Diplomacy & Crisis News

When Bashar al-Assad assumed power in Syria in 2000, Western leaders heralded him as a beacon for reform and economic liberalism. The facade did not last long. His rule contributed to the deaths of a half million Syrians and the displacement of more than five million more.

Western officials apply the same optimism to the Iraqi Kurds. When Masrour Barzani became regional prime minister in 2019, even seasoned columnists like the Kurdish writer Rebin Hardi suggested he could represent change after decades of his father’s ossified rule. Masrour’s behavior quickly disabused them, leaving Masrour increasingly to borrow from late Ugandan leader Idi Amin’s playbook to reset his image.

The Barzanis are tribal, not democratic. Any meaningful political competition occurs as each brother or cousin tries to maneuver for privilege and power within the family. For decades, Masrour and his cousin Nechivran have divided the spoils as each tried to outmaneuver the other. Part of Nechirvan’s play is to depict himself as more Western in his intellect and mannerisms. He does this well. When he meets with Americans or Europeans, he engages and feigns an open mind. Most Kurds see through this. That so many Western scholars fall prey to a cynical maneuver frustrates those in the region who feel the Barzani family now does more harm than good for Kurdish economic, national, and social prosperity and the ability of Kurds to advance economically, socially, and democratically in modern society.

Just as Masrour produced a documentary about his “resilience,” so now does Nechirvan arrange for a book, Road Map to Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Speeches of President Nechirvan Barzani to sing his praises. The moves are not coincidental but merely reflect the latest one-upmanship between the conflicting cousins.

What disappoints is how so many Western scholars—whether out of naïveté, sycophancy, or a pragmatic desire for access only they can say—play along, praising Nechirvan’s “admirably pragmatic” message to the West. First, let us put to rest the notion that there is any coherent “road map.” There is scant mention outside Nechirvan’s vanity outlet Rudaw of any such speeches or their visions.

Certainly, Barzanis know how to say the right thing in front of the Western diplomats who travel to Erbil to do the “full Barzani,” meeting father Masoud Barzani, son Masrour, and Masrour’s cousin Nechirvan, before a lavish feast and a flight out to Baghdad, Istanbul, or Dubai. What the scholars miss in their paean to the president, however, is what Nechirvan says and does when they are not around. Where, for example, is analysis of Nechirvan’s remarks threatening to punish peaceful protestors demanding unpaid wages?

And where is the analysis of the crises that have beset the Kurdistan Region since the Masrour-Nechirvan duo officially took command four years ago? Yes, both Masrour and Nechirvan can blame Baghdad, but if Kurds no longer accept their leaders’ blanket castigation of Baghdad, why would American, British, and French scholars of Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan? A far more honest approach would be to analyze where Nechirvan fell short and where Baghdad truly is to blame. Are the Western scholars praising Nechirvan unaware that it was his decision to unilaterally export Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil—a move that ignited disputes with Baghdad and led both to a Paris arbitration court’s award in Baghdad’s favor and a suspension of oil sales through Turkey—that now decimates the Kurdish economy?

Nor is there any analysis about whether Nechirvan shares the blame for parliament’s suspension, unprecedented public discontent, or the deterioration of public services. Perhaps one of Nechrivan’s hagiographers might have asked why, with workers going unpaid, Nechirvan built a complex whose grounds are more than four times larger than the White House? Or why when drinking water is scarce in Erbil, Nechirvan’s complex has over ten wells? Nechirvan’s over-the-top public expenditure is symptomatic of a larger problem: As he and Masrour compete for prestige, each treats the public purse as a personal slush fund. They both blur the boundaries between public interests and private gain. If Nechirvan truly embodied the democratic, visionary, and economically liberal that hagiographic academics and think tankers paint, Iraqi Kurdistan would be a far different place today. Surely, no speech trumps a legacy of sixteen years as regional prime minister?

There is a reason why Nechirvan has hemorrhaged legitimacy. While Nechirvan’s sycophants say he is Endaziyari Awedani (“the Architect of Prosperity”), most Kurds now call him Endaziyari Kawlkari (“the Architect of Destruction”). It is this sentiment that Nechirvan cynically uses foreign scholars to counter.

It is astounding that scholars of Iraq and tenured professors do not recognize a pattern in which Iraqi politicians often call for new political deals in their speeches. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did it. So did Haider Abadi and Mustafa al-Kadhimi. Even the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein did it. Do American, British, and French scholars or Turkish journalists really believe Nechirvan is different?

Contributors to the Road Map for Peace embarrass themselves in other ways. It is a misrepresentation to frame the Kurdistan Regional Government’s issues with Baghdad as primarily ethnic. Certainly, other Kurdish parties disagree. The heart of their disputes is constitutional, and the Barzanis have deliberately escalated many of these issues. Flippant remarks declaring, “Baghdad is bankrupt” aggravate the situation when both Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government needed to cooperate to resolve the financial crisis and pursue the war on terror.

For scholars to accept remuneration and/or free travel in exchange for contributions makes matters worse. It makes a mockery of pro forma think tank claims that they do not receive foreign money. Perhaps institutionally they do not, but if scholars do on an individual basis, that violates the spirit if not the letter of think tank claims. Cynicism is rife in Erbil precisely because the leadership often funds praise and encourages sycophancy. To then equate poorly articulated Kurdish statements as “strategic vision” is farcical.

The Barzanis have had their time. Cheap theatrics may assuage politicians’ egos, but they diminish those scholars and journalists who allow Kurdish politicians to use them. If any road maps are needed, they are a path to good governance and reform on one hand, and a process to restore stolen assets to the Kurdish people on the other.

Kamal Chomani is a non-resident fellow at the Kurdish Peace Institute.

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Image: Shutterstock.

Last year, North Korea’s marked increase in missile launches was widely interpreted as a bid to sharpen its capability to target South Korea with tactical nuclear weapons. Aided in part by Washington’s preoccupation with the Ukraine war and Taiwan Strait tensions, this surge in testing has persisted. This has been further exacerbated by China and Russia’s veto of United Nations sanctions, effectively giving North Korea free rein to test any weapons and launch any missiles it desired. One year later, we are witnessing a seismic shift in North Korea’s enhanced ability to threaten major American cities, from Los Angeles to New York, covering both coasts and from south to north. This development, alarming yet frequently underplayed, brings forth complex and troubling questions. Has Washington consistently underestimated North Korea’s missile prowess and its limited policy resource allocation, thereby endangering American security? Crucially, due to inadequate policy engagement, Washington might eventually find itself forced to consider a strong preemptive kinetic response. Such an action could not only devastate North Korea but also plunge the region into chaos.

North Korea’s Dramatic Leap in Its ICBM Capabilities

In the intricate landscape of twenty-first-century geopolitics, the allure of focusing on palpable threats often overshadows the steady drumbeats of persistent challenges. North Korea, with its familiar pattern of bluster followed by conciliatory gestures, epitomizes this latter category. Yet, a myopic view of Kim Jong-un’s Hermit Kingdom, especially in light of its burgeoning nuclear and missile prowess, risks destabilizing not just the immediate region but the very architecture of the global order. As North Korea’s nuclear arsenal grows and diversifies, the threat it poses to its neighbors and, more alarmingly, to the U.S. mainland, becomes more tangible with each missile test. For a long time, this threat was acknowledged but largely seen as a future concern. Now, Washington’s policy neglect may have brought us past the tipping point, as North Korea has the kinetic capability to target the entire United States. 

On July 12, in response to the U.S. reconnaissance flight over North Korea’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Pyongyang launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Its landing in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) was anticipated, but the trajectory raised concerns among military experts. 

Startling details surfaced. Both South Korean and Japanese militaries confirmed the missile’s origin from the North Korean capital. Despite a high launch angle, it reached 3,738 miles (6,000 km) in altitude and traveled approximately 621 miles (1,000 km) before descending. The missile remained airborne for seventy-four minutes, surpassing the earlier record of seventy-one minutes set by a launch earlier in the year. Analyzing these specifics, Japan’s Ministry of Defense suggests that, depending on the warhead’s weight, its maximum range could exceed 9,320 miles (15,000 km) when launched at a typical ICBM trajectory—encompassing the whole U.S. mainland. North Korea’s audacious test follows three other ICBM tests conducted earlier this year and as many as seven last year. Each test demonstrated progressively enhanced capabilities. The latest ICBM is designed to carry up to four warheads per missile. Many experts also posit that the missile utilized a more advanced solid fuel, which provides both increased mobility and reduced detectability compared to its liquid-fueled counterparts. 

The implications are clear: the ground-based interceptors that the United States has stationed in Alaska and California may no longer provide the robust defense they once did. If North Korea were to launch a dozen of these missiles, it could potentially overwhelm the United States’ defense systems. It’s tempting to downplay North Korea’s achievements, emphasizing that there’s still a time gap between technical achievements and actual deployment. This sentiment is compounded by Washington’s desire to maintain focus on Ukraine without distractions. Yet, informed circles are increasingly ringing cautionary bells. Dennis Wilder, a former CIA deputy assistant director for East Asia and the Pacific, noted, “This is a neglected problem in East Asia. I believe it holds more potential for a crisis than even the Taiwan Strait situation.” 

Then, on September 8, North Korea launched a new tactical nuclear attack submarine in a ceremony attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, calling it “the beginning of a new chapter” for its military. Some American observers were quick to point to the old Soviet-designed Romeo-class submarine and belittle it as “Frankensub.” However, there might still be a tendency to underestimate Kim’s unwavering ambition to develop a nuclear-armed navy as a countermeasure against the United States and its Asian allies. North Korea is actively enhancing its nuclear capabilities, consistent with its public declarations. “When it comes to weapons technology development, North Korea is growing increasingly confident,” retired Lieutenant General In-Bum Chun shared with me during a research interview. He emphasized that, given North Korea’s technical confidence in nuclear weaponry, the country is now rapidly diversifying its arsenal—from ICBMs to miniaturized nuclear devices and nuclear submarines. In a further show of defiance, North Korea now publicly threatens to deploy nuclear weapons during U.S.-South Korea military drills. Reacting to North Korea’s unwavering advancement in its nuclear weapons program, South Korea’s Yoon Suk-yeol administration has highlighted North Korea’s augmented nuclear and missile capabilities as the “most pressing challenge” facing the region.

Washington’s Potential Response to North Korea’s Nuclear Capabilities

Over the years, U.S. strategy toward North Korea has oscillated between diplomacy and stern warnings, predominantly being reactive. The strategy largely hinged on China, North Korea’s main ally and trade partner, to rein in its unpredictable neighbor. However, Beijing has generally prioritized peninsular stability over denuclearization despite often disapproving of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. This stance has empowered North Korea. Now, with missiles that can technically reach the United States, Washington might feel pressured to act. But decisions to neutralize North Korea’s nuclear abilities could cause immense collateral damage and regional upheaval. This is not a hypothetical situation.

In 1994, Washington contemplated a surgical strike on North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear site. This was avoided through former President Jimmy Carter’s personal intervention with Kim Il-sung in Pyongyang. In 2017, President Donald Trump publicly threatened North Korea with total destruction. Amid escalating tensions with Kim Jong-un, Trump even mused about using a nuclear weapon against North Korea and deflecting blame. South Korea, directly in North Korea’s line of sight, would suffer most in a U.S.-North Korea conflict. Then-South Korean president Moon Jae-in, clearly concerned, remarked, “War must not break out again on the Korean Peninsula” during a dinner in Seoul he hosted for Trump.

An unprovoked strike on North Korea would have cascading consequences. Besides the immediate humanitarian catastrophe, the geopolitical fallout would be vast. It could trigger a full-fledged conflict on the Korean Peninsula, roping in South Korea, China, Japan, and perhaps Russia. This turmoil could unpredictably reshape regional dynamics, possibly diminishing U.S. influence in Asia and complicating its strategic approach toward China. The move might also fray global alliances, with allies potentially reluctant to back a preemptive attack.

The Perils of Neglect

The above scenario underscores the perils of neglect. Over the years, the global community has hoped to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions through sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and sporadic engagement. Although these measures provided short-lived respite, they didn’t ensure a long-term solution.

Ignoring North Korea might lead not only to a nuclear-armed rogue state but also to an inherently unstable Northeast Asia. It’s time to rethink strategy by emphasizing engagement, understanding the Kim regime’s entrenched insecurities, and formulating a plan ensuring enduring peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. The challenges ahead are immense, but the stakes are too high for passive or complacent behavior.

