Diplomacy & Crisis News

The coup news from Gabon, one of the few Francophone countries where President Emmanuel Macron was still welcome, must be grim reading for the French leader. Gabonese president Ali Bongo, who claimed to have won the recent election, lost power in the coup.

This is the tenth coup in West and Central Africa in the last three years, and both regional and international political leaders have a challenge ahead, as it is unlikely that the Gabonese military will heed calls for restoring democracy.

Both the military and many Gabonese believe the election was neither free nor fair—a view which could not be disproved, since Bongo did not allow independent election observers. This turn of events also mirrors the recent similarly derided election outcome in Zimbabwe and the slew of undemocratic regimes in the BRICS membership queue. Will Washington, Paris, and London be sure-footed this time, or will they continue to mouth diplomatic platitudes and slink off?

President Macron was hosted by President Bongo in Libreville in Gabon as recently as March 1, 2023 at the One Forest Summit. The event kicked off a four nations African tour during which President Macron declared that “the era of French interference in Africa is over.” Some political and intelligence observers in Paris now expect nothing meaningful from the Macron government, “President Macron does not love France and cares nothing for Africa, he only cares about himself,” one of them told me this week. Under Macron, France has given up on Africa, setting up a geostrategic threat to America, Europe, and the UK. France has been ejected from Burkina Faso and Niger, Algeria only recently made up with Macron following a rocky diplomatic relationship, and Morocco recently denied a request for a Macron state visit. Even Macron’s plea for an invitation to the BRICS Summit in South Africa was denied.

The West should not expect help from France in Gabon. In fact, another observer told me that many people in the French intelligence and security establishment hope that America will rescue democratic interests in Africa.

Given the United States’ poor track record of keeping Africa on the side of democratic values, it is unlikely that Gabon will spur Washington from its African torpor. This opens the door further for Russia and China, and newly-accepted BRICS members such as Iran, who are looking to bank Africa for their own account.

The UK also has a problem. Commonwealth members Gabon—a recent addition—and Zimbabwe now have questions about electoral legitimacy. Yet the West does not seem to have a clear policy or plan, unlike with Ukraine, where they immediately stepped into the breach for Ukrainians under attack by Russia.

All the while, the geostrategic threat grows. Algeria provided China with a deep-water port on the Mediterranean, Djibouti contributed one on the horn of Africa, and now Gabon may give one on the Atlantic. France’s retreat in West Africa and the Sahel enables Islamic extremists to march into the breach. This may soon present the West with a nightmare choice. If, for instance, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM)—a Mali-based terrorist group that has expanded its operations to Burkina Faso—participates in the mooted Burkina Faso elections planned for 2024 and wins, what could the West say or do? “This would create an Afghanistan in West Africa, thanks to Macron,” said my French source.

The Gabon development means nearby countries—including Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and even Ghana—must be quite nervous about either being next in line for a coup, or subject to extremist Islamic incursions from neighboring military governments weakened by sanctions and isolated from Western influence.

Expect Russia and China also to step into the vacuum in Gabon for the sake of its oil and gas riches. Such a development would be welcomed in many African circles. “When we talk to America they lecture us about pronouns and force ESG policies, but the Chinese give us roads and infrastructure,” a retired Congolese bank executive recently told me.

Until America, the UK, and Europe, particularly France, manage more than platitudes, the Chinese and Russian footprint in Africa will grow, bringing these autocratic regimes the added advantages of strategic ports, access to valuable minerals, and lucrative oil and gas resources.

François Baird is the founder of The FairPlay trade movement as well as co-chairman of the international consultancy Baird’s CMC, with forty-seven partners in seventeen countries.

Image: Radio Télévision Gabonaise.

Over the past two decades, the Caribbean has enjoyed a relatively strong track record of political stability in a largely democratic framework. Unlike other parts of the world, coups, assassinations, and socio-political upheaval have not been the norm. But there are exceptions to this: the failed state in Haiti and the weak state in Cuba. In both cases, prospects for improvement anytime soon are dubious.

At the same time, the rest of the Caribbean is not immune to some of the same pressures, including an upsurge in violent crime and corruption, fueled by easy access to guns from the U.S. and the spread of transnational criminal organizations operating out of Venezuela, another failed state. Citizens throughout the region are increasingly disillusioned by the seeming inability of their governments to come to grips with violent crimes which is eroding the democracy brand. For policymakers in Washington, these are major geopolitical concerns that are most likely to intensify.

Haiti: The Failed State

What is a failed state? To paraphrase political scientist Robert I. Rotberg, a failed state occurs when the government loses legitimacy due to its inability to deliver political goods to its citizens (such as law and order or basic amenities like water and power), accompanied by a breakdown into violence that leads to fragmented political authority. The most critical political good is human security, which ranges from the protection of national borders to “[enabling] citizens to resolve their disputes with the state and with their fellow inhabitants without recourse to arms or other forms of physical coercion.” Weak states suffer many of the same problems as failed states, but manage to stagger from crisis to crisis without a total collapse.

The Caribbean’s failed state is Haiti, a country pummeled by a long avalanche of negative events, both natural and political. An archaic land tenure system combined with the long-term absence of coherent government development initiatives has left much of the large rural sector to fend for itself since the nineteenth century. This has led to widespread deforestation, as Haitians have turned to chopping down trees to make charcoal for energy. Haiti now has an estimated 98 percent of forest cleared for fuel, stripping away topsoil, which facilitates repeated floods. Frequent devastating hurricanes have also hit the island. Furthermore, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in 2010 left considerable long-lasting damage. It was one of the deadliest earthquakes ever recorded, and resulted in between 100,000 and 300,000 people killed as well as leveling much of the country’s infrastructure. Further damaging earthquakes hit Haiti in 2018 and 2021.

While Mother Nature has contributed much to Haiti’s long slide into a failed state, the unraveling of the country’s political system has been just as devastating. Haitian politics have a track record of autocratic governments, interrupted by periods of attempted democratization and frequent political breakdowns. The period between 2018 and 2023 has been particularly onerous, marked by ongoing riots and demonstrations, a near-paralysis of the formal political system, major corruption scandals, the bloody rise of criminal gangs (estimated to number around 200), and the shocking assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021. The erosion of state authority is most evident in the power of the gangs, which conduct kidnappings, seize fuel depots and as of mid-2023 probably control more than half of Port-au-Prince, the capital. An ongoing stream of guns from the United States has not helped matters.

To the dismal political backdrop, the Haitian economy has limped along, with most foreign companies pulling out, aid programs suspended, and public services stopped in many places. In 2023, the International Monetary Fund noted that “Haiti faces a challenging macroeconomic outlook amid a dire humanitarian crisis”—a situation complicated by food inflation caused by the Russo-Ukrainian War that broke out in February 2022.

Considering the above, Haiti’s woes represent a complicated geopolitical problem for the rest of the Caribbean, which is largely unprepared to handle a failed state. The challenge comes in the form of large numbers of Haitians seeking to escape by mitigating elsewhere. While many of them head by boat to the United States, others are seeking to make it north by traversing the Darien jungle between South and Central America and showing up on the Mexican border with the United States. Still others are heading to the Dominican Republic, The Bahamas, Brazil, Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname, where social and healthcare systems are already stretched as well after being hit by waves of Venezuelan refugees.

For the international community, Haiti is a difficult challenge. In the past three decades, there have been three full-scale international interventions, none of which was a sustained success. The United States, Canada, France, and the United Nations have all unsuccessfully sought to help Haiti. This, in turn, has resulted in donor fatigue in working with Haiti, a crisis that never seems to go away. In 2023 efforts to induce Kenya to lead a new intervention offered some hope, but such a mission faces considerable challenges, such as whom to work with on the ground in Haiti. Indeed, the deep state decay and corruption on the island-state have been contributing factors to the hesitancy of the international community to commit. Within the Caribbean, the fifteen members of CARICOM (Caribbean Community) have demonstrated a flaccid response to the failed state in their midst, despite Haiti being a member of the regional bloc.

Sadly, Haiti’s descent into failed statehood is likely to continue, with an ongoing fragmentation of political authority to the gangs. This is akin to Somalia’s descent, which began in 1992 and has continued through today. As long-time Haiti watcher, Georges Fauriol, noted: “Undoubtedly a coherent, sustained international response is urgently needed, particularly in driving toward an identifiable ‘roadmap’ initialed by Haitians themselves. This should be the center of international efforts as Haiti policy stumbles into 2023.” It is possible that the same analysis will apply to Haiti in 2024.

Cuba: The Weak State

While Haiti has many of the attributes of a failed state, Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean, is sliding in the same direction. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, Cuba has been in an almost perpetual state of economic crisis. Despite that the Cuban Communist Party remains very much in control. President Miguel Díaz-Canel, a life-long regime insider who succeeded Raúl Castro, presides over a state that is increasingly failing its citizens in terms of meeting basic human needs. A combination of the U.S. economic embargo (in place since the 1960s), gross economic mismanagement, corruption, and ongoing opposition to private sector enterprise, Cuba entered the 2020s economically adrift. While some help came from China and Russia, Cuba has been unable to find a sponsor like the Soviet Union or Venezuela (in the 2000s and 2010s) to prop up its failed socialist economic experiment, with its survivalist state bent on maintaining its political-military-bureaucratic elite in power through its monopoly of armed force.

Under Díaz-Canel’s stewardship, the country’s problems have worsened, which was reflected by the brutal 2021 devaluation of the two-decade-old currency system. The mix of the devaluation and concerns over food security (already pinched in recent years) were then hit by inflationary food prices from the Russo-Ukrainian war. For a country that imports between 70 and 80 percent of its food, higher international prices hurt. Since 2020 inflation has been persistently high, adding to the pressure on household budgets. According to the World Bank, inflation hit 401.6 percent in 2021—one of the highest in the Americas and it has remained high since.

Cubans have responded to economic stagnation by either migrating, putting off having children, or sporadically opposing the regime. Indeed, over 340,000 Cubans, many of them working age, have come to the United States through the U.S.-Mexico border since the 2022 fiscal year commenced. The outbound nature of a youthful segment of the population raises some chilling prospects for the island—its demographic profile is closer to Italy or Spain, two countries with sharp population decline, than the rest of the Caribbean. Cuba faces a future of a shrinking labor pool and rising numbers of elderly people, who will put greater pressure on pensions and the healthcare system (one of the country’s few bright lights). Unlike Italy and Spain, Cuba is poor.

While there is no armed resistance to the Cuban state, there is a strong undercurrent of discontent, which spilled over in July 2021, when the country was rocked by demonstrations that emerged from popular anger largely due to the brutal deterioration of everyday living conditions. Significantly, the July demonstrations were the first major outburst of popular discontent since the 1960s. The government’s response was to crack down, arresting over 1,500 protesters and handing down harsh sentences. Considering that the Cuban economy continues to be deeply troubled, the socio-political landscape remains tense, with the potential propensity for further protests.

Cuba’s economic problems and the steady erosion of the communist regime’s legitimacy clearly have geopolitical implications. Both China and Russia have a presence on the island either through economic relationships (with Russia signing several deals in July 2023) or intelligence gathering, and it has been suggested more than once that there is the potential for either Beijing or Moscow to have a military presence on the island. At the same time, it is doubtful that either China or Russia has the intention to subsidize the lingering Cuban socialist experiment.

Will Others Follow?

While Haiti is a failed state and Cuba is a weak state, the rest of the Caribbean is not without its challenges to statehood. Much of it is caused by gang violence, which is worsened by the influence of drug trafficking and intense competition for drug routes. According to Statista, in 2022, Jamaica topped the list of homicide rates with 52.9 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, with Trinidad and Tobago in third place and Belize in eighth place. Puerto Rico rounded out the top ten.

While violent crime related to drug trafficking has a track record in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, places such as St. Lucia are now being affected. In 2021 and 2022, St. Lucia saw record numbers of murders. The Eastern Caribbean country’s crime problem stems from several factors: the island-state has emerged as a transit hub for South American cocaine destined for North American and European markets, gangs are well-equipped with weapons smuggled from the United States, and local authorities are out-gunned. In 2023, St. Lucian prime minister Philip J. Pierre requested assistance from the Regional Security System, which includes most of the Eastern Caribbean, Barbados, and Guyana.

The rise of violent crime is eroding the social contract between Caribbean states and their citizens. Corruption is also hurting the Caribbean brand of democracy in places like the Dominican Republic, Suriname, and Jamaica. According to the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, in terms of points (with 100 as a perfect score), Barbados fell from 76 in 2012 to 65 in 2022, the Bahamas from 71 to 64, and St. Lucia from 71 to 55. Corruption is eating away at citizens’ faith in their political institutions and leaders. According to Trinidad and Tobago’s intelligence body, the Strategic Service Agency (SSA), the gangs have moved beyond extortion and drug sales to becoming community leaders and being awarded numerous contracts to do public works as well as “illegal quarrying (sand mining), fraud-scheming, money laundering, black market sale and resale of U.S. currency, party and events promotion, organized robbery, motor vehicle larceny, counterfeiting, human smuggling and illegal gambling.”

Although several CARCOM countries have undergone political violence in the past (Jamaica in the 1970s, Grenada 1979–1983, Trinidad and Tobago’s Jamaat al Muslimeen coup attempt in 1990, and Suriname’s Interior War in 1986–1992), political violence has waned. Most governments now face transnational and domestic criminal gang violence, which is more unpredictable and threatening to the average citizen due to a certain degree of randomness. And CARICOM-related regional mechanisms (law enforcement and legal/governance) are either out-matched or simply overwhelmed by the sheer depth of actions and resources of bad actors.

Another challenge related to the ability of Caribbean governments to deliver political goods to their citizens is climate change. The region is struggling with increasingly more violent hurricanes, droughts, salination of freshwater sources, and eroding coastlines. There are also problems with dying coral reefs, overfishing, sargassum (floating mats of brown seaweed that rot on the beach), and the discharge of wastewater from cruise ships. If Caribbean governments are unable to resolve these problems, they risk their legitimacy by not fulfilling their part of the pact with their citizens. Many Caribbean governments are speaking out on this matter, such as Barbados, whose Prime Minister Mia Mottley has called for better financing mechanisms to help the region through a restructuring of the major multilateral lending organizations.

Does Washington Want a Failed Neighboring Region?

