The National Interest

The United States is in danger of losing the tech race to China.

Two weeks ago, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) issued a startling report revealing that China is leading the United States in researching and developing thirty-seven of forty-four critical or emerging technologies across key sectors, such as defense, space, artificial intelligence (AI), energy, environment, biotechnology, advanced materials, robotics, and quantum computing. The findings, which are the result of a year-long initiative in which ASPI examined 2.2 million data points, offer one of the clearest illustrations to date of China’s efforts to position itself as the global leader in science and technology.

This comes amid a collection of recent studies published over the past few years documenting China’s advances in technological innovation and research and development.

In December 2021, Harvard University’s Belfast Center warned that China is outpacing the U.S. in high-tech manufacturing and 5G and could soon overtake us in quantum computing. A study from The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence revealed that China is poised to overtake the United States as the world leader in AI by 2030. And earlier this year, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) issued an alarming report finding that China has now surpassed the United States in total innovation output and has already established itself as the world leader in the implementation of key, cutting-edge technologies.

The literature—coupled with increasingly frequent testimony from industry leaders, high-ranking officials, and military brass—paint a clear and concerning picture: China is beating the United States in the race to develop the transformative technologies of the future. These next-generation technologies—such as AI, quantum computing, and biotechnology—will fundamentally upend practically every facet of society. And whichever country develops them first will enjoy decades of unparalleled economic and geopolitical advantage.

If China succeeds in winning the tech race, it will capture trillions of dollars in economic value, make the world increasingly dependent on its technology and supply chains, and secure a critical military edge that would undermine the national security of the United States and our allies.

Thankfully, this outcome is far from a foregone conclusion. We still have time to channel the entrepreneurial spirit and penchant for innovation that has helped build the United States into the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the history of the globe. But doing so will require a concerted effort, and the same measure of collective focus and strategic thinking we have mustered in response to other grave threats throughout our nation’s past.

The establishment of the U.S. House of Representatives’ new Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party is certainly a step in the right direction. Both Chairman Mike Gallagher (WI-8) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08) are serious legislators with a clear-eyed understanding of the challenges before us.

America’s elected leaders have a responsibility to lead the charge. That is why it has been disconcerting to see some in Congress pushing proposals that would handcuff innovators with onerous new regulations that dictate how our tech companies can compete, who they can compete with, and how their products should function.

This is the wrong approach.

America’s private sector technology companies play an indispensable role in driving innovation. In fact, each year, the six largest U.S. tech companies invest more in research and development than the entire Pentagon. That is why it is imperative for lawmakers to focus on enacting policies that promote innovation and ensure our brightest minds in the public and private sectors have the runway they need to pioneer the cutting-edge breakthroughs of tomorrow.

The recent reports from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and other esteemed institutions must serve as a wake-up call. For more than eighty years, the United States has stood alone as the global leader in technological development and innovation. But now that primacy is under assault by a determined adversary with the resources and resolve to overtake us. Lawmakers and leaders from across the aisle must respond in kind and ensure we do not allow our technological edge to slip away.

Former U.S. Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) are co-chairs of the American Edge Project’s Economic Advisory Board.

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If President Joe Biden is worried about the implications of judicial reform in the Jewish state, with its long traditions of civil debate and compromise, he should be much more concerned about Lebanon, where a U.S.-designated terrorist organization has already eviscerated the rule of law.

Talking to reporters this week, Biden implored Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to compromise on his proposals for overhauling the Israeli judiciary, lest he plunges his country into enduring chaos. Biden and his top advisers have exerted continual pressure on Netanyahu’s government regarding the judicial overhaul, even though it is a matter of Israeli domestic politics.

Meanwhile, enduring chaos has already arrived in next-door Lebanon, where a Hezbollah-aligned government continually subverts the rule of law and the prerogatives of the judiciary.  The country has been leaderless since October, unable to elect a president. The response from Washington? A few pieties about democracy, but mostly a shrug.

Israel is a close ally, of course, while Lebanon is a nominal friend that soaks up billions of dollars of U.S. aid but is often more responsive to Tehran than Washington.

Hezbollah, bankrolled by Tehran, dominates Lebanon’s political order, propping up its members and allies in virtually every state institution, as it has for the past fifteen years. There are regular elections, but Hezbollah’s guns, its monopolization (with its partner Amal) of Shiite representation, and its overall primacy, give it veto power. Stabilizing—let alone rebuilding—the economy has proven to be far beyond the terror group’s capabilities, although it does engage in continuous obstruction of the judicial system.

The investigation into the Beirut Port explosion is a case in point.

In August 2020, Lebanon was rocked (quite literally) by a massive explosion at the Port of Beirut. Some 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been unsafely stored at the port for years detonated, sending a mushroom cloud over Beirut. More than 200 people died, including multiple American citizens, thousands were injured, and hundreds of thousands were rendered homeless.

Public records indicate that Lebanese officials were aware of the dangers posed by the chemicals at the port and failed to act accordingly. As early as 2014, the head of Beirut port received notice that ammonium nitrate is “extremely hazardous” and “requires taking due diligence and precaution” to store.

The Lebanese people, the U.S. government, and the international community have called for accountability and justice, but so far neither has been served. In February, a British court held liable a London-based company that delivered the chemicals, but Lebanese officials continue to enjoy de facto immunity.

Days after the explosion, Lebanon’s High Judicial Council appointed Judge Fadi Sawan to spearhead an investigation. But mere months into his probe, Sawan was removed from the case, apparently at the request of two ex-ministers Sawan had charged with criminal negligence.

Sawan’s successor, Tarek Bitar, was forced to suspend his investigation four times between February and December 2021 due to legal challenges raised by Hezbollah and its allies. At one point, Hezbollah’s campaign to remove Bitar turned deadly; armed clashes broke out between rival parties at a Hezbollah-Amal protest in Beirut, leaving six dead.

The latest twist came in January when Bitar unexpectedly reopened his investigation and levied charges against several former ministers, including Lebanon’s top prosecutor, Ghassan Oweidat. Oweidat proceeded to file counter-charges against Bitar, impose a travel ban on the judge, and order the release of all suspects detained in connection with the case—including a U.S. national who immediately returned to the United States, circumventing travel restrictions.

Meanwhile, American officials continue to urge Lebanese officials to conduct a “swift and transparent investigation,” despite clear indications that the Hezbollah-led order will not allow it.

All of this internal jockeying has yielded little change in U.S. policy. The United States remains committed to underwriting the status quo, placing misguided trust in Lebanon’s civil institutions. Look no further than the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which was released last week: the 46-page report includes one paragraph on the Port investigation and fails to acknowledge Hezbollah’s intimidation tactics altogether.

It is time Washington mustered an appetite for tougher action.

In December, Senators Robert Menendez and James Risch wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen petitioning the administration to implement “a more forward-leaning policy.” Citing Hezbollah’s “attempts to derail basic state functions,” including “the constant delaying actions targeting investigations,” Menendez and Risch proposed sanctioning a “spectrum” of Lebanese political leaders in tandem with our European allies.

There is little point in waiting any longer for Lebanon to implement critical reforms. Washington has a vested interest in justice for the American victims of the blast and in spurring an overhaul of Lebanon’s broken political system. Imposing sanctions in concert with our European allies would help marginalize the corrupt and malign actors who are preventing a credible investigation of the port explosion and, more broadly, killing any hope of reform. The Biden administration should refocus its efforts on a country that actually needs help.

Natalie Ecanow is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

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China’s President Xi Jinping is the latest world leader to offer a plan to end Russia’s war on Ukraine. With recent success brokering the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Xi’s efforts are another sign of China’s global ambitions and that its influence is not confined to northeast Asia. Xi’s special relationship with Putin has led to a deepening of ties and a goal of a “no limits” partnership, but Xi’s efforts will be fruitless. Ukraine’s ability to fight more effectively than Russia combined with Russia’s history of violating international norms and disregarding security agreements with Ukraine forestall Xi’s efforts to broker peace.

When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the world’s third-largest nuclear weapons stockpile was on Ukrainian territory. While Kyiv had physical control of the weapons, Moscow retained operational control and launch capabilities. Through considerable U.S. pressure, Ukraine signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. In exchange for relinquishing physical control of the nuclear weapons, Russia, the United States, the UK, and later France and China agreed to support Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and Russia would refrain from the use of force or economic coercion against Ukraine.

The 1997 Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation reaffirmed the post-Cold War status quo. Article 3 clearly states, the countries will maintain “relations with each other on the principles of mutual respect, sovereign equality, territorial integrity, the inviolability of borders, the peaceful settlement of disputes, the non-use of force or threat of force, including economic and other means of pressure, the right of peoples to control their own destiny, non-interference in internal affairs, observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms, cooperation among States, and conscientious fulfillment of international obligations and other universally recognized norms of international law.” This was violated in 2014 when Russian military hackers exploited Ukraine’s Central Election Commission and attempted to interfere with Ukraine’s presidential elections. And Russia physically violated Ukrainian territory when it invaded in 2014, which resulted in the illegal occupation of Crimea and fomented fighting in the eastern Ukrainian oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, the trilateral contact group composed of Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) signed the Minsk Protocol. With twelve goals to end the fighting and prevent escalation, the agreement was supposed to create an immediate bilateral ceasefire. Unfortunately, Russia never respected this ceasefire. After additional rounds of fighting, as Moscow tried to improve its position the parties met again just six months later when Minsk II was signed in February 2015. The agreement was endorsed this time by leaders of France and Germany. After this agreement, too, Russian-led forces continued to fight. Russia, while an original signatory of the Minsk Agreements and the principal aggressor in the conflict, untruthfully claimed not to be a party to the conflict, and rather only a “facilitator” in it. The deal required not only a ceasefire, but also the withdrawal of foreign military forces, disbanding of illegal armed groups, and returning control of the Ukrainian side of the international border with Russia back to Ukraine, all under the supervision of the OSCE. Russia did not honor the agreement, and between 2014 and early 2022, thousands of people continued to die in eastern Ukraine.

Since 2014, Russia supported its proxies in Eastern Ukraine. Casualties rose on both sides, and outside civilians were killed as well. In July 2014, 298 people died when a Russian Buk surface-to-air missile, which originated from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Federation and was transported from Russia the day of the crash, shot down Malaysia Airlines flight 17, which was traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Separately, while Russian delegates approved the mandate of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine from its seat in Vienna for years, Russia would then block the implementation of the mission on the ground along the Line of Contact in Donetsk and Luhansk.

On February 22, 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin declared the Minsk agreements “no longer existed” and began to escalate his war against Ukraine. With efforts to destroy Ukrainian identity and the Ukrainian state, there is very little confidence in a China-brokered agreement to end the fighting with Russian forces inside of Ukraine’s 1991 borders. Moreover, China will not want to support any precedent which could invalidate its own claims over Taiwan, which suggests that even China’s diplomatic approach will not endorse Russia’s own claims.

When adding the regional context with Russia invading and occupying parts of regional neighbors Georgia and Moldova, Xi’s plan is insufficient to reassure Ukraine. Finally, the plan is a non-starter because of Russia’s other international law and norm violations such as interference in political processes in North America and Europe, use of information operations to undermine media in democratic countries, use of chemical weapons to target political opponents, and violations of arms control agreements with the United States.

With Russia’s track record in mind, Kyiv will continue to fight for its survival and plan for a future defined by armed resistance to Russia rather than any agreement with vague promises of security guarantees. Just as other countries in Europe sought NATO membership as a reaction to Russia’s historic and post-Cold War expansionism, Ukraine will likely do the same when the active fighting ends, seeing the vital need for a security guarantee against future Russian aggression. Just like the Korean conflict ended without a treaty in 1953 but held in check by the U.S. alliance with South Korea, this one may follow a similar path. The deterrent value of alliances remains strong and NATO members’ reactions to improving European defense since 2022 strengthen the importance of collective defense in Europe. There is some irony that no one has done more to increase the relevance (and soon, the size of NATO) than Putin himself.

It is useful to remember that war is about achieving political aims and Putin’s international position is worse off. Most outside Moscow seem to understand this as the war has been very costly for Russia in material and symbolic terms. Russia’s ground forces have been decimated, its arms industry has been tarnished, and its connections to the West are growing more restricted by the day. The ICC indictment of Putin for crimes against humanity effectively ended any prospect for post-war normalized relations, so Putin is unlikely to withdraw its forces from Ukraine. What started as Putin’s dream to become greater than Tsar Peter I may end with Putin being remembered as the last Tsar Nicholas II.

Derek S. Reveron is Professor and Chair of the National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Naval War College, Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

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Yalta, the site of the 1945 conference where American, Soviet, and British leaders shaped postwar Europe through the creation of respective spheres of influence, has become a dirty word of sorts in the annals of U.S. diplomacy.

“Yalta” has come to represent the alleged Western betrayal of its legal and moral obligations to the Czechoslovak and Polish states in the prelude to the Cold War as part of an agreement with the Soviet Union, not unlike the Western duplicity represented by “Munich.”

The latter was named after the 1938 conference where, in the prelude to World War II, under a similar sphere-of-influence deal with Nazi Germany, the Brits and French discarded their commitments to Czechoslovakia.

From that perspective, Yalta, not unlike Munich and the notion it represents of great powers dividing the international system into the spheres of influence, has been criticized by American liberal internationalists as a demonstration of a cynical and duplicitous realpolitik approach and an example of deceitful European diplomacy that seeks to achieve worldwide stability at the expense of the weak.

There is an element of hypocrisy in this critique if one considers that the Monroe Doctrine, which was followed by President Theodore Roosevelt’s “corollary,” turned the entire Western Hemisphere into a U.S. sphere of influence where the Americans have had the exclusive responsibility of preserving order and protecting the life and property in the countries in that region.

Or, as political thinker Walter Lippmann put it, “We have never thought of acknowledging the ‘right’ of Cuba or Haiti or the Republic of Panama – all of them independent and sovereign states – to contract alliances which were inconsistent with the concert of the whole North American region.”

Yet this policy pursued by liberal internationalist presidents like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt ended up protecting U.S. political and economic interests in its strategic backyard and prevented turning it into an arena for confrontations between great powers, with the exception of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

In a way, the dynamics of superpower diplomacy that led to the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. coupled with the building of the Berlin Wall a year earlier, helped transform the deal signed in Yalta—cynical or not—into a viable power-sharing agreement between Washington and Moscow.

That agreement secured stability and preserved peace in Europe for three decades and protected the interests of the United States and its NATO allies. At the same time, it prevented the turning of out-of-area regional conflicts, like in Southeast Asia or the Middle East, into military conflagrations between the two superpowers.

It formed what the late Australian international affairs scholar Coral Bell described as a “shadow condominium”: that with the relationship between Washington and Moscow swinging between competition and cooperation—not diplomatic engagement—it made it possible to manage the relationship between the two “frenemies.”

Ironically, it was in the aftermath of the Cold War, starting with Yugoslavia’s wars of succession and up to the current war in Ukraine, that bloody military conflicts have re-occurred in Europe. The sphere-of-influence system dubbed by critics as a conspiracy between great powers has been more conducive to allowing the weak, Serbs and Croats, Georgians and Ukrainians, to live in peace.

For a while in the aftermath of the Cold War, following the integration of China into the international system and the growing diplomatic engagement between the world’s two largest economic superpowers, there was some talk promoted by realpolitik types like Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski about the possibility of forming power-sharing agreements between Beijing and Washington.

Indeed, the notion of a G-2 of these two economic superpowers—proposed by Brzezinski and Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute for International Economics—as members of the UN Security Council, and as the most prominent rising power and the strongest “status-quo” power, working together to address the big challenges facing the international system and providing the global public goods that the world required, became quite popular—until it wasn’t. 

