Diplomacy & Crisis News

Gordon Moore, one of the founding fathers of Silicon Valley, died on March 24 at the age of ninety-four. He co-founded Intel in 1968 and grew it into one of the most powerful companies on the planet as its chief executive and chairman. Moore’s Law—his prediction that the number of transistors in a circuit would double every twenty-four months—was pivotal in putting chips in every electronic device and laid the groundwork for personal computers, smartphones, and artificial intelligence. 

But according to Intel’s January earnings call, the company is far from its heyday under Moore. Intel’s profits fell by 60 percent in 2022 while revenue fell by 20 percent, leading Moody’s, Fitch, and S&P to downgrade its credit rating. The company has started the process of laying off thousands of employees and has cut its employee base pay by 5 to 10 percent. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger blamed “persistent macro headwinds” for the collapse, though the company’s inability to deliver new products on time and its severe overestimate of demand for personal computers are also responsible. Intel’s recovery plan is largely dependent on it receiving billions in federal subsidies from the CHIPS and Science Act, which is likely as Intel was the principal lobbyist for the bill.

But why should Washington save Intel? The answer most frequently provided by policymakers is that the U.S. produces no advanced chips, putting it at risk of losing a conflict with China if Taiwan is unable to ship chips across the Pacific. In reality, this is a canard. Peter Wennink, CEO of Dutch lithography giant ASML, dispelled this myth in December, saying that “it is common knowledge that chip technology for purely military applications is usually 10, 15 years old.” America’s warfighting capability is not meaningfully undermined by its lack of production of advanced chips as even platforms like the F-35 fighter jet use only legacy chips.

Another justification for directing subsidies to Intel is the idea that American firms should regain leadership in chip manufacturing to promote U.S. economic competitiveness. As President Joe Biden said when he signed the CHIPS Act into law, “the future of the chip industry is going to be made in America” by “American companies.” This helps explain why Intel may receive upwards of $3 billion from the Commerce Department for its two plants in Ohio, while U.S. factories of foreign firms that have met ambitious technology targets like the Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix will receive less. 

Though industrial policy will undoubtedly increase U.S. production of chips, the future of the semiconductor industry is going to be made in East Asia—not America. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. receives over half of all global orders to produce chips, which has enabled it to perfect its manufacturing processes and mass-produce logic chips that are two generations ahead of Intel’s chips. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Tokyo-based Kioxia control 70 percent of the market for memory chips; Intel sold much of its memory business to SK Hynix in 2021. The CHIPS Act will likely increase U.S. semiconductor production from 10 percent of global output to just 14 percent.

Even with billions in government subsidies, Intel is unlikely to regain the commanding position Moore helped it gain. According to semiconductor industry analyst Jonathan Goldberg, Intel will not be able to increase production sufficiently to poach clients from TSMC until the end of the decade, by which time its cash reserves will be depleted. Gelsinger has sold six of Intel’s non-core businesses since he became CEO in 2021, a shrewd move to save cash in the near term but a long-term gamble that Intel’s few remaining products will be dominant even as it innovates at a slower pace than TSMC and Samsung.

Washington’s emphasis on subsidizing American firms to produce on American soil represents a misunderstanding of semiconductor industry dynamics. American companies already capture half of global semiconductor industry revenue and are leaders in key areas including machine tools, design automation software, and process control. Though U.S. firms produce fewer chips than TSMC and Samsung, they still control many choke points in the semiconductor supply chain, allowing Washington to slow China’s production of advanced chips through export controls. Whether a company is headquartered in the United States is a red herring in an industry as globalized as semiconductors; Idaho-based Micron, for instance, has 75 percent of its employees outside of the United States. 

A better alternative would be to Americanize foreign companies by enticing them to make good on their promises to invest in the United States. While Samsung has said it may invest $195 billion in Texas over the next two decades, companies rarely deliver on lofty headline investment numbers. TSMC chief financial officer Wendell Huang explained why on a recent earnings call, stating that the costs associated with constructing factories “can be 4 to 5x greater for U.S. fab[s] versus a fab in Taiwan.” This is part of the reason why TSMC intends to continue producing its most advanced chips exclusively in Taiwan. As former Obama administration official Kevin Xu has persuasively argued, Intel’s “core is rotting” while companies like SK Hynix and Samsung are ready to make the United States a leader in semiconductor production again. The Commerce Department should allocate funding to persuade foreign industry heavyweights to make chips in America rather than trying to bail out Intel.

In his 2023 State of the Union address, Biden remarked that “outside of Columbus, Ohio, Intel is building semiconductor factories on a thousand acres—a literal field of dreams.” But a closer look reveals that its field of dreams is fallow. 

Kevin Klyman is a technology researcher at Harvard’s Belfer Center and a former fellow at the United Nations Foundation and the AI lab of the UN Secretary-General. Twitter: @kevin_klyman.

Image: Nor Gal / Shutterstock.com

Surely no one sees the war in Ukraine as a net positive. The toll in lives on both sides, the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure, and the Russian human rights violations, not to mention the high cost to Western economies in an era of ballooning deficits and high inflation all add up to an unmitigated catastrophe. No one can be happy with the conflict, except perhaps for China, which increasingly benefits from the relegation of Russia to its ever more junior status in their unequal Eurasian partnership.

We can wish this war had been prevented, and that the West, especially the United States, had made it clear to Russia in advance that it would not accept invasion and annexation. Yet Moscow had seen the Obama administration do little in response to the occupation of Crimea. Moreover, watching the Biden administration accept the humiliating exit from Afghanistan, it could reasonably conclude that it could swallow Ukraine with few consequences.

Yet the invasion might still have been forestalled by effective American diplomacy warning Russia robustly against pulling the trigger. Prior to February 24, 2022, Washington might have beefed up its embassy in Kyiv, raising the diplomatic stakes against an invasion, or even stationed a symbolic contingent of troops, a trip wire, to send a signal of commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty. Perhaps Russia president Vladimir Putin would have hesitated, if President Joe Biden had not repeatedly underscored what the United States would not do. The only effect of that overcautious messaging and the promise not to send U.S. troops was to invite Moscow to march right in, as if it were Prague 1968 all over again. To the surprise of everyone, however, Ukraine fought back.

There are conspiracy theorists on the Left and on the Right who misinterpret Washington’s pre-invasion messaging as an intentional trap to lure Russia into a war. This sort of speculation is risible. There is a much simpler explanation: poor leadership in America and lethargic diplomacy. But all that is water under the bridge now. The war that might have been prevented with better American vision has been raging for more than a year, and with this duration, new stakes have taken shape.

For Ukraine, the goals include expelling Russia from territory occupied since February 24, as well as ending the occupation of Crimea. These goals—the territorial disputes to which Florida governor Ron DeSantis referred—are consistent with international law, respect for internationally recognized borders and stated U.S. policy. Yet the United States has an additional interest of higher priority: imposing an unambiguous defeat on Russia. This ambition was not present at the start of the conflict; hence the initial American hesitation to support the Ukrainians. However, as the war has ground on, and the commitment on both sides has grown, American credibility as the prime defender of the international order is on the line. Unless the Russian aggressor experiences a clear loss, it is the United States who will suffer reputational damage. A Western defeat in Ukraine, after the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, will become a narrative of American weakness. The world order will be less secure.

The way to impose a defeat on Russia is to accelerate military support for Ukraine, i.e., both the speed of the delivery of arms and an increase in their quality. The time has long passed for slow-walking the weapons the Ukrainians can use so effectively. The longer the war drags on, the greater the likelihood that our always half-hearted West European allies will drop off: Germany was recently gripped by a nationwide strike, and France is bogged down in violent protests over pension reform. Very soon such domestic concerns will undermine their commitments to security on the eastern front of the free world. It is foolish and short-sighted to withhold from Ukraine the tools it needs to win. Ukraine’s winning is in the American national interest.

Russell A. Berman is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he directs the Working Group on the Middle East. He previously served as Senior Advisor on the Policy Planning Staff in the Department of State.

Image: Shutterstock.

In a fascinating turn of events for the region in 2023, diplomacy appears to be leading the way in the Middle East. In this regard, Jordanian foreign minister and deputy prime minister Ayman Safadi met with Lebanese foreign minister Abdullah Bou Habib on March 28 to discuss bilateral relations and regional issues—particularly and interestingly that of Syria. The meeting is significant, given the rapid diplomatic shift across the region concerning Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Yet while Jordan has worked to build support for its “step-for-step” plan on Syria, Beirut has remained relatively quiet regarding Damascus’s role in the region. That said, Lebanon has serious interests in Syria that will guide its approach to Assad in 2023 as diplomatic engagement ramps up across the region.

The Refugee Question

The foreign ministers’ meeting touched on issues impacting both countries in relation to Syria. Both officials discussed the refugee file at length—a difficult subject given the Syrian neighbors’ substantial refugee populations. Lebanon officially hosts approximately 822,000 refugees, with some estimates reaching 1.5 million when considering unregistered Syrians. Jordan, meanwhile, hosts roughly 1.3 million Syrian refugees.