For the United States, Caribbean security is highly important, though it is sometimes lost in the shuffle of diplomatic priorities. Nonetheless, Washington must get tougher on the flow of illicit weapons to the Caribbean, curb its own domestic drug use, expand the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBISI) program, and rethink its Cuba policy (particularly as Havana is deepening its relations with Beijing and Moscow).

Greater engagement is also needed to help build sustainability and resilience vis-à-vis problems related to climate change and to help improve governance, something to which the Biden administration has been sympathetic to. But more is needed. The Caribbean has failed and weak states, but it is not a zone of instability; Washington should want to keep it that way.

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

Image: Shutterstock.

Late August means back to school. Parents know it, kids know it, you know it and so do I. In a modern and rapidly evolving world we know that there is much to learn.The skills we develop during the first few years of school -reading and basic arithmetic- are important parts of everyday life. In the years that follow, school helps us develop skills like critical thinking and problem solving which allow us to take on higher level challenges. 

If we have learned these lessons well, we also learned one additional thing- our intellectual skills will grow sharper if we use them frequently, or, they will wither away if we leave them untended.

With that context in mind… pop quiz! 

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, how many hearings had the House Armed Services Committee with a direct focus on the conflict?

Once a month maybe? That would make for eighteen hearings on the matter at the time of this publishing. Once every other month perhaps? Or even seasonally? The House Armed Services Committee, one of the legislative bodies responsible for overseeing American foreign policy, held one isolated public hearing dedicated to the war in Ukraine back in February of 2023.

Surely the Senate, famously the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body, would take foreign policy more seriously than the “hot tea” tempest of the House. The Senate Armed Services Committee manages to double the House’s output- two public hearings with an explicit focus on the conflict in Ukraine. Admittedly, these two hearings do go alongside an additional five focused on the 2024 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) during which determining funding for Ukraine’s defense was a regular topic- the House held similar hearings on defense appropriations where Ukraine was discussed.

If you are taking the time out of your day to read this article, I’d be very comfortable making a wager that you have had more than three serious conversations about the fighting in Ukraine around the water cooler with your co-workers, dinner table with your family, or coffee with your friends or classmates. I’m sure that you are a super star, but the combined efforts of the House and Senate should exceed the foreign policy thinking that you do in your own life.

You’ve had conversations about the continuing conflict in Ukraine not only because you want to learn from the perspective of your peers but also because the events that are taking place today are critically important to the future. America’s decisions (and the decisions of Ukraine’s other partners) will shape the outcome of the conflict. The outcome of the conflict will shape the peace that follows. The nature of that peace will either hasten the next conflict or allow for peace. These things matter!

Whether you support continued funding for Ukraine or believe that the United States needs to reconsider its priorities is, for the moment, not entirely relevant. What is important is continued discussions and debates about these pressing issues.

As I, and others far wiser than I, have previously written, the House and Senate have been failing in their constitutionally appointed responsibility to conduct serious foreign policy oversight for decades. The legislature conducts foreign policy hearings at a historically low rate, and when these hearings do take place they are more often used as an opportunity to generate sound bites than for conducting the sort of serious oversight that might inform the citizenry or motivate policy change. 

Unfortunately, none of this is new. Even when American lives were directly on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan the legislature failed to conduct serious oversight. The United States conducted 41 separate military operations in 19 countries around the world over the span of 20 years on the back of a single vote in each chamber- the 2001 AUMF. For comparison, the United States declared war on Germany and Japan individually when fighting against the Axis powers in the Second World War.

Individual Americans have a responsibility to stay informed about pressing foreign policy matters. That is one of the obligations we take on by living in a democracy.  The legislators who we elect to represent us in the House and Senate take on that responsibility even more acutely than private citizens. Unfortunately the behavior of our legislators does not live up to the seriousness of their task.

These matters will only become more pressing, and our responsibility will be increased, as the global community works towards resolving the conflict in Ukraine, avoiding a multi–nation war in west Africia, and navigating great power competition. As our elected representatives have been skipping classes, the challenges faced by the United States have continued to evolve.

It is time for the legislature, House and Senate alike, to go back to school on foreign policy.

—

Peter Scaturro is the Director of Studies at the Foreign Policy Association.

There has been quite a lot of media attention given to the BRICS nations over the last few weeks as a displacement tool for Western political and economic power worldwide. While the BRICS only get media attention every few years, this year has elicited a greater response as the expansion of the BRICS was top of mind for the current members.

The BRICS was seen as a group of influential, large, and regionally important nations who possessed much of the economic pull in their regions and worldwide. A coordinated push promoting the interests of this group of nations was seen as a possible countermeasure to Western economic weight and political influence. While the BRICS did indeed have a lot of power in their own right, the BRICS Summits were often more of a meeting between large powers that not only had little connection to each other, but had differing economic strategies and security interests. Trade between BRICS nations was limited, and some members are considered the main security threat to other BRICS members. The addition of South Africa a few short years ago did not benefit them to any great degree, as economic stresses on the South African economy have plague the nation over the last few years.

The expansion of the BRICS group of nations follows in the same tradition of the Non-Aligned movement in the 60s and 70s. This collective of independent nations attempted to speak as one block in the UN, much of it made up of former colonial nations that wished to ally against Western and Soviet interests. While the concept of having a united front was logical, the history, interests and economies of these nations varied greatly. There was little binding them together unfortunately past the position as smaller independent nations who wished to push against hegemonic powers at the time.

On the economic side, trade agreements like MERCOSUR sought to ally the nations of the Southern Cone of South America against the economic and political weight of the United States in Latin America. Much of the future prospects that MERCOSUR created were shredded when Argentina went into an economic and political spiral in the early 2000s. Agro trade that made them dependent on exports to Western countries was displaced by agro exports to Asia. With political and economic challenges from each nation in the trade block, the interests of individual countries placed the trade block in the shadows for a few years, despite it still existing in its original form for a generation.

With little in the way of common interests for many of these nations, the security challenges between them motivate more of their economic and political strategy than a relationship via their BRICS membership. China and India often coordinate their national strategies as security rivals in their own region, and there is little reason to think that new members from the Middle East will become closer to ending their own multi-generational conflicts due to BRICS membership. On an economic front, BRICS membership has little opportunity to re-energize failed trade relationships nor would develop into a more productive form past official trade agreements. The reality is that security is still paramount, with little trade between current BRICS members as well as limited trade between newer members of the group. There are almost no ties between members and no will to create them in any meaningful way.

The international security issue should also be acknowledged in the formation of the BRICS+ agreement. A formal alliance with Russia and its interests is likely not a reality through additional BRICS members, and any ties that side with Ukraine or Russia in this conflict are already well established. A BRICS that creates its own currency or seeks to displace the US dollar will not be beneficial to most of the BRICS members, and those that have ties with Russia under sanctions are currently benefitting from such a relationship. Countries outside of the conflict have no interest in allying themselves to one side or another, as they prefer to hedge their bets against future political and economic chaos coming from the end of the war.

While the BRICS+ narrative is one founded in proper logic and interests, the history of such multilateral agreements only really works if there is a significant outside motivation for the group. The EU feeling the security challenge of the Soviet Union while seeking to balance the economic weight of the United States enabled its creation, but instability has often fractured it in part over the years. Using regional hegemons in different parts of the world to guide a Non-Aligned movement seems logical as well, and was the foundation of the concept of the BRICS, but there is no sustained and immediate interests that can keep such a group continually united. Even with groups like the EU, it is very difficult to maintain the interests of all members without it being detrimental to one interest group or another. With countries like France, Germany and the UK guiding Europe into the EU, large members can leave, interests of one can diminish rights for others, and bad decisions can affect those who had little say in their implementation. The BRICS+ might have some positive results, but the reality is that it will likely just be a story every few years, with members having their own interests and crises take precedence over anything the BRICS+ contributes to their future…especially if members end up in a direct conflict with each other.

A new weapon has just been added to America’s economic statecraft arsenal—one that has the potential to realign Western capital flows in ways that support U.S. national and economic security, at home and abroad. In an August 9 executive order (EO), the Biden administration imposed new rules on outbound investments in three critical industries—semiconductors, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence—to prevent “countries of concern” from turning U.S. technology against its creators.

The new EO lists a single country of concern (China) but the designation could be extended to a host of other adversarial nations. The Treasury Department will still need to draft regulations based on the order. In addition, multiple bills have been introduced in Congress to address problematic outbound investments that weaken American security. Interestingly, even the currently narrow EO lays out a framework that could later be expanded to address the risks posed by new industries or countries that, as the EO states, support our adversaries’ “military, intelligence, surveillance, or cyber-enabled capabilities.”

The limited focus of the new EO may obscure what it truly represents for global markets: Washington’s recognition that outbound capital flows are strategic extensions of national power—whether used to build foreign industry or, in China’s case, funding dual-use technology and research with known military applications. While America has long relied on inbound investment screening, sanctions, import restrictions, and export controls to constrain the malign or disruptive behavior of foreign adversaries, outbound investment restrictions have the potential to evolve into a more potent economic tool.

Outbound investment rules can limit the flow of capital to worrying sectors of a foreign economy and significantly constrain the funding that otherwise might be keeping adversarial industries afloat. Most importantly, it sends a critical message to the private sector to carefully examine geopolitical risks when investing in foreign regimes.

Outbound investment rules could also help America, its allies, and the powerful engines of private Western capital work in greater alignment to support democratic and economic guardrails. Like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s belligerence towards Taiwan threatens our globally integrated world economy.

Outbound investment restrictions could evolve into a critical new tool to curb our adversaries’ weaponization of technologies that disrupt America’s economic and national security, by handicapping key industries that adversaries use to wage war, promote authoritarianism, or build surveillance states that oppress their citizens. While outbound capital restrictions will not necessarily prevent the domestic support of those industries—China will undoubtedly still continue to fund domestic AI industries—it does keep Western capital from inadvertently furthering investments counter to U.S. and allied interests in highly critical areas. Given the size and power of the Western private sector, that is an ambitious objective.

Like any weapon, economic or ballistic, risks are inherent to its deployment: unintended consequences, collateral injuries, and the temptation to overuse. If poorly implemented, outbound investment screening can obstruct or burden legitimate investments and could easily harm U.S. investors who would face competitive disadvantages against overseas rivals. Further, U.S. companies with legitimate and productive investments in countries like China could face unwarranted retaliation.

Despite that, outbound investment screening has tremendous promise—in large part derived from its ability to harness the power of the U.S. financial sector and highlight the long-term market risks that derive from propping up dangerous regimes. While this might have once seemed heavy-handed, the private sector risk appetite is shifting. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, private multinationals pulled out of Russia in record numbers, taking losses and closing off markets that they had worked hard to establish. As tensions have risen with China, in parallel with China’s self-inflicting government actions against industry, the United States and global private sectors have not waited for a possible invasion of Taiwan to act. Even without any outbound investment restrictions in place, foreign investment in China has nosedived. Indeed, Chinese officials who used to come back from foreign trips with briefcases full of private sector agreements to invest in the country are now coming back empty-handed.

With the private sector paying close attention to geopolitical risk and rising divisions between those who support the global order and those countries seeking to supplant it, the timing is excellent for the US and its allies to help drive the alignment forward, helping to support the rules of the road by which all nations can prosper.

To truly succeed, outbound investment regulations drafted based on this EO will need to pay attention to two critical dynamics:

First, any regulations must be clearly defined and combined with an enforcement framework that is robust and palatable to private companies seeking to make legitimate investments in higher-risk countries.

Second, regulators must launch an open and frank ongoing dialogue with investors (with similar dialogues between the United States and its allies), as we seek to collectively reimagine how private investment can and should support our shared national and economic security.

If policymakers commit to enforcement and meaningful communication, outbound investment rules could help facilitate a global realignment of capital that benefits all those countries committed to playing fair.

Elaine Dezenski is senior director and head of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Image: Shutterstock.

The recently released film Oppenheimer has drawn public attention to the real and present danger of nuclear weapons. This is long overdue, as the nuclear threat has often been overshadowed in public discourse despite these weapons presenting as much of an existential risk to the world as the climate crisis.

The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic measure of humanity’s vulnerability to nuclear catastrophe, was recently adjusted from one hundred seconds to just ninety seconds to midnight. There are multiple reasons for this. Over the past twenty-five years, the global nuclear security architecture has come under strain, and international tensions have severely tested it, reminding us that the apocalyptic fears depicted in “Oppenheimer” remain pertinent. It is imperative that the world take the threat of nuclear weapons seriously and map a pathway towards nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

Kazakhstan knows all too well the disastrous consequences of nuclear weapons. For almost half a century, our land endured atmospheric, ground, and underground tests. This impacted the health of roughly 1.5 million Kazakhs living near the Semipalatinsk test site, where the Soviet Union conducted nuclear tests between 1949 and 1989. The after-effects of radiation persisted three decades after Kazakhstan decommissioned the Semipalatinsk test site in 1991.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres was right when he said last year that it is vital to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons before they eliminate our world.

What can be done to achieve this?

Firstly, the international community must resist any attempt to normalize nuclear threats, challenging those who assert that even a limited nuclear strike can be justified.

Secondly, negotiations on arms control and further reductions of nuclear arsenals must be resumed. In particular, the United States and Russia must negotiate a new arms control framework to supersede New START, the last remaining major nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia still in force. Unless updated, New START will expire in 2026.

The international community must underscore the need to restore global nuclear diplomacy and reaffirm worldwide commitment to nuclear disarmament—the ultimate goal of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation Weapons and the more recent Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

The upcoming G20 summit in New Delhi in September, which will bring together senior representatives of global powers, presents an ideal opportunity for political leaders to reaffirm their commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

One year ago, the tenth Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference concluded without agreement. Ahead of the next Review Conference in 2026, states parties to the NPT should leverage preparatory meetings to redress this and advance an agenda to reduce nuclear risks and strengthen the treaty that has long been the cornerstone of the global nonproliferation regime. NPT signatories have entrusted Kazakhstan to chair the second session of the NPT Preparatory Committee. It is my country’s hope that a balanced approach can reinforce the Treaty’s review process.

To support the global push for nuclear disarmament, Kazakhstan was among the first states to join the TPNW in 2019. Given our painful history with nuclear testing, we have partnered with Kiribati—a Pacific nation that has similarly experienced the devastating fallout from nuclear tests—to co-chair a working group focused on victim assistance, environmental remediation, and international cooperation under the framework of the TPNW. A key goal is to establish an International Trust Fund. We are optimistic that this initiative can be realized during Kazakhstan’s presidency at the Third Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW in 2025.

