currently at $89 billion, is a good option. 

There is a good precedent for such an arrangement: during the First Gulf War, the United States was able to crowdsource over $50 billion from thirty-nine coalition members, though only sixteen countries had forces in the combat zone. Japan, constitutionally restricted from sending troops, paid $13 billion of the war’s cost.

In the long term, Europe needs a more robust defense industrial base and far larger munitions stockpiles. But for the immediate future, buying American can equip Ukrainian troops, attrit the Russian Armed Forces, and ensure Europe has the breathing room to rearm—as Russia surely will.

Training and logistical chokepoints have and will inevitably slow the provision of military aid to Ukraine. But greater European commitment will ensure that Western military aid to Ukraine will be politically, financially, and logistically sustainable. Germany’s recent $3 billion arms package was good news, but far more is needed. Europe is overdue to rearm and reassert itself on its own continent. Picking up most of the bill for Ukraine’s defense against Russia is a needed, and overdue, first step.

Gil Barndollar is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities and a senior research fellow at the Catholic University of America’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship.

Luke Cocchi is a research assistant at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship and a former Defense Security Cooperation Agency researcher.

Image: Shutterstock.

As Joe Biden concluded his attendance at the Group of 7, or G7, meeting in Hiroshima, at which his administration orchestrated the group’s opposition to China, Xi Jinping unveiled a plan of his own in a counter-diplomatic move. After a China-Central Asia Summit in northwest China last week, Xi announced plans to boost Central Asia’s development by increasing trade, building infrastructure, and helping bolster its defense production capabilities and law enforcement. This points towards a considerably increased Chinese role in Central Asia.

China’s new initiative in the region is likely to instinctively cause hostility in Washington, but that would be a mistake. The United States does not need and cannot afford to seek primacy everywhere; and for geographical reasons alone, Central Asia will always be a region where American influence will be inferior to that of China and Russia. By engaging in great power competition there, Washington would only divert the United States’ attention and resources from more important regions. In the worst case, it would contribute to regional instability and even conflict.

China’s move comes at a time of waning the United States’ influence in Central Asia after its withdrawal from Afghanistan, as well as waning Russian influence as Russia wages its war in Ukraine. Central Asia has historically been part of Moscow’s traditional sphere of influence, but in the last decade, the region has seen an exponential increase in economic cooperation with Beijing. Last year, trade between China and Central Asia reached a record of $70 billion, with Kazakhstan at the forefront with $31 billion.

Because Russia and China share something similar to a great power “entente” in Central Asia, where Russia is the primary security partner and China is the primary economic power, neither struggles with the other for influence. Both, however, fear that of the United States, and would (successfully) unite strongly to resist it. In addition, both fear the spread of Islamist extremism and ethnic nationalism, which could increase problems with their own Muslim minorities—something that would, it should be pointed out, also threaten American interests. The lack of major terrorist attacks against the United States in recent years does not mean that this threat has gone away.

China’s generous package to Central Asia of 26 billion yuan ($3.8 billion) of financing support and grants makes an embarrassing contrast with the pitiful $50 million offered to the region by U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during his trip there earlier this year—a difference however that accurately reflects the relative importance of the region to China and to the United States. While the G7 issued a statement condemning China’s belligerence in the South China Seas and its human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet, Central Asian governments appear to welcome a greater role for China.

China last Saturday expressed “strong dissatisfaction” with the communique issued by G7 leaders. China’s foreign ministry retaliated with protest and stated that the G7’s “approach has no international credibility whatsoever" and that the G7 was conducting a smear campaign against China. China also expressed issues with the bloc not showing clear opposition to Taiwanese independence. Additionally, contrary to what the G7 touts, China insisted the bloc was instead responsible for “hindering world peace and inhibiting the development of other countries.”

The G7 and China’s response demonstrate all too clearly that confrontation between the West on one side and China and Russia on the other is increasing and spreading throughout the world, with both sides vying for influence in the Global South. As the global reactions to the war in Ukraine demonstrate, Russia and China have been successful at getting the Global South to see the West as an entity that exploits non-Western states for selfish reasons, and certain Western policies concerning third-party sanctions violations are only adding fuel to the fire.

