Diplomacy & Crisis News

What New Delhi's diplomacy can and cannot achieve.

The apparent purge comes amid a renewed crackdown on corruption in the military.

Mali and Burkina Faso warn foreign powers that any move to undermine Niger’s coup would be a “declaration of war” against their own countries.

Evgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin’s chef-turned-warlord, appears to be cooking up trouble in Africa. The leader of the Wagner Group announced on July 19 in a video that Wagner troops should prepare for fighting in Africa. This is consistent with earlier Wagner Group activities. Wagner mercenaries have committed human rights violations and engaged variously in smuggling, disinformation campaigns, and natural resource extraction in Burkina Faso, Mali, Mozambique, Sudan, and across the continent. These smuggling operations have been vital for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, as while the wider Russian economy buckles under sanctions, the vast amounts of gold and other minerals Wagner is extracting keep the Russian treasury afloat.

Whether or not the recent coup in Niger presents new opportunities for Wagnerian infiltration, the event will have significant geo-economic and geostrategic impacts. Niger is home to 5 percent of global uranium production. European energy production is also dependent on Nigerien uranium. According to Oxfam, “In France, one out of every three light bulbs is lit thanks to Nigerien uranium,” which is vital for broader European energy production. With the new government in Niamey announcing a total closure of its borders for the time being, European energy markets will feel a pinch if regular exports do not resume within several weeks.

This is not the first time Niger has experienced political discord. This week’s coup d’état is the fifth since the country gained independence from France in 1960. Some coups were brazen seizures of powers by the military, others putative defenses of democracy. Now, both sides claim a democratic mandate. Deposed ministers are calling on the civilian population to “rescue hard-won democratic gains.” At the same time, the new junta, some of whom cooperated with Russia in the past, pledged to preserve democracy and restore the rule of law.

Unsurprisingly, regional instability spills over into Niger. The wider Sahel region is a mess, and the country has to contend with multiple intersecting jihadist insurgencies. From the south, sectarian rebellions overflow from northern Nigeria and Cameroon. From the north, endemic chaos reigns in Libya. Looking east and west, Tuareg rebels in Mali and insurgents in Northern Chad present a grim outlook for regional security. More disruptive forces emanate from Sudan as well. For some time, it appeared that Niger was an exception to the anarchic trend. The now deposed Nigerien president Mohamed Bazoum had even deepened security ties with the United States.

However, the continuing chaos is a feature, not a bug, of Russian policy in Africa. Russia’s ailing and lagging soft power means it can offer little to Sub-Saharan African actors compared to the West or China. As a result, it opened its arsenal to both sides in armed conflicts throughout the continent and hopes that the short-term gains from mining and smuggling will save the Russian economy from the impact of Western sanctions. Moscow’s ruthlessly self-centered behavior is evident in the overall shift of Russian diplomacy towards the region since 2022. In July of last year, the African Union (AU) and Russia cordially discussed the prospect of resuming Russian grain shipments to needy African countries. In July 2023, after Russia literally torpedoed the grain deal and intensified food insecurity on the continent, only one-third of the invited African leaders to an African Union-Russia summit showed up.

Should Russia continue to expand its influence in the Sahel, it will enable the spread of anti-Western, radical terrorism while simultaneously disrupting Western energy supplies, including uranium. Disrupting alternative energy supply chains is critical for Russia since it increases European dependence on Russian natural gas and petroleum.

The Wagner Group may have lost some presence on Ukrainian battlefields, but that does not mean they no longer contribute to Russia’s war effort. However estranged Russian president Vladimir Putin and Prigozhin may be, the latter still advances the Kremlin’s grand strategy. Prigozhin called the conflict with the West “global.” For Wagner, it sure is.

Western policymakers should act to protect the uranium supply chain in Africa and recognize that Sudan and Niger are not just another organic bout of African instability. This is part of the Russian strategy to sow chaos in a desperate gambit to win its energy war.

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

Image: Shutterstock.

The weeks of intense turmoil in Israel over its future provides an opportunity for the United States to reassess its own policy toward that country. Former U.S. ambassadors and mainstream American columnists are broaching what was previously unthinkable: ending aid to Israel. The heavily indebted United States (federal debt owned by the public has reached nearly 100 percent of U.S. GDP) provides almost $4 billion in annual military aid to a rich country that has long been able to afford to pay for its own defense. Ending that largesse is long overdue.