While some analysts argue the window for North Korean diplomacy is swiftly narrowing, a stronger case exists for redefining our “diplomatic engagement” aim. Not as unrealistic denuclearization, but as a more feasible “risk management,” similar to the Biden administration’s recent “de-risking“ approach to China. This strategy pivot led to high-level dialogues aiming to avoid miscalculations and potential conflict.

This engagement shift would not just present a more practical approach to Pyongyang but would also transition away from the increasingly lofty goal of denuclearization without matching it with commensurate policy investment. The Camp David summit by the United States, South Korea, and Japan, held in August 2023, calls for “complete denuclearization of North Korea.” Yet, without outreach for engagement, dialogue, and negotiation with North Korea, such a resolution will not materialize. Regrettably, at present, Washington seems hesitant to adopt this perspective. For the sake of U.S. security and global stability, it’s imperative for the United States to present a persuasive argument.

Seong-Hyon Lee, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow at the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations and a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard University Asia Center.

Image: Shutterstock.

As a Chinese spy balloon sailed over the United States in February 2023, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urgently attempted to contact his counterparts in Beijing. Yet phones rang in empty rooms for several hours, and the Pentagon’s calls went unanswered. It was not the first time Chinese military leaders and policymakers ignored American hotline calls during enhanced tension. It was instead only the latest part of a dangerous pattern of behavior that risks the deterioration of Sino-American relations.

A hotline is only one small component of a nation’s diplomatic repertoire, but it can be the most important in times of crisis. Hotlines allow policymakers to converse quickly and directly with one another, building up personal trust between heads of state as they navigate flashpoints bilaterally. They are also crucial for providing detail, clarification, and explanations, thus enhancing understanding and helping to avoid accidental misconceptions about the other’s intentions. In short, they can be a fundamental tool for managing risk, avoiding escalation, and maintaining international security.

The history of Cold War diplomacy only emphasizes how crucial hotlines can be. After the high drama of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which saw messages take hours to reach their recipients, the United States and the Soviet Union wisely established a hotline link to transfer written messages swiftly between the two nation’s capitals. The Washington-Moscow hotline did not eradicate future tensions but was an essential brake on the erosion of relations. Over the next three decades, it would prove its worth several times.

During the Six-Day War of June 1967, Washington and Moscow frequently sent messages over the hotline as combat in the Middle East developed. These messages included the Soviets’ assurances they were attempting to solve the conflict diplomatically and the Johnson administration’s clarification on the maneuvers of the Sixth Fleet. When fighting broke out in the region just a few years later in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the hotline again displayed its significance, as it would during numerous other Cold War flashpoints worldwide.

During times of international crisis, we must view hotlines as enduring and indispensable links between feuding powers rather than redundant relics from a bygone Cold War era. While one may debate the accuracy of the ‘Second Cold War’ analogy, past hotline discussions between the United States and the Soviet Union demonstrate that it is crucial to maintain communication between Beijing and Washington today.

Hotlines exist between the United States and China at the executive and military levels. Grounded in their experiences in the twentieth century, various U.S. administrations have long viewed hotlines as a vital diplomatic asset and have been motivated to use them during contemporary crises, either with China or other strategic competitors. Although the Chinese Communist Party leadership has so far shown an aversion to managing escalation bilaterally with the United States, frequently leaving calls unanswered over the past few decades. Beijing ignored American attempts to communicate during the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Twelve calls were made by the Bush administration during the Hainan Island incident in 2001, with each of them similarly being snubbed. The same would happen again during numerous other episodes, and Xi Jinping and other Chinese policymakers have rebuffed modest proposals for more active hotline discussions.

Analysts have noted that Chinese officials hold suspicions over why American leaders would want to utilize hotlines, viewing them as little other than an instrument for the United States to surreptitiously normalize certain Indo-Pacific region operations. More dangerously, they also believe they can find strategic advantage in avoiding hotline conversations and the ambiguity this helps create. But regardless of the differences of opinion, the Cold War shows bilateral crisis management is still essential.

As anxiety continues to mount over the fate of Taiwan and the South China Sea, the United States must continue to pressure the Communist Party leadership to come to the phone more promptly. Complaining after the fact isn’t enough. It should now be a significant part of U.S. foreign policy to construct a more effective hotline dialogue with Beijing. American officials must explain that the ambiguity the Chinese leaders seek during a crisis is dangerous.

With the rise of artificial intelligence and the ubiquity of disinformation, serious miscalculations over specific naval movements or espionage incidents have become more likely. A lack of communication could result in a dangerous slide toward military or nuclear confrontation. In a geopolitical climate where atomic threats have again begun to be bandied around, Beijing and Washington will find that talking is the best medicine.

Ronan P. Mainprize is a PhD Candidate at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. His research specializes in intelligence, U.S. foreign policy, and international security. He can be followed on Twitter @RonanPMainprize.

Image: Shutterstock.

When I was Acting Secretary and later Secretary of the Air Force in 1999, the country suffered one of the worst strings of space launch failures in American history. Six serious failures occurred in just nine months, with a loss of satellites worth over $3 billion. To say the obvious, these failures were not insured, so replacing the lost satellites required a significant shift in already strained post-Cold War funding. It is not an exaggeration to say that leaking roofs were required to seep longer to fund replacement satellites.

These launch failures also interrupted a decade-long effort to replace aging satellites whose replacement had been delayed by the loss of Challenger in 1986 and by the need to generate modified or new unmanned rockets to launch satellites originally intended for the Space Shuttle. While the failures occurred across a range of rockets, launch sites, and failure modes, the fact that they all happened within a short span was very troubling and suggested there might be interrelated root causes. Complacency arising from a decade of successes was thought to be one such cause.

Thankfully, the Air Force was as resilient then as it is now and applied its time-tested safety practices to emerge with better launch systems than ever before. Specifically, the Air Force stood down future launches until it conducted a Broad Area Review (BAR) under the leadership of former Chief of Staff Larry Welch, who had been instrumental in rebuilding unmanned space launches after the Challenger failure.

The BAR investigated the string of launch failures and determined the best path forward. It comprised a team of experts from within government and industry to determine the root causes, technical and procedural solutions, and the timelines needed to return each existing system to the launch pad. Perhaps equally important, the BAR recommended the path forward for the nascent Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program that added government oversight (and significant cost) to increase mission safety and reliability as it fielded those systems.

While the BAR did not find complacency, it did find that a combination of launch success and pressure to reduce launch costs had resulted in a hollowing out of engineering, test, and mission assurance functions across manufacturers. In addition, even though launches on legacy systems would occur for another decade, the Air Force itself had also removed many resources from overseeing contractor engineering and safety decisions.

Whereas contractors and launch teams had achieved production quality, cost efficiencies, and safety through learning curve advantages over some 200 launches in the prior decade, production had largely ended, and the Air Force began redirecting personnel to future programs like EELV. Correcting these deficiencies at a high cost and refocusing on risk management created a failure-free launch record for all the legacy systems through their ends of life and set the preconditions for over two decades of successful EELV launches.

Not long after legacy rockets returned to service, however, the EELV experienced a financial crisis of its own. The original plan was to have two contractors provide a family of launch systems.  This plan was premised on the belief that commercial launch was about to explode and would give both government and commercial users substantial cost savings while furthering assured access to space if one set of vehicles faltered.  But commercial space demand cratered, leading to the abandonment of one EELV system and the rationing of launches between the other systems.

Now, are the lessons of over two decades of failure-free launch being lost?

This prospect is undoubtedly a concern. The Space Force recently proposed modifications to its procurement for national security space launches that may disrupt the entire program. The changes emphasize a more hands-off formula rather than the contractor and government approach created by the BAR, which focused on mission assurance, reliability, and redundancy.  Its proposed launch procurement changes risk upending America’s assured access to space and its ability to fend off America’s foreign adversaries (particularly China and Russia) in that domain.

In a recently revised Request for Proposal, the Space Force opened high-risk missions in the National Security Space Launch System (NSSL), America’s most consequential space launch program, up to a third provider, even though, as things stand today, only two contractors have experience successfully launching our nation’s most valuable national security satellites into challenging orbits. Only two have gone through the whole mission assurance cycle mandated by the BAR, which has undergone continuous improvement over the last two decades. This procurement change also raises the question of whether commercial launch demand will now efficiently sustain three providers of launch vehicles when, in the recent past, it could not support two. To understand how radical this procurement change is, one must consider that the Space Force previously mandated that Lane 2 contractors meet nine reference orbits at the program’s start. Now, it has dropped that requirement and will have a contractor that has not met a single reference orbit service Lane 2 launches.

While Lane 1 of the NSSL (the less national security-intensive missions) is already open to all providers and includes annual on-ramping opportunities to accommodate emerging companies as their products reach market readiness, Lane 2 is different. Lane 2 provides assured access to space for critical national security missions, which tend to involve the most expensive satellites. Its launches can mean life or death for the country in the face of China and Russia’s increasingly hostile space motives, partnerships, and general positioning. To think that a contractor that does not presently have a working launch vehicle, nor have any experience launching national security assets into space, can now receive NSSL Lane 2 contracts is not just alarming, it flies in the face of the lessons of the BAR, which made it clear that highly disciplined joint contractor and government oversight of space programs from inception through the establishment of safe operations is critical to avoiding launch failures.

In addition, the economic efficiency of the new approach is not apparent. The NSSL’s competitive, results-driven contracting standards have already saved taxpayers $7 billion. It is one of the most successful space programs the United States has ever overseen, with not a single failure occurring in nearly 100 launches. Adding a third provider to Lane 2 missions would change the economics entirely and could increase costs by $5 billion (onboarding new providers is expensive). To offset some of this cost, the Space Force proposes to cap launch service support to each Lane 2 contractor at $100 million annually, even though such price caps risk further erosion of mission assurance by opening the door for contractor cost-cutting, as was the case in 1998–99.

Moreover, what if commercial demand doesn’t materialize or shifts to lower-cost systems from other countries? Then what will become of a third provider?  Will mission requirements be salami-sliced to keep three providers operating at significant government expense, as they once were in EELV?

The old cliché is that those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. Now is not the time for the Space Force to repeat the past. The last time the United States lived through a period of uncertain, unreliable access to space, China and Russia were not nearly as space-motivated or capable as they are today, with China and Russia now seeking to beat the United States in space and land.  In some respects, China and Russia, which have increasingly begun partnering to operationalize space as a military domain, are already ahead of the United States, with the 2022 State of the Space Industrial Base report indicating that China may soon eclipse the United States in orbit.

The Space Force should not abandon the policies and practices that brought space launch to where it is today. Replaying 1998 and 1999 now risks launch failures and irreparable long-term effects on our nation’s operations in space.  

Whitten Peters served as the 19th Secretary of the United States Air Force and the chair of the Air and Space Force Association.

Slovakia will hold elections at the end of this month, just over thirty years after securing an elusive permanent independence. Unelected governments have led the country for nearly a year, as former Prime Minister Eduard Heger resigned following a vote of no-confidence in December 2022, and the country’s president appointed a caretaker “technocratic” government in May of this year.

Three-time former Prime Minister Robert Fico and his Smer – sociálna demokracia (Direction – Social Democracy) party has led polls for months. Fico is a populist who is difficult to categorize ideologically. He possesses undeniable political skills but holds significant baggage from his previous tenures in office. Even if he secures the highest vote tally, he might struggle to find willing coalition partners. In deeply fragmented Slovak politics, coalitions of several parties are often required to form a government, and this year figures to be no different.

Americans should take note of the outcome in Slovakia this year, as it could portend the voting behavior of a war-weary, economically encumbered populace ahead of next year’s presidential election.

The State of Slovakia

To the extent that Western media analyze the Slovak elections at all, they tend to present events through a distorted lens. They assume a successful outcome for Fico and Smer would signal alignment with neighbors Hungary and Poland, which are often at odds with the Brussels political establishment (in fact, Fico has a track record of strained relations with Hungary and Slovakia’s Hungarian minority community.) They also project a Russia-hyperfocus onto Slovak voters. Neither is accurate or helpful for understanding the country.

Consider a few examples. The Washington Post’s Loveday Morris asserted, “Within the E.U., some officials and diplomats voice concern about a leader who might align with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban,” and described Fico’s strong polling as “a pro-Russian tide in Slovakia.” Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s Andrea Dudik and Daniel Hornak fancifully warned that a Fico regime would “add a new challenge to Western allies,” labeled Orban “an old ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” and suggested a Fico-led Slovakia “could be isolated within the EU along with Orban.”