Reality has bitten. It has become clear that under the conditions of rapid international power transition—when the rising power would inevitably challenge the status quo and the position of the state or states that were securing the established order—rivalry between Washington and Beijing is more likely, as it is today. The idea of a G-2 now sounds more and more like science fiction.

But as Bell’s concept of “shadow condominium” suggested, when applied to Soviet-U.S. relationship after the Cuban Missile Crisis and the pre-Détente era, a temporary power-sharing arrangement can emerge during periods of acute crisis engaging the interests of the two dominant powers. To put it differently, rising tensions between the two could also encourage the development of mechanisms that prevent an international crisis from turning into a full-blown war, as it did in 1962.

But as foreign policy expert Brendan Taylor points out, once that danger had passed, that arrangement retreated “into the shadows of the future,” and default adversarial postures resumed; although there was always “a prospect for the condominium to re-emerge out of those shadows during times of deep crisis,” becoming an integral element of their relationship to be re-activated when the threat of military confrontation rises.

Is it possible, wonders Taylor, that while we need to recognize the way that our period of power transition affects the relationship between China and the United States in an adversarial or even dangerous direction, we could also envision the existence of the “shadow condominium” “during such periods could provide stability through joint great power management of the balance of power between the two.

In a way, the current mix of competition and cooperation in Sino-American relationship, especially when one considers the continuing deep economic ties between them notwithstanding all the talk about “de-coupling,” creates the conditions for the management of the balance of power. Indeed, Taylor mentions the way the two have tried to stabilize the Korean Peninsula in face of North Korea’s nuclear strategy and despite growing Sino-American tensions has averted a military conflict over the issue.

From that perspective, the concept of a U.S.-China “shadow condominium” could manifest itself in the event of a crisis between the United States and China over Taiwan. Both countries have an interest in avoiding direct military conflict, much like America and the Soviet Union did in 1962, which could include a possible nuclear confrontation.

That kind of arrangement wouldn't amount to a formal power-sharing agreement between two nations. They don't share common values or understanding of international relations. It certainly won't take the form of respective spheres of influence in Asia.

But in the long run, it could create incentives for the evolution of a more stable balance of power system in the Indo-Pacific region. The nations of Southeast Asia seek to avert a military conflict between the two regional giants. Meanwhile, Japan, South Korea, and Australia would not be under pressure to acquire nuclear military capabilities, on one hand, and yet won’t feel marginalized under a Sino-American co-management system, on the other hand. Additionally, India, like Western Europe during the Cold War, could help promote Sino-American détente in the future.

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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Vladimir Lenin once observed that “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” And then there were Five Days in March, when a new and promising future began to unfold—one marked by broad-based cooperation among democratic allies and a growing awareness of the convergence of security in the Indo-Pacific and Europe.

The Five Days began on March 16, when Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida welcomed the Republic of Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol, the first visit by a Korean president in twelve years. The summit came about as a result of Yoon’s decision to move beyond the past, reflected in the contentious dispute over wartime forced labor, to focus on the future in the Korea-Japan relations and the development of political, economic, and security ties. The summit marked a return to the “Future-Oriented Relationship,” outlined in the joint statement at the Kim-Obuchi Summit of 1998.

On March 17, the defense ministers of Japan, the United Kingdom, and Italy met in Tokyo to discuss the basic design of a sixth-generation fighter aircraft to be co-produced under the Global Compact Air Program, agreed to in December 2022. The meeting followed the January 10 announcement by Prime Ministers Kishida and Giorgia Meloni to upgrade Japan-Italy ties to the level of a strategic partnership.

On March 18, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Tokyo to participate in the first Japan-Germany Inter-Governmental Consultations focused on economic security. Both governments condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, expressed support for the rules-based international economic and political order, and opposition to economic coercion. The governments also agreed to take steps to strengthen defense and security cooperation and develop their strategic dialogue. Their joint statement expressed the recognition that “the security of Europe and that of the Indo-Pacific are closely linked.”

On March 20, Kishida, in New Delhi, announced “Japan’s New Plan for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific – Together with India as an Indispensable Partner. “

As for the New Plan, Kishida explained the present need, an era in which there is no agreement on what the international order should be. At this point “FOIP is a vision that is in fact gaining in relevance…a visionary concept…whose fundamental concept remains the same…We will enhance the connectivity of the Indo-Pacific region…into a place that values, freedom, the rule of law, free from force or coercion, and make it prosperous.” The prime minister set out “three Principles for Peace and Rules for Prosperity to include “respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and opposition to unilateral changes in the status quo by force.” He condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and expressed Japan’s opposition to “any unilateral changes into the status quo by force anywhere in the world.”

Kishida committed Japan’s economic, financial, and technological resources to address issues of concern across the Global South, including, high-quality infrastructure, health, the environment, digital connectivity, security in the maritime domain, and the strengthening of maritime law enforcement capabilities. The New Plan would highlight diversity, inclusion, openness, and equal partnership.

So where are these Five Days in March heading?

In Northeast Asia, the normalization of the ROK-Japan relationship has opened the door to increased security, diplomatic, and economic cooperation. In the realm of security, it has enhanced deterrence against the mutually shared threat posed by North Korea’s rapidly expanding missile and nuclear programs. Normalization has also expanded opportunities for trilateral cooperation with the United States, not only in Northeast Asia but also in support of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific as outlined in the Phnom Penh Statement on U.S.-Japan-Republic of Korea Trilateral Partnership for the Indo-Pacific, released on November 13, 2022.

Meanwhile, Japan, Italy, and the United Kingdom’s agreement on the co-production of a sixth-generation fighter speaks to the increasing engagement of European democracies in the Indo-Pacific. Over the past several years, governments in France, the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK as well as the European Union have released their respective Indo-Pacific strategies. Each focused on the importance of stability in the Indo-Pacific to European prosperity and on the challenges posed by China to regional security and the rules-based international order.

The UK’s Integrated security review of 2021 announced a “tilt” toward the Indo-Pacific, an engagement marked by “a greater and more persistent presence than any European country.” The UK’s Integrated Refresh Review 2023, called attention to “a new network of ‘Atlantic-Pacific’ partnerships, based on a shared view that the prosperity and security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific are inextricably linked.” The 2023 document moved engagement from a “tilt” to engagement, as a “stronger and enduring, and a permanent pillar of the UK’s international policy.” The AUKUS agreement is a case in point.

That Kishida chose New Delhi as the launch site for his New Free and Open Indo-Pacific Plan honors the history of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific. New Delhi was, as Kishida acknowledged, the stage on which former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set out the initial vision of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. Likewise, it reflects the long-standing Japan-India friendship, having grown in strategic significance during the Abe-Modi years as both Tokyo and New Delhi became increasingly concerned about China’s increasing assertiveness across the Indo-Pacific region. And, it marked a turn to the Global South and recognition of India’s leading role there.

The Five Days in March, capped by Kishida’s visit to Ukraine, again underscored the growing convergence of security in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. At the same time, those Five Days in March also played into the three days in Moscow of the Putin-Xi Summit and offered a clear choice—an international order governed by authoritarianism and control or a future defined by freedom and openness.

James Przystup is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute.

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Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to deploy nuclear weapons with nuclear-capable launchers to Belarus caught the attention of media commentators and military experts this week. This announcement comes on the heels of Putin’s three-day meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Moscow, after which a number of agreements were reached by the two heads of state on political, military, and economic cooperation going forward. Russia and China are now explicitly and jointly working to create a new world order in which the United States is marginalized and, from their perspective, a unipolar world dominated by the United States is supplanted by a multipolar system more conducive to Chinese and Russian objectives.

The apparent counterpoint, between the hubris at the level of high politics and the Russian decision to station nuclear weapons outside the borders of the Russian Federation, could not be more revealing. The golden handshakes between Xi and Putin should have provided Russia with a renewed sense of confidence relative to its political and military objectives. Instead, Putin moved some of his military pawns on the chessboard as a form of nuclear signaling and messaging. This move is not a sign of confidence, but of uncertainty and desperation. It is also dangerous.

After more than a year of fighting in Ukraine, Russian military forces have been unable to close the deal. An initial blitzkrieg fell short of taking Kiev or inducing the government of President Vladimir Zelenskyy to capitulate. Russia’s military operations in eastern and southern Ukraine have resulted in bloody stalemates and minimal advances. Russian casualties have been enormous and the troops dispirited. In addition, Russia’s various factions of siloviki are at loggerheads, including obvious rivalries between the mercenary Wagner Group and regular army forces. Increased draft levees have led many young men of military age to flee the country. Meanwhile, Putin’s gamble has united and revived NATO as a political alliance and increased its military capabilities relative to those of Russia. Adding Finland (and possibly Sweden) to NATO membership only compounds this faux pas.

On the other hand, economic sanctions have impacted negatively Russia’s economy far less than NATO had expected or hoped, and majorities of the Russian public still support the war against Ukraine. In addition, it is reasonable to suppose that Russian political and military leaders anticipate that a long war against Ukraine favors Russia, on account of the latter’s larger population and greater resources. Russian military thinking recognizes a distinction between wars of annihilation, in which a decisive victory is obtained by one rapid and overpowering military operation, and a war of attrition, in which two sides attempt to wear one another out of manpower, resources, and will over an extended period of time. And this distinction might apply to the war in Ukraine, were we still living in the twentieth century.

But we are not. The culture of the twenty-first century is driven by the Internet and its globalization of information. Like everything else, this culture spills over into decisions about war and peace. Heads of state and commanders are pressured by a twenty-four-hour news cycle to provide omnipresent gratification and reassuring symbolism, especially if they are accountable to voters in a democracy. But even if not, the image of defeat or stalemate on the battlefield will be projected for the world audience to see, and to the humiliation of leaders even as narcissistic as those in Russia’s high command. “Winning” a war of attrition, if the cost in blood and treasure is too high, comes with an embedded political risk. The nostalgia among Russians for Stalin, grotesque as it seems to westerners, is not a desire for a return to the gulags and mass executions of that era. It is, instead, a remembrance of victory in the Great Fatherland War and the pinnacle of Soviet power that resulted from it.

Even Putin must realize that Russia faces an urgent necessity to show results in the battlespace, and reports of a large Russian offensive against Ukraine planned for later this spring are repeatedly appearing in news sources. On the other hand, the Ukrainians are also planning counteroffensives in the east and south, and the United States, together with its NATO allies, has promised to deliver more advanced weaponry to Kiev, including modern tanks and personnel carriers, longer-range missiles, drones, and intelligence support for battlefield operations. Some critics of the Biden administration lament that more advanced weapons should have been sent to Ukraine sooner, but newer systems require training time for operators and an accelerated production line for heavy metal items. Thus far, Ukrainians’ battlefield agility, determination, and skilled use of intelligence and command-control-communications systems have checked Russia’s superior numbers and plodding commanders.

Russia thus cannot assume that it has forever to wear out motivated Ukrainian forces, and Putin’s willingness to deploy tactical nuclear weapons outside of Russia (but, presumably, under Russian control), together with his prior threats of nuclear first use, cannot be dismissed as misguided messaging only. It tells us that, if Russia faces serious battlefield reversals to the extent that fundamental objectives are lost and Ukraine appears close to regaining all of its former territories, a misguided Russian decision in favor of “limited” nuclear first use is possible. Russia might take this decision, not only as a means of compensation for a conventional war that is not going well, but also on the assumption that the first nuclear weapon fired in anger since the bombing of Nagasaki would have unprecedented shock value. It might, according to some Russian thinking, stun the Ukrainian high command, divide NATO politically, create mass public fear across Europe and North America, and push the world toward acquiescence to Russian terms for a peace settlement.

On the other hand, as Clausewitz warned, the character of war changes from one era to another, based on changes in technology and tactics, but the nature of war does not. One aspect of the nature of war is that escalation is inherent in the process of fighting. Left to its own devices, and undisciplined by wiser political control from heads of state, fighting has a natural tendency to expand in destructiveness. So a NATO reaction to a Russian nuclear first use might not be acquiescence, but retaliation. Even a ”demonstrative” nuclear shot by Russia—say, by exploding a weapon at a high enough altitude to create a widespread electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that damages critical space-based military assets and/or disrupted terrestrial communications and control systems—could fail to achieve its desired effects. Instead of stunning NATO into backing down, it might enrage public and elite opinion further against Russia.

In addition to the possibility that Russia’s decision to deploy some of its nuclear weapons in Belarus is a mistaken message based on faulty reasoning, it also raises technical issues. If these weapons are intended as deterrents, they may also be seen as attractive targets for Ukrainian commando operations or dissident Belarus opponents of the Lukashenko regime. Moreover, suppose dissatisfied Russian field commanders or their mercenary cronies decide to hijack the weapons from storage sites and use them to demand ransom. In theory, only the president of Russia and his top military commanders can authorize nuclear release, but in practice, the chain of command is only as strong as its weakest link. History shows that stranger things happen within militaries that are on the cusp of defeat and disintegration. Could a cabal of praetorians in Moscow combined with duplicitous field operators in Belarus create chaos in the midst of a fraught field of battle, or in the face of an impending Russian strategic defeat?

Stephen Cimbala is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State, Brandywine.

Lawrence Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and former Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Image: Shutterstock.

Winds of change blow through the arena of international affairs, as the global balance of power shifts dramatically. March 22, 2023, marked the beginning of an unprecedented era as Russia’s slow descent into vassalage under China—a process that began when the former decided to invade Ukraine—reached a tipping point. This transformation not only signifies the formation of an unofficial alliance between these two powers, but also the dawn of a new era—a “Pax Sinica.”

Russia, once a formidable superpower with imperialist ambitions in China now finds itself in a position of dependence on a country it once bullied. How did this happen? For years, Russia’s witnessed a steady erosion of its influence on the global stage, resulting from a combination of economic stagnation, international sanctions, and waning soft power. As the West has sought to isolate and punish Russia for its actions in Ukraine, Georgia, and other areas, China has stepped in to fill the void.

While it’s true that Russia and China have a long history of diplomatic cooperation, what we are witnessing now is a much deeper and more significant partnership. As the West continued to squeeze Russia economically, Moscow’s had no choice but to pivot eastward, seeking solace in China's embrace. Today, it is evident that the relationship has evolved from a mere partnership to a dynamic where Russia has become increasingly beholden to China.

The Sino-Russian alliance is solidified by their shared interests, such as the desire to challenge the U.S.-led international order and create a multipolar world. This is not an opinion, but rather the global ambition that has been stated by both leaders, with Xi Jinping directly claiming that together, the two countries will create “changes not seen in a hundred years.” The interdependence between these two nations is evident in their booming bilateral trade and coordination on regional and global issues. However, this partnership comes at a cost, especially to Russia’s sovereignty.

China’s economic clout has allowed it to invest heavily in Russia’s energy sector, infrastructure, and defense industries. As a result, Beijing now wields considerable leverage over Moscow's political and economic decisions. Moreover, as Russia’s economy is heavily reliant on its energy exports, China’s voracious appetite for natural resources has made it the primary consumer of Russian oil and gas. This dynamic has led to an imbalance in the relationship, rendering Russia increasingly subservient to China.

The unofficial alliance between Russia and China marks the beginning of Pax Sinica: a Chinese-dominated era of relative peace and stability, akin to the Pax Romana of the Roman Empire or the Pax Americana of the post-World War II era, at least in the Eastern Hemisphere. This new era is characterized by China’s rise as a serious global superpower, with a sphere of influence extending across Asia, Africa, and even into Europe.