Yet while the refugee issue dominated talks on Syria, Jordan’s ongoing step-for-step initiative underpinned the meeting’s focus on Damascus. Amman has quietly advocated for the approach, which centralizes tiered diplomatic thawing with the Syrian government in exchange for parallel concessions consisting of political reforms, often described as protections for refugees returning to their communities, combating smuggling, and tempering Iran-backed armed groups inside Syria.

The plan has failed thus far, as Jordan’s renormalization effort with Assad has not slowed smuggling along the Jordan-Syria border or pushed Iran-backed militias from the border zone. Rather, ongoing efforts led by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) continue to garner the most focus and progress, albeit without much reform or clear political promises from the Syrian side.

Still, Beirut’s delegation expressed support for the Jordanian initiative. Indeed, the Lebanese government publicly supports many of the focus areas within the Jordan plan—namely refugee returns. Bou Habib made this clear, noting the “humanitarian tragedy is not only the tragedy of civilians displaced from their land and homeland but also a significant challenge for Lebanon at the economic, social and especially political and security levels.”

The foreign minister’s statement certainly reflects Beirut’s thinking on the Syria file. The Lebanese government has focused heavily on Syrian refugees in recent years to shift blame for its brutal economic collapse from the country’s traditional elites to that of a foreign enemy—namely, Syrians. It is an ongoing fallacy meant to scapegoat a group that, in reality, receives support and funding from relevant UN agencies and not the Lebanese government. Regardless, the line works with much of the public, and has thus become a priority area shared with Jordan as well as Turkey.

The Importance of Stability in Syria for Lebanon

Still, other issues connected to the Syria file also carry significant importance for Lebanon. This includes a general desire for stability in its eastern neighbor, particularly given the two countries’ deep interconnectedness. Indeed, instability in one of these two countries often leads to a similar outcome in the other, best exemplified by Lebanon’s currency crisis producing similar monetary issues in Syria in recent years.

Interconnectivity and stability also go hand in hand with another core Lebanese interest; namely, finalizing and implementing an energy deal negotiated in late 2021 between Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. Importantly, U.S. officials helped mediate the deal. The agreement establishes the framework for a $300 million World Bank loan to finance repairs to the Arab Gas Pipeline in Syria that would, in part, facilitate the flow of gas from Egypt and Jordan to Syria and northern Lebanon.

The deal is currently held up by both delayed Lebanese reforms to its electricity sector and a supposed ongoing U.S. sanctions review. Both Egypt and the World Bank have thus far refused to begin implementing the deal without Washington’s assurance that it does not violate the Syria sanctions regime and Beirut’s reforms to its highly inefficient electricity regulations, respectively. Specifically, the concern relates to details in the agreement that stipulate a small percentage of gas for the Syrian government as a type of payment for its section of the pipeline. At present, U.S. sanctions do not allow any energy sector imports or investments in Syria.

Given these interests and their deeply rooted connection to Lebanon’s overarching stability—or political survival with respect to false accusations against Syrian refugees—Beirut thus places high importance on Syria’s return to the regional diplomatic fold. Lebanese leaders likely view Amman’s step-for-step plan as a serious mechanism for such prospects, even if anti-smuggling components directly harm certain Lebanese factions (namely Hezbollah). Whether Lebanon views step-for-step as a mechanism for broader, international shifts on Syria, however, remains to be seen.

Constrained by Internal Division

To be sure, Lebanon’s political landscape is as far from monolithic as any context across the globe. A substantial portion of the population is intensely anti-Syria and anti-Assad—namely the March 14 Alliance consisting of the Lebanese Forces, Kataeb Party, many independent MPs, smaller parties, and the former Sunni-dominated Future Movement. These parties stand in contrast to the pro-Syria March 8 Alliance, led by Hezbollah and consisting of the Amal Movement, Progressive Socialist Party, and Free Patriotic Movement.

How the March 14 Alliance members view any such move deemed as accommodating to Damascus—particularly amidst an ongoing presidential debate that has witnessed Hezbollah-backed and staunchly pro-Assad Marada member of parliament (MP) Suleiman Frangieh become the potential frontrunner for the Lebanese presidency—remains to be seen. It is not far-fetched to speculate that negative views of Frangieh translate similarly to any engagement with Assad, and vice versa, given the strong fear of and resentment against the Syrian occupation of the past. Still, neither alliance is necessarily a monolith either.

Ultimately, Hezbollah carries the most power and influence in Lebanon and can easily dictate not only the presidential outcome but Beirut’s engagement with Damascus. That said, the Lebanese government carries minimal serious influence over regional actions pertaining to Syria given the scale of foreign interference in its internal affairs. For these reasons, Lebanon will likely remain in the shadow of broader regional renormalization efforts tied to the Assad regime while focusing heavily on the Syrian refugee file in the near term—regardless of its support for Amman’s efforts.

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.

Image: Shutterstock.

The Iranian drone strike against the American military base in northern Syria that killed one American contractor and wounded six servicemen has once again called into question the purpose of the American presence, with some 900 troops, in the country. The official reasoning, according to the Pentagon chief, Gen. Mark A. Milley, is “to counter [the Islamic State].” Furthermore, the policymakers in Washington have stated that the United States should stay in Syria to “contain and roll back Iranian influence … also protecting Israel.” Whereas the two objectives may sound legitimate, the ways by which the United States implements them are inherently problematic and will beget more problems, not only for Washington but for the region as well.

Countering ISIS

ISIS has posed a much more immediate threat to the regional states and actors than it has to Washington, which weakens the argument that the United States is in Syria to counter ISIS. By design, ISIS is an extremist Sunni organization that during its reign directed its attacks primarily against the Shia Muslims in Iraq and Syria, explicitly engaging in a Shia genocide. This makes the organization a prime adversary for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Iran and its proxies, who are Shias. The pro-Iranian militias such as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria played a great role in rolling back ISIS. Ironically, Washington has indirectly allowed Iranian influence in the region to strengthen by helping eliminate an anti-Shia group like ISIS, just as it did by removing a staunch anti-Iran figure, Saddam Hussein, and fighting the anti-Iran Taliban in Afghanistan.

ISIS has declared Turkey “the Wilayat Turkey” (a part of its alleged caliphate) and issued a death warrant for the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his cooperation with “the Crusaders” (NATO) in the fight against ISIS. The terror organization is known to have carried out numerous suicide bombings in Turkey that cost the lives of dozens of Turks.

All this considered, Washington’s insistence on staying in Syria under the pretext of “containing ISIS” is rather weak. Every actor in the region considers ISIS an existential threat and has a stake in eliminating it. If anything, Washington should have cooperated with its NATO ally Turkey, a regional power that has formidable economic, political, and military clout, and its proxies. Such a partnership could have maintained U.S. power projection without risking a direct confrontation with regional adversaries such as Iran and the probability of initiating another “forever war” that would have America bogged down in the Middle East. This was seen with the assassination of the Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020, for which Iran retaliated by firing more than a dozen ballistic missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq where more than 100 US troops suffered brain injuries.

However, a series of mistakes Washington made in 2014-2015 not only cost it Turkey, a valuable ally, but also resulted in America’s unjustified presence in Syria. At the height of the ISIS threat, the Obama administration failed to adopt a clear plan for its defeat and the toppling of Assad. The confused U.S. agencies began to support different opposition groups each having different agendas. The CIA began to train and equip the pro-Turkey Sunni opposition, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), whose main goal was to topple Assad and fight ISIS. The Pentagon, in contrast, propped up the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkey’s arch foe, whose aim was primarily to fight ISIS and ultimately to gain autonomy, even independence, within Syria. 

By 2015, Washington’s Syrian plan was in shambles such that the FSA and the YPG turned against each other, while at the same time separately fighting ISIS. Eventually, the same year, Washington decided to abandon the Sunni FSA in favor of the YPG, and to relinquish the idea of toppling Assad, an Iranian ally, a decision that coincided with Obama’s Iran rapprochement. Not surprisingly, having seen the American ambiguity and weakness, in the Summer of 2015, Russian president Vladimir Putin descended into Syria to save Russian interests and Assad from being toppled, which resulted in retaliatory genocidal campaigns against the anti-Assad Syrian opposition and the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians, including the infamous 2017 chemical attack.

Are the YPG an Asset or Liability?

The Pentagon’s staunch support for the YPG brought about the question of countering Iranian influence in the region. 

In Syria, the Pentagon heavily relies on the YPG, a majority Marxist Kurdish militant group, which as former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter put it, “has substantial ties with PKK … which is a terrorist organization in the eyes of the US and Turkish governments.” The YPG’s inability to counter Iran’s influence stems from two reasons: first, the YPG and the PKK have had organic ties with Iran due to their aligned regional goals; and second, Washington is making the same mistake in Syria that it did in Afghanistan—nation building. 