Both sides in the current maelstrom of protest over weakening the Israeli Supreme Court, the only remaining check on the country’s parliament, are arguing that they are promoting democracy. That is not really true. Only the ultranationalist/religious Right-controlled parliament is strengthening democracy by trying to weaken the court by mandating that it no longer can strike down parliament-passed laws by ruling them “unreasonable.” The secular/pluralist side of the debate, despite their rhetoric, is really fighting for more democracy by trying to keep the one republican feature of Israel’s parliamentary system: a strong Supreme Court.

As the U.S. founders realized, unconstrained democracy is to be feared. It is no surprise that the Biden administration and many American Jews and supporters of Israel—used to the American written constitution (Israel has none) providing republican checks and balances to constrain raw majority power, that is, pure democracy—are uncomfortable with the Israeli ultranationalist/religious Right’s attempt to weaken the court and institute what could become a tyranny of the majority. Unlike Israel, the United States has many built-in safeguards to check majority power: a bicameral legislature, an independent executive with a veto over legislation, federalism that allows state governments to govern on many issues, a Bill of Rights that majorities at the federal and state level are not supposed to trample on, and a Supreme Court that is supposed to uphold those rights. Israel, however, has only a Supreme Court to sometimes temper parliamentary excesses and stick up for at least some rights.

The secular pluralist republicans in Israel fear that, with a weakened court, the rights of certain groups not favored by the ultranationalist/religious faction will be crushed by the unchecked parliamentary majority. Among the groups likely to be harmed are Israeli Arabs (about 20 percent of the population) and Palestinians in the West Bank. Although Israel is a democracy of sorts, it is not for those groups, who are treated as second-class citizens. The Israeli parliament, constrained less by a weakened court, would likely further erode the rights of Israeli Arabs, allow more Israeli settlers to take more of Palestinian land, or even attempt to annex the West Bank.

Most of these Israeli policies, which many Americans are uncomfortable with, are ongoing. But they could be accelerated with the demise of a court that occasionally stops or attenuates especially egregious Israeli government policies toward these disadvantaged groups. One would think that $4 billion in annual military aid give the United States leverage to moderate Israeli behavior toward both groups of Arabs. It hasn’t. In fact, continued U.S. aid—even when Israel has essentially locked up Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for years and controlled their movement and trade, while it has stalled the creation of a promised Palestinian state and allowed Israeli settlers to grab ever more Palestinian land in the West Bank—implicitly condones Israel’s bad behavior and even funds military forces that can be used to sustain this human rights travesty.

Washington should end the almost $4 billion a year in military aid not just for all these reasons, but also because Israel has grown rich and can fund its own armed forces. The country now ranks 24th in the world in income per capita, right up there with other rich developed countries in Europe, East Asia, and the Persian Gulf. The country no longer needs the aid—it even should be embarrassing to the wealthy Israelis—and implies U.S. agreement with objectionable policies toward Palestinians and Israeli Arabs.

Ivan Eland is a senior fellow with the Independent Institute and author of War and the Rogue Presidency.

Image: Shutterstock.

A recent development has rocked the scientific community over the past two weeks. Advocates proclaim that we now potentially stand on the brink of a transformative age in technology that could render our current power network and level of technology as quaintly outdated as the telegraph.

The harbinger of this new age? Room-temperature superconductors—materials that conduct electricity with perfect efficiency, without the need for deep chilling. If viable, then the arrival of these superconductors is not just a technological leap; it’s a paradigm shift with significant implications for the economy, national security and defense policy, and the future of energy consumption.

First, however, we must determine whether these superconductors can truly be made. Policymakers and experts ought to be aware of the currently unfolding events.

The Quest for the Holy Grail

Let’s start with some basic science. A superconductor, as the name suggests, is a material that can conduct electricity with zero resistance. In other words, it allows an electric current to flow indefinitely without any loss of energy. Compare this to say, contemporary batteries, which can lose up to 25 percent of stored energy over time.

If that sounds astounding, that’s because it is. However, this magic comes with a caveat: traditional superconductors only function in high-pressure, low-temperature environments akin to those found in the deepest recesses of outer space, thus limiting their practical application.

Enter room-temperature superconductors. As the name indicates, these are superconductors that operate at temperatures you would typically find in your everyday environment. The quest for this radical development has been ongoing for decades, with physicists and material scientists around the globe drawn to this scientific holy grail like bees to honey.