As China expands its global reach, other nations, especially those in Asia, will be compelled to accept its hegemony—either willingly, under duress, or naturally out of circumstance. Russia’s gradual submission to Chinese authority is a stark example of this new order. The West, too, must now reassess its approach to international relations, as the dawning of Pax Sinica will challenge the liberal, rules-based order that has shaped the world for decades.

As the Pax Sinica takes hold, it is not only Russia that will find itself within the orbit of China’s expanding influence. Southeast Asia and China’s neighboring countries are highly likely to be enveloped by this new era of Chinese dominance, effectively reinstating China as the center of the Asian world; a position it hasn’t been in since the High Qing era (1783–1799), when China possessed the fourth-largest empire in history.

No one will feel the dawn of the Pax Sinica as much as Southeast Asia. China has long maintained an interest in region, given its strategic location along vital trade routes, its abundance of natural resources, and its rapidly growing economies. Through initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), China has been positioning itself as the primary driver of regional development in the area, providing much-needed infrastructure and investment to these countries. This economic engagement extends beyond Southeast Asia, reaching into South Asia, Central Asia, and even Africa, thus amplifying China’s influence on a global scale.

The Pax Sinica is also likely to see China continuing to assert its dominance over the contested South China Sea, a region rich in resources and a critical artery for global trade. We already know of China's construction of artificial islands and military facilities in the area, and how that’s alarmed Southeast Asian neighbors and raised tensions with the United States. However, as the Pax Sinica unfolds, smaller nations in the region may find it increasingly difficult to challenge China’s claims and actions. This development will further cement China’s position as the regional hegemon, with the potential to reshape the maritime security landscape in the Asia-Pacific.

It is important to note that China’s rise is not solely predicated on its economic and military prowess. The propagation of its political ideology and the projection of its soft power also play crucial roles. As China’s neighbors become more intertwined with its economic and political systems, they may find themselves gradually adopting aspects of the Chinese model, including its authoritarian tendencies and strict control of information. Sinicization of the region is not new, but Marxist-Leninist Sinicization is, and could slowly but surely alter the political landscape of the region, further entrenching China’s dominance.

Through a combination of economic engagement, military assertiveness, and soft power projection, China is poised to reclaim its position as the center of the East Asian world. Russia’s transformation into a quasi-Chinese vassal state is a harbinger of a new geopolitical era, and marks the beginning of both an unofficial alliance between these two powers and the emergence of Pax Sinica. This transformation will have far-reaching implications for the region's political and economic landscape, heralding a new era of Chinese dominance that will demand careful navigation by both regional and global players.

Symington W. Smith is a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations.

Image: Shutterstock.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many observers expected that Putin’s proxies in the Western Balkans would face hard times, yet the opposite seems to be occurring. Instead of punishing Kremlin’s long-standing allies, the Biden administration has chosen to appease these actors in order to drive a wedge between Russia and its supporters. This abrupt change in U.S. policy can best be seen in countries such as Kosovo, Montenegro, and Bosnia, and it sets a dangerous precedent as it helps facilitate conditions for the next conflict in the Balkans.

Kosovo and Montenegro have been unwavering U.S. allies for decades, yet both are facing pressure from Washington to make concessions to Serbia, the utmost pro-Russian country in Europe. Kosovo is publicly being pressured by the U.S. State Department to change its constitution in order to create a Serb-run para-state structure in the north of its territory, conspicuously named the Association of Serb Municipalities. Kosovo’s Constitutional Court already ruled in 2019 that such a structure is not permissible, yet American officials are adamantly requesting that Albin Kurti, Kosovo’s prime minister, introduce such changes in order to appease the Serbs.

Last year, Montenegro signed the so-called “Basic Agreement” with the Serbian Orthodox Church, giving it considerable power compared to other religious communities. The controversial agreement came under scrutiny from numerous pro-Western political parties, human rights activists, as well as Montenegro’s president, Milo Djukanovic. Their main concerns rest not only on the lack of transparency surrounding the agreement, but that it is being used as a tool within Montenegro to foster closer ties with Russia and Serbia. While the EU adopted a resolution outlining concerns that the Orthodox Church promotes Russia in countries such as Montenegro, Serbia, and Bosnia, the United States has been notably absent on the topic.

In Bosnia, pro-U.S. allies were caught by surprise last October when the U.S. supported controversial changes to Bosnia’s electoral law that were imposed by Christian Schmidt, the High Representative of Bosnia. In an alarming move, Schmidt changed the country’s electoral law minutes after the general election polls closed. The imposed law was praised by the government of Croatia, as it favors the HDZ political party. Croatian foreign minister Gordan Grlic Radman tweeted that the government of Croatia was satisfied with the outcome and pleased that their efforts and arguments were recognized. This open admission of interference into Bosnia’s internal affairs evidenced that the United States and EU gave in to the demands of Croatia and the HDZ at the expense of Bosnia’s democracy. As a result, some of the key positions in the country’s newly formed government are filled by politicians that are currently sanctioned by the United States, such as Marinko Cavara, the speaker of the House of Representatives.

Despite the Biden administration’s best efforts to entice pro-Putin supporters away from the Kremlin, the last few months have proven that the change in policy has not been effective. For example, on January 9, Milorad Dodik, the president of Bosnia’s smaller entity known as Republika Srpska (RS), broke the law once again by celebrating an illegal holiday. Dodik’s military parade invoked fear and violence as he once again called for the secession of RS from Bosnia. He went on to award Vladimir Putin with a medal of honor, in hopes that RS can further strengthen its cooperation with Russia. And while the United States has placed sanctions on Dodik and engages in anti-corruption efforts in places like Bosnia, no such initiatives or pressure can be seen in Serbia or Croatia.

A year into Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic has yet to join the West in sanctioning Russia, choosing to tacitly ally himself with Putin instead. Late last year, he once again stroked tensions in the region by placing Serbian troops on the border with neighboring Kosovo, exacerbating an already tense situation. In the last few years, Vucic has gone to great lengths to militarize Serbia by increasing its defense spending by 70 percent, and purchasing state-of-the-art offensive military equipment from both Russia and China.

However, the pro-Putin support in the Balkans does not end with Dodik and Vucic but can be seen in Croatia as well. Zoran Milanovic, the current president of Croatia was recently condemned by Kyiv for questioning the territorial integrity of Ukraine. He has gone on to say that Ukraine has no place in NATO and objects to Zagreb sending military aid. Further, he sparked further outrage when he publicly denied the Srebrenica Genocide and claimed that Kosovo was forcefully taken from Serbia.

The Biden administration’s decision to appease pro-Putin actors in order to try and draw a wedge between the Kremlin and its Western Balkans proxies is a dangerous and short-sighted policy. First, it sends the wrong message to the world, and signals that the United States does not seem to stand for its principles or its longstanding allies. Second, by rewarding and empowering pro-Putin actors, the U.S. can be seen as betraying not only its allies, but the Western norms that have helped democratization efforts in that part of the world for the last three decades.

Governments and actors that are led by strongmen have no interest in embracing democratic values. Rewarding such actors is not rooted in the American tradition of promoting democracy abroad. A then-Senator Joe Biden often echoed this sentiment when he pushed the Clinton administration to counter Serbia’s aggression against its smaller neighbors. In the 1990s, Serbia’s irredentist policies culminated in genocide against Bosnia’s Muslim population and the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo’s non-Serb population. However, President Biden has chosen to provide support to Serbia’s president, who served as a high-ranking government official in the Milosevic regime.

The collateral damage of the current U.S. policy towards the Western Balkans will only work to erode the decades of trust and friendship between the United States and pro-Western people of the region. Further, it is important to note that the small nations of the Western Balkans have relied on the United States and NATO security umbrella for decades, however, if they become unable to rely on that security, they will have no choice but to try to seek out new alliances in the East, as well as develop their own defensive capabilities. As a result, this may lead to instability and further tensions in the region.

The Biden administration needs to revisit the lessons from the past and re-think the current U.S. policy towards the Western Balkans. If history has taught us anything, it is that the United States should not abandon its principles for a temporary advantage. If the U.S. is seeking to win the hearts and minds of the people in the Balkans, it should maintain principled, consistent, and reliable policies that do not reward those that seek to undermine the core Western democratic values. President Biden’s administration should take (Senator) Biden’s advice about the Western Balkans.

Reuf Bajrovic is the Vice President of US-Europe Alliance and a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Ajla Delkic is the President of the Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina (ACBH) and co-chair of the Southeast Europe Coalition.

Image: Shutterstock.

While the world’s attention is primarily concentrated on Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, other worrying developments are unfolding along Russia’s periphery. In the South Caucasus, Iran is concentrating military forces along the border with Azerbaijan and preparing to hold military exercises near the country’s exclave of Nakhchivan. There are reports of visits by high-ranking officials, including the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Ground Forces, General Sardar Mohammad Pakpur, and the commander of the Iranian Border Troops, Ahmad Ali Gudarzi, to the border zone. In addition, on March 11, Azerbaijan was also alarmed by an Iranian military aircraft making a non-stop flight along the Azerbaijan-Iran state border from the direction of Zangilan District to Bilasuvar District and backward.

These provocative developments represent a marked departure from the regional status quo—if these Iranian exercises were to go ahead, for example, it would be the third time such have been conducted in the past two years, which never occurred in this region prior to the Second Karabakh War of 2020.

Yet these developments are not occurring in a vacuum. The reality is that Iran’s growing assertiveness in relations with Azerbaijan, along with its other attempts to obtain a stronger influence over the South Caucasus, is due to the gradual decline in Russian hegemony over this region. Washington, which is already concerned about recent developments with regard to Iran, should pay close attention. 

A Potential Azerbaijani-Iranian Conflict?

Iran’s military moves are not the only signs of recently increased aggression. The developments along the Azerbaijani-Iranian border come on the heels of a violent January attack in Tehran against the Azerbaijani embassy that resulted in the death of a security officer and the injury of two others. Azerbaijan officially characterized this as a terrorist attack and evacuated its diplomats from the Iranian capital.

On the other side of the border, Azerbaijan’s security agencies have been working overtime, conducting multiple operations over the past months in response to significantly greater Iranian espionage and covert activities. Dozens of people, who reportedly carried out assignments for Iranian special services, have been detained. In this context, the assassination attempt against an Azerbaijani parliamentarian, Fazil Mustafa, who is rather critical of Iran on March 28, was interpreted by many in Azerbaijan as being linked with Iran. The fact that both attacks took place after Azerbaijan decided to open an embassy in Israel, and the latter attack happened on the same day when Azerbaijan’s foreign minister visited Tel Aviv to inaugurate the Azerbaijani embassy, appeared suspicious. Most damningly, as of today, March 31, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry confirmed that the “initial traces of the investigation of the terrorist act against Fazil Mustafa point to Iran.”

Understandably, these various developments have heightened the tensions between the two countries significantly, and raised concerns that a violent confrontation may occur.

Why is Iran doing this? The answer is simple: regional geopolitics are changing, and not necessarily in Tehran’s favor.

For Iran, the “encroachment” of external players into the South Caucasus is inadmissible. The Russia-Ukraine war complicated the region’s geopolitics for Iran, as the European Union (EU) and the United States have increased their influence by strengthening their mediating role in the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process. This has effectively sidelined Russia, and was followed by the deployment of a monitoring mission to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border in the aftermath of the Prague summit on October 6. Against this background, increasingly closer relations between Israel and Azerbaijan, and the emerging possible Israel-Turkiye-Azerbaijan trilateral cooperation platform, further worries Iranian authorities. Tehran also views Azerbaijan’s and Turkiye’s plans to launch a transportation corridor via the southern Armenian territory as a threat, as this would allegedly cut off Iran’s borders with Armenia and deal a severe blow to Iran’s regional standing.

Russia’s Declining Regional Influence

This geopolitical turbulence is in large part because Russia’s regional hegemony, which it has enjoyed over the region since the early nineteenth century, is fading away and the security order it built in the region—i.e., its hegemonic stability—is eroding.

Until recently, Iran had to recognize the South Caucasus as part of Russia’s sphere of influence. This has been the region’s state of affairs ever since the Treaty of Turkmenchay, which ended the Russo-Persian War of 1828 and established Russian control over the South Caucasus. Russian dominance in the region continued to be acceptable for Iran following the collapse of the Soviet Union, as Moscow managed to prevent the “incursion” of rival powers like the United States and Turkiye.

Yet in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow’s dominance in the South Caucasus is weakening, thereby opening up opportunities for other powers. For example, Azerbaijan is now able to more vehemently criticize Russia’s support for what it considers to be (and the international community broadly agrees is) a separatist regime in its Karabakh region, tries to end the mission of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, deepens its strategic alliance with Turkiye, increases its contributions to European energy security, and relies more on the EU’s mediation in the peace process with Armenia. Armenia, meanwhile, increasingly defies Moscow’s authority by distancing itself from Russia’s military bloc, is building closer relations with the European countries and the United States, and has invited an EU mission to monitor the security situation along Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan.

America Must Pay Attention

These are worrying developments for Iran. Some of its interests overlap with Armenian, in that both countries seek to counterbalance Azerbaijan and its alliance with Turkiye and Israel. The recent growing military and economic ties between Yeveran and Tehran have provided an opportunity for Iran to more assertively involve itself in the region and form a de-facto alliance against the two Turkic states. Part of this includes increasing bilateral trade, with a turnover from $700 million to $3 billion. Iran is also discussing supplying combat drones to Armenia.

Iran’s regional ambitions, prompted by Russia’s regional decline, are thus increasingly regarded as a security threat, especially by and for Azerbaijan. Notably, the United States is also concerned by these developments.

In Washington, where prominent voices are once again voicing concern over Iran’s nuclear program and Iranian actions in Syria, Tehran’s recent moves into the South Caucasus are cause for conversation. In a recent Senate committee hearing, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed the importance of supporting Azerbaijan with military education and training funds, noting that  “Azerbaijan has a long border with Iran, which needs defending.”

Yet more needs to be done if Washington and its allies wish to ensure that this vital yet underrecognized region of the world remains stable. This is especially pertinent given the war in Ukraine: Azerbaijan is not only now an important alternative supplier of energy for the West, but also a critical link in East-West international trade. The best thing that the Biden administration can, and should continue doing, is playing a mediating role in the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process. Without such an agreement between those two countries, there can only be turbulent times ahead of the South Caucasus.

Vasif Huseynov is Head of Department at the Center of Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center).

Image: Peter Hermes Furian/Shutterstock.

In January 2023, Guyanaese president Irfaan Ali visited India, meeting Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. The two leaders discussed a broad range of economic opportunities, but the major topic was oil.

Guyana, which has emerged as the world’s newest petro-state, has plenty of oil; India, one of the world’s largest economies, lacks oil. Indeed, India is one of the world’s largest importers of oil, ranking third behind China and the United States. The tempo of Guyanese-Indian relations has accelerated over the past two years and is likely to deepen—an important development that has geopolitical implications not just for Guyana, but also for the Southern Caribbean Energy Matrix and the United States.

India has long had relations with the Caribbean, with many people from the South Asian nation arriving in the region to work on sugar estates in the early nineteenth century. King Sugar has long been dead, but oil is the newest king, pumping up the Guyanese economy, helping to revitalize Trinidad and Tobago’s (more on the natural gas side), and holding out hope for Suriname. India began buying Guyanese oil in 2021.

The January Ali-Modi meeting demonstrated that there is a mutual interest in further developing relations between the two countries, with oil the key issue. However, other areas of potential cooperation were discussed, including agriculture, infrastructure development, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, technology, and defense cooperation. Ali also met with Indian president Droupadi Murmu, and his itinerary included visits to Delhi (the country’s capital territory), Kanpur (a major industrial center), Bangalore (India’s tech capital), and Mumbai (the business and financial capital).