YPG/PKK - Iran Ties

Iran, which has historically pursued adverse policies against Turkey, provided the PKK with a safe haven not only in Iran but also in Iraq. Tehran denied Ankara’s request for a cross-border operation into the Iranian Qandil Mountains, where the PKK’s upper echelon is believed to reside.

Likewise, the PKK and Tehran have cooperated against their mutual adversary, Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani and his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the strongest faction in Iraqi Kurdistan. Therefore, given their long-term strategic goals, the PKK’s top commanders, who also have control over the YPG, want to exert extreme caution to not agitate Tehran. Thus, the PKK’s leaders don’t allow the United States to use their Syrian branch, the YPG, as foot soldiers against Iran’s proxies. Bassam Ishak, then the Washington representative of the Syrian Democratic Council, a political umbrella organization to which the YPG belongs and which represents the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), acknowledged that an all-out war with Iran would wreak havoc on them. Moreover, Nicholas Heras, the Center for a New American Security fellow who talked to SDF members in Syria said, “There is a deep concern within the SDF over the extent to which the United States is looking to use SDF forces as a counter to Iran in Syria.”

Washington’s Futile Effort: Nation Building in Syria

From a social, political, and economic point of view, the YPG autonomy project in Syria is unsustainable. The Pentagon is pouring billions of dollars to train and equip the YPG and facilitate its autonomous rule in northeastern Syria. But the predominantly leftist Kurdish YPG is alien to the region, which is overwhelmingly Sunni Arab with some Turcoman. 

The YPG is known to have engaged in de-Arabization as it gained territory from ISIS, sowing further resentment, and breeding further intra-communal clashes. “By deliberately demolishing civilian homes, in some cases razing and burning entire villages, displacing their inhabitants with no justifiable military grounds, the Autonomous Administration is abusing its authority and brazenly flouting international humanitarian law, in attacks that amount to war crimes,” said Lama Fakih, senior crisis advisor at Amnesty International. Moreover, the YPG’s political wing, known as the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD), has a reputation of persecuting those Kurds who don’t share their neo-Maoist worldview. Ibrahim Biro, the then-head of Syria’s Kurdish National Council, accused the PYD of being dictatorial. He was kidnapped by the PKK for opposing the YPG in Syria. The World Council of Arameans (WCA) has frequently condemned the YPG for closing their schools and kidnapping and conscripting Aramean Christian teenagers against their wills.

Furthermore, Turkey controls much of the vital water inflow in Syria that is necessary for agriculture and power, as well as trade. A prospective Kurdish YPG state will heavily rely on resources from Turkey, which sees the organization as an existential threat. Currently, the YPG is exclusively sustained by American taxpayers and a small amount of oil export that necessitates a fragile deal with the Assad regime. 

It begs explanation why Washington is so insistent on investing in a pointless Kurdish nation-building exercise in Syria whereas the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Northern Iraq has much more wherewithal, from its own government to the central bank. Ironically, Washington in 2017 rejected Kurdish statehood in northern Iraq by not recognizing the region’s independence referendum. If the purpose is to counter ISIS and the Iranian influence via proxies, why has Washington not been investing in the Erbil government, which is extremely wary of the Iranian influence? Additionally, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces successfully fought against ISIS. To make things worse, by unconditionally supporting the YPG, Washington indirectly consolidates the PKK’s regional presence, which further complicates intra-Kurdish politics. The KRG in Erbil has long considered the PKK to be an existential threat. The friction escalated to the extent that the PKK began ambushing and killing members of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in 2021.

What now?

I believe Robert Pape, the renowned political scientist from the University of Chicago, is right: it is not the religious convictions but military occupations that create extremism and suicide bombers. After all, former British prime minister Tony Blair acknowledged that the Iraq War “helped give rise to ISIS.” It is not surprising that we don’t hear any more of those roadside bombs, or suicide bombings, after the United States departed from Afghanistan. 

When examining the consequences of the U.S. actions in the last thirty years, one can argue that by taking it upon itself to destroy Iran’s enemies from Saddam to ISIS, “America has Fought Iran’s Wars in the Middle East.” The weary American public now wonders why Iran, China, and Russia have become ever more influential in the Middle East and the United States is losing clout despite Washington having spent more than $8 trillion and lost more than 5,000 servicemembers. 

As the Ukrainian war rages on and talk of a war with China is abundant, the last thing America would want is to get bogged down in the Middle East by initiating another forever war with Iran. The United State ought to revise its Middle East strategy. Maintaining a small presence in the name of protecting the YPG and “countering Iran” is counterproductive. The Senate has repealed the Iraq War authorization, a move in the right direction. American policymakers should do the same for Syria. Instead of constantly alienating Turkey, a NATO ally and a major local powerhouse, by unconditionally supporting its arch PKK/YPG foe, Washington needs to take advantage of Ankara’s increasing military, political, and social clout not only in the Middle East but also in the Caucasus and the Black Sea.

Ali Demirdas, Ph.D. in political science from the University of South Carolina, Fulbright scholar, professor of international affairs at the College of Charleston (2011–2018). You can follow him on Twitter @AliDemirdasPhD.

Image: DVIDS.

With increased bipartisan concern in Washington about the data collection and management practices of Chinese-owned social media applications such as TikTok, we inquired as to whether the public is similarly concerned.

In August of 2020, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to impose economic sanctions against Tiktok, which would have prevented the app from being updated and receiving advertising revenue from American companies. The Trump administration argued that this order was necessary due to the app’s ability to share data with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, which then could be used by the Chinese government. Federal Courts blocked the Trump administration’s executive order from taking effect. The Biden administration revoked the executive order in 2021, but decided to study the application and how it manages data to determine the threat it posed to national security.

Then, in November of 2022, FBI director Christopher Wray testified to the Homeland Security Committee, stating his agency had “national security concerns” regarding the potential uses of TikTok both for data collection and for influencing via its recommendation algorithm. By mid-March, growing bipartisan congressional support sought to respond to security concerns associated with TikTok. Use of the app already was prohibited on government devices, and the Department of Justice announced an investigation into the parent company of TikTok over inappropriately obtaining data on American journalists. Legislative efforts, although still in their infancy, currently suggest the possibility of an outright ban of social media technology owed by adversarial countries, while critics suggest that regulation would be more suitable. 

We ask whether the public supports either option. The assumption would be that Americans, even if concerned about Chinese influence, would support regulation over a ban. To address public support, we conducted a web survey via mTurk Amazon of 1,228 American respondents on February 28, 2023. After a series of demographic and attitudinal questions, respondents were randomly assigned one of two prompts to evaluate on a five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree).

The statements were:

Version 1: Social media apps owned by Chinese companies, such as WeChat and TikTok, should be regulated in the United States.

Version 2: Social media apps owned by Chinese companies, such as WeChat and TikTok, should be banned in the United States.

Overall, we find clear support for regulating these social media apps, with roughly two-thirds of respondents supportive of regulation; however, that support declines by 9 percent or greater when considering an outright ban of such applications. In addition, and consistent with the stronger anti-China sentiment overall, we see greater support for both regulation and for a ban among Republicans compared to Democrats.

After controlling for various demographic and attitudinal factors, we found that this pattern regarding support for regulation versus an outright ban endures. Furthermore, conservatives and those with more education were more supportive of regulation, while women overall were less supportive. We also asked respondents to rate China on a 1-5 scale (very negative to very positive) and find that views on China negatively correspond with support for any action against Chinese apps.

We also asked people to indicate on a scale of 1-5 whether a range of issues in U.S.-China relations were important or not, with a 1 being not important at all and a 5 being very important. People who indicated that cybersecurity was a more important issue were more likely to support regulating Chinese-owned apps, but this relationship did not hold when respondents were asked about a possible ban on foreign-owned apps.

There are several possible explanations for the strong support for regulation, but weaker support for banning foreign-owned apps. TikTok is an exceedingly popular social media app that has millions of users in the United States, so the opposition to banning the app could partially be a reflection of its popularity. Although not an app, Huawei phones and technology, which are banned in the United States, did not receive the same amount of attention since they had not taken hold in the United States at the time. 

Admittedly, we acknowledge the limitations of our experimental web survey. In particular, we did not ask about the use of social media applications, with a March Washington Post poll showing starkly different views of a ban based on whether one used the application. Use also largely falls on generational lines. Many TikTok users are from Generation Z, a group underrepresented in Congress, one that current policymakers may underestimate, and from which we may see a potential backlash to policies toward the application. 

Banning applications could also cause concerns about freedom of speech protections. Laws protecting free speech are a major reason why many European countries are not pursuing bans of TikTok despite the cybersecurity and data privacy concerns about the app. Policymakers would have to carefully consider laws around free speech to effectively craft a ban that would stand up to legal scrutiny.

Nevertheless, the results suggest a broad acknowledgment of the potential dangers of Chinese social media applications and a potential area for a bipartisan solution, though the data gives little indication as to what regulatory strategies the public would most support.