As of late last month, it appears that the grail may—just may—have been found. A group of South Korean scientists published papers claiming that they had developed a room-temperature, standard atmospheric pressure superconductor utilizing a lead-based material now dubbed “LK-99.” The scientists’ results have supposedly been successfully replicated by Chinese researchers. Other physicists around the world are racing to see if they too can create functioning LK-99. A preprint from Sinéad M. Griffin, a physicist from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, provides an explanation of what the South Korean scientists have seen. Yet other efforts to reproduce the results have predominantly fallen short. The School of Materials Science and Engineering at Beihang University in China attempted to replicate the LK-99 team’s process but encountered different outcomes. Likewise, a team at the National Physical Laboratory of India also failed.

The jury is thus still out on whether or not LK-99 is indeed a viable room-temperature superconductor—we are still extremely early in the scientific investigative process. We must wait until respected national laboratories, institutions, and others more thoroughly experiment with the process. We simply will not know for days, perhaps even weeks, whether LK-99 is in fact the real thing. Even if it isn’t, however, current results indicate that, at the very least, the compound’s discovery “suggests new lines of research” into room-temperature superconductors.

A Scientific Revolution…

But let us suppose, for a moment, that LK-99 is indeed the real thing. Or, at the very least, that there is now theoretical evidence that room-temperature superconductors are possible and we’ll have the real thing developed within a decade or so. If so, why should this matter to us?

The answer is that the potential applications of this new superconductor, if viable, are nothing short of revolutionary.

Our current electrical grid leaks enormous amounts of energy as heat due to resistance in wires. Now envision a world where electrical power grids lose virtually no energy in transmission. Room-temperature superconductors could lead to “perfect” power lines, supercharging the efficiency of our power infrastructure, slashing energy costs in the billions of dollars, reducing carbon footprints, and invigorating the growth of renewable energy. Moreover, smaller, more efficient electrical equipment is possible. Think electric vehicles with dramatically improved range, or data centers consuming less power.

Further radical effects would be felt in various fields.

In transportation, the introduction of room-temperature superconductors could herald the advent of high-speed, magnetically levitated trains that whizz along at blistering speeds with unmatched energy efficiency—New York City to Los Angeles in twenty minutes flat. This could revolutionize both intercity travel and freight delivery, dramatically reducing commute and delivery times while making a significant dent in transportation-related emissions.

In the realm of information technology, these superconductors could catalyze the development of quantum computers. The technology, while still in its nascent stages, promises computational capabilities that make today’s most powerful supercomputers seem rudimentary. With room-temperature superconductors, this could become commonplace—comparable with the equivalent of the most advanced modern supercomputer being condensed into the size of a smartphone

In medicine, room-temperature superconductors would turbocharge existing high-tech applications. Regulator superconductors are already used here; they are the hidden champions powering Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners, allowing doctors to peer inside the human body in unprecedented detail, all without a single incision. Yet these require cryogenic temperatures to function. Room-temperature superconductors would, in the words of one engineer, “make MRI’s both more accessible, affordable, and also increase resolution to the sub micro-meter scale. Autodocs for all.”

In short, the impact of room-temperature superconductors would likely be seismic. The advent of these superconductors could usher in an era of unprecedented industrial growth, igniting the birth of entirely new industries, driving economic growth, and generating millions of jobs in sectors ranging from technology and transportation to energy and healthcare. The companies that harness this transformative technology could emerge as global economic powerhouses.

…and a Geopolitical Revolution?

But perhaps the greatest impact lies in the realm of national security, defense, and foreign policy.

Military systems depend heavily on electricity, from aircraft carriers down to the individual soldier’s gear. Room-temperature superconductors could mean more efficient and compact power systems, lighter and longer-lasting batteries, and more powerful radar and sonar systems. The U.S. military’s ability to project power around the globe would be significantly enhanced, as would its ability to sustain operations in remote areas.

Moreover, as the military becomes more electrified and networked, the vulnerability of its power infrastructure becomes a critical concern. Superconducting cables are resistant to many types of disruption and could theoretically even be designed to automatically “heal” after a break, greatly improving the resilience of the military’s power networks.

More broadly, room-temperature superconductors could reshape global geopolitical dynamics by altering the strategic significance of energy resources. If room-temperature superconductors lead to cheaper, more efficient storage and transmission of renewable energy, nations with abundant renewable resources could gain a strategic advantage. Oil-dependent economies could find their power waning.

Yet a superconductive world is not without its significant risks. The potential military applications of room-temperature superconductors could lead to a new technological arms race. Governments across the globe would quickly recognize the strategic importance of this technology and rush to stake their claim, leading to international disputes over patents, technology transfers, and market access. There are significant national security implications if other nations master this technology first, or if the United States fails to secure its supply chains for the requisite critical materials needed to make room-temperature superconductors.