Even amid global geopolitical unease, progress in nuclear disarmament is possible. The number of nuclear weapons has decreased from around 65,000 in the mid-1980s to about 12,500 today. Kazakhstan can act as a blueprint for nuclear powers as a country that voluntarily relinquished its nuclear weapons after independence from the Soviet Union and closed the world’s largest nuclear test site. Together with its neighbors in the region, Kazakhstan established a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia. This process can be applied to other areas of the world, too.

Of course, numerous political and technical obstacles stand in the way of a nuclear-weapon-free world. Yet, as international tensions and nuclear arsenals rise, there’s no alternative if we are to avert potential disaster. The record of close calls over the decades shows just how near the world was to a nuclear catastrophe. Amidst other pressing global challenges, the time to eliminate the man-made threat of nuclear weapons is now.

Kairat Umarov is First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan.

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The Jackson-Vanik Amendment, contained within the Trade Act of 1974, was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Gerald Ford. The legislation denied permanent normal trading relations with non-free-market economies that restricted emigration rights. It remains in force today for several nations, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. While these countries are not among the freest in the world, they have made strides in their human rights records. This coercive weapon used against the Soviet Union has outlived its usefulness.

Originally, Jackson-Vanik aimed to help Jews emigrate from the Soviet Union. The Soviet government persecuted Jews for much of the twentieth century. However, as independent states, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan have become more tolerant toward religious minorities.

Central Asia’s largest and most developed country, Kazakhstan, has changed significantly since its independence by embracing free markets and displaying tolerance towards minority communities. Kazakhstan has a vibrant Jewish community among many other minority groups. Kazakhstan’s constitution requires religious tolerance, and several religious minorities, including Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Catholics, have found refuge in Kazakhstan. Additionally, throughout its independent history, Astana has shown that it embraces free market competition and the rule of law.

Kazakhstan has much to offer the United States commercially. The United States has billions of dollars in energy investment in Kazakhstan, with some major American-owned companies, such as Chevron and ExxonMobil, possessing interests in Kazakh oil and gas fields. In addition, Kazakhstan is an attractive partner in securing rare-earth elements (REEs) as environmental restrictions inhibit U.S. domestic REE excavation. However, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce stated that the Jackson-Vanik Amendment unnecessarily puts American companies at a comparative disadvantage in the Kazakhstani marketplace.

The case for freeing Uzbekistan and Tajikistan from the Jackson-Vanik Amendment is less clear-cut than Kazakhstan’s, but advancements are occurring in these developing countries.

In 2020, the U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom announced that Uzbekistan, where Sunni Islam is the dominant religion, was no longer engaged in “severe violations of religious freedom.” As a result, the U.S. State Department removed Uzbekistan from the Special Watch List. However, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)—an independent, bipartisan commission, released a report following the Ambassador’s announcement, which stated, “Uzbekistan has made important progress in recent years—such as ending raids on religious minority communities, granting official registration to a handful of religious groups, and releasing some prisoners incarcerated for their religious activities—but it has yet to fundamentally change its position regarding the state’s role in controlling religious affairs.” As a result of their findings, the USCIRF recommended that the U.S. Department of State place Uzbekistan back on its Special Watch List.

Tajikistan, a country with a Sunni Islamic majority, has its own struggles with religious freedom. In 2009, religious freedom in Tajikistan declined sharply after the government adopted several highly restrictive laws. Recently, USCIRF designated Tajikistan and Turkmenistan as  “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) for being among the world’s worst violators of religious freedom. However, Tajikistan has been receptive to international criticism and hosted the U.N. Special Rapporteur Nazila Ghanea, allowing Tajikistan to reflect on and better understand its religious communities' conditions.

The prospect of freeing these Central Asian countries from Jackson-Vanik has caught the attention of prominent U.S. policymakers, including Chris Murphy (D-CT). This growing interest has culminated in the bipartisan Kazakhstan Permanent Normal Trade Relations Act of 2023, introduced by Representatives Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Robert Aderholt (R-AL), Dina Titus (D-NV), Darin LaHood (R-IL), and Ami Bera (D-CA), which would repeal the amendment.

To the credit of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, all three countries maintain constructive diplomatic relations with Israel, do not engage in state-sanctioned antisemitism, and Jewish citizens are free to emigrate. How can outside countries like the United States expect more significant progress toward religious freedom in Central Asia without recognizing the steps Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan have taken since their independence?

Despite their progress, these countries are lumped together with Cuba and North Korea, also punished under Jackson-Vanik. In contrast, the United States removed China from Jackson-Vanik in 2002 after it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), and it did the same for Russia upon its accession to the WTO in 2012 despite Russia’s and China’s questionable human rights records. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan officially acceded to the WTO in 2015 but is still subject to Jackson-Vanik.

The United States Congress should pass the Kazakhstan Permanent Normal Trade Relations Act of 2023, as there is no reason to inhibit economic cooperation with an emerging partner like Kazakhstan with archaic legislation. By repealing the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, the United States would formally recognize Kazakhstan’s improvements and show that it sees Astana as a true partner. While Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have more work to do before achieving Kazakhstan’s level of success, the United States should work to make clear the concrete improvements needed for them to gain permanent normal trading relations with the United States.

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

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The ongoing conflict in Ukraine, precipitated by Russia’s invasion, has had numerous consequential effects on international affairs. Yet while much of the world has focused on the most pronounced of these—such as economic impact and shifts in energy routes—on particularly important trend has gone unnoticed: the war has spurred Central Asian nations to reconsider existing linkages and trade routes. In fact, the conflict has arguably ushered in one of the most pivotal moments for the connectivity of the Central Asian region with the global trade destinations since the dissolution of the USSR.

Prior to this conflict, the trade activities of Central Asian nations predominantly traversed Russian territory to access international waters. Yet the war has made transport through the Russia/Ukraine border region significantly more challenging. Moreover, sanctions imposed upon Russia by the West have further complicated trade activity through Russian territory. Thus, along with Moscow’s limited capacity to simultaneously engage in Central Asia, means there is a newfound impetus and favorable environment for the diversification and expansion of trade routes in the region.

This moment presents a unique opportunity for U.S. policymakers. Given Central Asia’s geographic and strategic importance, it is imperative for the United States to help facilitate new connectivity routes within the region.

Why does Central Asia Matter to Washington?

Long underrecognized, the Central Asia region, along with the nearby South Caucasus, is of flourishing importance to all geopolitical actors. It is filled with rich reserves of energy and natural resources, plays host to numerous key trade routes, and occupies a strategic geopolitical real estate between most of the great powers of the world. The importance of the Central Asian and Caucasus regions, collectively termed as the “Silk Road Region” by Damjan Krnjević Mišković, was best described by him in a recent essay for the summer 2023 issue of the Baku Dialogues. He argues that “as the region’s multifaceted connectivity infrastructure increases in both scale and scope,” it will become “indispensable to the fulfillment of the strategic ambitions of the major powers that surround it on all sides”

This trend is becoming increasingly apparent if recent diplomacy is anything to go by. In the eighteen months since the start of the war in Ukraine, the Central Asian region has seen a barrage of interregional and regional summits, building upon the U.S.-proposed C5+1 platform (with the “C” standing for the five Central Asian governments of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan). These recent summits include C5+China, C5+India, C5+Russia, C5+EU, the Gulf Cooperation Council’s Summit with Central Asian countries, and others. Throughout all of these engagements, significant emphasis is placed on expanding trade relations, investing in regional infrastructure, and enhancing connectivity.

Yet due to geographical distance, the United States is at a disadvantage in the region, which is itself encircled by Russia, China, Afghanistan, Iran and the Caspian Sea. Moreover, given prevailing circumstances—including Russia’s increasing propensity for military interventions in foreign policy, Iran’s determination to exclude non-regional countries from regional affairs, the lack of recognition of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, and the considerable extent of China’s regional presence—Washington’s involvement in shaping connectivity routes within Central Asia is of vital importance, as it provides an important avenue to exert influence.

To that end, it is worth considering some of the potential routes being explored and developed in the region.

The Trans-Afghan Route

On July 18 of this year, a trilateral agreement was reached by the railway authorities of Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan, the latter of which is under the administration of Taliban. This agreement concerned the construction of the Trans-Afghan railway, which aims to establish a vital linkage, connecting the city of Termez in Uzbekistan, spanning through Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul in Afghanistan, and culminating at Peshawar in Pakistan.

Although the project’s initial introduction to the public sphere dates back to 2018, substantive strides in its implementation were realized subsequent to the Tashkent International Conference on Afghanistan in 2022. Notably, the comprehensive feasibility study for this ambitious railway venture was successfully concluded within the same year.

While this route might offer a convenient route for Central Asian connectivity, financial challenges in Uzbekistan suggest a potential completion timeline around 2027. Moreover, the lack of widespread recognition of the Taliban government in Afghanistan poses obstacles for Uzbekistan’s export endeavors.

Given these circumstances, compounded by the United States’ non-recognition of the Taliban administration, Washington is likelier to advocate for an alternative route.

The Iranian Route

Situated in a geographically advantageous position to the southeast of the Central Asian region, Iran offers one of the shortest routes to international waters that traverse a single country. This route, however, remained largely underutilized for an extended period due to Moscow’s influence over Central Asian countries and Iran’s isolation from the global stage. However, following the onset of the war in Ukraine, leaders from nearly all regional countries embarked on official visits to Tehran to reassess their relations with Iran.

These commenced with the president of Tajikistan on May 30, 2022, followed by Turkmenistan on June 14 and Kazakhstan on June 20. The most recent leader to visit from the region was the president of Uzbekistan on June 18, 2023. While intentions were voiced for Kyrgyzstan’s president, Sadyr Japarov, to visit Tehran in February of 2023, this has not yet occured.

A pivotal focus during these visits was the theme of trade and connectivity. Iran holds the potential to provide these nations not only with the alternative route to the European market through Türkiye but also a direct path to the Arabian Sea, granting access to international waters. In addition, discussions during the visits of the leaders of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan also encompassed the situation in Afghanistan. Key topics in these bilateral dialogues were socioeconomic reconstruction, peace, and stability in Afghanistan. Iran’s president specifically emphasized Tehran’s interest in excluding non-regional countries from influencing the settlement of situation in Afghanistan.

Given Washington’s poor relations with Iran, it is obviously in the United States’ interest to discourage Central Asian countries from utilizing the route through Iran. This could not only fuel Iran’s economic growth but also elevate its influence in Central Asian affairs, with adverse implications for the U.S. interests in the region.

The Caspian Route

The sole route giving access to the international waters while not being confined solely to railways is the passage spanning the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye, ultimately extending to the Mediterranean Sea and the European Union. This route employs a combination of both railway and maritime transport for the movement of goods.

A few developments over recent years highlight the growing importance and usage of this route.

A pivotal juncture was first reached with the introduction of container train system, first tested on August 3, 2015. The inaugural test container train embarked from the Chinese city of Shihezi, traversing Kazakhstan, and ultimately arrived at Baku en route to Türkiye. Later, on October 30, 2017, after multiple delays, the ceremonial inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway transpired in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku. The commencement of this railway not only facilitated the connection between Azerbaijan and Türkiye via Georgia but also established groundwork for enhanced connectivity across the East-West corridor, linking Chinese, Central Asian, and EU markets.

The significant rise in trade via this route came with the ending of the Second Karabakh War in November of 2020. Rail freight data between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan for the years 2021 and 2022 demonstrate a remarkable surge, from 125,000 tons to 950,000 tons—an astonishing 800 percent increase. Similarly, another significant event unfolded on December 27, 2022, as the inaugural container block transporting copper from Uzbekistan to the EU successfully arrived in the Port of Baku.

Drawing the attention to the recent summit between the EU and Central Asian countries in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan, where the expansion of trade relations emerged as one of the central topics, and considering the discussions surrounding the construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway during the C + C5 summit in Xian province of China, there exists a compelling anticipation for a substantial increase in the volume of freight traversing this route.

Yet while trade volumes along this route have experienced significant growth, further expansion is limited at present due to the limited capacities of cargo ports in the Caspian Sea. On the western side of the Caspian is the Port of Baku, which holds a cargo handling capacity of 15 million tons, set to be increased to 25 million tons. The primary ports located on the eastern shoreline of the Caspian Sea are Aktau and Kuryk in Kazakhstan, along with Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan. At present, Aktau boasts an extensive handling capacity of 17.7 million tons, while Kuryk port is set to expand its capacity to accommodate 10 million tons by the 2030, while the port of Turkmenbashi stands prepared to manage 17 million tons of cargo.

Overall, because these ports currently operate within restricted capacities, the Caspian Route is unable to evolve into the foremost trade artery for Central Asia.

Geopolitically, the route is the most aligned with U.S. strategic interests. For one, it passes through countries that are not members of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Eurasian Economic Union. These nations also partner in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Partnership for Peace program, notably exemplified by Georgia and Azerbaijan. Finally, this route culminates in Türkiye, a major U.S. NATO ally.

This alignment thus seamlessly intertwines with the United States’ overarching foreign policy objectives, underscoring the Caspian route’s pivotal role in advancing multifaceted interests and forging enduring partnerships across the dynamic Central Asian landscape.

How Can the United States Support Central Asian Connectivity?

It is evident that Washington should position the Caspian Route—traversing the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye—as the paramount conduit for international trade for the Central Asian countries. To that end the United States should exhibit a readiness to undertake a number of strategic actions.

First, Washington should make strategic investments in regional port infrastructure. The route passing through the Caspian Sea, often referred to as the Middle Corridor, currently only has a capacity equivalent to 5 percent of the capacity of land route through Russia (known as the Northern Corridor). In other words, the Caspian Route requires significant capacity improvements to effectively provide a strong alternative to the portion of trade passing through Russia. If Washington wishes to facilitate greater trade through this route at Russia’s expense, it will have to necessitate investments in the comprehensive expansion of cargo handling capacities at crucial ports, including the Port of Baku in Azerbaijan, the Aktau and Kuryk ports in Kazakhstan, and the Port of Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan.