In February, Guyanaese vice president Bharrat Jagdeo arrived in India and met with Murmu. One of the results of the meeting was a memorandum of understanding (pending approval of respective governments) over future oil sales. Additionally, it was reported that there was potential for Indian investment in Guyana’s oil sector. Guyana has indicated that it plans to auction fourteen offshore oil blocks, while taking back 20 percent of the Stabroek offshore oil block from ExxonMobil—which could be sold to Indian oil companies.

The Jagdeo visit also discussed tapping Indian skilled workers to help develop Guyana’s emerging gas industry as well as help in several other sectors, including agriculture. Guyana also indicated an interest in defense cooperation (including potential fast patrol boat purchases from India) and improved transportation linkages between the two countries, which is expected to be backed by an air services agreement (ASA). This would allow airlines from both countries to travel back and forth (currently, travel must transit through New York or London).

The main driver from the Indian side is energy. Despite efforts to develop clean energy, India remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Coal is the South Asian country’s leading energy source, accounting for 46 percent of total energy in 2021, followed by oil (23 percent), biomass (21 percent), natural gas (6 percent), and primary electricity—defined as hydro, nuclear, water, and wind (4 percent).

Although New Delhi understands the need to reduce its carbon footprint, it is not likely to make a radical shift away from fossil fuels anytime soon. Modi announced in 2021 that his country would zero out its greenhouse gas emissions by 2070. This means that while India will work on developing clean energy alternatives, it will continue to be a major buyer of oil and gas over the medium term.

India’s energy picture has been further complicated by the Russo-Ukrainian War, which commenced in February 2022 and resulted in Western economic sanctions on the sale of Russian oil and natural gas. To mitigate its lost Western markets, Russia significantly increased its oil exports to “friendly” countries, like China, India, and Turkey.

In late 2022, Russia passed Saudi Arabia as India’s largest source of oil, and in January 2023, the South Asian country’s Russian oil imports rose to a record 1.4 million barrels per day, up 9.2 percent from December. While cheap Russian oil is being soaked up by India’s refiners, New Delhi is under pressure from the United States on this issue. New Delhi needs U.S. support to counterbalance China, with which it fought bloody border disputes in the Himalayas in 2021 and 2022. In this context, positive U.S.-Indian relations are key to balancing China. Enter Guyana.

Although Guyana is far from India, it offers a friendly and less controversial oil source than Russia or, for that matter, Venezuela, which had earlier been an important supplier. Guyana is also friends with the United States; Indo-Guyanese constitute the country’s largest ethnic group (around 40 percent of the total population); and the two countries share a parliamentary form of government. Indian and Guyana also share faiths in Hinduism and Islam, and similar experiences as British colonies.

For Guyana, deeper relations with India offer an opportunity to diversify its trade and investment partners. While the United States has positive relations with Guyana and remains its major economic relationship, especially considering the presence of U.S. energy companies like ExxonMobil and Hess, Indian involvement could broaden the investment base. A fulsome Indian economic engagement could also help contain the influence of China, which is active in trade, the oil industry, and infrastructure development.

Yet there are limits as to what India can offer Guyana, and vice versa. It is easy to take a cynical view and opine that Guyana is after fast Indian money and that the Ali government is pandering to its Indo-Guyanese base. Moreover, India’s trade with Guyana, while on the upswing, remains relatively small; according to the International Monetary Fund’s Direction of Trade statistics for 2022, India was Guyana’s ninth-largest source of imports and twenty-eighth in terms of exports.

Looking ahead, Guyana’s national interests are to maintain its independent role in the global economy, not become a satellite of a large power, and not fall victim to the Dutch Disease (which afflicts oil-producing countries). For India, Guyana could serve as a friendly source of oil and, over time, natural gas. A more developed relationship with Guyana could also help India develop a larger role in nearby Suriname, which has yet to start exporting oil. Indeed, Surinamese president Chan Santokhi also met with Modi in January 2023. A more developed Indian role would broaden the set of economic relationships that have emerged with the Southern Caribbean Energy Matrix. A deeper Indian engagement in Guyana could help counterbalance China’s influence in the Caribbean and Latin America, something that plays well to Washington’s strategic concerns.

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

Image: Shutterstock.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies exploring their geopolitical options with China has a dimension that the Washington debate has neglected: the kings, dictators, and their relatives across the world have accumulated hundreds of billions of dollars through the “privatization” of national budgets and/or what is known as “state capture,” where public service becomes the most profitable kind of business. 

In the 1990s, authoritarian rulers like Presidents Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire or Suharto of Indonesia were accused of stealing not less than $5 billion and $20 billion respectively, sums that were never recovered. In the Mobutu case, Swiss authorities found only several million dollars in accounts that were returned to Mobutu’s family in 2009, while Suharto’s family was ordered to repay just $324 million more than fifteen years after he abdicated from the presidency. 

Following the Arab Spring of 2011, the new government of Egypt arrested the former president, Hosni Mubarak, and his two sons, who allegedly built a business family empire estimated by some sources at a staggering $70 billion. 

The Egyptian authorities ordered the funds accumulated in Mubarak relatives’ accounts to be frozen, and following this order around 700 million Swiss francs were blocked in Switzerland, with France and Luxembourg following suit. But a decade-long legal battle finally ended so that the Swiss authorities between 2018 and 2022 have returned almost $600 million to fourteen people associated with Mubarak’s clan. Hardly a triumph for justice. 

The U.S. Department of Justice built up an international task force following the Nigerian government’s demand for locating and returning assets belonging to late dictator General Sani Abacha, his son Mohammed, and his associate Abubakar Atiku Bagudu. Due to their interminable efforts, more than $600 million in funds were transferred to the Nigerian treasury from the United States, Great Britain, and Switzerland—but the process took around a quarter of a century with the last portion of the funds, estimated at $20.7 million, being released in November 2022. 

Similar claims, put forward by half a dozen of countries, are still being considered by courts and justice and finance ministries throughout Europe and the United States. Most of the successful claims have been resolved if the nation asking for the recovery of funds has geopolitical importance for the West and has proven its transition from a dictatorship to a more democratic and liberal order.

Uzbekistan, the landlocked, most populous Central Asian country bordering Afghanistan, is a case in point. This post-Soviet republic was ruled for twenty-five years by President Islam Karimov, who enjoyed full control over the country until his death in 2016. In 2015, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project accused Russian mobile telecom operators Vimpelcom and MTS (both registered in the European Union) and Scandinavian companies TeliaSonera and Telenor of transferring more than $1 billion to Karimov’s daughter Gulnara, who later deposited them into her Swiss accounts. For twenty years, Gulnara was the country’s glamor girl, a diplomat, and a wealthy businesswoman, dabbling into pop singing, extortion, and corruption. 

The case looks notorious for two reasons. On the one hand, it resembles charges brought against Odebrecht S.A., a global construction conglomerate based in Brazil, for paying $788 million in bribes to or for the benefit of government officials in eleven foreign countries. In both cases, the companies involved cooperated with international prosecutors and agreed with penalties for their wrongdoings (Vimpelcom alone paid out $795 million to resolve U.S. and Dutch money-laundering investigations that became the largest-ever charge paid under the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative). Gulnara Karimova has been jailed since 2014, with pressure on her increasing following the death of her father in 2016. She was sentenced to thirteen years in 2020. 

On the other hand, Uzbekistan’s case looks unique because Karimova became subject to prosecution under the U.S. Magnitsky Act that targets corrupt officials all over the globe—and even if she is released by her government, she will remain indicted by the U.S. authorities until she repays the illicitly acquired funds, estimated at $865 million. 

The Uzbek government of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, which succeeded Karimov, consequently asked Swiss, Belgian, and Irish authorities to unfreeze the funds and return them to the country’s treasury. However, in this case, the process appears to be glacial, and faces many conditions: e.g., the 2020 release of $131 million was only undertaken in exchange for a promise that the money will be invested in projects which support sustainable development under United Nations supervision (in accordance with the UN 2030 Agenda and Uzbekistan’s development strategy). Meanwhile, around $850 million remains in Switzerland, awaiting the agreement between Tashkent, Bern, and Washington.

Truly, in some cases, the governments of developing countries cannot be fully trusted since no one can guarantee that the restituted money will not be plundered again—but in many cases, some progress is achieved. 

Uzbekistan is one such case: it has liberalized considerably under Mirziyoyev, allowing freer media and conducting economic and social reforms; its modernized financial system is being hailed by the World Bank and international development agencies. It is rapidly developing, and in recent years became a vital ally for the Western world in fighting Islamic extremism in Central Asia. 

As Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Central Asia has shown, the United States is also monitoring China’s actions in Central Asia, which is doing its best to comply with the Russia sanctions. Antagonizing Tashkent is not in the interests of the United States, United Kingdom, or European Union. It remains unclear why the Western governments are so reluctant to return ill-gotten funds to governments like those of Nigeria, Uzbekistan, or Egypt that badly need money for social and economic development at a time when globalization is stalled and foreign direct investment is decreasing. 

The money flows from the world’s periphery to the global financial centers may be called the “Third Imperialism,” allowing the West to exercise its control over “the rest” without military or political pressure. Let us hope that Karimova’s case will not evolve in a similar way to Mobutu or Mubarak families’ cases. It is not in the United States or the West’s interests.

Vladislav Inozemtsev, Ph.D., is Special Advisor to MEMRI’s Russian Media Studies Project, and is the Founder and Director of Center for Post-Industrial Studies.

Image: Shutterstock.

American interests are advanced by bridging the world’s free and open spaces, thereby preventing authoritarian regimes from dividing the world into hard spheres of control. In the face of a bellicose China, a destabilizing Iran, and a marauding Russia, American interests call for holding firm on free and open Indo-Pacific and transatlantic communities, normalizing relations between Israel and the Arab nations; and using these partnerships to connect with free and open spaces throughout the greater Atlantic region, the Mediterranean, and North and East Africa.

This can best be achieved, not with military force or blank checks of foreign aid, but with active diplomacy, encouraging foreign direct investment and security cooperation on key strategic projects, and building stronger bridges between the transatlantic community, Eurasia, and the Indo-Pacific. Energy, digital, and transportation ties should be the focus of that bridge-building.

This initiative can start with existing initiatives that are already focused on preserving free and open spaces.

From the East

The Quad. In the Indo-Pacific, the Quad—India, Japan, Australia, and the United States—provides an overarching mechanism for promoting a free and open Pacific. This partnership has already borne fruit, including better coordination for engaging Pacific Island nations and constructively engaging in development in the Indian Ocean region.

The Quad Plus. This second set of relationships allows other partners to flow in and partner where it makes sense on common projects and initiatives, including Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, and others. One example is the joint cooperation of Indo-Pacific nations in responding to the COVID pandemic.

The Middle Corridor. This initiative is establishing a corridor linking Central Asian nations (like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) and Caucuses nations (such as Azerbaijan and Georgia) to the West. This project can produce resilient, additive supply chains, energy and material resources, and digital connectivity, initiatives developed by the nations themselves outside the oppressive influence of China, Iran, and Russia.

The Abraham Accords. Normalizing relations between Israel and Arab nations creates opportunities for security, diplomatic, and economic cooperation that will serve as a firebreak against Iran and create a secure, prosperous region that contributes to stability in North and East Africa and safeguards the crucial links between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean.

From the West

The Three Seas Initiative. Europe lacks effective North-South integration that incorporates Central Europe. The Three Seas Initiative (3SI) is a project of commercial investments in infrastructure, digital connectivity, and energy that will establish the missing North-South corridor.

Ukraine Reconstruction. The 3SI has now added Ukraine as a partner nation. The United States has a strategic interest in seeing Ukraine become a successful economic barrier to Russian aggression and fully integrated with the West. 3SI could be an instrument to speed up this effort.

Mediterranean and Black Seas. Efforts to ensure a free and open Eastern Mediterranean span from Southern Europe to North Africa. In particular, Southern Europe is a hub for bringing energy from the Caucuses, North Africa, the Middle East, and the United States. Further, the north-south backbone of the new European economy stands on the foundation of access to the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. This access links all of Europe to the Middle East and North Africa, and the linkage then continues across the Atlantic to the United States and Canada. Thus, the United States has an interest in a free and open Black Sea, with nations having the capacity to protect their commercial air and maritime traffic. Italy, Israel, Greece, and Romania all also have important roles to play in ensuring a free and open Black Sea linked to the East Mediterranean.

Linking East and West

U.S. policies ought to adopt as an aim, not just supporting these initiatives, but promoting actions and architecture linking them. Enhancing connectivity between free and open spaces adds more value to each region. It also creates more resilient, secure, and diverse supply chains and more opportunities for commerce.

In addition, linked spaces dramatically add to global stability. They decrease opportunities for destabilizing powers to dominate and disrupt the global commons, create strategic choke points, or control critical sources of energy, materials, supply chains, and manufacturing capacity. Free and open connectivity is an alternative to regional competition with security coming from the stand-off of hardened alliances. Rather, free and open common bonds delivering shared prosperity provide breathing space for nations to determine their own future outside the weight of great power competition.

How to Bridge Open Spaces

It is time to think creatively about how to add momentum to the ongoing initiatives mentioned above. But it’s also time to think of launching new initiatives that can deliver new synergies. Here are some ideas.

Encourage new partnerships. To meet the China challenge over the long term, we will need not just regional allies, but nations beyond the region to work with us on a global scale. To this end, we must establish enduring partnerships that transcend security cooperation and span the economic, political, and cultural spheres. South Korea is one example of where America must broaden engagement. India is another. The United States must also encourage bilateral relations among critical interregional nations such as India and Italy.

The United States should also encourage broadening regional partnerships such as strengthening digital and physical connectivity along the north-south axis on Europe’s eastern flank. This can be done by strongly backing 3SI, improving connectivity among the nations along the Baltic, Black, and Adriatic Seas. Further, an energetic 3SI will facilitate American and European outreach across the Caucuses and Caspian Sea to the republics of Central Asia. Italy and Greece ought to consider joining or partnering with the 3SI, cementing the linkage between north-south integration and Southern Europe.

Link Strategic Regions. Bridging free and open spaces ought to include reaffirming collective actions with close allies. For example, the United States should foster linking the Indo-Pacific through ASEAN and the Eastern Mediterranean. While ASEAN relies on the United States for its security (with the United States serving as the indispensable guarantor of freedom of navigation), China predominates the region’s economic and trade interests. In short, an American security blanket subsidizes Chinese commercial relations with ASEAN. This is a prescription for friction and conflict, not cooperation. What is needed is substantially more market integration of ASEAN, the Quad economies, the Middle East, and Europe. Free and open bonding could help speed up that process. One example is the newly announced digital cable from India to Italy, which could benefit all ASEAN economies.

Another important conceptual link is bonding the Indo-Pacific with the Atlantic Region through the region the Eastern Mediterranean. Both the Indo-Pacific and the Atlantic region share a common concern: China’s destabilizing efforts to expand its hegemony at the expense of others. Empowering like-minded actions on issues such as illegal fishing sends a strong, united message against China’s exploitive behavior.

It is also time for new framework that links the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia through a new regional grouping of I2U2—India, Israel, UAE, and the United States. This grouping could elevate the Abraham Accords to a strategic bridge between the free and open Indo-Pacific and the Mediterranean. Italy has already moved in this direction, fostering closer economic and commercial ties between the eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian Seas and signing an India-Italy strategic partnership.