This is not a prospect to be taken lightly, and policymakers must factor in these considerations while shaping policies.

When the Magic Becomes Real

The quest for room-temperature superconductors thus paints a tantalizing picture of a future that may be within our grasp—one where energy flows freely without loss, high-speed trains levitate on invisible magnetic tracks, and quantum computers hum in offices worldwide. Washington could perhaps speed up this transformation through a variety of means: increased funding for research and development, tax incentives for companies investing in superconductor technology, and strategic public-private partnerships that share the financial risks and rewards of this ground-breaking technology.

But the superconductive moment, such as it is, also presents us with a formidable challenge: how to harness the transformative potential of this technology while navigating the geopolitical tensions and policy challenges it presents. The superconductive transition would be massively disruptive, with entire industries falling prey to technological change, oil-rich and technologically-poor nations suddenly falling behind, and new dangers manifesting.

The balance that must be struck is a delicate one, melding the drive for economic growth and technological superiority with the pursuit of international cooperation and sustainable progress. It is incumbent that policymakers be extremely careful in this effort.

Ultimately, time will tell whether LK-99 is the real deal; a viable room temperature superconductor, with all that such implies.

It is also incredibly ironic that the South Korean scientists behind LK-99 used lead. Perhaps the ancient alchemists were right all along: lead can be transformed into gold.

Carlos Roa is the Executive Editor of The National Interest.

Image: Shutterstock.

The country’s wealth is stolen or wasted as murder skyrockets.

The image of starving Africans may score propaganda points for the West, but Russia’s suspension of the deal arguably does more harm to wealthier countries.

Spiraling violence in the northeastern state takes cues from the ruling party’s majoritarianism.

A forever war in Ukraine comes with almost limitless possibilities to stifle dissent.

Silicon Valley’s congressman on how to reset the U.S.-China relationship.

On peut conter de cent manières les mille histoires qui façonnent le Proche-Orient. L'écrivain peut partir d'une idée et confronter son ingénuité au réel qu'il explore ou aux conteurs qu'il croise : il ne manquera pas alors de tomber très vite sur sa première histoire. En voici une, captée à l'avant (...) / Proche-Orient, Liban, Égypte, Littérature, Société, Histoire - 2018/06

A spate of diplomatic deals won’t end conflict.

Will a toughened China strategy be enough?

Amin Abou Rashed, president of the European Palestinians Conference (EPC), was rubbing elbows with Swedish politicians at an EPC event in late May. A month later, Rashed and his daughter were reportedly behind bars in the Netherlands for funneling €5.5 million to Hamas. This is just the latest instance of Hamas and other terrorist groups operating under the guise of charities and non-governmental organizations.

According to Dutch law, the names of suspects are not released until after a conviction. But the ages of the suspects, Abou Rashed’s conspicuous social media absence, and the analysis of those familiar with the case strongly suggest that the fifty-five-year-old man and twenty-five-year-old woman Dutch police arrested are Abou Rashed and his daughter.

Speeches by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh have been a fan favorite at the EPC, launched by the London-based Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) in 2003. Israel declared the PRC a front for Hamas in 2010.

Israel is not alone in identifying NGO networks in Europe affiliated with Palestinian terrorist groups. Treasury began sanctioning European-based Hamas-backed entities in 2003, including the UK-based charity Interpal, which is also designated by Canada and Australia. Two individuals who have served on the PRC’s board were also a board member and an activist in Interpal, respectively.

Beyond Interpal, the United States got serious decades ago about tackling charities and NGOs operating as fronts for Hamas. The most public of these cases involved the Holy Land Foundation (HLF). The United States designated the Texas-based charity as a terrorist group in December 2001, months after the 9/11 attacks. Over the course of years of investigations, U.S. prosecutors unraveled HLF’s web of fundraising on behalf of Hamas, particularly to support martyrs and their families. The HLF case highlighted Hamas’ strategy of collecting money through front groups.

Given his extensive connections to Hamas, it appears Abou Rashed was running the same playbook out of Europe. Israel sanctioned Abou Rashed, as well as two other EPC board members, in 2013 as an operative of Hamas in Europe. Abou Rashed also heads the Israa Foundation and was a member of the Al Aqsa Foundation Netherlands. Both are part of the Union of Good, a coalition of organizations fundraising on behalf of Hamas in Europe. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the Union in 2008, but the European Union has yet to follow suit. Abou Rashed has been affiliated with other NGOs tied to Hamas as well.