Slovak voters, though, are concerned primarily with matters closer to home, and Slovak politicians are campaigning accordingly. If the war next door affects voter behavior, it is overwhelmingly through its economic ramifications.

The country is buckling under inflation that has reached crisis proportions. It soared to over 12 percent in 2022 and is forecast to tally at just under 11 percent this year. It is currently over twice the eurozone average. Food prices are particularly onerous. Ukrainian agricultural imports are burdening Slovak farmers.

Proud of their eurozone membership and remarkable economic management after starting from scratch in 1993, Slovaks grapple with the fact that their GDP, adjusted for purchasing power parity, has fallen behind those of Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and EU economic laggard Romania. Slovaks perceive not only that they are no longer catching up economically to the West; they are, in fact, falling further behind.

This unease is reflected in the ongoing political campaigning. Ads for Peter Pellegrini, another former prime minister, simply ask: “Do you want cheaper energy?” The Christian Democrats assert, “You deserve better.” Fico declares, “People deserve security.”

Amid this economic turmoil, Slovaks are tiring of the war’s repercussions. The unelected caretaker government has proceeded with arms shipments and economic sanctions, despite the deprivations at home and the relative unpopularity of these measures among voters. Public outcry ensued after the government donated more than a dozen military aircraft to Ukraine but did not provide direct air rescue to Slovaks stranded in Greece during this summer’s wildfires. The chasm between the current political powers-that-be and the people is palpable.

A Bellwether Election

Onlookers can view this election as a bellwether for two reasons.

First, Slovakia’s political environment has developed differently from its neighbors, and therefore tends to defy standard ideological classification.

In Czechia, Hungary, and Poland, communist-era elites morphed into the democratic era’s establishment Left, and they largely oversaw accession to the EU, NATO, and the free market. Nationalists and Christian democrats preserved a broad anti-communist front, and this morphed into the modern establishment Right.

Slovakia, lacking long experience with nationhood, first had to learn to direct its own affairs from Bratislava. Furthermore, communism enjoys a different legacy here. Many Slovaks associate the communist regime with industrialization and modernization, while their more industrialized neighbors remember stagnation. The communist atrocities of 1956, 1968, and 1980 resonate less vividly here than in Budapest, Prague, or Warsaw. For several reasons, the country’s nationalists and Christian democrats did not unite politically. The legacy of supporting or rejecting independence in the early 1990s still matters.

This results in fractured political movements that have elements of both Left and Right and usually fail to gain anything close to an outright majority in parliament. It makes for difficult governance, but it allows Slovakia to escape the simplistic ideological rhetoric of Western observers. If Slovak voters offer a pronouncement on the war, it cannot be viewed through a standard ideological lens.

The second reason the Slovak elections are a bellwether is due to the way the country’s prevailing historical and geopolitical forces lend themselves to status quo preservation.

More than most in the region, Slovak geopolitical strategy privileges the status quo. Unlike Hungary, which lost two-thirds of its territory after World War I, and Poland, which can still observe Stalin’s fingerprints on its geopolitical realities, Slovakia did quite well when it gained its long-awaited independence. No significant Slovak population lives beyond the country’s borders in neighboring nations. The minority Hungarian community is steadily becoming “Slovakized” or moving to Hungary or elsewhere in the West. Despite the war in a neighboring country, Slovaks feel militarily sheltered. There remains the specter of losing territory to Hungary or being forcefully reunited with Czechia, both of which happened in the last century, but it is not an immediate pressing reality.

This all results in a minimal appetite for clashing with Brussels or Washington. The longer the status quo prevails, the better for Slovakia’s hard-won independence. Thus, if Slovaks challenge what is regarded as the Brussels-prescribed order on a major issue like the war in Ukraine, the international community ought to take notice.

An October Surprise

The October elections in neighboring Poland will garner more international attention, but they arguably will prove less of a bellwether for the United States and other Western countries. The country, after all, has endured centuries of Russian atrocities and shares borders with both Russia and Belarus. These distinctions do not apply to Slovakia.

If Fico and other war-skeptic forces triumph in Slovakia this month, Western media will turn to regular and overused explanations: that the results stem from a local variation of “Trumpism,” or are because of “Russian propaganda” and “democratic backsliding.” The informed observer will note a simpler explanation: people deserve security.

Péter Szitás is a research fellow at the Danube Institute. He is a former adjunct professor at J. Selye University in Komárno, Slovakia, and the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia. He holds a Ph.D. in literature and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Eötvös Loránd University, in Budapest, Hungary, and a Master of Arts in International Security and Defense Policy from the National University of Public Service, in Budapest, Hungary, and is a Ph.D. candidate at the latter.

Michael O’Shea is a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute. He is an alumnus of the Budapest Fellowship Program, sponsored by the Hungary Foundation and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina and a Master of Business Administration from Indiana University.

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Iran and China established diplomatic relations in 1971. It was a significant milestone in the relationship since the regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was a firm American partner, and China at that time was under the rule of Chairman Mao. After the Iranian revolution, the relationship saw slow progress until the 1990s, when both countries agreed to broaden their economic ties. At first glance, Iran’s theocratic regime would possess little in common with the Chinese Communist Party. However, the bilateral relationship has grown more robust over the past few years, with China becoming Iran’s preeminent economic partner and regime supporter. Realpolitik, economic benefits, and geopolitical goals compel both countries to work together, especially since both view the United States as the prime impediment to their strategic objectives.

Economic cooperation is the cornerstone of Sino-Iranian ties. China is Iran’s largest trading partner and has been increasing its investments in Iran. In March 2021, both countries signed a twenty-five-year strategic partnership agreement, amounting to $400 billion, to develop Iran’s infrastructure and transportation sectors. The deal was a substantial step forward in the partnership between the two countries. Subsequently, Chinese banks provided Iran with $10 billion in loans for power plants, railways, and other infrastructure projects. Chinese companies have helped construct a high-speed railway between Tehran and Mashhad and develop ports and airports. These investments have been vital to Iran’s modernization efforts. Iran has been under substantial U.S. pressure since President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and reimposed economic sanctions. These sanctions have made it challenging for Iran to access international markets, resulting in a recession, skyrocketing inflation, and a significant devaluation of the Iranian Rial. China stepped in and injected much-needed capital and expertise into Iran’s economy. These capital inflows have stimulated economic activity, created jobs, mitigated the impact of the sanctions, and continued the development of Iranian infrastructure. The Iranian government uses this Chinese engagement to demonstrate to its population that the country is not diplomatically isolated, thereby assuaging domestic concerns and retaining a semblance of legitimacy.

The energy sector has been a principal focus of collaboration, and Chinese companies have invested heavily in Iran’s oil and gas industry. After Washington reimposed sanctions, Iranian oil exports declined. China is the largest importer of Iranian oil, and Iran is one of China’s largest suppliers of crude oil. It has helped Iran generate sufficient revenue to withstand crippling sanctions. Iranian oil has strategic implications for China’s energy security. Iran has the world’s third-largest oil reserves, and Chinese investment in Iranian oil and gas fields provides China with a reliable energy source. Additionally, Iran is an essential partner for China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese companies have planned substantial investments in Iran’s transport sector to support this endeavor. Iran’s strategic location and natural resources make it a critical partner for this initiative, as it provides a gateway to the Middle East and Europe.

The chief geopolitical factor pushing Iran and China together is their opposition to American hegemony. Both countries oppose American unilateralism and support a “multipolar” world order. Consequently, they have strengthened political ties and worked together in international forums, such as the UN, to promote common interests. China played a crucial role in diffusing Saudi-Iranian tensions by presiding over a landmark summit in March, demonstrating Beijing’s rising clout in the region. This is especially significant since Saudi-American ties are at a relatively low point. Recently, the BRICS invited Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to join. The message reverberating in the region is that while America might be withdrawing, the Chinese are just getting started.

China and Iran have also increased their military collaboration. Both countries signed a military cooperation agreement in 2021 and have conducted joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman, marking a significant advance in military cooperation. Chinese military expertise played a role in the Iranian hypersonic missile program, much to the chagrin of the United States. Nevertheless, sales of advanced equipment such as stealth fighters are improbable. Chinese ties with Saudi Arabia and the UAE are also significant, which would factor into China’s strategic deliberations. Beijing will deepen ties with Tehran, but not at the expense of its relations with the Saudis and Emiratis.

Additionally, China has not waded into the complex conflicts of the Middle East, such as Iranian-Israeli hostility, and there is no evidence to indicate Chinese backing for Iranian adventurism and arming of proxy militaries. Beijing would prefer that Washington remain tied down in the Middle East and will support the Iranians on the political front. However, such patronage might not extend to a conflict with Israel or Saudi Arabia. A major regional war would disrupt oil flows, disrupting the economy.

Despite opportunities, there are also potential challenges to the relationship between Iran and China. Iran’s domestic politics include periodic protests against the regime. Iran has a complex political system, and there are often tensions between different factions within the government, which creates uncertainty for Chinese investors. In addition, corruption and bureaucratic inefficiencies in Iran can make it difficult for foreign companies to do business. So far, the $400 billion promised in 2020 has yet to materialize.

The Sino-Iranian partnership has raised concerns among other global powers, notably the United States. Washington has expressed apprehensions about China’s growing influence in the Middle East and its support for Iran. Since the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis, relations between the United States and Iran remain contemptuous. The theological and revolutionary nature of the Iranian regime attracts few admirers in the West. The United States sees Iran’s nuclear program and its support of proxy groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah as a strategic challenge to its interests and a peril to the security of its ally, Israel. American sanctions on Iran force the regime to turn to China for support, raising American trepidations about Chinese regional designs. Therefore, the prospect of a revival in American-Iranian ties remains slim.

Meanwhile, strategic competition between the United States and China and the clash over Taiwan further exacerbate tensions. Consequently, it is self-evident that the Chinese and Iranians will find a common cause against a shared adversary, albeit with Sino-Saudi ties also featuring in Beijing’s calculus. Chinese backing has hampered American efforts to dissuade the Iranians from ceasing their nuclear program and permitted them to seek a strategic balance vis-a-vis the United States. If Sino-American ties continue to deteriorate, China might consider an “arms for oil” agreement with Iran. These weapons might compel Israel or the United States to think twice before any potential strikes on Iranian nuclear assets but will not jeopardize Saudi and Emirati security. As recent events indicate, Iran is now firmly in the Chinese camp, along with Russia and North Korea, and this partnership will be a defining feature of the Middle East for the foreseeable future.

Ahmed S. Cheema is a Senior Adviser to Pakistani Cabinet Ministers and Members of Pakistan’s Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Relations.

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The political situation for President Yoon Suk-Yeol of the Republic of Korea is challenging due to growing domestic criticism. This comes despite, and in some respects because of, his recent diplomatic accomplishments. Considering South Korea’s political environment, Washington must demonstrate that Seoul’s decision to increase mutual defense ties with the United States and engage with Japan was the right one.

Celebrating the seventieth anniversary of the U.S.-South Korea alliance, the Washington Declaration in April marked a historical milestone. The declaration between President Joe Biden and Yoon signaled a new era of economic and security cooperation between the two states. August’s trilateral summit of the United States, Japan, and Korea reaffirmed the allies’ alignment for the region’s safety and prosperity. 

The current amicable relationship between Korea and Japan, which has not appeared this rosy since the Kim-Obuchi declaration of 1998, is also noteworthy. The decision made by President Yoon to further align with the United States and Japan was not without political risks. Korea’s proximity to China and North Korea necessitates a more balanced approach toward neighboring powers. Previous Korean leaders have been cautious in taking such a dramatic step toward the United States, so they aimed to maintain a balance between the United States and China. Indeed, this was made more challenging after the trade war launched by President Donald Trump. 

Korean companies have shown strong support for Yoon’s foreign policies. Samsung, SK, LG, and Hyundai have announced approximately $250 billion in investment plans since the Biden Administration. Even though U.S. trade policy became more unpredictable since the trade war with China, Korea took a further step toward the United States, hoping that more cooperation with Washington would remove uncertainties.

There is, however, a growing feeling in South Korea that Washington has not adequately responded to Seoul’s concerted efforts. Following the Washington Declaration, South Korean businesses hoped to see some progress in the U.S. trade policies that have negatively impacted Korea. 

Despite constant efforts, uncertainties remain surrounding Electric Vehicle (EV) provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the CHIPS and Science Act, particularly regarding their preferential credits to U.S.-based manufacturers and the binding clauses for their China facilities. Washington did not consider its allies’ perspectives when crafting its trade policies.