New Opportunities for Africa. Extending the linkage of free and open spaces into North and East Africa could help expand prosperity and counter violent extremism and the malicious influences of China and Russia. Optimizing east-west links between the Arabian and Mediterranean seas will, for example, create new opportunities for East African economies. The United States could accelerate cooperation by promoting regional African summits, alternately hosted by the Quad and European nations.

Expand the G7. The G7 needs to be updated to include the leading free and open democracies and economies of both the Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific. The next two G7 host nations—Japan and Italy—should work to transition from G7 to G10, adding India, Australia, and South Korea.

All the nations committed to free and open spaces share the desire to attain energy security, counter violent extremism and illegal mass migration, deter wars of aggression, foster growing, vibrant economies, and mitigate the debilitating instability of great power rivalries. This is also good for America. We need strong U.S. leadership promoting loose, flexible, and evolving groupings of like-minded nations committed to free and open spaces powered by self- and collective interests.

James Jay Carafano is a Heritage Foundation vice president, responsible for the think tank’s research on matters of national security and foreign relations.

Kaush Arha is the president of the Free & Open Indo-Pacific Forum and a senior fellow at both the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue and the Atlantic Council.

Image: Shutterstock.

This week marks fifty years since the United States withdrew its last troops from Vietnam. It was the end of America’s bloodiest war, as measured by American casualties, since World War II. The departure of the last troop-bearing plane culminated in a sixty-day withdrawal period as specified by a peace agreement that Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho had negotiated and was signed in Paris in January 1973.

I was on that last plane. As an Army lieutenant in a unit that processed personnel coming in or out of Vietnam, I had to manage the departure of other GIs who were still in Vietnam before my colleagues and I could pack our own bags and head for home. That experience sparked a lasting interest in the ending of wars that became the subject of a doctoral dissertation and book and the focus of much thinking about subsequent conflicts.

The peace agreement of 1973, notwithstanding what many contended were its flaws, was the right U.S. course of action at the time. Not to reach that agreement or something very much like it would have meant the perpetuation of costly U.S. involvement in a conflict that inevitably would have lost to a movement—the Viet Minh, which became the North Vietnamese regime—that embodied Vietnamese nationalism and had the wind of decolonization at its back.

Some war-ending agreements are inevitably as unpopular as they are necessary. Domestic criticism of the Vietnam policies of Kissinger and President Richard Nixon came primarily from those who contended that the United States should have pulled out of that war sooner. But criticism also came from those who believed—a belief that has lingered in a few small circles for decades—that the United States still could have achieved a successful outcome of the Vietnam War if it had stuck it out.

This picture parallels criticisms of the Biden administration’s policies toward the war in Ukraine, with some arguing that the United States should pull back from its support for the Ukrainian war effort and others calling for an increase in that assistance. Such disagreements are partly about how the war ought to be fought, but they also are disagreements over how the war can and should end, because the arguments carry corollaries about what conditions on the battlefield will or will not produce conditions at the negotiating table conducive to reaching a peace agreement.

Compromise agreements are the rule, and outright victory or defeat the exception, in wars that have mattered to the United States since the end of World War II. Both sides typically leave the negotiating table dissatisfied about some things, and that was true of the 1973 Paris agreement. The dissatisfactions on the U.S. side were matched by Hanoi’s frustration in having to postpone yet again—as the Viet Minh had done when negotiating with the French in 1954—their objective of ruling over a unified Vietnam. Perhaps it was a mark of this frustration that the airbase where I was stationed was rocketed by Communist forces after the agreement was signed and ninety minutes before the cease-fire went into effect. It probably would have seemed like a waste to have carried those munitions all the way down the Ho Chi Minh Trail without getting in one last blow at the Americans.

For some peace agreements to be reached at all, they may have to leave much to chance. No one could have predicted with precision how events would play out in a contest between North and South Vietnam with American forces gone. Nixon and Kissinger expected that South Vietnam would be unable to stand indefinitely but would stand long enough for Americans to largely forget about Vietnam and move on to other issues. This was the concept of a “decent interval,” which deserves criticism insofar as the strategy was motivated by domestic political considerations. Nonetheless, the leaving of much of the immediate future of South Vietnam to chance probably was essential in closing the negotiating gap between Washington and Hanoi and reaching any agreement at all.

Mistaken wars are especially prone to messiness when they finally end, or when the United States pulls out of them. The very mistakenness usually involves the failure of a client regime to become strong enough and legitimate enough to stand on its own. Thus, the collapse of that regime is part of the ugly denouement. In Vietnam, that collapse came two years later, amid images of rooftop helicopter rescues in Saigon. In Afghanistan, it came with the collapse of Ashraf Ghani’s government in August 2021, amid images of Afghans clinging to transport aircraft at Kabul airport. The very swiftness of the latter collapse underscored the futility of the previous two decades of attempted nation-building in Afghanistan through military force.

Relationships between Washington and client regimes have constituted an important dimension of ending as well as fighting wars. Nixon had exploited that dimension during the 1968 presidential election campaign when he secretly used emissaries to urge South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu to balk at a Johnson administration peace initiative that, if successful, might have brought victory to Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey. Having learned the power of such obstreperousness, Thieu later applied it to Nixon himself as Kissinger and Tho were nearing the end of their negotiation. One result was the devastating bombing campaign against North Vietnam in December 1972 known as the Christmas bombing—the largest aerial attack by heavy bombers since World War II—which was aimed as much at pressuring Thieu not to block an agreement as it was at pressuring Hanoi.

Today’s policy questions regarding the war in Ukraine involve correspondingly delicate and difficult questions about the relationship between Washington and Kyiv and how their interests diverge. There are major differences, of course, between that war and the one in Vietnam, including not only that the United States has not directly involved its own troops but also that Ukraine is led by a legitimate government with much popular support and has been the victim of naked international aggression, rather than the legacy of a partial decolonization. But the ending of this war is again likely to involve the persuasion of a Ukrainian ally as much as the pressure of a Russian adversary.

Anti-Vietnam War protests within the United States had been going on at high volume for several years by the time the 1973 agreement was signed. They exhibited several recurring unhelpful characteristics of many such protests, including self-righteousness, a concern more for volume and emotion than for practical effects on policy, and an apparent lack of appreciation for what it takes to wind down a war. An action such as leaking of the Pentagon Papers was treated as heroic even though the leaking did little or nothing to hasten the drawdown of U.S. troops, which already was well under way at the time of the leakage.

U.S. troop strength in Vietnam peaked at approximately 540,000 around the time that Nixon assumed the presidency. Bringing home an army that large is an enormous undertaking, in terms not just of basic logistics but also, amid an ongoing war, such things as force security and continuing a rotation of personnel that will maintain a balanced force structure in which essential support functions continue. One reflection of this is that much of my work during my year in Vietnam—even though the overall drawdown continued apace—involved processing Army personnel into Vietnam as well as out of it. Many GIs saw me both coming and—with their tours of duty cut short by the drawdown—going.

I like to think that the work of my colleagues and me during that time did more—in a very direct and quantifiable way—to get U.S. troops out of Vietnam than anything accomplished by someone with a bullhorn or a placard on an American street. The work was certainly not heroic but necessary. Along with the many mundane logistical tasks was the need to deal humanely with the disturbingly high number of troops who, by that stage in the war, had become heroin users.

The messiness continued until the end. Withdrawal of the 25,000 U.S. troops still in Vietnam when the Paris agreement was signed was supposed to be coordinated with the repatriation of U.S. prisoners of war held in North Vietnam. The coordination worked satisfactorily until the final two weeks, when disagreements over the movement of the prisoners required us to freeze our flight operations. Once that snafu was resolved, we had just three days to move out the last several thousand troops, while at the same time winding up our own unit’s affairs. I got almost no sleep during that finale, before being able to step into a C-141 and sleep most of the way across the Pacific.

Once in California, I participated in a brief ceremony at which my unit—the 90th Replacement Battalion—was formally deactivated and its colors furled. A reporter at the ceremony asked for my thoughts. I expressed hope that the unit—which had first been stood up in the European theater in World War II—would never need to be reactivated for another foreign war.

Since then, other units have performed the same function of moving U.S. troops in and out of multiple later wars. Thoughts about how those and future U.S. wars can and should end can still draw some insights from the Vietnam experience. But memories fade, and nearly two-thirds of American alive today had not even been born in 1973.

Paul Pillar retired in 2005 from a twenty-eight-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, in which his last position was a National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. Earlier he served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units at the CIA covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. Professor Pillar also served in the National Intelligence Council as one of the original members of its Analytic Group. He is also a Contributing Editor for this publication.

Image: Shutterstock.

It has been a tough month for the Biden administration’s leadership of the free world. 

First came the three-day summit meeting between China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Although both leaders avoided discussing a formal military alliance, their talks about “cooperation in the sphere of military-technical interaction”—as Putin coyly put it—served as one more proof that China and Russia are working together to displace the United States as the world’s leading superpower, and to impose a new totalitarian world order. The White House seems unsure of how to push back.

Then came the attack by an Iranian-origin drone on a U.S. military facility in Syria, killing an American contractor and wounding seven more—the same drones that Iran supplies to Russia in its war in Ukraine. Again, the administration seemed unsure how to respond, even though the attack makes it undeniable that the Russia-China de facto alliance includes a third revisionist power, namely Iran. 

Like China’s brokered normalization agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia; its twelve-point peace plan for Ukraine and Russia; its supply of aid to Russia in exchange for Russian energy, even as Beijing invests heavily in Iran’s energy industry; and Iran’s steady progress toward developing weapons-grade uranium with Russia’s help while Russia also supplies Iran with offensive cyber weapons, all demonstrate that the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis I warned about back in 2015, and again in 2019, is now a full-blown reality, and is increasingly dictating the course of world affairs.

At the same time, the Biden team has been focused—arguably overly focused—on supporting Ukraine and worrying about a possible war with China over Taiwan. While supporting Ukraine and defending Taiwan are important, the United States clearly needs to develop a broader global strategy to match the global threat posed by this New Axis.

Fortunately, the United States is in a powerful position to implement that strategy, by bringing together the advanced democratic nations as an Arsenal of Democracies, to parallel the Arsenal of Democracy that prevailed against an earlier axis in World War II—this time, however, in order to deter war, rather than fight one. 

Indeed, the Biden administration’s AUKUS agreement with Australia and Great Britain for the joint construction of new nuclear submarines, can serve as a springboard for this multilateral approach. However, that model needs to be expanded when it comes to the advanced systems of the future.

In creating that earlier Arsenal of Democracy, for example, the United States had the advantage of the greatest industrial base in the world and the supply chains needed to single-handedly arm itself and its allies. Today the war in Ukraine has proved that America’s industrial base is not up to being the free world’s armorer by itself—perhaps not even for ourselves in the event of a protracted conflict with China over Taiwan. 

However, instead of treating the decline of that industrial base as a net strategic loss, it offers an opportunity to partner with democratic allies around the world in developing and building the present and future advanced technology arsenal that can defend freedom against its enemies, both large and small. 

A look at the numbers helps to put the contest between the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis and the democratic nations in perspective. 

As China continues to grow as the world’s second-largest economy—possibly surpassing the United States as early as 2030—Russia and Iran barely register on the list of the world’s economies in terms of GDP. By contrast, the United States together with the other democratic nations in the top ten (Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, India, France, Italy, Canada, and South Korea) total more than twice China’s GDP.

Looking more closely, according to Global Finance magazine’s 2022 estimates, the United States and its fellow democracies occupy eighteen of the top twenty slots of the world’s most advanced tech countries (the exceptions being the United Arab Emirates, a U.S. ally, and Hong Kong). China, meanwhile, ranks thirty-second on the list, while Russia and Iran don’t even score.

All this indicates that if the United States and democracies band together, they can overpower China and the New Axis not only in terms of economic muscle but with the kind of high-tech focus that will be the core of a winning Arsenal of Democracies.

For example, while China has taken a lead in using artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for government control of its citizenry, U.S. companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta continue to be the world’s leaders in AI’s commercial applications, all of which can be a springboard to AI being used as a powerful battlefield asset. At the same time, allies like Japan, South Korea, and Canada are making major strides in AI development, while European countries like France and Germany working to catch up.

Hypersonics will be another decisive tool in a future Arsenal of Democracies. The United States along with Russia and China are today the leading wielders of hypersonic weapons, including missiles that can travel ten times the speed of sound. However, in September 2020 India tested its first Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle, and has drafted a five-year plan to develop its own hypersonic missile. Australia, France, Germany, and Japan are also pursuing hypersonic weapons development, even as Israel and South Korea have started foundational research on hypersonic weaponry that could significantly improve existing systems.

Directed energy weapons, including laser weapons, will be in the forefront of future weapons systems. The U.S. government enjoys a clear lead in contracting with manufacturers such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing to develop and deploy these systems. While China is a leading manufacturer of directed energy weaponry, so is India. At the same time, Japan has been following its own innovative path toward similar directed-energy arms.

The same is even more true when it comes to space technology. While Russia and China have been long-time leaders in developing anti-satellite weaponry, the United States still has a major lead in the commercial development of space technologies thanks to companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. 

In fact, in terms of the top twelve countries carrying out space launches from 2021 to December 2022, Russia and China’s 4,342 total launches still lag behind the United States’ 5,534. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, with its $16.6 billion space agency, managed 515 launches compared to China’s 731. Japan, France, India, Germany, and Canada (the first country to launch a satellite that was not made in either the United States or Russia), taken together equal or surpass China’s launch effort over the last two years.

The numbers show that the United States and allies like Japan, India, and Europe have space-based manufacturing and technology bases that can guarantee that the great space commons will be dominated by the democratic nations, not their enemies. 

The bottom line is, the advanced democratic nations enjoy a winning economic and technological edge over the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis. By bringing its allies together through bilateral agreements as well as joint public-private partnerships with U.S. and foreign companies that can break down regional barriers, the United States can confront the gravest threat the free world has faced since the end of the Cold War—and leave the New Axis wondering why it ever dared to challenge the forces of freedom.

Arthur Herman is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, and author of Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II.

Image: Shutterstock.

In yet another display of diplomatic prowess in the greater Middle East, China recently brokered a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, two states that have regarded each other as primary regional adversaries since 1979. The two countries agreed to restore diplomatic relations and reopen their embassies within two months, and also plan to revive an old security pact as well as another agreement to cooperate on trade and technology.

Though the deal has understandably elicited surprise and controversy among commentators, Beijing’s successful mediation between Tehran and Riyadh falls well into the pattern of Chinese diplomacy in the Middle East over the past several decades.

Since its industrial output grew in the late 1990s, Beijing became increasingly reliant on Middle Eastern energy sources to support its rapidly expanding economy, and steadily ramped up its engagement with the region. Additionally, China actively promoted trade and investment with key players in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially after Chinese president Xi Jinping’s announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. The centrality of the Middle East to the success of the global BRI led Beijing to become the region’s largest foreign investor and the main bilateral trading partner for several Arab states.

Nonetheless, as recent events demonstrate, China’s goals in the region were far from being solely commercial as many observers have alleged. Beijing’s growing economic stakes in the Middle East compelled it to take on wider political, diplomatic, and military roles to safeguard these interests. As China expert Dawn Murphy discusses in her book China’s Rise in the Global South, Beijing has also sought to gradually craft alternative spheres of influence and challenge the U.S-led order in the region. For instance, China has exploited its leverage over BRI partners to advance its territorial claims in the South and East China Seas and suppress criticism over crackdowns in Xinjiang.