G7 leaders are adopting new sanctions on Russia designed to reduce Moscow’s ability to circumvent sanctions through third-party deals with states in the Global South. Yet seeking to “punish” non-Western states for trading with Russia will only exacerbate already existing resentment in the Global South over an overly imposing America and what countries may perceive as a violation of the right to their sovereign decisionmaking.

During the G7 meeting, issues concerning economic dependence on Russia and China were also raised among the group of industrialized nations with their invitees Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. While the diplomatic pressure for less dependence on Russia and China is understandable for American geopolitical aspirations, it would be naive to assume that the Global South would sacrifice any significant source of income to their country for the sake of American power. In fact, America would probably lose influence if it pressed countries to act in ways that would be counter to their own national interests.

In a similar effort to sway the Global South, at the G7 summit, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky met with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Indonesian president Joko Widodo to pressure their respective nations into “taking sides” in the war in Ukraine. As traditionally non-aligned countries stemming from the time of the Cold War, and possessing colonial histories that make them deeply skeptical of the West, these nations are unlikely to succumb to rising pressure to overtly support Ukraine. The West should understand that before it pushes them any further away.

On that score, Central Asia is one region where the United States should not try to compete for primacy. Russia and China have far more economic, political, and military investment than the United States does in that region and always will have. If Washington starts to compete with them in Central Asia, it will only turn the region into a zero-sum game between great powers where the United States would be unlikely to gain more influence than Russia and China due to their geographic proximity. Spending valuable resources just to create a constant competition that Washington will inevitably lose is a very poor investment—especially as, following its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States has no vital or even significant interests in this region. Such competition would also put the region's stability at risk. So far, countries in Central Asia have been comfortably applying a multivector foreign policy towards China, Russia, and the United States, with America very much third in line. This policy has allowed them to develop economically without encouraging great power competition in their region.

China’s plan for Central Asia risks setting the stage for a new domain of great power competition in the Global South. The United States should refrain from taking the bait, as it were, and should apply similar pragmatism and restraint to other nations in the world that have chosen to be non-aligned in this renewed global struggle. If Washington tries to pressure them into allying with America, it may actually end up driving them into the arms of China and Russia.

Suzanne Loftus is Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute’s Eurasia program. She specializes in Russian foreign and domestic policy, nationalism and identity, and strategic competition between the great powers.

Image: Shutterstock.

As someone who teaches military officers and national security professionals, both at the U.S. Naval War College and at Harvard Extension, I wholeheartedly endorse the points made by Josh Kerbel and Jake Sotiriadis in a recent National Interest column:

…today’s complex strategic environment requires a fundamentally different set of skills. To be sure, we need a strong understanding of strategic foresight, future literacy, and complex systems. We must also acknowledge that today’s hyper-connected strategic challenges are not so much solvable as they are merely manageable. Strategic foresight—which involves the practice of envisioning alternative futures in order to better sense, shape, and adapt to change—can help. It cultivates a tolerance for uncertainty, which cognitive psychology tells us can reduce judgmental bias and promote non-linear thinking.

I would submit, however, that producing better, more innovative strategists capable of providing guidance for navigating this “complex strategic environment” produces a reciprocal charge to policymakers to up their own game. Nothing has frustrated me more over the years than to see creative strategic approaches wither on the vine of policy and political failures.

Reading this essay in conjunction with recent reporting about Washington’s inability to translate wide-ranging, ambitious proposals for Latin American integration and development into concrete policy gains exacerbates my frustration. President Laurentino Cortizo of Panama sums it up: “The speeches are very pretty.” The fault lies not in the strategic thinking, but the dysfunctionality of the U.S. policy process. What makes this so personally painful is for a decade I have seen students coming through our strategic education process chart out how the United States needs to compete using all tools of statecraft against the growing Chinese presence in Latin America—but policymakers are largely unable to act on them, except at the margins. Ricardo Zúniga, who serves in the Biden administration as principal deputy assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere, acknowledges that the U.S. effort relies on a cobbled-together approach because the big-picture strategic proposals have no way of being translated into action. He told the Financial Times, “Our political reality right now is that there’s not support for expansion of free trade agreements” (which requires Congressional legislation) and instead rested upon “taking advantage of trade facilitation and ... nearshoring opportunities” (by using executive authorities to interpret pre-existing regulations and policies). This is the same challenge Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo faces as she attempts to stretch executive actions to try and capture some of the strategic benefits (in terms of trade and technological cooperation) among U.S. partners in the Indo-Pacific basin—via the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), which is a poor person’s substitute for the ambitious goal of creating a trading community binding the Pacific rim to the United States.