Those who disagree with Yoon argue that Korea’s approach to the United States is highly distorted, with much given but less taken. To make matters worse, the Japanese government elevated mutual tension in August when it released the Fukushima Nuclear Plant’s wastewater into the ocean. Yoon faces difficulty bridging opposing public opinions. The fact that Yoon won the presidential election by a slight margin of 0.7 percent highlights the immediate political pressure imposed on him. The Korean economy is also under significant strain due to rapidly shifting legacy supply chains in and out of China. 

Facing this uncertain outlook, Washington should support Seoul by addressing economic issues and trade policies that have inadvertently affected it. First, Washington should expand the reach of the IRA and CHIPS Act benefits for allies. The U.S. Treasury last year made a necessary clarification by extending IRA tax credits to include leased EVs manufactured in Korea. This decision provided Hyundai the time needed to adjust its EV leasing rates from 5 percent to 30 percent before its Georgia plant, with a production capacity of 300,000 EVs, goes operational in 2025. Just as Hyundai benefited from this expansion, other Korean businesses need breathing room before their upcoming expansion in the United States.  

Second, Washington should give flexibility to allies’ legacy supply chains and exports to China. The grace period, which limits semiconductor equipment sales to China, ends in October. Korea has already made substantial investments in China, with Samsung manufacturing 40 percent of its NAND Flash Memory and SK Hynix producing 40 percent of its DRAM and 20 percent of its NAND capacity there. Extending this grace period would benefit Korea and serve U.S. interests by fortifying the solid economic foundation shared by allies. Under these circumstances, Samsung and SK Hynix would be well-positioned to increase their investments in the United States, building upon their current commitment of $222 billion and leveraging their consistent performance in the global market. In addition, Seoul needs a gradual transition in its supply chain to manage the delicate relationship with Beijing, given its geopolitical situation surrounding North Korea.

Now is an ideal time to recalibrate bilateral relations before the U.S. presidential elections and Korea’s general elections next year. Cementing recent diplomatic successes requires constant effort and a willingness to dialogue. South Korean goodwill is not assured, and Washington should not take it for granted. 

Yejoon Chung is a research associate at Harvard Business School and a young leader in the ‘3.0: The Next Generation of the U.S.-ROK Alliance Program’ at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). Yejoon holds a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard Kennedy School and worked at the Korea International Trade Association (KITA). The author would like to thank CSIS, KITA, Victor Cha, Evan Ramstad, Andy Lim, Jung Koo Kang, Brian Baik, and Mark Lippert for their valuable insights.

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America’s partisan divide has infected the space defense policies of both the Biden and Trump Administrations. While President Joe Biden has leaned too excessively toward a dovish posture, President Donald Trump’s was too hawkish. Both administrations’ lack of desire for a practical solution could encourage China to develop and launch a “shock and awe” precursor to a campaign to seize Taiwan. This one-two punch might well be part of the operational capabilities that President Xi Jinping wants China to attain by 2027. The current course of action will render us unprepared to counter this space threat and save Taiwan.

In 1985, nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter and I penned an op-ed, Arms Control That Could Work. It considered that “satellites can be anti-satellites.” We worried about the Vice President of the USSR Academy of Science Yevgeny Velikhov’s disturbing statement: “If we can dock with a satellite, then clearly we can dock with an American satellite, but a bit carelessly, and thus destroy it.” The op-ed and the study behind it proposed a solution of creating self-defense zones to provide a buffer and warning that U.S. satellites are being targeted in time to mount a defense.  

While Wohlstetter’s ideas on nuclear deterrence became the foundation of U.S. nuclear strategy, starting with the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, this proposal was not adopted. On the other hand, if this space proposal had been accepted three decades ago, the United States and international space policies would have ensured peace in that domain.

In 2001, the 164-page report of the Rumsfeld Commission assessed U.S. national security space and questioned “whether the U.S. will be wise enough to act responsibly and soon enough to reduce U.S. space vulnerability. Or whether, as in the past, a disabling attack against the country and its people—a ‘Space Pearl Harbor’—will be the only event able to galvanize the nation and cause the U.S. Government to act.” Again, the United States neglected to act quickly to reduce vulnerability. 

President Trump envisioned that the Space Force would ensure U.S. extraterrestrial security. However, the internecine fights over how best to organize the Space Force are consuming so much financial and political capital that two of the four pillars underlying his 2018 National Space Strategy are hardly getting the attention they deserve: 1) “transform to more resilient space architectures” and 2) “strengthen U.S. and allied options to deter… and counter threats.” In sum, the Trump Administration’s program for space dominance lacks more dovish measures, such as making China’s continued participation in the lucrative Western space market dependent on its adherence to a space traffic management regime. Even if Trump’s program resulted in space resilience, it would take at least a decade to complete. By then, it might be too late.

Opposing Trump’s hawkish goal of space dominance, the Biden administration’s dovish approach focuses on passive satellite protections. The current strategy is to replace legacy satellites (those already in orbit) and their legacy-like follow-ons (those slated to be in orbit soon) composed of a small number of expensive large satellites with proliferated constellations of many cheap small satellites. The doves argue that if an adversary disables some satellites, the remaining ones can continue to perform much of the same mission. In January 2023, however, I showed that deploying proliferated constellations will be too late to replace many of the critical but vulnerable legacy constellations within this decade. Again, while this strategy is attractive and necessary, it must be supplemented by active defenses such as bodyguard spacecraft to monitor, inspect, and harmlessly move invaders out of zones established to protect our critical satellites.

Ironically, the opposite approaches of the two administrations will end with the same problem: offering a window of satellite vulnerability throughout this crucial decade. A practical solution demands the inclusion of the strategies of both administrations and both parties. 

In January 2022, China’s developing dual-use spacecraft successfully docked with its own non-responsive (dead) satellite in a geosynchronous orbit and maneuvered it to a higher orbit, less than two years behind the United States doing the same. Many space experts were surprised that China’s dual-use spacecraft capability developed so fast. Moreover, China will soon be able to manufacture 440 small satellites annually and plans to launch 13,000 satellites quickly to prevent SpaceX from hogging all the attractive low-earth orbits. Considering these developments, my joint updated study of Henry Sokolski’s China Space Wargame estimated that China could likely develop and deploy about 200 attacking spacecraft by 2026. This anti-satellite capability could catalyze China’s Taiwan “reunification” efforts.

Specifically, China could pre-position some or all of these 200 attackers next to our three dozen global-positioning-system satellites and their follow-ons at semi-geosynchronous orbits. There is currently no rule to prohibit China from doing so. Upon further command, these attackers—already at close range—could quickly and forcibly dock with our satellites and bend or disconnect antennae and solar panels, thus disabling these navigational satellites upon which military, civil, and commercial operations are all critically dependent. Alternatively, these attackers could harmlessly relocate these satellites into the wrong orbits where they can no longer perform their functions. Worse yet, there would still be plenty of leftover attackers to impair our other critical satellites serving as our eyes and ears at geosynchronous orbits and highly elliptical orbits.

At this pivotal junction, we must ward off this possibility lurking at the door of the free world without falling into the trap of ideological rigidity. Our window for action is closing, and we must take corrective steps now. 

Brian Chow is an independent policy analyst with more than 170 publications. Follow him on X at @briangchow. 

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This week marks the painful remembrance of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Yet, the week also shares the anniversary of the most powerful intellectual and diplomatic rebuke to the Al Qaeda worldview. Osama bin Laden attacked America for its role in the Middle East and desperately tried to whip up hatred between Westerners, Jews, Muslims, and Arabs. His death in 2011 did not end his message, but the Abraham Accords signed on September 15, 2020, have changed the lives of millions. And it has the potential, if America builds on existing achievements, to positively alter the Middle East and the wider world.

First, I am writing these lines as I shuttle between Jerusalem and Arab capitals. The Accords helped establish direct flights between Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, some above Saudi airspace. In the airport lounges of Dubai, I watch ordinary Iranians and Israelis, supposedly sworn enemies, talking about their families and businesses. Trade volumes are increasing annually between Arab nations and Israel from $590 million in 2019 to $3.4 billion last year and will burgeon significantly. With 200 weekly flights between Tel Aviv, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai, more than a million Israelis have visited the United Arab Emirates. Air traffic has increased between Israel and Morocco, Jordan, and Turkey. 

Second, since 1947, Israelis have lived behind an iron curtain with little contact with their Arab and Muslim neighbors. Most Israelis, only encountering Palestinians at checkpoints, viewed Arabs with suspicion. Now, as one Israeli general explained to me, “We Israelis are wearing new glasses and seeing Arabs and Muslims as partners in peace.” In the security of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Israelis visit mosques and malls, beaches and golf courses, kosher restaurants, and even a synagogue beside churches and mosques. In Jerusalem, Israelis are stabbed and dare not enter Gaza. In the Arabian Gulf,  Israelis and Arabs dance at weddings, invest in businesses, and change school curricula to educate for a better future. As the Accords declare: “We seek tolerance and respect for every person in order to make this world a place where all can enjoy a life of dignity and hope, no matter their race, faith or ethnicity.” Change takes time and leadership. What the Accords have started must continue and, in the long run, will increase the popularity of peace in Arab countries. Persuading 350 million Arabs will be a more complex challenge than 10 million Israelis, but the work has begun and requires American and regional support. 

Third, where the UAE has led, Saudi Arabia will likely follow, and now there is a serious and sustained negotiation led by the United States to make peace between Mecca and Jerusalem, Islam and Judaism, Israel and Saudi Arabia. That such a diplomatic and civilizational breakthrough is even on the negotiation table is a significant advance from the days when Osama bin Laden wrongly claimed to represent Saudi interests. Bin Laden sought to expel American and Israeli interests from the Middle East: The Saudi crown prince, Mohamed bin Salman, seeks treaty-level American security guarantees and advanced weapons systems to protect Saudi Arabia from radicals inside and outside his country. These are the corridors opened by the Abraham Accords.

Fourth, the Accords suspended Israeli annexations of disputed territories until 2024 and kept alive Palestinian dreams of a future state. That “normalization, not annexation” model is now on the table for Saudi Arabia to secure a longer term of no expansion.  Palestinian leaders from the West Bank have been meeting in Riyadh and Amman to open a new stage of respect and dignity for their people. Still, the challenge for those of us who support Jewish-Muslim coexistence is to deepen further the noble aim expressed in the Accords: “We believe that the best way to address challenges is through cooperation and dialogue and that developing friendly relations among States advances the interests of lasting peace in the Middle East and around the world.” In a future Palestinian state, we should imagine the presence of Jewish citizens. After all, Israel has a 20 percent Arab population.  

Fifth, for years since 9/11, Israelis and Westerners would point fingers at Arabs and Muslims and say, “Where is a real peace with Israel if you are moderate and peaceful people?” Our silence was revealing. The Abraham Accords have ended that question and allowed Muslims and Arabs to hold their heads high. But such confidence in coexistence remains fragile. Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Pakistan, Yemen, and others should end unwarranted hostility with the world’s only Jewish state. If we pursue our peaceful pathway, in time, they will join the circle of peace, too. But it won’t be free of challenges. 

The Iranian government is watching its plans for an anti-American region crumble, and it will increase its funding and terror activities to destabilize Arab governments, American interests, and Israel. Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and others across the Middle East are busy working to disrupt a Middle East aligned with America. Russia and China linger beside the Iranian clerics. But the threats to stability come from within our own side, too.

As China seeks to peel away Western allies, America must not repeat the mistake of naively promoting nation-building in Gaza, Iraq, or Egypt, where the outcome of elections is the successful mass organization of radical Islamist parties who rarely govern in a democratic—nevermind liberal—fashion. Solidifying the Abraham Accords and its vision of pluralism, progress, and peace means U.S. diplomacy must beckon more nations under the roof of a civilizational grouping that shelters our allies and partners. Building infrastructure from Dubai to Saudi Arabia to Israel to the Mediterranean, as announced at the G20 Summit last week, is a testament to what is possible. Similarly, the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia have all requested deeper and greater American security arrangements. The US and Bahrain have signed a security and economic pact this week that shows others what is on the table for allies of America. The Abraham Accords provide the foundations for that military, economic, intellectual, and policy framework for a grand partnership between America, Israel, and fifty-two Arab and Muslim nations.