Another key pillar of China’s regional strategy has been mediating disputes, which has increased its influence over U.S. adversaries and allies alike. Beijing’s self-portrayal as a “responsible actor” and adherence to a doctrine of “non-interference” in the domestic affairs of partner countries has won Xi considerable support among leaders disillusioned with the West’s lectures on human rights. Chinese officials have also criticized Washington’s “military adventurism” in an attempt to gradually pull countries away from the American orbit.

Many claimed that Beijing’s “balancing act” and simultaneous relationships with regional adversaries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran would preclude it from becoming the Middle Eastern hegemon, as only the United States would allegedly be able to provide Israel and the Gulf states the full protection they seek from Tehran’s aggression. But Xi’s skillful diplomacy, partners’ perceptions of American retrenchment, and Beijing’s successful infiltration of the Middle East’s drone market enabled China to increase its leverage over both Riyadh and Tehran as Washington’s sway steadily declined. Rather than turning to the United States for pushback against Iran, the recent agreement could encourage Arab states to de-escalate tensions with the Islamic Republic with Beijing’s help, in exchange for greater trade and investment with China.

U.S. analysts have also traditionally taken comfort in the overwhelming American security presence in the Persian Gulf. But this too could eventually be jeopardized as China takes advantage of newfound opportunities to strengthen its economic and political foothold in the MENA. If the past is precedent, Beijing will likely use the diffusion of Chinese physical and digital infrastructure to advance its military presence in the region, namely through “dual-use” civilian ports and technology that could serve the People’s Liberation Army’s intelligence-gathering capabilities, in addition to augmenting its conventional power projection through joint military and naval exercises and arms sales.

So far, the White House has tried to frame the China-brokered deal as a win for U.S. interests and downplay its significance. Indeed, though Beijing is unsurprisingly touting the agreement as a major diplomatic breakthrough, its long-term implications for the geopolitical landscape in the MENA are still difficult to gauge. As stated by Jonathan Lord, the director of the Center for New American Security’s Middle East Program, both Riyadh and Tehran have held dozens of rounds of talks in recent years, and others have also expressed doubts that the resumption of diplomatic relations would do much to temper underlying hostilities between the two regional powerhouses. Indeed, as the Cold War demonstrates, “détentes” between geopolitical rivals are not guaranteed to last.

For the Saudis, reaching out to Tehran could have been an attempt to shield themselves (or at least buy themselves some time) from the potential consequences of Iran’s prospective possession of a nuclear weapon, as suggested by some of Riyadh’s recent demands that the United States support Saudi nuclear capabilities in exchange for the kingdom recognizing Israel. The kingdom may also have been hoping to temper Iran’s other troublesome behavior, particularly its support for regional proxy groups such as Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthi rebels. Meanwhile, in light of criticism from the international community over Iran’s crackdowns on domestic protests, support for Russia’s war against Ukraine, and fears of an Arab-Israeli coalition against it, Tehran sought much-needed legitimacy in the MENA and the Arab World. The deal with Saudi Arabia could be an economic and diplomatic lifeline for the Iranian regime, a potential gateway to agreements with other Arab nations, and a boon to Iran’s interests by gradually dislodging America as the predominant external power in the Gulf. 

But even if the agreement proves to be a temporary marriage of convenience between Riyadh and Tehran, it could nonetheless pose some extraordinary challenges for Washington’s Middle East policy. Firstly, America’s absence from such a critical agreement is a blow to its prestige both in the region and on the international stage. In contrast to just a few years earlier, when it mediated the Abraham Accords, the United States was entirely left on the sidelines from the recent negotiations—a signal to allies and adversaries alike that American influence over shifting developments and credibility in the MENA have notably declined from their zenith at the end of the Cold War.

The rapprochement could also lead to other countries easing diplomatic and economic pressure on the Islamic Republic, albeit cautiously. Saudi Arabia exercises considerable sway in the Sunni Islamic and Arab Worlds, particularly among the Gulf States, and its neighbors and allies could interpret Riyadh’s moves as a green light to pursue better relations with Iran. For instance, Bahrain is reportedly looking to normalize ties with Iran, and Tehran also expressed a desire to mend relations with the kingdom’s other allies, such as Egypt.

While some have claimed that improved relations between Iran and Arab nations could potentially deescalate other regional conflicts, such as those in Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon, there is good reason to be skeptical of this argument. Though foreign support is an important element of these ongoing disputes, they are also heavily enmeshed in local grievances and internal dynamics. Moreover, groups like the Houthi rebels and Hezbollah are ideologically rooted in anti-Americanism and politically committed to upending the status quo in the greater Middle East. Even if Iran gradually tempers its support (at least overtly) for its regional proxies, the fundamentally revisionist nature of these organizations is unlikely to change.

There could also be troubling implications in terms of Tehran’s other mischief, both in terms of its domestic oppression and its conduct abroad. At a time in which Washington should be attempting to isolate Iran on the global stage for attempting to assassinate American officials, providing weapons to Russia, cracking down on protestors, and dragging its feet throughout the nuclear negotiations, the Islamic Republic may have instead gotten a major lifeline and the regional legitimacy it was seeking. Moreover, Washington may no longer have the option of exploiting the Sino-Iranian partnership to roll back China’s influence among the Gulf states.

Additionally, China’s ability to pull off such an agreement between two of the region’s most significant players is testimony to its considerable clout in the MENA and a sign of its future ambitions for the region and beyond. Given the importance of the greater Middle East to the BRI, Europe and Asia’s continued dependence on hydrocarbons and clean energy sources from the region, and the implications of Beijing’s ties with Tehran on conflicts in Eurasia and South Asia, China’s steadily increasing presence in the Persian Gulf will appreciably serve the country’s geostrategic interests in other crucial theaters. It could also give the Chinese Communist Party an edge in its broader, global rivalry against the United States.

But most concerning about the Biden administration’s nonchalant response to the China-mediated Saudi-Iranian reconciliation is its failure to acknowledge the role of years of misguided U.S. policies in contributing to these developments. While Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and other regional leaders ultimately have their own calculations behind their foreign policy decisionmaking, including their attempts to hedge their bets with China and Russia, these trends were no doubt exacerbated by Washington’s neglect of its allies’ security needs, counterproductive “pariah” rhetoric, and unwillingness to address Iran’s malevolent behavior and progress toward developing a nuclear weapon. This widespread (and warranted) concern over American retrenchment in light of calls by Western policymakers to disengage from the Middle East in favor of rebalancing to Asia, despite President Joe Biden’s recent attempt to reverse these perceptions, compelled Riyadh and other U.S. partners to diversity their relationships and desperately mend relations with Tehran, rather than relying on America’s fickle commitments to defend them.

In other words, Washington’s efforts to “pivot to Asia” have finally come back to bite it in the Middle East.

Niranjan Shankar is a software engineer and foreign policy analyst and writer based in Atlanta focusing on great power rivalry, the Middle East, tech policy, and diplomatic history. His other writings have appeared for the Hoover Institution, Washington Examiner, RealClearMarkets, Quillette, the Bulwark, and more. Follow him on Twitter @NiranjanShan13

Image: Shutterstock.

If President Donald Trump accomplished anything during his four years in office, it is that he broke the pre-existing U.S. foreign policy consensus, upending previously held beliefs regarding China, Arab-Israeli relations, European dependence on Russian energy, and more. While many may decry and fight over the particular details of his administration’s policies and changes, no one disputes that his term in office brought marked change to America’s foreign policy.

Yet despite Trump’s legacy and the new opportunities that he created for change in America’s foreign policy, the Republican Party is now entering the U.S. presidential primary season with a significant problem on its hands: a weak foreign policy agenda.

This has led to some confused head-scratching. The past few years have seen much energetic discussion on the future of conservative and Republican foreign policy, yet relatively little in terms of concrete proposals. The most recent example of such is an essay in Foreign Affairs written by Dan Caldwell, the new(ish) vice president at the Center for Renewing America. In his essay, Caldwell persuasively lays out the case for why Republicans should adopt a more restrained foreign policy. He correctly notes the hard “economic, military, and political limitations” that the United States faces and suggests quite reasonably that policymakers should make necessary adjustments, with a few broad recommendations worth considering.

Yet these types of articles, and the discussion they encourage, miss the point. The problem Republicans face is not in determining what set of principles or values should guide U.S. foreign policy: that issue has more or less been intellectually settled in most Republican circles in favor of restraint. Even foreign policy elites who disagree must operate in an environment where public opinion is very much in favor of restraint-oriented views; running for higher office without endorsing such positions is becoming increasingly difficult. Moreover, it is likely that restraint-oriented policies will only become more widely accepted as policymakers come to grips with the reality that the country does confront real limitations amidst a changing global geopolitical context.

Rather, the real problem is that Republicans are unable to formulate, advocate, and implement specific policies due to political and ideological constraints.

American Foreign Policy has Factions…

Understanding Republicans’ current inability requires diving into unfolding factional politics within both the Republican Party and the broader U.S. foreign policy establishment. Majda Ruge and Jeremy Shapiro, experts at the European Council on Foreign Relations, proposed a suitable framework last year that works rather well, describing three “tribes” that have emerged within conservative foreign policy. I will borrow some, but not all, of their terminology—starting by noting these groups are more factions than tribes, as they are less cohesive in their loyalties and cohesion than the word “tribe” would indicate.

In any case, there are three primary factions in conservative U.S. foreign policy: the Primacists, the Pragmatists, and the Restrainers.

Primacists, as their name implies, believe in the primacy of U.S. military, diplomatic, and economic leadership, and believe that such should be maintained worldwide. They reject—or at least, contest—the idea that the United States lacks the necessary resources for maintaining this foreign policy stance, and often advocate for a strong engagement abroad in all forms.

Restrainers, by contrast, hold the opposite view: they believe in the exercise of restraint, especially military, in the conduct of foreign affairs, and that Americans are better served focusing on domestic priorities. Restrainers believe America should lead by example, rather than through direct leadership, and that, given limited resources and capabilities, strong foreign engagement should be reserved only for when the most important of national interests are at stake—a categorization which, they contend, is often abused by primacists, who tend to classify everything as a significant national interest.

Between these are the Pragmatists. Shapiro and Ruge use the term “Prioritisers” instead, though I disagree with its usage, on the basis that the latter implies agreement with Primacists on American leadership but disagreement over its focus. Pragmatists are not necessarily wedded to that notion of U.S. primacy—they agree it holds significant advantages and can be a force for “good,” but are cognizant of its material and reputational costs. Like Restrainers, Pragmatists note that U.S. resources—and thus U.S. foreign policy options—are limited, but do not take the view that such should preclude the United States from being actively engaged abroad. They believe that there is a strict hierarchy of U.S. national interests and that each issue should get the attention and resources it warrants.

…and Sub-Factions

What Ruge and Shapiro’s framework misses, however, is that within these factions are various competing sub-factions, each with their own agenda and set of beliefs. They both cooperate and compete both with sub-factions and without their respective factions for political capital, resources, and policy-setting power. It is here that the Republican Party’s problem starts to appear.

I would like to note that the following list of sub-factions is neither exhaustive nor authoritative—I have no doubt that more could be conceived and described, and that many will debate over various aspects of my categorization. While I welcome such debate, I would just like to note that at present my intention is simply to help illustrate to readers the dynamics at play within U.S. foreign policy.

For example, within the Primacist camp there are neoconservatives, neoliberals, and hegemonists. Neoconservatives believe in using military power and interventionism to spread liberal democracy and American values throughout the world. Closely tied, but not necessarily the same, are the neoliberals, who are more economically oriented and support the spread of free market capitalism and the reduction of impediments to the free flow of capital. Hegemonists, compared to neoconservatives, are more defensive in nature; they firmly believe in the benefits of U.S. primacy (both to the country and to the world at large), and perhaps even that it is a force for good, but do not take the view that defending such requires actively spreading American values through force of arms.

Restrainers are more varied. On the political Right, Paleoconservatives draw heavily from traditional conservative values and advocate for a non-interventionist foreign policy. Less partisan are the Multipolarists, who both accept and advocate the transition from an American-led unipolar international order to a multipolar one as a matter of practical necessity—and this begins with exercising restraint in foreign policy. Finally, as a small but very real (and controversial) minority are the Neo-Isolationists, who stand for avoiding international entanglements and focusing on domestic issues, while opposing involvement in foreign conflicts or alliances, including NATO.

Pragmatists, as per their nature, are perhaps the most technically oriented (broadly understood) of the lot. Because of this, intra-pragmatcist debates center on how foreign policy issues should be practically approached, rather than debating underlying principles and values. Defense Prioritizers, for example, focus on addressing the highest kind of national interests—strategic interests—from a military perspective. Less martial are the National Developmentalists: devout Hamiltonians who approach issues from an economic perspective, firmly believing that considerations about the nation’s economy and national industry should form the true basis of foreign policy decisionmaking. After all, a nation cannot fight a war if it can’t even produce the requisite hardware and ammunition, which in turn requires all sorts of supply chains and industrial capacity. Diplomatists, meanwhile, approach problems from a diplomatic perspective, and take the view that far more could be done to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives via burden-sharing and off-loading responsibilities to American allies and partners—and that the U.S. foreign policy community in general, from the diplomatic corps to the intelligence community, does a poor job understanding what is actually happening abroad.

These various groupings are not equal in terms of size, political strength, and influence. When you factor in their diverse interests and agendas, one can start to see how collaboration and competition, both within and without, become necessary. This leads to constant politicking, as each sub-faction seeks to form a coalition with like-minded groups on one issue or another. This, however, also creates the potential for failure, which is what the Republican Party may be experiencing right now.

The NatCon Revolution and its Discontents

For the past thirty-odd years, the Republican Party’s foreign policy has been dominated by primacists, particularly neoconservatives and neoliberals. Restrainers maintained a steady opposition to this state of affairs—especially paleoconservatives. Trump’s election and presidency shattered the GOP establishment’s dominance over policy, with primacists (neoconservatives and neoliberals) specifically targeted for their culpability in advocating for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, among other ruinous and expensive foreign interventions, geoeconomic and trade policies, and so on.

The political movement that Trump spawned, the National Conservatism (NatCon) movement, is playing the long game, aiming to take over the GOP and its various institutions. Already it has achieved measurable progress, helping elect new legislators and influencing sitting ones. Yet while the movement seems to be coalescing on its domestic policy prescriptions, foreign policy remains muddled. There are five reasons for this, and they all have to do with factional dynamics.

First, there is sharp disagreement between the various sub-factions over what America’s immediate foreign policy priority should be. Paleoconservatives and other culture-war-focused groupings have established a dominant position within the NatCon movement, and argue that tackling domestic cultural issues, especially the “woke” movement, should be of utmost concern. They contend that America’s orientation toward a primacist foreign policy is significantly influenced (if not wholly determined) by liberal ideology. Thus, fundamentally reorienting U.S. foreign policy toward greater restraint requires focusing on fighting the culture war at home.

Others are of a different opinion. Primacists, many pragmatists, and even some other restrainer sub-factions take the view that focusing overwhelmingly on the domestic culture war is misguided at best, and politically reckless at worst—especially given that the U.S. public is more concerned about inflation, the economy, and other material issues. Many of these sub-factions instead argue that addressing China should be America’s foremost foreign policy priority, only to be met with counter-arguments (including from within their own sub-factions) that an aggressive focus on countering China risks opening the door for neoconservatives to take over again. These voices, which include many national developmentalists, contend that the primary focus should be addressing pressing material realities—the international competition for key resources, the state of the economy, and so on—and that China should be the focus insomuch as it serves as a threat by which various policies and budgets can be justified.