Second, Washington should make similar investments in regional rail infrastructure, including rail ferries. Rail ferries, as the name implies, involves transporting train blocks using specially designed ships equipped with railway tracks. Such as system is utilized for cargo transportation across the Caspian Sea, but is at present very limited in its capacity, meaning that it is unable to handle a large potential shift in trade volume from Russia to the Caspian Route. To further facilitate trade along this route, it may be necessary for Washington to consider allocating funds for a greater number of rail ferry ships in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, or support the development of newer, more efficient technology. Along with this, to actively promote trade via the Caspian Route, it would also be beneficial for the United States to cooperate with local railway authorities to modernize existing railway networks, particularly the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. Such investments aimed at increasing railway capacity can establish a stronger connection between the Central Asian region and the Mediterranean Sea, further strengthening U.S. interests in the region.

Third, Washington should allocate more diplomatic resources and attention toward engaging with countries along the Caspian Route. The C5+1 platform has proven a successful and effective forum for dialogue, and should be continued. It could also be potentially expanded to include other countries along the Caspian Route, particularly Azerbaijan, due to its pivotal role.
 

By strategically investing in and engaging local partners, the United States can elevate the Caspian route’s capacity, ultimately not only fostering trade diversification and reinforcing ties with regional countries, but also advancing its own interests in the region.

Ibrahim Mammadov is a Research Fellow at the Caucasian Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies (QAFSAM). He is currently also a Masters of Arts in Diplomacy and International Affairs student at ADA University, where he obtained his Bachelor’s degree.

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The United States' steadfast commitment to enhancing Taiwan’s defense capabilities is vital to deter unprovoked Chinese aggression. Growing economic investment in and military assistance with Taiwan raises the cost and calculations of hostilities from the People’s Republic of China. However, more can be done on the economic front of U.S.-Taiwan cooperation.

Recently, Taiwan’s vice president stopped in the United States on his way to attend the inauguration of the new president of Paraguay. This visit drew criticism from China, which conducted military drills around Taiwan—even though merely traveling through the United States is not unprecedented and in line with longstanding policy.

China increased its gray zone tactics, violating Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, by 79 percent from 2021 to 2022. However, Taiwan is determined not to provoke China. Moreover, Taiwan will hold presidential elections in January 2024. Its two main political parties—the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT)—are committed to maintaining the current status quo with China, which most of the population supports.

According to the Election Study Center at National Chengchi University, 32 percent of the people of Taiwan prefer to maintain the status quo indefinitely, while nearly 29 percent favor maintaining the status quo for now but are open to changes later. By comparison, only 4.5 percent wanted independence immediately, while 21 percent preferred to move toward independence gradually.

Nevertheless, the U.S.-Taiwan relationship should be examined through a bilateral and regional context instead of solely through a China lens. Some American policymakers believe war is imminent between China and Taiwan. While on a recent trip to Taipei led by Wilson Center President and CEO Amb. Mark A. Green, I spoke with Taiwanese leaders. They made it clear that while it is vital to strengthen Taiwan’s ability to defend itself, war remains avoidable.

Taiwan is the ninth-largest trading partner for the United States and produces more than 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. Almost half of the world’s container fleet and between 20 to 30 percent of global trade transits through the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea. This underscores the importance of peace and stability and underlines the vulnerabilities facing global economies should there be any threat to accessing these waterways.

Supporting Taiwan also helps Americans at home. Taiwanese businesses want to divest from China and move elsewhere to the United States or its Indo-Pacific allies. As Taiwan’s exports to China continue to decrease slowly, Taiwan’s foreign direct investment in the United States has grown to nearly $14 billion in 2020—an increase of 13.6 percent compared to 2019.

Washington can do more to increase its economic ties to Taipei. The double taxation agreement under consideration in Congress will help stimulate economic growth. In addition, the Biden administration signed an agreement this year between the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States. Even though this agreement did not initially go to Congress for approval, Congress proactively and quickly passed it into law.

Several other measures should be prioritized.

Although Taiwan has applied to enter the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the United States is not part of it. Nonetheless, it could lead the effort for a smaller regional trade initiative, including Taiwan and other allies like Australia, Japan, and South Korea. With the recent “trilateral partnership” signed by President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and President Yoon Suk Yeol, a new era of cooperation looks possible.

It is also essential to allow technology transfers so Taiwan can produce weapons to bolster its defenses. That would include cybersecurity capabilities as much as conventional land, sea, and air-based defense power.

Finally, Taiwan should be admitted to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) as a non-borrowing member. Of the 12 countries, plus the Holy See, that recognize Taiwan, seven are in the Western Hemisphere: Guatemala, Haiti, Paraguay, Belize, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Kitts and Nevis. Sadly, in the last six years, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and, most recently, the Central American Parliament have shifted recognition away from Taiwan and toward China. With concerns rising over China’s malign influence in Latin America and within the IDB itself, Taiwan being elevated from observer status to a non-borrowing member would be a significant step forward in recovering its limited international recognition.

Half measures are not enough to send strong signals to our allies or our adversaries abroad. The United States should continue its policies of supporting Taiwan, especially with a comprehensive free trade agreement, especially after Congress has demonstrated strong bipartisan support.

Taiwan is a key partner of the United States, and strengthening our bilateral relationship is vital to secure our economic interests in the Indo-Pacific region and throughout the world. Even though Taiwan seeks not to provoke China, it will also not surrender to it.

Eddy Acevedo is the chief of staff and senior adviser to former Ambassador Mark Green, the president and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He was formerly national security adviser at the U.S. Agency for International Development and senior foreign policy adviser for former Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

This opinion is solely of the author and does not represent the views of the Wilson Center.

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The United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran have brokered an ill-advised deal: Tehran has pledged to free American hostages in exchange for $6 billion of its frozen funds in South Korea and an undisclosed number of Iranians currently incarcerated in the United States. Additionally, evidence suggests that a previous release of $10 billion of Tehran’s funds in Iraq might be tied to this arrangement. Here are ten reasons why the deal is calamitous:

1. Encouragement of further hostage-taking. Tehran’s regime interprets the success of the hostage-for-cash scheme as validation of its strategy. Prominent officials, such as Mosen Rezaei, an advisor to Iran’s supreme leader and the former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have been championing hostage-taking as a tactic to replenish the regime’s finances.

2. Contradicting successful precedent. The Trump administration secured prisoner releases without ransom payments, relying instead on just swaps. While exchanging people who have been guilty of nefarious activities such as sanctions-busting and proliferation with innocent American hostages is not ideal, it is still a better option than paying ransom. The new deal reverts to the Obama administration’s approach, which included a $1.7 billion payment alongside an exchange of prisoners.

3. Skyrocketing per capita ransom costs. The Biden administration’s $6 billion offer for five prisoners equates to $1.2 billion per hostage. If the entire financial package totals $16 billion, the ransom soars to $3.2 billion per hostage. This alarming rise from the Obama administration’s $340 million per hostage, already exorbitant at the time, underscores a worrisome pattern.

4. Incomplete hostage release. Despite the substantial financial concession, some hostages, such as Shahab Dalili, a U.S. permanent resident, and Jamshid Sharmahd, a long-time resident of California, remain unreleased. Responding to a question about why Dalili was not part of the deal, a State Department spokesperson said that Dalili had not been designated as a “wrongfully detained” person. Dalili, who has been in prison for seven years, was convicted by Tehran for the trumped-up charge of “aiding and abetting a hostile nation,” likely referring to the United States.

5. Reduced U.S. financial leverage. By offering Tehran $16 billion, the United States undermines its financial leverage over Iran. Rewarding the Iranian regime with hard currency and dismantling U.S. sanctions leave Washington with nothing but a military option as leverage to dissuade Tehran from going nuclear.

6. Strengthening of repression in Iran. The influx of funds would fortify the regime’s repression machine, which has weathered three extensive waves of protests over five years, leading to the murder, injuries, and imprisonment of tens of thousands. Tehran will use the newly found resources to reward its loyalists and security and intelligence forces, as it did after the sanctions relief provided by the 2013 interim nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

7. Demoralization of the pro-democracy movement. The Iranian opposition has called for demonstrations in Iran and across the globe on September 16, the anniversary of twenty-two-year-old Mahsa Amini’s murder by the morality police. The new deal—coming just a month before the anniversary—seemingly aligns the Biden administration with the regime, potentially deflating the opposition’s spirit.

8. Emboldening other hostile forces. Currently, Russia holds Americans hostage and China has shown its willingness to follow suit. Seen as a sign of weakness, the agreement may encourage adversarial nations and entities to capture Americans in order to exert influence over Washington.

9. Funding of terrorism and regional aggression. After the JCPOA’s finalization, Tehran increased funding for organizations such as the Ministry of Intelligence, the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, and the IRGC, all of which perpetrate Tehran’s terrorism and regional aggression. This precedent shows that the regime leverages sanctions relief to escalate its malign conduct throughout the Middle East.

10. Reliance on Qatar’s oversight. Qatar has been a key supporter of the Taliban, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and other radical groups across the Muslim world. The U.S. reliance on Doha to supervise the deal, which purportedly requires Tehran to spend its newfound largesse only on non-sanctioned goods, thus raises concern, particularly given Tehran’s past finesse in bypassing sanctions.

The hostage deal warrants reassessment in light of these significant shortcomings. Should the Biden administration decline to reverse its policy, Congress must act and block the executive branch from using financial incentives to facilitate the release of American hostages globally.

Dr. Saeed Ghasseminejad is senior Iran and financial economics advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @SGhasseminejad.

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This week, the BRICS group held its fifteenth annual summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. The forum has drawn more public and media attention than usual compared to past summits due to the much-publicized expansion of the group, which is said to bolster its geopolitical weight. Twenty-two states have officially applied for membership, six have been invited to join, and many others have expressed interest in membership of this exclusive club of rising economies. For the candidate states, official membership in the BRICS creates a window of opportunity for coveted goods: development aid, technological cooperation, and the much sought-after wiggle room to avoid or minimize potential or actual Western economic sanctions.

On August 24, the summit announced the six new members: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. This is an unprecedented development in the history of BRICS. Originally a descriptive economic grouping proposed by a Goldman Sachs economist, the bloc was formally launched in June 2009 (South Africa joined the group in December 2010). The BRICS’ membership expansion drive holds enormous potential benefits for the existing and aspiring candidate states. For China and Russia, a larger roster adds additional weight to their geopolitical agenda to curb the United States’ unilateral dominance.

But despite the crowing headlines, there is substantial doubt whether BRICS can emerge as a credible counterweight to the Western-dominated world order. The real challenges to success in transforming the global geopolitical landscape originate not from without but rather within. Wide internal differences significantly undercut BRICS’ capacity to work as a unified bloc and realize its goal of a multipolar world order.

On paper, the bloc maintains serious economic heft. The current BRICS accounts for approximately 32 percent of the world’s GDP, 41 percent of the global population, and 16 percent of international trade transactions. The addition of six new members significantly boosts the group’s global economic standing: their combined GDP now totals 37 percent of the world’s (in PPP terms) with a total population of 46 percent of the worldwide population. The three new oil and gas-producing members—Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—add strategic weight to the group. The bloc’s combined fossil fuel deposits and production create an OPEC effect and enhance the prospects of open oil and gas businesses between the member states. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates’ massive sovereign wealth funds can inject billions of dollars into the BRICS’ New Development Bank (NDB) established in 2015.    

The group’s push for de-dollarization in the form of a common BRICS currency or a gold-backed digital currency was primarily spurred by the Biden administration’s Russia sanctions. But the dollar won’t yield so easily. Unlike the EU, BRICS is neither a political integration project nor an economic union under the supervision of a central bank with jurisdiction over the member states. Without these components, a currency union between sovereign states with divergent fiscal policies is politically impossible.

BRICS and Geopolitics

BRICS is the brainchild of China. The grouping reflects Beijing’s growing economic, political, and diplomatic clout. Like the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative), it is China’s other ambitious project to create an alternative power base to the West. Except for Russia, all BRICS member states reside in the so-called Global South, a loose and ambiguous geopolitical construct. A serious question to ponder is: Do China’s interests (or the group’s collective interests) converge with the interests of the vast majority of poor and developing countries in the Global South?

A common goal, however, binds BRICS member states together—the attempt to shift their status from “rule-takers” to “rule-makers” by breaking down U.S. hegemony and cultivating a multipolar power structure in the global economy. Until the 2007–08 global financial meltdown, the United States and its G7 allies exclusively exercised global rule-making power. The rise of the G20 and BRICS in the wake of the financial crash made some clear dents in the West’s rule-making capacity. Alongside the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), BRICS’ two-tier institutional setup—the NDB and the Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA)—was created in 2015. While the NDB finances sustainable development projects, the CRA is a safety net to help member states weather financial crises. Nonetheless, this rudimentary financial architecture is negated by problems of political ideology and foreign and economic policy misalignment.

BRICS is a heterogeneous club of democracy and autocracy, free market and state-controlled economies, and contradictory foreign policy alignments. India, Brazil, and South Africa could be labeled at least flawed democracies with largely free-market economies. China and Russia’s political systems are mostly autocratic, and their economic systems are neither state-controlled nor market-based economies but a mix of the two. The entrance of three Middle Eastern autocracies further dilutes BRICS’ partially democratic character. Striking any meaningful chord that unites democracies and dictatorships and between market-based and state-controlled economies remains a Herculean task.     

More glaringly, BRICS members often have more conflicts with each other than the United States. Most notably, India’s long list of grievances with China include its border provocations, support for Pakistan, and growing Indian Ocean naval presence. These differences have pushed New Delhi to forge a strategic partnership with Washington.

The BRICS members’ different levels of economic development remain a major disincentive for solidifying closer economic integration. China’s gargantuan economy is larger than the economies of all other BRICS countries put together. Measured in GDP terms, China’s economic output is approximately fourteen times bigger than South Africa’s and five to eight times the size of the Indian, Russian, and Brazilian economies. The overbearing nature of China’s economy has made inter-BRIC economic cooperation more difficult. For instance, India chose not to join the BRI, fearing that Beijing’s growing economic muscle might overshadow New Delhi’s position in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region.

There also exists little demonstrable BRICS foreign policy convergence in other global fora. Neither does the group broadcast a shared vision of an alternative new world order to the Western-dominated one. Other than some issue-specific cooperation (such as climate change and counterterrorism), BRICS member states have no notable record of the cooperation needed for a coherent group identity. Moreover, divergences in voting behaviors are evident in the UN General Assembly, the Security Council, and other international bodies.