Yet the lack of binding commitments always undermines the reliability of such proposals. The problem is exacerbated because executive actions are highly dependent on who sits in the White House. An enterprising entrepreneur might have concluded, at the end of 2015, that President Barack Obama’s decision to use his executive authority to commit the United States to the Paris climate framework and to reach a nuclear deal with Iran might create opportunities: a United States committed to reducing emissions (and also engaged in the first wave of economic sanctions against Russia for its annexation of Crimea) might support the rapid development of Iran’s underutilized natural gas reserves (to help offset European dependence on Russia and to use natural gas as a bridging fuel towards a long-term green energy transition). Had Hillary Clinton succeeded in her 2016 presidential bid, that might have been a gamble that paid off. By 2017, however, President Donald Trump had reversed both of those executive actions.

How confident are IPEF countries that announced regulatory changes would last into the next administration—or that President Joe Biden himself might reverse those decisions if domestic interests complained about losses from these efforts? Germany and South Korea both have seen how the administration is whipsawed between promoting the notion of increased trade and technological collaboration among the states of the democratic community, and advancing proposals that sound suspiciously like an “America First” approach. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai is not wrong when she says, “There are actually a lot of countries around the world that really want to be economically engaged with us.” But her efforts to, as she herself describes it, pitch “America as a reliable and positive partner” runs up against these concerns. And, it bears noting, the U.S. approach to Ukrainian security guarantees—to rely not even on an executive agreement, but an even less-binding “memorandum”—shows the risks when certain obligations and courses of action are not solidified into U.S. law and practice.

What this has meant, as my colleague Ali Wyne has often said, is that the United States has tended, over the last decade, to respond to what China does, rather than proactively setting the agenda. And I would argue that while China’s efforts may fail, it is not strategically wise to predicate U.S. policy on expectations of Chinese failure. As we have seen with Russia in Ukraine, Moscow’s ability to prolong its invasion has far outlasted expectations of Russian collapse.

Moving forward, there are two immediate recommendations for policymakers. The first is to return to the legislative process: for Congress and the executive branch to write new laws, enhance regulations, define authorities—and commit funding. Full-fledged free trade agreements may be politically problematic at this time, but there are other legislative building blocks that can be enacted, building on the success of proposals like the CHIPS and Science Act. It requires political figures to assess trade-offs, set priorities, and be prepared to compromise to get proposals in place, following President Ronald Reagan’s old adage about it being better to get 60 percent of what one wants than to go over the cliff flags flying. This includes painful but necessary discussions about where U.S. domestic interests might be negatively impacted, and how that damage might be mitigated.

The second is to also set—and abide—by priorities in our foreign policy. Building a lasting and durable coalition both to develop a security cordon across the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic basins but also to promote the technological, energy, climate and health partnerships needed to secure the peace and prosperity of the United States and its allies means that Washington has to be able to accept what elements on its “preferences” list it is willing to set aside. For instance, the Biden administration’s proposals for new infrastructure development funds to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative is going to require commitments from U.S. Gulf allies to deploy their sovereign wealth funds and for India to help reorient supply chains away from the Chinese hub. Yet the United Arab Emirates and New Delhi are not fully committed to joining Western measures to increase economic pressure on Moscow for its actions in Ukraine. Balancing their noncompliance with such measures with the fact that any coalition to offset China requires their active participation requires a nuanced and delicate approach.

Just as in 1989–91, the world today is undergoing major shifts in the global system. We have every right to ask our strategists to be able to assess, analyze and propose ways to secure U.S. national interests in this changed environment. But our policymakers must be prepared to accept their responsibilities to take the hard choices involved in translating strategy into policy.

Nikolas K. Gvosdev is a professor at the Naval War College and the Editor of Orbis. He also co-hosts the Doorstep podcast for the Carnegie Council. The views expressed here are his own.

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