Second, even without fully determining what Republicans’ foreign policy priorities should be, there is strong disagreement over how they should be addressed. Consider, for example, the intra-pragmatist debate on China. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby, perhaps the most prominent defense prioritizer, strongly advocates that the United States should pursue a strategy of denial to contain China’s territorial ambitions, with Taiwan being key to this entire endeavor. Meanwhile, David P. Goldman, a notable national developmentalist and Spengler columnist for Asia Times, views this as a misguided endeavor—the real competition with China is happening in the realms of technology and economics, and America will lose if it does not properly prioritize, fund, and reform how it conducts research and development.

Given an environment of limited resources and political capital, such debates over what should be politically prioritized matter a great deal.

Third, the very framing of these debates—focusing on pressing priorities—means that various topics receive practically zero consideration. There is, for example, almost no discussion on what NatCon (and Republican) policy toward Africa and Latin America should be, to say nothing about what Republican policy toward specific countries within these regions should be. At most, there are general calls to challenge Chinese encroachment and, in the Latin American context, for the reimposition of the Monroe Doctrine—an idea certainly not welcome by the region’s inhabitants. Diplomatists are in veritable despair at the lack of consideration being given to these issues.

Fourth, Republicans (and conservatives in general) are currently in an unfavorable position in regard to foreign policy hiring. The profession, by its nature, imposes various requirements on its practitioners: holistic proficiency in a variety of intellectual subjects (history, economics, diplomacy, military science, etc.); strong critical thinking skills; knowledge of a foreign language (or several); an understanding of and exposure to foreign cultures, customs, and mores; a strong capacity for writing/arguing well; geographical residence in more-expensive urban environments for proximity to relevant/key institutions; and so on. Not all of these are necessary for an individual to be involved in foreign policy decisionmaking, of course. But even then, the requirements are such that foreign policy tends to be an elite-dominated profession, with a minor tendency to skew to the political Left due to the concentration of jobs and institutions in major metropolitan cities, which trend politically liberal.

As such, conservatives tend to have a harder time recruiting professionals in foreign policy-relevant fields. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that most existing conservative non-university supplementary educational institutions overwhelmingly focus on teaching conservative political philosophy, to the detriment of other subjects. This affects foreign policy factional composition. For example, there are far more paleocons than pragmatists, relative to the general population. Particularly rare are Republican Diplomatists with experience living abroad or serving in the State Department. The overall resulting lack of expertise and experience means that Republicans, and especially the NatCon movement, face an uphill battle.

Fifth, restrainers are constrained by the fact that major key institutions and talent pipelines—Congressional offices, think tanks, major publications, government agencies, and so forth—remain politically dominated by primacists. Pragmaticists suffer from the same issue but to a lesser degree, as they can collaborate with and take advantage of primacist-dominated institutions and programs. Although both factions have begun building new rival training programs, policy journals, popular magazines, professional associations, and policy-focused think tanks, along with efforts to change existing institutions, these will take time, financing, and concentrated effort. Moreover, worries over who specifically controls these new institutions and the agenda-setting process may hamper overall efforts.

Nature Abhors a Vacuum

Republicans’ inability to advance from agreement on underlying foreign policy principles has left them stuck, unable to formulate and implement a coherent foreign policy. In the meantime, the party has become vulnerable to being outflanked by Democrats, who now take NatCon/Republican ideas and pursue them with vigor.

For instance, though the Trump administration reintroduced protectionism and industrial policy into public discourse, arguing such measures are necessary to bring back manufacturing jobs from China, it is Democrats who have marched ahead with these changes. See no further than the Inflation Reduction Act, de facto a $500 billion green industrial policy bill, or the CHIPS Act, which two commentators accurately described as a “market-shaping measure designed to eliminate systemic geopolitical risk to the supply of critical goods, while also recasting the socioeconomic geography of domestic industrial production.” In other words, the sort of stuff that Republican national developmentalists advocated for during the Trump administration.

Other examples abound. The 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) essentially builds upon the Trump-era 2018 NDS. The Biden administration’s trade policy is a continuation of Trump’s policy, with some improvements. Likewise, the push toward great power competition, pioneered by the Trump administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy, has been kept and expanded.

Republican restrainers are in an increasingly awkward position: unable to fully claim credit for restrain-oriented policies—such as Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the potential forthcoming repeal of the Iraq War authorization for the use of military force. Their positions are being normalized, but by Democrats. Meanwhile, restrainers are also confronting the reality that the present Republican Party gridlock has created an opening by which primacists can reassert themselves. This is playing out in debates over U.S. support for Ukraine, what should be done about Mexico’s drug cartels, the contours of U.S. China policy, and so on. Pragmatists, on the other hand, are growing frustrated by the situation and a perceived lack of Republican seriousness on various issues—and are reconsidering their options, especially in light of Democrats’ newfound interest in adopting pragmatists’ preferred policy prescriptions.

Much can still change in the coming months, especially as the U.S. Republican presidential primary begins to heat up. The campaign trail will force both candidates and their supporters—including would-be foreign policy advisors, key institutions, and others—to become serious about their foreign policy agenda. Whether this will be enough to overcome existing divisions and disagreements, however, remains to be seen.

Carlos Roa is the Executive Editor of The National Interest.

Image: Shutterstock.

In mid-March, the White House issued a major ultimatum to TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance: divest from the popular social media app or risk fighting a national ban. It took the Biden administration too long to take action, but it is now following its predecessor’s lead and reinvigorating the pressure campaign that began in late 2020. Given TikTok’s record of censorship, legitimate espionage concerns, and the platform’s legal obligation to comply with an authoritarian regime that has, for decades, committed egregious human rights violations, it’s about time that Washington clamped down on the controversial company.

TikTok became a household name during the early days of the pandemic and has not waned in its global popularity, with its current user base exceeding one billion. The video-sharing platform has even prompted legacy competitors, like Instagram and YouTube, to roll out features that mimic the short-form content models that TikTok provides. In many ways, the app is an exemplar of innovation organically displacing dominant incumbents—the powerful “Big Tech”—in a market that many lawmakers believe has insurmountable barriers for new competitors. TikTok provides a conduit for free expression, a source of income for content creators, and a means by which users can find levity and entertainment. These are valuable societal benefits. Yet they do not negate nor supplant the company’s inseparable ties to the Chinese government.

As Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers said during this week’s TikTok hearing, “ByteDance is beholden to the [Chinese Communist Party], and ByteDance and TikTok are one and the same.” Her statement is accurate: Article Seven of China’s National Intelligence Law, enacted in 2017, states that “any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work according to the law.” This responsibility can manifest in a variety of forms. The state can require TikTok to grant access to user data, circulate disinformation, or modify the recommendation algorithms that filter content.

Organizations and citizens must also protect “any state intelligence work secrets of which they are aware.” TikTok’s CEO claims that the government has never asked for assistance with espionage, and that the company would not comply with such requests if asked. Given these legal obligations, however, such promises are cold comfort.

Despite the CEO’s comments, evidence suggests that TikTok is heeding the state’s orders. In 2020, Elizabeth Kanter, a TikTok executive, admitted during a British parliamentary hearing that the company censored videos about the humanitarian crisis in Xinjiang. Kanter stated that there were “some incidents where content was not allowed on the platform, specifically with regard to the Uyghur situation.”

The Chinese government exercises this discrete yet influential form of control, especially in the technology sector. It has recently moved to acquire, by compulsion, “golden shares” in private firms like Alibaba and Tencent, giving officials an even greater foothold in the business world while bolstering its power and surveillance capabilities. These realities should inform how the U.S. government perceives TikTok as a national security threat.

In 2019, the social media platform promised to stop accessing clipboard content on users’ devices. Several months later, Apple’s privacy transparency feature revealed the practice continued unabated. TikTok has been fined for collecting information from minors and sued for harvesting personal data, all without consent. As a general rule, private companies should not need to earn political favor in order to operate in the United States. But compounded with China’s propensity to involve itself with its businesses and engage in espionage—let’s not forget the spy balloon—this unwillingness to respect privacy is problematic.

Other countries are attuned to this threat as well. The United States, in addition to the United Kingdom, the European Union, New Zealand, and Canada, have restricted government employees from downloading TikTok on their work devices.   

Banning TikTok or forcing divestment will not give the United States an upper hand in the ongoing conflict with China. But it will impede the Chinese government from leveraging a platform that has become ubiquitous in American society. 

Rachel Chiu is a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum’s Center for Economic Opportunity and a contributor for Young Voices. She tweets @rachelhchiu.

Image: rafapress / Shutterstock.com

In early March, oil and gas firms Chevron and Talos Energy announced their intention to triple the size of the proposed Bayou Bend carbon capture and storage hub, which will collect and store greenhouse gas emissions from industrial facilities along the Gulf Coast. The expanded hub could store more than one billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), making it one of the largest carbon storage projects in the world upon completion.

Not everyone is convinced that recent progress on large-scale carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) projects is good news. Critics argue that CCUS technology is costly, unproven, and will give fossil fuels an undesirable “new lease on life.” But if the world is serious about addressing climate change, we should welcome forward momentum on this critical technology.

CCUS technology—which captures CO2 emissions from industrial facilities and reuses or stores them underground—supports the energy transition in several ways. These include reducing emissions from existing power plants; providing decarbonization solutions in hard-to-abate sectors such as cement, iron and steel, and chemical manufacturing; supporting the rapid scaling up of low‐carbon hydrogen production; and enabling negative emissions technologies like direct air capture and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.

The world’s leading energy and climate bodies agree that CCUS will play a significant role in a net-zero world. The International Energy Agency (IEA), in its Net Zero by 2050 flagship report, cites CCUS as a “key pillar of decarbonization” that could account for up to one-fifth of global emissions reduction requirements. Of the seven “Illustrative Mitigation Pathways” that limit global warming to below 1.5°C identified in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, the sole pathway that does not include CCUS also requires global energy demand to halve in the next three decades—an unrealistic scenario given that energy demand is expected to increase as developing countries industrialize and urbanize. If we trust that climate change is as urgent and dangerous as the world’s leading scientists say it is, we should also take their word on the necessity of CCUS.

Today, nearly 80 percent of global energy supply comes from fossil fuels; these cannot be replaced by renewables overnight. Even if global fossil fuel use declined, in a straight line, to zero in 2050, the cumulative CO2 emissions over that period from the energy sector would amount to roughly 500 gigatons of CO2. Without CCUS, these emissions would make limiting global average temperature rise to 2°C extremely difficult, if not impossible, in light of emissions from other sectors before these can be eliminated. Clearly, CCUS is not only important but close to indispensable for meeting internationally agreed targets.

CCUS has a proven track record of safe, effective use across a range of applications. CO2 injection and storage in the subsurface has been used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) since the 1970s. Pure storage, without EOR, began in 1996. CCUS is often dismissed as prohibitively expensive, but there are around thirty-five commercial CCUS facilities already in operation today, and improved tax incentives, like those in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, are making it increasingly economically competitive. Moreover, technological improvements, experience and learning, and scaling up will almost certainly drive the cost down over time, just as they did for wind and solar over the last twenty years. But concerns about price perhaps miss the point: the cost of CCUS pales in comparison to the climate damages it could prevent. It would be folly to invest only in the cheapest climate solutions.

CCUS is the key to satisfying the “energy trilemma”—our often-conflicting pursuit of energy security, affordable energy access, and environmental sustainability—which has been made more salient by the war in Ukraine. CCUS will play a particularly important role in retrofitting Asia’s existing fleet of predominately coal-based power plants, which are some of the youngest and most efficient in the world. With CCUS retrofits, these plants can avoid early retirement and continue operating with substantially reduced emissions—averaging 85 percent CO2 capture—providing affordable, reliable electricity while still delivering on national and global decarbonization and energy security goals. U.S. leadership on CCUS could provide a technological path to help major emitters like China and India accelerate their domestic deployment of CCUS.

We’re going to need every tool in the toolkit, including CCUS, to solve the climate crisis. Today, CCUS projects are already burying millions of tons of CO2 each year, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to what’s needed. Despite recent progress, currently planned CCUS capacity for 2030 represents just 20 percent of that required in the IEA’s net zero emissions scenario. To get on track for 2050, we need a swift and major ramp-up, with more large-scale CCUS hubs like Bayou Bend to turn those millions of tons into billions.

Mohammed Al-Juaied is a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a Courtesy Professor of Mechanical Engineering and a member of the Clean Combustion Research Center at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. He has more than twenty-five years of experience in R&D, commercialization, and project management of emerging energy technologies, including carbon capture, utilization, and storage.

Image: Anne Coatesy/Shutterstock.

The Saudi Arabia-Iran agreement, formally known as the Joint Trilateral Statement, was brokered by China in Beijing on March 10 and has since been hailed as a significant diplomatic breakthrough. This development could have far-reaching implications for countries where Iran and Saudi Arabia vie for regional influence and fuel proxy conflicts, including Lebanon. The agreement has drawn expert analysis and commentary from both regional and global sources, evaluating the broader and more specific consequences of the deal on the security of the region, particularly for the Gulf states. This follows decades of animosity between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which reached a fever pitch in 2019 with drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group amidst widespread suspicion that Iran was the actual perpetrator behind the attack.

The agreement gives Iran and Saudi Arabia two months to restore full diplomatic relations and reopen their respective embassies after having formally severed ties in 2016, following the execution of Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr in Saudi Arabia. Most notably, the trilateral statement asserts that both sides agree to respect the principle of state sovereignty and the “non-interference in internal affairs of states.” Although China led the agreement, it came after two years of prior mediation efforts by Iraq and Oman, which facilitated formal bilateral talks between both sides since early 2021.

Lebanese analysts and commentators are speculating whether this Saudi Arabia-Iran agreement will help alleviate tensions simmering across Lebanon and lead to the election of a compromise president for the country. Lebanon has been grappling with a persistent presidential election deadlock for over four months and is in the midst of a severe economic crisis, which the World Bank has deemed as one of the worst since the 1850s. The nation has also been governed by a caretaker government with limited powers since the parliamentary elections in May 2022.

While observers and politicians generally concur that it is too early to gauge the deal’s impact on the Lebanese situation, some believe it may ease tensions between political parties and foster a positive environment for sustained negotiations. Nevertheless, caution remains the prevailing sentiment, as intra-Lebanese dialogue might prove more difficult than anticipated, given the country’s prudence amidst a national crisis, and rapidly evolving geopolitical consequences.

To date, Iran has not officially commented on the potential repercussions of the agreement on Lebanese politics or the current deadlock. However, a few hours after the announcement, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Faisal Bin Farhan, provided the only official statement from a senior Saudi government official. He remarked that Lebanon requires “a Lebanese rapprochement and not an Iranian-Saudi one,” adding that Lebanese politicians must prioritize Lebanon’s interests above all else. In a related development, the Saudi ambassador to Lebanon, Walid Boukhari, met with Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri on March 13. When asked if there were any positive developments for Lebanon, Boukhari briefly replied, “certainly.”

However, following the announcement of the Saudi Arabia-Iran agreement, attention naturally shifted toward the reaction of the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah. Nominally, the group welcomed the deal. However, in a televised speech shortly after the announcement, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah struck a cautious tone. He emphasized that while the deal is an “important development”—if it follows its natural course—Hezbollah is firmly convinced that it should not come at its expense. Nasrallah added that Iran does not impose its stances on Hezbollah.