Timothy S. Rich is a Professor of Political Science at Western Kentucky University and Director of the International Public Opinion Lab (IPOL). His research focuses on public opinion and electoral politics, with a focus on East Asian democracies.

Ian Milden is a recent graduate from the master’s in public administration program at Western Kentucky University. He previously graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science and history from Western Kentucky University.

Josie Coyle is an honors undergraduate researcher at Western Kentucky University, with majors in International Affairs and Chinese.

Image: Ascannio / Shutterstock.com

April is the cruelest month. Especially in the banking sector. In the middle of a war.

It seems that not a day passes that the Institute for the Study of War tells us of the impending gloom on the Russian front; no weapons and an imploding economy at home, though anecdotal stories on the streets of the Red Square would seem to deny any validity to the wasteland of the Russian plateau. Yet a specter is haunting Europe. A specter of “confidence.”

The confidence issue is key when you operate in “fiat” currencies. When Ptolemaic historians predicted the “end of history” in the 1990s: that universal victory of liberal democracy and markets, which would sweep aside the authoritarian, the traditional, and… well, everything, they forgot to account for geopolitics. Joe Biden said the ruble would be reduced to rubble. The French finance minister said the Russian economy would collapse. But despite these various pronouncements, the sanctions and freezing of assets of Russian individuals and firms, along with the foreign exchange reserves of the Russian Central Bank, have not produced any significant tsunami of regime change. It is simply that power and economic power calls the shots—Bismarck’s “blood and iron.” This might not suit the flaky new class of privileged U.S. and UK graduates of the public sector elites, steeped as they are in all-inclusive public sector economic security; the trahison de clercs of modernity. Realpolitik, that of Machiavelli, Carl Schmitt, and Henry Kissinger, didn’t go away. It has taken a back seat amidst the bread and circuses but is now back firmly in the driving seat.

Fiat currencies are promises to pay debts. Hence, they are vulnerable to economic shocks. Now, U.S. and European banks, invested heavily in bond portfolios, are reliant on “confident” consumers and investors. The citadel of capital is made of paper money, fluttering in the winds of change. In that way, the economies of fiat currencies rely on confidence. But the economies of resource commodities are immune to “confidence.”

The economic caesura can go back to the United States ending the crude gold standard in 1971. It was more strategic than economic. This adoption of petro-dollars above gold ushered in a revolution of dollar dependency worldwide. Out of this, the United States was now both militarily and economically the godhead, just as the Papacy had once been—Roman locuta, causa finita (Rome has spoken, so the case is closed). This expansion was based on a dual dialectic; at once the United States needed to solidify hegemony and military Keynesianism was the answer.

Now this house of cards, built on confidence, has gone bipolar. Yet the writing was on the wall. The movement to resource-backed currencies has been accelerated by the U.S. acknowledgment of the trend and its attempt to reverse it, ostensibly through the Ukraine debacle. Zoltan Pozsar, who then was at the New York Federal Reserve, published a report on the switch, which signaled this hiatus and the journey to resource economics. In times of high stress (such as now in Ukraine) commodity prices become volatile, driving instability. This is due to the fact that these commodities are used as collateral for many other debt instruments.

The revolution in economics is not Bitcoin, but resource-based currencies. The West has hastened its own demise. Pozsar moved to Credit Suisse, ironically, and the rest is history. “Hoisted by his own petard,” as they say.

The hastening began with the Ukraine war, with the United States forcing the West into a round of sanctions against Russia. With the Russians placing a limit on the price of their gold, Russian investors were stuck with an undervalued ruble, therefore forcing it to rise vis-a-vis the dollar. In the last six months, the ruble has steadily strengthened. Then Putin added the double whammy that oil purchasers must buy in rubles. Or gold. If they buy in gold, they are effectively getting a discount on the oil. This also heaps pressure on the supply of gold, raising the price.

In effect, the West’s commitment to burn the ruble has backfired. The strengthening of the oil price has had a concomitant strengthening effect on the ruble. The upshot of this? In the land of paper, commodities are king. Russia and China are now able to control the prices of gold and oil, which is epoch-defining. We are moving away from Westworld.

At last year’s St. Petersburg Economic Investment Forum, the CEO of Gazprom forewarned about the shift to a new dynamic: “The game of nominal value of money is over, as this system does not allow to control the supply of resources.” It signals the emergence of “outside money,” to quote Poszar again, rather than “inside money,” i.e. the use of debt and fiat currency. The post-Lehman Brothers world has been built on the property stripping of the world, using cheap debt for institutional investors to wrest more and more property under their umbrella. The world of the dollar reserve system is coming to an end. Inside money has been artificially inflated by the West in order to cheaply buy the assets of the Orient. Now it’s payback time for the Orient. The West emphasizes rules and laws as a means to accrue wealth; in the Orient, the workhouse of the world, wealth is created through labor and invention. This is the fundamental malaise of the Anglophone world: it is not the absence of fruit in the supermarket post-Brexit; it is the civilizational surrender of the very ethos which gave the nations their success in the first place.

The war in Ukraine has seen outside money taking back some of the inside money of the Davos oligarchs. It is Russia clawing back the real world of commodities, of realpolitik.

The dollar is still the reserve currency. This seismic change will not happen overnight. But the seeds are sown. The present banking crisis, at Credit Suisse, at Deutsche Bank, and at others, are symptomatic of the weakness of the fiat system. During pressures, the banks are less inclined to risk the inside money game; the currencies are not backed by commodities. However, with outside money, the currencies are supported by hard commodities. This is the allure of the new system. In times of banking pressures, the central banks are forced to step in and print new money; hence the currency is further weakened. This is now playing out in the West; the gradual death of fiat currencies.

Meanwhile, the Eurasian Economic Commission is preparing for a commodity-backed currency, based on a commodity bundle of gold, water, oil, grain, and metals. For them, the confiscation of dollar reserves by sanctions is pushing new ideas along. It is the reverse of globalization. Globalization, like colonialism before it rested on a false nomos—the Greek word for the real underlying forces of the world. The sun is rising on the new nomos of the earth; a resource-based order of territorial aggrandizement, of realpolitik. The West will be putting out the wildfires of this new history for a long time, with Ukraine being only the first of many.

In Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond argues that civilizations crash for a variety of reasons: environmental, population, the loss of trade partners. The problem of integrated globalization and the outsourcing of the original ethos to rival states such as China falls within the Diamond schema. He particularly cites the “courage to practice long-term thinking, and to make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become perceptible.” He states that elites can prove disastrous in this context as they practice short-term divisive policies at odds with the teleology of society. This is the Achilles’ Heel of economic liberalism: Short-term deindustrialization and deterritorialization have led to a shattering of the telos of the West. Societies lack meaning and elites substitute a self-destructive cultural philosophy to hide extraction and accumulation.

The Easter Islanders, who lived an idyllic agrarian lifestyle with a spiritual teleology based on the building of Moai statues to collect the spirits of tradition and the past, are a warning about forgetting and uprooting.  From the fifteenth century onwards, two groups, the Tu'u and the Oto Itu, lived in separate parts of the island. They clashed in the mid-eighteenth century over claims of ancestral hegemony. The result was a period of statue-toppling, in which the rival groups neglected core values and sought to destabilize the rival’s cultural power embodied in the Moai. Famine and homelessness followed as elite groups took control.

A warning to history. Yet nothing is learned from history. It is an epic Spenglerian cycle of rise and fall, of shifting civilizations, of statue toppling in the West. The telos of success is forgotten and the values of the past are cast away for the pyrrhic victory of liberal fetishes.

Brian Patrick Bolger studied at the LSE. He has taught political philosophy and applied linguistics in universities across Europe. His articles have appeared in the United States, the UK, Italy, Canada, and Germany in magazines such as The National Interest, GeoPolitical Monitor, Merion West, Voegelin View, The Montreal Review, The European Conservative, Visegrad Insight, The Hungarian Conservative, The Salisbury Review, The Village, New English Review, The Burkean, The Daily Globe, American Thinker, The Internationalist, and Philosophy News. His book, Coronavirus and the Strange Death of Truth, is now available in the UK and the United States. His new book, Nowhere Fast: The Decline of Liberal Democracy, will be published soon by Ethics International Press.

Image: Shutterstock.

The International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin for the abduction of Ukrainian children is groundbreaking—the issue has not nearly gotten sufficient public attention. Beyond its relevance for human rights and criminal prosecution, the unlawful removal of Ukrainian children also lays bare Russia’s intention to erase Ukrainians’ identity and eradicate Ukrainian statehood. Any peace settlement will continue to be a non-starter unless it can guarantee accountability for the abductions and the return of all Ukrainian children. As long as the violence against children remains unaddressed, there is little prospect for sustainable peace.

Russia has targeted children since the very beginning of the war. According to estimates by Yale researchers and the Ukrainian government, between 6,000 and 14,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly relocated to Russia since February 2022. Harrowing stories of these abductions are easy to find—albeit only for those fortunate enough to have been rescued. One of them is twelve-year-old Oleksandr, who narrowly escaped forced adoption after having been separated from his parents by Russian soldiers, thanks to his grandmother’s rescue mission through Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Russia. Thousands of other children have not been as lucky.