Swedish officials have yet to be deterred by Abou Rashed’s close, if not overt, ties to Hamas. In early May, Abou Rashed boasted about his successful meeting with Swedish Left Party member Mats Bilberg. At the EPC gathering in late May, Abou Rashed embraced a Swedish legislator known for anti-Israel remarks, while another Swedish lawmaker was in attendance.

Abou Rashed is just one of several Hamas members operating out of Europe. There is also Majed Khalil Musa Al Zeir, a German resident and senior member of Hamas. Al Zeir has held positions in entities based in Europe designated by Israel as Hamas proxies.

Then there’s EPC board member Mohammad Hanoun, who heads an Italian charity. In 2013, Hanoun led a European-Arab convoy to Gaza, where he met with various members of Hamas, including Ismail Haniyeh and Ahmed Bahar. Hanoun is on Israel’s sanctions list for Hamas activity.

Millions of euros flow into Gaza annually from Hamas-affiliated NGOs in Europe. But Hamas has also succeeded in attracting aid from non-Hamas European charities. In 2018, Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), a Norwegian government-funded NGO, was involved in a civil fraud complaint from USAID in which NPA was required to pay over $2 million to the United States for admitting to providing material support to Iran, Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Beyond Hamas, Israel has identified an NGO network operating on behalf of the PFLP, which is likewise a U.S-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. Following an investigation into a murder committed by Palestinians who were PFLP members and affiliated with NGOs, Israel designated six Palestinian non-profits, all of which have received European funding, as PFLP proxies.

Though some European countries have recently made strides in arresting suspected European Hamas affiliates or even outlawing the group as a whole, the lack of European sanctions on individual Hamas members and other covertly affiliated groups allows operatives to run freely on European soil. By allowing terrorists to incite and operate on the continent, Europe becomes increasingly vulnerable to domestic extremism, endangering Europeans.

Burying their heads in the sand is not an option for Europeans. British cleric Anjem Choudary leads the al-Muhajiroun network, which preaches an extreme interpretation of Islam similar to that of Hamas. Usman Khan, inspired by Choudary’s radical message, murdered two people on the London Bridge in 2019. Michael Adebolajo, one of the two men who murdered British soldier Lee Rigby on a London street in 2013, also drew inspiration from Choudary. Adebolajo had attended Choudary protests and claimed he carried out his attack to “take revenge for the killing of Muslims by British soldiers.” Just this Monday, a London court charged Choudary with terrorism offenses.

Europeans might be inclined to think that Hamas’ brand of terrorism is separate from that of other jihadist movements. But they would be wrong. Abou Rashed was a regular feature at anti-Israel protests in the Netherlands, where he spewed his hatred of the Jewish state. This type of hatred inspired Shehzad Tanweer to carry out the July 7, 2005, London transit bombings that killed 52. Tanweer explained his motivations in a video released shortly before the attack, saying, “You have offered financial and military support to the U.S. and Israel, in the massacre of our children in Palestine.”

Both the Abou Rashed and Anjem Choudary cases further prove how terrorist groups use NGOs as fronts for illicit activity. It should serve as a wake-up call to Europe. From Amsterdam to London and beyond, allowing Islamist terrorist groups to operate on European soil puts European lives in danger.

Melissa Sacks is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where David May (@DavidSamuelMay) is a research manager and senior research analyst. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Image: Shutterstock.

In the days since Moscow canceled its participation in the Ukraine grain shipment deal, there has been much proverbial gnashing of teeth in Washington, Brussels, Kyiv, and other capitals. Primarily, the concern is how to proceed with the shipment of vital foodstuffs to developing countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, which are dependent on Ukrainian exports to sustain the diets of their combined populations of hundreds of millions of citizens.

Skilled diplomats have been tasked with bringing together the parties again, to meet Moscow’s conditions for resuming Black Sea exports, and sustaining Ukraine’s battered wartime economy in what may be just the initial phase of a years-long struggle with Russian armed forces. But even so, strategic thought is required now to adapt to the transformed geopolitics of not only the Black Sea region, but throughout southeastern Europe, where NATO and EU borders form the trans-Atlantic frontier with Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus amid perennial shifts in Europe’s fragile security architecture.

One ideal option is centered in the northern Greek Aegean port of Alexandroupolis, whose modest size and economy belie the significant opportunities it offers to resolve the conundrum of maritime supply lines embarking from Odesa and other Ukrainian ports through the Mediterranean Sea to foreign markets.