Ed Husain is the Director of the N7 Initiative, a partnership between the Jeffrey M. Talpins Foundation and the Atlantic Council. Husain is also a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

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Russia and China recently wrapped up a series of joint air and naval exercises dubbed “Northern/Interaction-2023.” Chinese state media hailed the exercises as a “substantive manifestation of the China-Russia strategic partnership.” The drills took place off the coast of Japan, spooking one of America’s most crucial allies in Asia.

Then, in what one analyst called a “highly provocative” move and a “historical first,” a joint Russian and Chinese naval flotilla approached the coast of Alaska. Biden administration officials downplayed the news, emphasizing that the patrol took place in international waters. But a Republican senator from Alaska cited the naval patrol as evidence of “a new era of authoritarian aggression.”

Some fear these developments signal an emerging power bloc in Asia bent on contesting American influence. Yet leading officials and commentators often fail to understand how the United States itself helped create the conditions for increasing Russo-Chinese alignment. Military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing is not simply an inevitable convergence of like-minded authoritarian states, as the popular narrative suggests. It is also a direct response to American muscle-flexing in the region.

In the past year, the United States has needled China in several ways. Washington sent a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea in a show of force, bolstered its partnership with India, and deepened strategic coordination with other Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”) members. Washington also held landmark military exercises with Japan and cut a deal to station more troops in the Philippines.

Undoubtedly, U.S. policymakers view these moves simply as proportionate responses to China’s escalating territorial claims and hostile rhetoric against Taiwan. But one side’s deterrence is another side’s provocation. When Washington rallies its partners for displays of military force and integrates Pacific states further into its network of military alliances, Beijing is apt to perceive threats to its regional interests. International relations theory predicts that states often choose to bandwagon with others when they feel the need to balance against the hostile intentions of rival powers. For better or for worse, when the United States bolsters its defense posture in Asia, China will naturally see a balancing coalition partner in Russia.

Since the end of the Cold War, the China-Russia relationship has ranged from bitter competition to cautious collaboration. But in recent years, Washington’s assertive posture in Asia has driven Beijing to pursue increased military cooperation with Moscow. A similar trend is apparent in the Arctic. Russia traditionally views China’s strategic Arctic aspirations with suspicion, but a U.S.-led boycott of the Arctic Council has spurred Russia to increase cooperation with China in the region. The two countries used America’s absence at the Arctic Council meeting to further cement security ties.

To be sure, the relationship between Russia and China remains hugely unequal. Despite touting a “no-limits partnership” between the nations, Beijing has in fact made the limits of its cooperation quite clear. Its state oil firm Sinopec has abandoned talks on investment in Russian oil projects. Apart from purchasing Russian commodities at discounted prices, China has largely adhered to international sanctions on Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. Beijing continues to preach neutrality in the Ukraine war rather than explicitly supporting Russia’s position and has spurned Russian requests for weapons, instead proposing a peace plan containing provisions that would be hard for Moscow to swallow.

China’s approach to the war in Ukraine is indicative of its rationale for strengthening defense ties with Russia. Vladimir Putin has framed the invasion as an existential battle against NATO and the entire U.S.-led security architecture. China’s reluctance to fully throw its global weight behind Moscow in the conflict—in arms, finance, and diplomatic support—is telling.

Rather than joining a wide-ranging authoritarian crusade against the liberal international order, China’s partnership with Moscow is narrowly focused on regions where it perceives critical security interests. For all the hype around the purported emergence of a new axis of authoritarian powers bound together by ideology, the deepening Russia-China relationship smacks of standard realpolitik. As the United States flexes its muscles across Asia to protect its economic, security, and global governance interests, China will inevitably do the same. Shunned by the West, Moscow is a logical partner in augmenting Beijing’s military might.

There are still opportunities to drive a wedge between Russia and China, just as when Richard Nixon exploited the Sino-Soviet split to establish relations with Mao during the Cold War. China must carefully weigh the military advantages of Russian partnership against its still-important economic ties to the United States. After Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing in June, the Bank of China announced limits on Russian clients’ transactions involving banks in several Western countries, in what could be interpreted as a conciliatory gesture towards Washington.

The United States has been quick to use its military prowess and diplomatic clout to expand its power in China’s backyard. It has hesitated, however, to creatively exploit the long-fraught relationship between Moscow and Beijing. If Washington elects to mount a myopic contest for influence in Asia but forgoes creative diplomatic engagement with China, it won’t just miss an opportunity to split China from Russia once again. It will instead create incentives for these two great powers to join forces, fueling the outcome it fears most.

Mark Hannah is a senior fellow at the Eurasia Group Foundation and host of its None Of The Above podcast.

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The Biden administration has approved the transfer of Dutch and Danish F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine. Although Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky labeled this a “breakthrough agreement,” U.S. officials also privately stated that F-16s will provide “little help” to Ukraine in its counteroffensive. Until now, Ukraine’s counteroffensive has had little success, as Ukrainian forces could not break through the Russian defenses set up within Ukraine. Reportedly, Ukrainian troops suffered heavy casualties and lost almost a quarter of the weapons in their arsenal. Ukraine cited failure in the offensive due to a lack of modern fighter jets and stated that their old Soviet-era warplanes were outdated and inferior to Russian jets. The lack of air support for the troops on the ground seemingly undermined Ukraine’s counteroffensive. The Ukrainian Air Force failed to achieve air superiority or even air parity. However, from the looks of it, the sale of F-16 fighters will have limited effect on the counteroffensive by the time Ukraine is ready to fly the warplanes.

First, it is estimated that it will take six months to train the pilots to be combat-ready to operate the F-16. This does not include technical staff training to maintain the aircraft. While multiple states are collaborating in training the Ukrainian Air Force, the exact timeframe for completion of technical training remains uncertain. This procedure may be extended and intensive. Furthermore, by the time the Ukrainian Air Force is ready to deploy, it will be too late to have any measurable effect in the counteroffensive. It is also noteworthy that the F-16 training is facing delays, which will further affect the combat readiness of the Ukrainian pilots.

Second, the F-16s provided to Ukraine are old airframes, albeit with upgraded weapon systems. The fighter jets are estimated to be an average of forty years old and require frequent maintenance. The Ukrainian Air Force will spend significant time repairing the aircraft to keep them flightworthy. Proper logistical support and supply routes will be necessary to keep the jets in the air.

Third, to achieve air superiority, having superior equipment is not enough. A pilot needs thousands of hours of flight time to master their aircraft. According to retired Air Commodore Andrew Curtis of the RAF, “Training even experienced pilots on a new aircraft is measured in months, not weeks.” Curtis added that the same principle applies to Ukrainian pilots. Comparing this with Russia’s air force, which utilizes domestically developed fighter jets and possesses an in-depth understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of their aircraft, it is apparent that such a scenario may not result in any significantly noticeable advantages for the Ukrainian forces. In addition, Ukrainian pilots are extensively trained with Russian technology and aircraft. Most of them are accustomed to operating Sukhoi and Mikoyan fighter jets. Expecting them to use F-16s in combat effectively is an impractical hope.

Even if Ukraine receives the much-awaited F-16s, their bases would be prime targets for the Russian military. Unless the Ukrainian Air Force achieves complete air superiority—an unlikely prospect—F-16s would be vulnerable to attack, even in their hangars. Similarly, Ukraine uses makeshift runways for its Soviet-era fighters to deceive the Russians. F-16s, however, need smooth, conventional runways to taxi and land. In all likelihood, the Russians will attempt to destroy these runways, perhaps before they are ready for action. Defending the jets and their supporting infrastructure would necessitate anti-air batteries near their bases to protect them from Russian attacks. This could make F-16s white elephants for the Ukrainian Air Force if the resources needed for protection and maintenance exceed their usefulness for destroying enemy forces.

Considering all the factors above and the slow process of acquiring these fighter jets, this agreement will not be as much of a “breakthrough” for the counteroffensive. The Russian leadership is also aware of this and may accelerate its military operation to respond to the newly acquired fighters. Although Russia has yet to achieve air supremacy, the Russian air war plans may adapt after Ukraine receives and employs the F-16s.

It is unlikely that F-16s will be a game-changer for the counteroffensive. A few dozen jets themselves, under the current conditions of the war, cannot make an effective breakthrough. This reality is compounded by the fact the enemy retains a well-equipped air force and anti-air missiles. With or without the jets, Ukraine’s counteroffensive will remain slow on the ground and in the skies.

Shamil Abdullah Saleh is a Research Assistant at the Strategic Vision Institute.

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In light of the latest subdued economic figures for the first half of the year, China has been swift to implement measures to achieve its annual growth target of 5 percent. The government has placed a  distinct focus on empowering the private sector and amplifying consumer spending.

In a concentrated effort spanning just two months, China introduced a plethora of policy reforms. The Central Political Bureau launched a comprehensive thirty-one-point plan dedicated to fortifying the private sector, vowing to enhance the business climate. The Ministry of Commerce, in tandem with thirteen other departments, championed augmented consumption in households, and the Ministry of Finance provided tax concessions for enterprises and individual entrepreneurs.

However, the effectiveness of these policies in genuinely reviving the economy and restoring confidence remains undetermined. While the People’s Bank of China has assertively cut interest rates, some of the government’s proposed policies seem superficial on paper, bordering on bureaucratic platitudes. 

Also, it is noteworthy that the government’s present measures seem somewhat narrow in scope and lacking in depth. For instance, tax incentives and start-up initiatives focus predominantly on minuscule-profit enterprises with limited financial thresholds. This overlooks the significance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)—entities that form the bedrock of China’s economy. These SMEs, accounting for a whopping 99.8 percent of all companies and nearly 80 percent of employment, haven’t been given adequate attention by current policies.

Historically, China has recognized and leveraged the power of expansive economic initiatives. The 2008 stimulus program is a case in point, where China infused the economy with four trillion yuan to counteract the global financial crisis and the aftermath of natural disasters.

Given current economic uncertainties, there is speculation on whether China might resort to a similar, grand-scale stimulus. However, the escalating debt levels of local governments pose a significant barrier. Predictions from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimate China's debt-to-GDP ratio will reach 55.1 percent by 2023. Additional data from the Rhodium Group indicates that this number could approach a concerning 100 percent when factoring in explicit and implicit liabilities from hospitals and schools.

Simultaneously, the country’s real estate sector is showing signs of strain. Prominent property developers such as Evergrande and Country Garden face financial challenges, affecting other industries and heightening systematic risks.

Recent defaults by key financial entities further underscore this instability. Zhongrong Trust, China’s premier private asset management entity overseeing approximately 230 billion yuan for 150,000 affluent clients, recently declared a default.

China now stands at a crossroads, faced with a vexing conundrum: a slowing economy demands aggressive expansionary measures to reinvigorate the market, but such actions might inexorably inflate the debt. This fleeting surge could be precariously bubble-like, potentially heralding a “lost decade” for China.

Moreover, China's current strategy seems inconsistent. While the government desires to foster a conducive business environment, actions like the “apprehend spies” campaign and office raids have precipitated a foreign investor retreat.

Several key businesses and financial institutions face challenges operating in China, further eroding international confidence. The Beijing branch of Mintz Group, previously subjected to an unexpected raid, incurred a $1.5 million fine, the rationale for which remains nebulous. Morgan Stanley’s Shanghai office was picked for on-site inspections, possibly due to its downgrading of China’s stock market.

Unlike other nations, China’s economic policies hinge predominantly on the governing philosophy of the Communist Party’s paramount leader. In Xi Jinping’s latest article published by the party journal, Qiushi, he emphasizes the importance of modernization with Chinese characteristics. By highlighting perceived problems in Western modernization paradigms, he posits that China is charting its distinct path.

In 1992, China’s economic reform architect Deng Xiaoping embarked on a momentous journey to the southern reform pioneer, the Guangdong Province. This “Southern Tour” was a watershed event, reaffirming China’s commitment to economic reforms. It decisively quelled doubts regarding China’s alignment with the Western market economy and laid the foundation for China’s developmental course in the ensuing decades.

Now, more than ever, China needs a similar visionary leadership. A decisive and coherent strategy, supported by unwavering political commitment, is vital to steer the nation towards sustainable growth.

Xiangxue Zheng is a researcher focusing on China and East Asia. He holds an M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is based in Washington, DC.

Image: Shutterstock. 

In boisterous democracies, there are heated debates over intangible and seemingly arbitrary issues such as names, titles, and identities. These arguments have a penchant for revisiting history. In the United States, discussions about gun rights, abortion, and race stem from different understandings of the nation’s past and, often, its very foundation.