The Way Ahead

BRICS runs a high risk of becoming an artificial construct. To overcome this risk, BRICS states must first put their own houses in order. There must be a way to address intra-BRICS tensions and conflicts. No economic or political grouping can survive on the mere slogans of reform of or opposition to the current world order. Anti-Western and anti-American postures may fade unless BRICS states foster solid economic ties and strategic linkages to effect their desired changes in the global order. The admission of new members may be more meaningful if BRICS addresses its own internal shortcomings and cooperates more often and more effectively. Otherwise, it’s just another multilateral grouping in an international forest of fora.

Dr. Mohammed Nuruzzaman is a Professor of Political Science at North South University, Bangladesh.

On August 11, Turkey mounted a series of cross-border drone attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan against alleged targets of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group that has been recognized as a “terrorist” organization by the United States, the European Union, and Turkey itself. The group is known to maintain bases in the border areas. 

The recent attacks signal a new page in the relationships between Ankara and Tehran, and the prospect that they have sealed a new clandestine deal to cooperate on undermining undermine Kurdish autonomy in Iraq.

It is necessary to consider the region’s recent political developments to understand why Turkey has recently intensified its cross-border drone attacks in the Sulaimani region specifically close to the Iranian border.

In April 2023, Ankara targeted Sulaimani international airport in an unprecedented drone strike, and recent attacks have targeted places heavily used by civilians.

Since its inception, Iraqi Kurdistan has been politically divided between two rival ruling parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). In order to sustain their power politics, especially during the Kurdish civil war from 1994 to 1998, the KDP has forged close ties with Ankara; in contrast, the PUK sided with Tehran, despite the fact that these ties date back further. 

As a result of the civil war, Ankara and Tehran have significant influence over Kurdish politics in Iraq. PUK-controlled Sulaimani has become the spotlight, where Tehran has long attempted to counter Ankara’s influence and expansions in the region. Meanwhile, Ankara has done the same through the KDP-controlled Duhok and Erbil provinces. 

Despite the fact that Turkey and Iran are two rivals, their rivalry has never reached direct conflict. Instead, the two countries have fought mainly through proxy forces and in indirect conflicts. It’s already well-known that both Iran and Turkey are fighting for influence in the Middle East by supporting opposing proxies in states trapped in conflicts and civil war. 

Ankara attempts to fight the PKK militants in Iraqi Kurdistan as part of its proxy warfare by pushing the KPD to use military force against them. The most recent example of this was on August 13, during which KDP-affiliated Peshmerga forces engaged in an armed clash with the PKK militants in the border areas of Duhok province. The KDP immediately blamed the PKK for the fighting.

The PKK once was a conduit for pressuring Turkey, due to an unofficial deal between a pro-PKK Iranian group known as PJAK (Kurdistan Free Life Party). Yet that appears less important today: Ankara’s increasing attacks in Tehran’s sphere of influence stand testament to the fact that the potency of Iran and Turkey’s regional rivalry has weakened as economic ties have grown. Turkish energy needs and Iran’s vast oil and natural gas resources have been important drivers of the increasing Turkish-Iranian cooperation in the recent decade. Given its dependence on Iranian energy, especially natural gas, Ankara will seek to retain a degree of flexibility regarding its policy toward Iran. Turkey has a serious interest in preventing relations with Iran from deteriorating too badly and in not taking actions that could give Tehran an excuse to step up support for the PKK. 

Iran, on the other hand, has launched a spate of missile and drone attacks deep into Erbil province, where Ankara’s sphere of influence that stretches from the Duhok area ends. In 2022, the Iranian attacks witnessed serious escalations. It’s difficult to believe that the two regional powers could so openly interfere in such a contested area as Iraqi Kurdistan without some sort of agreement.

In March 2022, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps unleashed a missile attack on Erbil, targeting an alleged Mossad headquarters in the province, according to official Iranian media said. In November of the same year, the Revolutionary Guards once again unleashed several attacks on Erbil’s Koya town with kamikaze drones and missiles against the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) headquarters, leading to several deaths and casualties.

Iranian officials have repeatedly warned the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to disarm the Iranian-Kurdish groups, threatening to launch a military attack deep into the region's territory if no action is taken.

In the fractious Middle East, there is one thing that most of the rival regional countries now agree on: an independent Kurdistan is a bad idea. This is especially true for Turkey, whose 15-million-strong Kurdish population comprises between 15-20 percent of the country’s population. 

Currently, Ankara and Tehran have come to the conclusion that a Kurdish autonomous region anywhere in the world, but especially in a place such as Iraq, would encourage Kurdish independence movements everywhere. Both states consider the repercussions of such an Iraqi Kurdish quasi-state to be unacceptable.

Turkey and Iran already face their own nationalist Kurdish movements, some of them armed such as the PKK and KDPI. Both groups maintain a large number of bases in Iraqi Kurdish territory. Tehran accused the KDPI of fomenting the nationwide protests that swept the country for months over the death of the Kurdish woman in the custody of the Iranian morality police.

Last year, John Bolton, a former U.S. national security advisor, claimed that weapons were being smuggled from the Iraqi Kurdish region to Kurdish opposition parties in Iran, a claim that was subsequently denied by the KRG.

An autonomous Kurdish region would be a model for those fighting to free the remaining parts of what is known as Kurdistan, which have been long divided between Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. Governments have been and remain afraid that any concessions to Kurdish demands will result in further demands for independence. Therefore, from Ankara and Tehran’s perspective, a subservient or weakened Iraqi Kurdish region must be achieved.

Shad Sherko is a journalist working in Iraqi Kurdistan. He has studied politics and international relations at the University of Sulaimani. He is currently working as a senior English editor at Sulaimani-based Esta Media Network.

Image: Shutterstock.

As the United States focuses on Africa’s future leaders and gender equality, why are we not explicitly discussing malaria’s immense impact? U.S. policymakers should see the disease for what it really is: inextricably linked to saving the lives of Africa’s women and girls, supporting a new generation of African leaders, and bolstering America’s immediate and long-term security interests.

Malaria is often misperceived by policymakers as a global health problem not vital to the United States. U.S. stakeholders feel pangs of empathy for malaria-affected peoples without realizing the disease’s surprisingly meaningful place in a complicated landscape of geopolitical challenges. Malaria unequivocally and tangibly stunts progress and the livelihoods of millions around the globe, especially women and girls, with broad implications and a significant impact on critical U.S. security interests in Africa.

Malaria Investments Serve African Prosperity and U.S. Security

While there has been great momentum in the Biden administration and Congress around engaging African leaders and a blossoming discourse around the strategic importance of the region to global security, and the need to offset China’s role, there is a need for greater attention paid to the tangible role of malaria, which continues to thwart the progress of millions of Africans.

In Africa, immediate investments in fighting malaria would lead to a significant acceleration of economic growth for African countries and bolster fundamental U.S. security interests over the long run. It is currently estimated that 25 percent of household income in Africa is lost due to malaria infections. This calamitous loss of income for African families results in fewer educational opportunities and widespread poverty for millions of people in the region. Moreover, this household economic loss due to malaria also results in significantly diminished economic growth for African countries, including those of particular geopolitical importance for the U.S.

In December of 2022, President Joe Biden hosted the African Leaders Summit and consistently stressed the critical role of African leaders in tackling the world’s most difficult challenges, including countering terrorism, mitigating climate change, and enhancing global health security. Biden has explicitly pointed to the rising threats of terrorism in Africa as a key national security priority since he took office. President Biden—like Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama—recognizes that between global demographic trends and emerging security threats, African leaders and the next generation of Africans will play a pivotal role in shaping geopolitical dynamics in the decades to come.

Acutely aware of Africa’s burgeoning influence, China has been uniquely proactive and even aggressive in its investments in Africa. However, China’s investments in the continent are often predicated upon specific benefits such as access to natural resources, jobs for Chinese nationals, and collateral for massive loans.

U.S. investment could offer an important alternative to China: the United States could provide less baldly conditional and more favorable investment terms with these critical future allies. Investments in malaria prevention and response could not only strengthen partnerships with African countries, but also reinforce U.S. commitment as a partner that delivers in tangible ways for people, prosperity, and political leaders.

Investing in Malaria is Investing in Women & Girls

Investments in malaria could also yield extraordinary and immediate benefits for African women and girls—the next generation of African leadership and enormously important to the continent’s future. They are a crucial half of the enormous and burgeoning youth generation, critical sources of future African economic growth, and pivotal voices to counter violence, extremism, and domestic political polarization.

Economic empowerment is often associated with three Es: access of girls and women to education, employment, and entrepreneurship. But malaria often disrupts this access. Research also shows that half of school absences in Africa are caused by malaria (with older girls disproportionately affected), leading to catastrophic short-term and long-term consequences.

In Ghana, one study found that 83 percent of household malaria cases are cared for by women. In an average agricultural household in Sub-Saharan Africa, women can invest up to 246 days of caregiving, as compared to 66 days by men, for malaria cases among children. Effective malaria response directly unencumbers women’s economic empowerment. Economic growth in low- and middle-income countries depends on fully tapping the potential of the roughly half of their population who are female, and malaria is a serious economic and social obstacle to such.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately one in four pregnant women are infected with malaria in areas of moderate and high disease transmission in sub-Saharan Africa, leading to low birth weight, stillbirths, and sometimes life-long learning challenges. Meanwhile, every year 50,000–70,000 young African mothers die from placental malaria. While rapid progress is being made on the treatment of placental malaria by the National Institutes for Health, U.S. investment in catalyzing and scaling research and investment remains remarkably low. Funding and providing access to intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (IPTp-SP) can lower the incidence of severe maternal anemia by 38 percent and reduce the consequences of malaria infection for both pregnant women and newborns. Yet just 35 percent of pregnant women currently receive the full three doses recommended by WHO. Likewise, supply and consistent use of insecticide-treated nets helps keep pregnant women safe, including those living with HIV who cannot receive IPTp-SP.

There’s another way effectively battling malaria facilitates women’s empowerment. Throughout Africa, a major element of malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment is community health workers (CHWs). These local caregivers serve the needs of marginalized, remote, and less-educated communities, often in informal settings. Their reach is why CHWs have been priorities for the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

As of 2019, women make up more than 70 percent of the global health and social care workforce, and only 25 percent of that number holds senior roles. Half of all CHWs in low- and middle-income countries don’t have salaries. Female CHWs spend four times as many hours doing unpaid work as compared to male counterparts. More effective malaria prevention, screening, and treatment in Africa—and elsewhere—requires more equitable pay and advancement paths for women in the health sector. The United States and the private sector can and must be catalysts.

Women’s economic empowerment in turn can help drive malaria’s elimination country by country in Africa. A 2020 study found that providing agricultural education services and support to community-level female agricultural sector networks in Uganda spurred a 22 percent increase in mosquito bed nets used per capita, and malaria prevalence decreased 29 percent at household level, 22.4 percent among children under 5 years old, and 56.8 percent among pregnant women.

Investments targeting malaria are exceptional in their potential impact: they reach huge swaths of the global population effectively and can rapidly catalyze outsized global economic growth. Indeed, malaria response is one of the most cost-effective ways to save lives and advance U.S. partnership and security interests in Africa. It is time to take the blinders off and see that investment in fighting malaria is a critical investment in women and girls and a necessary and timely investment in Africa’s future—and ours.

Sohini Chatterjee is Managing Director for Global Policy and Advocacy for Malaria No More and former Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Mark P. Lagon is Chief Policy Officer, Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Senior Fellow at The Trinity Forum; and former U.S. Ambassador-At-Large to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Image: Shutterstock.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden signed an executive order curtailing U.S. high-tech investment in China, reflecting a bipartisan consensus that U.S. investment should not be helping the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in these highly strategic industries. Such efforts are welcome, but to be truly effective, must be part of a broader strategy to push back on Beijing’s pursuit of global domination.

Military strength is obviously necessary for the free world to prevail in this new great power contest—however, it is not sufficient. The CCP uses economic leverage and elite capture to exert political influence, deploying information operations and exporting its authoritarian governance model to create the conditions for Beijing to advance its local and global interests. The more successful China is in eroding democracy around the world, the better placed it will be to undermine American interests and supplant the United States as the global superpower.

We need a strategy that combines the serious commitment of hard power resources and economic statecraft with a robust campaign to counter China by strengthening democratic resilience around the world. The United States has deployed foreign assistance to advance its geopolitical interests since the end of World War II, when the Marshall Plan was used to rebuild Europe and Japan’s social and economic foundations to prevent a Soviet takeover. Throughout the Cold War, the United States used foreign aid as part of its strategy of containment, providing valuable lessons for advancing U.S. interests in a new age of competition. This includes the establishment of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 1961 and the founding of the congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy in 1983 at President Ronald Reagan’s instigation.

Research shows that U.S. foreign aid has improved the political and economic well-being of recipient countries and advanced core U.S. interests. Foreign aid advances America’s economic interests by creating new markets for American businesses and trade. Indeed, it’s no coincidence that eleven of the United States’ top fifteen trade partners are previous recipients of foreign aid. Foreign aid also helps strengthen democracies around the world—creating more stable and reliable partners and allies. A study of U.S. foreign assistance focused on democracy promotion programs conducted between 1990 and 2003 found that these initiatives had “clear and consistent impacts” on their overall democratization. And despite a global democratic downturn from 2012 to 2022, eight countries that were turning toward autocracy were able to reverse course and regain their democratic momentum thanks in large part to international democracy support. 

Foreign aid can also help improve citizens’ and governments’ views of the United States, often at the expense of its adversaries. China’s foreign assistance programs tend to favor physical projects that are often popular in the short term. However, over time the high costs of accepting aid from China—including shoddy construction work, loss of sovereignty, and increased authoritarian influence—make the prospects of an enduring partnership far less appealing. In contrast, U.S. foreign assistance spending is designed to reduce opportunities for misappropriation and corruption, and favors working with local partners to better serve the interests of beneficiaries. 

The United States can take pride in these achievements—but that can only take us so far. In order to harness the full potential of foreign assistance as a means of pushing back on China’s global ambitions, we need an approach that is clearly coordinated around America’s core strategic objectives.