At the same time, the amount of violence against children in Ukraine is astonishing. Infamously, in March 2022, a Russian airstrike on a theater in Mariupol that had “children” written in big red letters on its roof killed around 600 civilians. Nearly one in ten hospitals in Ukraine has been damaged by the Russians, often hitting maternity wards and children’s hospitals. More than 2,500 schools have been damaged or destroyed. Many kids are among the victims of grave sexual violence and executions in the occupied areas, and are deliberately targeted in atrocities like in Bucha.

Children do not suffer by accident, nor are they simply collateral damage—this is a calculated and methodological scheme. Children symbolize and universally represent the future of a society—in terms of ethnicity, culture, and identity. As such, the abduction, maiming, and slaughtering of children frequently occurs in wars and genocides around the world. The 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide explicitly lists the forcible replacement and targeting of children as a genocidal tactic—and for good reason.

What, at first glance, may seem to be strictly a human rights issue in fact shows that Russia is pursuing a grand strategy for the Russification of Ukraine through whatever means it deems necessary, down to genocidal tactics. This effort can be traced as far back as the Soviet Union and the Russian empire. The historical continuity of such a strategy highlights Russia’s commitment to denying the existence of Ukrainians.

The documented patterns of violence against Ukrainian children and systematic nature of the abductions underscore our analysis of strategic intent. Although Russian law prohibits foreign adoption, Putin signed a decree in May 2022 that streamlines the “adoption” process of Ukrainian children; there is even a financial incentive of up to $1,000 for Russians who take in and impose Russian citizenship on a Ukrainian child. In the meantime, Russia holds abducted children in camps, where they are subjected to political re-education—and there is no end in sight.

This all raises an important question: how can Russia be a trustworthy negotiation partner? Independent of all other valid arguments, Russia’s strategy vis-a-vis Ukrainian children demonstrates that there is more to the issue than just land disputes. The violence against children must be part of any future security analyses, ensuring the full scope of Russia’s actions against Ukraine is captured. In the end, it is Ukraine’s decision when to negotiate—but currently, a workable compromise seems highly unlikely. The Ukrainian government cannot let Russia erase Ukraine, even “just a little bit.”

For a peace settlement to be feasible, the children’s issue must be incorporated at the forefront of negotiations. Criminal accountability and the swift return of all Ukrainian children should be set as prerequisites for returning to the negotiation table. Without properly addressing Russia’s abduction of children, the chances of a sustainable peace agreement are likely to be diminished by the partial success of Russia’s genocidal tactics and ensuing opposition from the Ukrainian people and civil society.

Sofie Lilli Stoffel is a McCloy fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Non-resident fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. She works on foreign and security policy and specializes in children in conflict.

Vladyslav Wallace is a Belfer Young Leader Student Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Fellow at the U.S. Department of State. He works on U.S. diplomacy and foreign policy and specializes in matters related to Eurasia such as human rights and democracy.

Image: Shutterstock.

For years, certain voices in Lebanon have opposed the rising influence of Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian political military movement, and have warned of the dangerous consequences of not directly addressing this issue with a clear vision. Among these voices is Samy Gemayel, the president of the Kataeb Party, whom I recently had the chance of interviewing. For Gemayel, the reality is simple: Hezbollah is the greatest threat to Lebanese sovereignty, and all roads lead to them.

Gemayel and his Kataeb supporters have a specific grievance against Hezbollah. They view the movement’s decisions and current form as that of an autonomous armed group, which poses an unnecessary danger to the Lebanese people. This danger is especially apparent given the country’s current economic crisis, the worst in Lebanese history. While the existence of Hezbollah’s arms did not solely cause the crisis, other factors, such as the lack of strong state institutions and weak accountability for corruption by other political forces, played a role. Despite this, the problem of how Hezbollah sees Lebanon and what it is remains relevant. It raises the question of whether Lebanon can modernize as a country if it cannot have a single source of authority. Two viewpoints exist on this matter. On the one hand, some in Lebanon argue that the power of Hezbollah grows because of the absence of a state. On the other, there are those who argue that the state is weakened because of Hezbollah and thus cannot effectively legislate and govern. It is even possible that both views are right, leaving Lebanon in a catch-22 situation.

Kataeb is striving to explain the issue of Lebanon's sovereignty to other members of Lebanon’s parliament to ensure a unified approach. Gemayel notes that though economic and other reforms have been agreed upon, there is a lack of consensus on how to address Hezbollah. Whether this was due to naiveté or fear, he answered: “I don’t know, I think it is a bit of both. They didn’t face Hezbollah in the last fifteen years like we did. They didn’t see firsthand the violence, the intimidation, and the will to block the country and to destroy the economy the way we saw it. We cannot hide this elephant in the room called Hezbollah and we cannot escape from tackling this problem.” Gemayel emphasized the need to confront the problem posed by Hezbollah, which has imposed its convictions on all other players in Lebanese politics, leaving no benefits for the Lebanese people.

Opposing Hezbollah has been a top priority in Mr. Gemayel’s political life, but after years of nonviolent resistance alongside other allies of the March 14th Alliance, a political coalition which sought to disarm the Shiite political party, Hezbollah has only grown stronger. Gemayel attributed this to Hezbollah’s ability to bring everyone under its umbrella since 2015–2016, which resulted in the election of Michel Aoun, their primary ally, as president. This move effectively included everyone under their umbrella. “All the political players, played the game of Hezbollah. This was the problem.”

Why did March 14th Alliance Fail?

In 2005, following the assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, most Lebanese people rallied across the country demanding an end to Syria’s near thirty-year-long military occupation. This call for sovereignty paved the way for the formation of the March 14th Alliance. Syria had intervened in Lebanon’s civil war at the request of the Lebanese government in March 1976. The intervention was intended to halt the war and continued until the signing of the Taif Agreement in Saudi Arabia in 1990, which was endorsed by all Lebanese military and political factions. However, the Syrian army remained in Lebanon despite the agreement's promise that the troops would leave eventually.

As opposition to Syria’s increasing influence in Lebanon grew, so did the voices of dissent. Among them was Pierre Gemayel, the late brother of Samy Gemayel, who was eventually assassinated for his opposition to Syria’s military rule and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Pierre was killed along with others who spoke out against Syria’s power in Lebanon. Prominent anti-Syrian regime voices within the early stages of March 14th Alliance were also assassinated, including the independent politician and respected former editor of An-Nahar, Gebran Tueni, in 2005. In December 2013, former Lebanese minister and Hezbollah critic Mohamad Chatah, who was an advisor to the Saad Hariri government, a Lebanese ambassador, and member of the March 14th Alliance, was also assassinated in downtown Beirut. Shortly before his death, he tweeted a warning about Hezbollah's attempts to take control of specific state responsibilities: “Hezbollah is pressing hard to be granted similar powers in security & foreign policy matters that Syria exercised in Lebanon for 15 yrs.”

To this day, no one had taken responsibility Chatah’s killing. Hezbollah has denied all involvement in the assassinations of their political rivals, saying it benefits the enemies of Lebanon to sow internal division. Putting accusations aside, the greatest common factor for all these kinds of assassinations is that none of their perpetrators have been brought to a fair and just trial. Why? Because the rule of law is not practiced in Lebanon. The truth of the matter is, if every March 14th leader had the courage of Gebran Tueini, Pierre Gamayel, and Mohamed Chatah, Lebanon might be in a better situation today. Instead, everyone pursues their own narrow interests. The public is forced to remain silent out of fear and total cynicism of the country’s political, judicial, economic, and other systems’ failure to live up to promises of a better future.

What Comes Next for Lebanon?

Gemayel believes that Lebanon’s current problems are due to the concessions made to Hezbollah, which has caused Lebanon to be in a state of “confrontation with all the Arab countries and the Western world.” He notes that his party has been opposed to these concessions from the start.

Yet there are some minor signs of change. While in the past, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has condemned Saudi Arabia as a sponsor of terrorism, there has been a shift in rhetoric following a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia mediated by China. Nasrallah welcomed the normalization, stating “This is a good development. We have complete confidence that this will not come at our expense.”

There is optimism that the resumption of ties between the region’s most influential players could help Lebanon. Nevertheless, it is a matter of principle, not deal-making, for Kataeb. No political party today in Lebanon must be allowed to carry weapons. “As long as we have this military organization in parallel to the Lebanese army, making decisions parallel to the Lebanese state and acting like first-degree citizens while the rest of us are second-degree citizens, the problem will remain,” Gemayel says. He hopes for a positive impact but acknowledges that “as long as Hezbollah’s behavior with the Lebanese people and Lebanese institutions doesn’t change, the problem is still there.”

And If Lebanon Does Not Change Course…?

 In early February, Gemayel spoke at Kataeb’s 32nd general assembly about how he sees the country’s present situation: that there are effectively two Lebanons.