The Strategic Importance of Alexandroupolis

Located in a relatively underdeveloped region of northern Greece, several miles from the Turkish border and 60 miles north of the Dardanelles Straits that lead into the Black Sea, Alexandroupolis is the starting point for a vertical corridor that leads directly north into Bulgaria and Romania, which shares a 380-mile border with Ukraine.

The overland corridor runs parallel to current Black Sea shipping lanes closed off to Ukrainian exports by the Russian navy, serving as a gateway to southern Europe without having to enter the perilous Black Sea theater, thereby saving precious transportation time and costs and providing a superior alternative in the face of Moscow’s intimidation campaign.

According to the U.S. Defense Department, the port has provided strategic readiness, logistics support, and power projection, enabled by robust synchronization between the United States and Greece.

Washington’s interest began about five years ago, as the Trump administration sought to help Athens develop a pro-Western anchor point to compete with the Chinese-controlled port of Piraeus, acquired by Beijing during the 2008 financial crisis when U.S. and European companies rejected Athens’ pleas to invest in the modernization of that historic port city. The State Department was also concerned about Greece’s major northern port of Thessaloniki, owned by a Greek-Russian businessman with party ties to Vladimir Putin.

Under the most recent Mutual Defense and Cooperation Agreement with Greece, the United States has helped advance plans to upgrade Alexandroupolis into a strategic logistics hub whose expansion plans now include military, energy, and transportation. In the three years prior to the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon had already transported enormous arsenals, including 117,000 tons of U.S. military equipment, including seventy planes and 165 armored vehicles, all through Alexandroupolis.

In the sixteen months since the start of the conflict, the port has been a critical maritime lifeline for supplying NATO forces on Ukraine’s western border, providing constant resupply of weapons, foodstuffs, and essential humanitarian supplies to provide for the country’s ravaged citizenry, as well as to millions of Ukrainian refugees throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

Alexandroupolis’ existing infrastructure includes a usable 500-yard post space, along with adequate road and rail links north into NATO’s eastern flank. It retains excess spare capacity, unlike Piraeus and Thessaloniki, and has granted priority access to U.S. military forces. U.S. defense secretary Lloyd Austin publicly recognized Greece’s role in enabling “the expansion of U.S. forces in Greece to support the United States and NATO’s objectives for strategic access in the region,” especially in Ukraine.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallender visited the port in February, reportedly followed by CIA director William Burns in June. Their presence marks the growing U.S. interest in the port for both military logistics and strategic energy supplies. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez visited in August 2022, as the Pentagon moved 2,400 light armored vehicles, weapons, and ammunition boxes through the port. At a committee hearing in Washington last week, Menendez called Alexandroupolis “the Souda of the North and a major NATO energy and transshipment hub.” He was comparing the Aegean port to the strategic deep-water port of Souda Bay on the southern Greek island of Crete, which provides operational support to the U.S., NATO, and coalition forces throughout the eastern Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and northern African theaters.

During the course of the Ukraine war, Alexandroupolis has served as the starting point for scores of rail missions and about 4,500 truckloads into Balkan and Baltic states, delivering more than 2,400 tanks, armored personnel carriers, and helicopters. For the recent annual Defender Europe 23 exercise in eastern Europe, the Pentagon’s local logistics team coordinated the shipment of more than 600 pieces of military equipment and vehicles within just four days—and the Pentagon plans to install heavy equipment to handle even more cargo.

The port’s proven NATO interoperability, readiness, and ability to deploy allied forces has multiplied its strategic value for long-term regional planning. British, French, Italian, and Portuguese forces have all used the port since its ongoing expansion. Cargo ships docking at Alexandroupolis unload directly onto, and load from, four parallel rail systems running through Bulgaria and Romania, reaching Poland in as little as five days.

The newly re-elected government of Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is proceeding with a major port modernization plan that includes improved rail, road, pipeline, and sea-land infrastructure to interconnect central and eastern Europe. In June, U.S. ambassador to Athens George Tsunis convened in the port a meeting of diplomats from western Black Sea countries to explore deepening cooperation and strengthening infrastructure, corridors, and networks that cross and connect Greece with Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, and Moldova.

In this context, their regional governments are assessing how best to transport Ukrainian grain to Alexandroupolis en route to dependent foreign markets in nearby northern Africa and the Middle East. According to the European Commission, Ukraine accounts for 10 percent of the world’s wheat market, 15 percent of the corn market, 13 percent of the barley market, and a substantial portion of the global sunflower oil sector.