The Indian government’s use of “Bharat” instead of “India” in the invitations for last week’s G20 meeting has unleashed such a discussion within the country and raised more questions about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s objectives abroad. The name Bharat was applied to the lands of modern India for over three thousand years. Ancient Sanskrit religious texts and epics, like the Vedas and the Mahabharata, reference the name. On the other hand, “India” was derived from the fifth-century BC Greek reckoning of the Persian corruption of the Sanskrit placename “Sindhu,” designating the Indus River.      

First, the timing is noteworthy.  India is using the G20 to position itself as the leader and voice of the Global South. Over the last few years, the Modi administration has consistently championed the voices of the developing world, referred to as the Global South. Not only was his government among the first to deliver vaccines at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has also used every opportunity on the world stage to discuss reforms in the multilateral system that would make it more equitable for nations in the Global South. Modi has also advocated for including the African Union in the G20. Consequently, leaders such as the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, James Marape, have hailed him as the leader of the Global South for offering a third way in the tense climate under Cold War 2.0.

India’s goodwill in the Global South on various global platforms is not only a result of their delivery of public goods or recent advocacy efforts. There is also the underlying solidarity extending from a shared history as victims of imperialism. This renaming of the nation in an invitation sent out to global delegates is a product of that solidarity. It is increasingly seen as a decolonizing effort, at least by the supporters of the ruling government. Though, the partisan support is likely out of domestic concerns.

Interestingly, on the domestic front, the Modi administration hopes to convert nationalist fervor into votes for the 2024 parliamentary elections. Furthermore, the leader of the Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Mohan Bhagwat’s comments on Bharat prior to the news of the invitation have understandably raised concerns among the opposition parties in India on the domestic impacts of this supposed decolonizing initiative.

The fears over the ideological motivations behind the change are not unfounded. The RSS has previously called for an “Akand Bharat,” or “undivided” India. This conception of India encompasses almost all modern-day “South Asia” (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Tibet, and Myanmar) and highlights the vast territories the RSS considers lost to various invasions in the last thousand years. This is at odds with the vision of the Indian National Congress (INC) and other state political parties committed to the borders agreed to post-1947 and have in the name of federalism.    

The idea of changing names is more than a partisan initiative, however. Across the nation, names of cities, towns, and even streets have been changed to their pre-colonization ones or new ones in the vernacular. For example, Bombay was renamed Mumbai, Madras became Chennai, Calcutta became Kolkata, Cochin became Kochi, and more recently, Allahabad became Prayagraj.

The partisan divide in India concerns the larger question: Who colonized India? The BJP and opposition parties agree that the British Empire colonized India, and the former’s dissolution in 1947 warrants a shedding of imperial vestiges from Indian institutions.

However, they disagree on the Islamic Mughal Empire’s role in shaping India, its cultural fabric, and institutions. From the blood-stained partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 to 2023, the question lingers on. Hence, despite “India, that is Bharat” appearing as the first words in Article 1 of the Indian Constitution, renaming the nation, even on a state invitation, has led to this clamor.

Much like the American debates about the founding of the United States (1619 vs. 1776), there is the Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul’s understanding of India (a wounded civilization coming to terms with its identity after centuries of Muslim and British rule) and prominent historian Romila Thapar’s inclusive, secular nationalist understanding of India. Naipaul’s thesis that the civilization’s scars predate the British Empire does not sit well with India’s liberal and left-wing thought leaders like Thapar and Arundhati Roy, who claim that the Mughals integrated within Indian society, unlike the British. Therefore, they did not truly preside over a colonial or imperial project.    

Bharat by itself is commonly used in various contexts and has not been marred in controversy as it has recently. For example, it was used by freedom fighters and poets during the British Raj—even by those from southern India—the area now more critical of the use of Bharat. Several Indian government-run conglomerates and universities have long used Bharat or even Hindustan in their names. More so, even the venue for the G20 event is called the “Bharat Mandapam,” which translates to “Indian Hall.”

The name change is also a part of the Modi government’s yearning to assert India on the world stage. While it has a precarious way of going about it—dallying between different camps—one week at the BRICS summit and another at the Quad leaders’ summit—it is indeed cashing in on the benefits from both camps. In a meeting that brings both camps together, it has rightly used the opportunity to rename itself.

There are domestic and diplomatic reasons for the India-Bharat change, and it stands as the latest flashpoint in the debates over Indian (or Bharatian) identity. As an election year approaches, one can expect the vagaries of Lutyens Square (New Delhi’s knot of government buildings named after the British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens) to make headlines. Those headlines, however, do not often materialize to earth-shattering reforms, particularly in an election year. Is Bharat here to stay? I’d suggest asking again in June 2024 for a definite answer.          

Akhil Ramesh is a Senior Resident Fellow at the Pacific Forum.

Image: Shutterstock.

Much is at stake now that the United States and Vietnam have embarked on a new diplomatic framework. For nearly a decade, Washington has worked to strengthen ties with Hanoi. Amid increased tensions between the United States and China, President Joe Biden traveled to Vietnam on September 10, upgrading bilateral relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. While much of the focus of U.S.-Vietnamese discussions has centered around defense ties—critical aspects of their economic cooperation have been overlooked. The current partnership fails to strengthen essential elements of Vietnam’s energy sector, primarily its ability to secure long-term LNG contracts amidst global price volatility that will be vital to supporting its industrial manufacturing base. As the Biden administration makes arrangements to launch a new strategic partnership, bridging the gap between Vietnam’s economic development and energy needs is central to building a resilient economic alliance between Washington and Hanoi.

For Vietnam to be a reliable strategic partner—continued economic growth is paramount. In order to sustain its current economic growth rate, primarily through its manufacturing sector that hosts companies like Samsung and Foxconn, access to steady, reliable, and affordable energy is essential. Vietnam is one of Asia’s most promising industrial and manufacturing powerhouses, but ongoing political and economic circumstances in its energy sector threaten to derail progress. Vietnam has significantly invested in LNG as a low-carbon baseload fuel to transition away from coal and meet net-zero targets. As early as 2012, it built two LNG import terminals—Hai Linh and Thi Vai. However, political uncertainty and supply chain delays led the Vietnamese government to postpone opening both projects and dramatically slowed future LNG infrastructure development.

One of Vietnam’s main challenges is its inability to secure long-term LNG contracts, which exposes it to global price fluctuations and forces it to purchase gas on the spot market. Vietnam is a price-sensitive buyer, meaning wild swings in global gas prices can quickly force it out of the market. When the Thi Vai broke ground in 2019, the Platts JKM LNG price benchmark price hovered around $5 per MMB. At the height of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in winter 2022, prices skyrocketed to $70.50 per MMB—a price that would have seemed unthinkable years earlier.

Without stability in Vietnam’s energy sector, Washington and Hanoi’s economic partnership will weaken. For better or worse, gas is essential to Vietnam’s long-term economic growth. If Vietnam fails to adequately incorporate LNG into its economy, its dependence on coal will grow, leading to failed climate targets and increased power shortages. Expensive gas infrastructure could also risk underutilization, jeopardizing future investments and hindering the development of other green technologies. 

The Biden administration has already taken steps to promote economic resiliency in Vietnam’s energy sector through the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). JETP will finance nearly $15.5 billion in capital to accelerate Vietnam’s energy transition, primarily contributing to the expansion of renewable energy. Despite Vietnam’s promise as a clean energy leader, it will take time to integrate widespread distributive energy into its power and industrial processes, making LNG critical to providing a baseload fuel to support economic growth. 

For these reasons, long-term LNG contracts are an essential building block to an elevated U.S.-Vietnamese strategic partnership. Vietnam has already built expensive gas infrastructure, and contracts will mitigate many of the financial risks brought on by spot market buying. Contracts also ensure a steady energy supply to Vietnam’s growing population while supporting the backbone of industrialization. 

As the Biden administration implements a new strategic partnership, the White House should press to fortify Vietnam’s energy sector by advocating for long-term LNG contracts. Although the U.S. government cannot control commercially independent markets to ship LNG to Asia, Washington still has avenues to assist. JETP could provide a preexisting framework for the White House to allocate capital to subsidize the high costs of buying LNG on spot markets. It could also direct investment toward LNG storage facilities to buy gas at low prices and save supply for when prices inevitably spike. 

Despite the high global demand for American gas, current constraints on exporting capacity create a bottleneck between suppliers and international consumers. The White House can also use this new strategic partnership to leverage its convening power to bridge the gap between American LNG suppliers and Vietnamese buyers. Last week’s talks present a compelling argument for accelerating permitting reform in the United States to ease restrictions and create an avenue for deeper partnership and trade. 

Vietnam’s energy sector is at a critical inflection point. A new partnership between the United States and Vietnam presents an opportunity for greater economic and strategic cooperation. Still, Washington must work three-dimensionally to bridge the gap between Vietnam’s economic development and energy needs. As the Biden White House moves forward with an elevated relationship with Hanoi, addressing the realities of Vietnam’s energy landscape—especially its fledgling LNG sector will ultimately make it a more resilient partner and bulwark against aggressors in the Indo-Pacific region. 

Kathryn Neville is an independent contractor who has demonstrated her leadership on global energy transition topics through published works in the Diplomat and U.S.-China Focus. She recently graduated from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) with an M.A. in Economics and International Relations.

Image: Shutterstock.

While some hard-right politicians in Washington are trying to make political hay with accusations of corruption lobbed at Ukraine, two major recent political events suggest that Kyiv is becoming more responsive to the Biden administration’s entreaties to fight corruption.

The first is that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy replaced his hard-working Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov with Rustem Umerov, a State Property Fund boss, corruption fighter, and Crimean Tatar by ethnic origin. Beyond being a subtle way of once again signaling that Crimea is a part of Ukraine, this is an effort to neutralize the miasma of corruption that enveloped the government of Ukraine since before the war.

The second shoe dropped when the Ukrainian Security Service arrested Igor Kolomoisky, a one-time business partner and mentor of Zelenskyy’s, for alleged money laundering. Kolomoisky is a U.S.-sanctioned oligarch who allegedly defrauded his Privat Bank depositors to the tune of $6 billion.

These moves may be signals that Zelenskyy means business when it comes to fighting corruption, and perhaps a pre-2024 presidential election show-and-tell. But it also has a vital importance to U.S.-Ukrainian relations and the prosecution of Ukraine’s war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The former is of notable importance, given that some noted conservative commentators Tucker Carlson, and various Republicans on Capitol Hill, are trying to use Ukraine’s endemic corruption to justify cutting military aid to Kyiv.

Losing the Peace

Since World War Two, America has consistently won military campaigns but lost the peace. Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan showcase reconstruction bungling and failures in nation-building. A lack of vision, American cultural tone-deafness, local graft and corruption, and failure to either delegate power or centrally administer it, collectively resulted in failed reconstruction policies that ultimately harmed America’s national interests.

These tragedies are as repetitive as they are predictable. If “war is an extension of politics by other means,” as Clausewitz posited, then reconstruction politics is war by peaceful means. Yet, too often, war and reconstruction are seen as discrete enterprises. In South Vietnam, the regime of Ngô Đình Diệm was allowed to fall, despite Diệm’s effective although heavy-handed anti-corruption activity, because many in the U.S. establishment forgot that the battle against corruption was synonymous with the wider war.

The U.S. government ignored Vietnam's lessons at its own peril. When the United States invaded Iraq with a poorly defined political horizon and reconstruction plan, the Pentagon under Donald Rumsfeld and his successors were unprepared to administer the country after it naively disbanded Iraq’s ruthless Baathist military and bureaucracy. In this case, and many others, the failure to develop economic policy resulted in the intensification of Islamist terrorism.

A Chance to Win the Peace

If we don’t want to repeat these mistakes in Ukraine, the United States, EU members, and the Zelenskyy administration need to begin planning for reconstruction now—for both capacity building for military victory and for peacetime reconstruction.

However, purely humanitarian ventures often rapidly exhaust donors’ political will. Ukraine’s reconstruction is in America’s national interest and should be a win-win for Ukraine, Europe, and the United States. Investment in Ukraine should be profitable during the post-war reconstruction. Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe, rich in energy resources and raw materials, including rare earth elements, well endowed with human capital, and with a population eager to join the American-led democratic order. Ukraine’s reentry into the world economy would be a great economic asset for the U.S. business in the form of trade and investment.

From the U.S. side, by far, the biggest problem is graft, often stemming from the opaque system of bidding for contracts. The United States spent 141 billion dollars in Afghanistan, just shy of the $150 billion total (adjusted for inflation) that was given to sixteen European countries to rebuild after World War II under the Marshal Plan. $220 billion was spent in Iraq, only for Iraq to become an Iranian sidekick and target of China’s “going out” investment bonanza.