“On the one hand, you have the Republic of Lebanon, with all the people from all the sects who believe in it and believe in the democratic system and the constitution, which governs the relations of the Lebanese from all sects with one another. And on the other hand, there is a state called the Islamic Republic of Hezbollah.” He went to declare that Hezbollah’s actions are tantamount to asking for a national divorce, and if that is what it wants, “lets have it.”

When we spoke, I pressed him on this question. Some have accused him of desiring partition or federalism for the country—policies that are not practical or within the best interest of all Lebanese.

Gemayel indicated that what he was doing was pointing out that living under Hezbollah’s hegemony is not an option. He clarified that Kataeb’s resistance to Hezbollah will always remain non-violent, but that regardless, political paralysis cannot remain an option. “What I am trying to point on that Hezbollah is responsible for creating this huge gap between the Lebanese society. This gap may turn into something more dangerous, which is a kind of two Lebanons.”

In other words, Gemayel’s statement about the two Lebanons was not about partition or federalism, but rather a warning about the division between those who believe in the democratic system and those who follow Hezbollah. Such a situation, if not ultimately resolved amicably, could certainly turn into something more dangerous. For a tragedy-ridden country, such a prospect is grim.

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

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The question “are the United States and China in a new cold war?” is not particularly challenging. The answer is yes. A more intriguing question might be, “can the United States and China avoid the mistakes of the previous Cold War?”

One of these mistakes was a fear-driven credulousness; a tendency to take all boasts and claims of the rival power (think Nikita Khrushchev’s pronouncement of “We will bury you!”) as accurate, and in doing so, miss a chance to craft sensible, non-escalatory responses. Currently, after Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow and boasts about China being ready to “stand guard over the world order,” it might be worth taking a closer look at China’s foreign policy environment. Do its boasts match reality, or is China’s global position weakening like a seaside home at high tide?

Far from being astride the globe, the “China Dream” globally—China’s economic power, political attraction, and standing—are all eroding. Several key indicators reveal that, in the epic clash with the United States and the “collective West,” China is weaker than at any time in the last ten years.

Consider the economic dimensions for starters. A key instrument of great power influence has long been foreign direct investment (FDI), something that is also crucial for China’s own economic health. Spurred by its 2001 “Go Out” policy and supercharged with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, Chinese outward FDI grew steadily, from $10 billion in 2005 to more than $170 billion by 2017. Since then, four of the last five years have seen drops in outward FDI—including a 15 percent fall in 2022, according to the American Enterprise Institute. Chinese investment into Europe, previously a choice location because of its high value-added manufacturing capacity and weak regulation, fell sharply as well. Once eager partners like Germany, Italy, and the EU itself have adopted or strengthened investment screening mechanisms and blocked key Chinese acquisitions. A mutual investment treaty that is supposed to address chronic business complaints about Chinese practices and restrictions has stalled in the European Parliament due to widespread Chinese human rights violations and tit-for-tat individual sanctions. Viewed in the other direction, European investment into China dropped steadily after 2018 until rebounding last year. But as Rhodium Group figures show, FDI inflow to China has become concentrated to the point where almost 90 percent of European FDI in China comes from only four countries. During the coronavirus pandemic, the Rhodium report notes, “virtually no European investors that were not already present in the country have made direct investments.” The impact of European investment, which had in 2018 accounted for 7.5 percent of Chinese GDP, fell to 2.8 percent three years later.

The most serious challenge to Chinese economic clout has come from the United States. Heightened tariffs and restrictions put in place during the Trump administration have continued under Joe Biden. Reviews of foreign (read: Chinese) investments have broadened, as have policies blocking the sale of high-tech goods to China—not only from the United States, but also from companies in other countries whose goods have U.S. components. Washington redoubled its efforts to block Huawei and TikTok, along with passing legislation to subsidize U.S. production of high-tech goods at home and direct “friendshoring” investments to reliable allies and partners.

As an economic colossus, China has alternatives, especially in Asia, Africa, and other places where it claims to offer an alternative development model. But here, too, China’s presence has run out of steam. Annual investments in the countries of the BRI, once the flagship vehicle for the extension of Chinese influence, are today less than half of what they were only five years ago. And most of that is in countries with serious debt issues. As a report in Foreign Policy put it, “China can make friends or break legs. It can’t do both.”

In some places, the Chinese “model” proved more destructive than instructive. Beijing’s bullying of Sri Lanka into handing over the Hambantota port that it built with borrowed Chinese money has not exactly burnished Beijing’s reputation as a guardian of a new world order. In fact, according to Pew Research, favorable views of China have dropped sharply around the world—a fall reinforced by China’s “digital authoritarianism” during coronavirus, its draconian and unsuccessful lockdown policy, and its support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In Europe, which is generally less strident than the United States, China is on the verge of trading its once flourishing ties with the world’s most advanced economies for the cheap oil and the desperate embrace of what Alexander Gabuev calls its “new vassal,” Russia. At the EU-China summit in April 2022, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was blunt: “China, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has a special responsibility. No European citizen would understand any support to Russia's ability to wage war.” She is right. In February 2023, a report by the Munich Security Conference showed that across the globe—including in India and Brazi—two-thirds of those surveyed felt that China’s support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine made them wary of Chinese ambitions.

Among the EU’s new East European members, Beijing’s much-touted “CEE+” framework has foundered on China’s willingness to see Ukraine’s sovereignty ravished and its bullying of states that veer even a little on Taiwan, like Lithuania. China has also forfeited one of its more important European trade and investment partners in Ukraine itself. At one point. Volodymyr Zelensky offered Ukraine as “China’s bridge to Europe,” and Chinese companies began the construction of the largest wind farm in Europe near Donetsk and the refitting of the port of Mariupol, now in ruins.

If weakening the Western alliance structure is one of Beijing’s aims, it is now more distant than ever. Ukraine and Moldova have been advanced to candidate status for the EU, and NATO, the very embodiment of Western global domination in Beijing’s view, has been given new life, strength, and members by the actions of Xi’s “best friend” in Moscow. Worse than that from China’s point of view, the alliance has now incorporated China’s own neighborhood into its security stance. In 2022, NATO formally declared the Indo-Pacific to be part of its “shared security interests.” Under President Joe Biden, the United States has significantly increased the prominence of policy initiatives in this region, such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad (composed of India, Australia, Japan, and the United States), and taken actions—like selling nuclear-powered submarines to Australia and adding U.S. bases in the Philippines—that support a more muscular U.S. presence in the region.

Even the EU—which is certainly not a military alliance—has adopted the strategic aim of insuring an “open and rule-based” South China Sea—a direct rejection of China's unilateral claims to virtually all of it—and backed up this rhetoric with action. This month, Italy—the only G-7 country to sign on to the BRI and once the most open to Chinese investment—announced the deployment of one of its two aircraft carriers to the region and confirmed a tripartite deal with Japan and the UK to develop and produce a new generation fighter plane.

Nowhere has the rise of China been greeted with more alarm than in Japan. It was then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who first put forth the notion of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” now widely adopted, as a notion to counter China’s influence. More recently, Japan has doubled its defense budget, reconceptualized the notion of what “defense” means, and opted for new, higher-quality weapons. While some of this comes as a response to North Korea’s menacing actions, Japan’s new national security strategy, adopted in December 2022, makes clear that China represents “the unprecedented and greatest strategic challenge.”

A broader unwelcome development for China is the comparison offered in the United States and elsewhere between Russian actions in Ukraine and possible Chinese actions against Taiwan—a comparison rejected by Beijing. As an alarm bell, the sound could not be clearer. “Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow,” said Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida, who just concluded a high-profile visit to Ukraine.

The news is not all bad for China. Foreign trade is up—including with its number one partner, the United States. Beijing scored a significant coup by facilitating the recent deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Honduras has changed sides, and European leaders still head off to Beijing, with groups of businessmen in tow. But the overall worsening international setting cannot be encouraging for Xi and the Chinese Communist Party, which must at the same time reckon with a dramatically slower growth rate at home, the consequences of a disastrous coronavirus policy, and a population that is both declining and aging.

Brave words and boasts are required when authoritarian leaders need to use nationalism to stay in power at home. But they need not be swallowed whole by outside observers in the face of contrary evidence, nor by policymakers trying to ensure that the new Cold War stays cold.

Ronald H. Linden is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh. During the spring of 2023, he has been Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Science of Sapienza University, Rome. Recent publications include, “Is Moldova Next? Brigadoon in a Tough Neighborhood,” The National Interest, May 22, 2022, and “No Limits? China, Russia and Ukraine” (with Emilia Zankina) Eurozine, May 4, 2022.

Image: Shutterstock.

The deterioration of liberal democracy has become a global phenomenon and, one by one, countries in different parts of the world have fallen victim to assaults on such. Israel is only the latest victim of an attempted attack.

However, civil society’s mobilization against such moves may teach us how to deal with slow-moving authoritarian tendencies.