Similarly, Hezbollah’s opponents in Lebanon also expressed caution following the agreement’s announcement. Samir Geagea, a prominent Lebanese politician and leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces party, which is close to Saudi Arabia and made significant gains in the 2022 parliamentary elections, emphasized that the presidential election battle is a local concern. He stated that it is “in the hands of the 128 parliamentary deputies who are ready to vote to elect a president today before tomorrow,” adding that the presidential election should not be influenced by external factors. Lebanese Forces member of parliament (MP) Pierre Bou Assi expressed skepticism about the deal, doubting its potential benefits for Lebanon. Fares Saiid, a former Christian MP and staunch critic of Hezbollah and Iranian influence in Lebanon, suggested that the effects of the deal might take months to reach Lebanon. He emphasized that Christians in Lebanon and its constitution should uphold their Arab identity, given Hezbollah’s and its allies’ allegiance to Iran. 

Following Nasrallah’s speech, several observers, including Geagea, highlighted one of his statements made just a few days before the agreement. Nasrallah had said that those expecting an Iranian-Saudi deal to resolve the presidential stalemate would have to wait for a long time, leading some to conclude that he had no prior knowledge of the upcoming agreement. This prompted online commentators to derisively question the extent to which Iran consults with Hezbollah on its affairs, given the significance of the deal.

In general, when considering the entire deal and its broader regional implications beyond Lebanon, Saudis appear more cautious and moderate in their expectations, while Iranian officials and observers tend to frame it as a victory against the United States and Israel. This perspective seems to arise against the backdrop of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords, which normalized diplomatic relations among Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. For example, Faisal Ben Farhan recently attempted to temper grand expectations for the deal’s all-encompassing regional impact, stating that while the agreement aims to pave the way for restoring diplomatic relations, it will not necessarily resolve all disputes between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In contrast, Yahya Safavi, the Iranian top military advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, expressed high hopes, framing the agreement as the beginning of the decline of American and Zionist hegemony in the region.

Similar overstatements were also reflected in some of Hezbollah’s statements following the deal. The group began publicizing the agreement as a victory for Iran’s axis of resistance in the region, claiming that Saudi Arabia prioritized Yemen over Lebanon because it seeks to exit the brutal Yemeni war. For instance, Nabil Kaouk, a member of Hezbollah’s Central Council, said that with the deal, the Middle East has now entered a new phase detrimental to US and Israeli interests, as their aspirations to normalize relations with Israel did not lead to Iran’s isolation. 

At its core, the presidential election stalemate in Lebanon is primarily due to a political standoff between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies on one side, and pro-Western Sunni and Christian groups backed by Saudi Arabia on the other. The conflicting parties have been at odds since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 and Syria’s subsequent withdrawal from Lebanon after decades of occupation.

The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Lebanon dates back to years before the Syrian withdrawal and is largely shaped along sectarian fault lines. Since then, Saudi Arabia and Iran have more aggressively supported opposing factions in the country. Post-Syria Lebanon saw Saudi Arabia primarily seek to mobilize the Sunni sect, largely represented by the Future Movement party founded by the late Rafik Hariri. Meanwhile, Iran aimed to grow and entrench its influence through its proxy, Hezbollah. Most consequentially, the Shiite-Sunni conflict in post-Syria Lebanon reached a crisis point when Hezbollah and its major ally, the Shiite Amal party, took control of West Beirut in a military operation on May 8, 2008. This was in retaliation for then-Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government’s decision to disband Hezbollah’s telecommunications network and oust the airport security chief affiliated with the group.

However, in recent years, Saudi Arabia has largely disengaged from Lebanon in response to Hezbollah’s growing influence in Lebanese politics, its sway over the Lebanese state, and its reported military support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has been involved in a proxy war with Iran. According to a report by the New York Times, Saudi Arabia’s dismay with Iranian and Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanese politics came to a head in 2017 when former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the son of Rafik Hariri, resigned from his post in a televised statement from Riyadh. Hariri was reportedly forced to do so after being detained in the kingdom; both Hariri and Saudi Arabia denied the allegations. However, more recently, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states recalled their envoys from Lebanon in October 2021 over criticism by the then-Lebanese Information Minister of Saudi Arabia’s and the United Arab Emirates’ intervention in Yemen. The ambassadors returned to Lebanon in April 2022, signaling improving relations. 

In essence, the conflict in Lebanon is primarily a consequence of a power struggle between sectarian groups competing for political influence and enhanced socioeconomic advantages, rather than being solely the result of regional strife. This strife is compounded by a sectarian power-sharing system, which has been in place since Lebanon’s independence in 1943 and often comes at the expense of a strong state. Due to this power-sharing agreement, sectarianism in Lebanon has consistently played a fundamental role in shaping politics, often serving as a form of socioeconomic and political power that intersects with domestic, regional, and international contests. These dynamics are further marked by ever-shifting domestic alliances that mirror mutating regional and international power dynamics.

In parallel, the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is also largely political, contrary to what many analyses characterize as being merely sectarian, involving proxy wars across the region. It represents a ceaseless search for leadership over the Muslim world since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. As Lebanese journalist and political analyst Nadim Koteich notes in a recent lecture, Iran embraced Shiite doctrine in the sixteenth century as a result of a political decision, and since then, Shiism has served politics, not the other way around. He adds that sectarianism is a tool employed by regional powers to serve broader interests.

In concluding their agreement, both Iran and Saudi Arabia now appear to have prioritized the prosperity of their economies and the reduction of regional security tensions. Iran is facing an economic crisis and increasing isolation due to its nuclear program and, more recently, its evident support for Russia in the Ukrainian war. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia seems to have chosen to return to a calmer foreign policy for the sole purpose of focusing on its economic Vision 2030, free from Iranian security threats. 

However, Iran and Saudi Arabia are not the only significant foreign actors in Lebanon. Notably, France and the United States also collaboratively play essential roles in Lebanese politics, with the United States being indispensable in potentially reintegrating Lebanon into the international financial system amidst the country’s imminent economic collapse.

As Mohanad Hage Ali opines at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, Saudi Arabia is part of a five-country coordination group over Lebanon’s financial crisis, which includes the United States, France, Qatar, and Egypt. This group collectively coordinates any new policies regarding Lebanon, which potentially entails coupling “economic incentives with painful reforms.” In fact, the Lebanese parliament is currently working on a series of laws that are prerequisites for potentially obtaining $3 billion in IMF funding. Most recently, in February 2023, France hosted a summit in Paris, attended by the group, aimed at ending the political and social deadlock in Lebanon.

The US’s involvement in Lebanese affairs dates back long before the current crisis. The list of its engagements is extensive, whether through direct military intervention to protect Lebanon’s independence from regional interference in 1958, participation in multinational peacekeeping forces during the Lebanese civil war in 1982, or its role in supporting the principles of Taif Agreement which ended the Lebanese civil war in 1990. The United States also exerted considerable pressure, along with France, in 2005 for Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. More recently, in October 2022, the United States successfully mediated the conclusion of a maritime border agreement between Israel and Lebanon to conduct offshore gas exploration, following a decade of contentious negotiations. 

The United States essentially welcomed the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran but cast doubt on whether Iran would adhere to the deal, while emphasizing the resolution of the war in Yemen as a crucial test. For example, commenting on the agreement, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on March 10 that the United States welcomed the deal and any efforts that help put an end to the war in Yemen and broadly reduce tensions in the Middle East, expressing doubts that the Iranian regime would honor “their side of the deal.” Later, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on March 15 generally expressed support for a China-brokered agreement that could help reduce tensions in the region but added it depends on whether "Iran follows through on the commitments."

Particularly on Yemen, most observers and regional/international officials, including U.S. officials, seem to assess that the success of the agreement to restore diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia will hinge on settling the Yemeni war first before moving forward with resolving other respective disputes across the region – although until recently, Iran has denied any claims that it was involved in funding or arming the Houthis. Indeed, in a clear indication of the preeminence of the Yemeni issue contingent on ending the proxy war based on the agreement, the Wall Street Journal reported on March 16, citing U.S. and Saudi officials, that Iran had agreed to halt supplying the Houthis with weapons as part of the agreement.

Thus, while both Iran and Saudi Arabia clearly retain interests in Lebanon, Yemen appears to be Saudi Arabia’s top priority at the moment, given the proxy conflict and its proximity to Saudi Arabia. Consequently, according to most commentators, reaching an agreement in Lebanon, including ending its presidential election stalemate and potentially reviving its economy provided that reforms are enacted, is contingent on resolving the Yemeni conflict. 

At this stage, though, the deal primarily constitutes a roadmap and, in the words of many, is merely a declaration of intent. While a seemingly low-profile online media outlet has published confidential security clauses, allegedly as part of the agreement, that embedded agreed-upon security imperatives for the two sides beyond the restoration of diplomatic relations, no official corroboration of such clauses has yet occurred. The clauses generally allege that both Iran and Saudi Arabia will abstain from engaging in any security, military, or media activity that destabilizes either state.

The agreement is still in its early days. Nevertheless, specifically with regard to Lebanon, as the major details of the agreement remain unknown, the Lebanese debate persists, revolving around an assessment of which party the Lebanese file would be relegated to in the agreement. According to some analysts, an Iranian delegation may soon visit Lebanon to discuss the development with Hezbollah, and potentially the presidential election matter. However, Kareem Pakradouni, a veteran Lebanese analyst and former president of the Lebanese Christian Kataeb Party and former minister, cautioned in an interview a few days ago that the Lebanese should wait and see which party involved in the agreement will first mobilize and visit Lebanon before concluding to which party the Lebanese file has been delegated, Saudi Arabia or Iran.

Rany Ballout is a New York-based political risk and due diligence analyst with extensive experience in the Middle East. He holds a master’s degree in International Studies from the University of Montreal in Canada and a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from Uppsala University in Sweden.

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Turkey may have an opportunity to fix its relationship with Egypt, which it broke a decade ago. The outcome will depend entirely on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policy choices, and whether he remains the country’s president after the May 14 elections. It will be difficult to normalize ties between the two countries, however, as Cairo has a list of tough demands and Erdogan is obstinate. To achieve progress, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu recently met with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, but the meeting did not end as Cavusoglu would have liked. Shoukry informed Cavusoglu that three things had to happen before normalization: Turkey would have to terminate all its military activities in Libya, extradite all members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey that are wanted by Egypt, and resolve its differences with Cyprus and Greece in the eastern Mediterranean.

To put things in context, although Egypt is a priority for Erdogan, Ankara has been exploring the possibilities of mending fences with several Arab states as well as Israel since 2021. Obviously, had Erdogan not spent the last decade torpedoing his relationships with Middle Eastern and Mediterranean powers, he would not need to knock on doors today. So why mend fences now? This is relatively easy to answer: The biting reality of Turkey’s regional isolation is forcing Erdogan’s hand to attempt to roll back his hatred for regional competitors. Egypt, Syria, and Israel would all be interested in rebuilding ties with Turkey, but they all have big asks.

Beginning in 2013, Erdogan tore apart Turkey’s bilateral relationship with Egypt, a country that is arguably the leader of the Arab World and a close U.S. ally, Egypt. Following the overthrow of the country’s democratically elected, albeit Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated president, Mohammed Morsi, Erdogan disparaged Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as a brutal “tyrant,” whom he refused to recognize. The ensuing fallout resulted in the termination of diplomatic ties between Ankara and Cairo. Soon, Erdogan began touring the world, professing that the “world is bigger than five!”—a reference to the unfair and ineffective composition of the UN Security Council’s permanent five member states, who willingly turned a blind eye to dictators and persecution of Muslims. While he was comfortable criticizing the Egyptian regime being ruled by an unelected military dictator, Erdogan conveniently remained silent on the persecution of Uyghur Muslims by China, as well as the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, where he swore to protect the region’s Muslim Tatar minority, and then forgot about them.

In the late 2010s, Ankara has taken to pursuing unacceptable positions toward Cairo. Erdogan threw his support behind Libya’s Fayez al-Sarraj much to the chagrin of Cairo, who supports his counterpart Khalifa Haftar. The decision to back Sarraj resulted in the Libyan government delimiting its maritime borders with Ankara, in an agreement that is not recognized by any other government in the region, as it cuts across much of Greece’s maritime borders by ignoring the existence of Crete. The move also conflicts with existing maritime borders established by countries under the umbrella of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF)—which Egypt is a member of. While maritime borders are a vital element of national sovereignty, in this case, their importance is heightened owing to the existence of natural gas deposits underneath the sea, which all countries would like to monetize and consume. While EGMF members go about this in a diplomatic and legal manner, Turkey acts as a belligerent spoiler. It does not recognize the Republic of Cyprus, contests the maritime borders of Greece and Egypt, and has sent in its own exploration and drilling ships into contested waters, escorted by military vessels.

Egypt’s approach to foreign policymaking shows that since coming to power, Sisi has not been idle. He has made himself palatable to the United States and invested a significant amount of diplomatic capital in establishing robust ties with other notable regional actors such as Israel, Cyprus, and Greece. The EGMF is perceived to be legitimate and has strong international support. If Erdogan seeks a reset with Sisi, he will have to abandon his existing Libya and Mediterranean policies.

Per Cairo’s suggestion, Ankara does have the option of dropping its antagonistic approach to maritime borders and joining the EGMF. This will be hard to achieve, however, owing to the long-standing maritime disputes between Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus. That being said, instead of trying to force its hand, Ankara could try to achieve its goals through diplomacy rather than belligerence. On the other hand, Erdogan could satisfy Egypt’s demands on the Muslim Brotherhood without much effort. The Brotherhood’s footprint in Turkey is much smaller than it used to be. Many of its members have left the country and steps were recently taken by authorities to close down a television station affiliated with the brotherhood. Inaction on the other hand is not really an option for Turkey, and Erdogan knows this.

His decision to shake Sisi’s hand at the opening of the FIFA World Cup in 2022 was not a chance encounter. Rather, it was a carefully choreographed photo opportunity, as well as a tacit admission that his entire Middle East foreign policy over the last decade is a failure. Erdogan’s fantasy to be surrounded by a region that is ruled by leaders close to the Muslim Brotherhood, which he hoped to notionally lead, has all but vanished. From Egypt to Tunisia to Iraq to Syria, there is presently a zero chance of establishing Sunni regimes that are close to the brotherhood’s worldview, which Erdogan has long admired. Instead, they are all led by strongmen who have succeeded in eliminating contenders. This is the reason why Erdogan is also attempting to “normalize” ties with Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad, whom he sought to overthrow, presumably to have him replaced by a Sunni alternative. For this to bear fruit, however, Assad is demanding the removal of the Turkish military presence inside of Syrian territory—yet another bitter pill for Erdogan to swallow.

Finally, there’s Israel, a state which Erdogan is seeking a rapprochement with once again. In 2007, Erdogan accused Israel of being a “baby killer,” and followed up this statement by attempting to breach a naval blockade of Gaza in 2010 that resulted in an armed confrontation and an end to diplomatic ties. Like Egypt, Israel did not sit on the sidelines. Its signing of the Abraham Accords and participation in the EGMF have helped the Jewish state establish substantive relationships with the Arab states in its neighborhood and marginalized Ankara. To overcome this, Israel and Turkey have recently succeeded in reestablishing diplomatic ties at the ambassadorial level. However, a relationship built on trust is unlikely to materialize unless Turkey satisfies some key Israeli demands such as the expulsion of Hamas leaders from its territory, as well as shutting down its offices.

Wherever you look, Erdogan wants a “reset” and “rapprochement.” But in every single case, there will be a price to pay. The states he wants to build relationships with have a long list of justified grievances against Erdogan. Addressing these grievances is a tall order, but Erdogan doesn’t have many options. Turkey is pretty much alone and will continue to be, unless bold choices are made.

Sinan Ciddi is a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he contributes to FDD’s Turkey Program and Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). He is also an Associate Professor of Security Studies at the Command and Staff College-Marine Corps University and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He tweets @sinanciddi.

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