We should begin by realigning spending to focus on allies and countries strategically important to competition with China and Russia. Our current approach to allocating foreign aid does not enable the United States to use funds in ways that directly advance U.S. interests. It forces the United States to center spending in many aid sectors on predominantly low-income countries and disincentivizes spending on higher-income countries that may be of significant strategic importance. The Trump administration explored realigning how the United States uses foreign assistance of all stripes—from economic aid to health assistance—to make competing with China a primary objective. This approach is worth revisiting.

We also need closer coordination of assistance with our foreign policy objectives. History demonstrates the value of such an approach in promoting long-term alignment with U.S. interests. Consider our successes in Western Europe, Colombia, South Korea, and Chile: In each case, America’s assistance approach combined security guarantees with cooperation and reform programs; economic-development packages that paired investment with revitalization of key industries; and incentives for local governments to improve their responsiveness to constituent needs.

The George W. Bush administration attempted to address the challenge of aligning assistance and foreign policy priorities by bringing development under the purview of a new Office of Foreign Assistance Resources at the Department of State. Despite this change, the United States continues to struggle with harnessing all elements of U.S. foreign assistance toward a common end. The secretary of state should empower the Office of Foreign Assistance Resources to truly lead this effort by deputizing its director to ensure aid is harnessed to support America’s foreign policy priorities.

Congress also has a vital role to play in ensuring the United States maximizes the impact of American foreign aid. For example, Congress could pass legislation requiring the executive to deliver plans for select priority countries, outlining how it intends to use all aspects of U.S. power and resources to compete with China. Such a law could be modeled on the 2019 Global Fragility Act, which requires the executive to deliver a strategy for promoting global stability and ten-year plans for achieving these aims in priority countries.

Finally, the United States should make strengthening democracies a core goal of its development policy. Strong democratic institutions are the most dependable defense against authoritarian subversion. The United States must respond to China’s global influence campaign by using foreign assistance in ways that empower individuals and institutions to fight back in countries where democracy is vulnerable, backsliding, or nonexistent. This includes supporting independent media, civil society, legislative training, governance best practices, and the development of democratic political parties and opposition movements.

Competition with China is playing out not only in the sea lanes of the Indo-Pacific but also in the parliaments, board rooms, and even local councils of developing nations. The record of success for U.S. foreign assistance proves that strategically targeted aid is a key tool in advancing U.S. interests. If the U.S. government is serious about countering the People’s Republic of China and creating a safer, more democratic world, it must act urgently to align foreign assistance with American grand strategy.

Patrick Quirk, Ph.D., is vice president for strategy, innovation, and impact at the International Republican Institute (IRI) and a nonresident senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Caitlin Dearing Scott is the director for countering foreign authoritarian influence at IRI.

Quirk and Dearing Scott are authors of the Atlantic Council Report Maximizing US Foreign Aid for Strategic Competition.

Image: Shutterstock.

China’s mounting economic difficulties have embarrassed many Western observers—or at least should have. Not too long ago, many journalists and economists on this continent and in Europe praised Beijing for its disciplined and planned approach to economic management. Some counted the Chinese approach superior to their own seemingly chaotic market-oriented economies. Now the Chinese model looks less attractive. Of course, not all of China’s problems are a product of its planned approach to economic management. Some are a straightforward and unavoidable result of development. Still, Beijing’s reliance on authoritarianism and Marxist central planning bears much responsibility for the economy’s problems. Americans should take note, especially now that the Biden administration has succumbed to Washington’s ever-present temptation to use industrial policy and top-down planning, in other words, to follow a watered-down version of Beijing’s faulty approach.

The White House refers to its economic scheme as “Bidenomics.” At base, it promotes industrial policies in which planners in Washington determine the economy’s future needs and with subsidies, low-cost loans, tax credits, and the like nudge the private economy in their preferred directions. The administration has already touted the billions that have gone to compliant producers, as if somehow that added to the nation’s wealth. If the planners are correct about the future, the effort and the billions will pay handsome economic dividends. The problem is that no one, not even the best government planners, can see the future. They cannot be sure whether consumers will want the products they see as essential. Nor can they anticipate technological advances that might render obsolete today’s seemingly essential technologies. Should the plans go wrong—and that is entirely possible—the economy will have wasted huge amounts of capital and labor and likely diverted effort away from alternative endeavors that might otherwise have met future needs and spurred growth. It is just these sorts of problems that have bedeviled China’s planning and now are holding back China’s economy.

Not too long ago, Chinese planning seemed to have avoided any of these problems. China’s economy made astounding gains. From the late 1970s, when Deng Xiaoping first opened the country’s economy to the world and investment monies poured into the country, growth rates until very recently have been spectacular, especially since Beijing used the increasing national income to launch several impressive infrastructure projects that added still more the economy’s growth potential. Between 1980 and the turn of the century, China’s economy expanded in real terms at about 10 percent a year. Following China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization, its real GDP grew by slightly over 10 percent a year up through 2015. When in 2010 China’s burgeoning economy surpassed Japan’s, it was easy to extrapolate its pace of expansion and speculate that China’s economy would soon surpass that of the United States to become the world’s largest. Everything in China seemed to work. All of Beijing’s plans paid off handsomely.

These astonishing advances captured the imaginations of Western journalists and economists. Their enthusiasm raised speculation that China might possess a superior economic model to the market-based systems of the United States and to a lesser extent Europe and Japan. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went so far as to express envy of China’s dictatorship and how it allowed Beijing to “turn their economy around on a dime.” If this man is not known for deep thinking, other seemingly more sober voices shared versions of Trudeau’s China envy. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman echoed Trudeau’s preference for centralized planning over the messiness of markets. Articles in the Harvard Business Review heaped praise on China’s approach. One appeared as late as 2021 to explain “China’s New Innovative Advantage.” Only last year, Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum described China as “certainly a very attractive model,” one worthy of consideration “for many countries.” In 2020, Jim O’Neill, then head of the storied think tank, Chatham House, praised China’s system for its “fast, aggressive” response to the coronavirus outbreak.

These are only a small sample of the favorable Western commentary on China’s planned, top-down, command-and-control approach to economic management. The enthusiasm is an understandable reaction to that economy’s growth record as well as its seemingly uncanny ability to plan, but the picture that inspired so much China envy was always illusory. China’s growth and planning success were more a result of the extremely underdeveloped state of China’s economy when Deng made his change than any planning prescience much less the superiority of what is effectively a command economy.

Underdevelopment carries huge burdens, but in creating an astonishing growth record and seemingly brilliant planning, it advantaged China tremendously. Flows of investment funds from America, Europe, and Japan had tremendous impacts on the otherwise impoverished China, advancing growth rates that would have otherwise taken much greater inflows. Underdevelopment also made the job of planning relatively easy. For decades, all Beijing’s planners needed to do to see the future was look to the developed world. There, China’s planners could see that their country’s prosperity required reliable roads, power lines, rail links, port facilities, and the like. The pursuit of these projects paid huge economic dividends and spurred growth at still faster rates. Things changed, however, as China’s economy caught up with the developed world. Beijing’s central planners then lost their model of the future. China’s future needs became harder to assess. Mistakes became more common. And because Beijing’s planners have great power to marshal financial, managerial, and labor resources, those mistakes have created great waste.

Illustrative of these problems is the present difficulty China faces with residential development. Years ago, the nation had an inadequate housing stock. The planners could see the need and encouraged development through subsidies, by arranging financing through state-owned banks, and by expediting permitting as well as licensing. Developers responded to the incentives and produced the vast apartment complexes so frequently pictured in Western media outlets. Initially, the effort paid off well. But even as the effort met the nation’s housing needs, planners continued it. China until very recently continued to dedicate as much as 25 percent of its economy to residential housing development. (By comparison, the United States in a strong housing year channels about 5 percent of its economy into residential construction.) China built more housing than its population could absorb and put it in places that Chinese people did not necessarily want to live. These projects failed to pay off, which is why so many Chinese development firms—the giant Evergrande in particular—have failed.

Residential development is not the only planning failure, though it is the most dramatic. The record is replete with roads to nowhere, underused rail links, and misplaced port facilities, as well as chronic electricity shortages. In this China is not alone. Everywhere, except for the underdeveloped ones that have a model, the future is foggy. America also has many examples of wasted effort due to poor planning, usually by business interests. But there is also a big difference from China’s centrally planned system. America’s market-oriented approach keeps the mistakes on a smaller scale, and because of a greater diversity of effort in a market-oriented system, it is also more likely to meet future needs sooner than centrally planned arrangements.

In a market system, the planning is done separately by thousands of firms and individuals. To be sure, business managers are no better at seeing the future than government planners, perhaps even less capable. But each mistake is smaller than in the centrally planned approach that can and does marshal huge amounts of the economy to the comparatively narrow range of activities favored by the planners. Also, unlike government efforts, business planners face tighter budgets, are constantly reviewing their efforts, and because they are also closer to their customers, are less likely to pursue a failing project for as long as will necessarily distant central planners. Perhaps most significant is the very lack of focus in a market system, the lack of discipline and organization that once seemed so attractive in China. Where thousands pursue diverse projects, the possibility rises that somewhere in the chaotic mélange of activity one of them will uncover one of those elusive future needs, build on it, and spur growth.

Relative debt levels can give an idea (admittedly a vague one) of the scale of waste caused by centralized planning. Every project, whether promoted by a planning authority or private firms, needs financing and commonly generates debt. That debt can be an obligation of the central government, local authorities, or private entities. A comparison of aggregate debt levels to income can then indicate whether the scale of projects has missed the mark and failed to generate an economic payoff. In China, the extent of error is huge. Aggregate debt levels have far outpaced national income. In the ten years that ended in 2019, just before the pandemic, overall debt in China expanded at a 23 percent average annual rate, while the country’s overall economy expanded at only 8 percent a year. In contrast, comparable data for the United States shows a 5.6 percent annual growth in aggregate debt during that ten-year period, faster than the about 4 percent nominal growth in the economy but a much narrower gap than in China. 

The difference has only expanded since. Even with all of Washington’s spending on Covid relief, debt—federal, local, state, and private—in the United States amounted to some $57 trillion at the close of last year, about 2.2 times the nation’s nominal GDP. Comparable debt levels in China amounted to the equivalent of over $51 trillion, almost three times the size of China’s nominal GDP. In other words, the accumulated waste from mistaken projects in China is a third higher than in the United States, a difference that is that much more striking given that the United States has a much older developed economy than China and so has had a longer time to accumulate planning errors and debt. And, according to the Beijing-backed National Institute for Finance and Development, local authorities alone in China are scheduled this year to issue the equivalent of $570 billion in new debt to help finance Beijing’s latest spending on infrastructure.

The kind of industrial policies promoted by Bidenomics raises the risk of going down the path that China has taken. Of course, the planners may get lucky. That may be true of China’s planners as well. Not surprisingly, planners in both places have focused on the same future frequently describe in today’s headlines—advanced computer chips, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, battery technology, and its basic inputs. If these become the future, it is just as likely that new technology will supersede them. That is exactly what happened in the 1980s when the widespread use of Intel’s microprocessor rendered wasteful Japanese plans to corner the market in simpler chips. Alternatively, planned development in both China and the United States could create a global glut of these products. Or the buying public—whether in the United States or China or elsewhere—may turn out to have less interest in these projects than the planners do. In any of these events, all the effort and resources marshaled by these planners will fail to have the anticipated economic payoff, while in the meantime all that effort will have crowded out alternative projects that otherwise might have hit on a future need.

Except in those rare instances when the future is obvious, as when China was so horribly underdeveloped, all economic plans—whether made by a government or by a private company—are a guessing game. Sometimes they work out, often not. Because central planning unavoidably only focuses on a limited number of projects, almost always drawn from the prevailing headlines of the day, they can easily miss. When they do, economies suffer huge waste and become saddled with debt that the failed project cannot support, a fact to which China’s huge debt overhang testifies. While burdening economies in this way, the central plans divert resources from a diversity of effort that has a better chance of finding that elusive future need. That is what modern China suffers today and where Bidenomics threatens to take America.

Milton Ezrati is a contributing editor at The National Interest, an affiliate of the Center for the Study of Human Capital at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), and chief economist for Vested, the New York-based communications firm. His latest books are Thirty Tomorrows: The Next Three Decades of Globalization, Demographics, and How We Will Live and Bite-Sized Investing.

Image: Shutterstock.

While Afghanistan has largely receded from public memory, the two-year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal revives the shocking scenes of bedlam at the Kabul airport as desperate civilians tried to flee the country. Amidst the confusion, thirteen U.S. service members were tragically killed in a horrific terror bombing attack. Some distraught family members recently traveled to Washington demanding answers from senior military and civilian leaders. In defending the Biden administration’s actions, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby conceded there was no easy way to end America’s longest war but “that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth doing.” This somber occasion provides an opportunity for reflection on the war and the consequences of the withdrawal for Afghanistan and U.S. interests.

Unfortunately, there has been little progress in Afghanistan’s governance, economic prosperity, and security over the last two years. If not for a close inspection of the dates, one could easily mistake last year’s commemoration news reports for an analysis of the situation in Afghanistan today. Despite international conferences and donor pledges for billions of dollars in humanitarian relief and other forms of assistance, these well-intentioned initiatives have little chance of meaningfully changing the status quo. Moreover, those who optimistically believed in Taliban reform have seen their hopes repeatedly dashed by their hardline policies and brutal governance.

How does the stagnant and dreary situation in Afghanistan affect U.S. foreign policy going forward? Just as his predecessors “muddled through” a two-decade war without a clear plan for ‘winning’ in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden seems content to continue this approach in the post-withdrawal era. Given the intense domestic and international criticism surrounding the withdrawal fiasco—including U.S. allies and partners in Europe—his administration will attempt to remain low-key and get by with minimal effort and attention (while secretly hoping the entire affair fades from memory) so they can focus on other foreign policy priorities. One expects that John Kirby prefers touting the landmark trilateral summit at Camp David with Japan and South Korea than answering difficult questions about Afghanistan. Sadly, this does not bode well for the Afghan people.

While Kabul celebrates the second anniversary of Taliban rule, the country has deteriorated by most metrics and its citizenry continues to suffer the consequences. The World Bank reports the Afghan economy shrank by 35 percent between 2021 and 2022 and more than nine in ten people are living in poverty. Even the Taliban’s “war on drugs,” which significantly reduced opium cultivation in the country because of voluntary compliance and strict enforcement of a government ban, has economically hurt subsistence farmers who lost income by growing less-profitable crops like wheat. Consequently, some 6 million Afghans are “one step away from famine” and rely on the World Food Program for rations. To make matters worse, the Taliban banned Afghan women from working with the United Nations and other non-governmental organizations, exacerbating the distribution challenge for humanitarian assistance. Finally, the Taliban continues its repressive ban on female education despite public criticism from religious scholars within the country.