The Fundamental Law of Hungary initiated by the government of Viktor Orbán, which passed in only nine days and without much public discussion, reduced judges’ retirement age from seventy to sixty-two, forcing almost three hundred judges into retirement. With a parliamentary majority, Orbán could pack the courts with loyal judges. Hungary’s system of constitutional courts was established in 1990 after communism collapsed and interpreted laws and rights according to constitutional principles, following the spirit of the European Union. Orbán’s Fundamental Law annulled rulings that helped define and protect these fundamental rights.

In Poland, the governing Law and Justice Party (PiS) attacked the Polish courts by claiming they represent an elite whose decisions often do not align with the majority's will. Like in Hungary, the PiS removed judges by reducing the age of retirement. The Polish government attacked the constitutional tribunal, which protected the democratic process and limited executive and legislative power. It refused to recognize elected judges and publish constitutional courts' opinions and judgments. The PiS also proceeded to control the public prosecutor's office and politicized the national council responsible for nominating judges.

In Turkey, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government moved to control the courts by passing amendments to expand the size of the constitutional courts and increase the number of Supreme Court judges and prosecutors. Those amendments aimed not to strengthen these institutions but to pack the judiciary with AKP ideologues.

In Argentina, the then-president and now vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, introduced the concept of “democratization of the judiciary,” which in spirit has nothing to do with real democracy. Upon taking office in late 2019, President Alberto Fernández and Vice President Kirchner accused the judiciary of being political and unsuccessfully introduced a broad judicial reform to expand the number of federal courts in Buenos Aires from twelve to forty-six. This sharp increase would have allowed Fernández and the Peronist-controlled Senate to appoint many new judges loyal to the party. The president also appointed a commission of experts that proposed other changes to the judiciary, including creating new tribunals that would reduce the influence of the Supreme Court.

Along the same lines, the Fernandez-controlled Argentinean Senate voted to remove judges deciding on corruption cases involving Kirchner. However, a Supreme Court ruling managed to postpone it indefinitely.

Likewise, Fernandez initially refused to comply with a Supreme Court decision that forced the government to return federal money to the city of Buenos Aires (The president refused to give the city of Buenos Aires, which is not a district that typically votes for the president's party, federal money the city was entitled to). Fernandez was also particularly hostile to the tribunal after his vice president was found guilty of corruption. The president helped mobilize the masses after a federal criminal court sentenced Vice President Kirchner to prison for fraud and corruption. The vice president claimed she was a victim of lawfare orchestrated by the judiciary. The president, the vice president, and their allies sarcastically call the courts "the judicial party" as if the courts did not represent independent institutions of justice but a political party that serves the interests of the opposition. Last year, again unsuccessfully, the president proposed to pack the court by increasing the number of Supreme Court justices from nine to twenty-five. 

Early this year, President Fernandez publicly called to impeach four members of the Supreme Court, accusing the high court of abusing its power when it forced the government to return federal funds to the city of Buenos Aires. The impeachment is not likely to occur because there is not a majority to approve it. However, the fact that the president openly attacks the high court is a distressing act of illiberalism, if not authoritarianism.

In Israel, a coalition government-proposed judicial reform would allow for a simple majority vote in the Knesset, Israel's unicameral parliament, to revoke Supreme Court decisions.

The proposed reform would enable an “override clause” to eliminate judicial review of legislation and would change the makeup of the Judicial Selection Committee to ensure the government controls the appointments of judges and justices. Likewise, it would weaken the criterion of "unreasonableness" the Supreme Court occasionally uses to oversee and intervene in executive orders.

The separation between the executive and legislative power is nonexistent in Israel because Israeli law requires a parliamentary majority to form a government. Therefore, weakening the Supreme Court would open the way to an unchecked government—an absolute power.

Thus, Israel has been on the way to joining the nations moving in the direction of illiberal democracy. The official rhetoric looks as if it were taken from the Kirchner playbook: since judges do not constitute an elected entity, they do not represent the majority's spirit and sentiments.

But by rebelling against that move, Israelis have made an enormous difference. More than a million people have taken to the streets to demonstrate in front of the parliament and government offices. Centrist and left-wing parties, individuals from the right, academia, doctors, reservists, trade unions, professional associations, and many others who make up the fabric of society have participated in the protests.

The same social networks that united Israelis in times of war have connected them in the face of an attempted government power grab. This has created schisms within the governing Likud party, forcing it to seek a pause to open a dialogue with the opposition.

The judicial overhaul is still on the table, and the government’s proposal represents a severe crisis. But on the other hand, the Israeli people— its officers, doctors, and its productive force—have stood up to the government assault. Israelis have proved willing to challenge their government even amid widespread Palestinian terrorist attacks. Furthermore, to defend democracy, reservists have been ready to refuse army service in a clear message to the government that the state is not the rule of the elected, and that the state must continue to guarantee citizens' rights and protection of political minorities.

As illiberalism spreads throughout the world, the courts, along with the media and the political opposition, are the first victims. It is difficult to reverse the process when society remains passive in the face of slow government movements toward authoritarianism. The people at large will be the next victims. It is enough to see the blood, torture, incarceration, and purges that Venezuelans, Turks, Nicaraguans, and others are already experiencing.

Illiberalism is the spirit of our times. Even in Europe and the United States, illiberal forces have gained ground.

The Israelis, this time, provided a counterexample. This time is not about how to fight terrorism or develop state-of-the-art technology but how to avert, from the outset, attempts at destroying democracies in slow motion.

Luis Fleischman, PhD, is co-founder of the Palm Beach Center for Democracy & Policy Research, and professor of Social Sciences at Palm Beach College.

Image: Roman Yanushevsky/Shutterstock.

On March 10, Iran and Saudi Arabia announced reestablishing diplomatic relations, under Chinese good offices, after seven years of hiatus. The Iranian president appears poised to visit the kingdom in the near future. Some see Iran’s diplomatic rehabilitation and the apparent decline of the U.S. role in the Middle East as a threat. Yet concerned pundits overlook the changing regional balance of power and the opportunities coming with it.

Iran’s Troubles

The normalization deal results not from Iran’s strength but from Iran’s growing difficulties in sustaining its regional ambitions. Iran faces domestic troubles and new enemies while its regional endeavors remain fruitless.

On the domestic front, the Iranian regime has been confronting a massive protest movement since the death of Mahsa Amini at the local police’s hands in September 2022. These protests have turned in some regions into a latent insurgency. The protest movement has worsened the country’s already dire economic situation, forcing Tehran to refocus on domestic problems and new rivals.

The contestation aroused longstanding Iranian fears of Azerbaijani independentism and, beyond it, of Azerbaijan and Turkey. Iranian Azeris represent the majority of the population in three northwestern provinces of the country. Tehran worries that Azerbaijan supports Iranian Azeris’ actual or supposed separatism. It also resents Baku’s strong ties with Israel, Iran’s official enemy. Azerbaijan’s victory in its 2020 war against Armenia (which has good relations with Tehran) also reinforced its position, mechanically weakening Iran’s. Border incidents have become frequent, and, most dramatically, a gunman attacked the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran in January.

Iran’s worsening conflict with Azerbaijan entwines deeply with a new sense of Turkish threat unseen since the Ottoman Empire’s collapse. Turkey supports Azerbaijan against Armenia, Iran’s close partner. Furthermore, Turkey’s military occupation of several chunks of northern Syria, Iran’s foremost ally in the region, has worried the Iranians for many years. Ankara’s growing military encroachments over northern Iraq did little to allay these concerns. The establishment of a Turkish military base in Qatar right across the Gulf also added to Iran’s restlessness. Turkish expansionism poses a rising challenge to Iran’s core interests.

More broadly, Iranian endeavors throughout the Middle East cost the Iranians dearly for little tangible gains. Iran has spent billions subsidizing its allies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Palestine. The only clear-cut Iranian success is Assad’s victory in the Syrian Civil War, but Syria is now more Russia’s satellite than Iran’s. Yemen’s Houthis survived loyalist forces’ assaults but so far failed to conquer the whole country. Hamas and Hezbollah have proven unable or unwilling to harm Israel significantly. Although pro-Iranian militias roam Iraq, Baghdad still maintains its independence and a multivectorial foreign policy.

In addition, the growing trend among Arab states to normalize relations with Syria threatened to place Iran in an awkward position. Its main regional ally would have had working relations with its Arab rivals while itself would have stayed isolated. If Iran had not jumped on the appeasement bandwagon, it might have lost in the long term its hard-won influence over Damascus, lured away by Gulf petrodollars. Now that the Assad regime has emerged from the civil war as the victor, it needs Iranian military backing less than before. Diplomatic and economic support from the Arab world would dwarf anything a cash-strapped Iran could offer.

Saudi Concerns

Iran’s internal difficulties, new threats on its northwestern borders, and costly regional stalemates pushed Tehran toward appeasing Saudi Arabia. But Riyadh, too, faces problems of its own, although less severe. It wants to extricate itself from the Yemeni quagmire, where it has failed since 2015 to defeat the Houthi regime. Riyadh needs to talk with the Iranians, the Houthis’ principal supporters, to end this conflict on acceptable terms. Also, the United States’ growing focus on great power competition and China diminishes Washington’s commitment to Saudi preferences and thus pushes the Kingdom to rethink its regional posture.