This project is bolstered by a $1.1 billion European Union investment upgrade to add extra track, electrify the entire underutilized rail system, and connect the port to the EU’s Trans-European Transport Network. The first phase involves a 35-million-euro project to deepen the port, purchase cranes, build new warehouses to store as much as 200,000 tons of Ukrainian grain exports per month, and construct a local ring-road bypass.

This will facilitate a substantial, if incomplete, replacement of traditional Black Sea shipping routes for Ukrainian grain exports, as Alexandroupolis is not currently deep enough to handle the largest bulk carriers. It would also enable exporters to avoid expensive war risk insurance premiums currently in place for Black Sea shipping.

An Potential Energy Hub

Concurrently, Europe seeks to accelerate its independence from Russian hydrocarbons. The eastern Mediterranean region can provide abundant liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies from offshore reserves in Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, and potentially Greece that would be shipped to a floating storage and regasification unit under construction just off the coast of Alexandroupolis and set to begin operation by January 2024.

American and Qatari LNG supplies are also expected to be in the mix of up to 5.5 billion cubic meters of annual capacity linked inland via the port to an expanding network of natural gas pipelines delivering LNG through the port into central and western Balkan economies, through North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Serbia, and eventually into Albania, Montenegro, and Croatia along the Adriatic coast. A second future floating terminal southwest of Alexandroupolis is already moving forward.

In addition, expanding the current Trans-Adriatic Pipeline moving Azeri gas through Turkey into northern Greece, expanding the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria pipeline, and potentially reversing the Trans-Balkan pipeline to carry natural gas northward from Greece through Bulgaria, Romania, and possibly Ukraine and Moldova can together transform the regional energy grid of southeastern Europe.

Overall plans for Alexandroupolis include an ambitious expansion plan adding significant dock space, a new cargo terminal, an extra 500-meter pier, and a bypass to the local motorway to connect to the modest 8,470-foot runway airport only three miles away, and especially to the 420-mile Egnatia highway across northern Greece, linking the western Ionian Sea ports to Istanbul in the east.

Ankara has viewed these Greek port developments skeptically, through the prism of Black Sea competition rather than operational complementarity. The vertical axis north of Alexandroupolis will enhance transshipment options beyond the choke points of the Dardanelles and Bosporus Straits controlled by Turkey, and the northern route through Poland into western Ukraine. Such a configuration will become essential when a peace agreement is eventually achieved, and the projected half-trillion dollars of reconstruction materials, equipment, and energy capacity will need to rebuild Ukraine’s battered infrastructure and persuade millions of refugees to return home to a secure post-war environment.

Turkish authorities have long warned about the safety and environmental damage risks of steadily increasing tanker and shipping traffic through the straits, where more than 140 maritime incidents have occurred since 2006. The Alexandroupolis port would alleviate logistical bottlenecks and environmental stress on the straits astride a growing Istanbul population of nearly twenty million citizens.

Given the recent rapprochement signals by Prime Minister Mitsotakis and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the NATO Summit in Vilnius, reliable and environmentally sound supply lines throughout southeastern European markets from the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean Seas should be a new sector of strategic cooperation between the neighboring allies.

An Opportunity for Regional Development and Security

There is no assurance that Russia will stop blocking Ukrainian ports any time soon following its withdrawal from the grain deal. Even if Black Sea shipping is restored, the threat of recurring crises will loom for years, perhaps decades. The need for strategic diversification of energy and food corridors in case of future crises, or as an alternative scenario if Russia-Ukraine agreements collapse, is self-evident. Ship owners can expect to bear increased insurance premiums to enter the Black Sea and will remain reluctant to have their vessels and cargoes pass through a recent war zone without safety assurances.

Rather than be turned into a geopolitical flash-point, developing the Alexandroupolis port can help to stabilize the global food market and provide abundant natural gas supplies to directly replace Russian LNG supplies which remain excluded from EU sanctions until at least 2027. It will also deliver to NATO new routes from the south to project power against serious Russian and Chinese inroads, including growing influence over critical infrastructure in Syria, Libya, the Balkans, and across southeastern Europe.

U.S. support for the peaceful development of regional overland interlocking markets via sea-based communication lanes emanating from Alexandroupolis positions the port to become the next military, energy, transport, and logistics hub within the arc of regional crises during and beyond the war in Ukraine.

John Sitilides is a geopolitical strategist at Trilogy Advisors and diplomacy consultant to the State Department under a U.S. government contract.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions of the U.S. government.

Image: Flickr.