The Taliban remains a pariah government, and has only itself to blame for the international community’s unwillingness to grant formal diplomatic recognition that would instill legitimacy and incentivize greater financial assistance and foreign direct investment in the country. Thus far, diplomatic and economic pressure has failed to moderate the Taliban’s behavior, and there is concern that tougher sanctions will only inflict further harm on the Afghan people. Given this conundrum, opinion in Washington remains divided on whether to engage—let alone formally recognize—the brutish Taliban regime in Kabul.

As an example, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul sent a scathing letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressing sharp opposition to any U.S. government officials traveling to meet with the Taliban in Afghanistan. He argued such attempts are “an egregious betrayal of the memories of the fallen and the millions of Afghans who continue to hope for a free, prosperous, democratic Afghanistan,” while raising national security concerns about “normalizing” the regime that continues egregious human rights abuses and its “active support of al-Qaeda.” McCaul sent the letter soon after Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko testified that he could not assure Congress the more than $8 billion in U.S. foreign aid dispersed since the U.S. withdrawal is not being diverted from the intended recipients (i.e., the Afghan people) to the Taliban and terror groups in the country.

Although Biden claimed Al Qaeda is no longer present in Afghanistan, a recent United Nations report assessed the terror group maintains a “close and symbiotic” relationship with the Taliban and is currently “rebuilding operational capability.” To mitigate the danger of resurgent terror groups, the administration views last year’s drone strike that killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul as validation of its “over-the-horizon” approach to counterterrorism. Nevertheless, the intelligence community remains concerned about safe havens in Afghanistan that could facilitate future attacks against the United States and its interests. Moreover, U.S. Central Commander General Michael Kurilla recently testified that “the reduction in collection, analytical resources, and intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance assets means our campaign against Al Qaeda and ISIS Khorasan is challenged; while we can see the broad contours of attack planning, we lack the granularity to see the complete threat picture.”

Despite the risks, Biden is unlikely to announce major policy changes anytime soon; especially as the hyper-charged presidential election cycle begins in earnest. Instead, the administration will continue muddling through the post-U.S. withdrawal era and redirecting its foreign policy focus—and the public’s attention—on geopolitical challenges in Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific. If these efforts to “turn the page” are successful, Afghanistan will remain an afterthought that only resurfaces during emotionally charged congressional hearings and annual remembrances.

Jim Cook is a Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College.

The views expressed here are entirely his own and do not reflect those of the U.S. Naval War College, the Department of Defense, or the United States Government.

A recent article by Michael Crowley in the New York Times highlights divisions within the community of peace activists over U.S. support for the Ukrainian war effort. Some groups and individuals who have been prominent members of that community, along with political leaders generally sympathetic to their objectives, have backed the Biden administration’s support for the Ukrainian military as a just response to a war of aggression by Russia. But some others have gone into the hearing-disrupting, banner-waving, slogan-shouting mode that became a trademark of antiwar activism in earlier times.

The current divisions—between and sometimes within groups—over the Ukraine war can be called a crisis of the peace activist community. The issues are far less straightforward for that community, and thus more difficult for it to deal with than two decades ago when it was the United States that launched a war of aggression against Iraq. It was during the run-up to that war that groups such as Win Without War and Code Pink—both still prominent parts of the antiwar activist scene—were founded.

Echoes of Vietnam

Probably there should have been more of a sense of crisis, and more complications going through the minds of peace activists, during some other earlier wars than was the case at the time. Baby boomers who in their younger years identified as peace activists won their flower-powered spurs protesting U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam. There obviously are great differences between the U.S. direct involvement in that war, with its immense costs in American blood as well as treasure in a time of conscription, and the current U.S. backing of the Ukrainians’ fight. Much of the emotionally charged peace activism of the late 1960s and early 1970s was waged in highly simplified terms of “stop the war” and “get out of Vietnam.”

But achieving peace back then was never really that simple. Extracting the United States from a war to which it had committed an army of more than half a million was always going to be complicated—logistically, politically, and diplomatically. Responsible extraction had to consider, among other things, the status and objectives of allies, the possible indirect effects on other U.S. interests, and how the course of the war would affect the willingness of the adversary to make peace.

In other words, achieving peace required careful realist analysis that would consider all the relevant military and political factors, without turning away in disgust from the military ones. Realists might disagree among themselves over the shape of the analysis and the conclusions that ought to be drawn from it, but they would avoid oversimplification that tries to reduce everything to whether one is for or against war.

Oversimplification has been one of the consequences of the moralistic streak that has long characterized much self-declared peace activism. Another consequence has been a self-righteousness that not only inhibits useful debate among different views about policy but also loses sight of how historically self-righteousness has itself been an ingredient in launching many wars.

Another common trait of the peace activist community has been a focus on what might be called an “original sin,” in the sense of what brought about an untoward war in the first place rather than on exactly what needs to be done to get out of the war and to do so with minimum damage to the nation’s interests. This trait certainly was seen during the Vietnam War, when protests exclaiming how bad it was for the United States to have put troops into Vietnam continued long after most Americans had come to perceive the war as a mistake and the administration of the day was pulling forces out. Such a backward-looking perspective led to such phenomena as the lionizing of recently deceased Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, whose actions gave historians and political scientists an earlier look than they otherwise would have had at a fine study of how the United States got into the war, but did little or nothing to bring about peace sooner. At the time of the leak, the Nixon administration already was more than halfway through the mammoth task of bringing home that half-million-strong force.

The Ukraine Debate

Today, some similar characteristics can be found in discussions and debates about the war in Ukraine. The most dovish participants in that debate have focused attention on the decisions years earlier to expand NATO eastward, as part of the background to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That is a legitimate topic and one on which prominent realists have had much to say. But that is a different question from what the United States ought to do now about the ongoing war in Ukraine.

An aversion to realist analysis about matters of war and peace has been one of the most unhelpful features of much past vocalizing by antiwar activists. That aversion appears to be based on a mistaken view of realism as a sucking of moral considerations out of matters that, like war, involve life and death. In fact, realism does not add or subtract moral or other values to a nation. It instead entails a careful examination of how all the features of the real world—including the ugly and disagreeable ones—bear upon whatever values, interests, and objectives the nation pursues.

In wartime, the disagreeable features may include the objectives of an adversary and how the war must be shaped to get that adversary to agree to an acceptable peace. That was part of the reality that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger faced when extracting the United States from the Vietnam War. It is part of the reality that Ukraine and its Western backers face today in dealing with the Russian invaders. I have offered some thoughts about what that reality means for bringing peace to Ukraine. Others will have other thoughts.

Does the war in Ukraine, given the positions described in the Times article, mark a turning point in how the community of peace activists responds to wars? Crowley mentions, as factors that distinguish the current situation from previous episodes such as the war in Iraq, the obvious fact that U.S. forces are not fighting in Ukraine, along with the desire among some left-leaning activists not to make political life difficult for the Biden administration. But there is more to the current responses than that. A group such as Win Without War is to be commended for a position that not only reflects the difference between the United States committing aggression and defense against someone else’s aggression but also shows a nuanced appreciation for the line that the administration is trying to walk by aiding the Ukrainians while limiting U.S. costs and commitments.

Nonetheless, there always will be others in the traditional banner-waving mode. It feels satisfying to simplify things into a matter of peace vs. war, and right vs. wrong, and to see oneself as being on the side of the right.

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

Image: Shutterstock.

Syria continues to present one of the most difficult challenges in a region that hardly lacks complications. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the rapid slowdown of diplomatic progress witnessed since Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s return to the regional fold in May, when Arab leaders invited his government back to the Arab League. Unsurprisingly, these leaders have achieved minimal progress since this moment concerning concessions from Damascus. Yet Arab leaders continue to engage the intransigent Syrian government in the name of a broader regional thaw currently underway—most recently via the Arab Liaison Committee and other bilateral efforts—in what should still be viewed as a reasonable course correction to end the long-running conflict.

The Arab Liaison Committee

Arab states established the committee in May after opting to begin re-establishing relations with Damascus ahead of its return to the Arab League the same month. As such, it constitutes the core mechanism for Arab engagement with the Assad regime and Jordan’s step-for-step initiative. It is within this mechanism that talks were recently held in Cairo with Syrian officials to discuss files of concern, such as refugee returns, captagon smuggling, sanctions, Syria’s territorial integrity, and early recovery and reconstruction needs.

The summit occurred between August 15–16. The first day included multiple bilateral meetings, of which Egyptian officials met individually with the Syrian and Saudi delegations. The Jordanian and Syrian foreign ministers also held a bilateral meeting. The full committee talks included the foreign ministers of Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The Arab League secretary-general also participates in the committee.

The discussions focused on the state of the conflict in Syria and topics of regional concern—namely the previously mentioned issues. Interestingly, the group also discussed the Syrian Constitutional Committee and enforced disappearance. Following the joint meeting, Egyptian foreign minister Samy Shoukry announced that they would hold the next meeting in Baghdad. Shoukry also expects the Constitutional Committee to restart its work in Oman by the end of the year—a notable point to raise.

Overall, official statements and reporting suggest the talks were fruitful and cordial. An Egyptian Foreign Ministry statement said that Shoukry confirmed the committee would “offer a helping hand to the brotherly Syrian people to pull through their predicament.” A final statement from the committee was similarly friendly, saying “The committee encourages the Syrian government to continue the steps and measures taken to deal with all the consequences of the Syrian crisis so as to fulfill the aspirations of the Syrian people in pulling through the relevant challenges and move to a better future.”

In this context, Syria’s neighbors are genuinely interested in resolving the crisis given the litany of issues stemming from “the heart of the Middle East.” They are also correct in understanding that issues emanating from this neighbor can have a disastrous impact on regional security and prosperity. For these reasons, the committee is likely to continue its work, even amidst a difficult political environment and the Syrian government’s present disinterest in concessions.

With Friends Like These

The issue at hand, however, is that very little progress has been made since these leaders decided to re-normalize with Damascus. The committee’s members appear stuck today, exemplified by Saudi Arabia’s decision to delay its embassy reopening in the Syrian capital. For its part, Jordan is experiencing minimal progress on captagon smuggling along its border with Syria. Similarly, Iraq is confronting a worsening smuggling issue along its porous western border with Syria. The general gridlock in the Syria-Turkey talks is equally concerning as they are hung up on the issue of the Turkish military presence in northwest Syria (NWS).

Indeed, the reality is that Assad has effectively stonewalled all diplomatic efforts to re-engage his government thus far, demanding strict and unwavering concessions in exchange for items of interest for his neighbors. To be sure, Damascus has attempted to present a better public image, re-opening Turkish border crossings for humanitarian aid. But the devil is in the details—namely that the Syrian government remains the core reason for the suffering of millions in opposition-held NWS and regime-held lands, blocking aid and laying siege to entire cities with chemical weapons. No one should be fooled by false kindness designed to distract from ongoing brutality.

Still, Syria’s neighbors are making the right decision by engaging Damascus. They realistically have little choice at this stage—Syria is too geographically crucial to the workings of the region to be relegated to the status of a rogue state on par with North Korea. Further, the topic of regime change died years ago, leaving much more marginal—yet pragmatic—issues to address today. Even the Biden administration understands this, with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf expressing that regional leaders should “get something” in return.

Ruthless pragmatism of this type is just that—ruthless but realistic. No one should expect Arab states, particularly Gulf monarchies, to espouse a values-based approach to Syria, making the latter point on realism particularly important. Similarly, Damascus will not provide easy concessions, likely opting to instead use different forums and talks with its neighbors for increasingly better-negotiated outcomes.

Captagon offers a great example in this regard. The regime has increased joint-security efforts with Jordan while simultaneously sitting at the core of the entire drug operation in the first place. All stakeholders focused on Syria understand these contradictions. Yet such issues present the main problem as Assad will not change his behavior without something significant in return—in this case reconstruction funding with as little oversight or strings attached as possible.

Can Step-for-Step Work?

It is this reality that the Jordan-led step-for-step approach utilized through the Liaison Committee is hoping to see progress. Shoukry spoke with UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen shortly after the meetings in Cairo to discuss the “agreements” reached. It is certainly interesting to see this collaboration following reports of the Constitutional Committee talks restarting in Oman by the end of the year. Such a move would be a good step forward should it also be understood that it is a relatively small concession on Assad’s part, who used the committee for years to buy time as he recaptured most of his country by force. The hope is that reported discussions surrounding the enforced disappearance can similarly see some progress this year.

Whether the Constitutional Committee will restart remains to be seen but is not impossible. From here, Arab leaders might push Assad to engage in serious talks by offering carrots to Damascus in the form of various early recovery or reconstruction projects. A focal point will be refugee returns and realistic assurances of their safety, although we should not confuse regional leaders with altruism when it comes to refugee protection, let alone Western governments.

Forced refugee returns are already occurring and are likely to expand independently of talks with Damascus. This reality is an issue Washington should intervene to stop at all costs. But it is folly to strategize an approach to Syria with the assumption that such violations of international law simply will not happen. Again, these are not values-based actors—they are ruthlessly pragmatic—and these violations are happening right now.

If talks eventually reach the stage of serious step-for-step exchanges, the focus ultimately becomes how Western sanctions block any potential recovery or reconstruction efforts connected to these discussions and how Syrians will be protected. The current U.S. administration has expressed flexibility on sanctions thus far, allowing regional partners to test the waters of rapprochement with Assad. But bypassing sanctions is another beast with serious challenges that are at least partially dependent on the U.S. Congress’s push for tougher actions against Damascus and the makeup of the presidency—namely the victor of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

President Joe Biden has thus far not utilized the Caesar Act sanctions extensively, which could indicate how future dealmaking with the Syrian government could look should the executive branch in Washington not utilize sanctions mechanisms. Overt and covert pressure to protect refugees could fall within the White House’s strategy as well.

Biden would be wise to consider this approach. If regional leaders and the UN special envoy finally implement an effective step-for-step strategy, achieving modest but important victories in an otherwise impossible situation, it would be folly for Washington to prevent such a scenario. Such victories should include basic protections for refugees and all Syrian citizens first and foremost, especially considering the inevitability of forced returns already underway in Turkey and Syria. Progress on some reforms and information on the disappeared are also crucial. Finally, solidifying efforts to secure the Arab Gas Pipeline in support of the 2022 energy agreement between Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt can be another huge win from progress on the Syria file.