The Saudis have complicated relations with Turkey, too. Normalizing relations with Iran allows Tehran to focus on other priorities like northern Syria and Iraq. They would benefit greatly from letting the Iranians and the Turks fight each other in distant lands, thus leaving Riyadh free rein to consolidate its power at home and in its “near abroad,” the Arabian Peninsula.

Saudi Arabia understands it is unlikely to ever outdo Iran’s superior size, military power, and soon-to-be nuclear capabilities. Conversely, Tehran cannot seriously threaten Saudi survival. Its conventional military is in escheat and lacks the means to conquer Saudi Arabia and march on Riyadh. Furthermore, the Iranian army will remain unable to enter Saudi territory as long as Iraq maintains its independence. In addition, the Saudis still benefit from the United States’ nuclear umbrella and understand that a nuclear Iran is unlikely to nuke them out of the blue. Since neither could win, Riyadh and Tehran have agreed to a relative draw.

America’s Interests

The Iran-Saudi Arabia normalization thus arises from Tehran’s growing weakness and Riyadh’s changing security environment. What would be the best course of action for the United States in that background?

First, Washington is deeply interested in building good relations with Iran, regardless of its nuclear program. The United States is refocusing its foreign policy toward great power competitors, primarily China. It cannot waste finite resources on feuding with Iran, a relatively weak state. On the contrary, Washington should want to improve its relations with Tehran—and Syria—to prevent it from supporting China or Russia. A nuclear Iran could even become a formidable buffer between Chinese and Russian power and the Persian Gulf.

In any case, Washington has no easy path to stop Iran’s nuclear program. An airstrike against Iran is unlikely to produce long-lasting success and would slow down Iran’s nuclear program for only a few months. A ground invasion is the surest way to eliminate the Iranian nuclear program. However, invading such a large country would be an operation of an unimaginable scale. The Iraqi and Afghani campaigns would pale in comparison, and the bloodshed would be immense.

In addition, regional powers are capable of containing even a nuclear Iran. The Middle East already counts a nuclear state, Israel, which could deter a nuclear-armed Iran if it ever had expansionist ambitions. Israel’s military capabilities combined with those of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states should suffice to prevent an Iranian bid for regional hegemony. Thus, Tehran does not represent a major threat to the United States, and Washington would be better off rethinking its approach toward Iran.

Second, the United States should use the Iranian-Saudi rapprochement as a foundation for a larger regional security architecture. Ongoing conflicts in Syria and Yemen open the Middle East doors to Washington’s main rivals, China and Russia. Regional instability also allows Turkey to harbor destabilizing expansionist ambitions. Reintegrating Iran into the regional concert could, in time, lead to a general Arab-Iranian-Israeli normalization. Such a depolarization would leave fewer openings for Beijing and Moscow to penetrate the region. Also, alleviating regional conflicts will free additional U.S. bandwidth for great power competition.

The Saudi-Iranian normalization remains far from a total reshuffle, and their longstanding mistrust will continue for the time being. It came out of exhaustion more than of a sincere desire for reconciliation. However, these evolutions offer the United States the opportunity to reduce regional cleavages and thus close possible avenues for Chinese and Russian power.

If the United States remains committed to confronting Iran at every corner for its nuclear program or human rights record, Washington’s regional position is likely to decline. Iran will growingly align with China and Russia to counteract American pressure, while the Arab-Iranian normalization will break Tehran’s isolation. Continuing the failed ‘maximum pressure’ campaign will only bring the worst of both worlds: a nuclear-armed Iran replaced at the center of regional politics, a springboard for Sino-Russian endeavors.

The current era of intense great power competition requires political imagination combined with astute diplomacy. Decisionmakers must keep foreign policy traditionalism and dogmatism about Iran from sacrificing this opportunity to advance essential American interests at little cost.

Dylan Motin is a Ph.D. candidate majoring in political science at Kangwon National University and a Marcellus Policy Fellow at the John Quincy Adams Society.

Image: Shutterstock.

As the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine passed, there are promising signs that the war may soon end.

In something of a Christmas miracle, President Vladimir Putin made an advent day announcement that Russia is “prepared to negotiate some acceptable outcomes” in regard to the war. Last month, China announced its peace plan for the conflict, and President Xi Jinping visited Moscow to explore the plan’s feasibility.

Both Russia and Ukraine are locked in a bitter stalemate, with no real changes on the battlefield in recent months. Now seems to be the perfect time for some sort of ceasefire, armistice, or similar agreement.

As the momentum begins to shift, it is time to think about what will happen after the war. Specifically, billions of dollars’ worth of American military equipment will remain in a country rebuilding from war with the possibility of weak institutions, a pro-Russian insurgency, and occupied territories.

To date, the United States has given some $34 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, 48 percent of a total of $48 billion dollars in combined humanitarian and financial aid. Of the total military aid, $12.7 billion have been provided in the form of weapons and equipment from existing Department of Defense stocks, along with $1.3 billion in grants and loans to purchase more defense articles.

It is right and just for the United States to support Ukraine. Putin’s war of aggression is one of choice, unlike anything seen in Europe since World War II. The United States has an obligation to support democracy and freedom where it is in such danger. However, it is also right for the United States to demand accountability for the weapons it sends to Kiev, something that Republicans in congress have been calling for.

What the United States should avoid is a repeat of the Soviet-Afghan War. The similarities are striking. There, the Soviet Union led a war of choice, and there, the United States supported brave Afgan freedom fighters up against similarly impossible odds. In that conflict, it was the U.S.-made FIM-92 Stinger shoulder-fired missile system that led to many Soviet helicopter losses and helped turn the tide of the war. At the time it was considered sensitive technology, and U.S. aid stipulated that in order to receive new missiles, expended ones had to be returned.

In the aftermath of that conflict, the United States launched a buyback program to retrieve the estimated 1,000 Stingers that it sent to Afghanistan. The $65 million program was largely seen as a failure. The missiles supplied to the Mujaheddin soon found their way to North Korea, Iran, Qatar, and Tajikistan.

In Ukraine, it is the American FGM-148 Javelin that is destroying Russian armor with a 93 percent kill rate. In November, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl stated that the Russians have “probably lost half of their main battle tanks” with many destroyed by the Javelin. Over 8,500 have been supplied to Ukraine, along with over 1,650 Stingers, 1800 Phoenix Ghost Tactical drones, and 2,500 in various types of missiles and rocket systems.

Yet very little is being done to monitor sensitive weapons. The U.S. embassy in Kiev, which has the U.S. government lead over accountability, isn’t fully staffed nor operational as a result of the war. There is no 1:1 swap for Javelins, as was the case for the Stingers sent to Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe, and is the second most corrupt nation on the continent after Russia. It is ranked 122nd in the world for corruption—a place it shares with Estwani, the last absolute monarchy in Africa. At the end of the Cold War, Ukraine was notorious for the illegal arms trade, a result of the massive former Soviet stockpiles in the country. From 1992 to 1998, the country lost $32 billion in military equipment through theft, lack of oversight, and discounted sales.

EUROPOL, the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, has stated that “the proliferation of firearms and explosives in Ukraine could lead to an increase in firearms and munitions trafficked into the EU via established smuggling routes or online platforms.” It added that the threat may be even higher at the end of the conflict. Weapons sent to Ukraine have already been found in underground networks in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands.

What the United States should do is increase the number of on-site inspections. Only 10 percent of high-risk weapons have undergone such measures since U.S. aid began. These are conducted by the Defense Attaché and Office of Defense Cooperation at the U.S. embassy in Kiev.

In the case that such inspections would be too dangerous, the United States should stipulate end-use monitoring by the Ukrainians themselves. Pictures of serial numbers and geolocation tags could be uploaded to a database shared by the Ukrainians and the U.S. government.

Finally, a one-for-one swap should be mandatory for the most sensitive of U.S. weapons. When a Javelin missile is fired, for example, the fiberglass tube should be returned in order to receive a replacement missile.

Such standard accountability for the weapons sent to Ukraine is not a right-wing talking point; it is something that must continue to be taken seriously and planned for. Nothing lasts forever, and for the sake of millions, hopefully, the end of this war comes soon. We must be prepared for that eventuality and for what comes after.

Wesley Satterwhite works as a consultant at the U.S. Department of State. He holds a BS in Diplomacy & International Relations from Seton Hall University and a MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University. A U.S. Army Reserve Intelligence Officer, he served in U.S. Army Europe from 2019–2020.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the wrong approach.

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

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

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

Image: Shutterstock.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is time Washington mustered an appetite for tougher action.

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

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

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

Image: Shutterstock.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image: Shutterstock.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So where are these Five Days in March heading?

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

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

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

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

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

James Przystup is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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