L'« Azur », bien sûr, c'est Mallarmé, le symbolisme, le Parnasse, l'air pur, l'immatériel, l'idée sublime… Comme son titre l'indique, En vain l'azur c'est tout le contraire : la férocité, l'expressionnisme, l'horreur, la matérialité, la sueur, le sang. Bref, la condition humaine, ou, de Mallarmé, les (...) / France, Art, Littérature - 2001/12

Economic independence could make the world more dangerous.

How domestic politics muffled the country’s voice.

South Africa recently sent a senior ministerial delegation to the United States to make its case it should remain a beneficiary of its trade preferences under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Pretoria is in danger of losing these preferences due to what Washington regards as a de facto pro-Russian bias in the war in Ukraine.

This would be a mistake; there are good reasons why it is in America’s interests to keep South Africa as a trading partner and within its sphere of influence through AGOA membership.

Under AGOA, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 2000, America decides which Sub-Saharan countries have duty-free access to U.S. markets unilaterally. President Joe Biden will determine Whether South Africa keeps its benefits with the advice of international trade officials.

The main sticking point for the U.S. government, and many commentators, is South Africa’s position in the Russia-Ukraine War. Critics believe that the government of President Cyril Ramaphosa—which allows joint military exercises with Russia, loads mysterious cargo onto a Russian ship, and refuses to condemn the Russian invasion—is effectively pro-Russia and harmful to U.S. interests. According to AGOA, African beneficiaries must “not engage in activities that undermine United States national security or foreign policy interests.”

But it would nonetheless be harmful to America’s interests to terminate South Africa’s AGOA membership since it would likely drive South Africa further into the arms of Russia and China. Considering South Africa’s strategic position as an alternative sea route to the Suez Canal, its strategic minerals bounty, and its relatively high level of industrialization, America has a strategic motivation to keep South Africa in the AGOA fold.

South African retention in the AGOA is vital because America is rightly worried about expanding Russian and Chinese diplomatic and trade ties to the African continent. Secretary of State Antony Blinken toured Africa in 2021 and 2022 to show African countries how much they are valued in Washington and showcase offers of U.S. assistance. Why undermine his message?

Last year, Biden unveiled a new Africa strategy with a policy document stating, "Sub-Saharan Africa is critical to advancing our global priorities.”

Removing South Africa from AGOA would frustrate this aim. Why would Washington force South Africa, and possibly other African nations, into an adversarial camp? Trade and diplomatic ties could be followed by military sales, basing agreements, or even alliances. A Russian or Chinese naval base in Simonstown would complicate American naval presence in the Indo-Pacific.

In addition, removing South Africa from AGOA would be costly for U.S. manufacturers and taxpayers.

First, America is a beneficiary of the AGOA terms of trade, not only because of increased access to the South African markets but also because South African manufactured goods, such as parts for motor vehicles assembled in America, enter the country duty-free. U.S. industry would lose these supply chains if the president disqualified South Africa.

Second, when Congress renewed AGOA in 2015, it forced South Africa to accept a substantial annual quota of American chicken portions free of the anti-dumping duties to which they were previously subject. Because of the quota, poultry suppliers benefit because they are the leading supplier of frozen chicken portions to South Africa, even though South African chicken farmers object. If AGOA goes, the South African poultry industry will rejoice, but U.S. poultry producers would forfeit a substantial market they have developed.

Third, losing AGOA membership would be a harsh blow to the South African economy, with ripple effects beyond its borders, punishing workers and poor people throughout the southern African region. Expelling South Africa could result in costly increases in U.S. aid to Africa if the already fragile South African economy collapses under the weight of its pre-existing domestic problems and the denial of access to U.S. markets.

The United States spends billions annually in aid to Africa—$8.5 billion in 2020 alone.

AGOA does exactly what its name indicates—it helps African economies grow, increase their trade ties with America, and create jobs, improving opportunities for social mobility.

Expelling South Africa from AGOA would hurt poor Africans the most—particularly workers in South Africa’s manufacturing and agricultural industries dependent on AGOA benefits. Each wage earner has to support multiple dependents in a region noted for record unemployment. One job lost means that many go hungry.

It is undoubtedly not in America’s interests to take actions that could destabilize the economies of Southern Africa, frustrate the AGOA vision, and increase the billions that U.S. taxpayers spend to uplift African countries and their peoples. AGOA benefits the United States and South Africa, and removing South Africa from AGOA is not in the interests of America or American taxpayers.

Francois Baird is the founder of the FairPlay trade movement.

Image: Shutterstock.