The unfortunate reality is that Assad is here to stay, leaving strictly bad policy outcomes for policymakers. It is beyond clear that world leaders will not overthrow the regime, nor that a U.S. military presence is legal or necessary in the country’s northeast. In a situation in which economic pressure and diplomatic censure have not worked, it is long past time to apply the diplomatic tools needed to finally end Syria’s war, especially if the current approach only leaves the country in an ongoing conflict and economic nightmare that will worsen with time—leaving increasingly negative impacts on the region as well.

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

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Americans have grown up with the idea of the underdog. The dashing rebels that defeat a more powerful opponent through sheer determination and nobility is a staple cliche in popular culture. Unfortunately, the reality is that better-equipped armies usually beat those less equipped regardless of the strength of their cause. General Omar Bradley once said, “Amateurs talk strategy; professionals talk logistics.” The current discourse around the Ukraine conflict usually focuses on feats of heroism or the righteousness of the cause and less on the practical matters of munitions, production capabilities, and overall manpower issues.

Munitions, armaments, and manpower are the currency in this conflict, and the Western bloc is running out of all three. Russian drones, artillery, and air strikes have hammered Ukraine’s industrial base. The economic cost is astronomical. Congress has approved an estimated $113 billion in defense and financial aid to Ukraine since February 2022—more than half of Ukraine’s annual GDP.

The United States and NATO are becoming painfully aware of this fact every day as Western armories become increasingly depleted, and there is no existing industrial capacity to replenish the stockpiles, let alone continue to arm Ukraine.   

The Return of Industrial Wars of Attrition

Following the end of the Cold War, it became increasingly fashionable for military policymakers to argue that “hybrid warfare” had replaced large-scale conventional warfare. As Patrick Porter explores in his recent Journal of Global Security Studies essay, hybrid warfare is fought with or against non-state or proxy actors, often using subterfuge tactics and cyber and economic warfare. In 2009, then UK Chief of Defence Staff, General David Richards, dismissed the idea that China or Russia would dare to confront the West with conventional military arms, claiming instead that “there is a good case for believing that even state-on-state warfare will be similar to that we will be conducting against non-state groupings.” As Porter proves, even a cursory glance at recent history proves this thesis is demonstrably false.

One of the clearest examples of this mindset manifesting in war planning is the requirement that NATO members stockpile enough material to sustain high-intensity combat for a mere thirty days. This optimistic pre-war planning is typical for peacetime policymakers. In The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman notes how governments before the First World War hoarded stockpiles of artillery shells that they believed would last them throughout a hypothetical war. However, following the events of August 1914, the armories of the Allied and Central Powers were depleted within months, and domestic production increased considerably.

One of the current war’s defining features is the overwhelming reliance on artillery barrages and massive infantry reserves. Hence, the West has been caught unprepared, waging a proxy war of attrition with no industrial base to do so. On the other hand, the Russian defense industry is, in the words of John Mearsheimer, “designed to fight World War I.”

We’re Out of Weapons

President Joe Biden has openly admitted that the military is sending cluster munitions to Ukraine because it cannot provide the quantity of artillery shells that Ukraine needs. The Pentagon intel leaks from earlier this year indicated that the United States pressured South Korea to send 330,000 155mm shells to Ukraine, likely via Poland. There are reports that South Korea loaned the United States half a million 155mm shells. But even if South Korea sent one million shells to Ukraine, it would hardly make up for the immense artillery imbalance. This lack of balance is only a symptom of a more significant issue: the West’s inability to transition into a war economy.

A recent Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) report estimates that Russia fired 12 million artillery shells in 2022 and estimated the military would discharge seven million in 2023. This could indicate that Soviet-era stockpiles are thinning out. Still, the report notes that Russia is producing 2.5 million shells a year, in addition to munitions imports from North Korea and Iran.

In stark contrast, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimated in January that the United States could only produce 93,000 155mm shells a year, all of which go to training exercises. If the military achieves an accelerated production schedule, it will produce 240,000 shells yearly, still less than 10 percent of Russia’s current production. Ukrainian artillery fires 8,000 rounds daily, consuming an entire month of current U.S. munitions production. Even if the Pentagon achieves its stated goal of manufacturing 90,000 shells a month by FY 2025, it still is only half of Russia’s current production level.

Other NATO members are in even worse shape. In June, the German Bundeswehr discovered that only 20,000 155mm shells remained in its entire arsenal. The United Kingdom cannot produce high-caliber gun barrels for tanks and artillery. Vast amounts of the equipment NATO has sent to Ukraine have been ill-maintained junk, calling into question the quality of the arsenals left behind. Meanwhile, at least 20 percent of the frontline equipment that the West scraped together for the Ukrainian counter-offensive was destroyed in the first week alone.

This is not even to mention the vast issues inherent in creating an army from the world’s spare stockpiles. Armored vehicles that are destroyed or damaged at the front are not easy to repair because of the range of materials, maintenance, and training required to service every piece of hardware. Ukraine is utilizing fourteen different 155mm howitzers alone.

Facing the Hard Realities of War

The Western public is not adequately informed about the nature of the conflict in Ukraine. Emotion and micro-level analysis of individual engagements overshadow discussion of the broader strategic situation. “Nothing is beyond our capacity” may sound good on a bumper sticker, but as a warfighting strategy without execution, it is fanciful. Realities on the ground will not allow us to pursue any goal without enormous cost to ourselves and our allies, who require our continued assistance.

The chance for a favorable settlement for Ukraine is vanishing due to the lag in armaments and manpower mobilization. The zenith of Ukraine aid has passed, and it will not be matched in subsequent months and years. The opportunity for a negotiated peace or even a ceasefire on terms favorable to Ukraine will become more unlikely as Russia’s advantage on the battlefield grows.

While the strategy of putting strain on the regime of President Vladimir Putin to the point of internal collapse may have been credible at the early stages of the war, there is scant evidence that it is working now. The Wagner mutiny, despite appearances, has only strengthened Putin’s authority over his decision-making subordinates.

If events continue as they are, Ukraine’s position will likely deteriorate. The structural imbalances that pervade the conflict will not improve with sporadic shipments of arms and equipment. If Ukraine is to hold a candle to Russia, the Western coalition must re-industrialize its military supply chains on a mass scale. Whether it has the capability or will to do so is far from certain.

While Western analysts have hoped for a decisive breakthrough in the recent Ukrainian counter-offensive, this has not been the pivotal battle they assumed it would be. The fighting in Ukraine may drag on for years with no clear end in sight. The Putin government also appears to be preparing for another wave of conscription, which will only increase the Russian advantages on the battlefield. In the words of an Atlantic Council report, “Putin is preparing for the long war.” These realities are not lost on some former top U.S. security officials, though they are negotiating with the Russians in opposition to the Biden administration. The logistical reality is not changing in favor of Ukraine, and there is doubt as to whether the West has the will to mobilize to the same extent as the Russians. Because of this, time is on Moscow’s side, and Western policymakers who hope that waiting will bring a more favorable settlement are in for a rude awakening.

Matthew Bryant graduated with a BA in Global Affairs from George Mason University. He is currently a joint Graduate student at the University of Trento & the Higher School of Economics. He researches and writes about the post-Soviet area as well as U.S.-Russia relations.

Zack Yost is a freelance writer and a Fall 2021 Marcellus Policy Fellow with the John Quincy Adams Society. He has been published in a variety of outlets, including The National Interest, The Washington Times, and The American Conservative. He is the co-host of the Mises Institute’s monthly foreign policy podcast, War, Economy, and State, and writes at his Substack blog, The Yost Post.

Image: Shutterstock. 

Innovation is the best way to win the TikTok battle. Many liberal democratic states have banned the Chinese-owned platform from government devices, including the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. Despite this, TikTok remains the world’s most downloaded app, continuing to outcompete competitors, such as Meta, in a space they have traditionally dominated. Like all Chinese technology companies, TikTok’s parent company Byteadance is answerable to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), distinguishing it from companies in Western countries.

A global society-wide ban would be the silver bullet solution, but for various reasons—including legal risk and economic liberal cultures in some countries, and fear of Beijing in others—such comprehensive action is unpalatable and unlikely. The U.S. government needs to work in partnership with—not in opposition to—the private sector to encourage the creation of alternative platforms. The technology driving the success of TikTok’s algorithm is here to stay. In the absence of an immediate ban or acquisition of TikTok by an American company, the U.S. government should be devising ways to nurture a competitive U.S.-owned alternative through investment incentives.

Analysis by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and other social media researchers has revealed a simple answer for why TikTok is outperforming U.S. alternatives: TikTok’s AI algorithm makes it more attractive. It produces a more personalized user experience than other platforms. The closest competitor is Instagram Reels, where, anecdotally, a large portion of the content is recycled TikTok clips.

Understanding how TikTok’s interest-based AI algorithm functions is the key to grasping the risks of the platform but also the secret to developing alternatives.

TikTok’s algorithm works in two reinforcing ways.

First, it learns by tracking users’ preferences based on how they engage with the content, such as what they “like,” how long they watch, their comments, and preferred content themes. For example, as tech guru Eugene Wei attests, TikTok learns not only whether a user prefers a diet of 20 percent news videos, 30 percent fashion videos, and 50 percent celebrity gossip, but how to alter the balance and how to introduce new preferences to the passive consumer. As an interest-based model, it operates independently of other users' preferences, unlike social networking platforms Facebook or Instagram which recommend related content based on user connections. The result is an addictive, curated experience, which U.S. Federal Communications Commission commissioner Brendan Carr described as “digital fentanyl.” The demand for this addictive social media experience is, unfortunately, not going to go away. Worse, the experience is being administered to American TikTok users by China.

The second way the algorithm works is by learning the characteristics of viral videos—what makes them popular—and providing those lessons to independent TikTok content creators—many of them users themselves—by identifying music, hashtags, and video formats and features likely to appeal to viewers. As a cycle, these TikTok functions can identify and predict the content that consumers crave before they even know they want it. The algorithm collects data on user patterns and creates new ones. By design, TikTok sorts and categorizes users' social, economic, and political preferences, and can either reinforce or alter what users see and hear over time. In other words, TikTok has the potential to become a weapon of mass persuasion.

That an adversary or affiliated company can influence what a large number of Americans see constitutes a national security problem, particularly when considered in the context of the broader threat of malign information and cyber sabotage that China poses to the United States and closely aligned nations such as Australia.

Foreign allies, partners, and some U.S. officials have expressed concerns about the variety of ways in which sensitive TikTok user data might end up in the hands of the CCP. One Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) partner, India, has outright banned TikTok. In early August another Quad partner, Australia, announced findings by a parliamentary Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media, which assessed that Chinese-owned apps, TikTok and WeChat, could corrupt “decision making, political discourse and societal norms,” contributing to foreign interference—one of Australia’s most pressing national security concerns. This focus on the potential for behavioral and political manipulation that the TikTok algorithm enables is the primary threat, though most concerned Americans stress data security—arguably a more manageable problem.

In the United States, state governors have joined federal officials in banning the use of TikTok on some government-owned devices over concerns about data misuse. In December last year federal representatives Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), alongside Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), introduced a bipartisan bill to ban TikTok in the United States along with other social media affiliated with China or Russia. In May, Montana governor Greg Gianforte signed a bill making his state the first one to outright ban TikTok. However, U.S. tech companies have pushed back in support of TikTok against these measures. The concern from the industry is the substantial risk of retaliatory action from Beijing that could force U.S. tech companies to sell off foreign assets or comply with state censorship.

More broadly, the TikTok debate is also influencing presidential campaigning, with GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis stating that he would investigate banning TikTok if elected, citing the security threat due to the links with China and data concerns.

TikTok says all U.S. user data is stored in Virgina, Singapore, or elsewhere beyond the reach of Beijing. But as the ASPI analysis points out, the location of the data is immaterial if it can be readily accessed from China. ByteDance—the Chinese company that owns TikTok—has admitted on multiple occasions that its employees have access to US TikTok user data and, under pressure, has introduced safeguards such as “Project Texas,” which purportedly isolates U.S. user data so only U.S.-based ByteDance employees have access. However, this policy doesn’t alleviate all concerns as some .U.S-based ByteDance employees are very likely Chinese nationals. As reported in Forbes, as many as 300 ByteDance and TikTok employees either previously worked for—or currently work for—Chinese government-run news media outlets such as Xinhua and China Radio International.

Over the last few years, ByteDance has increased the number of foreign workers brought to the United States from a few dozen to more than 500 employees through the H1-B and Optional Practical Training (OPT) under the F-1 student visa programs. The homelands of these foreign national employees are not publicly known, though logic suggests that many of them are likely from China and India. Senator Tom Cotton has asked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for a breakdown of these visa holders’ nationalities, revealing a possible point of access for China to tap U.S. user data. TikTok may not presently allow China-based personnel to access this data, but it may allow U.S.-based Chinese nationals to do so on behalf of the CCP.

Creating a compelling reason for users to see the risk TikTok poses continues to be a challenge. Finding another platform to replace TikTok without ties to adversaries and with adequate data protection measures that can be subject to trusted regulatory frameworks in the U.S. and legal recourse, is an alternative that policymakers need to consider.

Commentator and journalist Matt Yglesias’ insightful analogy sets its right by stating that “we wouldn’t have let a Soviet company buy NBC in 1977 and we shouldn’t let a Chinese company own a company that plays a similar content distribution role today.” Risk-averse elected officials keen to maintain voter support may prefer to avoid banning TikTok the way India has done, but the US should play to its own strengths in big tech and social media to encourage the innovation of an alternative platform that naturally overtakes TikTok in popularity.

Assuming a ban of the app is unpalatable to Americans right now doesn’t necessarily mean surrendering to a social media diet planned by Beijing. Innovation through competition is still what the United States does best. It’s time for America’s social media entrepreneurs to roll up their sleeves and offer TikTok users something better.

Bronte Munro is an Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Washington, DC, with a focus on critical technology and cyber.

Greg Brown is Senior Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Washington, DC, and an Adjunct Professor at the Center for Australian, New Zealand, and Pacific Studies at Georgetown University.

Image: Shutterstock.