The largely unaddressed problem endangering future Ukrainian reconstruction is the abuse of sanctions tools. Western powers do not trust Ukraine’s sanctions, as the evidence for violations is secret and is not presented when sanctions reciprocity is requested. More cooperation between the Ukrainian authorities and Western sanctions enforcers is necessary, including transparency of evidence subject to review in Ukrainian and international courts.

“Since [February 24, 2022], more than 5,715 individuals and 3,153 legal entities have been added to the Ukrainian sanctions list, many of whom were sanctioned for facilitation of circumvention of the existing sanctions and other restrictive measures on doing business in Russia”, writes Hanna Shtepa, the head of the International Commercial & Trade (ICT) practice in the Kyiv office of Baker McKenzie. “More than 2,300 criminal cases were reported to be commenced in Ukraine regarding collaboration alone.”

Ukraine has introduced a wide array of sanctions against companies doing business with Russia. Sanctions are a necessary tool to cut the flow of military or dual-use technology to the Russian military-industrial complex and reduce revenue, but in the opaque Ukrainian political and business environment, this tool has morphed into an overused, abused, and politicized weapon that in some cases has nothing to do with Russia according to claims of affected Ukrainian entrepreneurs. Lack of transparency and absence of due legal process have led to suggestions that the Ukrainian sanctions regime is not free of corruption and vested interests.

There is an array of tools that can be employed that will help. Blockchain technology could track public money. Donors should maintain publicly available centralized databases of aid projects, running transparent, open bidding processes. However, all of these are band-aids without political buy-in from the U.S. establishment. What the United States needs is another Truman Committee.

The Truman Committee of the World War II-era was a special congressional committee designed to combat war profiteering, ensure fair rates for government contracts, and plan for postwar reconstruction. The committee created the political will that turned contract oversight from a dull administrative task into a bipartisan crusade, creating elite and popular support for sound reconstruction policy.

While U.S. reconstruction failings are best defined by disinterested or inept leadership, Ukrainian failures are better understood as agent problems. Political elites are energized to act but not always able to enact their vision. However, Ukraine is at least taking important steps to remedy this situation as the Reznikov replacement and Kolomoisky arrest suggest.

Zelenskyy also has proposed capital punishment for corruption by equating it with treason, identifying it as just as dangerous to the Ukrainian war effort as Russian bombs. Ukraine already has a High Anti-Corruption Court, and an equivalent of the Truman Committee reporting to the Ukrainian Rada, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention. However, despite these efforts, Ukraine has a long way to go.

Ukraine needs to tighten its wartime anti-corruption act, including making sanctions transparent and compatible with the West. President Zelenskyy is right: corruption in any form is just as damaging as Russian violence. But the proof of the pudding is eating: can Ukraine bring corruption under control so that its war effort becomes unstoppable and its victory realizable?

Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and is Managing Director of the Energy, Growth, and Security Program at the International Tax and Investment Center. He is the author of Russian Imperialism: Development and Crisis.

Wesley Alexander Hill is the Lead Analyst and International Program Manager for the Energy, Growth, and Security Program at the International Tax and Investment Center. He researches geopolitical and geo-economic issues involving China, Eurasia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Image: Shutterstock.

Senator Barry Goldwater, the father of the modern conservative movement, declared later in life that debating the pros and cons of a welfare state was a useless activity—that instead, conservatives should focus on what kind of welfare state America should have. Much of the same can be said today surrounding the issue of industrial policy.

One of the few areas of bipartisan agreement today is the need for a strong and comprehensive industrial policy. As defined by the International Monetary Fund, “industrial policy” refers to government efforts to shape the economy by targeting specific industries, firms, or economic activities. Contrary to common belief, industrial policy is not new to the United States. From Alexander Hamilton’s advocacy of a strong industrial system to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and beyond, industrial policy, be it via NASA, DARPA, and tax policy, has been ever-present. 

Contributing to the prominence of industrial policy during the last decade are the pandemic (with scarcity of personal protection equipment), the growing economic and security threats from China, and populism strongly advocated by both political parties. Most recently, industrial policy has taken center stage via the Inflation Reduction Act, the Chips and Science Act, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Five key drivers of industrial policy merit attention since they will shape not just the parameters and content of that policy but also impact America’s global competitiveness for the foreseeable future. These are:

Prioritization of sectors. No government has the time, attention, resources or expertise to promote a range of sectors and industries. Additionally, picking winners and losers can lead to market distortions and inefficient allocation of resources. But given the choice of government support for companies or industries, the latter is a far better bet. Just witness the case of energy company Solyndra during the Obama administration. That firm and three other subsidized companies went bust at a cost of $780 million. As concluded in a study by the Peterson Institute, U.S. industrial policy has worked best when applied to whole sectors to subsidize research and development. Shining examples of smart industrial policy would be Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama, Operation Warp Speed under the Trump administration, and North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. Protection for steel, textiles, apparel, and solar panels merely raises costs and prices for consumers and abets retaliation by our trading partners.

R&D. A nation’s ability to develop, expand and sustain its industrial prowess is contingent upon its research and development infrastructure. The United States spends nearly $700 million in R&D, 30 percent of world total, with most performed by the private sector. Yet, despite ranking second after Switzerland in the Global Innovation Index, U.S performance on other indicators is declining. For example, federal support for R&D declined from 31 percent in 2010 to 21 percent in 2019. Support of graduate student and number of students studying STEM majors are declining.

Especially disturbing is a recent report revealing that in seven of nine leading sectors, U.S. firms’ size-adjusted R&D spending had either declined or remained stagnant while Chinese spending rose.

Workforce. The availability, quality, and productivity of the workforce—at all occupational levels—are vital to successful industrial policies. In terms of productivity, the United States ranking has fallen from fifth in 2015 to twelve in 2022. In all career fields, the average worker is productive for 60 percent or less each day. Looking at high school standardized test performance globally, the Organization for Economic Coopearation and Development reports that when comparing achievement scores in reading, math, and science, U.S. fifteen-year-olds rank twenty-fourth, thirty-sixth, and twenty-eighth respectively. Given this sorry state of workforce readiness, the only remedy is job training. The federal government’s Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act lets businesses hire and train skilled workers and get reimbursed for their efforts. Companies, unions, non-profit organizations, and high schools and colleges also offer a range of training programs.

Place-based innovation. Many communities across the nation are left out of the high-tech economy. As the Council on Competitiveness notes, this risks creating a bifurcated country with stark disparities between high-tech centers and rural or rust-belt communities where closed factories and a loss of tax revenue and jobs have created a dire situation, especially for those for whom emigration is not an option, Congress has authorized $80 billion for this Biden initiative which would provide competitive grants for local projects that match resources with need, opportunity, and capacity. It is unclear, however, whether poor, underserved, rural areas have the human resource base for upskilling and the ability to attract investment to foster and sustain place-based economic opportunities and revive economically depressed communities.

Trade policy. Trade is both a shaper and byproduct of industrial policy—shaper, in its catalytic role in the erection of tariff and non-tariff barriers and byproduct, in the resulting effects on employment, wages, and prices. Punitive measures such as tariffs on Canadian lumber, steel, and aluminum harm consumers far more than foreign exporters. And after all, more Americans purchase kitchenware, cars, and refrigerators than work in steel plants. The Trump protectionist industrial policies cost $80 billion, including 166,000 jobs according to the Tax Foundation. If re-elected, Trump plans to impose a 10 percent tariff on all foreign goods. Efforts to further open foreign markets to U.S. producers should be a centerpiece of American industrial policy, not erecting additional barriers to foreign imports. In this regard, the Biden administration’s neglect of traditional trade deals is most disheartening.

Inarguably, industrial policy is here to stay; one cannot put toothpaste back into the tube. Those on the Right must realize that industrial policy is not Soviet-style central planning, and those on the Left need to understand that in most cases, market-based incentives and solutions are the most effective course of action.

Fortunately, the U.S. industrial base is strong. The United States leads in fields such as bioscience, quantum computing, robotics, and other advanced industries. As for manufacturing, spending on the construction of new manufacturing facilities hit $196 billion, a sixty-year high. But as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers asserted, “the doctrine of manufacturing-centered economic nationalism” is not the way to go, particularly when manufacturing accounts for a mere 8.3 percent of total employment.

Nor are market-distorting trade barriers such as “Buy American” provisions and subsidies for battery production and electric vehicles. Such subsidies discriminate against our allies such as South Korea and the European Union who will likely counter with their own subsidies. Making matters worse are Biden administration requirements that companies that apply for subsidies for semiconductor manufacturing must provide childcare for their workers. As Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation points out in the winter issue of Wilson Quarterly, America must restore and retain technological leadership. Cramming social policy down the throats of the producers impedes the path toward that goal.

With China nipping at its heels economically, the United States must maintain (and regain) a competitive advantage. Carrots for industry, not sticks for competitors are the wisest course of action. America must institute not only robust industrial policies but smart ones, as well. 

Jerry Haar is a business professor at Florida International University and a fellow of both the Woodrow Wilson Center and Council on Competitiveness. He is the co-author with Ricardo Ernst of Globalization Competitiveness and Governability.

Image: Shutterstock.

Jonathan D.T. Ward, The Decisive Decade: American Grand Strategy for Triumph Over China (New York City: Diversion Books). 304 pp., $28.99.

Earlier this month, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo followed in the footsteps of fellow cabinet officials who are executing President Joe Biden’s puzzling policy toward China. Before her, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and special envoy John Kerry traveled to Beijing to “build a floor” beneath worsening relations. According to Raimondo, she sought to improve commercial ties while addressing technology-related tensions.

The Secretary’s counterpart, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, agreed on the need for a stable economic relationship with the United States. In an environment of duplicity, in which the White House has openly accused China of undermining America’s economic future, many are asking whether exchanges like these merely plumb new depths of diplomatic inadequacy.

At best, this dissonance implies an absence of a coherent strategy. At worst, it indicates a raincheck from reality. Recurring high-level summits have served as a convenient excuse to avoid steps that might offend or provoke America’s chief rival. Even when the last meeting produced little, now is never the time for aggressive actions because they might prevent reproachment in the future. Proponents of President Biden’s approach are always eager to turn over a new leaf. Their caution has begun to sound like hopeful procrastination because it fails to accept present circumstances. In this time of uncertainty, with so many dissonant voices contributing to the debate on U.S.-China relations, credible, incisive views are hard to come by.

Jonathan D. T. Ward fits the bill. A reader unfamiliar with his influence need look no further than the opening pages of his second book, out this year, titled The Decisive Decade. The foreward demonstrates the long professional road he took to intervene in contentious arguments on U.S.-China relations. His book proposes a sweeping vision for the future of American foreign policy. Its core chapters should be required reading—even for his most fervent detractors.

H.R. McMaster introduces Ward’s text with a dramatic salutation “To Citizens and Business Leaders across the Free World.” The latter is an audience that has too long sought to discredit the quarrels unfolding in Washington over how to deal with Beijing’s increasingly assertive foreign policy. Early on in President Donald Trump’s tenure, the Lt. General served as his National Security Advisor. That administration produced a landmark National Security Strategy that prioritized confronting China.

Building on that inflection point in American thinking, Ward offers provocative positions about how to respond to China’s campaign of economic warfare. Now, McMaster argues, the stakes of failing to heed Ward’s advice are even higher. Since overtaking the United States as the preferred destination for foreign direct investment, one could imagine, McMaster suggests, “[Chinese Communist Party, or CCP] leaders evoking the quotation erroneously attributed to Vladimir Lenin: ‘the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.’” McMaster adds, “except it is worse; the Free World is financing the CCP’s purchase of the rope.”

Ward has set his sights on how to reverse these dynamics. Achieving that goal has led him to his current project. Rather than diagnosing the syndrome of chauvinism and imperialism at work within the Chinese state, he has put forward a framework for America’s strategy to deal with worsening circumstances. The ambitious scale of Ward’s reading of what ails U.S. foreign policy sets his book apart. His analysis remains instructive.

Step by step, he leads readers through the domains of economics, diplomacy, the military, and ideas. The “decisive decade” referred to in his title is the present one—according to Ward, the 2020s will determine whether the United States retains its primacy in international affairs. Rather than rising to meet these circumstances, America’s approach to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has langured. It has been defined by the kind of hesitancy that creates policies governed by old habits, that err toward half a loaf.

Despite decades of competition with the Soviet Union, it appears that the lessons learned from that era have either faded from memory or been deliberately disregarded. Ward suggests that the latter is true, driven by the short-term economic benefits America reaps from its partnership with China. He observes that despite the PRC’s intellectual property theft, threats of confiscation, and espionage, many businesses established manufacturing centers within its borders. After years of overlooking the obvious, these activities have jeopardized America’s “indomitable share of global economic might.”

In response to this looming risk, the author calls for a “two-pronged strategy of economic containment toward China alongside the revitalization and evolution of American industrial and technological power.” The first part of that approach merits special attention for its scope. According to Ward, the continued advancement of China's economy is contingent upon its engagement with the United States and its allies. Western powers and their partners possess the means to control the growth of China’s private sector. “Containment” involves preventing its government from accessing the necessary resources and inputs to pursue its goal of global economic dominance.

Crucially, this strategy entails limiting the expansion and development of China’s critical industries and essential technologies while gradually reducing its integration with major global markets and regions. Economic containment also encompasses the restriction or withdrawal of China’s access to vital resources such as technology, capital, and markets, which enable its ascent. “By simply not helping China any further, we change the course of its economic rise,” Ward argues. He adds that, “at that point, the troubles of China such as debt and demographic decline begin to take hold.” Despite his elaborate set of prescriptions, that’s Ward’s hard-nosed bottom line. Like many policies that make a great deal of sense, it requires consistency over multiple presidential administrations and alignment on objectives. It is those attributes that justify his use of the word “containment”—which George Kennan wielded to persuade the U.S. government to come to grips with the Soviet Union’s vision of victory.

Critics of this approach typically volunteer a parade of horribles that would surely befall America’s economy. If the government disturbed prior investments, interrupted ongoing deal-making, or intervened in the normal flow of capital, they argue, countless opportunities—and jobs, jobs, jobs!—would be lost. Were companies forced to relocate, they may never recover from the hit they would suffer. Ward’s research does a great deal to unmask myths about the exposure of America’s economy to the repercussions of what he calls “bifurcation.” No one denies the transition to something like economic containment would be painful. No one denies that executives face conflicts of loyalties between their fiduciary duties and the demands of national security (heightened by the CCP’s creative manipulation of incentives). These realities should not prevent a robust debate about what the costs would actually be of dramatic shifts that must now be contemplated. Ward cuts through the hyperbole put forward by parties whose interests remain embedded in the status quo.

Furthermore, The Decisive Decade aims not to prescribe fine-grained steps for specific government officials to take. Instead, like his last book, the author seeks to place into sharp relief the perils of not getting the broad strokes right within the next few years. He provides a rigorous demonstration that it would be better to accomplish key defensive steps now, amid calmer waters, than in the throws of some future period of crisis. Panic will exacerbate the downsides of measures adopted in haste.

A more profound and more trenchant critique of Ward’s position is that it rehashes an old, failed model of economic statecraft. Demanding that Wall Street follow orders and foot the bill to achieve national security objectives failed when President William Howard Taft tried it over a century ago. Why should it succeed now? In its earlier iteration, the U.S. government tried to counter Russian and Japanese influence on the Chinese mainland by pushing American banking and commercial interests to establish a foothold there. Instead of sidelining the imperial regimes of Russia and Japan, it was J. P. Morgan who ended up retreating. In contrast, the policy that has worked in the past, according to these skeptics, involves embracing free trade. Ever-deepening economic relations with China’s neighbors, premised on a laissez-faire agenda of liberalization, have the best chance of success, they argue.

The shortcomings of Taft’s “dollar diplomacy” certainly offer cogent historical lessons, but so do the last twenty-odd years. The CCP ruthlessly took advantage of China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. It has actively sought to undermine that very system—to buy off and crowd out its constituents. At every turn, Beijing has acted to deprive the system of trade built by the United States of its legitimacy. It promises to follow norms that it later flagrantly violates.

Ward emphasizes that those tactics are part of a larger design. He is also cognizant of Henry Kissinger’s famous formulation: “No foreign policy—no matter how ingenious—has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.” To say that international trade has lost its domestic appeal would be a profound understatement. The demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership suggests that similar grand bargains aimed at long-term, strategic gains are not on the horizon.

Last month, a Reuters/Ipsos survey revealed bipartisan majorities among Americans in favor of increased tariffs on Chinese products. Sixty-six percent of those consulted expressed a greater inclination to support a candidate in the upcoming 2024 presidential election if that candidate commits to imposing additional restrictions on free trade. Notably, prominent figures within the GOP, vying for the party’s presidential nomination, such as former President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, have all called for the termination of permanent normal trade relations with China.

In the meantime, The Decisive Decade makes current U.S. policies toward the PRC look like gimmickry. In the wake of the Biden administration’s “small-yard, high-fence” approach, authorities responsible for export controls are falling short in their efforts to prevent crucial, dual-use technologies from being transported, whether directly or indirectly, to adversaries. A recent Congressional Research Service report brought to light that the Bureau of Industry and Security within the Department of Commerce approved a staggering 97.9 percent of the items listed on the Commerce Control List to be exported to China without requiring a license.

That statistic is not an outlier. Congress reported that, in 2020, the same bureau denied a mere 2.2 percent of exports of software and technology to China. Shockingly, the House Foreign Affairs Committee exposed that in 2022, that bureau also gave the green light to over $23 billion worth of licenses that permitted technology exports to blacklisted Chinese entities. During the same timeframe, export control authorities rejected only 8 percent of such licenses for blacklisted entities. Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, two of the PRC’s national champions, collectively obtained export licenses totaling over $100 billion in value.

Observers of Secretary Raimondo’s visit might wonder where all of this is headed. Historical analogies of the kind Ward proffers provide little comfort. “Often in an interwar period,” he notes, “the success of global commerce leads to delusions of stability between states.” He chides that “business leaders were then, as now, carried away by wishful thoughts of commerce as a means to pacify dangerous nation-states.” Gimmicks purveyed by President Biden’s administration might be another symptom of that recurring penchant for bien pensant policies. The Decisive Decade points the way to avert disaster.

George E. Bogden is an Olin Fellow at Columbia Law School and a Senior Visiting Researcher at Bard College.

Image: Shutterstock.

As Russia wages its unjustified war against Ukraine, Moscow has disproportionately sent its ethnic minorities to the fight, including Buryats, Tuvans, Chechens, Dagestanis, and various Central Asians. While all Russian citizens have been fair game for Russian military mobilization, Moscow has gone further by incentivizing and, in some cases, forcing Central Asian migrants to serve in the war in Ukraine to receive Russian citizenship. In response, Central Asian countries, which have tried to remain neutral throughout the Russo-Ukrainian War, are taking measures to reduce the number of their citizens being thrown into the fray.

Russia’s recruitment efforts of foreign migrants stem from its worsening demographic issues. Russia has struggled with demographic issues for over thirty years, but the war in Ukraine has exacerbated the problem, as women outnumber men by over ten million. The Russian military has sustained more casualties in the Russo-Ukrainian War than in a decade of war in Afghanistan in the 1980s or two campaigns in Chechnya in the 1990s. Additionally, in 2022, around 155 thousand Russians received temporary residency permits in Europe, Turkey, and former Soviet republics.

To compensate for these losses, Central Asians are prime targets for the Russian war machine. Russia hosts around nine million Central Asian migrants hoping to earn higher salaries than their home country. However, Central Asians are often exploited by employers and experience low standards of living, unsafe and exhausting working conditions, and poor health services. On top of this, Central Asian migrants have been subjected to arbitrary detention by Russian authorities. Central Asians are among the 50,000 prisoners in Russia who have volunteered or faced coercion to fight in Ukraine as part of the Wagner Group.

Moscow maintains significant political pressure on Central Asia. Given that Central Asian countries primarily rely on Russia for security, it is difficult for these countries to be forthright in their rejection of Central Asians being pressured to take part in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Despite this, the governments of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan have warned strongly about legal repercussions for citizens participating in foreign wars.

In May 2023, a thirty-one-year-old Kyrgyz man was sentenced to ten years in a court in Bishkek after being found guilty of joining Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern region of Luhansk. Another Kyrgyz citizen who operated as part of the private mercenary Wagner Group was also detained in August 2023. As Bishkek cracks down on citizens serving in the war in Ukraine, twelve Kyrgyz have been confirmed to have died in Ukraine, while around twenty have been reported missing.

In Kazakhstan, after a Kazakh student said on social media that he had gone to Ukraine to join the Wagner Group, Kazakh foreign ministry spokesperson Aybek Smadiyarov clarified that “there is nothing romantic about it.” “We would like to warn that all citizens who intend or think about going and joining those ranks would face between five and nine years in prison in Kazakhstan, where it is a criminal offense,” he added.

The embassy of Uzbekistan in Russia, in a statement issued on August 10, 2022, declared that any form of participation in military activities on the territory of foreign countries is considered to be mercenary activity and will be punished by up to ten years in prison. This announcement immediately followed a Uzbek migrant leader’s proposition in Perm, Russia, to create a “volunteer battalion” to join the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Despite Russia being the primary destination for Central Asian labor migrants, Russia’s recruitment of Central Asians to fuel its war in Ukraine may prompt Central Asian countries to find alternative areas where migrant workers can find employment. This would be a significant blow to Russia as Moscow has grown to rely on these workers in various industries.

During economic talks, Uzbekistan and the United Kingdom have discussed collaboration on labor migration. Additionally, Kyrgyzstan and South Korea have signed an agreement guaranteeing additional employment opportunities for citizens of Kyrgyzstan in South Korea. While language barriers may produce difficulties for Central Asian migrants, the popularity of the Russian language in several Central Asian countries like Kazakhstan is declining. Countries offering Central Asian states alternative labor destinations should provide comprehensive language training to ensure the success of these workers.

Moscow is engaging in risky activity by singling out vulnerable Central Asian migrants to support its war efforts in Ukraine. The longer the war in Ukraine drags on, the more strained relations between several Central Asian countries and Russia will likely become.

Alex Little is an MS graduate of Georgia Tech and specializes in Russian and Central Asian affairs.

Image: Shutterstock.

Last Friday, new reports of fresh fighting between Palestinian rival factions resumed leaving twenty wounded in Lebanon’s Ein El Hilweh refugee camp. Immediately afterward, there was a precarious ceasefire that many hoped would permanently end the violence. However, so far, it has continued.

Residents of the camp and those living on its periphery were forced to flee for their own safety. This new wave of clashes between the Fatah movement led by Mahmoud Abbas and Islamist organizations under the umbrella of “Muslim Youth” have caused fear that the unrest could spill out into the city of Saida itself. The Lebanese army is manning checkpoints outside of the camp, but it’s not permitted to enter as part of an agreement with Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA).

The PA is supposed to oversee all security matters in the camp. However, as the situation has become more dangerous, whether the PA is up to the task of returning calm for the 54,000 registered Palestinians who call the camp home has come into question.

The Ein El Hilweh camp was originally founded in 1948 when Palestinians fled for their safety after the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel. Since then, Palestinians in Lebanon have been stateless and denied the freedom to travel anywhere they like or engage in specific economic activities. This renewed round of clashes is raising fears of additional, open-ended intra-Palestinian violence.

Because the fighting remains intense and there are no signs of it slowing down, it’s difficult to assess how many lives have been lost so far. The number ranges between four to thirteen dead, with dozens injured. A number of Lebanese soldiers have also been injured by explosions falling across their positions near the camp.  

In a statement, the Lebanese Army declared that “5 soldiers were wounded when 3 shells fired from inside Ain El Hilweh landed near their positions at the entrance of the Palestinian refugee camp—one of the Palestinian refugee camp—one of the soldiers is in critical condition.”

As of now, there is no action being taken by the Lebanese army to enter the camp and engage in hostilities. Nevertheless, if the violence spirals further out of control and more Lebanese soldiers or civilians are killed, will it force the army to intervene?

Adding another layer of complexity, Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip and the largest rival to Abbas’s Fatah, is believed to be supporting the “Muslim Youth” forces in Ein El Hilweh. The press office of Hamas in Lebanon has categorically denied all claims that it is supporting any groups in the camp.

"We reject these empty and fake claims that contradict our policies and beliefs, and we consider them a new-fangled attempt to distort the image of Hamas Movement and the Palestinian resistance," said Hamas.

Hamas continued to say that it has cooperated with all appropriate Lebanese security forces and the Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon to aid a return to stability and peace. Unfortunately, the people of Ein El Hilweh are experiencing anything but tranquility and order.

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

Image: Shutterstock.